Merde Actually

by Stephen Clarke

  There was only one explanation, only one excuse – Alexa’s confusing messages had turned me into a Clementine addict.

  7

  BEFORE I COULD pour myself a nerve-steadying cup of tea, I got ambushed by Jean-Marie and his wife, who combined to shove a panicked-looking Benoît in my path.

  ‘Benoît will come to see you on Monday,’ Jean-Marie growled in French.

  ‘Mais Papa . . .’ Benoît objected.

  ‘He will come to see you for a job. Twenty hours per week, minimum.’

  ‘What?’ Benoît seemed to think this was a breach of his human rights.

  ‘It can include working all of the day on Saturdays if necessary.’ Jean-Marie held a threatening finger up in Benoît’s face. There was more than just a part-time job at stake here, I could tell. There was accommodation, use of the car and the country house, even an inheritance maybe. Heavy parental stuff.

  Time for another of my inward groans. I could see exactly where it was heading – Dad forces son to work. Son decides to piss off boss to get back at Dad. Paul ‘nanny’ West has to watch as protected Papa’s boy gets his belated teenage rebellion out of his system in the middle of an English tea room. Merci bloody beaucoup.

  Jean-Marie put his politician’s smile back on and marched towards the exit. Madame made as if to follow him, then stopped and put a hand on my arm.

  ‘Please treat Benoît well,’ she implored me, a tiny care line appearing between her electrolysed eyebrows. ‘I will be very grateful.’

  I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d reached down and given my balls a thank-you tweak.

  I was still reeling from the effects of Jean-Marie’s family circus when Stéphanie came up behind me and spat crumbs in my ear.

  ‘Ce cheese n’est pas anglais.’ She brandished a half-eaten toasted sandwich at me.

  ‘Well don’t bloody eat it, then,’ I replied, giving her an authentically anglais reply to chew on.

  Over at the tea urn I found Jake trying it on with Katy.

  ‘Tu n’es pas lithuanienne?’ he drawled in his instantly recognizable New York accent.

  ‘Non,’ Katy giggled.

  ‘Hmm.’ Jake stroked his chin and stared at her in search of clues as to her origins. ‘Belarusse?’

  ‘You bastard, Jake!’ I interrupted.

  ‘Oh hi, Paul.’

  I turned to Katy. ‘I bet he asked you if you were Latvian too, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ Katy was looking slightly confused.

  ‘How dare you ask my staff if they’re Latvian,’ I barked at Jake.

  ‘Oh come, Paul, I didn’t . . .’

  ‘Did he ask you about any other of the ex-Soviet Republics?’ I demanded. Katy took a step back, and seemed to wonder about the wisdom of working in such a politically sensitive tea room.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Well, he would have. It would have been, “Are you Georgian?”, “Are you sure you’re not bloody Ukrainian?” First he steals my suit, then he wants my staff. She’s English, Jake, for Christ’s sake.’

  Katy fled to the basement mumbling something about needing more teabags.

  I took a long gulp from the nearest cuppa and it did its customary calming trick. I’m sure we Brits wouldn’t need all our Prozac, Valium or cannabis if we’d just carried on drinking tea instead of switching over en masse to double iced lattes. There’s something genetic in the bond between British blood and Indian tea.

  A warm cup cradled in my palm, I surveyed the roomful of contentedly munching, chattering people. I knew half of them, but the rest were strangers, either brought along for the ride or just Saturday-afternoon shoppers who’d gatecrashed on the off chance of sampling my scones.

  The photographer was flitting about, snapping at their happy, cake-filled smiles. All in all, things had got off to a fantastic start. Even Benoît would be hard pressed to screw this up, especially if I banished him to apple-peeling duties downstairs.

  ‘Sorry, Jake. I’m feeling a bit pent up.’

  ‘No problem, man. But hey, you really don’t mind about the suit, uh?’

  It was looking surprisingly stain-free after a good half-hour in his presence, I noted.

  ‘No, Jake, I don’t think I need it right now.’

  It suddenly struck me that the world is divided into two sorts of people: those who have to tuck their shirt in, and those who don’t. People who have to dress up in a suit and tie every day, and those who can express their own identity. That, I decided, was what I was going to do for a while.

  ‘It’s good to be on the side of the untucked,’ I said.

  ‘Uh?’

  For once, I was the one coming out with the meaningless profundities. I explained my theory about the tucked-in shirt, and Jake agreed, even though he probably wasn’t really aware of the concept of tucking one garment into another. He just kind of let them overlap.

  ‘Yeah, you’ve found what you’re researching for.’ Jake sounded almost envious.

  ‘Except where women are concerned,’ I corrected him.

  Jake bellowed a laugh that rattled the teacups. ‘Yeah, you’re in your usual merde there, man. But not as bad as me. I mean, I was actually trying to pick up an Anglaise back there.’

  ‘Draguer une Anglaise? Pourquoi pas une Française?’ Virginie had come over and was giving us her cutest pout.

  ‘A Française?’ Jake was aghast. ‘No way. They bring nothing but merde. Ask Paul.’

  He certainly was going to be a real find for the French public-relations industry.

  8

  I’D OFTEN FANTASIZED about having another conversation with Alexa while both of us were naked in bed.

  Although, for obvious reasons, in my fantasy there was no English Channel between us. And there certainly wasn’t a sleeping Ukrainian lying there with his nose in Alexa’s armpit. Still, I reasoned, life isn’t always like our fantasies, so I had to make the best of things.

  ‘Hello, Paul.’ She was whispering. I naturally assumed she wasn’t alone.

  She yawned. The duvet swished and I could picture exactly what was going on over there in her London bedroom. Her non-phone arm was stretching up as if to stroke the ceiling. The guy beside her would sense movement and home in on the warm, waking flesh.

  ‘I just wanted to let you know how the tea party went,’ I said. Of course I had to have a reason to phone. We were now way out of the zone where you can call just for a chat.

  ‘Yes?’ She sounded only half-interested, but then she was still half-asleep.

  I gave her a quick run-through, and was pleased to hear that Jean-Marie’s name didn’t make her suddenly perk up. Last time she’d met him, his charm had had her practically levitating.

  ‘The photos aren’t that good, though. It’d have been much better if you’d done them.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you have liked to do them?’

  She groaned. It was too early on a Sunday morning for abstract thought.

  And it was too frustrating having a naked woman groaning in my ear when there was nothing I could do about it.

  I say naked, but of course for all I knew she could have been wrapped from head to toe in coarse woollen chastity pyjamas. Yes, I thought, perhaps it would be better to change the image in my mental videophone to something more like a nun or an Egyptian mummy, in place of the long, smooth, perfumed body that I was now imagining.

  ‘Would you have . . .?’ Her voice trailed off. I guessed it was probably too early for complex English grammar, too.

  ‘Liked you to do them? Yes, of course. I should have asked you, I know. But I didn’t.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Dead end. What should I talk about now to stop her falling back to sleep? I hadn’t read the paper or listened to the radio so it was no use trying to exchange banter about the issues of the day. I didn’t even know whether her new stepdad’s football team had won.

  ‘Hey, my God, Alexa.’ I’d just had a horrifying thought.
/>   ‘What?’

  ‘The French word beau-père. It can mean two things, right? Stepfather and father-in-law.’

  ‘Yes.’ I could almost hear her muscles stiffen defensively. ‘So what?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that, you know, if you introduce your mum’s boyfriend to your French friends, you won’t need to explain which one you mean. Because he’s both.’

  This was, I realized, quite probably the most ridiculous remark ever made by a naked man to a naked woman, even this early on a Sunday morning.

  ‘Thank you, Paul, now I am really glad you woke me.’

  Dead end again.

  And when you get to a dead end you have two choices. Turn round and go home, or try to kick a hole in the wall. I decided to go for the kick.

  ‘Alexa, I want to ask you a question.’

  ‘I hope it’s not about French vocabulary.’

  ‘No. Listen, Alexa.’ This was such a serious question that I even stopped scratching my balls to ask it. ‘Why did you set me up with Virginie?’

  ‘Virginie?’

  ‘Yes. The girl from the film shoot.’ Surely she wasn’t trying to remember who that was?

  ‘What do you mean, “set me up”?’

  ‘You know, you told her to call me and invite me out.’

  ‘Invite you out?’

  ‘Yes, you gave her my number.’

  ‘I didn’t give her your number.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No. Oh, yes. I did.’

  ‘Ah, well then.’

  ‘But just for her to give it to the assistant director, to recommend you. When I returned to the shoot, they were filming and they didn’t want anyone to go into the courtyard. So I gave your card to Virginie and then I went home.’

  Oh merde, I thought, so she didn’t mean to set me up with Virginie after all.

  ‘Why didn’t you come back to the café terrace?’ I asked, hoping to drag the conversation away from other women.

  ‘I did, but you were gone. So I went home.’

  Silence. She hadn’t picked up on why I’d been asking about Virginie, thank God. And she wasn’t whispering any more, either. Maybe she was alone after all. Yes. Those chastity pyjamas de-materialized, and in my mind’s eye she was naked again.

  ‘Why?’ Alexa asked.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why do you ask me why I have given your number to Virginie?’

  Double merde.

  ‘No reason. By the way, did Newcastle play yester—’

  ‘You slept with her.’

  ‘No I didn’t.’ Always deny everything, I say, at least until the Polaroids are waved under your nose. Even then you can claim that they’ve been digitally doctored.

  ‘Huh, you went out with her and you didn’t sleep with her? I don’t believe you. She’s a very sexy girl. And she liked you.’

  ‘Would you mind if I had slept with her?’

  ‘Do you want me to mind?’ Hey, now she was even more awake than me. This wasn’t fair. ‘Anyway, you did sleep with her. This is why you said in your mail that you were pampered. You slept with her. You shagged her.’

  Shit. There was the Polaroid. And I’d sent it to Alexa myself. Quel twat.

  ‘Forget about Virginie,’ I said, wishing that my voice had the power to make her do just that. ‘When are you coming back to Paris? It’s your photo exhibition soon, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t want you to see my exhibition.’

  She mispronounced the word. It wasn’t that she’d decided she didn’t want me looking at her photos. She just didn’t want me to see her ex-hibition, her former hibition, whatever that was.

  It took me a second to work out what she was saying. And even then I didn’t understand why she’d said it. Of course I was going to see her photos. It’s not every day that a friend, an ex-lover, has an exhibition. And I was even going to be in it, wasn’t I? In that photo she’d taken of me in front of the Courrèges shop. No way was I going to let her have an exhibition without my support. I’d take some friends along, buy a print, try to make the show a success for her.

  But by the time I thought of all that she was gone. She’d rung off, and when I called back she was on voicemail.

  Well done, Paul, I told myself. A great morning’s work and it’s only half past ten.

  ‘Pol? You are OK?’ My flatmate Marie-Christine’s reedy voice came floating through my bedroom door.

  She sounded worried, no doubt because she’d heard someone in my room yelling as if he’d just poured paint-stripper all over the Mona Lisa.

  ‘Meeeerde!’

  9

  THE FRENCH WILL tell you that ‘le client est roi’. The customer is king. But we all know what they did to their kings. Louis XVI’s guillotined head ended up bouncing across the Place de la Concorde, with several thousand French people laughing at it.

  And Louis’s wife, Marie-Antoinette, is still a hate figure in France today because when the starving mob protested that they didn’t have enough bread to eat, she said that they should eat brioche, a sort of sweet milk bread. Yes, she was executed for recommending an upgrade.

  Basically, ‘le client est roi’ is as empty a phrase as My Tea Is Rich. And my main worry about the tea room’s long-term prospects was that the staff had started living by the real mantra of French service industries – that is, ‘the customer is a waste of time’.

  This attitude has given rise to some classic techniques in bad French customer service. Benoît was a natural at the most common of them – ignoring the customer totally. If he was polishing the tea urn or refilling salad bowls when a client came in, he would steadfastly deny their existence unless they leaned across the counter and grabbed him by the ears.

  If they were less violent than this, and just said ‘excuse me’, he would inform them politely that he was very busy and would see to them as soon as he’d finished the vital task he was doing.

  I had to explain to him that there was no point refilling salad bowls if he scared away all the prospective salad buyers, and it was only after I’d given several demonstrations of how to stop doing a routine task and say hello to a client that he actually admitted I might have a point.

  Even after my lesson, Benoît and all the other counter staff could not help lapsing into another habit that they seemed to have got from the Three Musketeers – ‘All for one and one for all.’

  Let’s say that a customer returned to the counter after paying and told Yannick or Jeanne that they hadn’t got exactly what they ordered – they’d been given a cheese-and-tomato toastie when what they’d actually asked for was a cheese-and-armadillo toastie.

  Suddenly everyone else behind the counter would stop what they were doing and join in a general debate about how this could have happened, and whether ‘tomato’ and ‘armadillo’ were differentiated clearly enough on the menu, before going on to reminisce about the lunchtime when someone had ordered a jacket potato with baked beans and got a jacket potato with baked spleens.

  Meanwhile, the other people in the queue could damn well wait.

  All my eager workers – even the friendly Katy – looked forward with particular relish to a daily routine of customer abuse just before lunchtime. At eleven fifty-five on the dot, they took it in turns to savour the pleasure of booting any remaining drink- and snack-only clients off their tables. Buy lunch or get out, they’d tell them, whisking away half-full teapots and practically stuffing uneaten biscuits down the customers’ throats.

  I had to talk them through it again. No, I said, the message is, ‘Are you thinking of staying for lunch? If so, our special today is an armadillo – that’s armadillo, not tomato – tikka kebab.’ And then see if they take the hint. We only eject them – apologetically – when we physically need the table because someone is standing there looking lost with their lunch tray and nowhere to sit.

  If the ejected customer whinges about how in a real French café you can stay as long as you want over a cup of coffee, the staff sho
uld smile, I said, and ask the client if they’d ever dared to order a drink in a French café while sitting at a table laid for lunch. I’d tried insisting on my customer’s rights like this once and been told to fuck off to McDonald’s.

  We want our clients to return, you see, I told my staff. It sounds obvious, but it’s a message that hasn’t got through to the whole French service sector.

  However, sometimes it wasn’t the staff’s fault. Occasionally I had to admit that le client was a bit of a dickhead.

  The tourist was about thirty, and was kitted out with everything the English-speaking visitor in Paris needs for a long weekend in hostile foreign territory. A hurricane-proof anorak, a guidebook with a finger inserted at the chapter dealing with this neighbourhood, and a permanently suspicious expression. He also wore a gigantic moneybelt-cum-parachute with a pouch for a little water bottle that had a long plastic tube protruding out of it, so that he could stuff it in his mouth and suck rather than having to stop behind enemy lines and actually pull out the water bottle, which might leave him open to ambush. The tube was flapping about in front of his chest like the aerial on a satellite location system. Which may well have been its second function.

  It was about eleven thirty on a Friday morning. He walked into the tea room, looked warily about, and edged towards Benoît, who was standing there daydreaming with his cheek pressed to the warm tea urn.

  Benoît had fallen in love with the tea urn and adored fiddling with its tap, or just polishing its rotund stainless-steel body. I had nothing against this unnatural infatuation. On the contrary – I was pleased that he was showing enthusiasm for something. He’d always seemed such a total drip.

  ‘Quelles sont les options végétariennes?’ the tourist asked. He had a strong English accent but his pronunciation was very clear. This was obviously one of the life-saving phrases that he’d practised before crossing the Channel, along with ‘appelez l’anibassadeur’ and ‘où est mon anorak?’

  Benoît stopped foreplaying the tea urn and gave his attention to this new intellectual challenge. He’d never been asked about vegetarian options before. Being French, he hadn’t even imagined that things like that might exist. But he coped well. He pointed up to the menu on the wall and told the guy in slow, clear French that there was lots of veggie stuff there – cheese toasties, salads, baked potatoes – he just had to take his pick.