Marrying Off Mother (2 page)

‘Look,' I said, ‘I don't care about Esmeralda's sex life. I don't care if she has been raped by all the boar pigs in Périgord.'

‘Oh! Mon Dieu! She hasn't been raped, has she?' croaked Jean, his face going white.

‘No, no, no, not to the best of my knowledge. She has not been deflowered or whatever it is you do to a pig. In any case, it would take a particularly lascivious boar and one with no olfactory senses left, to attempt to rape a sow pig smelling like a high class whore on a Saturday night.'

‘Please,
please,
monsieur,' said Jean, in agony, ‘don't say things like that — particularly in front of Monsieur Clot. He treats her with all the reverence you would accord a saint.'

I was about to say something irreverent about St Gadarene, but checked myself for Jean obviously took the whole thing very seriously.

‘Look,' I said, ‘if Monsieur Clot has lost Esmeralda he will be worried, won't he?'

‘Worried —
worried?
He'll be insane.'

‘Well, then, the sooner I get Esmeralda back to him the better. Now, where does he live?'

Having been brought up in Greece where distance was to be measured in cigarettes — of little use to me at the age of ten — I had become fairly adept at extracting directions from local people. One had to approach it with all the dedication of an archaeologist brushing away the dust of ages to reveal an artefact. The chief problem was that people always assumed that you had their intimate knowledge of the surrounding terrain and so it took time and patience. Jean, as a direction giver, surpassed anything I had come across before.

‘Monsieur Clot lives in “Les Arbousiers”,' he said.

‘And where is that?' I asked.

‘You know, his land joins on to Monsieur Mermod's.'

‘I don't know Monsieur Mermod.'

‘Oh, but you must know him, he's our carpenter. He built ail the tables and chairs for Les Trois Pigeons. And the bar, and I think he put the shelves up in the larder, but I'm not sure — that might have been Monsieur Devoir. He lives down in the valley by the river.'

‘Where does Monsieur Clot live?'

‘Well, I just told you, next door to Monsieur Mermod.'

‘How does one get to Monsieur Clot's house?'

‘Well, you drive through the village . . .'

‘Which way?'

‘That way,' he said, and pointed.

‘And then?'

‘You turn left at Mademoiselle Hubert's house and . . .'

‘I do not know Mademoiselle Hubert or her house. What does it look like?'

‘It is brown.'

‘All the houses in the village are brown. How can I recognize it?'

He thought deeply.

‘Ah,' he said at last, ‘today is Thursday. So she will be cleaning. So, enfin, she will hang her little red mat out of the bedroom window.'

‘Today is Tuesday.'

‘Ah, you are right. If it is Tuesday she will be watering her plants.'

‘So I turn left at the brown house where the lady is watering her plants. What then?'

‘You drive past the war memorial, past Monsieur Pelligot's house and then, when you come to the tree, you turn left.'

‘What tree?'

‘The tree at the turning where you turn left.'

‘The whole of Périgord is filled with trees. The roads are lined with trees. How can I distinguish this tree from the others?'

Jean looked at me in astonishment.

‘Because it is the tree against which Monsieur Herolte killed himself,' he said, ‘and it is where his widow goes and lays a wreath in his memory on the anniversary of his death. You can tell it by the wreath.'

‘When did he die?'

‘It was in June 1950, sixth or seventh, I can't be sure. But certainly June.'

‘We are now in September — will the wreath still be there?'

‘Oh, no, they clear it away when it fades.'

‘So is there any other way of identifying the tree?'

‘It is an oak,' he said.

‘The countryside is full of oaks — how will I know this particular one?'

‘It has a dent in it.'

‘So there I turn left. Where is Monsieur Clot's house?'

‘Oh, you can't miss it. It is a long, low, white building, a real old-style farmhouse.'

‘So I just look for a white farmhouse.'

‘Yes, but you can't see it from the road.'

‘Then how will I know when I am there?'

He thought about this carefully.

‘There is a little wooden bridge with one plank missing,' he said. ‘That is Monsieur Clot's drive.'

At this point, Esmeralda turned over and we were enveloped in a miasma of perfume and cheese. We moved away from the station-wagon.

‘Now,' I said. ‘Let me see if I have this straight. I go down there and turn left where a lady is watering her plants. I drive past the war memorial and Monsieur Pelligot's house and continue straight until I come to the oak tree with a dent and then I turn left and look for a bridge with a missing plank. Is that right?'

‘Monsieur,' said Jean in admiration, ‘you could have been
born
in the village.'

I did find my way at last. At Mademoiselle Hubert's house, she was not watering her plants, nor was her little red mat in evidence. She was in fact sitting in the sun, asleep. Reluctantly, I woke her to ascertain the fact that she was indeed Mademoiselle Hubert at whose house I was supposed to turn left. The oak tree did have a dent in it, a considerable one, so I judged that Monsieur Herolte must have imbibed an inordinate quantity of pastis before plunging his Deux Chevaux into the bark. The bridge when I found it
did
have a plank missing. The countryman's instructions are always accurate even if they may appear somewhat mysterious when they are vouchsafed to you. I drove down the rutted road on one side of which was a green meadow, bespeckled with a small herd of cream-coloured Charolais cattle, and on the other side was a glittering field of sunflowers, their beautiful yellow and black faces all upturned in adoration of the sun. I drove through a small wood and there, in a clearing, stood Monsieur Clot's house, long and low and white as a dove's egg, its roof made from ancient tiles as thick and dark as bars of chocolate, each emblazoned with the insignia of golden lichens. There were two cars parked outside, one a police car and one a doctor's, and so I slid the station-wagon alongside them. The moment I switched off the engine, rising above Esmeralda's snores I could hear a strange cacophony from the house — shouts, bellows, screams, weepings and wailings and the general gnashing of teeth. I assumed — quite rightly as it turned out — that Esmeralda's disappearance had not gone unnoticed. I went to the front door — which was ajar — and, seizing the Freudian brass knocker representing a hand clasping a ball, I banged loudly. The uproar inside the house continued unabated. I banged again and still no one came. Taking a firm grip on the knocker, I beat the door so ferociously that I feared it might come off its hinges. For a brief moment the bedlam in the house ceased and presently the front door was flung open by one of the most beautiful young women I had ever seen. Her long hair was in disarray, but this only added to its charm, for it was the rich sunset hue that every autumn leaf endeavours to achieve and seldom does. Her skin had been touched and lit by the sun so it had the quality of peach-coloured silk. Her eyes were enormous, a wonderful mixture of green and gold under dark brows like the wings of an albatross. Her pink mouth was of the shape and texture that makes even the most faithful of husbands falter. Tears the size of twenty-two carat diamonds were flooding from her magnificent eyes and pouring down her cheeks.

‘Monsieur?' she questioned, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand to clear them of the shimmering tears.

‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,' I said. ‘Could I see Monsieur Clot if you please?'

‘Monsieur Clot will see no one,' she said, gulping, and the tears renewed their flow. ‘Monsieur Clot is indisposed. He can see no one.'

At that moment, a very large, paunchy gendarme appeared from the back room, where the uproar had now renewed itself. His eyes were as dark as blackcurrants, his nose resplendent, a rich wine red, covered with a patchwork of blue veins, and over his pouting mouth lay an enormous black moustache like the skin of a dead mole. He gave me an all-embracing glance in which suspicion and malevolence were nicely blended. Then he turned to the beautiful lady.

‘Madame Clot,' he said, in a rich syrupy voice, ‘I must leave now, but rest assured, madame, that I will make the utmost endeavours to unmask the fiends who have perpetrated this outrage, the ghastly assassins who have dared to bring a tear to your beautiful eyes. I will move heaven and earth to bring these brigands to justice.'

He gazed at her like a starving schoolboy regarding a cream-filled doughnut.

‘You are too kind, inspector,' she said, flushing.

‘For you, nothing is too much trouble — nothing,' he said and, seizing her hand, he pressed her fingertips into his moustache, rather as, in times gone by, a man would help a lady on with her muff. He brushed past me, hurled his bulk into his car and, with an excruciating tangle of gears, drove off in a cloud of dust, a St George in search of a dragon.

‘Madame,' I said, ‘I see that you are upset, but I feel that it is possible I may be able to help.'

‘No one can help — it is hopeless,' she cried, and the tears started to flow again.

‘Madame, if I were to mention the name Esmeralda, would this mean anything to you?'

She fell back against the wall, her wonderful eyes staring.

‘Esmeralda?' she said, hoarsely.

‘Esmeralda,' I said.

‘Esmeralda?' she repeated.

‘Esmeralda,' I nodded.

‘You mean
Esmeralda,'
she said faintly.

‘Esmeralda, the pig,' I said, to make the point clear.

‘So you are the fiend in human form — you are the thief who has spirited away our Esmeralda,' she screamed.

‘Madame, if you'll just let me explain . . .' I began.

‘Thief, robber, bandit,' she wailed, and ran down the passageway screaming, ‘Henri, Henri, Henri, the thief is here demanding a ransom for your Esmeralda.'

Wishing all pigs in Purgatory, I followed her down to the room at the end of the hall. A riveting sight met my gaze. A powerful, handsome young man and a portly, grizzled gentleman with a stethoscope round his neck were endeavouring to restrain someone — this I took to be Monsieur Clot — who was desperately trying to rise from a recumbent position on a purple chaise-longue.

He was a tall man, slender as a minnow, wearing a black corduroy suit and a huge black beret. But his most striking attribute was his beard. Carefully nurtured, carefully cosseted and trimmed, it cascaded down as far as his navel and was a piebald mixture of black and iron grey hairs.

‘Let me get at him, the misbegotten son of Satan,' Monsieur Clot was yelling, struggling to rise from the chaise-longue.

‘Your heart, your heart, remember your heart,' shouted the doctor.

‘Yes, yes, remember your heart,' shrieked Madame Clot.

‘I will deal with him, Monsieur Clot,' said the handsome young man, glaring at me from ferocious gentian-blue eyes. He looked the sort of muscular young man who could bend horseshoes out of alignment with his little fingers.

‘Let me get at him, let me tear out his jugular vein,' shouted Monsieur Clot, ‘the illegitimate thief.'

‘Your heart, your heart,' the doctor shouted.

‘Henri, Henri, keep calm,' shrilled Madame Clot.

‘I will disembowel him,' said the muscular young man.

The trouble with the French is that they love to talk but not to listen. One sometimes gets the very strong impression that they don't even listen to themselves. When you get embroiled in a turmoil of French citizens like this, there is only one thing to be done. You must out-shout them. Filling my lungs to the utmost capacity, I roared ‘Silence' and silence fell as though I had waved a magic wand.

‘Monsieur Clot,' I said, bowing to him, ‘may I make it clear that I am not an assassin or a bandit and that I am not, to the best of my knowledge, illegitimate. Having said that, I feel I can vouchsafe to you the fact that I have in my possession a pig whose name is, I believe, Esmeralda.'

‘Ahhhh!' cried Monsieur Clot, his worst fears confirmed.

‘Silence!' I barked and he fell back on the chaise-longue with a delicate, slender and beautifully manicured hand spread, like a butterfly, over that portion of his anatomy in which he suspected his heart to have its abode.

‘I met Esmeralda in the forest,' I continued. ‘She shared my lunch with me and then, when I had ascertained in the village who her rightful owner was, I brought her back.'

‘Esmeralda here? Esmeralda returned? Where? Where?' cried Monsieur Clot, struggling to rise.

‘Slowly, slowly,' said the doctor. ‘Remember your heart.'

‘She is outside in my car,' I said.

‘And . . . and . . . what ransom do you demand?' asked Monsieur Clot.

‘I don't want a ransom,' I said.

Monsieur Clot and the doctor exchanged eloquent glances.

‘No ransom?' said Monsieur Clot. ‘She is an extremely valuable animal.'

‘An animal beyond price,' said the doctor.

‘An animal worth five years' pay,' said the muscular young man.

‘An animal worth more than La Reine Elizabeth's crown jewels,' said Madame Clot, bringing in the feminine angle with a touch of exaggeration to gild the lily.

‘Nevertheless, I do not want a ransom,' I said, firmly. ‘I am happy to return her to you.'

‘No ransom?' said Monsieur Clot. He sounded almost insulted.

‘No ransom,' I said.

Monsieur Clot glanced at the doctor who simply, palms outstretched, shrugged and said, ‘Voilà les Anglais.' Monsieur Clot shook himself free of both the doctor's and the muscular young man's grip and rose to his feet.