2012 The Secret Teachings of the Next Door Neighbour

by Frauke and Simon Lewer

‘Hey Eeenglishman! Time for wake up!’

  Paul opened his eyes blearily, Crousti’s grinning face and offensively bright pink hair only inches away.

  ‘Uuuh, oh thanks,’ Paul mumbled, trying to dispel the feeling of dread and terror from his dream which still dominated his mind.

  He felt exhausted, his chin rough with a days growth of stubble and his mouth and tongue dry and furry.

  ‘ You sleep long man, you wanna drink?’ Crousti asked, offering him a half-drunk bottle of lager.

  Paul accepted, hoping it might wash the staleness from his mouth and propping himself up on one elbow he took a swig before handing it back.

  ‘Yeah man,’ Crousti continued, sitting down on the end of the bed, ‘you got to go, Babu paranoid crazy man.’ He shrugged apologetically at Paul, who, pulling the covers off himself sat up.

  Outside, through the window he could see the rain had stopped, though heavy grey clouds were still racing by. The disturbingly vivid dreams he’d experienced were fresh in his mind but he pushed them back, remembering his night-time resolve to get some advice on how to extricate himself from this mess.

  ‘You come with me, man. I go make business in Troyes.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Paul replied, standing up.

  There was nothing to do but go with the flow, Paul realized. At least, in Troyes, he could find a phone, reverse the charges to England and get some advice. The dreams, well, there’d be time to think about them and what they meant later.

  Crousti opened the door to leave, turning back in the doorway he said,

  ‘Oh - big shit with your clothes man.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Paul asked, following Crousti down the corridor into the kitchen.

  The question answered itself as Paul’s sleepy eyes took in the scene in front of him. The chair he’d carefully placed his overcoat on to dry had been knocked over and the coat now lay half in the fire ashes, one shoulder and sleeve charred black. On the other side of the fireplace a group of three puppies were lying contentedly chewing on the ripped remains of his shirt and trousers.

  ‘We crash, wake up too late,’ said Crousti, regretfully.

  The only thing he had left were his damp, black brogues. Crousti, seeing Paul’s crestfallen face, slapped him cheerfully on the back.

  ‘Hey don’t worry man. I give you clothes, I come get them in London -’

  Paul looked down at himself, from the greasy jeans with frayed knees to the ridiculously large mohair jumper that Crousti was generously donating him.

  There was nothing to say but thank you, but inside himself Paul felt a mounting mixture of shock, anger and frustration. He knew he could hardly blame Crousti for the puppies destruction, but still ...

  Paul ran his fingers disconsolately over the singed edges of the coat.

  God! As if losing his phone, jacket, wallet, passport and luggage wasn’t enough ...

  If it wasn’t so damn depressing it could have been funny, he thought, as he eased his feet into the damp leather of his shoes.

  Crousti was bending over the table, carefully scraping some white powder into a line with a razor blade on a scrap of mirror. Paul watched as he rolled up a 10 Euro note and snorted the line neatly up one nostril. He straightened up and seeing Paul watching, asked grinning, ‘You want some low-fat, high-energy petit dej?’

  Paul declined. It was one thing having a toke on a joint but he didn’t see that whacking class A drugs up his nose was going to help his predicament.

  Crousti looked a mess, Paul thought, from his unhealthy, pasty complexion to his manic grin. Did he really want to be driven by someone on drugs, he asked himself? But then again did he really have much choice?

  Toxico, who’d been quietly sat at the kitchen table, fiddling with his mobile phone, burst out excitedly,

  ‘Ay Crousti! Regarde un peu ca!’

  He waved his phone toward Paul and Crousti, both standing by the open front door.

  ‘C’est quoi alors?’

  ‘Il y a un MegaTechnival en trois jours, près de Besancon.’

  ‘Ah bon,’ Crousti seemed to catch his infectious enthusiasm. ‘Il faut y aller quoi!’

  Toxico grinned at Paul,

  ‘Hey, you make party with us yes?’

  Paul smiled with an effort. He couldn’t quite imagine it but not wanting to disappoint his hosts who’d given him so much, he replied,

  ‘Yeah ... maybe ... See you there and thanks again ...’ before Crousti hustled him out into the cold windy afternoon.

  In daylight the farm looked a disreputable state. The front yard was taken up with a brightly painted UV caravan, black bin bags badly taped over its broken windows, and a large ratty Mercedes van, its front wheels off and front axle blocked up on lumps of wood. Next to it, on a stained patch of spilt oil, he could see a slowly rusting gear box and bell housing.

  ‘That Babu van,’ Crousti declared scornfully, ‘he no good mechano, always break things.’

  When they reached the yellow Renault 4, Paul squeezed into the passenger seat, kicking the collection of empty drinks cartons and tobacco packets aside.

  The dashboard, Paul saw, was covered thickly in a riot of colorful stickers.

  Crousti pulled the choke out and turned the ignition, frowning in concentration until the engine finally caught, when his face broke into a broad smile.

  ‘They say Crousti car shit but ha!’ He slapped the steering wheel triumphantly, ‘not like Babu tas de ferraille Mercedes.’

  He put the car into first and they crawled out of the farmyard onto the rutted track, Crousti steering round the deepest potholes, front wheels spinning on the mud and wet grass at the edge of the track. They pulled out onto the empty road, the pitch of the tiny engine’s whine getting higher and higher as Crousti worked his way up through the gears.

  Suddenly, Paul felt an unusual sensation on the back of his neck as though all the hairs were standing on end.

  He turned in his seat to look behind and saw, slowing down to turn into the punk’s track, a procession of police cars, followed by an ominous black 4x4 with tinted windows.

  Shit! It couldn’t be!

  How could they have possibly known he was there? Paul thought in a panic, as the police cars were lost from sight. He turned round again in his seat, his heart beating rapidly. The line he’d heard the Agent say yesterday at the Gare du Nord jumped clearly into his mind again, “monitor all thought patterns,” and Paul made a conscious effort to breathe and focus on what Crousti was saying, wondering if he’d just crossed the border between paranoid and downright crazy.

  Crousti hadn’t noticed a thing and was still happily chatting about his car, ‘don’t listen to Toxico and the others, this car is good car ... I go everywhere in this car ... clubs in Paris ... free parties, festivals ... you know ...’ he said, gesturing at the array of stickers plastered in front of them.

  Paul forced himself to breathe to contain his fear. How long would it be until they’d searched the punk’s house and were on his tail, he wondered?

  Crousti’s animated monologue didn’t seem to need any encouragement.

  ‘Yeah man, with internet, you know, Facebook, Twitter, we tell all the party people ... but must be clever, don’t want no pigs find out man! You know what to do?’ he asked, throwing Paul an intensely questioning look and not waiting for an answer continued, ‘you keep place secret ... and then ... last minute ... Kablam! Big Party Time yeah!’

  Paul glanced again behind him. The road was empty, no sign of the pursuing blue gendarmerie cars, or worse still, that powerful looking 4x4.

  Crousti seemed to have read Paul’s mind and glancing in his mirror said,

  ‘Hey man, we take little road innit? No hurry. No flics, no hassle with control, assurance, you know ... “

  Paul didn’t know, he’d never driven an illegal car, or whilst under the influence of a class A drug, but he was more than happy to go with Crousti's decision, who flicked his indicator switch and pulled the little
car off the long, straight, main road and down a single track lane on the right.

  ‘So man, you never say what you do in Troyes?’ Crousti asked.

  ‘Errr, ... well ... ‘ Paul tried to think. ‘I’m passing through, you know, on my way somewhere else.’

  Crousti gave him a long, searching look, his forehead creased in puzzlement, before saying,

  ‘No man, Troyes is cool town, many bars, many hot women yeah?’

  Paul decided if he was going to trust anyone, it might as well be Crousti,

  ‘Well, actually, I’m going to a place called Alesia, but, I’m not quite sure where it is ...’ he faltered. Even as he said it, Paul surprised himself. Had his unconscious mind made the decision to take on this crazy mission without informing the rest of his brain?

  Hadn’t he decided to get a second opinion, establish his legal rights before he did anything?

  It would be handy to know where the hell it was, he supposed, before he decided if he was going to even try to get there. To his amazement, Crousti’s face lit up with a grin of recognition.

  ‘Alesia man! Everyone in France know Alesia, but we don’t talk about it.’

  Paul waited,

  ‘So, it’s ...?’ he prompted.

  ‘Is where Romans kill Gauls yeah?’ Paul looked blank. ‘You don’t know Asterix the Gaul?’ Crousti asked, amazed by Paul’s ignorance. ‘Man, it tells everything ... I know all history from Asterix.’

  ‘So ...’ Paul paused, asking directions from someone whose concept of history and geography came from a comic strip didn’t give him much confidence, ‘where is it then?’

  ‘Oh ...’ Crousti waved his hand vaguely at the surrounding countryside saying, ‘past Dijon man, long way, in Jura, I think. Why you wanna go there?’

  Paul was momentarily at a loss for words. It was one thing admitting the name of Alesia but quite another to explain quite why he was going there.

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story, complicated you know,’ he mumbled, letting the conversation lapse, with just the whining Renault engine breaking the silence. Paul spotted a tattered road map tucked into the passenger door pocket, pulled it out and turned to the index, trying to read the printed list of town names as the little car swayed and bounced over the uneven tarmac.

  “Albi, ... Alby-sur-Cheran, Alencon, ... Aleria ... Ales ... Alise St Reine ...” Paul read carefully down the list. No, there was no mention of “Alesia” there. Was it too small a place to get on the roadmap or could it have changed its name and be called something completely different now? He didn’t know.

  The kilometers ticked by and Paul was glad that Crousti didn’t push him any further, instead humming enthusiastically and weaving across the road, until finally they pulled up at a crossing of a Route Nationale.

  ‘Nearly there man!’

  A couple of trucks roared by and Crousti, waiting for a gap in the traffic pulled the tiny, yellow car onto the main road.

  There were more houses here and advertising boards along the roadside for supermarkets and DIY stores.

  Paul’s mind returned to his immediate problems. Going right into town in broad daylight just didn’t seem wise, what with his face probably plastered over this morning’s national papers.

  No, he’d best wait till nightfall, which wasn’t far away now and then he could sneak in under the partial cover of darkness. Would the Agents have found out he’d gone to Troyes? He’d best get out before the ring road to be safe.

  As they slowed at a roundabout approach, Paul leaned toward Crousti,

  ‘Can I get out here please ...’

  ‘You don’t want meet friends?’ Crousti looked genuinely disappointed.

  ‘Well, not with these shoes,’ Paul joked.

  ‘Oh, OK man ...’ he shrugged and pulled the car over, one wheel on the verge and Paul climbed out, leaning back in to shake Crousti by the hand.

  ‘Thanks for everything, bed, food, clothes, I really appreciate it ...’ On an impulse he picked up an empty cigarette packet from the foot well and a biro from the clutter on the dash and scribbled an address.

  ‘If you’re ever in England, you’re more than welcome to stay.’ He handed the scrap of cardboard to the grinning Crousti, slammed the door closed and watched as the battered little yellow car pulled off the verge onto the roundabout.

  Paul felt surprisingly emotional watching Crousti drive off, as if they’d been close friends for years rather than having met less than 24 hrs ago.

  It wasn’t until the car was out of sight and he’d swallowed the lump in his throat that Paul realized he’d written Julie’s address on the cigarette packet.

  He wondered why for a moment. It felt strange, as though his flat in London was a chapter in his life that had closed at the moment when Elodie had leapt through the loft hatch, and he couldn’t quite imagine himself returning there. But he was hardly going to turn up on Julie’s doorstep, give her a peck on the cheek and settle down on the sofa, either.

  Shit!

  What was he going to do?

  Where was he going to live when he got home, if he got home?

  More to the point, what was he going to do now for Chrissake?

  He noticed passing car drivers staring at him. Had they recognized his face from the news? Or was it his incongruous assortment of clothing?

  He didn’t know but one thing was clear, it was time to get out of sight.

  Apart from the Route Nationale that he’d just come down, which led onward past the out of town commercial sprawl into Troyes, there were smaller roads leading off to either side.

  Looking left, Paul could see the identical red tiled roofs of a new housing estate.

  Where there were houses there were people who might recognize him. Turning to the right, Paul saw the road passed under the motorway bridge and away into the distance. Maybe he could shelter under it until darkness fell, which couldn’t be far away now.