“How absolutely farcically adorable it is to see you again Phyllis!”

Every year about this time the mothers of the disappeared make such bare assed phone calls; not at all the polite over the pond type that ask sheepishly “if it would be all right?” or “not wanting to put on you Rod, baa, baa..”  No, these are cellphones and they stand there brazenly on your freshly scrubbed doorstep. Words would actually fail if I were asked to relate the ten days or so I recently spent trying to avoid this year’s fearless pair of cut price spring breakers at my expense. This year intrepid explorer Phyllis MacFarlane visits the remote village of Les Couillons and is adopted by a proud people who inhabit a world of home improvement, cats and ritual self-sacrifice. Fortunately for you, Phyllis and the truly dreadful Teddy left an indelible reminder of their misadventures on a Curry County message board and I give it to you freely and in full…

“We arrived in the uniformly strange and rather dilapidated, but, as they keep saying, quite lovely village of Les Couillons rather early this morning and found the teensy house that our dear friend Rodney had recommended quite easily. We also found ourselves rather unnervingly in a place where the streets have no name. We had seen the website of course and had been more than a little intrigued by the description of the property: ‘'Constructed in the trapeze fashion with an expanded backside!’' Expanded backside my eye, and here we are. Towards sundown after intermittent napping, what is it about roaring power tools, barking doggies running to stand still around here? Ted suggested that since Rod was typically indisposed, we should go out for dinner and see a movie. More like let’s download a movie before popping out for a bite to eat. The wifi connection seemed to have plenty of bandwidth and he had his laptop hooked up and already perusing The Pirate Bay (proxy, trans.) top 100.

This is not our first trip to France so we were prepared to do a bit of shopping around before finding a suitable restaurant, you see poor Ted is a vegetarian and doesn’t care much for Phish. He also stated more than once in his autobiography – Ted the Dead-Head – that he did not expect to share the same plate with an omelet again as long as he lived. Here though we anticipated no difficulty in finding some of that fabulous Mediterranean food, the stuff that diets are made of; marinated goat’s cheese and real sun ripened tomatoes, ratatouille, even a more exotic fruity tajine would do just fine. This was also the season for wild mushrooms, gorgeous juicy figs, hot potato pongs and of course roast chestnuts.

As for the movie, for some strange reason he had settled on “Beyond The Valley of the Dolls,” but it was coming down nicely anyway. We felt all cosy and safe from the ire of the copyright holders. Tucked away here in deepest Provence, the only time you might get into a bit of a fluster is if you were dopey enough to télécharge Johnny Halliday or his kidney. No, I mean ilk. Whatever. Rodney had told us, among other more curious things that there were ‘shed loads’ of eating places in this tiny town and we had already checked out Couillons-tourism.com. No less than eleven, with all but two in very easy walking distance, so with mouths already watering off we set.

We began down by the little river at the Hotel des Maures, Borellos! Not much information on the site and their link was broken, but “Cuisine Provencal” was a good enough start. I was drawn in by the Tarte Maison, forty thousand headmen could not have restrained Ted, but in the end anchovies, piggies and moo-cows were more persuasive. I found out much later that an omelet aux champignons had always been a more less compulsory appetizer at this establishment and not only were the mushrooms of the canned variety but the eggs were supplied very cheaply by a man called Didier, who Rod does not seem to care very much for. Is Didier really a name anyway?

It was with some trepidation that we ventured into the the Bar de la Mairie. Bar, restaurant, smoke store and reputedly a house of ill repute, although Rodney had mentioned that ‘King’ Ludo was not as bad as his choice of shirts and baseball caps would lead you to believe and his paladin Magnetto was a charm boat.

After ten minutes or so of being unceremoniously ignored we were told that the restaurant was only open at lunchtime, so we hopped across the street to the rather posh looking “Un Air de Rien.” Just a tapas bar though really, all spicy sausages and tortillas, omelets by any other name. You do know what an omelet is don't you, as I seem to be mentioning them rather a lot? We did stay for a drink or two though. Julian the owner was such a sweet and decent egg himself, sooh! attentive, I really think he should rename his place The Dewdrop Inn, or better, The Dude Drop In, that would be even sweeter.

Not unduly discouraged, in fact buoyed a little by Lucien’s lovely wine we strolled the fifty or so yards to the Farigoulette, which looked like a miniature Redhill mining town: absolutely stunning, almost completely smothered in a glorious Virginia creeper and several beautifully hand-written chalk menu boards. Now this was more like it. Not so much for the herbivore however, unless Ted was to stick to the puddings. The chef Franck did kindly propose some Hot Tuna, why do people always think vegetarians eat fish? His wife Karine was a doll and would not hear of us leaving without an appetizer as it was still quite early. She produced a half emptied bottle of Guignorix, a power packed cherry liqueur, from her husband’s secret cubbyhole in the kitchen and would not let us go until the bottle was finished. Before leaving I asked Corinne what the word farigoulette actually meant, but she had no idea.

“We’re not from round here," she explained, “we just pay the rent, I think it’s just the name of the shop”.

Francis was looking decidedly peeved.

A little later we found ourselves standing forlornly outside La Petite Fontaine, where, we had been assured by Francois that we would find our bonheur. Cuisine provençale again, but this time recommended by nombreux guides, including Gault & Millau and Gantié no less. Their specialties were onion tart, local goose cheese and red peppers marinated in olive oil and farigoulette, the local name for thyme. Eureka! It was closed, which is probably a good thing because looking around we find that they don’t do major credit cards and I doubt they give receipts, but I’m sure it’s all quite legitimate.

The immediately adjacent and gaudily decorated Terrasse Provençal was packed to bursting, taking shameless advantage of their neighbor’s annual vacation to feed what sounded like, well I may be from New Mexico but I know something about eating meat and thumping tables. I’m not sure why, but I also know what a Welsh rugby team sounds like. So I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

So wearily onward, a little further up the street we found the recently opened “Gourmandy’z”, their link was also a 404, so all we had to go on was an interesting variation of the cuisine thing, this time it was traditionelle. They should really have called it Wackjob’z, the menu being an arbitrary mix of international fare; baked Camembert with a banana sauce for example does, I suppose, warrant a great big V sign but vegetarians are notoriously unadventurous – isn’t that so Ted? Even I would have to pass on the tonno bonno with chorizo. Bone for tuna. It did have, thankfully, a traditional Spanish tapas bar attached as well. Two of those in one small French village, odderer and odderer, still, with or without you Teddy boy, may as well have a few more drinks.

It was now fully nine ‘o clock and staggering slightly, hopefully homeward bound, we stumbled upon another little place. Trying to decipher the menu in the failing light and arguing briefly about what day it was, for here they had a completely different menu for every day of the week, but closed on Wednesdays and weekends. We at last settled for the beetroot vinaigrette, aioli with its springlike vegetables, a Proustian cake and ice-cream, yum. We had found the menu but there didn’t seem to be any kind of restaurant, how could this be? We tried a few doors and looked in a few alleyways, nothing, until a woman tugging a rather smelly cocker spaniel by a long piece of string came to our assistance. She turned out to be British and Gordon Bennett! How do those people do it? She was all in a twitter and didn’t even bat one of her snooty eyelids when she told us it was the elementary school cafeteria and judging by our condition we wouldn’t like it anyway because they are rumored to water down the wine for the 3-11 year-olds. She did though point us in the right direction home – even accompanied us for some of the way – until we made our excuses and a quick exit. That dog really did stink.

I recalled in my tipsiness having seen a pizza to go flyer somewhere in the house and agreed to call the order while Ted checked on the download. The ‘phone was ringing and I was wondering just how this man Goertzy could possibly make pizzas in a wood-burning oven in his little van on the gas station forecourt!

It took the best part of thirty years of marriage for me to realize that I didn’'t understand my husband, but we had been watching this film for a mere twelve minutes and thirty-eight seconds before I noticed that it was in Spanish and I understood even less. So far then it’'s no dinner and not really a movie for me and the ‘'phone was still ringing…..

"Allo Pizza!”

At last.

“Hi Fella! Deux calzone mit extra formaggio, keine fliesch und molto capers por favor.”

How well do I speak French after a few Drinks?

Geortz was all apologies, really polite, but why did I not know that it was Wednesday and that French people do not work on this day? Children do not even go to school!  "Speak to me to my face if you will, for my ears are no longer working." He had worked also both the public holidays in July and August last year and must now take the month of April to rest. Ordering a pizza at half past nine on such a night should be punishable by law. “Even dough boys have rights don’t you know”?

Well if he doesn’t sell pizzas and he patently does not, if he is mild-mannered and quite incoherent on the telephone, this surely begs the question, what exactly does he cook in there. Shake and bake?

Just over twelve hours in this odd little burg nor any bite to eat, though rummaging about in the larder I have just found a pack or two of Jiminy Cricket Brand super yum-yum chicken flavored instant noodles, Ted’s favorite. Also a bottle of schnapps just for me.

More posts in a day or two.

Phyllis.

There were indeed more posts, try this one, crazy-assed hoe, for sure for sure…..

Ted and Rodney have now been locked in a basement for a little over 36 hours, trying to tweak a dual boot of Slackware 3.1 and Minix. Bullet the blue sky lads, the only lilo configuration that interests me is the inflatable kind, on the beach. We have even been blessed with the most extraordinary fine weather due to a massive anti-cyclone over western Europe which much to Rodney’s ravishment stops dead at the Belgian border. I am making the daily hazardous trip from Les Couillons to Le Lavandou over a one tree hill to bronze my glorious butt on a broad fat and virtually empty sandy beach. The route is so remote that some days you might only see a couple of dickheads (cyclists) slide by with a band of dogs. But the journey is not unachievable – all you need is a sturdy moped, a knack for light packing and a sense of adventure to make this the trip of a lifetime and return with an oversize gallon jar of equally fabulous rose wine, served petrol pump style from a brilliant vineyard that I pass on the way.

This is paradise, the gadda da vida. I had grave doubts however about the emblazoned scrawl on the back of my borrowed leather motorcycle jacket: TIBSA “The Idiot Bastard Sons of Anarchy”. This is some club that Rod has recently joined, a kind of existentialist stroke nihilist association of middle-aged and world weary gentlemen who know that the world is so monumentally rucked up that they just don't give a hooey about anything any more.  He told me quite seriously and in that funny voice of his, “I am the Sheriff, of that there can be no doubt but as for space, time and motion, they are mere suppositions and life itself is but an ‘'allucination”.

He and his dinky friend Steve seem more like naughty little boys just trying it on, seeing what they can get away with. Sounds like fun, sure, but he’s not getting any younger and he’s trapped underground with my husband. We love the man, always have, but the low spark of these moped boys? Men in suits can buy proper cars you know Rod.

Anyway, enough of that. Good morning, this is your strawberry alarm clock speaking and I’d like to purchase a chicken please. We have settled right down to the kind of a bready cheesy and wino routine that would make the folks back home in Curry County chunder. What is it now, you great pillock? Ten pints of sun warmed rose a night for three, cheese that smells like Hank Baskett’s armpits and bread that you can actually break. We’re good, me Teddy and Rod, very good. Ah, certainly sir, some stuffing? Awesome actually. Back and forth, back and forth, five liters a day the well balanced way. Unsustainable is not one of my favorite words, but the boys are right, bright pink and perpetually blotto is not the place for me to be right now.

My recorder is on the table. I’m unable to reach it at this time. I can only hope that I inadvertently pressed the voice activation button. I’m lying on the floor of my room. I’ve been shot. Just kidding folks, Ted has just got his laptop all sorted out; all this way for a dual boot? Trip through your wires husband! What’s wrong with the friendly old IRC channel? Use your own, you great poofy poonagger.

Rodney, ever the diploma, cut at last to the cheese:

”F@#K! off back to Clovis and leave me alone.”

The trail narrows, I'm close, but the last few steps are always the darkest and most difficult. Tough titties if they weren't, you nasty spotted prancer.

Phyllis.

For the record, there are one or two things that I feel I must comment on: firstly, that figs, chestnuts and wild mushrooms are neither in season nor available here in April. Secondly that during their brief and unwelcome visit, I saw no signs of temperate sunshine, it rained the whole time in fact. Oh yes, I did not see Ted more than once, in passing and of course I believe he was running Slackware Current, single boot. Such a sensible man, what the hell is Minnix?

Rodney.

CHAPTER 7

OF THE DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN RODNEY AND HIS SQUIRE TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS.

Believe it or not, Steve quite wrongly of course,  had attributed to me the coining of the crudely amusing axiom:

“If an Englishman’s home is his castle, An American’s is his hassle.”

He  resolved to take immediate remedial action. It sounded much more like a half-baked  and ridiculous fortune cookie to me and I told him so.

"You are destined to become a lily livered thicko in the department of foliage control."

By further strange coincidence he claimed to have partially unravelled the famous Da Selbi Code (sic). He meant of course O’’Nolan's De Selby Codex:

'a collection of some 2000 sheets of foolscap closely handwritten on both sides, the signal distinction of the manuscript being that no one word of the writing is legible.'

“Da Selbi has some interesting things to say on the subject of houses.” Steve told me excitably. “A House, he regards, like JavaScript or insurance, as a necessary evil. The softening and degeneration of the human race he attributes to the progressive predilection for interiors and waning interest in the art of going out and staying there.”

With this in mind, Steve had elected his estival domicile in a fallen and naturally hollowed out sweet chestnut stump. A hobbit hole in Maurin’s garden. Here he planned to sleep, smoke, drink and idle away the summer months. His cosy little chez-moi would serve too as an out sized ashtray, spittoon and, I have no doubt, a stinking pissoir.

Steve himself should really be credited with the brilliant invention of the folding and portable all-weather cigarette-rolling booth, as I know in his modesty he would dismiss this ingeniously designed contraption as just a flabby cardboard box with a big wide two-handed slit and a pair of eye holes. Cardboard indeed!

He was right though about remaining outdoors, mother nature shows her boldest beauty around these sumptuous green valleys and mountainsides; dense, unfathomed and wildly majestic! What is all this pride in second floor apartments with bags of charm or rickety houses with loads of ornaments supplied? Unpleasing, tasteless, ridiculous expense compared with mother's strange magnificence. Interiors seldom change and never without a coat of paint or a trip to IKEA. The outside is a forever changing conundrum, but however much you try to change it, with those excavators, chain-saws or boxes of matches, it will in the end revert to type, adapt to the seasons and the whims of creeping mother nature. Even if you sit and arse around the house all day, like a short-sighted gink.

Then at last it dawned on me,  Steve had been looking at me funny, the sun was up. Tammy’s back!

"Go on say it Steve!"

"Tammy’s back Rodney."

Shit! It had been so long that I had easily managed to forget all about her, but now I was taunting him, what was stopping me from doing a little ce, pointing at him, prodding nastily and making him blush some more? That Tammy actually was back was the bad news, the really great news though, Steve told me with a lopsided grin, was that her delayed return had been due to completing a brand new and original comeback album of obscure Country and Western songs, in French! It had already gone platinum in Canada with a couple of singles riding high in the charts “Bras de scratch, coeur en teflon” and “Billy m'’a brisé le coeur chez Ikea et j’'ai pleuré en route pour Decathlon.”

Why the hell hadn’’t she done 'je me suis fait une épilation jambaire pour ceci?"' I moaned bitterly, maybe she had.

My own particular contribution to the toils of human endeavour was unsurprisingly in total opposition to Steve’’s al fresco experiment. I decided to toy with one of Blaise Pascal’s more unusual and original Pansies.

“All mens' miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.” 

If he had been born three hundred or so years later, I’m sure he would have added,  ”sans la télévision, la radio, la presse ou putain de Monsieur Internet.”

On the condition, however, that the man in question had a big pile of books and an adequate supply of chilled pilsener and sour mash, I would have to agree with him that people these days really don’t know Jack shit about metaphysics.

My own house is right here, in my head, unless of course it rains or overheats, so this summer I chose the coolness of the cellar below my sturdy, proper little rolling-bothie of a home in this tiny burg. Tiny and horrible little burg that brings back daily those awful memories of Streslau. Hideous Streslau where I actually lived and worked for several years back in the dreadful nineties. Stranger than fiction, odder than truth, this little town is partly old and partly new; spacious modern boulevards and residential quarters surround and embrace the narrow, tortuous and picturesque streets of the original town. In the outer circle the upper classes live; in the inner, the shops, bars cafés and restaurants are situated; and behind their prosperous fronts the hidden, populous but wretched lanes and alleys filled with a poverty stricken, turbulent and (in large measure) criminal class, of which I myself am a leading light.

When I am not out and about dressed like a tramp begging, angling for Farthings in a cheap black hoody and up to no good, or worse, thinly disguised as a leper to scare the crap out of Germans, I do in fact stay at home, quietly in a room. I sit silently waiting for the intermittent furtive taps on the living room shutters. Three short raps and I am up on my feet, ready to serve, Staffordshire style across the four foot thick stone window sill that separates me from my clients, for there, outside, pinned to the shutter in my own neat and attractive handwriting, a little notice which reads: “Nuckminster Listerene” (the name had stuck) “Connoisseur quality, competitive pricing. Knock three times.”

One day as I sat in a sulken reverie, waiting for trade, I was startled and almost overcome to be awoken, not by gentle  tap tap tapping, but a single heavy knock on the front door. In all the years that I have lived here, this I can assure you has never happened before, A first! I leapt up to answer it.

Question: who would make the – let’s just call it arduous – journey from Albuquerque New Mexico to Les Couillons France just for a 24 hour stopover? Answer: the bleary eyed moustachioed dude in a Stetson that I found on my doorstep late that afternoon. Why would he do this you may well ask? As we stood, staring at each other in disbelief, I had absolutely no idea. One night in Bangkok? Just maybe, at a pinch, but here?

I’m not sure if he actually did say “howdy” as he offered me his hand and said in a gruff voice “Raylan”, which I took to be his name, but I did invite him in and proffered a cold beer, which he politely refused as it didn’t feature on his list of refreshing summer drinks. Home-made lemonade on the other hand would be more than welcome. I sat him down with a bottle of Pschitt! He quenched his thirst without comment. It was hard to squeeze much conversation out of this guy without beer, but I did learn that he was Ray Lannigan, Ice-cream Baron of Wagon Wheel NM and that he was here because he smelled opportunity.

It turned out that my dear and so recently departed friend Phyllis, had in her finite wisdom written a small piece in The Curry County Tribune about her joyous holiday, also posted a couple of summer fun pictures on-line and won first prize for her snap of the open fire pizza man at the gas station.

Ray explained that he had been planning to stay the night in The Expanded Backside, on Phyllis’s recommendation, but it was occupied, by Germans. Could he “flop the night with me?”

Well he sure didn’t seem like a bundle of laughs, but how often does Rodney, Duke of Yendor get to entertain visiting aristocracy?

“Sure.”

I showed him and his little bag to the great guest room in the sky where he could rest, shower and change.

“Thanks but I’ll pass on the shower and changing bit.”

An hour or so later came the inevitable, the part that I always dread when visiting Americans are in town. Ray announced that he was so darned hungry he would even consider eating French cheese. I can’t remember how many times I have sworn that I will never set foot in a restaurant with an American again. Justified. He had been quite unable to stomach the unfamiliar offerings of Air France and had great difficulty with all matters of understanding since he set down in Paris some ten hours previously. How he got here at all with nothing but a scrap of paper with my name and address scribbled on it is more than a little worrying.

“OK Ray,” I said, perhaps a little too roughly, “but first I’m going to lay down a few ground rules about dining out in this country. First off: things usually start out with an aperitif or two, invariably Pastis with ice and a jug of water; we don’t drink mugs of milky coffee with our meals and beer is considered uncouth, just wine or water. Got it?”

He nodded strangely, I continued.

“ Secondo: It is customary to use a knife and fork; with the knife in the right hand, or even a fork and a crusty piece of bread in the left hand. The meal will last several hours and of course please try to remember that in Europe a waitress is considered to be a regular member of the human race. Hands off! If you pay for the meal, I will take care of the tip, as I know from experience you will never, ever be able to get your head around French tipping. Finally, the meal will almost certainly finish with the smug and sweaty chef offering us a glass of his special reserve fire-water, reserved specially that is, for the clients he has ripped off the most that evening, and that, my friend, is going to be us. Still with me?”

He was, but maybe it was just the long journey and lack of food that made him look so jaundiced.

I wouldn’t normally be dumb enough to eat in a restaurant that I knew was up for sale, would you? The safest bet is to eat somewhere recently opened, still trying to please, bending over backwards is even better. They never put up for sale signs of course, but central scrutinizer that I am, I happen to know that The Procrastinating Provençal is on the market for a cool one and a half million dollars. What’s more, I had a plan. Happy in the knowledge that they would take any credit card Ray could throw at them, two dudes in Stetsons and faded Levis were out on the town.

It was immediately apparent that Ray considered the French national aperitif to be some kind of awful patent medicine, but he swigged it willingly and it had the same effect on him as on those that actually enjoy the stuff; instant-on loud and fervent chatter, borderline obnoxious. As he outlined his great plans for a string of Raylan’s ice-cream parlours, I noted with relief that our waitress – obviously hand-picked by the proprietor’s wife – was more like Winston Churchill in drag than anything he was likely to grope – but the night was young and I remained vigilant. Sheriff or not, my reputation in this town was already at rock bottom, but with Ray around it could always take a turn for the worse.

The meal itself went surprisingly well; we had meat and potatoes, puddings and zero vegetables, washed down with bottle after bottle of Château Bastidon Rosé wine that Ray was drinking as if it was Bud, no, not straight from the bottle stupid, I soon put a stop to that. After some slightly sobering strong black coffee, a greasy blob duly popped out of his kitchen brandishing an old fashioned looking bottle with a whole fat pear inside and came to our table with two tiny glasses. His trite and oft repeated speech fell on deaf ears, for Raylan was into yet another tear-jerking rendition of his favorite song, Lonesome Cowboy Bert – there’s the Zappa for those of you not expecting it – and only had eyes for the serving wench.

I had a feeling that it was a bit too late to explain that Dr.Phyllis MacFarlane, careers adviser at Clovis Community College and Socorro Miss Personality 1975 was entirely responsible for Raylan’'s rather pointless visit. She had noticed that Les Couillons had been dubbed the Capital des Maures, and could easily have been forgiven for assuming that the word 'Maures' was French for ice-cream. Cold cones in your face has only recently been knocked off the top spot of popular things to do, by looking for bullet holes. It was of course, far too late. I don’t think we were actually thrown out of the diner or even sang any more on the way home, kicked any cats or peed through anyone’s letterbox. My next recollection was Sunday morning.

“Howdy Rod.”

He did say it this time, of that I’m sure; also that I've never seen a man so bright and so early on a Sunday. He had already been into town and bought fresh croissants and a local map; how much French did he learn last night? The coffee was percolating nicely and Ray was bubbling with excitement sticking pins into the map and sounding like he was playing solo Monopoly.

“Two hundred motels here, here and here. A proper gas station here with a Toyota dealership and a car wash. A fast-food outlet here, here and there. Jeez Rod, there are thousands of coneheads out there with nothing to eat but stinking ice-cream made with some kind of nut, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the last time I took a shower.”

He grinned for the first time since we’d met. He was gobbling pastries, slurping coffee looking at his watch and talking all at the same time, like a man who had left his helicopter running on the outskirts of town……?

“Look Rodney, you take care of the relocation incentives, tax breaks and recruitment subsidies – ship in some Chinks if you need to – as we agreed last night – and I’ll be back in a week, oh and you can tell grease-ball that since his place is over three hundred years old, its time for a freaking refit, one million cash, that’s my final offer.”

And he was gone… Pschitt!

Lesson learned, they’ll have to change the slogan “Les Couillons Capital des Maures” to something they might understand in Eddy or Grant County, Roxy and elsewhere; something like:

“Les Couillons, we’re growing, come join us.”

We are growing, just not what they’d think.

CHAPTER 16

IN WHICH AN OLD AND ODORIFEROUS WOMAN REVEALS A DARK AND CHILLING SECRET.

I had not left Ernesto's place empty handed, no; not the silverware, something much more valuable. I left with a manuscript, a small part of Ernesto's secret diary stuffed comfortably down those flimsy trousers of mine.

"Lekkerland: Jun 16. Here I sit under the tall green trees of my private gardens, beneath the deep blue shade of cedar needles, or leaves, upon my word I quite forget which. Just how much the internet has contaminated the calm and intellectual atmosphere of my study is beyond my understanding, just as those French radio programs that Marlene is so fond of break in as loudmouthed strangers and disturbers of my carefully tended garden of thoughtlessness, so too, from all sides there broke in new and dreaded impertinences into my life which had never been so sharply defined and so deeply resented. Time has passed and much has happened, little has changed.

The world has always demanded bargain prices and sacrifices from me and my suppliers and I gave them willingly and without question, but life is not all about logistics hard work and exploitation. All I ask now is a pleasant room where I can be content with eating and drinking, coffee and beer, bread, cheese and dry ship's biscuits. Hard as nails. Do I ask too much?

One day, rather bored with my own company and living the life with Marlene which had finally done my brain in, I decided to take a little divergence into the village below. Now there is an old lady, or would it be more correct to say a little old lady? There was this 'ere woman who lives on the very outskirts of this town, that's better!  Elizabeth she said her name was. Elizabeth. We sat down on a bench, Elizabeth and I; she who had lived one hundred years in this village without once leaving its borders, she who pedaled her trike twice daily round every Mülleimer (trashcan, trans.) in town looking for goodies. Elizabeth! By gum! one of the richest and stinkiest women in town sat beside me and wanted to talk, or at least answer my questions. I wanted to move away from her, several metres at least.

In this month of June there was another odour, that of sweet crisp roses, sweeter than her unwashed linen that floated gracefully in the air; a hot sun glided its rays between the branches of London Planes and sprinkled us with erratic patches of light. Enough of that romantical stuff Ernesto old chap if you don't mind, will you please allow Lizzy to get on with the talking.

"Who is that striking fellow over yonder" I asked her pointing across the way to an elderly man in a fine straw hat sitting motionless in a very throne like deck chair surrounded on all sides by hunks of cork oak bark of all shapes and sizes. Just sitting there drinking red wine and whistling incessantly Lily the Pink. So we drink a drink a drink to...

"They call him Saint Nando," she told me "because his name is Fernand, and also, perhaps, because he is a good man, always jolly and a great lover of practical jokes, a tremendous eater, an experienced drinker and an all round a gay fellow, despite his ninety odd years of profligacy."

I saw a big pleasant man with a red face, large chest and stomach perched on two legs that seemed too slight for the bulk of his body.

"Didn't you mean Willy the Pimp Lizzie?"

"No, no Monsieur Ernesto, his name is Nando and he is a marine biologist. All his real friends just call him 'Doh'.

"He is in truth a Malabar" Lizzie continued, "a man who after sixty years of marriage has the damned courage to come right out with it and say, under his breath: 'enough is enough! Fuck off beastly woman, leave me be! Please?'

He lives quite alone with a quite horrible wife and has just one man servant by the name of Grabsia, whose family I believe you are quite familiar with but that is just tragic magic, there are no coincidences. The three of them occupy a grand and spacious apartment above his cork shop and vast inner courtyard. He conducts his business affairs with shrewd economy. He is careful of his own interests, understands the business of raising chestnut and cherry trees as well as the stripping of the cork oak. His two sons and three daughters have married well, and reside in the neighborhood of Marseilles and come to dine with their parents once a year at Eastertime. His vigor of body is famous in all the countryside. 'He is as strong as Saint Fernand,' has become a kind of proverb."

"Tell me more about him Liz," I demanded.

"Oh Well. She went on happily, I have wasted many days wandering the streets of this village, staring at the masses of curiously pruned Plane trees, watching carefully clad people walk past with carefully imagined satisfaction, one morning when I was taking a short rest, here, on this very bench there he was, just over there eating his luncheon with the servant. His door opened wide and a social services person from La Mairie appeared, a young woman named Sylvie wearing an immensely broad pill-box hat, like the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens and was followed by an even smaller lady wearing a black lead-pointed helmet. Nando bounded to his feet and Grabsia looked at him, expecting to see him beat the woman with his huge and habitual bare fists. But just one of them merely shook the hands of the little lady, who said: 'I have a big surprise for you, ny boy. See here I have a British chap in need of a bed and sustenance for a day or two: see; this daft little bugger, who moved so suddenly here some two or three years ago, decided to sell his home and forgot to buy another one. Isn't that a queer thought?'

A day or two later Sylvie returned. "Here is your guest Fernand, served up as promised. Mind him well, or the forethought of my premise will leap back to nip you, of that I can assure you. This man has plenty to gurgle about and is very foolish, so don't go doing anything rash for he is sometimes of a mind to go shooting and burning everything in sight if there is the slightest unpleasantness. I have given you warning. Give him something to eat if you will Fernand my friend; he looks like a good hungry fellow. Good-day Fernand. There will be better days, good enough for all, and I must now find lodgings for his jammy sister, Maribel.' She went out."

"What the devil! For whose benefit did she do that?" Fernand exclaimed in wrath. "For that of the part time toilet attents and sweeper men?"

"By Jove!" I said, "that was a cryptical exclamation Elizabeth, what on earth did he mean by that?" To which she replied simply. "Have you never been to Electricladyland Sir?........ This man Ralph," she continued, "was a mean looking fragile fellow, skinny as a rake with thin white skin, shifty eyes, grey hair, unshaven on his cheek bones and with a little mustache which made him look very stupid, a little timid and thoroughly bad. Shrewd as he was, Fernand read him at once, and, reassured, he made him a sign to sit down. Then he said: 'will you take some soup Monsieur?'

The gray faced Britisher did not understand. Nando then became bolder, and pushing a hollow unappetizing plateful of soup right under his nose, said: 'Here, swallow that, you great big stupid bazooka!'

Ralph answered 'cripes,' and began to eat greedily, while the tradesman, triumphant, feeling he had regained his reputation, winked his eye at the servant, who was making strange grimaces, suppressing both his fear of foreigners and a huge desire to laugh.

When Ralph had devoured his soup, Mister Nando gave him another bowl, which disappeared in like manner; but he flinched at the third which old Doh most strongly tried to insist on his eating, saying: 'Come, put that fat greasy shit into your little tummy it will broaden you out, grub's up my little piggy!'

Mister Parsons, as I do believe his name was, understanding only that he wanted to make him eat all his soup, laughed in a absent manner, making a sign to show that he could not hold any more.

Then Nando, became quite angry and poked him roughly in the stomach, saying: 'my, is there more than rather plenty in this little belly of thine?' Then suddenly he began to writhe with laughter, unable to speak. An idea had struck him which made him choke with mirth. 'That's it, that's it, Saint Fernand has a little fat pet pig. At last here's my British pig, and I will stuff him with good old fashioned French foodstuffs!' Wife and servant burst out laughing in their good turn.

The old fellow was so pleased that he had some strong liquor brought in, good stuff too, Fil En Dix no less, and he treated every one. They clinked glasses with the silly Brit, who clacked his tongue by way of flattery to show that he enjoyed it. And Saint Nando exclaimed in his face: 'is not that ze business? You don't get anything like that in your pitiful little land, now do you little piggy?'

From that time old man Fernand never went out without his little home-counties man.  He went to see his neighbors every day, arm in arm with his foreigner, whom he introduced in a jovial manner, tapping him on the shoulder: 'See, here this my little piggy wig wig; look and see if he is not growing fat, the beast!'

And they would all beam with great smiles. 'He is so comical, old Nando, what a reckless fellow!'

'I will sell him to you, Dominique, for three arsouilles.' (thirty euros, trans).

'I will take him, Fernand, and I invite you to eat some black pudding.'

'What I want is his feet.'

'Feel his belly; you will see that it is all fat. Forty Euros or more, I shall sell to the highest bidder!'

And they all winked at each other, but dared not laugh too loud, for fear the fool of a man might finally suspect they were laughing at him. Fernand, alone growing bolder every day, pinched Ralph's thighs, exclaiming, "Nothing but fat"; tapped him on the back, shouting, 'That is all cold bacon;' lifted him up in his arms like a giant would pick up a pea, declaring, 'He weighs near ninety-five, bejasus! And not a drop of waste in much of that.'

He had got into the habit of inviting people to offer his 'British pig' something to eat wherever they went together. This was his chief pleasure, the great diversion of the day. "Give him whatever you please, he will swallow everything." And they offered the man veal's head and foie gras, fish soup, pigs trotters and tripe, which caused the remark, 'Some of your own favourite ones Nando, and choice ones at that.'

Ralph, still rather confused and thoughtless, ate. Not from from politeness but charmed by the attention, he would make himself sick rather than refuse, and he was actually growing so extremely plump that his jeans had become very tight and uncomfortable for him. This delighted Saint Fernand, who said: 'You know, my friend, we shall have to have another suit made up for you.'

As the world would have it, perverse and badly arranged as it is, they became the best of friends of all time, and everyday as the old fellow went to attend to his business in the neighborhood Ralph accompanied him for the simple pleasure of being with him.

The weather was severe; it rained incessantly throughout that terrible winter and chucked it down for most of the spring, all the scourges of weather had descended on France at one time.

Big Fernand was an opportunist blessed with foresight, a most dangerous and profitable combination. Foreseeing this time that manure would be scarce for the month of May, he bought in great quantities from a neighbor who was known to take inordinate care of his precious droppings and happened to be in need of money, cash strapped as the saying goes and it was so agreed that he should go every evening with Ralph's little cart to get a load.

So every day at twilight they set out in Ralph's beloved Renault 4l, headed for the lands of Skirvishely-Burnett, a league or two distant on the perilous road to Grimaud. Each time it was a festival, feeding the animal along the way. All the neighbors ran over towards them with a crust and some meat, food worth crossing the world for. In the end Nasty Parsons began to suspect something, be mistrustful, and when they laughed too loud he would roll his eyes uneasily, and sometimes they would light up with anger as if Johnny Halliday or Gerard Lenorman were riding by.


One evening when he had eaten his fill Ralph refused point blank to swallow another morsel and attempted to rise and leave the table. Big Fernand stopped him by a turn of the wrist and, placing his two powerful hands on his shoulders, he sat him down again so roughly that the chair smashed under him. Then Nando made as if to comfort his victim, offering soft apologies, vinegar and a warm chestnut plaister. 'There you go again Fernand, Ralph protested lamely, there you go pretending to give a fuck when you don't and it isn't even your turn to give a fuck.'

This particular scene took place upon Sir Nando's sumptuous terrace garden, a massive invasion of Clematis armandii, breathed out a delirious sweetness, covered with white clusters that scattered their fine pollen in a golden cloud, with a scent of honey that bore its balmy seed across space, like the fragrant powders of a perfumery.

And then, suddenly a wild burst of laughter broke forth, and Fernand, beaming, picked up his little toy boy and exclaimed: 'Since you will not eat, you shall drink, nom de Dieu!' They slipped out together silently and bump started Ralph's funny Renault wagon and rolled on directly to Mister Ludo's dreadful barroom to drink some whiskey and to drink some Jack Daniels in particular.

Ralph raised his eyes, which held a wicked expression, but he drank nevertheless; he drank as long as they provided for him, and Saint Fernand held his head up high in imitation and sniffed the air quite comically to the great delight of his beery companions.

Then, red as a tomato, his eyes ablaze, Ralph filled up the glasses and clinked, saying: Here's to you and here's to you and everyone in Les Couillons. Up yours!' Then without speaking a further word, poured down one after another glassfuls of Jack.

It was a contest then! A battle! Who would drink the most? Nom d'un nom! They could neither of them stand any more when the big square bottle was emptied. But neither was conquered. They were tied, that was all. They would have to begin again the next day.

They went out staggering and started for home. Rain began to fall again and again, the starless night was sadly reflected in the glistening raindrops outside the flashing bar lights. The two men began to feel under the weather and undeniably cold, which only aggravated their intoxication. Fernand annoyed at not being the victor, amused himself by shoving his companion so as to make him turn tortoise in the gutter. Each time Ralph corrected himself and tried to dodge backwards, and each time he uttered some British expression in an angry tone, which made the French peasant reel with laughter. Finally poor Ralph lost his temper, and just as Fernand was rolling towards him he responded with such a surprising blow with his fist that Fernand, for the first time in his life staggered and fell.

Then, excited by the bash, the old man rose and seized his puny assailant round the waist, shook him for a few moments as he would have done with a sheep or a goat and pitched him courteously to the other side of the road. Then, satisfied with this piece of work, he crossed his arms and began to laugh afresh.

But stubborn Ralph picked himself up in a hurry, his head bare, his bonnet having rolled off, and drawing his meagre fists rushed over to Fernand. As Ralph approached, head down, ears back, making a lunge with a broken bottle, sure of killing his adversary, the old fellow, squarely avoiding the glass, the points of which would have pierced his stomach, turned it aside with the butt end of a whip before striking the filthy foreigner a sharp blow on the temple and he fell to the ground.

He remained there, still and silent as the grave, a dead man.

Nom de pas Dieu! What was he to do? He would be shot! They would burn his house, ruin his district! How could he hide the body, conceal the fact of his death, deceive Sylvie and the ever burgeoning English community? He heard voices in the distance amid the pattering of the rain. All at once he roused himself, and picking up the bonnet he placed it thickly over his victim's head. Then, seizing him round the body, he lifted him up in his arms, and thus running with him, he caught up with Ralph's beautiful Renault 4 dung wagon which had been rolling its own leisurely way home ever since they arrived. Dodgy handbrake to be sure. He threw the body without thought or ceremony into the spacious shit lined rear. Once in his own house he would think up some plan.

He drove slowly, racking his brains, but without result. He saw, he felt, he knew for certain that he was lost. He entered his courtyard. A light was shining in one of the attic windows; Grabsia was not asleep. He hastily backed his wagon to the edge of his manure heap and dumped the lifeless contents of the cart. He buried the corpse roughly under the huge pile then evened it down a little with his fork, which he stuck in the ground beside it. He called Grabsia, told him to park the car and went to his room.

He went to bed, still thinking of what he had best do, but no ideas came to him. His apprehension increased in the quiet of his room. They would shoot him for sure! Bathed in fearful perspiration his teeth chattered, he rose shivering, unable to stay another minute in his bed. He went downstairs to the kitchen, took the bottle of Cognac from the sideboard and carried it upstairs. He drank two large glasses, one after another, adding a fresh intoxication to the late one, without quieting his mental anguish. He had done a pretty stroke of work, nom de Dieu, idiot! He paced up and down, trying to think of some stratagem, some explanations, some cunning trick, and from time to time he rinsed his mouth with another swallow of "Fil En Dix" to give him courage.

But no ideas came to him, not one.

Towards midnight his watch dog, a kind of cross cut wolf called Bernard, began to howl frantically. Poor Fernand shuddered to the marrow of his bones, and each time the beast began his long and lugubrious wail the old man's skin turned to goose flesh. He sunk into a chair, his legs weak, stupefied, done up, waiting anxiously for Bernard to set up another howl, and starting convulsively from nervousness caused by terror.

The clock downstairs struck five. The dog was still howling. The peasant was almost insane. He rose to go and let the dog loose, so that he should not hear him. He stepped out timidly into the darkness. The rain was still falling. The earth was all dark, the neighbouring buildings stood out like black patches. He approached the kennel. The dog was dragging at his chain. He unfastened it. Bernard gave a bound, then stopped short, his hair bristling, his legs rigid, his muzzle in the air, his nose pointed towards the manure heap.

Fernand, trembling from head to foot, faltered:

'What's the matter with you, you filthy hound?' and he walked a few steps forward, gazing at the indistinct outlines, the sombre shadow of the courtyard. Then he saw a form, the form of a man sitting on the manure heap!

He gazed at it, paralyzed by fear, and breathing hard. But all at once he saw, close by, the handle of the pitch fork which was sticking in the ground. He snatched it up and in one of those transports of fear that will make the greatest madman brave he rushed forward to see what it was.

It was he, Ralph, come to life, covered with filth from his bed of shit which had kept him warm. He had woken up in a daze, climbed out of his stinking grave and sat down mechanically atop and remained there in the rain which sprinkled down. All covered with dirt and blood as he was, and still stupid from drinking, dazed by the blow and exhausted from his wound and too stoned to understand anything, he made an attempt to rise. But the old man recognized him and began to foam with rage like a wild animal.

'You are not dead! he sputtered. You are going to denounce me Ralphy,  Now I am a dead man.'

'"Play or get played ny, It's that simple.' Ralph replied in a slovenly arrogant way.

Without thinking he rushed towards poor Ralph and with all the strength of his great arms, he flung the raised fork like a lance and buried the three prongs full length in his chest. Ralph fell over on his back, uttering a long death moan, while the old peasant, drawing the fork out of his breast, plunged it over and over again and again into his abdomen, his stomach, his throat, like a madman, piercing the body from head to foot, as it still quivered, and the blood gushed out in streams.

'Play in dirt, you get dirty. Ralph.'

Finally he stopped, exhausted by his arduous work, swallowing great mouthfuls of air, calmed down at the completion of the murder. The cocks were beginning to crow in the poultry yard and it was near daybreak, he set to work to bury the man. He dug a hole in the manure till he reached the earth, dug down further,working wildly, in a frenzy of strength with frantic motions of his arms and body.

When the pit was deep enough he rolled the now massive corpse of his own creation into it with the fork, covered it with earth, which he stamped down for some time, and then put back the manure, and he smiled as he saw the now heavy rain finishing his work and washing away its traces.'

His mind was calm and clear. If the baker thinks that all the world revolves around his morning batch of crusty bread or the postman believes that he alone is the preserver of society, the hairdresser has a very bright future, but the Newsagent has got another think coming. Such delusions are necessary to keep us all going, and so thought Fernand, who's cherries and cork oak platters meant the whole world to him.

The story, however, does not end here and I find it rather sad; for Fernand, when finishing off the last layer of Ralph's last resting place said pathetically, 'I do wish I was going in there with you, Ralph. Wouldn't we have a perfectly elegant time down there?' He then stuck the fork in the manure and went into the house. A bottle of Cognac still half full stood on the table. He emptied it at a draught, threw himself on his bed and slept heavily.

I was still thinking about the dead man and at last I turned round to Elizabeth and said: 'Oh! What a horrible thing!'

"There is no special dead man here Ernesto my friend. There’s just a dead mandead.” Elizabeth observed and finishing her tale in such a manner, she tried to take leave of me. "Wait a moment," I said, "this was a brutal and cold blooded murder, yet you make light of it, admire the perpetrator and despise the victim, how can this be right or proper? What do the Gendarmes have to say in this matter?"

"This is Les Couillons Sir," she answered me simply "and the Gendarmes may go and castrate themselves for we do not parley with them, ever. If you will permit me the expression, they are nothing but excrement and sometimes they even settle scores between each other. Whenever there is an 'incident' such as this here in this town, and yes there are many, we deal with them in our own way, the truth will always out in such a small community as ours but those boys in blue will never know the truth, we see to that. A murder although not commonplace and rarely to be condoned must be dealt with on merit. This particular one is classified Prince Ernesto. Even you can't change a turd into gold. Understand?"

CHAPTER 17

IN WHICH THE PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN WORD 'BARTENDERY' IS SKILLFULLY INTRODUCED.

        September again and I have no news. I live in Steve's cellar now so I can look up at the rain. I need to go back to school, because I love school. Glorious September, all green and fresh after the ravages of August, but with mellower mornings and no skateboards, bicycles or know it all, vulgar teachers on the streets. The grim valleys are filled with deep mists as if the ghosts of summer had deftly put them there, just for the sun to warm to its business. The dews are heavy and the trees glisten like emeralds; here and there are great piles of browned off, long suffering London plane tree leaves, ready willing and much more than able to block all the drains in town, but they just lie there peacefully, waiting for Denis and the power blowers to to run them noisily through. The tardy sweet chestnut leaves are still a canopy of green, but the ferns are sear and brown and the catnip has lost a tad of pungency. There is a strange heaving in the air that seems to inspire the hearts of over-laden backpackers with stupid sticks and jolly boots and hats; nice scarves, banana sandwiches and poor circulation. Carrying carrier bags from Dia, Netto and Simply Market and big bottles of bottled water. (a litre and a half a day, recommended, trans.) Time worn autumn seekers from the big bad suburbs, like snails; slow, confused, unwilling and crunchy underfoot.

One gloomy evening, one of the gloomiest possible evenings. I was sitting at home at about six o'clock, and I remember that I thought that the evening could not be gloomier. Rain had been falling all day, and it had been a cold, almost menacing rain. Suddenly between seven and eight it had stopped and was followed by a horrible dampness, colder and damper than the rain, a sort of steam was rising from every stone in the street. I had scarcely eaten a thing that day, and had spent most of it alone. Then I remembered that this last Sunday in September was time for the idiot bastard sons to start planning civil disobedience: our annual general meeting was to be held as ever in the venerable but slightly odorous Bar de la Mairie. The innkeeper Ludo, a quite exceptional exponent of the bartendery art, is highly thought of in the district for the independence of his character. This singular but characteristically Parisian landlord is as proud as the owner of a bar and tobacco shop might be, and serves only such customers as meet with his approval. If you are not in Ludos’s good books, there’s no more to be said; you will get nothing out of him either for love or money. From one end of the Maures to the other, people are fond of relating the story of how a certain German fellow came to Ludo’s this very night, asking for beers for himself, his wife and a couple of ugly hounds. Ludo told him coolly:

“You should have given me notice! I can’t do it!”

“There’s no ‘can’t do it’ in the matter. You must do it for me; I am German.”

“I know that very well,” replied Ludo. “I’ve heard them calling you so for the last hour. But even if you were the Bishop of Rome, I can’t do it.”

“Why?”

“Oh! because!”

“But, really!”

“Well, look here, if you want me to tell you….." Ludo looked with ill-concealed disgust at the car outside,  ”I’ll have no Skoda drivers in my house if you please!”

The German was incensed.

A few years back, I had the devilishly cunning idea of a bomb scare, which, had I been successful would have caused the most unmistakable havoc. Imagine trying to evacuate ten thousand scare-witted and terrified souls from an isolated spot, with all roads in and out closed to all traffic for the day. Fortunately I decided to make the call myself, I spoke in English replenished with a rather unconvincing Irish accent; my call was naturally misunderstood and promptly dismissed. With hindsight, this may have been a good thing, as it could very easily have backfired on us, the prank I mean, not the bomb, because it was just a hoax. Of course it was a hoax. So once again the dubious brotherhood of chestnut growers formed their procession, the nucleus of which was a band of lay associates in white surplices, carrying tapers in their hands, and two or three more penitents in cowls.

Most of the local chestnut production is made into a medicated goo called crème de Marrons, cooked and prettily packaged by a small handful of appalling ladies. Every village in the world has a couple of old dears who make pots of jam, without jam-making necessarily becoming the mainstay of the local economy; not so in Les Couillons.

Day had died and the street deserted. Through the low rounded arch doorway which Ludo had forgotten to close, laughter could be heard; and the clink of wine-glasses, the unmistakable popping of champagne corks; and behold, floating over all the jolly uproar, a feminine voice singing clearly and joyously:
 
"I came in like a wecking ball
Yeah, I just closed my eyes and swung
Left me cwouching in a blaze and fall
All you ever did was bweak me
Yeah, you weck me"

"Throne of heaven!" I ejaculated, turning pale, as I rushed into the enclosure.

Hapless Rodney! what a sight awaited me! Beneath the arches of the little bar-room, amongst bottles, pastry, scattered cushions, pipes, tambourines, and guitars. It was none other than Little Eva the First Lady, singing for all her worth with an officers' cap slung coyly over one ear. She wore a blue bodice, a silvery gauze wrapper and full pink trousers. At her feet, on a rug, surfeited with sweet wine and sugar coated peanuts, Rabba, the infamous  Rabba 'O Reilly, was bursting with laughter at hearing her song.
 
On seeing me and my badge haggard, thinned and dusty, with flaming eyes and the bristling up fez tassel, Eva sharply interrupted her tender chansonette and piped the low whine of a frightened leveret, and ran for safety into the back room. But Rabba 'O Reilly did not wince, not a bit of it; this man of ovbious Algerian and Irish descent, judging by his name, drunkeness and obliging prolixity only laughed the louder, saying:

"Ha, ha, Monsieur Rodney! What do you say to that now? You see she does know some English."

I advanced furiously, crying: "Captain Kabyle!"

He said "Wot?"

I asked him with a pretty low-bred gesture: "Digo Steve que vengue, moun bon!"  (Tell Steve what just happened my good man! Trans.)

Poor Rabba, overwhelmed and completely ignoring me let himself collapse once again onto the floor.

"I told you not to trust the English speakers," observed Captain Rabba, still flat on his back. "They're as tricky as an elected mayor."

I lowered My head.

"Do you know where she is?"

"Oh, she's not far off. She has gone to live five years in the handsome house of Mustache-on-the-Rhone, you have to keep your peepers jolly well skinned in this deuce of a country, or be exposed to very disagreeable things. 

The German continued his appeal for beer with great belligerence and my advice to Ludo was "to apply directly to the superintendent's office, as without the assistance of the police that German will never be made to see reason."  These words I uttered with firmness and aplomb, and  I feel, expressing an exceptional presence of mind.

"Will you ever be sober Rodney?" Steve said to me all of a sudden.

A strange question indeed but I did not pay too much attention as some rather disturbing rumours were circulating among the spacious ways and sumptuous buildings of this vast and airy bar room, that two strangers were abroad.  Then suddenly the two fellows in person burst into our jolly gathering. One, a sturdily built bon-vivant of military mettle was accompanied by a larger but more finely featured dandy and in they came through the swinging doors and demanded rum and orange juice in large glasses for all the company. Unfamiliar with the wondrous cuisine at Borello's, they had strutted into the place and seen the immense hog was being exhibited and insisted on its being prepared for their dinner, broiled in gin if you please.

Colonel Patrick Bondage and his bulky sidekick Victor "peppercorn" D'Arves, artiste-peintre were now among us and buying drinks, welcome aboard friends.

"The principles of economics in this town," Steve said out loud with some emotion, "The economic principles of tourism, I do not in the least understand a thing about those horrid economics, you walk into the room like a camel, and then you frown, you put your eyes in your pocket and your nose on the ground, there ought to be a law against you coming around. You should be made to wear earphones!"

"I will explain them to you," the military man answered, and began at once to tell him of the beneficial effects of the introduction of foreign money into our community, upon which he had read an article in The Voice of the morning. "A knowledge of economic trends is fundamental to strategic development, but with a solid working knowledge of economic concepts and analytical techniques, the nature of tourism is being transformed by innovations in information communication technologies, market liberalisation and climate change.

Steve interrupted, after listening for some time. "What nonsense you are talking. What is economics without any money changing hands, what is the economics of standing, staring and eating ice-cream?" Although Steve had foreseen something of the sort, the reckless inaccuracy of the Colonel's bullshit had quite upset him.

"Rodney, what's a frontal lobotomy again?"

Rabba was circulating, having a quiet word with anyone who would listen and many that would not.

"I tell you, my poor Monsieur Rodney for a sample, beware of  that Lupano's  little farces."

"Please, Captain, lower your tone in front of the Klingons, but what farce? Which Lupano. Do you mean professor Longhair? Are they all scamps in this country?"

Rabba snapped his fingers like a wizard. "My dear lad, you know, these village folk are a bit rum! But believe me, we'd best get us off to a night club at full speed."

"It's easy to say, 'get  us off.' Where's the money to come from? Don't you know that I am plucked?"

"What does that matter?" said the captain merrily. "The Zouave (Fiat Punto, trans.)  leaves at one o'clock sharp, and if you like I will take you with me. Does that suit you, mate? Aye? Then all goes well. You have only one thing left to do. There are some bottles of fizz left, and half a pie. Sit you down and pitch in without a grudge."

After the minute's wavering which self-respect commanded, I chose my course manfully. Down I sat, and we touched glasses. Little Eva on hearing the distinctive chink, slipped back into the room almost naked and clutching what seemed to me to be like a small goat, miming what could surely be non other than the grande finale of "Blurred Lines." The jollifications were prolonged deep into the evening.

Around midnight, with a light head but heavy foot, I took a break from my friend the captain and went outside to wander a little. As I ambled towards the old bridge, the remembrance of this Luciano, or Lupano, whatever his name was and his practical jokes almost made me laugh. Instantly a capital idea of retaliation flitted through my brain. His door was open. I entered, threaded long corridors hung with mats, I mounted and kept on mounting till I finally found myself in a little oratory where an openwork iron lantern swung from the ceiling and embroidered an odd pattern in shadows upon the blanched walls. No offense, but, eh… clearly, this man's stairs do quite not reach the attic, if you know what I'm saying. In the end I uncovered the notorious wordsmith on a divan in his large turban and white Celisse, with his Guantanamo pipe and a bumper of absinthe which he had whipped up smartly in the orthodox manner. There he sat awaiting impatiently to enter the crazy world of Mark Zuckerburg (69.63.176.13).

When he saw me, he dropped his pipe in terror. He was definitely not going to 'Like' this.

"I am not a merry man, so assimilate this!" I said, full of my project. "Quick! Off with the coat and that turban made for two!"

The addicted social networker tremblingly handed over his outer garments, as he would have done with anything else. As I donned them and gravely stepped out upon his minaret balcony I could just make out glistening brown roofs glittering in the moonbeams and heard the humming from Ludo's jukebox. I flung mirthful maledictions to the four winds. Saint-Tropez here we come.

As soon as I returned to the bar Ludo began addressing me in accents of stern reproof: “I’m not fond of traitors, and I won’t have them inside my house. Us hardworking merchants make more money in October than a layabout like you in a month of Sundays! Go and get your beer somewhere else.”

Nothing to do, nowhere to go, I wanna be sedated, but within minutes  the Zouave had her steam full up, ready to go. I was more than a little happy to be leaving Steve and Maurin behind and embark on an adventure of my own.

From the terrace of the Gendarmerie, flag full mast, the officers were leveling telescopes, and with the Brigadier at their head, looking self-satisfied at the speeding little craft,  "O'Reilly and Lupano Sir! Heading east on another monumental binge. Take aim Staff Sergeant Freemon! Tamp 'em up solid, fire away!"

Gerard Lupano shared a link: "It may be well to remind the European reader that the turban consists of two parts, that is a skull-cap and a linen cloth, which is wound round it in various folds and shapes, to form the well-known Eastern head-dress."

CHAPTER 18

IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE BOUND BY HIS BERET IS PROPERLY HORRIFIED.

        Over the years, this weary-beery village where motion is slow and time often appears to stand still has had as many monikers as I’ve had ice cream sandwiches or jellybeans: from the ‘Chestnut Capital of the Observable Universe’ to ‘Sustainable Development Is Us’, even ‘Les Couillons, Sod the Euro, We Like Francs’. Just to name a few. I thought I was the only man with the leisure and good fortune to sit around all day waiting patiently for facial hair to grow, but no, they're all at it these days, even the horses. Today, my redoubtable Department of Cunning Stunts (Steve) completely surpassed itself by proposing that we should no longer respect the frivolous notion of energy saving time, and even though I had no notion of what he was talking about, I did think it would be a good idea not to turn back the hour this year because it disturbs me horriblry every time. This year I will remain resolutely on TSC, (Standard Couillons Time), now time. One full hour ahead of the rest of France for five months of the year.

This year time will actually stand idle, as the others reset their clocks and watches! An extra hour in bed one Sunday a year, yipee! I'm for having one every bloody day. Be free and open and breezy Rodney, Enjoy. Things just won't get any better so get used to it.

I wondered what the locals would make of this latest brilliant idea, so rather late one afternoon I decided to find out. I donned my standard issue uniform and went walkabout in the chilly maze of lacklustre streets that is Les Couillons. I was looking for a representative handful of the said locals, easily distinguishable from throngs of tourists in short trousers, rudely slurping ice-cream by their heavy overcoats and unsteady teetering gait. I was not unduly surprised to discover a general air of indifference; A great number of people told me that since I was not from round here, I was a dork and most probably a nutjob which was rich, coming from them. Others, like the brothers Aggoon, Pierre and Lucille, just shrugged and said it would make little difference to them as they didn’t have a job, the television reception in the village was “La merde”, the shops never opened on time and the bus service was erratic to say the least. So why should anyone care?

Simon O’Riley,  hunter gatherer 37, one of Rabba's huge collection of brothers shrugged some more. "Out here in the woods I farm for my goods, I get my back into my living. I don't need to fight to prove I'm right and I don't need to be forgiven. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't cry, don't raise your eye It's only teenage wasteland!"

I really thought he was kidding, but then he looked at me and just said sadly pointing upwards at the sun, " It's about ten past one and way past my lunchtime, that’s how I tell the time. Mispositioned solaire!"

On a brighter note Florian “Luftwaffe” Biaggio, 22, unemployed, was a hugely enthusiastic supporter of such a bold and practical idea.

“I could sleep in ’till midday and still have time to nip to Dillmart and buy me some brew for breakfast before they close for lunch. Bloody ruddy marvellous if you ask me”.

A spokesperson representing the two grocery stores, three bars, seventeen restaurants, two bakers and a pharmacy told me unequivocally to fuck off and that none of them really gave a toss. For their part, the bank and Post Office would continue their policy of opening and closing as they saw fit, or simply decide to close down permanently, for our “convenience”.

So until the last Sunday in March, me in my lovely little village will be one hour ahead of everybody. Bloody light years ahead if you ask me, and an excellent time for putting Slinkies on the Town Hall steps.

Good news never comes single handed, what about this little trifle to brighten up a lonely chill winter’s day? This year ‘Birdy’ Namnam and her disreputable corporation finally agreed to my suggestion to outlaw all instances of Father Christmas. Ho! Ho! Fuckin’ ho! I believe they even instructed the elves to fun themselves, but that is not really any of my business. Great news though anyway, not one single fat bearded bastard to be seen on the streets this year, not one, and all this in favour of the the greatest rock and roll band of all time. So here is a special mention from Steve for a very wonderful and distinguished harmonica player from America.

How does he compare to the Sonny boys, the Sonny Terrys? Favourably. What about the Little Walters or the Big Walter Hortons?  Junior Wells, Snooky Prior, Little JJ Milteau or the fabulous Lee Oskar?  They couldn't hold a candle, period. So let's just have a big hand for the very very wonderful Mister Magic Dick.

On my instruction Steve had skilfully pinned neat little posters head height on every tree in the village:

“Coming soon to a town near you, super Rough-Cut Tuesday, but Wednesday December 12, don’t touch the knobs, I think we’re gonna have a little fun with this one, it’s  the J Geils Band day!”

(More accurately I would have said, J Geils late afternoon and early evening.)

For  several days now, at wanton expense to the ingrate taxpayer, a massive team of highly trained yet strangely strange and incompetent municipal work-persons have called a truce on their war against dead leaves in order to devote their time to stringing up, no not gaudy Christmas knick-knacks and glittery tidings of untold joy, none of that for 2012 folks. Nothing but huge and hefty public address speakers all around the town and all hooked up to Birdy’s very own Red Hat workstation with Mp3 playback enabled. The lady makes demands!

"The things she wears at work they hang off her kinda loose. Her blouse don’t fit, the pants ain’t right she ain’t no front page news but when her work is done and the night time turns to day, the headlines flash in neon, that the girl has taken flight. She’s a Leafblower! Oh yeah, oh ah yeah ho hey, ouh!"

J Geils day in Les Couillons? You think I’m kidding right? Wrong, wrong and wrong again. Statistics prove over and over and beyond unreasonable doubt that there are proportionally more J Geils fans here than in Boston, Detroit and Clovis NM put together! Even Birdy herself could not refute Steve's awesome logic and refreshing common sense. J Geils day it is!

Wednesday 12/12, from 3pm Couillo Coordinated time, shoot up the town and treat yourself to an uninterrupted hi-fidelity stream of J Geils magic. Roam the streets, point, lick and listen up. In a word, enjoy, and all this, courtesy of our very own angel in red, white AND blue.

And the lesson we learn from this story is, next time you come to town don’t forget to say,

“Whammer Jammer, let me hear you dig you!"

Chapter 19

IN WHICH I SPENT A LITTLE TIME ON THE MOUNTAIN, I SPENT A LITTLE TIME ON THE HILL, I HEARD SOMEONE SAY "BETTER RUN AWAY."

Twelve noon of a bright brisk October morning, I appeared by a roadside in my habitual condition. I had  stumbled down the sides of  twelve misty mountains and stepped in the middle of seven sad and densely wooded hillsides. Rather out of breath I tripped my way down a rumbling path between tangled trees towards a valley owned by three big fat Donkeys. After walking two or three times up and down a familiar narrow lane, I was tempted at last by the pleasantness of the morning to stop at the gates of the great and fine house recently acquired by Britishers and look into their park. This was the famous sculptured garden house which had been hastily put on the market by poor Mrs. Parge following the "mysterious" disappearance of her husband Bert, the worst-tempered man in all England. It had been snapped up greedily for a seven figure sum. There is always a "pigeon', as they say. (Don't get that one. Trans.)

A warm sunlight was working its way through heavy evergreen oaky olive leafage; a sunlight which was now of such dark a yellow that it had taken on the quality of evening. It was such a sunlight that reminds a local man that here at Gallo Pastré the sun begins to set behind those dark and frightful hills of Hatfield and the North an instant after the clock strikes midday.

In these battered parts where black is the color and none is the number, two cars stopped on the road are considered to be a traffic jam. A brilliantly emblazoned Ford van with a trailer and a well worn and smoking hot metallic turquoise Opel were waiting forlornly by a pair of stubborn gates which should have opened on to a glorious meandering driveway that would, eventually, have led their drivers to their place of work, or remuneration at any rate.

"Good morning, I am Chirp, at your servile! Chirp Services, to put it another way." Said an elegant smooth-talking lumberjack man from the spartan white comfort his van, tugging through bad habit at an imaginary or long forgotten forelock as I strolled past trying to look in another direction.

"Like hell you are! What are you doing here? This is not the Eric Dolphy memorial barbecue." I said without thinking or rather thinking about something quite different.

"Paarf! It's easy enough to grumble at me.  Say what is to be done my friend, that's a little harder!"

He shone crossly through clenched teeth. "I am Mr. Chirp and my expert staff are people deeply embedded, ready willing and capable of providing services!"

Then with a shady grin he rephrased almost with apology.

"We dominate vulnerable people. You know; old, insane or foreign people who don't have the time, tools or sense to do things for themselves. The great gardening hoax as I like to call it." (The cream of the joke was that he really believed it! Trans.)

This individual, I thought to myself seems to be the vehicle of a personality that is not his own. Someone else's personality seemed to possess him and he appeared to be finding enjoyment in his expression of another self. With the sharpening of his desire to withdraw, he seemed to have a despotic urge to dig in a little deeper and to run to and fro in quest of money.

"Yes I know who you say you are, it says so quite clearly on your van. You are Kaufland's man, I know that too, but what are you doing here?"

"We help to run peoples' lives effectively. We help people to succeed by enabling them to enjoy the space around them and we do this by whatever means work best and with an unusual depth of understanding and real know-how through our synchronized strimming, cutting and leaf monitoring services......But at the moment, I am in fact, as it happens, looking for a certain cretin who goes by the name of Mr Didier Belbake, one of my service-mojos, do you happen to have seen him?"

"Eh? you lost him?" I asked perplexed.

"In a way, yes, now that you mention it, he is in a manner of speaking quite lost. I have known him for the best part of ten years and I saw him just last week but I cannot for the life of me remember what he looks like."

I looked at him hard for a moment but did not choose to repeat the question and perhaps provoke an impertinent reply. I asked  instead unashamedly in a rude and sarcastic manner. "Are you sure are not Mr. Pierre White?"

White was a stout well cared for man of my reluctant acquaintance. At sixty-nine, he looked the picture of health and bore an uncanny resemblance to a smiley snooker ball; the pink, six points. (Six points, Trans.) A lot of people were always complaining that there was a constant unpleasant aroma coming from his person. He himself could smell it clearly, but he was never sure whether it was the sort of thing that others could smell, which worried him more than somewhat, because of all the things in all the world, he placed above all others being nice and popping bottles of bubbly.

The sportsman put his foot flat down and firmly on my new idea. (They really are doubles I laughed to myself. Like two peas. Not as alike as two peas in a pod or anything like that, just peas, a pair of peas or a couple of clergymen, or a duo of Bishops. It is also very possible of course that they are two pink fairies too).

"Don't go mixing me up with him," he said. "I am Chirp. You can tell me by my birthmark. Look see!"

"Don't drop those pants Vic!" I exclaimed in horror. But we was too late.

Although Mister Chirp had undoubtedly understood  the questions I had asked him, he had not given me one single piece of useful information. His talk was only a series of disconnected sentences having no relation whatever to the general situation. He remained dumbfounded, overwhelmed and seized with giddiness in the presence of a man who was more pragmatic and less majestic, less haughty but more disquieting than a gate which would not open.

"So you are Chirp Blackbird, Ah!  What an exquisite and fancy name it is!"  The words just burst from my lips in a natural explosion of reasonableness. "I have very many ways in the world to think ill of you, but there was no need to drop those pants old boy! I have heard about the birthmark, we all have. You are Chirp, aren't you? The enemy of the leaf and the scourge of unruly hedges. The man with The Soft Machines."

His pitiful indignation may easily be conceived so I shall not attempt to describe it, there was however very little doubt left in my mind that the man was beginning to show clear signs of catatonic excitement.

Suddenly the aforementioned Didier appeared, struggling boyishly up the road. Autumn's child straddled awkwardly upon a B'stard-Twin bicycle, dressed in matching mole-skin shorts and waistcoat, studded with odd little ornaments such as pencils, penknives and lollipops. In his big orange baby shoes he had fallen victim to a sluggishness which annihilated his most cunning plans, broke his will power and invoked a cortège of vague reveries to which he passively submitted. Today he looked exceedingly moody and dejected and appeared on closer inspectin' to be sorely wounded. His face was  bandaged and marked, not by the hand of God, but by the claws of Clancy the local tom-cat, a mishap incidental to contract gardening in this very neck of the woods.

"But the worst b b b b bit of all," he stammered alarmingly; " Now Clancy can't even sing anymore. He's been 86'd!"

Six days they said he had remained without appearing in public, now all of a sudden he was on the top of his form. Ritually removing his white gloves, he looked Chirp in the eye and said: "I didn't mean to be late; I stopped on the bridge a moment to shine a man's pate and to appease a yellow haired wench. I loitered a while to watch other curious people too. I  hope you weren't too you anxious Chirp." He cried, patting his pal kindly on the head with the sharp end of a rake.

"Oh do get up!" He implored, waving his hands wildly. "Get up Chirp! We're in the wrong town! We're not in Lyons at all. Lyons is ten miles, twenty miles, five hundred miles away. God knows what! We must be at the end of the world here, or somewhere near Amersfoort."

"I am interested to hear that," I interrupted, "for I am at present making a little list of all the things that are really better in Holland than in this country. Just one month spent wandering, combined with small intelligence will teach you that there are many things that are better in Holland than elsewhere. Many quite ordinary things are better there. Cheese for one, Estate Agents for another. There are things that are entirely Dutch and yet entirely good; such as appeltaart or Bitterballen or snert.  Hand rolling tobacco, nettle cheese, social tolerance, legalized euthanasia and Mr. Robin Van Persie above all.

"Open the gates man! This garden is in a disgraceful condition Grabsia!" Chirp's stifled bark was most audible, but there was no answer. He was addressing Grabsia. Grabsia again and again, another Kaufland man, or woman, depending on his choice of dress, or skirt. This little Kabyle thing that I now for obvious reasons affectionately call Joey Cole. (He's here, he's there, he's every f*cking where, Joey Cole, Joey Cole. Trans.)


"How can you be so impudent man? Open the gates, I tell you! You don't whore for me. You mustn't be smart either; you're an impudent lousy fellow, such an impudent lousy fellow I've never met with." Chirp hurled a little .

"Steady on Chirp old chap,  Didier observed sensibly, putting both his fingers in his ears to make his point more clearly. "He doesn't hear. He's deaf from the head down, you know."

"Are you indeed?"  Replied Grabsia. "And pray what sort of gormless gargellers do you make all dressed up like the Chippendales?"

We laughed aloud. He was deaf yet he talked like a torrent.

"What are we to do?" Grabsia continued. "The eclectic gates are broke, they hum and whir alright but they just won't open loike ordinary gates."

"I MUST and WILL come in," Chirp boomed with extraordinary firmness.

Then in unmistakable shock,  "What the fuck!!!" he exclaimed eagerly. "Why? There's a hole there in that opening thing!"  Mister Chirp then declared suddenly  and a bit too strongly this time, "every moment we spend here helplessly is costing me money, someone has been shootin' at it why don't somebody stick their stick in there or better still put some money in my bag?"

Grabsia bent down to examine the self-opening mechanism and said solemnly." There seems to be a lot in the papers about this new cat shaving lotion, I think it would be for the better if you were to shove your own stick in it young man. And stick it with care," he added. As if it was even necessary.

"It's been shot then stuffed up with a pair of trews or something." Exclaimed Chirp, disarmed.

"Well, why don't you just push the pants in a bit?" Grabsia advised.

At this moment a curious smothered giggle was clearly heard.

"Shut the fuck up Didier!" Cried an angry Chirp, very rudely.

"Oh, do excuse me," gasped the poor man, wiping tears from his eyes. "This is dreadful, I didn't mean to laugh, I don't  even know why I'm laughing but I just can't help it."

As he said this he began to cry so bitterly that he filled us all with compassion and forced Chirp to look at him, and when he saw him weeping he was so moved that he ran to throw his arms round him, and pressing his face to his, Didier pretended to be dead and grey and motionless as if trying to please his mother. They both gave way to such an outburst of tears that Joey and myself were constrained to stifled yet strangely poignant laughter.

"See, see, he speaks plain and honest, like Country Joe and his Fish."  Chirp remarked and again I squirmed and laughed.

Grabsia scratched his ear.

"No, mates," he responded at last, "the dog barks and the caravan passes. Life does go on. The easiest solution to the
problem is seductively clear and you mustn't think about it. That's the great thing, you mustn't think! That's the whole secret of life!"

"What nonsense!"  Cried Chirp. "The soul is pained by all things it thinks upon. Don't prank with me small fellow,  just watch my hips."

With that, the mighty Chirp scrambled about a bit, took a stick, poked a bit more and began waving it about in the opening, saying, "Come out, come out!" as he did so.

"Oh boy", said Joey Cole "I can see your body moving, half man, half biscuit. I don't don't really know what I'm doing but you seem to have a plan, you move like you come from Colombia!"

"What are you laughing about?" reverberated Sir Chirp in my direction.

"Perhaps at my own stupid fancies, my good friend. Who knows?  Allow me at least my British humour. Do I not come of the illustrious nation which actually invented the sense of humour.? Mira en barranquilla se baila así, just say that if you can you daft French wazzock!"

In the darkening sky there was something that wearied, in the setting sun, something that saddened. Chirp was indeed still gyrating and waving the stick, when suddenly the gates of perception flung open and we all flew pill-mill down the driveway.

I can well remember the explosion of human joy which marked the sudden opening, fists in the air Chirp, Yiss!

"Well, well, well, just what are we supposed to do now that we are happy?"  Bemoaned Grabsia. This little man always carried a sad expression on him. He gave you the idea of a man who had been through trouble. I asked him if anything was the matter."Nothing is ever the matter",  he replied without stirring, arms akimbo looking up at these grand gardeners in handsome looking rum-togs. Standing there in his grubby checked peasant's shirt he looked like a midget before them.  He took a step forward.

"We're in! But mind mates," said he, "don't go being insolent, she don't half frown on insolence."

"Who bought this property?" I asked gingerly, forwardly.

"The cousin of Cyrano de Bergerac. Roxanne! " Grabsia replied with an instant and intriguing lie and proceeded in his very best south Algerian accent,  "they do say this she wot owns this 'ere Port of London was lookin' at it and might be a bildin' more studios and a golf course with fishin' facilities and a red spot for an 'ellicopter or pickin' a fight.  Jellied eels and a dog track, If you know wot I'm sayin' me old mate."

The garden was in fact so goodly and so delightsome, such a beautiful  pale green clearing that none of us were able to set another foot forward with the hope of finding more pleasance further on. The sun, now gone right down, made it nowise less irksome to observe the fawns and kids and rabbits and lizards and tortoises and other beasts wot dithered thereabout.

Grabsia at last began to explain by signs that the forever absent mistress of the house, a media veteran and inveterate jogger had made it clear to him on more than one occasion that her grounds must be perfect at all times of the gray day and dark, dark night or it would be the worse for him, for this man for all his shortcomings, persistence  and shortcut body bag suit was in overall charge. The gaffer he was to be sure, a living piece of authenticity.

He looked around him, pointed mischievously to the rumpled stomping grounds of wild and boisterous hogs, and made a motion with his hand round his neck, as though he were pulling a noose tight, then glanced with a face of inquiry at Chirp, his erstwhile steward.

"This is very insignificant," he said. "The very funny part of it is though, that the cat thing isn't new at all. It's been talked about ever since I was a boy, and long before. There has always been a notion that the razor might one day be done without somehow. But none of those schemes ever came to anything; and I don't believe  that they ever will."

It was becoming increasingly hard for me to understand  exactly what could have originated the idea in the fine media lady's disordered brain of taking on Chirp's senseless services simply to undermine the authority of such a fine thinker as Mister Grabsia. Ooh, you old mogul!

"I'm hungry!" Cried Grabsia at last. "I cannot tread a further step without a bite to eat."

"The patients are always served their luncheon at half past twelve. do you want a chestnut?" I said thoughtfully, stooping to pick up a handful that had sprinkled themselves like gold dust on The forest floor.

"No, by thunder Master Rodney!" he replied, "nor does any decent man hereabouts, they are to be collected and sold to the tourists."

"Today then they will be served at one."

"Is that all there is, chestnuts?"  Chirp enquired in dismay, "Where's my numnum? I have become accustomed to lunch and a good  solid one too."

"I might have some figs." Said Grabsia, the zig-zag wanderer.

"Give me a fig then."

My man generously offered him a carrot.

"That's a Fig?" Murmured Chip, confused.

"I reckon it is," Grabsia replied.

"Yes, I reckon it is, indeed I do. Its a kind of fuckin' Lyonnais fig to be quite precise!"

(A slight skirmish took place, unpleasant banter with carrots, sticks and car keys waved, ready for battle.)

"Sir," said Chirp (with admirable restraint,) you are amusing yourself at my expense and are exhausting my patience. I may be hungry but I sure ain't weird and what's more, We has work to do."

Grabsia who claimed to live  on roots and water, could ill avail to answer and dropped his eyes.

"He who dines sleeps!" He declared at last.

"I wouldn't say no to a little nap." Murmured a timid Belbake voice. "It may increase my productivity."

This kind of paranoiac has many specific persecutors. Someone is always against him. There is most certainly some kind of plot to steal his brains. A chip  is concealed in his shorts which emits mind rays to soften his brain or to send electric shocks through him while he is sleeping.

There was indeed a very uncomfortable strangeness about Belbake and this was something more than mere ordinary tiredness.  He pulled his shorts right up to his neck, fell limply to the ground at the foot of a fairly mighty cypress and immediately went to sleep, mumbling to himself as if trying to grow fins "Who's that stomping all over my face? And who's all hung-up on that happiness thing? The line isn't black, if you know that it's green......" Had he spent some time in Canada?

"What sorry comfort for the sleepless. What starvation!"  Chirp yelled in purple fury, "sleeping consists of a loss of one's own awareness, the loss of one's being as well as that of the world and loss of money. We are paid by the hour you moron!"

With that the odd Mister Belbake awoke and tried manfully to climb safely back on board.

We all looked at the man still on the floor.

"Get up, Didi, just nod if you can hear me" said Chirp in a gentle voice. Didier, fresh from slumberland rose as if hypnotized.

"He will do as we suggest now," observed Mr. Chirp. with remarkable delicacy, as I have also discovered that he has torn up the good lady's' instructions."
 
Didier was as stoned as the doc' at the radar station: "I haven't torn up anything, I mean it!  I cannot operate where I am not valued. You must see that. Mister Chirp"

The day had come at last when he could remain standing for nearly whole afternoons, but his eyes were so blank and vacant that I imagined he had become even more half-witted than before. His face, naturally pale, had turned to such a ghastly waxed whiteness that I started at the sight of it.  His hands, so sure and steady at all other times, trembled violently and his eyes looked wolfishly past me and fixed on Grabsia. I remarked all this to Mr Chirp who replied that it was of no consequence and none of my business anyway.

"Stay to brunch then!" Cried the fine fingered Grabsia quite dismayed by such a sentimental display. "Geneviève will be here directly."

There was something horrible, something fierce and devilish in his otherwise kind offer of Advocaat, oranges and cedar bitters that somehow threw me, I shivered a little, and dryly advised him to remember to whom he was offering his precious liquids.

"Is there any tea?" asked Belbake plaintively.

"Yes, sir."

"What else is there?"

"Venison, vodka and custard creams."

"Bring me tea and and those custard things"

"And you want nothing else?" Grabsia demanded with apparent surprise. "No cutlery?"

"Nothing, nothing."

The ragged man retreated, completely disillusioned, before he remembered the spoons. "Spoons!"  Cried poor Grabsia in alarm. "Spoons." Unless they're to drink directly from the bowl?

I had a feeling that this may have been turning nasty again, and that I would  have few sentences more to add to my diary before going to bed. Then all of a sudden, perhaps carried away by the mere suggestion of meat and vodka and egg-nogg, a violent fit of coughing interrupted poor Mister Cole. He wiped his face with the palm of his hand and looked cunningly at Chirp.

"Hush boys hush!" The tiny man in the checkered blouse roused himself abruptly, halted, sniffed, nose all pricked.

"I smell hogs all about here!" He snorted, still sniffing right and left.

"I am rather surprised at that," said I. "Can you really sniff out  pigs with that little crushed Arabian nose of yours?"  Then he repeated the strangling action round his neck and significantly struck himself on the chest, as though announcing that he would take upon himself the task of killing what was alarming.

"The Missus is an an ordinary unhealthy, everyday creature and don't take kindly to pigs rucking up her garden. Very partic'lar about the thing she is. Grab your firearms men!"

"If it were not for those blasted gates we could have eaten in comfort." Chirp struck back in a mocking tone. "Yes and later we could have put up a fence. A fence! There's the thing. A fence, an electrical fence he declared, quite as if the idea had just popped into his copious head, which it had. Now that would keep the rotters out!"

I threatened him with my cane, but he only laughed and tried to change the subject. But the mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me .

"Have you struck gold, Chirp? Making a fence could possibly keep those hogs at bay and certainly make you a terrible lot of money."

"I am suffering from one of my bad headaches," Chirp answered coldly, offering to execute a song and dance, yet evidently disturbed by my insight.
"But for the moment," he continued obstinately, "I demand lunch and then and only then shall we look at the fence." With his outer behaviour he forestalled the danger to which he was perpetually subject, namely that of becoming  just somebody's thing, by pretending to be no more than an ordinary hungry man with a headache. Or a cork.

"Oh, all right "I said affably enough. One song, and that's your lot. But please, no dancing!"

"Ma petite entreprise, connait pas la crise" Chirp began to pipe. Please Chirp, really! There shall be no fucking fences  and no sodding Alain Bashung either in this land of wild and natural beauty I thought to myself. Then I opened my mouth just a fraction, and said, "what a delightful song, but maybe for all this topiary work; all this automatic watering, swimming pools and gates that open or close at their own volition, or not..... Bollocks," I said.  "Maybe your masters have not yet understood how things work round here."

"Enough!  I am of an ill humor! " (Chirp indignantly declared.) "La vérité m'épuise. (The truth fags me out. Trans.) it is now very much past past one o' clock, so quite clearly I have eaten. I have enjoyed and digested a very fine lunch indeed. I have no recollection of such a boogie woogie blue plate meal, but given the hour, I have dined and dined well and am deeply satisfied for I have had my baguette and my five cooked meats a day, some cheesy comestibles. and chocolate biscuits all washed down with a delicious sparkling cola drink.......... Yet I shall not sleep my friends. Oh no not I."

The poor Belbake fellow, who had been absorbed in contriving other ways of trying to be real was in fact nowhere to be seen. In the course of a few minutes he reappeared, wiping his lips with the back of his hand with an air of quiet satisfaction that somehow impressed Mr. Chirp. I stood looking at him for some moments, and then I watched him walk in an oddly furtive manner towards his Decathlon branded bicycle where he produced a short clay pipe, and prepared to fill it. His fingers trembled while doing so. He lit it clumsily, and began to smoke in a languid attitude. He had somehow managed to change from shorts and waistcoat into a yellow Nan-keen coat, and a huge brimmed cardboard hat without any of us noticing and now with glaring impropriety the beast was smoking a pipe. The villain lives in comfort!

"To work men!" Chirp exclaimed grossly with a painful expression of anxiety in his face which made me fear that his mind was not at ease. Then the King in yellow dreamily puffing away at his pipe, seemed to me to be in some kind of a rent in his relation with his world and a disruption of his relation with himself. He blew thick clouds of smoke casually into the clear and windless late morning, then suddenly without warning, his expression changed, he stared aghast at his own billows of halfzware shag and exclaimed: "Chirp! Grabsia! Beware. Those dense and vapour ridden clouds we see are an omen and bring no good to us outdoor men; cant you see? Best pack up sharpish and head for shelter....A hard rain is gonna fall."

"To work men!"  Chirp repeated. "There's nothing left in me but eat and sleep and work. Time has worn me out so that I have grown so stupid that my mornings are spent in cutting things and most afternoons are nearly always consumed by raking....Unless  of course you would like me to tell you all the joke about  the weasel with the silver-skin onion up its arse?"

I listened to him perfectly stunned with astonishment. "What nonsense Chirp! Another glass of imaginary claret is hardly going hurt you after that fine lunch of yours. Sit down again and drink like an Englishman. You sir, should unmask. I want half an hour's quiet talk with you over wine."

As he refused, my nervous annoyance changed unevenly to anger.  Sit down! "For Heaven's sake, man, sit down."  I was livid and quite at the end of my tether "Goodness me!" I looked at him horribly, " Aren't you  even going to wipe your mouth?"

I had only intended to advise him a little on table manners and remind him that any French workman worth his salt should drive a Renault Kangoo and not such an inglorious Ford thing, but who was doing this doing the talking anyway?

I examined these two young men as a father might, (sternly but without giving a crap), but thought secretly that they should keep watch upon themselves these two. I should have shot the new people on arrival. Not just their gates, for it is neither right nor proper to do the will of one who demands what is wholly unreasonable.

I don't say that you was a hoe, Chirp. Just made a hoe decision.

After this not so innocent cri de coeur thing of mine, I thought at first there would be a fight, and I thought with regret that Chirp in early life may have had had a hobby of killing lions, or taming horses through want of exercise.

This story of course scarcely concerns me either in my real or any of my assumed characters. There was no fight or anything quite like one
and even if my last remark had conveyed an aspersion of the most offensive kind, this cue ball gardener man will  have no other choice but to contrast his own inner emptiness with the abundance of the garden, he will find a welter of conflicting emotions and a frantic envy and hatred of all that is theirs but not his at all.

I curbed my thoughts sharply and broke the thread of my reflections and said in all seriousness.

"If there is one thing I'm curious about: Where the hell did that ray of sunlight come from?"

Being endowed by nature with a romantic imagination, I have become attached more than all the others to the man whose life is an enigma, the one who seems to me the hero of this sad little drama. A man who really does produce sunshine from his arse. He was fond of me too; at least with me alone did he drop his customary incomprehensible tone, and converse on different subjects such as the weather forecast and couscous in a simple and unusually agreeable manner. "This is the tragedy of France; you can judge it by its foremost men and condescend on the little men: but Its types do not typify.

Grabsia  looked at me guiltily and dejected, a smile played on his lips, here the hallucination was marked with an exquisite tenderness; "they just don't understand the way of our world."

I hesitated, fearing that my words may be considered an intrusion."Why, then, why don't you make full use of it and may your reverence live to enjoy it for many a year," said I.

"But why do they want to keep the pigs out!? He implored, "Why can't we just do what we always have? Life here revolves around the seasons of the year, drinking wine and watching the grapes and olives grow and fatten; waiting and watching. Waiting for the yummy acorns to fall from the trees, waiting for the autumn rains and waiting for the mushrooms, then waiting again for the big fat wild hogs to come along so we can shoot and scoff the bastards".

"Yes Grabsia," I said in an effort to clear his confusion, "just to think about it, you may very well like to cogitate upon what Westermann has to say on  the impingement of reality." I handed him a pamphlet.

Joey Cole stared at me blankly, but my special paper rolled friend, (Bob)  hot-tipped, clean and well constructed had prepared me well. I looked squarely at the North African remnant for one brief moment  and asked  him straight: "Grabsia my friend, are you shittin' me? Do not your religious beliefs deny you the pleasures of alcohol and porkiness?"

He was looking back (to see if I was looking back) and replied simply without displeasure:

"Negatory. I am a Roman Catholic." (You insensitive clod. Implied.)

Ouch!

"I had better get my coat and go home, don't you think?" I asked nicely.

Every one, I suppose has known such stunning instants of abstraction, moments of such embarrassment that will haunt them forever, yet cause such brilliant blankets in the mind. The 'here's a banana for the monkey' moments that can be painful and always have consequences.
(I now firmly believe that my father would let anybody beat him up from sheer good nature, Trans.)

I came back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after all, only standing here staring at this grand house, built in defiance of all decency, which in the end was nothing more than an overheated crappy little joint rolling booth. All sorts of people keep booths here and some of them don't even smoke.

Three honest men, Rag, Tag and Bobtail who were here to scrape that Euro or two to feed their families or make a marriage proposal or settle a divorce. In some strange way there was in my mind an unimaginable something that told me that I had once again strayed from the woods into yet another strange world where I did not belong. I felt as if I had crossed some border in the soul and was about to commit a sin. Let's have a nice cup of tea.

I have gained in my professional life sufficient experience of young men to know what outward signs and tokens are not to be taken lightly and I am sorry to say I felt more than doubtful about Mr. Chirp's future. Restrain your exuberant admiration for your name on the side of a van I was thinking.

I got my coat and went home, but not directly, not straight away and not without a drop of comfort at La Bar de la Mairie.

This phase did not last long,  I knew nothing  really bad had happened, I felt it in me waters. But my memory gave me respite and I plunged again into my pretentious social studies, so as to efface the impressions of such recollections. Now I must get used to feeling happy, and trust it.

I cannot remember of course if anything at all in this chapter is true or not and I can't confirm the details of the arrangement. (Maybe they both sell it and divide the proceeds?) But I definitely felt the need to insert a few rather ingenious lies into it anyway. Nearly every word of the narrative may be veracious, except for the chestnuts of course, because there are none and the egg-nog because I don't remember. The name Westermann and the impingement thing which came to me strangely all of a sudden is a pure fig' of my imagination. Didier's bike was not a Decathlon B machine, but actually rather a tasty Lion brand Peugeot. And speaking of which, Clancy? Well of course he can even sing. Up yours Belbake!

Well she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running round
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind.
(J. Hendrix)

The other, pure bred and massive, Sheena, a punk rocking ass with a startlingly preened Mohican mane stood twice the Pooka's height and weight and could push over huge trees with her monstrous expansive backside and eat her way through dense thickets of spiky venomous vegetation. Collectively the four bastard donkeys were to be known as the William S. Burros. But one day a very short and terribly overweight Shetland pony who responded to the name of Dave, appeared out of the blue and wheedled his way into the pack, for less than obvious reasons, Taz renamed them “The Flying Burrito Brothers”.

To the great chagrin of this gang of five, three females, a eunuch and weird Dave, Taz had insisted that they got themselves a horse in order to lead and discipline the “stubborn, lazy, pleasure-seeking little sods.” Well she did get herself a pet horse and I darned well had to deputize her. Trigger.

Even our two professionals were a little surprised at the sheer quantity of Cannabis sativa they found in the steep, dense and accessible only to those in the know woodlands.  The boundaries of this little Kingdom, either in time or space, are not easy to determine, but I could never hope to better Jean Aicard’s description of them in his 1912 book “Maurin (no relation) des Maures”:

“Glorious countryside, a small range of mountains which [..] is a perfectly self-contained orographic system separated from the surrounding mountains by the wide valleys of the Aille, the Argens and the Gapeau. The Maures are, as it were, a mountainous island in the plain, an island of gneiss and schist and granite in striking contrast to the surrounding chalky landscape. The railway from Marseilles to Nice winds round it to the north and a road crosses it from end to end, having a total length of not less than fifteen leagues[..] It has a main chain and subsidiary lateral ranges and its hydro-graphic system is an identical miniature of the valleys of the great rivers of the world[..] These mountains merit the interest of a wise man not only for for their geological formation and extraordinary variety of rare flora and fauna, they are equally worthy of a visit from the ordinary tourist and lover of the countryside. Though covering an area of only eight hundred square kilometres, and having a mean altitude of not more than 300 metres.”

That was then, but this is now. A hundred years ago these woods had been a prosperous hive of woodcutting, cork-stripping and charcoal making activity but are now stupidly more or less deserted, milking tourists is far more lucrative than tending a difficult and unrequiting forest. The water system too has been badly neglected, finding its way underground rather than flowing steadily down to the rivers below. To Maurin it was his very own enormous and private Idaho, and what a splendid state it was. The guerilla weed plantations were always to be found close to a waterlogged strip of heavy clay and of course well away from any deciduous trees such as Castanea Sativa, the sweet chestnut; for cannabis in spring and autumn would stick out like Dean Moriarty’s sore thumb to the busy body trouble seeking army helicopters that frequently scoured the area. Hidden around cork oaks or within a cunning plantation of Arundo donax, giant cane, is also good camouflage that distorts heat and reflective signatures, if and when the French government save up enough cash to by infra-red equipment.

The brave burros, Dave and Trigger, half horse half faggot, could demolish and digest huge quantities of weed in half a day and be in no fit state to resent the humiliation of lugging heavy paniers of their own shit, slowly but steadily back to the ranch.

Back home though things had changed. Steve, that unpredictable, unstable and forever unreliable friend of mine had cast aside his dressing gown and obscene shoes, set fire to his makeshift home and less successfully his bicycle before moving into the squankiest villa in Ramatuelle, complete with its own pools, golf course, velodrome and the world's most loved francophone Country and Western singer. I still don't know what I would do without him though, honestly.

Then Taz, where do think she was living? I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, what had changed in Taz? Had she found the love of her life? Yes !Yes! Money, money and more filthy money. She spent her days cutting, drying and flavouring the special donkey drops with vanilla, lemon, cinnamon and just about anything else she could lay her hands on, even I regret to say, catnip. Her evenings were passed around the bars restaurants and nightclubs, touting the stuff and touting it well and all that at very impressive prices. I felt that somehow I should disapprove of her career choice, but then again it was way better than me having to pay her way through University or her having to take on a ridiculous lifetime of debt, and who knows? This way she might actually learn something.

Well where was she living? I thought you’d never ask, she was aboard the Turpitude. Yes, Lozzi was back, but no Lister. Loz had finally had enough and chucked him overboard in the straits of Gibralata (sic) then hired a scruffy looking chap to bring her back to Saint-Trop’ and those scrumptious balls of donkey shit.

It was no surprise when Maurin showed up again at my door, no fake American accent this time, or moustache, just a little despondent, but lying through his teeth all the same.

“We’re worried about you Rodney,”were his first words as he came through the door.

“What do you mean, worried about me?”

“Well, that J Geils day thing with the mayor and that nonsense about Standard Collo time… You do know that she isn’t really called Birdy, or Namnam don’t you?”

Worried about me, there’'s a thing.

“And why Melvin? And why do you drink so much?”

“Melvin’s not here and it's all Steve's fault anyway!”

“Rod you have to listen to what I've got to say! Steve and I are genuinely concerned about you,. You live in a fantasy world officer sir, and we're going to drag you out of it, out of your jurisdiction, you shouldn’t get so involved in such trivial things as local politics. The Mayoress is a moron, everybody knows that and methinks she doesn’t protest half enough. So just forget it, we’re going on a road trip. And that’s final!”

“Look Maurin” I said unbending, but offering a seat and a cold beer all the same, which this time he didn’t refuse. “Look at me,” I said, “there’s nowt wrong wi’ me, it’s you and Steve that’s got wimmin problems, that’s why you want out, come on admit it you crafty little creep!”

“No, Rodney, Taz is really upset too, last week you spent the whole bloody evening singing ‘Her name is Birdy, she gotta head like a potato’, she really thinks you’re losing it mate.”

“Taz! Worried about me !”

"Yes Rod, worried about you, we all are. Anyone can see that head looks much more like a turnip and who would wanna have a head like that? “

That evening, to console myself a little, I dined at Borello's. To commence I called for a bottle of pink grape wine, 'La Treille des Maures.' Then suddenly, enjoying this pale, pasteurised plonk with a nose that could be compared unfavourably to a stick of Yorkshire rhubarb, I noticed my fellow diners were all reading foreign newspapers. The only ones actually eating were unbecoming women in pairs, well built English women with boyish faces, large teeth and ruddy ping-pong cheeks. They attacked a top-notch wild boar stew with genuine ardor. The specialty of the house was this warm poacher's meat dish cooked in a rich red wine sauce with tagliatelle au pesto, like a pie. Having lacked appetite for many a long time, I remained amazed in the presence of these hearty eaters whose voracity had whetted my hunger. I ordered a soup of fish with garlic croutons and enjoyed it heartily. I categorically refused an intermediary mushroom omelet, but glancing at the menu for more fish, demanded firmly a big flat gilt-head bream.

Seized with another sudden pang of hunger at the sight of these dreadful people stowing away their food, I ordered some of the famous stew and drank two quarts of draught ale. Stimulated by the beastly tang of this awful pale yellow beer, heaved through filthy pipes which had probably lain uncleaned for more than half a century, my hunger persisted. I lingered over a skilfully wrapped portion of blue Stilton-like cheese, then made quick work of a lemon meringue tart, and to vary my drinking, quenched my thirst with a Jack and Coke, that dark sickly awfulness which smells of Spanish licorice but with a much more horrible sugary taste. I breathed deeply. Not for years had I ate and drunk so much in less than twenty-five minutes and so cheaply! This change of habit, this choice of unexpected and solid food awakened my stomach from its long sleep. I leaned back in my chair, lit a cigarette and prepared to sip some coffee into which a mighty slurp of gin had been poured.

          As a man who was brought up to believe that the best and only things in life were fast girls, expensive cars, and Joshua Tetley’s very fine bitter ale, it’s just too odd to think that here I am now living alone, drinking very cheap continental bottom fermented lager and driving around in a Renault 4.  Not a bottom of the 1978 range I have to admit, not a basic 4L at all, but a glistening golden GTL, which had been abandoned on Main Street for ages, so I just helped myself, as they say. I put the car bit down to the fruit of maturity and good taste. As for living alone, you can think what you like. A Renault 4 will always get you home by the way and no, it is no longer for sale.

I’ve had a load of calls this week, Maurin sounding improbably concerned about me, Taz, imploring me to “lay offa ze Nucky Balls”, which to her was like having my fingers permanently in her cash register. Sometimes Steve, worried to death about my pointless rants about our lovely Lady Mayor and her special potatoes. But all of them expressing doubts about my mental elf. (Bang your head, trans.) Was I really all right, was I getting ready for the road trip, the adventure of a lifetime? I certainly was. Swimwear, towels, shampoos, sun-creams, bath toys and one change of underwear. I had of course already consumed Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Thing and familiarised myself with most of those turtle-necked tossers from the beat generation, I think. I had even tinkered with The Incredible Journey, just in case we ran into a dog or a cat or something like that. As I write, I am watching Easy Rider. Ooh, ooh and it makes me wonder!

This whole thing though, the road trip I mean, it sounds a lot more like they’re coming to take me away ha-ha hee-hee, which is peculiar, because for some time now I have had that funny feeling that I was there already. All those chirpy chirpy cheep cheep birds and basket weavers twiddling their thumbs and all in this village. Not to worry, not to worry at all, I will just play along with my foolish companions, just follow my horn and obey my whims. Smile at their seamless faces.

I shall of course be taking the Renault, and those two can take their pic (sic) sorry typo, from my treasured collection of some two hundred or so Peugeot mopeds. I may as well tell you straight, I don’t like Motobecanes, Puchs, Piaggios or Jap Crap, I just don’t. A moped should be the perfect reflection of its owner; stylish, temperamental and supremely unreliable.

If I said we left at dawn, day break or sun-up, it would be hard to believe. We left at half past eleven, headed for somewhere called Nazareth, or at least someplace twinned with it, just driving until we found one. I was surprised at how easy the act of leaving was, and how good it felt. The world was suddenly rich with possibility. Let’s find Nazareth, because there has to be one somewhere in this darned country, and does road-trip need a hyphen or bloody not?

The sun was well up as we screamed out west from Les Couillons, through the valley of sombre green hillsides, steaming steadily in the warm morning sun after the hard frost of the night before; heading towards motorways, traffic jams and billboards. All aboard! Tickets please! Here comes the motorcade of common sense. Yes Taz, if you’re reading this, better put on that party dress. I’ve had my last dance with Mary-Jane and sent you what was left in one of those self addressed envelopes that you so thoughtfully sent me, keep ‘em safe my little squirrel.

Steve looked rather stunning in that costly little yellow outfit I had bought for him in St Tropez,  he had finished it off cleverly with an oversized and rather bloated matching corduroy cap which could more or less pass as a crash-Helmet if the police didn’t poke at him too closely. Wreckless Maurin was online shopping from top to toe, cheap but ineffably cool and leathery as he swept past me repeatedly, head down and tongue outstretched on the bends, one more treacherous than the next. Lubberly wretch, I'm sure!

It still amazes me, even after all these years. Why are Renault 4′s  no longer allowed on motorways? Utterly ridiculous, the world has gone mad. It’s really no different from other cars, a little less streamlined perhaps, unrefined and a bit iffy on road holding and crumple zones I confess, but in the end it'’s just a box with lights on, so why those orange letters again, flashing:

“No Renault 4′s Please. Merci pour votre comprehension.”

There is no hell, only France! (Frank Zappa, trans.)

It’s funny how quickly one can adapt to life’s wonderful aberrations and absurdities, like bread, driving on the right or smart phones. Nothing is real and nothing immediately springs to mind that is worth getting hung or fined for, so I never make too much of a fuss about it. Raspberry cordial for ever.

We strove, as we always do to find a workaround. Speeding through Pierrefeu, down the Sauvebonne, straight through Sollies Toucas, up the Gapeau valley until we finally hit the RN98. Now all that might sound like utter nonsense to you, so let’s just say we were trying to get from here to Marseille, legally, honestly and decently. Steve had somehow persuaded Maurin to introduce us both to his parents! Esther and Chester. How nice.

Then a quick bite of lunch in a town very much in need of a bypass, for everybody's sake: Belgentier.

A Relais Routier is just the thing. A monster platter of raw tinned vegetables, crudités, to start, followed by the usual blanquette de veau, Camembert, tarte aux pommes, coffee and one last miserable carafe of the cuvée du chef. Please mate, I begged him, go on, just one more mon ami! Nothing doing, the pillock even threatened to confiscate my car keys. I mean key. Actually I couldn't even be arsed to tell him that it had a push button start. You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it….

Half an hour later, cruising gently along towards the mushroon town of Signes, Steve spotted an obvious hooker by the side of the road, bold as brass, snuggled in a deck chair, shorty shorts and lots of bad leg, engrossed and confused by an oversize word puzzle book, soduko. There she was, just waiting for us to come by, sprawled and barely lifeless in a pile of Coca-Cola cans and McDonald’s wrappings. What’s wrong with fish and chips and Irn Bru Miss? Steve and Maurin pulled off the road sharpish and I slithered in sheepishly behind.

Steve unsaddled and uninhibited, demanded, “Where ya from man? How long ya been in Mexico? How much?”

I admit to being rather taken aback when Stevie-Ray came hurtling towards me demanding fifty bloody Euros.

“Hand them over and if you tell Tammy, you’re dead.”

He stared me out, over-lingering his welcome,  but as a Democrat and a free-thinker, I was disposed to be lenient.

With the nifty-fifty in his pocket, before me stood a man who believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was finally about to dust his broom.

Unsurprisingly, five minutes later, after some entertaining cannibal grunts from the hillock behind the lay-by and a running commentary on his bestiality that sounded as if he had swallowed whole that most unwanted of Christmas presents, a paper copy of the Urban Dictionary, back he came, his still obvious broom done and well dusted, beaming with satisfaction as he leaped lustily back onto his two-wheeled mount.

"You see before you a perfectly happy person, Rodney," he announced. "I'm perfectly happy, yes, in spite of my hair. Just at present I have a soul above red hair."

"Steve." I  said as politely as I could,  "I have no hard feelings towards you, and henceforth I shall cover that little incident with a mantle of oblivion."

That was a pretty dignified way of speaking now wasn't it?

We were back on the road again.

We sped on at a stately 40kph straight into Marcel Pagnol country. Ah! the real Provence, barren chalky white, slightly fire damaged tenement hillsides. Aubagne, a leading candidate to host the forthcoming shopping Olympics, bathed in thin bright winter sunshine and home to the French Foreign Legion, now that doesn’t sound quite right does it? Home to the Foreign Legion? No. Absolutely not.

My beautiful winter sunshine suddenly and inexplicably turned into a wild and raging thunderstorm. This can only happen in Provence, or maybe French Lick Indiana on a Saturday night, and it happened today. I chuckled as the two in front lowered their heads to handlebar level, accelerated imperceptibly and fled, soaked immediately to the skin, towards the nearest Centre Commercial, hell bent, hell bent for Gortex.

Table tennis tables all lined up in front of the store. Arrgh! Barren and green, standard shape and size, white stripes, centre-folding all-weather and repulsive. I could see them playing, Debbie in the dinner jacket, Dave on drums right before my eyes. Nigel the nerd  and George, a sharp faced boy with a broken voice, citron coloured hair and a stammer. Twenty-one fingered salutes to the lot of you. This is deliberate provocation. How could Juno know I was coming? Taunt me with a big table why don’t you? Hurt me!

The boys had somehow found another of those one-stop sporting apparel, forward slash, fancy dress shops and were in there for some time, but came back in the end with a chariot load of waterproof clothing, socks, sleeping bags, lanterns, shotguns, penknives, and….

“…Just look at these little tents Rodney, bloody amazing,” said Steve, “you should have seen the brilliant video, you can get the thing up in a jif jif , as soon as it’s out of its sheath.”

Ignoring the innuendo and lamenting the slackening intensity of the rain, I made a sign that we should be on our way.

“Load all that rubbish in the hatch, we’re off to see the bright lights, big city.”

To say that twenty minutes later we got utterly crapassed lost in Marseille city centre, would be vulgar as well as misleading and dishonest; we sailed through her, following the marvellous signposting and encouraged by hoards of well-wishers at every single traffic light, suits you sweety!

“Tickets for the match tonight Sir? Clean your windscreen mate? Fifty per cent discount on a Renault Four! Couscous to go monsieur? Qui c’est ce con-là? Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick?”

Steve’s choice of colour scheme was more unfortunate tonight than it would have been on any other. Tonight, Olympic de Marseille were in a semi-final cup match with FC Nantes. Yes you guessed it, aka The Canaries. The mob of youth became denser and more broken-bottle waving aggressive as we approached the Stade Velodrome, which Maurin took pains to explain to Steve was just the name of the ground and football was the game. We sped on southbound towards the coast…….If their rear view mirrors were maladjusted, which I knew they were, well, lucky them. Mine were just fine and behind us I could clearly see a fierce and furious mass of sky blue and white scarves screaming murder, but we out paced them, of course we did.

Half an hour of chugging along the coast road, heading for the picturesque Norwegian blue Calanques, it was nearly dusk, and in a thick and unexpected fog we began the hors categorie climb to Maurin’s family seat. To be frank, the the three of us only just made it, the Four was in first for most of the way, In fact I even thought about taking it in reverse, crank it down a notch. The mopeds struggled, can’t deny it, so lucky they are pedal assisted vehicles, but crumbs, it was worth it. The property was set in landscaped gardens of over 16 hectares and consisted of a main mansion, an independent villa, a guest house and extremely luxurious staff accommodation. All of the living space had been renovated to an exceptionally high standard by the current owners and retained many original features. It was built in the Provencal style, yet incorporated all the comforts of modern living. This property includes a large swimming pool, a billiard room complete with bar area, a tennis court and a private golf course. I later discovered a fully fitted family kitchen, a formal dining room with feature vaulted ceiling and a gymnasium.

Parked in the driveway was quite a fleet of most unusual cars: a common or garden Nissan Entrail of course, then what looked to me in the misty failing light like a 1962 Dodge Veg-e-Matic and last but least, a horrible little Smart for two. This thing would not remain unscathed during my hopefully brief stay here. Me and my Sharpie will see to that.

To my surprise Maurin actually knocked at his own front door; I had always thought of him more as a died in the wool back door man. But no, there he stood clumsily trying to place himself between us and a pretentious crappy looking brass plaque which read: ‘Doctor Chester and Diva Esther Burnett and leur fils Eric.’

The door was almost instantly opened by a very pleasant and appealing woman of a certain age, dressed in a short black dress, a dainty little white apron and a jaunty leopard-skin politburo hat. Forty-five to fifty years of age, to hazard a guess. She immediately and thoroughly embraced Maurin, murmuring words of obvious idolatry.

“Your Mother, I presume Maurin? “

“His mother my fulsome backside!”

Came the sweet, brittle but rather well tempered voice from a lady in white satin, that old E minor thing again. She was British and of course drunk, very drunk, skulking, glass in hand a little further back in the hallway. .

“That odious creature is called Denise and she’s from Astrakhan don’t you know, she was Eric’s wet nurse for more years than I care to remember, now she attends to my husband…. Eric! Is that you Eric? Eric my darling, how lovely to see you, and who is your handsome friend?”

I could tell straight away that she had taken a strong fancy to me.

“Steve” said Maurin, “This is Steve, my very good friend Steve O’Milbona. He’s a cyclist, you know mummy, Tour de France, professional jobby”.

So there I was, arsy yarsy with no certificate.

“Oh my dear fellow!” She said outstretching the pale and plumpish hand that was not holding a drink.

This will not be over until the fat lady has said her piece. And she will. "All this doping druggy nonsense in your business; such a travesty that you always get caught and punished in the end. What ever is wrong with taking drugs? No good? No bueno? You should have been an artist you know young man. Performance enhancers are de rigueur in my line of work. And who may I ask is this bearded little pimp with his hair all gassed back, Willy Nelson?" She went on without a break, referring of course to me.

“Please mama, no need to be quite that rude.”

I was fully expecting him to say 'let me introduce you to Don Sugarcube Harris, the lead singer of Slipknot,' or 'do excuse me dear mother but he his half a man and half a biscuit' or something  else equally fatuous and unnecessary, but no, his little trademark niceties were evidently reserved for French people.

“Rodney Skirvishely mum, a good mate of mine, lives in the Var, too.”

Mum looked at me harshly.

“Skir vishe lee? An anapaest without embroidery.” So pretentious, but her pitiful look said so much more.

At last I squeezed a word in. “Eric? What do you mean Eric? he’s called Maurin”.

“No, Monsieur Skirvishely, he is Eric. Do you not read French very well? All my sons are called Eric”.

“Could you show me the way to Saint Louis too, while you are about it Madame?”

Eric’s father was quite another kettle of fish: scaly, cold and looking about ten past dead. 

“Papa,” said young Eric with obvious provocation. “May I introduce to you my lover, Stevie-Ray Milbona, two dystics!…..Ah ha! I thought you’d be surprised!”

In the few months that I had known him, Eric had always had this rather special way of introducing me: Houston Boines the fourth tenor, Alphonse the Pope’s favourite nephew, or as I will always be known to his cronies in the St Tropez whisky bars, both Justerini and Brooks. Tonight though he really excelled himself.

“Dad, meet Rodney Carrington, former prime minister of Ruritania.”

A light suddenly flashed in dada’s fishy glass eyes and as he approached he suddenly grabbed my hand. “Rodney? Rodney of the bloodless coup fame, is it really you?”

“Yes yes, the bloody bloodless coup that’s right.” I was inured.

Then he sort of clutched mine with both his hands and looked me square in the eye.

“You are so right! A bloody coup it would have surely been.” He managed to say it slowly and distinctly, yet somehow to wink furiously at the same time. “If it had not been for the Corps Diplomatique Francais….”

“Yes, sir, a little French duplicity cleans a big, big carpet,” I replied honestly. “Had it not been for your timely intervention, I think I really would have married that darned pick-up truck.”

“Ah Rodney,” he gazed at me with that loving feeling.  “By golly, mon cher ami. If there is anything, anything at all I can do for you just let me know………”

“Well sir,” despicable opportunist that I can be on occasions. “There are in fact one or two things you could do for me if you feel that way inclined. You could ask your mate the Minister of culture to nominate a few tribute, celebration days: Wild Man Fischer day would be a corker, Trout Mask Replica day perhaps, that happens to fall on my birthday. Are you familiar with the works of the good Captain Beefheart, Sir? Well, no matter, let’'s try Blue Cheer or why not Knut Hamsun Day? Something to appeal to the starving unemployed, and all the artistically bent creatures that abound in this land, if you pursue the target of my observations?”I

'Yes ! I do, I do, good Sir Rodney and I will, I will! Why not Howlin’ Wolf day too, twice a year and a brass statue or two on the old port. Will that do ya?"

I was positively astounded by the promptitude of this 'Yes.'

"And now gentlemen — I trust there are no transvestites present – let'’s discuss all this over dinner.”

Chester wrapped one arm warmly on my shoulders.  "Knutty Hamsun and the Blue Flames, what a marvelous suggestion Rodney , I will give your idea much and meaningful thought."

The Astrakhani nanny announced on cue that dinner was indeed served but it was promptly postponed by Esther:

“What about some more bleedin’ aperitifs?” She demanded. "Drinks!"

“No, dinner it is.” Said Mr Burnett softly but bitterly. “The lady of the house has tippled one whisky, one Bourbon and one beer too many and now she must have her fishy on her little dishy, but don’t worry boys, you shall have free rein on my exceptional wine cellar.”

"Denise has been a servant in this house for many a long year."  Burnett droned on  "She is short stout and rather jovial , and is known throughout  the countryside as a model servant. She always asks:

"Is monsieur pleased? Has monsieur received good news?"

"Why are you cross-examining me?" I often reply, but when I present her with her pay cheque she turns horribly red."

With a shade of reverence in his voice, Burnett was scanning me and my attire with a sort of admiring compassion.

Well, Brad, what was for supper?

It was interesting, but I won’t disturb you with details, just small and rather elegant portions, one tiny spoonful of stuff after another, stuff that I guessed had been picked up on the beach the day before or found in a rock pool in the early hours of this morning. Cripes but what a garnish! Men long for baked beans. He wasn’t joking about the wine either. From Mali to Monaco, then Fulham, Bordeaux, court case and obscurity. Château Jean Tigana lives on; red, white and pink from just down the road in Cassis. The three of us were offered half a litre each of what Michel Platini drinks and like the man himself, we slaked our thirsts with horrible gulpings. Cheers to you Michel. Let's play the beautiful game in the summer, not when it's beastly cold and pissing it down; let's ban physical contact, simulation and those horrid sliding tackles. Rid your noble sport of racist remarks and men dressed up as bananas; get rid of all those overspending British clubs from European cups...Take a rain soaked leather one on the nose, you simpering Nancy boy. Give him a nice cold shower!

Dinner conversation turned out to be much easier than I had expected. We spoke at length about Esther’s nose job, the conversation then drifted quite pleasantly into nude disintegrating parachutists, those frightful floods in Texas and of course in this type of company, the Taxman. Stevie-Ray was inexplicably polite, he hoped that they were all enjoying their holiday and made quite a point of saying how nice he was finding Juarez at this time of year.

Although I definitely prefer Steve in his "‘did you know?"’ Or, "studies have shown" mode, after a drink and exclusively for our amusement, he expanded on his ever growing list of things that he just didn’t understand: thunderstorms, the offside rule in soccer, who invited Sha Na Na to play Woodstock? Incroyable. Then Opera. In what I took to be an altogether belligerent and nasty dig at Eric’s fatty of a mother. I abruptly halted her heaving ire by protesting that the Opera was he was alluding to was just a harmless Scandinavian web browser and I could not make head nor tail of it either. Closed source.

“What would you do with a dot torrent file in Opera madam?”

That shut her up. The choir bird that can sing but won’t.

“A thunderstorm, my friend,” said the wise and wonderful Chetser Burnett, as if anyone cared. “Is a form of turbulent typewriting, characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the earth’s atmosphere is known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the thunderstorm is the cumulonimbus……”

Steve had obviously taken a dislike to these people, less immediate than my own, but that’s Steve for you. He had decided now to play a distinctly out of character Mister Rude.

“Yes, everybody knows that, Doctor dork, but why and how do they actually happen?”

"Well I don't know that, nobody does! Jeder macht eine kleine dummheit"

Chester, politician and diplomat had in a blink, outsmarted him.

Eric was justifiably embarrassed. Steve took umbridge, a huge piece of cheese, then flight. Broke like the wind.

“Bonjour!” He lied.

Steve had lived, worked, trained and raced so much in this country for so long, that he had inadvertently learned the word Bonjour. How many times had I tried to tell him how much better it was to say hello when you entered the room, rather than when leaving? Bonjour remains to him good day, have a good day, or sometimes with a little intonational jiggery-pokery, did you have a good day? Tonight he just disappeared.

Crazy man Chester was still there, he had refrained from chasing after Steve in the fog.

“Well, if we’re all good for those special days, I’ll fax you a full list with dates and what-not in the morning, but there is just one more little thing you could do for me, it’s about this ridiculous energy saving time that you lot impose on us. Everybody knows it’s a load of crap, couldn’t you just scrap it and stay on something like Greenwich Mean Time, or Unix time all the year round?”

Chester looked at me like a Frenchman preparing a lie, just a common or garden Frenchman then, now I come to think about it, and said:

“Now that is an original idea Rodney, will you allow me, your Excellency?" asked Monsieur Chester Burnett, holding a bottle respectfully in his hands and preparing to pour from it into his Excellency's glass. "I will of course give this matter my full and due consideration.”

I think we all know what that means. Eric and I decided to nip out for a few beers; Chester kindly offered the loan of the smallest car we could find in the car park, presumably hoping that us driving around drunk on this filthy night would kill off three birds with one stone. Two dystics my arse Eric. Asshole!

I was a bit worried about Steve though, I had a sneaking feeling that he’d be out nicking bikes, swiping them, that’s what he did when he was upset or drunk, or both. Keep stealing them, one more expensive than the next, until he got a Phanuel Krencker de Luxe Bicyclette or better still a Trek Yoshitomo Nara Speed Concept, something in the 200,000 Euro bracket at least. We didn’t find Steve, nowhere to be seen thank God, just found  a fantabulous bar by the name of "The Maureva" A village cocktail bar and lingerie fashion showroom, trendy like you could never imagine and all trussed up like a luxury yacht, all Armani, Armagnac and beers you could stake your life on.

A few beers turned into quite a few more after Eric had the brilliant idea of telling everyone in the bar that behind my beard and effete southern accent, lay in fact a hero. Tonight I was the last remaining Chris Waddle in captivity!

“Go on mate tell them about that about that brilliant goal you scored against those food poisoned Poles in 1990.”

“Why man, I just kicked the ball, like, you know, with me foot like, and blimey, there it were in the back of the net!”

Somehow we did manage to get back safely. The four of us here in reception one having a little chat with Bob Wilson and Jacqui Oatley. Who brought them home? It can’t possibly have been me and Eric in the Smart For Two pieces of crap, could it?

Then Steve, looking sober as a goat lying in wait. I was rather pleased to see him, relieved really as you might imagine. He seemed quite clean, but bottled up with anger, a controlled rage that I had never seen before. He was horribly calm as he grabbed Eric, pinned the poor drunken sot down with one hand and confronted him with first his fist and then his fucking problem.

“In my absence someone has been reading my text books!”

All this was forgotten the next morning though as Steve found himself covered almost from head to toe, as far as I could make out as a casual observer, in vile bluish green and purple boils with some nasty throbbing succulence of quite another kind. Was it the sea food or the cuisse de pute a l’orange he had taken by the wayside? Nobody will ever know. Not even the doctor of the house.

“Tell me Steve, does it hurt when you pee?”

“Fuck off! I don’t want no piss prophet doctor sticking needles in me.”

Chester was rebuffed.

“Well, A raw onion last thing at night would certainly be of great benefit to your complexion. Barang!”

We were getting our things together when the front doorbell rang. Steve raced off to answer it just to see what effect his new look would have on a stranger. He had plenty of time to savour the words, make a witty remark as the two estrangers, dressed in blue, the municipal police, just stood there staring blankly at him.

Steve stared back at them, puss dripping down wherever they dared to look, and with a few less cogs than I remembered, he asked them sweetly:

“Is it about a bicycle?” 

        Unfortunately we never did find Sir Henry and the boy who had turned yellow, in spite of valuable daylight hours spent foraging around bus and railway stations, main and sub-post offices and peering under many a dipstick bridge. It was quite as if it had never existed, or more likely the place had just blown away. In the end we settled for the more salubrious Grand Cafe de .. ? The Opera I think it was, settled down comfortably to grand crèmes and puff pastries, and began to brew fresh plans.

Now I have long had the fancy to head out west towards Nimes and beyond, to seek out and enjoy the company of a fellow expatriated and reclusive sharp-witted sort of chap, none other than the seminal artist, writer and musician Robert Crumb. It was widely known that he and his little family had taken up residence somewhere in the Vidourle valley which they had asked not be named, 'fearful of attracting streams of fans.' Ha! Ha! To boldly go where no fanboi has gone before shouldn’t be much of a problem once we find a decent Wifi Hotspot, and the three of us, well we could hardly be mistaken for fanboys.

Eric who had clearly never heard of the man and – What sort of a name is Crumb anyway? – deemed that it would be a pity to be so close and then completely miss the Luberon National Park. Steve? Well, I knew fine well which particular barren wind swept summit was top of his wish list, more about that later… Eric of course had it his way; his arse had been so buttered and lavishly re-buttered of late with all his bacon saving exploits that he was now sliding on gilded splinters, we simply had to give in.

“Come on lads, everybody in the whole world knows at least one person with a holiday home in the bloody Luberon, let’s be three of those unexpected, uninvited and thoroughly unwanted house guests.”

He had a point; my old chum and former drinking companion Marc ‘Sticky’ Philips, the persuasively dyslectical Estate agent who had sold me that ‘highly despicable villa thing with burundles of lewd potentiality’ in Saint Tropez all those years ago had upped sticks as it were, and planted himself in Lacoste, of all places. Old Stickybeak, he certainly owes me one!

Steve was certain that Rigoberto Baresa lived in a big mansion in the outskirts of Apt with a bevy of young and attractive bicycles. 'Perhaps he would lend us a couple or three and we could have a bit of a race up Mount Ventoux?' At least his sense of humour was intact. Eric, predictably, had ‘a mate’ in a town which I am pretty sure he just made up on the spot: Oppède Le Vieux? (dirty old man, trans.)

So this year, in Provence of the calciferous sort, our very particular lunch began in L’isle sur la Sorgue and as ever in one of those fantastic supermarkety places that Eric has warned me quite firmly not to mention again by name. I have always found that New Year’s Eve with its eleventh hour excesses and doomed resolutions is a dismal occasion for all the forced jollity and midnight toasts and kisses, so how rude would it be if we unexpectedly turned up two days later without our own bottles?

Canadian and Kentucky Western Gold and a five year old Glen Orchy; I had noticed them all on my previous forays into this retail paradise; tons of it at a fraction under ten Euros the bottle. Was I going to drink this shit? Hell no. but with a goodly stock of this stuff we would be a little more welcome at the Luberon cheapskate’s ball. This place isn’t exactly Le Lavandou now is it? Knock me down with a feather, no sooner had we been graciously allowed inside, I couldn’t help spotting a very large sign announcing that they were offering a whopping, no massive twenty-five percent reduction across the board on all their beers and Fink Brau. Those Krauts were just not going to let the French Government or anybody else distract them from their mission to transform the populace into a bunch of useless fat-assed drunks. Bravo! I piled up the trolley thing as usual, but to avoid the habitual tut-tutting and any Gallic malicious implications from ugly bifocals at the checkout, I chucked in some bratwurst, a bicycle repair kit and a knee bandage, to make it look like we going to a garden-party at Lekkerland rather than just preparing to get pissed in le parking.

Prophetic! Cupidity is its own reward. A van load of dusty road menders and their indispensable and versatile colleagues, the hole diggers of myriad nationalities, had set up an improvised luncheon parlour right next to my Renault, under an adventitious early blossoming almond. Their eyes glowering on the alluring contents of our trolley, they beckoned us over:

“mangie con ni? trinki con vi?”

You eat with us, we’ll drink with you? Just guessing.

The charcoal blazing sadly in the brightening sun would not be ready for cooking purposes for over an hour but their little microwave oven plugged into a portable pneumatic drill generator was already churning out piping hot soupe de poissons for all the family. The camel wore a nighty Sir!

One of the gang seemed to be enjoying a jarful of generic cola, which personally I only use for de-coking moped exhausts or thoroughly cleaning out petrol tanks. He looked like a nice enough chap though and was engrossed in a colourful illustrated pamphlet. Curiosity prompted me to converse with this agreeable looking stranger.

"Pray, Sir," said I, "what may be the contents of the treatise you are reading with such attention?"

"Manly week, Sir", he replied simply. "Powerfix and Crivit Sir, black puddings too and some full stretch sensible ladies' underwear. Food for cookware fettish fellows and a full seventeen percent off a grand selection of smoked meat, freshly baked bread and some fishes, praise the lord: Gregory Peccory by name Sir, and very pleased to meet you, too." He positively grinned at me and offered a warm and nicely grimy hand.

The bonnet of an R4l, is as near as dammit flat and makes an agreeable dining table for six, but it’s not an extender and was a bit of a squeeze for the nine of us, but what a damned good lunch it was. All the better when Alberto the foreman pulled out a dervish violin and Birkov produced a gleaming ukelele, the one bowing his heartstrings tender, tuneless to my ears yet drawing us in unwillingly and all the while the beatnik Zouave plonked taut and metallic, thrumming a po and steady rhythm. This was the stuff, then Irish Greg positively thumping his string-less bass, and to my delighted stupefaction, Alberto, still tormenting the catgut began to croon:

“Mwen renmen ou Dillmart Oh wi pou mwen fè.
Dillmart oh de ay, Dillmart oh de ay' Dillmart oh de ay."

"Encore! Encore!" Cried aloud Steve.  Ars musica!

Somewhere between two and three-thirty, when the back to work whistle finally blew, or more exactly when the store manager plucked up his courage to stand and stare horribly at us, hands on hips from a cowardly distance, we parted company.  They had holes to dig, we were in pursuit of Stick Philips and the Marquis de Sade’s partially restored pearler of a château that dominated the already precariously perched village of Lacoste. We poked around some of the drab vernacular real estate for a while, adroitly sidestepping luckless pedestrians of the mollydooking tourist variety or the even less fortunate sensibly clad residents, with crusty baguettes underarm and handfuls of well packed pharmacy bags. I’m kidding, the place was picturesque, full of character, well heeled but so desperately dull, that it begged the question, what do people do all day around here? A pleasant place for a beer it certainly was though, three stars.

I don’t know why we do it, but occasionally in bars we let Steve do the ordering, it makes life more interesting. We invariably get twar glasses, but their contents are often a surprise. This time we were served with slightly cloudy lager, spiked with some kind of fruit syrup.

“What exactly did you ask for Steve? If you don’t mind us asking."

“Kiwi ales," he replied cheerfully, fair enough.

“Well come on Rod.” Said Eric at last.

“Come on what?”

“You have a call to make.”

“I do?”

“Yes, old Stickybeak Philips, where we will be dossing tonight.”

“Ok, right, I thought you knew I’d just dreamed that one up, what about your mate Baranaby Nightlite, the peeping tom, you call him why don’t you?”

Eric reluctantly picked up and speed dialled  3615, the Minitel Rose and after a few pointless gestures, head shaking and shoulder shrugs came clean: “all right! I  haven't used that in twenty years and I don’t know a single solitary sausice round here. Call Baresa Stevie and I’ll race you up the Ventoux and win, you old fart.”

“Rigoberto’s dead! Dead to me, moved to Switzerland last I heard, just to be closer to Phil Collins.”

Historical evidence of the presence of Rigoberto Baresa in southern France though not plentiful, is convincing. Dr. K D. Schooepf, the
distinguished German army surgeon and naturalist, who travelled extensively through Provence in 1983-1994, has this to say : “Well at least he really existed for you Steve, you had a friend at least….”

We had no other choice but to have another round before engaging in the grizzly task of finding a solid roof over our heads for the night. Eric ordered three more Kirs Royales. Our world was in tatters but his vowels were perfect.

Hotel rooms are not really the thing in Lacoste, but according to our benevolent and intuitive barman, bed and breakfast establishments abound in the plain below. Eric duly made a proper 'phone call and reserved us rooms in one of the said chambre d’'hoes, but where to grab a spot of dinner? I don’t think there was any ill intent in Hobson’'s choice to recommend The Loofock. It was, as my expression suggests, the only one open.

I would delight in reporting that the place was the worst restaurant or even the most repugnant eating experience I have ever enjoyed, but part of my second mind says quite the opposite, due for the most part to their wicked and quite exquisite sense of humour. Not the strange jeu de mot of a name, I do not find puns to be at all funny, just cold comfort to the slow witted. Loofock sounds as though it may be pidgin Provençal for the seal: le phoque in French. I know this for sure as there happened to be a rather large sculpted seal right next to the entrance, but loufoque, again in French, can be loosely translated as bonkers. So these guys, even if they were not clinically insane, and I have no proof of that either way, were extremely well versed in the art of looking stark and raving.

The badness of the place was clearly deliberate and contrived, a strictly commercial practical joke. The service was casual, intermittent and superbly rude. Most of the items on the menu were off. When some fodder was finally delivered to our table, I do not wish to describe it, I will just mention that severely overcooked then re-microwaved pasta in the most disgusting of pink sauces is not a dish to be eaten cold, with or without a spriggle of soft green herbs.

Even the wine with its whopping bouquet did little to brighten the atmosphere of gloom and self destruction, so bad it was that Eric requested an argument.

“Rodney,” he said looking nastily across the table, “I’ve been reading your notes and they'’re shit.”

“Thanks for the tip Eric, I’'ll bear that in mind”

“No but seriously, why are you trying to write in French? Who do you think you are? Sam Becket? Your French is worse than dreadful, much worse than a Spanish cow. Try writing in a language that you have at least some rudimentary knowledge of its grammar and spelling; Hopi, Low German or why not English?  Eating, drinking, shagging and stealing things? Do you really think people want to read about that? In French!”

“Well they would if they cared about life’'s deeper meaning ” I replied tartly, "and cripes, you of all people. FYI, I'm writing it in French to get published. Nobody writes in French anymore, so they'll publish just about anything. Just like Tammy recording songs in French, candy from un baby."

”Good point Rod, but  believe me, fresh breezes and vast expanses are what everybody looks for in a French travelogue, bright sunlight, and impressive solitude are a must and never ever forget the oceans of lavender. People too, nice interesting people; teachers, communists, stock solid characters with a hint of a beloved forefather in ze resistance, not to mention a sincere love of the simple life and rich food. Less of your bloody Dillmart too, and while I'’m on the subject, if you intend to mention this horrible place by name you’'re going to have to lawyer up my friend!”

“Now that'’s a strange expression, Bruce,” I said, assuming the poor maternally abused little bugger would get the reference.

“Rule one. No Copyright infringement! Rule two. Vast expanses. Rule three, There is no rule three. Rule four. Never shop at Dillmart, when there is anybody watching. Rule five,” In a joyous boorish chorus. “No pooftahs!”

“It’'s January and cold as a witch'’s tit.” Whimpered Steve prissily, more confused than ever. “And I want to go home."

Well what kind of a wake up call was that? We had been on the road for just three days and already we had got to this? I had been going for at least the full seven days drunk.

“Look.” Steve implored, "we don'’t know where we are going or why, and this country is just fucking boring, eating, drinking, rogering and stealing things, Rodney is spot on. It’'s not just a book Eric, it'’s a scorcher! Here we are in deep mid-winter heading north to shit creek without a compass, just the beer lights to guide us. What’'s the bloody point of it all? Let’s head way down back Mexico way!”

“He is not entirely wrong, Eric.” I said calmly and continued: “Our goal was to keep on driving until we hit a place called Nazareth, for the hell of it, and there to sing a song. But you simply can’’t do that kind of thing these days, you must have a plan, an itinerary, stuffed with pleasant places to see: churches chapels, wild flowers and chateaux. Then you’’re supposed to have a camera, take pictures of everything, so you don’t need to use your brain or memory any more and you look at the pics later on your tablet and say: ' look, I’’m in Provence and that’’s my wife with a melon on her head making a purchase'......

"Studies have shown.."  Said Steve authoritatively and as if he really believed it..."That spending much of one's leisure time continually taking snaps is an incurable mass psychogenic illness.."

"Still want to argue Eric?”

“Not really Rod”

“Yes you do, you started it.”

“No I did not.” 

“Yes you bloody well did…”

“All right, planning your life in advance then taking pictures of it is every bit as pointless as trying to find a place that may or may not exist.”

“That’'s what I just said.”

“No you didn’’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“Shut up Rodney.”

Eric was battle bruised, 'shut up!' to my knowledge is not in the professional arguer's vocabulary.

“We really are completely deboussolé.” Eric said, glum once more, neatly summing up poor Steve’s implorings.

Who said the French don’'t have a word for everything? Deboussolé? Uncompassed? Me, I believe.

“But guess who managed to find where your hero Crumb hangs his creepy ménage a trois?” Eric bounced back with a grin. “Daft bugger signs his blogs with the date and the place where he wrote it, à la Tangiers 1959. So let’'s set off in the morning, due West. Duck duck go! ”

I had sort of changed my mind about the whole Crumb and his cheap suit serenading thing.

"De poor man got he head screwed on all wrong.” To which I added mysteriously, “I have reason to believe we will not be well received in Crumbland.”

Eric was unsettled. “OK then what do we do?”

“We get another drink, that’s what we do.” Steve was in control now, “and we don'’t just wave our hands and snap our fingers limply and we do not look for eye contact either, because there is none.”

He marched straight into the kitchen and returned clutching a fat bottle of single malt and a bloody, cleanly severed hand. I have to say, I was impressed. We drank slowly in smug silence, all of us wondering how the night would end, after we left without paying, as we surely would; just joshing with you about the bleeding member by the way.

“I’’ve got a mate in Chateauneuf-du Pape.” Eric said at last.

“Of course you have,” I humoured him, “and as we all know, I’’ve got an uncle who squats in a one bedroom apartment in Rome who is the bleedin’' Pape.”

“Why did you take so long to remember you actually did have a friend then?” Steve asked most reasonably.

”You are going to find out.”

“Call him then, Eric.” I goaded, intrigued by that last remark but still incredulous.

“Hi Matt, it’s me, Eric.”

“Fine, and you.“

“Great, now look, I’'m with a couple of buddies in the Luberon and we'’ve got ourselves a bit of a situation, would it be OK if we all dropped in at your place for a couple of days?”

“Well if you’'re sure, that’'s bloody fantastic, oh and try not to mention Cambridge, know what I'm saying?”

“Cheers, see ya tomorrow then!”

I had to say it:

“Since when have we three been buddies?”

Eric didn’’t answer that one, just looked at us as if he wanted to be all greased up again. It was half-past ten and I was thinking, one of these days I'’m going to get an early night and we all agreed it should be today, because it had, as you may recall, been one hell of a day. We left as planned completely unnoticed without even asking for the bill, scot free, five stars!

We checked in at La Ferme Joyeuse  (Bunny Ranch, trans.) and were quite rightly I suppose, asked to pay in advance. Our rooms were nice and tidy, very tidy and very very nice. I hoped that Steve could manage to leave his that way, lift the seat at the very least.

Our hostess set a candle on a three-legged, three-cornered table and turned down the bedclothes. "I suppose you have a nightgown?" she questioned.

I nodded. She left.

Alone in that room I shuddered. Normally I pack a rod; in pyjamas I carry nothing but scars from Normandy Beach…..But I’'m your brother and I’’m wearing pyjamas! The poor little boy in the stripey ones. Yes, the nicely brought up person that lurks inside me felt awkward, yes yes! We have no pyjamas! I felt so strangely guilty about it, too guilty to sleep in my boots, a tad too cold to strip right down, the place was just so damned clean and homely. ”Whisky-wow-wow”, I breathed, a mini-bar, please let me know if there’s some other way I can screw up tonight.

      The following morning, freshly hungover but with something positive to look forward to at least, our day began with cleanliness, coffee and tarte maison. Following my dreams, I had  become deeply moved by the terrible plight of French people, and was filled with a desire to help them. I also awoke from the same dream realizing that I had subconsciously gained a little knowledge. One more of life’'s little mysteries neatly resolved, soundly thrashed and locked in the coal shed: what do people do all day? What is it that really makes the world go round? Cleaning things and making jam. Voila! Damn good jam though Susan, if you ever get up this way, the cherry is worth a stop.

We were shoved off enthusiastically by our five sentimental hosts; Floralys was a little rolly ball of fat, nearly all body, with very short legs; all night long she had sung songs which were alternately risqué and sentimental but far too Frog pop for my liking. She only stopped talking in order to eat, and left off eating in order to talk. Then Esmara who was nicknamed La Toque Du Chef, because she limped a little. The former dressed as the Goddess of stupidity, in a tri-colored tracksuit, and the other as a Spanish looking woman, with a string of copper coins in her carroty hair which jingled at every uneven step. They both looked like kooks dressed up for the carnival, neither uglier nor better looking than they usually are.

The names of the girls on the first floor as far as I can remember were Linessa, Coshida and Linessa again as they were short staffed that evening. Madame Floralys had endeavored to prepare each member of her staff to be a pattern, an epitome of the feminine type, so that every customer might find as nearly as possible the realization of his ideal. Linessa represented the dumbish blonde; she was very tall, rather fat, and lazy; a country girl, who could not get rid of her freckles, her short, light, almost colorless hair barely covered her head. Coshida, who came from Marseilles, played the demanding role of the Jewish princess. She was thin with high cheekbones, covered with rouge. Her black hair smothered in Brillcream like stuff, curled greasily about her forehead. Her eyes would have been pretty, if the right one had not been covered by a stubborn pharmacy patch. Her Roman nose drooped down over a square jaw, where two brilliantly white false upper teeth contrasted strangely with the bad color of those below. Linessa of course was a dike. As if you hadn't guessed.

I am still thinking they had not done a thorough inventory of their mini-bars. So bedraggled and exhausted we must have looked the night before; even Steve had declined their lowest budget options. Disappointed; they most probably thought we had no pressing desire for night-caps either.

We had agreed to avoid any major towns, so there would be no major disappointments like ghastly Avignon. Motoring steadily through pleasant pink and gray countryside, slipping discretely through nondescript Heineken green villages we made steady progress, but seldom did we pass unnoticed, Renault Fours and cyclomoteurs are a rare but clearly welcomed sight on the low-ways and byways of La France profonde. We left a dumbstruck and bemused populace in our wake; If Traveling Piquet was still in fashion we would be forty pointers, rarer than a parson on a gray mare without furniture. But I was sure that somehow, in some way we had cheered them a little, maybe even made someone’'s day, which was nice.

Shortly after midday, the traffic began to thicken noticeably, the pleasure renewed of a Renault Clio tickling my bum again for the first time in ages and a steady stream of assorted small vans in the opposite direction. Sometime ideas, just jump up and say 'hello'. I decided on the spot to play a quick game of silly-buggers. In the days when my wife was still of this world, Tazzy was cute and the word 'rehab' had not been properly minted, back in those glorious days when ten million viewers would make love to me wildly on a weekly basis our little family spent the summer holidays as ever in our Saint-Tropez weed haven. To waylay the tedium of the long journeys here and back, I had devised quite a number of little games and distractions. Later I even wrote a small booklet just for Taz, entitled 101 fun things to do for the bored in France, of which sadly their are no remaining copies. Taz’’s favourite car trip game was not I-Spy, Counting Cows or Slug Bug, it was obeying the speed limit, with nearly stopping at pedestrian crossings coming in a close second.

We were in a 50 kph suburban zone on the outskirts of Pernes-les-Fontaines. Fifty is of course about the limit even for my soupy mopeds, so we already had quite a build up of hungry drivers behind. The French have always have had a tendency to go home for lunch, make no mistake, there is nothing new about it. The trick though is to start flashing your headlights at the on-comers, creating the illusion that there is trouble in a blue uniform up ahead. The effect is immediate as they in turn slow down to that stupid and in Top Gear unsustainable, speed of forty-nine. If you are really lucky and hit some traffic lights, poorly designed and confusing junctions, or best of all roadworks, you’’ve hit the jackpot.  All of which I’’m happy to say was precisely what happened today; the full Monty. By half past twelve the traffic flow around this sprawling little town flowed no more. Eric and Steve were having the time of their lives; mopeding in traffic jams is a little known and greatly underestimated pastime. It was nearly an hour before I caught up with them.

My little prank had cost us our lunch too, but we all agreed on three things; one that it was worth it, a little taste of mayhem is worth a thousand Freshvale sandwiches, two; to press on towards Chateauneuf, try to get there before dark. Three; that I would not repeat the performance at the two ‘o’clock return rush.

We pursued our journey in high spirits, satisfaction, and obvious self-complacency, believing ourselves to be the most important travelers in all the world. All the adventures that could befall us from this time on could be regarded as already done and brought to a happy issue. We made light of of the volley of stones that had leveled half of Steve's teeth, the gruesome huntsmen or the audacity of the Gendarmerie. Entirely absorbed in such fancies we stopped for a well-earned leak in a specious rest point bordered by a swathing field of lovingly tendered Lavandula angustifolia.

Steve took me aside and said to me quietly, "Isn't it odd that I have still before my eyes that monstrous enormous nose of Chester Burnett? He's off the scale on my IDB."  (Douche Bag Index, trans.) I snapped  back at him. "Look Steve," I said, "do you still believe that old man Burnett has a hand in some international conspiracy to beguile innocent people into buying poor quality groceries, poisonous preparations, breaded meat, fake yoghourts, very cheap cheese, dangerous packaging and unnecessary seasonal hardware and useless gadgets. In bulk?"

"I do Rodney, I really do, in fact I've got the papers with me that he was supposed to sign; a lucratve little deal for a brand new line of chocolate chipped Cornetto Burnettos! But when I finally met the man I just couldn't go through with it, so why won't you listen to me?"

"Let us reason the matter out Steve: even if this were true, who would give a fuck anyway?"  I spoke to him kindly.

As we were engaged in this conversation a man appeared following the same road behind us, mounted on a very handsome motorcycle; he was dressed in a gabardine of very bright reflective green cloth, with a tawny velvet facing and a superb pudding bowl Montera. The bike was of a deep mulberry colour and and so brightly polished that she and her rider were an almost perfect match, they would have looked even better if he had been made of real chrome. When this traveler drew by he saluted us courteously, but spurring his ride he seemed to want to pass us without stopping. This is a sodding road trip if I am not mistaken, so I called out to him, "gallant sir, if you are going down our road, and have no real need for Ultimate Speed accessories, it would be a real pleasure to us if we were to join company."

"In truth," replied he on the 1981 V-twin Virago, "I would not have tried to pass you so hastily but for the very real fear that your cyclomoteurs might turn restive in the company of my mare."       

"You may remain safely upon your mount, Sir," I said in reply to this, "for ours are most virtuous and well-behaved young men; they never do anything wrong on such an occasion. I say again you may pull up if you like. Even if she were offered to them in fishnets between two silken sheets, she would not get a rise out of our boys, that's why I always choose gay French cyclomoteurs, especially Peugeots."

The traveler drew close, and seemed amazed at the handsome trim features of Eric who rode as ever without the helmet which Steve carried like a red and blue vanity case as a front basket. "By golly, Sirs," he exclaimed in alarm, "Just looking at you, I'm beginning to think you could cure a rainy day!"

The man in green cast but a glance at short cropped scarlet Steve, yet examined me closely. Still more closely did I examine the man in green! He struck me as being a man of intelligence. In appearance he was about forty years of age, with but few grey hairs, an aquiline cast of features, and an expression between grave and gay. His dress and accoutrements showed him to be a man of good condition. What he in green thought of Rod of Skirvishely must surely have been that a man of this sort and shape he had never yet seen; he marveled at my unkempt hair, my unusual and still nascent beard, my lofty stature, the lank and winter pale sallowness of my countenance, my uniform. Such a long tall shorty of a figure had obviously not been seen in these regions for many a long day.    

I saw very plainly the attention with which the traveler was inspecting us, I saw a look of curiosity and astonishment; but before he could begin to question us I anticipated him by saying,

"The appearance we present to you, being so strange and so out of the ordinary, I should not be surprised if it has filled you with wonder; but your wonderment will be short lived when I tell you what sort of chaps we are. We are men who go seeking adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I have given up my comforts, and committed  myself to the open road and allow her to take us wherever she may please. Our desire was to find a town twinned with Nazareth, however on discovering that this would inevitably lead us to the infamous 'nine-three' department of the northern Parisian suburbs, we have decided to bend our own rules on idly following old friend road and have changed our names to Emerson, Lake and Palmer. We are now joyfully headed to the Pope's new castle. So now you know who we are and what paths and philosophy we follow; profound ambivalence my friend with a touch of Incongruity and thoughtlessness."

The man in green seemed to be at a loss for a reply; after a long pause however, he said. "You were right when you saw curiosity in my amazement Sir, but you have not succeeded in removing the astonishment. On the contrary, now that I know, I am left more amazed and astonished than ever. I cannot for the life of me realise the fact that you are costumed a little out of step with the time, or there can be people left on this earth who speak in such a ridiculous fashion and travel about the countryside in the dead of winter, with no particular place to go. I should not have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. What a power trio you are! May Blitz or Clapton, Bruce and Ginger Baker would be more like the thing." He remarked, looking strangely at our drummer."

I was beginning to think by now this traveler saw us more as being crazy persons, not just Cream. I was waiting for him to confirm it by saying something further; but before he could turn to any new subject Eric begged him to tell us who he was. After all his dear friend Rodney had so readily rendered account of our station and life.

To this, he in the green mac replied.

"I, big Sirs, am Jean-Pierre Sixpack, a schoolteacher by trade and by calling, native of the village where, with God's grace we will be dining tonight. I live my life away with a spouse Arlene, who is also devoted  professionally to the instruction of common children so of course we are more than fairly well off. Fifty briques a year, five hundred million of those the lovely old Francs. Bingo!

My main pursuits are hunting fishing and as you can see motorcycling. I keep neither weasels nor ferrets, nothing but a tame Golden Retriever; castrated, registered, vaccinated and goes, as you may well have guessed, by the name of Filou. Seventy nine percent of dogs in France are so named, which is comforting.

I have six dozen or so long playing records of popular music, some in our mother tongue, some twenty percent in English, both of which I consider to be honest entertainment that charm by their style and attract a great amount of interest by the invention they display. Sometimes in the evening when the washing up is done, after the twenty hours news when there is no particular or edifying documentary or match of the day at my disposal I like to play cards with my neighbours and friends. At other times Arlene and myself will often invite these friends into our own sweet home and our victuals are always neat and well garnished: a bay leaf here, forest picked fungal produce there and lots of meat from the farmer's market, usually piggy bits prepared in a grand and globular purple sage sauce. I have no taste you see for supermarkets or grandes surfaces." (very, very big supermarkets, trans.)

At this he looked very pointedly in the direction of Steve's drooping carrier bag saddle packs and observed with dismay that there had obviously been "a whole lotta shopping going on around here."

Steve was listening now with rapt attention as the gentleman proceeded with the account of this life and occupation.

"I buy my breads fresh, three times a day and go to the cinema on Wednesdays, I vote so frequently that I quite simply dream about putting pieces of paper into envelopes, sealing them before scuttling off to find a bigger envelope to put them in. I have minor concerns about public security, I tinker with the National Front. I respect the law and my doctor's prescriptions to the letter, and in August of course we go camping in Les Sables d'Olonne (Vendee). I vote readily for anything, and heaven knows I am frequently solicited. But democracy in France is not the joke that it is in other countries, here it is a responsibility.  I sign petitions and donate generously to charity, especially that wonderful Telethon thing. Have you ever just once stayed up all night chaps?  All those kind donations, they warms my hearts to the cockles.

On hearing all this Steve quite literally threw himself at the man and seized his right foot. From where I was standing he seemed to bite it again and again with a great vigour and a tear in his eye. The gentleman asked him placidly, "What are you about, brother? What are all these kisses for?"

"Let me lick your boots at least then," said Steve, "for I believe you are the first, second and finest saint in a saddle I have ever seen in all the days of my miserable life. You are a saintly man." 

"As your simplicity shows, you are something of a saintly man yourself brother," replied the gentleman, "but I am no saint. The venerable Abbé Chamel, inventor of that most substantially  buttery creamy white sauces was a saint among saints; the Right Reverend potato guy Hachis Parmentier, definitely of course and then what's his name? Gordon Ramsey, the man on the telly, The Top Chef, for sure, for sure, broccoli In! Ugly plump Paul Bocuse and Norbert Tarayre the Intermarché Christmas guy and Kinko Blumenthal. Oh! How I love our top heavy French cooky chefs."

The green man was exposing himself at last, yearning our confidence and willing to share. "I fervently uphold the teachings of my union bosses and full cream cheese. In fact  I will take to the streets in the protest if I feeling my rights are being undermined. Yes my friends, I love my country and that Jamie Olivier; long live seared scallops and creamy mash. Up the thirty-five hour week and retirement at twenty-nine. The mighty mackerel may not be the most versatile fish but it delivers a comforting wallop to loads of lovely recipes. But no my friend, he returned to earth sadly. I am no saint."

Steve went back and regained his pack-saddle, having extracted a huge laugh from Eric and myself and excited fresh amazement in Don Sixpack.

"I don't know if I have already mentioned it,"  the green man went on "but by own dear father was something of a hero; my old dad fought hammer and thongs for the French Forces of the Interior; ze resistance my chums. He was the special one. The only man woman or child who claimed to have actually heard de Gaulle's June address from London. British long wave radio here in the south of France? Quite astounding, an exploit."

To change the ridiculous subject I asked him if he had any children. He observed humbly that his summum bonum was in the gifts of nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and two absolutely delightful pretty children who studied diligently for more than eighteen hours a day, eschewed all social networking and took tennis and piano lessons, even extra English cheerfully in their stride.

By now the green hornet was quite clearly wavering at the thought of inviting us home for dinner.

"A chaotic steak and kidney pudding is so comforting and so completely French. I just love everything about it and is always going to restore calm and order even after the most awful of days!  I genuinely believe that opulence can be achieved without too much effort. Yes Sir, opulence without effort! That's the thing. There is no country in the world, to my mind, that epitomises this more than La Belle France!"

During the final portion of this nonsense, Steve became bored and wandered off to beg milk and a crust of bread from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by.

Suddenly, the very moment when our friend Monsieur Sixpack was about to renew the conversation, I perceived a Peugeot of a very different kind. A horrid little 205 GTL, all covered with loyal flags flying along the road towards us, a car full of obnoxious drunken youth. Hearing the vile and irrelevant thumping French nasty-boy music as they thundered by, heaving unspeakable gestures in our direction, I was persuaded that this must be the start of some new and more interesting adventure. France was catching up with modern times at the speed of light. Bruce Springsteen and Madonna, then U2 and Blondie and music still on MTV.  Welcome back to  nineteen, nineteen, eighty-five.

"I know when to go out and when to stay in", the green man continued relentlessly sounding very much like David Bowie, "and in the wintertime of the year I am positively glued to my medium sized television set on Sunday evenings.......

"The shit you cook is shit Mrs. Patmore, really! I saw your set-up, fucking ridiculous. You and I will not make garbage. We will produce a chemically pure and stable product that performs as advertised. No adulterants, no baby formula, no chili powder. And if you're turning Mexican on me, then I'll go upstairs!........ Oh my dear what a pretty pickle! I don't think there is a way to achieve that. I mean, you must do what must be done, of course, Mister White, but I can safely say that a great many noses will be out of joint and I should also point out, that you are living on Lord Grantham's land in your beastly caravan and the very chemicals in your brew are from Lord Grantham's garden. I hope it's not too vulgar in me to suggest that you find some way to overcome your scruples........"

That was it. I called aloud to Eric and Steve to put on their helmets. Steve, hearing himself summoned, prodding Dapple vigorously, came up to his masters, engine roaring.

"Steve!" I implored, "if you push those two-stroke engines too hard in the condition they're in they'll blow apart! Steady as she goes!"  The three of us set off.

"Start cooking that fine pudding as soon as your guests have arrived."  Don Sixpack shouted to us bravely "That way everybody will be good and drunk when it is finally ready to eat."

Farewell Don Sixpack and the best of luck to you, but we were going after those bastards!  Justice will be served, one way or another we will make them turn it down! Here comes another terrific and desperate adventure. Engage!

And the moral of the story is, I was thinking, beaming victoriously in the direction of my literary adviser, luckless Eric. Wasn't it he that had told me just how boring and confused is your typical French guy? How I regret having used up my one shot of using so cheaply the word discombobulated;  for it is the mot juste for all French people these days, not just politicians. Their cultural and gastronomic goal posts have not just been moved, they have been confiscated and the sugar daddy state is now much less generous than in days of yore. However interesting they may look, even framed in limpid piercing sunshine, oddly dressed and nostalgic, hanging around near a field full of lavender, they're still as dull and disturbed as a dishwasher. "Oi! And the sheep thing Eric," I shouted, "that was a nice touch wasn't it?  I bet you didn't see that one coming!"

We rolled up Matt’’s finely graveled driveway shortly before five, in just enough light to make out the three storey, square stone built hostelry. Very nice and very spacious too by the look of things, I could see us booking in here for a day or two. The place was surrounded by an army of vines, twisted, gnarled yet uniform, lined up elegantly one metre apart, two more between each row and pruned to perfection. Four branches per head each with a pair of last year'’s shoots cut back to two fat buds ready for action. Beautiful.

The hallway was hung with inexpensive looking oil paintings, recently acquired water colors and poor sketches hung upon the raw stone walls, while on the tables and oddly hanging shelves and in elegant glass cupboards there were a thousand tiny ornaments: small vases, statuettes, groups of tin soldiers and towers of grotesque compact discs. An imitable and quite fantastic array of crass Murano glass and Lladro figurines filled another rather large room into which we were led.

You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand, you see somebody naked and you say, "who is that man?" You try so hard but you don't understand
just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here but you don't know what it is. Do you, Mr. Skirvishely?

Matt himself, even in these unpleasant surroundings was a little older than I had imagined; grey-haired mister business man, retired, well fed and well pleased with himself. His feeble limbs accentuated this rather poor first impression and the frequent substitution of string and sticky-tape for belts and shoelaces marked the man irrevocably as a bachelor. He and Eric shook hands rather formally but with obvious warmth and exchanged a few kind words which I preferred to distinguish otherwise. Eric turned and said he would let Steve and myself introduce ourselves. Now that’'s what I call a turn up for the books.

Steve went first with the handshake thing:

“Milbona, Stephen, pleased to meet you sir, but a recent paper suggests that my travelling companions are just ghosts and empty sockets.”

Steve was always a hard act to follow. I have always had to play Clapton to his bloody Hendrix, I presented myself slowly and simply with my calling card: 

'Rodney Skirvishely. Adjustments.'

“Matthew Gloag", he replied with slime. "Enchanté to make your acquaintance . You look like two or three chaps badly in need of a drink. Am I right?”

His name was familiar yet Scottish, his accent American yet Irish, and his charm was both British and engaging.

“Quatre verres Ginette et biguns S’'il vous plâit.”

We were sitting comfortably behind huge glasses of more than passable claret with a touch I believe of the dreadful Merlot, beautifully served though by Ginette, who seemed not to speak a word of English, come to think of it she spoke not a word at all; an altogether pleasing trait in French women who at best sound like ducks or geese but more commonly, after [they have had], a drink or two, a small and angry pooko terrier that you may have just (accidentally) trodden upon.

“Why didn’’t you tell us before that Matt was a winemaker?” I asked Eric because, well? I wanted to know.

“Everybody is a winemaker here in Chateauneuf Rod, but he’'s not just a viticulturist, he'’s an alchemist and a bloody genius, if you don'’t mind me telling them, Matt. Tell them what you do, they’'ll love it!”

“Well yes,  I'’m no winemaker, or even a vigneron for that matter A viticulteur perhaps in as much as I grow a few grapes, but really, all the hard graft is done by Ginette and that husband of her's. Estoban; she nurses the vines throughout the growing season right through until winter pruning. Estoban is my tractor driver and caviste, who handles the pressing, filtering and fermentation and so on, we also have an oenologue who drops by from time to time for a fee…. So you see I’'m no winemaker, I am just an assembleur. There are no less than twenty seven different grape varieties on the few tiny acres out there, so we make the wine in the smallest of vats and mix and match until I find exactly and I mean that, precisely the right chemical combination to go with any particular dish.”

Eric seemed to have noticed that his bottles bore the funniest of little labels and asked the wino man, picking up a frontal lobotomy,

“Pretty minimalist your labelling Matt, this one just says ‘General purpose red, pre-dinner guests; peanut butler (sic), white chocolate, and or Jaffa cake: Carignan, Grenache with a hint of Cabernet’. I always thought wine labelling had to be more precise, you know, with bar codes, appellations and health warnings, full-bellied ladies with a diagonal line right through them, Dillmart GmbH in upper case large and what about “Contains Sulphites” for Pete’’s sake?”

“Well if I wanted to sell the stuff, yes of course, but this is home made for home consumption, so they can all fuck off, pardon my French, but yes, fuck off with their absurd regulations. It might surprise you to know that I am actually forbidden to irrigate my vines, even in the driest of summers. I’’m supposed to sit there and watch them wither and die, and as for those bloody sulphite warnings: I'’ll let you into a little secret, those appellation controlled branded château mon arse guys just chuck bagfuls of sulphurous chemicals indiscriminately onto the freshly pressed juice for no other reason than to kill the natural yeasts found on the skins of the grape, so they can ferment with the recommended commercial strain, all in the name of uniformity and product integrity......

......All my wines are fermented naturally, if the process just stops at seven degrees I don'’t care, if a six turned out to be a nine I don'’t mind, and I don'’t add any sugar, beetroot, wood shavings or fish! My wines taste good, do they not ? Well, even if they don'’t, you can’'t fault me on their lingering afterburn, and I promise you, drink as much as you like and you won'’t be troubled with a hangover.”

”Is that a real promise or an idle boast Matt?” I challenged, ”Because I for one like to drink muchly.”

”Be my guest Rodney, but better still, just wait till you associate them with a tasty morsel. Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup claps its hands and collides with ham.

Matthew Gloag was an inspiration to us all and with the ropes of hope he hauled us high. 'If wine is the final frontier then you simply must have a wee bite to eat.'

“Look. I have to be honest with you guys,"  Matt looked at us all with alarming intent and naivety, “I'’ve been in this country for, how long has it been now, Eric? Five years? I love the place, the people, their culture, traditions and values. I truly love their wine but…”

The man was to be a deception after all then? Everybody else comes here for vino tinto, bread and formaggio, not the cheesy attitude.

“No I love the place," he continued, "but I can'’t stomach their food, I have most of my groceries dropped in by expattwat dot com: Vegemite, baked beans, pickles and cheese-cake mixes, curry pastes, Budweiser and chinky chicken. Just once I tried a French turkey for Thanksgiving; really tried, basted the beast to death, but to no avail my frirnds, never again!"

“So these wine mixes of yours are prescribed to go with Twinkies, Biscuits'’n Gravy, meatloaf, Thousand Island Dressing and blueberry cobblers ….? "

”Yes, what else? I'’ve just sent Estoban out to the ‘King MacTractor' for a selection of goodies, at least they have one of those in town, open 24/7, too. He should be back in a minute, prepare to be amazed.”

“If we are being honest Matt.” I said as we were waiting for Estoban, “I don'’t really believe in these food and wine associations; what'’s wrong with red wine with fish and white with red meat or strong cheese?”

“Absolutely nothing my friend as long as they are the right wines; a fluffy gamay or pansy pinot noir will do wonders for sea bass or turbot, a sweet pink with Stilton is a delight to the middle portion of the tongue and a petit Sauvignon blanc with a bloody T-bone is quite disgusting, but if you have both, well who would would give a fifty dollar fuck anyway? … By the way all my cheese comes directly from Wisconsin.”

“What about your rosé and sausage roll escapade in Saint Tropez, Rod?” Eric asked grinning stupidly, ignoring the enormity of Matt’'s twenty-two pounder red cheddar ring slumped heavily on a coffee table, next a Monterey Jack with ghost peppers.

“You went on all fours about nuptials, wedding marches and cupid’'s chokehold.”

"I just wanted some decent rosé on a sunny spring morning and of course it is considered rather rude in this country to buy wine without a lengthy discussion about what you intend to eat with it. You of all people Eric!”

Matt began arranging and sorting bottles……..bottles labelled "Rollo MacBacon and Swiss", "Southern Style king Biscuit Boy," "Chocolate Chip Chowder" and "Mrs. Patmore MacEnteritis." He’ had obviously done this many times before as when the food arrived Estoban proceeded to place the appropriate cartons of junk beside the similarly labelled bottles, and we were invited to tuck in…..It's tropical hot-dog night.

“Oi! got any rosé, Matt?”

This was young Eric, of course, cock of the company. “I’'ve got a spicy MacPebble-dash here Matt and nothing to go with it!”

“Well spotted lad, a proper rosé will cut through any Madras or vindalooo, even that crap you have before you, but unfortunately in these parts we are not allowed to make rosé wines. Verboten, my young friend.”

“That doesn’ ’t usually stop you Matt!”

“Here's a bottle of Couillon Eric, enjoy my friend, but strictly speaking we are breaking the law. It i’s an old and now forbidden grape variety, but I had Estoban take some cuttings from one of his cousins in the Var and graft them onto some of our plain vanilla rootstock. I only make about 24 bottles a year, just for the curry. The Couillon-rosé is neither a white nor a red grape, it’'s pink and eats chicken kormas for breakfast. Try it.”

"Cheers Matt."

Meanwhile, I was sinking my teeth hungrily into a seed topped bun all gherkined up, stuffed with soft and rubbery meat, smothered in two or three unsatisfactory sauces and slime cheese, flattered with foul and soggy iceberg lettuce; I chomped on it greedily for a moment before finally finding room for a slither of ruby red.

Wait a minute!  What is going on in my mouth? My sweet Lord! Is this it? Oh dear crap can't you see? It's them! Not me. Is this it, is this really it? Is this really the meaning of life? Is there no meaning other than this fantastic, amazing and interminable explosion, this blissful and totally unprepared for harmony. MacBastard burgers, saliva and a seventeen grape varietal unofficial Chateuneuf du bleedin' Pape!

Knock me down wiv a fevver, two score years and ten of beery hell, snorting whiskey and puffing horrible mind-shagging Nucky balls, and it has come to this! I got this feeling that I'm gonna break down the door, I got this feeling that I'm gonna come back for more, I was thinking that I lost my mind, Finally I've got some feeling. Rod's wasted years are well and truly behind him, but now I'm falling asleep and she's calling a cab while he's having a smoke and she's taking a drag. From now on, or better still, henceforth, my life will be all weird stuff in a bread bun heaven, quenched with an engraved bottle, and I definitely will come back for more; reasons to be cheerful. Part four.

Saint Matt of the Buttery Bar! You are a disturbing genius.

"Enough; no more praise," said Gloag at this, "for I hate all flattery and language of this kind is offensive to my chaste ears.......

CHAPTER 29

WHEREIN A FARMER FROM HAM IS INSPIRED BY A REED AND A  PARTIALLY INFLATED ASS

"ya from Clovis Mister Gloag?"

The dainty repast being finished:  Steve inquired with odd but well meaning unction.

"I think I know your cousin, Buddy Holly, we used to smoke grass together at Parkview" 

"Mister Gloag!" I interrupted necessarily, I return thanks for your hospitality, kindly welcome and your thoughtful offer of comfort foodstuffs to myself and my company. Your show of favour to valued customers has exceeded all that could be expected. You have greeted us and feasted us, but this is no party, this ain't no disco and it certainly ain't no fooling around, so I feel that I should thank you formally for all that you have done. But don't worry, I’m not going to go all Mister Manners on your ass and get into the social intricacies and delicate situations, but really Gloag, there is a six-point formula to the proper thank-you; firstly......."

As I continued my discourse, Steve paid repeated visits to the wine-skin, which Eric told him had been hung upon a cork tree to keep it cool. I must have been longer in talking than the supper in finishing, but finally Gloag silenced me: "Would it give you amusement and pleasure by making one of my servants sing? He will be here before long, and he is a very intelligent youth and well versed in " La Chanson Francaise"' and what is more he can read and write, and play the badly tuned guitar to perfection."

Matthew had hardly done speaking, when the spindly notes of an overpriced banjo thing reached our ears and shortly after, the player came up, a very good-looking young man of about two-and-twenty. Matthew asked him if he had supped, and on his replying that even if he had not, he would rather eat his own legs than the infected, malodorous, hog's swill that was normally on offer. He who had already made that offer said to him:

"In that case, Karl-Joris, you may as well do us the pleasure of singing a little, so the gentlemen, our guests, may see that France really does have incredible talent. I have told them of your accomplishments, and we want you to show them and prove that what I say true; so, please, sit down and sing that ballad about the happy people. I do love that one so."

"With all my heart," said the young man, and without waiting for more pressing he seated himself on the edge of Matthew's Italian leather sofa, his spot, and tuning his tuneless piece of crap, began to sing to these words:

Notre vieille Terre est une étoile
Où toi aussi  tu brilles un peu
Je viens te chanter la ballade
La ballade des gens heureux
Je viens te chanter la ballade
La ballade des gens heureux

After many a long chorus Karl Joris finally brought his Jolly song to an end with these words:

Comme un chœur dans une cathédrale
Comme un oiseau qui fait ce qu'il peut
Tu viens de chanter la ballade
La ballade des gens heureux
Tu viens de chanter la ballade
La ballade des gens heureux

"Charmingly sung," I observed. I barely translated it for Steve, I barely had to, the ballad of happy people? The thinking man's nightmare. Steve just swayed and stared at Matthew and glared horribly, disgustedly at the young Frenchman. He was quite drunk but unambiguous. "Try that bone on another dog," he growled, "you may think of me as you will, a man of no compassion or sentiment if you like, but that my friend was shit. I've got compassion running out of my ass and I am the Sultan of Sentiment!  But that really was a heap of shit!  The ballad of happy people? Whatever were you thinking of Matt, There are no happy people, how could there be?"

"I perceive clearly Steve,"  I said quite calmly, " that your regular visits to the refrigerator demand compensation in sleep rather than in music."

Then I turned  to Eric. More than usually drunk, and vindictive, bold as brass and looking for trouble,

"Eric," I said.

“Farmer Giles of Ham!" Exclaimed young Eric unwittingly,  "I Told you never to tell him, Steve!”

“I never done say no word. Honest”

“Easy does it Eric."  I had to intervene, again, quite strongly.  

"It has been pretty obvious mate......And Matthew here , I take it was your favourite professor?

"How the hell did you find out Rod?"

Actually your dad told me all about you. He‘'s really proud of you, you do know that don'‘t you?”

Eric blushed discreetly, suppressed a tear and winked at Steve, arrogant to the very end. "Do you think," he said to me after a pause, "you scurvy scum clown, that I am for one minute embarrassed by your words? Quit my ass, leave my delight, piss off, let rip, get thee gone and shut the fuck up asshole!

“Now that's what I call plain speaking! But what, pray, are you proposing to do with your luscious law degree", I continued bewildered, "and how old are you any way: twenty-eight? Thirty?"

”Don'‘t worry about me old man, I  do have a degree in international law and I'‘m going to use it  to my own ends. My sole ambition in life has always been to grow up and sue the bastards!”

”The bastards? Which particular strain of bastard may you be thinking about? Many more than several would be understating the thing.”

”Why the French government of course, I’'ll be good for millions.”

“And what exactly will you be suing them for?"

“Crimes against humanity, that’'s what!”

“How'’s that?” I said surprised, "what kind of crimes?”

“Well numero uno, imposing the French language on the unsuspecting and innocent; impossible grammar and irrational plurals. X should just mark the spot and the past historic tense should not exist, let alone be used in children’s stories like this little beauty:

Il se leva de bon matin, et alla au bord d’un ruisseau, où il emplit ses poches de petits cailloux blancs, et ensuite revint à la maison.

Tom Thumb!

Would you believe that my dear mother used to read all those Little Red Riding Hood like stories to me when I was a kid of about three or four? By the time I got to primary school I was actually speaking in the passé anterieur, talk about having the piss ripped out of me by the other kids…I’'m going to fucking well sue them. Think about what I've just said, please, think about it for a second”

“Done." But is it really true?” Matt asked genuinely concerned.

"Yes Matt I'm afraid it is."

”I Couldn'‘t agree with you more Eric, but where do you draw the line between humanity and French people?” I pointed out pertinently. “They'‘ll cut your ass in fine slices with that one in court and this being France, watch out for the marinade.“

”I have actually thought long and hard about that Rod, and I was thinking less French people, more the poor expectant immigrants that come to France looking for Nirvana only to find Daft Punk, or what about our ex-colonies? Vast expanses of Africa, mud hut schoolrooms with make believe blackboards and little hopeless nobbies chanting a monotonous sing-song chorus of “j'’eusse cru, t’u eusses cru, il, elle eût cru, nous eussions cru, vous  eussiez cru, ils, elles eussent cru?".....No I will never be able to Adam and Eve that monstrous language! What sort of start in life is that for a shiny faced coon?"

“You wouldn'‘t happen to have any more gory tales about schooling would you Eric?”

Matt was already counting his share of the millions.

“Well now you come to mention it…When I was about ten or eleven my father, of whom you have no doubt heard Sir Matthew, but not had the misfortune to meet like my two friends here, decided, quite out of the blue to allow me to go on a school trip, a “Classe de découverte” Would you believe?

“Is that it?”

“Sod off, Matt and listen, this is a good one.  At the crack of dawn we were all shepherded and shouted onto buses and then head off somewhere on a motorway. A place I am not likely to forget, Gounfaroun, which at the time sounded more like it should be middle earth Tolkien, but was in fact a drab, not worth the detour small town with a fixation for donkeys. There were donkeys everywhere that day, as it just happened to be the annual donkey festival. After an hour or so of looking at these beasts of all shapes and sizes, watching them shit noisily, hearing them squeak, fart, wheeze and bray and then sampling some delicious “saucisson d’'ane”,  purveyed from a donkey butcher's’ caravan, came the big moment. For our delectation, they were going to make a donkey fly.

I'm not kidding, some rough looking types dragged an old jackass into the public square, so old and emaciated that it was clearly good for nothing. Thinking that if the beast did soar up to heaven and never come down again, it would be no great loss, they set to work inflating the animal. These good people inserted a strong tube of reed into the donkey’'s butthole and everybody present was invited in turn to blow. Holding the tube in one hand, and ready to clap the palm of the other instantly over the pipe to stop the air escaping!

Then last, but not least, came yours truly.

'Your turn now Eric,' said  Benedetto, my kindly professeur.

What! I vainly cried, me? Use the same reed all these horrid people have put to their lips? No, I will not! Too many foul mouths have been there before! Then everybody began to get angry and started insulting me. They said I was going to ruin the result of all their labour, so I found myself obliged to do my share in blowing into that horrible tube. I have always been a fastidious  boy as you so well know,  I even told them that they should call him a Johnny Bum, because Jack is rather rude and Ass is downright vulgar. Then I tried to save the day by I pulling out the reed, rapidly reversing it, and sticking it in again by the other end. I really thought I had played my part, and in a way that seemed rather more hygienic. But the ass did not fly, by removing the reed, I had let out all that wind and of course it was all my fault!

Then they all turned on me. Everybody, the villagers, my classmates and even the avuncular Benedetto. Talk about humiliation Matt. Ostracized I was, sent to Coventry, made to write a lengthy dissertation on the declaration of human rights Article 27 (1): 'Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.'

There, that’s why I’m going to sue the bastards!”

Steve and I really enjoyed that one, but Matt was jumping for joy, as if Quinn the Eskimo had finally made it.

“This is the most fun I’’ve had in ages," he exploded with joy, "but if you will take my advice Eric, you really cannot take up a humanitarian cause, expect to amass a huge personal fortune and call your defents nobbies and shiny faced coons all in one breath. But then again? As tall stories go though Eric, that really was a spooner! Anybody else got one? Rodney?"

“Yes in fact I do I but I think mine deserves a new chapter. Matthew, old chap. Could you pass the Grey Poupon?.....Merci beaucoup!”

CHAPTER 30

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE BRAVE SKIRVISHELY OF STRESLAU AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF MOSS BROS.

“Rodney,” said the ex-captain authoritatively. “Rodney, you’ll have to go!”

There he dwelt, erect in the doorway, grand and sassy as embodied duty. Sassy! There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it. Then I finally grasped the real meaning of his words…I had to go!

Pale, I rose and looked around with a softened eye upon the cosy snuggery. Tightly closed in, full of warmth and tender light, upon the commodious easy chair, my books, the carpet, the white blinds and the windows, beyond which trembled the slender twigs of the little garden. Then, advancing towards the brave officer, I took his hand, grasped it energetically, and said in a voice somewhat tearful, but stoical for all that:

“I am going, Davibra.”

“Wouldn’t you like a cup of hot chocolate before you go?” He murmured timidly,  as if to make amends.

"Too little, too late and too hot," I told him in a straightforward manner. A Toddy of another kidney would not have met with a rebuttal of that nature.

I left, as I said I would. Not straight off though, for it takes time to get one’s things together. To begin with, I ordered two large leaving trunks bound with brass, and an inscription:

“Rodney of Yendor. Firearms, Glen Orchy and Fink Brau. Private Property."

Next, I had sent over from Streslau-le-vieux a downright cargo of tinned eatables, pemmican compressed in cakes for making soup, a new pattern shelter-tent, opening out and packing up in far less than a minute, sea-boots, a couple of umbrellas, a waterproof coat, and blue spectacles to ward off ophthalmia. To conclude, Quet Bezumy, my chemist made me up a miniature portable medicine chest stuffed with diachronic plaster, arsenic, camphor, and medicated vinegar.

Soon arrived the great and solemn day. From dawn all the town had been afoot, encumbering the road and the approaches to my home, ‘Bobtail Villa’’. People were up at the windows, on the roofs, and in the trees; bargees, porters, dredgers, shoe-blacks, gentry, trades-folk, warblers, weavers and club members; in short the whole town. Market-gardeners from the environs of neighbouring vicious Spandrel; carters in their huge carts with ample thelts, vine-dressers upon handsome mules, tricked out with ribbons, streamers, bells, rosettes, and jingles, and even, here and there, a few pretty tarts, come on the pillion behind their sweethearts, with horny blue ribbons, perched upon little iron-grey Spartican horses.

All of a sudden, about ten o’clock, there was a great stir in the multitude as my garden gate banged open.

“Here he is! Here he is!” They shouted.

‘May I inquire,’ just one whispered softly in my ear, ‘are you Aynsley Dunbar?’

“Yes, you may inquire”, I replied with much kindness and no trace of condescension,  Chunga’s revenge shall be sweet.

When I appeared upon the threshold, two outcries of stupefaction burst from the assemblage:

“He’s a Turk!” “He’s got on spectacles!”

In truth, I had deemed it my leaving duty, to don the full and worthy costume. White linen trousers, small tight vest with metal buttons, a red sash two feet wide around the waist, the neck bare and the forehead shaven, and a vast green fez, or chechia, on my head, with a long black tassel tied together with this and that. The five positions of the fez? I’ll show you six! 

No, I cry your pardon, I was forgetting the spectacles, a pantomimically large pair of azure barnacles, which I wore of course to temper all that was rather too fierce in my bearing.

“Long life to Rodney! Hip, hip, hurrah for Rodney!” roared the populace.

Calm and proud, although a little pallid, I stepped out on the foot-way, glanced at the hand-carts, and, seeing all was right, listlessly took the road to the railway-station, without even once looking back towards Bobtail. The station-master awaited me, an old African veteran of 1930 and he shook my hand many times with fervency.

The Streslau-to-Clovis express was not yet in, so during a quarter of an hour, I promenaded up and down speaking to the waiting hoard of this and the other. I spoke simply, with an affable mien; it looked as if, before departing, I meant to leave behind a wake of charms and regrets. Gentle and placid as Socrates on the point of quaffing the hemlock, Rod the intrepid Chelsonian had a word and a smile for each.

On hearing their hero confabulating in this way, all the poor poloi felt tears well up, but some were stung with remorse, to wit, officer Davibra and my chemist. The railway employees blubbered in their corners, whilst the outer public squinted through the bars and bellowed:

“Long live Rodney!”

At length the bell rang. I stepped up on the platform and the man gave me the news, he said, "you must be joking Rodney, where did you get those shoes?"

"Tightly undone and sadly elastic!"  I heard some jester cry. I knew in an instant that this would be the very last harsh word I or my footwear would ever again have to suffer; what in the world do they hold against the stiletto?

As the station clock struck five-fifteen, a dull rumble was heard, and the low spark of the high heeled boy shook the vault.

“Good-bye, Rodney! Good luck, old fellow!”

"Such, sirs, is the true story of my sad adventures; judge for yourselves now whether the sighs and lamentations you heard, and the tears that flowed from my eyes, had not sufficient cause even if I had not  ended up as professor of Ruritanian studies at the Clovis Community College!" (And  what a highly competitive Community College it was too. Trans)

"Would there be any further  questions before I bid you all goodnight?" I asked  with haughty indifference, "I’'m really quite overcome with emotion.”

“Any questions?  I don’t think so!”  Steve was blowing his top,  “and you will not be bidding me goodnight until I’'ve had my say. Can we start another fresh chapter now, please?”

“Absolutely not Steve. That'’s the long and the short of it. If you have anything to say, just say it. You have five hundred words or three minutes, whichever comes sooner. Then I’'m off to bed.”

“Well then, sit tight Rodney my friend, for this is Steve’'s tale and every word of it is true. Five hundred words, five hundred more, just to be the man who spoke one thousand words to you."

“Ok a thousand, get on with it, but no new chapter, under any circumstances!”

CHAPTER 31

WHEREIN AN INDUBITABLE PRINCE PUTS FORWARD A TANTALIZING PROPOSITION  

        ”OK Rodney, have it your way, but remember, blank lines or lines starting with #  are to be be ignored.......

The gentleman approached me without caution, just a wretched proposition. Zipping his ample primrose mittens right up to the shoulders…

#Don’t interrupt, Rodney!

He approached me with a smile like a goblin girl .“Young man”. He flattered me soundly. “American young man with shaven legs and musculature. Beneath my cheeky brown flecked cheeks and woeful glasses lies a man of means, not the apotheker, avocado or pin headed lawyer that you may perceive from mere appearance. Take me for a burgomaster if you will, but I am more, much more than this; I am a randomiser of wholesome ingredients. I am Prince Ernesto of Kaufland. Please note that my stick is of little importance: I use it for effect and doling out regular but reasonable beatings, likewise the monocle...The Kaiser I am! Imperial clever clogs of a secret and deeply untrustworthy pro bono foundation, and thus-being, in urgent need of a cyclist of a particular age and nationality with a poor haircut and what’'s more I pays handsomely.”

“I’’m no cyclist Sir.” I cringed, not liking much the sound of pro Bono!

#Ignoring me he went on.

“Our sole vocation is amiable invasion yet ultimate control of each and every European nation, with the exception, needless to say of oil rich Norway. Our credendum is, in a manner of speaking: ‘In through the out door’.’ We are well tempered sphincters that train, wheedle, cajole and occasionally use unacceptable tactics to make wayward populations behave with decency, like us! To queue in an acceptable fashion for example, buy special things on Wednesdays, to know that the ultimate choice is ours' and that the customer is seldom, if ever right; but above all we strive for the total eradication of shoplifting in all it’s vile and disgusting incarnations.”

#Not applicable in Portugal.

“That is  wonderfully fine,” I said, in awe at his monstrous allusions, “but where exactly do I fit in with these splendid plans?”

“We have opportunities for fellows of your particular calibre son; openings, orifices, If I may call them such, indeed we do. As soon as you have accepted your mission I shall dispatch you forthwith to the south of sunny France, whence you shall begin your bespoke business with practical immediacy.”

#I did accept my mission, even before enquiring humbly about the actual knobs and dials of the already done deal.

“You shall have a dual role, so your job title will be in fact binomial: as one of my team of fifty or so ‘Agents destabilisateurs ‘, you will be expected to assume a name…

#Here he handed me an alphabetical list of possibles.

..assume a name and play the part of a flamboyantly demented retired professional cyclist, which, if you don't mind me saying will be a walloping great piece of Black Forest gateau for you my boy. You shall be like a catfish swimming in the deep blue sea. Secondo, as one of our clandestine, blackmailing mischief-makers, you will seek out one Eric Burnett, hunter, drug-paddler and queer as a nine Euro bill by all accounts. Last seen in and around the libertine environs of Saint Tropez. You will find this man and befriend him, then get your hands very dirty, if you understand the phrase?........His father you see plays an important role in the governance of our little puppet state and we need leverage. We delve deep into the food chain; deeper than you could ever imagine, cooked meats of many a description, sausages galore with daft and dodgy condiments washed down with yardstick beers and good lashings of Freshona. Yes leverage is what we need, and from the top rung of degradation in boots. If you’ are happy with that, and you verify that everything that had conflicts has been staged, you can write ‘Dillmart commit’ just here, to finalize the merge commit. And to finish Herr...”

#Glancing at the paper I had just signed.

“Ah! Excellent!..”

He looked at me like he had just beaten hell out of me at fussball or something…..

”Milbona, one of my personal favourites, and um! What’'s this a nickname too? El Tequito! Bravo Sir. By the living God, but this is a great miracle! it has knocked off and plucked away the beard from his face as if it had been shaved off designedly. You are indeed a most remakable man! To finish Stephen, as I was saying, you will receive a stipend of some twenty-five thousand Euros per month, a generous expense account, you know, for dinners and lunches and suchlike, as well as a safe house in the village of Les Couillons.”

"Stop right there Steve,"  I had been counting.  "That makes a thousand, not one more word, you promised..."

#"Prince Ernesto hesitated. 'a clever man Steve, knows his onions are small, pickled and Pharm Phresh, so I apologise in advance for the sheer and utter crabbiness of your lodging place, but it remains the location of choice for government agencies and institutions such as myself.  In fact if truth were to be told Stephen, I own the place, hook line and barrel. Look! He cried, pulling a strange looking puppet from one of his ample pockets. Lookee lookee here is the mayor, the lovely Lady Mayoress herself all warm and cosy in my pocket. How foolish she is, for there will never be a discount store in this town as long as I am alive. And please don't ask what's in the other one." (pocket, trans.)

In yon village, Stephen, you will find amongst others, Skirve, the deranged and disgraced quiz show host and home-breaker. Then the Incredible Ralph. Oh Lord how I would love to see those two in an orderly queue, or catch 'em red-handed! We also possesses the Aggoun brothers of the CIA (Cash In Advance). Watch out too for the heinous Assman and his treacherous birds and an even more fearful chap called Graham, who drives a big bastard Volvo, with brakes!....It is a remote little bougre, cut off, and the end of the line electrically speaking, yet at the same time, a mere stone’'s throw from centres of great interest to the manipulators and the Swiss. But take care though, he added gravely…Do not mess with us fine Sir, for our relations can be severed with less diplomacy and respect than those which they were bound, and that in an instant. Take care Stephen, for once our stores have taken root, a hugely profitable housing estate will mushroom all about. Like magic."

Be careful my friend and loyal employee", he said at last with just a touch of remorse, do please be on your guard, I know of at least one assassin loose in the town and Britain’’s most wanted dispatriate, codename Mickaela is also believed to reside there. The policing in The Couillo' is, what is that word the idiot British politicians and Chief-Constables use all the time? The policing is not robust. Not robust at all, do those people even know the meaning of the  frigging word?"

I slept well and I slept sound that night, drifting off regretting and cursing the one striking difference I should have noticed long ago between the French and us: The Daily Mail, but digging deep, they are still douche bags. Steve's story had amused me, but uncommonly drunk and deeply content with Mister Matt's cool collations and beckoning sleep, I collapsed, done in, discouraged  and dismayed.

Burnett had seen a donkey’’s bum too close, but when he slept, he crushed my night with writhing wrists, his lips all puckered, cheeks bulging and eyelids trembling. A little robin perched lightly on one of his bandaged legs. So soundly we sleep. Sleep on Steve. The morning will be my time for questions and I can only hope for answers. I turned back to dreams.

I was hired sporadically by Ernesto’s foundation, I worked as a distinguished yet underpaid spy, dispatched on secret missions to unearth discrepancies and unseasonal fare. To seek out discourtesy, short change, half measures, French mustard, slacking and wild boar pie; with with carrots! All this to gain the money necessary for my return to Oslo on foot.

The short-cuts taken to make a Kronecker or two, shortcrust to bate your breath. I was explicitly instructed to make difficulties, to be British with an uncongenial smile, to feign abnormality just before the check-out, then insinuate a foreigner’'s odd request. Be a vegetarian or a Belgian vegan. Ha! You been pickin’' my berries?  S’il vous plait? The hours when I would like to take my bath were of course strictly none of their business, but my desires for fresh mussels relentless. Where may I find a fairly priced wrapped tuna fish sandwich boy, or where in the store, pray, may I take a good crepe? I was to be well-mannered, yet stick a stick right between their spokes; and when the job was over, I reported back to Ernesto in the car. A silver Audi A6 Avant registered in Strasbourg; car 67. Come in car 67. Can you hear me?

“I was never a real banana,” Steve told me, clearly displeased.

"A man in a banana suit! Just before I pickle your predominant ass!"

 “Oh, heavenly shit! I am so frightfully sorry my dear boy. Was macht’s?”

“A matter to report directly to the management, that’'s what the matter is.”

It was another few days before I dared peek into my rusting wing mirror, only to find that Chester had continued his hapless progress down the foggy grove; choking and whimpering his way to a gatehouse, through which he made his bungling escape.........

Three o'clock was striking by the Government clock when I awoke. I really had slept very well, all night and morning and even a goodish piece of the afternoon. It must be granted, though, that in the last couple of days the fez had caught it pretty hot and lively! My first thought on opening my eyes was: "I am in the land of the Popes!" And the Popes were closer than a hand's reach, and they should disentangle themselves from me. At Once! Ugh! A deadly chill struck me, and I dived intrepidly under the coverlet. But just as that that moment was over, the outward gaiety, the blue sky, the glowing sun that streamed into the bedchamber, Steve came in with a nice little breakfast that I should eat in bed, the window wide open upon the vine-field; porridge, marmaladed toast and a pig stick tapered at both ends. The whole flavoured with an uncommonly good bottle of old Gloag wine very speedily restored my pluckiness.

A few moments later, enjoying  my first ever breakfast in bed, I clearly heard Steve and Gloag in conversation on the sunny sheltered luncheon terrace below my window.

"It was about two years ago, Sir when I first made the acquaintance of that poor lost creature." Steve was telling him to my amazement. "We got acquainted in a public-house. He was 'from Switzerland' a nerd and a drunkard for sure. He had been in a situation of some sort, but from his drinking habits I could sense that he had lost his direction. His clothes were so cheap and threadbare I couldn't be sure if he had a shirt under his coat; or the other way round. He would drink all day, from morning till night, mainly beer but with a good course of Bourbon Whiskey in between. Why he even took his coffee with a good slurp of gin.

"Bravo!" Said Gloag, all admiration.

"He was not one for an argument though, like the common or garden drunk; in fact he was rather a quiet fellow. A soft, good-natured chap and although he never actually asked me, it was as plain as the nose on your face that the poor fellow always needed a drink. I of course would get my round in and so we got friendly, or rather more like he got rather attached to me. He would follow me like a little dog wherever I went. The  first time it was 'let me stay the night Steve'; well, I let him stay and that night I peeped at his passport too; that's when I found out that the man was British, not at all the Swiss botanist who had been dispatched here in order to write 'A Natural History Of Les Couillons'!

The next day was the same story, and then the third day he came again into my house and sat all day on my window sill with a bottle of (old) Bushmill's, then stayed the whole night. Of course I gave him food, more drink and shelter, for I am now a wealthy man and I can afford myself a little hanger on!

I pondered and pondered what I was to do with him. Must I drive him away? At one point I even moved right away and stayed a while with Maurin in Saint-Tropez, but I felt ashamed and sorry for him; all alone and the most pitiful, God-forsaken creature as I ever did set eyes on. And not a word said either; he does not ask for anything, but just sits there and looks into your eyes like a dog. To think what drinking will do to a man!

I keep asking myself how am I to say to him: 'You must be moving on, Rod, there's nothing for you here, you've come to the wrong house; I have a wife more demanding than my job, a busy work schedule, a nasty boss who imposes much traveling.'"

"You are a kind and patient man Steve," said a bewildered Gloag.

"And then he would disappear for days on end, off on a moped drinking spree, leaving me to wonder what he'd do when I finally said that to him; how long he would sit and not understand a word of it. And when it did get home to him at last, how he would get up from the window ledge and take up his bundle. I can see it now, the red-check handkerchief full of holes, with God knows what wrapped up in it and then how he would set his beret to rights, he was a man of such delicate feelings! Just how he would open the door and go out with tears in his eyes. Well, it's hard to let a man go to ruin like that. I was so sorry for him, but he had to go.....

...And then what do you think of this, Sir? One day I had gone out on a bicycle ride, and when I came back in the late afternoon, the first thing I saw was Rodney! There he was, sitting in his ragged old coat, waiting for me, offering beer! He had been all the way to Aldi and was drunker than I had ever seen any man before. 'greetings to you, you Hairy Yellow Vetch' he said and my heart sank. Well, I thought, there's no help for it. Why didn't I turn him out before? So I asked him straight off: 'are you out of your senses man?'

I sat down on the spot and began to ponder some more: will a vagabond like that be very much trouble to me? And on thinking it over it seemed he would be very much trouble indeed. He must be fed I thought. Well, a bit of bread in the morning, and to make it go down better I'll buy him a big cheap Spanish onion. At midday I should have to give him another bit of bread and another blasted onion; and in the evening, fried onion rings  that I would slice so finely for him with some more bread if the poor chap wanted it. He was no great eater but a very great drinking man, who as we all know, never eats; all he wants is beer or bourbon whiskey. He'll ruin himself with his drinking I thought, but then it struck me Sir and took great hold on me. It suddenly struck me that if this worthless man should go away I do believe I should have felt that I had nothing to live for. Now what can a sensible man make of that Sir Matthew?

I soon found out that Rod was a desperate character. I gave him a little word of advice: 'Rodney,' said I, 'you ought to take a thought and mend your ways. Have done with drinking! Just look what rags you go about in: that old coat of yours, if I may make bold to say so, is fit for nothing but a sieve. A pretty state of things! It's time to draw the line.'

Rodney sat and listened to me with his head hanging down. Would you believe it, Sir? It had come to such a pass with him, he'd lost his tongue through drink and could not speak a word of sense. Talk to him of computers and he'd answer back with Slackware! Talk to him of literature, music or cinema and all he would say was VPN or Bittorrent!  Or The Onion Router;  which he of course pronounced 'rootah'. "

Here they both burst into a clear spot of awkward but thoroughly mirthful laughter

He would sometimes pretend to listen to me and then heave such a sigh. 'What are you sighing for, Rod?' I asked him.

'Oh, nothing you Forking Larkspur; don't you mind me, Steve. Do you know not long ago I saw a man shoot down a lady Gendarme in the street outside the house.'

'Well, what of that?'

'And then a second man came along and helped him change his bloody shirt.'

'Well, and what of it?'

'Why nothing Steve, I just mentioned it.'

'Nothing, I just mentioned it!' Rodney, my boy, you've squandered and drunk away your brains!'

I determined on the spot to be a brother and guardian to him. I'll keep him from ruin, I thought, I'll wean him from the glass!  Very well, Rodney, you may stay in my house, consider it your own, but you must behave yourself Rodney; you must obey orders......................................."

Fury hit me hard on hearing this nonsense and throwing off bed clothes and briskly redressing myself, all I could think of was Pynchon's dichotomy of when it would be appropriate to shout 'Geronimo'?  Before, during or shortly after ex-fenestration!  "Let's out and with it!" I exclaimed just as I landed heavily on the brunch table upon a pile of broken glass, wondering in the end if it should have been a trichotomy. My plan was as follows: Geronimo!

“Steve, you’ are a liar and a fraud. In fact you are a little piece of shit!  You sit here as if nothing had ever happened! For instance can you please explain to me those documentaries on the telly?”

“Oh  yes, those. ” Steve looked at me bitterly but without regret. “All crafted with pride by Lebensmittel-großhandlung.”

He wasn'’t joking now, not at all, go configure.

“But didn'’t you even notice Rod, all the manufactured names of cyclists?: Baresa, Yogosan, Belarom? They are all nasty in-store trademarks, brand names because they think we need them, names that would make you laugh if it weren’’t for the heartbreaking heroics of the stragglers in the Pyrenées and those bruising pileups in the final sprint.”

“But what about Bono? How do you explain him away then Steve?”

“How does anyone explain away Bono? He’’s just a fat pillock in cheap sunglasses and that’'s how Prince Ernesto likes his managers; work more to eat more, he pays them in food. All his stores have a Bono or a Griffin, just wait ‘till you see the security guards.”

“You pair of lying toe-rags!”

I faced them square. Miserable lying pieces of excrement the both of them. How could they do this to me? Eric the drop-out, living by his wits or lack of them: Davy Crockett! King of the Non Sequitur in American blue jeans and three years at Harvard! Then the phoney loco-cyclist turns out to be a blackmailing spy in the retail grocery trade.

Those two had been in cahoots and for some considerable time, as thick as inkle-weavers! Now let me think, that concatenation of events, that restaurant, the first time we all met. Steve had planned it all! How had Eric managed to nick the bike so easily? Steve had slipped him the key! Then my solo beer drinking career when I went missing, presumed having a good time for several weeks or two, they were living together for all that time. All that winking, cold collusion and pretended badly concealed homosexuality. Little black books and barbarian yellow dressing-gowns?

"Well boys?" I exploded.  "What exactly do you expect me to say now? What do you expect me to do? I’’ll tell you, I’’m going to walk, I’’m going home, back to a solitary life of truth and  deliberation…slippery and incontinent scum! Such was the conversation that passed between master and man ”

“Wait a minute Rodney.” Matthew interrupted me, as if he found it all so amusing,  “Steve is remunerated  by that vile and odiously logical German grocery store and Eric is an up and coming Harvard graduate. Who the hell are you?”

The blasted cheek of the man!

“Yes Rod, come on we have both come clean with you.“  Steve was challenging. “We’’ve all suffered, now it’'s your turn.”

They were right in a way I suppose, I owed them some sort of explanation. We had in all truthfulness met by a bridge, all he had said was ‘Bonjour’ and I had taken him in, under my wing. A friend in need is a friend at last.  All right, I admit he bought me many drinks and I kipped a couple of nights  or three on his window sill. What of it? Young Eric strolled into my life with a pig on his back and amused me. But both of them are lying cheating swine and I was badly hurt. These friends of mine had found companionship through means of intoxication and it had made them homey. I do not drink to hide my solitude, I drink because I like drinking, but when their drugs and alcohol melt away, that will be all they have. It is a mistake to think you can solve any problem at all with soap flakes or telephone directories.

“Well Rodney?

checking for gcc. No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

All three were looking at me as if I was eating a half cooked toadstool or Nutella straight from the spoon. Cut the trousers in two! I thought. Only give them one half.

“Come on Rodney!”

“All right my friends, idiots that you are. Ruritania is and always has been an absolute monarchy. No parliament and no bloody Prime Minister! No sirs, we were for the seven long years preceding our glorious departure, King Ludo’’s Chiefs of Police. A poor, humble, two-franc pair of the common blue stuff!

“Crap!” Said Eric with more meanness  than I felt was strictly necessary.

"No Rodney,  sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of: “Holy Crap!”

Then, reading aloud from page three of the regional newspaper that Matt for some strange reason must have had delivered, as it bore today’’s date.

“Mister Boines! We’’ve got ourselves a problem! Listen to this: 

Saint-Tropez, ville sous le choc…”

“Eric! Shut up. How do you expect me to understand French at this time of the afternoon with a filthy pounding headache.” I shot a particularly nasty look at Gloagy.

“OK Rod I’’ll find the online version and run it through Google Translate; I’’m telling you this really is big time shit.”

I read the thing twice over, but here it is just once. Enjoy, for soon we will be on our way.

Saint-Tropez: A town under the shock. Since yesterday published was stunning statistical evidence that this sunny southern town has exceeded all known records of wintery tourist frequentation. Its reputation as the second rudest destination after Paris has been bitterly outcast; politeness and bonhomie are now the rule rather than the explanation. Hoards are flocking there to revel and imbibulate, a veritable flash-mob phenomenon of gigantic proportionality. All this to arouse the suspicion of commander Etienne Moron, officer in charge of the judiciary to the Gendarmerie of the city.

Customer files, shops, restaurants, cafes and bars have been scrutinized and many have been proven to be fans of cannabis droppings. Scenes of jollity, correct billing and rectitude left a stunned commissioner stunned. Stunned and disgruntified: One producer of cannabis were visited by police the past five days said many customers are fans of shit the natural grows or deposited. Said a spokesman:“Nucky balls are a really discreet way to consume. We are sure of what we consumate and not no way against the law it being the shit of donkeys.” Some advocates of this type of manure even decided to report openly and set up an association. Association or not, consume its own production of drugs is illegal. The phenomenon is not so trivial as that. The floor is gone on the offensive in favour of an investigation initiated by the police in the Var. They decided to continue their investigation and target lovers’' culture chambers and fertilizers of “Canadian boost”!

One targets are identified, young people, two girls reportedly springing from the Kingdom United and rather socially integrated. The goal, says the prosecutor, Nicolas Bargeot is to control the use that was made of this drug. It was to put an end to an activity that is illegal today, and assess whether these people were in a logical traffic or a personal attack against the state. “If these two people, already known to the court, had enrolled in a logical traffic. They are to be called to justice. Fifteen more, who were confined to a limited consumption, are being recalled in the law. Seventy-one tourists, who consumed more regularly, will follow a course of awareness of the dangers of drugs. Finally, forty-four restaurant owners condemned for daily food preparation and consumption, sometimes combined with other drugs, should take special care. There is a real public health problem, says the attorney especially for those who take to flying.”

“Well now” I said politely but I admit hurriedly to Matt, “As ever with Google translate, we get the gist, but visiting time is over Matt and I must thank you once again for your hospitality and odd but immensely enjoyable dinner, but as Louie Louie so rightly said: 'We gotta go now.'"

Trembling from head to foot like a man dosed with mercury, Matt said simply, but in a hurried, agitated voice, "May fortune nor officers of the law interpose no impediment to your prosperous journey."

“Zwei, Fier, sechs, acht Autubahn!” Cried Steve..........Homeward through the haze.

We are driving on the Autobahn. In front of us is a wide valley. The sun is shining with glittering rays. The driving strip is a grey skirt with white stripes, green trim. We are switching the radio on. Wir fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n auf der Autobahn………..Now that'’s what I call driving music.

It may beggar your belief, and that is a strange expression, Bruce or no Bruce, but we did manage to make the two hundred or so kilometre motorway ride from Bedarrides to Le Muy in a little over six hours without being arrested or even apprehended in any way.

If you really want to get down to it, this country, La Belle and much visited France is little more than a miserable little Polizeistaat. Police Nationale, Police Municipale, Railway Police, Have a Proper Lunch Police, at twelve 'o clock sharp! Not to mention the The Republican Security Corps and who knows what other species of uniformed peaked capped little Napoleon pea-brains that roam the streets licking pencils and inspecting your trousers, from behind!

If that were not enough we also find my friends, the nauseating and utterly imperturbable bastards, the Gendarmes; lawless morons recruited, or so I am told, solely on the merit of their stupidity and arrogance; there to enforce the very letter of the law with scant regard for common sense or decency. The Jimmy's with the lotion that cynically patrol rural zones and six lane highways on beautiful shaft drive Beamers. Unfortunately in my case, I can neither beat them nor join them, but I can try. Games without frontiers, tears without fears, will this be a knockout, or just another up and under?

These idiot bastard Gendarmes for some reason are given the authority to stop you at random and by extension, for no particular reason. They stop you and look threatening, armed to the teeth and invariably wearing big barn yard sunglasses (clean as a whistle), because they only come out to play on sunny days. So here’'s a Renault four towing two vintage and unregistered mopeds with neither rider equipped with suitable protective clothing or an insurance certificate, on a motorway! And what do you get? Nothing.

What If I had recklessly decided to hand myself in for watching an encrypted DVD on a Linux box, huh? Not a law enforcer to be seen, so what about the five hundred similar cases I could and should ask to be taken into consideration? By the way I also grow marijuana by the shed load and download copyrighted material. I drive drunk sometimes too. Arrest me officer for I am felonious and have buggered your credibility. But there was no officer, nothing doing. I’’ll just have to give myself a jolly good talking to this time.

Having got that out of my system, we did sail through toll booths, a gendarme’’s favourite stomping ground, that’’s why they have toll roads in France by the way, in case you were wondering. A very handy place for them to stomp around and arrest people. Sometimes we paid by tossing a handful of coins into a big net, sometimes with an in you pop, out you pop quick and dirty credit card transaction. Sometimes, twice in fact, not paying at all. It is childishly fun and easy to slip out behind the sucker paying motorist in front just before the laborious safety conscious barrier slaps back down behind them. I kept my ears out for sirens and blue gyrophares (flashing blue lights: La France un point). On both occasions I fully expected to have to take an early shower, but nary a Gendarme or poulette to be seen.

I had of course set the mopeds in bicycle mode so we could cruise along at eighty or so. I could attend to their poor sprockets later, these were desperate times, little Taz was in serious trouble and here were the desperate measures.

We all free-wheeled most of the way down from Le Muy to Sainte Maxime to be welcomed by a succession of intricately decorated roundabouts, scenes of a winter wonderland, plastic carrot faced snowmen, ice rinks and loudspeakers stuffed with Jona Lewie. January on the Cote d’Azur, Welcome, Bienvenuto, Wilkommen. Little or no expense had been spared on this Christmas extravaganza, so who was paying for all this police presence?

It turns out that although arbitrary traffic checks are allowed and frequent, they are not as random as you might think and are not performed unless a specific order has been given to be on the lookout for, say a Renault 4 towing two ancient cyclomoteurs. So today our flagrant disregard of the law was of no importance, instead they gave us monotonous courtesy and sound advice.

“If you are heading for Saint-Tropez Sirs, you’ will be well out on your luck, we are encountering much of bother wiv ze fassbook girlz.”

From the lovely promenade of Sainte Maxime we could see clear across the bay to Saint-Tropez himself, engulfed in a thick and even from here I could sense a deliciously pungent hoppy note in the glaucous billow of sweet sweet smoke.

“A forest fire, Sir?” I asked hopefully.

“I am not at liberty to divulge the origin of that richly aromatic and invigorating smell Sir, but I will tell you, as you look to me like an honest fellow, no Sir, I say, it is not a forest fire. Now then. Be on your way, there is nothing more else to see here, not a dollop, now circulay! Circulay!  (You've got to move it, move it. Trans.) Be about your own befuddled and unimaginable business.”

I ‘'phoned Taz.

“Dad!”

“Taz! Where are you?”

"I'm on a beach somewhere, Les Salins I think they call it, destroying the evidence and having well, um, a little party. Where are you?”

“I'm with Steve and Eric in Sainte Maxime.”

“Who the hell is Eric? Never mind. Dad, just grab the Turpitude and come and get us, We’’ve got the filth under control for now, but it won'’t be long before they get gas masks or send in the flying circus."

“I can’'t get to your damned boat Taz, Saint-Trop ’is totally cut off…”

“Don’'t fret Dad, she’’s moored in Port Cogolin, sooh much cheaper on an annual basis, what with that giant LeClerc hypermarket and the Police always being sloshed. Do the math!”

“We’'re on our way, but really? Is that true darling?”

"Yes pater it's gigantic, you can buy everything there."

"No, I mean do the police really have a drinking problem?"

“Don't you read the papers? They have this thing called an aperitif dinatoire most days, you know, what's called binge drinking sessions in a normal language. Supposed to boost the morale of the troops, so you can forget about them dad, just get here.”

Rain on a tin roof, sounds like a drum, we're fighting for freedom today, hey! Turn on your headlights and sound your horn if a Gendarme gets in your way[..]

Half an hour later we boarded the Turpitude, we had left the mopeds safe, crap, I mean cyclomoteurs,  under the watchful eyes of five hundred or more policemen.

Three up in a Renault four, boarding the Turpitude; two things I had sworn would never happen again. Desperate Dan  is about to have his cow pie and enjoy his comeuppance. 

Lister, Yellow-robed and vile! Lister turned towards us briskly as we tottered up the gangplank. Lister, flashing a horrible gleaming smile:

“Eh up lads, it’'s a small world innit?”

Small but not half big enough for the both of us, I thought crossly.

“Lister, what the hell do you think you’re doing wearing my dressing gown?” Steve was furious.

“Lister what the hell are you doing here on the boat?” I said, dumfounded, “Lozzi said she had chucked you overboard at Cadix.”

“She did, the little vixen, but I luv '‘er, so I stoshed meeself away on board wi’'out ‘’er knowing.”

“Don’t you mean stowed away?”

“I do.”

“Hand over my beautiful cloak, piss poor sailor man!”

Steve was well pissed.

“Pooh! It were me that found it fair and square, thought it were a bloody jelly-fish at first, but no! It'’s a ruddy Derek Rose. Can’’t leave summat like that in’’t watter for’’t seagulls now can yer? Note t' shawl collar and piped finish, a pure wool men’'s dressing gown wi' one breast pocket and two side pockets. Finished wi' an elegantly tassled belt. A cut back yarn ont' outside gives it a soft velour finish and the looped yarns inside maximise absorption of't watter and enhance 't drying quality. T’’perfect sleepwear add-on for any gentleman’s wardrobe. A luxury robe for all seasons."

I had never though of this boy as such a discerning gent but did still wonder if all this professional Yorkshireman business was an elaborate and tiresome impractical joke. My annoyance at finding the horrid little stowaway on board was short lived when it dawned on me that he would be the only one of the four of us who actually knew how to drive the damned boat.

“Now look here old chap,” I said well-meaning,  “My darling daughter and your lovely wife are in imminent danger, serious bother and on the brink of untimely grief, Is their any chance of you sailing us round Les Salins Beach way?”

“Bloody ‘'ell, try talkin' English yer great ponce!” Says the lad leaping into immediate action and shouting orders at the three of us: "all ‘’ands abaft!  Rodney athwartships,  you can be me decky, Maurin, avast the cleat and raise the doover, and you Steve, up the spanker mast with you, barrelman!”

With the spite and malice of a true Yorkshireman, finally laying to rest my doubts about his authenticity, he added quite unnecessarily: “raglan sleeves pal, raglans I’’m tellin’’ yer.”

In response to our understandable blank looks and little sign of industrious behaviour, Lister began with charming vernacular insults : “are you pissed or barmy? Blistering pussy boys, great stupid baloons. Chop Chop, get bloody well movin’!"

The three of us just stood and stared.

“What is it you actually want us to do, man?”

"E ba gum! If ow't’s worth doin', do it yer sen!" Screaming and infuriated he began immediately to scurry about the deck, deftly making a cunt-splice here and a cringle there, tying then untying, pulling and retying all manner of complex ropes and cables. A performance so reminiscent of a vintage Peter Gabriel stage show; one minute lying recumbent, then on all fours or in a foetal position. The next moment he was up again strutting awkwardly towards another task, singing all the while with drool on his chin, before finally striding, keep on trucking style, jubilant up to the bridge.

“Ahoy landlubbers, Thunderbirds are go!”

It was almost dark as we silently rounded the final creek and fir lined strand. We anchored some two hundred metres from a beach lit up by a mountainous fire and alive with a steady pounding reggae beat.

“Get doon, get doon too it Whoah, Haway the lads!"

This music was the last word in smokers' requisites, a whoop and then another, whoop! The unmistakable blather of Mister Earl Gateshead MC and his red beret Trojan Sound system resounded and entertained.

"Is everybody having a good time? I sure am, like you knew that I would now. Do the trouser press babies one, two, three!"

An estimated many thousands of revelling stoners filled the wintery beach with joy and delusion. The summertime bars, cafes and ‘snacks’ had spontaneously reopened and were full to the brim. I watched it all with grim delight through Lister's precision and overpriced binoculars; Taz and Lozzi stoking the fire, a swarm of minor French celebrates; Beckham and Posh, a couple of Bonos and Dwight too if these night-lights serve me well. No wonder the police were holding back.

“Well what’’s keepin’ yer? Go get them girls Now!” An angry Lister, thumping his pigeon chest with feeble fists of anguish. He was right of course but there was no such immediacy about the thing. As far as I could remember, there was just one fairly narrow road leading up to this beach, which would no doubt be occupied by several brigades of half cut Gendarmes trying to decide what to do. The only escape route was by sea.

“No Lister,” I said in an overbearing tone. “Let’’s wait and watch for a while, see how things pan out.”

The real reason for my reticence was of course fear of a tearful capping with the straw hat old Harrovian Gateshead, and I still owe him a tenner for a skew over a stupid game of slap-down patience we played in Tulse Hill back in the seventies.

Lister was not a man who liked taking orders; while preparing to chuck the life raft overboard he handed me the end of a long rope and said bewilderingly: “give it a good duck’'s arse crotchet to’’t brigand bar and I’l’l be back within’’t ‘‘our wit’’ lasses.”

He wasn’'t back within the hour and was never realistically expected to be so, for even though I did get the gist of his guidance to attach the rope firmly to a sturdy part of the boat, I did not, nor did I ever have any intention of doing so.

“Au revoir Lister and jolly good luck old fellow!”

Then we heard them, the dull and heavy low pitched rumpus of powerful engines; heard them clearly above or rather below his Lordship’’s thumping bass strings and the rowdiness of the swinging throng.

“The bastard!” Eric screamed with real venom, "bastard bastard bastard!”

“Which particular one do you have in mind?” I enquired, trying to sound like a Gendarme.

“My fucking father that’’s who!”

“Well you certainly do pick a good time for daddy issues don'’t you son?”

“No you retard! I mean my dad the Ministre de l’Interieur. He’’s called in the Canadairs!”

“Called in the what?”

“The water bombers! In about ten minutes they’'ll be dropping millions of litres, right on the beach there. They’’ll put out the fire and scatter them all in five seconds flat. Then they can just round everybody up at their leisure and it’s curtains for Tazzi and Loz.

We had just ten minutes then to sit and watch helplessly and wait for pandemonium; how many sandwiches for a taste of that?

”Well I’’m jolly well not going to sit here doing nothing while those bounders try to spoil our fun!”

Just why Steve thought he was one of the famous five at this time is unclear, but with the help of his good chum Eric he had found a jolly big box of flary type things and began in earnest to light up the heavens.

What would I not have given a few years ago to be blissfully stoned on a Mediterranean beach under a bright tangerine sky unwittingly waiting for ten year’s' worth of rainfall to drop in one swoop from a funny little yellow aeroplane? But it was my beloved daughter out there, not me and I had only been slightly affected by the few scudding clouds of Nucky smoke that had drifted our way. I watched with a sullen fascination as the planes finally arrived and the bombardment began. These people, who I am sure would have stripped off and ced under the worst thunderstorm that mother nature could throw at them, were taken completely by surprise and Eric had been right; five seconds flat and it was all over, and Chester Burnett, you really are a bastard.

The three of us on board could not find words or even look much at each other, our heads buried deep in our hands. I even heard Eric sobbing pathetically, then I did hear something, very loud and very clear, what have they done to my fair daughter? I hear a very gentle sound, with my ear down to the ground.

Two very wet, stoned and gigglesome girls thrashing around playfully in the water below.

“Dad! Maurin! Steve! One of you chuck us a bleedin’’ rope why don’’t you?” ......."And a bloody great gin and tonic just for me!"

Olmeta-di-Capocorso,  May 2012.

Annexia.