Izzie rubbed her eyes. When were they holding the awards for the Most Boring Web Site Ever? This government agency was a surefire winner. Mind-numbing though it was, it paid reasonably well, and there was about two weeks’ worth of it. With Frank still crashing around in the loft and shaking his head sadly whenever she asked him how it was going, she was not in a position to be picky.
The whole Marcus thing had calmed down since the day of the great Oxford expedition. He’d apologized for getting shirty and seemed quite up about the meeting. He was trying, too—kept asking her about her work, had massaged her shoulders one night, they’d even made love, and he’d actually made lunch one day—cheese on toast, but still. He’d seemed resigned to the time she was spending over at Maddy’s too, provided she sorted the kids out herself. Definitely a change for the better!
When she arrived at Huntingford House, forensic evidence in the kitchen—half-drunk cups of coffee and overflowing ashtrays—revealed Maddy had had a working lunch. But she was nowhere to be seen, although from the fresh pile of notes, she had clearly been busy translating the journal.
Izzie made fresh tea, buttered a few scones, and took some out to the sheds for Crispin, whose reassuring, bearlike presence and quiet comings and goings had lifted the mood of the whole place. A smell of sawdust filled the air, and Izzie found him contentedly sweeping up shavings and making small repairs to the sheds he would be using. He was a bit of an enigma, old Crispin. Obviously well bred and educated, he seemed as comfortable with her and Maddy as he was with his hairy-arsed colleagues. She had noted with amusement that he answered his mobile as “Chris”—much more suitable. Crispin was the name for a bishop or a diplomat, not a jobbing builder.
“Thanks, Izzie. That’s smashing! She was around earlier, and her car’s still here, but I haven’t seen her. She was out roaming the fields earlier with Pasco. Came back with a big basket of rowanberries.” He shook his head, laughing quietly to himself, and went back to his work.
Her shoes too light to go trudging, Izzie went back into the house to wait. She was just correcting Maddy’s spelling in her notes—erratic to say the least—when she heard the scrunch of a car on gravel. A moment later the doorbell rang out. Probably someone looking for Crispin. Yep, through the glass panels she could definitely see it was a man, and a pretty big one, too. She opened the door with a cheery, “Hello! If you want the sheds, they’re further on up the drive. Can’t miss ’em.”
But the man who turned round at the sound of her voice was definitely not a contractor. You don’t get a tan like that in Ringford in November. Instead, Izzie found herself staring up at a bronzed face, slightly puzzled, clearly amused, somewhat familiar. She knew her mouth had dropped open, but she didn’t seem able to close it.
He looked at her intently and, with lean brown hands, he pushed his floppy hair back off his forehead, and shook his head slowly. With a soft French accent like honey dripping on hot toast, he responded, “Non. Not the sheds. I’m looking for Madeleine, my cousine. Is she here? You are a friend?”
So this was the cousin from the photo. “Oh yeah! Maddy’s told me about you—I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name . . . er . . .”
“Jean Luc.” He smiled, his eyes crinkling warmly at the corners, and shook her hand. “Is Maddy here?”
“Yes—I mean, no. She’s around, just out in the garden somewhere. She’ll be back in a minute. Come in and have some tea.”
“In the garden? That doesn’t sound like her! I’ve got some things for her—I’ll bring them in.”
She watched with unashamed pleasure as he strolled over to the mud-splashed Range Rover and stretched luxuriously. He was really quite an attractive man—they sure knew how to breed them in that family. By no means eye candy, he had a kind of battered charm, a bit like an old suitcase. Izzie led the way into the kitchen, and he followed, carrying a couple of wine boxes.
“Are you staying long?” she asked, filling the kettle at the tap.
“Ah hah! Your famous English hospitality.” He laughed richly as he put the crates on the table. “Well, there is nothing much happening on my farm, so I crept away, but I cannot stay too long here. I have horses, and they miss me when I am away. But I have to check my little cousine is all right.”
He took in the kitchen. “She has done a lot since I was here last.” Then he swung round and looked straight at Izzie. “How is she now?”
She answered carefully, trying to make her response as sincere as the question had been. “It’s been hard for her. There’s so much for her to take on board. I mean, her life has changed totally. I’ll admit, I’ve been worried at times and I didn’t know what to do to help her. But just in the last week, I think she’s starting to feel—not exactly feel better—but it’s as if her compass is pointing ahead again, as if she knows the way she has to go now, even if she’s not sure how to set about it.”
Jean Luc frowned and nodded slowly. “Yes, I can feel what you mean. It’s a strong image. You must be a good friend to her if you can see all this. But I don’t remember seeing you at the funeral.”
Making the tea, she thought hard before she replied. “It seems strange now that I put it into words, but I haven’t known her long. I never even met Simon. We met up a couple of times, but when I heard about the accident, I came right over and—well, I’ve been here almost every day since.”
He shrugged his square shoulders, easing them inside his thick leather jacket. “Sometimes it happens like that. She is very lucky to have you.”
“She certainly is!” Maddy’s voice came from the door. “Hello, stranger—what the hell brings you here?”
He spun round, and Maddy flew into her cousin’s arms, squashing Pasco between them. He picked them both up, squeezing them tight, streams of delighted French bursting from them simultaneously. Izzie smiled to herself and got on with making the tea, discreetly clearing the table before they sat down.
She shyly produced some scones she’d made at home. Jean Luc exclaimed in delight. “Most of your food is sheet, but proper tea I love.” Then he went out to the hall, returning moments later with boxes full of food he had brought with him. “When you come to England, you have to bring your own food.” He laughingly deflected their jeers. “Oh yes! Really.”
Like a magician, he produced pots of jam sealed with wax, honey, pâtés in glass jars, cheeses, big tomatoes, a couple of frisée lettuces, some cured ham, several bottles of local wine, olive oil, and a homemade-looking bottle of vinegar . . . on and on it went. The women clapped and gasped in delight, reached into the boxes, giggling as he pretended to slap their hands away.
“Last, but not least. Please don’t open this, my little Pandoras!” He produced a tightly sealed plastic bin bag, and announced dramatically, “Madeleine, you have made me a smuggler! Here is a bag of the smelly weed, just for you. The disgusting, the unspeakable centpertuis. I can’t begin to guess—I don’t even want to guess—what you are going to do with it. But I had to come here to check if you really are crazy!”
“And now? What do you think?”
“Now,” he replied, putting his arm round Maddy’s shoulders in an affectionate squeeze. “Now I am quite reassured. You are completely crazy, but you have a crazy friend too. Ça-y-est! C’est bien! You are quite fine, giggling like schoolgirls!”
Izzie jumped to her feet. “The kids! I’m going to be late. You too, Maddy! Lovely to meet you, Jean Luc.” And she dashed from the room.
Marcus was busy that evening, too busy to ask her what she had been up to, and she had to admit she was relieved. She was a bad liar and didn’t entirely trust herself to be offhand in her description of Maddy’s cousin. Marcus had always been the jealous type and he was bad enough when she started drooling over Jeremy Paxman during Newsnight. He never left her unchaperoned during University Challenge. Boss-eyed from a further grapple with the government document, she gave up at ten thirty and surrendered herself to the pleasures of Sex and the City. For the first time she found herself analyzing the characters’ flirting techniques—it was so contrived and she knew she’d never be able to imitate them even if she wanted to. There was no doubt Jean Luc was a bit of a flirt, and today had been fun. She’d revelled in the attention. “Oh for God’s sake, Isabel,” she berated herself as she turned off the TV. “He’s French. They do flirting at baccalaureate.”
The next day, Izzie returned to Maddy’s house straight after the school drop-off. They’d arranged by phone the night before that this would be the day of the great cook up. She only hoped it would go better than the thyme and parsley hair conditioner Maddy had already attempted. She’d had to throw the pan out, and the backs of Izzie’s ears were still bright green.
Maddy was in the kitchen, weighing out the centpertuis for the base tincture that seemed to appear in most of Luce’s recipes. Izzie looked around for Jean Luc and hovered near the cooker. “So,” she ventured at last, “did you eat all that cheese last night?”
“No way!” retorted Maddy. “Can you imagine the nightmares you’d get from that lot? Jean Luc made some yummy soup. I thought we’d have the leftovers for lunch. He should be back by then.”
“Oh—right. Well then, let’s get on with this. Have you got an apron I could use?”
Maddy looked her up and down, and bit her lip to suppress a smile. “Yes. You’d better cover that jumper up. Wouldn’t want to get any green smelly goo on it, would we? You’re looking particularly scrumptious today. Your hair looks nice like that.”
Izzie pretended to concentrate on the recipe. “I just blow-dried it differently for a change, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Maddy replied cheerfully. “I absolutely know! Now, are you ready for me to open this bag? Jean Luc says it smells worse than his socks—and having gone camping with him, I can tell you that’s pretty appalling! With just him rattling round in that huge old farmhouse, I don’t suppose he bothers much. Ready? Pheeeew! He wasn’t exaggerating. Here—add the water. It might smell better once it’s boiled down.”
Two hours later, the centpertuis had been reduced to a small quantity of goo but smelled far worse. Even with all the windows open, the stench was appalling. The two women stared into the pot in disgust at the evil, bubbling mess.
“God, this is vile!” laughed Maddy.
Izzie glanced at the translated notes from Luce’s book. “Oh Lord! We’ve got to simmer it for another half hour. Luce is very specific about her timings, isn’t she? I’ll set the timer so we don’t forget.”
“Fat chance of forgetting something this smelly! For God’s sake, pass me the pan lid. I’ll stick it in the bottom oven. The stench is making me gag. Oh sod it! I’ve burned my wrist on the door. This had better be worth it.”
“Quick! Run your arm under the cold tap,” said Izzie as Maddy pulled off her oven glove and inspected the red weal rapidly forming on the inside of her forearm. “That looks nasty. Hang on—doesn’t Luce say this goo is supposed to be good for burns? Have a go!”
Izzie wiped a dollop of cooled purée from the wooden spoon they’d stirred it with and gently dabbed it onto the burn.
“Do you think it’s all right to use it neat?” asked Maddy doubtfully, peering down at her arm.
“It’s just a plant. Can’t do any harm, can it?”
Maddy grimaced. “They said that about hemlock. Actually it feels quite soothing.”
They heard the front door bang, and a deep voice call out, “Oh non! Ce n’est pas possible! The smell is just awful!”
This time, Jean Luc embraced Izzie too—three kisses—then held her at arm’s length, his hands cupping her shoulders and looking her up and down appreciatively. “You look like a summer sky, Izzie. That blue—just perfect for you.”
He turned away to unpack the groceries from supermarket bags. “I was nearly chased from the store,” he complained. “How do you buy cheese in England if you don’t open it up and smell it? And what is so terrible about squeezing melons? Does that make me a pervert? This is a crazy country. You should see the market in St. Jean du Gard. You would love it. So full of color, fragrance. You must come over again soon, Maddy—both of you, why not?”
Maddy took off her apron. “Tempting idea, but right now I’m hot and sweaty after all that boiling—I’m going to have a shower. We’ll have lunch in about half an hour, okay? Jean, why don’t you open a bottle of that Coteaux du Languedoc? I bet Izzie’s never tried it before!” And she left the room.
Silence fell. Izzie pretended to read Maddy’s notes, now splattered with drops of green sludge. She was acutely aware of Jean Luc moving quietly round the kitchen, but didn’t dare turn round. She heard him getting down plates from the rack and mixing up a dressing for the salad. The silence was agonizing. What was it about this man? Why couldn’t she just behave normally? The sound of the cork squeaking, then popping slightly as it left the bottle was followed by a clink of glasses and a mouthwatering gloop-gloop.
Jean Luc cleared his throat. “Er, Izzie . . . you want some?”
He held out a glass of the black-red wine and smiled slowly. Izzie sat down at the other side of the table, and took a slug, nearly choking on the earthy, full-bodied flavor.
He smiled ruefully. “Yes—wines from the south can be a bit too bold.” He sat back with his wine, content in the silence.
Izzie could stand it no longer. “Gosh, isn’t it quiet now?”
“Yes, isn’t it? Wherever Maddy is there seems to be lots of noise and laughter. It’s always been that way—when we were children, she always was the wicked one. She used to drive Giselle crazy. Mind you, that’s not far to go. Have you met Giselle?”
Thank God. He’d got the conversational ball rolling, and she could relax. “Oh yeah. Once met, never forgotten. Within five minutes of meeting her she had me driving her to the station!”
He laughed. “That sounds just like her. She’s an institution. Notre Gigi nationale.”
“Gigi! That doesn’t sound like her at all.”
“I know—it’s why I always call her that.”
“Maddy must be much more like her father.”
“I think so, yes, except for the addiction to clothes. I don’t really remember him, but I do remember playing football with him on the beach. He used to organize us all into games. He had such energy.”
“Jean Luc, how did he die? What with Simon, I haven’t dared ask.”
“Oh it was so stupid. He died during a routine operation—for a knee injury from rugby, I think, when he was young or something unimportant like that, but it went wrong. Giselle fell apart, though she’s reinvented her history now, and that was when they came to spend long summers with us in Antibes.”
“I’ve seen the pictures,” said Izzie, remembering the fresh young faces of the teenagers in Maddy’s box.
“At first I was very angry about it—I was adolescent and bad-tempered. I hated her because everyone felt sorry for her, and I was expected to keep an eye on her. But after a while I began to look forward to them coming. Then Peter—have you met him?—anyway, he arrived on the scene and he’s such a good man. He simply took on Giselle and Maddy with all their sadness.”
Izzie shuddered. “God, imagine having that happen twice in your life.”
“That’s why it’s so amazing that wherever Maddy is, she manages to make it fun. But come on, Izzie, I don’t know much about you—except that you’ve been a very good friend to her.”
“Oh well, not much to tell. All very boring really.”
“I doubt that very much. Do you have children?”
“Yes, two. Charlie is eight and Jess is six. They’re a great team but they take turns to drive me crazy. What about you?”
“Me? No. No children.” Izzie was desperate to ask more, but couldn’t catch his eye as he fiddled with a loose button on his cuff. “But we were talking about you, Izzie, so stop trying to change the subject. You don’t look like a country girl—have you always lived here?”
Under his gentle questions, she found herself telling him about the move to Ringford, and even about the trouble she was having settling in with the natives. But for all the details she gave him, to which he listened with quiet intensity, she found she was deliberately avoiding the subject of Marcus. She couldn’t quite work out why, or maybe she didn’t want to. And stranger still, Jean Luc didn’t seem curious about the missing link. But within no time, she was telling a man she had only just met about feelings she had barely ever voiced, even to her own husband.
“But don’t you realize”—he smiled—“that these dreadful women you talk about feel entirely threatened by you? You are intelligent. They are cretins. You have charm. They are vulgar.” Izzie could feel herself flush. Get a grip, woman! “And you have ten times more verve than they could ever hope to have.” Suddenly the kitchen timer burst into life. Phew! Saved by the beep. She leaped to her feet and grabbed a tea towel. “Time for lunch!” She carefully lifted out the dark green Le Creuset pot, and placed it on top of the Aga.
“Well, that’s the end of that pan,” laughed Jean Luc. “She won’t want to use it again now.”
“I’d better give it a stir and make sure it’s not sticking.” She went as if to take off the lid, and he came to stand beside her.
“For God’s sake, don’t take that lid off,” shrieked Maddy as she reappeared, her hair wet and tousled from the shower. Jean Luc moved away quickly. “The neighbors will be asking awkward questions about the state of my septic tank!”
“Oh, ladies! It’s no worse than your usual English cuisine!” he muttered into his wineglass, then ducked to avoid the tea towel Izzie had lobbed at him.
The three of them chatted and laughed over lunch, Jean Luc embarrassing Maddy with stories about their youth and her ghastly first boyfriends, egged on by Izzie.
“Oh, he was rough.” Jean Luc shook his head in disbelief. “Not a nice boy at all. Giselle went crazy. Motorbike and those tattoos on his arms ’ere and ’ere.”
“Speaking of arms”—Izzie suddenly remembered the burn—“how’s yours now, Maddy?” she asked, pulling back Maddy’s sleeve.
“Oh that. I’d forgotten all about it.” They both peered closely at her barely marked skin and their eyes met in amazement. “Well, look at that! Seems the old bird was right about this stuff after all.”
It took days to get the smell out of the house. Maddy had opened all the windows in the kitchen until the children and the poinsettia on the windowsill had started to complain of frostbite.
It had been an anticlimax when Jean Luc left and, with only a few weeks of term remaining, the looming horror of Christmas was beginning to worry Maddy seriously. Without Simon it all seemed so pointless, and it took everything she had just to drag herself out of bed in the morning. And then there was the cost! Florence, whose unspoken grief had manifested itself in the need again for a nappy at night, had her heart set on some ghastly plastic pony she’d seen advertised on ITV. Will’s wish list was a second-mortgage number. Game Boy Advance, CD-ROMs, Action Man, go-kart. She knew they were out of the question this year, but out of a passionate desire to make up for all they had lost, Maddy wondered whether he’d settle for a homemade version—perhaps Crispin could knock something up in the sheds?
Stephen Chester from Chester Goodwin, the big auctioneers in Oxford, had been so obsequious when he’d toured the house that it was all she could do not to punch him. Good public school etiquette, which oozed from every pore of his tweed-clad body, forbade him from making any enquiries as to why Madam wished to raise the cash. He had simply gushed suitably about the house, and then became intimidatingly businesslike when it came to the sticky subject of valuation. He peered closely at the massive gilt mirror—the one she’d bought for the overmantel in London and which now took pride of place in the hall—and tapped his cheek with his pen, then jotted down a brief description on his pad. He tried, and almost succeeded, to cover up his excitement at the walnut tallboy in the spare room, and ran his hand lovingly over the long oak dining room table and large Carver chairs.
Maddy had followed him round, trying to act nonchalant, as he peered, considered, and wrote down notes. “It’s only furniture,” she kept reminding herself. It can always be replaced, but as she spread out the contents of her jewelry box onto the kitchen table, she almost lost control.
Watching his chubby hands picking up and putting down her rings, necklaces, and earrings, she felt as if she had been violated. “Some interesting pieces here, Mrs. Hoare,” he said oleaginously, “though of course a successful sale entirely depends on how interested the collectors are.” He looked closely then carefully discarded several pieces, and she felt a mixture of relief and outrage that they weren’t good enough for consideration. “This is especially pretty.” He had picked up an oval diamond brooch that Mémé had given her for her eighteenth birthday and was holding it very close to his eye. “Yes, very interesting. There is a growing market for this style of art deco jewelry. I think this could easily sell,” and he made another note on his pad.
The letter with his list of suggested reserve prices had arrived a couple of days later, and for another two days she had picked it up and peered at it, then put it down in disgust. The final figure, if she put all the pieces he had suggested into auction, would just about cover the outstanding invoices for the work already done on the house, except Crispin’s bill, but only if she included Mémé’s brooch with the lots. Trying to sound as cool and detached as she could, she rang to confirm her agreement.
She put down the phone and surveyed the kitchen. The sale might raise enough, but it wouldn’t come close to leaving them enough to live on. It was no good. She’d have to get a job.
Izzie was incredulous. “A temping agency? Maddy, when was the last time you even went into an office? They have computers these days you know, all the typewriters are condemned to museums. What are you going to offer them?”
“Well, people must still drink tea.”
“Yeah right.”
“But can I ask you a big favor? I’m going to try that agency in Ringford—WorkWorld or something—could you possibly have Pasco for a couple of hours tomorrow morning? He’d love to play at your house and you know how much he loves you.”
“Okay, you don’t have to lay it on. I’ve got to finish this bloody Web site stuff, but he can always sort out my CDs while I’m doing it. How is he at ironing?”
“You’re a doll. I’ll bring him over about nine thirty.”
Maddy was serious. She felt happier leaving Pasco with Izzie than anyone else. She knew he’d be happy, safe, and looked after, so next morning, putting on her black Jean Muir “funeral” suit—she assumed that was the sort of thing efficient secretaries wore—and using a belt to hold up the now much-too-big trousers, she dropped the children at school and set off for Izzie’s.
The narrow driveway was taken up with a skip, now full to the brim with sick-looking timbers. The house was swathed in scaffolding, and two men were crawling over the roof. The damage was clearly worse than Izzie had let on, and Maddy wondered just how much it must be costing them to put right. Izzie just seemed to muddle along without complaint, but this must have put a hell of a dent in their budget. Marcus got to the door first, and she tried to smile warmly.
“You look smart,” he opened with, rather coolly. “Swanning off to lunch somewhere posh?”
Not a very good start. She really couldn’t put her finger on it, but on the few times she had met him now, his charm seemed rather phony, and when Izzie wasn’t around, he was verging on hostile. Had she done something to offend him? “Izzie very sweetly said she’d look after Pasco, while I go into town for a meeting.” That sounded important and professional. “He’s terribly good and I won’t be long.”
His reply was cut short by Izzie bolting down the stairs. “Hi, little mate,” she said, as Pasco put his arms out to her. “Are you coming to play with me this morning? Fancy a biscuit? Let’s go and find you one.” She looked at Maddy, as Marcus went back into the kitchen, and said quietly, “Remember, they are called word processors, and you are familiar with Windows XP.”
“Is that a new type of Jag?”
“Ha-ha. Just say it, and if they’ve something for you, I’ll give you a crash course on my computer.”
“Crash it will be,” laughed Maddy. She gave Pasco and Izzie a hug and promised she’d be back as quickly as possible.
No, thought Maddy as she tried to find a parking space, Marcus really is touchy. Whenever he was around, Izzie seemed to lose her spark, glancing at him nervously as if not quite trusting him to behave. She certainly hadn’t been like that with Jean Luc. The old rogue had brought out the best in her like he did with everyone. His charm was hard to resist. For a silly moment she fantasized about Izzie and him getting it together. Jean Luc deserved some happiness. But she couldn’t imagine it really. Besides, there was no way on earth Jean Luc would move over here. Not for anyone would he tolerate British supermarket shopping. Daft idea.
“So,” repeated the rather brisk woman at WorkWorld, “you haven’t been employed since 1994.” She pursed her lips. That plum-colored top is so wrong for her, thought Maddy, and that hair! It looks like it was cut at the garden center.
“I take it you are familiar with Microsoft Office and PowerPoint?”
“You just plug the machine in at the wall, don’t you?” The woman looked sceptical. “I’m very efficient, and I’m a quick learner . . .” Maddy finished weakly. Nothing she seemed to have said so far had impressed, and she could feel this interview was running away without her.
The woman halfheartedly scrolled down the computer screen in front of her. “Well, Mrs. Hoare, I’m not sure we have anything to match your . . . skills just at the moment, but we will keep you on our books and I’ll be in touch if anything comes up. I take it you can start work at a moment’s notice?”
Maddy thought about Pasco at home all day, Florence at Little Goslings, and the school pickup at three thirty. “Oh yes, not a problem.”
“Lovely. Well, thank you for coming to see us, and I’ll be in touch.”
Don’t hold your breath, thought Maddy as she got back to the car. Pulling out of Ringford, her mood hit rock bottom. What the hell was she going to do? Who was she kidding that she could earn money? The only thing she could do was spend it. Stuck behind a tractor, the journey back to Izzie’s was a slow one. She’d left London so she could get out of traffic and third gear, but things didn’t seem to be any better here. If only she could turn back the clock, to before that day in May when Simon had said he wanted to move out. Had she followed her gut instinct and said no, he’d still be alive, they’d still have their lovely house, and she wouldn’t be acting out this humiliating charade in her little black suit.
As she turned into Hoxley, she spotted a home-painted sign by a gate advertising local honey with a bright orange bee painted with childish ineptitude. An idea popped into Maddy’s head and she pulled in. Half an hour later, her small inquiry about buying wax had led to a lecture on honey production and a full-scale tour of Mr. Norman Jacks’s hives—luckily the bees were asleep because she hadn’t fancied putting on one of those beekeeper’s hoods. In her smart suit, she’d have looked like something from a Vivienne Westwood collection. She’d also found out about a Christmas Fayre—an annual event at Ledfinch Manor, a huge pile Maddy had remembered passing a couple of times, and quite the highlight of the local Christmas calendar according to Mr. Jacks, who muttered something about “load of nonsense.”
Izzie handled the delicious slabs of wax with awe. “Brilliant—let’s see if you can get a stall at this jamboree and sell some of Luce’s recipes, but let’s hope the wax improves the smell, or when people open the jars, they’ll run a mile.”
“One thing that struck me while I was looking at Mr. Jacks’s little production line—are there restrictions on producing something people are going to put on their skin? We don’t want the great and good of the county spending Christmas in hospital with second-degree burns.”
“To the Internet, my girl,” directed Izzie, leading her through the cottage. “The source of all information that’s useful and plenty that isn’t.”
“Can we look at some naughty sites, too?” Maddy giggled conspiratorially.
“Type in ‘skin’ on a search engine, and God knows what we’ll find. Jess was looking up about ponies the other day, typed in ‘riding’ and . . . well . . . you wouldn’t have believed what came up.”
Izzie led her through the sitting room.
“Hey, something’s missing,” said Maddy, pausing to look around the room. “Where’s the piano?”
“It’s on the roof.”
Maddy looked at her for a moment, not quite understanding. Then the penny dropped. “God, you didn’t have to sell it, did you?” Maddy was incredulous. “Not that beautiful thing?”
“Darling, I had no choice. It was that or going on the game, and I didn’t think Marcus would make much of a pimp.” Izzie tried to laugh, but Maddy could see the depth of her distress. Her own furniture hadn’t meant anything like as much—but with the loss of the brooch, she could relate to the terrible sacrifice Izzie had made. Maddy hadn’t realized money was that tight for her and Marcus too.
Izzie briskly led her through to the study, as if she couldn’t bear to look at the empty space left by the piano, and somehow they found her desk in among piles of newspapers, old magazines, books which had overflowed from shelves and were piled precariously on the floor, and large sheets of book page proofs.
“God, Izzie, how the hell do you work in this state?”
“A tidy desk is the sign of a sick mind. Now what do you need to know? Trading standards, I suppose.” As she went online and started typing in key words, it suddenly struck Maddy that Izzie kept saying “you” whenever they talked about Luce’s recipes.
Maddy squeezed onto the chair beside Izzie. “Hey, Mrs. Stock. You’re not leaving me to do this project on my own, are you?”
“Well, she was your relation, wasn’t she? And the stuff is coming from your cousin, so it’s really—”
“Wait right there a moment,” said Maddy, putting her hands on Izzie’s to stop her typing any more. “I’m not doing this harebrained project without you. If you aren’t going to do it with me, then we can forget it right now.”
Izzie looked uncertainly into Maddy’s eyes, then a broad smile spread across her face. “I’m with you, girlfriend. Give me five!”
Everything moved incredibly slowly for the next few weeks. Izzie’s stoicism over losing the piano made Maddy determined to be brave as she watched the walnut tallboy, dining table and Carver chairs, a commode, an oil painting (that she’d never actually liked), and her beloved gilt mirror being wrapped in blankets and placed carefully in the back of the van. Rather pathetically she wrapped the brooch in bubble wrap, and the driver put it carefully in his pocket. “Should get a bit for this lot, love,” he said, slamming the back of the van shut. “But you won’t miss it in a place this size, I expect.” Maddy could have kicked him.
Frantically seeking displacement activity, she phoned Gail Thwaite-Mickleton, the Fayre organizer, and managed to sweet-talk her into giving them a stall—someone had apparently had to drop out—and gave her some flannel about the quality of their product and how it would fit in with the woman’s high standards. “This isn’t some two-bit event, my dear,” Gail T.-M. had brayed. “We only want products of the very best quality.”
The only problem was they really had no product yet to sell—high quality or not. Izzie’s investigations had revealed the rigorous regulations that went with cosmetic production, and Maddy had used her best sultry tones with a nice-sounding man at the trading standards office in Oxford to help her find laboratories that tested cosmetic products for them. It helped that Luce’s recipes were about as natural as they come. To make life simpler, they had settled for now on producing just Luce’s “baume panacé”—healing balm—which contained nothing but centpertuis, beeswax, olive oil, and lavender, something Izzie had finally sourced from a rather twee dried-flower emporium in Cheltenham. It was worth the inflated price—the lavender sweetened the awful smell, though only slightly—but Izzie was incensed at the amount she had been charged for it. “This is daylight robbery—in summer my garden’s awash with it!” All of the other recipes they had tried so far had been disasters. The healing balm might smell awful, but at least it didn’t look like half-rotted lawn clippings.
Now all they could do was wait until they got the results. Meanwhile, they had the packaging to think about. Maddy didn’t imagine for one minute that the type of women who came to these fayres would settle for creams in the selection of old marmalade and jam jars Izzie had found in the cupboard under her sink.
“No, they’ll never fall for that,” said Maddy, as they both looked despondently at a washed-out jar of Bonne Maman apricot jam that sat in the middle of Maddy’s kitchen table. They were feeling panicky. Only days to go until the Fayre: a large pan full of green healing balm which closely resembled pig swill; no jars, and no accreditation to sell it anyway.
“Have you any old Clarins jars we could use?” suggested Izzie hopefully.
“Good God, woman. Clarins? I wish. I’m reduced to lard these days.”
Izzie suddenly sat up. “I’ve got it. What about those sweet little Kilner jars that Jean Luc brought with the pâté in?”
Maddy smacked the table in excitement. “You’re a genius. They’re in the cupboard over there.”
There were only five of them, but they looked unusual and rustic enough that they just might do. They scraped out the contents, spreading some of it on crackers and eating as much as they could—this was good stuff and a tragedy to waste—until they both felt thoroughly sick. The rest went into the apricot jam jar, which Izzie put in her bag for Marcus’s supper.
Once the jars were clean and the old labels soaked off in hot water, they looked even better. Now all they needed were labels. Maddy dug out a roll of white stickers she used to mark the children’s snack boxes, and they both sat at the table again.
“Now what?” said Maddy. “I can’t do anything; my drawing is retarded.”
Izzie picked up one of the children’s crayons from the table and started to doodle on a piece of paper. “Well, first we need a name. Is there a sort of ancient French name we could use? Tante Luce or something?”
“Sounds a bit like an apple pie brand you’d find in the freezer compartment at Tesco’s. It needs to be countrified. ‘Old Slurry’?”
“Oh, that’ll get them excited! Eve Lom had better look out!” Izzie laughed. “Get serious, Maddy. You’re the frog.”
“Okay. Pays, paysanne? Country something. Luce’s recipes are almost like spells, aren’t they?”
“What? Like country magic?” said Izzie half-wittedly.
“No, more like magical country.”
“Like Narnia or in the Wizard of Oz.”
“Yeah right. I’ll be Dorothy. Oh the hours I spent watching that film. I can date my shoe obsession back to those ruby slippers. You can be Toto. You’ve got the hair for it. Right.” Maddy scribbled some words on the paper in front of her. “Magique, sortilège, secret . . . er . . . enchantement du pays?”
“Too clumsy.”
“Enchanté. I know, what about Paysage Enchanté. It means sort of magical country . . . ?”
Izzie started to write out the letters, copying the thin, florid, distinctively Gallic script from Luce’s notebook. Beneath she doodled and half sketched out a long, veined leaf of centpertuis. It looked very plain and uninspiring on its own. Then, flicking through Luce’s book on the table, she picked out a dried stalk of lavender, straw colored now but still perfect in shape, and sketched it on the paper.
“That’s wonderful,” said Maddy, coming to look over her shoulder. “You’re good at this, aren’t you? Must have got it from your dad. Can we put the two plants together?”
Izzie thought for a moment, with her head to one side, then sketched out another leaf more boldly this time and entwined it with the lavender motif. Rattling through the pot of children’s crayons on the table, she pulled out a deep purple and soft gray-green, and colored in the design. They both looked at the finished effect. It was simple, almost contemporary, yet captured the earthy element of the recipes.
“God, I haven’t done any drawing for ages. I’m so rusty, but it’s a start. I’ll work on that over the next few days.”
“Brilliant. If we do another label on the back with the ingredients and all the bunkum we have to include, in the same script, it’ll look really professional.”
The next morning Maddy was back on the phone to Jean Luc. He was resolved. “Now I know you are both mad. You want four dozen empty pâté jars? What are you going to put in them? Don’t tell me you are going to pass off that smelly weed for tapenade?”
“We’ve just got this idea,” said Maddy. “We’re going to mix up one of Grandmère Luce’s recipes and see if we can sell it. Call me desperate, but, Jean Luc, you know I’ve got to make some money somehow. Things are even tighter now.”
“It’s not such a crazy idea.” Maddy was surprised that for once he seemed to be taking her seriously. “I’ve done a little asking around the family and in her village, St. Estèphe. She was something of a legend. A sort of white witch.” Maddy could feel a tingle of excitement. “Apparently she had a little business going where she would cook up her recipes for ointments and creams, and the villagers would pay her with cheese and vegetables. A kind of barter system. People came for miles for her magical potions—she even had orders from highly placed people in Paris, or so she used to claim.”
Maddy scribbled frantically on the back of an envelope as he talked. “What became of her?”
“Well, she must have had children, or we wouldn’t be here.” He laughed. “I think she was a kind of earth mother—a hippie before her time. I can imagine children and chickens running in and out of the kitchen around her feet as she stirred her secret potions.”
“This is great stuff! Oh, can I beg another favor?” she asked apologetically. “When you send over the jars, could you possibly chuck in another bag of centpertuis?”
“I’ll have to triple wrap it, or you’ll kill a few sniffer dogs at customs! Take care, ma petite, and say ’ello to Izzie for me.”
Maddy laughed knowingly, blew him kisses down the phone, and as soon as he hung up, dialed Izzie’s number.
Soaking in the bath that night, enjoying the last drops from a bottle of Clarins Bain aux Plantes “Relax”—there wouldn’t be any more where that came from—she wondered where they were going to go with this Luce thing after the Christmas Fayre. Even if they sold the whole batch, they’d hardly be able to afford a turkey each. It had been fun getting all the ingredients—a nice distraction from grim reality—and the combined effect of the fresh, delicate green in the jars, with Izzie’s naïve but pretty labels, was irresistible. It made you want to open the jars and plunge your fingers into the cream. This was too good an idea to drop.
Padding down the landing in her dressing gown, she scooped up Will’s discarded socks and the little jingley rabbit Pru Graves had given Pasco when he was born. She stared at it. Pru! With her PR contacts, she’d know whether there was any point developing the idea somehow. Maybe selling it at the farmers’ market or the health food shop. Didn’t she represent some niche makeup brand that was always being mentioned in magazines like Elle? This would be small beer for Pru, but she knew her stuff.
Two cups of tea and an ashtray full of cigarette stubs later, Maddy had scribbled down everything she knew about Luce and the ingredients, with a groveling covering letter. Tomorrow she would stick a few jars in a Jiffy bag and send it off to Pru. Nothing ventured nothing gained!