The gunshop was full of smoke.
Smoke from the five middle-aged Frenchmen who were dragging occasionally on Gitanes, speaking in low tones, sharing local intrigue.
The young Brit, Mark, had walked into the shop to hire a gun for a shoot at the weekend, but he realized he had interrupted a tradition. Saturday in the gunshop was not about selling or hiring guns or ammunition. Saturday afternoon in the gun shop was about gossip, catching up on the news of the week and of avoiding shopping with the wife.
One, the proprietor, Andre – was older than the rest, maybe in his sixties, and was clearly the chairman. He pressed his rotund belly against the counter and his ruddy face looked satisfied and relaxed. A local liqueur – Marc - was offered to all, with small coffees, or straight.
The shop fell silent when Mark walked in, his arrival announced by the bell on the door. He instantly felt uncomfortable and decided that he should hurry up and buy what he needed for his shooting trip the following the day. But all of a sudden, it seemed that there was a new agenda – Andre and his mates drank-up, eyed him warily, stubbed out their cigarettes and left the shop. In the abandoned shop, Mark looked over the guns in the glass cases and at the ammunition and wooden and horn-handed knives under the counter, where Andre’s amble belly had rested.
Mark had found himself in this small French town, near the Vercors mountains and a few kilometers south of Grenoble, because he was working in a factory as a way of ‘seeing the real world’. As an 18-year-old between school and college, for him, seeing the real world in the late 1970s was working shifts in a factory.
There was a noise in the back of the gun shop – way back. He wondered whether the shop would begin to function again as a shop – willing to sell guns - or whether there would be more drinking and smoking and chatting.
A woman appeared.
She slid behind the counter, hitched her skirt as she sat on a high stool behind the counter and, ignoring him, looked down at a magazine she was reading. All was quiet.
Mark carried on looking at the guns and wondered what the French expression was for ‘May I hire a gun”.
He then looked at the woman, who was in her thirties with dark bobbed hair. She was slim and wore a loose dress. And he decided this was the time to try out his very basic French. He tried to ask if he could rent a gun and she smiled and asked him what he wanted to shoot.
The shop was quiet – they looked at each other and although he knew it was his turn to speak, his French was so poor he could not even exchange small talk. She tried to speak to him in English. But they found that his French and her English were on about the same level: ‘work in progress’. He decided that he should leave and come back when he could make more sense. It was when he strolled out of the shop that Mark remembered why his French was so rudimentary.
His school French teacher had a fine moustache and this fascinated Mark - much more than learning the language. As a 15-year-old, Mark had been jealous of this generous display of facial hair and wished that his regular shaving, followed by periods of waiting, would produce something worth calling a moustache. But he never did produce as good a moustache as his French teacher, Marie, whose husband was the economics teacher.
***
A week before his visit to the gunshop, Mark had arrived by train from England. Jean, who had an Olympic-qualifying bushy moustache – and a diesel Peugeot, met Mark at the station. Jean was a shift manager at the factory where Mark was to spend the coming six months and Jean told Mark that he had a standing invitation to an evening meal at Jean’s home for dinner – subject to shifts. Shifts? Apparently the factory did not work nine to five, but some workers started at five in the morning and finished at lunchtime; some started at lunchtime and finished at nine and some started at six in the evening and finished at six in the morning. Great, thought Mark – this is going to be a complete nightmare.
Jean’s car drew up outside a Sport Bar in the central square of a very French village where Jean introduced Mark to the bar owner and made sure he was installed in his room which overlooked the square, with its fountain, some pavement restaurants, a bus stop and a long wall dividing the town from the garden of the chateau. A long wall. It was dark, but Mark thought that there were worse views for the coming few months. Above the village the mountains loomed dark.
Jean told Mark that the following day was morning shift and that he would be there at four thirty so they could get to the factory in time to start at five.
*
It is dark at five in the morning - even in summer, in France. And Mark wasn’t ready to get up, let alone face a working day in a strange factory, with new colleagues. But they pulled away from the village in the noisy, smelly Peugeot. Jean smoked Gitanes in the car, with the windows closed. And Mark pulled out his packet of Number 6 and found there was only one left. He smoked it, even though it made him feel light-headed and slightly sick.
Once at the factory he was given a set of blue overalls and a Stanley knife. Seemed like it was going to be a tough and violent working regime – was the knife for self-defense? But deep down, he just wanted to get stuck in and learn some French.
Under the bright yellow lights on the factory floor, with the din of machinery ringing in his ears, Mark was introduced to Pelas his colleague on the paper-cutting machine. Pelas was a charming, big man with a bald, bullet head and no neck and he wanted to make sure Mark felt welcome. Pelas smiled all the time and life was good. So when Mark tried his French on Pelas it was the start of an interesting relationship. Pelas had moved to France six months previously from Portugal and his French was much better than Mark’s, but with a heavy Portuguese accent. So in the coming weeks, above the noise of the paper cutters, Mark learned more French words, but with a certain immigrant ‘twang’. He learnt the language of the paper factory and of the canteen.
The machine he and Pelas worked on, made the resealable seals for babies’ nappies. And the machine, which sliced a thousand meters of paper an hour, gave him severe static electric shocks when he touched it to change the bobbins on which the rolls of paper accumulated. He endured these shocks for a week or so, until his workmates told him to use his Stanley knife to discharge the current before touching the bobbins. They called him ‘le jeune Anglais’ and they did watch him and look after him.
Back at the sports bar, his room was sparse, but clean and comfortable with a shared bathroom on his floor. The separate WC was something of a shock for him. It was a hole in the floor with a ceramic tray which took some getting used to and some balance, especially after a beer or two in the bar in the evening. Once through the door behind the bar and into the accommodation, there was a push-button light on a timer, which for thirty seconds illuminated the floor of the stairs and landing to the bedrooms, which was covered in old green lino, faded down the middle where decades of guests had trudged in and out of high-ceiling bedrooms.
When he was not working he strolled the streets and lanes of the village, which was a dense pattern of old town houses with washing hanging on lines over the alleyways. Just outside the old village were some more modern low-rise flats and then further out into the countryside, the energetic or ambitious were building their own modest bungalows on plots reclaimed from farms surrounding the village. Beyond the fields were hills and in the distance, mountains reflecting ever-changing colors as the sun hit different sheer surfaces in the morning, midday and evening.
***
So a month or so after his first visit, he made another trip to the gun shop again on a Tuesday afternoon, after his morning shift. Fat Andre was absent, but the woman was there – reading a magazine. And they could talk – her English had not improved, but his French was coming on.
She showed him some guns for hire and sold him some ammunition and the deal was done. And then she asked him why he was here and for how long. He was clearly a novelty. An English boy in a deeply French village that was well off the tourist track and with the summer tailing off into the quiet autumn, when the area was left to the people who lived there.
And he asked her why she was working in a gun shop.
Michelle told him her story.
Her father had been best friends with Andre, the owner of the shop – they were shooting companions. And Andre and her father had made a deal. When Michelle’s father contracted terminal cancer when she was 16, her father asked Andre to look after her when he was gone. And this Andre promised to do.
Michelle’s father died two years after the promise was made and Michelle was not yet 18 and needed a guardian. The lawyer read the will, assigned Michelle to Andre and then went on to assign the remainder of her father’s estate and assets to her. But instead of gaining some security and independence through inheritance, she learned quickly how harsh the life could be.
Her father’s house and farm became hers – for a month. His entire estate was sold and the proceeds just about paid his gambling debts. Michelle was left with a few thousand francs – not enough even to buy a second-hand car. Michelle went to live with Andre and grieved for her father.
Andre was a widower and he needed someone to support him running the shop, so instead of going to college, Michelle was brought in to help run the shop. First on a Saturday, she was put in charge of the shop when Andre and his cronies went to drink and chat in the afternoon. And then more and more during the week when Andre had engagements elsewhere.
When Michelle was 21, the 62-year-old Andre proposed. He was horribly drunk after a weekend shooting with friends. And Michelle realised that this was less of an invitation, than an ultimatum. Did she want a roof over her head, or not? Andre had discharged his promise to her father and she was now an adult and not even a paying guest in his house. She had no choice but to agree, and within a few weeks she was married and sharing a bed with a man she regarded as a guardian and an uncle, but not a lover.
Andre found a new lease of life. Michelle looked into the abyss.
And for ten years she served in the shop, cooked, cleaned and made a home of the shabby house behind the gun shop. Andre continued to work – sitting in the shop, repairing guns and taking deliveries from suppliers. Some of whom he paid within the year. He was bald, overweight and shaved only on a Saturday. She was allowed to shop for food - on a tight budget and Andre insisted that she only bought supplies at his friends’ shops; she only shopped on credit, which he would settle in due course.
Andre’s friends were sour, small men with bad hats and worse jeans - who only wanted to escape their homes and families. They lured each other to bars in the afternoons “just for a soupçon” of Marc liqueur and a coffee. They undressed Michelle with their eyes, but deferred to Andre who always had a plan for the day, which usually involved activity outside the shop. He was the focus and the initiator. And his life was outside the shop.
[Dark wood-paneled shop, glass, racks of guns, deer heads around the upper part of the shop]
So Michelle ran the shop, paid the suppliers, managed the cash flow, made sure the house was clean and that there was a meal on the table when Andre came home.
She had learnt early on that a meal on the table was essential. Andre could return from sessions with his friends at any time of the evening – or even in the early hours of the morning. And Michelle would have to be there, to greet him with a hot meal. She became expert in slow cooking – food that would be cooked within an hour, but that would keep on a low heat for hours. Gratin Dauphinoise was one of these. She remembered when she was very young, that her mother made this dish of potatoes, cream and garlic – cooked slowly in an earthenware dish - would last forever if the oven heat was controlled.
But after food, he would want her. Even if the drink had made him tired and irritable, he would still want her. And it made her freeze – it always had. He had sour alcohol-infused, wheezy breath, a heavy reeking body, his rasping unshaved cheeks rubbing on her face, neck and breasts. Andre - the guardian, turned predator.
*
So her life was defined and was on its course. All of the customers were friends of Andre. All interested in guns and interested in what Andre must see and feel, once he had finished his evening meal.
So the young English boy who came into the shop – who made no sense - was a diversion. It made her smile that she could not understand him and she could not make him understand her. He was something different, lifting a dull afternoon. A diversion.
A few days later he returned and his French had improved. He had an open cut above his eye and she asked what he had done. He explained that one evening in the bar below where he lived, they had asked him to play rugby for the village team against a neighboring village. He had agreed and told her that he had never seen a match where the ball was so incidental and the referee so powerless. Apparently, seconds after the starting whistle, the two teams started a huge fight – settling scores that went back generations. Mark had suffered collateral damage – he got in the way of a flailing fist that was intended for someone else.
She asked him into the back of the shop and put surgical spirit on the cut. As she did this he looked into her eyes and saw how deep brown they were – and how clear and how almond-shaped. Her mouth was always a natural smile; her lips were full and her teeth white and regular. But he tried to concentrate on being ‘a patient’.
After the treatment she offered him a coffee and he sat on a stool in the back of the shop. It grew dark outside and he said he should be going. Michelle said he did not have to leave on her account. Mark said that he thought she should be closing the shop. She agreed that she probably should and started to let down the shutters on the front of the shop. He realized he was still inside the shop – and the shop was closed and lit by the bulbs in the gun cabinets.
Michelle locked the front door and went into the back of the shop and put the keys in a box on the wall. Mark waited and watched.
In a few minutes she asked if he would like a drink. And that he should come through to the back. He was hot, confused and at the same time relaxed.
He walked to the back of the shop and into the workshop, which smelled of oil – gun parts scattered in various states of repair - or - because of Andre’s level of interest – lack of repair.
He stood looking at the workshop, when she appeared at the door between the house and the workshop. She had a glass of wine in each hand. He followed her into the kitchen. The aroma of cooking was wonderful. She held her glass up and handed a glass to him. They gently touched glasses and sipped the wine.
He had not been in this situation before, but Mark knew enough about Andre to realize that hanging around in the shop after closing time was not his smartest move. He knew Andre was unpredictable and bad-tempered. Mark told her he thought he should go home and leave her, in case Andre came home. “Andre is away overnight in the mountains with his friends, Mark’ she whispered ‘and I don’t want to eat alone.”
“Please go through to the house,” she said pointing to a door with a thick velvet curtain drawn across it.
He went into a room furnished with stiff, upright furniture covered in dark, maroon velvet that matched the door curtain. He sat on the edge of one of the chairs, leaving the other and sofa vacant.
Michelle brought her glass and a bottle of wine from the kitchen. Mark’s head was spinning – partly due to the situation and partly due to the wonderful taste of a good French wine. Michelle refilled his glass and left the room. Nothing was said. She returned a few minutes later and placed two plates of steaming meat, gratin and green beans on the dining room table. They sat opposite each other and ate, still barely exchanging a word.
After the meal they sat in the parlor on separate chairs and she asked him about his life and family. And he asked her about hers. For more than an hour, she told him about her father, the deal between him and Andre and about her father’s concern that she was looked after; her father’s debts and the resulting trap she found herself in with Andre. She told him about how she had been expected to serve him – in every way, for years.
It took him a while to digest all of this information – he felt that during the conversation, he might have missed some of the French words or misinterpreted them. So he checked with her occasionally, clarifying some phrases. He realized he did indeed have an accurate picture of the life of the woman he was sharing this gentle red wine with. And it disturbed him. It was so far removed from his nuclear family back home.
Mark got up and thanked her for the meal and the wine and she fetched the keys and went to the back door of the house. He said he needed to be up in a few hours for his early shift and she let him out of the door and into the yard at the back of the shop.
His ten-minute walk through the sleeping village gave him time to think. He could not rationalize how this bright and intelligent woman found herself trapped in a loveless, brutal existence. He let himself into the side door of the sports bar and pushed the light. He did not sleep at first, and knew he had not slept well when his alarm went off at four and he had to leave the warmth of his bed and wrestle with the scalding hot or icy cold shower in the bathroom.
Thoughts of Michelle still played on his mind.
He finished work at lunchtime and once back in the village he walked to the gun shop. He saw Andre through the window, plucking pigeons with a cigarette clamped between his mean lips. He turned, walked on and called into the tabac. Michelle was buying a newspaper and chatting to the shop assistant. When she turned to leave the shop she spotted Marc and stopped, smiled and wished him a good day and left the shop. He watched her make her way up the road and into the gunshop.
Later that evening he was walking past the gunshop again and saw Michelle winding in the awning which kept the midday sun out of the shop. She asked him how he was and they chatted for a few minutes. She kept glancing into the shop, and eventually told Mark she had to get back to work, otherwise there would be trouble. As she was making for the door of the shop, she turned and asked how the cut on his eye was. He said it was fine and she asked him if he was planning to play rugby again at the weekend. He said he had no plans to. She asked him if he would like to come around for a glass of wine towards closing time on Saturday. He said he would.
***
She came over to Mark and offered her glass to him and he lifted his to meet hers. She put her glass on the table and walked behind Mark’s chair and put her arms around his neck. He smelt her hair and felt her cheek against his. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears and he could feel her breath on his neck.
He turned and looked into her eyes.
“I want my life back,’ she said softly ‘I want to live…’
He stood up, turned around and knelt on the chair so he was facing her. She kissed him gently on the lips, with her hands cupped around the back of his head. She held him close.
Mark was trembling – Michelle spoke softly, calming him.
They held each other for a long time and then she pulled away so she had room to unbutton his shirt. Then they were pulling at each others clothes as they fell to the floor. Her kisses showered his face and she searched for her mouth with his tongue, she pushed down on his chest and his shoulders pressed him against the floor. She looked at him and smiled; her eyes fiery and inquiring.
She stood up, offered him her hand and gently pulled him from the floor.
Not a word was said.
She led him from the parlor and up a narrow, dark flight of stairs and into a dark room on the first floor. Once in the room, she turned around and stood still facing him, lit only by the streetlamp outside the window. He unclasped her bra, let it drop in front of her and put his arms around her, cupping her breasts. She turned and undressed him quickly, feeling his body against hers, wanting him. He pulled her down onto the bed, felt her hair brushing against his face and felt her hand guiding him into her. She slowly and powerfully moved down on him and he gasped. She bit her lip and closed her eyes and they felt each other close – he gently held her hips and let his hands wander over her taught body. Exploring.
It did not last long – the experience was too new and too unexpected and too intense. They lay together, listening to each others breathing and feeling the sweat trapped between their bodies.
Thoughts rushed through Mark’s mind and he could feel that Michelle alone with hers.
He woke at four – time to get up and join the shift – but there was no work this morning. She slept beside him and her eyes were closed in a contented way; not giving any hint of the life she was leading – the hurt and the betrayal of trust, the abuse and the being taken for granted – nothing more than a concubine, cook and a hired help.
He sat on the edge of the bed in the chill of the room. At 18 he should be having a bit of fun, instead he was deep into a relationship and it scared him. He knew what she wanted from life, but he did not know what she wanted from him, or whether he could give it. Was he her escape? Was he being primed to help her make her escape? And if so, was that so bad? Who does not want to free a trapped animal?
The next few weeks repeated a pattern of assignations, love-making and drinking wine while Andre was out and about. Mark only stayed in the bedroom above the gun shop when Andre was hunting in the mountains.
But one day as autumn drew in, when Mark and Michelle were enjoying an early evening together, in bed, they both heard noises downstairs. Andre’s was back. The front door bell clinked, and he was angry, cursing and shouting in the shop downstairs. Mark dressed and Michelle told him to go – out of the window but not to climb down the sloping roof over the kitchen at the back of the shop in case he was seen by Andre, but to wait until she told him it was safe to go. He lay there and through the slightly open window, witnessed a huge argument. Andre had returned home because his gun had jammed and he needed a new one for the coming day. So he returned and found Michelle in bed, uncharacteristically early. He was incandescent with rage and demanded she tell him who her lover was. She tried to calm him and offered him food and drink, but it was no good. He searched the house from the basement to the attic and all rooms in between. Mark heard Andre raving and angry and Michelle was saying less and protesting less.
Andre finally threw the windows of the bedroom open and found Mark lying on the sloping roof. All hell broke loose – Andre headed for the gun shop and Mark headed for the gate at the back of the yard. Mark made the gate and turned, just in time to see Andre loading shells into a pump-action shotgun at the kitchen door. Even for the relatively relaxed Mark, he realized this was not such a good situation… He ran – just catching a glimpse of Michelle restraining Andre at the gate at the back of the shop.
****
A week later there was a knock at his bedroom door. Unusual – he thought, but opened the door to find Michelle there. He had kept a low profile since the shotgun incident, and although he tried to see her during the previous week, whenever he passed the shop, there was only Andre and his cronies there and she was nowhere to be seen. He asked her in. She was very nervous and looked like a hunted animal, eyes darting here and there.
She told him that Andre was mad as hell – that he beat her senseless on that morning and had forbidden her ever to leave the shop. But she could not stand being there with him and as he had gone to Grenoble with a friend, she decided that she must come round to see him. One last time.
She told him she so wanted life to be different, but that she realized it was not going to be and not meant to be. She told Mark that she loved him dearly and that he was her perfect man, but that she could not expect him to be there for her. She said she was going to do her duty and that he should move on too. And she asked him not to come to the shop any more. For his own good.
He could feel a deep sadness in her and she felt it in him too.
They kissed gently and she left.
A few weeks later he headed back home for Christmas and to go to college and to start the rest of his life.
****
Twenty-eight years later, Mark who was divorced, with three teenage children, was on a motorbike tour of France with his mates. And he found himself in the same village where he had spent six months working shifts, learning about life and love. Little had changed as far as he could see.
As his mates parked up for a coffee at the sports bar in the square during the hot July afternoon, he excused himself and walked the few hundred meters to the gun shop.
It was still there.
Mark looked through the window into the shop and saw a woman and a man behind the counter. She was in her sixties, grey haired, but handsome, vibrant and smiling at her companion. He was some years younger than her. And he was smiling at her.
The man held the woman and they kissed.
