Page 40 of Sisters Making Mischief
‘Now then, I have a special treat for you,Galette du Roi, for Twelfth Night. I know it’s late, but I forgot. I wonder who will get theFève. It’s the Baby Jesus in the manger, one Eugénie passed on to me so don’t bite it in half. And it’s porcelain so you would break your teeth. Whoever gets it, make a wish.’
She cut some generous slices and passed them round.
‘I know you are supposed to serve it all at once, but I am saving some for Eugénie, although she will complain I didn’t make the puff pastry, and for the boys, who wouldn’t care if I’d bought it frozen from the supermarket.’
‘You did that on purpose,’ I said a few minutes later when I found the little china figurine in my slice.
‘No, I didn’t. Now make a wish,’ Isabel said, ‘but don’t tell us what it is.’
I closed my eyes and tried to think of something to wish for.
Good luck? Good health?
In the end I wished silently for happiness, and when I opened my eyes Luc was looking at me. I had the strange feeling he knew what I was thinking.
14
Despite the awkwardness of not being dressed for entertaining, not knowing Luc was coming and accidentally revealing that he had been the subject of much erroneous local gossip, the evening had passed pleasantly enough.
He wasn’t one to give away a great deal about himself, no matter how hard Isabel asked leading questions and dropped hints about his family. But he did discuss his love of English history and evidently was very interested in us.
When we analysed the evening afterwards, Isabel and I agreed that he had been very good at diverting attention away from himself. He had wanted to know all about the bookshop, the repair of thegîtes,the imminent arrival of the new shepherd’s hut, and how bookings were going for the new season. By the time he wound his scarf around his neck and shrugged himself back into his coat, I don’t think we knew an awful lot more about him than we had when the evening began. Which was very odd and unsatisfactory because Isabel is usually very good at getting information out of people, and I wasn’t too bad at it either.
‘Perhaps he’s reluctant to share personal information because he’s a retired CIA agent,’ she said after we had waved him off, ‘or a sleeper in an FBI cell.’
We went back to sitting around the table, this time with large glasses of Calvados which Felix has insisted on gently warming in a metal ladle over a candle. This had taken several attempts because he kept leaving it too long and the whole thing would burst into flames that nearly took his eyebrows off.
I took up the thread. ‘Or perhaps he is an amnesiac, like Jason Bourne, and he has all these skills that he didn’t know he had. So he can retile a bathroom and put window blinds in without them falling down, but he’s forgotten he has a wife somewhere. She would be a spy, too, living undercover in Marseille. And I bet she is wondering where he is.’
Isabel looked excited. ‘Exactly. She will be searching for him, using a computer she keeps hidden in what looks like an airing cupboard. And scouring Interpol and face recognition software in the hopes of seeing him getting on a train. I bet he has built a false panel under the floor where he hides all his fake passports and bundles of cash.’
We roared with laughter, Isabel rocking back rather dangerously on her chair until I grabbed her arm. Which brought her back down with a bump and a crash waking both the sleeping dogs under the table. Marcel and Antoine raced around the table barking until Felix let them out of the back door. I think both of us were probably slightly tipsy from the Calvados. I’d forgotten how it felt to have moments like that, where I could be silly and say daft things.
‘You watch too much television,’ Felix said, letting the dogs back in again, ‘it’s much more likely he is a retired professor of English history who is perfectly happy to be left alone.’
Isabel tutted at him. ‘You’re such a killjoy. I think that was a successful evening, don’t you? All the food went anyway, sothat’s a good sign. Although I would have made a bit more of an effort if I had known he was coming. What must he have thought of us?’
Felix sniffed appreciatively at the last of his warm Calvados. ‘I did tell you. I’m sure I did.’
‘And I am equally sure you didn’t.’
I stood up, slightly lightheaded from the apple brandy, and started clearing things away, before Isabel stopped me.
‘Leave it, I’ll do it in the morning.’
‘If you had a dishwasher, you could load it and just turn it on,’ I said.
‘I keep telling you this,chèrie,’ Felix said.
‘Yes, yes okay. Put in a dishwasher, take away my one reason for living,’ Isabel said dramatically, and then burst out laughing. ‘Golly, I think I’m a bit squiffy. Perhaps I should go to bed.’
We spent the next few days pottering about, exploring the contents of the storage unit and sweeping all the winter dust, cobwebs and debris out of the old barn. Once we had done that, I could see what the space really looked like.
‘I usually just pull that thing out and put things on it,’ Isabel said, pointing to something under a couple of old wine crates and a broken umbrella stand.
We had lugged the old table outside. It was a cold morning and there was a breeze coming off the river. Having lost interest in the whole event and as we could only find one scrubbing brush, Isabel was checking her phone and watching me use a bucket of hot soapy water to clean off the winter coating of dirt and bird poo. And then I went to fetch some clean water to wash the suds away.
On my return I swung the bucket back as far as I could, intending to throw it over the table. Just at the last minute I realised that Eugénie, warmly wrapped up in a thick tweed coat and matching hat, had scuttled into view and was standing in the direct line of fire (or water in this case), gazing at the table, looking rather wistful.
