Page 52 of Sisters Making Mischief
‘I hope we are not interrupting anything,’ I said.
‘Not at all, I’m delighted to see you both,’ he replied, ‘I would shake hands but…’
He shrugged and held out his hands that were spotted with paint. He pulled a rag out of his pocket. His hands were large and tanned, a graze across the back of one, the hands of a man who didn’t mind getting them dirty. I watched as he wiped the paint off, almost mesmerised by it.
Isabel nudged me back to awareness.
‘So you’re making progress,’ she said, ‘do show us what you’ve been doing.’
He took us through, under an archway and into the kitchen, where he apologised for the mess and muddle although it lookedfine to me. Just for once, I felt absolutely no urge to get a cloth and do any wiping or cleaning. That was a new feeling.
It was fitted with pale, painted cabinets and a stone worktop. Everything looked new and fresh. And well planned. I’d wanted to change my kitchen back home for years, the badly designed layout, the dark wood that I had never liked, but I never had. It seemed too much of an effort, not to mention the expense. And yet as I ran one hand across the smooth surface, feeling the dust and tiny fragments of grit under my fingertips, I realised that I could organise this sort of thing if I wanted to. I wondered how he had managed to get this huge worktop in, no YouTube video could deal with that.
‘I put the cabinets in myself, but I had help with the stone,’ he said in answer to my unspoken question, ‘a firm from Morlaix, who were very good.’
‘And what else have you been doing?’ Isabel said.
For a moment I was terrified she was going to ask if we could all take a look around upstairs. I imagined his embarrassment as we poked our heads around doors, looked at his camp bed, or perhaps a mattress on the floor, with his clothes spilling out of suitcases and bags.
‘The bathroom is finished,’ he said, ‘and there are three bedrooms where once there were two. You can take a look if you like. I will make tea.’
While his back was turned, Isabel took me by the shoulders and mouthed‘stay there’. I mouthed back ‘no’, and she gave me one of her looks and raised her eyebrows in a menacing way. And then she went off, her footsteps echoing up the wooden stairs, leaving me in the kitchen watching as Luc filled the kettle and opened cupboards to find three mugs.
‘I still don’t know where everything is,’ he said apologetically, ‘and everything gets covered in dust.’
‘That will settle for months, I expect,’ I said, ‘I know what it was like when we had a bathroom put in. I mean we already had a bathroom, but it was bright turquoise and absolutely hideous. I needed sunglasses to go in there. It’s not like we had a tin bath hanging on the wall, it wasn’t as bad as that. And the loo didn’t flush properly, we had to jiggle the handle in a particular way.’
Oh yes, that’s a really good topic of conversation, I thought.
‘Ah, so you know about these things. And did your husband do the work?’ he asked.
I laughed at the very thought of Stephen with an electric drill in his hands.
‘Ex-husband, and no, he wasn’t that sort of man, we used some local builders. They were excellent. They did a good job. It’s difficult to find good workmen these days, don’t you find? I’m always afraid they will take the money, and then run off with the job half done. Although, my ex-husband was good at keeping them to schedule. That sort of thing. He used to do spreadsheets. And he was always interfering.’
I was aware I was babbling on, talking a lot of nonsense. Why had I mentioned a tin bath? And a loo that didn’t flush? He would think I was crazy.
The kettle boiled and he made the tea, even using a proper teapot, which wasn’t something I thought French people went in for.
‘A habit I developed when I was working in London,’ he said in answer to my enquiring look, ‘my friend sends me over proper tea bags occasionally.’
So he had worked in London, that would explain his excellent English, and he had a friend who sent him tea bags.
He took a milk jug out of the fridge (he had a milk jug?) and passed it over to me. I wondered what on earth Isabel was doing upstairs, and inwardly cringed as I imagined it. Was she poking about? Being nosey as she usually was? There were only threebedrooms and a bathroom up there, it wasn’t as though she was exploring Downton Abbey and had got lost in some endless corridor.
‘Thank you,’ I said, and took a sip, ‘that’s the best cup of tea I’ve had since I came over. Isabel only seems to drink coffee.’
He looked pleased. ‘You are welcome to tea anytime.’
Well that was unexpected. Was that some sort of invitation? Perhaps it was.
He opened a tin that looked as though it had once contained biscuits, and then closed the lid and put it down again.
‘Sorry, I seem to have run out. So what have you been doing since you came here?’ he asked. ‘Have you been enjoying yourself?’
Yes, I supposed I had.
‘I’ve been helping Isabel get the holidaygîtesready for the spring visitors. And she has a barn filled withbrocante, which I have been helping her with. You know, making it look nice, so that people can see what she has in the best way.’
