The 2084 Precept

by Anthony David Thompson

  ***

  I wound my way down into Knightsbridge, along Kensington High Street to Hammersmith and into Fulham Palace Road. Crossed the river via Putney Bridge and into Putney High Street, traffic packed as usual including Sundays but you usually only lose about 10 minutes.

  So it was today. Up Putney Hill and after that it was a fairly free run getting out of London and continuing on down to the M25. This is London's ring road, the last I heard still the longest city bypass in the world, 188 kilometers. Heavy traffic but not a real problem until there is an accident and then it clogs up for forever and a day. No accident today.

  You might say this route out of London is a bit of a detour if you're going to Dover. But in my experience it has always been the most reliable route. In any case, it is best never to become involved with the horrors of the South Circular route which some navigation systems will lead you into. You would regret that, terribly in fact.

  My car is an Audi R8 V10 5.2 Automatic. It is an expensive car but it still cost me less than €100,000 for a 14-month old one. Its top speed is around 320 kilometers per hour although the dash shows more. Of course, you can’t safely use that speed, even in Germany. But the speed limit in this country is a pathetic 112 kilometers per hour. And I chugged along in the fast lane at around 125, safe enough. Actually, perhaps I shouldn’t call this speed limit pathetic. In the first place the whole country is obnoxiously over-populated, and in the second place they can't afford to build a road system capable of safely handling the resulting volumes. It's just the way it is. My R8 gets looked at, not because it's a left-hand drive, but because it's just a fine looking car and the English don't have any of their own anymore, fine or not. Their Jaguars, their Land Rovers, their Rolls Royces, their Bentleys and even their Minis are all owned, technologically modernized and produced by foreign owners nowadays. And the Rileys, the Triumphs, the Rovers, the Austins, the Morrises, the Hillmans, the MGs and everything else of yore have simply been eaten up by the YDIYDS monster—'You don't innovate, you don't survive'. The English—or the Brits, if you prefer—couldn't hack it, too busy worrying about which football shirts and tracksuit bottoms to wear each day I suppose. Or which football games to go to. Or which darts tournaments to watch. Or snooker tournaments. Or which pub has the right TV channels so that you don't have to go anywhere to watch something while you drink your beer.

  But I am prevaricating on subjects of no interest. Trivialities. Let the Brits get on with it I say, it’s their country and nothing to do with anybody else. And the Northern Irish too. They do not come under the heading of either English or Brits. They are, if you wish to put them into a group, UKs.

  But I was enjoying the drive. Every now and then the clouds allowed the sun to shine through. I branched off onto the M26. This road leads you onto the M20, it takes you through a few remaining sections of the green England of yore, pleasant on the eye, a stretch without industrial estates by which I mean none that you can see, and it took my mind off the snail's pace I was being obliged to maintain.

  Along past Folkestone, along the cliffs and down into Dover. I tanked up the car and drove past the castle up on its hill and arrived at the port at about twenty past three. I checked P&O and Sea France (the latter went belly up in 2012 and their ships were bought by the company operating MyFerryLink, but I still call it Sea France) for the next ferry. P&O it was. I bought the ticket and drove through to the loading area. The trucks were already boarding and a few minutes later so were we, the cars and the buses.

  They are pretty well organized. They need to be. This port processes around 13 million passengers, 3 million cars and buses and about 2 million trucks per annum. This volume of traffic became significantly lower than it used to be however, except for the trucks, ever since the building of the Channel Tunnel, which I don't use.

  It took a while for them to cast off, and then we were out of the harbor, into the English Channel—as the English call it—and with the coast of France already visible in the distance. I don't take the Channel Tunnel for two reasons. Firstly, there is a limit as to what security precautions are possible and the day the terrorists, your choice which ones, decide to bring down millions of tons of ocean onto the travelers in the tunnel, is not something I wish to be a part of. Being a good swimmer would not be of any help. And being a bad swimmer, which is what I am, would also not help. Secondly, I like to breathe some sea air, it's supposed to be good for you, I can eat on board the ferry without losing travelling time, and I can do some shopping if I feel so inclined.

  And so I did just that. I breathed in some sea air while smoking a couple of cigarettes to compensate, I ate a meal of sausages, mash and mushy peas—can't get that on the continent—and I bought a bottle of single malt for my neighbor, Frau Müller, and a bar of chocolate for Mr. Brown. No IHT on board, logical, it's not a paper the Brits would read anyway. But no problem, I wouldn't really have had the time for it today.

  I found my way to the main bar for a coffee. It was loud and full of English, or Brits, or UKs, most of them swigging beer and talking a language which sounded to me like a collection of Greek truck drivers trying to speak Turkish. England is a country where orthoepy no longer exists. It was difficult to understand what they were all shouting about: murdered grammar, pronunciation a collection of guttural grunts, no word separation, and the usual generous sprinkling of 'fucks' and 'fuckings'—the latter without pronouncing the 'g' of course—spread over everything like a salad dressing. It always brings to my mind the sufferings of the small village of Fucking in Austria, whose town road-sign is subject to regular theft by the well brought-up Brit tourists.

  And these Brits, even if there are women present, Brit ones or non-Brit ones, they don't care, they are not even aware of their conduct. And you don't actually need to be able to understand the language they are speaking, or trying to speak, in order to know that they are Brits. They couldn't be from anywhere else. Spread-eagled in their lounge chairs, feet on the tables, dressed in pathetic jogging outfits, or football club shirts, or imbecilic T-shirts, some of them with pieces of metal rammed into their ears, lips, noses and, as we know, other parts of their anatomy as well, purchased six-packs stacked on the floor beside them, pale, pasty, ghastly creatures with oversized bellies and tattoos all over the place, they could only be Brits. Uneducated, basically. Uncouth. The nauseous product of a socialist revolution. Ask any foreigner.

  No wonder the French, the few who are obliged to go anywhere near England that is, avoid P&O and travel on their own Sea France, or rather, MyFerryLink. Fewer Brits, more civilized.

  But don't get me wrong. There are indeed still plenty of pleasant, well brought-up, well-educated Brits, who can also speak their own language properly. It's just that, if you ask me, they are now a minority. And to be fair, there were some civilized Brits in the bar, survivors of their country's slimy slide down the slippery socialist slope, please forgive the uncontrived alliteration. But the younger ones had grown up amidst all of this shit and so it was normality personified for them, there was nothing to notice. And as for the older ones, those born during World War II, or just before or just after, well, they had had no choice but to become accustomed to it, it was part of their environment now, they had had no choice but to accept the situation, this is what their country was made up of nowadays.

  There is no point in taking offence, let alone communicating it. You can't do anything about it. In fact, just looking at some of that rabble for a second too long could get you a punch in the face. Or worse. Socialism has triumphed. And who cares? Not me, I have nothing against the Brits, whichever type they happen to be, each to his own on this planet, is what I say. But my personal preference is to take a few strokes sideways before continuing with my swimming, thus allowing this particular brand of flotsam to float past me a few meters away.

  What the Queen thinks about it all, I don't know. I can't ask her and she wouldn't risk a comment anyway. That is the monarchy's job nowadays: not to have any opinions or
, alternatively, not to voice them.

  There were no delays docking in Calais and I was out past the hideous harbor surroundings and onto the road to Ostend by a quarter to six. Or I should say a quarter to seven now that we're here on the continent. Or a quarter of seven, if one is from the other side of the big pond. There is a boring speed limit here in France also, slightly less boring than in the U.K., 130 kilometers per hour permitted. Unless they restrict the speed further, as they have done here; it is either 90 or 110 max most of the way to Belgium. And in Belgium, 120 kilometers per hour is the maximum, down the long straight road to Brussels, a boring road at a boring speed, through to Liège, or Lüttich or Luik, depending on which language you prefer, and finally, at last, into Germany, past Aachen and heading for Köln—or, if you are a Brit and have a need to complicate a name, Cologne.

  My Audi breathed a sigh of relief and so did I. Whenever traffic and speed limits permit, I tend to cruise at between 220 and 240 kilometers per hour in Germany, that's 137 to 150 miles per hour for the Brits. Safe as hell, the German roads are made for it, their cars are made for it, their slower drivers don't mess around in the fast lane, and they have the lowest road death rates in Europe. And even at these speeds I have to keep an eye on my mirror, oh yes, there is always the occasional Porsche or whatever coming up behind me. And I like the tire sticker so much that I have fixed it onto my dashboard: 210 it says, the maximum speed permitted when using my winter tires.

  I continued straight down the A3. Darkness hit soon after nine o'clock, the non-truck traffic reduced and I made good time to the Wiesbadener Kreuz. I turned off onto the A66 and arrived home at just before midnight. Home being Okriftel, about 20 kilometers before you reach Frankfurt. And thanks to some of the speed limits en route, I still had a good couple of liters left in the tank.

  I got undressed, got into bed and crashed out.

  DAY 6

  I woke up late, very late, such are the benefits of self-employment. I looked out of my balcony window, same weather as in the U.K., some cloud, some sun, can't complain. Today being a Wednesday, my street is deserted, everybody off working like busy, busy bees somewhere else. Good for them, 38% of their adult lives (the conscious parts) are spent travelling to work, working, and travelling back again. And then they get a few years off to hang around until they die. A wonderful experience which awaits all of us of course. Is this the purpose of life? Well, as some of us happen to know—the 10% I mentioned previously—there is absolutely no purpose to life, so they might just as well do this as do anything else. And then it's off to join the baby seals, play the harp, or whatever.

  I'm in a really good mood as usual. On top of that I no longer have to deal with demented asylum escapees. And the grim German winter weather appears to have disappeared for its annual four month vacation.

  Perhaps I should take the time to explain why I am living in Okriftel, Germany, a country not particularly renowned, as you are aware, for its cynical humor, sarcastic humor, or sophisticated humor of any kind. But you can't have everything, and there are exceptions anyway, as there are in most things.

  The reason I live here is simple. I was recommended by one Spanish company to another, the latter having a loss-making subsidiary in Rödelsheim, Germany which manufactured shoe-making machines. This deal was for a minimum of six months—the money contractually guaranteed and no overnight resignation clause in this case. It suited me, so I signed on, travelled over to Frankfurt—Rödelsheim is a suburb—and looked for an apartment. I like my peace and quiet, I can always go out and look for noise whenever I want to, and I like a decent surrounding environment. I hunted downriver, the river Main that is, and found this small oasis of a town nestling between the hideous industrial piles decorating the north bank. I discovered a modern apartment in a quiet street, two hundred meters to a fantastic park area with lots of trees and right on the river. Twenty minutes to the airport, twenty minutes to Rödelheim, and close to the main A3 and A5 autobahns. A great place, neighbors I could talk to, and when the assignment was finished, I just stayed on. Life's waves again, taking you wherever they want to.

  I didn't have a girlfriend at the moment. Erika had been great but she had been wanting to build a nest, have me meet her family, you know how it is. I can't have that, and in any case she had started suspecting me of this and that while on my travels. Now… when I have a great woman, I do not go messing around with another one, it's not fair to her and it's not fair to me, I get all kinds of guilt psychoses. I can't handle it in bed, I can't handle it generally, it is just not my thing. But in this case, I had indeed fallen off the rails. Only once, and only for one night. I do not like one-nighters, but it had happened, what can you do, and so you might say that Erika had been justified in her speculations, albeit unknowingly.

  I performed the shit, shave and shower routine, put on some jeans, pushed my laundry into the washing machine, picked up the bottle of whiskey and took the stairs down to the ground floor apartment below. To my neighbor, Frau Müller. Coming up to fifty I would guess, divorced and wouldn't mind starting up something with young Mr. O'Donoghue, at least that's my evaluation of the scene. I wouldn't mind, she was still an attractive woman, good body, but that would definitely become another nest thing. And not an honorable thing for me to do anyway given the age difference, no long-term future in it for her. And so we remained platonic friends, always a sniff of eroticism in the air, if you will forgive the first part of that expression, but just good friends. Down to first names now and talking to each other with 'du', a rare enough event in this country. She occasionally invited me to dinner, she was a good cook, we have to keep you healthy Peter—yes, and we can guess for what purpose—and we always helped each other out on this and that.

  Monika didn't work on Wednesdays and she would probably be taking a couple of days off while I was here, as she usually did. I rang the bell. She opened the door wearing T-shirt and jeans, no bra, and nor did she need one. Seductive is the word for it, a ploy certain to produce immediate and uncontrollable reactions in a certain region of the male anatomy. That is the way it is. We males are subjected to non-stop sexual pressure, we are tempted at the drop of every female hat. This is because we are erotically debauched, there is no other explanation for it. And there is no need to change the situation either, we are happy to suffer thirty times a day lusting after thirty female somethings passing us by and which we will never be able to have—'have' being a word with several powerful connotations as you know. And as for those males whose lives are not so stressful, well…let us feel sorry for them.

  We gave each other the usual kisses on each cheek, and as usual she squashed her breasts up against me, just enough to keep it civilized, no more, and at the same time just enough to stir me up—if you will allow the expression. A knowledgeable lady, our Monika, no doubt about it. Thank God, Mohammed or any of the others for women like this.

  "Peter," she cried in her Bavarian accent. "Welcome back, the return of the warrior! I heard you moving around upstairs, so I went out and bought your fridge basics and I have made us some coffee. It's all ready, I'll just go and fix it."

  I took my eyes off her breasts and placed them on her face, not that she hadn't noticed. She had a nice face, big round brown eyes, a slightly crooked nose, brown hair cut in a way that made her look a bit school-girlish, very little make-up. She must have been a man-killer back in the day.

  "A bottle of malt for Monika," I said with a smile and handed it over. But just in time. Just in time because a large dog came bounding through the kitchen door, skidded its way along the polished wood floor, leapt up at me, front paws hammering onto my chest, and started to smother me in dog kisses.

  This dog is my dog. His name is Mr. Brown. He is a fair-sized dog. He got his name from the color of his coat, which is dark brown, Vandyke brown. And he has a Vandyke beard and yes, I could have called him Vandyke but I didn't. And he likes chocolate. Not that he gets much, but always when I return from a trip. Something he is
well aware of, needless to say. Monika looks after him whenever I am away on assignments, which is a lot. She loves dogs and, like all Germans, loves going for long walks whatever the weather and irrespective of the temperatures. And Mr. Brown stops her feeling too lonely I think. She has a fair number of acquaintances but the difference is that Mr. Brown is her friend, and so am I.

  I calmed Mr. Brown down, not difficult to do, he is generally a peaceful, pensive, philosophical kind of dog given to long ruminations on his large mat in my living room. I say generally, because there are exceptions. It would, for example, be easier to try to calm down Hitler when it's time for a walk.

  Monika brought the coffee, gave me my mail, and we sat there and chatted about this and that and everything else. I did my best to keep my eyes off her breasts, she could tell what an effort it was, women like her are not idiots. I gave her some money for the dog food and some more for cleaning my flat, four hours a week she does even when I'm not here, I like things clean, and in any case you can't put a price on the way she takes care of Mr. Brown. She doesn't know it yet but I am going to send her on a week's holiday to Corsica this summer. It’s a nice enough island when they're not throwing bombs at each other, which they do whenever a few of them have the occasional urge to separate themselves from France. Monika doesn't have much money and let's face it—I am an honest man—the only cost to me is a day's work after tax.

  I told her I planned to be travelling back to London on the Saturday, have an easy Sunday there with no travel stress before finding out what United Fasteners' plans for me were, if any. I told her I was buying her lunch tomorrow, she loves to go out and I'm the only man she has to accompany her. Not that that is why I do it, she is a great woman, good to look at as well as I have pointed out, and I enjoy her company as much as she does mine—mine and Mr. Brown's, he always goes with us. I had good feelings just being with her—cynics are not cynical all of the time.

  I went back to my flat, gave Mr. Brown half of his chocolate and grabbed his lead. I never actually use it, which produces haughty stares from the local passers-by. There is a tiny little policeman embedded in every single one of them, if you ask me. It is gesetzlich verboten not to have the dog on a leash, but my dog is a peaceful dog, so who cares. Well, they do. So I just give them a haughty stare back, one of my long disparaging ones; a powerful weapon indeed, but a peaceful one for all that.

  Off we went for our walk, up to the petrol station, the IHT is always available there, then back down by the side of the stream which leads to the sports ground and the river. I settled myself on a bench, lit up a cigarette, and started reading about the day's wars, terrorists and murderers. Not as interesting as the sports section, at least for me, but your masses love it. The more the slaughter and the bigger the tragedies, so much the better; you can’t argue with it, these are armchair pleasures, the newspaper circulation statistics are the proof.

  Mr. Brown loves it here, there are usually children playing on the football pitch and he has a passionate love for children. Most of them here know him well by now. He traverses the nice green grass in huge leaps and bounds and uses up his adrenaline by sniffing around in the bushes for rabbits who presumably are sitting comfortably down in their burrows enjoying their tea and cakes. Actually, probably not enjoying it very much. This is a murderous planet at all levels; brutal death awaits those rabbits and their children just outside of that burrow day and night, as they well know. And as we also know. Nevertheless, you might say, if you happen to be a believer in this or that, nature is a marvelous invention. A little bloody at times maybe. Murderous and horrific perhaps. But artistic creation in all its glory, is that not so?

  It became cooler as the afternoon passed. Mr. Brown was fetching and carrying a tennis ball for some of the children, ball recuperation being one of his strengths. "Brownie," I called, for that is how I address him, "time to go home." Obedience is also one of his strengths, usually anyway, and he came straight over and we walked back home. I took another shower, gave Mr. Brown his food and took him along with me to the Italian a couple of streets away. A snooze under the table for Mr. Brown, pizza, Merlot and coffee for me, eleven Euros plus tip, no complaints, and then back to the ranch.

  Mr. Brown went straight to his mat, lay down with a thump, put his head on his long front legs and started philosophizing about the issues currently affecting the dog world.

  I took my laptop out onto the balcony, lit a cigarette, checked my emails, nothing of interest except a request for me to call Sr. Pujol at Industrias y Transportes Pujol S.A. in Barcelona. These are the people wanting me to wave my wand and make their container shipping subsidiary profitable again. I'll call them tomorrow.

  I checked into my online banking account and looked at the shares, not bad, the market just yo-yoing from one day to the next, up and down, up and down, down and up, neither rhyme nor reason to any of it. Does anyone really know what they're doing? A bloody casino is what it is, no more no less, but not too risky if you play it carefully. Very, very carefully. I should transfer another €20,000 to the savings account, minuscule interest, but better than no interest at all on my current account. Except that, hey, wait a minute, my current account has about €100,000 more in it than it should do.

  Well, well, well, Mr. Jeremy Parker, thank you very much, you have made my day, you have definitely made my day, I'll make it two weeks in Corsica for Monika. I sat there, staring at the screen. Life on this planet is simply fascinating, and sometimes the ocean waves just wash you up onto a desert island full of food, drink and women aged between twenty five and thirty five, and all they want to do is take care of you. So poor demented Jeremy not only has his delusions but he also really does have money. A lot of money. And he does not hallucinate about paying stupid amounts of it to one or more of his interviewees—he actually goes ahead and does it.

  I stared some more at the screen. There was no doubt about it, a transfer from Obrix Consultants, London, U.K. I don't normally drink at home but there are exceptions. I fetched myself a glass of ten year-old Château Lignère, a decent enough cognac as I am sure you will agree if you happen to have come across it. To hell with the savings account, I'll use the money to buy some more of that bear certificate—big gains are possible and the risk of loss is zero. Zero, because that money is not mine. I just happened to grab it as it was passing by on an ocean current of some kind.

  I closed down the computer, transferred my laundry into the dryer, finished the cognac, and climbed into the pit.

  DAY 7

  I got up late again, Jeremy Parker and his money occupying my mind. What if he's sent the second batch of euros? It's possible. In fact logic says it's probable. Well, we'll just have to wait and see. I'll check it tomorrow. The poor guy belongs in a padded cell, no two ways about it.

  It's cloudy today and windy, but at least it's not cold. I put my fresh laundry into a couple of plastic bags, was ushered out of the door by Mr. Brown, up to the petrol station for the IHT and I dropped off the laundry for ironing at the cleaners next door. I had breakfast at the café in the street next to mine and walked back to the apartment. Mr. Brown checked his empty bowl, went to his mat, lay down and started philosophizing again.

  I twisted my brain into Spanish mode, picked up the phone and dialed Sr. Pujol in Barcelona. Lucky guy, he had inherited the whole group from his father. He is also an unlucky guy, he will have to speak to me in Spanish. Catalans don't like doing that, but I don't use Catalan for the simple reason that I can't speak it. In any case it's not a language really, no wonder Franco banned it. Most of it is Spanish with the last syllable chopped off, and the remainder is derived from French and English and maybe a word or two from somewhere else. And all of it spoken with a ghastly, grating cacophony of nauseating vowel noises.

  Sr. Pujol sounded nervous. They'd taken the decision; when could I start? I said maybe in about two months (a bit of vacation time wouldn't hurt me, and with Jeremy's money there, I’d make it a luxury one). He said tha
t might be a problem, could I make it sooner. I said I didn't know, but I would try, I would let him know as soon as I were in a position to do so. Was he in agreement with the conditions we discussed last time? Yes, he was, no problems there. He still got in a Catalan word at the end, 'Adeu, Sr. O'Donoghue', which I did not replicate. 'Adios, Sr. Pujol, hasta la próxima' is what he got from me. Set the tone. Man, it sounds as if their losses are big. Whenever they can't wait, the problem is a big one. Great news, the bigger the problem, in my experience, the easier it usually is to fix things.

  I finished off the newspaper, put on a jacket, took Mr. Brown downstairs with me again and rang Monika's bell.

  She opened the door. She was looking extra good today, not much make-up, wearing a skirt, she's still got the legs for it, but also wearing a bra. Never mind, can't blame her, restaurant coming up, neighbors all over the place and why shouldn't she comply with the customs of the human race anyway, none of my business.

  "Hi Peter," she said and we gave each other the mandatory two kisses. This stirred things up as usual, she does it on purpose, makes it seem natural, but I know she knows and I know she knows I know.

  "How about Zum Grünen Baum today?" she asked, "it's sunny and warm."

  "Cloudy and windy," I said.

  "Was," she said. "And now it's sunny and no wind. You won't need your jacket."

  She was right. I stuffed the dog's lead into my pocket, put my jacket over my arm and off we went down to the river. The Green Tree pub sits back from the river Main, separated from the river by parkland, lots of old trees and home to plenty of wild geese, ducks and a couple of swans. Great home cooking and an open-air Biergarten under the trees. Monika and I sat down and Mr. Brown went off to pursue his canine pursuits which, however, did not include trying to murder any amphibians. We all have lessons to learn in life and he had had to learn his.

  A big sign also proclaims this pub-cum-restaurant to be 'Chez Marie-Anne' and here she came now across the grass to take our orders. A German girl with a French mother.

  "Peter," she said with a happy smile. "The wandering minstrel. Back home again to the lovely Monika?" Said with a sideways grin at Monika, I would like to know what they discuss when I'm not here. Kisses all round again, but without any stirrings. First of all she avoids any squashing—at least with me and presumably with Monika as well, although you never know—and secondly she has a husband, younger than me too. But the poor bugger is the cook, he spends most of his time in the kitchen and who can tell how the oceans' tides may one day flow? No, that's not really fair, let me tell you he is a nice guy, I like him, I can talk to him and we sometimes do some cycling together. Even so, you never know…

  "Back home again to the lovely Monika," I agreed. "I always miss her tremendously. It’s almost as bad as not being able to see you for weeks on end."

  They both gave a little snigger at this, men are so transparent. But they love the charm, they all do, it brings that little bit of extra happiness into their lives. They love the flirting, in particular when they know that you're not really flirting, that you represent no danger to them. As far as they can judge and at the present point in time anyway.

  Fish and white wine for me, fish and white wine and a salad for Monika. I leaned back and lit up a cigarette.

  "You should give that up one day, you know," said Monika for the thousandth time. "It's not good for you, it damages all kinds of things."

  "So I'm told, so I'm told, and mainly by you. And you're right, I agree with you, it's obvious. But I don't want a lot of children," I said with a grin, referring to one of the 'damages' she had mentioned last time.

  "It's not that Peter, you might not have the time to have any children if you carry on for much longer with that stinking habit. And don't start on again about all those eighty year olds still puffing away."

  "No intention of doing so, Monika. Those poor buggers are few and far between and in any case they haven't been able to breathe properly for a couple of decades. Some kind of life that is, I'd rather die at sixty. But where's your problem, you can't still get pregnant can you?"

  A heavy one that, but we both did it, it was just our way.

  "I don't know; probably not and that is a good thing too. Such an event would have a serious negative effect on our sex lives and just imagine, you would have to practice coitus interruptus whenever the baby needed its nappies changing. The benefits of the older woman, Peter, never underestimate the benefits of the older woman."

  She laughed at this, the sound floating away under the trees, across the grass and over to the river and the ducks.

  "O.K., I'll let you make me give up one day," I said. "But I am not a chain smoker and I'll just carry on for a little while under the auspices of that old adage, if you don't mind."

  "Which old adage?"

  "That smoking is stupid. But that he or she who never does anything stupid from time to time, is stupid."

  "Oh very clever. And to which idiot is that quote attributable, might I ask? No, don't tell me, he's obviously a complete asshole."

  "Why do you say 'he'?"

  "Because a 'she' would never come up with something as inane as that."

  "O.K., it was a 'he', but he's no longer with us. And in any case, he was referring to getting drunk. I just adapted it for my purposes."

  Our meal arrived, some pretty young teenage girl who hadn't yet learned how to talk. But now was not an occasion for a training session. And it would possibly be a waste of time anyway, maybe only three brain cells available on the receiving end.

  "You know something Peter? You are a lovely man. As I've told you before, you have your defects, but you are a lovely man. And here I am, sitting with a lovely man, in a lovely place, and the sun is shining and the ducks are quacking and the fish is good and the wine is good and Mr. Brown will soon be back to say hello, and you are a lovely man."

  I think her eyes had begun to glisten a little while she was saying this, I couldn't be sure. But in fact I am not a lovely man, you know it and I know it, cynics are not particularly adorable persons. There are plenty of men, thousands, maybe millions, who would be far better for her than I. On the other hand, it must be said, there are plenty of men who would be worse for her than I. Just take a look around.

  "Monika, you err in your judgment," I said. "But I'm glad you do. I'm glad you do because it means I can continue knowing one of the most stupendous women wandering around on the face of this planet. And I mean that."

  The old charm again. But I did mean it, the cynic is not present on this one. Here is this woman, existing on next to no money, enjoying the sun and the ducks and the meal and Mr. Brown and me and everything else as well. Enjoying life in fact, the same as I do. Except that I wouldn't be if I had to eke out a living like she did, I know that for a fact. Some woman she is, no doubt about it. She knows the secret of life and the secret of living, and one day I might need to try and grasp that myself, who knows.

  "Oh Peter," she sighed. She was happy, but she was sad as well, you could tell.

  "I'm just lucky enough to be able to know someone like you, that's all," I said, and I meant that as well, and it made her look really weepy. Happy weepy.

  Marie-Anne came by and we ordered two more glasses of wine. We lapsed into silence while we finished our meal, another good thing between us, we didn't always have to talk. And in my little book of life's policies and procedures, that is a major indicator of how much a man and a woman like each other and has nothing to do with the millions of poor sods who never say anything to each other because they have absolutely nothing to say.

  Mr. Brown came back. He was tired, he'd done a lot, and he settled himself under the table to snooze or philosophize or both.

  I watched the river and the geese and the ducks, the swans were off somewhere else for a while. The bank on the other side was also green, also trees. The Main being a fairly wide river, it has a lot of barge traffic, long industrial transporters going east to west and vice versa, but ev
en these were peaceful, sunk deep into the water, a slight chugging noise drifting over to where we sat as they passed us by. I watched the people walking along, plenty of girls testing out their summer dresses. Good for them; at that age jeans and slacks should be banned between the months of May and September for all non-fat women, and they would be if I were in charge of the world. Just joking.

  "Looking for a younger one?" Monika asked with a grin.

  "Monika, I am not joking," I said. "I wouldn't want a single one of them to swap places with you sitting on that bench. Not even five of them all at the same time, believe me."

  "I believe you," she said, "and in any case you couldn't deal with five at the same time, you couldn't even deal with two the way you smoke." At this she beamed, like me she delights in the harmless sexual innuendoes. And in the not so harmless ones also.

  "Monika, if you and I were together, I wouldn't be able to anyway. I would be walking around on crutches every morning, consuming vast amounts of vitamins during the day, swigging Viagra in the evening and dreading the next life-threatening bedtime. And I would be permanently gaunt and haggard-looking and none of those young girls would want to even say hello, let alone anything else, unless of course they thought that I was Mick Jagger after a night on the town, in which case you might, but even then only might, be confronted with some kind of a problem."

  "Peter, you really are the sweetest man," she said.

  No I'm not. What I was really thinking about was one of the greatest short stories ever concocted, 'Girls in their Summer Dresses', a story which is not a story, written by one of the greatest masters of short fiction ever to live, an American called Irwin Shaw. Read that and you will get the truth about what and how we men think, irrespective of our age. And that's the way I was thinking, like the husband in that story. Women don't know how we think, or at least they don't think we think like that all the time. Nor would they want to know anyway. And in any case they wouldn't believe it, even if a bishop were to swear to the truth of it a thousand times with his hand on his pump—his heart I mean to say, my apologies. No, I can't blame them. Any female with a reasonable set of neurons would have to consider it a grossly fraudulent exaggeration. Which it is not of course, no way.

  It was getting late, becoming cool again, and so I collected a nice bone from Marie-Anne, paid the bill, and we walked along the river for a while and then went home.

  Back in the apartment, I gave Mr. Brown some food, made sandwiches and a coffee for myself, put some Rachmaninov into the player, and played some chess on the computer. And I didn't forget to give Mr. Brown his bone before I went to bed. I picked up a book of Roald Dahl short stories—I tend to re-read his stories from time to time and I'll re-read some of them several times more before I die—and eventually dropped off into the land of Nod.

  DAY 8

  I woke up at a civilized hour. It was raining. Mr. Brown, I thought to myself, you don't realize what a problem a bit of water is for us humans. But a walk is your due, there's not much you ask for and you give more than that in return. To me and Monika both. And to the children in the park. A pity human beings aren't a bit more like you my friend, this poor old suffering lump of rock of ours would appreciate the difference. No threats of nuclear bombs blowing its guts apart for starters.

  But the morning is not a good time for philosophizing. It is the time for raincoats and umbrellas and doggie walks and good moods. I took the usual route to pick up the IHT, I collected the laundry, and I decided to have breakfast back at the ranch.

  Mr. Brown shook himself all over the hallway and settled down on his mat in the living room. I made some coffee and toast, Chivers orange marmalade oh yes, and started on the newspaper. Today was going to be an easy day, I decided. I am one of those lucky people capable of working very hard for very long; but I am also one of those lucky people able to appreciate the pleasure to be found in doing absolutely nothing, or at least nothing of any import. Good for the soul, again, whatever that is.

  And here he was again, Jeremy Parker rising up from the depths of my neuron cupboard. Right in the middle of an article about why we should start to trust the nice, incredibly honest Iranians. The same old human shit, century after century. You would think the clowns had never even heard of the Trojan Horse, or of Chamberlain in Munich or all the rest of it. You have to bow down to that member of the 10% who said that history was merely a record of the human species' inability to recognize its own stupidity; let alone learn from it. Right on the nail.

  Yes, Jeremy Parker. The €100,000 man, maybe the €200,000 man. I'll check it right now in fact, leave them to argue and argue and argue about the nice Iranians who would never dream of blasting Israel into Allah's version of hell and back. I opened the laptop, clicked away into my bank. And there it was, another €100,000. Large credits in my bank account generate as much joy for me as the joy experienced by a rat living in an army shithouse. My mood metamorphosed from good to superlative without further ado.

  I used the whole lot to short the Eurostoxx 50 some more. This index has a lot of banks in it and if there is a collapse by year-end or even next year-end, I will be selling off and looking at some more nice credits to my account. Mind you, the certificate I use was issued by the least risky bank, I make sure of that, they are all capable of going bust these days, a result of being managed by gambling morons who are not even obliged to risk a small portion of their own money. And then you lose the lot, or most of it at best. Because even their customer asset insurances are a dishonest joke.

  And so what about friend Jeremy now? His money is real and he keeps his promises. But he is as deranged as a rat when its army shithouse has been abandoned and it can't get out. No doubt about it, he is shipping money all over the place in a maniacal delirium.

  I don't know why I've got rats on the mind today, perhaps it’s because of the banks, or rather the bankers. They gamble away because their banks can earn a lot more money by investing in high risk products. Which means bigger bonuses for them, millions of euros, dollars, pounds, whatever. It's like putting your money on a single roulette number, the return is bigger. And if the number doesn't come up? Ah hah, therein lies the difference. This money is not theirs, it's yours and mine. And this is what happens when you separate authority from responsibility, as I keep trying to tell my consultancy clients. If the law required the gambling bankers to personally risk financial ruin for the rest of their lives, they wouldn't be taking those risks, they would be investing safely, they would be taking a few million less in bonuses and they wouldn't complain. But our lawmakers—the political pin-stripes—don't have the brain to organize something like that. And if you are a voter, no complaints please, because you are the reason why the pin-stripes are where they are. And then the bankers spend the rest of our money on beautiful and expensive bank buildings in the most expensive parts of the most expensive cities in the world, followed by those ridiculous and unearned bonuses—never a problem, choose your board members well and overpay them, and they'll approve your overpayments as well—and what's left over goes on exorbitant dividends. So our voters don't need to wonder where our money has gone or why our banks have insufficient reserves, they voted for the pin-stripes, not me. Me, I don't have any worries, I just watch the whole shebang from the comfort of my theater seat. I let the waves carry me up and down. I don't vote.

  So let me analyze. Jeremy's fantasies do not include money. The money is real enough. And the potential for another €400,000 of this real money has now gone from possible to probable. That is the upside, nothing to add. The downside is that I have to attend a few more meetings and am open to whatever risks a full-blown lunatic, whether escaped from his asylum or not, can represent.

  I considered. The meetings are not a problem, nothing to add. The risks, on the other hand, are as real as the money and are, in all logic, undefinable, so there's no point in trying to define them. But he seems normal, and his offices and the people in them seem normal, the dream herself seems nor
mal, and he himself sounds like a non-dangerous specimen of this particular form of insanity. I cannot be sure of course, the risks are there, no doubt about it. But I estimate them to be of limited magnitude. Add to that the fact that life is an adventure anyway, and I conclude that the size of the potential benefits outweighs the size of the potential risks. Decision taken. I would be returning to the Royal Strand Towers on Wednesday.

  I looked out of the window. The rain had stopped, the sky had brightened, and my superlative mood said coffee and a cigarette on the balcony, finish the newspaper.

  And then, with the sky still behaving itself, I decided it was cycling time for me and marathon training for Mr. Brown. Along the river, along past Eddersheim, Mr. Brown is fast and fit but he can't keep up, plus he has other interests along the way. So I stop now and again to let him catch up. On the way back he was tiring fast and was more than happy to do some philosophizing under the table at the small restaurant where I stopped for an early evening meal. And by the time we got back home he was exhausted, not too exhausted for his food of course, but after that he collapsed onto his mat and fell asleep, no philosophizing this evening.

  I dropped downstairs for a coffee with Monika, say goodbye. When was I coming back? I didn't know but at least in time for your birthday, don't worry, nothing will stop me. You are not only a lovely man Peter, she said, you are a lucky one. Tomorrow you get poached eggs on toast from me and you get a high pressure weather zone for your driving, 25 degrees and sunny.

  Back upstairs I typed and printed two invoices for Jeremy, no VAT for charges from Germany to the U.K., my very great pleasure old chap. And off I went to bed.

  DAY 9

  I packed my luggage and took it down to the car, hung two suits and two jackets in the back. I fetched Mr. Brown and we went for a short walk, sunny sure enough but still a bit fresh, and we came back to Monika's for breakfast. I love poached eggs as Monika knows and she has good coffee as well, Illy, as good as my Lavazza. I smoked a cigarette on her terrace while Mr. Brown ate a rare and unhealthy breakfast; namely the other half of the chocolate, I hadn't forgotten about it.

  "I'll miss you Peter," she said as she always did, "drive carefully and don't forget to come back."

  "How could I ever forget?" I said with a smile, "You know I would never abandon Mr. Brown."

  "Brute," she said and kissed me very close to the lips, avoided them by about a millimeter the clever lady, and the squashing was definitely a trial, as it always is when I leave, I'm sure she could feel me. One day I am not going to be able to shove nature back into its dark and murky cave, I know it. The effort required is too vast, too excruciatingly overpowering to be permanently resisted by a normal male equipped with his normal allotment of hormones. Lust is more powerful than sensitivity in the long run. Don't blame me the day it happens, Monika.

  I gave my buddy Mr. Brown a big, big hug and then I was off. I stopped at the petrol station, tanked up and purchased a carton of cigarettes and the IHT. The IHT is very important on a Saturday. This is the day of the chess column and the day of the difficult Sudoko compared to the easy ones during the week.

  I headed up to Hattersheim and onto the feed road for the A66. Fewer trucks on Saturdays, I should be in London by around 7 p.m.—or 6.pm. U.K. time. This feed road is quite a long one and about half way along it there was a hitchhiker. I checked it out, it was a female, a fairly young one. Now, as you know, hitchhikers are something of a rarity these days, particularly female ones, particularly unaccompanied female ones. But there she was, a real-life female hitchhiker. I slowed down but I didn't stop, kept my eyes on the mirror. You know what happens, some burly asshole of a boyfriend jumps out from behind a bush and he hasn't showered for a year and he's got their luggage, ten tons worth of rucksacks and the like.

  But no-one jumped out from behind a bush or anything else and so I stopped about 50 meters further on, eyes still on the mirror, some of these guys are experienced. She'd seen my brake lights, she'd seen I'd stopped and she was walking toward me, hesitantly, perhaps I would drive off again. But under no circumstances was I going to drive off, no sir, there was no boyfriend on the whole landscape, and a lone young female hitchhiker happens to you maybe once or twice in a lifetime or maybe never. I lowered the passenger window as she came up to the car.

  "Good morning sir," she said to me in English, the language of the world, "are you possibly going somewhere in the direction of Paris?"

  I had three reactions to this, blitzartig. The first one was SHIT, I'll be turning off onto the A3 in a few minutes, and on up to Belgium, nowhere near Paris. The second one was wow, her English has a French accent, she's French, and if you want to categorize women by nationality, which I admit you shouldn't, a French woman to me is like having caviar on your toast instead of marmalade, even if the marmalade is Chivers. And that, not illogically, triggered my third reaction, those neurons up there in my skull accelerating to cosmic speeds within milliseconds. If I were to drive in the direction of Paris, I could take her as far as, say, the E17. From there she could hitch on into Paris on the E50, and I could simply drive on in a virtually straight line up the E17 and the E15 to Calais. It would take me an hour or so more, maybe even two, but the neurons had already performed their Cost/Benefit analysis. A young French female in the car for a few hours was a major benefit. I could also try to pull her. I would in fact try of course, an inevitable consequence of one of the fixed laws of nature, no harm done. Possibility of success unknown, but attempted seduction is one of life's delights. Yessir, even if you fail, which happens. And the cost? A couple of hours extra travel time. Laughable; even if it were going to cost me an extra twenty hours, there was no need for further evaluation. No need at all.

  My good old neurons had achieved all of this in approximately 2.3 seconds, bless their clever little hearts.

  "More or less," I said, "I can take you about two thirds of the way there if that is of any help." In fact I'll take you all of the way there I thought to myself, if things work out. Postpone my meetings and spend a few days there even.

  "Oh yes," she said, "that is fantastic, thank you very much."

  I climbed out of the car, took hold of her rucksack, quite a heavy one for a girl, and put it into the trunk. I got in some good glances at her. Not one of your world's beauties. But pretty. She had a small chip out of the corner of a front tooth, erotic, nice blond hair, dark blond, tied in a ponytail at the back, also erotic, a slight figure but nice breasts, also erotic. And—hugely erotic—she wore glasses, they made her look waifish, shortsighted. I couldn't see her legs, she was wearing jeans, but her figure told me they would be great legs, they couldn't possibly be any of those thick ones which are a real turn-off. And not of Scandinavian design either, those formless goalpost-type things. She was much shorter than me, about 5' 6" I would guess. Wearing a green and red pullover, old but clean. And no rings, I noted, not that that means anything these days, one way or the other. Noted, however, nevertheless.

  We both got into the car and I started off again, reprogramming the neurons into their French modus. "Allons-y donc," I said.

  "Mais tu es français?" she asked, "avec une voiture allemande?"

  "No," I replied, carrying on with the French "I am English, but that wasn't my fault."

  "So you were somebody else's fault," she laughed, "but one of them must have been French, you speak perfect French."

  "Not really, my French is good but you'll begin to notice the foreign accent here and there before long. And the odd grammatical mistake."

  "Well I'm very lucky today, you are giving me this lift and you speak good French as well."

  "My pleasure," I said. Little did she know how much.

  I stayed on the A66 past Wiesbaden and headed off onto the A63, direction Kaiserslautern. It's easy for you to prove to yourself just how stupid a large percentage of the human race is—all you need to do is drive your car for a few hours, anywhere, particularly at the weekend. The weekend is when all of th
e spastics are out, they can't judge speeds, they can't judge distances and they have the reflexes of a dying snail. Really dangerous, some of them are. The weekend road death statistics do not lie. I say no more, I rest my case.

  So I was concentrating on the driving instead of the talking. She wasn't talking either, not the born and bred conversationalist obviously. She had this habit of frequently pushing her glasses back up on her nose. Don't ask me why, but I find glasses sexy on women, I really do. And when they keep pushing them up, it makes them even sexier. I have no idea why. If I were interested enough, I could ask a sexologist. There are plenty of those nowadays, doing whatever it is that they do. They are apparently very necessary for the current generation. Or so they say, and so I have read.

  She spent most of the time looking out of the window, occasionally looking around the car as if she wasn't used to big cars, good big cars. I can remember that feeling from way back. Maybe she was of a shy nature, a bit of an introvert perhaps. Or maybe she was just a little nervous, could be, sitting in a big car with a man you didn't know. He could turn off the autobahn at any time and take you down a lonely road to anywhere, and the best thing that could happen to you would still be very bad. Whatever, I would have to go very carefully with this one, bring all my 'good guy' skills into play, no flirting around except maybe with the eyes, keep off all ambiguous subjects, no risky jokes. Hey, I'm just a normal sincere kind of bloke, I like your company, I am not interested in sex. Not at all. Not even in my dreams.

  "My name is Peter," I said, putting on my number one non-suggestive smile.

  "And I am Céline." A small smile but that was it. She had nothing to add.

  "And where have you come from?" I asked.

  "I spent a few days visiting Prague. It's a city I always wanted to see and now I am on my way back home."

  "And which part of Paris is that?"

  "Oh, it's not Paris, it's Rouen."

  Rouen? But that's way over the other side of Paris. In fact it's a long way over, it's on the way to Le Havre.

  "And you expect to get there tonight?"

  "Oh no, I am staying overnight in Reims and will finish my journey tomorrow."

  Hah, Reims! Dead on the A17. Which takes you in the direction of Calais. My chances of winning the lottery have just risen from the 50% starting point to around 55%. No more, but 55% is not to be sniffed at.

  "Reims," I said, "well I can take you right the way there, it's on my route."

  "Oh really? That is fantastic," she said. "thank you, it's really my lucky day, I am very grateful."

  "Not at all, you're welcome."

  And then there was silence again. She kept looking out of her window, sunny day, green countryside, obviously wanting as little eye contact with me as possible. She wasn't interested in where I'd come from or where I was going to, or why, or anything else. She was a nice, clean, friendly girl, otherwise I might have classified the silence as a bit of impoliteness. After all, if you get a lift right to where you want to go, and it would obviously cost me an extra hour or so getting into and out of Reims, then it doesn't hurt to be a little sociable, it doesn't cost anything.

  So what was my plan now? Well, let the silence hang for a while, that's the first phase. She's clearly more comfortable with that, she might even be appreciative of me deciding not to rattle away all the time. Then I'll wait until we get into France, stop for lunch—which I wouldn't normally do, I usually drive straight through on trips like these—and, Step Two, invite her as well. It will make me seem like a really nice guy. Which of course I am, albeit with ulterior motives of the 55% success ratio kind.

  We crossed the border at Saarbrücken. I know a little restaurant with a pond literally two minutes away and you can sit outside. "Lunch," I said as I turned off the autoroute. "You don't mind? I feel a bit hungry and I still have a long drive ahead."

  She looked at me and smiled and nodded, the ponytail bobbing nicely. Wow. But not a word.

  I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, waited for her to get out as well. But she remained inside. So I went around to her side of the car, politely opened the door.

  "Hey," I said, "aren't you coming as well?"

  "No," she said, "no thank you."

  "No? But aren't you hungry? You must be hungry as well, come on and join me," I said with my nicest smile, the one which makes me look as innocent as a eunuch, an ancient eunuch.

  "I have some sandwiches with me, thank you," she said. Well, how about that? Or maybe she just didn't have much money and didn't want to say so.

  "But I am inviting you, no problem. Got paid my bonus last week," I said. The latter was intended to strengthen the impression of a pleasant, disinterested sexless neuter of course. God and Allah both forbid that she might think the lunch offer to be an investment of mine for possible future returns, dividends required, oh yes. Which of course it was, we males do it all the time, there's nothing wrong with it. And we also take the risk of a zero return, so who's to complain?

  "No thank you," she said, not really looking at me, "the sandwiches are fine and I'm not that hungry."

  Damn. Down from 55% to maybe 30%, no point in kidding myself.

  "O.K., a pity. Eating alone is not much fun, but never mind, I'll see you later. In about forty minutes, O.K.?"

  She nodded. I reached past her to take the IHT from the back seat and I could smell her. It stirred me up, it's one of life's persecutions. If you are a man, that is. I went through the restaurant and out onto the terrace at the back and I took a seat and lit up a cigarette, one of the much needed ones.

  I ordered a chicken salad and a glass of Chardonnay and picked up the newspaper. Suicide bomber kills 43 was on the front page. Not too much space wasted on the item, interest is limited these days, what's new? And does it bother us whether it's Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Sudan or somewhere else? Not really, we read it all out of a kind of inertia. So the mentally diseased bosses got hold of another mentally handicapped person, or a poor child, explosives in the rucksack or around the waist, or else it was some moron who believes (believed) the shit they told him about the 72 virgins waiting for him in the sky (waiting for him personally, they have a boundless supply of them up there) if he blows himself up. What's new? The bosses themselves of course are in no hurry to get to the virgins, they can wait for later. Neither was Hitler, he had plenty of young soldiers to do that for him—except that they weren't dying for a god, oh no, and they weren't going to get any virgins either, or even any non-virgins, they were dying a personal hero's death for the Führer himself, no less. The human species is certainly an interesting spoecies, right enough.

  But I didn't get to read anything else at all because she came and sat down on the other side of the table. A cheery smile. But still shy, not looking directly at me, maybe she'd decided it was impolite to let me eat on my own. Which would mean she had been well brought up, good manners, great news.

  "I thought I would join you for a coffee while you eat," she said, "I discovered that I am really not hungry at all."

  I would guess that she was hungry. There probably weren't any sandwiches. I would bet that she just didn't want me to pay for a meal for her, didn't want to feel in my debt. Who cares, here she was, chipped tooth smiling away, green and red pullover, the body behind it. And the sun was shining, it was getting hot, and the goldfish were swimming around in their pond and I had the feeling there was nothing else I would rather be doing on this planet than sitting here with this amazing girl and enjoying my lecherous thoughts. Even if my lottery chances were moving in the direction of zero. Zero, yes, but a nice feeling, an unreal feeling, where is the cynic, where is the male on the hunt who loses interest as soon as the fox has gone down its hole? Don't ask me; it was just great to be around this girl, just to be able to look at her, just to be able to be with her, and it wouldn't have mattered if lottery chances had never been invented. Temporarily of course, you understand.

  My meal arrived and I ordered her c
offee. I reminded myself not to look at her breasts, NOT ONCE, it could destroy the remaining 30% chance or whatever it had become by now.

  "And what exactly do you do in Rouen?" I asked. "Studying, or perhaps working?"

  "I am a schoolteacher," she said, flicking her ponytail and pushing up her glasses. "My main subjects are English and art."

  "But it's not school vacation time, is it? How come you are travelling around?"

  "No, it's not vacation time," she said, smiling, and that chipped tooth started to drive me crazy again. "But the school is closed for two weeks. An epidemic, we're not allowed to go anywhere near it until a week on Monday."

  So she's got another week free! The guy on the hunt was back and he noted this down in his neuron cupboard under the filename 'Potentially Useful Information'.

  "Hey, that's a piece of luck," I said, "And what do you plan on doing for the remaining week? Maybe help out your Mum with the gardening?"

  Yes, a bit lame I agree, but it fishes for two important pieces of information, two birds with one stone.

  "Oh no," she replied with a laugh, "I have my own apartment. My parents live way down in Biarritz. No, I'll just be preparing some work for my classes next week. We're doing some poetry at the moment, very modern stuff, very weird, excellent for enhancing creative critique skills. And we're also doing some old stuff like Coleridge, not weird exactly, but…well, let's say different."

  The waitress appeared and I ordered a coffee. Céline didn't want another one or anything else, she didn't want me to be spending any money on her, one coffee was the limit. I lit up a cigarette.

  "Coleridge," I said. "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Some say he wrote it as a result of some conversations he had with Wordsworth."

  "You know a bit about poetry?" she asked, her eyes brightening and looking straight into mine for the first time.

  English Literature, a major finding, a useful weapon, noted down accordingly under the neuron filename 'Very Valuable Information'.

  "I did some at school, but to be truthful I've forgotten most of everything. 'Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs—upon the slimy sea'", I quoted with a smile, just to show that I was not only knowledgeable but modest about it into the bargain. In fact I was neither. Those two lines were my favorite schoolboy ones and are the only Coleridge lines I can nowadays quote. Not that Céline has a need to know that.

  Her smile broadened, the chipped tooth melted my spine again, and she leaned across the table and gave me a look which I can only describe as adoring; like I was some kind of a guru, but perhaps I was kidding myself.

  "You are a literary person, Peter," she said. "Literary people are people who have feelings. And people who have feelings can be very happy sometimes and they can be very sad sometimes. And that's because they live more intensely, things affect their feelings more deeply than they do with other kinds of people. Tell me, has a novel or a poem or a movie ever made you cry?"

  This was all very good news indeed. While the lottery chances weren't exactly increasing much, there was at least a clear strategic direction for me to follow. To which can be added the fact that she had actually used my name. I will be using hers soon, but not just yet—extreme caution was still the only viable tactic. Like playing the Cambridge Springs Defense as black—it might get you there in the long run but you need to be extremely patient and careful or you might get killed. A boring defense, nothing empirical about it, I don't play it.

  "Yes," I said slowly, "on a few occasions." This happens to be true, but never overdo it, it can cause suspicion. "And certain pieces of music can make me emotional as well, but you know how we men are, we try to keep our tears at bay."

  Right tone, I think. Right balance.

  "Have you ever written anything?" she asked. Pushed up her glasses again.

  "Not really. I wrote a couple of short stories when I was young and I wrote a few poems as well. Since then I have written a few articles on this or that for minor publications you would never have heard of. But that's it, you are not having lunch with a famous novelist or some other kind of literary celebrity, I'm afraid."

  "Were any of your stories or poems published?"

  "A couple of poems. Back in the day. But minor stuff, minor publications. I was paid £10 each for the two poems, can you imagine that? A kind of scrap metal value."

  "What kind of stories and poems did you write?"

  "Well, let me see. The stories were either romantic ones, or dark and nasty thrillers. The poems started off being romantic ones because I was in my early teenage years and you know what we're all like back then." I chuckled and hoped she was silently chuckling as well and thinking back then, but now we're more mature. "But then I started choosing stranger subjects, just to be different. That was the only aim really, to be different."

  "And do you still write things?"

  "Oh no," I laughed, "I'm not good enough for it and on top of that it's too much hard work. Two pretty good reasons, don't you think? But I may continue to contribute an article or two, here or there, at some point in the future, who knows? I might even write a business book one day. No idea."

  "What exactly do you do business-wise?" she asked, still looking at me in that admiring way. The great POD. If nothing else, she has become interested in me, not as a man, I don't think so, but as a person. Progress of a kind.

  "I'm a consultant, self-employed, I help companies. It means that I travel a lot, but usually only in Europe. And I like my work and so I am a happy guy. If you enjoy your work, you enjoy your evenings, you enjoy your weekends, and—quad erat demonstrandum—you enjoy your life."

  "I have never heard it put like that before, Peter. You have just described a hugely important philosophy using a few very simple words. You are an interesting man."

  Aha, a major advance. Women love 'interesting' men as much as they love 'humorous' men or men who can cook. I glanced sideways at her and she was looking at me in that way again.

  "And you are off to one of your consultancy jobs now?" she continued. "Is it somewhere in France?"

  I wish it were, oh how I wish it were.

  "No," I said, "It's in London. For a few more days or a few more weeks, I'm not sure yet."

  "Hmm," she said again, "you are an interesting man."

  She didn't say anything else, she just looked at me and smiled. That tooth, it drove me crazy.

  We stayed like that for a while, looking at the goldfish. I snuck a few careful glances at her breasts out of the corner of my eye. Very careful sidelong glances. And then I went inside to the bar and paid the bill.

  She went quiet again in the car and I decided to do the same. I think she was the kind of girl who liked a bit of silence between two people, not all of the time but some of the time. So do I. If you are really attracted to someone it's a comfortable feeling, not having to talk all the time. You can both think your thoughts or you can be like Mr. Brown and do some deep philosophizing.

  It was great weather for driving, but hot. I switched the air conditioning on. We were a long way past Metz before I said, "And what are you doing this evening Céline? In Reims?"

  There. I had used her name. Not too soon I hope, don't think so.

  "Oh nothing. I'll just be checking into the hotel, wandering about and doing some shopping."

  Here we go, as low-risk as we can.

  "Nothing? Well, why don't we go out for a drink afterwards, or a meal perhaps?"

  "Oh no. No thank you."

  "Or the cinema? Nicer than just doing nothing on your own."

  "No."

  This was not good, not good at all. 'No' on its own sends a powerful signal. Best not to say anything for a while again. I couldn't think of anything appropriate anyway.

  The countryside we are driving through is green. Pleasant, nothing spectacular; it is, after all, fairly flat Champagne country. It is also mass slaughter country, an area where untold millions of young humans died in World War I in places such as Verdun. Plenty of young human ske
letons still beneath the turf.

  My silence lasted for about half an hour.

  And then I decided to put a question to her of the kind you should never ever put to a woman after she has told you no. But with my lottery chances now down to about 10%, if that, I figured I had little to lose.

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "Why not what?"

  "Why not go to the cinema?"

  "Peter, it's not about going to the cinema."

  "It's not?"

  "No."

  "What's it about then?"

  "It's about what you are going to want afterwards."

  A nuclear bomb.

  Of course she was right. My faithful neurons immediately slammed into high speed, extremely high speed, and produced a psychologically correct answer within about 0.8 seconds.

  "Céline, I have to admit you're right. Yes. Yes, I was thinking about that. But O.K., let's forget it please, I won't try anything, I won't say anything, it is something I won't even think about anymore, I promise you, I guarantee it."

  No, I am not a liar. I am merely an honest man who occasionally lies.

  "Let's just go to the cinema," I continued in desperation. "I enjoy your company, we don't have to have a meal afterwards if you don't want to, I'll just get back in my car and drive off on the road to Calais. Catch a night ferry, be in London early morning."

  She thought about this shameless and pathetic begging for a while and pushed her glasses higher up her nose a couple of times. It must have sounded like desperation to her, and of course it was. Mortifying and unadulterated desperation.

  She looked at me. "Tu es vraiment sympathique," she said. You are a really nice man.

  "Perhaps, Peter, perhaps we can go to the cinema after I have done my shopping."

  My heart leapt. I don't know why we use that expression. The heart is merely a pump. It does not leap. Actually, it is a verily amazing pump. It pumps 10 liters of blood around your system every minute and it beats 72 times in order to do it. That is roughly 14,000 liters of blood per day and over 100,000 beats. Or 420 million liters of blood and 2.9 billion beats in your average lifetime. And whenever it stops, you die. We don't know how it does it and we don't know why it does it, we talk about electrical charges and so on and so forth, but we don't know where they come from. Be that as it may, my heart, whether it had leapt or not, had added a considerable number of beats to its programmed workload today.

  Just to be able to spend a few more hours with this girl had somehow become a matter of great importance to me. And if it had to be without sex, then that was O.K. with me also. A strange feeling. A feeling belonging to the dreamy, erotic and hopeless world of your average twelve year-old male.

  We switched back to our silence routine as far as the turn-off onto the A17 toward Reims, at which point I dangerously edged a little further along my dead-end street. "Which hotel are you staying in?" I asked.

  "The Hotel Bristol," she replied. "The street is the Rue de Verdun. Do you have a navigation system?" A strange question nowadays for a car like mine, proof that even teachers can have knowledge gaps.

  I nodded and typed the address into the system. For some reason there are millions of hotels in France which go by the name of Bristol. The name is used by hotels of all types, from luxury five star establishments right down through to the low and also the very low categories. It's the way of the world. When you have the money you stay in good hotels and when you don't have the money, you don't. And as she was hitchhiking, she can’t have much money, this was going to be one of the bad hotels, one of the ones with musty smells and tiny, century-old bathrooms and sheets which may be clean but don't look it. Not a problem for me of course, it being 99.8% certain—my best estimate—that I wouldn't be staying there anyway.

  Even so, my hardworking neurons had worked out a way to keep the remaining dregs of hope alive. Even if they felt as the Germans must have done as the Russians closed in on Berlin.

  It was early evening when we reached the hotel. It was in a back street somewhere and I had no problem finding a place to park. I fetched her rucksack from the trunk. And launched the last salvos of my impossible struggle.

  "Céline," I said, "while you're checking in and doing your shopping, I think I'll just take a nap here in the car until it's cinema time. That will be around 8 o'clock, I think. I'm tired, and I still have a lot of driving ahead of me."

  I wasn't tired. This was King Canute trying to turn the tide. Trying to have her take pity on me and invite me up to her room.

  Which she didn't.

  "O.K.," she said, and off she went into the hotel.

  But she was back five minutes later. "You're tired, Peter. Why don't you use my room while I'm out," she said. "The desk is unattended at the moment, but be careful, check it before you go through." And she gave me the key to her room, number 14.

  Call me Wellington, not Canute. Blücher had suddenly arrived. What a turnaround. I would never have thought it. No way, not with this girl. The lottery chances were up to 70%, at least 70%, in one fell swoop. My heart did its acceleration trick again, it pumped like a suicidal maniac. Despite knowing that all she was doing was being kind. But let us wait and see, you can never tell, an angler’s patience is required. I would continue with this ploy to the very end. This attempted ploy I mean, of course.

  "Thank you," I said, "that will be great. Many thanks."

  And off she went looking for shops, and off I went along to the hotel. I looked in at the entrance. Nobody at the desk, up the stairs as fast as I could and into her room. A tiny room, a double bed right up against the side wall, just enough space to walk around it. I closed the curtains, shut out the dusk, got undressed and under the covers and lay facing the wall. I'll be pretending to be faithfully asleep when she comes back. But I was naked under those covers and she would see my naked back when she came in. I would make sure she did. And what then?

  And what then? Well, you won't believe it.

  She was back after only half an hour. She switched the light on.

  "Peter?" she said quietly, "are you asleep?"

  I put on a mumble and a sigh, and turned onto my back and sat up. Top half naked, bottom half also naked—under the covers.

  "Not really," I said. "Too early, probably."

  "Oh," she said, "well…do you play cards?"

  Cards? CARDS? CARDS? I told you that you wouldn't believe it. I myself, however, had no other choice but to believe it. She rummaged around in her rucksack, found a pack of cards, sat on the bed, explained some kind of a game to me and started dealing. Me, naked in the bed. She, fully clothed on top of it. Looking beautiful, tooth, ponytail, pushing up her glasses. And we're playing cards.

  CARDS. The game took about twenty minutes and she won it. Not just because it was a game I didn't know, but because my neurons were reaching their limits, vast quantities of messages being shipped in machine-gun mode to my groin area—a polite way to put it, I am sure you agree—and an equal number of other messages being transmitted to my brain's internal control department, and the few remaining left-over thoughts being devoted to selecting a card each time it became necessary to do so. A looming computer crash.

  "Another game?" she asked and my lottery chances, in yet another fell swoop, fell definitively down to around 0.24%, give or take a point or two. She obviously did not intend for anything to happen, absolutely nothing, she was a nice girl. And I had to respect that, I had to admire it. A fine girl, a great girl, a fantastic girl. And a nice girl, so nice that she had caused one of life's huge waves to come along and swamp me and wash my raft away in the direction of a barren and rocky coast..

  She won the second game as well.

  Well, said my neurons, in about twenty minutes you are going to have to get out of this bed and go to the cinema. And no way was I going to spend that time playing yet another game of cards. So what your itinerate gambler does, he puts his remaining roulette coin on a single number and he kisses it goodbye in advance and he start
s thinking about where he can go for a much needed single malt and a cigarette, the latter probably in the plural.

  I said, "Céline, I am just going to snooze for ten minutes if you don't mind, and then we can go out, O.K.?" And I lay down and turned my face to the wall again.

  Nothing happened. A minute or two went by. And then she said, "I think I'll snooze for a while too." And she lay down, fully clothed, on top of the bed. Thereby causing my raft to be swept onto the rocky crags and smashed to pieces.

  "Would you mind if we had the light out for ten minutes?" I asked. The jittery and despairing poker player's impossible last hope for the jack of clubs, and only the jack of clubs, to arrive on the last turn and create his virtually impossible royal flush.

  She got up and switched the light off. And then nothing happened again. Nothing happened at all for at least a quarter of an hour, no word was spoken, the sounds of silence.

  And then I won the lottery. And the roulette number came up as well. And the jack of clubs showed. And a small dinghy came floating by for me to grab hold of.

  "J'ai envie de toi," came her voice out of the darkness. I want you.

  I turned around and I held her and I kissed her. I stripped off her clothes and threw them on the floor and I kissed her again, I kissed her lots of times. And then I started kissing her more slowly, on the mouth and then the neck, and then the shoulders, and then her breasts. I licked her ears, I freed up the ponytail and smothered myself in her hair, her soft, silky hair. I kissed her stomach, I kissed her legs, I kissed the insides of her thighs, everything soft and fine and silky and moist.

  I stroked her and touched her more and more and she began shuddering, writhing, moaning and then she suddenly screamed 'Now, for god's sake now, oh now oh now, please'. And it happened, a sweet explosion, much longer for her than for me and after that we played and we stroked and we got to know each other and we got to know what we liked and it went on for hours, it went on for years, and it happened twice again.

  And then we were quiet. She lay flat on top of me and we just looked at each other, we inspected each other, and we wondered how something could be as good as this and what we had done to deserve it. We stayed like that for a long time and then I couldn't stay still anymore and I started to stroke her back, gently, delicately, and my hand moved down onto her buttocks, and then in between her buttocks, into her buttocks, everything tender and moist, incredible moistness everywhere, and then things became less gentle, less delicate, and we couldn't stop ourselves again.

  And then she suddenly sat up. This magical girl sat up on her knees, straddling me, her hair just touching my shoulders, peering shortsightedly at me without her glasses, her throat and her breasts gleaming with sweat, and the perfume of our lovemaking enveloping her, and me, and the bed sheets, and the whole world.

  She had an impish smile on her face.

  "Cinema time, Peter, come on, you have to get up."

  "What time is it?" I groaned.

  "It's half past eleven, not bedtime yet."

  "Half past eleven? But the only movies you'll be able to find at this hour will be pornographic ones."

  "I don't need pornographic movies now that I've got you," she said. "Come on, let's go and find something to eat. Or if everywhere is closed, let's find a bar, it's Saturday night, we can have a drink to celebrate."

  "Celebrate?"

  "Yes, celebrate finding each other." She smiled. "On a small autobahn feeder road somewhere in Germany."

  "O.K., but no shower. I want to smell you all the time."

  "Naughty, naughty boy, you're not a dog. Anyway, I've got some of you in my hair. I have to shower. Come on."

  We both got into the shower together, a tiny space, and we had to stand right up against each other, and we stroked each other all over and we soaped each other all over, and it took a long time and in the end there wasn't a square centimeter of either of us which wasn't as clean as a freshly bathed baby.

  DAY 10

  There was no-one at reception as we left the hotel. Not surprising in this kind of hotel, at this time of night, just gone midnight. Probably asleep in the office at the back, customers please use the bell on the counter.

  There was a bigger street at the end of ours and we walked in that direction. I lit up a cigarette. We held hands as we walked. Holding hands can produce powerful emotions, as both Lennon and McCartney knew when writing the lyrics for that song, not that I am a particular fan of Beatles music. Nor, come to that, was Lennon, as we know. We didn't talk, we didn't need to. I had a funny feeling inside of me. I had the feeling that I had found something unbelievably precious, something incredibly valuable. Possibly, at least. And I was very scared in case something might happen to cause me to lose it. I was scared that I might not be a good enough person for her. I was scared it might turn out that she didn't like cynical types.

  We turned the corner. There were a few lights here and there down the road and we walked towards them. The first was a dry-cleaning store closed down for the night. A few doors along there was a restaurant, its sign shining brightly, but it was empty and also closed for the night. And about fifty meters further on there was a wine bar, Chez Maurice the sign said, and the wine bar was open. Until 3 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays the sign said.

  It was very dark inside, there were candles on the tables, and it was quite full. But there were a couple of tables free at the back. The bar served finger food. We ordered some chicken wings and some bread and cheese and a large pichet of red. We didn't say anything until the food arrived, we just held hands across the table and looked at each other. Like a couple of teenagers. The music was soft, low volume, romantic ballads. An oldie, Forever Young, was playing. He knew about atmosphere, the owner of this place, whoever he was.

  Céline had picked a short blue skirt and a white woolly sweater out of her rucksack, slightly rumpled, but she looked like only a French woman can look. It doesn't matter what their clothes have cost, €5,000 or €10, they look…well, feminine. And my Céline was feminine, magically so, the ponytail was back, the chipped tooth was there, she was occasionally pushing up her glasses and I was…happy. Incredibly, incredibly, happy. I almost wanted to cry because of it, who says cynics can't have feelings.

  I think London is going to have to wait for a few days, or maybe for a few years. I am going to Rouen.

  I started off with a smile. "So what will you be doing with your week off in Rouen, Céline, apart from preparing some school work?"

  She looked straight at me. She wasn't smiling. She looked sad. She paused only briefly and then she dropped her nuclear bomb. Thermo-nuclear.

  "I will be seeing my fiancé," she said.

  A nuclear bomb causes your jaw to drop, your eyes to protrude, your vocal cords to produce barely audible guttural resonances, and your heart to fall. My heart did fall, it sank right down through my body and plummeted down to my feet and tried to get out through my shoes. I am not joking. If a heart can jump, it can fall. And my neurons? My neurons had become inoperative, disarray does not describe it.

  It took me a while to think of something to say.

  And all I could come up with was, "Your fiancé?"

  An old-fashioned word, there aren't too many fiancés around these days, and the same thing for fiancées. There are more bastard children than there are fiancés these days, bastards have become a perfectly acceptable element of modern society in recent times. No doubt the pope has fits and has significantly increased his praying time, and his predecessors turn over in their graves and smash their harp strings or whatever. To no avail, of course.

  "Yes," she said, "I have a fiancé."

  "But why…why did you…you didn't have to sleep with me, I would have understood. You shouldn't have slept with me, Céline."

  "Yes I should. I am in love with you."

  "But…"

  "But nothing, Peter. I am going to Rouen, I am going to see my fiancé, I am going to tell him that I like him a lot but that I am not in l
ove with him, I am in love with someone else, and then I am coming to London to be with you until I have to go back to work again."

  So there had never been a nuclear bomb. My heart removed itself from my shoes. My senses returned, I could hear the wine bar music again, another oldie was playing, Unchained Melody, the world was in order, everything was back to being magical, my neurons realized there was no longer any danger of a computer crash.

  She smiled, she pushed her glasses up, she leaned over the table towards me and she took hold of my hand and held it tightly.

  "We are going back to the hotel now, Peter. Being in love with you increases my need for pornography. Of the nice kind, you understand."

  I smiled back at her. But I had a problem. I am not the kind of guy to be the cause of a breakup. A marriage or an intended marriage, it's the same thing. Not me, I am not made that way. I have a guilty conscience, a huge bloody guilty conscience. And although I would have signed on a bible with my own blood that Céline and I had a good chance of staying together, I knew, back in the dark recesses, that this might not be so. Impossible to know after just a few hours. What might seem permanent in the beginning can turn out to be not permanent, as we well know. People can change, people can turn out not to be who you thought they were. Especially when you hardly know each other. Bibles and signatures in blood notwithstanding.

  Nevertheless, I would have signed, I wanted to keep her. But not like this. My throat was dry, I drank some wine, I needed to spend some time explaining my thoughts. "Céline," I said, "I don't think I should go back to the hotel with you. I don't think you can know if you are in love with me. You may think so. And I might perhaps be in love with you too, totally, incredibly in love with you. But I don’t know. I can’t know. We haven't known each other for a single day yet. We just suppose and hope it might turn out to be the way we feel. The way we think we feel. We should wait. You have a fiancé and until this morning you thought you were in love with him. I think you should go back and find out what your feelings about him are. I don't think we should think anything else, anything at all, until you have done that. It hurts me to be saying this, you have to know that, but I think I am going to get in my car, right now, and I am going to drive up to Calais and over to London, and you are going to go to Rouen tomorrow morning, and I am going to wait to hear from you. I think it's for the best."

  She thought about this. She looked very sad and disconsolate. She bit her lip, she sipped her wine, she thought some more. And then suddenly her look became a happy one, a contented one, a decision taken.

  "I'll be in London in two or three days' time," she said. "You are right. This is what I should do first. Perhaps I made it sound easy, but it won't be. I like him a lot and it will be very painful for me to tell him we're finished. But I've met you, Peter, and I know I'm not in love with him. Love is something very different, it takes hold of you, it takes hold of your entire body and it takes hold of your entire mind and it takes hold of all of your feelings, and nothing else is important, absolutely nothing, nothing else matters. And I have never felt that way with him. I am in love with you Peter. Intensely. I know it can last. And if it doesn't, well, I will have no regrets. I will at least have been with you for a while, I will have known you for a while, I will have had you in my life for a while, and that is something I want, something I need, something I have to have. I will miss you every minute and every day, until I see you again. I will miss you terribly."

  Her eyes were glistening. Some tears had started to trickle down her cheeks, but she was smiling again and she was happy again and she squeezed my hand and she stroked it.

  "I need something to remember you by," she continued with that impish smile of hers, "in case you change your mind in London and you don't want to see me again. Perhaps you could write a poem for me? Please?"

  "I don't write poems anymore, Céline, and in any case I couldn't write one spontaneously. It would be pure drivel, nice drivel maybe, but red wine drivel. Here, here is my card, it has my mobile number and my email address. Good for arranging when and where to meet in London—that is, if I don't change my mind of course."

  She laughed, she was happy, she took the card, she inspected it, she took a huge gulp of wine, she emptied the pichet into her glass and drank some more.

  I emptied my glass as well. I paid the bill and we headed back towards the hotel, she was clinging to my arm, she was a bit tipsy.

  "I love you Peter. I want a poem," she said. "A poem from Peter. Please."

  "I don't think you need a poem. I think what you need is another liter of wine."

  "A poem."

  Cheeks still glistening from the tears. What a girl. And she deserved a poem, no doubt about it. She deserved anything as far as I was concerned, just for being who she was and how she was.

  "The only poem you could get from me would be one of the strange ones. The two published ones are still more or less in my head. But not tonight, Céline, not now, they are weird poems. They are about as unromantic as you can get and I am not going to do it."

  We reached my car and stopped.

  "O.K. Peter, I will try to understand. But on two conditions."

  "Two conditions?"

  "Yes. First you have to promise to send me a poem when you reach London. I need to have a piece of you until I see you again. Or in case you change your mind."

  "And secondly?"

  "And secondly, we need to get inside your nice car and you kiss me goodbye."

  "Both conditions agreed," I said.

  And we got into the car, and I wrote down her email address on my insurance certificate, who cares about an insurance certificate. And we kissed goodbye, and it wasn't just kissing, and it went on for a long time and then I watched her walk into her hotel and then I drove away.