Dinner At The Château

17

Dinner At The Château

    “You mean your mother’s going to be there?” said Chantal Vallon in a hollow voice as the girls journeyed north.

    Annie was peering out of the window of the train. “Bien sûr,” she said indifferently.

    “But they’re divorced! It’s his engagement party!” she gasped.

    “Hein? Oh. Well, they used to fight like cat and dog when they were married, but that was ages ago,” said Annie indifferently. “Papa got Maman to drag Linnet to the stupid Collections and stuff. Her and Papa are always getting together and ganging up on Marie-Claire and me. Worse than when they were actually married, really. They say kids of divorced parents play one off against the other, don’t they, but me and Marie-Claire never managed it. They’re hand-in-glove: he’s as bad as her.” She peered out of the window. “Do you think it looks like snow?”

    “It was awfully cold this morning. It could snow,” agreed Chantal.

    Annie made a face. “Merde. I hope the roads aren’t blocked.”

    Chantal swallowed. She’d begun to wish she hadn’t said she’d come with Annie. Annie was okay, but... Well, they lived in a château and her father was a comte and—ugh. This party would be sure to be absolutely dreadful, full of society dames in fancy clobber. “Annie; does your mother wear that haute couture clobber?” she said in a hollow voice.

    Annie peered out into the dusk. “Ouais. It’s disgusting, she chucks away millions on it. When there are people starving to death by the thousand every day in Africa.”

    “Ouais,” said Chantal in a hollow voice.

    “Merde, I think it is going to snow.”

    Chantal gulped. “Annie, how far is it from Tôq to—to your father’s house?”

    “Bah... j’sais pas. Thirty minutes' drive, maybe?” She sat back in her seat. “T’en fais pas: we’ll make it.”

    “Will there be a bus?” she faltered.

    Annie looked at her watch. “Non.”

    “I—I meant to the village.”

    “Non,” she repeated.

    “But we can’t take a taxi all that way, I’ve only got a few francs on me!” she gasped.

    Annie replied calmly: “I’ve only got my return ticket and a carnet de métro. T’en fais pas: we can hitch.”

    “Faire le stop?” she gulped.

    “It’s safe as houses round Tôq: it’s the most boring provincial dump you could possibly imagine. And if anyone’s heading out to Touques Le Minard, I’ll know them anyway.”

    Chantal gulped again. “How big is it, then?”

    “What: Touques Le Minard? Eugh... j’sais pas.”

    Chantal swallowed a sigh.

    “Pretty small, I suppose,” recognized Annie hazily. “I know everybody in it, at any rate.”

    Chantal tried to smile, and failed.

    Annie felt in her army-surplus canvas satchel and produced a book. “You’ll be okay.”

    “Oui, bien sûr,” she said, reddening.

    Annie felt in her satchel again and produced an apple. She bit into it. “You can always borrow a dumb dress off Marie-Claire, if you want haute couture clobber,” she noted indistinctly.

    “Mais non! I mean, I packed my good dress.”

    “That’s all right, then,” she said indistinctly.

    Chantal sighed. Her party dress wasn’t the sort that society dames wore to fancy engagement parties at bloody châteaux. Since she was aware that Annie, whilst despising the haute couture thing, regularly threw away large sums on such vital necessities of the student life as leather jackets, boots, and CDs or cassette tapes, she didn’t say anything. She got her own book out, silently wondering what Annie was going to wear to the party tomorrow. Because a person who could spend that much on Senegalese music, to name but one recent extravagance, probably did, however much she might claim to despise haute couture clobber, have a whole closetful of it at home.

    She endeavoured to bury herself in a paperback and rather badly printed biography of Le Corbusier. Annie chewed noisily on her apple and appeared genuinely buried in a shiny American-published volume on Frank Lloyd Wright’s influence on the American house, which did not form part of the curriculum of the architecture course the two girls were both doing but which nevertheless Chantal herself would not have half minded owning. Only she didn’t have the money for that sort of extravagance.

    It was dark when they pulled in at Tôq. Hardly anyone got off. Chantal looked round the platform dazedly. “What now?”

    “There might be a van or something going to Touques Le Minard. Come on: through here.”

    Chantal followed her out. Three taxis were parked outside the station and two buses. Neither of these buses had “Touques Le Minard” showing as its destination, of course. Two women with shopping bags got on one of the buses. A woman with a little boy got on the other, followed by two boys with heavy satchels who looked like students.

    “I can’t see any vans, Annie.”

    “No; hang on, I’ll ask.” She darted back into the station. Chantal followed dazedly.

    Annie was chatting cheerfully with the man in the ticket office. “He’s closing up,” she informed her. Chantal looked at her dazedly. “Lucky we happened to be here, he’s got a package for Touques Le Minard,” she added.

    The ticket seller produced a cardboard carton, tightly tied up with plastic tape. It was a fair size: about thirty centimetres square, perhaps. Annie clutched it cheerfully. “Come on!” she said happily, hurrying off.

    Chantal followed her meekly. “Where are we going?” she gasped.

    “To the depot.” Annie headed off into the dark of the little provincial town at a terrific rate, carton and all.

    Chantal hurried after her. “What depot?” she gasped.

    “Semences ULR’s. –Come on, they’ll be closed by the time we get there if we don’t hurry!”

    Chantal had a heavy suitcase with her. It didn’t have much in it besides the book on Le Corbusier and her dance frock, but it was a heavy case: it had belonged to her father—or more accurately it still did, he wanted it back when her student days were over—and it was a bulky leather thing. She scrambled along beside her friend, panting.

    The depot was a huge industrial yard, with a giant pair of double doors set in a high, featureless concrete wall. Annie bashed on these huge doors and hollered. Suddenly a little door that Chantal hadn’t realized was there opened in one of the big ones and a voice told them not to make that bloody racket. Annie didn’t introduce herself or say bonjour, she just asked cheerfully if there was a van going near Touques Le Minard this evening. The voice replied that she’d missed the last one. It thought Jean-Pierre Gautier might be taking his van over, though. He was at his brother’s, they could try there.

    “Come on!” said Annie cheerfully, setting off. “Merci mille fois, Jean-Luc!” she shouted over her shoulder.

    “Watch yourself!” the voice shouted back.

    Chantal scrambled along in Annie’s wake. The whole conversation had taken place in the familiar voice, but that was no guide, with Annie. But she asked anyway: “Do you know him?”

    “Ouais. He’s from Touques Le Minard.”

    “I see,” she said weakly.

    “Hurry up, we don’t want to miss Jean-Pierre!”

    Obediently Chantal hurried up.

    By the time they’d covered what seemed like ten square kilometres of the darkened, grimy back streets of Tôq she wasn’t in much of a state to be surprized by anything. But she was just mildly surprized to discover that Jean-Pierre Gautier’s brother didn’t have anything to do with Semences ULR or any part of ULR, he was a poulterer. Jean-Pierre Gautier was a poultry farmer: that was why he’d brought his van into Tôq: to deliver some corpses to his brother.

    Chantal quailed at the thought of having to get into the back of the van where all the corpses had been, but Jean-Pierre Gautier’s brother’s wife, with whom they were speaking, informed them they’d just missed her brother-in-law.

    Annie said cheerfully, not sounding in the least put out: “Damn. –I know: I’ll try Thierry Pontarles.”

    Jean-Pierre Gautier’s sister-in-law looked at her watch and said she would have missed him. They’d better come in, she’d ring and check.

    They came into her little warm house and she rang and checked. They’d missed Thierry Pontarles. Was Annie’s Papa having the big tent for the party? she asked.

    Annie said he wasn’t, it was far too cold. Jean-Pierre Gautier’s sister-in-law said that in that case Fernand and Louis-Marie Durand wouldn’t be going over to La Rance, and Annie agreed they wouldn’t.

    “Annie,” said Chantal in a trembling voice: “perhaps if we got a taxi and—and told the driver your Papa would pay—and—and then we could pay him back later...”

    Annie was scandalized. Waste money on a taxi? Jean-Pierre Gautier’s sister-in-law was equally scandalized. Didn’t Chantal realize how far it was? And the Tôq taxi-drivers were notorious robbers: they’d charge for the round trip!

    Chantal gulped, and was silent.

    Then Jean-Pierre Gautier’s sister-in-law had an inspiration. She’d ring the hospital!

    She rang the hospital. After a certain amount of consultation, and a long chat with someone called Suzanne, she reported that he was there, and he said he’d meet them in Maternity, he had to drop in on Valéry Bonnard’s wife before he went home.

    At this point Jean-Pierre Gautier’s brother emerged from his sitting-room, grinning, and said he’d drop them off at the hospital, it looked like snow. Chantal looked pleadingly at Annie but it was all right: Annie was prepared to accept this kind offer.

    Not surprisingly the poulterer had a van, but to Chantal’s relief there was room for both of them in the front seat with him. It felt like a very long ride through kilometres of darkened Tôq but actually it only took fifteen minutes by Chantal’s watch. Grinning, the poulterer handed Annie out first her cardboard carton and then a large paper package.

    “We don’t need this!” she protested.

    He winked. “Pour la Bernadette. –Ciao, toutes les deux!”

    “Ciao! Et merci!” they cried as he gunned his engine and roared off into the night.

    “What is it?” said Chantal faintly.

    Annie put the carton down and investigated the package. “Combs and feet.”

    Chantal gulped.

    “She uses them for stock or something,” she said indifferently. “Guillaume Gautier does a lot of trade in ready-dressed poultry these days. You know: stupid joints and breasts and so forth, for dumb townees that can’t joint a bird for themselves. I dare say they use them for that cuisine minceur muck.”

    Chantal swallowed. Her older sister, who was married to the owner of a successful bathroom and plumbing supplies shop, was very into cuisine minceur. It was only sensible: the French diet was appalling, and she didn’t want her husband to end up the size of his father! Chantal’s sister’s father-in-law was sort of a walking balloon. Or, if he had his belt on, more like a walking Michelin man. Chantal agreed faintly with Annie and followed her into the hospital. Silently hoping they wouldn’t be in there long enough for the combs and feet to go off in the central heating.

    They were in there for quite a while, but this didn’t matter: Annie got a nurse to put the package in a fridge. It turned out that though Annie knew Valéry Bonnard, she didn’t know his wife, who was in the maternity ward with her first baby. She wasn’t originally from Touques Le Minard, that was why Annie didn’t know her: she was a foreigner, who’d come to the district to work in the glasshouses at Semences ULR. Nevertheless Annie embarked on a lovely chat with her. Chantal just smiled weakly from time to time and listened.

    It was ages before it dawned on Chantal that the reason they were there was that the doctor from Touques Le Minard was going to give them a lift to the village! And that tonight was his regular night for visiting those of his patients who were in the hospital.

    “If you’d let them know when you were arriving,” the doctor said mildly to Annie as they approached an intersection: “le Léon de Sidonie could have collected you from the station.”

    “That capitalist pig!” retorted Annie vigorously.

    “He is a capitalist pig with a car who’s willing to give you rides in it,” Georges Vaks pointed out unemotionally.

    Annie made a rude noise.

    “He’s done very well for himself,” said the doctor mildly.

    “Des conneries, Georges!” she shouted. “Anyone that Papa and Zizi were both backing would have done well for themselves in bloody merchant banking!”

    “Don’t be silly, he’s a man of considerable ability,” he replied mildly.

    Annie made a rude noise. After a moment she said: “Georges, has it ever occurred to you that maybe Great-Grandfather was Léon’s father?”

    In the back, Chantal gulped.

    “Mais non. –I mean, yes, it has occurred; I’m not a complete nincompoop. But he wasn’t. Wrong blood group.”

    “Did you check?” she gasped.

    “That’s right. Like I said, I’m not a complete nincompoop.”

    In the back, Chantal grinned.

    “My father’s theory,” added Dr Vaks, “was that he was one of the Jewish bankers your great-grandfather was pally with at the time.”

    “Why Jewish?” she said blankly.

    “Because they were there. –No, sorry! Don’t you think he looks rather Jewish?”

    “Well, he’s dark,” she said dubiously. “And sleek-looking, though most bankers are. I suppose he is sort of Semitic-looking. Well, maybe you’re right, it was a Jewish banker and that’s why he went into banking.”

    “Ouais. But maybe you’re right,” he said politely, “and he went into banking because Zizi Fleuriot du Hamel and your Papa backed him in it.”

    Chantal collapsed in delighted giggles.

    “Ouais, ouais,” said Annie, grinning. “Toubib one, know-it-all architecture student nil.”

    “Forty-love!” corrected Chantal hysterically.

    “All right: forty-love,” she agreed. “—Who’s that box addressed to?”

    “What? Oh.” It was beside Chantal on the back seat. “I can’t read it,” she reported.

    “Good. We’ll just drop it off at I-Can’t-Read-It’s place, then,” said Georges Vaks smoothly, “and le Léon de Sidonie will take you both on home to La Rance.”

    Chantal thought that both parts of that speech were a joke but as it turned out, they weren’t.

    Léon Blum, known to all of the village of Touques Le Minard, large parts of Touques-les-Bains and certain portions of Tôq itself as “le Léon de Sidonie” was a serious-minded man of almost forty years of age. He didn’t know his parentage any more than did Georges Vaks or the rest of the village; like the doctor, he’d sometimes thought his father might have been Jewish. He did look a bit Jewish, thought Léon Blum dispassionately. He was of medium height, solidly built, with thick black hair, dark eyes and a slightly curved nose that you could have said was Jewish if you wanted to, he supposed. Of course he had speculated in his more romantic youth, but the question had long since ceased to bother him. He did know that the man had been wealthy: his partnership in the merchant bank had been purchased with the money that his father had put in trust for him at his birth. Léon at twenty-one had wondered fancifully if the man could have been a Rothschild: well, it was a large enough family, with many branches: why not? His mother had always refused to tell him: she said it didn’t matter and that it was what a man made of himself that mattered, not who his parents might have been. Very fortunately for himself, Léon Blum’s temperament was the sort that naturally agreed with this sentiment.

    There had been enough money for him to have gone into business for himself or bought a partnership immediately he turned twenty-one, had he so wished; Léon had not so wished. After his compulsory military service, which he’d completed before starting university, he had done an excellent degree and gone into Zizi Fleuriot du Hamel’s merchant bank in a very junior capacity. He spent fifteen years working himself up in the firm and getting to know banking thoroughly. It was only recently that he’d become a junior partner in the smallish but old-established firm of Fleuriot et Cie. Annie de Bellecourt, born into wealth and position so that she’d never had to worry about either, considered him the complete capitalist: perhaps he was. But he was an admirable example of the type.

    It might have been supposed that, growing up at La Rance in the company of the Bellecourt cousins Gilles and Mathieu, who were ten years or so his elder, the boy Léon would have had considerable cause for jealous resentment—enough to turn him into a malcontent with a chip on his shoulder. But in fact this didn’t happen. Whether this was because in old Fernand’s day everybody on the estate still accepted as quite natural the old distinctions of class and position, or because, regardless of these distinctions, all the boys of the district played happily together as equals, or even because of Sidonie’s advice about making what you wanted to of yourself— Well, perhaps it was a combination of all of these factors, or, again, just the fact that Léon was fortunate enough to have been born level-headed, hard-working and bright. Certainly he envied Gilles de Bellecourt, a little, the fact that the chairmanship of ULR, S.A, was his for the taking. On the other hand, how boring to be born into a position like that: never to have had the chance to get somewhere with the aid of your own hard work and your own good brains! Poor Gilles.

    At the time Gilles de Bellecourt’s girlfriend Françoise had gone off to Africa and Gilles had stayed behind to run his estates and the family firm, Léon Blum had only been a boy in his teens, but the episode had made a deep impression on him. Poor old Gilles.

    Gilles himself had no idea who Léon’s father was. He had suspected that old Fernand knew: if he had done, Grandfather had kept his own counsel. Like Léon, Gilles had felt forcibly the difference between their situations in life and, if he had been more than glad, not only as the seigneur de Bellecourt, but also as a friend, to recommend him to Fleuriot et Cie, he had also been a little envious that the younger man had the opportunity of choosing his own goals, rather than having his path in life mapped out for him. Lucky Léon.

    Ever since Léon had been old enough to be aware of the sort of place in society the Bellecourts held and of what he owed them—he knew that the interest from the trust money had never been touched during his minority and that first the old Comte and then Gilles had supported Sidonie financially and then helped her put him through university—Léon had been extra-careful not to encroach. During Gilles’s marriage to Isabelle he had seen very little of the pair and it was only lately, since he’d risen to be head of a division and then junior partner with Fleuriot et Cie, that he’d started to socialize with Zizi and his set, and, from time to time, inevitably also with Gilles. Gilles was glad: he had always liked and admired Léon, and he was happy to see a bit more of him than just the occasional casual shooting party or family dinner when he was down at Touques Le Minard visiting Sidonie.

    Roma had decreed that of course Sidonie’s Léon must come to the engagement party! And Gilles warmly supported the invitation. Léon had hesitated, but it would have been rude to refuse. Besides, he had an ulterior motive.

    Léon had been married at one stage. His wife had been a pretty little blonde: her father was also in banking and her mother was a doctor. Unfortunately Michelle hadn’t inherited any brains from either side. She’d been so pretty and fun-loving that it wasn’t until they’d been married for over a year that Léon discovered that it wasn’t just brainlessness: pretty, laughing little Michelle didn’t really care about anybody except Michelle. They had had two children, but Michelle most certainly had not wanted the second and had done her best to get rid of the foetus, not by openly having it aborted, but by drinking far too much, snorting far too much coke, and indulging in various stupid physical activities such as a lot of ski-jumping and high diving during the pregnancy. The little girl was born retarded and in his heart of hearts Léon blamed Michelle. But Michelle didn’t care: she’d taken very little notice of their son, and cheerfully proposed putting the retarded baby in a home. Léon refused utterly to do any such thing; it wasn’t as if they couldn’t afford professional care for her at home. Michelle said she wasn’t going to put up with living in the same house with that, and he could choose: live with her in the Paris apartment without the baby, or take himself and his horrible brats off. He could have the country cottage, if he wanted to, she’d always hated it.

    He had thought that perhaps this was post-natal depression and, though they lived largely apart from then on, had stuck out the marriage for another fifteen months. Then Michelle had said she’d had enough. Léon was boring and she didn’t like being married any more, and she wished she’d never done it. The fact that she’d produced two children during the partnership was apparently a matter of indifference to her. Léon at this stage still thought she must be psychologically disturbed and he got her mother to make Michelle go on seeing the excellent psychiatrist he’d had her going to for the last fifteen months. Michelle went to the psychiatrist but didn’t come back to Léon. Instead she started living with one of the star football players of l’équipe de France. Fortunately the media didn’t get hold of the story about the children she’d deserted—possibly because she’d never mentioned to the footballer that she’d had them.

    At this point Léon’s in-laws suggested tactfully that dear Léon really ought to see about a divorce. Léon thought so, too. He did divorce her, but Michelle didn’t marry the footballer. He was boring, because he had to do so much training. Instead she took up with a skier. He wasn’t a very good skier but he was very good-looking. Four winters back Michelle and the skier had both died in a bob-sled accident. Both high on coke at the time.

    The marriage had lasted little more than two years, not counting the fifteen months of living apart. The little girl had never been strong, and died before she was three.

    The little boy, Paul, was now eight. He had only been four when his mother died, and had never really known her. He was a thin, nervy little creature in spite of the stability provided by Léon and Sidonie and his supportive maternal grandparents. He still occasionally wet his bed, so fairly obviously he wasn’t unaffected by the family history. Michelle’s parents, who had no other children of their own, would have been very glad to have had him live with them on a permanent basis, but Léon didn’t want to give up his son. Besides, the grandparents were both working, the child wouldn’t have seen more of them in his day than he did of his father. So Paul lived in Paris with Papa and in the weekends they got away together to their cottage or visited Grandpère and Mémé, or came down to the country and stayed with Mémé Sidonie.

    Paul was rather a lonely little boy: Léon was over-protective of him and a big black car picked up Paul every day after school, while most of the other boys walked home in a scuffling bunch. And during the weekends when some of the other boys played football together or had a gang or simply hung out together, Paul, of course, was nearly always away. So he didn’t have any really close friends. He was quite friendly with the concierge’s little boy, Daniel, who was around his own age: they were both learning chess, and they both played with Paul’s computer and were teaching themselves real programming; but Daniel had lots of other friends and didn’t always want to play with Paul.

    This weekend Léon, a trifle reluctantly, had brought Paul down with him. His mother had urged him to, and he didn’t want to disappoint her, she saw little enough of her only grandchild as it was. He was a bit doubtful about it, though: usually they stayed in Sidonie’s little cottage, but she was working up at La Rance... When he phoned her, Sidonie had cheerfully proposed popping Paul in the nursery with little Fergie. Paul didn’t really know any girls, and Léon was afraid he might be overwhelmed by having to stay in a great big house where he couldn’t just walk into the next room and find Papa. Sidonie had told him robustly that he couldn’t keep the child in cottonwool all his life. So Léon had agreed to bring him. He’d assured Paul anxiously that he’d be with Mémé Sidonie and that he’d look in on him from time to time.

    Paul had said in a small voice: “Couldn’t you and me just stay in Mémé’s cottage, Papa?”

    Léon had bitten his lip and explained that M. le Comte had asked him to stay at the château. He couldn’t refuse, it would be rude. Paul had said glumly that he saw. Could he bring his computer, then, Papa? Léon had had to concede that a three-year-old girl would be no company for Paul, and the computer was portable enough. So he let him bring it.

    Léon didn’t mention to his son or his mother his ulterior motive for accepting M. le Comte’s kind invitation to stay at the château. He didn’t mention it directly to Gilles, either, but he knew Gilles knew what it was. Léon was in love with Marie-Claire.

    He had been in love with her for about five years now. Marie-Claire had now turned twenty-four: she’d been only nineteen when he’d fallen in love with her, around the time he’d started to really rise in the bank and had just begun to be invited to the Fleuriot du Hamels’ bigger parties. He’d known it was highly unsuitable: he was fifteen years her elder, and a man of that age whose marriage was breaking up messily was hardly a suitable candidate for the hand of a young and pretty girl of nineteen. So he hadn’t done anything about it.

    Marie-Claire, of course, had already embarked on her silly period. Léon watched from the sidelines in agony as it got sillier and she got mixed up with more and more unsuitable men. When she was twenty-one he’d taken his courage in both hands and represented to her the error of her ways—not confessing, however, that he loved her. He cited the horrible example of Michelle as an object lesson, only meaning the flightiness and the dangers of snorting coke, but Marie-Claire assumed he was implying she was the sort of woman who’d desert her own children, and lost her temper with him. Words such as fat, interfering, boring, old and ugly got bandied about rather freely. Léon wasn’t fat and he wasn’t ugly, but he knew he wasn’t particularly handsome and didn’t have the sort of lithe young figure that Marie-Claire pretty obviously admired; and the accusation that he was interfering was all too true; so he hadn’t said he was only trying to help her because he loved her. He’d retired, very hurt.

    He tried again after the episode of the Greek fisherman. Marie-Claire accused him of cornering her at La Rance. As he more or less had, it was difficult to deny this. He made the awful mistake of saying hadn’t she learned her lesson, and Marie-Claire, who what with the food poisoning and the crabs, had begun to feel she had learned her lesson, was understandably exceedingly annoyed and told him to mind his own business and stay out of her life.

    Léon thereupon committed the crowning folly of telling her he loved her. Marie-Claire was horribly disconcerted: he was about the one man on her horizon that she’d never thought of in that light. Whether because he was so much older, and so boringly proper, or because she was used to thinking of him as just Sidonie’s Léon, whom she’d known all her life, or because he’d never tried to flirt with her— She felt a complete idiot and was angrier than ever with him.

    Apparently he was not only old and ugly, he was the last man on earth she wanted. Léon begged her to give him a chance. Marie-Claire might—just might—have let herself be swept off her feet if he’d been sufficiently masterful about it. But he wasn’t being masterful, he was being distinctly worm-like. So she told him he was a worm and—now wanting to say the most hurtful thing possible—if he imagined she was going to take up with le Léon de Sidonie he had another imagine coming! Léon lost his temper, told her she was a spoilt little bitch and his mother had more strength of character and decency in her little finger than she did in the whole of her  pampered body, and stormed off back to Paris. –Just when Marie-Claire had begun to feel that perhaps he might not be such a worm after all.

    He had made no attempt to contact her after that. By the time she started to feel fed up with country life and began drifting back to Paris, Marie-Claire still hadn’t seen him. In Paris she didn’t see him, either. Then she did see him, at a formal party. He just smiled slightly and turned his head away.

    It was, of course, at about this period that Marie-Claire had started encouraging the older men of Zizi’s business set. The ones she encouraged were a good deal older than Léon: more than twice her own age. Michel Béjart, for example, was around fifty-two. What the direct correlation between this behaviour and Léon’s declaration of love and subsequent ignoring of her was, it would have been hard to say. Marie-Claire certainly didn’t take any conscious decision either to spite Léon or to make him jealous.

    The next time they met at a large party she smiled slightly and turned her head away. And flirted extra-brightly with Michel.

    Marie-Claire had never mentioned Léon’s declaration to any of her family, but Léon, after thinking the whole thing over carefully, had been to see Gilles about it. He didn’t wish to do anything behind his back, and he thought that, given the age difference between the two of them, as the girl’s father Gilles ought to know about it. Gilles was pretty taken aback, it was like something out of the nineteenth century! He assured him that he had every sympathy for him, but he didn’t see what he could do to help him. Léon replied tightly that he didn’t want help, thanks. All Gilles could say to this was, weakly, that he was grateful to him for telling him and of course he had no objections, he’d be only too glad to see her settle down with a sensible man. He hesitated and then said that she’d been behaving pretty stupidly over these last few years but he thought that was because she didn’t know what she wanted. Sidonie’s son had retorted grimly that Gilles should have made her get a qualification and seen to it she got a job and worked at it. Gilles had blinked but admitted that he was right and he wished to God he had, but at the time— Oh, well. Léon knew that at the time Isabelle wouldn’t have supported any move to make her daughter work for her living. He just nodded grimly, shook hands and took his leave.

    Gilles was grateful that Léon had told him, and he genuinely liked the man and would have approved of the match if his suitability had been the only consideration. But on thinking it over he was very doubtful about the idea. Marie-Claire was so much younger than Léon and had never behaved with anything approaching a grain of sense in the whole of her adult life—and Léon and his little boy had already been through one disastrous experience. He knew that there was nothing vicious in his daughter’s temperament—but all the same: let that empty-head loose on that poor, nervy little boy and that sad, bruised man?

    After meeting Linnet he was more inclined to foster a match between disparate ages, but still very doubtful about the two particular personalities in question. He’d seconded Roma’s invitation for this weekend partly because he thought that some semi-official recognition of Léon was about due: he had been more or less brought up with him and Mathieu, and he’d done so well for himself and turned out so decent all round—and partly in the nature of an experiment. Get him and Marie-Claire together for a few days and just see if anything came of it. And if nothing did, he thought he might, as kindly as possible, warn poor Léon off.

    “Sidonie said she’d leave a message for Léon at Antoine Blum’s,” said Dr Vaks as the battered Renault station-waggon entered the village. “He’ll pick you up there.”

    “D’ac’!” agreed Annie.

    “Don’t forget the parcel, Annie,” murmured Chantal.

    “Hein? Oh, Georges can drop it off,” said Annie cheerfully.

    Chantal gulped.

    “Antoine Blum’s” turned out to be a little bar on a corner of the village square. Antoine Blum was the proprietor, and Léon’s cousin. He always dropped in there when he drove down to see Sidonie, said Annie comfortably. Chantal couldn’t help thinking what if he hadn’t, this time? But he had: when they went in a thick-set man in a dark overcoat who was sitting at one of the little tables with a skinny little boy smiled and raised a hand.

    Antoine Blum came out from behind his counter, beaming, and insisted on drinks all round. Chantal didn’t drink much and she didn’t want to turn up at the château to meet Annie’s father and grandmother with alcohol on her breath; but to her relief Annie only wanted a sirop, so she had one, too. The little boy was already drinking sirop. Dr Vaks had brought the carton in: he investigated it over his hot grog. For old Mme Metz. From, he discovered, turning it over, her sister, two stops up the line from Tôq. Antoine immediately appointed a thin man in overalls and a heavy oilskin to deliver it. Amiably the thin man took charge of the parcel.

    Eventually Chantal found herself in the back of a big silver Citroën next to the skinny little boy and a large cardboard box. His computer was in it, he explained. Did she have a computer? Chantal didn’t; her sister did word-processing, though. This was apparently enough encouragement for the little boy: he plunged into computer talk, of which Chantal understood about one word in a hundred.

    In the front Annie informed his father grumpily that encouraging kids to spend all their time playing dumb computer games didn’t develop either their motor skills or their intelligence, it turned them into cretin-heads that could only play computer games. Chantal actually agreed with this sentiment but she wouldn’t have dared to say so. She waited fearfully to see if the man would be cross. But he only laughed and said: “He’s more interested in programming than he is in games! Aren’t you, Paul?”

    Paul agreed and told Chantal a great deal, none of which she understood, about a maze program that him and Daniel had written.

    What with the cockscombs and the computers, and all the unexpected new places and personalities this evening, and all the racing through the darkened streets of Tôq, Chantal felt quite dazed, really. Quite dazed.

    “I still feel dazed!” she confessed with a laugh to the slim girl in the château’s sitting-room.

    Linnet had listened with amused and sympathetic interest to Chantal’s account of her perilous evening. “I’m not surprized!” she agreed, laughing. “Mind you, it’s just like Annie!” –Not adding, that telling the poor girl to go on downstairs by herself, she was going to have a bath, was just like Annie, too. Fortunately Jacques had been stationed in the hall and had retrieved her. But considering that Chantal had had to negotiate the whole of the first floor by herself—! She and Annie were sharing Annie’s little attic room, and the attic stairs didn’t connect with the main staircase. It was too bad of Annie, really.

    Chantal agreed with a guilty giggle that it was just like Annie. Adding, since the pretty, slim girl in the pale grey woollen dress who had been all by herself in the sitting-room reading a book when the man had shown her in was so clearly sympa: “It seemed to me that she was doing it all the most difficult way possible!”

    “Absolutely. When all she had to do was ring up and her father would have sent a car to fetch you both from the station.”

    Chantal gulped. “Ouais.”

    Their eyes met. They both went into gales of giggles.

    Linnet then made a very funny story out of her day spent with Annie at les égouts and the boots, jeans and record outlets. Not omitting to mention that Annie hadn’t explained what “les égouts” were before dragging her there. And as she didn’t know the word it hadn’t been until they were actually in the bowels of Paris that she’d realized what was going on.

    They both went into gales of giggles again.

    By this time, Chantal was feeling a lot less dazed and a lot happier about her visit to the château. Being greeted by Annie’s “Grannie” in the huge front hall had been pretty terrifying but at least she hadn’t worn an evening dress or a tiara or anything. She’d just had on a woollen skirt and a lilac pull that was the sort of thing that Chantal’s own Mémé wore. With a string of pearls, Mémé wore pearls too, very trad. They hadn’t had to meet the Comte or anyone, thank goodness, the mémé had sent them all straight upstairs to unpack their things and have a wash before dinner. She wasn’t too sure who the pretty girl in the sitting-room was. She had said her name but Chantal hadn’t quite caught it: something like Lynette. She was obviously one of the Australian friends or relations or whatever that Annie had said vaguely (typically of Annie) the house was full of. She had quite a strong English accent but her French was very fluent, which was just as well, because Chantal’s English was very basic indeed.

    The girl then asked if Chantal had unpacked. Terribly relieved to have the subject of clothes raised, Chantal said she had, and she’d hung her party dress up but it was awfully crushed: would there be an iron she could borrow? And what was she going to wear, she was afraid her own dress wouldn’t be good enough.

    “A pale pink thing. Long. It’s practically strapless—at least, it’s got a kind of bow on one shoulder but it isn’t holding it up much, I’m terrified the thing’ll give way.”

    “Mine isn’t a long dress!” gasped Chantal in horror. “Annie never said!”

    “Well, she wouldn’t. But actually Marie-Claire’s is short—very short. So I don’t think you need to worry. Do you know Marie-Claire?”

    “No, but I know she’s Annie’s sister.”

    “Oui, c’est ça. She’s not like Annie, she’s very fashionable. So if your dress :Is short, too, it’s bound to be with-it!” She smiled at her.

    “Ouais ... I copied the pattern out of a Vogue!” she confided.

    “Can you sew?” asked the slim girl in grey, obviously impressed.

    Chantal beamed: neither Annie nor most of the rest of their student friends admired this traditional feminine skill. “Yes; me and Jeanne, that’s my sister, we’ve always made most of our own clothes. –Only the material will need ironing,” she ended, suddenly glum.

    “I could ask Estelle about an iron, but actually, I don’t think you’ll need to worry!” With a loud giggle, Linnet retailed the horrible story of the disappearance of her and her sister’s clothes on their arrival at the chateau.

   Chantal gasped and squeaked and then the two of them collapsed in giggles again.

    As they giggled helplessly a tall man, quite old, came in. He was bald and he was dressed in the sort of clothes that Chantal’s own Papa wore in the weekends: heavy corduroy slacks, a boring fawn woollen pull, and one of those silly tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows, so it was ninety-to-one that he was Annie’s dad. But before she could pull herself together the man went up to the slim, pretty Australienne and bent over and kissed her on the mouth!

    “I’m glad to see you’re enjoying yourself, darling,” he said. He sat down beside her on the sofa and put his arm around her.

    What? Oh, no: she must be the fiancée, then, and Annie’s stepmother-to-be! Chantal was frozen with horror.

    “Gilles, this is Annie’s friend: Chantal,” said the fiancée. “Chantal, you haven’t met Annie’s father, have you?”

    Chantal shook her head numbly.

    “Salut, Chantal. Glad to meet you,” he said, holding out the hand that wasn’t round Lynette or whatever her name was.

    Chantal tottered numbly to her feet and shook it. “Bonjour, Monsieur le Comte,” she croaked.

    “Help!” said the fiancée in English. “She doesn’t have to say that, does she, Gilles?”—Chantal looked at them numbly as the Comte shook his head and laughed.—“Call him Gilles, Chantal,” she said in French.

    “Otherwise Annie will tell you you’ve gone potty,” he drawled.

    “Oui! Gilles!” she gulped, dropping like a stone onto her chair again.

    “So what was so funny?” he said, giving the fiancée a sort of hug. –At this point Chantal caught sight of the rock on her left hand and became mesmerized.

    “Hein? Oh! I was just telling Chantal about the horrors of our reception here!” she said, laughing.

    “Horrors?” he cried indignantly. “What horrors? Do you mean old Louis? Because if so,” he said, grinning, “I’ve told him that dead game of any sort this weekend will be persona non grata!”

    “Tu parles!” she said with scornful affection. “No, actually, I didn’t mean him, but come to think of it, that was another horror!” She told Chantal about it, laughing.

    What with the embarrassment and the shock of finding that the sympa girl in grey was slated to be Annie’s marâtre, Chantal could only raise a weak smile.

    “So what were these other horrors?” said Annie’s Papa, hugging the girl again and this time dropping a kiss on her ear.

    “Estelle kidnapping all our clothes, what else!”

    The Comte broke down in a spluttering fit. “I can promise you your clothes will not be kidnapped, Chantal!” he gasped .

    “I must admit we had worn them all the way from Australia,” Linnet admitted, grinning.

    “Précisément!” he gasped.

    Chantal giggled suddenly.

    Grinning, the Comte got up and asked them what they’d like to drink. Linnet wanted a sherry so Chantal decided she’d have one, too. The Comte warned her it was very English but as Linnet gave an explosive giggle at this, Chantal could see it was supposed to be a joke. She smiled bravely and said she’d try it anyway. He himself had a whisky but she didn’t think that was very English, Papa and her brother-in-law often drank it, too.

    Gradually as the level in her sherry glass sank Chantal began to relax, deciding that although the Comte was of course old, he was really nice, and the fiancée of course was lovely—but he was too old for her, really. She still wasn’t quite sure of her name, he pronounced it in a funny way but maybe that was just because it was an English name. They’d been using the familiar voice when it was just them but of course she didn’t use it with him, but he smiled very nicely and told her to tutoyer him. “Like an uncle,” suggested the fiancée kindly. Chantal smiled weakly. Anything less like her uncles—! Though, true, they also drank whisky and wore boring clothes in the weekends. She duly ceased to vousvoyer him. But she never worked up the nerve to call him “Gilles.” Though silently telling herself that the fact that Maman would have had ten fits to hear she had done, should jolly well have made her do it!

    Léon had spent some time with Paul and Sidonie in the nursery, getting Paul settled. Not to mention meeting Fergie, whom he’d found immediately entrancing. Paul hadn’t known what to make of her at first and had been very quiet. Then her maman had come in and Fergie had started talking English and Paul had been suddenly fascinated. He’d confided to his Papa that Fergie must be very clever: he’d started English at school and it was very hard. Léon didn’t favour him with any theories, Chomskian or otherwise, about language-learning in the young child: he was simply relieved to see Paul start to relax.

    He hadn’t been too sure that Paul would want to come downstairs for dinner but, perhaps because Bernadette had panted up to the nursery on purpose to inform her great-nephew that he was in for a treat tonight, it was le rosbif et le pudding Yorkshire de Madame la Comtesse, perhaps because the red-headed Fergie had a screaming fit at not being allowed to stay up for grown-up dinner, Paul had said of course he would come down with Papa, he was hungry. Sidonie had immediately issued a string of instructions as to what Léon was and wasn’t to allow him to eat, but he hadn’t listened: getting anything into Paul’s stomach would be a bonus, he was a terribly picky eater.

    There had been no sign of Marie-Claire as Léon journeyed back and forth along the first-floor landing and he hadn’t dared to ask either his mother or his Tante Bernadette if she was at home, they’d have spotted him for sure. Paul gripped his hand tightly as they went down the stairs of the big old house but to tell the truth Léon was so het-up about Marie-Claire that he was gripping Paul’s just as tightly.

    Then she wasn’t there.

    “Vous voilà, tous les deux!” said Gilles with a smile, getting up. He shook hands with Léon and then with Paul, whom he had met before, though he thought Paul mightn’t remember him, and introduced them to Linnet.

    Léon was pretty well stunned. Of course Sidonie had told him that Mademoiselle Linnette was exactly like la petite dame de Monsieur Gilles, but he’d discounted most of that as exaggeration. But it wasn’t just the resemblance: she was so young! He held out his hand to her and she blushed shyly as she shook it. Good grief! Gilles de Bellecourt, at his age, falling for this pretty, shy little creature! What a contrast to Isabelle—and, mon Dieu, thought Léon Blum with an inner grin, recovering from his stupefaction, what a contrast to the frightful Henriette Verdeuil!

    He was glad that Linnet didn’t gush or coo at his little boy but just said: “Hullo, Paul. So you decided to come down and eat grown-up dinner? That’s good, your Tante Bernadette will be pleased. I hope Fergie didn’t put on a scene because she’s not allowed to stay up this late?”

    “Yes, she did,” he said shyly.

    “She screamed her head off!” said Léon with a laugh. “Even though, from what we could gather, she’d already had her dinner, n’est-ce pas, Paul?”

    “Yes, she had. –She was in her pyjamas,” he said to Linnet.

    “Was she? I hope you don’t mind having to share a room with a girl, Paul,” she replied seriously.

    The skinny little Paul replied in macho accents: “Mais non! It’s nothing to me!” And came over to sit by Linnet on the sofa. “Do you know about computers?” he asked.

    “A bit. I’ve had to, for my work.”

    Paul immediately plunged into computer talk.

    Above their heads Léon looked somewhat wildly at Gilles. Gilles grinned. “Elle est comme ça,” he murmured. “Sit down, Léon. Whisky?”

    Léon accepted a whisky. He sat down and tried to make casual conversation. It was damned difficult: he couldn’t think of anything much but Where was Marie-Claire?

    After a while Annie came in, still in jeans, though with her hair wet, and sat down on the rug in front of the fire to dry it. Soon Rose arrived, in the blue slacks and pale blue fuzzy jumper she’d been wearing when Léon had met her in the nursery, and had to be introduced to Chantal. She asked for a gin and tonic and Linnet explained to Chantal that it was another English drink. The two of them collapsed in giggles, so it was obviously some sort of joke. Léon smiled: he had begun to see that, whether or not she was suitable for Gilles de Bellecourt, la petite dame en gris was very sweet indeed.

    He continued to join in the conversation as best he could, still unable to stop himself wondering Where was Marie-Claire? And thinking glumly it was going to be a merry weekend, all right. The door opened again and he looked round hopefully, but it was only Madame la Comtesse.

    “My dears, I’m so sorry: I don’t know when we’re going to eat tonight!” she said.

    “What is it, Maman?” said Gilles, not looking particularly alarmed.

    “Bernadette’s just had hysterics: Estelle’s thrown out the Yorkshire pudding!”

    “Why?” said her son smoothly.

    “Well, I’m not absolutely sure, dear. She was in hysterics, too, by the time I got there. But I think she didn’t know what it was. It was sitting there under the meat, you see, and she must have thought it was just a dish Bernadette had put there to catch the drippings. –Oh, dear,” she ended in English, suddenly sitting down.

    “Well, I can’t revive you with a gin,” said Gilles pleasedly: “you and Rose between you have got down on it all. You’d better have a sherry. –That’s another English drink.”

    “Gilles, don’t be horrible!” cried Linnet loudly. “And poor Estelle! She must be feeling terrible!”

    “You mean poor Tante Bernadette!” gasped Léon ecstatically.

    “Can it be salvaged?” asked Rose, joining Gilles at the drinks cabinet. “Ooh, you rotten liar, there’s a whole new bottle!” They both collapsed in sniggers.

    “No, she put it in the pig’s bucket,” said Roma gloomily. “—Darling, that reminds me,” she said to her son: “that creature will have to go, it’s beginning to rule the kitchen. Bernadette gave it Jacques’s lunch the other day, just because he was five minutes late.”

    Annie had appeared unaffected by the whole to-do. At this, however, she gave a loud guffaw.

    “What is ‘le pudding Yorkshire’?” whispered Paul to Chantal.

    “J’sais pas. I was going to ask you!” she hissed.

    “It’s an English thing to eat,” said Linnet in a weak voice.—Over by the drinks, Gilles let out a howl.—“Stop it, Gilles,” she said unsteadily. “Get everybody another drink.”

    Obediently he handed round drinks, while Linnet explained to Paul that it was a sort of baked thing, not very nice, even when Tante Bernadette made it; they wouldn’t miss it, there’d be plenty of other things to eat.

    Léon, smiling, volunteered to go and calm them down, but Roma said it was all right, she’d sent Estelle to bed with a glass of milk, it was just the excitement of the big party tomorrow getting to her.

    Gilles sat down again, smiling. ‘‘Well,” he said, putting his arm round Linnet: “don’t let’s wait for Marie-Claire and Bertrand: let’s have a toast.”

    “Oui, la bonne idée, mon chou!” said Roma, brightening. “Of course we must drink to you and Linnet!” She raised her glass.

    “Oui, comme ça,” said Linnet encouragingly, as Paul raised his glass of sirop. They smiled at each other.

    Gilles raised his glass. “To the pig that’s begun to rule the kitchen,” he said mildly. “May it have a short life and a happy one!”

    “GILLES!” cried his mother indignantly, as Rose, Annie and Chantal let out simultaneous shrieks and collapsed in hysterics, Linnet gave way and went into a terrific spluttering fit, and even Paul let out a soprano giggle.

    “No, sorry,” said Gilles, grinning.

    “Propose a proper toast, Léon, dear,” suggested Roma, trying not to laugh.

    Léon raised his glass. “To Gilles and Linnet: may they have a long life together and a happy one!”

    “Gilles and Linnet!” the others echoed.

    Gilles touched his glass to Linnet’s. “To us, my darling.”

    “To us,” agreed Linnet, smiling into his eyes.

    “Oui, oui , comme ça, Paul: maintenant on boit!” urged Rose.

    They all drank, smiling, and the Comte got up and put another log of wood on the fire. Then he sat down and began to talk kindly to little Paul about his school and his computer.

    Léon sipped the remains of his whisky slowly. Lucky man, he thought glumly, as Linnet joined in Gilles’s conversation with Paul. ...And where on earth was Marie-Claire? Could they expect to see her tonight, or not? And if they could expect to see her, would it be before dinner or not? Because, keyed up though he undoubtedly was about seeing her this weekend, he had to admit, admitted Léon to himself with an inner grin, that he was damned hungry!

    Chantal was also very hungry. Even though she didn’t know what le pudding Yorkshire was, and Linnet’s explanation hadn’t enlightened her all that much, she thought it was an awful pity that it had got thrown out. Nevertheless she sat back in her chair and breathed a stealthy sigh of relief and began to relax. Annie’s relations were okay, really. Quite nice. Maybe the party at the château wouldn’t be too bad, after all!

    “Three extra,” reported Jacques in a doomed voice.

    “For dinner?” gasped Bernadette. “But what can I give them, now that that idiot of an Estelle’s thrown out the Yorkshire pudding?”

    Jacques shrugged.

    “Do some more potatoes,” suggested old Louis thickly from the scrubbed old table. He slurped up soup. “The English always like potatoes.”

    “Ta gueule!” she snapped. “And keep your feet on that paper!”

    Louis went on slurping up soup. But he kept his feet more or less on the newspaper she’d put down for him. When he thought she’d taken her eye off him he sneakily reached down a piece of bread dipped in the soup to the old springer spaniel that was leaning against his ankle.

    “And stop feeding that brute in my kitchen!” she screamed.

    Louis swallowed a sigh, but went on eating soup.

    His great-nephew Rémy, who had decided to come home to the village and learn Oncle Louis’s trade after several ill-fated ventures in Tôq as, variously, apprentice mechanic, shop assistant in a gentlemen’s outfitters (two weeks, that one had lasted) and supermarket assistant (a month, up until the point where they’d discovered he’d accidentally labelled all the large economy-size tins of petits pois with the price of the smallest tins, thus rendering them incredibly economical and creating a huge run upon the line, not to say a huge loss to the store), suggested with a hoarse chuckle: “Fry up them combs and legs, Bernadette!”

    “More trouble than they’re worth,” she muttered to herself.

    “Maybe you’d better do some more potatoes,” conceded Jacques.

    “If you want dinner, sit down and eat!” retorted Bernadette disagreeably. She slammed an empty soup plate down on the table.

    Jacques sat down, looking uneasy. “Monsieur Gilles might ring for me at any moment.”

    “Eating soup’s gonna entail the loss of the use of your legs, is it?” she retorted disagreeably.

    Jacques picked up a baguette, looking resigned, and broke a large piece off it.

    Bernadette snatched the soup plate away from in front of him and took it over to the stove, where she ladled soup into it out of a huge cauldron. Jacques watched uneasily as she brought it back to the table, but she set it down carefully enough. “Mange,” she ordered briefly.

    Jacques began obediently to eat his soup,.

    Rémy slurped up soup hungrily but after a moment said: “I read in a book—”

    “Ta gueule,” recommended his great-uncle. He glanced sneakily at Bernadette: her broad back was turned, so he slipped the dog another piece of soupy bread.

    “No, listen, Oncle Louis! I read in a book that the English, they eat Brussels sprouts with le rosbif!”

    Neither of the two men replied to this one. Louis concentrated on his soup. Jacques looked nervously at Bernadette and then away again.

    Bernadette took a deep breath. She trod heavily over to the table. She rested a hand heavily beside Rémy and leant on a massive arm. Skinny young Rémy looked up nervously at the immense curves of the great bulk that was Bernadette.

    For an awful moment Bernadette just breathed heavily.

    Then she said: “Nip out and pick us a basket of Brussels sprouts off the Brussels sprout tree, would you, Remy?”

    Rémy gulped.

    “Nip up to Brussels,” suggested Louis into his soup.

    Bernadette gave a brief snort of laughter. “Ouais! –Well?” she demanded.

    Quailing, Remy quavered: “It was just an idea.”

    “It was a bloody stupid idea,” she said dispassionately.

    “Sorry, Bernadette,” he muttered.

    Bernadette sniffed slightly, but to his huge relief ceased looming over him and moved slowly away.

    “I’ll peel some potatoes, if you like,” offered Louis, cleaning out his soup bowl with a hunk of baguette.

    “Madame la Comtesse ordered English-style roast potatoes. I’ve done English-style roast potatoes,” said Bernadette grimly. “Enough for nine, et le petit.”

    “Mademoiselle Linnette won’t eat many,” offered Rémy.

    “TA GUEULE!” they all shouted.

    Rémy subsided, looking resentful.

    After a moment Jacques said: “Anyway, they aren’t English.”

    Louis sniggered slightly.

    Bernadette took a grim breath. “Who are they, or aren’t we gonna be allowed to know?” she demanded.

    “Hein? Oh! Sorry, didn’t I say? Sorry, Bernadette,” replied Jacques meekly. “It’s Monsieur Guy and Monsieur Jean-Paul and that friend of theirs, Monsieur Gérard.”

    “What? Well, where did they spring from?” she cried crossly.

   Jacques replied literally: “Touques-les-Bains.”

    “Tou— I’ll Touques-les-Bains you!” she shouted.

    “All I did was open the door to them, I never invited them to dinner!” he cried.

    “Well, who did?”

    “I suppose it was Mademoiselle Marie-Claire. Or Monsieur Bertrand. Well, they were with them,” he explained.

    Bernadette took a deep breath. “You mean they’re BACK?” she bellowed.

    “Oui: didn’t I s—”

    “IMBÉCILE!” she bellowed at the top of her lungs.

    “Does that mean that they’re all here?” ventured Rémy unwisely into the sudden silence.

    “MAIS NON, ILS SONT TOUS A BRUXELLES!” she bellowed.

    “It isn’t my fault!” he cried aggrievedly.

    “Ta gueule,” she said grimly. “I’ll have to give them a purée de marrons.”

    “Well, that’s all right!” said Jacques brightly.

    “Tinned,” she said grimly.

    Jacques subsided.

    Bernadette began sautéing shallots and garlic in butter. Rémy finished his soup and looked wistfully at the cauldron, but didn’t have the guts to ask for more. Louis philosophically took the remaining hunk of baguette and began chewing it slowly. He had false teeth, they were quite good chewers but not very good biters. Jacques finished his soup and looked sadly at the last of the bread vanishing down Louis’s gullet.

    When the purée was simmering, and not until she’d produced a frightful and unnecessary clattering of pots and pans. Bernadette noted to the ceiling: “Someone can nip upstairs and tell Madame la Comtesse she might get some dinner tonight after all.”

    Jacques got up resignedly.

    “If you gave them soup first,” began the misguided Rémy, “that’d fill them up, tu vois? And then they wouldn’t want so many—”

    “TA GUEULE!” she screamed.

    “—so many potatoes. And endives belges,” he ended weakly.

    “Fous-mois la PAIX!” she screamed.

    “Get out,” said Louis briefly.

    “But Oncle Louis—”

    “The soup isn’t for gentry; get out.”

    “But I’m still hungry!” he wailed.

    Jacques had got as far as the door. “Wait until I’ve finished serving: then you can finish up the left-over potatoes and endives belges,” he said, and shot out before Bernadette could get her breath.

    Bernadette’s bosom heaved.

    Rémy gulped, and Louis looked fixedly at the table.

    Then Bernadette said grimly: “I’ve done twenty endives beiges.”

    Louis grunted.

    “Two each, one for le petit, one left over.”

    Louis grunted again.

    “If that mutton-head can be trusted to serve the ladies one each and the gentlemen two, that’ll still be one over.”

    Louis didn’t bother to do the requisite arithmetic: he just grunted agreement.

    Rémy was counting on his fingers. “That’s right!” he cried.

    “Well, if there is one left, you can have it.” she said.—Louis sniffed slightly but she ignored him.—“Only there might not be. Mademoiselle Annie might want two.”

    “Or Monsieur Jean-Paul might want three,” noted Louis. “—Is there any salad?”

    “Not for the likes of you: no.”

    “Any cheese?” he returned placidly.

    Bernadette trod heavily over to the pantry. She retrieved an odorous plate and trod heavily over to the table with it.

    “I don’t like Münster!” wailed Rémy.

    “Good,” said his great-uncle. He unwrapped it. Rémy recoiled.

    Bernadette had gone back to the pantry. She returned with two more baguettes. which she slapped down in front of the old man. “Them as don’t want cheese,” she noted grimly: “can sling their hooks.”

    “But I don’t like Münster!” wailed Remy.

    “Give him some of that low-fat muck Marie-Claire asked you to get in,” advised Louis.

    “Couldn’t I have more soup? –It’s great soup!” he assured Bernadette quickly.

    A twinkle showed for an instant in the fat old cook’s eye, but the innocent Rémy didn’t spot it. “I suppose so,” she conceded. She scooped up his plate and took it over to the stove. “Someone,” she noted, “could nip upstairs and see if that idiot of an Estelle feels like soup. –Or if she’s still bawling,” she added.

    Rémy looked nervously at his great-uncle. Louis ate bread and cheese unemotionally.

    “Me?” he quavered.

    Bernadette eyed him drily. “Well, it’s you or him. And I was under the impression that it was you that wanted more soup.”

    Rémy stumbled out.

    “Petit con,” noted Louis in his absence.

    “You, of course, weren’t nearly that witless at his age,” replied the cook, rapidly setting out a pâté on a serving dish and surrounding it with cress and small pickled mushrooms.

    Louis looked sadly at the latter. “Woulda been hard to be,” he noted.

    “Oh, go on!” she said crossly to his sub-text. She put a spoonful of pickled mushrooms on his plate.

    “Merci,” he grunted.

    Bernadette looked critically at her platter. “It’ll have to do.”

    “Put more mushrooms. Jean-Paul likes them as well as Monsieur Bertrand.”

    “They’re a garnish!” she objected grumpily.

    Louis sniffed faintly. He ate his portion up quickly and wiped the liquid off the plate with a little bit of bread. “Good. –Where’d you get the watercress at this time of year?”

    “From the glasshouses. They’re trying out something called hydroponics.”

    “Never heard of it.” he grunted

    “I hadn’t, either. According to that Simone, they can grow anything just in water.”

    “Des conneries.”

    “That’s what I said, but she said it’s true: they’re growing tomatoes and goodness knows what, not just watercress. It’s an experiment. Forcing or something. To get it on the market out of season.”

    Louis sniffed.

    “Well, it’s nice to have something green at this time of year,” she said mildly.

    “I’m not arguing with you. How much did they rook you for it?”

    “Nothing, see!”

    “There’ll be something wrong with it, then,” he noted.

    “There’s nothing wrong with it, you stupid old bugger!” she shouted.

    Louis rubbed his bulbous nose slowly. “I don’t mean anything you can see. –Or taste,” he added in case she was going to say it tasted okay.

    “Something wrong with it, only you can’t see it or taste it: ouais,” she noted sardonically.

    “That’s right. It’ll be in its eugh... atoms. Inside it.”

    Bernadette snorted richly.

    Jacques had returned during Bernadette’s last speech. “Inside what?”

    “Did you tell them dinner was served?” she returned grimly.

    “Of course. –Atoms inside what, Louis?”

    “That watercress,” he said, nodding at it. “They’ve been mucking round with its insides up the glasshouses.”

    “Merde! I wouldn’t touch it: it’ll probably make you grow two heads. –Or have a green baby,” he added with a faint snigger.

    “Him!” snorted Bernadette.

    “I’m not past it yet, you know,” said Louis.

    “Well, keep it to yourself,” she recommended. “Get the wine, cretin,” she ordered Jacques.

    “Hein? Oh!” Jacques had the wine to accompany the pâté all ready on a tray. He picked it up.

    “Wait! There’s three more men!” said Bernadette loudly.

    “Get another bottle,” said Louis.

    Jacques hesitated. “But perhaps the ladies won’t—”

    “GET ANOTHER BOTTLE!” they shouted in unison.

    Jacques exited in the direction of the cellar, muttering.

    “You’d think it was his own bloody wine!” said Bernadette with feeling—not for the first or indeed the five-hundredth time.

    Louis nodded sagely. “Ouais. Worse than old Pierre, in feu M. le Comte’s day. I remember—”

    “Just shut up.” Bernadette handed him a sprig of watercress. “Taste it.”

    “Not me.”

    “Look, you’re past producing any babies, green or otherwise! TASTE IT!” she shouted.

    Louis tasted one leaf, very gingerly. “Tastes like watercress,” he admitted.

    “See?”

    “I’m telling you, you won’t be able to taste it or smell it, it’ll be in them atom things! You don’t want Linnette and Monsieur Gilles making a green baby, do you?”

    Bernadette had opened her mouth. She closed it again, looking uncertain. “That Simone, she eats it.”

    Louis snorted richly. “Any baby that Eugène of hers gets is bound to have two heads and be bright green anyway.”

    “He’s not that bad,” she said weakly. “Eugh... What do you think, Louis?”

    Louis scratched his chin. “Tell Jacques to tip Linnette the wink not to eat it. Monsieur Gilles won’t, he hates green stuff with pâté.”

    “There’s the other girls as well, though.”

    He sighed. “Well, setting aside the point that Marie-Claire’s so bloody thick anything she eats from the bloody glasshouses isn’t gonna affect anything she might produce, and the point that Annie doesn’t even know what it’s about let alone doing it with an actual bloke—”

    “Shut up,” she said, grinning.

    “Wouldn’t know what it was if you drew ’er a diagram,” he noted, slowly closing one eye.

    Bernadette gave a muffled snort of laughter.

    Louis continued pleasedly: “Well, setting aside that, none of the rest of them’s planning to start a baby in the near future, are they?”

    “I suppose that’s true...”

    “Tell mutton-head to tip Linnette the wink to steer clear of it,” he repeated.

    “Him!” she snorted.

    “All right, take it off the plate.”

    “But it needs some sort of a garnish, Louis, I can’t send it up bare when Madame la Comtesse has got guests!”

    Louis scratched his chin. “The kid took me to a Chinese chop-house in Tôq last weekend—”

    “You said. I wasn’t interested the first time.”

    “They had all these flowers and things made out of vegetables and things. Quite pretty, they were.”

    Bernadette made a rude noise.

    “Well, just an idea. –That Chinese food goes through ya like a dose of salts,” he said reminiscently.

    “Serves ya right for eating it! –Well?” she said grimly as Jacques returned from the cellar, looking sad.

    “I got an extra bottle for both courses.”

    “What about the dessert course?” retorted Bernadette swiftly.

    “Linnette won’t take wine with that, she never does. And Annie hardly ever—”

    “Get another bottle, skinflint!” she cried.

    Jacques sighed. “I’ll fetch it later. Is the pâté ready?”

    Bernadette snatched it out of his reach. “I’ll take it in myself.”

    Jacques shook his head slowly. “Monsieur Bertrand won’t like that: not with company in the house.”

    “Up Monsieur Bertrand,” returned Bernadette genially. “It isn’t his house.”

    “Dieu soit béni,” noted Louis piously. “What the fuck have you been up to?” he added nastily as Rémy sidled in.

    “Eugh… She was going on at me... Voici Mademoiselle Annie!” he gasped.

    Annie grinned at them. “Estelle’s still in a state. She started telling Rémy about her operation.”

    Louis sniggered.

    “Grannie sent me up to see if she was hungry. Me and Rémy couldn’t get a yes or no out of her, could we, Rémy?”

    He shook his head, looking at her gratefully.

    “But we think she’ll probably eat some soup if it’s put in front of her,” finished Annie, grinning.

    “You could decorate it with some of that cress,” noted Louis dreamily. “Can’t make any difference to her, at her age.”

    “What’s wrong with it?” asked Annie with interest.

    “Nothing,” said Bernadette grumpily. “One of his daft ideas.”

    “It’s got funny atoms: them glasshouse lot have been at it,” revealed Louis.

    “Ugh! Don’t eat it, Annie!” gasped Rémy.

    “Mind your manners!” snapped Louis. “‘Mademoiselle Annie’, to you!”

    “Don’t mind Louis, he’s living in the Middle Ages,” said Annie tolerantly, winking at the crestfallen Rémy. “—You mean genes, not atoms,” she added to the old man.

    “If you say so. Don’t touch it unless you want two-headed green babies,” he advised.

    “I won’t,” she said mildly. “Why are you serving it, Bernadette?” she added politely. “Or is it all for Oncle Bertrand?”

    Choking slightly, Bernadette managed to reply: “That’ll be enough of that.”

    “If it’s genetically modified I’ll tell Linnet to avoid it,” said Annie thoughtfully, taking the platter of garnished pâté out of the old cook’s hands and walking out with it.

    In her wake there was a short silence in the big old kitchen.

    “There’s a word for that,” noted Louis dreamily.

    “Ouais! It’s pre-emp—” Rémy broke off.

    “Sit down, you, and have some soup,” said Bernadette heavily.

    “Oui. Merci,” he said quickly, sitting down.

    “And take that wine in,” she said evilly to Jacques.

    He jumped, grabbed the wine, and hurried out with it.

    Bernadette filled Rémy’s plate with soup.

    Silence reigned, except for the sound of Rémy eating it.

    “Tu vois?” said Louis at last.

    Bernadette grunted.

    “Go on: admit I was right.”

    “I never said—” She broke off, scowling.

    “Proves it, see, If Annie doesn’t want Linnette to produce a green, two-headed son for Monsieur Gilles, then—”

    “OUAIS! TA GUEULE!” she howled.

    “—then I was right,” he finished placidly. “She is all for the marriage.”

    Bernadette glared.

    Rémy looked up from his soup. very puzzled. “Annie likes Linnette.”

    His elders took deep breaths.

    Hurriedly he buried his nose in his soup again but that didn’t stop them both bellowing: “TA GUEULE!”

    Léon had been under the impression that young Gérard Fleuriot du Hamel was destined to marry a handsome blonde German girl whose father was something in the Bundesbank. From his behaviour that night over the dinner table it didn’t look like it. The impression that Léon had somehow gained that Marie-Claire was indifferent to her Fleuriot du Hamel connections also appeared to be incorrect, he noted grimly. True, Marie-Claire spoke very kindly to Paul, but that didn’t make Léon feel all that much better. True, also, Gérard Fleuriot du Hamel flirted with Rose almost as much as he did with Marie-Claire, and even favoured Annie’s little friend Chantal from time to time with his glinting sideways smile, but this didn’t make Léon feel better, either. Because Marie-Claire was very evidently encouraging him. Merde! Of course Gilles and Roma both had beautiful manners but Léon fancied they glanced sympathetically at him more than once as the dinner progressed. Oh—merde!

    Marie-Claire could probably not have said, if asked, why she was encouraging Gégé Fleuriot du Hamel. She liked him, certainly: he was both good-natured and charming, and it was difficult not to like him. Added to which, he was quite good-looking, with slightly slanted merry hazel eyes, a heart-shaped face, thick, shiny brown hair with a natural wave in it, and a wide, somewhat sensuous mouth. And he obviously knew he was attractive to women. This last wasn’t always a factor that predisposed Marie-Claire in a man’s favour: the type that expected you to drop into their hands like a ripe plum was usually completely up-itself. Well, look at Guy! But Gégé wasn’t nearly that bad.

    She’d been fairly stunned to see, as they all sat down to dinner, that Guy placed himself firmly beside Rose and then proceeded to flirt with her throughout the meal. She’d believed she was long since over her crush on Guy, and denied angrily to herself the flush of jealousy that raced through her as Rose giggled and encouraged him and he went on flirting with her—rather than shrugging and turning the charm off like a tap once he’d got the expected response, which she’d seen him do often enough. This was perhaps a factor in her encouragement of Gérard. So, perhaps, was the fact that though he smiled nicely and shook hands with her, Léon didn’t evince any overwhelming joy at seeing her and made no attempt to flirt with her. Marie-Claire had subconsciously been expecting both and was very dashed indeed. It wasn’t that she was in love with him, of course: he was fat and boring and stuffy. Only when he’d said he was in love with her, wouldn’t you think he— Marie-Claire flirted determinedly with Gégé.

    By the end of the evening Chantal was very glad to have the mémé tell her and Annie kindly but firmly that they’d had a long day and it was time they were in bed. As Annie was yawning her head off even she could hardly argue this point, and the two of them went thankfully upstairs.

    “Well?” said Annie into the dark when they were in their narrow little beds in the little attic room.

    “It wasn’t too bad,” admitted Chantal.

    Annie yawned. “Non. Well, Oncle Bertrand’s a bit hard to take. But don’t worry about him looking at you as if you were a beetle, he does that to everyone.”

    “Ouais,” she said faintly.

    Annie hesitated. “Jean-Paul’s a bit like him, don’t you think?”

    “Ouais,” Chantal agreed, yawning. “I’ve met him before, remember? He looked at  me as if I was a beetle then, too.”

    “Oui—eugh—I didn’t mean that,” she said sheepishly. “I meant in looks.”

    “Ouais,” she said, yawning. “Same nose. Same way of looking down it, too.”

    Annie sighed. She’d secretly hoped that Chantal and Jean-Paul might hit it off. “Ouais. Eugh... What did you think of Guy?”

    Chantal yawned. “Up-himself. Like you said.”

    “Ouais!” she said with a relieved laugh. At least Chantal didn’t appear to have fallen for that creep! Phew!

    There was silence for a while in Annie’s little attic room. Then Chantal whispered: “Tu dors?”

    “Non.”

    “That Gérard’s quite good-looking, isn’t he?” she said timidly.

    “O, mais non!” cried Annie unguardedly. “Don’t say you’ve fallen for him!”

    Chantal gulped. “So what if I have?” she said defiantly.

    Annie raised herself on one elbow and peered anxiously at her in the dark. “Chantal, he’s one of Zizi’s horrible relations, he’s in the bank—”

    “You mean I’m not good enough for him?” she said angrily.

    “Mais non!” gasped Annie in horror. “Of course not! I only meant that he’s an up-himself stuffed-shirt of a banker: you’d hate his sort of life, Chantal! Honest!”

    After a moment Chantal said sulkily: “Anyway, he barely even noticed I was alive.”

    Annie had thought so, too. “More fool him.”

    After a moment Chantal said sulkily: “Anyway, what’s so bad about that sort of life?”

    Annie took a deep breath and told her at length.

    When she’d finished Chantal said sulkily: “Ouais. Okay, I agree. Only... Well, I can’t see what’s wrong about wanting to get married and—and have a nice home.”

    Annie rubbished that at length.

    When she’d finished Chantal pointed out indignantly: “Not everyone ends up like a household slave! Maman isn’t a household slave! And nor is Jeanne!”

    Annie opened her mouth to rubbish this but fortunately thought better of it. “Maybe not, only anyone that married a type like Gégé Fleuriot du Hamel would end up one, you can bet your boots.”

    Chantal swallowed loudly and didn’t reply.

    “Besides,” said Annie on an uneasy note: “he wouldn’t want a lifestyle like your mother’s or your sister’s—”

    “I KNOW THAT!” she shouted furiously.

    “I only meant he wouldn’t want a wife that had a job and wanted to be his equal,” said Annie feebly.

    “No, you didn’t, you meant he’s used to living in bloody châteaux and eating at the Tour d’Argent six nights a week and being chauffeured everywhere in a limo, when he isn’t driving himself in his Porsche!” she said angrily.

    “You’d hate that sort of life,” said Annie weakly.

    Chantal sniffed. “Maybe. Only I wouldn’t mind being given the chance to get sick of it!”

    Annie said anxiously: “I thought we said we’d go into partnership and advance the cause of women in architecture, when we graduate?”

    “Oui,” she muttered sulkily. “So what?”

    Annie swallowed. “All right, if you don’t want to. I can find someone else—”

    “Shut up,” said Chantal tiredly. “I do want to. I would be bored with the stupid sort of life your sister lives. Only I can’t see why I can’t be a woman architect and—and have a nice husband and a nice home, too!”

    “Eugh—non. D’ac’. Well, lots of women do it,” she ventured.

    “Ouais. And don’t tell me again that Gégé Fleuriot du Hamel isn’t the type to want a struggling woman architect for a wife, I can see that for myself, thanks. And anyway, like I said, he barely noticed I was alive.”

    Annie gulped and muttered: “Right.”

     There was silence in Annie’s little attic room.

    Finally Annie whispered: “Tu dors?”

    “Non.”

    “I never knew you—you felt like that. About—about marriage. I mean. And—and guys,” she gulped.

    “You never asked,” replied Chantal with a flash of dry humour.

    “Ça, c’est vrai,” she murmured. “Chantal, do you really want to get married and—and settle down to—eugh—”

    Chantal replied, still on a dry note: “To bourgeois domesticity? Oui, pourquoi pas? C’est normal.”

    “Ouais,” said Annie, sounding flattened. “C’est normal.”

    “Bonne nuit,” returned Chantal firmly.

    “Bonne nuit,” she muttered.

    “What do you want?” said Guy nastily as his grandfather came into his room without knocking.

    Bertrand looked down his nose at him.—Quite easy to do, Guy was already in bed.—“What’s your game?” he demanded.

    “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Grandpère.”

    Bertrand breathed noisily through flared nostrils, mouth tight.

    Guy ignored him.

    “With Rose Bayley,” he said angrily.

    “Oh: that game! Only the usual game,” he drawled.

    After a moment Bertrand said stiffly: “She will have a decent lump sum.”

    “Non!” he said incredulously.

    “Most of which she intends investing for the benefit of the child,” he noted in a hard voice.

    Guy raised his eyebrows. “Et alors?”

    “You’re a fool, boy!” he shouted.

    Guy shrugged.

    After some heavy breathing which his grandson appeared not to notice, Bertrand said: “You could do worse.”

    “Eugh… sans doute.”

    “She’s a tartier type than the sister, of course, but—”

    “What did you say?” said Guy dangerously.

    Bertrand looked at him in mild surprize. “I said she’s a tartier type than the sister, but—”

    “Get out,” said Guy through his teeth.

    Bertrand goggled at him.

    Guy sat up in bed, very flushed. “Get out!”

    “Don’t speak to me like—”

    “And don’t you speak of Rose like that!” he cried.

    Bertrand’s jaw dropped.

    After a moment Guy said on a sulky note, avoiding his grandfather’s eye: “You don’t even know her.”

    “And you do, I suppose?”

    “I— You still don’t need to bad-mouth the girl,” he muttered.

    Bertrand snorted.

    “Get out,” repeated Guy grimly.

    “I was merely going to say you could do worse.”

    “Fous-moi la PAIX!” he shouted.

    Bertrand went over to the door but said with his hand on the handle: “She’s improved a little, I think, since the first time I saw her. Not so tarty—dressing better; the hair’s better, too. If she was a bit younger I’d suggest a spell at a decent finishing school. But possibly your mother could take her in hand. And we could get her some French lessons, that accent’s appalling—” He caught sight of the look of amazed wrath on his grandson’s face. “I was only—”

    Guy flung back the covers.

    “Look, Guy, you obviously fancy the girl, so I’m just saying you could do worse. and with a bit of help she’d learn to be quite presentable!” he said quickly.

    Guy leapt out of bed. “Get out before I throttle you!”

    “That’s no way to speak to your—” He broke off with a gasp: Guy’s long, lean hand had closed on his windpipe.

    “Shut—up,” said Guy very slowly and evilly, bringing his face very close to his grandfather’s.

    “How—dare—you!” he gasped.

    “How dare you?” replied Guy, tightening his grasp.

    “Let go!” he wheezed. “I’ll disinherit you, you young scoundrel!”

    Guy released him with a distasteful grimace. “Do that. In fact don’t speak to me again. And get out of my room.”

    Bertrand felt his throat, swallowing cautiously. Guy turned his back on him.

    “Guy—” he said plaintively.

    Guy ignored him.

    Bertrand bit his lip. “Very well, I apologize.” Guy continued to ignore him. “How was I to know you felt like that about her?” he said plaintively.

    Guy swung round violently. “I don’t! And GET OUT!” he roared.

    Bertrand vanished precipitately.

    Guy got back into bed, scowling ferociously. It would have been very hard to say whether he was more annoyed with his grandfather’s attitude to Rose or with himself for having betrayed himself to Bertrand.

    Les petits were fast asleep; Sidonie had come downstairs for a last glass of something before bed. “Hé bien?” she said to her sister.

    Bernadette shrugged.

    “Don’t give me that,” she warned.

    “Well, what did I see, moi? That mutton-head was serving them, not me. And Annie took the pâté in, so—” She shrugged again.

    Sidonie sipped marc slowly. “Léon seemed very quiet, I thought.”

    Bernadette sniffed.

    “What’s that supposed to mean?” she said dangerously.

    “You never let him get a word in edgeways, I suppose.”

    Sidonie rubbished that briskly.

    There was a short silence.

    “He did come into the kitchen after dinner,” admitted Léon’s aunt grudgingly.

    “Et alors?”

    “Bah… et alors, rien!” she said crossly. “What do you want to hear? That he seemed very quiet, possibly?”

    “Did he mention Marie-Claire?” said Sidonie grumpily.

    Bernadette had, of course, been waiting for her sister to ask precisely this. But she hadn’t been going to mention the topic first. Now that Sidonie had brought it up, however, she replied quite cheerfully: “No, he didn’t. But why would he mention her to me? I’m only his aunt.”

    Sidonie sighed.

    Bernadette looked at her sideways.

    Finally Léon’s mother said tightly: “She’s too young for him.”

    “Too young and too stupid, I would have said,” replied Bernadette immediately. Though quite mildly.

    “He’s not the type that wants a wife that’s as smart as he is.”

    “Well, good: he won’t get one in her direction!” she retorted smartly.

    “True.” Sidonie stared blankly at the stove, by which the old ladies were sitting. “Georges Vaks was asking after Madame Rose.”

    “Et alors?”

    “Oh... nothing, I suppose.”

    Bernadette frowned over it. “What would Madame la Comtesse say to that? He’s a communist.”

    “So? He’s a decent fellow. Pulls down a decent screw. Nothing pretentious about him, either. Well, personally I’d say he’s too good for her: she’s a bit of an empty-head, too. Though her heart’s in the right place.”

    Bernadette made a rude noise.

    “What?” she said sharply.

    Shrugging, Bernadette admitted: “I don’t know where her heart might be, and I dare say it might be in the right place; but judging by what Jacques was saying about where her eyes were this evening, not to mention where that Guy’s hand was, under the tablecloth, I’d say Georges Vaks hasn’t got a hope!”

    “Guy?” said Sidonie weakly.

    Her sister eyed her drily. “Ouais.”

    “But—but they’ve only just met!” she gulped.

    Bernadette sniffed. “That’s their story.—Not that that would stop him.—No, well, that Bonnard woman was telling me some story about her daughter seeing him recently at Chez Michel in Tôq. –You know, Sidonie!” she added impatiently. “Alexandra Bonnard: she’s a waitress at Chez Michel in the Rue Grégoire Saulx.”

    Sidonie replied automatically: “Alexandra isn’t a name.”

    “No, she got it off some film star or model or something. Anyway, that isn’t the point! Alexandra Bonnard’s seen Guy a couple of times over the last month with a young woman that sounded just like Rose. Of course I didn’t think anything of it at the time, you know what a gossip that Bonnard woman is, but—” She shrugged elaborately.

    “It isn’t possible. How would he have met her? And—and why didn’t she mention it?” said Sidonie feebly.

    “Don’t ask me,” replied her sister heavily.

    “I don’t believe it!”

    “All right, don’t.”

    Sidonie got up slowly, frowning. “I’ll speak to her: warn her.”

    Bernadette gave a scornful crack of laughter. “That’ll put her off!”

    “Well, I can’t just stand by and do nothing!”

    “You probably can’t, no,” acknowledged her sister drily. “But if you’re speaking to anybody, I’d speak to your Léon. Tell him Marie-Claire isn’t good enough for him. Tell him about her thing with Guy, if ya like: that might have a chance of putting him off!”

    “Shut up!” replied Sidonie angrily, stomping out.

    Bernadette shrugged heavily. She got up slowly, checked the banked-up fire in the stove and the croissants and brioches set to rise, and went slowly over to the door. “Des imbéciles,” she said heavily, with her hand on the light switch.

    “Qui ça?” said a voice from the passage.

    She gasped. “Don’t do that, Monsieur Gilles,” she said weakly.

    Gilles smiled. “Who are these imbeciles?”

    “People. –Well, le Léon de Sidonie, for a start!” she said grimly.

    Gilles rubbed his chin. “Ouais... I couldn’t make out whether Marie-Claire was flirting with Gérard Fleuriot du Hamel tonight in order to put poor Léon off or to spur him on, to tell you the truth.”

    Bernadette sniffed. After a moment she asked: “Is Mademoiselle Linnette in your room tonight?”

    “Oui,” he replied tranquilly. “And from now on.”

    “Good,” she said with a sigh: “in that case Madame Isabelle and Monsieur Zizi had better have her old room. I’ll tell Estelle tomorrow.”

    “Do that. And Linnet asked me to tell you,” he said with a little smile, “that if you need a hand with anything tomorrow, she’s available.”

    Bernadette grinned. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

    Gilles kissed her cheek gently. “Splendid. Only don’t ask her to cook anything. will you?”

    “Pas si bête!” she gasped, shaking all over.

    “Bien sûr,” he replied, eyes twinkling. “Bonne nuit, Bernadette. Et merci pour le dîner: c’était extra.”

    “Extra!” she scoffed, immensely gratified. “Get along with you!”

    Gilles smiled, and got.

    Bernadette paused with her hand again on the light-switch. “Well, he’s all right,” she muttered to herself. She switched the light off. “More than can be said for the rest of them,” she noted sourly.

Next chapter:

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