Getting Through It

4

Getting Through It

March 28 Not. There were a few highlights in our second year incarcerated at the Château LeBec. Not many, tho. Mostly we just tried to keep our heads down and get through it, trying to ignore that feeling that we were all being tossed around at the mercy of the politicians. Of course the Junior Drones were still in touch: that helped. And John Raice was, too, tho whether that precisely helped, in my case, is a moot P.

    Sad to say both Mireille and I had lost interest in swot, tho Grannie was still forcing us to do it. Well there was only so much one could repeat from one’s course… Never mind that! Get on with it! And make sure the boys keep up their French! And Colas had to keep on with his English, it was the lingua franca of modern business!

    Er, did Colas envisage— Never mind. He’d doubtless be living in Paris at the Resto LeBec and doing something for Oncle Albert, possibly English could come in useful. At the moment he seemed to be interested in helping with the restaurant’s security system. Largely composed of surveillance cameras turned firmly not so much on the obscure Passage Jacob onto which the resto opened (cheaper licences etc. if one didn’t front onto the main street) but more towards the adjoining Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis itself. True, the side windows did look onto it, but they didn’t give a panoramic view…

March 29 Not. THE SECOND WINTER. Well of course we hadn’t spent all of the previous winter at the Château LeBec, but more than enough. Our second round of frosty months was enlivened by—no, not by Oncle Fernand’s panics over the vines, these were normal and occurred every year—but by Grannie’s refusing absolutely to be vaccinated even tho she’d been urging everybody else to get a shot as soon as they became available. Why? Unfathomable.

    Spring had almost sprung when, fancy that, she came down with it. But she hadn’t been in contact with anybody! This was a lie: she’d been down to the village to bawl out the unfortunate butcher for supplying tough meat. Possibly it had been to start with, but no meat in Marthe’s kitchen was allowed to end up tough. I think perhaps it was the cut used in that succulent haricot de mouton. Well the bitter expression “elderly sheep” was heard from Grannie’s direction (much worse in French), so possibly it was. Naturally the shop had been full of “stupid peasants” not social-distancing themselves, according to Grannie’s own report.

    She only had a mild dose, surprisingly, but she certainly made the most of it. Endless glasses of this and that remède had to be carted up to her room, endless bowls of this and that followed, endless little dainty meals on trays followed those… Tante Élisabeth didn’t seem to give a damn if poor old Marthe had to struggle up all the way to the Pearly Gates, but Mireille and I—and Bean, when he wasn’t at work, to give him his due—made dashed sure that she did not toil up all those blessed stairs.

    As Oncle Patrice remarked for possibly the sixty-thousandth time: “If only she’d give in and agree to do the château up and let part of it to summer visitors we could afford to have stair lifts put in!” Quite. But it never had been any use arguing with Grannie on any subject whatsoever. And the château is, of course, her own special preserve. Legally Oncle Fernand’s property, yes well.

    The next stage in the Convalescence (one feels that it should have a capital C) was moving to the small sitting-room that forms part of her suite (originally a boudoir and as the brilliant Bean pointed out, well named, from the verb bouder, where ladies went to sulk.) She lay palely on a daybed there for weeks, expecting, naturally, the whole household to be at her beck and call…

    Well we got through it: winter does come to an end and even raging hypochondriacs, which was what it had devolved into, recover when it’s apparent that one’s sister has taken over the reins of the household and is ordering up the wrong dishes for dinner.

    There was no confrontation: Tante Élisabeth doesn’t do those. She merely shrugged and saying: “It’s your house, my dear,” departed on yet another healthy walk with a lapdog or two in tow.

    “Oh, I say!” cried Bean Minor in huge disappointment. “I thought they’d have a fight!”

    “Moi aussi,” Colas agreed glumly.

    Trying not to laugh, I replied repressively: “A sentiment unworthy of your advanced ages and tremendous height, my two young giants.” At which, having both grown immensely over the last couple of years and now resembling human beanpoles, they were observed to preen themselves frightfully, bless them. Oh, dear. Bean Minor was so adorable when he was little, but now that he’s lost that chubby look and is all legs and huge long skinny arms, and has that half-fledged look, it kind of breaks your heart to look at him.

    A thought which I imparted to John when next he called.

    “Yes,” he said; I could hear the smile in his voice. “Everything ahead of them, knowing nothing and sure they know it all, and looking the most fragile things imaginable, eh?”

    “Mm,” I agreed, sniffing rather, what a goop!

    “Don’t cry, darling Mel, their innocence is their protection, it’s what makes them so tough!” he said quickly.

    “Tough? …Oh,” I said slowly. “I see what you mean.”

    “Mm. Nature builds ’em to survive.”

    Well maybe. If you lived down in the country for more than five seconds and didn’t spend ninety-nine percent of your life in dashed London, John Raice, you’d perceive that Nature is incredibly wasteful, far from building any specific members of any species to survive, and in fact produces sixty thousand more nuts or acorns than can possibly be needed to replenish the species, only a relatively small portion of which end up usefully nourishing other species. Well, read the right one of the Bean’s books and you find that everything’s recycled into, um, was it elements? Or molecules or atoms or something. I mean, there aren’t just ants but beetles, but not only them, things you don’t think of, fungi and billions of bacteria too, all working away at turning everything back into its essential, um, whatever they ares.

    “Mel?” my darling Colonel said in alarm in response to the silence in his ear. ”Are you okay?”

    “Yes; just thinking…”

    “Er, well don’t, darling girl. Your Grannie may be an unmitigated old bat but she’s keeping the boys safe, isn’t she?”

    “Yes, ’course!” I agreed, cheering up. “Gosh, you should see what they eat, John! Even Marthe’s having difficulty keeping up with them!”

    And we were able to end the call on a laugh.

April 4 Not. (Tho almost) THE SECOND SPRING. Oh, dear. Grannie was completely vindicated—at least, that was how she acted—when Macron announced a third national lockdown from the third of April 2021. Non-essential shops had to close once more, the schools and universities were all closed (just as well we hadn’t gone back to Paris to study!) domestic travel was banned and the nationwide curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. remained in place. Not that anyone would take any notice of any curfew breaking that went on round the Chateau LeBec, but it was all: “I told you so!”

    Outdoors the trees in the orchard began to show tight buds, and a timid spring was in the offing. Tante Élisabeth was still, accompanied by one or more reluctant lapdogs, marching out resolutely alone in the “fresh” air every day, and Oncle Patrice, having sneakily tried to give up his walks, was being forced to walk out too. “And take that lazy animal with you!” his spouse ordered grimly. Poor old Flopsey was duly dragged out. Well I think they only went as far as their usual clump of bushes, since he was always careful not to emerge from the house at times when she was out, but still. Poor old chap. What on earth drives meek little men like him to marry dragons like her? Um, or was it, as the Bean suggested, that the dragons pounce on them as their prey and the poor things are resistless?

    “All the way to the altar?” I croaked.

    He coughed and mentioned certain inducements that cows like that would hold out.

    I did some mental arithmetic. “But didn’t they have the Pill in her day?”

    He looked lofty. “That wouldn’t have stopped that type. Well, maybe let him up there once, y’know?”

    I winced, but nodded.

    “Yeah. And that’d be all she wrote,” he said elegantly, “until the ring was on her fat finger.”

    “Help.”

    “Well put,” the Bean agreed sardonically. And went off to do something viticulture-y.

    Mireille and I agreed that it was very sad, really. And I added incautiously that I would never treat a dear little chap like that.

    “No!” she agreed with a stifled giggle. “You’d go the other way!”

    Er… Just because I’d had the two chaps in Paris… No, all right. I had a feeling she was right. But not if I could have my darling Colonel, of course.

    Bother.

    Well as I say Grannie kept on ordering us to do our swot. Nothing we said could persuade her that we’d done it all. “Well revise it!” became her favourite line. Added, of course, to: “You’re shirking!” And: “That’s enough! Get on with it!”

    It (the ordering), got very, very boring, in fact I was eventually so annoyed that I was driven to find out if we could apply to sit the exams this year, the answer being Yes, so we signed up. And in view of the effects (nicely put, hein?) of the pandemic, we could submit our last pieces of work online. Phew! So we got down to it.

April 7 Not. In late April it was announced that there were more than five and a half MILLION confirmed cases of COVID in France with the staggering figure of seventy-six and a half thousand deaths from it. Meanwhile nearly fourteen thousand people had had their first dose of the vaccine. Including us. Yes, well, a fraction of those who needed it, thanks, M. Macron.

    With those figures, when Mireille started sneezing and shivering it was inevitable that Grannie should immediately conclude she’d caught it!

    No, well: the result of forcing persons to go for country walks in the “fresh” air is sometimes that they catch a chill and come down with a streaming cold, isn’t it? Nobody dared to put that point to Grannie, however, and she went into panic mode. Bed rest! –What was that about tests? Go and find out, Fernand! Her luckless nephew, who’s sixty-odd, stands about six feet tall and is pretty hefty with it, merely nodded meekly and staggered off to find out.

    As might be imagined numerous home remèdes were administered to the poor girl in the meantime, each nastier than the last, tho Mme Corbeau’s offering was spurned by Grannie as “some peasant thing”, ouch.

    It’s a wonder poor Oncle Fernand didn’t come down with the virus himself, he did so much to-ing and fro-ing, but eventually a test was administered and to everyone’s relief it wasn’t COVID.

    “Yes,” the victim said wanly, blowing her nose. “I did try to tell Grannie it was only a cold.”

    “We know,” I replied consolingly. “It’s like talking to a wall.”

    Naturally I had reported the lot, stressing that she was sure it was a just a cold, to the Junior Drones. During the rather prolonged interval while we waited for Oncle Fernand to acquire a test kit Flossie actually phoned me sounding worried. Well you could have knocked me down with the traditional F.! Did he feel something serious for her, after all?

    I reported all I could, which of course at that stage was very little.

    “Thanks, Mel,” he said dully. “I suppose she couldn’t be anywhere safer… Let me know, okay?”

    Crumbs.

    I thought it over but decided not to tell Mireille. It wouldn’t do to encourage her too much, because there was too much against it. In the first place, Flossie Nightingale had Prospects. He came from a “good”, that is prosperous family with diplomatic and political connections. And as Uncle Flossie had no offspring Flossie would be heir to the moolah he amassed in business before deciding to become an M.P. Added to which Flossie is very bright indeed, when he bothers to apply himself, and, the Junior Drones are reluctantly agreed, is bound to do well in his intended career as a barrister. Whereas Mireille’s family is just ordinary: her dad’s an ironmonger in their small, grimy industrial town. And tho the connection with the Château LeBec might be deemed a good one (if one hadn’t met Grannie), they’re only distantly related, and rather more closely connected to good old Oncle Albert and the family from the restaurant in Paris, who are not short of the folding stuff but frankly not abso-bally-lutely respectable. As my Commissaire Raimond Martineau, a nicely-brought-up chap of decent instincts, had tried to hint delicately to me!

    I’m not saying that such considerations would weigh for an instant with good old Uncle Flossie, who’s the most genial, kindly, broadminded chap one could hope to meet—tho they probably would with Flossie’s parents, but having ignored him all his life they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

    But alas, and this is the second thing against its ever becoming really serious, one can see very clearly their weighing with F. (James) Nightingale himself.

    Anyway I rang Egg and he agreed with me on all points, but advised not to lose hope and keep the jolly old digits crossed. Okay, I promised I’d try.

April 12 Not. THE SECOND SUMMER. Well as the grapes began to ripen and Oncle Fernand almost stopped predicting vinous gloom, the curfew regs. relaxed somewhat, and by mid-May shops, museums, cinemas, and outdoor sports venues were allowed to reopen, tho gatherings of more than ten people were prohibited, which sort of seemed anomalous to us. Tho Grannie’s expression was much, much stronger.

    We weren’t really affected, however, and altho Grannie still wouldn’t let us go down to shop in the village she or Marthe went, masks firmly in place, and keeping firmly two metres away from any other human bodies. Well possibly Macron had ordained one metre by this time but Grannie wasn’t taking any notice of “that man”—unimaginable depths of scorn in the voice. Naturally she demanded of every shopkeeper if they'd been vaccinated before they were allowed to serve her, plus the health certificate to prove it, thank God she hadn’t let us come with her, I’d have died of embarrassment!

    For us the big excitement of the warmer months was that we’d instituted the long-threatened croquet lawn up beyond the orchard! Good old Louis-Marie, the gardener, thought we were mad, of course, and didn’t mind saying so, but tolerantly mowed the grass for us and lent us his big garden roller. The Bean managed to push it, tho noting the old chap must be all muscle, but Colas and Bean Minor really strained over it, and Mireille and I couldn’t budge it at all.

    “It can take the place of the blessed gym for the lads!” said Egg with a laugh as I reported on progress.

    “Ugh, they wouldn’t, would they?”

    “If things were normal, you mean, Sister Bean?” he said wryly. “No, well: a norm for their age and generation, isn’t it?”

    Ugh, so it was. “You’re right. Okay, I’ll let them slave over it.”

    “I would!” he agreed with a laugh.

    At this point another voice put in: “It’s not the sort they used to get a horse to pull, is it?” and I jumped. Carrie-Ann Fletcher? At the stables?

    “Carrie-Ann!” I cried. “Is that you?”

    “Um, yes,” she admitted. “Mum and I are staying here. Um, is it?”

    “What? Oh, the big roller! No, it’s a person-roller, but it needs a hefty person or two teenage boys,” I replied, wondering how to ask tactfully how and why she was there.

    But the Egg came to my rescue, explaining: “Mum had a fabric-art fit, you see, Mel, something about being inspired by the mixture of dead rushes and new growth down by the river—well the results are browny-greeny, but she seems to think they’ll sell.”

    “They’re not quite finished, Egg,” Carrie-Ann put in. “There’s black, um, scratchy bits, to go on top.”

    “A technical term!” he said with a laugh. “If you say so! The thing is, Sister Bean, old chum, a solid week with no hot meals and no end in sight got Dad down, rather, and tho the spirit was willing and all that I didn’t have the time or the skills to cook, and the housework was all going to pot as well—poor Mrs Terry has had COVID; she’s okay now but still pretty weak. Caught it off the son who’s a lorry driver,” he said with a sigh. “So I rang Carrie-Ann and cried on her shoulder, so to speak, and she and her mum decided they’d come and help out. And—this is the best bit—well almost the best bit,” he said with a smile in his voice: “Dad’s taken on Mrs Fletcher officially to lend a hand in the office and help with the housework.”

    “Oh, great!” I cried.

    “Yes,” Carrie-Ann agreed. “It’s such a relief. That used car sales yard where she was working in the office wasn’t an essential business and she had to go on the dole.”

    “Charming. Boris Johnson strikes again,” I replied sourly.

    “Er—not entirely his fault this time, I think, Sister Bean!” said the Egg. “But one commends the sentiment. Anyway, everything here’s rosy: the two mums are getting on like a house on fire, the office is looking amazingly tidy, and Carrie-Ann’s agreed to share my room!” he ended with a laugh in his voice.

    “Really? Hurray!” I cried.

    I heard him say: “I told you she was filled with matchmaking zeal,” and Carrie-Ann give a stifled giggle. Then he said solemnly: “Thank you for those kind words on behalf of both of us, Mel.”

    “Any time!” I replied with a laugh. “Um, you are all vaccinated, are you?”

    “Abso-bally-lutely, old thing! Dad stood over all the stable lads in person—think it was only the second time in his life old Sid’s had a jab: the first was when he cut himself on a piece of rusty old iron and Dad dragged him off willy-nilly for a tetanus shot!”

    I smiled. Sid is Mr Ovenden’s head lad, a wiry, gnarled old guy who looks as if he’s made of fossilised, twisted oak. “And are they back racing?”

    “Yes. Well nothing entered in this year’s Derby—they’re limiting attendance to four thousand, by the way—but yes, pretty much racing business as usual for the stables.”

    Mm. Well I supposed that was good, it meant that Mr O. and his family wouldn’t starve, and the stable lads would stay in work, but… I had to give myself a shake: I was getting as pessimistic as Grannie!

    No well it was all great news. I always knew that Carrie-Ann was just right for Egg! And thank goodness she and her mum were out of that dingy old town.

April 17 Not. As the weather hotted up and a warm June passed—a Newmarket-trained Arab-owned horse winning the Derby, incidentally—well fair enough, the whole Thoroughbred industry was based on the original imported Arabians! as the Egg reported with a laugh; as I say, as we went from June to July and the hot weather was really upon us. Restrictions were relaxed in what according to Grannie was a completely bewildering manner in which one could ascertain no rhyme nor reason. Words to that effect. A hundred times more caustic in French.

    Surprisingly, I got a postcard from Miss Pinkerton. School having just broken up for the holidays, she was staying with her sister in Margate, all well, and fervent wishes for similar. Oh, dear. She was a well-meaning old thing but was this sort of thing destined to go on for the rest of her life? One had a feeling that the answer was Yes. Mireille urged me to send a reply. Surely there was a shop in the village that sold postcards? Ugh, yes, lovely views of the unlovely Château LeBec. Well um, the vineyards? she ventured. Er—few views more boring than that of regimented rows and rows and rows of vines on a slight slope. But it would all be strange and exotic to an elderly Englishwoman! she urged. Uh…

    Well the restrictions had relaxed to the extent of the curfew being abolished and one didn’t have to wear a mask outdoors. And the restos were now allowed inside tables of up to six people, that was, up to fifty percent of their capacity, entirely confusing according to Grannie. Um, but did we still have to wear a mask if we went into a shop? And, um, social-distance ourselves from other shoppers? Nobody knew, tho certain conflicting claims were made. Grannie, however, remained adamant. We would not expose ourselves to infection!

    Finally of all people it was Oncle Fernand who stood up to the old bat and said: “My dear aunt, you’ve kept all the children wonderfully safe all this time. But they’re fully vaccinated and the authorities do seem to be more or less on top of the thing at last. Don’t you think they could at least go down to the village if they wear their masks?”

    And she gave in!

    So Mireille and I tottered dazedly down to the village, where I bought a postcard of the château for Miss Pinkerton and she bought one for her parents and we decided we should both send some to the relations from the resto, then being faced with the dilemma of where to send them? Because with the new deregulations— Or would it be semi-deregulations? Anyway, with the new situation with cafés and restaurants, would Oncle Albert be back in the Passage Jacob? Maybe not, given that he usually closed for the summer months, since once the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis starts to rise a little one is well off the beaten tourist track and he hates the tourists anyway. So we rang his mobile and he was still in the country but planning to return to Paris at la rentrée in September. Well the whole family had been vaccinated and since there were regulations about health certificates being required for larger venues he didn’t see why he shouldn’t institute a rule that they had to be shown at the resto. And any of “the boys” (all well into their twenties now) would be happy to stand at the door and police it! he added with a chuckle.

    Well we didn’t think that they’d particularly want pics of the château, given the family feud, tho of course it had been very, very decent of Grannie to invite them down when the pandemic struck. So we sent them various shots of the vineyards and close-ups of bunches of grapes or the wine, et tout et tout.

    Mireille then had a giggling fit and suggested I send one to “that terrifically sporty girl: you know, the one that sent you an email!” What? The dreaded Babs Rowntree? She’d haunt me forever more! She wouldn’t realise it was a joke, she’d think I seriously wanted to be in touch.

    Oh dear. Well—the Junior Drones?

    Er… Oh, why not! So we sent them the silliest postcards available with notes such as “Love from the Wine Country but we’ve drunk it all” and “Wish you were here suffering under Grannie” and such-like. Feeble, but satisfying to the soul, in short.

    Oops, in late July there was a scare over the new COVID variants and health passes showing you’d been vaccinated became mandatory for everyone over twelve years of age (a strange cut-off, yes, Grannie) who wanted to access venues holding more than fifty people. Well at a pinch one could cram fifty into the Restaurant LeBec, so Oncle Albert’s decision wasn’t going to look so potty after all, was it? In fact the word “vindicated” sprang to mind.

April 22 Not. August was upon us, the grapes were splendid and Oncle Fernand had almost relaxed and Oncle Patrice was positively cheerful… And then the Bean got a letter from Australia inviting him to come and work at a vineyard over there!

    Well! Mixed consternation and fury, as might be imagined. Thought you were happy here! It’s your heritage, boy! What’s wrong with you, Château LeBec is a grand cru and the Australians only produce commercial Rude Word… Et tout et tout.

    I must say those of us who hadn’t even known he was in touch with anyone in Australia at all were pretty well flabbergasted. Or gob-smacked, yes.

    “Oh,” said the Egg feebly after I’d rung and poured it all out. “Lewisham.”

    “Isn’t that a place in England?” I croaked. “I didn’t know he’d ever been there.”

    “No, I meant Lewisham from School: Todd Lewisham. His dad’s some sort of engineer with a big Australian-based firm that’s into huge engineering projects, and they sent him over to the London office for a while and then off for a stint in the Emirates. So Lewisham was at Marbledown for the duration. He’s got an uncle with a place in Australia’s Barossa Valley. –No? In South Australia, one of their big wine regions. He was fascinated to learn that the Bean came from a wine-producing family and issued a warm invitation. Well to all of us, really—hospitable sort of chap; I gather many Aussies are!” he said with a laugh.

    “I see,” I replied heavily. “So as the other side of the world isn’t real to the Anglocentric mind, none of you took him seriously.”

    “Er… not wrong there, little chum,” he said ruefully. “But that’ll be it, you see. Bean must have kept in touch with him.”

    Okay, that cleared that one up. But Australia? Now?

    “Listen,” I said to the sibling: “I agree it’d be a dashed good idea to get away from Grannie, you don’t want to risk becoming as subservient and, um, unable to take the initiative as poor Oncle Fernand or, Heaven forbid, Oncle Patrice.”

    “Think you’d have to be married to a dragon like Tante E. to be bad as him, poor old chap!” he said with a laugh.

    “Yes. Shut up and listen, Bean. Egg’s friend Charlie Williams from Lower Bumbleton—I know you don’t know him, shut up!—Charlie Williams has been working in London, pandemic permitting, and one of his co-workers was an expatriate Aussie frantic to get back to the family during the pandemic because her old gran wasn’t well. Well she finally took off a couple of months back and I don't know whether it was the germs freely circulating on the bloody plane or what pass for hygiene regs. in Australia, but anyway she promptly came down with COVID and had to self-isolate for a fortnight, thereby missing the gran’s ninetieth birthday. And yes, she had been vaccinated.—I know I sound like Grannie, shut UP!—So it would be really stupid to head out there at this time in Earth History. –I’m not saying it’s any worse than any other country, Bean,” I sighed, as he lodged yet another objection. “What I am saying is the bloody planes aren’t safe! Ring Egg, see what he says!”

    “You always think he’s the fount of all wisdom, Mel,” he grumbled. But he rang him, and got an earful not only from Egg but from Mr Ovenden as well.

    Yes, okay, there were dangerous new variants around and one didn’t get it badly if one had been vaccinated, that was more or less proven, but he wouldn’t go this year.

    Okay, all we could hope for, and I rang and thanked both the Ovenden males fervently.

    I have to admit that when I hung up I almost cried, looking back at those perfect summer hols. with the Ovendens, and my darling Colonel at his cottage, just a short distance away…

    Anyway I rang John and gee, he was still in London, and yes, of course fully vaccinated, I knew that. But what say he drove over soon: take the ferry, get some fresh sea air?

    Oh God, I was so tempted. But Grannie hates all Englishmen, possibly because she married one, reinforced by Dad being one: there was no way she’d let him stay with us, and Oncle Patrice wouldn’t dare to stand up to her and let him stay in their house, and Tante Élisabeth wouldn’t be willing to face the aggro of flying in the face of her wishes. And, alas, the old bat was so right in declaring the village inn an unhygienic hovel unfit to house a decent pig, the prime spreader of the virus in the whole district. Which I duly purveyed.

    “Oh Lor’,” he said, very crestfallen, poor lamb. “Er—camp out?”

    “Yes, good one, John. Except that Guess Which Château owns all the land for as far as— Mm. –No, the farmers are all LeBec tenants. Not that they wouldn’t do it, to spite her, but we wouldn’t want to drop them in it.”

    “Bugger,” he concluded.

    “Yes. Well between you and me and this here large tree down on the croquet lawn that I’m hiding behind, Mireille and I are planning to be back in Paris as soon as the vendange is over—round about the first week of October, depends whether she lets them have their celebration this year. So shall we think about getting together then?”

    There was a strange silence in my ear…

    “Go on,” I said heavily.

    “Er… still a serving officer, technically, y’know. Well, uh, can’t give you the details, but I may have to be utterly elsewhere for a time.”

    Right. Using what language, would that be? He speaks both Pashto and Arabic, plus reasonable Farsi, which together cover a fair stretch of inhospitable ground, don’t they?

    “I see,” I sighed.

    “Um, only liaison sort of stuff,” he said uncomfortably.

    And the rest. “Yes, okay, John. I’ll put off buying that new hat, then,” I said a lot more acidly than I’d intended, bother!

    “Don’t be like that, Mel. I know it’s dashed tarsome, but it’s the job.”

    Right. And the job goes along with the man, I did know that, never mind the absurd pratings of the twenty-first century equality experts.

    “Mm. Sorry. But tarsome is the word. –I’ll be twenty-two next March,” I added, not having intended to mention it, bother again.

    “Elderly,” he replied wryly. “What?” (Not to me.) “Oh. –Sorry Mel, got to go. ’Bye for now.”

    “Bye-bye, John,” I said glumly, ringing off.

    I was so furious with Fate and COVID and the dashed MOD and Things In General that since I was down on the croquet lawn anyway I seized a stick and swung it viciously… Until I cooled down. Which took quite some time.

April 28 Not. THE SECOND AUTUMN. September of course signals la rentrée in Paris, and Oncle Albert rang from the restaurant to say that yes, they were back. The tables had been rearranged, never mind what the actual regulations were, he was making sure his clients would be well separated—tho it was true that people from the quartier, i.e. the said clients, tended to sit together anyway, but he’d done all that a restaurateur reasonably could—and Jean-Louis (one of Tante Louise’s offspring) was on the door inspecting health certificates as planned. And by the by, the silly little bimbo from the quartier that he’d been seeing had had two doses of COVID and was now in possession of a two-month-old kid. So just as well the boy had been well out of it, hein?

    Somewhat weakly I agreed. The said bimbo (worse in French) was about nineteen. Well if their hormones take them that way, nothing will stop them. And in her case, as with so many, there was the lack of anything between the ears as well. –Two doses of the virus? Okay, not asking.

    The tree with the mirabelles? It was doing fine, he assured me, it’d take more than a silly pandemic to hurt a tree that had survived for as long as he could remember in a tiny courtyard garden hidden away between tall old city buildings, and yes, there were still some on the tree and Tante Louise was making a couple of her famous tartes aux mirabelles as we spoke! The fig? Yes, doing well: the pigeons had got at a few but he’d had the net on the tree. The herb garden was very weedy, but there were plenty of hands to tidy it up! –Jolly laugh.

    Du romarin? It needed the sun, ma petite, he reminded me. So I described the way that Marthe’s grows in the crevice, plus of course Grannie’s stance on anything growing in the walls and he laughed until he had to blow his nose and promised that if no crevices existed naturally in their walls he’d have one made immediately!

    “Good!” I said with a giggle. “And, um, Marthe said to ask you,”—I lowered my voice tho there was no need, Grannie had gone off to the vineyard to harass poor old Fernand, “if you’d like us to bring a ham.”

    He certainly would, and we rang off with messages of heartfelt thanks to Marthe.

    Oh well: not long to wait. The more so as Grannie returned from the vineyard pleased to approve the state of the grapes. Ripe for the picking, so to speak.

    So the pickers duly came. And once again we were ordered NOT to join in. NO, nor even with masks, Mélisande, what is wrong with you? I think the expression is “stir-crazy” but as I didn’t know the equivalent French one I wasn’t able to make the mistake of saying it to her face.

    Mireille then decided it would cheer Miss Pinkerton up immensely if I sent her a photo of me pretending to pick grapes! I thought she was joking but no, she wasn’t, her tender heart had melted at the thought of poor lonely Miss Pinkerton (surrounded by upwards of five hundred girls, admittedly all referring to her as “Miss Stinkerton”, but still, that’s hardly lonely), with nothing to look forward to but retirement to Margate (Mireille has no idea what it’s like and very little of where it is) to be near her sister who has a busy life of her own with very little time in it for Miss P. Oh, Lor’.

    So we snuck off towards the vines and she duly took a shot of me looking like a dashed fool in a pose no grape picker would have recognised…

May 1 Not. The picking was under way, the Bean reported that the local experts were very pleased with the crop, fingers crossed for a good year, Oncle Fernand was no longer looking stressed and Oncle Patrice was positively cheerful. Grannie didn’t look cheerful, exactly, but she seemed slightly less febrile than usual.

    Then Tante Élisabeth decided it was time they moved back to their own house.

    Help! Bean Minor thought that the English word “ructions” would do jolly well, did I agree? Mm: “ructions” just about covered it. Just about.

    But nothing would move Tante Élisabeth once she’d made up her mind, not even Grannie. Oncle Patrice was looking very sad when he said goodbye, so I hugged him hard, silently praying that he’d have the tact not to point out that we’d be heading back to Paris very soon. Which, thank God, he did have.

    And off they went.

    Grannie’s conclusion was the statement that she was glad to see the last of “ces bêtes.” Er— Oh! Tante Élisabeth’s dogs. None of them had dared to go anywhere near her or even enter a room when she was in it. However.

    Bean came into the common room late that afternoon looking very tired after a hard day amongst the vines and collapsed onto what passed for a sofa there with a sigh. “Well that’s one hurdle over.”

    “What, the picking?” I replied, very surprised.

    “No, meant Tante É. and Oncle P. heading off to their own home where they’re perfectly entitled to be.”

    “Oh! Yes.”

    “Where are the boys, Mel?”

    “Helping to feed the pigs, in other words leaning on the stye watching them scoff.”

    “Right.” He eyed me cautiously. “She’ll explode, y’know,” he warned.

    “When doesn’t she?”

    “Yeah. I suppose I’ll have to make the point that I’m Bean Minor’s legal guardian,” he sighed.

    “Yep. Well the worst she can do is disinherit you, Bean. Tho actually,” I said, trying not to laugh: “the château isn’t hers and nor is the wine business. Females in her day never got more than a few shares in a family business, did they?”

    “Ouch!” he replied, grinning. “That’s true enough. But I’m pretty sure she’ll chuck me out and even if she doesn’t my life won’t be worth living. I’ll come up to Paris with you. I’ve applied to finish off my course, so I might as well start straight away, tho they said I only need to do the bit I missed. –Come to think of it, I’ll have to drive you all anyway!”

    “I could—”

    “Do your Malcolm Campbell imitation: quite,” he overrode me. “Not in Oncle Albert’s Citroën that he entrusted to me, thanks.”

    “I’m not that ba—”

    “Yes you are, Mel!” said Mireille’s voice from the doorway with a giggle in it. “You’re a terrible speedster!” She came in and added: “I looked Sir Macolm Campbell up. He’s very much of the Junior Drones period, isn’t he?”

    “Abso-bally-lutely, little Auxiliary Hon. Mem.!” the Bean grinned. “You’re getting the hang of it!”

    “Thank you, Honourable Member.”

    “Not at all, old chum. Pray take the proverbial W. off.”

    “He means sit down,” I said quickly. “W. for weight. –We were just discussing the problem of how to drag Bean Minor out of Grannie’s clutches without causing an explosion.”

    “Eugh… She will explode in any case,” she noted.

    The Bean nodded. “Yes, what I thought. Well it’ll have to be faced. Colas will have to go back to school in Paris, he’s aiming at some technical course but they’ve told him he has to get his bac technologique first, so he’ll be doing different subjects from Bean Minor’s, and anyway he wants to finish off at Marbledown.”

    “Bean, is putrid old Grandfather still paying his fees, tho?” I asked in alarm.

    “Well no, but—”

    “You haven’t let John pay, have you?” I cried in dismay.

    “No! I wouldn’t dream of it, he’s been so damned decent, and God knows when I could ever pay him back. Um no, actually: Oncle Albert is coughing up. –His own idea, before you start.”

    “But can he afford it, Bean?” faltered Mireille.

    Er… Bean and I exchanged glances. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “I mean, you’ve helped to, um, do stuff with, um, beads, haven’t you?”

    “But pretty little recycled necklaces will not bring in very much.”

    Ouch. Bean took a deep breath, switched to French, and told her—well, not the lot, but enough.

    “That was why the flics came to the resto that time?” she gasped.

    “Uh—oh! That chap Mel took up with, you mean,” he said, switching back to English. “Yes.”

    “Oncle Albert owns quite a lot of property, too,” I added. “The upstairs flats, of course, but more than them.”

    “Mm. The rest of the Passage Jacob and the garages down at the far end,” said Bean. “And of course the two clubs, not that they were doing all that well, but they brought in a bit, and he hadn’t spent anything on doing them up for ages: that was why he was looking for backers, when that American chap came over.”

    Mireille was now obviously trying not to laugh. “Yes! Mel’s other one!” she squeaked.

    “Right. Anyway, Oncle Albert can more than afford to pay the school fees. And this’ll be Bean Minor’s last year, y’know.”

    “Yes: he’s grown up so quickly,” I sighed. “But I suppose we’ve been living in a vacuum these past two years, really. Nothing much to mark the passage of time.”

    “I see what you mean: suspended animation. Only with living organisms it never is,” my viticulture-y sibling replied firmly. “The vines change with the seasons, you know.”

    “Yes, but she wouldn’t let us near them!” I cried.

    “No. Never mind, Mel, you’ll be able to put it all behind you.”

    Yes. And do what? Mireille and I had both passed our exams, tho definitely not with distinction, but at least we’d finished. Well—help in the restaurant? I’d have to. I wasn’t really qualified to do anything else. I mean, a bit of French literature and the rest of the stuff they make one do for a L. ès L. don’t count for much in the real world, frankly.

    “I shall have to go home,” said Mireille sadly. “I mean, of course I want to see Maman and Papa again, but the town is so dreary…”

    “Tell them there are better opportunities in Paris,” the Bean suggested.

    “I think I will. I really can’t face living there again.”

    “Good!” he said happily. “It’ll be just like old times: all of us at the Resto LeBec!”

    Something like that, mm.

May 6 Not. Well it took Oncle Patrice two whole days and a bit and then he turned up at the château early one morning—possibly not a coincidence that it was Grannie’s day for going shopping in the village. The weather was glorious, the grapes were almost gathered in, so what about a picnic? Down past the orchard—on the fringes of the croquet lawn, yes, mes petits, and perhaps a game or two? He was sure Jacques-Yves would like to come: it would be a nice break for him! Well Grannie would probably break the meek little old factotum’s neck if she found out he’d had an illegal holiday, but he could always pretend he’d been running errands for Oncle Patrice.

    Bean objected that he couldn’t come, but Oncle Fernand said he could have the day off, so in the end we were quite a party. The cowman and his wife came, too, and a couple of their kids, and really the word “halcyon” came to mind, tho on thinking it over I couldn’t have said what it meant, exactly, but they talk about halcyon days, don’t they? Well it was one of those.

    And only two days after that, the harvest being complete and Grannie having refused once again to hear of the pickers having their usual celebration, we took off for Paris, leaving behind us lots of hugs and kisses for dear old Marthe and funny little old Jacques-Yves, lots of recriminations on Grannie’s part, and no regrets whatsoever.

    And naturally bringing with us Colas’s dashed cactus collection, which made for a somewhat spiky trip, but after that halcyon day of the picnic, who cared? With Paris in front of me I’d have hugged any number of jolly old cactuses!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendscomethrough-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/04/paris-at-last.html