The Merde Factor:

by Stephen Clarke

  Dix

  ‘Les ennemis, ça n’existe pas. Ce sont des gens avec qui l’on n’a pas encore déjeuné.’

  There is no such thing as enemies. They are just people with whom one hasn’t yet had lunch.

  Jean Nohain, 20th-century French writer, who was obviously anybody’s for a steak-frites

  I

  THERE IS NOTHING like a night of dreams populated by curvaceous but unavailable women, and waking to the sound of a crazed neighbour barking ‘enculé’ out of the window at the honking traffic, to fire you up for a meeting with a business rival and his lawyers. Jean-Marie might have hired the best sharks Paris could offer, but I was feeling as dangerous as a starved killer whale. Sharks? They were my apéritif snacks.

  I hadn’t been to the VianDiffusion offices for a couple of years, and pushing through the revolving doors brought back a mixed bag of memories: my shy first entrance when I couldn’t speak French and managed to convince the receptionist that I was a congenital idiot. And my stomping last exit when I got fired for ‘abuse of my computer’, as the severance letter put it (I’d been receiving anti-French jokes from friends in the UK, and hadn’t deleted them from my hard drive, even though most of them were so feeble they ought to have faded away naturally).

  Now I marched up to reception and said a loud bonjour. It was, I knew, the only way to get the attention of the woman behind the accueil – welcome – desk, who was famous in the company for trying to make every new arrival as unwelcome as possible.

  She’d been busy reading a celeb magazine, but looked up and instinctively answered my greeting.

  ‘I have an appointment with Amandine …’ Dammit, I didn’t know her surname. I’d arranged with her to get me in the building just before Jean-Marie’s meeting with his lawyers. We’d discussed every detail of our covert operation, and it hadn’t occurred to me to make sure I knew her bloody name.

  ‘Amandine?’ the receptionist asked. She’d spotted a weakness in my approach and was on the verge of returning to her double page of famous French people in their beachwear.

  ‘Amandine, Monsieur Martin’s intern. It’s Paul West, I worked here?’ I tried to adopt the expression that had been on my company ID card, a sort of ‘hello France, please be gentle with me’.

  ‘Amandine,’ she repeated, the fingers of one hand tapping on her desk, next to the keyboard that would instantly reveal who I was talking about if she just keyed the name into her computer. It wasn’t that common a first name.

  ‘I have her direct number,’ I said, waving my phone around in the hope that this might speed things up.

  ‘Oh, très bien,’ she said, and was already staring back at some famous person’s thighs.

  I called Amandine and asked her to come down and rescue me. She arrived less than a minute later, looking nervous, as well she might. Once I’d had my unplanned meeting with Jean-Marie and his goons, she was bound to get the blame for letting me into the building. She shook my hand from the other side of the low glass barrier that separated VianDiffusion employees from the outside world.

  ‘Could we have a badge for Monsieur West, please?’ Amandine asked the receptionist with just the right amount of servitude.

  ‘Of course.’ She handed me a plastic clip-on wallet, with my name and time of arrival already written in by hand. ‘I remember you, Monsieur Wess,’ she told me, and actually cracked a smile. ‘How are things going?’

  ‘Very well, thanks, and you?’

  ‘Oh, comme d’habitude,’ she said, with an expression that could have implied anything from mild boredom to terminal syphilis.

  She buzzed me through the glass barrier, and I followed Amandine to the lifts with my head reeling from the way French people can mess with your mind.

  ‘Jean-Marie is already in with the lawyers,’ Amandine told me as we sped upwards. New lifts, I noticed. Business was obviously good.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Sorry to do this to you. You were my only hope, apart from abseiling down from a helicopter. And right now I couldn’t afford the rental.’

  ‘That’s OK. Though I don’t really understand what you think you can achieve. On your own like this, without a low-yah. What can you do?’

  I didn’t answer. I was still waiting to find out.

  II

  Jean-Marie had revamped his whole floor. When I worked there, it had been like a greenhouse: all glass and plants. You expected a herd of cows to come wandering down the corridor, on their way to be turned into burger meat. Now he was going for corporate chic, with thick carpets, wooden panelling and art. The corridor outside his office was decorated in a style that said: ‘I may be a successful businessman, but that doesn’t stop me helping blind modern artists by paying good money for their crazed daubings. And yes, I can afford a leather sofa that no one will ever sit on.’

  ‘They’re in the meeting room.’ Amandine pointed to a pair of steel-handled doors.

  ‘OK, wish me luck.’

  I gripped a cold metal handle in each hand and tugged. Nothing happened. I tugged again, harder this time.

  ‘They slide open,’ Amandine told me.

  The surprise factor was only partially lost. When I finally appeared between the sliding doors, four faces were staring towards me. One, Jean-Marie’s, registered shock, the other three only faint interest, as though I might be bringing a refill of coffee.

  ‘Bonjour,’ I said.

  I got only three replies.

  ‘Ceci est Monsieur West,’ Jean-Marie announced, and now the lawyers were examining me more closely.

  Jean-Marie was looking very old-school today. Sober grey suit, crisp white shirt, and even a pair of half-moon reading glasses to make him look more studious. His legal men were three very different types. Nearest me, and having to turn almost completely around to face me, was the young legal eagle, barely out of university, probably wearing his first flash suit and the large gold cufflinks that his dad gave him when he graduated. On his face, the enquiring look of a guy who still thought he had plenty to learn from the world. Next to him, only a couple of years older but a decade wiser, the hired gun. About my age, but trying to look more mature, dressed in classic Parisian chic and sporting a long haircut that suggested he would use the law like a Musketeer, fencing with his opponents and then stabbing them legally through the heart. And closest to Jean-Marie, the old, trusted confidant: seen it all, done it all, probably owned at least four Rolexes bigger than the one on his wrist, fifty-something years old and able to smile on the world with the utmost condescension. With Jean-Marie’s amused grin setting the tone for the whole group, I felt like a virgin prostitute stumbling into her first soirée.

  ‘I told Amandine you had asked to see me,’ I said, in French.

  Jean-Marie shrugged, not even bothering to accept or refute my lie.

  ‘So you have come to sign your agreement?’ he asked me, motioning me towards the table.

  ‘No, I have come to show you why you’re wrong.’

  Jean-Marie gave a self-loving laugh of disbelief. Why he needed a wife and mistresses, I didn’t know. He got more than enough adoration from himself. He appealed to the others to share his hilarity. The two older men sniggered pityingly at me.

  ‘Come and sign the agreement we are drawing up. It is inevitable,’ he said, all kindness, like a benevolent farmer leading his prize cow to the slaughter.

  I had intended to challenge him about freezing the bank account, but it didn’t seem worth it any more. I had to cut to the essentials.

  ‘Why are you doing this, Jean-Marie? Why in secret? Without discussion?’ My limited French didn’t let me get many verbs in there.

  ‘Without discussion?’ Jean-Marie pulled off his reading glasses and turned his full glare on me. ‘We had discussions, and you wouldn’t listen. And now we have no more time. I have the opportunity to obtain more premises, to buy the diner we visited, and you have no money, so I have to act alone. It’s all very clear in our contract.’ He held out a hand towards the
hired-gun lawyer who had a pile of papers in front of him.

  ‘Monsieur West,’ the lawyer said, ‘in the event of one partner being unable to back the investment plans of the other partner, the contract can be annulled, with the richer partner able to purchase the business at the initial price, plus a small rate of interest.’ He shrugged. This was the law, not his fault.

  ‘So you see, Pool, you’ll get some money back,’ Jean-Marie said. ‘Not much, but enough to keep you in the style to which you are accustomed.’ He and the lawyers shared a chuckle at this. ‘I think maybe we should ask your friend Amandine to come in,’ Jean-Marie went on. ‘She needs to hear this, too.’ He leant across to a phone and called her in. She was there in seconds, as though she’d been expecting the summons, and seemed to be even more intimidated by the gathering than I was. I understood why – every man in the room except me was undressing her. Even the young apprentice had a glint in his eye.

  ‘We were just explaining,’ Jean-Marie said, ‘that Pool has no money and must therefore cede his half of the business so that I can expand. As you obviously invited him here today, Amandine, I thought you would like to witness the signature of the legal documents.’ He shot her an oily-smooth smile.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I repeated, calling him tu. ‘It’s just because you can, n’est-ce pas? Because no one can stop you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is, my dear Pool, because you don’t know anything. Where did you study? A top business school? No – some anonymous English university. And you defend this tea room as though it is a toy that you can’t bear to throw away. You know nothing about business, especially Parisian business. I can’t work with such inexperience. Let’s end this now before someone starts crying.’ He gave Amandine and me a pitying look.

  Somehow, I managed to laugh. The guy was such a total fraud. He was the one acting like a spoilt kid because he couldn’t get his way.

  ‘Sorry, Jean-Marie,’ I said, ‘but you know nothing about Parisian food. You think diners are the new fashion here? You’re wrong. Go to the rue de Bretagne and count them. Zero! Count the salads, like the ones at My Tea Is Rich. Millions!’

  I realised that my primitive French was making me sound like a cross between a bad politician and an advert for the lottery, but at least I had the lawyers’ attention, and Amandine was nodding her assent.

  ‘What would be really fashionable, at My Tea Is Rich, would be a burger menu to go with the salads. You’re right – the burger is fashionable in Paris. VianDiffusion’s product is fashionable. But in a place like My Tea Is Rich, not an American diner. You are wrong to close it. Tu as tort,’ I repeated. ‘Tort.’ And I rolled my R like Edith Piaf warbling ‘Je ne regrette rien’.

  ‘He’s right,’ Amandine said. ‘He showed me the menus on these trendy cafés. They’re—’

  ‘Oui, merci, la stagiaire,’ Jean-Marie snapped. Thanks, intern. He was obviously more pissed off with her than he had been showing. Amandine flushed, and held her mouth open in shock.

  ‘And that’s another thing you’re wrong about,’ I said. ‘Your brand of sexism is out of fashion, Jean Marie. Women in the office want more than your hand on their knee. After all, Amandine studied at one of the famous business schools you love so much. Is it even legal, the way you treat her? Why don’t you ask your lawyers?’

  At last, Jean-Marie’s façade was down.

  ‘Va te faire foutre,’ he growled at me. ‘Sorry, maîtres,’ he apologised to the lawyers, ‘but this petit con …’ He stared at the ceiling as though it might give him some advice on how to deal with small English twats.

  The fact that he’d lost his rag somehow made me feel icily calm.

  ‘If you try to take the tea room, you will have a surprise,’ I told him, doing my best to add a trace of menace to a sentence that sounded as if it had come out of a grammar lesson about the future tense. ‘Une grande surprise,’ I added, and turned on my heel. ‘Sorry, Amandine,’ I whispered as I marched out of the double doors and into the corridor.

  Truth was, the only surprise Jean-Marie was going to get if he tried to take away the tea room was that I would put up absolutely no struggle. I couldn’t even afford to phone my lawyer and ask if I could afford him. I was like a prizefighter with no money to pay for his gloves, his gumshield, or his shorts for that matter. If there was going to be a fight, it would be bare-knuckle, and I’d be naked. My only hope was that my nudity might put Jean-Marie off his aim.

  III

  I was in the Métro when Amandine called me.

  ‘How was he afterwards?’ I asked her.

  Amandine puffed into her phone.

  ‘He was weird. Silent. He’s gone out. But I had a quick chat with the youngest low-yah before he left. I think they’re going to finalise things tomorrow and send you a lettre recommandée.’

  ‘Bastards,’ I said.

  The middle-aged woman sitting opposite me tutted.

  ‘I hope I won’t get you into too much trouble,’ I told Amandine. ‘Sneaking me into the meeting like that could count as a faute professionnelle. You could be fired.’

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said. ‘I have my insurance.’

  ‘Your what?’ I must have said this loudly, because the woman opposite me, who was trying to concentrate on a French crossword without any black squares, tutted again and raised her eyes despairingly towards the rue de Rivoli.

  ‘I’ll show you sometime,’ Amandine said.

  This, under almost any other circumstances, would have been my cue to suggest meeting up for a drink. Which, I realised, was something I’d like to do. Yes, it would be really good to go out for a drink with her. But how could I say so? I make a speech to try and protect her from her lech of a boss and then I ask her out? It felt all wrong.

  ‘What will you do?’ Amandine interrupted my thoughts.

  ‘About Jean-Marie? For the time being, panic.’ We managed to share a laugh. ‘Thanks for calling me,’ I told her. ‘You’ve stopped me panicking for a few minutes. Feel free to call again anytime.’ But I heard myself starting to sound like a guy in full chat-up mode, and stopped.

  ‘Well, I just wanted to tell you not to worry about me,’ Amandine said. ‘Give me a call if you need to discuss any ideas about Jean-Marie.’

  ‘I will, thanks.’

  ‘Fini?’ Madame Mots Croisés asked as I stowed my phone.

  ‘With him, never,’ I told her.

  Back at the garret, I found Jake lounging on the sofa bed.

  ‘Hey man,’ he greeted me. ‘How did it go with Alexa? You two bezzing again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t say she’s bezzing Jean-Marie?’ His whole body screwed up in horror at this idea.

  ‘No, of course not. She just wanted to find out if he had anything to do with giving her photos to that loony website. Which he probably did.’ Right now, I’d be willing to believe anything about him. Who really shot JFK? Ask Jean-Marie where he was in 1963. Jack the Ripper? Look no further.

  I would have asked Jake to move over so I could collapse on the sofa bed with nervous exhaustion, but he was looking troubled.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ I asked him.

  ‘They stole the dream, man,’ he said. ‘I had the poem. And they stole the dream.’

  I could tell that his emotions were running high by the way he actually got a verb right. Personally I never believed he stood a chance of getting through the two-to-one vote with Amandine and Marsha there to censor him, but at least he could have put up a fight. The anti-climax of it all had hit him hard.

  ‘Yeah, they were a bunch of salopards,’ I sympathised.

  ‘And Marsha, man. I mean, I know she was your girlfriend and shit, but what a salope.’ Meaning the female version of a salopard. ‘She refuses to try a new concourse …’ I guessed he meant concours, the French word for competition. ‘And what was all that about bezzing lots of guys in Paris? She refused to have sex with me,’ he complained. ‘I told her I once had a girl fr
om North Island, but never from South Island. And she refused.’

  ‘Well, shave your nipples and you might be in with a chance.’

  ‘De toute façon, it’s too late now,’ Jake said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Marsha. I don’t want sex with her. Because I think I only want sex with Mitzi.’

  ‘What?’

  This time, I had to sit down. Jake was contemplating some kind of monogamy? It was like a dolphin giving up swimming, or Johnny Hallyday deciding not to wear leather trousers.

  ‘Yeah, you know what Mitzi’s doing just maintenant?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘She’s out there visiting her business contacts, trying to get sponsors for another concourse.’

  ‘Another poetry competition?’

  ‘Yeah. What a femme, right?’

  ‘But why doesn’t she just get sponsors to print up some poetry books for you?’

  He sat up straight – a mean feat on his sofa bed – and there was the fire of a born-again monogamist in his eyes.

  ‘Oh no, man. I’m going to win this. When my posy is published, it will be because the public demands it.’

  Poor guy, I thought, last night’s disappointment has driven him to hallucinations.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ I told him. ‘You deserve it. You have more determination than anyone I know. Except perhaps Jean-Marie, who is determined to screw my life up once and for all.’

  Jake asked for details, and I gave them, until the whole sofa bed was creaking under the strain of my anger. Now I understood what sent my mad old neighbour swearing out of his window. Paris, in the form of Jean-Marie, had driven me to the verge of Tourette’s.

  ‘Sorry, Jake,’ I told him, ‘but if you do manage to set up another competition, I won’t be there to judge it for you. I’m getting out of this place. Just as soon as I’ve sent in my report to the Ministry and made sure their payment is coming through, I’m on the train back to England.’

  ‘The Ministry of Culture?’ Jake said. ‘This morning, didn’t they start a grève? You know, a strike?’ He smiled, pleased with himself at remembering an English word.