Then another man came around the corner from the drive, and they were face-to-face through the glass. Startled, Marguerite stepped back. He jerked his head back a little, as if startled too. He wasn’t wearing his hood up, like the other two; even through the glass, and with a metre or so between them, she could see the tiny glass-like bubbles of rain covering his face and hair.
He raised his hand and smiled, signalling an unspecific question – could she let him in, could she open the door, could she come outside? Hesitantly, she unlocked and pulled the door open, not all the way, and stood in the gap.
‘I’m sorry to come unannounced,’ he said. ‘Henri Brochon.’ He said his name as if she was supposed to know it, and held a hand out to shake hers. She took it, again with hesitation. It was warm and his grip firm; she looked down quickly at their hands together, hers pale yellow against his brown.
‘I’m Brigitte’s husband.’ He paused. ‘Brigitte, the gardienne.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She held her hand to her temple again to try to stop it throbbing. The pain was spreading behind her right eye. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
‘No, I’m sorry – Brigitte said she would call you. She asked me to have a look at the oak at the bottom of the garden. She said it’s struggling.’
‘Yes.’ Marguerite tried desperately to think of something to say. ‘I thought it might be dying. Do you look after the garden here?’
‘No, I’m a farmer. But I can spare the boys for a few hours. Brigitte doesn’t have permission to employ a gardener for the Lanviers, but she’s responsible for keeping the place running so we do what we can.’
‘I see.’ She wondered when she had ever said ‘I see’ to anyone. She waited, and then it occurred to her that he was waiting for her to say something. ‘Did you want something?’ she said, and then, realising that might sound rude: ‘A glass of water? Or do the –’ She hesitated to call them ‘boys’. ‘Do they want some coffee?’
‘No, they’re fine. I’m going to leave them here for a bit, so let them know if you think of anything else that needs doing. Is everything working okay in the house?’ He looked over her shoulder into the kitchen.
‘Actually, there are a couple of things,’ she said, more to break the silence than because she wanted anything fixed. ‘I’ll let them know.’
‘I can have a quick look now,’ he said, stepping forward, but she didn’t move. ‘Shall I come in?’
‘Okay.’ She opened the door reluctantly, stepped back into the kitchen. She watched as he crouched down to remove his wet boots. He wore thick, ribbed green socks. They looked very clean and new for a farmer.
‘There’s a lamp I can’t work – here,’ she said, leading him to the standing lamp in the corner of the kitchen, by the chair she’d been sleeping in just a few minutes earlier. She eyed the rumpled blanket and indented cushions, hoping he wouldn’t notice. ‘I’ve changed the bulb, but I think the whole thing might be broken.’
He nodded. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well, I can only get two of the gas rings to work on the cooker.’
She didn’t want to tell him the other things now; they seemed insignificant and intimate. A broken chair in her bedroom that she didn’t need to sit on anyway; the wardrobe door that had come off its hinges and that she had just left resting against the wall instead.
‘Let me have a look at these then.’ He walked out of the kitchen, into the house, and she scanned the surfaces quickly, wondering how it looked. He came back with a toolbox she hadn’t known existed. He didn’t look at her but got straight to work on the gas rings and she waited there, unsure what to do. She couldn’t leave the kitchen, she couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. She switched the kettle on: an old, yellowed electric kettle like the one her au pair had brought from England.
‘Would you like coffee?’ she asked to his back.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ he said, turning only briefly to speak. He bent over the cooker, fiddling with something. He was tall, his shoulders broad; the kitchen felt very small then. She turned and opened a cupboard, rearranging things that didn’t need arranging. The kettle’s foolish crackling and rumbling started to rise steadily towards boiling, the sound dominating the room. Henri removed his jacket, turning to hang it carefully over a chair. His sweater was also green, green like his eyes and his socks. She wondered if he matched them intentionally.
Finally, the kettle clicked and steam rose. She made a cup of tea she didn’t want.
‘I’ll be right back,’ she said, and left the room. She didn’t look in on Jérôme; if he was awake, she didn’t want to have to explain that there was someone in the house. She went to go upstairs but realised Henri might have to come and find her when he had finished, so instead she sat at the bottom of the stairs and blew into the cup. Steam met her face; she closed her eyes.
It was always strange to be back in the house; practically nothing had changed. Henri could remember countless breakfasts at this kitchen table, when he had stayed the night as a young boy. Madame Lanvier made elaborate breakfasts for her household of males, and she gave the boys coffee. Henri hadn’t liked the taste but had drunk it nonetheless because it made him feel mature. He would never have been allowed coffee at home, not at that age.
The kitchen was just as tidy now as it had always been under Madame Lanvier’s constant domestic surveillance. He couldn’t remember her without picturing her wiping surfaces or washing things. When he was very young, he had watched her hang the family’s washing on three lines in the olive groves. He remembered standing against the warm stones of the house, watching her bend heavily to take white sheets from the basket, standing to hang them, very slowly, smoothly, even rhythmically. When she had gone back to the house, he had run over and hidden between the walls of hanging sheets. He’d stood there in a cool, dazzlingly fragrant tunnel of white, until he heard Thibault calling him to some game or other.
His own home had been very dull by comparison. Without siblings, each room was his to enter; there was no friction, no chaos. His mother, adoring, intuitive, had few reprimands for the son she admired without reservation. His father, the best farmer for miles, was a largely silent presence. When Henri wasn’t studying, his father taught him, often wordlessly, how to set the cows up for milking, how to nurse suckling runts, how to lop the heads off chickens. The sound of animals and machinery, but little else, had suffused their home. How exotic, then, had Rossignol seemed: the three brothers always fighting or laughing, the great quantities of food consumed, the crude jokes, farts and burps. The chaos would be punctuated and compounded by Jérôme’s high-octane outbursts, his fist slamming against the table and doors banging closed after him. Amidst all this Céline Lanvier moved calmly with her slow, gentle force.
He put his tools down and tried the gas ring he’d just fixed; it hissed briefly and then burst into controlled blue flame. A beautiful, electric blue. He turned the gas off and took his tools over to the lamp to rewire the plug, a quick and easy job that most women he knew would have managed with ease.
When he was finished, he put the tools away and the nurse appeared, as if she had been waiting just outside.
‘It’s all done,’ he said, putting on his jacket and boots.
‘Thank you.’
‘Do let Brigitte know if anything else comes up. It’s our job to keep the place going. I’m sure you’re busy enough with your patient.’
‘Yes, of course.’
He waited for a moment, wondering if she would say anything else, but she simply looked back at him, very serious.
‘The boys will be here for a little while so if you think of anything else, just let them know.’
‘Thank