by Heide Goody
“Cheer up,” said Christopher, indicating an alabaster figure on a nearby plinth. “They made a nice statue of you.”
“Really?”
“Captures that sort of mardy look you normally have — oh bugger!”
The statue winked at them and stuck its tongue out. The surprise was evidently too much for Joan.
“Witchcraft!” she yelled.
“Er, no, Joan…”
“How dare you practise sorcery like that in my image!”
“Er, I think it's just someone dressed up,” said Christopher, but Joan had already lunged at the statue, which stepped off its plinth and backed away rapidly.
Joan kicked the wooden plinth aside and charged at the statue with a roar. The white-faced woman turned and ran, dropping the cardboard sword that she had carried. Joan picked up the sword and gave chase but the street performer had fled through a surging crowd of tourists on a walking tour and was gone.
Joan brandished the cardboard sword in her fury, swinging it wildly. Christopher was glad that her real blade was still on the coach, imagining the accidental amputations that she might do in her rage.
“I'm fed up of being mocked for who I am!” Joan bellowed. “I didn't ask for this! I didn't ask for any of this. I was a simple country girl, happy enough to do the work that was needed on the farm, praying whenever I got the chance. Why me, eh? Why was it me who had to have the visions? Saint Michael, Saint Catharine, Saint Margaret. It was enough to make you dizzy, you never knew when some saint or other was going to pop up! Did I complain? Did I? Everyone thought I was some sort of nutter, but I just kept my chin up.”
“Joan, Joan!” hissed Christopher. “These people are all watching you. Are you sure you want to draw attention to yourself like this?”
The walking tour had halted and were watching Joan as she swung and hefted the broadsword against the memories of people who had slighted her over the years.
“Do you know I never even had any real friends?” she continued, ignoring them all. “Not proper friends like other people have. No. It's just not possible, with saints and angels telling you that you’re the one who's supposed to end the war. That you’re the one who needs to go and talk to the king and tell him how it's all going to be. Even my parents didn't want to know me by the time I went to join the army.”
A few of the onlookers were nudging each other and taking photos. A ripple of applause broke out as Joan paused for breath, but she wasn't done.
“How dare they laugh at my place in the French Army? How DARE they mock me? I was right at the front, I led that army to victory FROM THE FRONT! It wasn't easy, being smaller than nearly everyone else there, but I stood my ground. I made them believe in me. I made them believe in themselves.”
Christopher stood back with a sigh and let Joan get on with it. So much for keeping a low profile.
Francis watched the waiter set down a teapot on each of the tables, maintaining a conversation throughout the manoeuvre with a woman who was wiping down the bar. A man came in wearing the stripy apron of a butcher's shop and dropped a plastic carrier bag near to the woman, calling out that it was the steaks for the evening meals. Francis settled forward in his seat and regarded the teapot. He was looking forward to trying tea. This trip was turning out to be educational if nothing else. Agnes glared at the waiter's back as she stopped the stopwatch with a flourish.
“Twenty minutes and forty eight seconds. I can barely believe my eyes,” she declared, shaking her head. “Now. Who's got the milk?”
She checked along all three tables and realised that nobody had any milk.
“Gloria?” she called.
Gloria looked up in momentary horror, wondering what new crime would be recorded against her in Agnes' book, but then she realised that she was being asked about milk. She shook her head.
“Well, this simply isn't good enough!” said Agnes. She stood up and raised her voice. “Young man, come back here!”
Francis wondered if the waiter might have been a little hard of hearing, as he watched him continue through the door into the kitchen as if he hadn't heard. Agnes seemed to be incensed by this. She stalked over to the bar where there was a bell for gaining the attention of the staff. She banged the bell heavily and repeatedly until the woman with the polishing rag called out to the kitchen.
“Jean-Paul!”
The waiter reappeared and approached Agnes.
“We need milk for our tea,” she said. “You can't expect us to drink tea without milk.”
The waiter shrugged, rolled his eyes and headed back to the kitchen.
“Did you see that?” hissed Agnes as she sat back down. “Just shrugged at me, as if it just doesn't matter at all. Barbarians, the lot of them.”
Francis tapped his foot nervously as Agnes glared at the kitchen door for what felt like an eternity.
“Where on earth can he be?” she fumed. “He's been a good five minutes, our tea will be stone cold!”
Eventually the kitchen door swung open and the waiter emerged.
He walked to their tables and deposited a handful of longlife milk capsules casually on each, carefully avoiding eye contact with anyone.
“You can't be serious,” said Agnes, rising from her seat with slow menace. The waiter ignored her. She blocked his way as he made for the kitchen.
“What is it?” he said in English.
“This milk is UHT.”
“It is,” he agreed.
“I don't want UHT milk in my tea.”
“You said you wanted milk.”
“Proper milk.”
“This is the milk that we have,” said the waiter, and tried to move around Agnes. She sidestepped and blocked his way again.
“It's not good enough, I'm afraid. We want proper milk from a proper cow. I know you have cows here in Brittany.”
“Normandy,” came a murmur from Gloria. Agnes shot her a look and Gloria dropped her gaze into her lap.
“Milk from a cow,” said Agnes. “You know, cow. Cow. What’s the French for ‘cow’? You know what I’m on about. Moo, moo!”
“Vache,” said the waiter. “And this milk is from a cow.”
“A fresh cow. I mean, fresh milk from a cow. And I know that you have cows around here,” said Agnes, “because of this.”
She grabbed a plastic carrier bag and upended it onto the bar. Everyone recoiled from the stinking pile of dog crap. Its powerful stench quickly filled the café.
“Wrong bag,” said Francis in a tiny voice to himself.
Francis decided that Agnes’ mind was like a donkey on a set of stairs; stubborn and incapable of back-tracking.
“Well, er, that steak's clearly off,” she said, unabashed. “But the point is still valid. If you can get steak, you can get fresh milk. That's what we want. We want a nice cup of tea with some fresh milk. Tea au lait. Au lait, do you hear?”
“I’m enjoying this,” Em whispered to him with a smile. “France is usually so boring.”
The waiter glanced at the woman who had stopped cleaning the bar. She shrugged at him helplessly.
Miriam stood up next to Agnes.
“Au lait, au lait—au lait—au lait!” she sang loudly. She motioned to the other women to join in with the football chant, and they took up the refrain. “Au LAIT, au LAIT!”
The waiter tried to say something to Agnes, but she had joined in with the singing and the noise drowned him out.
Joan wasn't listening to Christopher, who kept trying to interrupt her, blathering on about a crowd that was following her.
“I had to put up with all the stupid charges they made against me,” she thundered, as she strode through the streets. “They accused me of everything they could think up with their tiny, stupid minds. I was a sorceress, I was a heretic. Do you know what they used against me in the end, do you know what was the only charge those idiots could actually stick on me? Cross dressing. Dressing up as a man! I only did it to protect my virtue, but they burnt me at the stake for we
aring trousers. English mormons!”
“I think you mean morons,” said Christopher, at her side, but Joan wasn't listening.
“It's not as if they were ever as great as they thought they were, either,” she continued. “The English have always been a nation of bloated fools.”
“Have they?”
“Look at their food! Nobody abuses food like the English do. Their national dish is a hunk of perfectly good meat roasted in a ton of fat with greasy potatoes. They call it Sunday lunch. I call it gluttony and heartburn.”
“Everyone likes a nice roast,” said Christopher reasonably.
“Their second finest dish, oh what's that? It's fish cooked in a ton of fat served up with greasy potatoes. No imagination. Their beer is always warm, did you know that? They love warm beer.”
“I’d love a beer,” said Christopher. “I don’t care what temperature it—”
“The reason that they love warm beer is because they are all drunkards! They can't afford the time to let their beer get cold in between the pints and pints that they quaff.”
There was laughter at this from the considerable crowd that now followed Joan.
“They have so much rain in England, too. They get the weather that they deserve. It rains all the time!” She took a vicious swipe with her sword. “That must be why they all smell like DOGS! Lord, I remember that smell. I slept in ditches for months when I led the French army, but I never smelled as bad as those mildewy Englishmen that came for me.”
Francis tried to shrink back into his seat as spectators gathered and cameras flashed at the ladies of the WI who continued to sing and hammer the tables in the cafe. The waiter had fled to the kitchen and refused to respond to the cries and taunts from Agnes and the others.
“Hey!” said Em. “I'm all for a decent protest, but I need to get out of here, I can't afford to have my face broadcast on the media.”
She indicated some new arrivals, who entered the cafe with video cameras and jackets that declared they were from Normandie TV.
“Hold on,” said Agnes. “There might be something we can do about that. Gloria!”
Gloria flinched automatically, like a kicked puppy.
“Do you have the offending items on you?” said Agnes.
Gloria frowned.
“The masks.”
Gloria delved into her enormous handbag and produced several dozen masks, nested together like stacked bowls.
“Here, everyone,” said Agnes. “Put these on.”
“I like it,” said Em. “An Anonymous protest.”
Francis slipped the soft mask over his face. He was now one of thirty or more identical figures, all with bouffant blonde hair and a toothy rubber smile.
When Francis had time to reflect later, he wasn't sure if it was the masks that did it or the new audience. Em had started to sing along with the other women and punched the air at the same time, even though, Francis noted, she'd been happy enough to drink her tea without milk. The women of the Aberdaron WI became noticeably bolder and started to bang their cups on the saucers, smashing some of them in their enthusiasm. A teapot sailed through the air and shattered the plate glass window of the cafe, causing the spectators that had drifted in from the street to back up onto the pavement in alarm.
A voice broke through the crowd, and Francis saw that Joan had arrived, pushing through them, waving a cardboard sword, and shouting. Christopher was at her elbow, and he gave Francis a helpless shrug.
“You lot! I want to talk to you!” Joan yelled, recognising the group in spite of their masks. “Joan of Arc served her country in every possible way and you need to show her some more respect. The English have no respect for anyone. They've gone around for years trying to take over the world. Even when there's parts of the world they haven't taken over, they just act as if they own the place anyway. I hate the English, HATE them!”
Agnes lifted her mask to smile at Joan.
“Well, of course, my dear. Couldn’t agree more. We're Welsh, remember?”
She turned to the rest of the group. A couple of them were breaking up a chair to use as weapons.
“Down with the English!” she yelled. There were cries of agreement from the group.
“Down with nuclear weapons!” called Gwenda. Em joined her chant, and thumped the table with her fists to hammer the message home.
“Save the whale!” called Francis, not wanting to be left out. He clapped his hands together, as he didn't feel comfortable destroying the property of the cafe.
“You’ve all gone mad,” said Christopher in disbelief.
“We’re pwotesting,” Francis explained.
Joan swung her cardboard sword above her head in general agreement with all of the sentiments. She hadn't noticed the light fitting until she saw it hurtling from her sword towards the bar area where it smashed into a mirrored display, earning her a raucous cheer of applause from multiple Dianas, who leapt up and started to throw anything that came to hand.
“Can anyone else hear a siren?” asked Miriam.
Agnes held up a hand and the rioting Dianas all stopped what they were doing.
“You're right Miriam,” Agnes said. “Let's go and see if Colin's turned up yet. We can always get a nice cup of tea from the drinks machine on the coach.”
There were nods of agreement from the women, who immediately dropped their weapons and all trooped out of the café, silent but for the occasional “excuse me” and “thank you” as they stepped round and sometimes over the café’s stunned staff and patrons.
Matt held onto the door handle as Baland threw his car into a tight corner, sirens blaring, lights flashing.
“Does this sort of thing happen a lot with tourists?” asked Matt.
“We get trouble in the bars sometimes,” said Baland admitted, swerving to dodge a downtrodden living statue performer who wasn’t looking where she was walking. “It seems as though the cheap alcohol can sometimes overexcite our foreign visitors. Why can’t they be a bit more like the French? Drinking wine in the day should be like making love, taken slowly and savoured. Do you not agree?”
“Um. I’m not much of a…”
“Lover?”
“Wine drinker.”
“Hmmm. Well, it's definitely not usual for the trouble to be during the day, though, and it's almost unheard of for it to be middle-aged women, which is what the reports are saying.”
“Middle-aged women?”
They pulled up outside a cafe, where there was a crowd of people peering at the mess inside. Matt followed Baland inside and saw furniture upturned and smashed. There was the dissipating but nonetheless pervasive smell of sewage in the air. There was broken crockery everywhere, and all of the windows were shattered. There were daubs of what looked like tomato sauce on the wall.
“What do these say?” said Baland. “UHT = MERDE? And what on earth is PEN PIDYN?”
Matt shook his head and picked up a squashed rubber mask from the floor. Pummelled by footprints and rolled against the hard floor, Matt couldn’t tell if it was meant to be Margaret Thatcher or Marilyn Monroe.
“It’s like some sort of code?” suggested Baland. “Is this anything you do with your Mrs Van Jochem?”
Matt shrugged. “The woman thrives on chaos,” he admitted.
Glass crunched under Matt’s feet as he walked out.
On the far side of the carriageway, a coach pulled away from the kerbside. There was a red dragon emblem along the side.
Colin's Coaches, Pwhelli.
“Pwhelli,” he said.
“What?” said Baland.
“Worst holiday of my childhood.”
Baland frowned at him and then went off to direct his officers.
“Damp and grey,” said Matt. “And that was just the hotel…”
A large dog trotted along the kerb where the coach had just been. Except it wasn’t just any large dog. In fact, it might not be a dog at all…
Matt cautiously crossed the road, waving thanks to the
cars that peeped at him.
“Hey, boy,” he said in his friendliest voice.
The shaggy creature swung its large head to look at him.
“Are you some kind of giant husky or malamute?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t so. The great grey beast was taller than his Aunt Judith’s Irish wolfhound.
“I saw you at the Couckuyt farm, didn’t I?”
The wolf eyed Matt. Matt smiled at the wolf while a little voice inside his head screamed, It’s a bloody wolf! Look at the size of its teeth! It’s drooling, for God’s sake!
“Are you following the same trail as me?” he asked.
The wolf approached Matt. Matt concentrated on smiling and not soiling himself in fear.
The wolf pressed his nose to Matt’s jacket pocket and sniffed. Matt gingerly slipped his hand into the pocket, past the wolf’s wet nose and produced a half-eaten pack of shortbread biscuits. The wolf sat back on its haunches and licked its lips.
Matt held out one of the biscuits and prepared to wish his fingers a tearful farewell.
The wolf took the biscuit (not his fingers) and chomped it into crumbs.
Matt ruffled the wolf's ears and it lolled its tongue and looked up at him in appreciation.
“So,” said Matt, “we’re two amateur sleuths chasing the same quarry.”
The wolf whined for another biscuit.
“I can see that you and I are going to get along just fine.”
Chapter 5 - Paris
At breakfast in the Hotel la Défense Centre in Paris, Christopher found Francis staring glumly into the remains of his hot chocolate.
“Still pining for that flaming rat?”
“Poor Weggie,” he sighed. “I can’t believe I left him behind. First, the wolf. Now, the wat. What kind of fwiend to animals am I?”
“You left that rat in one of the best hotels in Rouen,” said Christopher. “I think that makes him a jammy little rat.”