Chapter 9
GEORGES WAS HAVING HIS first espresso of the day, sitting in the Dupont and Daubec office with his feet on his desk, enjoying the peace of the early morning before he looked at his emails. There would be deaths. There were always deaths to deal with in the morning, and wills to sort out, and anguished family members who called him to say they were promised a specific painting in their grandmother’s will and so on. But this quiet half-hour in the morning was Georges’s favourite moment of the day. Before he opened his inbox. Before the phone started ringing.
Or perhaps second favourite, if Georges was honest, because the moment that he arrived home in the evening and poured him and his husband Stefan a small glass of brandy was also pretty good. But right now, sitting with his espresso cup pinched between his thumb and his forefinger, with the sun flooding through the window and the church bells striking eight outside, the village slowly coming to life, well, it was hard to beat.
But the peace was suddenly broken by the crash of his office door opening, causing Georges to throw his espresso cup in the air in surprise.
‘Morning, Georges,’ said Maggie. ‘Oh. Sorry. Did I startle you?’
‘ Non , non , it is fine,’ said Georges, leaning forward because the coffee had gone all over his shirt.
‘Hang on …’ Maggie reached into her pocket and pulled out a wad of loo roll. She’d put it in there yesterday in case Audrey started crying again.
‘ Merci , but please, it’s OK, please. It is no trouble,’ Georges told her, fanning his shirt. He was a professional. He didn’t like clients to see him otherwise. He took the loo roll and dabbed his shirt. ‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. Then he threw the wad of wet tissue into his bin, picked up the empty espresso cup from where it had fallen on the floorboards, and sat back in his chair as if nothing had happened. His white shirt was the colour of a puddle and sticking to his chest.
Maggie felt guilty. But she’d woken that morning knowing what she wanted to do with the hotel, and she needed to talk to Georges before changing her mind.
She’d spent the past three days thinking about it, while visiting old faces.
She’d seen Jean the boulanger , who still resembled a bread roll himself – entirely round (so spherical his apron barely did up behind him), with a very smooth, shiny head, like the top of a brioche. He’d been close to Phil and had commiserated loudly as the boulangerie queue had built up behind Maggie, before thrusting a paper bag of vanilla madeleines across the counter at her as if in sympathy.
Next, Gabriel the butcher, a curiously skinny man for one whose homemade saucisson was famous in this part of Provence. So famous that tourists flocked to buy it in the summer, but were often disappointed when he lied and told them he had none (he kept it back for the locals). He, too, had expressed his regrets and apologized by pressing a length of his sausage into Maggie’s hands.
In the wine shop, she’d caught up with Geoffrey, the Englishman who’d moved to the town twenty years earlier – after his wife had left him in the UK – and set up the region’s first organic off-licence. This upset many of the local farmers and vineyards until he capitulated and agreed to sell both organic and non-organic wine. From there, Maggie had left carrying a bottle of her aunt’s favourite rosé.
Beside Geoffrey’s was the ramshackle, four-storey house owned by Simone, the antiques’ dealer, which was still full of bric-a-brac: old crystal glasses, candlesticks, an ancient pram, cloudy mirrors and piles of old Turkish rugs, which Phil used to go through, checking for moths, before bartering over them. Simone hadn’t given Maggie anything to cart back to the hotel, but she had made them a pot of Turkish coffee so thick Maggie had winced when she’d swallowed it, as they’d sat among the mismatched furniture and welled-up together talking about Phil.
Next to the antiques house was La Glacerie, the ice-cream shop owned by the Desmoges family and presided over by Madame Desmoges, who Maggie had assumed might have died because she’d looked at least a hundred when she’d last visited Le Figuier. But she’d found Madame Desmoges still there – face like a walnut; fluffy white hair like a cloud – sitting behind the counter, writing that day’s flavours on the blackboard which was then hung outside. Maggie had accepted a free ice cream and walked home feeling the same, strange sensation that she’d had on her first night at the hotel – that so much had changed and yet nothing had changed at all. She could have been a teenager again, coming up to the village to fetch something for Phil between lunch and dinner service, so free, when her major worry had been whether she’d catch a glimpse of Pierre.
She wanted to stay here for a while longer and hand the hotel over properly rather than rushing back to London. She wanted a break from Battersea and the doctors’ clinics. She desperately wanted to be in France, to spend as much time as she could here before it went to someone else.
‘Sorry,’ she said again, as Georges dabbed at his shirt.
‘Really, it is nothing.’ Georges leant forward and put his elbows on his desk because the sensation of his wet shirt against his skin really was quite unpleasant.
‘It’s only that I’ve decided what to do with the hotel.’
His eyebrows leapt in anticipation.
‘I’d like you to put it on the market.’
‘Immediately?’
Maggie nodded.
‘ Bon ,’ said Georges.
‘But I’m going to stay here until it’s sold,’ she continued. ‘There are guests wh—’
‘Guests? But I thought Audrey ’ad cancelled the bookings?’
‘No, it turns out she had not.’
Every evening that week, after making the Bancrofts’ dinner, and after speaking to Mungo, Maggie had told herself that she’d open Phil’s laptop and cancel the guests who were booked to stay over the following weeks. But every evening, something had stopped her. She’d sat at the kitchen table and read their emails again, along with Phil’s replies, and it had simply felt too tragic to cancel them, to force these people who’d planned celebratory holidays to change their plans so last-minute. And the hotel couldn’t really afford to cancel them, because as Maggie started going through the pile of bills on the reception desk, she realized that, in addition to the million euros owed to the bank, thousands of euros were owed to the utility companies, to Geoffrey for wine deliveries, and to a pool cleaning company, which had been invoicing her aunt until a few weeks earlier. Even a trickle of cash coming in over the next few weeks would help.
‘I see, and you do not need to be in London?’
She bit her lower lip. Georges had raised the only flaw in her plan. Technically, she was due home tomorrow, but over the past few days, she felt as if she’d come alive again – cooking, having a purpose, even dealing with Audrey. Every time she and Mungo had talked on the phone, they’d gone over and over the reasons that selling the hotel made sense. Keeping it was impossible; they didn’t have a million euros, and having a baby was the priority. But the financial reality and the emotional reality were, for Maggie, very different. And yet if she could just stay out for a few weeks, while overseeing the sale, that might help her get her head around it. It would be like an extended holiday, and Mungo wouldn’t mind that. He could always come out and visit. It was the perfect time of year, before the still heat of July and August set in. No, it was a good plan, she repeated to herself, sitting in front of Georges.
‘I … no … I don’t have to go home straight away. But how long do you think it might take to sell?’
Georges glanced at the time on his computer and wished he’d swallowed more of his espresso. This was a lot of business for 8.37 a.m. ‘That depends. It is a very specific property so there will be only a limited number of buyers. But it hasn’t been on the market for twenty-five years and it is unique, and a good time of year to sell so, I would hope maybe … by the end of this month, we should ’ave a better idea.’
Maggie nodded. ‘OK, I thought so, a few weeks.’
‘An ’ouse of this calibre, Maggie … someone will want to snap it up.’
‘I know, but I’ll only sell it to the right person, Georges. It can’t be just anyone. It has to be someone who gets it, you know?’
Georges nodded. He did know. Le Figuier was special; everyone in the area understood that.
‘So I won’t cancel any guests an—’
Georges shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable. Partly because of his damp shirt but also because he had a delicate question. ‘Forgive me but, er, Maggie, do you have funds? Because to run the ’otel with the debt already, it is …’
‘It’s OK. I’ve looked at the paperwork, and with the guests coming over the next few weeks, I can manage. And I can cover the outstanding costs until it’s sold, when it pays me back.’
‘And you can handle it?’
‘I’ve run restaurants in London, and I used to work here in the summers. So, I think so. I’m going to ask a friend in London to come out and help. And it’s not like there are that many guests. It’ll be fine.’
‘What about Audrey?’
Maggie exhaled. The idea of sacking her was more exhausting than the idea of talking to Mungo about all this. ‘I can keep her on until it’s sold. She can do the guests’ rooms and start packing the place up.’
Georges agreed. ‘ D’accord , I will ring you later today about the plans. And it might be a good idea to …’ he flourished his long fingers in the air, ‘make the ’otel look better. Some painting, and the gardens and the pool …’
‘I know, don’t worry. I’ll get it spruced up.’
‘ Bon . I will speak to the bank this morning,’ said Georges, as Maggie stood.
Although, before he did that, he needed another coffee.