Not even when, a mere fortnight after Luc delivered his sanctimonious dossier, the commissioner transferred him to Cognac.
“You’ll like the South,” Luc said confidently, as their train pulled away. “Twice as much sunshine, warmer summers, better winters—”
“Better theatres, Luc? Will they have better street cafés and shops? Will they get subtitled versions of On the Waterfront, do you think?” By all accounts, it was set to scoop an Oscar. “Will they have better parks? Better gardens? Women in peignoirs leaning over the balconies, calling obscenities to men in the street?”
He looked at her beneath lowered lids as the train chugged through the forests of Rambouillet. “You never liked Montmartre.”
“It had life,” she retorted. “It had character and substance, it was always noisy, colourful, constantly changing—”
Marie-Claude broke off. Why was she referring to these things in the past tense? For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t as though she wasn’t going back! No, no, once she’d seen Luc settled in (she owed him that) she would start a new life. A new life with a man who appreciated art, the cinema, fashion, and fun. Someone who liked dancing, for sure!
“I’ll bet they’ve never heard of Perry Como in Cognac.”
“You can probably count yourself lucky if they’ve heard of Bing Crosby,” he murmured behind his guidebook. “But this is promotion, Marie-Claude. We’re lucky to get it. Do you want to look through this, by the way?”
Marie-Claude shook her head. She’d seen enough of those vines and flat-bottomed boats from upside down, thank you.
“We’ll be able to afford a house of our own instead of a poky apartment on the fifth floor where you can hear everything that happens next-door. We’re close to the seaside, and I’ll bet the air’s better, too.”
There was nothing wrong with the air in the Rue du Roc, she wanted to say, but his nose was back in the pamphlet and, as Orleans rumbled past, she stroked the hat in her lap. Such a jaunty little number, as well. Très Audrey Hepburn, with just a dash of Ava Gardner. She sighed and closed her eyes. By the time she got a chance to wear it again, it would either have too many feathers or too few, and who would be seen dead wearing green for next season? At Tours, the only other couple in the carriage got off and an old woman with a runny nose got in.
“Amazing,” Luc said, turning the page of his paper to avoid creasing it. “It says here construction’s under way on the St. Lawrence Seaway that’ll allow deep-draught ships direct access to the rich industrials of the Great Lakes. Direct access. Can you imagine?”
Marie-Claude switched off. Her husband was clever, conscientious, honourable, but dull. Handsome, rugged, muscular, and tall, yet he lacked passion where it really counted. And now, it seemed, he was a failure into the bargain.
At Angoulême they changed trains.
She blamed herself for marrying him.
A week later, the vineyards around Cognac sprang into leaf and an Englishman called Bannister ran a mile in under four minutes. Less than two months down the line, once the vines had been pruned and tied back, an Australian beat the Englishman’s record, but by the time the summer sun was swelling the grapes on the hillsides, the Englishman had once again reclaimed his crown in Vancouver, Little Mo’s tennis career was cut short by a riding accident, and a pair of Italians were the first climbers to reach the peak of K2. These things seemed to excite everyone except Marie-Claude, but it didn’t matter, because she kept herself busy making the house nice for Luc.
It was pleasantly located in the old quarter, halfway between the chateau and the covered market, where the streets were narrow, hilly, twisting, and cobbled, and the houses built of thick stone to keep them cool in summer, retain heat in the winter, and with fireplaces large enough to secrete a small army. But an old man had lived alone here for the past twenty years and she was damned if she’d be accused of leaving her husband to a place which looked (and smelled) like a pigsty.
A week’s scrub with carbolic transformed it no end, but the shutters could use a coat or three of paint and although she’d considered returning to Paris in August, the weather was perfect for strolls along the towpath, and whilst Marie-Claude knew of lots of people who didn’t bother with curtains and just used the shutters, Luc worked so hard that the very least he deserved, if he wasn’t to have a decent dinner waiting on the table, was to be able to pore over his paperwork in a house that was cosy. One or two rooms, that was all. Bedroom. Salon. Enough to lend a bit of warmth and character where it mattered the most.
By the time workers had been drafted in for the harvest and Pope Pius X had been canonised, the Algerians had started a guerrilla war against their French protectors, “This Ole House” was on everyone’s lips, and Marie-Claude had run up another pair of drapes, this time for the kitchen, and accepted the offer of part-time work in an upmarket dress shop.
“I’ll be late tonight,” Luc announced one lunchtime, as he washed his hands in the sink. Close-by, the bells of St. Leger pealed merrily. “The proprietor of one of the smaller cognac houses has been murdered.”
Marie-Claude laid the cassoulet on the table and lifted the lid. “Good.”
“Good?” He chuckled as he sniffed appreciatively through the steam. “Some poor woman has been battered over the head and all you can say is ‘good’?”
“Not good that she’s dead.” She heaped his plate. “Good that you’ve got some proper detective work to do at last.”
All he’d been called upon to investigate over the past five months had been robbery, the inevitable smuggling, and once, right at the beginning, an art theft that turned out to be a simple insurance fraud. Luc was a first-rate detective and at last this would give him something to sink his teeth into. In fact, with such a high-profile case demanding his attention, Marie-Claude doubted he’d notice she’d left, although she might as well wait until the warm weather ended. Paris was desperately wet in October.
“Marie-Claude, this duck is delicious.”
It was the market, she explained, scraping out the dish for him. So close it made shopping each day easy, and you could buy the freshest produce without it having been hanging around in vans for several days as it made its way slowly upcountry. Luc shot a covetous glance at the second pot on the stove.
“Tomorrow?”
“Certainly not!” Tomorrow she was planning coq au vin. “I made that for Suzette next-door. Her husband died last year from an accident in the boiler room in one of the distilleries down on the quay, so with three small children and no work, I thought it might help.”
“That’s very generous.”
“Nonsense. We can easily afford one extra duck. My job, your pay raise—”
“No hat bills, no theatre tickets.” He wiped both cassoulet and smile from his mouth with a serviette. “Do you miss them, Marie-Claude? Honestly?”
“If you’ve finished, I need to get back to the shop,” she said briskly. “Madame Garreau’s visiting her mother and I’m all on my own this afternoon.” She scraped the bones into the bin while he brewed the coffee. “So who died, then?”