1
Is there anything in this world quite as joyless as muesli?
It wasn’t that Richard Ainsworth was in a bad mood necessarily, just that he found mornings difficult. Trying would be a better word. He found mornings trying, something to be endured before reaching the slightly less trying afternoons and evenings. Mornings are the cold, filthy foot bath you’re forced to step through before you’re allowed into the warmth and relative cleanliness of the public swimming pool. He sighed with resignation. He was well aware that plenty of people had a problem with mornings, but plenty of people didn’t also run a bed and breakfast. And a bed and breakfast in the bucolic Loire Valley, too, where things can only happen in the mornings.
Breakfast could be an awkward geography at the best of times; generally, Richard struggled to find that delicate balance between being on hand as a host while also leaving the guest to enjoy, if that was the right word, their morning meal in peace. The trick was to look approachable but disengaged. Attentive but standoffish. That way nobody could accuse you of not serving their needs but would hopefully think twice before actually asking for anything. It was less discreet customer service, more defense mechanism, and as usual, he was avoiding eye contact and trying to melt unobtrusively into the background.
He’d never actually tried muesli. It always reminded him of his nan’s pet budgie, Vince, named after the singer Vince Hill, who his nan adored but who no one else had ever heard of, probably not even Mrs. Hill. Vince lived in a small cage, the budgie not the singer, which was positioned to overhang the right-hand side of a tired brown velour settee—everything was brown in the seventies—with a prime view of the television. His nan permanently occupied the left-hand side of the sofa, a large Rothmans International gripped in her bony, chopstick-like fingers, hovering, ash tip precariously long, between her narrow, pink-lipsticked mouth and an enormous glass ashtray. It was the bottom of Vince’s cage, though, all half-eaten seeds and discarded grains and millets. That’s what muesli reminded him of, rejected budgie food.
This memory, and with it a little dig at the modern world, a perennial pastime, cheered him a little. The thought that the twenty-first-century go-getter and fitness freak started the day not with a perceived “superfood” but with some 1970s discarded bird silage would carry him through the breakfast shift, most likely. And he needed it to. It was 8:45, and he was flagging already. In fact, he thought, retreating once more into the warmth of childhood memories, he felt a bit like Nan’s old settee. Old and worn out, fraying at the edges a bit, put upon, though also slightly hungover, something he doubted many settees suffered from.
He was overdoing it with the hiding this morning, though, spending far too long gawking into the cereal jar, and far from melting into the background, he was actually now attracting the nervous “is he all right, do you think?” attentions of the Italian newlyweds in the corner. He assumed they were newlyweds anyway. Certainly, to his jaundiced eye, their constant need to grip one another with public displays of affection indicated that it wasn’t, thus far, a long-term relationship. They were still at the excited, curious, physical stage of love. The novelty not having yet worn off. Ah well, good for them, he conceded, why not? He decided to make a show of trying to look busy and moved away from the muesli jar to adjust the old-style film camera that doubled as a light at the foot of the stairs. It was one of many ornamental nods to his former life as a film historian, the clapper board wall clock being another. He moved like it was urgent business, which in a way it was; Richard Ainsworth liked things just so, and the camera, though the light wasn’t on, should be pointing up the staircase, as if waiting for the grand entrance of a star.
“Monsieur?” It was the young husband who spoke, raising his hand as he did so like a child in school or like every adult in a restaurant the world over. “Monsieur? Could you warm my milk up, please?” His French wasn’t great, which gave Richard a little confidence boost. His own French was pretty good, though not fluent, meaning he lived in constant fear of reaching his language limit, of being found out like Gordon Jackson in The Great Escape, a simple bear-trap of a “good luck” away from disaster. It was a constant worry.
“Of course, Signor Rizzoli…” He picked up Signor Rizzoli’s bowl. “And signora?”
“Sì, er, s’il vous plaît,” she said, correcting herself, her pretty smile directed first at Richard, then quickly back at her husband, her hand searching out his on the small corner table.
Newlyweds always try too hard, he thought.
“Have you any plans for today?” Richard asked loudly and clearly as he moved away. Signor Rizzoli struggled with a stuttering response, but before Richard could helpfully ask again in English, a perfect translation of the question in Italian came from the stairs.
“Hai qualche piano per oggi?”
The Rizzolis were stunned into silence as Valérie d’Orçay glided elegantly down the staircase. Her poise was immaculate, as was the Louis Vuitton bag she carried in the crook of her arm, which contained a small, superior-looking chihuahua. Valérie d’Orçay dominated the room the way Cleopatra dominated Egypt, and as she reached the bottom step, she dismissively pushed the lens of the camera light aside so that it no longer pointed directly at her, as though shrugging off an impertinent paparazzo. What an entrance, thought Richard, who had met her only briefly, late in the evening before when she checked in. Norma Desmond had arrived, and this time it really was the pictures that had gotten small.
Dressed in a cream summer suit with enormous sunglasses perched on her head, she said a beguiling, non-specific “bonjour” to the room before placing the small dog on a chair and, with some words of comfort directed at the tiny creature, sitting down opposite. Again Richard’s nan and Vince sprang to mind, though this was a world away from Pebble Mill at One, Rothmans cigarettes, and past-their-best sofas. The dog looked from its mistress to Richard, who stood still, slightly stunned by the entrance, and to the Rizzolis, whose cereal spoons hovered just short of their open mouths. It was only the pooch’s head that showed, its jewel-studded collar glinting like a disco ball off the ceiling lights. It seemed to be waiting for something; they all did.
“Are you OK, monsieur?” Like a lot of French women in middle age, or possibly all women in middle age, or maybe just all French women, Valérie d’Orçay had a way of inquiring about a man’s well-being that was both a form of expressing concern and utterly dismissive at the same time, like a policeman with a flaky witness. She looked at him directly, a hard, penetrating stare that would have floored many a man.
When arriving late the night before, she had been full of apologies for keeping him waiting and complaints about the traffic coming out of Paris. It had been dark, and he’d been a little tipsy by then, so he’d shown her to her room and left her to it. He hadn’t noticed that she’d had a dog with her, and frankly, it went against the house rules. And though he didn’t seem much bigger than Vince the budgie anyway, rules were rules and the “no pets” rule was clearly spelled out on all the websites. This would need some delicacy, he thought, sizing her up while dealing with the Rizzolis’ warm milk.
She was classically elegant
in that stereotypical French way: her hair in a short bob was dyed a dark brown and matched her eyes, which were warm yet distant at the same time, piercing and shrewd. There were lines around the side of her eyes, too, which suggested laughter and fun, but the dark irises, the core, said no nonsense. They missed little, Richard suspected, and felt quite self-conscious. He didn’t consider himself a vain man; he was happy to look his age and, he’d convinced himself, measured up fairly well against other men at the same stage in life. His hair was evenly gray in all the right places, the hair at his temples perhaps receding a little as though the tide were going out. He had a slight paunch but nothing that breathing in and standing up straighter didn’t hide, for now at least. Yes, there were a lot worse than him, he’d concluded, as though he was on the market and needing to write his own small ad. Something he might actually have to get around to doing very soon. Maybe. He wasn’t entirely sure what his marital status was at the moment. His daughter had told him only last week that, “In Facebook terms, Dad, you and Mum are complicated,” as if that was in itself satisfactory and not actually the trapdoor to a seething pit of uncertainty. But anyway, he’d resigned himself to bachelorhood for the foreseeable future, and if that was what unfolded, then, at fifty-three, he was ready for it. He may no longer have leading-man looks, but he could get away with charming character actor.
“Madame d’Orçay,” he said in his best French accent while standing taller and breathing in slightly. “I’m afraid we need to talk about your dog.”
“Passepartout?”
“Yes, er, Passepartout.”
Passepartout, to his great credit, appeared to give Richard a “you’re wasting your time, pal” look.
“Oh don’t worry about Passepartout.” She waved her hand elegantly. “Just a bowl of water will do.” Her reply came dismissively in English, like a haughty Parisian waiter, bringing both annoyance and relief in equal measure. But with it came a friendly shrug, too, and all in an accent that in just one sentence veered from parody to femme fatale and back again. Richard breathed in a little more, which she noticed. “I, on the other hand, would also like some warm milk, please, for my hot chocolate. And perhaps a croissant.”
“Yes, but…” Passepartout lay down in his bag, bedding himself in for the long haul.
“And please, call me Valérie, Richard. I’m going to be staying here a few days at least, so there is no need to be quite so formal, I think. I do so hate formalities.” She said this to the Rizzolis, who looked like they were gripping each other even tighter.
Richard began to mouth something in response but had no idea where to start, what the middle might be, or whether there’d even be an end. His wine-slowed brain was trying to take stock of the situation; yes, she was attractive, yes, for the first time in what seemed like ages, an attractive woman had called him by his first name and not either “monsieur” or “oi,” but also, in less than a minute, he’d been charmingly shoulder-barged out of his own rule book.
“So, it’s bloody dogs now, is it? For Christ’s sake!” came the hissing voice from the stairs where, in the same spot Valérie had recently descended, stood Madame Tablier. Her starch-white, pristine apron was in stark contrast to the filth of her mouth, her mop and bucket gripped tight in her oddly man-sized hands, and an enormous, incongruous 1980s-style cassette Walkman strapped to her belt with orange-colored foam headphones around her neck. Johnny Hallyday could be heard throwing
the kitchen sink at a rock ballad.
“As if things aren’t bloody difficult enough around here,” she snarled loudly enough to be heard above full-flow Johnny, “what with people leaving their shit all over the place. Now it’s dogs, is it?” She trudged down the last few steps and addressed the room. “As if I haven’t got enough to do already what with cleaning blood off the sodding walls.”
2
“Yes, OK, but I mean, it’s…well, it’s not much blood, is it?” An unconvincing Richard turned round to face Valérie and Madame Tablier, standing behind him in the doorway of one of the upstairs bedrooms. The two women couldn’t have been more different, as far apart in almost every respect of their lives and appearance as could be, and as such, unlikely to be thrown together outside of a heavily contrived reality TV program. Right now, though, they were sharing an expression that made them look almost like sisters. The look was doubt bordering on disbelief, backed up with an “it’s not really about the quantity of blood though, is it?” question in the eye.
In pure volume terms, Richard had a point. There really wasn’t much blood. There was, however, a very clear, deep red handprint, like a child’s school painting, to the right of the light switch outside the en suite bathroom. The fingers were extended, though slightly smudged at the tips; the palm was very clear, to the extent that the lines were visible, and the whole thing gave the impression of a mocking wave. Richard took a step back, without taking his eyes off the stain, tilting his head slightly to one side, as though he were an art critic unsure of modern trends. He let out a heavy breath, which was meant to sound dismissive, derisory even, certainly in control, but which sounded more like an out-of-depth whimper. Typical, was his summation of the morning so far.
“I don’t like it,” Madame Tablier snarled, and to add weight to her grievance shook her mop vigorously at the offending blemish. Richard had “inherited” Madame Tablier when he and his wife, Clare, had bought the business a couple of years before. She tottered permanently on the edge of outrage; swore relentlessly in front of the guests, whom she regarded en masse as an unnecessary, germ-infested, stain-creating evil; and appeared, on the face of things, to hate the world so much that “Sweet death, take me now” could have been the motto on her blemish-free apron instead of “Je place le bonheur au-dessous de tout,” roughly translated as “I place happiness above all else,” and surely bought in jest. “I’ve misplaced happiness and everything else” would have been nearer the mark. But she reminded Richard of an indomitable Irene Handl, and he was therefore willing to forgive almost anything. Plus how could you not employ a femme de ménage called Tablier? “Tablier” being French for “apron,” and the sort of nominative determinism that kept Richard buoyant in times of strife. She stood there, poised for action, holding her mop up presumably in self-defense in case the bloodied hand leaped off the wall and pinched her on the bottom.
“It’s quite interesting, don’t you think?” Valérie d’Orçay was taking the colder, more intellectual approach. The others both looked at her quizzically. “No, really,” Valérie continued, riding over their obvious skepticism in earnest fashion. “Look.” And she lifted her own hand up to compare it with the bloodstain.
“Don’t touch it!” Madame Tablier hissed. “It’s evidence!”
“I’m not going to touch it!” Valérie shot back in a sibilant whisper, her hand still in front of her.
“Yes, well, make sure you don’t,” was the slightly stung response.
“Look.” Valérie’s hand hovered over the red hand on the wall. “You see?”
“Not anymore. Your hand’s in the bloody way.”
“Madame Tablier, I am trying to show you the size of the hand…”
“And what’s that got to do with it?”
Richard, after a lifetime of experience, knew full well when not to get involved. He’d stumbled across two of his hens, Lana Turner and Joan Crawford, fighting over a dead mouse earlier in the week and he felt then just as he felt now: leave them to it and let nature take its course. Besides, arguments in French, in fact almost anything that required fluctuating emotion, he found more challenging linguistically, too demanding. Valérie slowly lowered her arm, put both hands on her waist, and turned deliberately toward Madame Tablier.
“I am trying to show you something. Now put your mop down and let me explain.” He had never seen a
nyone get the better of Madame Tablier, though admittedly he’d never seen anyone try. But whether it was something in Valérie’s eyes—from where Richard stood, he couldn’t see—or just the slight tonal change in her voice, the older woman blinked first and lowered her mop. Their pecking order now established, Valérie continued. She raised her manicured right hand once more. “It was a man in this room, is that right?”
“Yes.” Richard was slightly startled by his sudden involvement. “Monsieur Grandchamps. He’s stayed here before.”
“A small man?”
“Yes, I suppose so, he…”
“Well, he must be.” She was emphatic. “I am not a large woman, but our hands are almost the same size.”
Richard wasn’t sure what relevance this might actually have to anything, but Valérie felt it was important and he wasn’t one to argue. Madame Tablier, however, was even less convinced and, after finally putting her mop to one side, held up her own hand in comparison. The comparison made Valérie’s hand look like a child’s.
“My late husband, God rest his soul, used to say that with hands like these I could kill a horse the way I kill a hen!”
It was, under the circumstances, an awkward thing to have said, and both Richard and Valérie decided that the best course of action was to ignore it. Though neither could take their eyes off the older woman’s astonishing, ham-like mitts.
“Well, he was knocking on, yes,” Richard said. He was trying to remember, but the old man had had nothing remarkable about him, ...
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