The next thing I knew, I woke in total darkness feeling as if I was being smothered. I tentatively peeped out. Parting the bed curtains, I found light was streaming into the room. I checked my watch. It was eight a.m. To my amazement, I’d survived the night.
My room looked a lot less scary by daylight. I climbed out of bed and went to the window to confirm that night-time really was officially over. Down below, Titan and Sultan lazed on the gravel. As Sultan leaned over to give Titan a friendly lick, the chain by which he was attached to his kennel dragged along the ground. I felt very foolish indeed.
I could hear distant sounds from below. Reassuringly familiar sounds, like crockery being stacked and music from a radio. With a great wave of homesickness I thought of our kitchen back home. I could almost smell it. That familiar early morning burnt-toast smell. Mum had been saying for ages we ought to chuck the toaster out. But Dad insisted if you let the bread pop up twice you could get it just right. I could almost taste that burnt toast and marmalade mixture in my mouth. I wondered what Dad was doing right now.
Automatically I checked my mobile. There was a text from Jess.
night night sleep tight
mind the ghosties don’t bite
jxxxxxxxxx
Ghosts? My fears of the night before seemed rather stupid now. The red wallpaper had quite a nice warm look to it by the light of day. I went over to the mantelpiece and stared in the blotchy mirror. God, I looked a wreck. Sleeping in your clothes makes even cold water appealing. I grabbed my towel and sponge bag and went to brave the bathroom.
To my surprise it was quite warm in there. The mirror over the basin was misted up. Someone had been in before me. I turned the taps on the monster bath and after a lot of hiccuping and gurgling a stream of hot water gushed out. So I had a hot deep bath which I lay in for quite a long time. This precious interlude of peace and luxury was disturbed by a rattling on the doorknob.
‘ ’Annah?’ It was Matthilde.
‘Oui?’ (Notice how my French is improving!)
‘Eskatoodessanpoorlapetidayjurnay?’
‘Errrm?’
‘Oh that, yep. OK, won’t be a minute.’
Once downstairs, I went to the dining room to find no sign of breakfast. I tracked the sound of the radio to the kitchen. A large lady in an old-fashioned overall was leaning over the sink. She turned when I came in and dried her hands on a tea towel and came and shook me by the hand.
She gestured at herself. ‘Florence,’ she said.
I pointed at myself. ‘Hannah.’
‘ ’Anna?’ she repeated, the ‘H’, as ever, totally beyond the French.
I wondered if she was some relation, an aunt or something. But she didn’t bear the least resemblance to Madame de Lafitte or Marie-Christine. At any rate it seemed risky to call her by her first name so I decided to err on the safe side and call her ‘madame’.
She pointed to some bowls on the kitchen table. ‘Café ou chocolat?’ she asked.
‘Chocolat, s’il vous plaît, madame,’ I replied. (Fluent French, you see – no worries.)
The remains of other people’s breakfasts were strewn over the kitchen table. Unlike dinner it seemed breakfast was a casual affair that you could have when you wanted. Florence gestured to me to sit down. Within minutes she was pouring a stream of frothy hot chocolate into my bowl and had brought bread, butter and a pot of homemade raspberry jam. I spooned some jam on to my bread and as I took a bite I thought regretfully of the raspberry tart lying abandoned in Paris.
As I finished my breakfast, Madame de Lafitte came in with Matthilde. They seemed to be having a bit of an argument about something. Madame de Lafitte pointed towards the back kitchen and the name ‘Edith’ came up several times. I cottoned on that she was suggesting Matthilde cleaned out her cage.
Matthilde said something about me. When this riveting activity was planned, it seemed I was to be included.
I trailed behind Matthilde as she carried Edith in her cage and headed towards some outbuildings. She led me into a tumbledown barn. The place was strewn with sacks and musty boxes, mousetraps and rolls of barbed wire. There was a disgusting pile of muddy gumboots which Matthilde homed in on. She started searching through them, and finding a couple similar enough to make a pair, she passed them to me.
‘Pour toi,’ she said.
She stood by as I reluctantly took off my trainers. I gave each boot a good shake before I put it on. Wise precaution. A dehydrated spider and a load of mouse droppings fell out. The boots were far too big and made a horrible squelching noise as I walked. I stumbled along behind Matthilde as she led the way to some stables behind the château. They were currently unoccupied, but I could tell from the strong smell of manure that there must be horses around somewhere. Something told me that horses would be at the centre of my next humiliation. I’m rather scared of horses, particularly big ones.
Inside the stables, we filled a sack with clean straw and took it back to where we’d left the cage. We now had to relocate Edith in temporary accommodation. Matthilde seemed to have decided it would be good for Edith to have a fresh-grass diet and we spent ages trying to rig up a kind of outdoor guinea-pig enclosure with various boxes and grilles we found in one of the outbuildings. We made an awkward team as Matthilde insisted that everything had to be done her way. I tried to point out that it was a bad idea to tie everything with string. But Matthilde greeted my advice with a rolling of the eyes and shrugs of total non-comprehension, so in the end I gave up.
We had just got Edith settled, grazing contentedly in the enclosure with her cage emptied, washed out and set in the sun to dry, when there was a sound of a car coming up the drive.
Matthilde got to her feet shading her eyes and called out ‘Grandpère’ in delight. She ran across the lawn to greet an ancient mud-spattered Land Rover that came dragging a horse box behind it. The man who climbed out was tall and slightly stooped, balding on top with a pair of shaggy eyebrows that rose into a point, giving him a rather fierce appearance. I followed, standing back as a lot of hugging and kissing went on. Monsieur de Lafitte then turned to me asking to be ‘presented’.
I held back. This was the person who Mum had described as ‘rather grand’. But he wasn’t dressed in a grand way. He was wearing terribly shabby clothes: a worn old waistcoat and ancient corduroy trousers, gone at the knees, that Mum would have thrown out if they’d belonged to Dad.
‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ he said gravely, shaking me by the hand.
‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ I replied, careful to add the polite ‘monsieur’ as Mum had advised me.
‘Très bien,’ he said and cleared his throat, signalling us to stand aside.
Another man got down from the car whose job it appeared was to take care of the horse. He had a bit of a hunchback and eyes that went in different directions but he seemed to know what to do with horses. I stood well back, not wanting to get trodden on as he backed this huge black one down the ramp. Matthilde took the opportunity to show off her superior handling of animals. She went up to the horse totally fearlessly, petting it and rubbing its nose.
Monsieur de Lafitte turned to me once more and asked in English, ‘So, do you ’unt? We will ’ave to find an ’orse for you.’
‘Hunt?’ I repeated. My hackles were rising. Typical French attitude – if it moves, kill it! Everything that was British in me was shocked to the core. Besides, the nearest I’d ever come to riding was a donkey ride on the beach at Bognor Regis.
‘No. I’m British. In Britain we’ve abolished hunting,’ I said, feeling my face flush red.
He paused and looked at me seriously for a moment, then he knitted his brows with a fierce frown. ‘I see. A young lady who speaks ’er mind!’
The horse started to play up at that point and he turned and said something to it in a commanding voice. The horse obviously knew who was master round here. It instantly calmed down and allowed itself to be led quietly towards the stables.
I went up to my room after that, wondering if I’d gone too far. I mean, by French standards what I had just said was probably terribly rude. And yet I had only spoken the truth. I am British and we have abolished hunting.
I reached for my phone in need of a comfortingly familiar voice and dialled up Jess’s number. She’d be awake by now and I wanted to get a full account of the party.
‘Hi?’ Jess’s voice sounded sleepy at the other end.
‘Did I wake you?’
‘It is Sunday morning.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK. I’m awake now. You all right? What’s all this about a haunted house?’
‘Nightmare! We’ve been sent to the country.’
‘Not sure yet,’ I lowered my voice. ‘But I think Matthilde’s mother is having an affair!’
‘No way!’
‘Umm.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘I saw her in a café with this man.’
‘No way!’
‘Umm. The way they were looking at each other, it was, I don’t know, kind of really intense. At any rate there was something going on. That’s why we’ve been sent here. Her mum has made off and left us in this huge, like, château.’ I thought I’d lay it on a bit.
‘No way!’ Jess’s responses were getting a little repetitive so I changed the subject. ‘Anyway, how was the party?’
‘Oh, you know.’
‘I don’t. You were there. I wasn’t.’
‘Yeah, well it was OK.’
‘Umm?’
‘Umm.’
‘Did Mark turn up?’
‘Umm.’
‘So did you tell him I was in Paris?’
‘Yep.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said, “Cool”.’
‘Cool?’
‘Is that all?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Did he ask when I was coming back?’
‘No.’
I paused while this sank in. He hadn’t exactly broken down over the news.
‘Then what did he do?’
‘He asked if there was any lager.’
‘Who did he dance with?’
‘Pretty much everyone.’
‘But who?’
‘Do you want a list?’
Jess was being extremely uncommunicative. I decided to call it a day and try again when she was in a better mood.
‘Look, I’ll call you later, OK?’
‘OK.’
After I rang off, I called up Angie. You always got the truth from Angie. She was the official class gossip. There’s nothing she likes better than a good stir.
‘Hi, Angie! How was the party?’
‘Hannah! Too bad you missed it. It was great.’
‘Oh?’
‘Umm. God, you should see the mess! How’s France?’
‘It’s still, you know, very French. Listen, Angie, did you speak to Mark last night?’
‘Mark?’
‘Oh, him …’
‘Did he ask about me?’
‘Errm. He was kind of busy.’
‘Busy?’
‘Look, Hannah. I don’t like to be the one to say this but …’
(Don’t you just hate it when people start out like that?)
‘Umm?’
‘I thought Jess was meant to be your best friend.’
‘She is.’
‘Well, she didn’t act like it last night …’
‘She didn’t?’
‘Well, I don’t want to be the one to say anything. But she and Mark seemed awfully pally. They left together. Maybe he was just being nice seeing her home, but …’
‘Mark and Jess?’ I paused while I got my mind around this.
‘Looks like it. But honestly, I don’t think it’ll last.’
‘Thanks, Angie. I knew I could count on you for the truth.’
‘Loads more boys out there, Hannah.’
‘Sure.’ I clicked my mobile shut, feeling utterly miserable. Jess! Jess, of all people. And she knew how I felt about him.
My first impulse was to call her straight away and bawl her out. And then I thought better of it. I wouldn’t call her. I’d maintain a dignified silence. She could call me up if and when she felt like it.
After that I lay back on my bed and did some deep philosophical soul-searching about boyfriends. Let’s face it, they’re a load of trouble really. I mean basically:
1) When you haven’t got a boyfriend you worry like mad about being the only person in the world without one.
2) Once you have one, you worry about what your friends think of him.
3) If they think he’s OK, you worry about losing him.
4) If they don’t, you worry yourself sick about how to dump him.
5) Once you’ve dumped him, your friends never seem to think he was that bad after all.
6) The next thing you know he’s going out with one of the girls who dissed him.
7) The whole cycle starts over again.
Sigh.
Lunch was a rather awkward meal. I guess I wasn’t in my best mood. Old Oncle Charles greeted me as if he’d never seen me before and he still called me Caroline. Matthilde was behaving like the perfect granddaughter, passing dishes in strict order of ascendance and doing her sickly sweet ‘oui-grandmère’ and ‘après-vous-grandpère’ act. I didn’t like to catch Monsieur de Lafitte’s eye, as I was sure he was horribly offended by what I’d said about hunting. And then there was the matter of the stew.
Madame de Lafitte asked me at the beginning of the meal, ‘ ’Annah, est-que tu aimes la pain?’
Or at least, that’s what I thought she’d said. ‘Pain’ is bread. I love bread, particularly French bread, so I replied in my best French, ‘Oui, merci beaucoup.’
At that she ladled a big helping of stew on a plate and it was passed to me. I gazed down at it. There was a bone of some sort with meat on it, a bit like a chicken leg. But chickens didn’t have claws like that. With a horrible sinking in the stomach, I realised that she’d been asking whether I liked ‘lapin’, as in rabbit.
I’d had a pet rabbit when I was little. Basically, what was on my plate was like a piece of Flopsy. I stared at it, feeling tears well in my eyes. The others set to, seeming not to notice. I nibbled at a piece of bread, wondering wildly if I could create a diversion and slip my portion to the dogs.
At that point, with the kind of fortunate timing that only happens a very few times in life, the telephone rang in the hallway. Madame de Lafitte put down her napkin and, rising from the table with a sigh, went to answer it. I heard her voice change from a polite telephone-answering tone to one of concern. Monsieur de Lafitte got to his feet and went to the door and asked something. Even Matthilde went and joined him, standing behind and listening. There was a rapid fire of French conversation.
I glanced over at old Oncle Charles who at this particular moment seemed to have fallen asleep. In a flash I slipped my plate on to the floor and Titan – or was it Sultan? – was at it with one bound. There was just one enormous doggy slurp and my plate was wiped clean. I put it back in front of me and sat there with an innocent expression. The telephone call over, the three of them trailed back into the room and sat down. Monsieur and Madame de Lafitte had worried expressions on their faces but Matthilde for some reason had changed her mood entirely. She looked positively radiant. She actually nearly smiled.
Old Oncle Charles had woken up and was demanding to be told what was going on. They were all talking at once and I kept hearing the name ‘Michelle’.
Madame de Lafitte looked over at me. She spotted my empty plate and with a bright smile she said, ‘Mais oui, chérie. Tu aimes lapin!’ Before I could stop her she ladled another big spoonful on to my plate.
This was even worse. The idea of eating rabbit off a dog-licked plate didn’t bear thinking about.
I sat staring at it as Monsieur de Lafitte turned to me, saying in a not-too-cross voice, ‘I go to get Michelle from the station this afternoon. If you like, you and Matthilde can come too.’
‘Who’s Michelle?’ I asked.
‘My cousin,’ said Matthilde.
So this was why she was looking so pleased. No longer would she be stuck with me. She’d have another French girl to gang up with, probably one just as posey as her, if not more so. No doubt the two of them would be in a perpetual huddle speaking French at an impossible speed and I’d be totally left out.
I sat not eating with this dire prospect ahead of me. As Madame de Lafitte brought a salad to the table, I was embarrassed to see that everyone but me had a plate they’d wiped clean with their bread. It seemed you only got one plate in this house, but maybe that was because they didn’t have a dishwasher. I was rescued by Madame de Lafitte. Catching sight of my plate, she leaned over and asked, ‘Tu as terminée?’, easily interpreted as ‘Had I finished?’.
I nodded and to my relief she took my plate away and I was actually allowed a new one.
I rounded off my meal with as much salad and cheese as I could politely get my hands on. Luckily no one took any notice as the conversation continued around my head at a speed that was totally beyond me.
‘Quel âge a Michelle?’ I asked Matthilde as we took the dishes out to the kitchen to wash up. (Notice my other fluent French phrase.)
My heart sank. That did it. Sixteen. Almost the same age as Matthilde. This meant I’d definitely be left out.
I went to my room and rang Mum after that.
She answered right away. ‘Poppet, you OK?’
‘I s’pose so.’
‘What’s that meant to mean?’
‘Honestly, Mum, you’ve no idea what it’s like here. They had rabbit for lunch and Matthilde’s grandparents are really strict and that old uncle still thinks I’m someone else. And there’s a man who looks after the horses who looks like the Hunchback of Notre-Dame and he’s really scary and …’ It all came out in a rush.
‘It can’t be that bad …’
‘It is. And what’s worse, this cousin’s coming to stay and she’s the same age as Matthilde. I know they’ll do everything together and I’ll get totally left out.’
‘Come on. Don’t be such a pain. I’ve got so much on at this conference, you’ve no idea …’
‘Can’t I go home?’
‘No you can’t and that’s final. You’re going to have to put up with it. Two weeks isn’t long.’
‘Mum, there are still twelve whole days to go.’
‘There’s nothing I can do about it and you’re not to bother your father.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘Listen to me, Hannah,’ said Mum, putting her serious voice on. This was getting heavy. ‘You are there to learn French. If it’s nothing else, this is a real opportunity to improve your language skills and you shouldn’t waste it.’ Then she rang off.
I stared at the phone feeling totally depressed. She never calls me Hannah unless she’s really angry with me.
Grudgingly, I had to admit she had a point. If I was really stuck here, I might as well try to learn some French. It would come in handy with GCSEs looming. In fact, in spite of myself, I was making some sort of progress. I’d noticed that I was starting to hear individual words rather than a single stream of gobble-de-gook.
I raked through my backpack and located the French–English dictionary Mum had thoughtfully packed for me. I positioned it in the centre of the table. She’d bought me one of those little notebooks that have A–Z down the side as well. I got that out too and set it down beside the dictionary. It occurred to me that it might be prudent to list some of the trickier French words – I didn’t want a repetition of lunchtime’s disaster.
With a bold black marker I wrote on the front:
MY OWN PERSONAL PRIVATE
FRENCH VOCABULARY
Then I turned to ‘L’ and made my first entry.
‘Lapin – rabbit – not to be confused with le pain – bread.’
Dad rang me shortly after that. I could tell Mum had been on to him.
‘Hi, Hannah. How’s things?’
‘Fine. I’ve written you a letter.’
‘Uh huh? Not arrived yet.’
‘I haven’t posted it yet. How are you?’
‘Bogged under.’
‘Still marking exams?’
‘Probably for days yet. So you’re at Les Rochers?’
‘Umm.’
‘You don’t sound too thrilled about it.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You do know some of it is thirteenth century?’ (If anyone tells me that again, I’ll scream!)
‘Yes.’
‘It was built to keep the British out.’
‘Apart from me – apparently.’
‘Hannah, honestly. The house is really historic. It dates back to the Hundred Years’ War.’
‘Humph.’
Dad then launched into one of his spiels, trotting out dates and kings and battles until my brain ached.
‘I’ve got some really interesting stuff on the area somewhere, I could dig it out.’
‘Great.’
Dad sighed. ‘You don’t know how painful it is to have a child who’s a total philistine.’
‘You don’t know what a pain it is to have a dad who’s a teacher.’
‘Love you all the same.’
‘I know. Parents are programmed to.’
Dad chuckled.
‘Love you too,’ I said.
Michelle was arriving by train from Paris at a place called Moulins. Monsieur de Lafitte suggested we went there early so we could have a look round, maybe have an ice cream in somewhere called the Grand Café. He said ice cream to me as if it was the biggest treat ever – like I was a little kid or something.
For some reason, Matthilde insisted she had to wash her hair before we left. I hung around downstairs waiting for her. She locked herself in the bathroom and was ages. Monsieur de Lafitte kept wandering into the hallway looking at his watch. In the end we only had time to make a last-minute dash for the train.
Matthilde seemed to be unusually agitated in the car, fussing with her hair and several times I caught her craning over to check her reflection in the rear-view mirror. For once, I noticed she’d actually put mascara on. Obviously out to impress her cousin, the way girls do, setting up a kind of private beauty contest between themselves. This thought depressed me even more. No doubt they’d spend the whole time holed up in her room, borrowing each other’s clothes and trying out each other’s make-up and sharing jokes that I was too young to be let in on. I’d simply be in the way – as if Matthilde hadn’t made this plain enough already.
I sat in the back and stared despondently out of the car window as we drove through the streets of Moulins, wondering where all the cool shops were. According to Dad, it was a really historic town; Joan of Arc was meant to have stayed there on her way to fight the English. That figured, most of the buildings looked old and shabby enough to date back that far. I mean, basically, the whole place was crying out for a makeover.
A sign saying ‘Gare s.n.c.f’ pointed down yet another avenue of mutilated French trees and sure enough when we rounded the bend a typical squat little French station came into view.
A train was pulling out. I looked at it longingly. It was filled with luckier, happier people who weren’t going to spend the next twelve days stranded in the country being treated like a lower branch of evolution by a pair of posey French girls.
Monsieur de Lafitte drove the car up practically on to the railway line. Then he and Matthilde leaped out and headed for the platform. I followed, preparing a mental picture of this precious Michelle. Hair – long and shiny. Legs – long enough for her to tower over me. Nose – long enough for her to look down at me. Cheekbones – regulation French ones.
The train she was arriving on was due in at ten past four so we still had five minutes to spare. Matthilde eyed the letter I was carrying.
‘Why you not post it?’ she asked.
I’d been looking out for a postbox all through Moulins as we drove along but hadn’t seen a sign of one.
‘Where?’ I asked.
She rolled her eyes and pointed to a box in the wall right beside where I was standing which I’d taken to be a rubbish bin. It seemed that the French couldn’t have sensible postboxes painted red like the British. They had to be different and paint theirs yellow.
‘Voici le train,’ said Monsieur de Lafitte and sure enough, as I checked my watch, a train rounded a bend in the track and arrived dead on time. Which I grudgingly had to admit was another plus point to the French.
Matthilde was anxiously scanning the platform as people and bags and dogs and bikes and piles of post-bags spilled out of the train. It was a long train and masses of travellers were getting off. Soon we were surrounded by a tangle of people greeting people, but there was no sign of Michelle.
Then suddenly Monsieur de Lafitte said, ‘Ah, voilà!’ and started waving towards the far end of the platform. Matthilde was waving too. In fact, jumping up and down and waving both arms. I stared despondently in that direction, expecting to see another picture-perfect Parisienne with her scarf tied in an oh-so-chic way. But the crowd had thinned and there was only a nun, a lady with a toddler and pushchair, and a tall dark, in fact rather gorgeous boy, carrying a backpack, with a guitar slung over one shoulder.
Monsieur de Lafitte took a few steps forward and flung his arms around this stranger, giving him a kiss on each cheek. Matthilde held back for a moment and then she kissed him too.
‘Eh, jeteprésente ’Annah!’ said Monsieur de Lafitte.
I looked up to find a pair of delectably dark eyes looking down at me. They were serious, unsmiling and deliciously flecked with gold. My heart went into a giddying free fall as I realised that we hadn’t come to meet ‘Michelle’ at all – but Michel!
As he stepped forward, I took a step back, not sure of what to do. French adults you’ve never met before kiss you on both cheeks. But what about a total stranger who’s a boy?
‘Bonjour,’ I said awkwardly. I could feel myself flushing scarlet. My step back seemed to have put Michel off balance. He seemed equally at a loss. He turned away and said something to his grandfather.
As the attention was taken off me, I made a gigantic effort to regain my normal colour. To my relief, the others were far too busy chatting to notice me. Monsieur de Lafitte kept an arm around Michel’s shoulders and led us back to the car. There was a bit of a muddle as Matthilde suddenly didn’t seem to mind being in the back of the car one bit. Maybe her legs had suddenly got shorter or something. At any rate I was allowed the front seat for once.
The drive back to Les Rochers gave me time to get myself back together again. Wow! Wait till I tell Jess about Michel! And then I remembered her and Mark. And that currently I wasn’t calling her, because I was so outraged at her behaviour. But curiously enough the thought of Jess and Mark together didn’t give me such a bad feeling any more.
No sooner had we arrived back at Les Rochers than a major drama broke out. Michel had barely had time to say ‘Bonjour, Grandmère’ to his grandmother and dump his backpack on the floor before Matthilde took him off outside somewhere, leaving me behind. She made it absolutely clear that I wasn’t needed. In a rather haughty grown-up fashion, she indicated that I was expected to help her grandmother in the kitchen.
I went to the kitchen positively bristling with indignation. I was a guest here. I was the one who should be entertained and taken to see whatever it was in the garden. Instead, I was given the riveting job of laying the table for dinner. I was midway through my knife, fork, spoon, glass, napkin-in-its-little-bag routine when I heard a muffled scream from outside.
Madame de Lafitte hurried out of the kitchen drying her hands on her apron. I tracked her out through the front door heading in the direction of the scream. We found Matthilde standing over our makeshift outdoor cage. She wasn’t looking grown-up any more. She had tears running down her face and her nose had gone red.
‘Edith! EskavuzavayvuEdith?’ she demanded.
One glance told me that our carefully constructed guinea-pig run had collapsed. Loose bits of gnawed string were scattered around. Exactly as I’d predicted.
Michel wasn’t being very helpful. He mumbled something in which all I could understand was the word ‘chien’, meaning ‘dog’.
‘Les chiens!’ gasped Matthilde.
The dogs were sitting at a respectful distance, although Sultan unfortunately was licking his lips.
‘Mais non,’ said Madame de Lafitte, springing to the dogs’ defence.
Michel shrugged as if insisting he was right. Whereupon Matthilde shouted something at him.
What remained of the day was spent in a long exhausting session of ‘hunt the guinea pig’. Michel joined in, in a half-hearted way, convinced as he was that Edith had ended up as a between-meal snack. This clearly made Matthilde furious and between snuffles and suppressed sobs, she snapped at him.
We searched the shrubbery and vegetable garden, working our way through decaying greenhouses carpeted with shattered glass, crumbling outbuildings and the tumbledown barn which seemed like the storehouse for everything since the thirteenth century. Each of these was purpose-built as a guinea pig hideout. There were towers of guinea-pig-friendly flowerpots and loads of lumpy-looking sacks with guinea-pig-shaped contours. But search as we might under upturned buckets and through drainpipes of Edith’s circumference, she was nowhere to be found. Eventually, we ended up in the stable beside a horribly smelly pile of used straw. It was positively rank and steaming.
Matthilde indicated the straw and handed Michel and me a pitchfork.
‘Mais non!’ Michel objected.
Matthilde stood her ground and they had a bit of an argument. Michel then stomped off, leaving us to it.
‘Garçons!’ said Matthilde to me contemptuously.
I nodded in agreement. Actually I didn’t blame Michel; it was a filthy job and I couldn’t really imagine finding Edith there anyway. But it was nice to have the privilege of being on Matthilde’s side for once. Half an hour later we were exceedingly smelly and covered in straw but our search had proved fruitless.
Dinner that night was a somewhat livelier affair. Monsieur de Lafitte was in a communicative mood and I could see he was showing off telling Michel some long and incomprehensible story about something that was going on at his work in Paris. Old Oncle Charles made the occasional comment and I could see him catch Michel’s eye with a twinkle from time to time. Nobody took much notice of Matthilde or me.
I think Matthilde was a bit peeved at being left out of the conversation. She compensated by being ultra-helpful. She kept leaping up from the table to fetch things from the kitchen and making a big show of walking round serving people. This was a bit of a change from the person who generally found it hard to haul herself out of an armchair. I noticed she’d put on her tightest jeans and some boots with heels that made her legs look even longer. Huh!
At the end of the meal I helped Matthilde take the dishes out. Monsieur de Lafitte had left a small amount on his plate and I hovered for a moment wondering if he was going to finish it. Eventually, when I could get a word into the conversation, I asked, using the new French phrase I’d carefully memorised, ‘Tu as terminé?’
He looked at me aghast and then passed me his plate saying, ‘Mais oui.’
I took away his plate wondering what I’d done. When I got to the kitchen, Matthilde told me in no uncertain terms that I could not call her grandfather ‘tu’. I had made the most terrible error of politeness. Even she had to address him as ‘vous’, which is generally what you call teachers and strangers, not relations.
It really wasn’t fair. I’d done my best to be polite and helpful and work my way through the minefield of French manners. But it seemed I’d offended Monsieur de Lafitte again.
In bed that night I updated my French checklist:
Negatives:
1) Food – like finding Flopsy on the menu.
2) Politeness – all that business about ‘tu’ and ‘vous’. Trust the French to turn a word as neutral as ‘you’ into a brains test.
3) Le or la – even something as sexless as a dishcloth has to be ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.
Positives:
1) Trains that actually run on time.
2) French BOYS! (Or one in particular.)