they were being interviewed for a situation.â
âBut â¦?â
âAh. The people are Belgian!
Quite
impossible! They are almost as bad as the Arabs. They are frugal and mean. It was unsuitable for them. I told them. I
know
the family at that house.â She shuddered. âThey owe me three monthsâ money ⦠Why do I give credit! Why! For the village, of course. For rich Belgians, madness â¦â
Henri and Marie arrived for an interview with me three days later and stayed for five years. After which they retired but were still available to âhouse-sitâ in an emergency.
They were, it must be confessed, a great deal older than they had claimed to be. Marie must have been in her early seventies but hacked off ten years, and wore a geranium-red lipstick and thick white powder to hide her wrinkles, making her look rather like a dried fig. Henri was probably older, and had dyed his hair a sort of sherbert yellow. I suppose, at one time, it had been fair.
However, they were clearly all that Madame Ranchett had said, and we all liked each other right away. Marie cooked extremely well but would do nothing else, except buttons and darning. Henri, on the other hand, was the house-man and would drive the car to get the marketing, and polish the floors and make the beds. Except that after a short, agonizing trial run with Forwood in the Simca Brake he was neverallowed near any machine again unless it was connected to a plug. Like the floor-polisher. He was quite incapable of driving anything. Except a hard bargain when it came to his âleaveâ every year.
But we all managed very well, and when, eventually, the time came for them to retire to their small flat down below in the valley, I went to Madame Ranchett again and sought her help. The only problem, and it honestly was not a real problem, was that with Henri and Marie we lost any chance of guest accommodation. Which didnât matter right at the start, but got a bit irritating as the years went on, and we had to farm chums out in the village in one of the not very attractive little hotels.
So this time it was decided that a daily lady was all we needed. Two hours a day, and we would cope with the rest.
Well, we got her. She was discovered by Florette Ranchett wandering round the shop one day, a small child on one hip, looking bewildered. She was Spanish, could speak scraps of French, but with signs and a certain amount of shrieking at each other it was established that she had just moved into the area (a small, neglected house by a junk yard) with a husband who had got a job at the local golf course, mowing the greens. She had no money, or very little, and that day wanted some broken biscuits or stale bread. She could, and did, pay for some milk.
Madame Ranchett called me to alert me and a few days later Soleidad arrived up the track on a sputtering mobilette, with her awful child strapped into a chair on the back, head lolling, dummy sprouting from dribbly lips. She came round the house with me doing a full tour. I showed her the fridge, the sink, the baths, the beds, the linen cupboard, the chinaand all the rest. She was silent, feeling a piece of linen between thumb and forefinger here, weighing a glass there, studying a saucepan intently, opening and closing the fridge door time and again, apparently delighting in the light which sprang up each time she did so. I thought her to be one of natureâs originals.
And she was. A gypsy from Granada with exceptionally bandy legs and a voice that could splinter granite. She nodded agreeably at everything I said in complete and total incomprehension, but when I said, âOkay?â, she shrugged and nodded casually, and I wrote down the figure 9 and then 12, meaning the hours she might work. And she, taking my pencil in filthy fingers, laboriously wrote 8½ and 11½ and then made a sign by rubbing her finger and thumb together. I counted out what I felt I could afford in
âBut â¦?â
âAh. The people are Belgian!
Quite
impossible! They are almost as bad as the Arabs. They are frugal and mean. It was unsuitable for them. I told them. I
know
the family at that house.â She shuddered. âThey owe me three monthsâ money ⦠Why do I give credit! Why! For the village, of course. For rich Belgians, madness â¦â
Henri and Marie arrived for an interview with me three days later and stayed for five years. After which they retired but were still available to âhouse-sitâ in an emergency.
They were, it must be confessed, a great deal older than they had claimed to be. Marie must have been in her early seventies but hacked off ten years, and wore a geranium-red lipstick and thick white powder to hide her wrinkles, making her look rather like a dried fig. Henri was probably older, and had dyed his hair a sort of sherbert yellow. I suppose, at one time, it had been fair.
However, they were clearly all that Madame Ranchett had said, and we all liked each other right away. Marie cooked extremely well but would do nothing else, except buttons and darning. Henri, on the other hand, was the house-man and would drive the car to get the marketing, and polish the floors and make the beds. Except that after a short, agonizing trial run with Forwood in the Simca Brake he was neverallowed near any machine again unless it was connected to a plug. Like the floor-polisher. He was quite incapable of driving anything. Except a hard bargain when it came to his âleaveâ every year.
But we all managed very well, and when, eventually, the time came for them to retire to their small flat down below in the valley, I went to Madame Ranchett again and sought her help. The only problem, and it honestly was not a real problem, was that with Henri and Marie we lost any chance of guest accommodation. Which didnât matter right at the start, but got a bit irritating as the years went on, and we had to farm chums out in the village in one of the not very attractive little hotels.
So this time it was decided that a daily lady was all we needed. Two hours a day, and we would cope with the rest.
Well, we got her. She was discovered by Florette Ranchett wandering round the shop one day, a small child on one hip, looking bewildered. She was Spanish, could speak scraps of French, but with signs and a certain amount of shrieking at each other it was established that she had just moved into the area (a small, neglected house by a junk yard) with a husband who had got a job at the local golf course, mowing the greens. She had no money, or very little, and that day wanted some broken biscuits or stale bread. She could, and did, pay for some milk.
Madame Ranchett called me to alert me and a few days later Soleidad arrived up the track on a sputtering mobilette, with her awful child strapped into a chair on the back, head lolling, dummy sprouting from dribbly lips. She came round the house with me doing a full tour. I showed her the fridge, the sink, the baths, the beds, the linen cupboard, the chinaand all the rest. She was silent, feeling a piece of linen between thumb and forefinger here, weighing a glass there, studying a saucepan intently, opening and closing the fridge door time and again, apparently delighting in the light which sprang up each time she did so. I thought her to be one of natureâs originals.
And she was. A gypsy from Granada with exceptionally bandy legs and a voice that could splinter granite. She nodded agreeably at everything I said in complete and total incomprehension, but when I said, âOkay?â, she shrugged and nodded casually, and I wrote down the figure 9 and then 12, meaning the hours she might work. And she, taking my pencil in filthy fingers, laboriously wrote 8½ and 11½ and then made a sign by rubbing her finger and thumb together. I counted out what I felt I could afford in
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