Chapter 17
FOR THE NEXT WEEK , nobody saw much of Gray. Sometimes he came down for meals and sat in the far corner of the dining room with a baseball hat on; sometimes he skipped them. He seemed to spend most of the time in his room. A couple of times Maggie saw him walking down the drive only to return hours later having been on some long, lone expedition.
He certainly wasn’t noticed by the other guests. A couple from Marseille checked in with their small son for three nights; a pair of retired academics from Oxford stayed for another two, and Maggie cooked while Jamie helped by reading out internet updates about Gray from the kitchen table – that he was ‘suspected’ to be lying low at his home in Bel Air; that his future film projects could be jeopardized; that Gray’s wife had been spotted leaving a spinning class in Hollywood and refused to comment.
Maggie pretended not to listen and then, later, looked the stories up herself. Hundreds of them always popped up from news sites across the world. Gray Hudson, Oscar winner, one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, had ‘gone into hiding’ after fleeing a movie set in Paris. He’d shown up late every day; he’d been drunk on set; his next projects had been put on hold; Sony had issued a statement saying they ‘abhorred violence in all forms’ and, as a result, were postponing the release of a film starring him. It went on and on, pages of the stuff, and Maggie marvelled that so many stories could be published when they were obviously wrong because Gray was, in fact, hiding out in her hotel.
Georges strolled down to the chateau from his office a couple of times, ostensibly for discussions about the sale but also, Maggie suspected, because he liked the cakes she made for tea. It didn’t seem a coincidence that he always arrived at precisely 4 p.m.
‘Eet ees not an easy market right now, Maggie,’ he’d said, on the second trip, leaning across the table to cut himself a third slice of lemon sponge. ‘I ’ave made some enquiries but the economy ees not so good, and this place looking, well, not so new if you don’t mind me saying, eet will be someone very precise. Like your aunt when she first came ’ere, someone who sees the magic of Le Figuier.’
‘We’ll find the right person, Georges,’ she’d replied confidently ( would they?), before pleading with Audrey to stop crying. She’d been drifting about the chateau for days, audibly moaning any time Maggie mentioned the sale.
Julian had emailed his photos through a couple of days earlier and they certainly made it seem less tired than it did in reality. In one of the shots taken from the end of the drive, it looked like a stately pile from a wedding brochure. But if you squinted more closely, the decay was clear – shutters hanging at uneven angles, a mass of ivy tangled across the roof, damp patches in various bedrooms. Still, there’d be someone. There had to be.
That evening, Maggie told herself she needed to deal with the bills that had piled up on the reception desk. Jamie had gone to the bar to try and flirt with the waiter; the elderly academics from Oxford were in bed; the kitchen was cleaned and the light low. She put on an old CD she’d found in Phil’s room. It was nearly midnight but it was nice having the place to herself. There was a glass of wine and a plate of dinner in front of her, and a French jazz singer warbling about her broken heart in the background. Everyone was asleep, nobody could disturb her or ask any questions. It was perfe—
Her phone lit up on the kitchen table. Mungo.
She put her fork down and tapped the speaker button. ‘Hi.’
‘You’re awake,’ he said, surprised.
‘If you didn’t think I’d be awake, why were you calling? I’m going through old bills.’
‘What bills?’
‘Things that weren’t paid before Phil died. Water, electricity, an old wine bill, something that looks like a bill for a leaking bath …’ Maggie held the sheet closer to her face to try and decipher the handwriting.
‘Well, with any luck they won’t be a problem soon because I might have found us a buyer.’
‘What? Who? ’
‘I had lunch with Peregrine yesterday.’
‘Who?’
‘You know, Peregrine. Old school chum who edits that magazine, Posh People . Anyway, he happened to mention that Boho House are looking to expand in France. So your brilliant husband thought, ah ha, I might know just the place.’
‘For them to buy ?’ Maggie frowned at the table. They’d once stayed in a Boho House for a friend’s wedding and she’d found a pubic hair in the sink. It was one of those trendy hotel chains where you needed a PhD to work the light switches and every member of staff looked like they were in a band.
‘Exactly. Wouldn’t that be splendid? Peregrine says they’ve opened in Paris, and obviously they’ve got Berlin and Amsterdam and so on, but now they want to open a country place in France, in the south.’
‘OK …’ Maggie said, unsettled.
‘So he put me in touch with their business development woman, some American called Ellen, and she came straight back and said could a couple of them come out next week.’
‘ What? Next week?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … because … because first the photographer and now this! It’s just … just … very quick, Mun. And it’s not ready for anybody to look round yet.’
‘Oh, darling, it’s not as if they’re coming to stay . It’s only a viewing, and I thought you’d tarted it up for Julian anyway?’
‘We did but it’s not perfect.’ She reached for her glass. ‘And this is all very quick.’
‘That’s what we want, isn’t it?’
‘Kind of but …’ Maggie paused, weary all over again at her husband’s enthusiasm to get rid of the place so fast. ‘How keen did they sound?’
‘Very keen.’
‘Do you think they’d look after the place?’
‘Maggie, darling, you must stop being so sentimental about property. Of course they would. Look at their hotel in the Cotswolds. Rammed every weekend, Range Rovers queuing to get in. They’re the dream buyer! Nice quick sale, write off that debt, life goes back to normal.’
She gazed at the bills in front of her, depressed that so many choices in life had to be dictated by money. ‘Did they say what day for the viewing?’
‘No, I’m going to speak to him tomorrow. But in the meantime, perhaps a lick of paint. Let’s get it shipshape. I’ve dealt with corporate clients like this before and it needs to look polished or they won’t be interested.’
Maggie thought about the orange rust running down the chateau walls from the shutter hinges. ‘OK, I’ll try.’
‘There must be someone in the village?’
‘I’ll check with Audrey.’ She looked up at the sound of the kitchen door opening and almost double-took: it was Gray, holding his tray of dinner. ‘Mun, I’ve got to go. There’s someo— there’s a guest here.’
She’d debated whether to tell Mungo about Gray Hudson arriving at the hotel but decided against it, knowing he’d only say something disparaging. Mungo had once announced, while sitting next to an actor at a dinner party, that he thought all actors were ‘attention seekers’. Unless they were trying to buy a house through him. Ironically, a few years ago, after selling a house in Primrose Hill to Gwyneth Paltrow, he’d declared her ‘charming’.
‘A guest? At this time?’
‘It’s all right, don’t fuss. But speak tomorrow? OK, OK, yes, OK, yes, yes, OK … OK, love you, yes, love you, bye.’
‘I don’t mean to disturb,’ Gray began.
Maggie flashed a polite smile. ‘No problem. Can I help?’
‘I just wanted to …’ He held the tray out.
‘Sure.’ She stood to take it and noticed the fish had congealed on his plate. ‘You didn’t like it?’
‘No, it wasn’t that. I was … uh … I was asleep, and by the time I woke up …’
‘It was cold. I get it. Cold fish tagine, grim.’ She slid the tray beside the sink.
‘And could I order anything now? Sorry …’ Gray held his hands up at Maggie’s expression, ‘I know it’s late and outta dinner hours. But if there was anything, literally anything, or like a club sandwich that I could order now I’d be, uh, really grateful.’
‘We don’t do club sandwiches.’
‘Oh, OK. Or like, a salad? Or maybe just …’ Gray peered into the kitchen hopefully, ‘some bread?’
It was such a pitiful request that she softened. And he looked miserable, standing barefoot in the doorway. She’d seen him onscreen as an oiled gladiator, a cowboy in chaps, a Victorian anti-slave campaigner and a Marvel superhero who’d saved the world from an evil wizard, but now he looked as deflated as if someone had let the air out of him. ‘There’s some fish left, if you want?’
‘Yeah, amazing, thank you. But, sorry, I don’t wanna interrupt your work.’ He gestured at paperwork spread across the table.
‘It’s not work. It’s … admin. And no problem, I’ve never actually fed a gladiator before.’ Maggie smiled at her lame joke and Gray tentatively stepped into the kitchen.
‘Sounds good, thank you.’
‘Drink?’
He waved again. ‘No, thank you. Not after my, uh, performance the other day. Just water would be great. I’ll get it if you can tell me where …’
‘Glasses are in the pantry.’ Maggie inclined her head towards it.
He sat as she put a plate down in front of him. ‘So you run this place and you’re the chef?’
Maggie sat opposite him. ‘Not exactly. I mean I am cooking and running it right now, but only because it’s mine.’
‘The hotel is yours?’
‘Mmhmm.’
He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Jeez, it would be cool if I could stop embarrassing myself in front of you.’
‘I’m getting used to it.’
Gray looked back down at his plate and cleared his throat. ‘But that’s cool, this place. As in it’s your family’s?’
‘No, mine. My aunt, she opened it and it was her place until last month when she died, and left it to me, and I live in London but I’ve come over to sort everything out.’
‘I’m sorry. You were close?’
‘We were close, once. And then, not so close.’
Gray looked up at her over his plate. ‘Families, huh?’
She nodded. If Jamie happened to come downstairs, and stumble in on this scene – her and Gray Hudson, sitting at the kitchen table, sharing dinner with French jazz playing in the background, he would scream.
‘So, you’re gonna move from London?’
‘No. I’ve got to sell it. I love this place, and I sort of grew up here, but there are debts and I can’t move, and my husband’s in London. So, yeah, I’m trying to work out how to do that.’
His eyes swept over the bills covering the table again.
‘If you don’t mind me asking,’ Maggie said, curiosity getting the better of her, ‘how did you find this place?’
‘My agent. Although I don’t know if he’ll be my agent much longer, but I said could he find somewhere completely private, in France, where I could just hide out for a while.’ Gray looked sheepish. ‘I guess you know about …’
‘I’ve seen some stuff online,’ she replied casually. ‘I mean, not much . But … some.’
A few years earlier, after she’d opened her own restaurant, Maggie had googled herself. Most of the reviews had been glowing, especially in the papers, but then she found a smaller one online written by a food influencer who said her beef Bourguignon was over salted and tasted like dog food and – of all the nice things that had been said about the place – that was the only line Maggie remembered: her beef Bourguignon tasted like dog food. And although Jamie had said the influencer must only have known what dog food tasted like because he looked like a dog himself, Maggie had felt like vomiting over her keyboard at such meanness from a stranger. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have thousands of strangers trash you online. Or hundreds of thousands, in Gray’s case.
‘Yeah, so I asked him to find somewhere private and quiet, and he found this place.’ He rotated his fork in the air. ‘It seems pretty quiet.’
‘It wasn’t, back in the day. It was crazy, like, ten or twenty years ago. There were these wild parties and these long summers where everyone just ate and drank and hung out by the pool, having the time of their lives. But now …’ Maggie looked around the kitchen, ‘now it’s a bit different.’
‘How come your aunt bought it? Was she British?’
‘Yeah, but she loved travelling, never wanted to live in the UK, and found this place when it was a ruin. And she was an amazing chef.’
‘So that’s where you get it from?’ Gray said, with a half-smile that momentarily erased the exhaustion etched across his face.
‘Much better than me,’ Maggie replied, with a small smile in return. ‘And she made this place her life. Never had any children but the hotel was kind of like her baby.’
‘When was it built?’
‘In the 1870s. It’s kind of a romantic story, it belonged to this reclusive French naval hero.’
Gray looked at her, interested, so she explained the Duc de Miradoux’s story while he ate quickly, as if his body needed the fix.
‘And it was left a ruin between that dude …’ he asked, when she’d finished.
‘The Duc de Miradoux?’
‘It was left empty between him dying and your aunt buying it?’
‘I’m not sure. But it sat empty for ages, until my aunt came along.’
‘She sounds cool.’
‘She was. She really was, and she transformed this place, but now it needs to be transformed again, and sold, and my husband’s in property and says he knows someone who might be interested but it needs some love before anyone sees it. Painting and tidying and …’ Maggie sighed, staring at the bills. ‘Something, anyway, to make it presentable.’
‘I can help?’
She tilted her head and frowned at him.
‘If you need? Honestly, I’d like something to do. A distraction.’
Maggie’s frown intensified. ‘You, Gray Hudson, cowboy and slayer of wizards, want to tidy up my aunt’s old hotel like a handyman?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I only slay wizards sometimes . And sure. That’s how I got started, as a pool boy.’
‘Seriously?’
‘With my dad. He was the pool guy, but I helped him. We lived in downtown LA but we used to look after all these houses in Beverly Hills. I couldn’t get over the size of these mansions, and I always wanted to swim, as a kid, but my dad would say no, I had to help clean them. And then, yeah, I carried on cleaning pools in college to make money, and this one guy, Robert Cohen, he’s a producer, I was cleaning his one day when he said was I interested in movies.’
‘And you were.’
‘And I was. But, yeah, if I can help you out, I’d like to work, do something physical. I’m kinda going stir-crazy in my room. Why don’t we call it an apology?’
‘For what?’
‘For being a jackass to you before, and also for getting drunk and singing.’ Gray frowned. ‘I did sing, right?’
‘You sang.’
‘Fine, let me make it up to you by helping you out.’
‘You don’t have to go that far,’ Maggie said, doubting the offer. As if Gray Hudson was going to spend the next few days weeding the vegetable garden.
‘I’d like to,’ he said with another shy smile, before his face fell again. ‘Tell you the truth, my agent’s told me to stay away from the internet, so you’d be helping me out.’
Maggie scrutinized his expression. Was this guy serious ?
‘Let me, please? I could make a start in the garden tomorrow, if you wanted?’
She was extremely dubious. What good could he possibly do in the garden? Presumably this was Hollywood bravado, designed to sound and look good but, in reality, a hollow offer which he either wouldn’t carry out, or he’d do badly. But it wasn’t as if he could make it much worse, and if Gray Hudson wanted to make amends so desperately, she wasn’t going to stop him.
‘You really want to?’ she checked.
‘I do.’
‘I’m not paying you.’
‘No payment needed, ma’am.’ He grinned and pushed his plate away.
‘OK, so long as you’re sure.’
‘Deal.’ Gray held out his hand across the table and Maggie took it. She actually touched him. When she told Jamie about this in the morning, he would definitely scream.