by Daisy Waugh
Daffy and Jean Baptiste turn to one another, and, in subdued whispers, begin to chatter away in French, a language neither Lucy nor Timothy understands.
‘It’s very rude, you know,’ Timothy complains, ‘to talk in French when there are English people in the room.’
They ignore him, keep chattering, and finally Daffy turns to Timothy. ‘I’ll move out,’ she says, ‘by the end of the month. And I won’t ask anything more from you. Ever again. But I want you to give me a divorce. And I want custody of our son.’
‘How much?’ Timothy says.
Daffy looks faintly confused. ‘How much what?’
‘I’m not giving you a penny, you realise. Why should I? You’ve been living off me like some kind of a bloodsucker these last eleven years. I’m not giving you a penny!’
‘I told you. I don’t want a penny,’ Daffy says. ‘I don’t want anything of yours ever again.’
Jean Baptiste nudges her, mumbles something in French.
‘Oh. Except this.’ She turns back into the kitchen and fetches the tax bill they had been fretting over moments earlier. She hands it to him. ‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to settle this?’
Timothy looks at it. €7000. He smiles. The cheapest divorce in the history of all divorces. ‘I can take care of that,’ he says, folding it, slipping it into his jacket pocket.
‘Let’s see!’ Lucy is beside him in a shot. ‘Show it to me. How much is she asking for?’
‘Darling, believe me, it’s really very little –’
‘Show me!’ snaps Little Miss Whiplash.
He pulls it back out of his pocket and hands it to her.
Perhaps if Daffy hadn’t looked so well; so sexy and buxom and happy; perhaps if she hadn’t fixed herself up with the sexiest-looking Frenchman Luscious Lucy has ever laid eyes on; perhaps then the young usurper might have managed a little magnanimity. But at that point, with her wagon hitched to the revolting Timothy and a belly the size of a house sticking out in front, the only thing Luscious Lucy feels she has on Mrs Duff Fielding is money. Timothy’s money.
‘There’s no reason at all why we should pay this,’ she says calmly.
‘Oh, no. Really, honeypot –’ Timothy laughs. ‘Tinkle. It’s really a very small – I’m sure –’
‘Be quiet, Timothy!’ And he is. ‘Thank you, darling,’ Luscious Lucy says, with a smile especially for him. She turns back to Daffy. She puts the tax bill down on the bar. ‘Nice to see you again,’ she says sweetly. ‘Sorry to barge in. But you know how it is when you’re pregnant. I find I get so impatient…’
‘…Gosh. Yes…’ mutters Daffy miserably. ‘All such a long time ago now. Well. Anyway…Good luck.’
Luscious Lucy nods. ‘Thanks. For being so understanding. Come on, Timmie –’ And she leads the way, ignoring Jean Baptiste completely.
At the door, Timothy pauses. Glances back at Daffy, the shadow of an apology, of shame, on his grey face.
‘Got some post here,’ he mutters, pointing to an envelope lying on the floor. ‘Shall I pass it to you?’
‘Come on, Timmie,’ says Whiplash. Timmie’s shoulders hunch. He picks up the envelope and puts it into Daffy’s hands. ‘Bye then,’ he whispers. ‘…Say hi to James for me…’
And they’re gone.
Daffy and Jean Baptiste are left alone, in the bar that never belonged to them, with the tax bill they can never pay. And yet – after a moment of quiet – they both begin to grin, and then they begin to laugh. They have James. They have the half-built bungalow. They can finish it: open a Hotel Marronnier in that! And Daffy will have her divorce!
‘We’re free,’ Daffy murmurs softly, wrapping her arms around him. ‘We’re free!’ she says again. ‘Let’s go and tell James –’
Jean Baptiste pulls the envelope from her hand. It’s thick, heavily stamped. And addressed to both of them. ‘Mais enfin!’ he mutters. ‘It’s Horatio! I’m sure of it.’ He laughs. ‘How did he know we would be together? Je peux l’ouvrir?’
‘Of course!’ Daffy says. ‘Hurry up. What does it say? What’s the news? Are they OK? Are they still together? Oh, God, I hope they are. Are the children all right? What’s happened to them?’
Jean Baptiste pulls out a typewritten form – fat, ten or twenty pages. ‘C’est en français,’ he mutters. ‘…Mais qu’estce que c’est?’ At the top of the first page he sees the names of his friends printed out in black and white, and, just beneath those, his own name and Daffy’s. In the middle of the second page he sees an address:
La Grande Forge
Montmaur
Charente Maritime
At the bottom of the final page he finds their signatures: Maude Celestia Jane Haunt and Horatio Dominic Haunt.
‘What is it?’ demands Daffy.
‘…They have given us the house,’ he says quietly. ‘La Grande Forge. It belongs to us. To live in, if we want…Or to sell it, if we prefer. We can sell if we want, Daffy…’
‘…We can do that?’ she laughs. ‘They gave it to us?’
‘It means we have a choice now.’
‘We have a choice,’ repeats Daffy slowly, trying to take it in. ‘We have a choice – But that’s – I mean, is it – Isn’t there a message from them? No letter?’
Jean Baptiste turns back to the empty envelope, peers inside. ‘No letter,’ he says. ‘Nothing.’
‘So – we have no idea then. Not even if they’re all alive. We have no idea, not even what country they’re living in. What’s the postmark on the stamps?’ She tugs the envelope from Jean Baptiste’s hand and something cracks inside. It’s the sound of paper ripping. She takes the envelope and tugs at it again, more carefully. The lining is torn, and behind it, between the padding, there glimmers the corner of something colourful – a photograph. ‘Oh my gosh,’ she gasps, pulling it out. ‘Oh my gosh, Jean Baptiste. It’s –’
A picture of palm trees in the bright sunlight, and a large, extravagant, open-walled hut of mud and wood. There are African wall hangings and a veranda with a large wooden table, laden with fruit. Stretched out on a stool beside the table, laughing at the camera, leaning back against a state-of-the-art laminating machine and gnawing on a mango stone, sits a Samburu warrior with a long, thin spear resting between his knees…
…And in front, in the foreground, Superman and Tiffany, brown as conkers both, beaming at each other, their arms wrapped tightly around the neck of an overweight zebra. Beside them, heads thrown back, laughing at some shared joke, stand Maude and Horatio. They look wonderful together. And Maude, with a belly the size of hot-air balloon, looks ready to pop.
Daffy turns the photograph over. On the back Maude has written:
Poste Restante, Isiolo
Northern Kenya
xxxxxxxxx See you here one day? xxxxxxxxxx
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Sarah Arnold and Meriem Omer of Time Together, also to Zam Baring, Clare Alexander, Maxine Hitchcock, Sara Foster, Lynne Drew, Helen Johnstone and all at HarperCollins. Thanks to Teresa Waugh, Nathalie Muller and Nathaniel Waugh for their excellent French. And thanks to Peter, Panda and Zebedee for still agreeing to live with me…somewhere.
About the Author
Bordeaux Housewives
After an unsuccessful spell in Somerset, Daisy Waugh is homeless once again, based in the South of France and looking for a place to settle back in London. A journalist and travel writer for many publications, she has worked as an agony aunt and as a restaurant critic. She was a teacher at a girls’ school in Northern Kenya and has also written a weekly column from Los Angeles about her attempts to become a Hollywood scriptwriter. She is married to film producer Peter La Terrière and they have two children. This is her fifth novel.
For automatic updates on Daisy Waugh, visit
HarperCollins.co.uk and register for AuthorTracker.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Daisy Waugh
/> A Small Town in Africa
The New You Survival Kit
Ten Steps to Happiness
Bed of Roses
Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
A Paperback Original 2006
Copyright © Daisy Waugh 2006
Daisy Waugh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-34746-9
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East – 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com