AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nanou
La Babinais, Atlantic Coast, France
Present Day
Nanou carried the basket of vegetables over to the kitchen table and began chopping the carrots into chunks. Neither the sound of the knife as it sliced through the orange flesh or Radio France could drown out the raised voices that echoed along the corridor.
Joe, her boss, was in an unusually bad mood which annoyed her because normally the house was a happy one. A place where everyone just jogged along doing their own thing. Joe spent most of his time in his studio or reading by the fire, and sometimes he was happy just sitting at the kitchen table, chatting to Nanou and interfering with her recipes or entertaining whoever had dropped by. He liked the company of easy-going folk, but he also liked solitude, time alone to think. So would spend hours walking his dogs along the footpaths that straddled the coastline.
Yes, Joe had his demons but them aside, he was a mellow soul and so was Ace, his youngest son who she adored. But it was Lance, the eldest, who always upset the rhythm of life. From the minute he turned up, Nanou felt the dip because he brought bad vibes with him, and no matter how much he pretended he was glad to be there, she saw through the fake smile and caught the surly looks directed towards Ace when he thought nobody was looking. It was twenty years ago, and Ace had only been four at the time, but Lance had resented him from the moment they met. No matter how much Ace had adored his new big brother, the then fifteen-year-old Lance didn’t have it in him to be kind, let alone brotherly.
Nanou tutted. The mere thought of Lance made her grumpy and as she’d often said to her husband, Silvestre, it was about time the thirty-five-year-old man-child grew up, got a job and stopped sponging off his papa.
Lance had always been horrible. She first met him as a spotty teenager, when he would turn up for the summer with a chaperone – one of his mother’s lackeys who’d been assigned to accompany her son on the flight from LA and dump him on his father. Lance was a Hollywood child who’d been mollycoddled by his actress mother and was, in all fairness, a stranger to his mostly absent papa who might as well have been from another planet.
In total contrast was her beloved Ace who she looked upon as a grandson. As she chopped the vegetables, Nanou recalled the day he confided in her that he didn’t want to go with his mother when she ‘consciously uncoupled’ from Joe.
Ace had been seated at the kitchen table, eating a galette, his favourite, with eggs, ham and cheese and the yellow yolk dribbled onto his chin as he spoke. ‘Will Papa let me stay here? With you and Silvestre? Mama will be okay on her own, do you think?’
Nanou’s heart had soared, but she couldn’t make a promise that wasn’t hers to keep, even though she wanted him to stay more than anything. ‘I think that you should ask Mama et Papa, and tell them how happy you are here, and assure them that I will take good care of you while she is away. And you need to wipe your chin, chéri.’
Ace had nodded and dragged the cuff of his jumper across his mouth. Nanou knew that he appreciated being spoken to in a direct manner. His intelligent and inquisitive mind liked everything untangled, a straight line of facts that he could process one by one. Somewhere in his head, spectrums collided and even though Joe and Jenny accepted this, that their son had his own special and unique traits, between them they had nurtured him well. Ace had been given the understanding and tools to thrive, run free, play in the mud, go to school and make friends, be happy.
Nanou had known that Jenny would let him stay because she was a good mum, in her own haphazard way and that she would trust Nanou to care for Ace. And that was how it had been. She and Silvestre were the next best thing to Mémère et Grand-père and Joe was, and continued to be, the best papa ever.
Throwing the onions into the pot, Nanou blamed them for the tears that leaked from her eyes, not her memories. Pulling herself together she made a mental list of things she needed to do, in preparation for another house guest the following day. Along with her more pastoral care of Ace, she was also the housekeeper, a job she took immense pride in, but couldn’t take all the credit for. She had help with the cleaning and laundry when her niece Gigi came three times a week because Nanou believed in keeping things in the family, like the old days.
When Joe bought the ramshackle sheep and dairy farm from them twenty-years before, part of the deal was that they stayed on, in the shepherd’s cottage that was converted first. Joe had wanted to make La Babinais his permanent home but as he was on the road for much of the year, he needed someone to care for the place when he was away. The arrangement had suited everyone concerned, not least Silvestre who, despite failing health, hadn’t wanted to let the farm go. It was where he’d grown up, but they were making a pittance, each year harder than the last so Joe’s offer was too good to turn down and now they were like family with Ace at the centre of it.
The house was so big now. Six bedrooms, a recording and photography studio, two lounges and a dining room and sun terrace took a lot of work. The main section of the farmhouse where she had brought up her family had been knocked through to the huge but dilapidated barn at the end, and a loft conversion had added another floor. Below, in the old cave was a state-of-the-art gym that Joe had used to get fit before tours; and a cinema where he and Ace spent many an evening watching old reels of his shows. There was also a holiday annexe, created from one of the outbuildings, that slept five people. That was where non-family guests stayed.
Joe had hired a flamboyant interior designer from Paris who had transformed the whole house, retaining most of the period features including knick-knacks he’d found around the property. The old but defunct hunting rifles that had belonged to Silvestre’s grand-père were now features and hung on the sturdy exposed beams. The whole house was stunning, decorated in rich, earthy tones and complementing the quirky antiquities. The walls were adorned with paintings Joe had collected from around the world, and photographic artwork courtesy of Ace.
Still, no matter how luxurious the farmhouse was, the kitchen was the place Nanou loved the most. Two rooms knocked into one to create a vast space, retaining the old fireplace at one end where logs burned all through the winter. It was where she’d dried her children’s clothes on the maiden; hand-reared lambs who’d lost their mothers; and where Silvestre’s ancestors once cooked their evening meals.
The rest of the kitchen was simply beautiful; rustic and homely, lined with oak cupboards stacked with tasteful crockery; shiny copper pans hung from a rack on the ceiling. Nanou was spoilt for choice by an array of state-of-the-art appliances. And then there was her range: it was like something from a Michelin restaurant. And one of her secret pleasures was ordering food to stock the biggest fridge-freezer she’d seen in her life. Amidst the glitz, and knobs and dials, right at the centre was a huge oak table and even though the dining room further down the hall was a lovely place to eat, overlooking the bay, the household and guests always gravitated there.
It was like living the dream that someone else was paying for, and Joe always insisted that she and Silvestre were part of it. His home was theirs. The farm held so many memories and she would be eternally grateful that Joe, in his wisdom had allowed her and Silvestre to make more, with him and Ace.
Hearing the rattle of the door latch, Nanou looked up from her task and left her thoughts behind and was unsurprised when Silvestre stepped into the kitchen. He always took a mid-morning break from his chores around the vast property, and she looked forward to seeing his face, even though in the winter his muddy boot prints on her floor tiles drove her to distraction.
Pausing from her task Nanou welcomed her husband as she ambled over to the counter to make a pot of coffee. ‘Did you see the weather forecast, chéri? They say there is a storm coming our way, from the north. It’s in Greenland by all accounts. They have called this one Alex. I wonder who chooses the names?’
‘I have no idea, but I would like to suggest Nanou. That is an excellent name for a storm.’ Silvestre’s shoulders juddered, chuckling at his own quip while he washed his hands in the old pot sink, another feature the interior designer from Paris had insisted on keeping. It had pleased Nanou no end because the big double basins were where she’d bathed her twin daughters, Bettye and Sylvie when they were babies, and her mother-in-law before her had scrubbed her five muddy boys and no doubt between them they’d washed thousands of dishes.
‘Yes, I saw, but we have survived many batterings over the years and this will be no different.’ He was interrupted by the slamming of a door somewhere along the corridor and as he inclined his head in that direction, his eyebrows raised. ‘Un problème?’
Sighing, Nanou took the box of biscuits over to the table while the coffee maker gurgled and did its thing. ‘Oui, nous avons un problème. But what did you expect? They have been shouting at each other since this morning, even over breakfast there was an atmosphere, and it has unsettled Ace. He’s been so excited about his young lady friend coming to stay for his birthday and Lance turning up out of the blue has ruined the ambience. He went out on his bike earlier. Have you seen him?’
Silvestre shook his head. ‘I heard the engine as he left. He will be on the cliff road. You know how he likes it up there and he is best off out of the way while Lance is around.’
Nanou tutted. ‘Well, I am telling you, that horrible man will be hearing from me if he upsets Ace, never mind Joe. We’ve had enough upset lately, with those nasty letters, so we don’t need any more bad news.’
‘Now don’t going dwelling on all that again. As Joe said it’s probably a crazy person with nothing better to do. So, what are they arguing about this time?’ Silvestre took a seat and opened the tin that contained buttery Breton biscuits. Shop bought, because Nanou said she wasn’t going to waste time baking things she could pluck off the supermarket shelf that tasted far better than her own. Silvestre had agreed wholeheartedly. He was no fool.
‘Something to do with Gus. Lance thinks that he is too old and sick for the job and hasn’t got what it takes to manage Joe’s career. I got the impression that Lance thinks he can do better which also tells me he has finally given up on his acting career.’
‘Did he ever really have one?’ Silvestre always said it how it was unless he was saying it about his wife.
