LITMIR.BIZ

       DAFFY’S LITTLE PROJECT

      It is Saturday morning, on the day that Daffy has assured Timothy that Lady Emma Rankin is expecting them to dinner. Daffy and Timothy are in France, at last. They’re in a hire car, on the wide, empty French motorway, speeding towards a new life. Her new life. What Timothy is still calling her ‘little project’. And she likes that. It makes the whole enterprise seem much less intimidating. Plus it makes Timothy sound affectionate, she thinks, and she always yearns for that.

      She feels hungry and headachy and sick with nerves. She’s been so excited about this trip she’s been unable to eat properly all week. Now she’s map-reading, or struggling to map read, and she’s just missed their exit, again. Beside her, silently, both hands on the steering wheel, Timothy waits for her to correct her mistake.

      His mouth is still neatly positioned for that raspberry, his back is nice and straight – and he’s not shouted at her. They’ve missed the exit three times now, and he’s not even raised his voice. He hasn’t needed to. His cold silence is making her panic quite efficiently enough. She’s beginning to pant. She’s on the point, he suspects, of bursting into tears.

      ‘Stop flapping, Daphne,’ he says now, in that low, clipped monotone he reserves for wives and other non-attractive underlings. ‘I said stop flapping. Now, please. And stop that silly breathing…Right. Fine. Now, look at the map.’

      ‘Please, Timothy. Please… Can’t we just stop and then you can look. I can’t – I just –’

      ‘Not on a motorway, Daphne, no. It’s against the law.’

      ‘I mean in a lay-by or something. Please. I just – We’re going so fast, and I’m not even sure – Which way are we going? Up or down?’

      ‘We’re heading north, Daphne. On the motorway. Towards Paris. Can you find Paris on the map?’

      ‘I think I’m looking on the wrong – Is that a motorway? Are the motorways blue or red?’

      ‘I can’t look at the map, Daphne. I’m driving. Now – No, don’t look at me. Calm down and look at the map.’

      ‘Oh God…’

      ‘It’s really not that difficult. We’re heading north, towards Nantes. Can you see Nantes?’

      ‘…No! No I can’t see bloody Nantes. If I could see bloody Nantes –’

      ‘There’s absolutely no need to swear, Daphne. I told you to calm down. Calm down and look at the map. Look at it.’ He glances at her. Her chin is trembling. One more time, he thinks. One more for luck. ‘Look at it,’ he orders.

      ‘But I…CAN’T.’ And sure enough, Daffy bursts into tears.

      He takes the map from her lap and, with one eye on the road, leaves her to weep in soggy silence while he works out the route. It is very easy; only fifteen minutes off the motorway and then all in a single straight line. As they turn into the village square, Daffy at last opens her eyes and looks about her.

      ‘Oh!’ she says, ‘here we are! Here we are, Timothy! Stop! Look – there’s the bar, there! HOTEL MARRONNIER. See it? Next to the bouchanlerie –’

      ‘The what?’

      She giggles. ‘Next to the bouchan—bougan—bouchanrie.’

      ‘Boulangerie, I think you mean. I thought you’d been teaching yourself French?’

      Daphne went to Waterstones and bought some French-in-a-Fortnight tapes the very evening she flew back from Bordeaux. But what with one thing and another – passing over all those laundry bags – she hasn’t yet had a chance even to break open the plastic wrapping.

      ‘Oh Timothy,’ she says, eyes watering with excitement. ‘See – the teeny-weeny tables on the terrace? Those gorgeous trees – and the little shutters, and the church just there…And look! There’s even a little market. Emma Rankin said there was a little market. Twice a week. And on Sundays there’s a little stall selling oysters, can you believe it? In London we’d have to go all the way up to Conran’s, wouldn’t we? If you wanted fresh oysters. Oh, Timothy, love. Isn’t it just the most beautiful place in the world?’

      ‘Didn’t you say you’d bought some of those teach-yourself-French tapes?’

      ‘Hm? Oh yes, I did. Look, Timothy. Please look! There’s a Frenchman with a loaf of bread! See? And look! Look at the old church! Isn’t it gorgeous?’

      ‘Well, it’s no good simply having the tapes, Daphne. You’ve got to listen to them. How can you possibly expect me to buy you a place in France if you can’t even say boulangerie?’

      She looks at him. Drags her eyes away from the church and the beautiful old bell tower above it, just now striking one o’clock. She looks at her husband, at his moist, pursed lips and the sour, hard face he pulls when he’s telling her off. ‘Boulangerie,’ she says simply, sweetly, and then smiles. She hadn’t meant it to sound rude.

      Timothy looks away, his dislike for her at that small moment so intense he can’t trust himself to speak.

      ‘So?’ she asks breathlessly. ‘What do you think so far? Isn’t it beautiful, Timmie? Don’t you think it is?’

      And of course it is. It’s lovely. ‘It looks very pleasant,’ he says.

      ‘Oh yes, doesn’t it! I’m so glad you think so! Do you think we can park in the Square? A couple of others have. Maybe we could park next to the Peugeot…’

      But Timothy informs her they aren’t stopping in the Place Marronnier, or anywhere in Montmaur. Not today. His secretary (Lucy) has booked them into the five-star Relais des Champs, with gym, spa, swimming pool etc., about fifteen kilometres on the other side of the village. Timothy says he wants to go straight there. He has calls to make. ‘They have a beauty-salon thingummy, I understand. I’m sure

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