Julie Sanders

13 Beach Street

10th November

My darling jealous Jules,

Theres nothing going on between me and Julien except eating and talking French what he does most of the time because I still havent learned much French and the other day when he starts kissing my neck as well I told him to stop so theres no need for you to worry. It was a bit much with my arms and face so I thought I had better draw a line somewhere but he was really good about it and starts apologising and bowing down and stuff and then he goes on his knees and did what I think was a little prayer in French and all the people in the restaurant was looking at us and I got really embarrassed. If it was down the pub then we'd all have a good laugh about it but in the middle of a posh restaurant it sort of put people off their food and one couple actually walked out before their starter came. The manager never says nothing about Julien when he acts strange what is most of the time but thats probably because we goes there every day and spends lots of money. We had smoked salmon stuffed with caviar yesterday and it was really interesting. It was really fishy. We had a glass of vodka for the caviar and washed it down with champagne for the smoked salmon.

I was feeling a bit tipsy even before the sweetbreads stuffed with mashed truffles came and we had a bottle of red wine from 1936 with that and all the time Julien was talking in French and I didnt understand a thing he was saying. The dessert was all kinds of fruit cooked at the table and set on fire and served with this sort of ice cold custard with nuts and stuff in it and we had some kind of fruit liqueur with that and tia maria with our coffees and I was quite drunk after that and it was only 3 o clock in the afternoon. Juliens chauffeur drove me home and I was sat trying to write some poetry until 6 o clock in the evening and then I went down and watched telly until mum woke me up and I went to bed.

I thought I was going to have a terrible hangover this morning but I feels really good considering how much I drank yesterday but I'm going to be really careful today and not drink so much because I slept fifteen hours last night and thats a bit much and I dont want to do that every day. Julien will be coming to pick me up soon so I better get ready and I'll write some more later when I gets back.

This is now later and I just got back from the Pheasant Plucker and I feels a bit drunk but I feels like writing to you so if I writes anything stupid its because of the wine and the brandy and stuff. I'm sorry if the writings really terrible but I'm a bit drunk.
I been thinking about what you wrote about Jacqueline and I thinks its obvious that she's been in love with you all this time and now that I've come into the picture she's had her heart broke and its driven her a bit mad but I thinks she's gone a bit extreme with it and I think she needs professional help. I think I'm going to lay down for a while because I'm feeling a bit tired and I'll carry on writing later.

This is now the next day and I didnt go and lay down. My dad came home and he starts going on about me drinking and smelling like a brewery and how ashamed of me he was. He's a good one to talk about drinking. But then he carries on about how he didnt bring me up to be a drunk slut going around with Froggies and getting fancy ideas and how I'm not too big for him to put across his knee which he thinks might be a good thing before its too late. I didnt say nothing but I was boiling inside and when he was finished I went to my room and thought about things real hard for a while. I've been a really good daughter and I've always done what I was told which is more than most of the kids round here that I grew up with who did just what they wanted to do and ended up on drugs and with babies and stuff and I dont deserve whats happened to me sometimes and I could have got my dad put away for a long time but I didnt say nothing and I've had enough. I never complained about how we lived and I just accepted it and got on with things even though I knows I could have made a real stink but I didnt want to cause problems for my mum because she dont deserve it. Then I thought about what you said about standing up for myself so I packed a suitcase and told Sharon what I was doing and then I came here to London and I'm staying in a bed and breakfast near Victoria Station.

I'm really confused. I never been in London before by myself and I dont know nobody and I thought of going to your cousins place in Buckinghamshire because I knows that they would look after me but I dont know their address and I dont know how you gets there anyway. Nobody knows where I am and I'm really feeling lonely. I got a nice room with a telly and I brought all your letters with me so I got something to read.

When I've finished this letter I'm going out and I'm going to find out how you gets to France. I hope you dont mind that I'm coming to visit you and I dont know what I'll do afterwards but I cant go back to Brineham. I wish I had your phone number because you'd know what I got to do. Now I 'm thinking that when I gets to Paris and I dont know when that will be I'll show your address to somebody there and they'll tell me how to get to your place. You said you only lives an hour away from Paris so somebody is going to know how you gets there.

I'm crying my eyes out right now so I thinks its best if I stops writing. I'll post this while I am out. I wishes you was here. I really wants to see you again.

I really really loves you Jules Lablagues xx.

Julie

Julie Sanders

Chateau Lablagues

17th November

Dear mum dad Sharon and Kirsty,

Here I am in France and I'm really sorry I didnt say goodbye but I was afraid you was going to try and get me not to go and I just had to leave because I couldnt stay there anymore. I been thinking of leaving for weeks and weeks but I always found some reason or other for staying but mostly they was silly reasons like what was on telly and stuff like that and I finally decided that I had to do it and worry about it afterwards. I nearly came back an hour later because I thought maybe I had made a big mistake and I was going to regret it later on but I dont regret it and I'm glad I did it.

I'm really happy here and Jules family are treating me really good. They gave me this sort of set of rooms at one end of the house with a bedroom and a living room and a bathroom and I got a dressing room which is like a walk in wardrobe thats about the same size as my bedroom at home. I got so much room I dont know what to do with it and sometimes I just walks around and around and goes from one room to the other and just looks at it. Its got really beautiful furniture whats about 200 years old but looks really new like its never been used. On the first day I was here they gave me a cup of tea in this tiny cup that you could almost see through and Jules told me that it was nearly 400 years old and I was scared to drop it and told him that I would rather have it in a mug so I wouldnt be so nervous about breaking it but he said that it didnt matter if I did because they got lots more.

When I left Brineham I went to London and found a bed and breakfast near Victoria Station and I was really scared and I really wanted to go home and a couple times I picked up my bag and started to leave. I didnt sleep much because there was lots of screaming in the street most of the night and I was really afraid. The next day I tried to find out how you gets to France but I didnt get very far because everything was so strange so I went back to the bed and breakfast which is really nice apart from the screaming in the night and its got a telly so I watched telly all afternoon and thought about what I was going to do. Then when I was looking through my bag I found the telephone number for Jules cousins in Buckinghamshire so I phoned them and Julien picked up the phone and I told him what I had done. He told me to give him the address and say where I was and a couple hours later he knocked on my door at the bed and breakfast and said that he had a car outside and I should go with him. I'd already paid for the next night at the bed and breakfast but they wouldnt give me my money back for the room but Julien said that it didnt matter and threw a ten pound note on the floor and told the man that if money was so important to him then he wouldnt mind getting on his hands and knees to pick it up and then Julien spat on the floor and the money but if the chauffeur whose a really big man wasnt there then I dont think he would have done that. It was really late when we got to Buckinghamshire and so I went straight to bed in the same room where I was when I was visiting Jules and his cousins but I didnt sleep a wink all night. It was a pity really because they'd woken up the chefs and they was ready to cook anything I wanted but I really didnt feel like eating.

The next day Julien phoned Jules in France and gave me the phone and I talked to Jules and he told me that I should come to France. I told him that I didnt know how to do it and he told me not to worry because he would arrange everything. After breakfast Julien drove me to the helicopter and said that it would take me to France. We stopped on the way a couple times but by lunchtime we landed there where Jules lives in France. Jules was waiting for me with a really big smile and he hugged me so hard I thought he was going to break some of my bones.

Out my bedroom window I can see for miles and miles and Jules family owns all of it which means I can walk anywhere I wants to without asking anyone. I havent been out much but I only been here a few days and theres so much to see in the house. Jules drew me a map of all the rooms and I takes it with me all the time because I could easily get lost. Their house is about as big as half our street and I'm always finding new things.

I've met all the family again and theyre all really nice and cant do enough for me. Odile is being especially nice to me and I've been in her room a couple times but she's got this new religion where she's not allowed to look into someone elses eyes so when we talks she looks the other way and if she turns towards me she closes her eyes. Apparently its because if she looks into someone elses eyes she loses a bit of her soul and the other person gets it and that would mean that her soul is all over the place and she wants to keep it for herself. I tries to help her by keeping my eyes closed whenever I talks to her but she dont say much anyway and sometimes when I'm sitting there talking to her with my eyes closed I wonders if she's still there but I dont want to open my eyes just in case she is and I takes away some of her soul.

Genevieve is really nice as well but she really keeps to herself and I dont see much of her except at mealtimes because she's taken up sculpturing and that takes up most of her time. When I goes past her room all I can hear is hammering and chiseling and her screaming out loud when she hits herself with her hammer what she does a lot because she's not very good at it yet. Jules told me that she's got a great big piece of marble that takes up a quarter of her room but with all that chipping away all the time its probably not so big anymore. Jules said that Genevieve told him that she can see a statue inside it and all she has to do is chip away the extra bits and she'll be left with the statue. I dont really understand it much but if she carries on the way she's going she's going to be left with something the size of an ashtray.

Jacques dont want to be a psychiatrist anymore and thinks he wants to be a waiter so at meal times he practices by serving us all our food and waits until we're finished and then eats his food sitting on a dustbin outside the back door and eats all our leftovers. He drinks whatevers left in our glasses and takes food from the fridge when he thinks nobody is looking.

Pierre is a strange one. I never got along with him very well even when I was in Buckinghamshire but its even worse now and we tries to avoid each other. Its not that he's nasty or anything but I dont feel comfortable with him. I told you once that he pretended Jules didnt exist because he was jealous that Jules was Jules xx and not him because he was the oldest well it seems that I dont exist either because I'm with Jules. Pierre dont even look at me and never speaks to me.

Its a bit hard with Jules parents because neither of them speaks English although his dad thinks he can and sometimes talks for the longest time in what he thinks is English and I dont understand a word he says. He'd just as well speak French or Hungarian. I went shopping with his mum in the local village this morning and we bought bread but when we got back to the car it was all covered in mud. I dont know how it happened because the car was clean when we parked it but Jules mum seemed prepared for it because she took out a sort of sponge on a stick and cleaned off the windows without saying anything like she was used to it or expecting it.

Jules gran is lovely. I talks to her a lot because I know she dont understand what I'm saying so I can say anything I likes and she nods and smiles like she knows what I am talking about.

Me and Jules is as happy as can be and he's a real gentleman. He takes care of me and does everything he can to make me feel comfortable so you dont have to worry about me. I'm still not feeling really at home yet and that will take some time but Jules says I can stay with them for as long as I likes and even for ever if thats what I wants to do. Its too early to know what I wants to do so I'll take every day as it comes. Jules says that when I'm ready he'll start learning me French but I already picked up a few things even though I havent been here very long. I watches telly every evening and its all in French so I dont understand much but they got some of the same programmes here like they got in England except that here they does it in French even though its the same programme.

I hopes you dont feel too bad about me leaving without saying goodbye except for Sharon but I thinks its for the best. I'm really happy here and I'm really excited about whats going to happen in the future and I'm really in love with Jules and I knows for certain that he loves me. That's enough to be going on with.

I loves all of you and I hopes you still loves me.

Julie

P.S. It turns out that the Comtesse Jacqueline de Montfort is Jules half sister but I'll tell you about that another time.

Hugh - This is the end of the story so far. Thank you very much for your encouraging comments. They kept me going.