The Matchmaker of Perigord

by Julia Stuart

  When Émilie Fraisse had finished her story, the German, who was enraptured (although slightly confused because he thought that llamas came from South America), immediately asked her to take his photograph standing next to the skeleton.

  Arriving at the grand salon, the tourist naturally enquired about the splendid reversible floor. The châtelaine then found herself recounting how it had been copied from a similar one at the nearby château of Bourdeilles in an escalating seventeenth-century war of neighbourly one-upmanship. It developed into such a vicious feud between the two owners that they each kidnapped the other’s daughter and locked her in one of the towers to increase the other’s misery. When, after a week, neither could bear their prisoners’ incessant wails, which made the engraved muskets rattle in their holders and the copper pans in the kitchen hum, they both unlocked their tower doors, hoping the girls would flee. But it took several months for the captives to realize that they were no longer imprisoned, by which time, like caged birds, they had become attached to their surroundings and refused their freedom. Each father was then stuck with a daughter he found even more infuriating than his own. Such was the pity the men developed for each other’s plight, they took up falconing together, during which they spent most of the time bemoaning the curse of fatherhood.

  The German, who couldn’t disguise his delight, immediately bent down and stroked the lustrous wooden floor. When the pair reached the dining room, Émilie Fraisse pointed to the sixteenth-century Annunciation scene carved in mahogany above the door, which depicted a naked man with three testicles and a pelican feeding her three chicks. But instead of explaining that it was a reference to Gabriel’s announcement to Mary of her forthcoming child, the châtelaine told the German that the man’s parents had been so horrified when he was born with the deformity that they abandoned him to a passing street merchant. While the boy was much loved, he never got over his sense of shame. When he reached his teenage years, he joined the Wars of Religion to prove his manhood, taking up arms to defend Catholic Périgueux from assaults by Protestant Bergerac. While the town suffered countless embarrassing defeats, the man with the three testicles managed to kill more Protestants than most, which wasn’t many. In the absence of a real hero, and in desperate need of one to keep up morale, he was afforded such a status. One night, when he and his comrades were celebrating his having slaughtered double figures that week, the man put down his goblet, pulled down his trousers and revealed what he insisted was the secret of his success. Such was the positive reception, he decided to display his abnormality with pride, and took to walking around naked at every opportunity. It was during one of these moments of bravado that a mother pelican landed at his feet looking for food for her three chicks. There then ensued a battle even uglier than any the man had fought against the Protestants, and he lost his entire collection of testicles. But rather than diminish his heroic standing amongst his comrades it increased it, as lost body parts always did in warfare, and he became a constant source of curiosity for the ladies.

  When the châtelaine finished her tall story, which slipped out without a thought, her cheeks flushed at the sudden realization of the indelicacy of the subject matter. But by then the German, who had at first assumed that the pelican was a symbol of Christ and that the three testicles represented fertility, was standing transfixed in front of the carving asking whether there was a postcard of it.

  And so it was for every piece of furniture or detail whose history Émilie Fraisse either didn’t know or found too pedestrian, and each embellishment was balanced with phrases such as ‘it is believed’, ‘so the legend goes’ or ‘some say’. Her motives were in no way pecuniary. She had enough money to sustain her for the rest of her life without a single visitor, and she had no interest in increasing their numbers. Neither was it mischief, for the woman had still not yet recovered that trait. Nor, indeed, was it boredom, for she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so engaged with the world. She simply didn’t want to disappoint him.

  When the German tourist left, as charmed by the decrepit château as he was by its owner, he handed her four euros, which, according to the noticeboard outside, was the entrance fee. But she waved it away, grateful for the longest conversation she had had in years. Later that day, she found the coins in an envelope in her letterbox along with a thank-you note and a recipe for quince jelly handed down from his grandmother.

  Inspired by her visitor’s letter, Émilie Fraisse slipped her feet into a pair of vast gentleman’s wellington boots to protect her legs from scratches and slopped over to the garden, which was knitted with weeds. Near the wall on top of which bearded irises grew, she discovered a plot of heirloom vegetables and marvelled at the ancient, long forgotten varieties: the blue potatoes, the hyacinth beans with their startling purple-red pods, the strawberry spinach and the round black radish. She spent the evening in a state of utter contentment, her bare feet padding back and forth across the kitchen, making jams, jellies and chutneys in the enormous copper pans. The most exquisite was the black radish jam made with honey and a whisper of fresh ginger. When they had cooled, on each of the jars she stuck a hand-written label stating the contents, the date and the words ‘From the Ancient Gardens of the Château at Amour-sur-Belle’. After filling the larder with half of them, she tied around each of the others a piece of antique lace from the bottom of the dresses she had shortened and put them for sale in the window of the wooden hut at the entrance to the château, erected years ago to house the ticket-seller for the crowds who never came.

  The following morning, she explored the contents of the armoury, which she had already cleaned but not lingered over. Slowly, she drew a finger along the mother-of-pearl inlay on the crossbows and noticed how the tiny flowers glinted lavender in the light. She lifted down one of the smaller breastplates, all of which were dented, strapped it on and knocked on it at her navel. She then chose the smallest of the engraved muskets, grabbed a handful of shot and closed the door.

  After changing into a pair of breeches, a long-sleeved shirt which she found hanging in a wardrobe and some gentleman’s buckled leather boots, she crunched her way over the drawbridge and headed for the woods. Slipping between the branches, she was immediately comforted by their skeletal embrace and the sight of her feet amongst the tarnished leaves still lying where they had dropped dead the previous autumn. Immediately, she recognized the trees of her childhood and stood disbelieving the height they had reached as they creaked in the breeze.

  Curiosity set her following the wild boar track to see whether it still passed the old hunters’ shack. With a natural lightness of foot, she moved quietly across the littered floor, pushing away branches which snapped at her back and listening to the calls of the birds she had once been able to imitate. After a while, to her surprise, she saw in the distance the outline of the hut that she had been expecting to have tumbled down long ago. As she got closer, she was struck by the fact that it was no longer as desolate as she remembered. Indeed, it appeared that someone had set about transforming it, for the hut no longer tilted perilously to the left. There also seemed to have been repairs made to the roof, and, as she approached further, she noticed that someone had even bothered to replace the glass in the tiny window, which had always been broken.

  Slowing down as she arrived in the clearing, she stopped to listen to the demented hollow tapping of a woodpecker; she hadn’t heard one for years. As she continued on her way, she glanced inside the hut. There, on the floor, were two villagers whom she instantly recognized. But what perplexed her more than their nakedness was the fact that, as far as she knew, one of them was very much married to someone else. The couple was so engrossed in their physical pursuit, which, judging by the sounds they were making, seemed to be an agony to them both, they failed to notice the woman with the musket and gentleman’s trousers standing dumbfounded at the window.

  The châtelaine made her way out of the clearing as quickly and as quietly as possible, and headed for the far reaches of th
e woods. The spectacle turned her thoughts to the corrosion of her own marriage. Wounded by envy, she stopped and leant against a tree felled by the famous mini-tornado of 1999, and for the first time since she had returned to Amour-sur-Belle felt the familiar drizzle of melancholy. She stood getting wet until her eye was caught by the roots of the tree, which were exposed to the elements like disgorged entrails. She walked round to look at them more closely. Trapped within, she spotted a fallen leaf whose colour reminded her of her newly lustrous walnut floor, and she put it in her pocket. Her mind then slid to the other pleasures the château had given her, including the llama skeleton, the exquisite black radish jam she had made and the warmth of the handshake of the nice German tourist. Before she knew it, the smell of rain had passed and she was aiming at a large hare which she felled with a single shot.

  As she carried it back to the château by its ears, she thought of the two terrines she would make from it, one of which she would put out for sale with the other jars in the disused ticket hut. Stepping over a fallen branch, she suddenly wondered what had happened to her Nontron hunting knife with its boxwood handle and ancient pokerwork motifs. Then she remembered the last afternoon she had spent in the woods with Guillaume Ladoucette before leaving Amour-sur-Belle. She had tried to pretend that the occasion was of no importance, but had not been able to sustain her indifference. Handing him her knife for safekeeping, she had hoped that he would recognize the significance. But the teenager took it without a word and slid it into his pocket. For an instant she wondered whether he was going to kiss her, and she remained still. But the moment never came and she filled the silence by wondering out loud whether the mushroom at her feet was poisonous, when they both knew that it wasn’t. She then thought of the following morning and how she had put her suitcase in her father’s car early and waited on the wall for Guillaume Ladoucette to come and say goodbye. But he never came. Eleven months later she learnt from a neighbour on her first visit back to the village that he had been cutting firewood with his father and had arrived running shortly after the car had pulled away. He had then sat on the garden wall, head bowed, hands in his pockets, for hours.

  Her mind turned to the countless mornings she had come downstairs in her aunt’s house in Bordeaux to find that there was still no reply waiting at her place at the table. She wondered again, as she had all those years ago, why he had never written back. Squeezing through the branches, she came to the same conclusion as always–that he hadn’t felt the same way as she had. And, as she had learnt to do as a teenager, Émilie Fraisse put all thoughts of Guillaume Ladoucette out of her mind and headed back towards the château to disembowel the hare.

  8

  THE INSTALLATION OF THE MUNICIPAL SHOWER TURNED OUT TO BE a far more wretched procedure than Jean-François Lafforest had predicted, and having worked for a local authority all his life he had already been tripped up by most of the pitfalls of human nature. When he arrived at Amour-sur-Belle to inspect the work, having vomited twice along the route at the thought of returning, he saw to his surprise that the shower had actually been sited in the correct place next to a wall on the far side of the place du Marché. But when he looked further, he discovered that instead of the door facing the wall, which would have afforded the villagers a degree of modesty, it was in fact facing the square. And, as the drainage work had already started, the mistake could not be rectified.

  Having suppressed any natural instinct towards perfectionism over the years in order to maintain an essence of sanity, Jean-François Lafforest simply accepted it, reasoning to himself that if it was the only thing that was to go wrong then the project would be a spectacular success. But as the plumbing work continued, it soon came clear by the amount of water billowing up from the trench and crawling across the square towards the Bar Saint-Jus that the wrong size pipe had been ordered. When, three days later, he returned to the site and asked the two labourers, whom he eventually tracked down to the bar, why the work had not progressed, he was told that the new part had still not arrived. He then went in person to the council’s purchasing department where he was informed that the pipe would have to be ordered from Spain, which could take up to four weeks. He nodded in silence, knowing full well that no parts were ever ordered from outside France owing to national pride, and that any mention of ‘Spain’ was simply an indication of yet another colleague having been infected with inertia, a highly contagious malady stalking the corridors that could cripple in an instant.

  Aware that there was no cure, Jean-François Lafforest noted down the precise measurements of the pipe that was needed, drove to a large DIY store on the outskirts of Périgueux and bought one. After waiting several days, he then took it to the purchasing department and explained that one of his friends had just been to Spain and managed to pick one up. Knowing that the man in front of him would now claim that the pipe of unknown origin would have to be thoroughly vetted before being deemed acceptable, which actually meant that it would be placed in a cupboard and forgotten about, Jean-François Lafforest silently placed on his desk a large serrano ham and bottle of Rioja which he had bought in a supermarket to help alleviate his colleague’s frightful symptoms. They worked in an instant and the pipe was immediately approved.

  Returning to Amour-sur-Belle, the man from the council handed the part to the two disappointed workers who were in the same place as he had left them. When, the following day, he made a surprise visit, he found them yet again sitting at Fabrice Ribou’s highly polished counter. Correctly suspecting that the bar owner with the curious haircut that resembled a pine cone was giving them free drinks in order to disrupt the work, Jean-François Lafforest then gathered up his courage and made the decision to stay every day at the site, sitting on a collapsible chair he kept in the boot of his car while clutching his soft leather briefcase to his fleshy stomach. The only time he abandoned his post was for his twice-daily trip to the nearest field where he would shower the prepubescent maize with the curdled contents of his stomach.

  When the installation was finally complete, notices were sent to each household informing the occupants that the taking of baths was forbidden from midnight onwards, and that the shower would be ready for use the following morning. That night, Guillaume Ladoucette filled up his bath, took off his clothes, put them on the chair and stepped in. He remained recumbent for several hours, gazing with premature nostalgia at his knees rising like islands out of the water.

  Yves Lévèque, who had a pressing reason to smell his best the following day, had set his alarm for 5.30 a.m. hoping to beat the early-rising baker to the shower. When it went off, the dentist instinctively turned over, unwilling to leave the comforting valley of his sleep. Just as he was sinking back down again the haunting image returned of a long, curly, black hair, normally covered in flour, wrapped around his big toe as he showered. He immediately bolted out of bed, pulled his green-and-white-striped dressing gown on over his navy pyjamas and twisted his feet into his slippers. Grabbing his drawstring washbag, he checked to see that his bottle of shampoo was inside, and slipped out of the front door.

  As he strode down the road with a white towel over his shoulder seeing the village for the first time so soon after dawn, he thought how marvellous it was to be the first to crack open the day. But on reaching the rue du Château, he suddenly heard footsteps. He turned round to see the unmistakable bulk of Stéphane Jollis in a voluminous white T-shirt and tartan boxer shorts clutching a blue towel coming up behind him. The baker was moving at a much faster rate than normal, stirred from his bed by the thought of catching a glimpse of Lisette Robert in a state of undress. The dentist immediately quickened his step. Several paces later, he looked over his shoulder again and coming up behind Stéphane Jollis was the midwife in a short red satin nightdress with a towel tucked under her arm, who had been driven from her sheets by the fear of having to shower after the early-rising postman who was infamous for his despicable habit of urinating behind trees whenever caught short on his rounds. Not only did
Gilbert Dubuisson believe that no one ever saw him, but never once did it occur to him that his attempts at concealment were thwarted by the resulting copious clouds of rising steam and the wetness of his toecaps.

  Not far behind Lisette Robert, Yves Lévèque spotted the postman, naked apart from his blue towelling dressing gown, which was flapping open indiscreetly. Scurrying along with a turquoise towel hanging around his neck, he had decided to take a shower before work to avoid going in after Monsieur Moreau, who he feared would engulf the cubicle with the aroma of goat. Not far behind Gilbert Dubuisson was indeed Monsieur Moreau, who had forgotten his towel and was wearing a pair of light blue cotton pyjamas that stopped at his knees. While not used to a daily toilette, he was determined to beat the felonious matchmaker in case he stole all the hot water. On his tail was Guillaume Ladoucette in an elegant burgundy silk dressing gown, with two towels and a fiercely guarded piece of soap from his favourite shop in Périgueux in his pocket, who had been roused from his sleep by the torturous sound of a chicken egg slowly rolling across the wooden landing floor. Driven to a state of fury and unable to get back to sleep, he could think of nothing else to do at that hour than to try out the new shower. But sprinting past them all was Sandrine Fournier, the mushroom poisoner, who had been woken by the shuffling of slippers underneath her window. Looking out, she noticed all the towels and wash-bags, and while she couldn’t understand why there was such an urgent need to get to the shower so early, decided to try and beat them all just in case.