Lala's Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret

   On market days in Monsègur, and on fine, early summer mornings before the canicule arrives and burns everything under an African sun, the locals mingle with English, French, German, American, and Dutch tourists, and those who own second homes. Then there are those, like Lala and Teddy, more firmly expatriated. Each tribe is identifiable with a little practice: the locals, farming stock, short and square and, for the men, badly dressed in nylon pullovers and royal blue work trousers, with flat caps and the occasional Basque beret covering their heads like yarmulkes or taqiyahs. Their faces, sometimes wall-eyed with glasses, all shapes of round, or sallow melting splodges like Dali paintings. The gummy, tooth few grins and scowls, reveal the plaque devouring hanging remnants of incisors, thin or thick lips clamped tightly on cigarette butts aplenty. The women make more effort with their appearance, but still clearly belong to a tribe once residing in the 70s, with burgun

   Lala woke up alone, as did Teddy, while Sèdonoudè was in bed with Linda. They had spent time talking after leaving Lala to Quentin and found in each other, a growing emotion shining in their eyes. Quentin left once he had satisfied himself, but not Lala, and returned in the early hours with stinking breath to the wife with only bedclothes tucked up against her chin, to protect her from his drunken verbal assault. She breathed easier once the brute fell into a deep, snoring sleep. Billy woke, to his utter confusion, with the long, pale form of Jeremy Baden-Flogg lying next to him. Of the flood of ambivalent feelings which overcame him, the first and most stubborn was a feeling of shame. Once subsided, it was followed by a sense of relief, because he had known about this unfulfilled aspect of his sexuality for a long time. He had led a troubled life, and periods spent in young offender institutions, including as part of a gang of youths involved in the death of an old

  'But where were you, Jeremy?' Eloquentia Baden-Flogg was very unhappy. Eloquentia by name, Eloquentia by nature. 'Thomas had a dicky tummy and he threw up! There was nobody there to help me. I told you we should have made Ginny cancel her holiday. I need help with the children. There are simply too many of them.' Jeremy made all the right noises. 'But darling, Lala was having an episode. Poor Teddy was at his wits end. Look, I've brought croissants.' He waved the bag at her like a flag of truce, but Eloquentia was not for surrendering. 'That's all very well, Jeremy, but what about us? What about poor, poor Tommy poo? There was sick on the rug.' Eloquentia looked so distressed as she uttered the word 'sick', that Jeremy tried to put his arms around her. She pushed him away saying, 'I'm not finished,' and nor had she. 'It's a bit much to expect me to put up with your disappearing acts. It's bad enough that you live a double life in London. I know you have your obligations

  Lala watched through the kitchen window as the fiat pulled up on the gravel outside for an interminable another time. Teddy and Sèdonoudè were drunk, barely able to clamber out of the car without falling over, having returned from the market with a basket of token items, some merguez, and a little salad. Thick as thieves again, Lala thought. If blood was thicker than water, then alcohol was much stronger than blood. She was sulking and glowered at Sèdonoudè as he stepped into the kitchen, his boisterous grin dropping to an apologetic smile. He vanished quickly into the warren of rooms in the chateau before her dissatisfaction turned to ire. She clucked her teeth and let him slip away, for though she was many things, she could never be anything quite so boring as a nag. She addressed Teddy. 'It's the referendum tomorrow. What do you think's going to happen?' Teddy did not know. After the murder of Jo Cox, he felt that the whole exercise lacked any real moral legitimacy, anyon

The Letter   It lay on the kitchen table where Sèdonoudè had placed it. Teddy walked around it for some time, making coffee, toast, needlessly arranging bits of crockery which he would not ordinarily bother with at the best of times. That was the cleaner's job, when she was around at least, and not taking to her bed for days on end to struggle with yet another existential crisis. He knew where it had come from; he recognised the stationary. It just sat and glared at him, a ray of sunlight giving it a glow, radiating like a beam from where it hit the filmy plastic oblong containing the address and his name. Every time he looked at it, it gnawed at him a little. Like the gnawing dull ache from his groin which these days would not go away. He needed whisky for a moment like this. The smell of it reeked from his coffee cup. He opened the letter with trembling hands and as he read the words at first, they seemed to swirl, as if he had suddenly developed acute dyslexia. But a