Читать книгу Our House is Definitely Not in Paris - Susan Cutsforth - Страница 14

Our return is not merely a matter of cleaning and setting the house to rights. This is how our summer starts, for our rapturous reunion with Pied de la Croix is nearly tainted by disaster and a potential urgent call to Gérard to return, to whisk me speedily off to le docteur in nearby Cressensac.

I’m tired after our late-night dîner in Paris with Patrick, Françoise and Alexine, and our early start to avoid previous mishaps in missing our SNCF train to Brive-la-Gaillarde. My anxiety to avoid this means that I over-compensate. We are this time an hour and a half early for our departure. This is not Stuart’s style at all. It has been an enormous compromise and concession on his behalf. Somehow, I don’t think we will ever be this early again.

Whenever we arrive at last at Pied de la Croix, the first café in our petite maison is something we eagerly anticipate. So it is that as I pour water into the coffee machine, I clumsily knock over an enormous enamel container of kitchen utensils. This nudges a long, wickedly sharp knife on the rack positioned beside it on the wall. It is longer than a baguette. It shoots like an arrow, straight into my red Converse sneakers. I watch in slow motion as blood gushes out and floods across the wooden floor in a rushing red stream, brighter now than my Converse.

It is important to know that I loathe blood. I absolutely hate it. I am, in fact, the biggest coward I know when it comes to blood.

I sink slowly to the floor, still watching in disbelief as even more blood flows across the floorboards.

Fortunately, the only plastic tub that I have so far unpacked in my search for coffee — for we have been here less than an hour — hidden away from any mice that come out to play in our long absence, also contains a roll of kitchen paper. I gingerly crawl across the floor to reach the tub. I nervously ease my sneaker off. I wrap wads of kitchen paper round my geyser-like toe. It is only at this point that I call out to Stuart, below in le cave, sorting out our water and plumbing issues. Last year, there had been energetic digging activity from a lapin; this year there’s a disturbing stream of water from the leaking hot water system. What will le cave hold in store for us next year?

I surprise myself by how calmly I call out to Stuart to let him know I need his help. Strangely, I don’t even let him know what has happened. He probably just thinks that I can’t remember how to use our coffee machine after being absent from it for a year. There are many occasions when I am not the most practical of people. Later, when I have a chance to reflect on it all, I realise how very odd indeed my behaviour is. I am more prone to histrionics and drama than a matter-of-fact approach to a possibly critical situation. For while I may have wrapped my toe in kitchen paper, I have most certainly not ventured a look at it.

As I wait for Stuart to emerge from the cellar, I ponder which of us will examine my toe. Stuart and blood are no more compatible than my relationship with anything verging on the medical.

I continue to be surprised that when he enters la cuisine, I am then also capable of directing him to where the band aids will be located in our still-packed-up house. It is then his task to peel away the blood-soaked paper and investigate the potential damage. It is to Stuart’s credit that he does not grimace too much. I am sure he is thinking of forgetting about an espresso altogether and advancing the apéritif hour. Thoughts of le docteur and stitches are not far from my mind.

Very fortunately, the vast quantity of blood does not match the severity of the gash. It was sheer good luck that the knife ricocheted off my foot, skidded across the kitchen floor and did not plunge any further down and completely pierce my toe. Even worse, when I reflect with horror on the possibilities, sliced it straight off. The theatrical start to our summer seems to bookend our dramatic departure from France the previous summer, when our train to Paris was sabotaged. We, in fact, consider ourselves lucky to be alive. This becomes even more apparent when, just a few weeks into our stay this year, a train from Paris to Brive-la-Gaillarde is in a dreadful accident and six people lose their lives.

Still astonishing myself by my degree of calmness, we both then have our first espresso on our beloved très joli steps. I then go back inside, unpack the linen from its plastic container and make up the bed for our first night. I continue to unpack and set the house to rights for another hour or so. It is only then that I start to get wobbly. Perhaps belated shock has set in? I subside, weak-kneed into our just-made bed. I lie shivering under the eiderdown. I realise that I am about to be sick. Very sick. I crawl out of bed, across the floor and into la cuisine where, very conveniently, a plastic bucket has been left from last year when we packed up. I am just in time.

Sadly, on our very first evening, Stuart goes alone for dîner with Gerard, Dominique and Jean-Claude. Even more disappointing is when I find out the next day that Gérard, with great thoughtfulness, has prepared our favourite meal of local canard. To miss crisply roasted duck on our first evening back in Cuzance is not worth thinking about. I find out, too, that there has been much speculation and discussion over dîner about the size of the knife, where exactly it was positioned in the first place in la cuisine and where precisely it landed. Subsequently, when everyone visits, the first thing they do is rush to the knife rack for an inspection. The topic of conversation over the summer is that the next book I write should be called Murder in Cuzance. Everyone is vastly amused, except me.