With all due respect to Serge, it’s easy to underestimate how much English the local chickens understand. And that goes for the local people, too, as I discover in another excruciating scene at the local supermarché. I’m just queuing to get my tomatoes weighed in Champion when I hear a voice like an Essex chainsaw coming from the frozen-food section.
‘OI! TAKE YOUR FRIGGIN’ EYES OFF ’ER!’ I turn to see a vast, red-faced woman in a velour tracksuit, gesticulating wildly at me. She looks like Les Dawson’s evil twin. ‘You just can’t keep yer eyes off every friggin’ French tart in a tight skirt, can yer?’
Mon Dieu. For a second I consider ducking behind the organic cabbages. But it’s not me she’s berating in that foghorn voice. It’s the little bald chap just ahead of me. I know it’s him, because his shiny pate suddenly flushes pink and turns from gloss to matt, like a cooked prawn.
‘Er … ta, luv,’ he mumbles to the pretty girl doing the weighing, before grabbing his carrots and slinking back to Momma. I can see from the storm-clouds in the girl’s eyes that she knows exactly what Momma said.
‘Désolé,’ I whisper.
‘C’est pas grave,’ she murmurs, as she sticks a label on my tomatoes.
But, in truth, I think it is.
29
THE AMAZONS
The demise of le Pug Rouge has reminded me that I still have to replace that smashed headlamp on the Espace. I ordered and collected a new one weeks ago, from the Renault garage behind Champion, and somehow forgot to fit it. And today, yet another attempt to sit down and make a start on The Labours of Jack Larry has made me feel that I really should be outside enjoying the Sunday-morning sunshine, practising my car maintenance.
I have just extracted the shattered carcass of the old headlamp when I manage to slice my finger on the jagged glass. Merde. Blood splashes on to the floor of the winter sitting-room as I hurry to the sink. I run the wound under the tap. I wrap it in kitchen paper. I elevate the bleeding part. And the bleeding continues. It occurs to me that I have never cut myself this badly before.
Now any sensible country person would, I’m sure, just spit on the wound, wrap it in a cobweb, and quietly wait for it to stop bleeding.
But I am not a sensible country person. No, as an ex-townie with a strain of blokish hypochondria that verges on Munchausen’s, I’m ashamed to say that I catch myself wondering if I am going to bleed to death.
That’s if the tetanus doesn’t get me first.
I sometimes wonder how long it would take someone to find me, if I were to have a serious accident at La Folie. The nearest inhabited house, where Gilles and Josette live, is more than half a mile away, and – when Serge and the workmen are not here – the only daily human contact I have is with the postman. I first thought about this on the day I went into the cellier at the back of the maison des amis to get some things out of the freezer, shut the door behind me, and heard the door-handle clatter on to the floor outside.
I haven’t quite reached the stage where I think about it every time I eat a bony fish (the cat has yet to learn the Heimlich Manoeuvre) or climb a ladder to seek out the thundering critters in the roof (the cat draws a line at anything bigger than a rat). But I always carry my mobile phone when I’m working with the chainsaw in the barn, and I make a point of rushing out to greet the postman every time he drives up to the house in his yellow van. I like to think he’d begin to wonder, if I stopped emerging for my ‘Bonjour Monsieur, merci, et bonne journée’ routine of a morning.
Drip, drip, drip. I had not thought the old man had so much blood in him. I can’t possibly drive, not with all this blood splashing everywhere. It occurs to me that I could phone the pompiers. But I can’t look up their number without Macbething the yellow pages. And even I am prepared to admit that a fire-engine might be just a little de trop under the circumstances.
I am just thinking about all this when – with a roar of rotors – a helicopter ambulance comes thwott-thwott-thwotting low over the house, like a genie from a lamp, low enough for me to see that there is a stretcher strapped to one of its skids.
Well, I’ll be — I know the French healthcare system has a good reputation, but this is amazing. Over here, chaps.
The helicopter doesn’t stop. It swoops down into the valley, so steeply that I wonder if it has an engine problem. And then it is hidden by the trees, and I go back to examining my finger. The bleeding has stopped. A transfusion will not, I think, be required.
At nightfall, I drive down to Gilles’s house, to tell him about the helicopter, and ask him what he thinks it was all about.
Gilles comes to the door looking pallid, devoid of his usual twinkle. Even the Byronic wave in his hair appears to have gone flat. He murmurs a greeting and weakly shakes my hand.
‘It’s Josette,’ he tells me in a low voice.
‘Is she sick?’
‘I was in the tractor, hammering in fence-posts, and she was directing me,’ he says, staring at the ground.
I put my hand to my mouth. I’ve seen how that pneumatic sledgehammer works, slamming the heavy wooden posts into the earth.
‘No, no. I didn’t hit her. But I lowered the front-loader of the tractor without thinking, and …’ He grimaces, wrings his hands. ‘And she must have been underneath.’
‘So she’s … she’s … ?’
‘Not dead. But they think she may have broken her back. I’ve just come from the hospital in Limoges. It’s a terrible thing to do that to anyone. But to your wife …’
Gilles appears to be lost in his own thoughts. Then he points to my bandaged finger.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ he asks.
I shake my head, too ashamed for words.
A couple of nights later, I make my first appearance at the French evening class in town. Ten English invaders sit nervously twiddling their pencils, perched on the tiny chairs of Jolibois Primary.
Behind me sit Dave and Celia, who are busy setting up a photographic business – or were, until Dave fell off the back of a lorry and bashed his knee. Over there is Cackling Madge, who resembles a china ornament loosely wrapped in brown paper, and has presumably chosen France because she’s a sixty-a-day gal and fags are cheaper over here. Up at the front sits Ralph the celebrated artist, one part Frankie Howerd to two parts Oscar Wilde, who has come to Jolibois to paint in tranquillity, darling, along with his wife, Olga, who claims to be writing a novel but I think may be spying for the Russians.
Simon and Nigel sport V-necked sweaters and identical goatees. Though they don’t talk to anyone, I suspect they’ve bought a modern pavillon and do something sinister in interior design. And then there’s Somerset Stan, who is always talking about chopping down hawthorn hedges (or ‘artharn adges’ as he calls them), alongside his sweet, rather fragile wife, Helen, who whispers that ‘Although I look older, I am actually younger than him.’
Our teacher is Nicole, a heroically patient and infectiously giggly lady who used to teach English to French children, and now teaches French to English adults. She is trying to explain the subjunctive to us, but Celia and Cackling Madge seem far more interested in discussing the shortcomings of French paint, Olga the spy is asleep and Somerset Stan wails that he only wants to know a bit of slang for ordering timber at the local builders’ merchants. Then Ralph the artist performs a hilarious mime of someone drowning slowly in a vat of treacle, and Olga wakes with a start.
‘What, Ralphie? What?’ she cries in a bleary panic, and we all fall about laughing, including Nicole.
Back at La Folie, there are three messages blinking on the answerphone. The first is from Gilles, and I wince when I hear his tone of voice, which is still low and grim. But Josette is on the mend. I listen to the message twice, to make sure I have properly understood. Yes: the doctors say she has broken no bones in her back, though she will need months of physio.
The next message is from Ralph and Olga, my new friends from French class, inviting me to dinner next week.
‘I promise i
t won’t be too English, darling,’ says Ralph. ‘There’ll be some civilized French people for you, too.’
The third is from Céline who works in the boulangerie and does the flowers in church, to say that she and her husband Luc would love to come to supper on Sunday. So my first-ever all-French dinner party is approaching.
On Saturday, shortly after suffering a catastophic defeat on behalf of the Jolibois Men’s over-35s second tennis team, I am sourcing ingredients for Nigel Slater’s fish pie in Champion when a terrifying vision appears before me. A pair of Siamese twins, conjoined at the head, is having an epileptic fit beside the haricots blancs. All I can make out is four staggering legs and a mass of straggly black-and-blond hair. The creature is clutching its head in its hands as it bumps into shelves, writhing in agony. All around me, people are staring, open-mouthed, trolleys pointing at the hideous scene.
And then the sound of two distinct, pipe-scouring screams rends the air and the vision flips into sharp focus.
It’s a cat-fight. And it’s very, very nasty. I’m relieved to see that, this time at least, les Anglais are not involved. Two women – both in their thirties – appear to be trying to kill each other by the time-honoured method of yanking out great clumps of each other’s hair. The fresh milk always runs out early at Champion, so perhaps they’re both after the last carton of demi-écrémé.
To my considerable surprise, I find that I have instinctively grabbed one of the women – a shrieking bundle of black hair – and am holding her arms in an attempt to stop her pummelling the other’s face. ‘Arrête! Arrête!’ I growl. This turns out to be a very bad idea, as it merely allows her blonde nemesis to land several free shots. Oops. Sorry, Madame.
For the next few seconds, the scene is a blur. I try and work myself between the two wild animals, but each has some sort of Vulcan death-grip on the other. Attempting to prise them apart is like trying to rip the beard off a mountaineer.
‘Salope!’ screams the blonde fury.
‘I have my own husband,’ screams her adversary. ‘I don’t need yours.’
Then another man leaps in to help, grabbing the blonde woman from behind, and together we attempt to stop the carnage. I hear the ugly thwock of heads knocking together, glimpse a blur of white knuckles clenching shaggy fistfuls of black hair, am dimly aware that a crowd has gathered to watch. Ah, another peaceful day in Jolibois. For a second the other man and I make eye-contact, and I can see we’re both thinking the same thing: Mon Dieu, these women are strong!
‘Laisse, laisse,’ I say gently to the blonde woman, attempting to prise open her fists. Let go of all that hair. Her rage is so powerful. And now she, too, catches my gaze and stares at me with a mixture of confusion and anger. Here she is, having a perfectly normal cat-fight in the middle of her local supermarket, and she’s got some English bloke in tennis whites quietly telling her what to do. I can see her brain spinning like the wheels of a fruit-machine as we lock pupils in the heart of the maelstrom.
Then she head-butts the woman I’m holding. Something warm spatters my hand.
There’s another flurry of shouting and flailing limbs, and then we are pulling them apart. The spectators disperse on tiptoe, and the frenetic corrida fades back into a humdrum supermarket. I follow the black-haired woman as she staggers away into the Italian cheese section.
‘Madame,’ I say softly. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Oui, ça va,’ she grunts, still trembling with adrenaline. Blood streams from her nose. Four gashes stripe her cheek. I want to help her, to offer a little human warmth, but I can see that she needs to be alone with the mozzarella. I feel pretty shaky myself, so I go and stare at crème caramels for a while.
My wrists ache, and I’m sickened at the sight of someone else’s blood on my skin and clothing. As I walk back past the scene of the fight, I see the white floor-tiles are covered with clumps of black hair. A doughnut of grannies is still standing there, leaning on their trolleys, excitedly gossiping about what they’ve just seen.
‘Merci, Monsieur,’ whispers the store security guard as he passes me.
‘Pas de problème,’ I reply, without thinking.
I want to get out of here, so I make for the check-out. But – uh-oh - there’s the blonde woman, waiting to pay for her shopping, with a sheepish-looking husband in tow. I slip round the back of the pasta and rice and head for check-out number one, right at the other end of the line. I’m suddenly not feeling very brave at all.
Cooking is usually therapeutic, but tonight, for my first all-French dinner party at La Folie, the pressure is on. Besides Céline who does the flowers and her husband Luc the pâtissier, there will be Fabrice the organist and his wife Marie, who works in a hardware shop in town. The good thing about inviting people over is that it makes me tidy the house. I can’t do much about the mountain of builders’ rubble out the front. But at least I feel moved to scoop out the grey candyfloss of spiders’ webs from between the oak beams and wipe the latest rodent gore from the kitchen floor. I thought rodents were meant to hibernate in winter. Don’t tell me: the cat is taking them in their sleep.
‘C’est le bout du monde ici,’ mutters Céline. Everyone has arrived at once, and Luc presents me with one of his very own tartes aux poires from the shop.
‘Excusez-moi que c’est un bordel,’ I say, attempting to shepherd everyone through to the kitchen for drinks. This is a phrase I’ve heard Serge use when things are a little untidy. Céline looks a bit stunned, but says nothing. It’s only later that I discover that I’ve just apologized for the state of my brothel.
At first, I find their silence unnerving. Even by the standards of the silences I’ve weathered at Gilles and Josette’s, this one is an abyss. Being the host, I make a few conversational sallies, but am soon beaten back by the monosyllabic brick-wall with which I am confronted.
Even the cat, embarrassed, clatters out of the cat-flap. I’d follow her, if I could fit. And then a realization dawns on me, like a saucepan falling on my head. Back when I first met Céline arranging the flowers in the church, she told me that Fabrice was her son-in-law. So that makes Marie their daughter. No wonder there’s no small talk. This isn’t a dinner party, it’s Ask the Family.
‘Donc … qui voudrait une boisson?’ I ask, rubbing my hands, to a barrage of shrugs and raised eyebrows. ‘Il y a du Ricard, du pineau …’ Father and son-in-law choose Ricard; mother and daughter point at the pineau. I begin to wonder if they’re playing the Gibson Game on me. This is a cruel sport we used to play at school, when teachers were kind enough to invite a group of us over for tea. The aim was not to say a single word, even when spoken to, with the winner being the very last person to speak. Right now, I feel like I’m up against the French premier league.
Marie wins by miles, with a score of fifty-eight minutes. In the meantime, with a drink in my hand, I feel emboldened to make my confession.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I say cheerfully, ‘but I haven’t made a starter.’
Four pairs of eyes widen. Yesterday’s cat-fight quite scuppered my mental shopping-list. And today is Sunday. I was so busy making my Nigel Slater fish pie – something appropriately anglais, without quite slipping into rosbif territory – that I missed the shops. I’m waiting for them to laugh and say ‘pas de problème’. Even a muttered ‘c’est pas grave’ would be nice. But the silence only deepens. Céline and Marie exchange glances in a ‘chin up, old girl’ kind of way. Fabrice’s mouth falls open as if he were a fish on a slab. I feel like a character in an HM Bateman cartoon: The Man Who Failed to Cook a Starter for his French Guests.
Stunned by their response, I now make an even graver mistake. I decide to rustle something up from the manky detritus at the back of the fridge. By jove, I’ll show these Frenchies how to cook.
Unfortunately, the fridge contains half a packet of out-of-date lardons, the shrunken scrapings from Friday night’s teriyaki turkey, a wilted lettuce, some sheep antibiotics and three eggs. Right, no problem: one wa
rm egg-and-bacon salad with teriyaki trimmings coming up.
I can tell immediately that this is the first time my guests have been faced with green egg hash with black shrapnel on the side. For one awful moment, I think that Marie is about to burst into tears. It’s fair to say that my creation tastes quite a lot worse than it sounds, and makes me wonder if I should have added the sheep antibiotics after all. But no matter: there’s still my pièce de résistance, the fish pie, to come.
‘And what do you call this?’ asks Luc, who has become quite chatty after a couple of glasses of wine.
‘Fish slush,’ I reply. Monumentally overcooked during the Startergate crisis, Slater’s inspiration has metamorphosed into a noxious grey sludge.
‘C’est vraiment … différent,’ gulps Luc, his chattiness evaporating.
I am about to apologize for the fish pie, and then remember not to. I have at least given my guests the satisfaction of confirming their worst fears about English cooking. And besides, I can tell from their laughter that they are finally beginning to enjoy themselves – perhaps because it’s time for le fromage, and they’ve finally found something they can eat.
‘That’s a pretty cheeseboard,’ exclaims Céline. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘I made it myself, when I was at school.’
‘Ah, so does it bring back memories?’
‘Oui, de temps en temps.’
We talk about Jolibois, and the English invasion.
‘It would be all right if they would learn to speak just a little French,’ says Céline.
‘Ah, but we’re no better,’ remonstrates Luc. ‘Because we can’t speak English.’
‘But we’re in France,’ I laugh. ‘You shouldn’t have to speak English here.’
‘I bet you haven’t found it difficult to integrate, Michael,’ he says, ‘because you speak such good French.’
C'est La Folie Page 20