I went to a party in a Mansion..

and all I got were these lousy photos. Not true, actually, it was amazing. I'm happy I could help say, "Happy Birthday Vinny!"

"...with all the karmic credits you have accrued through our friendship..."

A funny conversation from Facebook today. Some of the names might have been adjusted to protect the innocent, but you'll probably be able to identify the main culprits without too much trouble.

Gripton
has discovered a trend whereby whenever I post that something awful has happened to me, at least one person states it's karma. It's caused me to reflect on my life and my actions, and confront the truths these people have forced me to address. Following this period of intraspection I think I should address those people directly,

Ventenac Roll Call 2010

Vin
Skinner
Kate Nutt
Anna McI
Tom Sugarman
Dave O
DTR
Dominic
The Lovely Colin
The Lovely Jane
Chaz
Hannah and Tom
Jamie

Jihad!

Happy New Year, your house is ruined

Faced with the carnage of the party's aftermath, we retired to the pub, and drank there all day. When we got home, it was just as messy. Bleugh!

NYE @Pembertonia

Yes, I shall become a bat.

The journey north felt like a journey deeper into the autumn. Trees near London seemed greener, those nearer Macclesfield more brown. I love this time of year.

The 85 came before the 86, so I slipped into Oddest to touch base with Kate. “I’ve pinned a note to your door,” said Kate, “which says that we’re going to a party. A fancy dress party. Can you find yourself a costume?”

Costume ideas had been floating around my head since the Pemberton Towers party announcement. The theme for that party is Literature, and I’d flirted with the idea of going as a raven, after the Poe poem. Could I do something related?

Yes, I shall become a bat.

I cut wing shapes out of one old black shirt, and sewed them onto the undersides of the arms of another. The bat-shirt will serve me well as the base of my raven shirt –a few feathers and I’m away. With a little help from Dunk, I became a top-hatted, long-eared, wing-tipped, armpit-flapped bat.

We went to Whalley Range with Paulina, to a party where we knew barely a soul. I think I was pissed enough (or short-circuited enough through sleep deprivation and hangovers) to mumble on through various inane conversations before I started to enjoy myself. Little Laura and Roisin were there, and it was nice to talk to Kate Bell too. I met some interesting people, and some very drunk people too.

Kate and I rolled in at about 6am. A heavy night, but a good one.

Haw he honk he haw he honk!

“The top floor loo,” said Dominic earlier in the week, “is the best place to take a crap in the whole house. The views are amazing.” I’d taken his advice. A car horn sounded from outside, and I dashed to the window, stark naked.

Two cars were en face on the bridge below, honking at each other and refusing to move. I looked down, and saw most of the other guests on the upper balcony below. From our vantage point on the hillside, we could see everything very clearly. The drivers got out of their cars, shouted at each other, and then got back in. A classic (and quite literal) impasse. More honking, from the rows of cars that had built up on either side of the canal. I saw Colin peering out from a window to the side of me, Hannah from another beneath me, Tom from still another. A younger, slim woman stormed out from a car in one of the rows, stamped over to the bridge, yelled and got back in her car. Just went the scene couldn’t get much more French, a row of cyclists passed by. Our laughter echoed across the valley.

The stand-off faded, and the cars passed. One each side the row jeered and honked at the car they saw as having just blocked their way for ten minutes. Dom turned around and looked up at all of us leaning out of different windows. I caught his eye and imagined what he could see - a Kodak moment.

Shortly afterwards, Vin and I left.

Cabaret, and a hanging.

The second murder was very risky. It had limited the probable murderers to either Skinner or Chaz, with Colin and Hannah as outside bets (if either of them were ninjas). That took a lot of pressure off of the rest of the survivors – nobody was defending themselves, only accusing one of them. Skinner? I didn’t think so. Chaz? Let’s find out.

We spent the afternoon cruising between vineyards in the Espace, trying amazing wines from the region. I kept a close-ish eye on Chaz, sitting next to her in the car and sticking close by during the tastings. “Are you trying to get a piece of Chaz?” asked Vinny, ever perceptive. I was, to an extent, but I was rather enjoying getting to know her too. And was falling more and more towards the idea that she was the murderer.

Our wine tour ended at Ventenac, the cellar for the collective made up of the former employees of the family that had once owned the chateau. By now, Skinner and I had consumed several glasses of wine. We didn’t swill and fling away our dregs, you see. We just had the whole thing. Dominic, who had stayed behind, was setting up the evening’s entertainment around the rough patch on the second level of the terraced garden: a barbecue, bonfire and cabaret.

Great acts. Hannah sang. The Lovely Jane and the Lovely Colin sang. Jamie recited a poem. Vinny played guitar. Julia dressed up and read a poem. Dominic sang a Lovely Song for the Lovely Jane and the Lovely Colin, inspired by their approaching wedding. The Lovely Jane danced with Poi. Skinner, Vinny and I played Mallet’s Mallet, using crème fraiche instead of a mallet. I lost. Splat! As things drew to a close, we all sang together. Dom adapted ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ to be ‘I Love this Chateau.’ Jane had written new words to ‘Let It Be,’ a sweet and slushy end to a lovely evening. Even Skinner and I, easily the most pissed people there, couldn’t ruin it with our shambolic hosting.

Trial time: Chaz? Skinner? It didn’t take long. Of seven survivors, three had voted Chaz, with two voting Skinner. The Lovely Jane hadn’t chosen. My vote. I looked up. It was Chaz, I thought. I voted: “Skinner.” Over to you, the Lovely Jane. She chose Chaz. And so we hung her.

“Vinny. Without a doubt. Definitely Vinny.”

If there’s a pool, then I’m going to use it, however cold it might be. That’s me: British attitude; Hawaiian shorts; dumber than a bag of hammers. What chemical, I wondered as my limbs numbed and stiffened, keeps this water from freezing solid: surely it’s cold enough. Broken, I shivered and dripped back up the terraces for a tea.

Dominic had been murdered in his bedroom with a candlestick between the hours of eight and nine. So it goes. I left my room and started my fool’s journey towards hypothermia at around ten to nine, so I was very much in the frame. Any of the four who made up the couples might have slipped out, I suppose, but they were all vouching for their partners. Vinny, Skinner and Charlene were all alone in their respective bedrooms, so all had the opportunity. Jamie was promoted to Inspector for being too good at the game, so it definitely wasn’t him. That aside, it could have been anybody.

The final CDWM team scooted to the hypermarche, and I lounged on the patio, drying out my clean clothes, reading The Economist and drinking good coffee with Colin. The warm sun on my neck felt a million miles from the prickling cold of the pool.

Beer o’clock came around quickly enough, and the shoppers returned with cheese and baguettes. “My poo smelled like cheese,” said Tom, “and that’s when I thought that I might be eating too much cheese.” Fine dining makes for fine living, I think.

I asked Chaz to join me on the upper balcony, rather than meet Colin and Jane in the cave. Chaz came up with virtually the same alibi as Hannah had yesterday, so I wanted to probe her about the murder. Skinner came out of the kitchen as we were talking.

“DTR, who would you murder if it was you?”
“I would definitely kill Vinny. You?”
“Vinny. Without a doubt. Definitely Vinny.”

The three of us retired into the dining room, and talked about a particular way to play the game of murder as the murderer. Massacre style. The more murders committed, the more chance there is of being rumbled. A one-off, multi-victim killing spree is a high-risk approach. At the same time, it’s high-reward: the dead don’t participate in the investigation, so the more people killed, the fewer to convince of your innocence.

Based on that premise, the smallest possible jury is the best. Sadly though, killing absolutely everybody else is out – obviously the last man standing is the killer – as is killing all but one person – the innocent would know it wasn’t them. In fact, at least three people are needed to have a two-on-one vote. So, playing massacre style, the murderer would kill everybody except themselves and two others. At the investigation stage, you need to convince one of the two others that it wasn’t you, and then side with them in accusing the other person. Simple enough.

Jamie was within earshot, by the study window in the drawing room. Hannah was in the bath. Vinny was reading the paper in the kitchen. Colin and Jane were in the cave, Tom was fishing, and Dom was dead.

Chaz popped into the kitchen to ditch an apple core. She came back and we discussed another approach to being the murderer, the shopkeeper approach. This involves waiting in a room with a weapon, and killing whoever comes into ‘the murder shop’ next. Skinner went to collect a few more beers from the kitchen. We started to explore the shopkeeper approach a little more, thinking about the…

“MURDER! MURDER!”

Vinny was dead! So it goes. Skinner had found him strangled to death in the kitchen. The look I exchanged with Skinner was like a telekinetic high five.

Killing Time

The quiz had kept us up late - we'd waited because of CDWM and we'd waited for Tom to finish a job application - so there weren't many heads over the parapet first thing. It was my turn to do bread and breakfast, so I went to the boulangerie on my own to collect what was needed. I managed to explain, in french, that I was feeling a little tired because of all the wine. The baker smiled and titled her head at me. "Are you staying in the chateau?" she asked. I nodded. She nodded, knowingly.

Breakfast became brunch became lunch as more people rose and the day warmed. Vinny, Skinner, Tom, Hannah and I filled a box with beers, and went down to the river to fish. I wasn't bothered about fishing, really, but I was very interested in the box of beers. Insecure Dave and Dom followed on. We found a sandy cutting through the reeds that led down to a sunny spot by the river. I shudder to think of what the channel we were fishing in was designed for. It certainly wasn't natural. Vin soon tired of fishing, and Skinner seemed restless too, so we went back to Ventenac. We took a different route through the vineyards, and were set upon by score of flying ants. "France is a load of shit!" said Skinner, "this is horrible."

The team re-convened on the small balcony, and we drew cards for murder.

"We are about to play a game of murder, most horrid." Murder is a game. It's a little bit like mafia,, a little bit like wink murder, and a little bit like something else. This is how it works: a murderer is chosen at random and in secret, using playing cards. The murderer has a killing period, perhaps 24 hours from the drawing of the cards. In that time they must commit at least one murder. A murder is committed by the murderer presenting their victim with (semi-)realistic means to carry out a real murder. The victim is now dead in the context of the game, and must lie still until discovered (within reason). The only information that the dead can give to the living is an 'autopsy report' detailing how they were killed and the approximate time of death. The other players conduct informal investigations amongst themselves, based on whatever factors they think are important. At the end of the killing period, there is a trial, and all the players cast a vote to say who they think is the murderer, and therefore who they think ought to be hanged. After the hanging, the real murderer reveals themselves. If the murderer gets away with the murder, they win. If the right person is hanged, the others win.

We had drawn cards, and the killing period had began. The game was on.

Cast List for Ventenac

To ease the confusion of the casual reader, this is a dramatis personae of those who were lucky enough to attend the wonderful week at Ventenac:

The Venezuelans
Audrey
Tani - a vicious expert at le babyfoot

The Bristocracy
Julia - mater familias
Jamie
Dominic

The Duets
Colin and the Lovely Jane
Tom and the equally lovely Hannah

The Soloists
Insecure Dave
Skinner
Chaz - with a soft "sh", as in Charlene
Vinny
DTR

For the geographically minded, our movements over time were:

Vinny and I arrived on Saturday, with the Venezuelans, the Bristocracy and Insecure Dave already in situ. The Duets arrived by car on Sunday. The Venezuelans left as Skinner and Chaz arrived on Monday, with Insecure Dave leaving the next day. The core group consisted of the Bristocracy, the Duets, and the Soloists, except Insecure Dave, who sadly had to leave early. Vin and I left next, on Friday, with Chaz following the next day. And on Sunday, exeunt except the Bristocracy.

This is what happened to Skinner in Belgium.

We prepared an English classic, with a Gallic twist, as our contribution to CDWM. After dinner, we settled down to listen to Skinner explain what had happened. As you'll remember, on Saturday night we received news from Daryl that Skinner had vanished. This is the story of he lost a full day of his life in Belgium.

“This is the Virgin Pendalino service to London Euston…”

As the clock struck three, I strolled out of work and headed off onto the first leg of my Autumn break: tonight, London; tomorrow and beyond, Ventenac. I was almost whistling as I skipped my way to the train station, the warm sun tickling my neck. Vive les vaccances!

“Mate, can you wait for me in the Salisbury? I’ve got to stay at work for an hour or so?”

Wait in the pub? Yes, I think I can handle a bit of waiting in the pub. I sat down and enjoyed a beer or two, a little bit of David Bowie on the jukebox, and a few stories about Bob Dylan from my book. It’s a cracking pub, one that’d be easy to get used to.

I was feeling quite relaxed – having consumed around about two pints of relaxation-facilitator – when Vin arrived. It was brilliant to see him, and I’m glad we had a chance to catch up before leaving for France. We went through our careers, our recent romantic histories, and other issues of the day. We were pestered by kids with stickers, two demonic little girls, running around the pub. Their parents were our age. Chilling stuff.

We took on a few more beers, then swung back to Pemberton Towers. The new resident there, Louise, is stunningly beautiful. Olly was there, and not bad looking himself. I spent the night in Skinner’s bed because he had already left for Belgium. What happened to Skinner in Belgium, however, is entirely another story…