He shakes his head; grinds more pepper into the pan.
‘My grandfather, Pa, ordered an omelette in a restaurant in Provence in the 1930s. A simple, unfussy omelette. And it haunted him for the rest of his life.’
‘Was it the amoebas?’
‘No, it was the best thing Pa had ever tasted. So at every restaurant he went to for the next fifty years, he would insist on ordering the same thing. And of course it just made him miserable.’
‘À la recherche de l’omelette perdue,’ interjects Simon.
‘Well, precisely. It’s a personal thing. Anyway, so Pa would sulk, and the concept of Pa’s Omelette entered the family argot, to mean any unrepeatable experience that one cannot resist attempting to repeat.’
‘These eggs are ready,’ says Simon. ‘But I don’t know if I can handle the pressure.’
7
DAEDALUS
After breakfast, we roar off on Simon’s ancient motorbike in search of a second-hand car: a nag for Don Quixote. I’ll be bringing my little red Peugeot 205 to France – le Pug Rouge, as Marisa used to call it – but I’m going to need something more van-like for hauling wardrobes and roof timbers around the countryside. And I’d frankly prefer to have an anonymous French number-plate to hide behind, instead of feeling like an English beacon on wheels.
From his kind, open face, Monsieur Poulenc the garage-owner looks as if he should be healing sick puppies or teaching the oboe to underprivileged children, rather than selling second-hand cars.
‘Help yourself,’ he tells us, waving out at his forecourt from the shadows of a dark office. ‘It’s too hot out there.’
The first car we try is a battered white Volvo, which runs very smoothly, and strikes me as a splendid bargain at six hundred euros.
‘So what do you think?’ asks Simon as we scream past a village pizzeria with gaudy window-boxes, and pull back on to the garage forecourt.
‘I think we should take it.’
‘And what do you think about that?’ he asks, pointing at the dashboard.
‘Ah. Bit hot, is it?’ The water-temperature needle is trembling against its upper stop.
‘Radiator’s knackered.’
‘You see, it’s lucky you’re here.’
Next up is a Nissan Bluebird, with about two hundred thousand kilometres on the clock.
‘I love Japanese cars,’ I declare as we strap ourselves in. ‘Alfie has converted me.’
Alfie is a Honda Civic that Simon found for me a couple of years ago, when I was looking for a car for Marisa. Its owner, Alf, had carefully catalogued every oil change, every wiper-blade he’d replaced, every time he had put air into the tyres, in heavy blue biro in a spiral-bound notebook, over a ten-year period. I still wonder if he catalogued his own life – or his wife’s – with such care.
‘I’m not sure this is another Alfie,’ murmurs Simon as we accelerate past the pizzeria with the gaudy window-boxes for the second time, and the car begins to judder and veer to the right.
The third option is a big green Renault Espace with bashed and dented bodywork, and large areas where the paint appears to have blistered in the sun.
‘Looks a bit dodgy to me,’ I declare, casting an expert eye over the wreck.
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ says Simon. ‘The whole thing’s made of fibreglass so it won’t rust. And you can always respray it if you don’t like the green.’ So we climb in.
‘Ugh. Smell that,’ I groan. The inside of the Espace is carpeted in white dog hairs. It smells as if the dog is still in here somewhere, too, quietly decomposing.
‘Two sun-roofs,’ replies Simon. ‘This is the deluxe model. Think of all the stuff you’ll be able to fit in the back. And with a French car it’ll be much easier to find parts.’
So the Espace wins it by a walrus’s whisker, although my hopes of driving it home today are thwarted. It still needs its contrôle technique certificate – a bureaucratic bill of health – so there’ll be a few days’ wait before I can pick it up.
‘Will you take an offer?’ I ask good Monsieur Poulenc.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid the price has been set by the local notaire. It’s being sold as part of someone’s estate.’
‘Dead man’s wheels,’ murmurs Simon.
My hunch is that it belonged to the dog.
And then we’re loading up the van for the third time in three days, this time with all Simon’s treasures bound for England: a rug he has found at the déchetterie, the golf-ball sugar bowl, some shiny black clogs which are only very slightly mouldy, Zumbach’s MDF throne, and so on.
‘Helen won’t mind,’ he declares firmly, as his trophies rattle around in the back. ‘The clogs will cheer her up.’
‘Don’t you think she might prefer some perfume?’
‘Well, he didn’t leave any perfume behind, did he?’
Simon is silent for a while. He is driving; I am map-reading. I have made the mistake of attempting to route us around the west side of Paris, so the autoroute is now a distant memory, and – thanks to my ineptitude – we are stuck in a traffic-jam heading in the wrong direction through a grey housing estate somewhere near Versailles. Every time we slow down, the engine stops.
‘Sorry sorry sorry,’ I say, running my hand through my hair as I scan the map for a way out of the labyrinth.
Simon smiles to himself. ‘It’s fine,’ he says, leaning forward to peer up at the grey tower blocks on either side of us. ‘This is the scenic route.’
The cars in front of us begin to amble forward, and he turns the key in the ignition yet again. I can see him turning something over in his mind.
‘No,’ he declares at last, as if he had cracked a complicated quadratic equation. ‘Helen is going to love the clogs.’
Next morning, I gaze blearily out of my curtains in East Dulwich to see Simon lifting Zumbach’s precious throne into the skip outside Dave and Audrey’s house. Helen stands, arms folded, in the doorway behind him. The throne looks different in the grey murk of a London morning; like a theatre prop after the lights have been turned off. The shiny black clogs follow: placed as a pair, as carefully as flowers on a grave, not willy-nilly. Then, in matching crash-helmets, he and she mount Simon’s bike for the commute to Bond Street, where Helen works at something glamorous. Good old Simon. The man never tires.
Half an hour later, I hear the familiar roar of the ancient Kawasaki and Simon returns. I watch him tiptoe to the skip. With a quick glance left and right, he grabs the clogs. Then, as if he can feel me watching him, he looks up at my window, grins and strides back inside.
July and August are spent in a London limbo; a no-man’s-land in which I am not quite here and not quite there. My world is about to change, that much I know. But I don’t seem to be able to let go of the old, and I cannot quite grasp the new.
I make frequent trips to the magical kingdom of La Folie, ferrying my last few possessions, and gradually equipping myself for my adventure as if I were a parent kitting out a child for a new school. Each time I return, the jungle around the empty house has grown a little deeper.
I have chosen the beginning of September as the start date for my adventure, for I am coming to France to learn, and this will mark the beginning of a new school year in my life. I have always associated September with the start of good new things. I loved my schooldays, and the month also contains the anniversaries of my parents’ wedding and that of my best friend, Jon; my mother’s birthday; the birthdays of several of my most special girlfriends; my first flying lesson; and Battle of Britain day, which fired my childish imagination with the possibilities of heroism at the controls of a Spitfire or Hurricane.
One Saturday morning in late July, I drive through Dulwich Village to say goodbye to my friends at the tennis club. Without the people, this place would be just three tarmac courts beside a cricket pitch, in the shadow of a railway bridge across which the Eurostar rumbles several times a day, and where I have lost more matches against other teams than I
care to remember.
‘It’s a family club,’ people like to say of our cheery little enclave of surgeons and journalists and ladies who lunch. ‘Winning isn’t important.’ This is lucky, because we never do.
‘Why are you going to live in France, Michael?’ asks Lavinia, the tireless lady president, perfectly dressed as ever. ‘You’re awfully brave.’
‘Because the cat has run out of mice here in Dulwich, and because I think it may improve my backhand.’
‘So when can we come and stay?’
‘If you saw the house I’ve bought, I’m not sure you’d want to.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Are you doing it up yourself?’ Always that question, going straight to the goolies.
‘Er, yes and no,’ I reply.
It’s hard to believe that we really are all saying goodbye. Today feels like just another Saturday morning, as if we’ll be back here next Saturday, and the one after that. And the next, and the next. Life as an infinite series of repetitions: as secure and comfortable as a cat that has instinctively climbed into a cardboard box, although our box happens to consist of some white lines painted on the ground.
8
AUGUST: IN LIMBO
I am a marooned sailor waiting for the trade winds, as I kick my heels and count off the days until September.
The sun beats down on La Folie, hard as drumsticks on a snare. The jungle is beginning to go brown at the edges. I am, too, even though I am still coming and going between England and France; not quite here and not quite there. In the burning heat, I return to good Monsieur Poulenc’s garage to pick up the Espace. Ah, that smell again. The dead dog has been rotting in the sun, and wafts out to greet me in a reeking blast when I open the door.
A black cat is watching me from the shadows as I turn the key in the ignition. The engine fires first time. I wave goodbye to Monsieur Poulenc and head off on to the open road, whistling to make up for the lack of a radio, and because I don’t want to listen too carefully to the sound of the engine. Too late for that now. Twin sun-roofs, I think to myself. The deluxe model.
‘I want to move my account,’ I say, in my best French, to the lady in the bank.
‘Then let’s make an appointment for you,’ she says. Fortysomething, bright smile, shapely.
‘But I only want to move from one branch to another,’ I explain.
‘You still need an appointment.’
‘Later today?’
‘Tuesdays are busy. Come back on Friday. Eleven a.m.’
So Friday it is.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur.’ The same bright smile, an outstretched hand.
‘C’est Michael. Bonjour.’ She’s wearing a very pretty summer dress. White, with yellow-ochre flowers.
‘Bien. Michael,’ she says. ‘Et je suis Marianne Marceau.’
‘Marianne, enchanté.’ I smile. She raises her eyebrows. And smiles, too.
Now follows a game of twenty questions, except that the number of questions has been doubled. I can see why it has been necessary to set aside so much time for our interview, as I am quizzed on whether or not I wish to receive the bank’s monthly magazine, which variety of overdraft insurance I shall require, and how I like living in France.
‘Well, I’m not really living here yet,’ I explain. ‘I’m starting in a month’s time.’
‘But you speak very good French already.’
‘So do you.’
Marianne finds this so funny that she has to hunt for a tissue in the drawer of her desk.
‘And you,’ I continue, warming to my theme. ‘How do you like living in Jolibois?’
‘Me? Oh! Me?’ she says, wide-eyed. ‘I like it very much.’ And as she says it, she gives me a long, sad smile. We stare at each other for a second longer than feels comfortable, and then she perks up, pursing her lips. ‘But today is a good day, because it’s my birthday.’
‘Wonderful. Are you going to celebrate tonight?’
‘No.’ She shrugs. ‘But perhaps my son will be coming to visit.’
‘Perhaps you should go dancing.’
‘But I don’t know how to dance.’
‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. Everyone can dance. I mean, I don’t know how to dance, but I still have a go.’
‘You’re very brave. You must be a good dancer.’
‘Not at all. I’m a terrible dancer. But there’s nothing to learn: you just jiggle around in time to the music.’
‘I don’t think I could do that.’
‘Nonsense. We could go dancing together one day,’ I say, as you do when the sun is shining and you’re talking to a lady in a pretty summer dress, ‘and then you’d see that it’s all a question of confidence.’ It’s fair to say that I have never said this to my English bank manager in the Waterloo branch of Lloyds.
‘Really?’ beams my French bank manager, opening her appointments book. ‘When did you have in mind?’
Outside the bank, a pudgy old man with a bald head and tiny eyes like currants grabs me by the arm. He looks like a human snowman.
‘Anglish? Anglish?’ he hisses, in a hoarse rasp of sandpaper on stone.
‘Oui, je suis anglais,’ I reply, smiling, surprised at the strength in his fingers.
‘Desert rats,’ he hisses, jabbing his chest with the thumb of his free hand. ‘Montgorrrry. Rommel. Afrika Korps.’ Jab jab jab. ‘London. Tottringham Hotspur. Buckingham Palais.’ He is staring fiercely at me, searching for a flicker of recognition.
‘Ah, oui. Londres,’ I concede. A small crowd has gathered to watch us. Possibly they think I’m being mugged.
‘Margaret Tatcherr. Princess Dee. God save the kings.’
‘God save the kings,’ I nod, embarrassed. I unhook his clawed fingers from my forearm, and begin to walk backwards, away from him. ‘Et vive la France.’
Now he grabs his bicep and forcefully jerks his arm upwards in what I take to be not a sign of peace.
‘Rommel. Afrika Korps,’ he snarls. ‘Desert rats.’
A distant church bell chimes as I duck into the paper-shop, relieved to be out of the incandescent sun, and out of range of the man with no voice.
It is peaceful in here, amongst the racks of white paperbacks, the postcards of Jolibois and of local cattle, with a faint whiff of tobacco sweetness mingling with the cabbage-pong of the newsprint.
‘Bonjour Monsieur,’ I mumble to the man behind the counter, whose grey cardigan and ever-so-slightly-troubled expression lend him the air of a prep-school headmaster.
‘Bonjour,’ he replies. ‘I see you have met Édouard out there. Don’t worry: he’s quite harmless. I have English newspapers, if that’s what you’re looking for.’
‘Non, merci,’ I reply, defiantly holding up a copy of Le Populaire, the local French rag. My encounter with the snarling Édouard has unsettled me. Can people really see that I am English, just by looking at me? I gaze down at my faded white T-shirt, threadbare empire-building shorts (extra-large) and open sandals. And I think: Yes. Of course they can.
‘Donc ça fait quatre-vingts centimes.’
‘May I ask, Monsieur …’
‘Oui?’
‘… How you feel about all the English people who are moving into the area. Does it bother the locals?’
‘Pas du tout,’ he replies, raising his eyebrows as if I’d just asked him if he minded my doing the cancan in his shop. ‘We like the English. They renovate the old houses that nobody wants.’ And then he lowers his voice. ‘We’d much rather have les Anglais than all these immigrants from Lille. They cause no end of trouble.’ He nods meaningfully. ‘Whereas the English tend to keep to themselves.’
‘But you do think it’s possible for un Anglais … for someone like me to become integrated in the region?’
‘Mais oui,’ he replies. ‘You speak good French. But you have to be patient. It will take six months. You’ll see.’
The tennis club beside Jolibois’s petite football stadium is deserted. I peer through the glass doors to see the empty wic
ker chairs; the reservations board dotted with yellow name-plates both alien and exotic; the glass tables scattered with dog-eared tennis magazines that have Henri Leconte and Guy Forget on the covers; the poster of Amélie Mauresmo hitting a leggy, sultry backhand, stapled to the cheap wood-panelling; the kitsch trophies on every available surface. And there, through another set of glass doors beyond, I can see the dusty pink peach-skin of the clay courts fading to burnt orange at the edges; the white lines like rails waiting for a train that will never arrive; the green chain-link fencing splashed with advertising hordings. Babolat. Banque de France. Roland Garros.
We don’t have banner advertising around the tennis courts in East Dulwich. We don’t have wicker chairs and magazines, nor expensive red clay baking in the afternoon sun. We don’t have leggy Amélie Mauresmo on the wall, although Lavinia, the president, always looks immaculate. We have tarmac slicked with afternoon drizzle, weak backhands and a surfeit of double-faults. We certainly don’t have a problem finding trophy space.
A sudden flutter, a blur of brown beating wings against the far glass. A bird is trapped inside.
‘If no one in office, apply to house next door,’ says a sign. So I ring the doorbell. The house’s shutters are closed.
I try the door of the tennis club again, more firmly this time. The bird stares down at me from a high window-ledge. Then I walk round the back, through the gates of the empty football stadium with its empty concrete grandstand, grey as the National Theatre beside Waterloo, out across the empty cinder track, and round to the second set of doors beside the courts.
The bird is beating itself against the glass; and then, beady-eyed, is still as I approach.
I shake the doors. Locked.
Like Jolibois tennis club, the aeroclub at St Juste is spookily silent when I visit. A bright Sunday morning, and there’s no one here. Have the French heard about my arrival, and already left in disgust?
I feel as I did when I was twelve, and my parents took me to look round Sherborne – my father’s old school, where I was to go after Windlesham – during the summer holidays, to see if I would be happy there. And all I saw were high windows and empty classrooms and the morbid black walls of the deserted fives courts, and I felt hollow inside.
C'est La Folie Page 5
