L'amour Actually (12 page)

The weeks flew by, with one sultry day slipping into the next. So far, all the niggly little things had gone swimmingly. I had the internet set up, the phone was connected and Nick had sorted out Sky TV so I could even watch Corrie if the mood took me... which it didn't. He'd even arranged to have the pool cleaned and the once green and slimy water was now clear blue.

  I watched my pallid skin turn a light mocha and my hair bleach blonde in the sun. It used to cost the best part of £150 at Franco's but here was nature doing it for free. The bad old days in London were becoming little more than a distant memory.

  Mind you, so was a pay cheque. My savings, such as they were, seemed to be disappearing rather faster than I'd anticipated. Things were just so much more expensive than I'd imagined. I needed to start looking for a job.

  I was still trying to shake the feeling that I was on holiday and for the moment at least, I was happy with my own company and with the solitude of my little cottage. Being so totally alone in such peace and quiet was unusual. I'd wondered if I might hate it but in fact I didn't, not so far, at least. I hadn't seen Tracey Tarrant since the day I arrived, though I knew that she was still there, holed up with her footballer, inexplicably beyond the reach of the paparazzi it seemed, and I still hadn't organised any French lessons. Oh well, one day.

  I turned over on the sun lounger and unhooked my bikini top so I could get a nice even tan. I sighed contentedly and dozed in the late May sunshine, half-listening to the frantic chirruping of the cicadas. God they were noisy! The glass of chilled
rosé
I'd had with my lunch made me feel sleepy and before long I had dropped off, dreaming, as I did rather too often these days, of Julien. I was sure he liked me but he kept holding back. We had met up several times for drinks, even for lunch once or twice, although if I was being honest with myself, it was more that we both ended up in the café at Rocamour at the same time. He flirted with me and I with him but then something always seemed to stop him making that final move. Fortunately, the Julien of my dreams was a little more forward.

... grass? My eyes sprang open. 'Bloody hell! What the…'

  A large horse, ridden by an even larger woman, was nuzzling my face… in my garden… by my pool! I hate horses. Little ponies are fine, but this huge beast… I lay rooted to the sun lounger, fingers gripping the towel underneath me as I tried to calm myself.

  'GET. IT. AWAY,' I said to the woman, slowly and carefully enunciating my words.

  'Oh, don't be such a girlie, he just wants to say hello, don't you Kaiser?' boomed the woman, dismounting so heavily that the ground shook. 'Just need to use the lavvy. Don't worry, know the house well. I can find my own way.'

  I sat up and she thrust the reins at me. I stared, open-mouthed. The cheek of the bloody woman!

  'Just a minute…' I shouted as my visitor, oversized rear end clad in tight jodhpurs which gave the unfortunate impression that she had a couple of puppies romping inside them, strode off towards the house, unzipping her jodhpurs as she went. I held the reins distastefully between my thumb and forefinger and stared at the horse. It stared back. It was a huge black and white thing with hairy feet and hooves the size of dinner plates. It soon got bored with the Mexican stand-off and its head went down to crop the grass on my lawn. I wasn't entirely sure what to do so I opted for just sitting still and hoping that it would ignore me.

  Several minutes passed before the woman returned, tucking her shirt into her jodhpurs as she walked. 'Don't mind me using the facilities do you? Got caught short, what.'

  I opened my mouth to protest that actually, I wasn't keen on strangers rocking up and using my toilet, but before I had a chance to say anything, the woman bellowed at me.

  'Ride, do you?'

  God, couldn't this woman do anything quietly?

  She stuck out her hand before I had chance to answer. 'Clarissa Blythe-Cholmondeley-Walker,' she said, 'but most people call me Chummy. Won't bother with that bloody kissing lark. Damned unhygienic if you ask me.'

  I breathed a small sigh of relief and shook her hand, wincing slightly as Clarissa's calloused hand crushed mine in a vice-like grip.

  'Heard some new blood had moved in. Glad to see the back of the last incumbents to be honest. Came to see if you were a horsey gel. Would be good to have someone to ride out with, although Kaiser's safe hacking out on his own. Goes in front or behind quite happily.'

  I tried to conceal a smirk. 'Uh, no, not really. I'm kind of frightened of them,' I admitted.

  'Stuff and bloody nonsense. I'll let you ride Kaiser here, he's a real school master. Can be a bit forward going on open ground and goes like a bloody rocket if you give him his head but he's got a lovely light mouth and great elevation.'

  I frowned. What sort of strange language was this woman talking? 'I quite like cats though,' I added hopefully.

  'Cat lover, eh? Want to get yourself down to that cat charity place in Bussières. Bunch of bloody do-gooders if you ask me. Always on about neutering the feral cats. Just shoot the buggers, I say. You want to get yourself a nice Labrador or something.'

  'Um, actually I'm a little bit allergic to dogs.'

  Clarissa looked at me witheringly. Clearly in her eyes I was beyond any hope.

  'Well, anyway, having a little
soirée
tonight and thought you might fancy coming along to meet a few of the chaps. Sevenish? I'll send the old man to pick you up. That way you can have a few bevvies. Rodders can go for a few hours without a drink, bless him.'

  I opened my mouth to say thanks, I really fancied an early night but Chummy was already heaving herself back up into the saddle, poor Kaiser having to brace himself to take her weight.

  'See you later. Seven.'

  I watched her ride off, ample behind jiggling in time with the horse's footsteps. Footsteps or hoof steps? I would rather hack my leg off with a rusty nail file than spend a few hours with Clarissa and her friends.

  Four hours later, having failed completely to come up with a single reasonable-sounding excuse for not going, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Chummy's Range Rover listening to her husband Roddy, ex-Grenadier Guards, wittering on in a voice that was so plummy that his upper lip didn't even move.

  'F'nah, f'nah, f'nah…'

  I smiled and nodded. I could have been agreeing to have his lovechild for all I knew. Mercifully the car journey was short and within a few minutes, we were turning into a long sweeping drive lined on either side by cypress trees. 'F'nah, f'nah, f'nah…'

  Yes of course I'll dress up in a French maid's outfit and whip you with a wet haddock, I thought, starting to enjoy my little game.

  The car turned between two impressive stone pillars.

  'WOW!' I exclaimed as a miniature Disney chateau appeared in front of us. Perfectly symmetrical, its tall, narrow towers pointed up towards the scarlet-hued early evening sky. The sun, dipping low, bathed the red brick in a warm, rosy glow and sparkled off a lake set back behind the chateau, surrounded by parkland and woods. The gravel driveway formed a perfect semi-circle edged with lavender and pale pink roses. Steps, flanked on either side by topiaried box trees, led up to a plain, white front door directly below a wrought-iron Juliet balcony. It was, quite simply, divine.

  Roddy came around the car to open the door for me then led me up the steps into a magnificent panelled hallway with rich, chestnut parquet floors.

  'Here she is!'

  Clarissa swept into the hallway, like a galleon in full sail, dressed in a flowing tent dress. 'Hello, Clarissa, so kind of you…'

  'Chummy, name's Chummy. Only people who call me Clarissa are Mater and Pa.'

  'Err, Chummy.'

  'Come on through and meet everyone.'

  She led me through a cavernous music room with a grand piano in the corner and out through French windows dressed in sheer muslin onto a raised terrace overlooking the lake.

  'This is the most amazing house, Cla… err, Chummy. How long have you lived here?'

  'Had it for years now. Rodders bought it from the dosh he got from a business deal.'

  Must have been some deal, I thought, but before I had a chance to wonder, Chummy whispered to me, 'Iran', before tapping one side of her nose and giving me a knowledgeable look. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Chummy clapped her chubby hands. 'Chaps, she's here. Come and say hello. Rodders, bring some bubbly.'

  A glass of champagne was thrust into my hand as Chummy led me round the small gathering making her introductions.

  'Squeezy and Quentin, live over the hill, Le Cornau. Binky and Teddy here are in the village.'

  'So where do you live?' asked Quentin

  'I'm renting Les Tuileries in St Amans.'

  'Aaaahhh,' they all sing-songed in unison, giving each other knowing looks. I looked at them quizzically, hoping someone would enlighten me.

  'Why do I feel like I'm the only one who isn't in the know? It's not the toilet is it? Honestly, I've got used to it. It's a bit rustic but I've got thighs of steel now,' I said slapping them firmly.

  They looked bemused. Clearly it wasn't the sanitary facilities that had them all winking at each other. 'Don't you know about the last tenants?'

  The voice, with the faintest hint of a Welsh accent, belonged to a stringy woman who had obviously spent far too much time in the sun. Coal-black, mean-looking eyes peered out from a leathery, wrinkled face framed by a harshly-chopped dyed black bob. She looked a bit like a tortoise in a wig.

  'I'm Muffy by the way. Pleased to meet you.' She stuck a thin, calloused hand out.

  'So, what's the story then?'

  'Religious cult.'

  'No! Really? At Les Tuileries? Do tell.'

  'I always knew there was something wrong with them. They didn't mix with anyone. Not like Gerry and Barbara who lived there before. They were just like us, lovely people.'

  Maybe they just had an allergy to people with ridiculous names, I thought, groaning inwardly. I thought I'd left this sort of attitude behind.

  '… spawned loads of brats, never let anyone in the house and they were… you know…'

  I looked quizzically at her. 'What?'

  'You know.'

  I raised my eyebrows in question. 'No, sorry, you'll have to give me a clue.'

  'Foreigners.' She said foreigners in the same way as you'd say 'syphilis' or 'paedophile'.

  'But we're foreigners too aren't we?' I was genuinely puzzled.

  'No, not foreigners like us.'

  'Like what then?'

  'Well, you know, they were... black.'

  I looked at her, horrified. Surely this sort of bigoted attitude didn't still exist in the twenty-first century, even out here?

  'So that makes them a religious cult? Maybe they were drug dealers too or running a white slavery ring? Come on, that's a bit racist isn't it?'

  I tried hard to be polite but this stupid, ignorant woman had really got my back up.

  'Oh, don't mind her. She wouldn't recognise a racist comment if it ran up and stuck a burning cross on her lawn would you, Muffy, dear?'

  A young girl in her early twenties, with the self-assuredness that comes with money and privilege, walked across the terrace swinging her hips like a supermodel, lustrous chestnut hair flowing down her back like a shampoo advert.

  'I'm Cecilia. Cecilia Blyth-Cholmondeley-Walker but you can call me CeeCee. Nice to meet you.' She put out a hand with long, manicured fingernails and shook mine firmly. 'Yes, she's my mother,' she said, nodding towards Chummy. 'Who'd have thought, eh?'

  There was certainly little to link the tall, lithe CeeCee with the rotund, lumpy Chummy.

  'I can't stand bloody horses either. Come over and sit down,' she said, motioning to a low rattan sofa a little way away from the others. 'Let's leave the oldies to themselves. All they ever talk about is how France is like England in the 1950s anyway.'

  'What? You mean racism, wife-beating and rickets?' I smiled.

  Cecilia sniggered. 'Oh, I can see you and I are going to get along famously.'

  'And wait till I tell you who's living next door to me,' I whispered into her ear.