by Peter Mayle
I was sorting through the balls before selecting my playmate for the day when I was struck by an interesting difference in the messages they were sending to the nose. If you’ve ever watched tennis—I’m sure some people do when they have nothing better to amuse themselves—you will have noticed that the contestants always keep a couple of spare balls in the pocket of their shorts. In this dark, overheated space, some kind of osmosis occurs, and the balls take on the character of the athletic and perspiring thigh. And if you happen to possess, as I do, a sensitive and highly tuned sense of smell, it’s possible to identify the thigh’s owner—not by name, of course, but by place of origin.
I applied the deductive faculties and was able to divide the balls into two groups. On the left was the Old World—complex, mature, with a long Teutonic finish and a hint of alcohol-free beer. On the right, a clear signal from the Dark Continent, hot and dusty, with a refreshing tang of the high veldt. Now, as I said, I can’t give you names, but if you go back over the records, I think you’ll find the finalists for that year were German and South African. Advantage, moi. Fascinating, isn’t it?
I applied deductive faculties.
And that, in my considered opinion, is one of the few interesting aspects of tennis. As in much of what passes for sport, a basic principle has been misunderstood. The essence of any game, it seems to me, is to gain possession of the ball and find a quiet corner where one can destroy it in peace. But what do we see these highly paid and luridly dressed people doing with the ball? They hit it, kick it, throw it, bounce it, put it in a net, put it in a hole, and generally play the fool with it. Then they either kiss each other and slap hands or have a tantrum and go and mope in the corner. Adult men and women they are, too, although you’d never guess it. I’ve known five-year-olds with a better grip on themselves.
But I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m completely devoid of sporting instincts. My own version of fetch the ball, for example, provides me with hours of harmless enjoyment and keeps participating adults away from the bar and out of mischief. I always win, too, which is as it should be.
First, I choose an elevated spot. It could be the top of a flight of stairs, a wall, the raised edge of the swimming pool—anywhere that gives me a height advantage. Stairs are best, because of the added cardiovascular benefits, but I shall come to that in a minute.
I take up my position, ball in mouth, and lurk with lowered head, in the manner of the vulture contemplating the imminent death of his breakfast. Sooner or later, this motionless and rather extraordinary pose attracts attention. “What is Boy doing?” they say. Or, “Is he going to be sick?” With the eyes of the assembled spectators upon me, I slowly open my mouth and let the ball bounce free. Down the steps, off the wall, or into the deep end it goes. I remain completely still, the unblinking eye fixed on the ball below me. It is a tense and focused moment.
The tension lasts until someone has the common sense to grasp the purpose of the game, which is to retrieve the ball and return it to me. If the spectators are particularly dense—and I’ve known a few, believe me, who didn’t seem to know whether it was lunchtime or Tuesday—I might have to give a short bark to indicate start of play. The ball is fetched, brought back, and presented to me. I give the players a minute or two to settle down and get over the excitement, and then I repeat the process.
A tense and focused moment
I mentioned stairs earlier. These have the double attraction of noise and healthy physical exertion, in contrast to the visitors’ usual program of elbow bending and free-weight training with knife and fork. The falling ball provides multiple bouncing sounds, and the retriever has to climb up the stairs to give it back to me. As any doctor will tell you, this is very beneficial for the legs and lungs.
I’ll admit, though, that there have been days when I’ve been off form with the long game. Balls take unlucky bounces, as we all know, and sometimes get lost in the rough. Or, more often, the spectators have been too preoccupied with refreshments to pay attention. And here, I think, is an inspirational example of dedication and the will to win coming through against all odds.
It was one of those evenings when nothing I could do impinged on the happy hour. I lurked, I dropped, I barked, and still the merriment continued. I even suffered the ignominy of having to fetch the ball myself—which, as any of those tennis people will tell you, is a fate worse than having to pay for your own rackets. But instead of bursting into tears and calling for the manager, as most of them do, I brought out my short game.
The assembled guests—there must have been eight or ten of them in varying stages of incoherence—were all seated around a low table, bleating away about the hardships of life as they punished the hors d’oeuvres and held out their empty glasses for more of the same. None of them noticed me as I slipped, wraithlike, through the forest of legs and arms to the table.
Then—overhead smash!—I dropped the ball into a bowl of tapenade, which, as you may know, is a dark, oily dip made from olives. It splatters in a most satisfying way, and those in the immediate vicinity came out in a black rash.
You could have heard a jaw drop. It was well worth the retribution that followed, and to this day, whenever I pick up my ball of choice, I am regarded with the wary respect befitting a champion. Incidentally, if you’ve never tried tapenade-flavored tennis ball, I can recommend it. Recipe on request.
The Girl Next Door
I am not easily embarrassed. I am at ease in crowded rooms, comfortable with strangers, and, I like to think, modest and gracious in the face of compliments—with one exception.
“Look at Boy. He’s just like one of the family.” If I’ve heard that idiotic phrase once, I’ve heard it a hundred times, and it never fails to make me cringe. The question I ask myself is, Which one? It can’t be madame, because of the difference in gender, so I presume I am being compared with the other half, and if anyone thinks that’s a compliment, they’ve picked the wrong dog. The other half is an admirable fellow in many ways, a prince among walkers and a generous hand at feeding times. But he’d be the first to admit that he’s shortsighted, devoid of facial hair, poorly coordinated, useless with rabbits, and given to prolonged bouts of idleness. You know me well enough by now, I’m sure, to understand my lack of enthusiasm for the comparison.
Mind you, there is something to be said for the theory that certain people and certain dogs share personality defects, and even the odd physical quirk, and this was brought home to me not long ago when we entertained Sven, the diminutive Swede, and his repellent corgi, Ingmar. I should say here, before anyone from the Swedish Anti-Defamation League takes umbrage, that when it comes to Swedes in general, I am not averse—pleasant people on the whole, and they make a good topless sandwich.
Sven, however, is a monster in everything but size—aggressive, dictatorial, self-important, noisy, and smug. He also has extremely short legs and a strut. Now, the more perceptive among you will have realized that this description, from the aggression to the strut, could easily be applied to the corgi, which we all know is one of nature’s wasted efforts. And to see the similarity between the two of them, Sven and Ingmar, yapping in unison and mincing up and down together, was truly uncanny. The other half must have noticed it, too, because when he appeared with a hospitable vodka in one hand and a dog biscuit in the other, there was a moment’s confusion before he could decide who got what.
But I digress. What I was going to tell you may come as a surprise, since you may have guessed that I dislike most dogs who operate very close to the ground. I won’t deny it—they get under your feet, and they have a tendency to nip—but there are always exceptions, and I found my thoughts returning more and more often to the shy little jewel I had recently met, the girl next door with the beard. Over the weeks that followed, I slipped away whenever the chance presented itself in the hope that we could find a solution to our earlier problem. The course of true love is often strewn with obstacles, as the Pekinese discovered when he formed a romantic a
ttachment to a cushion, but I was convinced that ingenuity would win through in the end.
Experienced generals and burglars will always tell you that reconnaissance is the key to success, and I spent many hours behind my bush above the farmhouse, observing the comings and goings and waiting for the moment juste. The same routine was followed each morning, with the lady of the house taking my intended—Fifine, she was called, if I overheard correctly—for a decorous stroll in the field before tethering her by the back door. I decided to test the defenses one day, and I issued a haunting love call from behind the bush. Fifine pricked up her ears and it seemed that she blew a kiss in my general direction, but I was barely halfway down the slope before the door opened and a vision of nastiness appeared, waving a carving knife and snarling.
And so it went on, with my sorties toward Fifine consistently foiled by the old bat in the kitchen, and then something happened that dampened the ardor and made me think I might have better luck elsewhere. It was the hour of the aperitif, when the proprietor was in the habit of resting from his labors with a glass under the shade of a tree. Occasionally, he would let Fifine off her rope, and the two of them would contemplate the sunset together, although why she chose to stay at his feet when I was available, I’ll never understand. There’s no accounting for female behavior. All over you one minute and keep your distance the next, in my experience. I’m told it has something to do with the moon.
Anyway, there they were under the tree when who should emerge from the back door but Professor Roussel of the chicken academy, accompanied by a dog that looked as though he’d come from a long line of rodents—portly, short of leg, narrow of snout, and thoroughly unattractive. You’ve seen the type on rabies posters. It was obvious that they all knew one another, because the two men settled down with a bottle while Fifine and fatty gamboled in the grass. That was a blow in itself, but far worse was to come.
The two men were sucking down the cough mixture and deep in conversation, so they failed to notice what I could see clearly. Fifine, who was showing all the signs of being a forward little hussy, was luring her companion away from the tree and around to the side of the house—darting toward him, leaping over him (not difficult), rolling on her back, and then scuttling away. Crude provocation of a sexual nature, there’s no other way to describe it. She might just as well have taken him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him off. I found the spectacle deeply offensive, but you know how it is when something horrible but fascinating is taking place; you can’t stop watching.
Delicacy compels me to draw a veil over what I saw next, except to say that Fifine had her way with him behind a rosebush before returning to her master’s feet, looking like Miss Prim after a strenuous game of croquet. Dreams shattered, heart broken, anguished and distraught, I returned home. Luckily, I found where the old Labrador had buried a marrowbone, so the day wasn’t entirely wasted. Even so, it had been an emotional setback, and it confirmed all my feelings about dogs with short legs. Slaves of instant gratification, if you ask me, and very lacking in discrimination. I crossed Fifine off my list of future attractions, and resolved to find a more suitable companion, perhaps one of the Doberman sisters I see on Sunday mornings in the forest, or perhaps both of them. I’m not selfish.
Dreams shattered
It was well into autumn before I was reminded of Fifine, and a most unpleasant reminder it was, too. For once, the evening was free of social engagements, and we were en famille—fire blazing, dinner coming along nicely in the kitchen, the two old bitches whiffling away in their baskets—when there was a knock on the door. The management doesn’t take kindly to unexpected interruptions like this at feeding time, and there is always considerable reluctance to welcome the unknown visitor. Madame raises her eyes to heaven, the other half mutters curses, and I’ve known them both to go and hide in the bedroom, pretending to be out. But the knocking continued, and the other half was dispatched to send the intruder packing.
He failed miserably, as he often does—I’m afraid he lacks the killer instinct on the doorstep; I’ve often thought I should teach him to bite. When he reappeared, it was with a familiar stunted figure in tow: Fifine’s proprietor, cap in hand and face like thunder as he saw me reclining by the fire.
Barely had he introduced himself as Monsieur Poilu when he started working himself into a state of high dudgeon, waving his cap in my direction and giving a dramatic performance of a man profoundly wronged. “My precious Fifine,” he said, “who is like a daughter to me—madame and I not being blessed with children—has been despoiled, violated, her innocence snatched from her. She is heavy with pup, and I see in this room the lust-crazed scoundrel responsible.” In case he hadn’t made himself clear, he marched over and pointed at me, finger quivering with passion as he ranted on. “It is he, the beast, and regard the size of him. The thought of that brute and my Fifine, so tiny, so defenseless, quelle horreur, her life ruined, and furthermore my lady wife in shock, with already one expensive visit from the doctor, an entire family in despair …”
He paused for breath and further inspiration while I reflected on the injustice of it all. Not only was I completely blameless—although it wasn’t for lack of trying—but I had actually witnessed the foul deed, and if any innocence had been lost, it certainly was not Fifine’s. Little fatty’s, more likely. And as I went over the events of that evening, it all became clear to me. Poilu had undoubtedly heard from his friend Roussel about the affair of the overpriced chicken and saw an opportunity here to extract a little financial aid to help with the gynecologist’s fees and his wife’s migraine tablets, with plenty left over for a good dinner—in other words, a paternity suit. You may think this a cynical conclusion, but I know these people, and I can tell you that they consider the wallet to be one of their vital organs.
Of course, the management had no idea of the truth, and they sat there nodding gravely as Poilu stumbled around the room, clutching his fevered brow and frothing at the mouth while he jabbered on about the wages of sin. For a moment, I thought he was going to produce a bill, but he finally ran out of puff and stood glaring at me, manly bosom heaving with emotion, or possibly thirst. Tirades have that effect on some people.
A paternity suit
For once, the management didn’t resort to the calming bottle, but started asking him questions. Had he seen the act? When did it take place? Was it not possible that another dog had committed it?
Poilu blustered away, giving the impression that he had been on the spot at the time with his notebook, taking down incriminating details, and then he made the mistake of returning to the subject of Fifine’s diminutive size, presumably to encourage more guilt and sympathy among the audience. At last, the management asked the question I’d been waiting for. “How small is Fifine?”
“Ah, but she is tiny, a little nothing, so sweet”—and here Poilu made descriptive motions with his hands, indicating something not much bigger than a well-nourished goldfish.
“In that case,” said the management, “how could this unfortunate liaison have been with our dog? As you see, he is large, many times the size of your Fifine, and at least twice her height. These are not the most helpful circumstances.”
My sentiments entirely, of course, and as you’ll remember, I’d done my level best to overcome natural obstacles without any luck. That settles it, I thought. Game, set, and match to the home team, my good name cleared, and Poilu shown up for the mendacious extortionist I knew he was. I yawned and rolled over, assuming that I’d heard the end of it.
But Poilu didn’t leave. He asked for a box, and when the other half fetched an old wine crate from the garage, he set it down on the floor and placed his cap on it. “Now,” he said, “please have the kindness to present your dog to the cap.”
I don’t know who was more puzzled, me or the management, but they decided to humor the old ruffian, and I was brought over to be presented to the cap on the crate. It was more or less in line with my chest, and this seemed to cheer Poilu
up enormously. He nodded his head a couple of times and grunted as he circled around me. “It is as I thought,” he said. “Imagine that my cap is little Fifine. You will observe that she is now of the same height as your dog, and with this extra elevation, all things are possible. “Yes,” he repeated, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, “it is exactly as I thought. Thus was it done.”
I could hardly believe my ears, and even the management was finding it difficult to maintain suitably serious expressions. Before we knew it, Poilu would be swearing with hand on heart that he’d seen me creeping around his house carrying a wine crate or a stepladder or a portable hoist, and I’m sure he would have done so if madame hadn’t remembered the rôti de porc in the oven. She’s an even-tempered woman for the most part, but when her cooking is at risk, she can become touchy, which she did. “Bloody nonsense,” she said, and sailed off to the kitchen, leaving the other half and Poilu to exchange scowls.
They spend five minutes disagreeing with each other before Poilu realized that it was past his bedtime and that he was unlikely to pick up a check. “This is not the end of the affair,” he said. “You will be hearing further from me.” And with that, he tossed his curls, rescued his cap, and left.
But we never did hear from him again, and the reason was made clear when Fifine eventually delivered herself of a handful of creatures that only a blind mother could love. I saw them one day when out walking with the other half—gray, potbellied, short-legged runts, the exact image of their father. Case dismissed.
By Their Smell Shall You Know Them
Here we go again. There is to be a soirée tonight, a dinner party, a gathering of cultured and sophisticated people who will toss epigrams back and forth across the table, keeping the conversational ball in the air. That, at least, is the optimistic theory. We shall see.
