Dial M for Merde Page 2

  ‘You should be grateful to Valéry,’ she said, pedalling away as soon as I drew level with her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Valéry, my fiancé.’

  ‘He’s called Valéry?’ These poor French guys stuck with girls’ names, I thought. It’s no wonder they have to prove their virility by trying to shag every female they meet.

  ‘It’s a very traditional man’s name,’ Elodie said, swivelling in the saddle to glower at me, and swerving into the path of an oncoming bus. ‘A president’s name,’ she shouted above the hoot of panic from the bus driver.

  ‘Why should I be grateful to Valéry?’ I asked when she was back on track.

  ‘It was his credit card that hired your bike for you.’

  ‘He gave you his platinum card?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she said, bumping up on to the pavement to avoid a red light, and narrowly missing an old man who had chosen a bad time to totter out of a boulangerie. ‘He has lots of cards,’ she added, above the man’s yelp of terror.

  ‘I don’t want to insult your future husband, but is he crazy?’ I asked once we’d reached the safety of an empty side street.

  ‘No, he’s just very, very kind. He’s a total chou-chou. He’s lived his whole life in the cocoon of his family, and he works for a private bank, so he thinks that everyone in the world is rich and civilized. And I have no intention of – how do you say? – disabusing him.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Telling him he’s wrong. Well, not yet anyway.’ Her laughter filled the narrow street, and a young guy smoking at his apartment window waved down to her. Like many Parisian men, he probably thought that if a girl laughed within twenty yards of him, she wanted to sleep with him.

  ‘But Elodie, even you can’t be that cynical about marriage, surely?’

  ‘No? You know, the best marriages end in death.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bad marriages end in divorce, good ones in death. What’s to be positive about?’

  I must have looked shocked. Even tough-girl, business-school Elodie didn’t come out with statements like that very often.

  ‘It’s OK, Paul, I’m only joking. I love him. It’s just that I don’t really care about getting married. Well, not yet, anyway.’

  ‘So why are you marrying him?’

  ‘Aha, c’est ma surprise! Now come, you must teach me to dance.’

  3

  It took us a few goes to find a Vélib stand where we could return our bikes. The touristy areas down by the Seine were favourite dropping-off points and were all full, so we ended up parking them near the gare d’Austerlitz.

  As we walked towards the river, Elodie told me some more about this instant courtship of hers. She’d met the guy just weeks before and they were already engaged.

  ‘He’s called Valéry de Bonnepoire,’ she said proudly.

  ‘He sounds like a medieval princess. Er, prince,’ I corrected myself.

  ‘I suppose he is, a little. Except that he takes more cocaine. All the really chic men in Paris do, you know. And Valéry is très, très chic. He comes from a grande famille.’

  ‘Lots of brothers and sisters?’ I asked.

  ‘No, you imbecile. Well yes, he has five or six brothers or sisters or something, but no. A grande famille is one of the noble Catholic families of France. They have chateaux and horses and stuff. The private bank he works for is their private bank.’

  ‘So you’re not marrying him for his money, then?’

  ‘Quelle idée!’

  Pausing only to yell at a Vélibeur who failed to stop at a red light to let us cross the road, Elodie led me down to the river bank, where a group of firemen were unravelling hoses and testing for leaks. Several of the young, muscular guys stopped work to admire Elodie as she clip-clopped past on her low heels.

  ‘Vous allez danser?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Yes, but not with you,’ she answered, grinning, and took my arm.

  ‘Dance?’ I said nervously. Above the noise from the street, I could hear amplified music. Not very good music, either. A warbling voice and someone trying to drown a saxophonist.

  ‘Yes. I never learned to waltz,’ Elodie told me, ‘and you can be sure that the wedding party will begin with a waltz. You must help me to learn.’

  ‘There are waltz classes down by the river?’ I asked.

  ‘I hope so, yes.’

  The river bank here was wide, and people were sitting on lawns, benches and in small amphitheatres, chatting, picnicking or drinking wine they’d brought along. The setting sun was glinting off the churning wake of a river police speedboat, its crew of four out for an evening joyride. Flashbulbs were popping at them from the top deck of a glass-sided bateau mouche that was speeding its cargo of tourists back towards Notre Dame.

  ‘Up here,’ Elodie said, climbing a set of concrete steps towards the source of the warbling. I finally identified what sort of music it was, and the blood clotted in my veins.

  On a flat area overlooking the river, fifty or so people were doing the typically French dance that they call ‘le rock’. Couples, ranging in age from eighteen to fifty, were pirouetting, holding hands, pulling each other in and out, jiving to a soundtrack of old-school rock ’n’ roll, with a French crooner doing an impression of Elvis with a chronic sinus problem. I’d been outside France long enough to forget their lasting passion for this kind of music, which had caused me so much suffering when I’d lived here. The last time had been at an outdoor dance a lot like this one, when I’d been forced to grab my ex-girlfriend’s drunk dad and do ‘le rock’ with him to deter his attempt to molest an old lady in Breton folk costume. The memory still made me sweat.

  The music was pounding out of a stack of speakers clustered around a sculpture that looked like a giant TV aerial. A guy in a ‘Vive le rock’ T-shirt was crouching by the speakers checking cables.

  ‘Come, we will ask him,’ Elodie said, pulling me in a precarious zig-zag between the dancing couples. She bent down and shouted her question into the guy’s ear. He grimaced to show that he hadn’t understood. She shouted again, and his grimace turned into a look of complete bafflement. He shook his head and laughed.

  ‘Idiot!’ Elodie flounced away.

  ‘What did you ask him?’ I said when we were far enough away to hear each other.

  ‘To play a waltz, of course. They can’t listen to this stuff non-stop, can they?’

  ‘I think they can,’ I said. ‘They’re French.’

  Further along the river bank, a small audience of picknickers and passers-by were watching two couples swaying expertly to salsa.

  ‘This is no good.’ Elodie sighed and turned on her heel.

  ‘Why the rush to get married?’ I asked. ‘You’re not—?’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot, Paul. If there’s one thing I control in this world, it is my biology.’

  ‘But you’ve only known the guy, what …?’

  ‘Almost two months. Yes, it has been – what do you call it? – a whirlpool romance.’

  It sounded as though at least one of them had been sucked under like a rowing boat.

  ‘Who asked whom?’ I said.

  She looked offended. ‘Valéry asked me, of course.’

  ‘So it was eternal love at first sight?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t really care about getting married, but Valéry …’ She stopped herself and shook her head. She’d obviously been about to reveal something significant, but for once in her life, discretion won the day, and she smiled enigmatically. ‘All you need to know is that we’re getting married and I have to learn the waltz.’

  ‘And when is the wedding?’

  ‘Two weeks.’ Before I could even laugh, she went on. ‘You must be there.’

  ‘Well, thanks, I’d be delighted—’

  ‘At such short notice, I’ll never find another caterer.’

  It turned out that Elodie had already discussed the matter with her father, Jean-Marie Martin, the co-owner of my Englis
h tea room in the office district near the Champs-Elysées. The last time I’d seen father and daughter together, Elodie had been furiously lobbing fruit at Jean-Marie’s expensive suit, but family harmony had obviously been restored, because Papa had promised to do everything he could to help with the wedding. Or rather, everything I could. The tea room was managed by Elodie’s brother, Benoit, and the two men of the Martin family had apparently decided that as I was due back from California, I was the ideal candidate for the task of ordering several tons of luxury food for the party, thereby eliminating the need for a costly catering service.

  ‘Ah, this looks promising.’ Elodie gave me no time to recover my breath as she dragged me towards another of the little riverside amphitheatres, where a small amplifier was broadcasting weird accordion/orchestra music with no discernible rhythm at all. Half a dozen couples, their cheeks pressed together, were shuffling around, deep in concentration.

  ‘Perfect,’ Elodie declared.

  ‘But is it a waltz?’ It was impossible to tell.

  ‘Who cares?’

  We climbed down the steps into the amphitheatre and Elodie gripped my waist, waiting for me to take the lead. But I have never learned to waltz, and was afraid that the only place I’d lead her was into the river.

  ‘Paul!’ Elodie was impatient. There was no escape. I took a few tentative steps, and we both recited ‘one two three, one two three’, trying to ignore the fact that our counting in no way matched whatever rhythm the music was trying to achieve. I found that I got into the dance surprisingly quickly, doing two steps and then having a quick rest on three while I decided where to go next.

  ‘One two left, one two right, one two over there,’ I told her. ‘One two watch out, one two oops, one two excusez-moi, Madame,’ and so on.

  Elodie relaxed and began to enjoy herself. ‘What about you, Paul? No marriage in two weeks for you?’ she asked.

  ‘One two no,’ I answered.

  ‘You must have had some fun out in California, though. You were famous, right?’

  ‘One two kind of,’ I admitted.

  I’d spent the last few months having my legs photographed. By a freak accident, I (and my knees) had become known for wearing a kilt, and we’d done several photo campaigns and TV ads selling, amongst other things, jogging shoes, socks and – thanks to computer wizardry, I must stress – depilatory cream.

  I’d achieved that level of fame where you spend a lot of time travelling in taxis you don’t have to pay for, where you get into nightclubs without waiting, and the people there think everything you say is fascinating and are quite keen to sleep with you. The Californian girls I met, though, were thinking about their careers even in mid-orgasm, and weren’t looking for a lasting relationship with anyone less important than an assistant director.

  ‘One two, there was, one girl – oops.’ We hammered into a couple who until then had had their cheeks and upper bodies welded together. Now they were separated at the hip and staring furiously at us.

  ‘Mais qu’est-ce que vous foutez?’ the man demanded, an old guy in a black suit and slim tie. What the hell were we up to?

  ‘Je ne sais pas,’ I told him honestly.

  ‘What is zees one two, one two?’ his partner demanded, a woman with hair dyed as black as wet tarmac.

  ‘We are doing a waltz,’ Elodie told her.

  ‘Ici, c’est le tong-go,’ the guy said. The tango.

  ‘And what about them? Are they doing the tong-go?’ Elodie pointed at a couple who were simply swaying and snogging.

  ‘At least zey do not say ze one two, one two. C’est pas le tong-go, ça.’ The woman’s painted-on eyebrows shivered indignantly.

  ‘This is a public park. We have the right to count as loud as we want. Just watch!’ Elodie held out her arms defiantly, waiting for me to lead her in another of our imitation waltzes, but I took her hand and led her away.

  ‘Come on,’ I told her. ‘If you lend me some money I’ll buy you a drink.’

  4

  ‘So who is this Californian girl who is so important that she makes you forget how to count up to three?’ Elodie asked.

  We had taken another Vélib and ridden to a crowded café terrace at Odéon. Elodie had ordered two glasses of champagne to celebrate our reunion, and the bubbles were reminding me how good it felt to be back in Paris.

  ‘She’s not Californian, she’s English. We met once in Las Vegas, and then again at Venice Beach, just after you had that fruit fight with your dad.’

  ‘And who is she?’ Elodie wasn’t going to let the memory of the family dispute distract her from the prospect of gossip to be had.

  ‘An ocean ecologist.’

  ‘A hippy? Does she shave her legs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And her—?’

  ‘None of your business, Elodie.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Gloria, but her surname’s Monday, so people call her M.’

  ‘M?’

  ‘Yes, like James Bond’s boss.’

  ‘I hope she is younger and more beautiful than James Bond’s boss.’

  I smiled, remembering how I’d last seen M – her body golden in the dawn light of a hotel-room window, her warm, Mediterranean-blue eyes expressing all the fun we’d had since we’d met on the beach about twelve hours earlier, her hair still ruffled from the night as she kissed me goodbye and told me to call her as soon as I got back to Europe.

  ‘And what happened?’ Elodie ploughed on.

  ‘We spent one night together before she had to come back to London. That was three or four months ago, before the summer.’

  ‘Do you have her phone number?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So call her now. Why wait?’

  I hesitated. There are a million reasons not to call someone you once had a fling with while you were both a very long way from everyday life.

  ‘Do it now,’ Elodie insisted.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look, there’s an empty call box. Go over there for some privacy if you want.’

  ‘I’ll call her later.’

  ‘Do it now. Now!’ This was typical Elodie. Her time at business school had turned her from bullish into a bulldozer.

  I sighed and reached for my phone. With her in this mood, resistance was useless.

  ‘M? It’s Paul. Paul from Venice Beach?’

  I said it as a question, casually, as if two cosmopolitan people like us might forget a night of sex in California.

  ‘Paul. You’re back in Europe?’ Her voice was as warm as I remembered it. She sounded pleased to hear from me.

  ‘Yeah, in Paris.’ No need to say it was my first day back. I didn’t want to look desperate. ‘You in London?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you up to?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, the usual, you know. The ocean isn’t getting any healthier. Things need to be cleaned up.’ She laughed, as if this was a private joke. ‘I’m coming to France for work, as it happens.’

  ‘Yeah? Maybe we could hook up?’

  ‘Sure. I have to go to the south coast. Collioure, down by the Spanish border. Do you want to come with me?’ Which was the trigger for my aforementioned fantasies about chilled rosé, a yacht and a sunbathing girl.

  ‘Great,’ I said.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, as if she was surprised I’d accepted. ‘I can’t pay you.’

  ‘Pay me? What on earth do you want me to do for you?’

  ‘Ah, sorry, I thought …’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

  ‘I’m not looking for a job,’ I told her. ‘So I wouldn’t expect anything in return for helping you out. Well …’

  She laughed, and we were both teleported back to that hot night in Los Angeles. The pleasure was clearly mutual.

  ‘Alors?’ Elodie had finished her glass of champagne while I’d been phoning, and her eyes were bright with alcohol and expectation.

  ‘Does Valéry love you very, very much?’ I asked.


  ‘Yes, he’s crazy for me. Why?’ She looked apprehensive.

  ‘Well, do you reckon he’d mind if we went back to your place right now?’

  ‘What?’ Elodie blushed, an event that probably happens less frequently than the creation of a planet hosting intelligent carbon-based life forms.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t wait,’ I told her.

  ‘Paul,’ she whispered, ‘this passion is very un-English of you.’

  ‘I know. Do you think Valéry would understand if we went online straight away and used his platinum card to book me a plane ticket?’

  M’S THE WORD

  Collioure

  1

  Collioure is since always the inspiration of artistes who was inspired by her celebratted tour and the colourful life of the fisher’s boat’s activities thanks to the anchovies, and the sun. Here is the reason for the painters to be mounting their easel in Collioure since one century or plus already.

  THE WEBSITE had obviously been translated by a French person who got the job because they once managed to understand the ingredients on an imported ketchup label. But after a couple of glasses of honey-coloured rosé, it started to make sense, and I was able to deduce two things about the town where M had invited me to join her.

  One, judging by the photos, it had a church belltower shaped like a giant willy.

  And two, it was where the painters Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism.

  Fauve was translated as ‘big cat’, but French artists have always taken themselves very seriously, so Matisse and co. were probably thinking more along the lines of a lion or tiger than a large tabby. The paintings on the website were impressionistic landscapes of primary-coloured blobs. The painters had clearly decided that they were doing something very wild – throwing away their black paint and capturing Collioure’s colours in their most primeval form.

  The site said that in the summer of 1905, Matisse and Derain produced 242 paintings there. By my reckoning, that had to make Collioure one of the most frequently painted locations in all of French art, on a par with the Moulin Rouge, Monet’s lily pond and Madame Renoir’s thighs.