Chapter 25
25
We went to Zaza.
Despite my feeble protestations that it wasn’t necessary, I was overruled by all three of them. It wasn’t as though I was planning to show my underwear to anyone.
Tant pis , was the answer. Tough, you’re going anyway.
Zaza was a redoubtable woman in a rigid black dress who looked as though she had been corseted by armourers. She didn’t speak much English at all, but what she couldn’t say she more than made up for with hand gestures and eye rolling. And so, colours and styles were offered, some of them quite frightening to my untutored eye, straps were lifted, and things tightened until I felt like a horse being put into its harness.
Isabel sat outside the curtains for a while, flicking through magazines on a comfortable armchair, and then started wandering around the little shop, looking through the rails and muttering things like: oh yes, I have this one, and this one. I like the look of that, perhaps Felix would be frightened, on the other hand he might think all his birthdays had come at once.
Evidently my sister didn’t have such a cavalier attitude towards these things as I did.
After an exhausting couple of hours, we left the shop with a carrier bag containing things which Zaza had approved, and despite the discount, probably cost more than I had spent on underwear in ten years. She also took away my old favourite chain store bra with a moué of distaste as though she wished she had tongs, presumably to consign it to the dustbin. So my hopes about keeping it and maybe wearing it a bit longer were dashed.
‘Right then, you are sorted, apart from your hair and your shoes,’ Isabel said.
‘Leave me alone, haven’t I suffered enough?’ I said.
‘Stop moaning, I have some you can borrow, kitten heels, pale champagne colour, go with anything.’
‘When do you wear kitten heels?’ I said, rather astonished. All I had seen my sister in up to then was walking boots and very casual clothes, sometimes decorated with mud and dog hair.
‘You’d be surprised what I get up to,’ she said with a wink.
I didn’t ask. Perhaps I should.
On Friday I spent the morning helping Isabel out in the brocante barn and we had a very successful time. It was strange how things that had remained unsold when they were ridiculously cheap, suddenly sold when the price increased. Perhaps it was a psychological thing, that second-hand things selling for a few euros weren’t worth having and were disregarded as junk, but the same items at five times the price were vintage and therefore desirable.
This set me thinking about the parallel between that and my own sense of self-worth. If I didn’t value myself, why should anyone else?
Stephen would have been speechless if he had known what I had spent on three new bras and six pairs of co-ordinated knickers (which I was told in no uncertain terms should always match).
And then I realised that over the last few days, Stephen had been far from my mind and that I had stopped worrying about how he might have reacted if he had seen me. This could only be a good thing. It was as though his dominating presence, which had been sitting on my shoulder for so long, had been gradually fading like an old photograph, and now it felt like it had gone.
I hadn’t forgotten him, of course, I hadn’t. But now, although I couldn’t quite vocalise it properly, life felt different. Something that Paulette had said resonated with me.
That beautiful jacket.
I never wore it. It was too big. Now it is too small. I waited for the right day and then that day never came.
Surely this applied to most things in life. I wasn’t going to do as so many people did, wait for the right moment. Keep new things for best. Plan that trip of a lifetime for some vague time in the future. From now on I was going to wear those clothes, that underwear, that smile, because tomorrow might just be too late.
Early on Saturday morning, Isabel was wandering around fretting about the lack of customers and wondering if we should reduce the prices on things.
‘Hardly anyone knows we are here,’ she complained, kicking at one of the watering cans disconsolately, ‘it wouldn’t matter if we did have Fabergé eggs or Princess Diana Beanie Babies.’
‘Let’s do the video,’ I said, ‘and put it on social media. Telling everyone what a lot of fabulous things you have here. And perhaps mention the g?tes and the shepherd’s hut at the same time.’
‘Okay,’ she said, sounding anything but enthusiastic, ‘what do we have to do?’
‘You can just walk around pointing at things and I’ll film you on your phone.’
‘I’m not doing it on my own!’ she said, horrified, ‘I wouldn’t have the nerve. You have to do it too. And what would we say anyway?’
‘Let’s work it out, we can always have the words written on bits of cardboard. Lots of people do that. Bob Hope was famous for it.’
Isabel grinned, warming to the idea. ‘Let’s have a practice.’
I tugged a bit at the edge of my new bra, which while supportive was very different from what I was used to, and we went into the barn. I took Isabel’s phone and started filming.
‘Go on then,’ I hissed.
Isabel looked blank. ‘What shall I say?’
Never wanting to be left out of anything, Marcel and Antoine loped in and sat at her feet. Marcel scratched one ear and Antoine yawned.
I pressed the record button and started speaking.
‘Here we are in my beautiful brocante barn, which as you can see if filled with?—’
I sent her an enquiring look and she took up the thread.
‘A lot of old junk, and some good bits that are probably worth a fortune, but I am too stupid to know.’
‘We don’t say stupid,’ I said, automatically.
‘Okay, I am just a simple woman with no qualifications in antiques, and no idea if this—’ she picked up a cup and saucer, ‘— is Sèvres Fontainbleau or Ikea.’
She then posed like a magician’s assistant in front of a display of farm machinery, and I started giggling.
‘I have no idea what this is, but it’s very old and I have two of them. So if you wanted a matching pair of whatever they are, come along to my brocante barn at Ferme de Pommes de Terre. We are open most days, and if we aren’t, it means we are closed.’
She took the phone from me. ‘You have a go.’
I picked up a bundle of embroidered sheets and held them against my cheek.
‘Sleep like a queen in these vintage, embroidered sheets. Not Marie Antoinette of course, that didn’t end well. Or amuse and delight your friends with these—’ I picked up a couple of wonky pottery bowls, ‘— objet d’art which look like Meissen but were, in fact, made by my nephew for an art project about twenty years ago.’
Getting into the spirit of the thing Isabel picked up one of the tablecloths and swirled it around her shoulders like a cape.
‘Vintage tablecloths, we have several, each more beautiful than the last.’
At this exciting development Marcel leapt up and sank his teeth into the trailing end of it, dragging Isabel off balance. She fell over into the display of watering cans, and she landed with an outraged ‘ ow’ and a shriek. Antoine joined in, leaping over her to have a tussle with Marcel, which ended up with him sitting on my sister’s head.
I howled with laughter and then stopped filming and went to help her up.
‘That flipping hurt you daft dogs,’ she shouted, rubbing her hip.
‘It was very funny though,’ I said, trying to stop laughing.
‘It’s not supposed to be funny, I’m trying to sell stuff,’ she said.
‘Right, let’s try again,’ I said, putting the watering cans back into a row. I started filming again. ‘Sell me that painting, the one of the old bloke on the horse.’
Isabel made a dismissive noise. ‘No one’s going to buy that, I’ve had it for five years. He looks like an axe murderer out on bail.’
‘Escaping on his horse, people like paintings of horses, and there’s a dog.’
‘If you look closely, that dog has five legs,’ Isabel said, ‘the artist forgot to paint one out.’
‘Or perhaps the dog did have five legs? Let’s try outside where the light is better,’ I said.
We lugged the painting outside between us where the sun was shining and Isabel’s washing was blowing in the wind, like an advertisement for fabric conditioner. She propped the painting up on an upturned wheelbarrow and I realised I hadn’t turned the recording off, and I was still filming. I wondered briefly if it was possible to edit such things. Isabel was obviously getting into her stride now.
‘This is a significant piece from the— ooh, nineteenth century and it could be a picture of a very important man. You can tell that because he has a big horse with a very snorty nose, and a dog?—’
‘With five legs,’ I added.
‘Five-legged dogs were much sought after and very rare,’ Isabel agreed, ‘and hard to catch. This is an ideal decorator’s piece, in the original gilt and what’s it called – ormolu frame that would add sophistication and charm to any room.’
‘And is it reasonably priced?’ I prompted.
‘It is indeed. Only one— two hundred euros. Including the string at the back, which is original, nineteenth century rope.’
I started laughing again and Isabel made some more ‘displaying’ gestures with her hands, which was all the encouragement Marcel needed. He leapt at the painting, knocking it sideways and Isabel grabbed at it, falling over the wheelbarrow with a scream. I prodded at a few buttons on the phone and only managed to flip it around and start filming myself.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ I said. And then I stopped filming.
‘I don’t think we are very good at this,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet.
‘It’s only our first attempt,’ I said, ‘let’s try one more. What about all those salt and pepper sets. The novelty ones in the wooden box.’
‘Well, okay, but this time you can do the talking and I’ll film you,’ she said.
The house clearance Isabel had been to had evidently been from a house where the owner had like collecting knick-knacks. Amongst these were about five cruet sets in frankly odd and slightly rude designs. We fetched them all and laid them out on the kitchen table, after first putting an embroidered cloth down, carefully positioned to hide the fang marks that Antoine had left on one corner.
Marcel crept into the kitchen with us and rested his snout on the end of the table.
‘Go on then,’ Isabel said, ‘sell me those.’
‘These are some of the most collectable items,’ I said, rather unconvincingly, ‘people come from far and wide to see our wonderful selection of novelties.’
‘Rare novelties,’ Isabel interrupted.
‘Rare, some might say extraordinary novelties, which are very popular with… people. Collectors.’
My mind went blank for a moment, and I looked at Isabel with a fixed grin wondering what to say next.
‘And I know the gnome is your favourite,’ she prompted me, ‘go on.’
I responded with an agonised stare. The gnome cruet set was one of the ugliest. A gnome bending over, each removable, ceramic buttock having been made into a salt and pepper shaker. I picked it up and balanced it in the palm of my hand.
‘Who could resist this charming item? You will probably never see another like it.’
‘If you’re lucky,’ Isabel murmured.
‘These are highly collectable and very rare. So hurry to the brocante barn at Ferme de Pommes de Terre and complete your collection with this— um— unbelievably— really eye-catching piece.’
At that point I started laughing again and the ceramic buttock labelled salt, fell off and rolled onto the table and straight into Marcel’s smiling jaws.
‘Marcel! Put that buttock down!’
There then followed several undignified moments as I scrabbled around trying to retrieve it, accompanied by a lot of hysterical laughter from Isabel. Eventually I won the tussle and put it safely back into position. Marcel, having enjoyed the game gave an enthusiastic woof.
‘Perhaps we should wash it before we sell it?’ Isabel said.