French Kisses (6 page)

Chapter 7: Operation Guest House

Rachel had lined up a gang of people to help with the clear-out that weekend. She had promised to lay on sandwiches and beer for willing volunteers and was offering cold hard cash for the Ukrainians and her children, who were less easily bribed with food.

It was 8 o’clock on Saturday morning, and Rachel was ready for action. She had donned an old pair of shorts and a shirt and had her hair twisted up under a scarf to protect it from the dust. She looked at her watch and frowned
– where was everyone?

Just as she was thinking that no one would turn up, the throaty rumble of a vehicle cheered her up. Irina had arranged for her ‘cousins’ Alexei and Gregor to supply some muscle and make a start on the repairs. The two of them appeared now in an ancient pick-up truck, ready to remove any broken furniture. Their exact relationship to Irina, much like everything else about her, was a mystery.

Alexei was in his twenties, stick thin and – Rachel couldn’t help noticing – rather attractive, though far too young for her. Gregor was a much older man, with an impressive moustache and a dour expression.

Hand-in-hand behind them came Jilly and Thierry, her drop-dead gorgeous husband who
– according to Michael – had the brain power of a gnat with dementia. Rachel sniggered to herself at Michael’s
bons mots
. He, too, had offered to help in Operation Guest House, but she had turned him down – this was her new venture, after all.

After everyone had exchanged greetings, Rachel brought out coffee and they discussed tactics whilst munching on the buttery croissants and warm rolls that Jilly had brought from the village
boulangerie
.

Rachel had decided that she was going to empty her storeroom then help Irina with general cleaning duties; Jilly volunteered to paint and make notes of how they might ‘dress’ the rooms later, and Thierry was going to join
Alexei and Gregor in humping furniture and doing DIY.

Armed with Marigolds, bin bags, dusters, paintbrushes and assorted tools, Rachel and her trusty helpers trooped off into the Big End.

Rachel headed upstairs to one of the smaller bedrooms that had become a storage room for her kit. It had – she now realised – been years since she had looked at the contents. Rootling through the drawers and dusty shelves she found broken tools, dried-up tubes of paint, ancient reference books, prints that hadn’t quite worked but that she had fully intended re-using one day. These she carefully put in a box, but the rest was junk.

“Right,” she said. “It’s time to say goodbye to this lot.”

It was quite liberating, she decided, chucking broken odds and ends into a bin bag then hurling the bags out of the window into the courtyard causing the chickens to squawk and scatter in alarm.

Next door, Thierry cranked up the radio and sang along tunelessly as he mended wobbly shutters and Alexei carried broken chairs down to the truck.

After about an hour of activity, Alice appeared from her room, looking bleary-eyed and grumpy.

Rachel looked over and smiled. “You’re up nice and early! Have you come to help?”

Her daughter grunted. “S’pose I might as well. I can’t sleep with all that noise going on.”

The raucous tones of Alexei and Thierry could now be heard singing along to a U2 classic in the next room: “
With or without you, ooh ooh!
”

Rachel grimaced, “I don’t think that Bono has anything to worry about.”

“Who?”

“He was a singer in the olden days,” she said, handing Alice a stack of cardboard boxes and a duster. “Give those books a wipe and put them in the boxes, love.”

When the shelves had been cleared, she got out a screwdriver and dismantled them for Alexei, who had offered to carry away the bulky furniture. With his dark eyes and high cheekbones, he was the male version of Irina who appeared now and shooed him out of the room with her mop.

Empty with the wooden floorboards shiny and clean, the room looked quite respectable. When they had originally restored the house, she and Michael had decided to leave some of the walls unplastered, so that the original stone was visible. Now Rachel walked around the room stroking the pale stones. She called Jilly up to see it.

She looked around approvingly. “Lovely!”

A curly head appeared around the door: Charlie had risen.

“Mum, I’m hungry.”

“There’s food in the fridge and Irina will be making sandwiches for the workers later.”

Charlie frowned, evidently trying to make sense of this information and failing. “Workers? Er, why is everyone here?” He went around the room, submitting to a kiss from Jilly and a hug from Irina.

Rachel sighed. “I told you last night. Our friends have come to help me
– help us – turn this end of the house into somewhere fit for human habitation.”

He shrugged. “I liked it the way it is.”

“You might like it all dusty, dirty and full of broken bikes, but it won’t do for paying guests.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “He is
such a slob.”

Turning, Charlie acknowledged his sister’s presence by sticking out his tongue and blowing a raspberry.

“Come and have some croissants,” said Jilly, handing her paintbrush to Rachel and whisking the boy away before he got a sharp slap from his sister.

“And don’t disappear,” Rachel shouted after him. “You promised to help, remember?”

“Yeh, whatever.”

Rachel pulled off her rubber gloves with a sigh. “I think it’s time for tea.”

Irena nodded. “I put on the kettle.”

On her way down to the kitchen, Rachel pe
eked into the other rooms. In between murdering rock classics, Alexei and Thierry had managed to empty the big bedroom of its furniture, and were slapping white paint on the walls and ceiling.

“Wow, this is looking great!”

Alexei’s dour face broke into a smile, enhanced by one gold tooth.

“Rachel, we do good work for you.”

“You certainly do. Come and have a cup of tea.”

Gregor appeared from the bathroom where he’d made a start on the new fittings. The cousins exchanged glances. “Is best we finish the job, I think.”

“Or perhaps you’d prefer a beer?” she suggested.

Thierry shrugged and came down from the ladder while Alexei treated Rachel to another flash of his golden gnashers.

Gregor nodded. “For a beer we can stop.”

Everyone downed tools and went out onto the terrace with mugs of tea or bottles of cold beer. Alexei went indoors to chat to Irina who was slicing ham for the baguettes.

Thierry had found a football and he, Gregor and Charlie were having a knock-about in the courtyard.

“I think there’s a bit of a ‘bromance’ going on between your husband and the Ukrainians,” she said to Jilly over biscuits.

Jilly laughed. “They’ve bonded over football and soft rock.”

Alexei came out of the kitchen with trays piled high with baguettes stuffed with ham, cheese and pungent local salami, salads and olives. Irina followed him out with jugs of apple juice and more beers. Everyone grabbed some lunch and found a comfortable spot for a snooze. No one was prepared to work through the middle of the day, even in November.

It was a couple of hours before the gang got back to their feet and returned to their duties. By the end of the day, all of the rooms had been cleaned, work on the new bathroom was going well, and the whole of the upstairs had been painted. Rachel was amazed by what they had achieved in such a short space of time.

The next day, Charlie was dragged out of bed to help Jilly and Thierry to paint the downstairs rooms; Rachel and Alice painted the shutters and the Ukrainians finished the new bathroom.

When they gathered for a celebratory pizza in the village that evening, it was with the feeling of a job well done. Rachel got to her feet and made a short speech thanking everyone for helping.

Gregor responded with a toast. “We wish you and the children success, health and happiness,” he said, as they all raised their glasses.

“Here’s to friendship,” added Rachel, as they all stood to clink glasses and embrace.

Chapter 8: Special Delivery

After a call to Rachel to okay the costs of framing her prints, Paul Callot had got on with the work, promising to deliver everything to her home that week. Rachel was in her studio sorting through the reference books they had found during the clear out when a blue van with the words ‘Picture Perfect’ emblazoned on its side drew up in the courtyard.

Looking out of the open window she saw Paul Callot emerge from the vehicle and go to the heavy front door. When she’d first met him at the
frame shop she’d guessed he was quite old, but looking at him now she decided that he was probably only mid-forties and in pretty good nick. As if feeling her gaze upon him he looked up and smiled, raising one hand to shade his eyes from the sun.

“Good morning,” he said with a wave. “I hope I’ve not caught you at a bad time?”

“No worse than usual. I’ll be down in a second.” She stopped at a mirror on the way downstairs, straightening her shirt and checking her teeth for crumbs from the toast she had just polished off.

Paul could hear the flip flop of her sandals as she dashed down the stairs to the hallway.

“Hi, thanks so much for coming,” she said, shaking his hand. “Do you need help bringing in the pictures?”

“Sure, that would be great,” he said, heading back to the van, which now had a skinny brown cat on the bonnet. Paul paused to give Fudge a scratch behind the ears before opening up the back.

“I haven’t quite finished, but I thought I’d drop this lot off as I was passing.” He handed Rachel a box and took a second, larger one himself.

“I love getting work back,” she said. “It feels like Christmas every time.” Rachel led the way through the sitting room and upstairs to her studio.

“Nice space,” said Paul, looking around the bright room with its windows that gave out on the garden and sunflower fields beyond.

“It was a sitting room but I commandeered it so I could concentrate on my work.”

“Good choice,” he said nodding.

They took out the prints and stacked them on the work bench.

She lifted each of them up and held them against the wall. “I’m really hoping that these will help to give the guest rooms a more homely feel.”

“I’m sure they will.”

Rachel carefully examined each of the prints, occasionally stopping to rub a finger along a frame or tilt the work towards the window to catch the light. It was almost as if she was seeing each print for the first time and was quite absorbed.

Paul leant against the bench watching her for several minutes with a half smile on his face, then looked at his watch. “Well if you’re happy with everything, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to ignore you. The work always looks so different, so much better when it’s been framed.” She smiled. “I was just thinking about which print I should put where.” She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’d like to look at the guest rooms and give me your opinion, would you? Only if you’ve got time, of course.”

Paul looked at his watch again. “I’d like that,” he said with a smile.

“Great! Would you like coffee or the tour first?”

“Tour first, I think.”

They went from room to room carrying batches of prints and leaning them against walls and placing them on furniture to see what would fit best where. Again, Rachel was impressed with Paul’s eye. After half an hour they had found places for all the work he had brought over. Back in the kitchen he sipped his coffee while Rachel wrote out a cheque which he slipped into his back pocket.

“You know, if you had a card or a poster for the guest house that we could put in the shop, we could perhaps send you some customers.”

“Could you? We need everyone to spread the word,” said Rachel, chewing her lip. “Madame Piquot is passing on her bookings for the next couple of months, but after that I’m on my own.” She looked gloomy. “I suppose I’ll have to get a website designed so new people can actually find us.”

Paul smiled. “I might be able to help you out there.”

“You could, really?”

“Sure. I set up a website for my uncle’s shop last week.” He dug around in his ‘man bag’ and drew out a shiny new postcard with the framer
’s website address on it.

“Coo, that’s very impressive.”

He laughed. “Don’t be too impressed – it’s really simple to do. You just choose a template then upload the images and format the text.”

Rachel frowned. “You might as well be speaking Greek
– I’m hopeless at that sort of thing.”

“If you can take a few photos of the guest house and write a short description of what you are offering, directions to the property, that kind of thing, I’ll help you put it all together.”

“Really? You’re a lifesaver.”

“Uncle has told me that you are one of his oldest customers and that I should do my best to keep you happy.” He looked at her with his dark eyes all serious, but she had the distinct impression that he was flirting with her.

“Well that would make me very happy indeed.” She opened the front door, admiring his long legs and neat bum as he strolled over to the van.

“Better check underneath for more cats,” she said as Fudge stretched and hopped down from the bonnet.

He raised an eyebrow but turned away, knelt and looked under the van anyway. “All clear.”

“You can never be too careful.”

Paul smiled, obviously unsure whether she was serious or not. “Let me know when you have something ready for the website and I’ll come over if you’d like me to.”

Rachel nodded enthusiastically. “Yes please!”

As the van pulled away and trundled off down into the village, Rachel picked up the cat that had ambled over to her. Everything was coming together with the guest house and she’d met a man who might yet become a friend. “Things are looking up, eh scraggy?” she said, scratching the scrawny beast under the chin.

* * *

That afternoon she decided to cycle across the village to meet the children off the school bus. Neither of the kids approved of this motherly attention and Charlie quickly jumped on the bike and peddled off leaving Rachel to wait for Alice who took ages getting off the bus because she had to say farewell to all the friends she wouldn’t see for hours.

The bus was owned and managed as a co-operative and the villagers had a strict rota for who was doing the school run. This week it was the turn of Madame Lambert in the morning and Claude le Taxi in the afternoon. It was Claude who now gave them a toot as the bus pulled away. As he drove past, Claude winked and gave Rachel an approving look.

“God, Mum,” said Alice. “I wish you wouldn’t come out to meet us looking like that. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Everyone should have embarrassing parents. It toughens you up for the future,” said Rachel, giving Alice a hug. “You can imagine what I had to put up with
from your Granddad.”

As far as Alice was concerned, her grandfather Harold could do no wrong. Sighing dramatically, she wriggled away from her mother’s embrace.

“Anyway,” said Rachel, jogging alongside her to catch up. “What’s wrong with me today? I think I look perfectly respectable.” She looked down at her cotton shirt and trousers, which had barely any paint on them at all.

“Yeh, right. Apart from the fact that everyone can see your
underwear.”

“What? Nonsense,” said Rachel, before patting the back of her trousers.

It was only then that she realised that she was wearing her favourite cargo pants, which just happened to have a gaping hole under the left buttock where the fabric had ripped and she had never got round to sewing it up. She blushed inwardly as she realised that Paul Callot would have had a full view of her rear end as he followed her up the stairs to the studio that morning.

“Oh, oops!” Pulling down the waistband she saw that, fortunately, she had put on a pair of flowery pants that morning, so she was decent. She ran a couple of steps to catch up with her daughter, who was striding ahead, and looped her arm through Alice’s.

“It’s okay, I’m wearing my best undies so there’s no harm done. So, tell me about school.”