Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette (2 page)

  'There's a whole houseful of old-fashioned stuff there,' said the farmer, carrying on oblivious. 'Buffets, cupboards, beds, dressers, armoires – you name it.'

  'Who did this?' Serge was trying to control himself, but his voice had a hysterical edge to it. 'Tell me, my good man, why exactly is this furniture in pieces?'

  'They were so big we couldn't get most of them through the doors,' said the farmer, unfazed. 'Me and my son knocked out all the little wooden pegs and dismantled them. Don't worry, every bit is still there. We've even got all the little pegs in a bag somewhere; I'm sure I can find them for you.'

  Serge was trying to come to terms with the shock he was experiencing, gazing up at the piles in disbelief. He pulled the edge of a door that was sticking out and it wobbled precariously, threatening to topple down on him. Stepping back, he eyed it apprehensively. 'I suppose if all the bits are there we can put them back together again.'

  He was reassessing the situation. He began to examine sections in a smaller pile, one by one, turning them over to see if he could work out what they were exactly, throwing up clouds of dust as he pulled them about. 'I'll just go and clean myself up a bit,' said the old boy, examining his bloodied hands. 'You can think about what you want to do.'

  He went back out into the yard and there was the sound of a tap running and water sluicing about. Serge wiped sweat and dust from out of his eyes. 'OK, when I first saw this pile of junk I was disappointed. But look here…' he pulled at a heavy walnut door. 'This is the front of a Louis XV armoire. If the rest of it's here, like the old boy says, then we can reassemble it, oil it up and give it a few coats of wax. No one will ever know. Some of this stuff is eighteenth-century. There are loads of doors, cornices and legs. There could be as many as five or six armoires here. I could sell each one for about fifteen thousand francs [roughly £1,500 – Serge still did all his calculations in francs despite the introduction of the euro]. So you don't need to be much of a mathematician to calculate that there's a small fortune's worth here.'

  The reality of what he had stumbled on was beginning to get through. 'This can't be it, can it, Johnny, the moment I've dreamed of, the day God smiles on me and makes me a rich man?'

  I didn't have a chance to answer him. The farmer had returned and was standing in the doorway waiting for our verdict with an expectant look on his face. 'Well, yes, this could be of some use, I suppose,' said Serge, instantly changing his deportment to one of pessimistic disinterest. 'But it's all a bit far gone, to be truthful. I'm not sure what we could do with it. We might end up burning most of it.'

  The farmer held out a small cloth bag. 'Here are the pegs,' he said. 'I knew I had them somewhere.'

  'Me and my colleague here, we'll shift all this junk ourselves,' said Serge. 'Load it up and get it off your property today for no charge whatsoever. How does that sound?'

  The farmer looked disappointed. 'OK. Look.' Serge pulled out the wad of notes and peeled off some twenties. 'Take this… one hundred euros. That should about cover it.'

  The farmer didn't move. 'A lot of this furniture has got sentimental value to me and my family. I grew up with it. It's like old friends in a way.'

  'All right then, to save any argument…' Serge peeled off four fifties. 'Here, take this – two hundred euros, and that's my final offer. It's not worth us bothering for any more than that.'

  The farmer's face went blank. He shuffled his feet and looked back outside to where his pig was waiting. I picked up from him a strong impression that we had outstayed our welcome.

  Serge looked irritated. 'All right, I'm not an unreasonable man. So how much do you want for it, bearing in mind that it's all in bits?'

  The farmer turned back to us, deadpan. 'I couldn't take less than one thousand euros.'

  Serge looked like he'd been slapped in the face. 'One thousand euros!' He attempted a mocking laugh but it stuck in his throat and came out more like a cry of pain. He turned to me with a theatrical expression of disbelief, as if asking me to verify how ludicrous it was. His face was white, drained of all blood. I could sense a mixture of battling emotions, as his habitual tightness fought against his greed to possess this potential goldmine of highly desirable furniture. Finally the greed won. He began to peel off a string of fifties. 'OK, let's not quibble about this. Call it five hundred and you've got yourself a deal.'

  The farmer put his hands behind his back. 'A thousand or nothing. My ancestors scrimped and saved to buy all this. I'd be betraying the traditions of my family if I took less.'

  Serge was flabbergasted: he clearly had not expected this sort of resistance. Teetering on the edge, he was unwilling to concede but tempted by the huge profit he hoped to make. The end was inevitable. He caved in.

  'All right, but against my better judgement.' He looked sick. 'Here you go then, one thousand.' He grimaced as he slapped the last few notes into the farmer's hand. The old boy carefully recounted the money and then folded it up into a wad and placed it in his shirt top pocket.

  'You'll have to excuse me, but…'

  'You need to get back to your pig, I know,' said Serge.

  The farmer smiled and tapped his top pocket. He gave me a wink and went out, leaving us to it. Serge was in a state of shock.

  'Did I just hand over a wad of money to that old peasant?' He shook his head as if trying to clear his brain. 'For God's sake don't tell anyone about this. I must be losing my touch.'

  'But you reckoned this stuff is worth a fortune,' I reminded him. 'Surely your conscience will be clearer now you've paid a fairer price.'

  'Conscience? What's that got to do with it? Conscience? This is business. And besides, I don't think I've got a conscience, or not that I ever noticed.'

  He pocketed what was left of his money and I followed him out to fetch the van. We pulled it round the front of the barn and began to load up. Some of the pieces of furniture were so heavy we puffed and blew as we staggered under their weight. I could see now why the farmer and his son had knocked them to bits. In their original form they would have been virtually impossible to shift.

  The van was soon full and groaning under the burden of the heavy oak and walnut sides and doors. We drove to Serge's place, unloaded it and stopped for a quick lunch. When we got back to the farm the family were nowhere to be seen. Most of the pig had vanished. There was just the head, the neck and a couple of haunches left in the trough. All the innards had gone, no doubt salted away for further preparation. The dog had disappeared as well. His chain hung empty from the barn wall. I prayed his slavering jaws were chewing on a tasty piece of piggy somewhere and he'd be too preoccupied to spring out and bite us.

  The dust had settled in the tumbledown outbuilding and although the remaining pile of furniture still looked pretty daunting, the end was in sight. 'Another van load should do it,' said Serge, spitting on his hands.

  We sorted through the remaining oak boards and pieces and I kept a weather eye out for the German shepherd. I couldn't imagine the farmer letting a dangerous dog loose to roam about, but I wasn't entirely convinced. There was a fruitwood door with worn brass hinges leaning against the wall. This lifted Serge's spirits somewhat. He reckoned it was part of an eighteenth-century buffet that, once reassembled, could be worth at least double what he'd paid out.

  When we lifted it up to pack it in the van, I noticed an oval opening in the wall with a crumbling brick surround and rusting iron bars. It appeared to be some sort of cellar and I got a shock when something moved deep down in the darkness. For one terrible moment I thought this might be where the dog was kept when he wasn't out on the chain frightening people. But then two hands grasped the bars and a face materialised. It was wild and grubby, framed in a shock of dark curly hair. Two brown eyes looked into mine. I blinked, and the face was gone.

'Come on, let's get this last lot finished and we can call it a day.' Serge had come back in from loading. I pointed at the hole in the wall.

  'Yes, yes, it's a cattle window,' he said, matter-of-factly. 'The peasants probably kept a few cows down there separated from the goats or whatever up here – the window was there so they could munch away at the straw through the bars.'

  'There's someone in there.' He looked at me as if he hadn't understood. 'I saw someone… a face.'

  Serge grinned at me as if I was joking about. 'It's probably one of the kids playing down there. Come on.' He grasped a heavy oak board. 'Grab the other end of this and we'll press on. We haven't got all day.'

  I ignored him, bending down close to the bars and peering through. 'Believe me, it's nothing,' he said. 'You're seeing things, my friend.'

  I picked up the board with him and we plonked it in the back of the van. But I couldn't stop thinking about the face. I hurried back inside just in time to catch the twinkle of a pair of eyes and see two hands slip away from the bars again. Serge, who was close behind me, had seen them too. 'Do you know what, I think you may be right. How very strange.'

  We made a circuit of the barn and discovered a heavily bolted locked door on the far side. 'This is a bit unusual,' said Serge. 'I've never known outbuildings locked like this unless there's a dangerous animal inside. Look, it's really none of our business. I'm sure there's some perfectly sensible explanation. Let's just finish loading up and get out of here.'

  'How can you say that? If someone is shut in down there they need our help. We can't ignore this.'

  'Just watch me,' said Serge. 'Listen, British, strange things go on in the country. If we took notice of every odd thing we came across, we'd never get anything done.'

  He led the way back into the barn and began to sort through the pieces. I couldn't take my eyes off the barred window. As we lifted another heavy section of furniture the face reappeared. We both stood straining but unable to move, fascinated. There was no mistaking the fear in the eyes. I looked at Serge and we slowly lowered the piece. When I looked back the face had gone. Serge shook his head and we carried on. We managed to get all the rest of the bits in the van. Serge slammed the back doors shut. 'We've got to do something about that poor devil,' I said. 'I couldn't live with myself otherwise.'

  'I'm not sure we should interfere,' said Serge. 'Let's just forget the whole thing.'

  'Someone's shut in down there,' I said. 'I'm going to get him out and if you're not prepared to help me, that's just too bad.'

  I went round to the locked door and after a short search managed to find a key hanging from a length of baler twine on a rusty nail in one of the beams. When I tried it in the padlock it opened with a click. Serge had joined me. His curiosity had overridden his desire to make a quick getaway. We shot back the bolt, pulled open the heavy barn door and peered in. It was dark as a wolf's mouth in there. Just a soft glow of light from the barred window. Serge stepped over the threshold. 'Hello, it's only us. Come out, we won't hurt you.'

  Considering whoever was in there hadn't the faintest idea who we were, I doubted very much they'd be reassured. We stood listening, peering into the darkness. Finally, Serge lost patience. 'See, there's no one there. It was just one of the kids.'

  As he went to pull the barn door shut, there was a sudden rustle in the straw, a thump against the wood and a figure burst out, pushing past, almost knocking us over. It zigzagged across the yard, crouching low, hair bouncing round its shoulders leaving in its wake a distinctive whiff of unwashed body odour. We watched it leap a gate into a nearby field, run up towards some woodland and disappear from sight.

  We stood stunned. The only sound was the gentle cooing of pigeons in the rafters. 'Rude bugger,' said Serge. 'Not much of a conversationalist. I warned you not to interfere, Johnny.'

  'We ought to talk to the farmer,' I said. 'Find out what's going on. Why would anyone be locked in a barn like that?'

  'Like I said, it's none of our business,' said Serge.

  We got back in the van and drove across the deserted yard and out through the gates. 'I think we should let someone know about what's happened,' I said. 'Maybe call in at the nearest
gendarmerie
and tell them what we saw.'

  'You must be mad,' said Serge, shuddering. 'We never go to the gendarmes about anything… ever! Believe me, it's asking for trouble.'

  We had entered the main street of the nearest village and a 'GENDARMERIE' sign came into view. 'Pull up outside,' I said. 'I'm going to report it.'

  'I honestly don't think we should. It's madness to put your head above the parapet and draw attention to yourself.'