by Julia Stuart
‘There appears to be no hot water,’ said the man from the council.
‘We know that, that’s why we called you out,’ the dentist replied.
‘There’s nothing I can do, I’ll have to get someone on to it.’
‘Why did you bother coming out if there’s nothing you can do?’ asked Denise Vigier the grocer.
‘I had to check first that there was no hot water,’ replied Jean-François Lafforest, fiddling with one of the buckles on his briefcase.
‘Did you think we were making it up?’ asked Monsieur Moreau, who had been stirred from his contemplation of the ants in the hope of seeing Madame Ladoucette’s still-commanding bosom in a wet dress again.
‘Not at all,’ replied the man from the council.
‘He thought we were making it up!’ said Henri Rousseau, fiddling with the hearing aid that he didn’t need.
‘I did not!’ insisted Jean-François Lafforest.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ asked Didier Lapierre the carpenter. ‘If we have to suffer the indignity of walking around the streets in our pyjamas, you can at least pay us the courtesy of providing us with hot water.’
‘I’m going to get someone to sort it out,’ said Jean-François Lafforest. ‘You’ll just have to put up with it for the moment, I’m afraid.’
‘Put up with it?’ exclaimed the dentist. ‘We’re not going to endure cold showers while you try and sort it out. It could take months at the rate you lot move. We’ll have to go back to having baths in the meantime.’
‘I’m sorry. That’s not an option. The fine will still stand,’ said the man from the council uneasily.
‘The fine will still stand?’ repeated Yves Lévèque, dumbfounded. But by then the man with the trousers that didn’t quite fit had already backed his way out of the chairs and fled for the nearest field to discharge the half-digested remains of a merguez sausage.
It took considerable time for the crowd to dispel as Fabrice Ribou prolonged the post-mortem by coming up with as many theorems, postulations and untruths as possible to increase his takings.
Once the place du Marché was empty again, Lisette Robert returned to the municipal shower. She flinched under the stream of cold water, and when she left, checked twice that she hadn’t left her new bottle of shampoo behind. Walking home, she was grateful for the continued assault from the sun, which had yet to lay down its weapons for the day, and, as she passed Monsieur Moreau, who was back on the bench, poked him to see whether he was dead or asleep.
Standing in front of her wardrobe, she tugged at the door handles that always stuck and sent the glass bottles on her dressing table trembling when they finally opened. Reaching in, she took down her new periwinkle-blue frock. She had forced herself to buy it against her instinct, acquired in the days when her mother dressed her, which attracted her to the most repellent of colours. Stepping into it, she wondered whether the man she was going to meet would like it. She then combed her rivulets of damp hair into which her husband whispered things she never believed and went downstairs. After pouring herself a glass of pineau, which she kept in the house for Guillaume Ladoucette, she took it outside and sat on the faded red sofa against the back of the house underneath the vine-strangled trellis. Taking a sip, she wondered how on earth the matchmaker could like the sweet ruby liquid so much. She persevered, nevertheless, and, as she watched the day finally lose its bloody battle with the evening, she thought of the man she hoped he had set her up with, imagining the touch of his hand and the smell of his chest. But most of all, she tried to imagine herself ever loving him as much as her husband. When, at last, it was time to meet her mystery suitor, Lisette Robert brought her glass back inside and shut the door. And on her way out, she looked in the mirror in the hallway and saw the reflection of a truffling pig.
Arriving at the Bar Saint-Jus, the midwife was surprised to find that no one was waiting outside. Unsure of what to do, she opened the door and looked quickly around. Walking up to the bar, she ordered a kir, then sat down with her glass at an empty table in the window. She pulled towards her a copy of the Sud Ouest, plumped up from having been read so many times, and looked at the front page. Having taken none of it in, she then turned the page and, as she did so, scanned the room again. Assuming that her match was late, she continued with her feigned absorption. As she turned another page, she heard the sound of the chair opposite her being pulled back. She looked up to see Marcel Coussy, the farmer.
‘Hello, Marcel, how are you?’ she asked.
‘Fine thanks, how are you?’
‘Very well, thanks. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m actually waiting for someone.’
‘I know,’ he replied.
‘You know?’
‘Yes. It’s me.’
Lisette Robert tried to match the image the matchmaker had painted of the solvent bachelor with his own transport and a love for the outdoors with the man who was now sitting down in front of her. While the farmer may well have been a bachelor, it was clear to most that the reason he had reached his eighty-second year without having married was because no woman would have tolerated his reluctance to bathe. While it was true that he was solvent, it was also well known that he preferred the familiar comfort of misery than luxury. And as for his own transport, the only vehicles Marcel Coussy ever bought were tractors.
As she took another sip, Lisette Robert noticed that the elderly farmer had buffed himself up to a state of refinement normally only witnessed on Christmas Day. He had clearly washed, a process not usually endured by the farmer unless he was in hospital recovering from a fall from his tractor, on account of the fact that he didn’t possess a bathroom. His habit of defecating in his fields could be witnessed by anyone unfortunate enough to be looking in that direction at the time. He was also clearly wearing shoes, rather than his work slippers, as the midwife could hear the tapping of his soles on the floor below the table. And it appeared that the wig many claimed he wore had recently been sent to the dry-cleaner’s.
Unsure of what to say, Lisette Robert asked after his ginger Limousin cows, in particular why they winked whenever people passed. ‘Because they’re happy,’ he replied. ‘Like me.’ She then asked after his dog, an equally scruffy affair (though with its own hair), which was skilled in the art of rounding up geese and had won numerous trophies. Next she complimented him on his artichokes, which had not only looked beautiful, but tasted outstanding. The farmer answered distractedly, so taken was he by the vision before him. Then, for several moments, they stared at each other.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Lisette Robert suddenly asked to rebuff the silence.
‘I’ll get them. Same again?’ asked Marcel Coussy.
‘Yes, please,’ replied the midwife. But by the time the farmer returned from the bar, Lisette Robert was nowhere to be found.
When she returned home, she immediately phoned the matchmaker. Guillaume Ladoucette was already in bed asleep, the persistent breeze from the bedroom window curling round his considerable japonicas. Defenceless after having been pulled so violently from his dreams, he agreed to meet her at once at Heart’s Desire. As he dressed, he tried to think what on earth could be wrong, and as he slipped his hairy toes into his supermarket sandals, suddenly realized.
The midwife was already waiting for him by the time he arrived. She said nothing as he opened the door. But as soon as they were inside and the door was closed behind them again, she demanded: ‘Guillaume, how could you?’
‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, ushering her towards the chair with the peeling marquetry. ‘Glass of wine? Or perhaps a little something to eat? I’ve got a spare set of keys to the bakery. I could nip round and get us a couple of choux Chantilly, perhaps. I’m sure Stéphane Jollis won’t mind.’
‘Guillaume, stop trying to divert my attention with little cakes.’
The matchmaker walked round the desk with the ink stain, sat down on his swivel chair and held up his hands. ‘What was I supposed to do?’ he
asked. ‘He came in here, signed up for our Unrivalled Gold Service and then asked to be introduced to you. I could hardly say, “No, you’re too old and too malodorous, you don’t stand a chance.” He’s an old customer of mine. And anyway, he doesn’t know how ugly he is and you don’t know how beautiful you are. You have that in common. It could have worked.’
Lisette Robert continued looking at him in silence.
‘I did my best with him,’ insisted the matchmaker. ‘As you’ve probably noticed from the ledger, he hasn’t used the municipal shower once since it’s been installed. A friend of mine in Nontron lent me his bath. We soaked him for three days. And I got that wig of his sorted out. It was in an awful state.’
‘He didn’t even have anything to talk about!’
‘That shouldn’t have happened,’ replied the matchmaker frowning. ‘I told him plenty of interesting things to say. We had practice sessions while he was in the bath. He had it word perfect. He must have forgotten in the stress of the moment. You can’t blame him for that.’
‘I can’t understand why we had to have a drink in the Bar Saint-Jus, either. Everyone was looking. I thought we were going to meet outside and then go somewhere else.’
‘Well, that was the plan. He must have kept you there to show you off, the scoundrel.’
Lisette Robert remained silent.
‘Everyone deserves a chance at love, Lisette,’ said the matchmaker. ‘You can’t blame him for trying.’
‘I’d bought a new dress and everything.’
‘Well, the good news is that it won’t go to waste.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have another Unrivalled Gold Service customer who wishes to be introduced to you.’
‘Another one?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not going through that again.’
‘Come on, Lisette, it wasn’t that bad. Well, it wouldn’t have been if Marcel Coussy had stuck to the game plan.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m bound by client confidentiality.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘I’d describe him as a well-built gentleman–he’s got a lovely haircut, by the way, not like the horrors some people have around here–with a refined palate. And by that I mean he wouldn’t eat the sort of food that tourists do.’
‘I don’t know, I’ve already fallen victim to your powers of exaggeration once.’
‘Lisette, it was a perfectly accurate description. And you won’t have to meet him in the Bar Saint-Jus. It’ll be out of Amour-sur-Belle, I promise you.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll make sure it’s one of your favourite places. How’s about that?’
‘All right. But this is the last one I’m agreeing to, Guillaume Ladoucette,’ said the midwife, getting up from the cushion with the hand-embroidered radish.
After the matchmaker had walked her home, he returned to bed where he lay for several minutes in his usual position on his back, his arms down the sides of his body as if already dead in his coffin. He then switched on his bedside light and took another headache tablet lest the postman elbowed himself back inside his dreams and clattered around in his commodious footwear.
13
MUCH TO HIS DISMAY, GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE ARRIVED AT WORK early. The ruthless temperature of the water meant that he hadn’t delayed in the municipal shower, despite the heavenly scented purchase from Périgueux he had slipped into the pocket of his burgundy silk dressing gown before leaving the house to improve his mood. For once he had turned off the water in his own time, without his normally protracted ablutions being interrupted by a series of thunderous knocks on the door followed by cries of ‘Get a move on!’ Such was his brevity under the water, he even had time to sit down on the short wooden bench in the tiny changing area just inside the door and dry between each of his hairy toes, a luxury he had never enjoyed since the shower’s installation and which had made creeping fungus a constant anxiety.
Heart’s Desire was the last place he wanted to be, and it wasn’t just because of his deafening headache. It was only a matter of time before the postman would breeze in, install himself on the bench with a packet of Petit Beurre Lu biscuits and tell him in torturous detail about his time with Émilie Fraisse at Saint-Jean-de-Côle while showering the place with crumbs. Bending down to pick up a letter on the doormat, the matchmaker was further irritated to find that it had actually been delivered to the correct address, denying him the opportunity to feel superior to the man. He put the electricity bill in the top right-hand drawer of the desk with the ink stain to attend to later and made himself a cup of coffee. After moving the chair with the peeling marquetry so that it obscured the view of the six ‘Madame Nonin’ pelargoniums, he sat down on his swivel chair, dreading the sound of the door opening.
Several hours later, just as the matchmaker had decided that the red and green elastic bands would actually look better on the left-hand side of the narrow drawer with the compartments, and that the blue and yellow ones would look better on the right, he looked up to see Lisette Robert driving past wearing her new periwinkle-blue dress. Not long afterwards, having changed his mind about the elastic bands and returned them all to their original compartments, he noticed Stéphane Jollis driving past at speed in what was undeniably a new white T-shirt. He got up and stood in the doorway watching the car disappear, hoping that the perpetual breeze would transport his wishes of good luck to his friend.
After more than two hours’ deliberation on his swivel chair over what to have for lunch, Guillaume Ladoucette finally settled on pig’s trotters, one of the few things he didn’t have in the house. If he left work early, the matchmaker reasoned, he could get some from the butcher’s in Brantôme before it shut at twelve-thirty. While he was there, he may as well pick up a few things he needed from the pharmacy, he thought. And how could he go to the exquisite town without stopping to have an apéritif in one of the delightful cafés overlooking the Dronne, or indeed a stroll to appreciate the beauty of the abbey and the monks’ garden? Having convinced himself that it was time to leave immediately, the matchmaker crawled his toes, which had been cooling on the red tiles, back into his supermarket leather sandals and straightened up the blank piece of paper in front of him. Just as he had got to his feet, the postman opened the door.
‘Guillaume, my old friend! I’m so glad I caught you. I’ve prepared a little lunch to thank you for you know what.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Gilbert, but I couldn’t possibly. I’ve already got plans.’
‘Nonsense! Come on. It’s all prepared.’
‘Really, I was going to have some pig’s trotters…’
‘Well, you can have them tonight. They’ll keep. Talking of trotters, I saw some lovely ones in Brantôme the other day, scattered with tiny slivers of cornichons. Come on, shut the door! That’s it. I’ve got so much to tell you. You won’t believe how well we got on. I admit I had my doubts when you first set yourself up as a matchmaker–as the whole village did–but it seems you really have a talent for it. Have you seen these? Just look at those leaves. Aren’t they beautiful? They’re called “Madame Nonin”. I bought them at the floralies with Émilie Fraisse.’
If the over-sautéed veal in cep sauce and the potatoes under-fried in goose fat weren’t painful enough, Guillaume Ladoucette had to endure them while listening to an enumeration of the many virtues of Émilie Fraisse, of which he was all too aware. When that was over the postman asked him whether he had heard the rumour that the council had discovered that the municipal shower’s hot-water pipe had been sabotaged. Displaying not the least bit of interest, his guest replied that he had indeed. Although they were alone and indoors, the postman looked over each shoulder, leant forward and whispered that it was without doubt the work of the Clandestine Committee against the Municipal Shower on a highly secret mission. He then sat back again and asked Guillaume Ladoucette what he
had heard. After stating that it was very much along the same lines, the matchmaker wiped his moustache, placed his serviette on the table and insisted that he really had to get back to work as he was run off his feet. But it was useless. Lowering his voice to a whisper again, the postman demanded to know the reason why he wasn’t a member. Unsatisfied with the reply that he had too much on his plate at the moment, Gilbert Dubuisson then tried to lure him into joining with the promise of a uniform and pin badge, adding that there was always a pot d’amitié at their weekly meetings at the old washing place by the edge of the Belle. But Guillaume Ladoucette could not be seduced. The matchmaker got up to leave, but was swiftly headed off in the kitchen and ushered out to the back garden where he was subjected to a guided tour of his host’s horticultural triumphs, followed by an even more protracted contemplation of the man’s window boxes at the front of the house. Just when Guillaume Ladoucette had thought his torment finally over, and had made it halfway across the road, Gilbert Dubuisson called him back saying that he had forgotten something. The postman momentarily disappeared and returned with a deep-pink flowering plant that he presented to him, saying that he had grown it from seed. Guillaume Ladoucette, who insisted that it was all part of the service and there was really no need, reluctantly accepted it and returned to Heart’s Desire, where he placed the unwanted gift in a corner, lacking the will to water it.
When Lisette Robert arrived in the small dusty car park outside the town hall in Bourdeilles, she turned off the engine and looked around. Unable to see anyone fitting the matchmaker’s description, she stayed put, resting her hands on the bottom of the steering wheel. But the heat soon drove her out and she headed for the grass and sat down on a bench on the riverbank opposite the château, where she watched the Dronne sloping by through the feathery willows. After a while she felt the weight of someone sitting down next to her. Much to her surprise, she turned to see Stéphane Jollis without his black tendrils and wearing a new white T-shirt.