Provence - To Die For (6 page)

Marcel climbed out of the car and went around to the trunk to haul out my suitcase, while I groped around the floor of the car to retrieve my handbag, which had fallen off my lap during the wild ride. I paid him, nodded as he repeated his instructions to call the baker if I needed him again, and watched as he steered the car around a large tree and drove back toward the village in a cloud of his own making. In a few moments the growl of his engine faded away, and silence descended.

I stood still, listening to the whoosh of the wind and the skitter of dried leaves across the dusty driveway. I’d been waiting a long time for this trip, relishing the anticipated peace in the hectic months that preceded it, and eager to put the planes and trains and cars behind me so I could begin my “vacation.” You’d think that someone who traveled quite a bit for business would just as soon stay put when the opportunity arose. But my natural curiosity about other cultures, and the opportunity to live in a foreign country—even for so short a time as two months—was an exciting prospect. Combined with ample time to walk and read and cook and sharpen my French skills, away from the hustle-bustle of small-town Maine life and the technological intrusions I’d allowed to take up residence in my home, this was going to be a wonderful new experience. Chef Bertrand had said Provence was marvelous all the time, and I believed him. I would not be deterred by a little rain or cold. After all, Cabot Cove was probably wetter and colder, and I fared very well there.

I walked across the concrete patio that led to an entrance flanked by a pair of empty urns. Faint stem prints from long-removed vines had left a delicate tracery on the wall around the door. Martine had sent me a key. I inserted it into the keyhole and followed her written instructions on how to jiggle it in the lock. The lock cooperated and the door swung inward with a soft groan. I pulled my suitcase into the house behind me and turned on a light. Yesterday’s rain in Avignon had skipped St. Marc—if the state of the dusty drive was any indication—but the solid bank of dark clouds in the sky above Martine’s house promised wet weather to come, and permitted only a pale light to pass through the windows. I parked my suitcase next to the door, threw my coat and handbag over the back of a chair, and took in my new accommodations.

The downstairs of the farmhouse consisted of a single long space. The kitchen stood to the right of the front door and the living room to its left, separated only by a deep beam that seemed to indicate where one room stopped and the other began. The low ceiling was made up of alternating stripes of wooden beams with some kind of mud or stucco filling the gaps between them. The walls were painted a light mustard, the perfect backdrop for Martine’s large, colorful canvases, which filled most of the wall space that wasn’t occupied by the fireplace or windows. The floor was an expanse of dark square tiles, although in the living room they had been covered with a profusion of colorful rugs, Oriental, shag, and broad-loom. Facing sofas on either side of a massive stone hearth were covered in the same small blue-and-yellow-print fabric and strewn with an assortment of pillows, no two alike. None of it matched but somehow it all worked together. The artist’s eye, I thought. What other decorating surprises did Martine have in store for me?

A flight of wooden stairs off the kitchen gave access to the second floor, which was a mirror of the first except for the steeply sloping ceilings. The same dark tiles ran from one end of the room to the other. Martine had covered the walls with smaller paintings here; most appeared to be hers, but there was a smattering of work by other artists as well. The upstairs consisted of two small bedrooms, each. with a double bed under a pile of quilts; a good-sized bathroom stood between them. The first room was obviously Martine’s; I took the other down the hall. I turned on the bedside lamp and nearly tripped over the duffel bag I’d sent ahead. It had arrived—thank goodness—and someone had lugged it upstairs for me. I hoped it hadn’t been Martine. I could barely lift the thing, and she was a small woman.

I hung up my suit jacket in the empty wardrobe and went downstairs to find the key to the duffel. At the base of the stairs, next to the back door, were a series of hooks about eye level that I hadn’t noticed on my way up. Hanging from one was what we used to call a “barn jacket” in my youth. I had a similar boxy, flannel-lined jacket pegged up by my kitchen door at home, and had left it there for Martine. Apparently she’d done the same for me.

The next hour was spent settling in and ferrying clothes from my luggage up the stairs to the bedroom I now thought of as mine. The suitcase was too heavy and awkward to maneuver in the small stairwell, and I wasn’t willing to risk a wrenched back just to make unpacking a little easier. Plus, I was a bit sore from my tumble at the hotel. Half the contents from the duffel had to come downstairs anyway. I lined up my winter boots on the floor under the hooks and put a pile of books on an end table in the living room, making efficient use of the round-trips.

As I’d done for her, Martine had left a letter for me in the kitchen detailing useful information, such as where things could be found in the house, and who the neighbors were.

 

I wouldn’t take her up on this last offer. Martine had forgotten I don’t drive.

I found milk, butter, eggs, and a loaf of sliced bread in the refrigerator, and laughed at the irony as I made myself French toast for lunch. I wondered what the French called this dish. Following my first meal as a temporary resident of Provence, I wandered around the house, Martine’s note in hand, locating the references on her list, starting in the kitchen. The “pantry” turned out to be a large bookcase covered by a yellow-and-white curtain that hung from a rod secured to the top. One shelf held rows of fruit preserves, another jars of olives, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and other vegetables; a third was filled with tins of fish and meats, boxes of pasta, and dry soup and other staples. Suspended from the side of the pantry was a narrow fabric bag with a flap at the top like an envelope. There wasn’t anything in it, and I wondered what it was for.

The pantry stood to the left of the kitchen fireplace, which had a small, square, raised hearth. A massive mantel supported by carved wood columns framed the blackened grate. Resting on top was a squat yellow flashlight. Martine had told me that she’d had a new heating system installed, but because of the expense, she usually used both the downstairs fireplaces to combat the cold. Since hot air rises, the heat they generated would warm the bedrooms, at least for an hour or two, plenty of time to get comfortable under the quilts. I checked the stack of wood to the right of the fireplace. There were enough logs for one night of burning but not more than that. I assumed there was a woodpile outside.

I slipped into my boots, pulled on Martine’s barn jacket, and tied the scarf I found in her pocket over my hair. While I’d been unpacking, the threatened storm had come through. The full brunt of the weather had passed, but clouds still obscured the sun and a stinging mist hung in the air. I let myself out the front door, crossed the patio, and headed toward the barn, really more of a low stable, catty-corner to the house. The barn doors were on well-oiled hinges, and one easily yielded to my tug. Happily, it was the side of the barn without the car. Daylight spilled in through the open door, illuminating the accumulation of old tools, discarded furniture, paint cans, and tarpaulins. It was like finding a private junk shop. I pulled the scarf from my hair and wandered among the flotsam and jetsam that had washed up in Martine’s garage.

The barn smelled like a combination of gasoline and hay, not at all an unpleasant aroma. Martine’s navy-colored car sat on one side of the dirt floor, a veteran of the French road wars, with scars to prove it. It was old and battered, but as she’d once said to me, “It runs, and that’s all you should ask of a vehicle.” The other half of the barn was what interested me. I picked my way among wobbly chairs, unloved tables, empty picture frames, and rusted hulks of equipment, the purpose for which defied my imagination. Stopping to examine a blue-and-white pitcher with a small chip, I heard a soft mewing. I peered into the comer in the back where a rickety staircase led to the loft, and saw a sleek gray cat slip into the barn through a hole near the bottom step. We stared at each other, both of us sizing up whether this stranger was friend or foe. Finally I crooned, “Here, kitty, pretty kitty.” The cat gracefully leaped over several toppled paint cans to get to me, and wound its damp body between my ankles, purring loudly.

“What a beauty you are,” I said, stooping to scratch my new friend behind the ears. “Where do you live?” The cat wore no collar, and I hoped it had a home. Too often I’d heard about summer visitors who’d abandoned their pets at season’s end, leaving them to fend for themselves. But this cat appeared healthy and well fed, with a soft coat and clear eyes.

I love animals, but I haven’t owned a cat or dog since I was a child. When we were married, my husband Frank and I had no four-footed pets. His allergies limited our choice of animals to fish, beautiful and entertaining but not what you cuddle up with. After his death I’d concentrated on my writing career, and even though my business trips were infrequent at first, I’d never found the opportunity to bring an animal into my home. But having a cat or a dog, while impractical for me now, was still a sweet dream I hadn’t let go. If this cat were to become a regular visitor, I mused, perhaps that dream would come true for two months in Provence. I looked forward to finding out.

Grateful for the quiet company, I continued to explore the barn with my feline companion. In the back, partially obscured by a stack of warped boards, we found a treasure. It was dirty and rusty and its tires needed air, but there it was—a bicycle. It even had a dusty wicker basket dangling by a wire from one handlebar. Martine had said to help myself to anything. Surely she wouldn’t begrudge me riding her old bike.

I pulled the bicycle out of the barn to inspect it in better light. The tires were flat but the wheels weren’t warped. Since it had no kickstand, I leaned it against a tree while I went back in the barn to search out an air pump, finding one on a shelf on the other side of Martine’s blue car. The air valve was rusty, but with persistence I managed to unscrew the cap. Kneeling on the damp earth, I worked the hand pump up and down to push enough air into the tires to determine whether there was an unfixable leak. There wasn’t A short time later the tires were plump and firm, and I was dirty and exhilarated. I’d give the bike a good cleaning tomorrow before testing it out, I promised myself. I rolled the bike back into the barn, leaned it against one of the mystery tools, and wiped my hands on an already greasy cloth thrown over a toolbox. My cat friend had left the way she’d come in, through the hole in the back of the barn. I hoped she would give me the gift of her friendship again.

I closed the barn door. The sun was setting behind the clouds, painting streaks of orange and lavender across the sky. It would be dark soon. I looked around, regretful there wasn’t more time to explore. But I’d already had a very satisfying day, and the expectation of another good one tomorrow.

That night, after a hot bath had soothed away the sore muscles brought on by my fall at the hotel, and following a supper of salad, bread, and a country pâté Martine had thoughtfully left for me, I made a fire in the living room fireplace and curled up to read. The book I’d chosen was a mystery by a popular author I’d never read before. His descriptions of eerie atmospheres and sinister characters were very well done, but the graphic descriptions of blood and gore had me skipping paragraphs. His hero was following a trail of blood on the floor, the crimson drops leading to ... A chill raced up my spine and I shivered. Outside, the wind wailed and rattled the shutters. The old house creaked. I heard two thuds. Instantly I became acutely aware of the sounds around me. The crackle of the fire and the pop when the flames hit a pocket of sap. The mantel clock with its slightly offbeat ticking to the time of its swinging pendulum. The scratching of a branch brushing against an outside wall. I was in an unfamiliar house, out in the country, isolated, my nearest neighbor, whom I hadn’t even met yet, down the road past the orchard.

“You’re doing a good job of scaring yourself, Jessica,” I told myself out loud. “It’s time you went to bed.”

I marked my place in the book and left it on the living room table. This was not a good bedtime story. Better to tackle it during the day, and save the night for a different kind of book, maybe the novel by Rosamunde Pilcher that took place in Scotland, or perhaps the book of French poetry I’d picked up in the airport.

I banked the fire in the hearth, checked the locks on the front door and the one in the kitchen, and went upstairs to my new bedroom. I changed into my nightclothes, washed up, and climbed under the covers. The sky had cleared. Moonlight spilled through the single window opposite my bed. The shadowed patterns on the cold white disk were sharply delineated. Off in the distance, an animal howled. A wolf?

“You’ll never get to sleep with the moonlight in your eyes,” I grumbled, flinging back the quilts and feeling around on the floor for my slippers. I crossed the room to the window and knelt on the window seat to keep from banging my head on the sloped ceiling. Tiebacks held the curtains open. I released them from the hooks, and started to pull the panels of fabric together when a movement caught my eye. A large tree in the front obscured my view of the barn, but I thought I saw the shadow of its door closing. Was someone sneaking around out there? I sank down on the window seat and stared through the branches, daring the prowler, if there was one, to show himself. The tree swayed with each gust of wind, and leaves rolled over the concrete patio outside the front door below, but no other shadows materialized.