Spotted

The first bump appeared on the way to St Emilion. By midday it had been joined by several more; a numb, lumpy landscape that reached from my chin to my temples. Maybe it was the new moisturiser.

By the time we returned home the following day, the bumps had gone.

I happily resumed pointing the barn walls; still thousands of stones and deep, troll holes to go, but my efforts so far had made a difference.

Three days later the bumps returned. And they were on a fast track from my forehead to my cheeks to my chin, down my neck and over my shoulders – not forgetting my hands – and down my legs. An ugly linear scrawl transecting the dot-to-dot trail of mosquito bites.

Even the soles of my feet did not escape.

Dark red, flat-topped mounds – some in unsightly, egg-shaped little pairs –were crawling around me like ivy around a plum tree.

I cried. I scratched. But I carried on pointing.

And as I pointed, pushing the grey, grainy humous-like paste around the stones and through the holes, I listened to the news. A member of the British armed forces had given birth at Helmand base without realising she was pregnant.

“Unbelievable,” I sneered, vigorously brushing down the wall as clouds of sand and lime dust puffed all around me. “How can you not know you’re pregnant?”

And how could anyone who suffers from eczema and whose relationship with Betnovate cream has been more enduring than most of her love affairs, not know what they could be doing to their skin every time they mixed another bucket of pointing?

I presented myself at the local pharmacy.

“Anti-histamine,” the pharmacist told me. “One a day for a week. It works very quickly.”

But I didn’t want anti-histamines; I wanted cortisone. I wanted skin-stripping, high-octane steroid cream that would purge all irritation. I wanted to be where the action was: up the ladder, bucket in hand, filling the holes – and feeling smug about it.

I stood in Anne-Marie’s kitchen, a pale, tired itching wreck. Her eyes darting over my skin, she gently lifted my limp and spotty wrist.

“Oh, la pauvre,” she cooed.

Her hairdresser, Christian, looked incredulous. “Mais ça c’est fou,” he gasped, pushing his glasses onto his head.

Anne-Marie was smiling. But she was adamant.

“You’re allergic to dust. Stop now.”

I stared at the floor. I felt stupid. But I still risked a response. “But Anne-Marie I’ve been pointing for two months and it’s been fine.”

She looked me up and down. She’s a patient woman - up to a point.

“Take a break. Do some embroidery. For God’s sake write your blog. But no more pointing.”

Gale-force winds are blowing outside. Rain is falling in diagonal torrents and leaves, branches and late summer fruit is blowing past the window.

The cold Charentes’ air is rampaging through the gaps in our walls.

But you don’t argue with Anne-Marie.