The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters

by Jaimie Admans

  ‘It’s so peaceful here.’ Julian breathes in again and exhales slowly, and I do the same, trying to breathe in some of the French countryside and block out the man beside me, even though he hasn’t really done anything wrong. Yet.

  ‘I live in the centre of Glasgow,’ he continues. ‘You can’t go five minutes without a siren or a police helicopter or someone yelling at someone else.’

  ‘Same,’ I mutter.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Outskirts of London, on a road with the nearest takeaway to a nightclub that chucks out at three a.m.’

  ‘Oh, I bet that’s fun,’ he says with a laugh.

  ‘Supremely.’

  He glances over at me. ‘Ever been to Normandy before?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Nope. I work in Paris sometimes but it’s busy there. It’s nothing like this.’

  I work in Paris sometimes. I want to mutter it under my breath. Posh git.

  He looks at me with that smirk again and I swear he knows what I’m thinking. Instead of saying anything, he walks down the steps and I follow him, annoyed at myself for following him. I want to go in the opposite direction and be brave enough to look around on my own, but it didn’t exactly end well last night, and there’s a lot of land behind the château. Having someone around, even him, makes it seem less imposing somehow.

  ‘We have a moat,’ I say, rushing to catch up with him.

  ‘Have you won any prizes for your powers of observation lately?’

  ‘Ha ha ha,’ I say, just to let him know how utterly hilarious I think he is.

  He lets out a genuine laugh. ‘Yeah, I’ve got to admit the moat is impressive. It’s a shame it’s not cleaner. Can you imagine how awesome it’d be to literally swim around the house?’

  ‘I don’t want find out. I think there’s enough things already swimming around in there.’

  ‘What, like fish? Don’t tell me you’re scared of them too?’

  ‘I’m not scared of… there are fish in there?’

  ‘Yeah, I saw them last night. Maybe you were too busy rushing inside to start treasure hunting to notice them.’

  ‘I wasn’t…’ Oh, what’s the point? He’s never going to believe I shut him out for any other reason than to get a head start on the non-existent treasure, and why does it matter if he does anyway? Give it a few days and I’m sure he’ll have turned the place upside down, discovered for himself that dead rats are the most exciting things hidden in these walls, and gone on his merry way back home, leaving me to enjoy my holiday in peace.

  At the back of the château is a huge area that was probably a lawn once but now bears a resemblance to the Little Shop of Horrors. ‘If there’s not something in there shouting “Feed me, Seymour” I’ll be surprised.’

  He turns round and smiles at me. ‘That’s one of my favourite movies.’

  ‘Mine too.’ I meet his eyes and feel myself smiling involuntarily, remembering the classic old film about the man-eating Venus Flytrap. I realise what I’m doing and give myself a good shake. ‘I mean, yeah, alien plants are about what I’d expect from your level of intelligence.’

  He gives me a look but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. I can’t insult him for liking a film I’ve seen at least twenty times.

  The bridge across the moat at the back of the château is nothing more than a footpath through the water that looks like it’s sunk over the years.

  ‘Look.’ Julian crouches down on the edge of it, the wide expanse of his back in front of me as his shoulders flex in a not completely unattractive way. I force myself to look into the water where he’s pointing and not at his tanned skin. He wants me to look at him – why else would he take his shirt off? – and I’m not giving Loophole-git McNephew what he wants. Ever.

  In front of us, two large fish are near the surface.

  ‘They’re catfish,’ he says, sounding delighted. ‘Feel free to put your hand in. It’s not like those whiskers will give you a nasty sting or anything.’

  The fish shoot away when his shadow falls across the water and he makes a noise of disappointment. ‘We’ll have to buy some fish food for them – poor wee things are probably starving.’

  Of course he’s going to feed something that wants to sting me. It reminds me of how hungry I am. I’m about to admit this but quickly think better of it. I can’t let him know he was right. Again.

  Outside of the main garden area, there’s so much greenery that I wouldn’t know where to start. Weeds and bramble bushes stretch out for miles. It looks like there might’ve been paths between them once, but they’ve long since disappeared into the undergrowth. You can imagine people setting out to explore it and never being seen again. It’s the kind of sight that makes me want to run back inside and not come out. At least inside you can get around without being attacked by angry-looking plants and whatever might be living in them, even if there are a few creaky floorboards and crumbling walls.

  Julian is looking around in awe. ‘We’ve got our own orchard.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ I squint in the direction he’s pointing. ‘There’s just a load of green things.’

  ‘Otherwise known as trees.’

  ‘Oh, ha ha. I meant the brambles and grassy stuff that’s taller than me.’

  He laughs. ‘They’re called weeds, Wendy. They tend to happen when a garden isn’t maintained for twenty years.’

  ‘This isn’t a garden. A garden is a little square of lawn with some flowers around the edges. This is Day of the Triffids, this is.’

  He looks at me but his sunglasses hide most of his face. ‘Call me presumptuous, but you’re not big on the outdoors, are you?’

  ‘I like the outdoors just fine,’ I mutter. ‘As long as it stays out and I stay in.’

  ‘How can anyone not like the outdoors?’ He takes a deep breath in again. ‘All that sunshine and fresh air.’

  ‘The vague smell of cowpats, the wet grass that’s soaked right through my shoes… and there’s a daddy longlegs crawling up my trousers.’ My voice gets higher as I bend down to slap it away. What is it with the French insect population attaching itself to my body today?

  ‘You don’t get places like this at home. Not where I live in the city, anyway. They’ve tried, but even the parks are surrounded by gridlocked traffic and angry people.’ He sighs happily. ‘Now this, this is the proper outdoors.’

  ‘Says the man whose hair looks like it will melt in direct sunlight.’

  ‘Gotta love hair insults coming from the girl with hair that looks like you borrowed it from a recycled mop.’

  I pull it back and try to smooth it down. ‘I was stuck in a wall all night!’

  ‘I slept in my car!’

  ‘You’re really pernickety about that, aren’t you?’

  ‘It’s an uncomfortable car and I’d already spent twelve hours driving it to get here yesterday.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s not made for comfort, is it? It’s made to show off how small your willy is.’ I feel a little spike of guilt as I say it. I’m being horrible to him. I’m not usually this unkind to complete strangers, even if he is one of the more irritating strangers I’ve met lately.

  He’s clearly got enough confidence in his willy size to ignore the insult. Instead, he picks up a fallen tree branch and uses it to start beating a path through the bramble bushes. ‘I really want to know what’s growing in that orchard. Stand back, and watch out for snakes.’

  ‘Snakes?’ I gulp.

  ‘They like undergrowth and places they won’t be disturbed. A garden that hasn’t been visited in twenty years is ideal.’

  ‘Are these snakes likely to be poisonous?’

  He glances back at me with a smirk. ‘Yep. Very poisonous, and very, very big.’

  I want to cry.

  Coming here was a terrible idea. This is why people have comfort zones. Because you don’t meet poisonous bloody snakes on the way to work in London.<
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  By the time we reach the orchard, I’ve been scratched by three hundred bramble bushes, bitten by a million mosquitoes, and stung by at least one horsefly. I’m sweating, thirsty, still starving, and Julian hasn’t even broken a sweat. He bashes a path through the brambles with ease, whereas I get tangled up just looking at them. Our land is an overgrown mess to me, but Julian is fascinated by it. He keeps stopping to point at things and saying names like I’m supposed to know what any of these weeds are called. Personally I’d call them all Steve and be done with it.

  The orchard is less overgrown than everywhere else, but you still need a scythe and a few axes to get through it.

  ‘Wow,’ Julian says.

  I’ve got to admit, he has a point. There’s green grass still visible through the weeds here, unlike the rest of the grounds, and there are rows and rows of trees, tree after tree stretching into the distance. The biggest ones are perfectly in line, and I picture whoever created this orchard, maybe Eulalie’s husband, maybe someone from decades before, out here with a tape measure, lining them up perfectly. Surrounding them are a hotch-potch of smaller trees, sprouting from anywhere and everywhere, no order to them at all, and I wonder if they’ve self-seeded from the fallen harvest of the bigger trees. There are still rotting shells on the ground, remnants of whatever fell last year, I guess, although looking up at the trees gives me no clue of what they’re growing. They’re covered in green spiky balls. Why does everything in this country look like it wants to hurt me?

  Even with the sunglasses hiding most of his face, I can tell Julian’s impressed as he looks around.

  ‘What are they?’ I ask him.

  He stretches a long arm up and pulls down a branch, and I absolutely don’t watch his forearms flexing as he runs a finger across one of the green, spiteful-looking things. He might be a git but I’ve got to admit he’s a nice-looking git.

  He smiles a soft smile and shakes his head. ‘Chestnuts. I should’ve known.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Le Château de Châtaignier. The Chestnut Castle.’

  ‘That’s what it means?’

  He nods.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I say, stating the obvious. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the name might have a meaning, and I definitely couldn’t translate it. ‘Chestnuts as in… conkers?’ I think back to conker fights in the school playground. ‘Because they’re meant to keep spiders out of houses and so far they’re clearly doing a terrible job.’

  ‘Completely different thing. Those are horse chestnuts, these are sweet chestnuts – y’know, the roasting on an open fire at Christmas kind?’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  ‘They’re not common to this region. I expected this to be an apple orchard. That’s what Normandy is known for. I wouldn’t mind betting this is the only chestnut orchard around here. Someone named their château this for a reason.’ He looks at me. ‘This was someone’s livelihood once. There’s enough of a chestnut harvest here to sell for weeks in the autumn. This whole place looks like it was set up to be self-sufficient with all the different areas and the outbuildings.’

  ‘You can tell that under all the weeds?’ I ask, trying not to be impressed that he knows this sort of thing.

  He shrugs. ‘Yeah. I bet whoever lived here grew everything they ate. Do you know any of the history of the place?’

  I shake my head, not bothering to point out that, until this week, I didn’t even know the place existed.

  ‘These trees are way older than Eulalie or her husband. They’ve been here for at least a hundred years.’

  I’m not sure if I’m impressed he can tell that or creeped out, picturing the ghosts of long-dead chestnut farmers from centuries ago watching us in their beloved orchard. Maybe Scooby Doo would come in handy after all. ‘Are you going to pick any? I saw a couple of open hearths in the house last night to roast them on.’

  ‘It’s way too early for chestnuts – they’re nowhere near ripe. But in the autumn, definitely.’

  Something pings in my brain at that. We won’t still be here in autumn, but I’m sure the squirrels will enjoy them. ‘You know a lot about plants,’ I say instead. He doesn’t look like someone who knows much about plants. He looks like someone who knows a lot about hair products and gym memberships.

  ‘I like plants. They’re reliable. You give them what they ask for and they do what they say they will.’

  ‘If plants are saying anything to you, I’d be concerned.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ he says in a high voice, mimicking me. ‘I just mean they’re predictable. You give them the right conditions and they’ll do what nature intended them to. There’s give and take with them. You help them and they help you, unlike people.’

  The hint of bitterness in his voice intrigues me, and then I wonder why I’m even thinking about it. ‘Same could be said of certain people I’ve met lately.’

  He raises an eyebrow above his sunglasses. ‘So far this morning I’ve rescued you from a wall and saved an innocent centipede from death by hair. What exactly have I done that’s so bad?’

  I go to shout something at him but I stop myself. ‘Eulalie didn’t leave this place to you,’ I say calmly. ‘She didn’t even know you. She wouldn’t want you destroying the place looking for money.’

  ‘Is it me who broke into a wall and got myself stuck there for a box of dead rats?’

  ‘No, but—’

  He doesn’t let me finish. ‘If she wanted you to have this place so badly, she should’ve been better prepared. She must’ve known French law entitles direct descendants to a fair share and she must’ve known there was a possibility that her brother had children.’

  ‘Oh please, you’re a great-nephew. That’s barely even a relation!’

  ‘You’re not even a relation! What moral high ground do you think you have to stand on here?’

  ‘This is what she wanted.’

  He shakes his head. ‘She was insane. She’s going on about treasure hidden here like there’s some pirate’s bounty buried in the basement or something. It’s madness.’

  ‘She was not…’ I start to defend Eulalie’s sanity when my brain realises what he’s said. ‘You don’t think there’s any treasure?’

  ‘I find it highly unlikely.’

  ‘Why are you here then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says with a shrug. ‘Same reason you are, I suppose. If you inherit a French château, you can’t just ignore it. I had to see the place.’

  A part of me believes him. Eulalie’s mention of treasure is so ridiculous, it’s laughable, but the sensible side of me is screaming at myself to be careful. He’s obviously only saying this to throw me off. All he’s after is money, like all men. It’s a classic diversion – if I think he’s not interested in treasure, he can hunt for it in peace while I swan around obliviously believing it doesn’t exist.

  ‘And I’m glad I came,’ he carries on. ‘Despite the welcoming party. This place is incredible. I’ve dreamed of someday retiring to somewhere with even a fraction of this land. All I’ve ever wanted is my own orchard.’

  ‘It’s a bit overgrown,’ I say, distracted by wondering if I should give him the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘It’s just naturalised. All it needs is some care and attention and some fixing up and it could be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not wasting my holiday here fighting with weeds that will have grown again by the time I have another chance to visit. Given the short notice this time, I doubt my boss will approve any time off for at least another year.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a food ambassador,’ I say, surprised he’s interested enough to ask. I haven’t exactly given him reason to make small talk with me so far, have I?

  ‘What’s that?’

  I blush. ‘I man the sample stands in a supermarket. You know that woman who’s always in the way of the exact shelf yo
u need to get to, trying to offer you centimetre-square bits of cake while chattering about how lovely it is? That’s me.’

  ‘Sounds riveting,’ he says with a laugh.

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’m a fitness model.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ I mutter. I don’t know why I expected anything else. Plumbers don’t have abs like that.

  He raises that eyebrow above his sunglasses again.

  ‘So when are you leaving?’ I ask, trying to sound nonchalant, like it doesn’t matter to me at all when he leaves. Behind my back, my fingers are crossed for luck. It’s Wednesday now, so surely he’ll be off by Friday? Sunday at the latest?

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’re… not?’ He means, like, this week, right? I’m not leaving this week but I’ll be gone on Monday?

  He looks at me and his mouth breaks into that tight-lipped smile. ‘Why would I leave? This place is half mine. I have every right to be here whenever I want, and I have a key now so you can’t play your little games any more. I have nothing to keep me in Scotland. I drive down to London for photoshoots all the time, so it’d be just as easy to nip back from here. This place is a dream, and I see no reason to leave.’

  ‘But… but…’ I stumble over my words, they get tangled up with my desire to knee him in the bollocks.

  ‘Oh, what a shame you’ve got a fixed job you’ve got to get back to in, what, two weeks?’

  ‘Four,’ I mutter. ‘Three if my boss needs a doctor’s certificate for the sick days I’ve taken this week.’

  ‘And I have no ties. I can stay here as long as I want. And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.’ He grins and, in that moment, he achieves a previously unaccomplishable feat – he gets even more smug than he was before.

  ‘You can’t just move in!’

  ‘I didn’t say I was going to move in, but I could if I wanted, and you couldn’t stop me.’

  ‘But it’s not yours!’

  ‘No, it’s half mine, so I’ll tell you what, I’ll only move into half of it, and you can do whatever you want with the other half in the two weeks’ holiday your boss gives you next summer.’