Dial M for Merde (18 page)

‘OK,' I said.

I went to join Elodie and Moo-Moo, apologizing for my impoliteness.

‘I hope, Monsieur, that you are not one of those terrible people who answer their telephone every five minutes,' Moo-Moo said.

I thought it was lucky she didn't know that I was one of those terrible people whose girlfriends plot to kill the President.

‘I am very sorry,' I said again. ‘It was a client. I am the traiteur for a big wedding in England next month.'

Elodie almost squealed at this ridiculous lie.

‘Ah, yes, which wedding?' Moo-Moo asked. Being a socialite, she wanted names, of course.

‘Er, it is for a duke.'

‘Which duke?'

‘Oh, not a very famous duke.'

By now Elodie was preparing to leap off the balcony.

‘We know some dukes,' Moo-Moo said.

Of course you do, you snooty cow, I thought. Why couldn't I have said it was for a millionaire plastic-cutlery manufacturer? Then she'd have been too snobbish to ask for details.

‘He says that his name must be a secret.'

‘Ah.' Apparently I'd come up with the right answer. ‘English nobles know how to be discreet.' Moo-Moo nodded approvingly, and I realized how much the French haute bourgeoisie idolized English aristocrats.

‘Anyway, the duke has given me a fantastic idea for Valéry's wedding,' I said, congratulating myself for seguing so smoothly into the key subject for discussion.

‘We wouldn't want a second-hand idea,' Moo-Moo cut me off immediately. ‘Even if it is for a noble English family.'

‘Ah no, I am thinking that you must have the opposite idea,' I added quickly. ‘A unique idea.'
Une idée unique.
I relished the sound of the phrase, mainly because I was so pleased that I was finally getting a chance to talk about my plans. Something positive to think about instead of all the police merde.

‘Yes?' Moo-Moo asked, deigning to look almost curious.

‘Local food,' I announced grandly. I still hadn't found out how you say ‘carbon-neutral' in French. If they even had a word for it.

‘Comment?' Moo-Moo looked and sounded under-whelmed. I wondered why. What better meal could there be than a succession of freshly picked, caught and cooked dishes from the South of France? Perhaps, I realized, I hadn't been explicit enough. It might have sounded to her French ears like suggesting a pizza party to a Neapolitan.

‘Imagine an entrée of Collioure anchois marinés,' I said, feeling my mouth beginning to water. ‘And vegetables of the season roasted in local olive oil.' My stomach pitched in with a loud grumble to remind me that nothing more solid than a piece of chewing gum had passed my lips since breakfast. ‘An immense barbecue of fresh sea bream, cooked with local herbs and lemons from Menton. With this, we will serve a rosé, maybe from the île des Embiez …'

Moo-Moo cut me off again. ‘Monsieur.' She flapped an arm across the vineyards towards the sea. ‘We produce our own wine.'

‘Encore mieux,' I said. Even better. ‘We will serve your wine. With rice from the Camargue.'

‘We have our own rice fields there,' she couldn't resist saying.

‘Perfect.' Her snootiness was driving her into my trap. ‘Don't you see, Madame, it will be a banquet that will be in harmony with your family, with the region, and ecology.'

‘Ecology?' It seemed I'd said a naughty word.

‘He doesn't mean the Ecology Party,' Elodie chipped in. ‘In France, Paul, ecologists are seen as people with big moustaches who think that all cars must run on sunflower oil.' She turned to Moo-Moo again. ‘What he means is that the food will come from nearby, so it will be fresh and seasonal. There will, of course, be champagne and amuse-bouches, won't there, Paul?' she prompted.

‘Of course,' I conceded. ‘The best champagne, with tapenade on toast grilled on the wood fire, small goat's cheeses marinated in olive oil. And for the pièce de résistance—'

‘No, no, no.' Moo-Moo was shaking her head, her hands and large areas of the rest of her body in an all-over
negative. ‘Food, food, nothing but food. You think only of the pleasures of the mouth.' She shivered, and even managed to look almost sexy for once, because it is impossible for a French woman to say ‘plaisirs de la bouche' without performing a spectacular pout. ‘What about the tables?'

‘The tables?' I asked.

‘Yes, at the wedding of my niece Bénédicte, there was a terrible problem with the tables.' Moo-Moo trembled again.

‘Ah yes?' Now that I thought about it, Valéry had mentioned this. ‘Well, we will have excellent tables,' I promised. ‘Uh, very solid tables, round tables?' I trod one step at a time into this unknown world of terrible tables. ‘With, on top, white, uh …?' I turned to Elodie.

‘Nappes?' she said. Tablecloths.

‘Yes, with white nappes.'

‘It is not the colour of the tablecloths that concerns me, Monsieur.'

‘No?'

‘No. And if you don't even know the problem with the tables, how can you possibly organize everything in such a short time?' She raised her face to the skies as if she expected a team of angelic delivery men to descend with perfect dining-room furniture.

Before I could ask Moo-Moo or Elodie for more information, a double diversion came out on to the terrace.

First, sweet Sixtine, carrying a small tray with a large cup of coffee and – clever girl – a plate of madeleines – egg-shaped sponge cakes. I was reassured to see that, like me, she was forced to swerve her way through the scrum of kids.

‘Ah, merci, you are like the angels in the chapel with your
name,' I said, earning a blush from Sixtine and a warning cough from Elodie.

Sixtine put the tray on the stone parapet and looked inclined to hang around, but Moo-Moo dismissed her with a pointed ‘Merci, Sixtine.'

The second interruption was a guy who looked like a blend of uncles Babou and Mimi, except that he was even more spindly, and his hair was much longer. Instead of being parted on one side and combed across the head, his grey locks were brushed straight back, and stuck out over his ears as if he had grown wings out of the sides of his skull.

‘I'm going to the golf club,' he announced to Moo-Moo. ‘Ah.' He noticed me and introduced himself as François-Louis de Bonnepoire, Valéry's father. So this was Dadou, the banker and diplomat. I shook his limp hand.

‘Golf?' Moo-Moo echoed. ‘Ever since Babou and Mimi started playing, you have been going to that club at every opportunity. But you never play. I don't understand your interest in the place.'

‘Come.' Elodie pulled me away. I grabbed my tray and allowed myself to be led to the far end of the terrace, where there was a Roman fountain, with a gaping sun god spouting water into a giant stone clamshell.

‘Hang on,' I said, looking back at the bickering couple. ‘Valéry's dad is one of the Bonnepoire brothers, right? So where does Moo-Moo fit in? Surely he didn't marry his first cousin, or his sister?'

‘Stop staring, Paul, please,' she said. ‘No. That is what is so shocking. Moo-Moo is only a pièce rapportée.'

‘A what?'

‘Moo-Moo is like me, or like I will be. She is not of the
family. She is only the wife of a Bonnepoire. She was the local doctor's daughter.'

‘So how come she's so snobbish towards you?'

‘You know, it's like what they say about immigrants. The newest ones are the most racist. She could be an ally to Valéry, but she prefers to lick the ass of Bonne Maman and go for the big inheritance. You know, even this house, it isn't hers and Dadou's yet. It belongs a hundred per cent to the old bitch.'

This shed a whole new light on Moo-Moo's holier-than-thou attitude.

‘And what was all that about the tables?' I asked.

‘I don't know. We must ask Valéry. If he ever comes back from Saint Trop. Ah, look.' Elodie nudged me. ‘The coast is clear.'

Dadou was leaving the terrace, walking in a way that could only be called a mince. His shoulders and small buttocks were performing a wiggling dance of irritation, while his hands were flapping the various children out of his way. No, I told myself, you're being stupid. Six children, staunch Catholic? There was no way he could be gay.

 

While Elodie cruised the lounge doing PR, I went outside. Beyond the car park, I'd seen what looked like a vegetable plot and a small orchard. I was hoping to find enough ripe vitamins there to keep me alive for the afternoon.

Away from the cloying family atmosphere, it was a glorious day. The sky was an arc of pure blue, sweeping from the inland background of softly rounded hills to the seaward horizon of misted crystal. The small vegetable plot was divided up by tiny knee-high rosemary hedges so that it looked like a classical French garden, with beans, lettuces and tomatoes instead of royal rose beds. In one corner was
a row of beehives, set between a stand of olive trees and a huge fig tree.

I could see no sign of a gardener, so I helped myself to a few cherry tomatoes and then headed for the trees. The olives smelt heady, and even though they hadn't been doused in oil or brine, I figured that they might be worth a nibble. I reached up into the silvery branches and began feeling for a ripe one.

‘Paul!'

I turned to see Valéry standing up in his Mercedes sports car. Or rather, standing on it. He appeared to be perched on the boot.

‘What are you doing?' he called out, laughing manically.

‘Just admiring the garden. Sorry, the park.'

‘What? Wait.' He leapt down from the car and came hurdling across the rosemary hedges. He screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust and squinted at me through the olive leaves.

‘How did it go with Bonne Maman and Moo-Moo? Uh? Have you talked about the marriage? And the food? Have you talked about the food? Uh? What food have you suggested? Olives? Ha!' He cackled at the olives as if they'd just made fools of themselves. ‘Moo-Moo, she's terrible, no? And you have met my papa also, yes? You know he is gay, no? He goes to the golf club to screw one of the gardeners. Funny, isn't it, no? Yes? Ha!'

Wow, I thought, if the leather-jacketed cop searched Valéry's nostrils, he'd probably find enough powder up there to charge him with wholesaling the stuff.

‘Listen to me, Valéry.' I grabbed his wrists to try and focus his attention. ‘Have you just been to town to buy some coke?'

‘What? You know?' He looked around as if to pinpoint the person who'd ratted on him.

‘Yes, it's a bit obvious.'

‘Well, it's the only way I can support my family,' he said, mournfully quiet for a second.

‘Support them?' So he did it for the money? He was a dealer? No wonder the cops were after him. ‘What about your job at the bank?' I asked. I would have thought that would give him ample income.

‘Oh, I never take it at the bank,' he said. ‘Except maybe on a Friday afternoon. Ha!' He was back in manic mode again. ‘What are you doing? Selecting olives for the marriage?'

‘No, I'm hungry, if you must know,' I confessed. ‘I was looking for things to nibble on.'

‘Food? Oh, I will make you a meal. What do you want? A sandwich? Some ham? No, eggs! I will make an omelette. A big omelette with ham, yes? A giant one?'

He was growing so excited about the idea that I thought I'd better agree before he had an orgasm in the middle of the vegetable patch.

‘Wait here!' He steeplechased into the house.

Doubting that I would ever see the omelette, I returned to inspecting the olives. They were hard, but some were black and shiny, and seemed to be crying out for a set of teeth to free all the smooth oil within.

I picked a likely looking one, bit into its flesh, and promptly spat it out again. How could something so sumptuous when marinated be so disgustingly bitter and woody? And what ancient tribe had been mad enough to crush such revolting fruit and expect rich, tasty oil to flow out?

‘I see you do not appreciate our olives, Monsieur.'

It was Bonne Maman, who had come outside armed with a pair of vicious-looking secateurs. Not, I hoped, to attack
olive poachers. She was smiling at me from under a wide-brimmed straw hat.

‘In England, we don't have olive trees,' I explained.

‘There are many things you do not have in England. And yet you think you can be the traiteur for a French wedding?' She gave a sabre-like flourish of her secateurs. Touché.

‘Ah, but I have a salon de thé in Paris,' I said, ‘near the Champs-Elysées. And my French clients are very happy.'

‘Hmm.' She was thinking this over when I saw Valéry reappear in the car park behind her. He was waving a frying pan in the air.

‘Two eggs? Three? Four?' he shouted.

Looking in the opposite direction to lead Bonne Maman off the scent of her crazed grandson, I held up a hand and made a V sign.

‘Two? OK, two!' Valéry yelled, but by the time his grandmother had turned around, he had hurtled back indoors again.

‘It was just some of the children,' I said, in answer to her look of enquiry.

‘Ah. Yes, there are many things you do not have in England,' the little old lady said, ‘but one thing you understand is class, n'est-ce pas?'

‘Class?' I wasn't sure I did understand. Working in London, I'd found that loudness of voice and size of salary counted for much more than family background.

‘Yes, origins,' Bonne Maman went on. ‘You know who planted this olive tree? My husband. We have roots here. My husband bought the bastide during the Second World War. It was a ruin, but this was the unoccupied zone, so he moved his family down from Paris to safety. It was our refuge.' She made the place sound like a back-garden bomb
shelter. ‘He planted the vines, too, and insisted that we always have a vegetable garden. And around our estate in the Camargue, he bought rice fields and cattle. He wanted to protect his family from the dangers of history.'