by Julia Stuart
It was while he was finishing off his third tartlet, and eyeing up the other delights amongst the trays that the thought struck him. He picked up a pair of tongs, went over to the rows of mille-feuilles, lifted one up and carried it carefully to the steel work counter. After inspecting it for size, he reached inside his pocket, brought out the letter and folded it several more times. Selecting one of the baker’s sharpest knives, he then prised the cake apart and slid the letter between its pastry leaves. After closing it again, he inspected it from every angle. Satisfied that the letter was barely visible, he put it on a plate and carried it through to the front of the shop. He then added it to the row of mille-feuilles already on display, positioning it nearest to him so he would know which one it was. Standing for a moment admiring his own genius, Guillaume Ladoucette was suddenly brought out of his reverie by a thunderous rap at the door. The matchmaker looked at his watch and noticed to his horror that he was already thirteen minutes late opening the shop. It was another four before he had worked out how to raise the blinds, located the bunch of keys and discovered which one opened the door.
There was little he could say to appease the infuriated crowd waiting outside. With the startling agility elderly ladies muster when confronted with a queue, Madame Moreau suddenly darted to the front. Having never forgiven Guillaume Ladoucette’s mother for stuffing an eel down her cleavage several decades ago, she immediately demanded an explanation as to why the matchmaker was there. When he replied that the baker had urgent business to attend to and that he was just helping out for the morning, she requested a gros pain and five mixed fruit tartlets. The matchmaker immediately fetched a box for the cherry, Mirabelle and apricot wonders, but as he started to put them inside, soon found that only two would fit and had to start again with a larger one. After finally handing her the box and a deformed loaf, he discovered that he had no idea how to work the till as it was nothing like the one he had used in the barber’s. He proceeded to calculate the sum in his head, but the figure he came to was immediately corrected by the old woman, who had the backing of the crowd. Unable to open the till, he was then obliged to furnish her with an IOU for her change. By his fourth customer, the stress was such that he was no longer capable of even attempting mental arithmetic, and he started to take suggestions for the totals from the queue. Eventually he worked his way through the crowd, a number of whom left with considerable bargains.
Taking advantage of the shop being momentarily empty, Guillaume Ladoucette wandered into the back to recover on Stéphane Jollis’s battered white stool. But just as he sat down, the bell went. Hoping the customer would be scared off by the peculiar bread, the matchmaker didn’t move. But after a while he heard a cough which he instantly recognized as that belonging to a woman who had waited long enough to be served some little cakes.
Heaving himself off the stool, he sloped back into the shop, hoping that whoever it was had the correct change so he wouldn’t have to hand out yet another IOU. Standing at the counter was no ordinary customer, but Émilie Fraisse, wearing an antique amber dress which appeared to have been shorn off at the knees and something pinning up her hair that sparkled. The jubilant matchmaker immediately marched up to the counter, explained that Stéphane Jollis had left the bakery in his capable hands for the morning and asked what he could get for her.
‘A mille-feuille, please,’ she replied.
Guillaume Ladoucette, whose confidence only accompanied him so far before abandoning him, instantly felt his heart shrivel out of fear that he had already sold the cake containing her letter in the preceding panic. But leaning over the counter, he saw to his relief that it was still there, instantly recognizable by its unusual bulk.
‘Certainly! Stéphane Jollis said you’d be in and asked me to save one for you specially,’ he replied, picking up the bulging slice with his tongs and placing it carefully inside a box. So elated was he that his plan had worked, he then added another three, announcing that they were on the house.
As he tied the string, Émilie Fraisse asked whether he remembered the haircut he had once given her which made her look like a cockerel, much to the fury of her mother. Guillaume Ladoucette replied that he did indeed, and asked whether she remembered the mushrooms they used to pick together in the woods and cook over a fire in the caves where the Resistance hid during the war. When Émilie Fraisse replied that she did indeed, the matchmaker fetched another box and lowered several coffee religieuses inside to keep her there longer. As he was tucking in the lid, the châtelaine asked whether he remembered the accident they had had on his new moped when she fell on top of him. Guillaume Ladoucette replied that he did indeed and leant over the counter to show her that he still had the scar from her teeth. When Émilie Fraisse apologized again, Guillaume Ladoucette opened another box and placed inside four rum babas to show that there were no hard feelings. As he stacked it on top of the other boxes, he asked whether she remembered the time when they had made a little mill wheel with a bicycle tyre in the Belle to generate a light in their den in the woods. Émilie Fraisse replied that she did indeed and asked Guillaume Ladoucette whether he remembered his father coming to her house to secretly eat apples after his mother had banned them because of the trouble they had caused in the Bible. Filling a box with apple tartlets so that she would see that he hadn’t inherited the prejudice, Guillaume Ladoucette replied that he did indeed and asked her whether she remembered the priest turning the village hall into a little cinema every Saturday night and projecting a film of his choosing that always shocked the audience. Émilie Fraisse replied that she did indeed and asked whether he remembered the time when he was an altar boy and urinated in the holy-water receptacle before mass. In an effort to hide his hot cheeks, Guillaume Ladoucette then bent over the counter and, as he reached for four noix charentaises, admitted that he did.
By the time Émilie Fraisse walked out of the bakery, not only had Guillaume Ladoucette boxed up all the little cakes for her, including those in the back for the following day, but he had waved away any attempts at payment as he didn’t want the châtelaine to know that he couldn’t fathom out how to work the till, nor that he was a mathematical incompetent. She ended up with so much to carry, she was obliged to fetch her car to take all the pâtisserie home with her.
The fury of Stéphane Jollis’s customers at finding that there were no little cakes left did nothing to dampen Guillaume Ladoucette’s elation that his plan had worked. Nor did he let their complaints about overcharging when he miscalculated the cost of their loaves upset him. For not only had he managed to give Émilie Fraisse the correct mille-feuille, she had in fact walked out with all of them so there was not the slightest room for error. Such was his newfound ebullience, Guillaume Ladoucette even shut the bakery half an hour early when he could no longer face writing another IOU.
Walking home past the spot where the village cross used to be before the diocese deemed Amour-sur-Belle unworthy of it, he imagined Émilie Fraisse biting into her mille-feuille while sitting at the dining-room table, her pretty feet resting on the pisé floor. He saw her discovering his letter secreted between the pastry leaves and reading it enraptured. After having admired the beauty of his hand, as well as the letter’s ingenious and unsurpassably romantic mode of delivery, she would look no further than the poet who wrote it in her search for love. After they had married, she would open the bedside table drawer, take out the tin of Docteur L. Guyot Throat Pastilles and place his reply inside. And the two letters, like their authors, would never be parted. So enchanted was he by the image that when Guillaume Ladoucette hoisted up his trouser legs to find the reason for his torment, he immediately forgave the mosquitoes who had left their satanic bites all over his ankles. And when he reached his house, and bent over to inspect an unsightly splat on the ground, he even felt pity for the bird which had gorged on his cherry tree and had had the uncomfortable task of then having to pass fourteen stones.
Stepping into the kitchen, he found that he was so full of contentme
nt he had not the slightest room for an appetite. But he decided to have lunch anyway as it went against nature not to. After several slices of cow’s muzzle, followed by a salad of oak-leaf lettuce and two rounds of Cabécou, he went upstairs for a nap after the morning’s excitement. As he passed the spare bedroom, he went inside to close the shutters against the sun, which was in direct firing range. As he did so, he looked outside and noticed that Yves Lévèque’s unspeakable cornichons had vanished. Magnanimous following his victory with the letter, upon waking the matchmaker decided to pop next door to offer the dentist his condolences. He was also keen to discover how he thought his date with Denise Vigier had gone, as the man hadn’t been in to see him since their gold-panning expedition.
Reluctantly, Yves Lévèque let him in. They went to the bed where the cornichons had once been and, as they looked at their withered bodies lying on the compost heap, Guillaume Ladoucette resisted the urge to point out that they should have been sown when the moon was passing in front of the constellation of Aries.
Sitting at the white plastic garden table underneath the parasol, Yves Lévèque described his morning with the abhorrent grocer. Nonetheless, the matchmaker commended him for having paid for Denise Vigier, as well as for complimenting her on her dress. He even praised his skill at accepting gifts from others on learning that he had swiftly pocketed the golden nugget. Such was his joyful mood, he didn’t even scold him for dismissing her out of turn because of what her grandmother had done during the war. He simply reminded him that he would get nowhere in his quest for love if he didn’t concentrate on the duck leg, ignore the rancid parts and shrug his shoulders at the little green button.
‘How did she say it had gone?’ the dentist asked.
‘Denise Vigier is blessed with optimism and said she would give it another go. I would suggest that you do.’
Eager to change the subject, Yves Lévèque went inside and returned with a tray upon which were two almond tartlets, one of which he put in front of his neighbour. The matchmaker was taken aback. Not only had the dentist never offered him anything to eat before, apart from his surplus figs and walnuts, but he hadn’t seen him in the bakery that morning.
Guillaume Ladoucette immediately picked his up and took a bite. ‘Delicious!’ he declared, his mouth still full. ‘Where did you get these from?’
‘The château.’
‘The château?’ he asked, confused.
‘Apparently you sold all the little cakes to Émilie Fraisse. She wasn’t sure what do with them so she started giving them away. Word soon got around. All you had to do was go up there and she would give you a boxful.’
It was then that Guillaume Ladoucette realized that any one of the residents of Amour-sur-Belle could at that moment be reading his love letter to Émilie Fraisse, which had taken him twenty-six years to find the courage to write. He instantly put down his almond tartlet as all he could taste was horror.
17
UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE RESIDENTS OF AMOUR-SUR-BELLE IT WAS Madame Ladoucette who discovered that the hot water was back on in the municipal shower. She returned to the cubicle in the early hours of the morning, woken from her dreams by a troupe of edible dormice clattering their way between the rafters in the bathroom ceiling. But Madame Ladoucette, who had forgotten that her husband was long since dead, mistook the noise for his bones rattling against the floorboards as he flipped and jerked in his sleep underneath the damp bath mat. When she got up to rest her Bible on top of him in order to put a stop to the racket, she found that she was not in the family home with its perpetual cassoulet on the stove, cellar lined with shelves of preserves and magnificent walnut tree in the garden, but a tiny house in the centre of the village with nothing more for a garden than several pots of hostas at the back door, which had been so ravaged by slugs they resembled lace. Not only was she in the wrong house, but when she picked up the damp bath mat, there was not the slightest hint of her husband underneath it.
Assuming that he had got up in the night to secretly practise his acrobatic tricks, she rushed to the kitchen to safeguard her best dinner plates. However, the room was empty, and when she looked into the cupboards, in the place of her wedding china was a cheap set of crockery of which there were only four pieces each. She then opened the utensil drawer believing he had crept off to swallow her knives, but even the sharpest could be accounted for.
Suspecting that her husband was out somewhere picking apples, Madame Ladoucette quickly put on her pale-blue frock, shoes and stockings and stepped outside into the aromatic night. She wandered round the empty streets, poking her head over garden walls searching for him in the darkness. But there was not a trace. She then tried the disused quarry that had been turned over to the cultivation of button mushrooms. But instead of finding him at work amongst the piles of horse manure, she came across faded Strictly No Entry signs on the boarded-up entrance. Believing that he must be chatting to his brother as he fixed iron shoes on to the hooves of cows hanging from slings around their bellies, she headed for the blacksmith’s. But when she arrived, she found that most of the roof had collapsed and what little remained sheltered four recently rolled bales of hay. Concluding that he had gone to see his friend at the abattoir, she set off to find him, but when she arrived she found rampant weeds which clasped at her crane’s legs and stopped the door from opening. Convinced he must be in one of the bars, she then made a tour of all three of them, but discovered only the Saint-Jus was still in business, and its shutters were closed.
It was when she was making her way out of the place du Marché that Madame Ladoucette spotted the hilarious contraption next to the wall. Remembering its potential for amusement, she instantly abandoned her search for her husband and pulled open the door. Refusing to allow her feathered shadow to join her because of their previous poor behaviour, she stepped in alone. The pigeons stood outside, tapping their horny beaks mournfully against the plastic door as Madame Ladoucette stood under the warm water in a state of delight while her shoes overfilled. It wasn’t until over two hours later, when the water had started to run cold, that they were finally reunited.
The second person to open the door of the municipal shower was Stéphane Jollis, who enjoyed two minutes and twenty-three seconds of tepid water before it reverted to its previous ruthless temperature for the rest of the day. The brief respite only infuriated the baker further, having had to get up earlier than usual to sort out the catastrophe created by Guillaume Ladoucette.
He had never felt entirely comfortable leaving the bakery in the hands of the matchmaker, particularly when he arrived at Brantôme two hours early for the Donkey Festival having been ushered out of his own premises by the man. But as he sat sipping his fourth coffee and having to eat another man’s croissants in the salon de thé to kill time, he decided that it was a risk worth taking for a chance at love.
When the time eventually came, Stéphane Jollis paid his considerable bill and made his way to the curious sixteenth-century bridge, which, rather than straddling the Dronne in a straight line, was bent at an angle like a dog’s leg. Unable to see anyone who fitted the matchmaker’s description, he busied himself reading the information panel on the wall which explained that the pont coudé owed its unusual shape to having to resist the sometimes impetuous river. He then walked to the middle of it and stood looking at the ducks swimming in the reflection of the splendid abbey, now a town hall, where one of his friends had married only a week before. And, as the abominable sound of braying rose from the Monks’ Garden, the baker wondered again why it was that out of all his eight siblings only he remained unmarried. He then imagined his own wedding and thought of the pine tree, which, according to custom, when the last child married would be erected outside the marital home, stripped of its branches and topped with a crown of leaves and flowers, from which plastic bottles of water would be hung. He pictured the cartridge he would be given to shoot them with, which would be filled with feathers that would flutter from the sky like snow. He then saw th
e bottle of wine that would be buried in the ground next to the tree and dug up to toast the birth of their first child, who would naturally be born with the same tiny hands as he. And while they would deny the boy a career as a concert pianist, they would bring him the unrivalled joy of rolling up croissants, folding over pain au chocolat dough with two sticks of chocolate, decorating little cakes and shovelling his own bread into the ancient oven built in Périgueux in 1880, all for which size didn’t matter in the least.
After watching the tantalizing trout sashay their way down the Dronne, the baker looked up again to see if anyone else had arrived. He then noticed a small, dark-haired woman in shorts standing on her own near the information panel. When he approached and asked her whether she was waiting for someone sent by Guillaume Ladoucette, she replied that she was indeed. The woman then told the baker that she had seen him on the bridge, but assumed that he wasn’t her match as he seemed so unlike the description the matchmaker had given. And when Stéphane Jollis asked her whether she was disappointed, she replied: ‘Not in the least’.
Once they had introduced themselves to one another they walked across the bridge to the Monks’ Garden, the sound of the abominable braying growing ever louder. When the baker asked Vivienne Chaume where she was from, the cashier replied: ‘St Félix of Mareuil or of Bourdeilles,’ and explained that the row over the name had been going on for several centuries and that the council had settled for both while it continued for several more.