Our visitor was a French female, as time worn as our roofing joists, and sporting an unseasonable black shawl.

‘Monsieur, Madame, je m’appelle Madame Toutanu.’

The name had a resonance. We had heard of Celestine Toutanu, formerly owner of the property. She had apparently left the village as a young woman to follow (the then) dubious career of actress which had been at least a modest success. When she returned, in the final flush of youth, with a husband who (it was said) had been her ‘manager’, she took over the house, which had been left to her in her father’s will, and turned it into a restaurant. The walls had sported framed posters featuring herself in various productions of French farces. She called the restaurant ‘L’Hibou Qui Pete’.

To her husband, Monsieur Basil Toutanu, she was more Sybil than Celestine. It was said that her tongue could strip wallpaper and it was he who was the most regular recipient of her venom. And he had to suffer it – she was the proprietor. After almost 20 years of this cruel and unnatural punishment, he left her to run away with a diminutive but perfectly proportioned waitress. It had been the greatest scandal in the village since the First World War when the four score and something Monseigneur Lefebre and his 20-year-old housekeeper had both succumbed to toxic fumes in the same double bed.

Celestine Toutanu soon gave up the unequal task of running the restaurant alone and moved first into a small house the village, then into a tiny sixth floor apartment in a nearby town. She told us this with such a snarl of resentment that we imagined we were partly responsible for her misfortune. Doris rescued the situation by producing our ‘finds’ from the barn. There were several bottles of wine which tasted like battery acid, as well as a couple of bottles of Cognac which we intended to keep for a special occasion. There was also a bottle of absinthe. We offered her Cognac or absinthe. She took the absinthe.

‘C’est trés profitable,’ she assured us, ‘pour la gorge.’

The anticipation of soothing her throat mellowed her mood and she began to tell us, in hesitant but determined English, some of the history of the property. Since her departure it had been occupied, off and on, for rather less than four years. The most recent owners, the husky breeders, had moved to Canada – presumably as there would be a bigger market for their dogs.

She told us that the property had originally been a farmhouse. During the Second World War, it had been used for billeting Germans who apparently did not like it very much and as they left, they set fire to it. The fire had surged straight upwards through the roof taking away around half of it before the Sapeurs Pompiers brought the blaze under control. The damaged sections were rebuilt with new timbers which were then covered in traditional slate tiles. The expense, which must have been considerable, was apparently borne by a remorseful German military. But this was ‘Free France’ – too much resentment made it unpoliceable. The new timbers and expensive tiles were little enough to pay for an easy life.

‘Today, if you talk with the old men you will hear that all of them, with their brothers, fathers and uncles, were war heroes – fighters in La Resistance. Also, you will hear that there was no man in Entrechoux who was a friend to the Germans, or a collaborator. Little of this is true, Monsieur. It is, as you say in England, a lot of shoemakers.’

‘A load of cobblers?’

‘Certainement Monsieur, cobblers. There was un peu de resistance and there was un peu de collaboration. But for most people it was rien – nothing. IIs ont continue avec leur existance fastidieuse.’

‘Their boring lives?’

‘Tedious I think is better, Monsieur. Tedious. They imagine the war does not happen here. This is not only Entrechoux, Monsieur, it was every village in the Charente. It is, I think, la nature humaine.’

‘Human nature?’

‘That also, Monsieur. One day I will tell you what really happen. I will tell you la verite. The truth, Monsieur, the truth. C’est une histoire sensationelle. You will make wet in your trousers.’

‘I’ll wet myself?’

‘Only if you drink too much absinthe, Monsieur. I hope you will not.’

Celestine took a sip of her drink and giggled. Then, after composing herself with several deep breaths, she continued.

‘Today I instruct you how your house became ‘Le Petit Chateau’. It is, naturellement, first the size of your erection, Monsieur. C’est certainement la plus grande du village. It is also the new slate roof which the Germans pay for. It is traditionelle, Monsieur. All chateaux have the grey tiled roof. C’est bien distingue.

‘Distinguished?’

‘Yes, Monsieur, and distinctif also.’

The property’s nickname – ‘Le Petit Chateau’ – had certainly stuck despite the temporary transformation after the war into ‘L’Hibou Qui Pete’. This other name, explained Celestine, was a French pun. Just as the most common French name for a hotel is ‘Le Lion D’Or’ – either ‘The Golden Lion’ or ‘Bed and Sleep’ according to your take – ‘L’Hibou Qui Pete’ was ‘The Farting Owl’ or ‘Ibo Capet’. Celestine, now sipping her third class of absinthe, explained:

‘When the Germans come to the Charente we were not permitted to celebrate Jeanne D’Arc. She was dangereaux. A maker of trouble. A fighter of freedom. So now we shout the name ‘Ibo Capet’ whose sons make the beginning of the state of France. Ibo Capet is to France as Monsieur Jean Bull is to Angleterre. But the Germans did not know this. All they cared about was Cognac and sex. Especially sex.’

‘But what about the farting owl?’ I asked.

Celestine’s face had become flushed. She cast the shawl aside as she refilled her glass. Her English, although regularly derailed, was now bold, and her voice was strident.

‘When I was a girl,’ she said, ‘if someone accidentally break the wind at dinner we would say there was an owl up the chimney. The sound you see, was an echo of the voice of the bird.’

Celestine demonstrated this implausibility by wrapping her swollen knuckles together and blowing through the gap between her thumbs. The sound produced was perfectly pitched between fart and hoot. With measured gravitas she repeated this three times.

‘There you have it, Monsieur. C’est un rendement magnifique, non?’

As she turned to pick up her glass we applauded. She filled the glass again in recognition of our acclaim.

‘Perhaps, Monsieur and Madame, one day I will show you ma piéce especial. It is of a young cure at the confessional after eating too much garlic and foie gras.’

‘Perhaps you will, Madame,’ I said, ‘no doubt it will be a tour de force.’

She downed her glass and rose a little unsteadily. I moved to assist her and held her arm as we moved to the door. She turned, smiled, and then insisted on kissing us both goodbye.

‘Thank you for your hospitality, Monsieur, Madame. The drink has made me, how do you say, a little sentimental.’

‘We have a saying in England,’ I told her, ‘absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.’

‘Really, Monsieur?’.

‘No, not really, it’s a joke, a play on words, like I’hibou qui pete.’

‘Perhaps you will explain when I visit again. I may visit again?’

‘Certainement, Madame, you are always welcome.’

She smiled and began to shuffle down the street. Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and waved both hands at us.

‘Then I bid you au revoir’ she said.

After Celestine left we both had visions of impromptu performances, for the entertainment of diners, whilst her husband cowered in the darkest corners of the dining room. She remained a legend in the village. We came to use her as a barometer of taste; we mentioned the name and waited for a response. Some smiled. Some shook their heads. When I went to the Mairie with my carefully drawn plans for larger windows, I was already known as the latest in the line of subsequent owners who had entertained Celestine Toutanu.

Monsieur Cabacou, the Mayor, stared solemnly over the upper rim of his reading glasses.

‘I regret,’ he said, ‘that Celestine is, as we say Monsieur, une femme de chagrin. It is rumoured that she has some terrible secret. But I cannot say if that is so. But she is a woman I believe who was once both ambitious and beautiful. That is a dangerous recipe Monsieur.’