L'amour Actually (35 page)

  
'Bonjour messieurs, dames,'
I called, stopping and getting out of my car. I performed the ritual
bisous.
'That was some storm last night. Is everyone all right?'

  They looked anxiously at each other then shook their heads and looked forlornly at the floodwaters.

  'There is no possibility of crossing,' said Martine, 'I think we are stranded until the water goes down again.'

  'Is there any more rain forecast?' I asked.

  'Maybe a bit but nothing like last night.'

  'And is all your power out as well?'

  'Yes, the power is off all the way along the valley past Bussières,' said Monsieur Marcel, 'and I don't think they will be repairing the telephone line any time soon.' He pointed downstream to where a wooden telegraph pole had sheared off just above the water level, trailing broken wires down the river like pondweed.

  'Monsieur Marcel has a CB radio and has managed to contact the
gendarmerie
. They have told us to stay put for the moment. Apparently there were some serious accidents last night so they have a lot to do, and as no one here is hurt we are not a priority.' She put her arm round me and led me away from the others.

  'But Madame Brunel's brother was killed last night. He was hit by some masonry that fell from the roof of the church. God knows what the stupid man was doing out in the storm.'

  I thought back to the drunk on the bicycle that I had rescued from the middle of the road during the summer. 'Not Armand? Is that her brother?'

  'Yes, and now she needs to get to her family but she can't. The
maire
is sending the municipal tractor to see if it can get across and pick her up.'

  Almost on cue, we heard the tractor chugging down the hill from Rocamour. A small group of Madame Brunel's relatives had congregated on the far side of the floodwater and they stood back to let the tractor pass. The driver jumped down to look at the floodwaters, taking off his cap and scratching his head as he contemplated the likelihood of getting across. After a few minutes of animated conversation with Madame Brunel's relatives who were probably telling him that it was just a bit of a puddle and a man of his aptitude with a tractor could surely get across and back with no problem, he shrugged his shoulders and climbed back into the cab of the tractor.

  Revving the engine, he started gingerly towards the water. The first few metres were easy but as he got further towards the middle, the full force of the water crashed against his tractor and I could see it being nudged slightly sideways. I held my breath. On the far side, a small crowd had gathered to watch. Some were egging him on, others calling him back and saying he would kill himself and what was the point of that when Old Armand was already dead anyway.

  Slowly he inched the tractor forward. The water battered against it as he steered into the flow to stop the tractor being pushed over into the river. Martine grabbed my arm and together we watched nervously. As he got past the middle, we let out a cheer, which was soon taken up by the others. He was going to do it!

  'Hang on,' I said to Martine. 'I'd better go and move my car so he can get over the bridge.'

  I ran back, feeling in my pocket for my keys then remembering I had left them in the car.

  This wasn't something I normally did, not because I was worried someone would steal it; the car belonged in a scrap yard anyway, but because the central locking had a tendency to play up and lock unexpectedly. In my excitement, I had just jumped out of the car and forgotten them. As I lifted the handle, I heard a sickening clunk as the doors locked, leaving me on the outside and my keys, tantalisingly out of reach, on the inside.

  'Oh shit, not now!' I muttered under my breath, trying the passenger doors. They were all firmly locked. I tried the boot but that was locked too.

  'Hurry up,' shouted Martine.

  I saw that the tractor was almost across the river now and the only thing standing in the way was my car.

  'I can't, I've locked the bloody keys in it.'

  'What?'

  'The keys are locked in the car.'

  Martine rushed over and tried all the doors.

  'I've already done that.'

  By now, the tractor had made it across to the cheers of the crowds on both sides.

  'Can you move your car please?' the driver called out.

  'I can't. The keys are locked inside.'

  
'Putain,'
he shouted. 'I can't get round your car. Have you got a spare set?'

  'Yes but they are up at the house.'

  'Well you'd better get going then, hadn't you?' he said, not altogether kindly. He called out to the others, 'The
anglaise
has locked her keys in the car.'

  The cheers died out almost instantly to be replaced by a low murmur which I was quite sure included the words 'stupid Englishwoman' at least once in every other sentence.

  'OK, I'll be back as soon as I can.'

  I set off up the hill, my legs pounding the road. It was quite clear that my current level of fitness was not up to a 1.5-kilometre uphill sprint and before long, my muscles were burning.

  'Gotta keep going, gotta keep going,' I chanted as I sprinted up the hill, feeling as if someone had poured neat acid into my lungs. As I reached the fat white pony in his field, he whinnied softly to me and trotted along the fence as far as he could. 'Thanks for your support, mate,' I called out breathlessly. 'Just wish I could still ride.'

  I stopped as an idea started to form in my head. It was a pretty stupid idea but it was an emergency and with my legs on the verge of giving up completely, I had to take a bit of a risk. The little pony was wearing a head collar and I knew that Laure always kept a lead rope knotted around the gate. I also knew that a very young girl from the village rode him as I had seen her a few times so I reasoned that the pony must be quite quiet. Whether or not he was quiet enough for a novice rider, who hadn't been in the saddle for a good twenty years, and in fact, didn't even have a saddle to get onto at this point, remained to be seen.

  I called the pony over. Fortunately, he trotted up to me, hopeful of a little titbit, and didn't protest when I grabbed his head collar and attached the lead rope. I led him out of his field then stood helplessly as I realised that I had the first obstacle to overcome. Getting on him. I tried to lift my leg over his back and hop up, but he was too big for that. Fortunately, an old tree stump nearby made for a good mounting block and I climbed on enthusiastically. It was all coming back to me. I clapped my legs against his sides probably a little bit harder than was necessary, making the pony jump and we set off at a fast trot with me bouncing around on his back and hanging on for grim death. The pony's back banged against my bottom, threatening to unseat me at every step. I gripped as hard as I could with my legs but the uphill run seemed to have rendered them almost paralysed and it was more by luck than any skill on my part that I stayed on him.

  With the first obstacle overcome, it wasn't long before I came across the next one. Steering. With only one makeshift rein, rather than two, I wasn't entirely sure how to get him to turn in both directions. I would be fine until I got to the last turn into the hamlet, but then I would have to make him turn left with only a right rein. If he went straight on, we would be into a huge field with nothing but open space beyond. My body might never be found.

  With the left-hand bend coming up, I started shouting 'left, left' at the pony, who showed no sign of comprehension whatsoever.
'Gauche, gauche,'
I shouted, reasoning that a French pony might only speak French. Clearly this one was Spanish.

  I thought back to the cowboys in the spaghetti westerns my dad used to love. They just pulled the reins against the necks of their horses and leaned in whichever way they wanted to go. With the turn fast approaching, it was now or never. Holding on to a handful of its mane, I leaned towards the pony's left side, praying that he would turn.

  'Oh you wonderful little thing,' I shouted, patting his neck wildly as he trotted round the bend like a professional cow pony. Just the drive to negotiate now and I was home and dry. The pony, however, had other ideas and despite my best leaning, carried on, straight past the drive and towards the track by the farm buildings at the end of the lane. What's more, he seemed to be picking up speed.

  'Whoa, boy,' I shouted, but he didn't seem to understand that either. Clearly, he was on a route that he knew well and that was what accounted for his turning rather than anything I had done. He was now obviously at the place where he was allowed to canter and set off like a mini rocket across the ploughed field as I bumped around on his back feeling absolutely sure that childbearing was now out of the question. I pulled on the lead rope, hoping that would slow him down, but all I managed to do was pull him round in a circle so we were at least heading back the way we came. Whatever happened next, I was sure it would be painful. As we careered across the field towards the hedge, I thought for one horrible moment he was going to try and jump it. Certain death stared me in the face but at the last moment, the pony swerved, depositing me in an ungainly pile in the mud.

  'Arrrgghh,' I groaned, taking a quick inventory of my limbs which all seemed to be working. The pony wandered over and nuzzled my face.

  'Cheers, mate,' I said, grabbing the lead rope and pulling myself up, 'come on, this is an emergency.'

  There was no point trying to get back on so I set off back to the cottage, dragging the pony behind me. Tying him up to a tree in the garden, I rushed in to grab my spare keys and in a moment of sheer brilliance, ran into the bedroom to grab a belt that would work well as another rein. I ran back outside and threaded it through the headcollar before using an upturned bucket to get back onto the pony.

  I don't know who was more surprised to see me trotting down the hill, caked in mud, waving my car keys, but a little cheer rose from the crowd. I shoved the lead rope at Martine before jumping in my car and reversing out of the tractor's way.

  As I walked the pony back up to his field, the tractor was coming down again with a very regal-looking Madame Brunel perched on the wheel rim in the cab. She nodded to me as she passed and I smiled gently at her. Maybe I was finally making some progress.

  'Good boy. We did well,' I said as I patted the pony's neck and he whickered softly in agreement. I could already feel the bruises starting to form on my bottom.

'Still!' I moaned, crossly. For the fourth day running I had woken up to no power, which meant no hot shower, no recharging my mobile, no laptop, no phone and more worryingly, no sign of Julien. I got out of bed and caught sight of myself in the mirror. It was probably not such a bad thing that he hadn't seen me looking like this. My hair, unwashed now for four days, hung down in dank, greasy rats' tails and although I was washing in water I had boiled on the gas cooker, I had a sneaking suspicion that I smelled none too fresh either.

  On the plus side though, I now had a long list of things I could do with a torch held under my chin; washing up, cooking pasta, feeding the kitten, making a nice frothy latte, at least until the batteries in my milk frother ran out; but on the downside, I had discovered that playing Monopoly with myself was no fun at all. I had found an old set in the bottom of a cupboard but by this stage, I had re-named it Monotony.

  In the kitchen, I turned on the tap to fill a saucepan and make some coffee but it just gurgled and spat, spraying me with unpleasant-looking brown liquid.

  '
Merde
! What next? No electricity and now no water.'

  I was surprised by a loud knock on the door. For the past few days, everyone in the hamlet had stayed indoors, no doubt not wanting to be seen in their present unwashed state. On the doorstep, I found two men from the water company with packs of bottled water.

  'The batteries on the pump from the reservoir have run out,' one explained, 'so we are delivering bottled water to everyone until the power is back on.'

  'Oh, right, well… thanks. Any sign of it coming back on? It's been days now.'

  The man apologised for the inconvenience. Apparently there were over a million people without power, and the French power company was drafting in engineers from Germany and the UK to help with the repair work. I asked if he thought the engineers would be starting work today.

  'Well no,
mademoiselle
. Today is Sunday.'

  Oh, of course, silly me. As if they would let a major incident like this interfere with their thirty-five hour week, I thought, irritated. Damned French employment law. You'd think a national emergency would be a bit more important. I thanked them for the water and shut the door a bit harder than was necessary.