by Chloe Rayban
I dragged on my swimsuit with shaking hands, trying to get the better of my imagination. Encounters with eels and getting trapped in tangling weed were the least of it. Pulling my mac on over my swimsuit I hurried back to the disaster scene.
By the time I rejoined the group, one of the men had fashioned the ropes into a sort of harness for me. They were strong nylon ropes and he tugged hard at them to make sure they would hold.
Monsieur de Lafitte fixed the harness around me with a serious face. There was dead silence as I bent to lower myself over the side. There was only one way to go down – head first. I took the hook in my hand and as I did so looked up and caught Michel’s eye. He looked tense and anxious but he smiled encouragingly as I bent forward to take the plunge.
Suddenly, I was engulfed in icy water. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see a thing, but I swam down as hard and fast as I could. One, two, three, four strokes. I groped down the wall feeling for the gate in the dark water. I’d just caught at it with the tips of my fingers when I felt a tug on the rope. All of a sudden I was being pulled up to the surface. I broke through the water and took a deep breath. A semicircle of anxious faces was staring down at me.
‘Trop tôt,’ I said. Which means too soon.
I estimated that I had to swim just one stroke deeper and then I would be level with the gate.
‘Encore?’ asked Monsieur de Lafitte.
I nodded. I swam down strongly, counting the strokes this time. One, two, three, four, five strokes. My fingers latched on to the gate. I could feel the metal ring at the top where the cable had been attached. But the chain coming down from above had got twisted somehow and the hook wouldn’t reach. With the last of my strength I gave it the most tremendous tug and it came loose. I felt the hook slide into the ring just as a pull on my harness hauled me up to the surface once more.
The faces looked even more anxious this time. Gasping for breath, I said, ‘I think I did it!’
Monsieur de Lafitte tested the chain.
‘Ça y est!’ he roared. Michel leaned down and pulled me out of the water and Madame de Lafitte rushed forward and wrapped a towel around me.
We stood aside as the men lined up to haul on the chain like a tug-of-war. At the first attempt nothing happened. They took a breath and heaved again. There was a grinding sound and they tottered back a few steps. This was followed by a tremendous gurgling and gushing below. A great sloosh of water leaped out on the far side of the moat with the force of Niagara. There was a lot of slapping on backs and incomprehensible French comments as we watched with a kind of awe as the water flooded out in a torrent on to the water meadows beyond. It was as if a giant plug had been taken out of a bath.
One of the fellows went up to the high-water mark and shoved a stick into the ground. At first it didn’t seem to make any difference. But then the tidemark started shrinking inch by inch down the lawn.
All at once they all broke into a cheer. Monsieur de Lafitte turned to me and lifted me up into the air in a huge hug.
‘La petite anglaise!’ he shouted.
Everyone wanted to hug and kiss me. I had so many mwah-mwahs from rough unshaven burly farmers, it felt as if my skin was being flayed. I found I was shaking from cold. Florence had appeared in the kitchen doorway calling out something about lunch and everyone turned in a kind of muddy procession back to the house. As soon as we were inside, Madame de Lafitte bundled me upstairs for a hot bath.
I lay in the bath trying to get over the shivery sensation which I think was more from nerves than the cold. I kept on having flashbacks of what might have happened if the rope had got caught or there had been something really nasty down there.
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
‘ ’Annah, you OK?’
It was Matthilde.
‘Can I come in?’
I climbed out of the bath, wrapped myself in a towel and let her in.
She was carrying a big glass of hot milk.
‘Grandpère say you must drink zis.’
I took a sip and it made me catch my breath, but I felt a warmness rushing through me. Matthilde said it was hot milk with a spoonful of cognac and sugar in it.
‘You were ve-ry brave,’ she said. ‘I could ne-ver do zat.’
‘I was the only one skinny enough,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘No. I would be too scared.’
‘Has it stopped raining?’
She nodded and went and pulled the curtain back from the window. The flood had cleared the rosebushes and the lawn was reappearing rimmed by a ragged line of debris. Best of all, I could see the arch of the bridge was now well clear of the water. It stood looking war-torn and damaged but you could see the worst was over.
I was still feeling shaky after my bath. Madame de Lafitte brought me up a bowl of hot soup and insisted I should have a lie-down to recover. I got into bed and pulled over the covers. Normally I can’t sleep during the day but the minute my head touched the pillow I instantly dropped off.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke at about four in the afternoon, feeling thickheaded and muggy, and checked outside to find the garden swarming with people. It was like the aftermath of a major disaster. Scaffolding had been erected round the bridge and some men were hard at work screwing a metal bar in place to reinforce it. There was a team of helpers in the garden raking the debris into piles to be burned.
I went down to the kitchen to find Florence lording it over a load of women who were washing salad and scrubbing potatoes and stringing meat on skewers. I wondered what was going on, so I tried one of France’s more painfully convoluted phrases on her: ‘Qu’est-ce qu’il se passe?’
Florence paused from her salad washing and nodded towards the barn.
‘Mais c’est la fête. Ce soir.’
La fête? The party! In all the drama of the flood, I’d completely forgotten about it. Outside, a group of men was busy building a huge barbecue out of bricks and iron grilles. I could see through the barn doors that a load of trestle tables and benches had been set up in readiness.
Florence bustled past me and picked up a tray with a bowl of soup and some bread and cheese on it.
‘Pauvre Monsieur Charles,’ she said, shaking her head.
The baker arrived at the door at that point, weighed down by long brown paper bags bulging with enough baguettes to withstand a siege. Florence called out to him ‘J’arrive’ and handed me the tray, saying something which I interpreted as – would I take it up to him.
I knew where Oncle Charles’s rooms were. I’d seen him going in and out of them and I’d often heard music or the sound of a television coming from inside. I carried the tray up the stairs and knocked on his door but there was no answer. When I opened it a chink, I found he was asleep wrapped in a rug in a big armchair in front of the television.
I paused in the doorway uncertain whether to wake him. His room was a kind of shrine to vintage Hollywood. A film poster yellowed with age was pinned to the wooden panelling. There were signed photos of stars where you would have expected respectable hunting prints and stiff photos of relatives. The bookshelves sagged with tattered magazines and film yearbooks. And in pride of place on the mantelpiece was a framed black and white photo of a skinny Apache on a palomino horse, which I recognised with some difficulty as a far, far younger Oncle Charles.
I went over and took the remote control and put the TV on ‘hold’. This made him wake with a grunt. ‘Caroline,’ he exclaimed. ‘Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for days.’
I was sitting next to him the night before as a matter of fact, but I thought it kinder not to mention that. ‘I’ve been helping in the garden. Because of the flood.’
‘The flood?’ he asked, looking confused. ‘Oh, the inondation,’ he said, coming to his senses. ‘This house has stood here for centuries,’ he continued. ‘The water it rises and it falls. People come. People go. The house will be here long after we have all gone.’
I put down the
tray, wondering if I should leave him to eat in peace, when he said, ‘Stay a while. Keep me company?’ He patted the chair beside him.
I wanted to go outside and see if I could find Michel in actual fact. It would be my last chance to see him alone.
‘I’ll stay for a while,’ I said.
He nodded towards the television. ‘You should take a look at this. This is the finest film ever made.’
He clicked the video on to ‘play’. The film was about some man called Charlie who owned a newspaper. We watched as Charlie’s empire grew and thrived, then slowly declined and he got older and balder and sadder. It wasn’t the kind of movie I’d ever choose to watch but it got to me somehow. Old Oncle Charles nodded off after he’d finished his soup and I stared at him wondering whether maybe this was why he called himself Charlie. His family had once had an empire – all those farms and land and now they’d dwindled away to just the house and the park.
When the film ended, he woke up with a start and said he was going to turn in. He wasn’t going to bother with the soirée, that was for the young people. I promised to come up and see him in the morning before I left.
I dumped the tray in the kitchen and went out to check how the barbecue was coming on. A satisfying glow was already coming from the red-hot charcoal. The men had fixed a whole lamb on the spit. Big difference from barbecues back home – boozy dads standing over uncontrollable fires that either billowed smoke or raged with flame and could never cook as much as a chipolata right through.
We’d been told not to dress up for the barbecue. Which was just as well since I’d got down to my very last clean clothes. I had a khaki shirt Mum had bought which I didn’t like much and my jeans which unfortunately had been ironed with creases in them by Florence. But I washed my hair and took some trouble blow-drying it.
I was blow-drying my fringe which had chosen tonight to be particularly flat and difficult when I remembered the mysterious Caroline. Was she getting ready right now, staring in the mirror, blow-drying her hair? I jolly well hoped it rained on her and it went frizzy.
As I turned off the dryer, I caught the sound of instruments tuning up. I went down to investigate. A man with an accordion, a girl with a violin and a bearded man with a drum kit were setting up in a corner of the barn. Michel was standing talking to them, holding his guitar. He played a few chords and the man with the drums nodded and did a roll. While I watched they broke into a number. It was a song I’d heard Michel sing to himself in his room. It sent a shiver down my spine as I remembered his shadow, so close to me, on the wall.
Madame de Lafitte was calling me from the kitchen. More hands were needed to carry dishes out to the tables. I joined the team, ferrying out bowls of vegetables which had been turned, in that magical French way, into ‘carottes rapées’, ‘céleri rémoulade’ and ‘ratatouille’.
It was on one of my return trips that I bumped into Matthilde. I actually did a double take. I don’t know whether she hadn’t heard, or was just ignoring the dress code. But if this was ‘casual’ I’d got it wrong. She was wearing the tightest pair of cropped jeans with really high heels. She’d topped this with an off-the shoulder T-shirt and she’d put on tons of eyeliner.
Madame de Lafitte took one look at her and her jaw dropped.
‘Matthilde, ma chérie,’ she started.
Matthilde gave her grandmother one of her sweetest looks. ‘Oui, Grandmère?’
A look of confusion passed across Madame de Lafitte’s face as she struggled to be modern and open-minded.
‘Rien, ma pouce. Aide ’Annah.’
‘Oui, Grandmère,’ said Matthilde, as if ‘beurre’ wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She picked up a big dish of potato salad and made for the barn. I followed, feeling really daggy. I mean, Matthilde looked as if she’d dressed for a nightclub while I had on a dreary khaki shirt which was my least favourite item of clothing.
Matthilde went the long way round with the salad, which meant she had to pass the musicians. The fellow with the drums noticed her and raised his eyebrows. I saw Michel look up and look again and then return to his guitar. I bet he thought she looked fantastic.
We were just arranging the last dishes on the table when I heard a car draw up. The first people to arrive were a family from the village. They stood around looking shy and embarrassed until Monsieur de Lafitte went up to them with a tray of drinks. But soon more and more people were flooding into the barn. Monsieur de Lafitte seemed to know everyone and this evening he didn’t seem grand or stand-offish at all. In fact, he was having a good laugh with some of the men.
As people arrived I scrutinised each girl to see if she might be Caroline. There were loads of girls of about the right age. Few of them blonde enough, but maybe the blonde was dyed and she’d gone back to her natural colour. Or dyed her hair jet-black or something. I sent a searching look to Michel every time a girl came through the door. But he played on with the rest of the band, not seeming to give any one of them an interested glance.
Arnaud arrived and stood in the doorway, looking awkward. An unfortunate choice of position with his back to the barbecue. His ears glowed in the darkness like rear brake lights. I could see him casting anxious glances in Matthilde’s direction. But either she hadn’t seen him or she was ignoring him on purpose; she seemed intent on talking to some boys I hadn’t seen before.
Eventually, the smell of roasted meat came wafting deliciously from the barbecue outside and people started taking their places at the tables. I was just about to sit down with the younger people when Monsieur de Lafitte came up to me and took me by the hand and led me to the place of honour beside him.
The tables had been set out in a long row. Most of the young people were sitting at the far end. A load of boys were shoving down their bench to allow someone in. It was Matthilde. I watched as she squeezed in between two of the bigger boys, wondering why she’d chosen to sit so far away from the rest of the family.
Michel stayed with the musicians. It seemed they were going to play while we ate and have their meal later. Plates of salads and charcuterie were soon being passed around and all the glasses were refilled, but nobody took the tiniest sip or nibble of their meal. Monsieur de Lafitte got to his feet. Haltingly, the barn fell into a respectful silence.
He started on a very long speech in which the word ‘inondation’ cropped up quite a few times. I switched off while he was talking and did a person-by-person scrutiny of every female round the room. Not one of them looked anything like the photo of Caroline. I glanced over at Michel. He didn’t look too cut up. In fact, he was staring in the direction of Matthilde. And then I saw why.
Matthilde was flirting unashamedly with the boy next to her. She was whispering in his ear and allowing him to whisper back really close. Luckily, Monsieur de Lafitte couldn’t see what was going on. He was coming to what seemed like a climax when I heard my name followed by him raising his glass and saying, ‘Bravo, la petite anglaise!’
To my horror, I was hauled to my feet as everyone raised their glasses to me and went into a round of applause. There followed an expectant silence. It seemed that I was meant to say something. I found myself standing there, going redder and redder, absolutely tonguetied.
A hoarse whisper came from Monsieur de Lafitte: ‘Merci et bon appétit.’
‘Merci. Et bon appétit,’ I managed to stutter.
Few phrases could have met with such enthusiasm. The applause was deafening and then everyone set to eating and drinking with the maximum noise and laughter.
‘Merci,’ I said to Monsieur de Lafitte as, thankfully, the attention went off me.
He looked down at me, his eyebrows bristling alarmingly.
‘I mean merci, monsieur,’ I corrected myself.
He raised an eyebrow at that and I saw a smile twitch at the corners of his mouth.
‘Merci, mademoiselle,’ he said, raising his glass to me. ‘So tomorrow you leave us? Tell me, what impression you take home of France?’
I p
aused, wondering how to answer this. ‘It surprised me.’
‘Surprised you, why?’
‘Well, I didn’t really want to come,’ I admitted.
‘No? And why was zat?’
I could feel myself going hot and bothered under his gaze. I stupidly blurted out, ‘Because French people seem to think they’re so superior.’
Monsieur de Lafitte’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline, they positively stood on end. Then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘But that’s because we are superior!’ he said.
I suddenly realised where I’d gone wrong. I’d taken all his serious gazes and fierce comments to heart, when I should have stood my ground and answered back.
Monsieur de Lafitte was sharing this joke with the people all around us. My attention went back to Michel. He’d put down his guitar and he kept sending odd looks over to Matthilde. I craned round to see what she was up to. She was chatting up the boy on the other side now. She was trying to make Michel jealous and she was being pathetically obvious about it.
But Michel wasn’t the only person who had noticed. Arnaud was standing alone with a drink in his hand. He was watching Matthilde with a hopeless look on his face.
They’d switched to recorded music – traditional French stuff – and people were getting up to dance. I saw Michel force his way over to Matthilde’s table with a grim look on his face. She got up to dance with him. It was my turn to suffer pangs of jealousy now. Maybe Matthilde’s ploy had worked.
I heard a voice say: ‘ ’Annah, danse avec moi’ It was Monsieur de Lafitte. I had no choice but to accept. Monsieur de Lafitte was much taller than me and it was a really tricky dance like a quick waltz. I made a real mess of it. Besides, I was trying to keep an eye on Michel and Matthilde. They seemed to be dancing very close.
After a couple of dances, Michel went back to the band and Matthilde returned to her seat with a look of triumph on her face. This really go to me. I didn’t want to risk another dance so I escaped from the dance floor and went outside.