A Place In France Read online

  The woman stopped talking and looked at them closely in turn.

  “You English, you buy this house, without knowing, yes?”

  “Désolés, Madame, Jen ne comprend pas. Without knowing what?”

  The old woman looked at them in turn, her expression cold, yet tinged with sadness at the same time. There was a dignity about this old woman that Flick couldn’t help but respect and feel strangely intimidated by.

  “La maison… The house eats, Monsieur, Madame. Si vous etes… If you are weak, it will know.”

  As she said those strange words, she pointed to her head, twirling her finger around in circles in the universal sign for madness. She stopped twirling her finger and pointed it at Tom. “You are weak, Monsieur. You should not be here. Go back to England.”

  Tom’s jovial, but bemused smile dropped like lead. “Merci beaucoup for dropping round Madam, but I think we’ll stay, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Before she could say anything further, he slammed the door in her face.

  “Hey, that was rude,” Flick said, her heart hammering.

  “That was rude? Did you not hear what she said to us? She just told us to piss off out of her country.”

  “No… I’m not sure that she did.”

  It suddenly occurred to her that Tom was fuming. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time that she had seen him so angry. He was breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring like a riled-up bull’s. The dark smudges beneath his eyes appeared even darker than they were before and to her dismay, she found herself flinching away from him.

  “Tom, what’s got into you?”

  “That stupid fucking old hag, that’s what. Did you find those fucking pills, or what?” he barked, pushing past her to get to the bathroom.

  “Tom!” she called incredulously to his departing back.

  He had never physically shoved past her like that before, and she bridled in indignation.

  “I’m sorry,” he called from the bathroom, not sounding sorry at all. “I have a migraine. I’m going back to bed for a few hours, if that’s okay with you.”

  On shaky legs she went to him, hovering in the bathroom door, watching as he ran the tap and scooped up water in his palm to wash down the pills.

  “Tom, what the hell’s the matter with you? Why are you being like this?”

  “Like what?” he asked, stalking past her in the direction of the stairs.

  “Like a complete prick.”

  As soon as it was out of her mouth, she regretted it. Yes, he was acting like a tosser, but he was obviously deeply upset about that old woman coming round.

  You are weak, Monsieur…

  The woman’s words echoed in her mind; undoubtedly the words that had triggered his foul mood. It was almost like she knew about Tom’s problems. Perhaps someone had told her about her husband’s breakdown.

  No, that’s impossible. Who, for God’s sake?

  Apart from one viewing of this house a few months back, they had bought here completely blind; they didn’t know a single soul anywhere in France.

  Dismally, she watched her husband stomp up the stairs, desperate to follow him, but somehow managing to stop herself.

  Leave him. Talk to him later when he’s calmed down.

  Feeling shaky and a little tearful, she made her way back into the living-room to start with the unpacking.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Three hours and eight boxes later, Flick sat down on the red leather sofa, completely wiped. During that time, Tom hadn’t stirred at all, and she had angrily wiped down the kitchen units before unpacking the crockery and pots and pans.

  God, there was just so much to do, least of all the unpacking. In the long-term, the house needed rennervating, and she had hardly given a second thought to the vast amounts of red-tape that everyone had warned them about when moving to France.

  And bloody Tom has buggered off to bed, leaving me to deal with all this shit.

  She leaned back against the sofa, wondering if they had done the right thing in moving here, her body aching with fatigue and stress.

  Her eyelids felt suddenly impossibly heavy as the tiredness caught up with her. Just as she closed her eyes, there was a knock at the door.

  Her eyes snapped open and she lurched upright, now fully awake.

  Bloody typical. The second I bloody well sit down, there’s some prick cupping their stupid, ancient face against my living-room window… Still, at least I’m dressed.

  Not wanting to disturb Tom, and because she was still pissed off at him, she had found the same box of clothes that Tom had unearthed just before he had answered the door to the crazy lady. In it, she had found a pair of knickers and a flimsy sundress with Spaghetti straps. She was still braless, but what the hell, she would have to do.

  We really must pick up some blinds as soon as possible, she thought as she dragged her weary bones to the front-door.

  “Hello!” an effusive, elderly lady said on her doorstep. “How lovely to meet you. I’m Felicity, I live two doors down to the left, just where the road bends.”

  “Hello. You’re kidding me, right? My name’s Felicity, too.”

  The old lady threw back her head and laughed. It was a lovely, genuine sound, and Flick couldn’t help grinning most sincerely back at her. “Are you a Flick, a Flis, or a full-blown Felicity?”

  “Well, I answer to most things, but usually I go by plain old Felicity. And what variation, pray tell, do you go by?”

  “I am a plain old Flick. Won’t you come in and have a cup of coffee, Felicity?”

  “Oh, come now, we can do better than coffee, don’t you think? It is two O’clock, after all, practically aperitif time.”

  Slung over one shoulder she had a large, floral handbag, the fabric material of which reminding Flick of a faded, chintzy sofa.

  She thought of Tom, sleeping upstairs, then just as quickly she thought, fuck it, maybe the sound of voices will wake the miserable prick up.

  “Of course, Felicity, come on in, but please excuse the mess, we’re still up to our necks in it right now.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, dear, I’m disturbing you, aren’t I? I was just dying to come over last night, of course, but Roger stopped me…”

  “No, please, honestly, I’m glad of the break. And I would kill for an aperitif.”

  “Well if you’re sure…”

  “I am. Quite sure.”

  “Okay then, what are we waiting for? Let’s crack this baby open.”

  Flick giggled. This woman – Felicity – had the most cut-glass accent, and she had to be seventy if a day, but her eyes shone with mischief and good humour. Even from just this brief introduction, Flick could tell that she had money without the pretension, brains without the arrogance, and an education without the snobbery.

  I do believe I like this woman.

  Felicity had produced a bottle of the finest, single malt, Scottish whiskey from her handbag, and Flick let out a low whistle.

  “Hey, you are a lady of taste, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I don’t mind at all. I like to think so, too. Has your husband popped out?”

  “No, he’s upstairs having a lie-down. Migraine.”

  “Oh, the poor man, I suffer terribly from those now and again. So debilitating.”

  “Yeah,” Flick said, not wanting to say that this was Tom’s first ever migraine – certainly the first one in the seven years they had been together, anyway. “Have you lived here long?” Flick called over her shoulder as she strolled over to the kitchen area in search of tumblers. “Please, sit down, if you can find a space.”

  She returned with two tumblers, joining Felicity who was perched on the sofa. Using an empty, upturned box as a coffee-table, the older woman poured their drinks.

  “We’ve been here ten years now,” Felicity said. “We were both teachers, and when we retired we fancied a change. We’ve always loved France, and the property is so much cheaper over here, not to mention that the lac
k of motor-cars makes it heaven on earth. How about you? What brings you here?”

  Flick told her much the same as she had told Mary and Alan last night – about her writing, and Tom needing a break. She didn’t say in so many words that Tom had had a breakdown, but the implication was there, coating her words.

  Felicity listened without interrupting, and when she was done she reached out to pat her knee. For some inexplicable reason, a lump formed in Flick’s throat – her mum had died recently of cancer, her last living relative, and she still missed her so much. There was just something so warm about this woman, so kind, that she reminded her of her mother.

  “I’m sorry, you’ve obviously been through a lot. I hope you find some happiness and peace here. You’ll certainly find a lot of the latter, anyway. Endless peace. So much peace you won’t know what to with it all.” She raised her glass. “To peace.”

  “To peace,” Flick echoed.

  Together, they drank, and the amber liquid blazed a satisfactory trail of fire to her stomach.

  “Do you know the older French woman that lives opposite this house?”

  “Why, yes, of course. Denise Dubois. Her husband died a few years back, I don’t think she ever really recovered. Why do you ask?”

  Her brown eyes were sharp behind her glasses; sharp and knowing.

  “Oh, she just came round this morning, started saying some strange things. In fact, my husband got pretty upset and slammed the door in her face.”

  “Really? The poor old soul hasn’t seemed at all right to me since old Jean-Louis passed away. She can be a little, how should one say? Full on. What did she say?”

  “She said some extremely odd things, to be honest, and she told us to go back to England. Well, she told Tom specifically to go back to England, because he was…”

  She stopped talking, feeling suddenly foolish. She shouldn’t be giving this Denise Dubois such credence by even repeating the nonsense that she had spouted.

  No. You don’t want to repeat what she said because you’re scared of what she said.

  As irrational as it was, there was the truth of the matter.

  Must be the whiskey going to my head.

  “It’s okay, I’m not going to laugh at you, I promise. She can be a little scary, sometimes. She’s always been, how should I put this, spiritual, I suppose. Not religious as such, but she holds some unorthodox beliefs. I’m fluent in French, so we talk sometimes, and I get it all, chapter and verse. So whatever it was that she said to you, believe me, I’ve heard it all.”

  Flick sighed, keen to share the burden of the woman’s strange words, for a neutral, third party to tell her that it was okay, that the old bird was just barking mad and it was nothing to worry about.

  Because there was nothing to worry about.

  “She said that Tom was weak. I don’t know, she’d only been in his company for a few seconds, and it was like she knew about his breakdown. She said that the house would know he was weak, and that we had to leave immediately. Do you have any idea what she might have meant?”

  Felicity shook her head sadly. “Oh, you poor thing, what an introduction to the village of Fixard. Denise does tend to get all thing about this house. But I’ll admit, this house has seen more than its fair share of tragedy.”

  “Tragedy? What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing that out of the ordinary, I shouldn’t think,” she said with a breeziness that Flick didn’t buy. “Roger and I have been in France for ten years, but we only moved to this village three years ago. A retired Dutch couple bought your house two years ago – apparently it had been on the market for a lot of years before that.”

  Fick’s curiosity was piqued. The estate-agent had also told them that the house had been vacant for many years prior to the current owners, and that the current-owners had done only the minimal renovation on it in order for a quick sell.

  “Did you know the Dutch couple very well? Why did they decide to sell?”

  Felicity shifted slightly on the sofa, like she was uncomfortable on this subject. “I wouldn’t say that I knew them well. Their English was excellent, but they liked to keep themselves to themselves. I just don’t think they took to France like they thought they would. It was probably too quiet here for them.”

  The woman lowered her gaze and took a big gulp of whiskey, and in that moment, Flick realised that she was keeping something from her. “Felicity?”

  “Yes?”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Not telling you? Nothing.”

  “Why did that couple really decide to sell?”

  “Look, Flick, I don’t want to gossip, and neither do I believe in ghosts. I’m an atheist and I don’t buy into any of it.”

  She paused, and Flick stared imploringly at her, silently willing her to continue.

  “Oh, very well, if you don’t hear it from me, you’ll only hear it from someone else, someone that enjoys a good gossip and wielding the wooden-spoon. The Dutch couple, Anouk and Lars, they thought that the house was haunted. In fact, they got themselves so spooked that they only lived here for a month before they gave up altogether and moved back to the Netherlands. After that, they hired some builders to complete the renovation, and never set foot in the house again.”

  “Haunted? What did they think they saw? And haunted by whom?”

  “I really don’t think we should be getting into this. I don’t want to be filling your head with all this superstitious nonsense.”

  Flick took another slug of whiskey, suddenly remembering that she hadn’t eaten anything today. The pleasant, fiery feeling in her guts was beginning to turn uncomfortably hot, the acid in her stomach churning up and bubbling ominously.

  “No, I need to hear this. I mean, come on, we even share the same name, so this just has to come from you.”

  “Fine. But promise me you’ll take it for what it is, and you won’t go buying into this nonsense. Please repeat after me, and then I’ll tell you; ghosts don’t exist.”

  “Ghosts don’t exist,” Flick repeated solemnly.

  “Good girl. Our friend Denise Dubois very kindly filled me in on the history of this house, and I suppose you could say that it’s pretty bleak. In the seventies, a family lived here; a husband, wife, and their six-year-old boy. The husband went crazy and beat them to death with his fists. And when he had done that, he committed suicide by slitting his own wrists.”

  Flick’s heart lurched in her chest, and for a second the room swam and closed in around her. It sounded so clichéd, so unbelievable, like something out of a horror movie.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said softly, more to herself than to Felicity.

  “But by all accounts, the man was schizophrenic, it had nothing to do with ghosts, telling him to do it.”

  Denise Dubois words echoed in her mind:

  The house eats… If you are weak, it will know.

  “Why didn’t the French estate-agents tell us? We have a right to know this.”

  “I’m not sure that you do, when it comes down to it. It was just unfortunate for you that no one told you.”

  “What else?” Flick asked. “What else has happened in this house?”

  “I’m not sure. It was empty for a long time before the Dutch couple moved in…”

  Her words trailed away and Flick bit down the surge of frustration. She was still keeping things from her, she could tell.

  “How many other people have died in this house?” she whispered.

  She cleared her throat, embarrassed at how melodramatic she was sounding.

  “No one has died here after that horrific incident in the seventies.”

  “But people never stay here for long because it’s haunted,” Flick finished for her. “And others have died in this house before that man and his family in the seventies, am I right?”

  The woman looked beseechingly over at her. “Look, you must be incredibly tired with all the nightmares of moving, I don’t think that now is the time
to get into all this. And ghosts don’t exist remember? I don’t want you jumping at shadows and bumps in the night just because a few weak-minded individuals have lived in this house in the past and have done bad things or made bad decisions.”

  Weak-minded individuals… If you are weak, it will know…

  Flick knew that the woman was trying to comfort her, but she was just making her feel worse.

  A sharp, rat-a-tat-tat at the door made them both jump and Flick sloshed whiskey down her sundress.

  “That’ll be Roger,” Felicity said with a nervous laugh. “I told him where I’d probably be if I wasn’t home when he got back.”

  Felicity was right, for when Flick opened the door, a slim, elderly man not much taller than her was standing on her doorstep. Immediately, he extended his hand, his smile revealing a neat row of white teeth that looked far too good to be true for a man his age.

  “Hello, I’m Roger, Felicity’s wife. Do you have her in here? I’m terribly sorry, I told her to give you a few more days to settle, but she really is so terribly nosey.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Felicity piped up from the other room.

  She accepted his hand with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you Roger. I’m a Felicity too, but you can call me Flick.”

  His smile broadened. “Another Felicity, heaven help us. And I thought one was quite enough.”

  “Please, come in,” she said, stepping backwards and gesturing for him to follow. “Your wife very kindly bought round a bottle of malt, won’t you join us?”

  “Best offer I’ve had all day.”

  Felicity beamed up at her husband when he entered the room and something stirred in Flick’s guts. Was she actually feeling jealous? But that was ridiculous, her and Tom had a brilliant relationship, despite his past breakdown.

  “Are the kids back yet? Did you fix up Esther?” Felicity asked as Flick dug out another tumbler over in the kitchen area. “Esther is a dear friend in the neighbouring village; she’s too old to drive so Roger goes shopping with her once a week,” Felicity continued by way of explanation.

  Over by the draining-board, Flick smiled and nodded as she poured out Roger’s glass. She went to him, and swept off the pile of bedding and clothes on the highbacked, leather Chesterfield armchair that hadn’t quite yet made it upstairs.