In the morning Mme Durebex told me to fetch more logs.
– And make sure it’s not wet. The wood you fetched yesterday was wet.
Of course it was. It had been raining on and off for two days, and the wood pile was in a hollow under the verandah where the water collected. I said exactly that to Mme Durebex, then went outside for another bundle.
I was building the fire with wet wood when Mme Durebex rushed back into the room.
– Shona! Why did you throw out the coffee I saved for Monsieur?
– But it’s you who threw it out.
– You did! You put it in the saucepan. How could you!
I stacked up the kindling. I balanced a big log on the nest of it, then I sat back on my heels and brushed my hands on the cowhide. She stood over me, rebuking me.
– Look, I interrupted her. I don’t see why you’re angry with me. You threw the coffee out.
– Of course I threw it out! she shouted. I threw it out because you put it in the saucepan.
– To be reheated, Madame Durebex. Did he want his coffee cold?
– Oh c’est pas possible!
She stomped around the room. Ridiculous woman. Shouting back relieved me but didn’t seem to have had an effect on her. I put the last log on the fire, then walked out.
I prepared lunch. M. Laplanche lurked in the doorway, trying to catch my eye. Mme Durebex reappeared with a smile. She brandished it as she darted in and out of the kitchen, calling me her chérie. She was trying to get back on my good side.
I said nothing. By now I preferred the bad side.
I stirred the beans with one hand, idly rubbing the ends of my hair with the other. Françoise came in.
– Ah no! she exclaimed. That’s not on. Not in the kitchen!
– What?
– Doing that with your hair near the food. It’s disgusting. And the way you bite the end off the baguette.
– Oh, come off it, Françoise, everybody bites the end off the baguette. Anyway, you don’t seem to mind my cooking.
She fumed. The habit with my hair probably was disgusting, but I figured I had a right to a few disgusting habits.
– You’re a prude, I said to Françoise.
Her hand went to her belly. It was a dramatic gesture.
– You make me sick! she said.
– Doesn’t everybody, Françoise?
She stormed from the room.
– J’en ai marre!
While everybody ate I prepared exercises for the boys. They had to convert the present continuous to the simple past. I wrote:
1. M. Durebex is saying there isn’t enough room.
2. Mme Durebex is shouting at Shona.
3. Shona is making a salad.
I sucked the pen thoughtfully. It was about time we had some fun.
Match the following expressions with someone you know:
| old bag – vieux sac | M. Laplanche | |
| sleazebag – miteux sac /sac miteux | Laurent | |
| ratbag – rat sac /sac à rat | Mme Durebex |
No, that wasn’t working. Ratbag – rat sac – rat poison. The meanings were twisting too far.
How about some idiomatic expressions, I thought.
4. M. Laplanche is sleazing on to Shona.
I rubbed number four out, superstitious, thinking of the way people had painted and written things over the centuries in order to make them happen. I went to the toilet. Overhead there was the scraping of chairs. That meant they were finishing lunch.
Speak of the devil. When I came out of the bathroom, there he was, fixing the straps on his bag in the foyer. M. Laplanche straightened up and put his hands on his hips.
– I’m going, mon petit.
– Good, I smiled.
He leant against the door frame, helping himself to the look of me in jeans.
– Excuse me. I want to go into my room.
He stood there smiling.
– Alone, I said.
– Allez, give me a kiss goodbye.
– Are you kidding, Rufus? I smiled back.
M. Laplanche shifted, his expression half hopeful, half hateful.
– You’ve got spinach stuck in your teeth, I said. Yuk.
His smile closed and his tongue went to work on his teeth. Better his than mine. I shut my door. The fury I’d seen in his eyes kept me in my room till I heard him go.
Claudine was staying for the rest of the week without him. I assumed there’d be gruelling times ahead, but the departure of M. Laplanche was a temporary relief, a weight cast off a sinking ship.
I waited in the study with the exercises. The boys came running in.
– My mother say we only work for, euh, vingt minutes, said Laurent. And we only do it oralement.
– We’re doing these exercises first, I said.
Laurent turned up his nose.
– Not dis.
That’d’ was a telltale loss of confidence.
– We’ll see, Laurent. Wait here. Don’t move till I get back.
I found Mme Durebex in the kitchen.
– I’ve prepared exercises for the boys.
– I want them to work orally.
– We work orally every time we speak together. They need to do these exercises.
She stopped what she was doing and looked at me in surprise. I looked straight back at her. She began to repeat herself.
– I know what they’re up to, Madame Durebex, I said.
I went back down. The study was empty. I knocked on the desktop and Hugues emerged, his hair netted with cobwebs. I pulled back the curtain and Laurent slid out the other side, then went over to his books. They wrote:
1. M. Durebex said there wasn’t enough room.
2. Mme Durebex shouted at Shona.
3. Shona made a salad.
Later, Françoise joined us in the study for the evening cartoons. Donald Duck sounded good in French. Over the last ten days this television had become a necessary luxury to me. I wouldn’t have one back in Paris. But then, I’d have plenty of other things to make up for it. Paris, Paris, each day my longing for it grew. When Mme Durebex shouted for me, there was a unanimous groan.
I went out to the foyer. Waiting to meet me was a sunburnt man in a puffy ski suit. He looked me up and down, then extended his hand.
Mme Durebex clinked her bangles.
– This is Vincent de Klerk.
– So you’re the girl, he said to me in English. Hallo. You’re nice. You’re good. They have talked to me about you.
Nice? Good? What a surprise.
– C’est ma jeune fille. Mme Durebex beamed with pride.
I felt like a real bargain.
Before they left they brought the Dutchman and his girlfriend down to the study. Mme Durebex pointed to Laurent lounging on the cushions, his hand down his pants.
– Tenez, this is my son. Look, he’s my son! Come and say something, Laurent. Come and say something to Katia, she doesn’t speak a word of French. Say something in English, go ori.
Laurent stood up. Mme Durebex watched him anxiously. He spoke in a monotone.
– Euh, hallo, how are you? I am very well, thank you. My name is Laurent. I am eight years old.
– Bravo! they all said, and Mme Durebex clapped.
Laurent sat stiffly on the cushions. When the audience exited he jumped up and jerked himself around the room.
– Just like a robot, he said.
In the early hours the front doorbell rang. I stumbled out in a long T-shirt that I had nicked from Dad’s drawer years ago. On it was written: I USED TO BE A MASOCHIST, NOW I JUST PLAY GOLF.
Claudine and Mme Durebex came in smelling of a nightclub. They had been out on the town again, with one husband gone and the other sick in bed, as good as gone. Mme Durebex called me her chérie and apologised for waking me.
– But Françoise told me you never slept, Shona, so I thought you could let us in.
She hung her coat between the anaemic water-colours and studied my face.
– Is it true, Shona? Is it true you never sleep?