The Merde Factor: (Paul West 5)

by Stephen Clarke

  He grabbed a spanner from his toolbox and began work, with me holding the torch as his unpaid assistant.

  ‘If you want my opinion, this whole country is blocked and leaking,’ he said. ‘The kids are blocked because they can’t get jobs, and the money’s leaking out because French companies are moving the jobs abroad. And even if you’ve got a job you can’t make any money,’ he went on, ‘because they take it all away from you to pay for the politicians’ mistresses and non-stop election campaigns. Do you have a job?’

  ‘No, I’m looking,’ I said.

  ‘Be a plumber,’ he told me. ‘People will always shit, and they’ll never want to put their own hands in it.’

  ‘Me also, preferably,’ I tried to explain.

  ‘Then you’ll stay living in this place. Better to get your hands covered in merde than to live in it, non?’

  I shrugged non-committally.

  ‘Voilà,’ he announced a few minutes later, after apparently doing little more than fit a rubber condom around the leaking joint. ‘That will be fifty euros, but give me thirty cash and I’ll say you weren’t at home. If they try to fix another rendez-vous, tell them you repaired it yourself.’

  All my money was going down the pan, I thought as I handed over a ten and a twenty.

  I would have slumped into an even deeper unseasonable depression if my evening hadn’t been rescued by a phone call from Marsha.

  ‘What are you doing right now?’ she asked me.

  ‘Oh, spending some time at home, reading,’ I told her. Actually it wasn’t a lie, because I’d been perusing the list of ingredients on my little packet of spicy pizza oil, trying to work out if there was actually anything edible in it.

  ‘That’s great,’ she said, ‘people don’t spend enough time reading. Want to come to a vernissage tomorrow night?’

  This, I knew, was the opening of an art show, or rather the party to celebrate the opening. I’d been to a couple with Alexa.

  ‘What’s the exhibition?’ I asked. Not that it mattered much. Most people just went along for the free booze.

  ‘You’ll see. Should be pretty sexy. Come on, it’ll get you out of the house a bit. Reading’s great, but you don’t want to do it every night, do you?’

  Looking round Jake’s apartment, if you could actually call it that, I had to agree. The newly damp floor took the flat one notch further down from its previous atmosphere of cramped, but dry, squalor. Getting out of this particular house for good, or even for a few hours, was top of my list of priorities.

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘It sounds like fun.’

  ‘See you tomorrow, then,’ Marsha said. ‘Looking forward to it.’ And even without the support of her sensual eyebrows, her voice was enough to feed a whole night of sultry dreams.

  Trois

  ‘Ce qu’on nomme culture consiste, pour une partie des intellectuels, à persécuter l’autre partie.’

  What we call culture consists for some intellectuals of persecuting the others.

  Jean-François Revel, French intellectual, so he should know

  I

  THE FRENCH ARE very big on allegories. At school, they all study a seventeenth-century author called La Fontaine, who spent most of his life writing stories along the lines of Aesop’s fables. Even today, La Fontaine’s neat moral endings help the logical French brain to explain away almost any situation. Something untoward will happen, and a French person will say, ‘Oh yes, it’s just like the wolf and the shepherd, or the cow and the lobster,’ and they’ll tell you a story that has almost nothing to do with their problem, but makes them feel better because it has set the world back at right angles again.

  When I woke up next morning, bent almost double on Jake’s torture mattress, I was thinking about a story that Alexa once told me. It was one of La Fontaine’s fables, she’d said, about a frog who agrees to give a scorpion a piggyback across a river, but only after the scorpion has promised faithfully not to sting the frog.

  ‘Why would I do that?’ the scorpion asks. ‘If you drown, we both drown.’ So froggie says, ‘Hop on,’ and sure enough, halfway across the river, the inevitable happens, and as the frog is sinking, it asks, ‘Pourquoi?’ and the scorpion says it couldn’t help itself – stinging is what it does.

  This was back when I was first considering going into business with Jean-Marie. He’s a scorpion, Alexa warned me, and I was his frog. Except that he was a scorpion with an inflatable lifejacket. He’d sting me and save himself.

  The analogy sounded a bit too neat for me, so I Googled it and found out it wasn’t one of La Fontaine’s fables at all – no one knows where it originated. I didn’t dare confront Alexa about this, of course. And in any case, I didn’t have much choice about going into business with Jean-Marie.

  On this particular morning, as I lay on Jake’s bed of nails, it occurred to me that the frog wasn’t me, it was the tea room. While I was setting it up, I’d been constantly swatting at scorpions who were doing their utmost to sink it. First there was Jean-Marie, who’d had the original idea but didn’t want to carry it through, then the architect who tried to overcharge me, and half a dozen more minor predators. So when My Tea Is Rich finally opened, it felt like a miracle.

  And this was why I couldn’t let Jean-Marie sink it now. What I needed was either to swat him off into the river (which I couldn’t afford to do, because it would mean buying him out), or to procure some kind of antidote to his poison. But the most important thing was not to let him know that I was planning a coup, otherwise he’d sting the tea room straight away and start inflating his lifejacket.

  So when he called me later that morning, I didn’t bawl him out for acting behind my back. I pretended that I just needed some explanations.

  ‘We must meet and talk,’ he said, sounding like the Dalai Lama offering the world a chance to live in peace.

  ‘Yes, and this time you’ve got to tell me everything,’ I said in my firmest voice.

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed, far too easily.

  ‘OK, let’s meet near the Gare du Nord, I fancy a cup of Indian chai.’ I hoped that the real Dalai Lama might be there to help me stay yogically calm.

  ‘No, no. There’s a place that I must show you.’ Of course, there was no way he was going to bow to my demands. He told me I ‘absolutely had to see’ a garage out in the suburbs. A garage? Was he thinking of turning the tea room into a truck stop? Or starting up a pizza van?

  But before I could ask for more details, he was gone.

  So here I was, sitting on the Métro again, heading way out west, and wondering how to play things. The suburb Jean-Marie had summoned me to wasn’t one of the northern riot zones, of course. Like most Parisians, he never ventured out into neighbourhoods where poor people divide their time between killing each other and trying to kill the police. No, this was a southwestern suburb, Boulogne, hardly even a suburb at all because chic western Paris spills right over into it. The only fights that go on in this part of town are for seats at the French Open tennis finals.

  It was another warm day, and in the freebie newspaper I’d picked up at the Métro entrance a politician was moaning about the long weekends that were about to transform May and June in France into non-stop holiday months. This year, May Day, VE Day and the various religious happenings all fell on a Tuesday, giving the French several chances to take off their Mondays and spend four days basking in the sun. This clearly annoyed the bosses and the right-of-centre politicians, but probably explained why so many Parisians seemed to be in a spring-like mood.

  I was on line 10, which snakes beneath Saint-Germain and the rich south-west of Paris before hitting the posh suburbs. Opposite me, in the half-empty carriage, two relaxed-looking office guys were discussing one of the upcoming long weekends. I could tell from his accent that one of them was a well-integrated Brit. He was dressed exactly like his French colleague: smartish suit, crisp shirt open at the neck, slim briefcase on lap.

  ‘Are you going away?’ the French guy aske
d him.

  ‘Yes, to the north of England.’

  ‘By car?’

  ‘No, train. We don’t have a car.’

  ‘You don’t have a car? Not even a small one for weekends?’

  ‘No, we don’t need one,’ the Brit answered, on the defensive. ‘I wouldn’t want one in France anyway, I can’t imagine changing gear with my right hand.’

  ‘Why not?’ Now it was the Frenchman who was on the defensive, as if sitting to the left of the gear stick might be considered by the Brits as some kind of sexual perversion.

  ‘Well, in England, we keep our strong hand on the wheel and change with our left hand.’

  The Frenchman’s head was shaking before the Brit had even finished speaking.

  ‘But in France, we change with our more agile hand. You don’t need your strong hand on the wheel – you never change gear when you’re turning a corner, do you?’

  ‘Au contraire,’ the Brit retorted. ‘In France, you need your strong hand on the wheel all the time – the roads are so bad.’

  ‘Bad?’ It was as if the Anglais had just insulted the Frenchman’s mother’s cooking. ‘Your English roads are terrible. London is always being dug up. That’s why your taxis are like tanks.’

  I couldn’t help thinking that they ought to shut up arguing and get an automatic. They had reminded me that I was still without news of my driving licence, so even if I’d wanted to go cruising along a route nationale (which, in my experience, were so well maintained that drivers were tempted to behave like suicidal jet pilots), I’d have had to go as a passenger.

  ‘And what about French traffic lights?’ the Brit said.

  ‘What about them?’ asked the French bloke.

  ‘In France, they change straight from red to green. They don’t go to amber first. There’s an amber light in the middle, why don’t you use it? French drivers are all just waiting to jam their foot on the accelerator.’

  ‘Don’t you know what green means? You need yellow to make it clearer?’ the Frenchman accused.

  ‘Well, some Parisians certainly don’t know what red means,’ the Brit countered.

  ‘Bon weekend,’ I wished them as I got off, but they were too busy arguing to look my way.

  I came out of the Métro station, and turned off the main road into a street that was lined with small houses fronted by cobbled yards and tiny urban gardens. I walked by a waxy fig tree, bursting with green unripe fruit, and along a bank of tall purple irises, apparently queuing up for Van Gogh to paint them. There was even a grapevine sunbathing against a red-brick wall. I felt as if I’d stepped back at least fifty years in time, so it didn’t feel at all incongruous to come upon a couple of classic English sports cars parked in the street: a racing-green MGB and a turquoise Triumph Spitfire, both of them open-top and ready for the road. I felt like leaping in and heading for the Riviera. Except that I didn’t have a licence, of course.

  The cars were standing outside the iron gates of a wide courtyard, which was surrounded on three sides by an old industrial building with frosted windows for walls. And covering almost every square centimetre of floor space, inside and out, were classic motors, most of them British or American. I’m not a car buff, but I recognised the rounded red nose of an Austin Healey and the torpedo lines of a Ford Mustang. There were also a couple of large American open-top saloons, anonymous but drenched in road-movie mystique.

  ‘Ah, Pool, I see you are impressed.’

  Jean-Marie had emerged from one of the workshops and was grinning at me. He was flanked by Amandine, looking as stylish as the cars in her dark business suit.

  I shook hands with Jean-Marie but didn’t know what to do about Amandine. Handshake or kiss on the cheek? Outside work, I’d have kissed her, but we’d only met once in a business meeting, so the done thing was to shake her hand. She was gripping her phone in her right hand, though, so for the time being, this was impossible.

  Jean-Marie saw me hesitating and slapped me on the back.

  ‘Kiss her, Pool. No one should ever miss the opportunity to kiss la belle Amandine.’

  So we did la bise, and I would have told Amandine how good she looked if I hadn’t guessed that her morning had already been overfilled with male comments about her attractiveness.

  Instead I told Jean-Marie how attractive he was looking. His suit was even more spectacular than usual, a light grey tweedy-looking material with a Triumph Spitfire-blue lining. It was way over the top and yet somehow very subtle.

  ‘You like it? It’s English. You are a fan of Pool Smith, I think?’ he said.

  ‘You’re wearing English suits now?’ I was astonished. He’d always been a staunchly French dresser. Givenchy or die.

  ‘Yes, it is very, how do you say, stylé? Like these cars, no?’ I had to agree. ‘Alors, Pool,’ he went on. ‘If I have understood well, you agree that a diner is a good idea?’ So it was straight down to business.

  ‘In principle, yes, but not in my tea room,’ I said.

  ‘Our tea room,’ he corrected me.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘And it’s a profitable business as it is, so why don’t we leave the tea room as a tea room and open a diner somewhere else? I’m sure La Fontaine must have a fable about not fixing a teapot unless it’s broken.’

  Jean-Marie looked baffled for a moment, and then set his features in a mask of mute disagreement.

  ‘It is profitable,’ he conceded, ‘but mainly as a lunch place for office workers. In Paris now, diners are for everyone, every time. Breakfast, lunch, weekdays, Sundays: they are all good. And we have seen the other day that it’s so simple. For the food you only need four ingredients: eggs, hamburgers, bacon, potatoes. And when people finish, you just give them the bill. You tell them: Go now, I want your table. And they love it because it is part of the American experience.’ He paused for effect before getting in his sneaky rabbit punch. ‘Of course, what I can do is sell my part of the tea room to some unknown businessman, and create some diners myself.’

  So that was his plan, I thought. But he should have played his joker when I was at the diner, sluggish on comfort food. I laughed.

  ‘Maybe this businessman and I could go into competition with you, Jean-Marie? And we’d sue you if you tried to use the name My Diner Is Rich.’

  ‘But do you want to risk the extra cost?’ he asked with fatherly concern for my welfare. ‘You are not exactly rich. Will a bank trust you?’ He looked at me with scorpion eyes. I glanced over at Amandine to see whether she was in on this sting, but she was looking as fascinated with Jean-Marie’s back-stabbing negotiation tactics as I was.

  ‘I’ll have some funds soon,’ I told him. ‘I’ve started doing some consultancy work for the Ministry.’ This was a partial lie, because all I’d done so far was call Marie-Dominique and agree to go back for a follow-up meeting, but what kind of idiot would tell Jean-Marie the whole truth in a business negotiation?

  ‘Bon.’ He waved a hand in the air as if to swat my objections away. ‘I want you to see two things. First this.’

  He pulled me inside the workshop, where two men in overalls were tinkering with one of the most beautiful cars I’d ever seen. It was a long, red, hardtop E-Type Jaguar. All the thrills of the 1960s rolled into one: the style of the Beatles, the curves of Brigitte Bardot and the sexiness of England winning the 1966 World Cup.

  ‘Classe, non?’ Jean-Marie lapsed into French to express his full admiration for the vehicle. ‘And notice that it has been adapted for France.’

  I bent down to look through the open window. Inside it smelled of leather, polish and honest old machinery. And the walnut steering wheel was on the left.

  ‘Now come and look at this, both of you.’ Jean-Marie put a hand on Amandine’s shoulder to guide her into the courtyard. She sagged under its weight, and looked ready to bash him with her phone if the arm strayed any lower.

  He shepherded us towards one of the big open-top American saloons, a Ford of some kind, painted a metallic brown. Not a very o
ld model – 1990s, I thought – but its enormous front seats were wide enough to allow even the biggest doughnut addicts on the planet to park their butts comfortably, and the back seat could have accommodated an orgy. It was totally impractical for Paris, but begging to be loaded up with surfboards and driven down to Biarritz.

  ‘Which car would you choose, Amandine, if you wanted to buy one?’ Jean-Marie asked.

  ‘To buy one?’ Amandine gave it no more than a second’s thought. ‘Oh, the American car. It’s much more fun.’

  ‘You see?’ Jean-Marie said. ‘Amandine is a young, French working girl’ – I was almost sure he didn’t know the double meaning of the term – ‘and she chooses the American dream before the English elegance, even if it is adapted for France. Sorry, Pool, but the diner wins.’ He held up two hands in the surrender position, the French way of saying that it wasn’t his fault if he was so damn right about everything.

  ‘Yes, but you wouldn’t want to scrap the Jaguar, would you, Amandine?’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t want to replace the tea room with a diner?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Do you think I should buy the American car?’ Jean-Marie interrupted her musing. ‘I will, if you agree to drive with me to Deauville for the long weekend.’ He laughed as if to pretend that he might be joking, but I could see him watching for any sign of a positive reply.

  Amandine’s face hardened.

  ‘I’m going to stay with my parents,’ she said, no doubt to remind him of their yawning generation gap.

  ‘Another time, then. There are lots of long weekends coming,’ he said shamelessly.

  ‘You’re thinking of buying this car?’ I asked him.

  ‘Oh no,’ Jean-Marie scoffed. ‘I have bought the Jaguar. It is my style, and a much better investment. And I am sure you will like it too, my dear, when we drive back to the office,’ he told Amandine. ‘It is very, how do they say in English? Cosy.’

  ‘If you’re driving back to Paris, can I have a lift?’ I asked. ‘That way, we can keep on talking about the tea room.’