The Matchmaker of Perigord Read online

  The Matchmaker of Périgord

  A Novel

  Julia Stuart

  To my mother, who read to me,

  and my father, who inspired my love for France.

  Contents

  1

  GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE WIPED HIS DELICATE FINGERS ON HIS trouser leg…

  2

  HAIRLESS CUSTOMERS WERE NOT A PROBLEM GUILLAUME Ladoucette had foreseen…

  3

  A BREEZE SNIFFED ROUND THE ADJUSTABLE SIGN AT THE ENTRANCE…

  4

  AS HE SAT WAITING IN HIS CAR, GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE PULLED…

  5

  IT WAS MONSIEUR MOREAU WHO FIRST SPOTTED THE STRANGER walking…

  6

  GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE LED HIS FIRST CUSTOMER TO THE CHAIR with…

  7

  THE ONE PERSON IN AMOUR-SUR-BELLE WHO WELCOMED THE FACT that…

  8

  THE INSTALLATION OF THE MUNICIPAL SHOWER TURNED OUT TO BE…

  9

  WHEN LISETTE ROBERT ANSWERED HER DOOR TO FIND GUILLAUME Ladoucette…

  10

  ‘DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT SUGGEST GOING HALVIES-HALVES?’ ASKED…

  11

  YVES LÉVÈQUE STOOD IN HIS GARDEN CONTEMPLATING THE unspeakable state…

  12

  UNFORTUNATELY FOR LISETTE ROBERT IT WAS MADAME Ladoucette who first…

  13

  MUCH TO HIS DISMAY, GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE ARRIVED AT WORK early.

  14

  ÉMILIE FRAISSE WOKE UP IN HER FOUR-POSTER RENAISSANCE BED feeling…

  15

  HEART’S DESIRE WAS CLOSED THE FOLLOWING MORNING. Guillaume Ladoucette had…

  16

  WHEN GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE OPENED HIS EYES THE FOLLOWING Sunday his…

  17

  UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE RESIDENTS OF AMOUR-SUR-BELLE IT WAS Madame Ladoucette…

  18

  IT WAS WHEN GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE WALKED SLOWLY downstairs in his…

  19

  PIERRE ROUZEAU LOCKED HIS FRONT DOOR IN THE CERTITUDE THAT…

  20

  MADAME LADOUCETTE WAS THE FIRST TO WAKE THE MORNING following…

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  GUILLAUME LADOUCETTE WIPED HIS DELICATE FINGERS ON HIS trouser leg before squeezing them into the glass jar. As he wiggled them around the cold, slippery fat he recognized what he felt was an ankle and his tongue moistened. He tugged it out and dropped the preserved duck leg into the cassoulet made by his mother thirty-one years ago and which had been on the go ever since. The ghostly white limb lay for several seconds suspended on haricot bean and sausage flotsam before disappearing from sight following a swift prod with a wooden spoon.

  Custodian of the cassoulet now that his mother had gone cuckoo, the barber gave the dish a respectfully slow stir and watched as a goose bone appeared through the oregano and thyme vapours. The flesh had long since dropped off, his mother having first added it to the pot nineteen years ago in celebration of his opening a barber shop in the village. Initially, Madame Ladoucette had strictly forbidden the bone’s removal out of maternal pride. Years later, her mind warped by grief following the death of her husband, she convinced herself that her son’s good fortune at starting his own business–the only happy memory to surface during that difficult time–was proof of the Almighty’s existence. It was a conviction that led to her irritating habit of suddenly standing up at the table and dashing over to whichever unsuspecting dinner guest had mistakenly been served the grey bone. With a pincer-like motion, she would swiftly remove it from their plate with the words ‘not so fast’, in the fear that they would make off with what she had come to consider a holy relic.

  From amongst the beans emerged an onion dating from March 1999, several carrots added only the previous week, a new thumb of garlic which Guillaume Ladoucette failed to recognize and a small green button still waiting to be reclaimed by its owner. With the care of an archaeologist, he drew the spoon around the bottom and sides of the iron pot to loosen some of the blackened crust, which, along with an original piece of now calcified Toulouse sausage, were, the barber insisted, the secret of the dish’s unsurpassable taste. There were those, however, who blamed the antique sausage for turning the pharmacist Patrice Baudin, who had never previously shown any sign of lunacy, into a vegetarian, a scandal from which the village had never recovered.

  Keeping the cassoulet going was more than just the duty of an only son, but something upon which the family’s name rested. For the cassoulet war had been long and ugly and there was still no sign of a truce. All those fortunate enough to have witnessed the historic spectacle agreed that the first cannon was launched by Madame Ladoucette when she spotted Madame Moreau buying some tomatoes in the place du Marché and casually asked what she was making. When the woman replied, Madame Ladoucette recoiled two paces in horror, a move not appreciated by the stallholder on whose foot she landed.

  ‘But tomatoes have no place in a cassoulet!’ Madame Ladoucette cried.

  ‘Yes, they do. I’ve always used tomatoes,’ Madame Moreau replied.

  ‘The next thing you’ll be telling me is that you put lamb in it as well.’

  ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, I would never commit such a perversion!’ Madame Moreau retorted.

  ‘Ridiculous? Madame, it is not I who puts tomatoes in a cassoulet, it is you. What does your husband have to say about this?’

  ‘He wouldn’t want it any other way,’ came the terse reply.

  Moments later, several onlookers witnessed Madame Ladoucette striding up to Madame Moreau’s husband, who was sitting on the bench by the fountain said to cure gout watching an ant struggling with a leaf five times its size. Monsieur Moreau looked up to see a pair of crane’s legs, whose owner was carrying a straw basket which his nose immediately told him was full of fresh fish.

  ‘Monsieur Moreau,’ she began. ‘Forgive me, but it is a matter of utmost importance and a true Frenchman such as yourself will know the definitive answer. Should a cassoulet have tomatoes in it or not?’

  Monsieur Moreau was so startled by her sudden appearance and line of questioning that he could think of nothing but the truth: ‘The correct method of making a cassoulet is always a source of contention. Personally, I prefer it without tomatoes, as my mother made it, but for God’s sake don’t tell the wife.’

  According to Henri Rousseau, who happened to be standing next to Madame Moreau as she was paying for her tomatoes, Madame Ladoucette walked straight back up to her and repeated the entire conversation, adding that it was her civic duty to cook a cassoulet correctly. Precisely what Madame Moreau called her in return Henri Rousseau failed to catch, a crime his wife never forgave and which led to her insisting that he wear a hearing aid despite the fact that he was not in the least bit deaf. There was no doubt, however, about what happened next. Madame Ladoucette reached into her basket, pulled out what was unmistakably an eel and slapped Madame Moreau across the nose with it, before leaving its head wedged firmly down her cleavage and stalking off. She had made it halfway down the rue du Château, when, much to the delight of the villagers who couldn’t have wished for better entertainment on a Tuesday morning, Madame Moreau put her hand into the brown paper bag she was holding and hurled a tomato at Madame Ladoucette. It landed with such force her victim momentarily staggered.

  While the pair never spoke again, the salvoes continued. From that day, Madame Moreau insisted on keeping a large bowl of over-ripe tomatoes near her kitchen window, which she used as ammunition from behind her white lace panels whenever her enemy passed. Madame Ladoucette retaliated by alw
ays doing her eel impression whenever she caught her adversary’s eye in the street. And while Madame Moreau’s throwing arm was not what it used to be, and Madame Ladoucette’s eel impression, which was never that good to begin with, had for several years been hampered by a pair of ill-fitting dentures, the two kept up their insults well into their senility, when they became almost a form of greeting.

  Leaving the duck leg to heat up, the barber decided to fetch a lettuce from his potager. By the time he reached the back door the soles of his bare feet had collected a small sharp black stone, a ginger-coloured feather, two dried lentils and a little sticky label from an apple bearing the words ‘Pomme du Limousin.’ Resting his right foot on his left knee, he first removed the stone, lentils and label. Then, with a muttered blasphemy, he picked off the feather which he immediately carried to the bin.

  Crawling his hairy toes into a pair of brown sandals by a sack of walnuts from the tree in the garden, Guillaume Ladoucette opened the back door just wide enough to poke his head round. After scanning the top of the walls, still warm in the evening sun, and the lawn he would cut in two days’ time when the moon was waning and passing in front of Pisces, he bent down to look underneath the lacy pink hydrangea. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he ventured out, quickly locking the door behind him. Filled with the pleasant anticipation of supper, he headed past the tiny well with its stone roof and the old rabbit hutches which he used to store flowerpots. The only sound was the thwack of cheap supermarket leather against dry heels and the cuckoos’ incessant two-pitched mating call, which revealed a spectacular lack of imagination.

  Legs wide apart over his oak-leaf lettuces, he picked enough of the burgundy-blushed leaves for a good serving. As he collected a couple of tomatoes, he congratulated himself on their aroma and glanced at his tiny potato plants hoping that they wouldn’t come under attack from Colorado beetle again that year.

  Silently unlocking the kitchen door, he peered inside. After casting his eyes along the tops of the cupboards, he bent down to check underneath the table. Relieved that he was still alone, he rinsed the salad and tomatoes thoroughly so as not to fall victim to the horror of worms. Arranging them in a bowl, he placed it on a tray along with a fork, a small blue jug of dressing and a white napkin with his initials embroidered in red in the corner. He then added a glass of disappointing Bergerac, which he had vowed never to buy again, but which he’d decided he might as well finish. Next to it he placed a packet of his favourite Cabécou goat’s cheese, despite the fact that he had already reached his self-imposed weekly ration. After a final stir, he spooned out a bowlful of cassoulet, making sure that it included the duck leg. For several seconds he looked at the portion. Remembering the sight of his stomach in the bath the night before, which, considering it was May, he could no longer dismiss as his winter plumage, he returned three spoonfuls to the pot and headed towards the back door with the tray. Just before opening the door, his eyes slid back to the disturbed pile of beans he had just returned. Dashing back to the pot, he scooped it back up again into his bowl. Before guilt could get its grip, he quickly strode out of the back door and kicked it shut behind him.

  Guillaume Ladoucette settled himself at the warped wooden table and chair speckled with lichen underneath the walnut tree, where he often ate, cooling his feet on the grass, while admiring the veritable splendour of his potager. Picking up the fork, the barber selected a piece of plump sausage for his first mouthful. But, as he went to spear it, he suddenly stopped and stared blankly for several minutes. Then, very slowly, he put down the empty fork. As he sat back, a warm fat tear slid down his crow’s-feet, shot over a tiny scar, rattled over his stubble and came to an abrupt halt at the bottom of his chin where it hung quivering.

  It was not the realization that he had tweaked his moustache while cooking and that his world would forever smell of duck fat that had upset him. Nor was it the view of Lisette Robert’s underwear pegged out on the washing line in the distance, a sight said to have broken at least seventeen bachelors’ hearts. Nor was it the tiny pair of black eyes he’d just spotted bearing down on him from his neighbour’s roof. The reason for his sudden despair was the memory of Gilbert Dubuisson’s head when he walked into the barber shop that afternoon for his regular eight-week appointment and sat down in the chair with the words ‘same as usual, please’. For, when the postman took off his cap, Guillaume Ladoucette looked down and saw to his utter horror that the man was almost completely bald.

  2

  HAIRLESS CUSTOMERS WERE NOT A PROBLEM GUILLAUME Ladoucette had foreseen when, at the age of fifteen, he left school and entered the Périgord Academy of Master Barbers. Initially, his father had had other ideas for his only child, who had taken so long to be conceived that his wife had resorted to travelling to Brantôme to rub the church’s lock in accordance with the ancient fertility ritual. But while Monsieur Ladoucette’s joy at its success was unparalleled, it led to his wife embracing all manner of peasant poppycock, which became a source of utmost irritation for the rest of his life. A worker in the disused stone quarry that had been turned over to the cultivation of button mushrooms, he had spent many an afternoon bent over the piles of horse manure, his back in as much distress as his nostrils, imagining the baby his wife was carrying grown up and sitting comfortably on a plump chair in a bank. But when the child was born, there was no doubt as to his future employment, for the boy’s fluttering fingers were the most sublime things he had ever seen. Whenever Madame Ladoucette showed off their newborn, proudly opening the nappy so that all could admire his considerable japonicas, her husband could talk of nothing but his fingers. Even before he was able to sit up, the child pulled himself over to his mother’s sewing basket, extracted a pair of scissors and snipped his blanket into what was undeniably her profile. As soon as he was able to crawl, she was obliged to hide all the scissors in the house after returning from the garden one day to find the sitting-room curtains refashioned into the shape of a walnut tree.

  The obsession followed him into school. When asked for a thousand-word essay on the Revolution, the boy handed in a cut-out working model of the Bastille, complete with miniature guillotine. He discovered the joy of cutting hair, and its life-changing effects, when his schoolmate Émilie Fraisse offered him the summer truffles she had just picked in exchange for shortening her butter-coloured tresses, which she found a source of great vexation when climbing trees. Guillaume Ladoucette, who would have agreed even without the fungal bribe, insisted on using his favourite pair of scissors, which he kept hidden under a large stone in the garden. He never regretted accepting the request, even when forced to stay in his room for the remainder of the holidays after Madame Fraisse appeared on his doorstep demanding an explanation for her only daughter’s sudden resemblance to her cockerel.

  Guillaume Ladoucette, who had never previously applied himself to learning, was the most studious of his year’s intake at the Périgord Academy of Master Barbers. With ferocious concentration he watched as his teacher performed the cornerstone of gentlemen’s hairdressing: the short back and sides. He stared, hearing nothing but his tutor’s voice, as the man combed a section of hair with his right hand, slipped it between the fingers of his left and cut it off with a pair of scissors which suddenly, as if by magic, had replaced the comb in his right. It was a move that for Guillaume Ladoucette had all the appeal of a conjuring trick. He looked in wonder at how the two sides of the model’s head were perfectly symmetrical, how the line on the back of the neck was as straight as his schoolteacher had always wanted his margins, and how a dab of gentleman’s pomade, applied with a movement so fast it resembled sleight of hand, sealed the work of art.

  But his excitement at mastering cutting hair, trimming beards, waxing moustaches and wet shaving was nothing compared to that felt when, at the beginning of a class, his teacher struck a match, lit a thin wax taper and approached the model (who had only a hint of terror in his eyes). Grasping a section of hair between his index and middle fingers, the
instructor then drew the flame across the ends, quickly drawing his fingers up the shaft to extinguish the smoking orange glow. He proceeded in the same fashion around the head, describing the technique as the ultimate cure for a gentleman’s split ends, while the room filled with the monstrous smell of singed hair. For Guillaume Ladoucette, the spectacle was more wondrous than anything he had seen at the circus.

  He studied the Périgord Academy of Master Barbers’ Revised Guide to the Art of Barbering, Second Edition, with such intensity that his mother feared he would go blind. So nervous was he before the final exam that for four days he refused to eat and Madame Ladoucette had to resist the urge to sit him between her legs and force-feed him like a goose. By the time he entered the examination room, he had checked that his pen was still in his pocket thirteen times out of fear that it might vanish into thin air, and had turned the colour of an oyster. When he read the first question–How Should a Barber Comport Himself?–his appetite instantly returned. Triumphantly he wrote: A barber must combine nobility and honour with trustworthiness and cleanliness. It is most necessary to avoid stagnant breath and obnoxious body odours. The partaking of daily bathing is vital. In order to retain his customers’ patronage, the successful barber must avoid at all costs quarrels, loss of temper, boisterous attire, blasphemy or the spreading of gossip.

  By the time the boy read the second question–How Should a Facial Hairpiece Be Applied?–he felt vomitous with hunger as he answered verbatim: In the case of a moustache, apply spirit gum to the upper lip, wait until tacky, position moustache and gently press down with a suitable cloth. If the moustache happens to find itself in an unfavourable position, first give warning to the customer and then remove in one strike with utmost speed and determination. Reposition and then trim in the desired style. For a beard, repeat, but apply spirit gum to the chin area.

  By the third–What Should You Remember When Tapering?–he started to nibble his question paper as he recalled: That it is better to taper with caution and clarity of mind. One must remember that after the hair is cut it cannot be replaced.