Three French Hens

Very odd day in some ways. Worked from home and chaired a meeting remotely over the telecon. Went to Newbury in the freezing fog and had a meeting with colleagues from across South of England, then borrowed an office for the afternoon in a cavernous and empty building. Came back via Reading where The Girl Racer and I had our own Christmas meal in Loch Fyne before she goes off snowboarding. She is seen here with scary green hands left over from a wild party.

As for the 12 days of Christmas: Today we go back to the yuppie era, and find suddenly middle class George and Stella in rural France for Christmas...

Christmas 1989

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Apart from anything else, how much of the ozone layer had they damaged driving down here?

George was uncomfortable. He had left the office the week before and found himself on Grosvenor Place just as a student demo was walking up to Hyde Park Corner. As luck would have it, at that very moment a hundred students from his old college were being led in an anti-Thatcher, anti-cuts demo by his old Socialist Worker tutor. The sneer was penetrating and obvious and he had ducked away quickly in the direction of Victoria in shame.

His sense of betrayal was made worse by the fact that they had elected to rent a cottage in Normandy for Christmas, using an embarrassingly large bonus from the computer firm he worked for. His aptitude for selling had surprised them both; Stella attributed it to his naive enthusiasm and said he was that odd phenomenon, a trusted seller.

They had been greeted on the freezing Thursday night of their arrival by the owner one Christian Didier, who was diminutive, middle aged, leering and drunk. He had cooked for them - a gift he said, to welcome them to Normandy. A bitter wind swept them past his lintel - he lived next door to the cottage that he rented out - and before they knew it they were being forced to drink wine by a roaring log fire whilst Christian stared unashamedly at Stella's ample cleavage.

George suddenly simultaneously felt three new emotions: jealousy, protectiveness and xenophobia. His distance from his former unprofessional, dope smoking, denim-clad self had widened to an unbridgeable chasm. He didn't want to be here. He had an image in his head of this dirty old Frenchman trying to seduce them into a bourgeois threesome, a variation on Jules et Jim. Worse, he wondered if Christian might be bisexual and became frightened at the prospect of his own closet homophobia.

All unfounded. Christian served dinner - "poulet" he cried, pulling three small birds out of the oven, declaring them superior to any English fowl. He then served the birds, legumes and sauce and stood before them in culinary triumph before passing out on the spot.

Stella, simple and practical, helped George get him on to the settee then suggested they take their dinner next door. It was meant to be a romantic Christmas so they would be better off alone.

The food was delicious but Stella abstained from the wine. George pushed her to take a tipple but she declined; then went to her bag and came back with a folded piece of paper.

"Early Christmas present" she said, grinning. "And if you wanted a threesome, well you've got one. But not with a randy old Frenchman. This is much nicer".

He unfolded the note. It was a pregnancy test with one word scrawled on the top in biro: 'positive'.

"And then there were three" said Stella. She leaned over and kissed him and suddenly all of George's lifestyle doubts disappeared.

"I'll see if I can get a rise" he said. "Or a promotion. I'll -"

"Sssh" she replied. "Don't do anything. Just be you."

They ate the birds - all three of them. French hens weren't that big and well - it was Christmas.