L'amour Actually (24 page)

  Tracey snorted loudly.

  'It's very popular in France,' said the teenager sullenly.

  'I bet it is!'

  '… and Heston…'

  'What? Like the chef?' she laughed. I nudged her sharply.

  'Lucinda and Andrew…'

  Another couple smiled at them.

  'Pamela and Monty. Pam is on the village council.'

  Apparently that was supposed to impress us.

  'Nick and Libby and their children.'

  I groaned inwardly as Nick raised his glass to me and Libby smiled shyly. The children barely even looked up and continued to squabble over a toy. It was going to be a long night.

  'Hello everyone. Shall we sit there?' I asked indicating two empty seats halfway down the table.

  Roddy's eyes lit up as he realised that Tracey and her superlative
décolletage
would be sitting opposite him.

  'So, what's on the menu?' I asked

  'Patagonian Beef,' said Roddy. '
Très
French. Chap doing it is from some South American country apparently.'

  'Looks great anyway. Well, shall we get some wine in, Trace?' I motioned to Tracey with my head to follow me.

  'This is going to be a nightmare,' I said as we made our way to the bar.

  'Just drink loads. People like that always seem so much better when you're pissed. So, red or
rosé
?' I asked as we stood in line at the bar.

  '
Rosé
for me any time. I don't drink red, it plays havoc with me teeth whitener.'

  Clutching two bottles of
rosé
we walked back to the table, like prisoners heading to the gallows.

  'So,' said Pamela, looking at us like a lioness who had just found her next prey. She was a pinched-looking Scottish woman with the demeanour of someone who had spent her life sucking lemons. 'You look familiar,' she said to me, 'have I seen you in the papers recently?'

  'Bloody Nora!' said Tracey, springing to my defence. 'Didn't have you down as a
Sun
reader. Like a bit of tits and arse do you? Oww!'

  My kick under the table caught Tracey squarely in the ankle.

  'So tell me about the village council. What's that all about?' I said, avoiding her question. Pamela visibly puffed herself up, clearly very full of her own self-importance. 'I'm the liaison between the English-speaking community and the
maire
. I speak fluent French you see and so many of the others don't.'

  'Never quite understood this whole marie business,' said Tracey, taking a slug of wine and deliberately mispronouncing the word.

  'I mean, I've hardly even seen him and everyone tells you you've got to go and introduce yourself as soon as you arrive. He couldn't even be arsed to look up from his desk when I went in.'

  'It's
"maire"
not marie. Do you speak much French?' asked Pamela pointedly.

  'Hardly a word,' interjected Tracey. 'I never got much further than
putain
myself. It's the only French word you really need. "I've lost my dog.
Putain
!", "I'm going to be late.
Putain
!" "
Putain
! You are such pain in the arse." It means whore, literally, you know.' She smiled sweetly.

  'I'm well aware of its meaning,' Pamela replied briskly.

  'So what's he like that marie bloke?' Tracey asked.

  '
Maire.
He's very pleasant.'

  'He seems a bit of an old misery to me. Heard he doesn't much like the Brits neither. Still, it can't be much fun being the marie of this place.'

  I tried to stifle a giggle. '
Maire,
' Pamela corrected her again.

  'Yeah, whatever. So what did you do before you moved out here? I'm sure I've seen your husband before. He's not that bloke that was up in court last year for fraud is he? Changed his hair though.' Tracey looked at her with mock sympathy.

  Pamela visibly shrunk in front of us. 'It was all mistaken identity. Monty was completely innocent,' she hissed.

  Tracey looked taken aback. 'Bleedin' 'ell, I was only joking. So you're in hiding here then are you? Does the marie bloke know that he's got the wife of a fugitive on his council?'

  The table went quiet and Monty studied his napkin in great detail.

  'It's
maire
,' she replied through gritted teeth.

  'Ha ha ha,' I laughed. 'She's only joking, aren't you, Trace?'

  A nervous laugh moved round the table like a Mexican wave, stopping at Monty, who still looked miserable. 'Yeah, only joking. Not even a good joke either.'

  After a brief moment, everyone went back to their conversations, leaving Tracey and me smiling conspiratorially at each other.

  'You are so bad, winding her up like that,' I whispered.

  'So, Happy Bastille Day, ladies,' said Nick, sidling up on my blindside before I had a chance to make a run for it. 'Nice to see you here.'

  He squatted down next to Tracey, making little attempt to hide the fact that he was more interested in her cleavage than anything she had to say.

  'Yeah well, there's not much choice round here really, is there? Personally I'd rather be at the Ice Bar.' Tracey smiled sweetly. 'Only the French would celebrate the liberation of four forgers, two lunatics and a deviant aristocrat. That's all what was in the Bastille when they stormed it. Any case, they were after the gunpowder because they'd just stolen thirty thousand muskets from Hôtel des Invalides and hadn't noticed they didn't have anything to fire. Bloody wallies!'

  I looked at Tracey, taken aback at the depth of her historical knowledge. 'I'm impressed.'

  'Don't be. It was a project I did in secondary school. Me and Snotty Bates of the permanently runny nose. He did all the work and I took the credit. Got an "A" for it too.' Tracey turned her back on Nick in the hope that he would go away.

  'Bloody hell Trace, check out the one in the newsprint trousers,' I said, nodding towards the dance floor.

  Jigging from side to side in the tightest pair of spray-on trousers made from a decidedly tacky newsprint fabric and an off-the-shoulder top was a lady of a certain age, with nut-brown skin and cropped, peroxide blonde hair.

  'Ungulate alert!' I whispered.

  'You what?'

  'Ungulate. Animal with hooves.'

  Tracey looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.

  'Like a camel. Camel toe?'

  'Aahh, right. Blimey, that's an impressive one and I've seen a few in my time.'

  'She's certainly getting a lot of attention.'

  We watched as a stream of men made their way towards the woman, flirting outrageously. She fended them all off with a sneer and a wave of her well-manicured hand until a particularly unattractive, gap-toothed man approached her, two bottles of wine in his hands. Her face lit up and she threw her arms round him, kissing him deeply.

  We looked at each other, eyebrows raised. 'That's the Comte de Saint-Simon,' said Nick, making us both jump. 'He's minted.'

  'Bloody hell, you still here?' said Tracey. 'Don't you need to be getting back to your wife?'

  Nick smiled weakly and sidled back down the table to where Libby sat, picking at her finger nails.

  'So, what is it about the millionaire Comte that first attracted her, do you think?' I said

  'There's some places I just wouldn't go, even for money and he's one of them.'

  I poured us both a generous glass of wine. '
Santé
,' I said raising my glass to Tracey, took a sip, swallowed and grimaced.

  'God, that could strip the enamel off your teeth. They should be giving it away.'

  We sat back, watching the
fête
unfold, lulled by the gentle swell of chatter around us. The band was a Franco-British affair with a keyboard player who seemed to be constantly one bar behind the rest of them. The lady in the newsprint trousers was sitting down with her Comte and the dance floor was being monopolised by a single woman who moved to the same beat, whatever was being played, while a small group of elderly ladies danced together in couples, their husbands clearly more interested in the liquid refreshment than the entertainment. 'Uh oh, look out.'

  Armand, the village drunk, who I had saved from the road on the day of Alex's visit, was wobbling his way to the dance floor, smiling a red wine-coated smile. When he reached the centre of the floor, he unleashed a dance that would have impressed St Vitus. In a frenetic whirl of arms and legs, he twitched and thrashed, even trying a spot of break dancing. It was fair to say it didn't go well. Another couple, with the tanned blondness of the Dutch, dosey-doed around him, enthusiastically egging him on.

  'He's going to have a heart attack if he keeps that up,' I said as I watched his dance reach a crescendo. To my surprise, Madame Brunel appeared at the edge of the dance floor. She watched Armand nervously before walking up to him, carefully avoiding the thrashing limbs, and putting a hand on his shoulder. He stopped almost instantly and placing her arm around him, she led him off the dance floor and back into the crowd.

  'Wonder what all that was about,' commented Tracey as we watched them go. 'Come on, the floor's free now, let's go and bust a few shapes.'

  She pulled me up from my seat, dragging me onto the dance floor, where we both shook our respective booty for all it was worth, much to the delight of our fellow dancers, until the starter was served and we had to go back to our table. As I tucked into my melon and Parma ham, having worked up an appetite on the dance floor, loud, raucous laughter came from a table at the far end. Following the sound, I noticed Julien sitting with a crowd of young French people, enjoying the jokes that someone was clearly telling. My heart skipped a beat as I watched him, my fork poised in mid-air.

  'What are you gawping at, as if I didn't know?' teased Tracey.

  'He's just so bloody gorgeous, Trace, and that accent and the abs…'

  'So do something about it. What's the matter with you? You like him, he clearly likes you. Jeez, after your
9½ Weeks
fiasco, there's no way he couldn't have got the message.'

  'I know, but I made such a prat of myself, didn't I? I'm not sure he's interested anymore.'

  'Well you won't know if you don't try and find out, will you?'

  'I know, I know. If he comes over tonight then I'm going in for the kill.'

  'So,' boomed the unmistakeable voice of Chummy from further down the table breaking into the conversation, 'what have you been up to?'

  'Oh, you know, not much. Still on the lookout for a job, that sort of stuff,' I told her. 'I didn't realise it would be so difficult.'

  'Oh, are you looking for work?' piped up Lucinda, who had barely said a word since our arrival. She was a small, mousy-haired woman, pale-skinned despite a life in the sun, who kept looking across nervously at her husband, Andrew. He was a big, bearded man, with the bulbous purple nose and slightly glazed expression of a serious drinker. 'Yes, I am. Do you know of anything?'

  'Well Andrew and I run a property management business, doing
gîte
changeovers in the summer, that sort of thing. We could do with another pair of hands. It's only until October but if you are interested, it might tide you over until you find something more permanent.'

  'Oh yes, that would be amazing. Yes, I'm definitely interested.'

  'Let me have your phone number and I'll give you a call.'

  I fished in my bag for a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled the number, then passed it down the table to Lucinda.

  'Please do give me a call. Not that I'm desperate or anything. No, actually, I am desperate,' I joked.

  Lucinda smiled at me. 'Don't worry. I'll call. It's hard work though, especially when the weather gets really hot.'

  'No problems. I can handle it. Thanks so much.'

  I felt my spirits lift. It was unlikely to be well paid, but anything would be good at this stage. I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked round. It was Julien. Things were definitely looking up. He leaned down to kiss me on both cheeks.

  'Hello, I hoped you would be here. How are you?'

  'Yeah, good. You?'

  'Good too. Look, I'm sorry I couldn't get to the hospital to see you.'

  I put my hand up to stop him. 'No apologies necessary, really.' To be honest, I didn't want to have to relive that particular moment of my life.

  'I'm over there with some friends.'

  'Yes, I noticed.' No point in being coy, I thought.

  'Maybe we could have a dance later? Why don't you come over when you are finished?'

  'I will. See you later.'

  I watched him walk back to his table, pausing several times to greet people from the village.

  'Those blasted d'Aubeville boys,' said Pamela. 'You watch them, young lady. Mark my words. There's nothing but trouble around those two.'

  Before I could reply, any further conversation was cut short by the arrival of the main course of beef with rice and
ratatouille
delivered by some of the teenagers from the village on old doors carried between them like enormous antique trays.

  With the promise of the rest of the evening with Julien, I was suddenly too nervous to eat. My earlier hunger had disappeared and I pushed the food around my plate listlessly.

  'Lost your appetite then?' Tracey winked at me. 'Hand it over if you don't want it.' By the time the dessert arrived, I was positively twitchy.

  'You won't make it any better by getting all stressy, you know,' Tracey warned.

  'I know, but why do the French have to take so bloody long to do anything?'