by Chloe Rayban
‘It’s still, you know, very French. Listen, Angie, did you speak to Mark last night?’
‘Mark?’
‘Mark Vincent.’
‘Oh, him …’
‘Did he ask about me?’
‘Errm. He was kind of busy.’
‘Busy?’
‘Look, Hannah. I don’t like to be the one to say this but …’
(Don’t you just hate it when people start out like that?)
‘Umm?’
‘I thought Jess was meant to be your best friend.’
‘She is.’
‘Well, she didn’t act like it last night …’
‘She didn’t?’
‘Well, I don’t want to be the one to say anything. But she and Mark seemed awfully pally. They left together. Maybe he was just being nice seeing her home, but …’
‘Mark and Jess?’ I paused while I got my mind around this.
‘Looks like it. But honestly, I don’t think it’ll last.’
‘Thanks, Angie. I knew I could count on you for the truth.’
‘Loads more boys out there, Hannah.’
‘Sure.’ I clicked my mobile shut, feeling utterly miserable. Jess! Jess, of all people. And she knew how I felt about him.
My first impulse was to call her straight away and bawl her out. And then I thought better of it. I wouldn’t call her. I’d maintain a dignified silence. She could call me up if and when she felt like it.
After that I lay back on my bed and did some deep philosophical soul-searching about boyfriends. Let’s face it, they’re a load of trouble really. I mean basically:
1) When you haven’t got a boyfriend you worry like mad about being the only person in the world without one.
2) Once you have one, you worry about what your friends think of him.
3) If they think he’s OK, you worry about losing him.
4) If they don’t, you worry yourself sick about how to dump him.
5) Once you’ve dumped him, your friends never seem to think he was that bad after all.
6) The next thing you know he’s going out with one of the girls who dissed him.
7) The whole cycle starts over again.
Sigh.
Lunch was a rather awkward meal. I guess I wasn’t in my best mood. Old Oncle Charles greeted me as if he’d never seen me before and he still called me Caroline. Matthilde was behaving like the perfect granddaughter, passing dishes in strict order of ascendance and doing her sickly sweet ‘oui-grandmère’ and ‘après-vous-grandpère’ act. I didn’t like to catch Monsieur de Lafitte’s eye, as I was sure he was horribly offended by what I’d said about hunting. And then there was the matter of the stew.
Madame de Lafitte asked me at the beginning of the meal, ‘ ’Annah, est-que tu aimes la pain?’
Or at least, that’s what I thought she’d said. ‘Pain’ is bread. I love bread, particularly French bread, so I replied in my best French, ‘Oui, merci beaucoup.’
At that she ladled a big helping of stew on a plate and it was passed to me. I gazed down at it. There was a bone of some sort with meat on it, a bit like a chicken leg. But chickens didn’t have claws like that. With a horrible sinking in the stomach, I realised that she’d been asking whether I liked ‘lapin’, as in rabbit.
I’d had a pet rabbit when I was little. Basically, what was on my plate was like a piece of Flopsy. I stared at it, feeling tears well in my eyes. The others set to, seeming not to notice. I nibbled at a piece of bread, wondering wildly if I could create a diversion and slip my portion to the dogs.
At that point, with the kind of fortunate timing that only happens a very few times in life, the telephone rang in the hallway. Madame de Lafitte put down her napkin and, rising from the table with a sigh, went to answer it. I heard her voice change from a polite telephone-answering tone to one of concern. Monsieur de Lafitte got to his feet and went to the door and asked something. Even Matthilde went and joined him, standing behind and listening. There was a rapid fire of French conversation.
I glanced over at old Oncle Charles who at this particular moment seemed to have fallen asleep. In a flash I slipped my plate on to the floor and Titan – or was it Sultan? – was at it with one bound. There was just one enormous doggy slurp and my plate was wiped clean. I put it back in front of me and sat there with an innocent expression. The telephone call over, the three of them trailed back into the room and sat down. Monsieur and Madame de Lafitte had worried expressions on their faces but Matthilde for some reason had changed her mood entirely. She looked positively radiant. She actually nearly smiled.
Old Oncle Charles had woken up and was demanding to be told what was going on. They were all talking at once and I kept hearing the name ‘Michelle’.
Madame de Lafitte looked over at me. She spotted my empty plate and with a bright smile she said, ‘Mais oui, chérie. Tu aimes lapin!’ Before I could stop her she ladled another big spoonful on to my plate.
This was even worse. The idea of eating rabbit off a dog-licked plate didn’t bear thinking about.
I sat staring at it as Monsieur de Lafitte turned to me, saying in a not-too-cross voice, ‘I go to get Michelle from the station this afternoon. If you like, you and Matthilde can come too.’
‘Who’s Michelle?’ I asked.
‘My cousin,’ said Matthilde.
So this was why she was looking so pleased. No longer would she be stuck with me. She’d have another French girl to gang up with, probably one just as posey as her, if not more so. No doubt the two of them would be in a perpetual huddle speaking French at an impossible speed and I’d be totally left out.
I sat not eating with this dire prospect ahead of me. As Madame de Lafitte brought a salad to the table, I was embarrassed to see that everyone but me had a plate they’d wiped clean with their bread. It seemed you only got one plate in this house, but maybe that was because they didn’t have a dishwasher. I was rescued by Madame de Lafitte. Catching sight of my plate, she leaned over and asked, ‘Tu as terminée?’, easily interpreted as ‘Had I finished?’.
I nodded and to my relief she took my plate away and I was actually allowed a new one.
I rounded off my meal with as much salad and cheese as I could politely get my hands on. Luckily no one took any notice as the conversation continued around my head at a speed that was totally beyond me.
‘Quel âge a Michelle?’ I asked Matthilde as we took the dishes out to the kitchen to wash up. (Notice my other fluent French phrase.)
‘Seize ans,’ said Matthilde.
My heart sank. That did it. Sixteen. Almost the same age as Matthilde. This meant I’d definitely be left out.
I went to my room and rang Mum after that.
She answered right away. ‘Poppet, you OK?’
‘I s’pose so.’
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
‘Honestly, Mum, you’ve no idea what it’s like here. They had rabbit for lunch and Matthilde’s grandparents are really strict and that old uncle still thinks I’m someone else. And there’s a man who looks after the horses who looks like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame and he’s really scary and …’ It all came out in a rush.
‘It can’t be that bad …’
‘It is. And what’s worse, this cousin’s coming to stay and she’s the same age as Matthilde. I know they’ll do everything together and I’ll get totally left out.’
‘Come on. Don’t be such a pain. I’ve got so much on at this conference, you’ve no idea …’
‘Can’t I go home?’
‘No you can’t and that’s final. You’re going to have to put up with it. Two weeks isn’t long.’
‘Mum, there are still twelve whole days to go.’
‘There’s nothing I can do about it and you’re not to bother your father.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Listen to me, Hannah,’ said Mum, putting her serious voice on. This was getting heavy. ‘You are there to learn French. If it’s
nothing else, this is a real opportunity to improve your language skills and you shouldn’t waste it.’ Then she rang off.
I stared at the phone feeling totally depressed. She never calls me Hannah unless she’s really angry with me.
Grudgingly, I had to admit she had a point. If I was really stuck here, I might as well try to learn some French. It would come in handy with GCSEs looming. In fact, in spite of myself, I was making some sort of progress. I’d noticed that I was starting to hear individual words rather than a single stream of gobble-de-gook.
I raked through my backpack and located the French–English dictionary Mum had thoughtfully packed for me. I positioned it in the centre of the table. She’d bought me one of those little notebooks that have A–Z down the side as well. I got that out too and set it down beside the dictionary. It occurred to me that it might be prudent to list some of the trickier French words – I didn’t want a repetition of lunchtime’s disaster.
With a bold black marker I wrote on the front:
MY OWN PERSONAL PRIVATE
FRENCH VOCABULARY
Then I turned to ‘L’ and made my first entry.
‘Lapin – rabbit – not to be confused with le pain – bread.’
Dad rang me shortly after that. I could tell Mum had been on to him.
‘Hi, Hannah. How’s things?’
‘Fine. I’ve written you a letter.’
‘Uh huh? Not arrived yet.’
‘I haven’t posted it yet. How are you?’
‘Bogged under.’
‘Still marking exams?’
‘Probably for days yet. So you’re at Les Rochers?’
‘Umm.’
‘You don’t sound too thrilled about it.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You do know some of it is thirteenth century?’ (If anyone tells me that again, I’ll scream!)
‘Yes.’
‘It was built to keep the British out.’
‘Apart from me – apparently.’
‘Hannah, honestly. The house is really historic. It dates back to the Hundred Years’ War.’
‘Humph.’
Dad then launched into one of his spiels, trotting out dates and kings and battles until my brain ached.
‘I’ve got some really interesting stuff on the area somewhere, I could dig it out.’
‘Great.’
Dad sighed. ‘You don’t know how painful it is to have a child who’s a total philistine.’
‘You don’t know what a pain it is to have a dad who’s a teacher.’
‘Love you all the same.’
‘I know. Parents are programmed to.’
Dad chuckled.
‘Love you too,’ I said.
Michelle was arriving by train from Paris at a place called Moulins. Monsieur de Lafitte suggested we went there early so we could have a look round, maybe have an ice cream in somewhere called the Grand Café. He said ice cream to me as if it was the biggest treat ever – like I was a little kid or something.
For some reason, Matthilde insisted she had to wash her hair before we left. I hung around downstairs waiting for her. She locked herself in the bathroom and was ages. Monsieur de Lafitte kept wandering into the hallway looking at his watch. In the end we only had time to make a last-minute dash for the train.
Matthilde seemed to be unusually agitated in the car, fussing with her hair and several times I caught her craning over to check her reflection in the rear-view mirror. For once, I noticed she’d actually put mascara on. Obviously out to impress her cousin, the way girls do, setting up a kind of private beauty contest between themselves. This thought depressed me even more. No doubt they’d spend the whole time holed up in her room, borrowing each other’s clothes and trying out each other’s make-up and sharing jokes that I was too young to be let in on. I’d simply be in the way – as if Matthilde hadn’t made this plain enough already.
I sat in the back and stared despondently out of the car window as we drove through the streets of Moulins, wondering where all the cool shops were. According to Dad, it was a really historic town; Joan of Arc was meant to have stayed there on her way to fight the English. That figured, most of the buildings looked old and shabby enough to date back that far. I mean, basically, the whole place was crying out for a makeover.
A sign saying ‘Gare s.n.c.f’ pointed down yet another avenue of mutilated French trees and sure enough when we rounded the bend a typical squat little French station came into view.
A train was pulling out. I looked at it longingly. It was filled with luckier, happier people who weren’t going to spend the next twelve days stranded in the country being treated like a lower branch of evolution by a pair of posey French girls.
Monsieur de Lafitte drove the car up practically on to the railway line. Then he and Matthilde leaped out and headed for the platform. I followed, preparing a mental picture of this precious Michelle. Hair – long and shiny. Legs – long enough for her to tower over me. Nose – long enough for her to look down at me. Cheekbones – regulation French ones.
The train she was arriving on was due in at ten past four so we still had five minutes to spare. Matthilde eyed the letter I was carrying.
‘Why you not post it?’ she asked.
I’d been looking out for a postbox all through Moulins as we drove along but hadn’t seen a sign of one.
‘Where?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes and pointed to a box in the wall right beside where I was standing which I’d taken to be a rubbish bin. It seemed that the French couldn’t have sensible postboxes painted red like the British. They had to be different and paint theirs yellow.
‘Voici le train,’ said Monsieur de Lafitte and sure enough, as I checked my watch, a train rounded a bend in the track and arrived dead on time. Which I grudgingly had to admit was another plus point to the French.
Matthilde was anxiously scanning the platform as people and bags and dogs and bikes and piles of post-bags spilled out of the train. It was a long train and masses of travellers were getting off. Soon we were surrounded by a tangle of people greeting people, but there was no sign of Michelle.
Then suddenly Monsieur de Lafitte said, ‘Ah, voilà!’ and started waving towards the far end of the platform. Matthilde was waving too. In fact, jumping up and down and waving both arms. I stared despondently in that direction, expecting to see another picture-perfect Parisienne with her scarf tied in an oh-so-chic way. But the crowd had thinned and there was only a nun, a lady with a toddler and pushchair, and a tall dark, in fact rather gorgeous boy, carrying a backpack, with a guitar slung over one shoulder.
Monsieur de Lafitte took a few steps forward and flung his arms around this stranger, giving him a kiss on each cheek. Matthilde held back for a moment and then she kissed him too.
‘Eh, jeteprésente ’Annah!’ said Monsieur de Lafitte.
I looked up to find a pair of delectably dark eyes looking down at me. They were serious, unsmiling and deliciously flecked with gold. My heart went into a giddying free fall as I realised that we hadn’t come to meet ‘Michelle’ at all – but Michel!
As he stepped forward, I took a step back, not sure of what to do. French adults you’ve never met before kiss you on both cheeks. But what about a total stranger who’s a boy?
‘Bonjour,’ I said awkwardly. I could feel myself flushing scarlet. My step back seemed to have put Michel off balance. He seemed equally at a loss. He turned away and said something to his grandfather.
As the attention was taken off me, I made a gigantic effort to regain my normal colour. To my relief, the others were far too busy chatting to notice me. Monsieur de Lafitte kept an arm around Michel’s shoulders and led us back to the car. There was a bit of a muddle as Matthilde suddenly didn’t seem to mind being in the back of the car one bit. Maybe her legs had suddenly got shorter or something. At any rate I was allowed the front seat for once.
The drive back to Les Rochers gave me time to get myself back together again.
Wow! Wait till I tell Jess about Michel! And then I remembered her and Mark. And that currently I wasn’t calling her, because I was so outraged at her behaviour. But curiously enough the thought of Jess and Mark together didn’t give me such a bad feeling any more.
No sooner had we arrived back at Les Rochers than a major drama broke out. Michel had barely had time to say ‘Bonjour, Grandmère’ to his grandmother and dump his backpack on the floor before Matthilde took him off outside somewhere, leaving me behind. She made it absolutely clear that I wasn’t needed. In a rather haughty grown-up fashion, she indicated that I was expected to help her grandmother in the kitchen.
I went to the kitchen positively bristling with indignation. I was a guest here. I was the one who should be entertained and taken to see whatever it was in the garden. Instead, I was given the riveting job of laying the table for dinner. I was midway through my knife, fork, spoon, glass, napkin-in-its-little-bag routine when I heard a muffled scream from outside.
Madame de Lafitte hurried out of the kitchen drying her hands on her apron. I tracked her out through the front door heading in the direction of the scream. We found Matthilde standing over our makeshift outdoor cage. She wasn’t looking grown-up any more. She had tears running down her face and her nose had gone red.
‘Edith! EskavuzavayvuEdith?’ she demanded.
One glance told me that our carefully constructed guinea-pig run had collapsed. Loose bits of gnawed string were scattered around. Exactly as I’d predicted.
Michel wasn’t being very helpful. He mumbled something in which all I could understand was the word ‘chien’, meaning ‘dog’.
‘Les chiens!’ gasped Matthilde.
The dogs were sitting at a respectful distance, although Sultan unfortunately was licking his lips.
‘Mais non,’ said Madame de Lafitte, springing to the dogs’ defence.
Michel shrugged as if insisting he was right. Whereupon Matthilde shouted something at him.
What remained of the day was spent in a long exhausting session of ‘hunt the guinea pig’. Michel joined in, in a half-hearted way, convinced as he was that Edith had ended up as a between-meal snack. This clearly made Matthilde furious and between snuffles and suppressed sobs, she snapped at him.