Chapter 31
‘This is the place?’ I ask, slack-jawed as the taxi indicates off of the road and down a track lined with budding cypress trees towards an imposing grey stone chateau flanked with two round turrets.
The American peers out as if I’m seeing something she isn’t. ‘Yes, is that okay?’
I turn to her. ‘You said it was a house.’
‘It is a house.’
‘It has a moat.’ I point to the bridge we are about to pass over.
She shrugs. ‘Still a house,’ but I can see her trying to hide her smile.
There is a grunting from behind and Crispy’s head appears between the two headrests. ‘Doris has always done her birthday in style; every year she says she’s going big because she thinks it’s her last.’
I crane my neck to look at him. ‘How many of these have you been to?’
‘Well, let’s just say Doris has been dying since 2012.’
The American scowls at him, bats a fan in the direction of his face but he manages to duck back into the rear seat without injury.
‘Ooh, looks like the others got here first.’ She claps her hands together and we look out of the window to see a few cars already pulled up on the forecourt.
I had forgotten about the prospect of others.
Whilst I consider myself a semi-sociable person, who can at least pretend to be confident and nice for a few hours, I wasn’t looking forward to switching dynamics, to having to start from the beginning with people who I would probably never even meet again.
I am bruised too, slightly emotionally bedraggled and the rawness of it all still catches me off guard.
I had been able to cope in the apartment, until I had braved the outside and headed to a shop to purchase The American a present and bumped into Inés.
She had apologised about the other night and I had been confused about what she meant.
I had almost forgotten that the last time I had seen her she had disappeared.
A lifetime had happened in a week; something had blossomed, existed and swiftly died in seven short days.
The taxi pulls up, crunching over the gravel as it comes to a halt.
I slip out of the other door whilst the driver spends a few minutes helping The American and Crispy from the car.
It is good to surround yourself with octogenarians when you’re feeling a bit shit about yourself; it does make you reflect on how good it is to be relatively agile and to have complete control of all your limbs.
‘Sabine!’ The American opens her long arms, made longer still by yet another butterfly sleeve, in the direction of a plump, petite woman dressed in a black suit in the doorway.
‘Madame, bon anniversaire,’ the woman called Sabine greets The American. The two women meet in a mele of cheek kisses and excitement.
‘Sabine’s the housekeeper,’ Crispy elaborates into my ear.
I turn on my heels to look at him properly, to see if there is any hint of a joke on his face. ‘We have a housekeeper?’
‘Oh yes!’ he nods. ‘Just wait till you meet the chef.’
We are interrupted by The American ushering us towards the front door, flanked, like the rest of the full-length windows, with burgundy shutters.
Inside, it feels like we have stepped into a museum.
The floors are grey flagstones and the walls are panelled in a dark wood.
Scattered around the space are what can only be described as relics: a few busts, portraits in gold frames, candle sconces on the walls and in the corner a sentinel suit of armour.
‘Bloody hell.’ I brush my fingers over a piece of wooden furniture in the corner.
‘The estate has been here since the twelfth century.’ Sabine steps in to give me the tour as The American and Crispy are already heading towards some double doors at surprising speed.
‘The chateau that we are in now was built later in the eighteenth century. It has been in one family’s ownership since then. ’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘I think so.’ Sabine smiles. ‘There are worse places to work I am sure.’ There is the sound of a door opening and a sudden onslaught of noise: cackling, cheering, groaning. ‘The others are in the courtyard having a welcome drink.’
‘I should probably join them.’ I know that my face gives my lack of enthusiasm away. Sabine gifts me a reassuring nod and gestures towards the door for me to lead on.
The American’s friends are as varied as I had imagined with one thing in common: they are clearly fans of at least one outlandish item of clothing.
There is a woman with comically large glasses and a silk turban called Debbie who was a nude model in the seventies, her husband Frederic – probably my age – who is wearing an almost entirely white suit, a writer named Winona who looks like she could give Jackie Collins a run for her money, a Rupert in red chinos, an Alphonse who has a pipe lolling out of his mouth, an Evangeline who looks even older than The American and is using a rhinestone cane, and a final woman, who Crispy informs me is called Jeanette, who looks distantly famous, with a suspiciously un-lined face and bright-red hair.
I wonder where I fit into this motley crew.
They greet me as an old friend regardless.
They say they have heard lots about me, and I wonder how The American has pitched her little lodger, a bright young thing with a book deal, or a slightly down-and-out widow who needs to be clapped on the back and told she’s doing well.
We are served champagne in delicate little coupes and have canapes of prunes and cheese and caviar waved under our noses for our approval.
I politely pick at the food, mainline a few glasses until The American shoots me a look that lets me know I am being watched and decline the next one Sabine offers. I know it’s a party but even I can’t pretend that I’d be getting drunk just for the festivities.
It feels as if everyone has been here for months and I am the late arrival.
They know the order of the day, where the bathrooms are, they slip in and out of rooms, and I am left entirely out of step, like I’m at one of those shows that requires audience participation, except I’m drunk and wasn’t aware I’d even bought a ticket.
‘You look like you’re dying on your feet,’ The American mutters into my ear.
‘I feel it.’
‘Why don’t you go and lie down before dinner, have a bath, freshen up?’ she suggests. ‘Might make you feel better.’
‘And you can keep me sober for longer?’ I ask. She shrugs.
‘You just have to make it to nine, half of us will be in bed by then and the other half will be drunker than even you can manage.’
‘There’s one issue.’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t know where my room is.’
‘Oh! Sabine!’ The American suddenly calls out and seconds later, the familiar bobbed figure of Sabine emerges, the same unfazed smile she had greeted us with earlier fixed onto her face.
I am whisked into the quiet calmness of the house, having to trot to keep up with Sabine as she slips up the stairs.
‘Now most of the bedrooms are on the ground floor, due to the…’ Sabine pauses, thinks about how best to phrase it, ‘access.’ She pauses, looks at me to see if I understand that she is politely letting me know that most of the party aren’t a fan of stairs.
I can only imagine the situation becoming practically perilous when alcohol is added into the mix.
‘So, it’s only you and one other guest on this floor. ’
‘Okay.’ I suddenly notice the vastness of the corridor, the creaking darkness of the passageways. ‘I don’t suppose there are any ghosts lingering about, are there?’
‘Oh no.’ She shakes her head quickly. ‘Only rumours.’
‘Rumours?’ My neck snaps to her.
She pouts her lips. ‘Well, yes, but I’ve lived here for twenty-two years and never seen anything of concern so don’t be alarmed.’
‘Brilliant.’ I manage a straight-lipped smile as she reaches for a key, stopping at a door painted a dusky blue with a brass knocker.
She lets me enter first. The room is thankfully much lighter than the corridor, with tall deep-set windows upholstered into window seats with banking views over the grounds.
The bed, a ridiculous four-poster, sits opposite the windows and I am desperate for the morning, to sit there with a coffee and take in the early sun.
Everything is in shades of blue and white, from the periwinkle on the walls to the magnolia patterns on the curtains, and culminates in a willow-pattern eiderdown on the bed.
‘Madame picks all the rooms for the guests,’ Sabine says, watching me take it all in. ‘She says you were in need of something…’ She looks for the word, racking her brain for the English word, ‘peaceful,’ she shrugs.
‘She was right.’ I run my hand over a chalky white armoire with a bunch of hydrangeas in a white porcelain vase. ‘It is very peaceful.’
‘You have a bathroom.’ She opens the door onto a large marble space with old brass fixtures and a claw-foot bath by the windows. I notice a box of toiletries already prepped on the side. ‘You also have access to a balcony. It’s shared with your neighbour, I hope that’s okay.’
‘Yes,’ I nod. ‘That’s fine.’
‘Wonderful. Well then, I’ll leave you to it, there’s the itinerary for the weekend on the dressing table.’
‘An itinerary?’
Sabine just grins at me. ‘She is quite strict about it too, so don’t keep her waiting.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Sabine closes the door leaving me on my own. I take in some more of the room, try to listen for voices but all I can hear is the occasional snippet of birdsong, the frogs beginning to wake up for the evening.
I find the itinerary in pride of place on the bedside table along with a little bag.
Sabine was right: by every event there is a dress code, a time and a location.
I baulk a little at the dress code; prior warning would have meant I could have at least packed to order.
I look for my battered old carry on but it isn’t anywhere to be seen.
I open up my wardrobe to find to my horror that everything has already been packed away, even my incredibly old and slightly holey knickers have been pressed and put into a drawer.
The biggest concern however is that there are definitely more clothes than I had packed.
The American had clearly taken her own initiative.
I collapse onto the bed with the little paper bag and pour out the contents onto the quilt.
There’s a couple of face masks, an array of expensive-looking skincare, a couple of pre-mixed cocktails in mason jars and a box of chocolates I recognise from the chocolatier in the village.
I think The American may have far more money than even I realised, and by God, is she on a mission to spend it before she goes.
My phone pings. For a moment that idiotic hope lingers until I see that it’s my mum asking how I am.
I take a picture of the room and send it to her.
She sends a vomit emoji back followed swiftly by a love heart and then sends a rather long-winded apology about clumsy thumbs and not wearing her glasses.