Chapter 16
16
Connie
I was up at six the next morning. My mind was on overdrive all night, going over all the food I was supposed to be cooking that evening, and all the little details that would make the weekend memorable. Getting up and getting on with things was the only antidote. I headed down to the kitchen to put away the last of the detritus from last night and laid the breakfast table, then headed into Barles to the boulangerie . It was still early so I didn’t think Rémy would be there, but I still felt my heart skip a beat as I opened the door. I breathed in freshly baked bread and chocolate and vanilla. But not him. I ordered quickly – croissants and pains au chocolat and several baguettes and some of the seeded bread that was so good with cheese.
When I got back, I was surprised to find the guests were all up and heading to the breakfast table, even though they hadn’t gone to bed until two. The women were all in slinky velour tracksuits and expensive trainers. They were off to a nearby hotel to spend the day being pampered in preparation for tonight’s celebrations. I brought in mimosa cocktails, and the largest box of chocolates from the chocolatier in Barles as a gift for Colette.
‘Happy birthday,’ I said to her. ‘I hope we’ll make it one to remember.’
‘That’s so kind. You shouldn’t have.’ She looked genuinely touched as she took the box from me. ‘Fifty. I can’t believe I’m half a century.’
‘It’s not so bad,’ I told her.
‘You’re never fifty.’ She looked at me in amazement. I sometimes couldn’t believe I was fifty either, but the past few weeks had made me feel about a hundred, so fifty felt young.
‘When I turned fifty,’ said Martine, ‘I told myself I wasn’t going to take any shit from anyone for the rest of my life.’
Colette cackled and raised her glass. ‘To taking no shit, girls.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Gary, rolling his eyes. ‘You’ve never taken any shit from anyone.’
It was a good mantra, though, and it stuck with me. When I went back into the kitchen, I got out my phone and stared at it for a few moments before texting Daniel.
Did you get the email from Simon Lewin?
I didn’t have to wait long for a reply.
Yep
I hated yep . It was curt and rude and unhelpful and passive aggressive. And exactly the reply I should have expected from him. There was no follow-up. He didn’t give me a response or a reaction. I gritted my teeth in frustration. I shouldn’t have contacted him. I’d lost my higher ground. Now it was going to gnaw at me all day, and I needed to be on top of my game. I had a birthday feast for eight to prepare, the beds to make (even though we weren’t a hotel, we did re-make the beds and clean the bathrooms every day) and I had a couple of things to iron out with my guests.
I bided my time until after breakfast. Ashley was in the drawing room, sitting in an armchair scrolling through his phone, waiting for the others to come down: they’d all gone up to their rooms to get ready for their day out. He didn’t hear me come up behind him. I put my hand on the back of his chair and leaned over to murmur in his ear.
‘A little bird told me you wanted something special for tonight.’
He turned to look at me, brightening.
‘Oh yes. Just a little bump or two. It’s Colette’s birthday, after all.’
I smiled, but my eyes were chips of ice. ‘Well, I’m afraid we have a zero-tolerance policy on drugs. And if there’s anything else you want, it’s probably better to ask me. Not a junior member of staff.’
He met my gaze, keeping silent for a moment. His eyes were a bit dead. No warmth. Just empty holes. ‘All right, love,’ he said. ‘Keep your hair on.’
He turned back to his phone. I stood up, steadying my breathing to keep my cool.
‘Would you still like me to organise a trip to the vineyard?’
He looked up, his gaze sweeping me up and down, and my skin crawled slightly. Then he smiled, and I had the full benefit of all his charm.
‘That would be great.’
I gave him a curt nod that Kristin Scott-Thomas would be proud of and swept out of the room.
I headed back into the quiet of the kitchen to gather my thoughts. I sat down at the table and picked up my phone, turning it over and over, then pulled Rémy’s card from my notebook where I’d tucked it. It just had his name and number on it. He didn’t need to explain who or what he was to anyone.
Come on, I told myself. This is business, not pleasure. My mouth was dry as I tapped in his number. I could hear his phone start to ring. My pulse was racing. I could still hang up before he answered. My thumb hovered over the red dot. If I was going to cut myself off I had to wait long enough so it didn’t look as if I’d called him then panicked. Not that he would know who was calling. He didn’t have my number.
‘Rémy Gaspard.’
At the sound of his voice, something sweet zipped through my veins. A sugar rush.
‘Rémy!’ I tried to sound bright and in control. ‘It’s Connie. From the Chateau Villette.’
‘There is only one Connie.’ His voice was teasing, but he sounded pleased.
I decided to be business-like. I couldn’t cope with pleasantries.
‘I’ve got some guests here who’d love to have a tour of the vineyard tomorrow. Is that possible?’
‘Of course. How many?’
‘There’s eight of them, but I don’t know if they’ll all come. I can confirm numbers.’
‘No problem. It’s not so exciting in the vineyard right now because we have taken in all the grapes, but they can see the winery. And taste, of course.’
‘I’m sure that would be perfect.’
‘Will you be joining them?’
I stopped short. ‘I’m very busy, I’m afraid.’
‘But you might learn something.’
I squirmed, thinking of all the things he might teach me.
‘Another day perhaps.’ I needed him off the phone before I committed to something I regretted. ‘Is midday good?’
‘Perfect. I will see them tomorrow.’
He rang off abruptly, leaving me flustered, for I’d been gearing up to engineer a goodbye that left me in control. Instead, I felt as if I’d been left hanging. Which I guess is exactly what Rémy wanted. He was so much better at this game than I was. My mind wandered back to that summer, to the image of the muscles on his back as he rose up out of the lake in front of me. I’d watched the rivulets of water run over every sinew. I’d never seen anything like it before.
‘ Bonjour. ’
I jumped. Lilou had appeared in the doorway and was looking a little concerned. I must have looked a bit vacant, deep in my X-rated reminiscence.
‘Sorry! I was miles away.’ In a lake, gawping at my neighbour’s musculature, to be precise. ‘Hi, Lilou. How are you? Are you ready for a crazy day?’
Delphine stomped in behind her, grunting her bonjour and made herself busy emptying the compost bin and taking it out to the garden, thereby showing that she had no need to wait for instructions. Lilou hovered, awkward, last night’s events probably still bothering her.
‘Would you start by doing all the beds and cleaning the bathrooms?’ I asked her. ‘The guests have just left, so it would be best to get them out of the way. You’ll be so much quicker than Delphine.’ Was that treacherous? I didn’t think so. ‘Then we can get on with the fun stuff.’
She disappeared off and I opened my notebook to look at my prep notes. I needed to check I had everything so I didn’t have to go back into Barles. I can manage this, I told myself. It’s only eight people – I used to do dinner parties for twelve without batting an eyelid, and Daniel had never been a fat lot of help. He was okay for running to the shops or going to fetch wine or ice, but he was useless at anything else.
‘I always do it wrong,’ he would say when I complained he wasn’t helping, and I ended up blaming myself, for I knew I was a perfectionist. Though sometimes I wondered if he did things wrong on purpose, so I wouldn’t ask again.
I banished him from my mind. I needed to focus. I quickly drew up a timetable, and allocated tasks to my team. We were aiming for drinks in the drawing room at 7.30, dinner at 8.15. Goodness knows what time it would finish.
‘Where is Lilou?’ Delphine had reappeared, compost bucket in hand.
‘I’ve got her doing the bedrooms. I thought you and I could get the dining room ready. We need to make it look extra special tonight. Maybe you could iron the table cloth and the napkins?’
She didn’t reply for a moment. I saw her hands clench and unclench on the handle of her bucket, and her lips press together so her mouth was in a hard line. She looked so unhappy and I felt terrible that she might think she was being sidelined.
‘Lilou needs to learn, Delphine. She needs experience, so she can get a job somewhere else one day. I don’t think we’ll be able to keep her here long. Not like you. But I want to make sure she’s trained.’
Delphine turned my words over in her mind. I could tell she disapproved, that she didn’t think Lilou was worth caring about or investing in. For a moment, I thought she was going to say something. Or perhaps even cry, for her eyes seemed watery and she was blinking a lot. Then she sighed.
‘I will do the ironing.’
She stumped out of the kitchen to fetch the ironing board.
I felt unbearably sad, that she was struggling with change. It brought home to me how nothing in life stays the same. That even if everything is perfect, and just how you want it, you can’t keep it that way forever.
It made me wonder when my perfect moment had been. Was there a time when I would have kept everything just as it was? I thought back to when we had our first house, a two-bed in Acton, the kids sharing a room with bunk beds, the garden no bigger than a handkerchief. Life had been so much easier then, even though it was a mad scramble to get them to school then get myself onto the Tube and into work. But we’d had a network of lovely friends, and on a Friday everyone took it in turns to cook and the kids all stayed up late, wired on Hula Hoops and Kia Ora, and we all drank a bit more than we should have. I’d taken everything in my stride in those days. I wasn’t anxious, or overstretched, physically, financially, emotionally, and Daniel was quite happy and didn’t take himself so seriously. All our friends lived in the same kind of tiny house we did. Everyone was equal. It was only when Daniel got delusions of grandeur and pushed for the big move to Cheltenham that things went sour, though at the time I’d wanted it too. The ‘big house’. Not for status, but for comfort and for the kids and to be able to have people to stay and have jolly parties. So we gave up a perfect life for our misguided idea of what would bring us happiness. Why hadn’t we realised we were already happy?
Oh God. All I could hear in my head was Barbra Streisand, singing ‘The Way We Were’. It was Mum’s favourite song. She used to play the cassette in the car, bellowing along somewhat tunelessly, my brother Archie clamping his hands over his ears, squirming at the horror of it all while my dad smiled fondly at her.
She and Dad had got it right. They had always been so content, with what they had, with each other. And then she’d had to go and die. How was that fair? I could feel tears prickling the back of my eyelids. Delphine’s plight had set me off, sending me down a rabbit hole of regret and remorse. I didn’t have time for this.
I shook myself out of my reflective mood. This was no time to be maudlin or to moon over what might have been. It was time to get the party started.
While Delphine ironed the table linen and Lilou polished the plates, glasses and cutlery until they glittered, I dressed the dining room for Colette’s party. I’d plundered all the cupboards and brought out as many candlesticks, vases and bowls as I could find. Along the mantlepiece I ranged a row of mismatched bud vases and stuffed them with dahlias of different heights in bright pink and orange in a gorgeously blowsy display of more-is-more. I laid the table with Lismay’s vintage cutlery – bone-handled, with intricate engraving. I wrapped the crisply ironed napkins in hot-pink and orange velvet ribbon and tucked a matching dahlia into each one, alternating the colours. Then I replicated the mantlepiece down the centre of the table, adding one extra-large arrangement in a copper samovar I’d found in the scullery, then added two silver-plated ice buckets for the wine.
Lilou brought in the candelabra I’d found languishing on a shelf. They’d been black with grime, and she’d worked hard at polishing them. We stuffed them with beeswax candles and tied more ribbon around the stems, leaving the ends trailing on the table.
‘What do you think?’ I stood back and took a few photos with my phone, examining the pictures to see the full effect before posting them on Instagram with the caption ‘party preparations’.
Lilou sighed. ‘How do you get to have a life like this?’
‘I don’t know, Lilou. It’s not real. Not really. It’s only for a weekend.’
‘My mother had her fiftieth birthday in prison.’ She was staring at the flowers, her eyes filled with tears. What was I supposed to say?
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, as gently as I could.
‘ Elle n’a eu pas de choix ,’ she told me, wiping her eyes. ‘She was protecting my brother. She had no choice.’
I could do nothing but put my arm around her. I didn’t want to probe, because it seemed intensely private, the machinations of her family dynamics. But I presumed the brother had committed some crime, and their mother had taken the rap for him. Maybe drugs, given yesterday’s faux pas. I pictured a raid, the brother slipping out of the back door, the mother putting up her hands in surrender. It was like a movie in my head. One of those cool, edgy French movies with lots of sultry glaring and black leather and a car chase. And maybe guns. I shivered, wondering what Lilou’s home life was like. Everyone constantly on edge.
Or maybe it was much more prosaic? Maybe the mother had fiddled some paperwork on her son’s behalf? Or laundered some money?
It didn’t really matter. For me, the important thing was to give Lilou the chance of a brighter future. Was I being idealistic? Or worse, patronising? Thinking I could give this young girl a chance for a better life if I mentored her? I certainly wasn’t going to judge her.
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We haven’t got long before they’ll be down for drinks.’
Dinner was a triumph. I’d kept it simple but extravagant. To start, there was champagne and oysters: a classic French celebration. I’d made three dressings: a mignonette, with shallots and red wine vinegar, one with sweet chilli sauce and soy, and one with lime and jalapeno. Then a magnificent c?te de boeuf , seared almost black on the outside and blushing pink in the middle, with individual copper dishes of pommes dauphinoise and green beans.
While they were eating the main course, there was just enough time for the three of us to assemble the croquembouche in the kitchen. The profiteroles were still crisp, and I’d made crème patissière flavoured with Grand Marnier. Delphine filled the profiteroles with precision, twisting the icing bag expertly around her hand. Then Lilou dipped each of them into melted white chocolate and I glued them onto a Styrofoam cone until we had a towering pyramid. We pushed gold-sugared almonds and tiny crystallised roses into the crevices. The finishing touch was a dozen mini sparklers which would be lit just as it was carried in. It looked stunning. Even Delphine smiled as she looked at our handiwork. We ate the last of the profiteroles, the boozy cream oozing over our fingers.
I smiled at my funny little team, all at different stages of life: one elderly lady, one caught in the middle, and one starting out. We all had things to learn from each other, I thought, and if we could make it work, we would be unstoppable.
I looked at Lilou. She was staring at the croquembouche in disbelief, as if she’d never seen anything like it. She reached out a finger and touched one of the roses.
‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said to me. There was a wistfulness to her voice, and my heart creaked a little. Had she never had a beautiful cake made for her? I resolved to make her one for her birthday, when it came along. If I was still here.
I carried the croquembouche into the dining room, the sparklers ablaze, to thunderous applause, rousing cheers and a somewhat tuneless rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. Martine ran around the table taking photos from all angles, and insisted on one of me and Colette either side of my creation.
Colette curled an arm around my waist. ‘I’ve had the most brilliant birthday,’ she told me. ‘We were going to go to a swanky hotel on the Cote d’Azur but this has been much more fun.’
‘It’s been my pleasure,’ I told her, and it really had. I’d loved the challenge.
Afterwards Colette got me to take a photo of all of them on her phone, so I had to light another set of sparklers to get the full effect. They crowded in together, arms round each other, a group of lifelong friends happy in each other’s company having the time of their lives. The men all looked dashing in their dinner suits and the women looked radiant in the candlelight. The backdrop framed them perfectly: the gleaming wood panelling, the vases filled with tangles of autumn flowers, the rich tapestry of the full-length curtains.
‘That’s going to look so good on Instagram.’ Colette took her phone back off me, looking at the photo approvingly. ‘Shall I tag you in it?’
‘That would be great.’
‘Does this place belong to you, then?’ She was tapping away, working out her hashtags.
‘No, no. I’m looking after it for my godmother. Her husband’s having his hip done.’
‘Oh.’ She leaned in. ‘In that case, I can tell you – I wasn’t sure about this place at first. I thought it was a bit …’ She wrinkled her nose, not wanting to be rude. ‘Well, you know. We’re used to staying in five-star hotels. But actually, I quite like the whole shabby-chic thing. You feel like you can put your feet up on the furniture. You feel like it could be yours. Do you know what I mean?’
I nodded. ‘That’s exactly the feel we’re going for.’
There were lots of things to address before the Chateau Villette was running at its full potential. I had a list a mile long in my notebook. But tonight, as I looked at all the smiling faces around the table, listened to the laughter, saw the remnants of the feast I had prepared spilling across the table, I felt confident.
I couldn’t resist sneaking a look at the photo Colette had posted. 402 lies – she was a popular woman – and the chateau had nineteen new followers. It might seem an insignificant number, but I felt a glow of pride.
Happy guests. A triumphant birthday dinner. A social media profile. I’d absolutely nailed it.