Escape to the French Chateau

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Johnny eked out his second cocktail – a Slippery Nipple, courtesy of Noel, whose fifteen-year-old sense of humour clearly thought it a hilarious choice. In fact, it was an excellent mix of flavours, so Johnny was happy with the selection, despite the chortle-inducing name.

But Johnny had no intention of getting wrecked by mid-afternoon, and he allowed all the jokes and the innuendo to wash over him, focusing instead on the pummelling the sun was giving his skin. Johnny spent most of his time in air-conditioned offices, or warehouses. And much of the previous few months, with his marriage spiralling into the gutter, had Johnny feeling as though his shoulders and neck couldn’t have ratcheted themselves any tighter, even if they’d been soldered together.

Stripping down to nothing more than a pair of board shorts and staying put in the glorious warm afternoon sunshine long enough to descend into the valley of proper relaxation had been a long time coming, in Johnny’s opinion. He could feel his skin tightening in the relentless strength of the sun, even though he’d applied plenty of factor 30, but there was no way he was moving. This trip was exactly what he needed, had come at precisely the right time. They’d dressed it up, using it as a way to mark the founding of Taylor Made Wine fifteen years previously, while also using it to reward their loyal employees, but a break from the routine couldn’t have come at a better moment.

With his eyes closed, and managing to tune out the worst of the noise from the others in favour of the rhythmical slaps and splatters from swimmers splashing up and down the pool, Johnny’s breathing slowed and his limbs sank into the plush cushioning on the lounger.

Credit where credit was due, sometimes Noel made great decisions – and the idea for this trip had been one of them. Although he wasn’t the most easy-going of brothers, or work colleagues, Johnny had to admit that he wasn’t sure how he would have got through the last six months without him.

To be honest, when Johnny had first confided in Noel, explained how he and Natalie had hit a rocky patch and he wasn’t sure how to negotiate the situation, Noel had been surprisingly receptive. Johnny had braced himself for a far more negative response. Noel had never shown any signs of wanting to settle down, never seemed to be dating the same woman for more than about five minutes, and so Johnny had expected Noel to make nothing of his brother’s troubles.

Instead, Noel had been the very picture of concern – especially where the situation impacted Estelle. His sensitivity had surprised Johnny. Noel had always been a great uncle, it wasn’t that Johnny thought he wouldn’t care, but he hadn’t been prepared for how far his brother seemed to put himself out in order to try to bring the family back together. Instead of telling him to dump the ball and chain and leg it, Noel had really stepped up.

And for a while, things got better for Johnny and Natalie. The tension eased.

Uncle Noel could be relied upon when work commitments kept Johnny busy, and Estelle needed ferrying around; sometimes he offered to watch Estelle so Johnny could take Natalie to dinner. When Johnny had headed abroad for a series of meetings without Noel, his brother had stepped up and spent time with Natalie and Estelle.

Despite all best intentions, however, the ceasefire hadn’t lasted between Johnny and Natalie. And once the downwards spiral picked up enough pace, there didn’t seem to be anything Johnny could do to save the situation. It was almost as though someone had hit the destruct button on his marriage, and nothing was going to stop the demolition.

Not that any of that was Noel’s fault. And maybe Johnny gave Noel too hard a time, expecting him to be something other than what he was. His brother might be a bit of a bull in a ceramics shop, but he was a bull who had everyone’s best interests at heart.

Johnny sighed, turning onto his front so the sun’s rays could work their magic on his back. Maybe his desire to change aspects of his life, his wish to break away from Noel’s relentless pace and take the slow lane all stemmed from the raw and painful failure of his marriage. Maybe he shouldn’t make any rash decisions, especially where Noel was concerned. After all, they’d built up an extremely successful business together and Johnny would be a fool to walk away from something so lucrative.

Perhaps he needed to make one of those lists – a positive versus negative chart of how he felt about Taylor Made Wine, about working with his brother, about it all. See where that left him. Sometimes it was easy to see the negatives, especially when Johnny acknowledged his tendency towards the melancholy. He needed to focus on Noel’s positive attributes, rather than picking fault. And it was equally possible that Johnny was partly to blame for Noel’s sudden change in behaviour. Since his marital troubles, he’d noticed a difference in Noel, and Johnny never thought of the impact it would have on his own brother.

A splattering of icy-cold water across the hot skin of his back had Johnny simultaneously swearing and propelling himself from his lounger to the sounds of riotous laughter. All attention was on Johnny as he spun around, and Noel’s face broke into a Joker-wide grin as he shook off the rest of the pool water he’d scooped into his hands.

‘Wakey-wakey, Johnny-boy,’ Noel said, diving into the pool before Johnny could retaliate.

On the other hand, maybe Johnny had been correct the first time, and Noel was a complete arsehole.

Still in her room, with Penny showing no sign of backing down, Fran floundered for what to say.

‘Who are you, Fran? Are you really here to earn money to go travelling?’ Penny remained defiant; arms crossed. ‘Because I’m not buying your story. And that email just confirms my suspicions.’

Fran should meet Penny’s attitude with equal force. Who the hell did Penny think she was, nosing around Fran’s room without permission and questioning her reasons for being at Chateau les Champs d’Or?

The fact that Penny was almost completely on-point was difficult to ignore. Fran had expected Madame Beaufoy to rumble her, had been expecting it since the moment she’d settled on this hare-brained scheme to go undercover. For another member of the staff to challenge Fran was unexpected.

Could she fluff her way through it? Pretend Penny had read the header wrong, persuade her it was something for a social media channel, or just tough it out and tell her to mind her own business?

There was something reminiscent of a terrier in Penny’s stance, her focus on Fran total and unwavering. After a further few moments of indecision, Fran puffed out a huge breath and slumped onto her bed.

‘Can I trust you?’ Fran said, patting the sheet to encourage Penny to sit, too. ‘It’s nothing bad, I promise.’

Penny slid onto the bed, her expression full of suspicion. ‘S’pose so. All depends what you’re going to say.’

‘No, I get that. And that’s fine.’ Fran swiped her phone into life, opening the email and skim-reading it. She could feel Penny’s gaze drawn to the message, too. Fran turned the phone face down on her lap. ‘Thing is, I do work for Wilding Holdings, but not as a member of hotel staff.’

Penny frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I suppose you could say I’m currently employed by Wilding Holdings twice over.’ Fran rubbed at her forehead as Penny’s frown intensified.

‘Speak English, will you, Fran? I don’t get what you’re trying to say.’

Fran took a deep breath. She didn’t want Penny’s frustration to bubble over.

‘My role is to visit Wilding Holdings hotels around the world and make reports on how well they’re looking after their guests.’

‘A hotel inspector, you mean?’

‘Not really, I’m more of a secret shopper, I suppose. I arrive as a guest, try out as many aspects of the hotel as possible during my stay, and report back to Wilding Holdings about how well I was looked after.’

‘You mean they pay you to be permanently on holiday?’ Some of Penny’s frustration slipped away, replaced by incredulity.

‘I guess. It’s only for a while, and it’s not as glamorous as it sounds.’

‘Yeah. Right. Not sure who you’re planning to fool with that narrative. The guests look like they’re having a ball from where I’m sitting. Anyway, why swap all that for this?’ Penny waved a hand around the bedroom, a fraction of the size of the suite Fran should have been enjoying.

‘I just wanted to try something different this time, I suppose.’ Fran explained about the misunderstanding with the groundskeeper on her arrival, how the idea percolated into her mind and refused to go away. ‘I didn’t think it through too hard, just headed for Madame Beaufoy’s office, and she was so busy and distracted that she didn’t question my fortuitous arrival. I took it as a sign, I suppose, that this crazy scheme of mine might work.’

‘Crazy being the operative word. I still can’t get past you wanting to work like a dog rather than lounging around in the sun. Bonkers.’

‘I’ve been doing that on and off for the last few months. And believe it or not, it is possible to have too much time on your hands.’ Fran shifted to face Penny. ‘I was bored, I suppose. I wanted to shake things up a bit. I thought Bill Wilding might appreciate a report that comes from a different angle this time. From the point of view of the staff.’

‘You think the big honcho is even going to see the report?’

Fran had to bite at the inside of her cheek to stop herself from telling Penny she knew for a fact Bill Wilding would see her report, that was a truth too far. Instead, she said, ‘It’s a new initiative. I suppose it’s far too easy to lose touch with the reality when you’re head of a huge company like Wilding Holdings. These reports are going to the board for them to appraise. And I’m sure they’ll be grateful to know.’

Penny’s expression shifted from suspicion to something bordering on amusement. ‘Good luck with that.’

‘And your cynicism is exactly why I want to carry on, put this report in, see what happens and hopefully make a change for the better.’

Penny shrugged. ‘It’s your funeral.’

‘Maybe.’ Fran didn’t agree, but she didn’t want to antagonise Penny any further. Instead, she tried to draw her in with a question to which she’d been dying to get an answer. ‘I was going to ask you at some point, but now is as good a time as any – do you know anything more about why there’s hostility between Wilding Holdings and the locals?’

‘Are you going to put that in your report, too?’ Penny’s words were still confrontational, but her expression continued to soften.

‘If it’ll help the hotel and the people working here, then yes.’

There was suspicion in the way Penny crossed her arms, her focus shifting to the square of blue sky visible through the window as she hesitated. Fran waited; she supposed it was only fair that Penny would need time to take on board everything she’d learnt. And even though Fran had gone about this in an underhand way, she needed Penny to understand she really was interested in her new friend’s best interests; however it might appear.

Eventually, Penny spoke. ‘Harry said that when Wilding Holdings bought Chateau les Champs d’Or the first thing they did was to bring in a whole load of trade from the UK to do all the renovations. Didn’t employ a single local builder or stonemason for the entirety of the project. All the furnishings and linens were brought in, too. The curtains all ready-made somewhere else, even though there’s a fantastic local seamstress who was desperate for work. It didn’t go down very well.’

Fran frowned. ‘No. I don’t suppose it did. I hadn’t thought of the impact the renovation of a place like this could have had on the local economy.’

‘I suppose it’s why the locals aren’t falling over themselves to work here for peanuts now, either. I mean, would you?’ Penny snorted a laugh. ‘Well, obviously not. But you know what I’m saying.’

‘It’s certainly worth raising in my report – it’s something that I think Wilding Holdings should consider wherever they decide to build their next hotel.’

This was golden information, the sort of knowledge Fran felt convinced would help Wilding Holdings in the future – and there was no way she’d ever have found it out as a guest.

‘How long do you intend to be here for, then?’ Penny asked. ‘I presume you were only going to be here for a few days as a “guest”.’ She mimed inverted commas around the word, irritation gaining traction again.

Fran pressed her lips tight. It was a question to which she didn’t have a satisfactory answer, right now. In theory, she should be leaving in a matter of days, but she needed time to find out if it would be possible to rescue Red and bring him home to the UK. And even though she’d known all along that her role as an employee at the chateau would be a very temporary situation, the longer she spent with them, the less she wanted to leave them high and dry by suddenly leaving.

‘Would you believe me if I said that I genuinely don’t know the answer to that question? Yes, I was only supposed to be here for a five-night stay, and then travel on to the south of France afterwards, but now I’ve got myself into this situation, it wouldn’t feel right to leave everyone in the lurch.’

Penny frowned again. ‘It’s not like you’d be the first. This place haemorrhages staff. Like Angelique and Fabienne? Turns out I was right. They’ve no more got Covid than I have. They just quit.’

‘And this is exactly why I need to make this report, don’t you see?’

‘I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’ll change anything.’

‘Well, that’s for me to worry about,’ Fran said. ‘But first, I need to know what you’re going to do next. Are you going to tell Madame Beaufoy she has a mole on her staff?’

Penny pursed her lips, eyes narrowing as she considered her options. ‘Are you planning on dropping old Beaufoy in it?’

‘I’m not planning on dropping anyone in it. All I intend to do is pass on information.’

‘Because I think she’s doing the best she can under the circumstances,’ Penny said.

‘Point taken.’ She was surprised at the way Penny was closing ranks, but maybe she shouldn’t be – after all, Fran had just dropped a bombshell.

‘And will you mention the brilliant job done by the kitchen, especially a young chef called Harry Greenfield?’ The corners of Penny’s lips began to twitch, her eyes shining.

‘You want me to mention him by name?’ Fran edged her expression into a smile.

‘Yes please. Oh, and you could give me a standing ovation too, while you’re at it.’

Fran laughed, then nodded. ‘Friends again?’

‘Friends.’ Penny flopped back against the mattress. ‘Still think you’re clinically insane, but I won’t blab. I might be many things, but I’m no snitch.’

‘Thank you.’ Fran was tempted to tell Penny the rest of it, to open up about the real origin of her job offer with Wilding Holdings. To be able to tell someone. But Fran was still struggling with that piece of information herself; it would be way too much to dump on Penny while Fran didn’t know how to process it. For now, that would have to remain tucked away.

‘Anyway, we need to get on with some work,’ Penny said, on her feet again. ‘Members of staff can’t laze around in their rooms all day. What on earth would a hotel inspector make of that, eh?’

‘I’m not a hotel inspector …’ Fran said, but to the back of Penny’s head. Moving like greased lightning again, she was halfway down the corridor by the time Fran had pocketed her phone and headed after her.

After his unexpected dousing of water by Noel, Johnny decided he might as well complete the job. Lowering himself into the pool, the combination of cool water and the stinging of chlorine in the shredded skin of his hand sobered up any lingering effects of the couple of cocktails he’d consumed.

Johnny lost track of how long he spent slicing his way up and down the pool, didn’t care once he’d settled into the rhythm of his crude, but effective front crawl. Aware he was no merman didn’t stop Johnny enjoying his time in a pool. He was in no hurry, didn’t have a target score of lengths in mind, just swam until the muscles in his arms and legs started to feel like jelly.

He pulled himself from the water, sitting on the edge of the pool as he caught his breath and allowed the unflinching force of the sun to warm him. Then he wrapped up in a towel and shoved his feet into a pair of sliders.

‘See you lot later,’ he said, heading away from Noel and the others before any of them had a chance to stop him.

Back in his room, showered and dressed in lightweight shorts and T-shirt, Johnny FaceTimed Natalie.

‘Everything OK?’ he asked when Natalie picked up. She looked distracted.

‘Everything’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be?’

Snappy and uncharacte?ristically caustic, her tone had Johnny pausing.

Natalie was no pushover, never had been. Her resilience and strength of character had been some of the aspects which had attracted Johnny in the first place. But today she sounded down, sounded like she was doing her best to cover it up.

‘How’s Estelle?’

‘Driving me to distraction, as usual.’ Her comment was accompanied by a slight thawing in her expression, and Johnny allowed himself a hint of a smile.

‘When I get back, we should probably talk about how we’re going to—’ Johnny didn’t get to finish his sentence, his suggestion that they needed to discuss how to go about parenting Estelle once they were officially divorced was abandoned as the small person in question bobbed into the frame.

‘Daddy!’ Estelle’s dark hair was caught up in a myriad of different hair bobbles and she had found one of Natalie’s brighter lipsticks – it was slicked across her lips and stretched halfway up one cheek.

‘You look pretty, baby girl,’ he said, smothering a laugh.

‘God, don’t encourage her,’ Natalie said, glancing at their daughter. ‘Oh, Estelle, not my lipstick, too. How many times …’

‘My like lip tick.’

‘I’ll get Mummy a new one when I get home, shall I?’

He said it without even thinking, registering the tightening in Natalie’s frame moments too late.

‘How’s the trip going?’ Natalie pointedly changed the subject, as Estelle climbed onto her lap and reached for the phone.

‘As expected,’ Johnny replied. ‘The chateau is amazing, the scenery around here is fabulous. We’ve already picked up a new supplier, you know how Noel is. I think he’d located this guy before he’d even unpacked.’

Natalie frowned. ‘How is Noel?’

‘He’s … Noel. Life and soul of the party, as always. Why?’

‘No reason. I met up with Belinda for a coffee, she said Ricky told her Noel’s hitting the booze harder than usual. Flirting with anything in a skirt.’

‘As usual,’ Johnny said. ‘Not that he’s getting anywhere with that.’

Natalie’s expression tightened again. ‘You’ll make sure he doesn’t make a fool of himself, won’t you?’

Johnny sighed. ‘Why is that always my job?’

Natalie didn’t answer; instead Estelle reached for the phone again, this time grabbing it from her mother and giving Johnny an extreme close-up of her eyes and nose, breath steaming the screen.

‘Get closer, Daddy.’

Johnny grinned, bringing the phone’s camera up close to his ear. ‘Like this?’

‘No. Silly Daddy.’ Estelle screamed with laughter, instructing Natalie to look as well. ‘Daddy’s ear. Look.’

‘Actually, Nat, if you’ve got time, there’s something I want to show Estelle.’ Johnny headed down the turret room’s steps, locking up behind himself before skipping down the main chateau staircase and into the foyer.

Outside, Johnny walked briskly out into the driveway far enough to be able to see the whole of the chateau, then he flipped the camera and pointed it at the building.

‘Look, Estelle. It’s like the Disney castle.’

He panned the camera to make sure Estelle could see it all.

‘What do you think?’ he said, spinning the camera again so Estelle could see his face.

‘’Mazing, Daddy. Is Snow White there?’

‘I haven’t seen her.’ Johnny swallowed as an unexpected image of Fran popped into his mind. Doing his best to push her out again, Johnny smiled at the screen. ‘If I see her, or any of the dwarves, I’ll be sure to tell you, OK?’

‘I want to live in a castle …’ Estelle slipped from Natalie’s lap, disappearing from the screen.

‘Where’s she gone?’ Johnny asked.

‘Probably to get a toy. Are you going to buy her a castle, too, to make up for all our shit?’ The acerbic tone had returned.

‘All our shit?’ Now was not the time, but he wasn’t going to let that go.

‘You could have tried to understand.’

‘Understand? Oh, I think I understood perfectly what happened, Natalie.’

‘None of this has been easy.’

‘No. It’s been a long way from that.’ Johnny ran a hand across his forehead.

‘Is there any way back?’

He hadn’t expected that. ‘For us, you mean?’

Natalie sighed.

Johnny didn’t reply, instead he grinned as Estelle waved a Snow White doll at the camera and clambered back onto Natalie’s lap. Didn’t reply because there was no way back, or because he didn’t think he could bear to be without Estelle? Johnny wasn’t sure.