Merde Happens

by Stephen Clarke

  "Ooh, loovlay," Lucy in London cooed as the other national anthems fizzled out for lack of people willing to make public idiots of themselves. "I think you're on your way to America."

  New York

  Merde in Manhattan

  1

  THE Empire State building disappeared over the horizon, and the taxi bumped down off the highway into a neighborhood of small red-brick houses. It was a zone where some enterprising salesman had apparently started a fashion for colored awnings—whole streets of houses had sunshades shaped like car hoods over their windows. They were primary red, royal blue, or moss green, and suggested that in summer this place must bake. Now, though, many of the awnings had a fringe of icicles.

  "What is this neighborhood?" I interrupted the driver's phone conversation. "The Upper East Side?"

  "Kind of," he said. "It's the Bronx."

  "The Bronx?" To a middle-class Englishman like me, this conjured up images of gangsta rappers emptying Uzis at each other. Or possibly at me.

  "Yeah."

  "But why are we going to the Bronx?"

  "That's the address you gave me, man."

  I looked again at the printout that I'd shown him at the airport. The address of the B&B had been e-mailed to me a couple of days earlier by Visitor Resources: Britain. It hadn't said "the Bronx," though. Like a dork, I'd assumed that NY always meant you were within ogling distance of tbe Empire State Building.

  "The Bronx? That's brilliant, Paul. Much more typically American than touristy Manhattan." Yes, Alexa was along for the ride. Less than ten minutes after my job-clinching rendition of "God Save the Queen," she'd given up accusing me of collaborating with tlie colonialist enemy and seized the prospect of an American road trip as if it was the best idea since putting jelly in doughnuts.

  It was impossible for her to finish her documentary on the French lifestyle at this time of year, she declared. There were so many scenes she needed to shoot in spring or summer. Filming the USA in winter, on the other hand, was a much better idea. It would, she said, "take the Hollywood veneer away" and let people see the place as it really was. It would allow her to get below the surface and reveal "the rotten heart of the world's most menacing country." A good thing Visitor Resources hadn't interviewed her, I thought.

  I was pretty astonished that they'd reinterviewed me, and frankly amazed that I'd gotten the job. But then I remembered what Lucy Marsh had said about being on a shortlist of one, and I'm ashamed to say that I took full advantage of the situation. You're a matter of days away from the start of the campaign, I'd said, and Jack Tyler couldn't even tell me the names of the participating cities. This wasn't a job, it was a mission. It merited danger money.

  Lucy was a practical, straight-talking Yorkshire lass, and we cut a deal there and then on the phone. The salary they had been offering was transformed into a much more lucrative consultant's fee, the bonus if I won the competition went from fat to borderline obese, and—the icing on the cake—she said that if things went well, there was a job in it for me. Head of promotion at their Paris office. A kind of roving tourist ambassador whose duties would include plenty of wining and dining of French big shots, as well as regular trips back to the motherland to try out the top English hotels and spas. Another tough mission, but I was willing to take it on, I told her.

  So here I was in New York with not only a good chance of paying off my debt to France, but also a girlfriend who thought I'd turned into a magician. Out of my hat I'd suddenly produced the money I needed, plus a trip across America and the prospect of endless luxury hotel stays and seaweed massages. English seaweed rather than French, perhaps, but she wasn't one to look a gift seahorse in the mouth.

  "You know, Paul," Alexa now said, "your guidebook has a section about how the Bronx is regenerated, with a chic area near the university and the best Italian restaurants in New York, but I am sure that is only the partial story. There will be many people who have been excluded from this regeneration."

  Yes, I thought, and they're going to be really pleased if a young French woman with an expensive camera comes and rubs their noses in it.

  Our taxi juddered on due north, farther away from Manhattan, past blackened, leafless trees and streets populated only by steam-puffing people in inflatable ski jackets.

  We passed below a clattering overhead train. The subway came out this far, then. I began to console myself that we were only in New York for a couple of nights. All I had to do was pick up the Mini for our drive to Boston, where my first event was planned. We could go into Manhattan whenever we wanted.

  "This is it."

  The cab driver had pulled up outside the largest building in a row of well-kept Victorian houses with bright white mortar holding the russet bricks together. It had baroque plaster moldings above the windows, with a tiara-like flourish of decoration in the center of the flat roof line. Beside the saffron-yellow front door was a sign saying noontide b&B, with a smiling sun and a large WELCOME in capital letters.

  "Hmm." Alexa didn't look too pleased. I guessed she had been hoping for something with a bit more grit.

  The landlady was a pleasant, middle-aged hippie with ginger braids and floppy wooden earrings, who introduced herself as Lorie and was "so glad" we'd found the place OK. She humped Alexa's rucksack up the narrow stairs without showing the slightest sign of muscle strain, and chatted all the way to our snug little room. It was as bright yellow as the B&B sign. The house's color scheme seemed designed to make up for the winter chill. Perhaps she repainted it snow white in summer, I thought, to take the edge off the heat.

  "Oh, one thing," Lorie said as she swung Alexa's bag on to a luggage stand. "You are married, aren't you?" She asked this with the same beaming grin she'd worn since opening the door, but I guessed it was a deeply serious question.

  "Yes, of course," I lied.

  "Good," Lorie said, embracing us both in the warmth of her approval. "Only . . ." She held up her own ring finger, which was adorned with a chunky diamond engagement ring and a gold wedding band.

  "Oh yes, we don't wear them when we travel," I said. "Our rings are much too precious to us. They're locked up in a safe at home."

  "Ah." Lorie blinked at me as if this was the most touching thing she'd ever heard. "Come down and have some tea," she said, and smiled her way out of the room.

  "Are you crazy?" Alexa whispered to me when we were alone. In French, I was glad to hear. "Why should you lie? It's not illegal to sleep in the same bed if you're not married."

  "No, but she prefers to think we're married, so why not? The important thing is that we're together, isn't it?"

  "She needs to face up to the realities of life."

  "But it's this lady's house, a B&B, not a political..." I couldn't think of the French word for workshop or indoctrination center.

  "The whole world is political, Paul," Alexa said, but smiled to show she was joking. Well, half joking.

  An earthenware teapot with three matching mugs, a milk jug, a plate of lemon slices and a sugar bowl were laid out in a stiflingly heated glass conservatory that had been built onto the back of the house. The walls and French windows were almost invisible behind a mass of tropical foliage.

  Lorie was waiting for us in a yellow-painted wicker armchair and motioned for us to sit facing her on the other side of the coffee table.

  "So, tell me who you are," she said.

  Alexa obviously thought this was a weird way to phrase the question, but she was happy to talk about her on-the-road documentary.

  "It will be about the reality of America," she said. "I think it's important for people to face reality, don't you?" She aimed a challenging stare at Lorie.

  "Alexa also does photography," I added quickly. "Portraits, mainly."

  "That's wonderful," Lorie said. "And who are you, Paul?"

  I followed Alexa's example and talked about my job rather than my innermost workings.

  "And where will your journey take you?" Lorie asked.

  I was glad
to be able to reply. I'd finally received the list of cities from Jack Tyler. "From here to Boston, down to Miami, across to New Orleans, and then we keep going west until we hit the Pacific. The final ceremony is in Los Angeles," I said. "Hollywood." Alexa and I exchanged a smile of anticipation.

  "Hmm, Hollywood," Lorie grunted. Not a movie fan, it seemed.

  "I'm looking forward to getting down south in the sun," I said. "But this is great. So warm." I held up my arms in tribute to her indoor jungle.

  Lorie brightened instantly. "It's for Joey."

  "Joey?" I looked around for a parrot.

  "Yes." Lorie gave a little wave in the direction of a thick branch above Alexa's head. On cue, the branch opened a beady eye and gave a flick of its long spiny tail. It was some kind of miniature dragon. Although three feet long is a pretty big miniature.

  Alexa leaned back, effectively offering her throat to the beast, and screamed. The monster opened its jaws.

  "He's only one of God's creatures, my dear, don't be fearful," Lorie said, as Alexa dived for shelter behind my seat.

  "It looks pretty fearful to me," I said. "What is it?"

  "He's an iguana. My husband works at JFK and we rescued him from some smugglers. Joey has a lot more to fear than we do, you know."

  Alexa didn't look convinced. We swapped chairs, and Alexa kept her eyes fixed on pal Joey's softly breathing belly.

  "Now, let's have tea," Lorie said, and began pouring. "Lemon? Milk? Sugar?" When all the cups were ready, she gave her warmest smile yet and said, in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, "I think we should thank God for this tea and the way that we have all come together safely today, don't you?"

  She closed her eyes and held her hands above the table to say grace. "Dear Lord, we would like—"

  "Excuse me." Alexa stood up and left the room.

  "She has a mild reptile allergy," I told Lorie. "I'll just go and see if she's OK."

  "We're not staying here," Alexa hissed, sounding eerily like Joey. She was sitting on the bed in our room. "She's got a tyrannosaurus living in her house, and she's a dinosaur herself. Are you married? Let's thank God for this tea." Alexa did a cruel impression of Lorie's slow, benevolent voice.

  "It's only for two nights," I said.

  "No, I refuse to thank God for my tea. We should thank the Indian woman who picked it so that she can feed her children who are hungry because Americans push the world tea price down. Thank God? Huh!"

  I'd forgotten just how deeply atheist the French can be. To Alexa, even singing a Christmas carol was like kissing a bishop's backside.

  "What difference does it make?" I asked. "Just come down, let her say grace, and we'll have a cup of tea."

  "No, she will not impose her opinions on me."

  "If we were in Africa, you wouldn't mind people carrying out their rituals. You'd think it was folklorique, as you French say. The Americans are more religious than you, that's all. Remember what I said at my interview? 'You gotta have faith.' That's what they think over here."

  Alexa refused to budge.

  "You are my boyfriend, Paul, you should respect my feelings before hers, OK?"

  "I do respect your feelings, Alexa, it's just that..." I didn't know how to tell her diplomatically that she was creating a storm in a teacup.

  "There are lots of bed-and-breakfasts here." Alexa was flicking through our wrist-thick USA guidebook. "You really feel so strongly that you want to leave?" "Yes. Where's your phone? I'll call some places." But I had a better idea. I began scrolling down my list of American contacts, looking for a guardian angel who'd solved an accommodation crisis for me in the past—a girl who'd once offered me bed and breakfast and everything in between.

  2

  It took me a while to work out how Elodie had changed since I had last seen her in Paris.

  She was still blonde, she still wore her hair back in a short ponytail, and her way of speaking and looking at people still suggested that she had either just finished, or was just about to start, having sex. Or maybe both.

  She wasn't tarty at all, just incredibly knowing. I'd seen her in action. She'd catch the eye of a guy, exchange sexual data with him for a microsecond, then instantly classify him—hung up, sexy but gay, gauche but maybe worth the effort, or hmm, not bad, if he makes a move I'm definitely interested.

  All this at the age of twenty-four. It says something for the French education system.

  I wasn't spared her analytical gaze as she strolled into the diner on the Upper East Side where we'd arranged to meet.

  She and I had had certain, let's say, physical dealings in the past, and she was obviously checking me out to see whether I'd improved with age or was on the way downhill. But I didn't pick up her conclusion because she saw Alexa and seemed to switch off the radar out of respect for an old female friend.

  We all kissed and hugged, and Elodie loaded her jacket on to a straining coatrack.

  That was when I realized what was different about her. In Paris, she would usually dress in chic American or Italian brands. Here, she could have been the French fashion ambassador. A chestnut-brown Agnes B jacket, orange Coq Sportif sweatshirt, Chevignon jeans. She seemed to be playing the Typical French Miss, which I suppose she was, on a year abroad as part of her Paris business course. A year to learn all about American business practices, then go home and watch them founder on a reef of French strikes and monopolies.

  "Oh Paul, you never call me unless you have housing problems," Elodie said. I'd originally met her when I was working for her dad, Jean-Marie. I was looking for a place to live in Paris and could only find temporarily clothing-free closets.

  I updated her on where Alexa and I were at, and why. We'd fled the B&B, found the nearest subway station, which was above a stretch of derelict ground next to a Dunkin' Donuts, and waited fifteen minutes in the searing cold for a train. For at least ten stops everyone seemed to be asking themselves, did these two tourists take the wrong train at JFK or what?

  "It sounds like you need a hearty American breakfast," Elodie concluded. "Choose what you want, everything here is good." Along with her new French look she'd adopted an American accent and a loudness of voice which suggested that every word she said was of vital importance.

  My internal clock couldn't work out what I wanted to eat. While I was trying to decide between porridge (or oatmeal, as they called it), a double cheeseburger with shoestring fries, or a hot-fudge sundae, a small guy in a white shirt with the diner's logo came over and filled our water glasses. This was supposed to be a Greek diner, but all the staff were Mexicans in whose faces you could still see Inca heritage.

  "I would normally let you stay with me," Elodie said, "but it's a bit delicate. I house-sit for a guy and he's home right now."

  "You house-sit even when he's there?" I asked.

  "Yes. It's a big apartment. It belongs to Clint Highway."

  "Who?"

  Alexa and Elodie laughed, and explained that he was one of the old French rockers who'd started their careers by changing their name from Jean-Claude Dupont or Jacques Leclerc to something vaguely American and singing covers of English-language hits. Clint's first record was, they told me, a French version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" called "Je Suis Une Tarte Aux Fraises"—"I Am a Strawberry Tart"—a title that proved that either the French translator was crap or that he'd been taking the same drugs as John Lennon, but in much greater quantities.

  "Whatever happened to Clint? He just disappeared," Alexa said. "Thank God."

  "Well, he still makes records, but, yes, he is invisible these days. He had an, er, accident." Elodie looked embarrassed for her host. "You'll see. I'll take you there so we can get your hotel sorted out."

  In the end, I splurged on oatmeal, a double cheeseburger with shoestring fries, and a hot-fudge sundae. I felt my stomach expanding inside me like an airplane life vest.

  None of the other people in the place were eating as vast a meal as me, I noticed. One of the waiters took an order from a group
of four skinny women who were dressed as if they'd just got out of a designer aerobics class.

  "Sesame bagel, toasted, with cream cheese," a dark-haired gym queen said, talking at one word per minute as if the guy was a total moron.

  "Can I get a latte?" her friend asked, looking up expectantly at the waiter as if this amazing breakthrough in coffee drinking might not have spread to this part of town yet.

  Neither of them said hello or please. Maybe, I thought, New Yorkers are so insistent on their rights as consumers that they don't think politeness is necessary.

  Elodie saw me staring.

  "They all come here to network after their gym class and then they go home to watch the babysitter give the bottle to their kids," she said. "They are the Upper East Side's Native American tribe. Come, let's go and find your hotel." She held out a hand as if to grab the coffee pot from a passing waiter. "Check?" she said.

  I half expected him to answer, "No, Mexican actually, but thanks for asking."

  3

  Elodie led us out onto the teeming avenue, sunlit now beneath a cloudless sky. This was the New York I'd been hoping to see. Shabby brick buildings with chic stores on the ground floor, tall apartment houses with air-conditioning units poking through the windows like a vanload of small fridges that had been hurled at the facade by Superman. There were people everywhere, probably in even more of a rush than usual because of the cold wind that was trying to chew their noses off. Half of the world's taxis were rushing southward in a panicky exodus, as if they hoped it might be warmer downtown.

  We wheeled our bags toward Elodie's apartment, and she showed us how the USA, or this part of Manhattan anyway, was being recolonized by France, two hundred years after die French sold their last territories in America to the fledgling republic.

  In the space of three blocks, we saw two French fashion chains, a French brand of kids' clothing, a French hairdresser, a French bakery, and a French chocolatier, with boxes of sweets laid out like sculptures in a modern-art museum—at similar prices, too. This was not counting two small galleries with Matisse and Picasso in their windows.