Fresh Air And Exercise

2

Fresh Air And Exercise

January 25 Not. I suppose it’s being locked down together that’s making little unimportant things loom so large. There’ve been innumerable disputes over nothing at all. Some of the worst contretemps arose over the regulation about being allowed out for individual exercise. No-one could agree on what it meant, tho some of us didn’t actually care.

    If Oncle Fernand was right, Grannie declared grimly, and it meant one person at a time, then the government were a lot of idiots and Macron was an imbecile (all sounding much, much worse in French). She had no intention of sending the children out one at at a time! This time it didn’t mean anyone under the age of thirty, it was determined, but the two boys, Bean Minor and Colas. Neither of them had been planning (a) to take exercise and (b) to go out without the other in any case. Tho they had the sense not to point this out.

    That almost settled that, but then meek little old Oncle Patrice made the mistake of saying that he’d assumed it meant a ban on the sorts of groups that would go jogging or cycling together. Grannie immediately demanded what on earth he meant by jogging. (She makes a thing of pretending to be utterly oblivious to anything smacking faintly of modernity or American-ness and in this case it was probably both.) Unfortunately poor Oncle Patrice then tried citing the local enthusiasts and their running gear—bad enough: shorts and singlets on grown men and women are indecent, apparently. And why they would imagine anyone wanted to see their horrible legs—! Well she had a point, there. Bean had to clear his throat hurriedly and Mireille and I had to look very hard at our toes. However, the great hoof was then shoved right down the old avuncular throat, so to speak, as he then praised the fitness and camaraderie of the local cycling club.

    Well yes, grown men—they’re nearly all men, more than one of them well over forty—do look very, very silly in lurid lycra, but they’re pretty harmless.

    What? Those disgustingly rude and thoughtless road-hogs (much worse in French), riding six abreast all over the road? They were a hazard and should be prosecuted, it was outrageous that the local authorities let them get away with it! Et tout et tout. Well a lot more, actually, but I’d stopped listening.

    And no-one at the Château LeBec even owned a bike, so what exactly the point was…

    Anyway it was so ridiculous that when Flossie called up on Skype only the following day we made a funny story out of it.

    He grinned like anything and admitted: “Mea culpa, old things. Found an ancient bike in the garage—well, you know Uncle Flossie’s dump, Sister Bean, the dashed garage is bigger than the house.”

    Slight exagg. there, but not much. It was built back in the good old Bertie W. and Jeeves days, when people who owned rather older houses than the Nightingales’ were still turning their old coach-houses into garages, and had once accommodated, or such is Uncle Flossie’s claim, the Rolls that was his ancestor’s town car, a roomy, slightly battered Studebaker that had been demoted to country use, a pretty little Morgan that the lady of the house would use “to pop into the village”, unquote, and two M.G.s belonging to the sons of the incumbent. Plus innumerable bicycles, piles of tennis and croquet equipment, and stuff to mend the vehicles when they broke down or oil and clean them when they didn’t. In other words, large.

    “You mean to tell me you’ve been biking round the place?” I croaked.

    We could see him shrug. “Well—within the prescribed limits, yes. Got bored with walking.”

    It was hard to believe: the languid Flossie Nightingale voluntarily taking exercise?

    He proved it, however: got Uncle Flossie to take a snap of him on the bike and emailed it to us. Thoughtfully one each for me and Mireille, so she didn’t have to ask me if she could have a copy. –To moon over, yes.

    Well what could one say? “He only wants you to admire him, it means nothing”? Or: “That’s pure vanity, it means nothing”? Or: “He knows you’ve got a crush on him and the reason he’s encouraging you is not because he reciprocates but because it amuses him”? Or: “You’re just another scalp he wants to add to his belt, like the scores of dim bimbos he’s always had trailing after him”?

    None of it would have had any effect: female hormones do not respond to the voice of reason, so I didn’t say anything, I just sighed.

    Anyway, to return to the last topic but fourteen, Grannie’s condemnation of both jogging and cycling had apparently stirred up the majestically mountainous Tante Élisabeth sufficiently for her to feel safe in announcing that she in any case would walk out alone. –Hard look at poor old Patrice.

    “Yes, of course, my dear,” he agreed meekly. “But is it wise at this time of year? March and April can be very windy, you know.”

    That did it, and he was completely annihilated.

    So since then she’s been marching out determinedly every day, rain or shine, gales or not. One of her tenets is that one cannot catch a cold merely from God’s fresh air and the perfectly natural phenomenon of rain. Okay, wait and see.

January 29 Not. Some time later. Alas, Grannie did not cease to harp on the theme of fresh air. Poor Bean Minor and Colas were dispatched on regular constitutionals, tho they were not to go out of sight of the house! What she meant by that unknown, as one can see the château, which tho not very large is on a slight rise, for miles and miles around…

    And she wouldn’t be watching them from one of the towers, because quite apart from the crumbling, unsafe nature of the said ancient erections, she spends hours every day poking her nose into other things, like infuriating Marthe in the kitchen—tho she doesn’t dare to lay down the law completely, because there’s a definite risk of no dinner or a vile dinner if she does—or contradicting slash condemning any business decision Oncle Fernand might have made recently to do with the vineyards and the winery—over which she has no official power at all, he’s the CEO and major shareholder, but this doesn’t stop the flow of edicts and proscriptions—or rescinding any feeble little decisions poor little Oncle Patrice might have made to do with the estate (that is, the mouldering old building and its grounds, not the wine business), regardless of the fact that she herself appointed him manager quite some time ago… In the intervals of these activities there’s bullying the gardener, old Louis-Marie, the inoffensive if niffy pigman, the cowman and his wife, maker of miraculous cheese, and the various daily helps that have come and gone. Mme Corbeau has stuck it out the longest but goodness knows if she’s going to last. At first she wouldn’t come during the lockdown but as she was only paid by the hour Grannie refused to give her any compensation, so she gave in. She lives alone, so I suppose there would be a reduced risk of her catching COVID and then passing it on to us, or, contrariwise, passing it on to anyone if someone at the château came down with it, poor woman.

January 30 Not. Well since Tante Élisabeth was grimly keeping to her régime of marching out every day, rain or etcetera, Oncle Fernand and the Bean were walking down to the vineyard’s offices every day, Oncle Patrice, swaddled in macs and scarves and sou’westers, was sadly toddling out to at least the first clump of thick natural growth past which even Grannie’s eagle eye could not penetrate (apologies to all eagles), and the two boys, even more swaddled, their outdoor garments having been inspected with the eagle eye (apologies again, eagles), were glumly stumping out too, unless it was really pouring, when she would order them to do “No such thing!” as if it was all their idea, poor little blighters— As I say, since all others were conscientiously getting fresh air and E., it was obvious who the next victims were going to be, wasn’t it?

    She swooped. “What on earth are you two girls doing? It’s a fine day: get out in the fresh air!” Et tout et tout. A million times worse in the langue française, natch.

    Virtuously I replied: “I’m doing some swot, Grannie.”

    Grabs indicated vol. Inspect, inspect…. (Vile thing by M. J.-P. Sartre, whom personally I would have had put down, yea him and all his works, fictional, dramaturgical—not the word, they’re dreadful, totally undramatic—or philosophical, i.e. plain silly. Likewise his devoted acolyte S. de B., why any woman would want to spend her life tagging slavishly after a bloke who was entirely uninterested in her as a woman, beats me. I think she might have married someone else at one stage, but that didn’t stop her, so it was all a bit sick, really.)

    “Ah, French literature!” (The old witch has never read a word of his famous, make that infamous, trilogy in her life.) “Very good, Mélisande!”

    Now, Mireille.

    … Oh God. The poor girl was doing a crossword!

    Unheard of! (Much, much worse in French.) A complete waste of time! Put your outdoor things on and go for a walk immediately!

    Well yes, a pale sun was filtering through but there was a freezing cold wind and only this morning over the grands bols de café au lait Oncle Fernand had expressed fears for the vines.

    A phrase comes to mind from a putrid English telly thing about a fat old lawyer that I once saw an episode of—not at Merrifield School, where the bimbos, who favoured chick flicks and inane comedies about bimbos similar to themselves, always outvoted me and Alysse in the so-called Seniors’ Common Room, more accurately Seniors’ Over-Scented Battleground, but at Egg’s place one hols. His mother liked it, God knows why. Tho there was a lady lawyer in it who was good. Oh yes, that’s right: Egg said it was a repeat of something ancient but the other choices seemed to be sports or unlikely “reality” shows, so we all watched it. Anyway the point is the nasty fat old lawyer, who was a sexist pig, always referred to his longsuffering wife as “She Who Must be Obeyed”. Horrible, yes. But it fits Grannie to a Tee. She Who Must be Obeyed.

    So poor meek Mireille duly trudged out, head bent against the wind…

February 2 Not. (Easter, actually.) Struggling on. Well of course in the so-called Christian countries spring more or less, depending on the moon, a strangely heathen touch, means Easter. The youngest legume remarked apropos of the English festival: “I don’t suppose there’ll be anything like chocolate Easter eggs, will there?” Well we could dye some real eggs, like they do in many European countries, I ventured, but he was right, it wouldn’t be the same. So was there any hope of chocolate fish? Bean Minor then asked sadly. Very little, I had to admit.

    The thing is, in France the first of April means “poissons d’avril”. One’s dictionary may well translate this as “April Fool”—well yes, there is the tradition of attaching a fish shape to the victim’s back and then stigmatising the said V. with the words “Poisson d’avril!”—but much more important in the minds of the junior set is the French tradition of chocolate fish. The English tend, if this info. is provided, to gulp and croak “What?” But it’s true. Every chocolatier in Paris will have magnificently modelled chocolate fishes, each about thirty centimetres long, in his window. In the village the local baker takes over the rôle, and NO, as expected, Colas and Tommy could NOT go down there to see if he’d done any this year!

    So good old Oncle Patrice secretly went down cellar and produced a box of lovely chocolates for them. Which were thoroughly enjoyed, tho Colas did note mournfully it wasn’t the same. No, nor it was, and Mme Corbeau reported there were chocolate fish this year and if one rang him up he would parcel one up and leave it on the doorstep to be collected, there was no need for contact…

    So tempers were distinctly soured.

    Grannie, however, had her mind on less frivolous matters. In spite of everything one’s Routine must be Maintained, and as it was more than time for spring cleaning, we had to have it. Or rather, all able-bodied females were dragooned into helping with it. There were several able-bodied males in the house, but they weren’t made to participate. One may well ask, in the twenty-first century, Why Not? Tho the cowed little old Jacques-Yves was told to clean the kitchen windows. He’s a general factotum who does all sorts of inside jobs from the windows to shaving Oncle Patrice when they’re staying (with what my darling Colonel informed me sounded like what the English call a “cut-throat razor”, presumably why Oncle Fernand has always refused his services).

    So we all donned large aprons (which would merely contribute to the massive pile of laundry poor Mme Corbeau would have to deal with) and got down to it…

    The Egg called up on Skype that evening as Mireille and I were collapsed in the common room in a state of collapse, so he got the full report, poor chap. But being Egg he did not laugh hard-heartedly like my elder sibling had.

    “I say, that’s too bad,” he said sympathetically.

    “Thanks,” I sighed. “Is there anyone else in the twenty-first century who thinks one has to go down on hands and knees to scrub floors?”

    “Shouldn’t think so, no.”

    “No,” I sighed. “Not that we could have spent the day getting the prescribed fresh air and exercise, because it’s been pouring, and Oncle Fernand, from worrying the vines were getting too much chill and not enough rain, has now started worrying that they’re getting too much—” I had to break off, the Egg was having a spluttering fit via Skype.

    “It’s the country life, Mel!” he choked when he could speak. “Dad’s the same. It’s been pouring all day here, too. Worried the ground’ll be too heavy to judge how the horses are doing, not to say give them a decent work-out. Whereas approx. two shakes of your traditional infant ovine’s nether tag ago, he was agonising over the ground being too hard!”

    I laughed but Mireille was puzzled, so various mysteries of English usage, in this case including that peculiar to Egg Ovenden, had to be elucidated. “Heavy” ground struck her as really odd. She got it, tho she didn’t see why one couldn’t just say “muddy”.

    “It’s a matter of the group identifying itself by its own little vernacular—its idiolect,” Egg explained nicely. “All groups do it. I mean,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “one doesn’t say that a wine tastes ‘sour’ if one’s a wine buff, does one? It has to be ‘dry’ or ‘brut’.”

    “But a wine must not be s— Oh!” She got it, and went into a gale of giggles. “I see!” she gasped at last. “It’s true, what you say, but you were joking, at the same time.”

    “He does that,” I explained. “It’s why we all love him.”

    “Hah, hah,” he said feebly. “Well,” he added, rallying, “you missed out on the fresh air, Sister Bean, but it sounds like you’ve had plenty of exercise, hey?”

    “Housemaid’s knee,” I replied bitterly.

    At this he laughed so hard that he nigh to choked, and just flapped a hand weakly at us, tears oozing from his eyes, and signed off.

February 6 Not. Continuing straight on: Bother. I hadn’t had the chance to ask him if they’d seen anything of John Raice at his cottage lately, because I hadn’t heard from him for a bit. Tho probably it was only work. I didn’t want to keep trying to contact him, it’d look too pointed. Not that I wanted him to feel I’d lost interest, but I knew dashed well he thought I was still too young for him and was deliberately playing it cool. Which is all very well in normal times, but in the middle of a pandemic?

    True, he’s not used to having anybody worry about him. Well he’s got a sister but the only time she bothers her head about him is when she wants to use his cottage. His parents are still with us, but they’re the sort that are self-sufficient. Do I mean that? Sufficient unto themselves, maybe. In any case they’ve never been close: he saw very little of them in his youth, his father was in the Army (retired with the rank of Brigadier-General) and was usually away, and his mother was and still is a racehorse trainer (Mr Ovenden’s known her for years). She’s always been far more interested in her horses than in her offspring. She’s still training but these days she has a manager as well.

    Well horses are nice animals, tho you’d never get me up on one, they’re too tall, I’d get terrible vertigo, in fact the mere thought of it makes me slightly giddy, ugh! And I have to admit that Mr Ovenden’s Lady Aurelia is lovely, the sweetest creature one could ever hope to meet. She’s a dapple-grey, now out to grass, but in her day a Derby runner-up. But preferring horses, however sweet-natured, to one’s own darling little boy? Which I know he was, because altho his mother never bothered with snaps of the younger generation his granny did and he’s inherited the family album, which is at his cottage. When he smiles you can still see that round-faced, sweet little boy in him…

    Bother.

February 7 Not. Still struggling on. Condemnation of Marthe’s “boring” menus was Grannie’s next obsession—tho all are obsessive.

    “But madame, if one has killed a pig…”

    “I’m sick of the sound of that word!” she screamed. “I don’t wish to see another dish of pork on the menu! T’entends?”

    Well yes, poor Marthe understood, all right, but what could she do about it? The butcher in the village hadn’t had decent meat for weeks. And if one killed a hen there would be fewer eggs, wouldn’t there? She did make that point, she’s more than capable of standing up to Grannie, at need.

    This was rubbish, no-one had suggested killing a hen! We would have some game! And she marched out of the kitchen with a martial light in her eye.

    I was just sitting there quietly chopping vegetables, hoping to be unnoticed. I eyed Marthe warily.

    “If you ask me,” the redoubtable old cook said grimly: “she was just about to say ‘Kill a hen!’”

    “Yes!” I choked ecstatically.

    Marthe smiled grimly and added: ‘”Where is the game going to come from? It isn’t the game season.”

    This was true, but would it stop Grannie?

    … No, it wouldn’t.

    “Get out there, Patrice! Are you capable of handling a shot-gun or not?”

    “But it’s not the season,” the poor little man quavered.

    “Rubbish! What do one or two birds or hares the less matter? Get on with it! And take that girl;”—glare at me—“she’s been lurking indoors stuffing over her books again!”

    In her wake I ventured: “I don’t mind coming, Oncle Patrice, but I won’t be any use.”

    “I know, mon chéri,” he sighed. “Never mind, just hold a gun and look useful until we’re out of her sight.”

    Well I have no objection to shooting the native fauna provided it’s to eat them and not merely for so-called “sport”. So I donned the appropriate glad rags and toddled out with him and his old dog, who is frankly useless as a gun-dog but looks good in the rôle. We saw a few ducks but old Flopsey, if he retrieved them at all, would probably eat them and they’re hard to hard to hit because they can fly.

    In what had once been the preserves (it is the English word), but were now rather wild and overgrown because Grannie’s too mean to pay a gamekeeper, we disturbed plenty of pheasants, but Oncle Patrice said that he didn’t really want to try for them, for one thing there was the lack of a gun-dog and for another—

    “Yes, I know,” I said sympathetically. “They fly.”

    “Yes, but not just that: I always think of the poor little chicks left to starve without their mother,” he said sadly.

    Help.

    Well those colourful ones with the long decorative tails, I was pretty sure, weren’t mothers, but I tactfully didn’t say so, just squeezed his arm, and we wandered on.

    Finally he admitted glumly: “Louis-Marie was saying there are hares over towards the grain fields. I suppose we could head over there. Well they should be hung, of course, and I think she wants something for tonight, but I dare say Marthe can do something with them if I do manage to shoot any.”

    “Ye-es…”

    “Don’t you think?” he asked in alarm.

    “Yes, of course, Oncle Patrice! No, I was just wondering if there were any of those nice tins of pâté de lièvre in the cellar…”

    He gulped. “She’d never believe that!”

    She Who Must Be Obeyed doesn’t think that people are going to disobey her, tho.

    “Well if the worst comes to the worst Marthe could give it a go, and if she spots it, tell her she was just serving it up because Madame was so sick of pork meat!”

    He laughed so much, bless him, that he nearly dropped his gun.

    Out near the grain fields, I think mostly wheat, I took up the appropriate posish., looking useful in a quiet sheltered spot where I’d be out of the way, and Oncle Patrice and the gun found a spot to lurk in hiding, having prudently left Flopsey with me: he’d eat a hare, too, so long as he didn’t have to catch it himself. Well like most of us, really!

    He got two and then after a long wait, during which I sipped from the thermos dear old Marthe had provided and ate a chunk of baguette sandwiched with—hah, hah, pork meat—ham from one of our own pigs, and Flopsey ate the other chunk of sandwich, greedy old brute, as I say, after a long wait he got two more.

    So we were able to return in triumph to the château. Where the mere notion of eating the hares tonight was soundly rubbished by Grannie, certain jaws dropping in disbelief as she did so, and they were skinned, cleaned and hung overnight, no longer, this wasn’t England, thank you, and we do not want our game reeking!

    First thing in the morning Marthe rescued them and drowned them in a bottle or two of Château LeBec. Possibly not one of the best years but I for one didn’t ask.

February 11 Not. Continuing straight on: The result was glorious, of course, tho Grannie didn’t bother to praise it, the mean-minded old hag.

    We had a Junior Drones get-together on Zoom next day so we were able to report fully. And much envy was expressed.

    It being Sunday Bean was off the bally old leash for once and noted in his usual tactless way: “Nothing to stop you getting out and bagging a hare or two, is there, Egg?”

    “Well two things, old chap,” Egg replied. “One, the guns belong to Henry, and two, the entire countryside would choke to death if one shot game at this season, abso-bally-lutely not the done thing, y’know!”

    “No well,” Bean admitted with a grin: “it’s not the done thing here either, tho between you and me it doesn’t stop old Louis-Marie and some of his more nefarious pals!”

    The boys were with us this time, it being only mid-afternoon, so once this had been translated for Colas he pointed out, very puzzled: “But one doesn’t get game in the shops at home until the autumn.”

    “That’s the point, mon chou,” I explained.

    “So Grannie’s done the wrong thing?” he fumbled.

    “Yes, but she doesn’t care.”

    He nodded thoughtfully. “Oncle Albert was right about her.”

    Somehow this struck a chord and the Junior Drones laughed their heads off, and applauded him loudly with cries of “Well said, Colas!” and “Spot-on, old chum!” and “Jolly good, Auxiliary Chela!” and Colas, who’d been looking a bit down, as our English was too fast for him, perked up amazingly.

    And we all had a lovely chat and exchanged nothings, because all anyone except Egg was able to do was read or swot, play board games, reject what was on the telly, and of course get what fresh air and exercise was poss.’, given the circs. But it was lovely to see them all again.

    Unfortunately the pleasure of this encounter didn’t percolate to my subconscious and I had the most extraordinary dream that night in which “mad March hares”, I think it was Crumpy who’d used the phrase, were trying to cart Oncle Patrice off in a huge basket in which they’d been lugging giant painted Easter eggs…

    Oh dear. But it couldn’t possibly have been the last of that civet de lièvre which Marthe had surreptitiously let us have for a late supper, could it?

    No, well: call it the hares’ revenge! And given everything, one could have been having much worse dreams, couldn’t one?

Next chapter:

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