by Sam Juneau
I could believe every word he was saying. The Americans were a loud, flashy set of mother, grandmother and three grown, hipster kids from Miami. They wore thick leather belts and gold jewellery draped over thick leather skin, toughened from too much sun, finished off with gobs of make-up and teased up hair. Since their arrival they had been incredibly high-maintenance, demanding directions repeatedly (Americans are the worst at driving and understanding European roads) and hairdryers and extra pillows and special breakfasts and long chats about property and money. Despite this, they weren’t bad people, just boisterous. I had actually enjoyed some of our discussions and got a good laugh out of their antics.
But I knew what he said was most certainly true.
‘OK, well, come with me. I will sort out the problem. I can talk to them.’
‘Wait a second,’ he commanded. ‘What sort of place are you running here that you don’t even know what is going on in your own house? Tell me.’ As I headed off to solve the problem he grabbed my arm. I had no inclination to stand here and talk more. But he was very insistent.
‘Well, Mr Portsmouth, as you can see the house is very large and I can’t possibly hear or know what’s happening in the other wing unless, of course, you come and tell me, as you’ve done. Now I’m going to do something about it.’
‘That’s not acceptable,’ he said, now purple with rage.
I was growing angry also. But I remained calm. He proceeded to catalogue their transgressions: loud radio playing (and we didn’t have radios in the rooms), bouncing on the beds, yelling.
‘Would you like me to give you another room?’ I thought this was a generous suggestion. Actually, offering him another room, a larger suite, was a good deal more work for me and Bud.
‘What?’ he practically yelled. ‘They are the ones misbehaving and we have to move. I can’t believe you suggested that.’
‘OK, OK. Relax. Let me go talk to them. I’m sure we can work it out.’
‘No. You wait. I’m not finished.’
That was the final straw. When I have a problem, my first inclination is to deal with it head on. This man wanted to talk and lecture and hold forth on the shortcomings of the establishment. It felt as if he was unloading a year’s worth of work frustrations in this one conversation. His all-too-brief holiday amidst long hours chained to the desk would serve as an opportunity to release all the built-up tension.
‘No, sir. You are finished.’ I spoke firmly and menacingly. ‘You will command me to do nothing. I am the lord of this goddamn manor and we will solve this problem the way I see fit. You can either come with me and sort this out or stay here and stew.’
This proved too much for Willy Loman. He leaned into me and spoke quickly and furiously. ‘I will not be treated like this. I am here to rest and I am very tired, exhausted. All I want to do is sleep.’ At this point, he was shaking, red-faced and sputtering.
I said, ‘You better back off immediately.’
Just as things were about to reach a crisis point, Dennis walked calmly over to our potential melee. Dennis was a policeman in Ireland so he knew his way around a brawl in the making. I felt comforted by the fact that he was a mountain of a man with impossibly broad shoulders, a thick neck and legs like tree trunks. He listened quietly, towering over both of us. Dennis had been sitting out the back drinking wine for a good long time by this point. Suddenly out of the depths of his being, he roared, ‘Enough!’ The sound he emitted shook us to the core. My dear guest turned white. I thought he was going to faint. It was the loudest noise I had ever heard issue from a mortal’s mouth.
At that moment, having heard the ruckus, Bud poked her head out the window.
‘Sam, it’s OK. Just go take care of it. They shouldn’t be moved and the Americans should be quiet.’
Bud’s calm, sweet Irish voice quickly served to settle everyone so we could get on with the important business of restoring peace and quiet to the chateau. The effect of that astounding bellow seemed to smooth the tensions. I thought quietly to myself that a little humour, a calm head and a loud yell might just be what’s needed in international diplomacy.
I walked up to the second floor, knocked quietly. The mother answered. I said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you but we have a little problem. The fella downstairs is very upset.’ I looked around the room and saw our wannabe rock stars lounging around, throwing a beach ball, while the youngest laid into a very good air guitar. I asked them to turn off the radio that they’d brought with them, stop jumping on the beds and quiet down. The mother smiled at me and said, ‘No problem. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do with these kids.’
And that was that.
The next morning I went out of my way to serve our English friends first. I was attentive and asked them how they’d slept. The couple were sheepish and had looks of consternation on their faces. Before the awkwardness could continue, I spoke up. ‘You’ll be happy to know I’m implementing a new no-American rule at the chateau.’
I didn’t know how this would go down. I laughed first and thankfully they joined in, happy to have that little unpleasantness behind us.
Two weeks later, we were preparing for our seventh wedding. Six down, three to go. These days always upset me. It was early August and the strain of running the B&B was beginning to wear us out. This was a big one: close to 200 people, definitely the upper limit of our capacity… for both the chateau and our tired selves.
The difficult times were the weddings: the grind of helping set up, accommodating caterers who moved like invading forces into our lives for a day, sometimes two, music until 3.30 a.m., loud departing drunken revellers, anxiety over the health and safety of the chateau, claustrophobia from being locked up in our set of rooms with two squirming and sometimes tangling children, all the worries that come from accepting (normally) 100–150 living beings into your house. It was unnatural to have to share your space, even though the space was quite large, with total strangers. It had seemed easy when we began. How hard could it be to clean a few rooms, serve a nice breakfast, with home-made apple-pear juice, no less, to greet guests and take their money? The simple answer: extraordinarily hard. Caveat emptor.
This was one of the weddings for which I had not enforced my ‘all rooms’ rule but, in spite of that, all the rooms were booked by guests of the wedding. Our first guests, a couple in their mid to late forties, arrived at 1 p.m., roughly three hours ahead of time. They were a well-dressed couple down from Paris for the day. I greeted them and showed them to the second floor. They had booked our cheapest, smallest room at 74 euros but it did have a lovely view of the pond and the setting sun and was most comfortable.
I showed them their accommodation. Immediately, the husband spoke up.
‘Is there no key?’
‘No, we do not have keys for the rooms. If you have something valuable, I am happy to keep it safe for you during the wedding.’
‘This is terrible. I cannot believe there are no keys. I must have a key.’
‘It’s not been a problem to this point. But there is no key for your room.’
He said thank you and closed the door with a huff. Ten minutes later, I heard a sharp knock at our salon door. I was in the middle of showing the chef where all his accoutrements could go.
I answered. It was Monsieur Picky .
‘Oui?’
‘There is dirt in our room. It must be cleaned.’
‘It should be in good order, but I will send Patricia up to inspect it.’
Patricia went up to the room and returned five minutes later looking rather confused.
‘The room was clean. He pointed out a very small water ring on one of the radiators and a dead bug behind one of the curtains. Other than that, it was very propre.’
The man came down five minutes later with devilish determination.
‘Sir, this is not acceptable. You must come and see the room.’
‘Let’s go,’ I offered hopefully.
I entered the room after my che
rished client where he proceeded to point out tiny specks of dust, the accused water ring (a stain from the nineteenth century, I surmised) and another fly behind the door. He insisted I bend over to observe his proud find.
‘And we must have a key.’
He then demanded I lean down to inspect a bit of dust on the skirting boards. At this, I stood tall and said, ‘Sir, that is enough. Patricia has cleaned this room and we are not going to continue this dance any longer. If you would like another room, I can move you next door. It is larger and I believe, by chance, there is a key.’
‘Very well. Yes, please do that.’
I showed him the room and walked away, certain that I had no reservation in this one room. I had previously thought all the rooms were booked, but when I referred to the diary, no one was pencilled in.
I presumed the matter was settled until about 30 minutes into the pre-dinner cocktail party, when a tall, tanned, elegant French woman approached me in the kitchen and asked me to show her to her room. Assuming everyone had already checked in, I scurried over to my reservation book and scanned the pages. There she was, written in near-insane scribble at the bottom of the page under a group of cancellations, booked into the room I had just relocated Monsieur and Madame Picky to.
‘I’m terribly sorry. I’ve put someone in that room, but I have another room across the hall with a double bed that’s available.’
‘I’m sorry but that won’t do. The room is for me, my husband and our daughter. We need the extra bed of the room we booked.’
We all padded upstairs to the double-booked room where I found Monsieur Picky lounging on the bed, perfectly content with a big smile on his sharp face.
‘I am terribly sorry about this. I realise I said you could have this room but I’ve made a mistake. These people here have three people and they need this room.’
‘This is outrageous!’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes, I’ve made a mistake. For your trouble you can stay with no charge.’
‘But there isn’t a key for the other room.’
Madame Tall and Tanned stood in the hall observing this humiliating ritual.
‘I’ve told you about the keys. We do not have keys. It is pure chance that this room has got one.’
‘I cannot accept this.’
The summer had worn my now erratic and generally unstable self. A more mature, suave and professional hotelier would have made things work in the gentlest possible way. Instead, I persisted, ‘I am the lord of this manor and I have decided there are no keys. You can stay in the other room at no cost, with one condition: you must never come to this property again.’
Tall and Tanned laughed out loud at this crude American comment. She seemed to be enjoying the tussle.
Monsieur and Madame Picky gathered their things and left the chateau. I’m not quite sure if they ever attended the wedding or not. Perhaps, I thought, the hospitality business was not my calling.
Around 11 that night, Bud, the children and I turned in. I planned to get to sleep early and make my rounds to check on the house at 3 a.m., and again at 7 a.m. in order to prepare for breakfast.
But at 11.30, I heard a loud banging on our door.
‘Mr Juneau. Please come quickly. The groom needs to see you immediately. There has been an accident.’
I jumped out of bed, struggled into my clothes and shot out the door.
I entered the great hall where a long line of tables had been spread majestically down the whole length of the room. The party had stopped and there was a gathering in the middle of the hall.
I hastened over and there, to my horror and astonishment, sat a round little man with a napkin draped over his head thickly stained with dark red.
‘What happened?’ I said as I rushed to his side.
‘It is nothing really. I was playing with your shutters, just there, by the window. I should not have opened it. When I did, a large metal bar fell down from just inside the window casing and hit me in the head.’
Astonished, I managed, ‘Can I call the paramedics for you?’
‘It has already been done. I’m terribly sorry for the trouble.’
‘Please, let me get you something.’
‘No, no, tout va bien. Please don’t worry yourself.’
I sat with the kind man and thought, if this had been another country, possibly my own, a country where people sought money wherever it was available, a man in his position – sitting in a chateau, just injured by a metal bar that had broken off from our window – might be saying, ‘This is an outrage. I will sue you for everything you own. I will own you.’ For the first time in a long time, I was grateful to be where the mercenary aspects of life were less pronounced.
Eight minutes later, the paramedics and pompiers arrived. Among their happy, bemused faces, I recognised many of my old buddies from the infamous bee and hornet episodes. They tended to the jolly guest, bundled him up and shipped him off to the hospital for a few stitches.
Exhausted, I reassured the groom, expressed my apologies and returned to our room.
‘What happened?’ Bud queried.
‘One of the guests was poking around with the shutters and a metal bar fell on his head. He needs a few stitches so he’s gone to hospital. I think he’s OK.’
‘I think it’s time to find another line of work.’
Perhaps. But for the time being our choices were limited. We would continue doing what we had been doing all along and expecting a different outcome: namely, running a B&B, gîte and wedding venue day in, day out, fielding catastrophes like inept amateurs, all the while hoping for peace and quiet and contentment.
As we neared the end of the summer, we soaked up the relief of our modest success like a potent tonic. The final figures were coming in: 383 nights in the B&B, 14 weeks in the Guard’s House, nine weddings. Income for the year through to September: 57,000 euros (£39,000). Not disastrous considering it was a first real year with advertising and time to get the word out. With the money from America, we could just about support the house and its many, clamouring needs. Obviously, this was a gross amount, not including the endless ‘redevances’, or payments, to the French government, particularly heinous for a small business in its first years. In the end, we had not a cent to spare from our upkeep, the seeming infinity of bits and pieces and necessities needed to maintain and nourish an active family of four, soon to be five. Not to mention the cost of maintaining twenty-odd cats – it seems strays were more than happy to join our original fifteen.
Our last guests of the season arrived on a late afternoon in mid September. I could hear the smooth purr of a car cruising up the lane to the front of the house. In a black, sleek, late-model Audi sat two distinguished and cool customers.
I laid my pruning sheers down and welcomed them. Johan and Monique were Dutch-speaking Belgians from Antwerp. He had thick greyish dark hair, a perfectly pressed white cotton shirt and handsome, casual loafers. Monique was tall and slim with a modern haircut and thin, refined features and full lips. They were lively, spoke perfect English and we made a connection immediately. They were thrilled with their room, the Chestnut Room on the ground floor. It was vast and nicely appointed with a bathroom the size of most hotel rooms in Europe. They planned to stay for two nights. We arranged a time for breakfast and they set off for the evening.
The next morning I began the breakfast service. They appeared to be well rested and relaxed.
‘So, Sam, did you inherit this place?’ Johan asked.
‘Unfortunately not. We bought it a few years ago.’
‘But you are so young. Very impressive.’
‘Impressive or stupid, I’m never quite sure.’
‘I love the rooms. I hope you don’t mind, but we looked around. It’s very nice,’ Monique interjected. ‘It is simple but elegant and very comfortable.’
‘We are looking to buy something like this too,’ Johan added. ‘Not really this big, but we want a country house, to run a business, make some income for the m
aintenance and spend holidays here from time to time.’
We set about talking of the ins and outs of property in France, the idea of a business, the advantages and pitfalls. Monique ran a small B&B in an old townhouse in Antwerp. So they knew what they were in for. Bud joined us in the late morning and she and Monique spoke of design and decoration and shared ideas and creative insights. We spent the morning talking excitedly about the prospects in France. The conversation inevitably tended towards culture and art. This was the very reason I had so eagerly anticipated meeting guests when we first started out those many months ago. I didn’t need to be friends with all our clients, just once in a while, I had hoped to meet intelligent, cultured people who could bring energy and interest into our little bit of country.
‘So, Sam, how did you go about buying this chateau?’ Johan asked. ‘Do you have names of agents? We want to visit some houses while we are here. If we find some things we like, we might stay longer.’ Very well. It was in my best interest to help them in their search.
‘Certainly. I will make some calls and have our agent come here to meet you. It will be great fun.’
Countless cups of coffee later, I called Philippe, our trusty agent. He was ecstatic to have a new client and promised to come over early that afternoon. Meanwhile, Johan and Monique disappeared for the day, off into the French countryside on a titillating jaunt through the region’s architectural history.
The next morning I laid out a perfect breakfast for our tired house seekers. I let them eat in peace although I was dying to hear the news.
‘So, I want to hear all about it,’ I began enthusiastically as they finished.
Johan was subdued but spoke passionately. ‘There are so many beautiful castles here. And the prices are still about one half or a third of what we’d pay in Holland and Belgium. We saw one castle, very similar to yours, with 60 hectares, 1,200 square metres, a large lake and more than 30 rooms. Great details. The only problem is it sat very near to a minor but busy route nationale. I can’t say we like the decor, many outré things and heavy wall coverings and terrible bathrooms, but overall it was very nice and you could easily change those things with some money.’