Mwah-Mwah

by Chloe Rayban

  Matthilde didn’t seem to have anything planned for after dinner – surprise, surprise. Her grandmother went off to her room and Matthilde settled herself down with a book in the only comfortable chair beside the fire. It had got even colder and I could hear rain beating against the windowpane. Having managed to communicate the fact that I needed paper and an envelope, I chose the warmer side of the table to tackle the ancient craft of letter writing.

  I sat there trying to work out a suitable way to tell Dad about my dire situation, without being too much of a pain. Writing anything was daunting as Madame de Lafitte had the most valuable-looking notepaper. The envelope was lined with pale grey tissue. The paper was cream and textured and had a crest like the one above the fireplace. It was so thick you could’ve made lampshades out of it. What could I possibly write which would be grand enough for this paper?

  ‘Dear Dad,’ I started. This looked wrong. This was the kind of paper you should start with ‘Dear Father’ or even ‘Dearest Papa’.

  By the time I’d finished, I’d used three sheets of paper. When folded, it was hard to get them into the envelope.

  Matthilde got up and stretched and announced that she was going ‘au lit’ so there was nothing for it but to go too. This was the moment I’d been dreading.

  With a sinking heart, I followed her up the big oak staircase, under the dismal gaze of those decapitated animals. Our figures cast long shadows on the walls and I suddenly thought of the hundreds of people who had walked up the staircase before us. Not the best thing to dwell on at this time of night, since all of those people must have died long ago. It made the idea of ghosts seem very real indeed.

  When she came to my door, Matthilde turned to me and said, ‘Bonne nuit, ’Annah,’ giving me the coolest lightest possible mwah-mwah on each cheek before she disappeared round the bend in the corridor.

  I steeled myself to go into my bedroom, turning on the light before Matthilde was out of earshot. Matthilde’s footsteps continued down the corridor. I heard a door close behind her. Then there was silence.

  Nothing had changed in my room. It was as red and dark and spooky as ever. I realised I would have to brave the corridor alone to go to the bathroom. But first, I tried Mum again.

  She answered for once.

  ‘You all right, poppet?’

  ‘I s’pose so.’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘I’m not even in Paris. We’ve been sent to the country. To Matthilde’s grandparents’.’

  ‘But why?’

  I hesitated, and thought better of telling Mum my suspicions about Marie-Christine.

  ‘Dunno. Marie-Christine had to go off somewhere.’

  ‘Are you at Les Rochers?’

  ‘Yes – it’s miles from anywhere.’

  ‘That house! It dates back to the thirteenth century!’

  ‘I know, it’s practically falling down.’

  ‘But how wonderful!’

  ‘Wonderful! It’s icy cold. All the way from Paris I was in the back of the car with a smelly guinea pig. I was nearly sick. Nothing works here – they don’t even have a dishwasher.’

  ‘Oh, poor baby.’

  ‘Well, it’s not fair. I didn’t even get to go up the Eiffel Tower.’

  ‘How’s your French coming on?’ said Mum, diplomatically changing the subject.

  But I wasn’t having it. ‘… and there’s an old man here, who’s some sort of ancient uncle of Matthilde’s. He thinks I’m someone else and he slurps his soup. Can’t I come home?’

  ‘You mean old Monsieur de Lafitte is still alive?’

  ‘Only just. He’s totally dotty. Mum, I’m missing tons of things back home, it’s not fair.’

  ‘You can’t possibly leave now. The Poiriers would be really hurt.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to do here. It’s raining. It’s horrid.’

  ‘Are you getting on any better with Matthilde?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, it’s probably quite difficult for her too. Not speaking the same language. You have to try and see it from her point of view.’

  ‘I knew you’d be on her side.’

  ‘I’m not on anyone’s side.’

  ‘I bet Dad would let me come home.’

  ‘Your father’s got enough on his plate. He’s got assessments, coursework, exams to mark. You’re not to bother him.’

  I thought back to Dad, the night before I’d left. He had looked pretty frayed.

  ‘Look, Hannah. This is a real opportunity for you to learn French. Honestly, darling, it’s not as if you’re in a war zone.’

  ‘But, Mum, this house is really spooky. It could be haunted.’

  ‘Haunted? Is this what it’s all about?’ She was laughing at me now. I could hear her. ‘There are no such things as ghosts. You know there aren’t.’

  ‘That doesn’t stop it being spooky.’

  ‘Oh, Hannah, come on, grow up.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go now. Chin up, OK?’

  ‘But, Mum …’ She’d rung off. How could a mother be so unfeeling! I bet she wouldn’t like it here. Not in a war zone! Huh! At least war zones were generally in places that were warm, and had people in them and saw some action from time to time! Not miserably cold and dark and where you had to brave at least twenty metres of haunted corridor to get to the most basic facilities.

  But it looked as if I was going to have to stick it out. Ugghhhrrr, parents! I armed myself with my sponge bag and towel and crept to the door and listened. I opened it a chink. It was pitch dark. Nothing moved. Down below I could hear the eerie chimes of the clock striking eleven. I felt horribly alone. I didn’t know where Matthilde’s room was. Or her grandmother’s.

  Steeling myself, I launched into the darkness. I made it past all those spooky empty rooms to the bathroom, flung open the door and turned on the light. I washed, cleaned my teeth and survived the trip back with my heart thumping in my chest.

  I closed my door firmly and leaned against it trying to get a grip on myself. The furniture loomed at me out of the gloom. An owl hooted. That did it! I made for the bed and dived inside. I pulled the bed curtains closed around me and slid down under the covers.

  I don’t want to go into that night. I’m ashamed to say I slept in my clothes – and with the light on. The house wasn’t silent in the night. There were weird scrabblings from above and horrible echoey creaks from below. A branch of the creeper scratched constantly on the windowpane. And at one point I heard a crunching on the gravel outside and the sound of chains dragging.

  I kept having nightmare visions of some Dracula-like figure climbing up the creeper outside. At any moment I could picture his great leering face appearing in the window, the light flashing on his pointed fangs! Escape through my bedroom door was out of the question. I’d have to run past all those empty bedrooms where, in my imagination, the white dustsheets took on strange shapes that rose and floated towards me in the darkness. And even if I made it outside I’d have to brave all those spooky trees as they clutched at me …

  I hid my head under the pillow. There was no way I was ever going to get to sleep.

  Chapter Four

  The next thing I knew, I woke in total darkness feeling as if I was being smothered. I tentatively peeped out. Parting the bed curtains, I found light was streaming into the room. I checked my watch. It was eight a.m. To my amazement, I’d survived the night.

  My room looked a lot less scary by daylight. I climbed out of bed and went to the window to confirm that night-time really was officially over. Down below, Titan and Sultan lazed on the gravel. As Sultan leaned over to give Titan a friendly lick, the chain by which he was attached to his kennel dragged along the ground. I felt very foolish indeed.

  I could hear distant sounds from below. Reassuringly familiar sounds, like crockery being stacked and music from a radio. With a great wave of homesickness I thought of our kitchen bac
k home. I could almost smell it. That familiar early morning burnt-toast smell. Mum had been saying for ages we ought to chuck the toaster out. But Dad insisted if you let the bread pop up twice you could get it just right. I could almost taste that burnt toast and marmalade mixture in my mouth. I wondered what Dad was doing right now.

  Automatically I checked my mobile. There was a text from Jess.

  night night sleep tight

  mind the ghosties don’t bite

  jxxxxxxxxx

  Ghosts? My fears of the night before seemed rather stupid now. The red wallpaper had quite a nice warm look to it by the light of day. I went over to the mantelpiece and stared in the blotchy mirror. God, I looked a wreck. Sleeping in your clothes makes even cold water appealing. I grabbed my towel and sponge bag and went to brave the bathroom.

  To my surprise it was quite warm in there. The mirror over the basin was misted up. Someone had been in before me. I turned the taps on the monster bath and after a lot of hiccuping and gurgling a stream of hot water gushed out. So I had a hot deep bath which I lay in for quite a long time. This precious interlude of peace and luxury was disturbed by a rattling on the doorknob.

  ‘ ’Annah?’ It was Matthilde.

  ‘Oui?’ (Notice how my French is improving!)

  ‘Eskatoodessanpoorlapetidayjurnay?’

  ‘Errrm?’

  ‘Brekfuss!’

  ‘Oh that, yep. OK, won’t be a minute.’

  Once downstairs, I went to the dining room to find no sign of breakfast. I tracked the sound of the radio to the kitchen. A large lady in an old-fashioned overall was leaning over the sink. She turned when I came in and dried her hands on a tea towel and came and shook me by the hand.

  She gestured at herself. ‘Florence,’ she said.

  I pointed at myself. ‘Hannah.’

  ‘ ’Anna?’ she repeated, the ‘H’, as ever, totally beyond the French.

  I wondered if she was some relation, an aunt or something. But she didn’t bear the least resemblance to Madame de Lafitte or Marie-Christine. At any rate it seemed risky to call her by her first name so I decided to err on the safe side and call her ‘madame’.

  She pointed to some bowls on the kitchen table. ‘Café ou chocolat?’ she asked.

  ‘Chocolat, s’il vous plaît, madame,’ I replied. (Fluent French, you see – no worries.)

  The remains of other people’s breakfasts were strewn over the kitchen table. Unlike dinner it seemed breakfast was a casual affair that you could have when you wanted. Florence gestured to me to sit down. Within minutes she was pouring a stream of frothy hot chocolate into my bowl and had brought bread, butter and a pot of homemade raspberry jam. I spooned some jam on to my bread and as I took a bite I thought regretfully of the raspberry tart lying abandoned in Paris.

  As I finished my breakfast, Madame de Lafitte came in with Matthilde. They seemed to be having a bit of an argument about something. Madame de Lafitte pointed towards the back kitchen and the name ‘Edith’ came up several times. I cottoned on that she was suggesting Matthilde cleaned out her cage.

  Matthilde said something about me. When this riveting activity was planned, it seemed I was to be included.

  I trailed behind Matthilde as she carried Edith in her cage and headed towards some outbuildings. She led me into a tumbledown barn. The place was strewn with sacks and musty boxes, mousetraps and rolls of barbed wire. There was a disgusting pile of muddy gumboots which Matthilde homed in on. She started searching through them, and finding a couple similar enough to make a pair, she passed them to me.

  ‘Pour toi,’ she said.

  She stood by as I reluctantly took off my trainers. I gave each boot a good shake before I put it on. Wise precaution. A dehydrated spider and a load of mouse droppings fell out. The boots were far too big and made a horrible squelching noise as I walked. I stumbled along behind Matthilde as she led the way to some stables behind the château. They were currently unoccupied, but I could tell from the strong smell of manure that there must be horses around somewhere. Something told me that horses would be at the centre of my next humiliation. I’m rather scared of horses, particularly big ones.

  Inside the stables, we filled a sack with clean straw and took it back to where we’d left the cage. We now had to relocate Edith in temporary accommodation. Matthilde seemed to have decided it would be good for Edith to have a fresh-grass diet and we spent ages trying to rig up a kind of outdoor guinea-pig enclosure with various boxes and grilles we found in one of the outbuildings. We made an awkward team as Matthilde insisted that everything had to be done her way. I tried to point out that it was a bad idea to tie everything with string. But Matthilde greeted my advice with a rolling of the eyes and shrugs of total non-comprehension, so in the end I gave up.

  We had just got Edith settled, grazing contentedly in the enclosure with her cage emptied, washed out and set in the sun to dry, when there was a sound of a car coming up the drive.

  Matthilde got to her feet shading her eyes and called out ‘Grandpère’ in delight. She ran across the lawn to greet an ancient mud-spattered Land Rover that came dragging a horse box behind it. The man who climbed out was tall and slightly stooped, balding on top with a pair of shaggy eyebrows that rose into a point, giving him a rather fierce appearance. I followed, standing back as a lot of hugging and kissing went on. Monsieur de Lafitte then turned to me asking to be ‘presented’.

  I held back. This was the person who Mum had described as ‘rather grand’. But he wasn’t dressed in a grand way. He was wearing terribly shabby clothes: a worn old waistcoat and ancient corduroy trousers, gone at the knees, that Mum would have thrown out if they’d belonged to Dad.

  ‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ he said gravely, shaking me by the hand.

  ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ I replied, careful to add the polite ‘monsieur’ as Mum had advised me.

  ‘Très bien,’ he said and cleared his throat, signalling us to stand aside.

  Another man got down from the car whose job it appeared was to take care of the horse. He had a bit of a hunchback and eyes that went in different directions but he seemed to know what to do with horses. I stood well back, not wanting to get trodden on as he backed this huge black one down the ramp. Matthilde took the opportunity to show off her superior handling of animals. She went up to the horse totally fearlessly, petting it and rubbing its nose.

  Monsieur de Lafitte turned to me once more and asked in English, ‘So, do you ’unt? We will ’ave to find an ’orse for you.’

  ‘Hunt?’ I repeated. My hackles were rising. Typical French attitude – if it moves, kill it! Everything that was British in me was shocked to the core. Besides, the nearest I’d ever come to riding was a donkey ride on the beach at Bognor Regis.

  ‘No. I’m British. In Britain we’ve abolished hunting,’ I said, feeling my face flush red.

  He paused and looked at me seriously for a moment, then he knitted his brows with a fierce frown. ‘I see. A young lady who speaks ’er mind!’

  The horse started to play up at that point and he turned and said something to it in a commanding voice. The horse obviously knew who was master round here. It instantly calmed down and allowed itself to be led quietly towards the stables.

  I went up to my room after that, wondering if I’d gone too far. I mean, by French standards what I had just said was probably terribly rude. And yet I had only spoken the truth. I am British and we have abolished hunting.

  I reached for my phone in need of a comfortingly familiar voice and dialled up Jess’s number. She’d be awake by now and I wanted to get a full account of the party.

  ‘Hi?’ Jess’s voice sounded sleepy at the other end.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘It is Sunday morning.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’m awake now. You all right? What’s all this about a haunted house?’

  ‘Nightmare! We’ve been sent to the country.’

  ‘No way! Why?’

/>   ‘Not sure yet,’ I lowered my voice. ‘But I think Matthilde’s mother is having an affair!’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘I saw her in a café with this man.’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Umm. The way they were looking at each other, it was, I don’t know, kind of really intense. At any rate there was something going on. That’s why we’ve been sent here. Her mum has made off and left us in this huge, like, château.’ I thought I’d lay it on a bit.

  ‘No way!’ Jess’s responses were getting a little repetitive so I changed the subject. ‘Anyway, how was the party?’

  ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘I don’t. You were there. I wasn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, well it was OK.’

  ‘Umm?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Did Mark turn up?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘So did you tell him I was in Paris?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said, “Cool”.’

  ‘Cool?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Did he ask when I was coming back?’

  ‘No.’

  I paused while this sank in. He hadn’t exactly broken down over the news.

  ‘Then what did he do?’

  ‘He asked if there was any lager.’

  ‘Who did he dance with?’

  ‘Pretty much everyone.’

  ‘But who?’

  ‘Do you want a list?’

  Jess was being extremely uncommunicative. I decided to call it a day and try again when she was in a better mood.

  ‘Look, I’ll call you later, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  After I rang off, I called up Angie. You always got the truth from Angie. She was the official class gossip. There’s nothing she likes better than a good stir.

  ‘Hi, Angie! How was the party?’

  ‘Hannah! Too bad you missed it. It was great.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Umm. God, you should see the mess! How’s France?’