by Ian G Moore
Her sister Jane, was she the older one? She seemed to be. They had told him, but he couldn’t remember. Jane was perhaps the prettier of the two, certainly the more vulnerable so whereas Lucy appealed to Mark’s sense of shiftless fun, Jane appealed to his more old-fashioned gentlemanly side, the protector in him. She appealed to his predatory side too. He would take either though, he wasn’t fussy. He had no actual preference as long as the free tickets he’d given them weren’t entirely wasted. One or the other, he let his mind wander as he turned off the engine and pulled up the handbrake. He took a deep breath as if to reset himself and muttered, ‘Focus, Blanchard. Focus.’
Amboise was its usual bustling self, street performers amid seasonal market stallholders selling their chateau related wares, named crockery, heraldic banners and so on. There were fairground rides, costumed ‘actors’ playing their medieval roles in the timber-framed streets, and the candy floss and churros makers were hoping for some late breakfast trade, while the restaurants and cafés set up their outdoor tables and chairs. There was an infectious party atmosphere which pervaded Mark’s group, and which of course would make his job easier. Even the Allardyce sisters seemed to be relaxing with each other. Lucy was taking pictures almost incessantly and Jane apparently, though guardedly, was enjoying the festive ambiance.
Mark stopped outside his regular patisserie and raised his umbrella prop as a signal to the group. ‘This patisserie, la Pâtisserie de la Jaconde, is a regular haunt of Mick Jagger, and sometimes when they come and stay with him, Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart. I don’t know if they’re in there today,’ he waved at two beaming people behind the counter inside, the arrangement a well-practised one, ‘but you can go inside; Monsieur et Madame Hommel will give you satisfaction.’ There were lighthearted groans from the group, ‘What?’ Mark said, innocently playing along. ‘Go ahead, I’ll be out here waiting on a friend, and if Mick Jagger’s not in there remember you can’t always get what you want!’
‘That’s dreadful!’ said Lucy as she walked past with the others, flirtatiously touching his arm as she did so.
‘Subtlety don’t pay the bills, ma’am,’ he hammed. ‘And it’s not my strong point anyway.’
‘I’ll bet,’ she said over her shoulder. Jane came next.
‘And the other Miss Allardyce?’ He tipped his hat. ‘How are you Jane? Relaxing, I hope.’
‘Do you know what?’ she said very seriously and looking directly into his eyes, ‘I am thoroughly enjoying myself and, no offence, I didn’t think I would. Thank you.’ Roughly the same height, she looked directly at him, not in a needy or submissive way, but with determination mixed with surprise. She’s stronger than I gave her credit for, he thought. And it was something he found very attractive.
‘Hey that’s great!’ he said, as usual coolly buying himself time in a conversation with a generic response, ‘Well, we got all day…’ And they both walked away from the patisserie and up the road towards the chateau, talking happily together. Jane had her hands clasped together behind her back and Mark with his umbrella once again raised signalling that the group should follow them, which, neither of them noticed, a pouting Lucy was now very reluctant to do.
‘This narrow stone staircase,’ said Mark twenty minutes later to his re-gathered group, ‘once led on to a secret doorway and into the bowels of the chateau itself.’ He pointed his umbrella at an alleyway behind him that twisted into the near distance and whose buildings, either side of the worn, long steps leaned in as though they were trying to eavesdrop on a private conversation. Most of the group, as if cued, raised their mobile phones, or their tablets or turned their back on Mark and, using the inevitable selfie-stick, took a picture of themselves with a tiny sliver of history in the background.
‘Actually they didn’t,’ Mark continued once everyone had lowered their camera devices, ‘I just really like them. Anyways, lots of chateaux had secret entrances obviously and not only for escape, but for something far more important. Can anyone guess what that was?’ He looked around, like a teacher with a dull class. ‘Don’t be shy now!’
‘Food and wine.’ It was a deep, utterly certain voice that came from the shadows.
‘Close. But no cigar.’ Said Mark brightly, ‘Something even more important than food.’ He paused. ‘No?’ He offered again, like an auctioneer about to bring down his gavel. ‘What’s more important than food? Sex! That’s way more important!’ He said triumphantly and rolled his eyes for dramatic effect, eliciting giggles from his audience.
‘He wishes!’ snorted Lucy loudly into Jane’s ear. But Jane ignored her.
‘The Chateau d’Amboise though, didn’t need a backdoor for sex, if you pardon the expression,’ Mark continued, ‘as it was well known for years as the home of the King’s Mistress. Or Mistresses. He had a few. Ladies and Gentlemen, this place was a royal cathouse!’
There were laughs from the crowd and again for no reason at all and aimed at nothing specific, the cameras were raised once more.
‘Some people think that’s why Amboise is still so popular today…’ Again he paused for dramatic effect, ‘there’s something in the water!’ He caught Jane’s eye as he addressed the crowd, and was pleased with the response he got. He noticed Lucy’s response too, an angry one. But it didn’t bother him.
‘I’ve got a headache, Janey,’ Lucy said matter-of-factly and loudly enough for Mark to hear. Jane wasn’t paying attention, but was reading a tourist information plaque on the wall. Lucy was obviously angry about something, Mark thought, and guessed from her looks and her angry resignation that she’d been in this situation before. Sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt Jane gets the man. Lucy gets ignored. But then, thought Mark, you’ve given in too easily. ‘I’ll get a train back to Saint-Genèse.’ She looked Mark up and down with contempt, which he felt he didn’t deserve. ‘See you later.’ It sounded almost like a warning and she marched off.
‘OK,’ said Jane without looking around. ‘See you later.’ A moment after, when it had dawned on her what Lucy had said she turned around. ‘You’ll be alright?’ she asked tentatively, but Lucy was already marching off, back down the hill.
Nothing I can do, thought Mark, shrugging his shoulders, not my responsibility, and he began walking up some narrow steps. The crowd followed, bustling past a static Jane who was torn whether to stay or go. She heard Mark’s voice again in the distance, and wavered for just a moment before following the crowd.
‘You may only hear about Da Vinci and Jagger these days, but Amboise has definitely always been more about the ladies… and, for once, it’s not all about Joan of Arc.’ He rolled his eyes in mock boredom, ‘though she will inevitably appear!’ Mark stood on the top step, his back to the imposing outer wall of the chateau, and playing expertly to his crowd. Jane had dropped to the back, a little more tense than before, he noticed.
‘Working backwards we should start with Jerry Hall who in 1996 took part in a famous photoshoot in the nearby Chateau de la Fourchette for French Vogue.’ The crowd murmured, some impressed, some needing an explanation. ‘What made the photographs most famous, or should I say, infamous, was that it was the first time in over 450 years that Joan of Arc’s name hadn’t appeared in a local tourism push.’ There was laughter now but also, from the back, some mumbling and audible shushing of someone in the crowd. Mark picked up on it immediately, and instantly recognised the familiar source of the problem. He smiled a broad smile and a mischievous sparkle came into his eye. This is going to be fun, he thought. ‘It was even suggested,’ he resumed, directing of his speech to the point where the crowd was agitated, ‘that copies of French Vogue should be publicly burnt so that Joan of Arc’s name could somehow be shoe-horned into the campaign.’ He knew it wasn’t funny, he was going more for a reaction. Again there was a murmuring in the crowd, the ‘shushing’ restarted and the beginnings of a whispered argument. Mark of course, from his slightly elevated vantage point, could see everything that was going on but knew anyway what, or rather who,
was the problem.
‘In the late fifteenth century Anne of Brittany spent a great deal of time here and her husband Charles VIII, in between fighting wars, is known as the architect of Amboise, turning the chateau into a Gothic palace.’ The crowd murmurings died down. ‘Anne herself could be described as the “architect of Europe” in a way. Politics then was all about marriages and uniting royal families. Anne was betrothed eight times and married twice. During her marriage to Charles she gave birth to a child every fourteen months!’ There were audible gasps from the crowd as this information sank in. ‘Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on whether you feel Anne needed a break or not, Charles VIII died after seven years of marriage and embarrassingly for the “architect of Amboise”, he died after banging his head on a badly-designed lintel above one of the Chateau doors!’ There was a brief, welcome laugh from the crowd which quickly died down and as Mark knew it would. Involuntary laugh was quickly replaced by guilt at finding a death, even one hundreds of years old, amusing. All crowds were essentially the same, he thought, so time for his big finish.
‘Agnès Sorel lived here. Mademoiselle Sorel was the favourite mistress of Charles VII – which is always good to have on your resumé, a terrific career move – she was also the first recognised Royal Mistress. Not only did she bear the king three daughters, she also started the fashion for low cut décolleté gowns with fully bared breasts!’ The audience gasped and giggled. ‘Not the shy type, she would wear these gowns around the court. So I would say, it’s hardly surprising that she was recognised!’
There was chuckling from the crowd and then after a few moments more chuckling as those that needed further translation were let in on the joke.
‘Agnès was a contemporary of Joan of Arc and, you won’t be surprised to learn, that Joan “passed through” Amboise’, he crooked his fingers sarcastically as inverted commas to highlight how dubious he thought this was, ‘She “passed through” on her way, it’s said, to defeat the English at Orléans but actually the truth is that she just wanted to tick off another town in her quest to…’
‘That’s not true!’ The deep voice came from the back of the group where the trouble had started before. It was an angry voice too, speaking in English but with a French accent.
‘I beg your pardon sir?’ asked Mark, suddenly a picture of injured innocence.
‘What you say. It is not true! And you know this.’ The crowd parted to let the tall figure through to the front. ‘There is evidence, contemporary and well docume…’
‘I know, sir. I know!’ Mark laughed, relaxing some, but not all, of the crowd, ‘But everything I say is based on the research of the famous, world-famous, Professor Charles Galopin of the Université François Rabelais, a renowned expert on Saint Joan of Arc.’
There were impressed murmurs from the parted crowd as they waited for the suddenly out of breath gatecrasher to respond.
‘How dare you!’ said the man, making no attempt to keep his composure, ‘I am Professor Charles Galopin!’ He spat the words in fury, and began coughing. His face turned bright red, whether from anger or the coughing fit it was difficult to tell. But the audience, despite his obvious rage, burst into a spontaneous round of applause assuming that this was all part of the show, and therefore showing their appreciation for the effort they felt was being put into the ‘performance’.
‘That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, you’re right to applaud this man.’ Mark shouted above the clapping. ‘Professor,’ he continued, addressing Galopin directly but also so that the crowd could hear, ‘take your hat off, allow the crowd to show their appreciation properly! Academia pays so little these days.’ Galopin had stopped coughing, but said nothing and his face was still red. The look on it was someone mortified by their own humiliation. The eyes were wide, almost fearful, like a trapped animal. He rubbed his temples hard, as if trying to wake up from a dream, or a nightmare.
‘Are you OK?’ Jane asked, showing more concern than the rest of the group.
Galopin just stared at her. ‘Until next time Professor!’ Mark, more concerned than he was prepared to show, turned and walked off up the narrow road. The crowd followed, and a moments later, so did Jane. A tall Scandinavian man slapped a seething Galopin on the shoulder and gave him a five euro note.
‘Merci,’ said the man with a grin, and walked off following the others.
Chapter 24
The Tricolour flag hung limply half way down the pole. What little breeze there was was sheltered from the flag pole by the compact, yet still somehow imposing, Mairie of Saint-Genèse-sur-Loire. Clotilde Battiston stood at an upstairs window, her hands behind her back, like a General with a safe view of the battlefield. She turned back into the meeting room and put her hands onto the back of a chair at the head of a large oval table. There was a jug of water and three glasses on a small silver tray. She looked at the glasses for a second, a tableau prepared by her secretary Madame Riolland; they felt sadly symbolic. She remembered seeing a film once, a heavy-handed whodunit set in a remote country house where shutters permanently rattled and candles flickered. Every time a character was murdered a chess piece disappeared from a set on the dining table. Here there was a set of drinks for three; if Graham Singleterry and Émile Lagasse were still alive, there would have been five glasses. The Comité des Fêtes was being dismantled one by one, it seemed.
The fortnightly meeting of the Comité was about to take place and it would have a siege mentality to it. The remaining members of a crumbling empire, maybe? No. Empire was too strong. Clotilde wasn’t happy that it had come to this. She sat down at the table in one of the chrome and plastic chairs that she hated so much and straightened the pen and notepad in front of her. The table felt cheap, it had what the salesman had described as a ‘Cherry Finish’, and with a drop in the middle, a lower level of table, which no-one quite knew what to do with. And it was too big. The chairs were uncomfortable and noisy, like school chairs. In fact Monsieur Petit, principal of the local college, had briefly attended these meetings before deciding that the furniture was too much like the school and that he had enough of that in his life already.
In truth, she had expected power to come with grander trappings. Deep mahogany tables and comfortable leather chairs. Darker, more shadowy rooms where whispered conversations of the ‘I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine’ variety could take place. A place where the very smell was of power, not this open, well-lit, clean-cut sterility with the odour of transparency and bargain-price furniture polish.
She got up and went back to the window. The flag still wasn’t moving so she returned to her notepad and made a note to suggest that the flag pole be moved to somewhere less sheltered. She looked at what she had written and shook her head at the insignificance of it all, crossing it out violently. There was a gentle knock on the door which was opened by the mousey Madame Riolland. ‘Messieurs Galopin and Marquand, Madame le Maire,’ she said grandly, clearly, like Clotilde herself, a fan of pomp and circumstance.
The corpulent Ludovic Galopin bustled in followed by the much sleeker figure of Nicolas Marquand. They both looked sheepish and a little uneasy. Clotilde wasn’t the only one bothered by their dwindling numbers.
‘Good afternoon Messieurs.’ Clotilde was determined to stick to formality and grandly indicated for the two men to take a seat. ‘Thank you for coming.’
‘Is there really much point in this meeting Clotilde?’ Ludovic asked fussily. He sat down warily as a man of his size has to do, nervously expecting the chair to give way.
‘I rather think, Maître le Notaire, that it’s perhaps more necessary than usual.’ Clotilde was determined to maintain form, despite Galopin’s use of her first name.
‘There are certainly things we need to sort out, Ludovic,’ interrupted Marquand with an apologetic nod to Galopin. ‘I have to agree with Madame le Maire there. But I can’t stay long I’m afraid, Marie is having one of her darker days. Sorry.’
‘OK Nicolas.’ She gave in to
the informality. ‘I have things to do too. I can’t afford to be here for too long either.’ She immediately regretted her harsh tone. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry too.’ Galopin mopped his brow with a white handkerchief. ‘I’m just a little flustered that’s all. It seems strange…’ He swept a thick arm around the largely empty chairs, ‘just the three of us, I mean.’
They all sat in silence for a moment. ‘It feels a bit threatening to be honest!’ Marquand laughed nervously and went to stand by the window. He put his hands in his pockets, behind him Galopin poured himself some water while Clotilde tapped her pen impatiently on her notepad. Nothing was said.
‘Listen,’ she said, sensing that if she didn’t take the lead here then nothing would get done. Besides which her office as mayor burdened her to do such a thing. ‘None of us want to do this, be here I mean, but we are elected to do so. It’s our job, the life of the town goes on. It would be remiss of us to sit in stasis, or worse,’ she slammed her pen down, ‘fear!’ Neither man said anything in response. ‘We have our duty. There are still things to organise here. That’s assuming we all believe in carrying on. At least until the next set of elections.’ She was making it clear, in her own way, that Madame Singleterry would have to wait her turn and not, as Nicolas had suggested after their meeting the day before, join as an honorary member. She looked at him for a response and got none.