Finding Monsieur Right Read online

  Having washed her hands, tightened her ponytail and straightened her sweater around her shoulders, Isabelle went in search of Jules and found her in the basement kitchen, sitting at a round pine table. The room was painted pale yellow and contained a big cream-coloured fridge and an old-fashioned dresser loaded with a great deal of crockery, including several teapots in different shapes and sizes. Around the table stood several mismatched chairs. Beyond Jules was the sink (which appeared to be full of unwashed dishes, Isabelle noted disapprovingly), above which a window looked into the sunlit garden. Jules was reading a book that was propped up against a teapot, and eating a biscuit. She looked up briefly.

  ‘All right? All moved in and everything?’

  ‘Yes, heu, no. When Daisy left … she was late for her train?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She did not have time to pack her clothes.’

  ‘Oh no, she packed loads. Always does, can’t do it any other way.’

  Isabelle thought of her own precise method for packing from a list, ruthlessly eliminating everything apart from a few tried and trusted outfits plucked out of a small wardrobe in which all the items matched. She had an alarming mental image of a deranged Daisy shoving armfuls of clothes into every room of her own flat, filling the bathroom with them, perhaps even the fridge …

  ‘Do you want some tea or something?’

  Isabelle thanked her hostess automatically and sat down, wondering how to broach the question of the room again. She looked up as Jules pushed an enormous cup shaped like a tankard in her direction. It was adorned with a pink capital D.

  ‘That’s Daze’s mug. I suppose you might as well use it while you’re here.’

  Rather than the delicate golden brown liquid Isabelle would have recognised as tea, the mug contained an alien-looking opaque grey-beige beverage. She sipped once, then put the thing down hurriedly.

  ‘Please …’ she said in as firm a tone as she could muster, but before she could continue there was the sound of somebody clattering down the stairs.

  ‘Chrissie’s home,’ Jules said. ‘Hooray.’

  Isabelle turned towards the door, curious after all to see the other girl who lived in the house.

  But the person who walked in was a very good-looking boy with longish straight blond hair. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt and, extremely oddly in Isabelle’s eyes, a sarong. She remembered that the British sometimes wore kilts, like Prince Charles for example, but did not know what to make of this outlandish outfit. On Chrissie’s feet were bright yellow flip-flops. He walked straight to Isabelle with both arms outstretched.

  ‘Hi darling! I’m Chrissie!’

  ‘Hello. It’s nice to meet you,’ Isabelle murmured politely.

  But Chrissie had somehow got hold of her hands and was pulling her to her feet. For one wild moment she thought he was going to make her dance around the kitchen. Instead he clasped her in his arms for a minute, then pulled away and kissed the air on either side of her face.

  ‘Mwah, mwah! There we are. Just like the French. Now let’s have a look at you.’ He stared at her for a moment and then, rather woundingly, burst out laughing. ‘Oh, my goodness! Aren’t you just the sweetest little French person! Jules, will you look at the exquisite way she’s wearing her jaunty little jersey!’

  Isabelle blushed to the roots of her hair. Jules kept her eyes on her book, but she smiled a little.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait, there’s more,’ he continued, looking down at her belt. ‘Is this … Hermès?’

  ‘Erm, yes,’ said Isabelle evenly. ‘It was my mother’s.’

  Chrissie let out a high-pitched squeal. Isabelle flinched a little. He then said in a low, respectful voice: ‘It’s vintage.’

  There was a short pause.

  ‘It’s just like me, I’m going for a whole Beckham story today. I know what you’re going to say,’ he said, suddenly holding up a hand an inch away from Isabelle’s face. ‘But the thing is you see it’s so yesterday that it feels quite fresh again, positively zingy. It’s iconic. It works.’

  Isabelle, who did not follow football, hardly understood a word of this. He’d said something about a story. Some novel he was reading, or was planning to read?

  ‘My dear, you look a bit shaken and stirred,’ Chrissie said, not unkindly. ‘Was darling Daze’s room a bit much for you? I try and try to get her to change her ways but she just will not do capsule. We have an attic here, you know. I’ll help you put her things in boxes and we’ll store them away. She won’t mind.’

  ‘Probably won’t notice they’ve gone,’ Jules added tonelessly.

  ‘But first, a lovely cuppa!’

  Isabelle was grateful for Chrissie’s offer of help and would actually have preferred him to get on with it right away. But it was very difficult to interrupt his rapid flow of speech, particularly as her English felt a bit rusty.

  ‘You see, Daisy called me one day to say she’d bought this absolutely vast house and would I like to move in with her. I said, darling, it would be an honour! The thing is it was so timely, because I’d just got out of a difficult relationship. The whole Mick the Shit frightmare,’ he added tersely for Jules’ benefit. ‘I’d been sleeping on people’s floors, practically under bridges, for days. But now I have this lovely ginormous room where I sleep and entertain and next to it is my studio where I do my work. It’s divine, you can see the whole garden.’

  A studio … that meant atelier. That was interesting. ‘Are you an artist?’ asked Isabelle.

  ‘Yes, darling, I am,’ Chrissie replied earnestly. ‘How very perceptive of you to see that.’

  ‘Chrissie is a milliner,’ said Jules, addressing Isabelle. Then, seeing that she still looked blank: ‘He makes hats,’ she explained.

  ‘Hats, tiaras, headdresses, whatever I can turn my hand to. Come into my boudoir and I’ll show you, darling, I can tell you’re interested. Now, let’s see …’

  In truth Isabelle was not at all interested now she’d discovered that Chrissie busied himself, like Daisy, with such a frivolous and useless thing as fashion. What a waste of time.

  ‘Can you please help me with my room?’ she interjected desperately while she had the chance. ‘I would like to unpack my suitcase.’

  Chrissie looked a little deflated. ‘Yes, certainly, certainly.’

  Thankfully, Chrissie packed as fast as he talked and it wasn’t long before Daisy’s room was cleared out. Then he left Isabelle blissfully alone in her new domain: an extremely spacious room that could probably have contained the whole of her Paris apartment. There were three big arched windows through which she could see the garden’s tree tops against a blue sky. It was a soothing view. She decided to move Daisy’s dressing table in front of the central window. It was just the right size for her laptop and would make an ideal desk. On it she placed the framed photo of herself sitting with Clothaire and Agathe on the beach in the Ile de Ré last summer. The wardrobe now contained her carefully laundered jeans and navy trousers, a couple of straight knee-length skirts, shirts in pastel shades, three jumpers (grey, navy and camel), the understated cotton cardigan from Agnès b (grey with pretty mother-of-pearl poppers) that was a gift from Agathe, a belted mac and a little black dress.

  First thing tomorrow, she’d go to the library and get her ticket, then spend the whole day there searching the catalogue. From now on it would be work, work, work.

  2 Daisy

  Daisy lay in bed, hugging herself and smiling. She was in love. Every morning she woke up with a surge of excitement, suddenly remembering where she was. All of Paris was downstairs waiting for her to come out and play. For the first few days she had simply wandered in a happy trance from shop to shop, her mind permanently lit up like a Christmas tree with the names of all the Parisian designers, occasionally refuelling with an espresso before starting again on her fashion pilgrimage. She would manoeuvre herself into Isabelle’s tiny bathroom, tucked in a corner next to the diminutive kitchen, and shower carefully (t
here wasn’t much elbow room), listening to the sounds of the Paris traffic below. It then took her hours to get ready. What to wear? Her 1930s tea gown and silver peep-toe sandals maybe? Just the thing for going around the flea markets. Or perhaps, if she fancied tackling the chic Bon Marché department store, something more straightforward – emerald silk cigarette pants, jewelled mules, a Pucci shirt and her big white Jackie O sunglasses. Then there was make-up. Powder, blusher, varying shades of red lipstick and always some carefully applied black liquid eyeliner to give herself the cat’s eyes of a Rive Gauche siren.

  This particular morning, a week into the house swap, Daisy woke up feeling as excited as usual but also, she realised, really quite hungry. She went into Isabelle’s kitchen to investigate. The tiny fridge was completely empty apart from a bottle of Evian. Daisy pondered this for a moment, then was struck by inspiration. The greeting letter left by Isabelle had mentioned there was an open-air market on the boulevard every Saturday: she would get some lovely food there!

  In keeping with this plan, her sartorial inspiration was on the rustic side – gypsy-style white blouse, long flouncy Liberty skirt, high-heeled red clogs, a red bandana worn as a headscarf and, pulling the look together, Isabelle’s wicker shopping basket, discovered in the kitchen.

  Walking past the bakery on Isabelle’s street, Daisy decided to buy some bread. As she walked into the shop, its owner, a plump middle-aged woman with a huge white-blonde chignon and pink pinafore, practically sang out her greeting: ‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle!’

  ‘Erm, bonjour,’ Daisy replied happily. ‘Une baguette, s’il vous plaît.’

  Since her arrival she had felt permanently like the heroine in a Hollywood musical and half-expected the crowds on the street to break into a choreographed song and dance. And indeed, wouldn’t it be lovely, she thought dreamily as she was handed the warm bread wrapped in a sheet of paper and picked up her change, if a lush musical score began to swell in the background as the boulangère, gracefully leaping over the counter (admittedly a bit hard to imagine, but never mind) and landing next to Daisy, then took her by the hand and led her in some sort of pas de deux around the shop. Daisy walked out, carefully placing the baguette in her basket. Now she had entered the stretch of the boulevard occupied by the market. A crowd of people were slowly making their way through the stalls. Daisy joined them, gazing at tall symmetrical pyramids of tomatoes, courgettes and apricots as she went past. How beautiful. How long did it take to build those? This was more fun than the weekly trips with Jules to their local supermarket in London, with Daisy trying to keep her friend’s fixation on baked beans and chocolate Hob-Nobs in check. It would be so excellent if this (actually rather yummy-looking) fruit-and-veg guy started to juggle a few peaches while this young mother, in her fab sleeveless linen dress, began to tap a funky beat on the handle of her baby’s pushchair. More would start to do the same, juggle-juggle, tap-tap-tap, until eventually the whole market erupted into song. Tra-la-la-la-la-la-la … Then the fruit-and-veg guy would lift her high up, she’d stretch out her hands and launch into her big number, ‘Paris, je t’aime! Paris, je t’adore!’

  ‘Non mais! Pouvez pas faire attention, non?’

  Oh no. She had walked slap bang into a man carrying a tray of melons and they had all rolled off everywhere. He looked very cross.

  ‘Oh, pardon! Let me help.’ Daisy fumbled around, vainly trying to locate the melons between the feet of the moving shoppers. The man was more efficient and managed to retrieve a few.

  ‘Idiote!’ he threw at Daisy before moving on with his tray. That wasn’t very nice! She hadn’t done it on purpose.

  ‘C’est pour aujourd’hui ou pour demain?’ said another voice, which also sounded cross. Daisy looked up. A stallholder was staring at her expectantly. And there were people behind her, huffing and puffing. She seemed to have accidentally come to the head of the queue and she was holding everyone up.

  ‘Er, des cerises, s’il vous plaît. Et quatre nectarines.’

  Daisy made her way back to the flat, having also purchased a goat’s cheese and some olives from a friendlier stall. She was exhausted. It was actually quite hard work being a typical Parisian. After lunch, she should really give some thought to her writing. Daisy had been commissioned by Sparkle, an up-and-coming Internet fashion magazine, to write a blog reflecting the experiences of a London style expert in Paris. The deal had come together just as she was about to leave for France, which was good news in terms of her finances. It would supplement the little bit of money her parents had given her, the rent she got from Chrissie and Jules and whatever she could earn by doing a bit of freelance styling or window-dressing. After a stint working as in-house PR for a designer, she had impulsively decided that she needed a change from the London fashion scene without really thinking too much about practicalities. In truth Daisy generally went through life trusting that ‘something would turn up’, and it usually did.

  She walked up the five flights of stairs that led to the flat, her stomach rumbling. As she let herself into the flat, she got a shock. The door was shut, not locked, yet she was sure she had locked it on her way out. A burglar? Daisy pushed the door open, calling out a cautious ‘Hello?’ Another voice, a girl’s, answered ‘C’est Daisy?’ A burglar wouldn’t know her name, Daisy reasoned. She walked resolutely into the book-filled living room that was also Isabelle’s study. An unknown girl, who had been sitting at Isabelle’s desk, stood up when she saw Daisy and held out her hand.

  ‘Hello,’ she said in fluent English, ‘you must be Daisy. My name is Agathe. I’m a friend of Isabelle’s. Her best friend.’

  Agathe was, Daisy saw, very beautiful, with large hazel eyes and long golden-blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, which shone like glass. In jeans and a white shirt, she looked incredibly smart. She gave a little shrug and smiled.

  ‘You must be wondering why I’m here!’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I left something here that belongs to me, and I have a duplicate of Isabelle’s keys, for emergencies. So I came and picked up my stuff. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK. But …’

  ‘I love what you’re wearing!’ Agathe exclaimed.

  ‘Oh, thank you.’

  ‘It’s very original. Very folklorique.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It means traditional, from the provinces. You know, like in Brittany, for example, the women wear black dresses and tall white coifs and the men play old instruments,’ Agathe said, gracefully miming the turning of a handle, ‘and sing songs in patois.’

  ‘What’s patois?’

  ‘It’s local dialect.’

  There was a pause, then Agathe, her eyes narrowed, enquired about what was pinned to Daisy’s peasant top.

  ‘Oh, that! It’s my heart-shaped brooch. It’s complete tat but I love it. It’s the way it winks in that 3-D sort of way, like those really kitsch postcards. You see?’

  She did a little shimmy to demonstrate. Agathe, who was wearing a small string of pearls, nodded, her face neutral.

  ‘A boyfriend gave it to me years ago as a joke,’ Daisy explained.

  ‘He is no longer your boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh, no! As a matter of fact since then he’s turned out to be completely gay. Fashion, you know! I’m single at the moment.’

  Agathe smiled sympathetically. ‘Well, I’m going to a party tonight. Would you like to come?’

  ‘Oh, yes! Thank you, that would be lovely.’

  ‘A lot of Isabelle’s friends will be there. They are all very curious to meet you.’

  Agathe left, promising to call later to arrange a time. Left alone, Daisy first jumped up and down with excitement, then her face took on a more serious expression. She sat down, rummaged for her mobile and texted Chrissie: ‘FASHION POLICE EMERGENCY SOS.’ He ought to be awake by now.

  Sure enough her phone beeped almost immediately: ‘ICI LE FASHION POLICE. HOW CAN I ENHANCE YOUR FABULOUSNESS?’

  ‘PA
RTY TONIGHT IN PARIS. WHAT 2 WEAR?’

  ‘OH DARLING IT’S A CODE SHRIEK. WHOSE PARTY? IS IT DESIGNER?’

  ‘JUST A FRIEND OF ISABELLE’S,’ Daisy texted back. Then she had an inspiration: ‘ASK HER FOR TIPS?’

  ‘OH MY DEAREST DARLING NO,’ came the reply. ‘WHY NOT?’

  ‘ISABELLE V. SWEET BUT NO FASHION GURU. ACTUALLY SPURNS ONE’S HATS. MOST MORTIFYING.’

  How like Chrissie to take everything so personally and blow it out of proportion. So what if Isabelle was not a hat person? She was probably mad for shoes instead.

  ‘OK, SO YOU ADVISE.’

  ‘GO KICKASS BOND GIRL PUSSY GALORE.’

  ‘?’

  ‘LEATHER CATSUIT.’

  ‘TOO SWEATY. V. HOT IN PARIS!’

  ‘HOW BROWN ARE U SWEETIE?’

  ‘NOT BAD, FAKE TAN STILL DOING ITS THING.’

  ‘THEN IS NO BRAINER. FULL-ON KITSCHY DALLAS VIBE. HALTER-NECK, WHITE RA-RA SKIRT, METALLIC BRONZE COWBOY BOOTS. TRÈS CHIC.’

  ‘BRILLIANT, THANKS.’

  ‘BIG HAIR.’

  ‘OF COURSE. ALL WELL AT YOUR END?’

  ‘PERFECT HEAVEN. MUST DASH. JULES AND I HAVING A BITCH AT MTV CRIBS. MWAH!’

  So her first Sparkle blog could be about party wear. Excellent: she would be having fun and doing important research at the same time. Her Parisian life was falling into place.

  3 Isabelle

  ‘Oh, I know! I could be a grave digger,’ Jules said, holding up her spoon.

  ‘Mmm, yes, I can totally see that. Though really I suppose you’d have to start as an apprentice. It’s a proper trade, isn’t it? Besides, wouldn’t you have to be a sexton or something?’

  ‘You know I couldn’t do that – I’m a pagan.’

  ‘Naturally, darling. But oh, it would be gorgeous, imagine, swanning around among all those beautiful stones and crypts, so very Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’

  ‘Well, perhaps.’ Jules smiled a little, her mouth full of Weetabix.

  Over communal breakfast on Saturday morning, Chrissie was helping Jules decide on her next career move. As usual for this time of day they were both en déshabillé, Jules in her purple velvet dressing gown and Chrissie in his fluffy white bathrobe. Jules’ long fringe was held back with a plastic hairclip, presumably to allow her to see what she was eating. Cereal as usual. That appeared to be all she ate. Chrissie, who was picking at a half of grapefruit, had a green mud mask on. Raven the cat sat on the dresser cleaning behind her ears. Isabelle, also sitting at the kitchen table, took no part in the ridiculous conversation, which she privately thought was in bad taste. She remained utterly silent, alternately taking a sip of black coffee and a small bite of toasted baguette, while going through the notes she had made during yesterday’s library session.