C'est La Folie

by Michael Wright

‘I’ll say. Are you all alone out there, then?’

  ‘Apart from the cat and the chickens and the sheep. And the goldfish.’

  ‘Chickens!’ The word explodes in my ear, and I almost drop the receiver. ‘I love chickens. But all ours were eaten by a bloody fox. On a beautiful, clear night with a full moon. Almost as bright as daylight, it was. They all decided to go for a walk. And we heard the fox picking them off, one by one, every few minutes, starting at about four a.m. The screams were horrendous. Deeply sad. Have you lost any of yours?’

  ‘None yet, touch wood.’ And I’m not planning to lose any, either.

  ‘Well, good luck. And happy Christmas to you.’

  I shiver. Outside, a chill wind has begun to hiss through the long grass beside the terrace. The cat comes and sits on my lap, eyes soon closed in a blissed-out ecstasy, kneading rhythmically at my jumper as if she were smoothing the lumps out of a cake mix.

  Living in France makes perfect sense when the sun is shining and the air is warm on a cat’s fur. But I suspect that the worst events in her life are the frosty days when I’m too mean to light the wood-burning stove. Anxious to preserve the integrity of my railway-carriage of a wood supply, I am currently refusing to burn a twig of it until the temperature in the kitchen has dropped below thirteen degrees (a concession, after we both found that waiting for it to drop below twelve degrees was just too parky for comfort). Parsimony apart, this is part of my process of attempting to harden myself up, although I don’t suppose the cat sees it that way. Nor do the one or two unexpected guests who arrive at La Folie, like Raphaël le Prêtre, who reacts to my question ‘May I take your coat?’ as if it were a personal threat. And no wonder. The locals keep their houses so warm that you can slow-cook a coq-au-vin simply by leaving it on the kitchen table. If the cat ever visits such a place, I know I shall never see her again.

  All this is what makes me nervous about the fact that my friend Zuleika is coming to stay.

  She and I met at a journalism evening class I was teaching in London: fifteen adults buzzing in a grey classroom, while the night gathered and sparkled outside. Like the second-rate conjuror in Max Beerbohm’s novel, Zuleika is one of those women who can make men fall in love with her at will. Not classically beautiful, she nevertheless has an ability to dazzle that could stop an elephant at a hundred paces.

  Her aliveness was what first drew me to her: a wicked brilliance offset by the lost, almost melancholy face she presented to the world. She seemed fun and funky and altogether more worldly than I had been at twenty-six. She took me to cool bars without names, and with doors you wouldn’t spot unless someone showed them to you. It was a brittle London thing, but there was a warmth and a connectedness, too, about our friendship that filled some of the gaps I could feel inside myself after Marisa and I had parted. It was no surprise to discover that she had the same birthday as me: 8 June. Or that her grandfather was killed in a celebrated crash in a Tiger Moth biplane. My grandfather, Pa, flew Tiger Moths, too, before the war.

  One day, in one of the nameless, shady Soho bars with invisible doors, I took Zuleika’s hand in mine and examined her palm.

  ‘Do you know anything about palm-reading?’ she asked, as I traced the lines with my finger. Her face glowed pale in the candlelight.

  ‘No. I just wanted to hold your hand.’

  ‘You’re a silly man,’ she laughed, drawing her hand away.

  And then over the next few weeks of early summer, we grew closer, once the forcefield between us was broken by that first touch.

  ‘You’re one of my three favourite people in the world,’ Zuleika told me one day. It didn’t occur to me to ask who the other two were. And I couldn’t reciprocate with similar precision, because I don’t carry around a list in my head of my favourite people, like clubs in a league-table. But Zuleika was special.

  ‘I’m buying a house in France,’ I told her. ‘I wonder if you’ll come and visit me one day.’

  ‘It’s not out of the question.’

  We only ever spent one night together, in London, on a night so hot we had to leave the windows wide open and pray for a breath of wind. And though it felt strangely beautiful, it felt like a night suspended in time, too, as if it couldn’t really happen again. Especially when Zuleika emailed, soon after, to explain that it had been a bit of a mistake, and she now had a regular man on the scene and so would have to chalk our little dalliance up to experience. I scooped up all my feelings in a little pile, and put them back in the drawer marked ‘wistful (misc.)’.

  And then a few weeks ago, Zuleika emailed again, to say that she would like to come and stay at La Folie after all, from Boxing Day until New Year.

  ‘My batteries need recharging and it would be good to see you,’ she wrote.

  I breezed to the fridge to pour myself a glass of wine. Though winter glimmered on the horizon, I felt as if spring had just arrived.

  19

  CHRISTMAS IS COMING

  Friday, a week before Christmas. Out scamper the chickens to peck at the frozen remnants of last night’s avoine. Martha leads, with Mary, Margot, Melissa, Mildred and Meg bringing up the rear. Titus is last out, squatting to squeeze his tail feathers through the pop-hole. He is looking more like Henry VIII every day.

  I pour aliment complet into their feed-tin (a grill-pan once used to crisp up chicken kievs in East Dulwich), and smash the ice on their water trough. But there’s no water beneath: it’s all ice.

  After rattling sweet-smelling granules of luzerne into a bucket for the sheep, I crunch out to their field. They still run to the old metal feed-trough when I approach, though for the past three weeks I’ve been pouring their feed into the stout new wooden one I have built. I hope this is habit, rather than an aesthetic decision.

  Gaston and Ramekin appear to be more snotty than usual after the cold night, but other than that, everyone seems happy enough. Doris comes and sniffs at my face as I kneel to put hay in their rack. I bless her for the intimacy.

  There’s still no response to my card on the wall at Champion, advertising Ramekin’s brothers, Charlie and the boys. How could anyone not want three such sweet creatures? That’s what I’m thinking when two of the strapping lads simultaneously butt Gaston from either flank, and I change my mind.

  With a stone, I start hacking at the ice on their water trough, lifting out the shards with my bare hands. I work fast, attempting to stay ahead of the pain, but then the ache is burrowing inside my finger-bones and – growling to myself, which somehow helps – I run indoors to thaw the throbbing under the cold tap.

  I drive down to town to buy some bread from the boulangerie, only to discover that the beautiful princess doesn’t work there any more. But I’m not choosy. I cherish every human contact these days, and have become like the old ladies at the supermarket, who don’t want to pack away their shopping at the till too soon, because they’re having such a lovely chat with the cashier.

  When I return to La Folie, the phone starts ringing as I unlock the door. It’s Peter Viola, from the aeroclub.

  ‘I say, are you coming to see Père Noël tomorrow?’ he asks, his voice as reassuring as hot buttered toast.

  ‘Is Père Noël who I think he is?’ I reply. ‘And, if so, do I have to sit on his knee in an enchanted grotto and tell him I’ve been good this year?’

  ‘No, no,’ chuckles Peter. ‘He’s flying in to the aeroclub tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Crème brûlée in the Toquenelle first?’

  ‘One o’clock suit?’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll just have to make sure I’m back in time to feed the sheep and play the organ for Mass. À demain.’

  ‘They’re a bind, these animals, aren’t they?’ says Peter. ‘It’s why I’ve never had a dog.’

  ‘True. But commitment is one of those things I feel I need to learn about. So I can’t help feeling that the animals are good for me.’

  And then the phone rings again, and it’s my mother.

  ‘
Are you all right?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘It’s just that you sound a bit down.’ Mothers say this sort of thing, even when you haven’t said anything yet.

  ‘No, I’m OK. The sheep are fighting amongst themselves, so I need to do something about the extra rams. But in myself I feel cheerful enough.’

  ‘And what about Christmas? I’m worried about you being on your own. Isn’t there someone you could go and visit?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. If I’m desperate, yes, I’m sure I can go and knock on someone’s door and beg them to take me in. But to be honest, I think it’ll be rather jolly; in the bleak midwinter and all that. Of course I’d rather be with all of you. But I can’t leave the animals. And my friend Zuleika’s coming after Christmas.’

  ‘Oh? I don’t remember you mentioning the name before.’

  ‘Perhaps I never did.’ And I’m already wishing I hadn’t, now.

  After I put the phone down, I feel guilty. I should have said more about Zuleika. And about what fun my solitary Christmas will be. It’s all very well for me to get a masochistic thrill out of my splendid isolation, but I don’t suppose parents ever stop worrying about their children.

  Next day, crowds of children are shivering on the apron of the Aéroclub de St Juste, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Père Noël from the sky.

  Here in the Limousin, Father Christmas travels not in a reindeer-powered sleigh, but in a big red Stearman biplane piloted by an elf called Roger, who moonlights as an Air France captain. I assume Père Noël is arriving early to give him time to make his French deliveries before heading across the Channel to squeeze down the chimneys of old England. As Christmas only lasts for one day in France, the pleasure is all in the anticipation.

  In Jolibois, almost every supermarché shelf has been given over to boxes of chocolates, the streets are strung with white lights, and two hefty Christmas trees have been erected at the top of the Rue du Coq, just far enough apart for vehicles to squeeze through, but close enough together to make an excellent car wash if they were mounted on spindles and motorized.

  Further down the street, the railings are camouflaged with pine fronds and shiny gift-wrapped boxes. ‘How long before those get nicked or vandalized?’ wonders the South London part of my brain. ‘But this is Jolibois,’ responds the French part, ‘where there appear to be fewer people who regard human goodness, beauty and the happiness of others as a personal affront.’

  ‘Are you going home for Christmas?’ asks Philippe, the aeroclub’s ace mechanic, who has designed and built his own plane out of little more than used toothpicks. I feel strangely proud to be able to say that, no, I’m staying here. We shepherds must wash our socks by night, gather our winter fuel, and so on. There’s Midnight Mass to accompany. And Zuleika arrives on Boxing Day.

  But I don’t tell that to Philippe. Instead, I tell him that this will be the first time in my life that I have not spent Christmas with my family, and I see the event as some sort of masochistic personal test. On Christmas Day, I shall roast myself a fat turkey drumstick, pull a cracker with myself, and remember, too late, that I really don’t like mince pies after all. If I can persuade the cat to don a pair of wellies, I’ll even have my own panto.

  It’s only when I start to explain English Christmas traditions that I realize how unlikely they are. The French may share our weakness for indoor pine trees, gaudy decorations and illuminated reindeer, but Philippe begins to eye me as if I’d just head-butted his plane when I tell him the ingredients of a Christmas pudding. Watching his face, I’m reminded of the time I treated Gilles’s wife, Josette, to a sniff of Marmite when they dropped round for an apéro one night. Smelling it, she burst into tears. It seems that the French don’t really do sultanas, and suet loses something in translation.

  ‘Just before the pudding is served, we hide old coins in it and then set fire to it,’ I explain.

  ‘I’m not surprised you have to pay people to eat that stuff,’ wails Philippe. And I haven’t even started telling him about bread sauce.

  There isn’t time, for just now a scarlet blur that must be Père Noël comes barrelling past us in a low-level side-slip at full throttle. The roar of the Stearman’s great beast of a Pratt & Whitney radial makes my shins tingle. I see a red arm waving; a white beard streaming. From the rear cockpit, Elf Roger coaxes the ancient biplane into a graceful three-point landing and taxis to a halt. Père Noël unbuckles his harness, tugs his beard, straightens his scarlet hood, and steps down from the wing like a visiting rock star.

  ‘Père Noël! Père Noël!’ yell the children, hopping up and down on the apron. I’m equally excited, although it’s the presence of an ancient biplane, rather than Father Christmas, that does it for me.

  ‘He really has come,’ says a solemn little girl beside me, eyes filled with wonder.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmur. ‘He really has.’

  *

  As Père Noël is engulfed by the crowd, I hurry back to La Folie to feed the sheep – who blare at me like foghorns in the dusk – and then drive down to Jolibois to play the organ for Mass. It’s the last Saturday before Christmas, and the congregation is already droning away at the first hymn, unaccompanied, as I dash into the church and thump up the stairs to the tribune. Lights on. Blowers on. Here goes nothing. The Mass passes in a surge of missed cues and wrong notes. Will I ever learn?

  ‘Je suis désolé,’ I say, shame-faced, as I slowly descend the stairs at the end, and find the cherubim and seraphim, Henri and Françoise, waiting for me like a pair of guardian angels.

  ‘Are you going to England for Christmas, Michael?’ asks dear old Françoise, her peach-face crinkling with gentle concern.

  ‘No, I’m staying here,’ I reply.

  ‘With friends or family?’

  ‘Just me and the cat. And the chickens, and the sheep.’

  Françoise beams at Henri, and then at me. ‘Then why not come to us on Christmas Day? We’ll be a bit of a houseful, but if you don’t mind a lot of children … After all, nobody should be alone on Christmas Day.’

  ‘I’d love to come. Thank you,’ I reply, without hesitation. I feel as if I have just wandered into a scene from Dickens. And although I’m pleased for myself, mostly I’m pleased for my mum.

  20

  THE PLAGUE SHIP

  Christmas is coming, the cat is getting fat, and – more to the point – the sheep are sick. Each day they seem a little worse. I’m worried to the point where I can’t stop thinking about them. At least five of the eight now have runny noses, and on cold mornings there is a chorus of sniffing and snorting as I trudge out with my bucket of granules to pour into their feed-trough. Proud as I am of its stout timber contruction – culled from The Smallholder’s DIY – that trough is not going to be much good to me if all my sheep drop down dead tomorrow.

  Their mystery malady is not described in Sheep for Beginners. Gilles is uncertain about it, too, though he doesn’t think it’s serious enough to waste money on calling out the vet. But of course I do call out the vet. And I haven’t managed to round the animals up before his arrival, so all he can do is peruse them from afar and reassure me that if they can run that fast, they can’t be very sick. And he says he won’t send me a bill for his trouble.

  Whatever the experts say, Gaston – my old and noble chief ram – is not himself. Day after day, while the other sheep are feeding, he stands apart, squashed and motionless, as if he were attempting to balance on a milking-stool. He looks at me with big, sad eyes. I’d love to know what he is trying to tell me.

  Having sheep is not what I expected it to be. I thought animals would enhance my life. Whereas they have merely given me a new set of problems. When my charges are happy, I can stand and watch them for hours, basking in their rugged loveliness. Even now, however, I can’t wait for the weather to be warm enough to shear them, because I can’t imagine what nasties lurk on their skin, hidden beneath those lank woollen dreadlocks. That’s bad enough. And whe
n they are feeling wretched, I have that sickening powerlessness that parents must feel when a child is feverish. Personal pain is finite. Imagined suffering is limitless.

  This morning the icy rain is lashing down and – before I feed the sheep and take a look at poor old Gaston – I splash round to the chicken house to let the girls out for the day. Huddled on their perches, they look like a bunch of workmen unwilling to leave their cosy hut at the end of tea-break. Only Mildred comes out for a cursory peck at the sodden feed-tray, while the rain falls on her white feathers and – mostly – bounces off. I notice that she has an unusually dirty bum.

  ‘Oh, not you as well, Mildred,’ I murmur. Mildred clucks back at me, ever the chattiest of chickens, not unduly bothered about the state of her derrière.

  Gaston looks worse than ever. Head lowered, he is leaning against the back of the house with an expression of dejection. I walk towards him. There is no sudden jink, no headlong thunder into the distance, sending clods of earth flying with his chiselled hoofs. He attempts to walk away, but his legs will not obey.

  Gilles still doesn’t think I should waste money on taking him to the vet. ‘He’s got no teeth, so he can’t eat. He’ll die soon anyway,’ he tells me with a shrug.

  To be fair, Gaston has been toothless ever since I bought him. He survives on the expensive granules I feed him each morning, which he snuffles into his mouth with much smacking of his grey-black lips.

  I know the old fellow is wasting away. His horns now dwarf his scrawny frame. From a distance, he resembles a television aerial on legs. Or a pouffe with racing handlebars.

  But hearing his lungs wheeze and squeal for each breath, I cannot simply let him die. Not like this. As I scoop him into my arms and receive a lungful of his warm rug smell, I recall the first time I picked him up, when Nicholas and I went to collect the sheep from Aubusson. Then I was fearful of the Hades horns. Today he probably couldn’t hurt me if he tried. He snorts, and a string of mucus dangles from his nostrils. I wipe it away with my sleeve as we walk to the Espace.