‘She says that there was a milord who painted near here, but I’m having the devil’s own time getting details out of her.’
‘Ask her if there were two men.’
More gabbling, then, ‘She wants to know who we are.’
‘Tell her we’re both meelors and we’re looking for our pal the meelor key pent.’
More talk, and Heseltine said, ‘I told her the young one is your son.’
‘Oh, good grief.’
‘I had to tell her something. She thinks we’re from the customs. There’s a lot of smuggling here.’
Denton looked around at the drab landscape. ‘Tell her my son has run away from home and I’m trying to find him because his mother’s heartbroken.’
Heseltine spoke in French; the woman answered. He said in English, ‘This is not a sentimental woman.’
‘She doesn’t care about the grieving mother?’
‘She’s worried about her cows.’
‘Give her some money.’
They had been standing there for several minutes. Denton shivered despite his ulster. The wind had risen, bringing an edge to the cold. The wrangle went on and on until a big, red-faced man drove a herd of milk cows past them and through a gate into the farmyard. Denton got a glimpse of hoof-pounded mire; he had a memory of the Chicago stockyards. When the man came back, he pushed the woman into the house and pulled the door closed and said something in French so aggressively that Denton knew he had asked what they wanted.
Suddenly, both the questions and the answers became short. Le meelor key pent had been there, not here — a big arm, with a hand like a slab of beef, gestured behind them at the distant house and barn. Yes, with another man. Yes, yes, they were gone. What was it worth to them to see where they had lived? It was clear even without translation that he didn’t care who they were so long as they paid.
‘Tell him yes, we’ll pay to see where they stayed. Tell him we’ll pay for a place to stay tonight, too — clean, no bugs.’
Something in that caused an explosion of red-faced resentment. Heseltine said, ‘It was suggesting they aren’t clean. He says they’re as clean as the angels.’
‘Tell him about last night.’
Heseltine spoke, then pulled up a sleeve and showed his bites. The farmer was thrown into loud laughter, displaying dreadful teeth, and was suddenly as good-natured as he had been surly. He clapped Heseltine on the shoulder. It was so comical to him that he had to go inside and tell his wife.
‘He says he’ll put the horse in the barn and do something or other with the buggy; I couldn’t follow it. He wants a hideous amount for us to spend the night — I could stay at Brown’s in London for what he wants to charge us, but-’ He looked around at the dour scene, now falling into darkness.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘We’re hardly beggars.’
But they were each given a room with a tiled floor and a bed piled high with feather-filled quilts. Overhead were hand-adzed oak beams. A water pitcher, a basin, a chamber pot, a candle. A painted armoire that could have been one year or five hundred years old and held somebody else’s clothes, both male and female — had he taken away some couple’s bed? No other light, no heat.
And then the food.
The ill-tempered housewife was apparently used to feeding a dozen ravenous people; two more made no difference. They sat down at a huge table with the red-faced farmer at one end and an empty chair at the other — the woman never sat until they were almost done — and three younger men and two women between them on benches on each side. Heseltine sat at the end of one bench, Denton opposite him. Three younger women, really girls, helped the unhappy wife serve a meal that, if not quaint, was authentic and enormous and superb: a dish made with freshly killed chickens and beans and pork; another of what he took to be wild rabbit in a dark gravy; part of a pike that must have weighed a dozen pounds when it was caught; home-made sweet butter, home-made pot cheese; a dark, pudding-like thing he decided was made from congealed blood; haricots and endive and potatoes the size of cricket balls; three rough breads that had been baked that afternoon and, an oddly Germanic touch, a sweetened bread with gooseberry jam. They began with a soup that might have made a meal in itself, thick with dried peas, rich with carrots and onions and flavoured with rosemary. After the soup, the other dishes began to appear, Denton thinking each one would be the last. Glasses of both beer and wine were put in front of him.
At one point, Heseltine met his eyes and widened his own, smiling, shaking his head. Heseltine was keeping up what seemed to be a pretty good flow of conversation in French. A couple of the younger women looked rather flushed when they talked to him; so did he.
The women, Denton thought, were daughters or daughters-in-law; the men were sons, or husbands of the women. They were not a cheerful lot, certainly not talkative: farm work was hard, they seemed to say, and food was fuel. But what fuel! They stoked it in and reached for more; the women, although diffident, ate their share.
Why, he thought, did Himple and Crum ever leave?
After the older woman had sat and eaten quickly, when the men were done and were leaning back, when desultory talk had started, the women cleared off the dishes and the meats and brought a bowl of apples and a kind of cake made of apple slices and tasting of yeast, then three kinds of cheese. Denton had loosened his waistcoat; now he made a face at Heseltine. A bottle appeared. Heseltine said it was apple brandy, the local speciality.
The sons and the women drifted away. The farmer sat on, insisting that they sit with him. His face got redder. So did Heseltine’s. So did Denton’s, he supposed. Denton found himself talking about farming, the talk curving down the table to pass through Heseltine, then back, but Denton and the farmer looked at each other and it was as if they were speaking the same language. Then they were drinking the apple brandy, and the farmer, standing now, flaming-faced, shouted, ‘Ah-ee spik anglaish! Sheet! God-dam! Ha-ha-ha! Sheet! God-dam you! Ha-ha-ha!’
And then Denton was in the big bed, under the warm feathered quilts, the rough sheets cold, then warming to his cold skin, the wind outside rattling the glass in the windows but unable to touch the comfort within.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He had no hangover next morning. It was remarkable. He was no stranger to hangovers and he was sure he deserved one, but when he had splashed icy water on his face and swabbed out his crotch and his armpits, then pulled on his wool all-in-ones, he stood by the window and realized that he felt wonderful. The day was going to be dark, he could see; it would rain. Still, he felt content — at peace, even. A knock at his door produced one of the youngest girls with a pitcher of hot water. He shaved, washed himself again, dressed and went down to the central room where they had eaten. The farmer was there already. He got up from the table and came to Denton, muttered a question, then peered closely into an eye, clapped Denton on the shoulder and laughed. Later, Heseltine explained that the man believed that apple brandy never left a hangover; he would have been disappointed if Denton had had one.
People came and went. Children’s voices sounded somewhere, the kitchen or some room beyond it. There was no repeat of last night’s feast; rather, men took bread, one a piece of cheese as well, and went out. Heseltine explained that they would come back to eat when the milking and the morning chores were done. Denton understood that routine.