Footloose In Paris

6

Footloose In Paris

May 26 Not. Funnily enough in the New Year things didn’t immediately improve. Neither on the pandemic front nor on the personal. John Raice was still God-Knew-Where, more regs. on the size of large groups came into force, eating and drinking were banned on public transport and in large venues (whatever they were: yes, Oncle Maurice, bats), and in restaurants and bars table service only was compulsory. Well anyone who knew Paris from the ground up, so to speak, could have told you immediately that that was totally crazy, how many thousands of people pop into their nearest bar every day and grab a coffee at the counter? Right, Oncle Alphonse, that Macron was a Rude Word. And had no idea how ordinary people live, yes, Tante Louise.

    True, there was more likelihood of catching germs if you were crammed up against other people spending three mins. drinking small cups of very black coffee at a bar counter than if you were seated at a table with other people approx. a metre away and only the waiter breathing over you… Maybe. Oh, well.

    Masks became compulsory in markets (why single them out?) and on public transport for everyone aged six and above, rather than eleven. Okay, the six-to-ten percentile had been busily spreading the virus and Tante Thérèse was right: the primary schools were hotbeds of germs and she’d have shut them down completely and had all the children learning online with regular Zoom sessions for the class. Exercise, mon chéri? Well, bon Dieu, one saw enough ads for silly exercise videos, didn’t one? That Jane Fonda, hadn’t she done one? Er, wasn’t the lady in Q. about ninety? Never mind, the aunt was right in principle. The kids could jump up and down in their own homes in front of their computers with a gym teacher showing them how, when one thought about it… I always had maintained that Tante Thérèse should be running the bally country but on the other hand would anyone with that much common sense want to go into politics?

    “Remote” working for at least three days a week then became compulsory. Well I suppose there were certain necessary exceptions, but that sort of put a stop to me and Mireille looking for any sort of office work, didn’t it? Never mind, mes enfants, we need you here! What, to serve all those people that have to sit at the tables to sip their three-minute coffees? Yes, okay, anything you need and of course we’re happy here, darling Tante Louise! (Big hug and kiss).

    Macron announced colourfully that he really wanted to piss off the non-vaccinated but as old Oncle Alphonse pointed out sourly he’d do better to shoot the buggers and don’t worry, Albert, that Gabriel Léger wouldn’t set foot here, he’d see to that. Well yes, all he’d have to do was smoke the pipe at him…

    Well I don’t know whether it was the result of the stricter regs. or not, but by the time an icy January devolved into a freezing, windy February things actually began to relax. Had all that mask-wearing worked with the jolly old infant set? Because those under twelve no longer had to be vaccinated. The public at large could discard their masks in outdoor public “spaces”: did that include sports stadiums which had sort of roofs but were open in front? Okay, Oncle Maurice, we weren’t going to go to any anyway. The size of public gatherings was de-regulated, too.

    And compulsory “remote” working ended, not clear why there was such a radical change within a month, but so it was.

    By mid-February the nightclubs were allowed to reopen and the mandatory table service thing ended and those who wanted to eat and drink on public transport could do so (um, providing that the said service allowed it at all, was this?). And by the end of the month mask wearing had been pretty much abolished except on intercity public transport, plus medical venues like hospitals and care homes. Where personally I’d feel much safer wearing one at any time, Mme Lacroix from the quartier has a complete horror story about her old mum going into care and the very next day the place was locked down because of a gastric flu epidemic. Well I think it had about fifty beds but everyone seemed to have come down with the dashed bug including the staff, so the word “epidemic” wasn’t too strong.

    By mid-March things really had improved and health passes were no longer required to enter anywhere. It was still very cold in Paris but not as freezing, and never mind his advanced age, Colas was eagerly looking forward to the first of April and the chocolate poissons d’avril.

    Eventually Mireille and I both found paid employment. Tho Oncle Albert refused absolutely to hear of us paying board. Quelle idée! This was your home, mes enfants! At which we foolishly both burst into tears.

    Well it had been a long, hard slog, two whole years of virtually nothing, but now at last we were seeing light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. No wonder we were dashed well emotional!

    Well naturally we had to have a Zoom session with the Junior Drones to report. And there were congratulations all round, with the latest on how they were doing. Egg and Crumpy were about to finish their online hospitality and management courses, at last. Alysse as usual was head-down to her Classics swot, it was going well and her supervisor was encouraging. A nice change from some, Flossie noted sourly: he was head-down too, in pursuit of his chosen career in law, determined to catch up with what he’d missed during the lockdowns, but his tutor wasn’t much chop.

    Carrie-Ann was still in the first throes of enthusiasm about her job, tho admitting that the pecking order at the FCO was terrifying and there seemed to be any number of glass ceilings tho yes, a woman could climb to the rank of ambassador slash high commissioner—if she wanted to be posted somewhere really exciting like Wellington, New Zealand!

May 29 Not. Continuing straight on: Oops, hadn’t Flossie’s dad, before South Africa—? Yes, he had, and Flossie confirmed, grinning, that it was the boring dump to end all boring dumps and the whole country seemed to be run by a mixture of fumbling amateurs and jumped-up Little Hitlers, and his mother on one of her rare phone calls had bemusedly described the populace as seeming “so childish”. Whether Whites or Polynesians, there was no essential difference, apparently. Crumbs.

    So Carrie-Ann thought she’d go for something behind the scenes. Ulp. Did that mean, er, well, not technically a spy-master, that was MI6, wasn’t it, but something perilously close to it? Or intelligence analyst, maybe? Well she had that sort of brain, true. Tho in her case it presumably wouldn’t entail being sent God-Knew-Where like John Raice, whose job in fact was intelligence analysis—at least that was as clear as it had ever got.

    Egg must have seen something in my expression at this point because he said mildly: “Pretty much desk work, Sister Bean: tied to her computer, reading reports from the field, kind of thing. I was reading a book just lately that quoted a lot of declassified documents from the Thirties: amazing how frank the ambassadors got in confidential docs!”

    “I see,” I said in relief.

    “Now, tell us all about these jobs of yours!” beamed Crumpy. “Mireille?”

    I don’t think it was my imagination that Flossie gave the Crumpet a sour look at this point. Well, F. Nightingale, Esq., if one is keen on a girl it might help to get over here, since the regs. have relaxed, and show it.

    Smilingly Mireille described her very ordinary job in a solicitor’s office, reminding the lads that they’d seen the street: it was where Oncle Albert’s nightclub was. The two avocats were very pleasant. The work wasn’t exactly exciting, mainly filing, but the secretary didn’t want to do any reception, so she also personed the front desk and answered the phone, which she enjoyed. The secretary? Well she was terrifyingly competent and knew all about all the different documents and had the formats in her computer, but once she’d realised that Mireille didn’t want to take over her job and in fact wasn’t a good enough keyboarder to do so, she was okay. The clerks? Yes, Flossie—going very pink—the office had two clerks, they were both older men, very kind and helpful. The lawyers themselves were younger, which had seemed odd at first, but of course they had their qualifications. A man and a lady, they were brother and sister! She beamed delightedly at this revelation and all the English Junior Drones, bless them, beamed right back.

    “What about your job, Mel?” urged Carrie-Ann.

    Yes, well. Thereby hung a tale or two which weren’t going to be told. But I explained that it was only part-time, working as P.A. to a businessman who was a friend of Raimond Martineau’s uncle.

    “Son flic!” Mireille explained with a smothered giggle.

    “Thought you’d given him the flick, old girl?” drawled Flossie.

    “Hah, hah: witty,” I retorted, trying not to laugh. “Um, well I had, really. But he’s got such good manners that it didn’t stop him introducing me to his uncle.”

    “I see,” he said on a dry note.

    Yes well. Doubtless he did, there are no flies on F. (James) Nightingale, Esq.

    All I said was: “He’s an older chap, in business for himself: sells heavy machinery tho he’s not a boffin, at all: he finds clients and chats them up and takes them out to dinner, that sort of thing. He wanted someone to keep his social diary straight and, um, give him some advice about clothes and venues, that sort of thing, and come with him to places where he needs a partner. –He’s divorced. His sons aren’t interested in the business: one’s in the Army and the other’s in the diplomatic service, and he’s pretty sour about it. And their wives don’t approve of him, I can’t see why, because he’s the terrifically genial sort of businessman, a bit like your dad, really, Crumpy, but maybe it’s because they’re both afraid he’ll leave everything to the other brother. Um, if you see what I mean.”

    “Almost,” drawled Flossie. “Could you perhaps run that last effort by us again, oh loquacious but syntactically challenged Auxiliary Hon. Mem.?”

    “No.”

    Abruptly the Crumpet exploded in loud sniggers, gasping: “Serves you right, Flossie!”

    “Thank you, Crumpet: slave forever!” I cried, trying to beam at him and scowl at Flossie at the same time, actually a physical imposs., bother.

    And since the Bean didn’t have anything to report except that with his finals coming up soon it was nose to the grindstone—unless they wanted to hear about that phone call to Mum just before Christmas—no, didn’t think so—we rang off, with fervent promises to get together IN PERSON as soon as our schedules could possibly allow it.

May 31 Not. Well I didn’t do any of it on purpose, it just happened. And I admit I was feeling sourer and sourer about not being able to contact John for months on end, probably a factor. Added to which after two boring years incarcerated with Grannie and no social life at all, finding oneself footloose in Paris would be enough to encourage anyone to feel that enjoying oneself might be on the cards, surely?

    Not for the first time I’d been running an errand, so to speak, for Tante Thérèse. A certain matter of a delivery to a certain mec who at times went by the name of Dupont, an extremely common surname in France. His partner, slightingly referred to as “son nana” by the aunt, went by Madeleine and he called himself André. They were attractive, nicely-spoken, well-dressed people in, I suppose, their thirties. No-one would have taken them for any old mec and his nana off the streets of Paris, which I dare say was the point. Today Madeleine and I, both dressed up to the nines for a lunchtime rendezvous at a restaurant on the Boulevard St Germain which they occasionally used (not too often, no), would exchange identical handbags. Yes, mon chéri, this is the handbag—well no—laughing—it’s a fake, from Hong Kong, but quite a good one! Okay, I was going to go to a fancy resto carrying a fake Hermès handbag, jolly good! The rest of the outfit had to match, natch. Spiffing, if I say so myself. Be ladylike? Of course, Tante Thérèse! When was I not?

    By now we were all old friends so after the customary greetings, tho the cheek-kissing was omitted, after all we hadn’t been mask-free for all that long, we sat down at a very nice table and consulted the menu. Yes, thank you, we would have an apéro and then think further about ordering lunch. Very pleased (it was service compris, so his tip would thus be larger), the waiter took himself off. And we sipped our apéros with due elegance and ordered a fairly light lunch. Given that this was France. And of course after the lunch Madeleine and I had to repair to the Ladies’…

    Yes well: that was the whole point of the exercise, and tho André had a favourite alternative scheme, i.e. we girls would go for a pee right after the apéros and he’d have an urgent phone call to say his mum was ill or some such, and they’d have to rush off, it didn’t do to pull the same trick twice in the same place. We fiddled with our make-up until the attendant was servilely offering hand towels to a large overdressed lady with, or my aunt isn’t a qualified jeweller, a Cartier pin on her lapel, and then, having placed our handbags side-by-side on the useful bench provided, quietly picked up the wrong ones and departed, dropping just the right amount, not too much or too little, in the attendant’s saucer of tips—unmemorable: quite.

    And André paid the bill and we parted company with expressions of good will all round: So lovely to catch up again after that horrid COVID! And: We must do it again soon! And: All the best to your dear maman, Anne-Marie! (me). Ciao!—Ciao, André; ciao, Madeleine!

    It was so nice to be out and about in Paris that instead of heading straight for the nearest Métro station I wandered along the boulevard, thinking vaguely I might go on down to the Boule’ Mich’ and have another coffee…

    “Mel!” said a surprised male voice. “So you’re back in town!”

    Okay, I did know that Commissaire Raimond Martineau had once been very fond of one of the restaurants on the Boulevard St Germain. (Not the one I’d just been in, no, that would have been the height of stupidity given the errand, wouldn’t it?) But I had not been deliberately loitering, hoping to bump into him, in fact I would have thought that since the Police judiciaire’s move from the Quai des Orfèvres back in 2017, around the time I first met him, he’d have stopped bothering to come in all the way from their new fancy building up in the 17ième. My mistake.

    “Salut, Raimond,” I said feebly, wondering whether I should find a church on my way back (Notre Dame being sadly still out of commission after the frightful fire of 2019) and light a candle or two as thanks for this jolly old coincidence’s not having taken place when I was with the soi-disants Duponts. “Have you been lunching at your favourite resto?”

    He agreed he had, asked me nicely if I’d had my lunch, and wondered if I had time for a coffee?

    Help, he didn’t seem to bear me a grudge at all, in fact if anything he looked rather eager.

    Would it look more or less suspicious to say “No?” Er…

    I compromised by saying that I did have to get back home but maybe if we headed down to the Place St Michel and stopped off there? Unfortunately he didn’t solve my dilemma by turning down this less than brilliant notion: he agreed. Eagerly. Oops.

    So we went to the big tourist-trap in the square and as I really didn’t need another coffee I had a cup of tea—shades of that first nerve-racking encounter with him on that dashed Boulevard St G.: next time Tante Thérèse could either run the errand herself or select a different street entirely! Not in the 17ième, either. He decided to have tea, too—his mother thought he drank too much coffee. Well one might think she was the only Frenchwoman in the entire country who would object to coffee but I already knew she was a joyless sort of personality. And at least the casual reference to her meant that I wouldn’t have to ask after her and find out she’d died in the pandemic, phew! Well he probably said it on purpose—nice manners, yes. Likewise the joining me in the tea at all, come to think of it.

    We had quite a lot to catch up on and if he wanted to know about life at the château and tell me in turn about how his mother had got on—kept well, very secluded, but then she didn’t go out much in any case (a fact which I had realised), and was still wearing a mask in public (very wise)—I didn’t mind. At least he wasn't interrogating me about why precisely I was dressed up to the nines with a very expensive-looking handbag, and just who I’d had lunch with…

    So he ended up by asking me out to dinner.

June 3 Not. Well he was very good-looking and in spite of his chosen profession a very nice chap. And altho I didn’t consciously think about it, at the back of my mind there was still that grudge against John for being out of touch for so long. But I did try to point out that I wasn’t the right girl for him, a man with a serious profession, and he did know that not all the relatives on the LeBec side were perfectly respectable. (Well his mother would only have to meet Mum, who is not perfectly respectable in a completely different direction, but then Mum would never bother.)

    Just a dinner, Mel!—Why did they always say that?—Anyway I gave in but said firmly that so long as he understood that it was never going to be serious on my part. Yes of course, he agreed, but why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves? This was Paris, it was spring! Yes, hah, hah. The wind was jolly cold, actually.

    Naturally dinner led on to what a dinner between two consenting adults who’ve been somewhat close in the not-so-distant past tends to lead on to. And further dates for similar, yes.

    So Tante Thérèse threw up her hands: Why did I want to get mixed up with a flic again? What time Tante Louise pointed out that he was a very respectable man who had done well to rise so far in his profession at his age, and was promptly cried down. Oncle Albert ordered me cheerily to keep my eyes and ears open and report anything however seemingly insignificant, and Bean assured Mireille, who was rather upset, that I was “never serious about any of them.” Colas suggested that he might be up for providing him, Colas, with some more cactuses/cacti like he’d done before, the which resulted, alas, in the pent-up anxiety of the entire family being poured out on him in horrible scorn: far too old to be hinting for presents, about time you gave up those silly spiky things, at this rate you won’t pass the bac, boy, et tout et tout…

    Well Raimond being the respectable person that he is we were having an unexceptionable lunch at a pleasant café on the grands boulevards, within easy reach of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and home, when by sheer coincidence his uncle turned up with a business friend, M. Durand—Pierre Durand. So naturally we got chatting and they joined us. And eventually M. Durand revealed his need for a P.A.: just part-time, but it was rather urgent, he was floundering, the last client had been interested in art and he’d taken him to a gallery opening because he thought it’d be the right thing, but he (Pierre Durand) hadn’t known the right things to say and he’d worn the wrong clothes (admittedly the suit he was in was rather loud and rather too spiffy in cut, the jolly old word “spiv” did come to mind, rather, but one had seen worse), and other plaints of a generically similar nature, so to speak. Possibly the worst episode had been taking a Jewish client to a very nice, up-market restaurant and urging the blanquette de veau on him. Oops: had butter and crème fraîche or suchlike in it, did it? I asked sympathetically. Precisely! And he did so wish I was free to take the job, I’d be ideal!

    Well I mean, shopping for clothes as part of the job? Going out to restaurants for lovely meals, and the openings of gallery showings (typically invitation-only or one paid through the nose for the privilege), and generally enjoying oneself as a job? Helpfully Raimond explained my connection with the Château LeBec and Pierre Durand practically fell over himself urging me to accept the position, we could call it P.A. or Social Secretary, as I liked. And there would be a clothes allowance, of course.

    I have to admit that that clinched it. I mean, gosh!

    Oncle Albert did point out somewhat drily that if le flic was pushing the connection with the château he probably did still envisage marrying into the French aristocracy—very well, mon ange, if you say so, merely the BCBG set—but it was my life, after all. And what sort of crook was this Durand, anyway?

    Alas, at this I gasped: “You ought to know, Oncle Albert!” And collapsed in giggles.

    “Never heard of him,” he admitted, grinning. “I’ll check.”

    Grimly Tante Thérèse acknowledged that that might be as well.

    Well I wouldn’t have claimed that Pierre Durand was pure as the driven snow, but given that he knew Commissaire Martineau and his uncle, he was presumably about as okay as most businessmen.

    So for my first day at work I had to wear The Right Thing, natch. A suit? I didn’t have anything much that seemed appropriate. The things Tante Thérèse had chosen for trips to meet the Duponts erred on the too-fashionable side, and of course anything student-y was out, O,U,T. And what would his secretary be wearing? (He did have a secretary.) Oh dear. Various possibilities were tried.

    “Do you think this looks too fussy?” I said to Mireille at last.

    She herself was in a very sweet little pale grey outfit: modest but beautifully cut. A bargain at an op shop, if the truth were known, but both the woman lawyer and their secretary had told her it was just right.

    Oops, she went very pink and gave me an agonised look.

    “Yes,” I acknowledged heavily. “It does.”

    “Maybe something simple in black, Mel, dear?” she ventured.

    Like all the office bimbos. Ugh.

    Mireille swallowed. “Something more BCBG—eugh—just at first?”

    I sighed. “Perhaps I should wear le manteau BCBG de Grannie, then. While I sound out the ground.”

    Tante Louise had come in in time to overhear this last. “What are you girls talking about?”

    “That black coat of Mel’s that Grannie chose,” Mireille explained. “It’s very BCBG.”

    “You know, Tante Louise: bon chic, bon genre,” I said glumly.

    The aunt sniffed, but acknowledged: “Well, it’s a cold day: I dare say you could wear it over a neat black dress, mon chéri.”

    Yes, well. It’d be better than turning up looking too fussy, wouldn’t it?

    So that was what I wore. I was tempted to brighten the little black number up with John Raice’s adorable scarlet plastic Scottie dog brooch but on the other hand might that look too frivolous?

    … Where was he, drat him? And was he all right? Well bother.

    As it turned out I could probably have worn anything: M. Durand was thrilled that I’d turned up, and the secretary, a middle-aged, grey-haired spinster of very ladylike appearance in a dull grey suit which did nothing for either her thin figure or her sallow complexion, admitted she was so relieved to have someone take over the rôle of social secretary, and just to ask if I needed to know anything. Phew!

    His diary, tho kept meticulously by Mlle Molyneux, the misnamed unfashionable secretary, was in horrible disarray socially speaking, and I spent most of the rest of the day going through it checking what on earth he seemed to have let himself in for and making sure from Mlle M. that I wasn’t about to excise something that was very important to the business. Eventually it dawned that he must have got onto a couple of mailing lists after shelling out moolah to various galleries. Most of his business contacts, apart from the actual customers, were suppliers and people in a similar line of business, but the customers were a surprisingly wide range, including a couple of very large construction firms with very shiny offices in several of Europe’s capitals. The sort that one would wine and dine at the Tour d’Argent, in fact. Whereas a lot came from much smaller firms and were probably the sort that would love a jolly night out at the Moulin Rouge.

June 7 Not. Continuing straight on: Usually, Mlle Molyneux revealed with a sigh, it would just be bachelor evenings but the difficulty was the ones who had invited him to something with the wife present and whose hospitality had to be returned in kind. Which I quite saw. And there was one man from Denmark, she added heavily, who liked the opera and M. Durand was not musical at all. Then there was the software supplier’s representative—yes, my dear, these days the big machines used in civil engineering have a lot of software: a lot of their operations, digging and scooping and so on, are directed by the software, the driver just has to press the buttons, the software, eugh, senses distances and directions. Crumbs. Okay, if she said so. This particular man was English but the firm was American with an office in Belgium. He was keen on theatre and so M. Durand had taken him to the Comédie Française.

    My face must have given me away at this point.

    “Non, non!” she said quickly. “He did enjoy it, it was Le Malade imaginaire and he hadn’t seen it before.”

    “Very mannered, wouldn’t it have been?” I managed very faintly.

    She winced, nodding. “Yes. But he considered it authentic, you see. No, that wasn’t it… M. Durand went to sleep,” she revealed in a hollow voice.

    Help!

    “Yes. You see, if he’d had a companion, eugh—”

    “She could have nudged him violently in the ribs!” I finished with a smile.

    “Hé bien, oui. Kept an eye on him, you see?”

    I did see, yes, and enquired gingerly about the opera. The answer being that no-one could sleep through Die Walküre. Er—no. Quite.

    “I’ll do my best, Mlle Molyneux,” I assured her.

    She was, kindly, sure I would, and asked how I felt about going out to the sites, which M. Durand quite often did with his customers. It could be boring and often cold and one needed waterproof boots, but he often needed someone to take notes, you see… Well of course I wouldn’t mind at all and thanks to Grannie had layers of warm and waterproof clothes, and the poor thing was terrifically relieved to hear it and admitted that she’d interviewed some terrible little madams who’d refused point-blank to do any such thing and frankly it was such a relief to meet me!

    And if I could do something about his clothes? Because she could see that he looked, eugh, not to put too fine a point upon it, cheap, but she frankly didn’t have enough taste herself to advise him.

    So I was very happy to report that two of my uncles from the family wine business ordered bespoke tailoring from time to time from a tailor in Paris, not admitting that (a) Uncles Patrice and Fernand only bought their evening clothes from the man and (b) the tailor in Q. was a chum of Oncle Albert’s.

    And before very long at all Pierre Durand and I were on first-name terms and so, incidentally, were Madeleine Molyneux and I. Tho it had been very hard to keep a straight face when she revealed her name, considering who the only other “Madeleine” I knew in Paris was!

    Well shopping was definitely on the agenda, for both Pierre and me, so off we went. It was a struggle keeping him off totally unsuitable gear for himself, and stopping him from buying extravagantly unnecessary stuff for me, and he did end up forcing an unlikely outfit or two on me, for jaunts to up-market restaurants, the opera, and such-like, not to say in order to knock out the eyes of the cats who infest the gallery openings (I think the Iron had entered into his S. over those) but never mind, it made him very happy.

    And I saw to it that several very smart, extremely stylish but not overdone suits were ordered from the tailor, who was very pleased to get a new customer. And as M. Durand was very pleased to be one, if slightly overawed by the gentlemanly ambiance prevailing in the establishment, all was harmony.

    So we then embarked on a round of jolly dinners, trips to the Moulin Rouge, less jolly dinners given by or for the spouses of rather BCBG clients (with an appropriately sober choice of garments and accessories—er, not that tie, Pierre, kind of thing), trips to the sites in heavy coats and wellies and usually hard hats, the wearing of which by yours truly was generally the occasion of much delighted hilarity from the chaps on the site, not that I minded. Being surrounded by a crowd of macho chaps all eagerly explaining their stuff to one? Bliss!

June 10 Not. Well the weather warmed, as it does, tho sometimes one wonders if it won’t, and one had to concede that life was pretty well back to normal. Bean noted sourly that it was certainly back to normal for me, still seeing “Inspector Gadget” at the same time as I was letting old Durand squire me to this, that and God-knew-what, not to mention happily planning to take up where I’d left off with Carter Bachelier! Which I loftily ignored, natch. Tho it was true that Carter was due very soon. And he was rather nice.

    Unfortunately Colas overheard the lot and as he now considered himself terrifically grown-up he asked in a lordly, superior tone: “Have you actually done it with that fat old geezer, Sister Bean?” (The salient points much worse in French.)

    Before I could flatten him the dratted Bean replied: “Of course she has. She came back from that trip to Toulouse looking like the cat that had got at the cream.”

    As this idiomatic remark was in English Colas was rather confused but had to pretend he wasn’t, so I had time to say languidly: “Old Pierre’s okay.” And stroll out looking nonchalant.

    Well I hadn’t actually meant to. I mean, one doesn’t, under those circs. Tho bearing it steadily in mind at the back, as it were, of the old cranium or bonce, as a vague-ish possibility.

    We had a lovely trip, with him taking very good care of me and insisting I wear a mask on the plane and at the airport, tho relenting when the limo he’d ordered picked us up. Toulouse, of course, is renowned for its high-tech industries, it’s the centre of France’s aero-space industry and where they developed l’Airbus et tout et tout, but naturally all the industrial complexes have to be built by someone, don’t they, and in order to put them up large pieces of heavy machinery from Durand et Cie.’s heavy vehicles division are needed, or they certainly are in Pierre D.’s opinion. So there were several important customers there and the limo was intended to create a good impresh.

    Well I don’t know if it did but everyone was terribly nice to us and after a heavy session in which I wasn’t needed to take notes so I chatted to their secretary who wasn’t taking notes either and compared make-up tips et tout et tout, hands were shaken fervently and everything in the jolly old garden was R. and we took the client out to a lovely restaurant and had lovely food and drinks.

    At that stage we hadn’t even checked into a hotel, as Pierre hadn’t been at all certain how it would go and of course it is perfectly poss.’ to fly down and back in one day. But by the time we’d finished dinner it was so late that we decided we’d find a nice hotel. Which we did. Separate rooms, whatever my sibling might have assumed on my return. I went straight up but Pierre thought he’d just have a nightcap in the bar.

    And I’d started to undress to take a shower when there was a tap on the door and lo and behold! He’d bought me a thank-you present from one of the boutiques in the lobby even tho I hadn’t been any help really. Oh dear. Well he was somehow so innocent, beaming at me over the absurdly gift-wrapped present, that I let him come in and we had a drink and of course I opened the present, which was a ridiculous pair of fluff-trimmed mules to wear as slippers, the sort of thing one never buys for oneself… And in short one thing led to another, as it were.

    And really for an older chap he wasn’t bad at all. Very considerate of a girl, so to speak. Well yes, at his age one should have learned that a girl does not like to be left up in the air, as it were, after the party of the first part has had his jollies, but some men never learn, do they? And lots of younger ones don’t bother (leading to immediate dumping by the party of the second part, I might add), tho I’m glad to say that neither Raimond Martineau nor Carter Bachelier is that sort.

    Well it’s all grist to one’s mill isn’t it, and a girl does need some experience.

June 13 Not. Meanwhile Oncle Albert and Carter Bachelier had been having long discussions about the refurbishment of the clubs, either by phone or by email, for some time, and the two American backers Carter had originally found were on board again, plus he’d found another two. Rather unfortunately one was based handily in England and wanted to see both establishments before he signed up, but by this time Oncle Albert’s pet architect who specialised in conversions and that sort of stuff had done some gorgeous prelim. sketches, so there was a good chance he’d see the possibilities rather than being put off by the dinge, and they both had excellent locations, a huge plus. And so Carter decided to come over from California.

    Well I can’t say I went off and did it deliberately, but on the other hand I can’t say I regret the American connection, as it were, either…

    Possibly it never would have turned out the way it did if Oncle Albert had been able to pick Carter up from the airport as originally intended. Or on the other hand, given yours truly, possibly it would.

    He was an adult, he could presumably get himself to his hotel, Tante Thérèse noted scathingly as the uncle had a panic on discovering that the plane got in—make that was scheduled to get in—at the very time he had an important meeting Utterly Elsewhere.

    “Reschedule the other meeting,” suggested the brilliant Bean.

    The uncle was seen to wince. “Not with these people, mon chou.”

    Tante Thérèse took a deep breath. “I told you not to get mixed up—”

    “It’s not drugs!” he said quickly.

    “Guns, then,” she replied flatly.

    “No! Um, well I dare say they do deal in, eugh, weaponry, but I only handle the, eugh, profits,” he ended weakly.

    Help! Money laundering? I looked wildly at the Bean but he just looked blank, as usual.

    “Right,” the aunt said grimly. “You’re going to pass this money through the two new clubs with sharp-eyed Yank backers on the board of directors, are you?”

    “They don’t want seats on the board, Thérèse, they’re only interested in their dividends, they’re merely investors.”

    “Oh yes? And the one that’s based in England and wants to see the clubs?”

    Oncle Albert was seen to wriggle, golly. “From what Carter’s said he doesn’t want the responsibility of being a director, either.”

    “No, only to make sure the things are straight!” she retorted strongly.

    “They will be. A club can’t be held responsible for the cash the punters may pass through it.”

    “Pass through it, Albert LeBec?” she screamed.

    Oops. The jolly old Nunky had kind of given himself away there, so to speak—yes.

    “Bring to it, then,” he said weakly.

    “You’re an idiot.”

    “Um, it could work,” I ventured cautiously.

    “Shut up, child, you know nothing about it!” she snapped.

    Er, by this time I knew a fair bit, actually, what with keeping the jolly old E. and E. open, so to speak, but I shut up obediently.

    “Well I can’t go to the airport, I’ve got orders to fill,” she then said flatly. “And if you’re out on business Louise will be needed in the kitchen, she can’t go. And don’t suggest the uncles: last time Oncle Maurice was supposed to meet someone at the airport he went to Orly instead of Charles de Gaulle!”

    “Yes, well it didn’t exist in his day,” Oncle Albert replied weakly. “It had better be you, Mel.”

    I waited for Tante Thérèse to veto this scathingly but she didn’t. So I went. Not pointing out that doing so could lead to, er, misunderstandings or, er, misrepresentations or, well such-like.

    It did. Carter beamed all over his face, cried: “Mel! Hey there, honey!” deserted his trolley with its expensive suitcases and duty-free bag, and enveloped me in a hug. And kissed me soundly.

    Well admittedly I was looking rather chic—smart but feminine, so to speak—courtesy of that clothes allowance from Pierre Durand: one could hardly blame him. Especially in view of our past history. Tho to be fair, if one is kissed soundly by the party of the first P. one does not abso-bally-lutely have to kiss him back with equal enthusiasm, does one? But when it comes down to cases, somehow I always do.

June 16 Not. Continuing: As usual Carter had booked in at a sufficiently up-market hotel, so off we went. By taxi even tho there is plenty of public transport, but he’s that sort of chap. Of course he had to hear all about the family’s doings (certain amount of Glossing Over not to say Bowdlerisation, there), and how things were going at the château, well it was early in the year as yet but Oncle Patrice had reported on one of those secret phone calls that They don’t know about that all was going well, the vines were looking good, and even Oncle Fernand wasn’t too pessimistic. Grannie was still grimly making everyone wear masks if they ventured out, but that had been no surprise.

    And in turn I had to hear about the investors first of all, and then about the Bachelier extended family’s wine business in the Napa Valley—doing very well, tho of course their wines couldn’t compare with a grand cru de Bourgogne, jolly laugh, but sales were up, they’d recovered well from the pandemic. Plus a considerable amount of detail about his mother and sisters, none of whom of course I had ever met. And how was my mother? he asked kindly.

    Er… “Well she is back from Guadeloupe,” I admitted. “The book’s due to be launched in October, I think, anyway in time for the Christmas trade. The publisher seems to be very pleased with it. And she’s signed contracts with a TV company for a Nature documentary about the trip, which of course will mean going back to that luxury hotel she stayed in before she took over the cousins’ house. At their expense, natch.”

    “Uh—sure!” he replied with an uneasy laugh. “How it’s done, huh?”

    It was certainly how Mum did it, so I agreed. And didn’t stress the point that since the film people hadn’t been there originally the whole thing would be faked from Go to Woe. Especially the close-ups of la flore pittoresque done at Kew.

    By the time we reached the hotel it was lunchtime so we went up to his room in order for him not just to dump his luggage like lesser mortals but to unpack it and carefully hang up his suits, help. Well he does always look very smart, in a very American way. Which I can’t define but it’s unmistakeable: something about the cut of the suits, perhaps? Not to say that very finished, well-washed and -brushed look that well-off American gents do have. Rather as if they’ve just emerged from the hands of barbers with hot towels for their faces and manicurists tenderly tending their nails, kind of thing. Well as I say I can’t really define it but that’s the impresh. I get.

    If I would excuse him he should just call the English backer before lunch? Well of course I would, and after silently admiring him in his lovely American suit as he picked up the phone I went off to use his very spiffy bathroom. Cor. Gold taps.

    The nose having been P. and the lippy adjusted I went back but he wasn’t finished on the phone so I just sat down and silently admired him a bit more…

    Well okay, I wouldn’t have half minded taking up where we’d left off and as I had not heard from John AT ALL— Um, true, there were both Raimond and Pierre in the jolly old offing, so to speak, but great Heavens, it was Paris, it was spring, and one was only young once!

    Added to which he’d already said he didn’t feel in the least jet-lagged: he’d had a good long stopover in New York, seen a few people there, and then coming over he’d slept on the plane. The sort of intel which many people would impart naïvely as a matter of course, but I knew jolly well that Carter Bachelier, typical American in many ways tho he was, wasn’t naïve in that way.

    So we had a delish lunch in the hotel’s dining-room which kind of managed to incorporate him putting his big warm (and beautifully manicured) hand on top of mine once or twice and a lot of smiling and crinkling up of those nice brown eyes and after coffee and Cognac well how could a girl say No? So we went back upstairs. Where it was as good as ever, in fact rather better: he was not only very enthusiastic but very caring as well. Which kind of did lead one to reflect afterwards Help, I do hope he isn’t getting too serious, because I’m certainly not. But at least he wasn’t over here for very long and I had already explained that as I had a job, part-time tho it was, I did have to be rather busy.

    Well fingers crossed.

June 18 Not. Rather busy was an understatement as it turned out, and then some. Phew! What with Pierre having to take one client to a nice club one night (pity that Oncle Albert’s didn’t yet qualify), and the next night take a rather stuffy supplier and wife to a rather stuffy up-market restaurant in return for their intimidating hospitality, and then the following day on the site with an absolutely lovely chap with a definite twinkle in his eye, plus his foreman, a cheery chap also with a twinkle… And the day after that Oncle Albert insisted I come with him, Carter, and the English backer to view the club that was destined to be “The Club.”

    This was fortunately during the day, as I’m pretty sure the club’s atmosphere at night would have put off the aforesaid backer, one Christopher Eames, tall, slim, good-looking in a restrained sort of English way, and wearing the most beautiful suit I had ever laid eyes on. Subsequently reported by the uncle to be definitely Savile Row, which I found no difficulty in believing.

    It was a fine day and Mr Eames—“Do please call me Christopher”, nice smile, not-really-seeing-one variety—seemed to approve of the neighbourhood, thank goodness. Well it is very respectable, with the various brass plates etcetera of various doctors and dentists and a sports medicine guy favoured by a certain (I think) footballer, the sight of whom greatly impressed Carter on his first visit. And with the aid of the super concept drawings provided by the architect, we were all enabled to see that yes, this could be an attractive, panelled main gaming room, this could be a small card room, and yes, certainly a select restaurant could be fitted in here. Also that the kitchen would need complete remodelling, but there was plenty of room for that. Well yes, what with the unused dressing rooms, only one of which had ever been used for gyrating bimbos to change in in Oncle Albert’s lifetime—tho of course back in the heady days of Maurice Chevalier’s famed appearance— Mr Christoper Eames listened politely to this unnecessary reminiscence but agreed rather quickly with Carter that alas, those days were over. And yes, the “English gentlemen’s club” style would, he agreed, be a definite selling point. Er, was there a twinkle in his cool grey eye as he said it? Well I might have imagined it.

    After which Oncle Albert suggested a very up-market restaurant for lunch but Mr Eames knew it rather well, actually, and if it wouldn’t be an imposition he would very much like to try the Restaurant LeBec.

    Gulp. What the Hell was on the menu today, given that the uncle didn’t trust Tante Louise to do any of his own specialities? Er, well it was spring, but…

    Well naturally we went, one doesn’t argue with an important backer in the smoothest of up-market English tailoring.

    One couldn’t (apparently) go past the smoked salmon for a starter. It was served on a thick swirl of fresh cheese mixed with chives and a little more smoked salmon, and a few rocket leaves on the side. Extremely easy to do: the food-processor did all the work for you, unquote. A generous squeeze of lemon juice topped it off and I must say it was delish tho possibly not as posh as what was being served down at the bottom end of the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis but then both our visitors had been there several times.

    Okay, veal was available and Tante Louise had defiantly done her Escalopes de veau. Simply floured and sauteed in butter to which she added not merely Marsala, traditionally an Italian recipe, but also cream. Oncle Albert was against the cream on principle, it wasn’t in the original recipe, but not against the result, as it were.

    Eugh—a Château LeBec might be a little heavy with veal? But the visitors were very keen to try it, so Jean-Louis was dispatched to the cellar with strict instructions. And did manage to produce the right bottle. Well it had the right label and the right year and it tasted okay to me, and Christopher Eames did the sipping and sloshing and sniffing etcetera routine and was thrilled by it, so all was well. And certainly the uncle could let him have a bottle of it, yes, monsieur, no problem at all!

    A very simple salade de laitue followed but with the usual miraculous sauce vinaigrette who could complain? Then the cheese. Well there had been a certain demarcation dispute between Tante Louise and Oncle Albert but apparently the Comté had been banished to the kitchen for the nonce. I don’t know quite what he had against it, but he does prefer soft cheeses like Brie and Camembert, so they were both on offer plus of course the usual fresh goats’ cheese, yum!

    Of course in Paris one can buy almost anything in the fruit line, for a price, but the cousins prefer to serve seasonal foods, and it was too early for berry fruit or anything of that nature. So we had Poires pochées au vin, with a very careful choice of spices ordained by Oncle Albert, omitting such horrors as star anise (his anathema: he claims that it ruins a dish, one tastes nothing but), or ginger, which does not sit well with red wine, words to that effect. Well I think it was a very little cinnamon, tho I wouldn’t guarantee it, but everyone enjoyed the result, which was what mattered; and Carter praised the fact that it wasn’t served with cream, which one didn’t need after that delicious veal dish. Well exactly.

    And after coffee and Cognac, Carter and his backer, with profuse thanks, took themselves off. And Oncle Abert and I staggered off to the back regions and sank down at the kitchen table.

    “Well?” demanded Tante Louise.

    “Eugh…. Mel?” said the uncle feebly.

    Who, me? But I replied valiantly: “I’d say that that delicious veal dish of yours pretty much clinched it, Tante Louise: the Englishman said it was utterly delicious and it should definitely be on the menu at the clubs.”

    “Yes. Well he lapped up the smoked salmon, too, tho I’d take a bet he gets his straight from some Scottish provider at sixty times what ours cost. And at least you didn’t overdo the damned purée de fromage blanc, Louise,” Oncle Albert said heavily.

    “No; last time she made it, it wasn’t Saumon fumé au fromage blanc, it was Purée de fromage blanc au saumon fumé!” noted Tante Thérèse vigorously. “And at that it was served with fancily sliced toasted rye bread, who do you think we are, Louise? Those people down the road?”

    “I was trying to save money!” she snapped.

    “Never mind that,” sighed Oncle Albert. “I suppose it was a good sign that the man wanted a bottle of Château LeBec.”

    “You mean that you gave him for free,” noted Jean-Louis from just behind him.

    The uncle jumped, and glared. “It won’t be wasted if he backs the clubs!”

    “Yes well: fingers crossed,” concluded Tante Thérèse grimly.

June 21 Not. Well it all turned out fine, Call-Me-Christopher Eames duly signed on the dotted line and presumably the word got back to California, because the American investors did likewise, and Carter shook hands heartily all round and after a farewell dinner and etcetera with yours truly, flew back to the States. With his hefty commission, yes, but after all that was his living and none of it would ever have come off without his help.

    So it was all systems go and the dingy old clubs closed forthwith, with the appropriate notices up: “Coming soon! A new exclusive club!” kind of thing. Specially lettered to look appropriately restrained and gentlemanly—Times New Roman, was it, Oncle Albert? Mm, smart. Well one might have said it was overkill but one had (apparently) to start as one wished to go on.

    And over in England Egg was thrilled, all his ideas were being used, and once he and Crumpy had got some experience under their belts they would definitely love to work for you, Albert! Yes well neither of them had much idea of the extent of his business interests but the Bean and I ascertained it would officially be the club in Q. that was the employer, so that seemed safe enough.

    Mireille thought that I would miss Carter, he was such a nice man, but the Bean just noted drily: “She’s still got two dangling on a string.”

    (Cough.) Three, actually, there was that lovely chap the client with the twinkle in his eye whose site we’d recently visited. Nicolas, by name. Well, very nice cheery chap, nothing serious intended or wanted on either side, why not? And his tastes were simple, he didn’t like fancy restos with the food in horrid little gourmet piles and the smallest helpings in Europe, thank God.

    Admittedly it wasn’t all that easy juggling three of them, plus the odd hours of my job, of course, and I wasn’t managing to fit in any more errands for Tante Thérèse, as the weather gradually warmed and people began to sit outside the bars and cafés again.

    By now the majority were behaving as if the pandemic had never happened, very silly and short-sighted of them, yes, Tante Thérèse, but after all, the whole family’s shots were well up-to-date. Just when we’d concluded it was pretty much over, in mid-May we were able to be very confused by the announcement that masks were no longer required on public transport. Er… The brilliantly tech-savvy Cousin Marc-Antoine finally resolved this enigma with intensive Internet research to reveal that it didn’t mean that we should all have been wearing them on the Métro and the city buses after all (not that we weren’t, anyway, but most people had stopped), but only applied to the very last case, inter-city vehicles. Possibly only buses but by this time everyone had stopped listening, tho Oncle Albert kindly awarded him a smallish glass of old Oncle Alphonse’s home-made eau de vie de mirabelles. –Running low. True, Uncle Flossie had helped diminish the stocks but that was way back in 2017, so exactly who had been drinking it since... Never mind, out there in the sheltered back courtyard the tree was looking healthy and plans were already under way—wrenching a crate of bottles off one of the cousins—for this summer’s harvest!

    A trifle unfortunately the Bean then found out about Nicolas—well walking into the very bar we were cosily ensconced in, toasting each other, did kind of enlighten him—and I got a harangue about the idiocy of “trying to juggle three chaps at once” and “riding for a fall” and other Old Marbledownian expressions, etcetera. Which I loftily ignored. Silly me.

    ’Cos then came the day—actually it was a lovely day, the sun shining, summer frocks starting to flower here and there on the streets, all the pavement tables doing great business—as I say, the day when I realised I really had bitten off more than I could chew. Oops.

    Well it started off totally innocuously: dear old Pierre and I had seen a client together for lunch and it had all gone very well and we’d shaken hands and seen him off in his taxi and decided it was too nice a day to go straight back to the office, so we just wandered on down the street and after a while he realised he knew this area and if we went down here— We went down there and found a sufficiently obscure little bar, and as there was a pavement table free in a lovely sunny spot sat down and ordered drinks. And I popped off to the loo first, as the liquid refreshment had flowed rather freely at that lunch.

    And I was just headed back when Raimond appeared from nowhere, and before I’d hardly started to panic, embraced me fervently. Just behind Pierre’s oblivious back!

    Oh, lawks.

    Well I managed to hiss: “Not here, I’m with the boss!” And he just grinned and, perfectly composed, ushered me back to my seat, greeted Pierre nicely, refused a drink nicely, and hurried off back to work, and that was that.

    Only it wasn’t, really: I was all of a-tremble for ages afterwards and could not have repeated a word of what we chatted about over the drinks. Tho I do remember I had three glasses of kir.

June 25 Not. I was so shaken that that evening I poured it all out to Mireille and the Bean—and incidentally Colas, who had ranged himself definitively with us, possibly because the cousins all tended to treat him like a kid. And perhaps because we’d let him join the Junior Drones and hadn’t laughed at his passion for cactuses/cacti; in fact the Bean had given him a new specimen just recently. A relative of a viticultural contact ran a small florist’s shop which specialised in pot plants, which of course are popular in Paris, where so many people live in flats without gardens or even window boxes.

    Bean concluded firmly that I’d better dump all of them. Colas agreed, tho adding dubiously that Tante Louise was right and Raimond Martineau did have a good job and good prospects and wasn’t old—a big concession from one of his tender years.

    But Bean pointed out that it’d be crazy to bring a cop into the family, at least one as ferociously upright as “Commissaire Clouseau”. Er—yes, he had a point.

    Colas’s face fell tho he managed to say: “It’d be good camouflage, tho.”

    “I don’t actually want to marry him,” I said quickly. “I’d be bored to death.”

    “Yes; it would be more sensible to dump him, Mel, dear,” put in Mireille timidly.

    “Not to say to give up that job with that old creep!” added Bean.

    “Unless he might marry you,” offered Colas. –Somewhere in his ancestry there must have been a solid bon bourgeois gene, that was for sure.

    “I don’t want to marry him, either. But he’s not a creep, he’s very sweet,” I replied feebly.

    “And three times your age!” retorted Bean swiftly.

    “N— Er— Not three.”

    “Bally nearly. And need I point out that he’d have been furious and hurt if he’d caught you and Clouseau!” he said, fixing me with the glittering eye, help, just like in that awful poem that we were exposed to at School as yet another example of Great Eng. Lit. With a bird in it, I can never remember what. (Great Eng. Lit. that should never have seen the light of day in my humble opinion).

    “Yes,” Mireille agreed, looking agonised.

    “I know,” I sighed, giving in almost entirely. “But I do need a job.”

    “Crumpy said he can get you in at the place he’s working,” Bean reminded me.

    Yes well. This was a London gambling club—not the one his dad belonged to but, one gathered, a less expensive one. He was doing under-manager, learning the ropes, and liaising a lot with the clientèle, which he enjoyed. I think Mr Lamont had probably bribed them to take him on but never mind, it was good experience and he could more than afford it.

    “Um, Bean, you mean dump all the French ones—”

    “And Carter,” he said with a glare.

    “Um yes, and Carter; and—and just go?”

    “Yes.”

    “We’ll miss you, Mel,” said Mireille in a trembling voice, “but it would be a—a clean break. And it wouldn’t be forever, of course!”

    “No, of course not… Um, well yes, I do think it’d be sensible… Okay,” I sighed. “I’ll give them all up.”

    “And go to London,” said the Bean firmly.

    Look, there was the small point that that was where John Raice lived and I hadn’t heard a peep out of the blighter for MONTHS—

    But I really couldn’t take another scene like this afternoon’s, and frankly it was all getting too much: my schedule, if such it could be called, was crazy, and I was losing track of who I was meant to be meeting and where…

    “All right, yes,” I agreed. “C’est promis.”

Next chapter:

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