Monsieur Pamplemousse and the French Solution

by Michael Bond

  ‘The poor girl seemed confused at first. Possibly it had something to do with her eye problem, or the inclement conditions, but she kept pressing the wrong button and operating the camera flash by mistake. It was most embarrassing.

  ‘Eventually, having managed to calm her down, I stood back and left her to dial a number at random, while I tried to think of what to do next.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse nodded approvingly. ‘As Pasteur was fond of saying, monsieur, chance favours the prepared mind.’

  ‘That may have been true in Pasteur’s case,’ said the Director grimly, ‘but it certainly did me no favours.

  ‘I have to say Maria played her part as to the manner born. As soon as contact was established she assumed a child-like voice, full of girlish squeals. She went through the whole gamut about how she had never had such a lovely time in her life, and how happy she was. “Now I will hand you over to Papa.” she trilled at last, handing me the mobile.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘What is the worst thing you can say to a woman on the other end of a telephone, Aristide?’

  ‘There is nothing whatsoever to worry about, cherie?’ suggested Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘Exactement!’ said the Director. ‘You have hit the nail on the head, Aristide. In my experience there is no surer way of arousing a woman’s suspicions than by ringing her up out of the blue and saying there is no need to worry. Although in the event I didn’t even get that far.

  ‘You cannot possibly imagine the stream of vituperation that greeted me when I put the receiver to my ear.’

  ‘But surely, monsieur, you only had press the OFF button to cut the call. The person at the other end would never have guessed who you were. Even if they had, what did it matter? You were over 10,000 metres up in the air over the Atlantic ocean.’

  ‘It matters a great deal, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director soberly, ‘when it happens to be your wife. That is something not even Pasteur, for all his knowledge and worldly wisdom, could have prepared his mind for. Like me, he might well have wished he was on the ocean bed, rather than 10,000 metres above it.’

  ‘I fully understand, monsieur, that what you have just told me could not have been the best news in the world, but …’

  ‘There are no “buts” about it, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director grimly. ‘It was the worst possible news. Furthermore, it was only the tip of the iceberg.’

  ‘You mean, there is worse to come?’

  ‘That is putting it mildly,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘It was not what our American friends would call a “marriage enhancing” situation. Fortunately, by the time I recognised Chantal’s voice I was thinking on my feet. It made me appreciate what it must be like for a boxer when he finds himself up against the ropes with no means of escape, and the eyes of the world are upon him. Think how much worse it was in the confines of an Airbus galley, Aristide. At the time, I thought I acquitted myself well.

  ‘As soon as I was able to get a word in edgeways I assumed an American accent and turned what might have been a debacle into a failure-deferred success. Peppering my speech with the latest transatlantic phraseology I had picked up during the human potential seminar, I began by apologising for my daughter’s bone-head behaviour in dialling the wrong number.

  ‘Then I went on to say it was my sincere hope madame wasn’t feeling emotionally disrupted, or that she pictured me as some kind of crazy kook trying to pull a fast one by entering her life under the radar. I also made the point that I did not want her to think she had inadvertently become a pawn in a game plan which resulted in her feeling left off the loop. If that were the case, I would be happy to recommend a suitable anger evaluation consultancy …’

  ‘And she understood what you were saying?’

  ‘She was hanging on my every word,’ said the Director. ‘By the time I finished it was like having a pigeon eating out of my hand. A pigeon, moreover, cooing in a tone of voice I had not heard for many a year.’

  ‘Flushed with success, I suggested that since my daughter would be going straight back to finishing school once we landed, leaving me all on my own in little old Gay Paree, maybe the two of us could touch base.

  ‘It was merely gilding the lily with a pleasantry, as it were. I had no intention of following it up, but she took the wind out of my sails. Do you know what she said, Aristide?’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse shook his head.

  ‘She said she would like nothing better, but we would have to exercise great care because her husband was due back shortly and he was apt to be extremely jealous.’

  ‘You must have regretted your offer, monsieur.’

  ‘On reflection, yes. But at the time, I was metaphorically still taking my bow. Acting is hard enough as it is, without the added burden of analysing the exact meaning of what one is saying.

  ‘I have often suspected that the first actor to take the stage as Hamlet must have been playing for time when he uttered the immortal words “To be, or not to be”, followed by a long pause. He had probably forgotten what came next.

  ‘However, it was not for nothing, Aristide, that I once played the part of Robespierre. It was not easy at the age of thirteen, but according to the school magazine I acquitted myself with flying colours.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse realised he had stepped into the trap. Over the years, the Director’s oft-repeated tale had become the stuff of legends. One tended to forget he was at heart a frustrated thespian. Even in his youth, the part of ‘Robespierre the Incorruptible’ must have seemed like typecasting.

  ‘Did it not worry you that the girl knew your home number, monsieur?’

  Monsieur Leclercq shook his head. ‘Thinking about it afterwards, I assumed she must have committed it to memory when I rang Chantal soon after boarding the plane.

  ‘Being able to cross and uncross her eyes at will, I suspect she kept one of them fastened on my mobile while I was dialling, at the same time using the other eye to feign looking out of the window.’

  ‘A useful faculty,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse dryly, ‘but why would she do that?’ Privately he remained sceptical. As he understood it, most people could only remember a maximum of nine digits. Ten-digit numbers were beyond them.

  ‘I imagine for the same reason headlines in other people’s journaux are invariably more interesting than one’s own,’ said the Director. ‘Quite likely, her subconscious memory took over when it was her turn to dial a number. Given a free choice, some people’s minds go blank.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse did his best not to look doubtful.

  ‘Monsieur has wiped any photographs from his mobile, of course …’

  Monsieur Leclercq shook his head. ‘No, Pamplemousse. Monsieur has not.’

  ‘If you have it with you, I will happily do it for you. It will only take a moment.’

  ‘I am afraid it is too late,’ said the Director. ‘Unfortunately, following my performance, I was still on a slight high, so when the Captain announced that we were through the turbulence and we were no longer required to return to our seats, I placed the instrument on a convenient shelf …’

  ‘Don’t tell me it fell into the gogue, monsieur?’ ’

  ‘If by gogue you mean what I think you mean, Pamplemousse, the answer is no, more’s the pity. At least, with a press of the button, it would be at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by now and it might have saved a lot of trouble. In the event, what transpired was far worse.

  ‘I caught her inserting the wretched thing inside what passed for her culottes. As I mentioned earlier, it was the flimsiest garment I have ever seen; the kind of frilly object designed not so much to conceal, but rather to draw attention to that part of a lady’s anatomy known in polite circles as le duvet pubien. It is a wonder it didn’t fall out the other side.

  ‘Having slipped into her habit, she then asked me if I would mind rendering assistance.

  ‘I have to tell you, Aristide, as she bent over and presented me with a close up view of her derrière, the temp
tation to retrieve my mobile there and then was hard to resist, but chivalry won the day.

  ‘In my haste to oblige I had scarcely reached the halfway stage when my tie became enmeshed in the teeth of her zip fastener. Given that it happened to be a birthday present from Chantal, I must confess panic set in. You know what wives are like. If they have given you an item of clothing and for some reason you don’t wear it, they immediately take umbrage.’

  ‘Ties are the very worst,’ agreed Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Especially if they have given you two. Which ever one you wear they inevitably ask what was wrong with the other.’

  ‘It was, to say the least, a compromising situation, and the more I tugged, the worse it became. I could hardly call on the cabin staff, it would have stretched their credulity to breaking point. Fortunately, Maria reached into an inner pocket and, having produced a pair of scissors, suggested I used them to cut the end off, but only on one condition.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘I take her shopping and buy her a new outfit to replace the one that had been damaged.’

  The Director paused as he caught sight of the expression on Monsieur Pamplemousse’s face.

  ‘I know what you are thinking, Aristide, but it is easy to be wise after the event. I was desperate at the time.

  ‘I made arrangements there and then to meet her as soon possible after we got back to Paris.’

  ‘So, all was well in the end.’

  ‘It might have been, Aristide, had it not been for the fact that for the first time ever Chantal chose to meet me at the airport.’

  ‘I wonder what made her do that?’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse innocently.

  ‘I have been wondering the same thing,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘Unfortunately, my jacket was open. There are no prizes for guessing the first thing she noticed.’

  ‘On the whole,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘ladies do have an eye for these things.’

  ‘Chantal is certainly no exception,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘It was not a happy homecoming.’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘What did happen to the end?’

  ‘Maria asked if she could keep it as a souvenir,’ said Monsieur Leclercq.

  ‘Ah!’ said Monsieur Pampleousse. It was all he could think of for the moment.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘I wonder,’ ventured Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘do you think offering to take Maria out shopping might prove misguided in the long run?’

  ‘Wondering doesn’t enter into the calculation, Aristide,’ said Monsieur Leclercq with feeling. ‘It has already happened.

  ‘I suppose in my mind’s eye I pictured our meeting up at one of those small specialist shops which abound in the backstreets near the Bon Marché. However, in the event, her sights were fixed on higher things.

  ‘She told me that in view of the nature of her work she had been given special dispensation by the Vatican to wear the kind of garments that would allow her to mingle freely with those engaged in the world of international banking. With that in mind, she suggested we rendezvous at Christian Dior.’

  ‘Not the first name that springs to mind when one is thinking of buying ecclesiastical garments,’ agreed Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘It would be if you happened to be my wife,’ said the Director glumly. ‘There are times when I strongly suspect she has shares in Dior, along with various other establishments in the area. It is where she spends most of her time whenever she goes shopping.

  ‘That being so, it was almost inevitable that while Maria was viewing the current season’s offerings, I caught sight of Chantal attempting to back her car into an empty space on the far side of the Avenue Matignon.

  ‘Fortunately, parking does not come naturally to her at the best of times. Even from where I was standing, the gap was obviously a good ten centimetres less than the length of her car, so time was on my side.’

  ‘The female mind works in a totally different way to that of the male,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse sympathetically. ‘As I understand it, research shows they have different-shaped brains. It gives them the advantage over men in many respects, but not in others, parking being one of them.’

  ‘I am not in the least surprised to hear it,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘Their minds must be like the Place de la Concorde during the hour of affluence, with traffic going in all directions. Give Chantal a totally empty car park and she goes to pieces, driving round and round in ever decreasing circles asking me where she should leave it. Then she gets cross if I point out that she has control of the steering wheel.

  ‘On the other hand, make no mistake about it, Aristide, had we encountered each other in Christian Dior that morning there would have been no question as to who was in the driving seat.

  ‘Fearing that once she had found a suitable space she might head in our direction, I apprised Maria of the situation and suggested we make good our escape as quickly as possible. As I am sure you know, the House of Dior is a rabbit warren of interconnecting departments – a Heaven-sent arrangement in the circumstances – so we had no problem in that respect.

  ‘Half an hour later, following a somewhat circuitous route, I found myself in a maze of unfamiliar streets near the Odeon. To do Maria justice, as we were about to enter an establishment called Maison Felicity, purveyor of ultra-sexy garments for today’s sensual woman, she promised to return my mobile as soon as she had completed her purchases.’

  ‘When you say circuitous, monsieur …’

  The Director had the grace to look somewhat shamefaced.

  ‘I mean, not as an average crow with an intimate knowledge of Paris would choose to fly were it in a hurry,’ he said. ‘First of all we visited a jewellers in the rue St-Honoré … Maria had her eyes on something she had seen in their window … then we called in at Annick Goutal – a parfumerie in the Place St-Sulpice.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse couldn’t resist it. ‘Did you encounter many other nuns on your travels?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Pamplemousse,’ said the Director testily. ‘We did not. I must admit I was glad to reach the relative safety of Madame Felicity’s; a charming lady, most welcoming. She even offered me a glass of Roederer Crystal champagne while I was waiting.

  ‘Unfortunately, she had hardly finished pouring it when the worst happened. Maria happened to glance out of the window and thought she saw my wife approaching.’

  ‘Did Chantal see you, monsieur?’

  ‘She didn’t get the chance. Reacting with commendable promptitude, Maria bundled me into one of the changing rooms and advised me not to come out again until she had given the all clear.

  ‘I tell you something, Aristide; you have no idea of the things women talk about when they think no one of the opposite sex can overhear them. Technical details regarding other people’s anatomy, their lover’s, and in some cases that of their husband’s too. I was forced to listen while comparisons were made and the most intimate details exchanged, and having listened, I did not dare emerge for fear of what their reaction might be.’

  ‘A salutary experience, monsieur. You might have been scarred for life.’

  ‘While I was incarcerated,’ continued Monsieur Leclercq, ‘I started to run over various things in my mind. I hesitate to say it, but for one reason and another I began to wonder if perhaps Maria is as virtuous as she would have me believe. Could it be, I asked myself, that her own regard for chastity was on a par with the others I could hear talking?’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse stared at the Director. He never ceased to be amazed. There, on the one hand, stood a man of the world – a high-flyer in every sense of the word, always immaculately groomed: suits from André Bardot, ties from Marcel Lassance, handcrafted shoes from JW Weston, purveyors of footwear to successive presidents of France.

  In earlier times he would probably have spent his Sunday afternoons strolling in the Bois de Boulogne; the epitome of a well-dressed roué about town. While doing so, he might well have encountered one of Mar
ia’s forebears, an entraineuse plying for custom on horseback rather than from a seat in the first-class cabin of a jumbo jet.

  But clothes don’t necessarily make the man. On the other side of the coin, there were times when he ought not to be allowed out alone, and his journey back from America had been one of them.

  Part of the trouble was that he led a rarefied existence, so work-obsessed the simple pleasures of life passed him by. He wondered how long it was since Monsieur Leclercq had last seen a film other than on an aeroplane, or when he had taken an autobus or travelled on the Metro. He didn’t begin to know the meaning of the word streetwise.

  ‘Whatever makes you say that, monsieur?’ he ventured.

  ‘Little things, Pamplemousse,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘Not least being the fact that when I finally emerged from the changing room of my own accord, Maria was no longer to be seen. I thought things had gone very quiet. Madame Felicity was getting ready to close and had actually forgotten I was there.’

  ‘It is a pity you were not in Le Bon Marché, monsieur. I have it on good authority their changing rooms are equipped with telephones for the benefit of any customers who are in need of assistance. You could have called for help long before then.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Aristide, such cutting edge technology has yet to reach the 5th arrondissement.’

  ‘And your mobile?’

  ‘Maria had the grace to leave me a note. Not only that, but she made me a present of a new telephone. She said the old one had become irretrievably damaged …’

  ‘You must have been very relieved,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘It was a kind thought,’ agreed the Director. ‘Only marred, I might say, by the not inconsiderable bill from Madame Felicity, which was attached to the book of instructions.’