Welcome Back To Blighty

7

Welcome Back To Blighty

June 26 Not. Well I don’t deny there was a little backsliding, so to speak, before I left Paris, tender last-night scenes, for example, and a few white lies, e.g. missing my old chums too much, really needed over there at “Club Romney’s” (a posh name which belied it) to fill in for someone who’d let them down, et tout et tout. Which culminated in Pierre Durand seeing me safely onto the train laden with goodies. I let him because most of the family couldn’t make it: Mireille couldn’t get time off, Oncle Albert had an important meeting at the club not only with the architect but also with the builder, who had to have the Fear of God put into him, Tante Louise was holding the fort at the resto and Tante Thérèse had an urgent jewellery order which had to be got out (or more correctly got out of the house before the flics had traced its component parts to Oncle Albert, sort of thing). And of course both Bean and Colas were labouring under the shadow of Final Exams. True, the old uncles came with me, all of us safely delivered to the Gare du Nord by the ever-obliging beauf’ de Michel and his taxi, but they had both seen everything in their time and were undisturbed by the sight of the beaming, doting, gift-laden Pierre, in fact Oncle Maurice had privily advised me earlier to cry a lot when I broke the news, thus ensuring he’d give me something decent, oops!

    The early trains had been rather booked up, presumably by businesspersons with appointments in London, so the one I caught arrived in London around 11.30 a.m. their time, rather muddling because of the time difference but anyway it only took two and a half hours, which is miraculous when you think of what a marathon it was back in good old Bertie Wooster’s day, what with having to take the ferry and then back onto a train again for the last leg, or conversely flying in a ricketty little pre-war plane even tho they did have regular passenger services quite early, as per A. Christie’s Death in the Clouds, a jolly good mystery I’ve always thought and Mireille agrees with me. Also that it is quite different reading her books in English rather than the French translations.

    And a smiling Alysse met me on the platform. Assuring me that I looked very smart! I couldn’t return the compliment: she looked very English, alas, so something would have to be done about that. But Crumpy, Mr Lamont and his faithful driver, the burly ex-heavyweight boxer Elton McInnes (driver-bodyguard, more accurately), had the car outside, so obviously it was all still on, dull English garments or not; good show!

    So we went out and looked round for the Roller…

    “Um, sorry, Mel!” she gasped. “Elton said he might have to drive round a bit, they won’t let you stop and wait.”

    Yes well navigation, map reading or indeed reading per se, one rather suspects, are not Elton’s as it were Strong Suit, but never mind, at least he did know London pretty well, being a native of those parts. It had been nightmarish driving round or more accurately getting lost with him in Rye, that Easter with John… Bother. Abso-bally-lutely not going to think about that at all.

    Alysse was looking at me anxiously. “Um, they’ll just be stuck in traffic.”

    I pulled myself together and smiled at her. “Yes, of course.”

    So we looked round for the Roller…

    “Help! It’s different!” I gasped.

    “The car? Yes, he’s changed it,” Alysse agreed.

    Help. In the midst of the pandemic, Mr Lamont had bothered to trade in the not-old Roller for a new one? A different colour, too.

    “When?” I croaked.

    “Um… just after Christmas, I think. Yes: last January.”

    Er… Don’t think Rolls Royce have January sales, do they?

    By this time Elton had managed to actually pull in, so Crumpy leapt out and hugged me, saying: “What-ho, Sister Bean! Looking blooming!”

    Followed by Mr Lamont, in view of the figure not leaping. He also hugged me, rather more intimately, so to speak: that hadn’t changed. And managing to pat my bottom as he kissed my cheek fervently, declared: “Wonderful to see you, Mel, darling!”

    “You too, Mr Lamont!” I replied somewhat breathlessly, possibly a bear might have hugged one tighter but probably few human beings could.

    “Make it Clive, Mel, sweetheart, we’re all grown-ups now!” he beamed.

    Oops. Not that I wasn’t very fond him and he’d been very good to all us Junior Drones in the past, but he was well known for his partiality for the female sex. Endless bimbos, was how Crumpy had once put it, and he wasn’t wrong.

    “Clive, of course,” I agreed weakly.

    And with that we all bundled into the car and with a big hullo to Elton, who declared it was great to see me again and I was looking so smart he wouldn’t hardly of known me, off we went!

    Er, we sort of went. Given the London traffic and the awful one-way systems, which seemed to have got worse since I was last here…

    But finally Elton pulled up in front of Mum’s apartment building and we were all wafted aloft in the lift.

    Yes well. In spite of promises the heating wasn’t on and the fridge was empty.

    “Where’s she gone this time?” asked Alysse on a resigned note.

    “Back to Guadeloupe with the TV company. The film of the book, kind of thing.”

    “Help, won’t it be faked from Go to Woe?” gulped the Crumpet.

    “Yes.”

    We looked at one another and led by Mr Lamont broke down in roars of laughter.

    After which I dumped my stuff, used the facilities, tidied the hair and make-up, and off we went for a lovely lunch!

June 28 Not. Well that afternoon I tried John’s number and gee, got the message—Yet Again—“Not here at the moment, sorry. Email me and I’ll try to get back to you.” I didn’t try the email, I knew what I’d get. Bother.

    Okay, try again later and attempt meanwhile to put it out of my mind…

    Not exactly easy, as at the precise moment I was supposed to be relaxing after the lunch and my tiring journey, unquote, which of course hadn’t been tiring at all. Added to which, given the denuded state of the dashed mater’s habitat or lair, I’d have to pop out to do some grocery shopping or look forward to starvation. But first, as a precautionary measure, I nipped downstairs to see Mr Prosser, the caretaker and guardian of The Boiler.

    Boilers are Very Dangerous things and have to be used properly or they Blow Up, as he’d carefully explained to the wide-eyed Bean Minor quite some years back, and the slightly sceptical me and Bean, subsequent research revealing that every word he’d said was true, gulp! However, he is completely on top of it and unauthorised persons Especially Kids are not allowed anywhere near the boiler room.

    No problem, he’d turn the heating on for me immediately, which he did. His grandson, Jason, was home from school by that time and had to hear all about how Bean Minor was getting on, jealousy being expressed on account of its being the minor sibling’s last year, while he still had another to go, if he ever wanted to become an accountant and, as his ancestor explained with an evil chuckle, “Beat the buggers at their own game.” Okay, medal for Jason! He no longer had the much-envied white mouse that he sometimes used to let Bean Minor play with, but, his granddad reported, had graduated. I quailed, but it wasn’t white rats, thank God, but a hamster. Bertie. Jolly good, a hamster called Bertie! A PGW name! Possibly the Junior Drones could adopt this practice and acquire a Bertie hamster as a mascot? Er… On second thoughts, no. Nice thought, tho.

    Bertie had a sort of ring thing that he liked, according to Jason, to get into and play in. Um, the effect could only strike as that of a treadmill, but if he said so… The thing went round and round and Bertie’s little legs ran like mad but he stayed stationary in relation to the floor of his cage, as it were. Possibly Jason might have felt something in the air, like Strong Doubts verging on Revulsion, because he added that he was going to build Bertie a much bigger cage with proper runs and everything! Forthwith producing the plans. Golly. They looked really expert!

    “Jason,” I croaked, “these are really great. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be an architect than an accountant?”

    “Nah,” the wily Londoner replied: “see, if you do that, unless you got a posh accent you end up as a hack and even the ones that get on, they only end up designing the crap of the moment. You wanna see when they’ve done down Canary Wharf!”

    Right. Meaning I wouldn’t want to—quite. Okay, second medal for Jason!

    After that it seemed only natural to accept Mr Prosser’s offer of Jason as my escort to the shops to make sure I got the best bargains and wasn’t ripped orf by several named Rude Words.

    Well jolly good show. I ended up with what must have been the cheapest marg in Britain—not that one, Mel!—and the ditto strawberry jam—this one’s the best, see (plus maths proving it, gosh), and completely bargain bread. And down this way, if we go to the old shop—we went down that way to the old shop—you can get bacon like, sliced for you! Er… Oh! The elderly man at the counter of this shop had a giant machine which sliced lovely slices off a huge piece of presumably bacon. Well, a piece of salted and cured pork, certainly. See, Jason explained confidentially as we left with a large package each plus half a dozen eggs for me and a dozen for him and his granddad, in what were clearly recycled egg cartons, his (the proprietor’s) cousin had a farm down in… Uh-huh. Got it. Also sometimes ducks’ eggs, but—

    Jason then gave me the Good Oil on the dangers of raw ducks’ eggs which of course I already knew, thanks to Marthe, but I just smiled and thanked him. After all, how many denizens of London or any big city would know that these days?

    Carrie-Ann joined me and the Lamonts and Alysse for dinner at a place chosen by Mr L., great to see her again and hear all the news about her job at the FCO. Going well, but sit. rep. unchanged as regarded glass ceilings and superior persons in superior positions and super suits with posh accents and/or close relations with vast amounts of moolah. Well yes, only to be expected: Alysse and I exchanged glances but didn’t say it.

    After which Mr L. delivered me personally to the flat by taxi, including the obligatory very close hug and smacking kiss on the cheek as he made sure I had my keys and there were no predators lurking in the downstairs lobby. Something like that. Which considering you can’t get in unless you have a key or ring through and Mr Prosser inspects you on the security camera, if necessary ringing your intended host to check you’re a bona fide acquaintance, seemed what one might call Overdone or Unnecessary. So to speak.

    The genial Mr L. was just wondering if he ought to come up in the lift with me and I was quailing, rather, because altho I’m very, very fond of him I’m not really keen in that way, when Mr Prosser popped out from the back regions and announced he’d take me up. With a steely look at poor old Clive Lamont. So that was that. I thanked Mr P. fervently as he duly delivered me to Mum’s floor and he responded with a sniff and the suggestion that in future if I was in any doubt I’d better ring the bell instead of using my key. Phew! I certainly would!

    And as he really is a decent, grandfatherly man, that was that. I was starting to feel they were few and far between.

    It was fairly late but not too late, as next morning Carrie-Ann of course had to go to work and Crumpy and I were expected at Club Romney’s for me to be vetted by the manager. So there was no use telling myself it was too late to ring John.

    … “Not here at the moment, sorry. Email me and I’ll try to get back to you.”

    Where WAS he? This was starting to get past tarsome, it was getting really alarming!

July 2 Not. The exterior of Club Romney’s was marked by a giant flashing neon sign with the name on it in a fairly objectionable script and a putrid shade of pink. As Crumpy pointed out, they’d spared the world a pink pussycat to match, but it was so vile it hardly needed it, did it? Exactly. Apart from that, the door, quite an ordinary heavy panelled front door which would have looked really smart in shiny black as per Number 10 or even a dark green, was a nasty shade of acid green, which sort of glowed, tho not as brightly as the sign, no. The building itself was unexceptionable, in greyish stone which mercifully remained undefiled. Crumpy in his rôle as Assistant Manager had a key and we stepped into a mind-blowing vista of acid-green flooring stretching in an unlovely river in front of us, bordered with walls of glaring white adorned with huge painted shocking-pink, um, bubbles? in a variety of sizes, the whole topped off by a shocking-pink ceiling and innumerable small spotlights, most of them mercifully not on at this hour. Surprisingly all the doors to either side of this excrescence of a front hall were shiny black, but, er…

    “Are those doors black glass, Crumpy?” I croaked.

    “No. Heavy-duty plastic. Stuck on. Like a veneer.”

    Gulp.

    So they were, I saw as we approached one at the far end of the hall and its surface was revealed as being about as rubbed and scratched as one would expect a well-used black plastic artefact to be after a couple of decades of use.

    This was the manager’s office, and in we went to meet Mr Rooney.

    Mr Rooney was an excessively sharply-dressed gent of around fifty with a damp handshake and a wet-looking, heavy-lipped mouth to match, plus a pale, somewhat greasy complexion and a putrid hairdo consisting of his own receding straight hair dyed black and pulled tightly back into a short pony-tail. So putrid, indeed, that one hardly noticed the diamond stud in the ear. The shoes were the extra-long sort that were in vogue for the cretinous percentile a few years back, with very pointy toes which as they didn’t conform to any type of human anatomy were not filled by the human extremities, and thus curved up from the floor by approx. two centimetres. Grotesque would be the word, yes.

    The suit itself was a not unpleasant lightish grey with a darker pinstripe but its exaggerated cut, with the too-tight and slightly too short variety of jacket and the drainpipe trousering, would have sent Savile Row into a collective faint. Especially as Mr Rooney was rather plump. Those who had hitherto thought Pierre Durand’s taste in dress bad now revised their opinion to merely not very good.

    He was very pleased to meet me (giving me the once-over) and could I start this evening, as That Awful Girl had let him down badly. (Okay, it was true after all.) Which I agreed I could, so he deputed Crumpy to show me the ropes.

    It turned out all I’d have to do was hand round drinks to start with and then do a stint as croupier at the roulette table. They had a variety of games but the bigger gaming room was dominated by the roulette; the second room, only a little smaller, was all poker tables. No one-armed bandits, as Mr Rooney had a rooted objection to paying the fees to the suppliers. Fair enough: if one’s in the jolly old bizzo, one might as well collect on it.

    The roulette wheel looked harmless and there were no instructions about hidden levers or pressure points or etcetera, so maybe it really was. I’d better have a bit of practice, Crumpy decided. He and Euan (depressed-looking thin chappie who was polishing and stacking glasses over at the large bar) would be the punters.

    Well okay, but I had filled in for Oncle Albert’s croupier at various times. Whether of legal gambling age or not, as it were.

    So I spun the wheel and we played for a while, Crumpy losing ten million (actually ten five-pound chips) and Euan winning two million (two ditto). So they still used five-pound chips here? Well yes, they had them but people mostly didn’t ask for them, they were old stock. Right, got it.

    Any special rules?

    People weren’t allowed to bet their watches or anything like that, it was house chips only, but that was about it, Crumpy replied. House limit? No-one had ever wanted to bet that much, Mel, he explained somewhat limply.

    O-kay. Vegas this was not.

    Euan then thought I’d better practise carrying trays of drinks, so I did that, what time he and Crumpy formed a crowd of two and jostled me slightly. Good, that was okay. And Crumpy added that pinching the behind was strictly not allowed and if anyone tried that on, to tell him or Mr Rooney or Bert or Ivan. On enquiry Bert proved to be the doorman.—Chucker-out, right.—And Ivan combined the rôles of assistant waiting staff and “security”.—Right, house ’tec.

    And the other staff?

    Well Robson, he was assistant barman and looked after the little bar in the poker room—no, it was his first name, Euan explained. Er—okay, so be it. Robson Something, then. And they normally had Kathleen and Angelique, they were the waitresses, but Angelique had temporarily left to have a baby. And Glenda—two Ns, Mel, put in Crumpy—okay, Glennda—who was Mr Rooney’s girlfriend, she was, like, the hostess, at the door of the main room, to start with, and then she was in charge of the coffee machine and helped out at the bar if Euan was snowed under, but he wasn’t usually. One, Aziz, described by Euan with a sniff as “Still wet be’ind the ears, but honest enough,” was in charge of the baccarat table, with Crumpy himself spelling him. Behind the scenes there was Mrs Alberts, who helped Mr Rooney with the accounts, and Vanessa, the washer-up, it was only cups and saucers and the glasses, and little dishes for the crisps, all she did was load and unload the machine, really, Euan explained. They didn’t do peanuts: too many people had allergies these days and Mr Rooney didn’t want to be sued. No smoking, so there were no ashtrays. And of course they had cleaning staff, but they all worked for an outside firm under contract. Well they were probably Albanian or something, Euan noted with another sniff, but they were okay, they did a decent job and if they hadn’t of they would of been out on their ear, Mr Rooney wouldn’t stand for slackers.

    And yes, the crisps were free if they asked for them, only don’t tell them they’re available, oke? Um, and did I know how to work an espresso machine? ’Cos there was only him to spell Glennda if she was on a break and he only had two hands. Well yes, I did, but I couldn’t manage the roulette table and make coffee at the same time. I didn’t point this out to Euan but just assured him that I’d had plenty of experience with an espresso machine at Oncle Albert’s restaurant.

    Reassured, Euan nonetheless showed me carefully where everything went and how much coffee—er, make that how little coffee—to put in…

    “The result’s vile, before you ask, Mel,” said Crumpy mildly.

    I nodded dazedly. It would be!

    “Dad avoids it like the plague if he pops in,” he added mildly.

    I nodded dazedly. One would do!

    By the time we’d finished it was lunchtime and as Euan looked more miserable than ever when Crumpy pointed this out, mentioning a jolly good place he had in mind, I asked him to join us. He brightened immediately, and agreed eagerly.

    So we went to the place Crumpy favoured, which seemed to be sort of Turkish or something, vaguely Middle-Eastern, at any rate, and had skewers of lamb on rice with lovely side salads of crisp lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, feta cheese and black olives. Washed down with spring water or lager, they didn’t seem to mind serving alcohol, and followed up by excellent coffee with a choice of halva or Turkish Delight, yum! And Crumpy set the seal on Euan’s pleasure by insisting on paying for the lot.

    “Y’know, Mel,” he said as Euan then hurried back to the club, he was expecting a drinks delivery and if he wasn’t there to receive it Mr Rooney would kill him, unquote, “I don’t think the poor chap gets enough to eat. Well, I see the accounts, y’see: Rooney pays him a pittance, and rents in London are astronomical.”

    “Mm. I did ask him about sharing tips, but evidently they don’t do that.”

    “No—catch Glennda sharing anything with anybody! Once things have got going she takes the coffee into the poker room herself, y’see. The winners usually chuck a few chips onto her tray.”

    “I get it.”

    “Yeah,” he said heavily. “Well maybe when Le Club gets going we can rescue poor old Euan, eh?”

    “Why not? We’d need an experienced barman!”

    “Oh, good,” he said in relief. “Thought you might think he’d be a bit of a death’s head at the feast, so to speak.”

    “Not if he’s on a decent salary, Crumpy, I’m sure.”

    “No, good! What I thought.” He beamed at me, bless him, his rather washed-out blue eyes shining in his round, innocent and definitely crumpet-like face. He’s the most good-natured creature in the world but fitted to the commercial cut and thrust he is not. Just as well he’s going to come into his dad’s moolah one day.

    So I duly turned up at Club Romney’s at the appointed hour wearing, as ordered, something long and black (Mr R.) and slinky (Euan when asked for further clarification). From Mum’s wardrobe, actually. Well she’s forever getting rid of stuff, that is, ordering Trisha to take it to a good recycling boutique and mind she gets cash for it. In other words, tho its cost was undoubtedly put down as a necessary business expense (for telly appearances, book-signings, etcetera), the taxman was never going to get a sniff of what she made out of it. So if I hadn’t made use of this dress it would have gone to waste in any case, nothing in Mum’s wardrobe is allowed to be more than one season old. The accessories, if valuable and Named, are allowed to be older, however.

    I did vaguely remember this particular long, black, slinky garment from something on telly—crumbs, back in 2018? Well of course she and Trisha were stuck out in Guadeloupe for two years solid with no opportunity for wardrobe weeding. Um yes, Mireille, Bean and I were up to our necks in swot and she made Trisha ring us and order us to watch it, which we couldn’t as it was British telly, not French, so then she made Trisha film it on her smart phone and send us the result. I got into the dress. Er… it looked better on Mum, actually. Oh, well!

July 7 Not. Continuing: All went well, tho I did wonder if I’d have nightmares that night about looming shiny black walls adorned with large putrid pink plastic light fixtures in the shape of hearts or diamonds above acres of acid-green flooring, the décor, so to speak, of the gaming rooms, but there were no problems with the wheel, the punters, or earlier, the drinks. As it turned out Mr Rooney was doing croupier himself to start with and it was only when a sufficient number of people had started betting and had ordered drinks or in some cases were well into their second glassfuls, that he handed over to me. By this time anyone who had felt like socialising had stopped and everyone was concentrating on the tables.

    Towards the end of the evening Kathleen, a very pretty Black girl in a tight but short little black number which wasn’t her colour, really, but with her lovely figure it didn’t really matter, came up to my table looking desperate and hissed: “Mel, could you possibly do the coffee machine for a bit? She wants to take a break an’ I can’t work it! I can do the wheel for a bit. Um, and there’s four people at the baccarat table what’d like coffees, black, but put the sugar on the tray, okay?”

    Well working the espresso machine wasn’t hard but I didn’t point this out, so yes, it was all okay, and I went off to it.

    … Oh dear, the punters at the baccarat table were well away and several had large stacks of chips in front of them and after the coffees had been claimed and two other people had ordered some, I came in for a small pile of chips! I tottered back to the bar, the machine being down one end of it, and hissed to Euan: “I can’t take all this! It should be Kathleen’s!”

    “She’ll think you’re mad if ya don’t. And if it’s for coffee and Glennda gets a sniff of it she’ll grab it orf ’er, anyway. –Yes, sir? Brandy and soda coming up!”

    I watched numbly as he gave the poor man the weakest brandy and soda ever to hit a bar counter and he happily paid, “with one for yourself,” and went off apparently satisfied.

    “That was Mr Galloway: he’s a regular,” said Euan confidentially. “Must of had a good night.”

    Er—yeah. There was plenty of proof of that. I watched uneasily but to my relief Euan actually pocketed the tip. Phew!

    Unfortunately Mum’s black dress was so slinky that I had nowhere to put my chips. I mean, one reads about ladies slipping things down their fronts, but the dress wasn’t exactly holding them up and chips would have slipped right through. Maybe that was a literary, so to speak, tradition dating back to the time of corsets, and writers just kept on using it.

    After some thought I put the chips in a cup and covered it with a saucer. If Glennda came back I’d say it was a coffee for me—we were allowed them but not surprisingly there were few takers.

    Um, should I follow orders and give the unfortunates at the baccarat table the weakest espressos in Britain or… I compromised.

    Having stirred vigorously and sipped cautiously—the cups were cold, so the coffee by this time wasn’t scalding—one punter looked very surprised and said: “Good coffee; thanks, dear.” And gave me some chips! Help!

    Luckily Glennda wasn’t back yet so I headed rapidly back to the bar, put the cup with the saucer on it on my tray and hurried over to the roulette table. Where I gave all the chips to Kathleen, thus embarrassing her horribly. But she accepted them, thank God. Because really! If the barman was grossly underpaid, how mean would Rooney be when it came to the waitresses?

    No-one was lining up for coffee so I helped Euan by serving a lady with a dry Martini—no olive, thanks, dear. That was good, there weren’t any. Then I made half a dozen coffees and went through to the poker room with them.

    Well fancy. Half a dozen punters eagerly accepted them and half a dozen more ordered some!

    “Glennda’ll kill you,” Euan predicted with a sort of lugubrious enjoyment.

    “Would she kill you if I shared the tips with you?” I enquired kindly.

    He went very red and hissed: “You can’t do that!”

    “Yes I can, I’m living rent-free at Mum’s place and this is her dress.”

    He gave in, in fact he let me share my tips for the rest of the evening, which was just as well, because after Glennda came back and we resumed our usual rôles, a fat man was a heavy winner at my table and tipped me two hundred!

    That hardly ever happened, did it, Euan? No, well: the house always wins overall at bally roulette.

    It was far too late to try ringing John when Crumpy dropped me off at the flats. Just as well.

July 9 Not: Of course I didn’t have to be on duty at the club until evening, so I had plenty of free time during the day. In which to take Alysse shopping.

    “Mel, I really can’t let you pay for—”

    “Of course you can, it’s not my cash, it’s Dad’s conscience money. Added to which I was quite well paid for my job with Pierre Durand and he insisted on paying for my clothes as well, and what with that and all the restaurant meals and the um, various dates, I hardly paid for a thing all year.”

    She frowned over it and finally produced: “What about those times you had to have lunch with Tante Thérèse’s contacts?”

    Well there weren’t that many of them, and in any case— “They always paid, it was part of the agreement.”

    “Ye-es…”

    “And of course Tante Thérèse always gave me the Métro fare. And I never had to pay for a taxi if I needed to take one, it was always le beauf’ de Michel, and he’s got an agreement with Oncle—”

    “Oncle Albert!” she agreed with a gulp. Our eyes met and she gave a guilty giggle, and then gave in. “Well okay, thanks very much. But nothing too extravagant, mind!”

    Um… Well okay, we’d start with those good recycling shops warmly recommended by good old Trisha…

    Which we did. And on Saturday Carrie-Ann was of course free, so we took her along, too. Tho she wasn’t in such dire need of sartorial rescue as Alysse, with her salary coming in, and of course boarding with Alysse’s aunty. And some very smart outfits were acquired, jolly good show!

July 10 Not. Continuing straight on: By this time we’d ended up somewhere in the neighbourhood of Soho and missed lunchtime, but as it happened there was a small resto not too far away which was owned and run by a LeBec relation, one of Oncle Albert’s cousins, known to the irreverent younger generations as Oncle Fifi, his names being François Fernand. He was born in London, actually, but his father had been fiercely Francophile. Not that the rest of them aren’t, come to think of it. On that side of the family there’s also Oncle Fifi’s brother, Luc-Alain, who used to run the nightclub destined to become Le Club, several sisters, and innumerable offspring, cousins etc. Only some of them involved in the family business enterprises.

    Well as might be imagined there were thrilled exclamations and hugs and extensive cheek-kissings, and hearty welcomes to Carrie-Ann and Alysse, and of course we could have lunch, we must be starving, poor things—Luc! Put the notice on the door, petit imbécile! Cousin Luke, as he was more generally known to us Anglophones, merely grinning amiably and ambling over to the door obediently. Not petit, incidentally: about six foot, with dashing dark good looks and a reputation as a lady-killer, so it was just as well that both my companions had their nice, steady Junior Drones, because “reliable” was about the last word one would have applied to Luke LeBec. Right down there next to “faithful”, was where “reliable” would be.

    And—snatching the menu out from under Alysse’s nose, “Don’t bother with that nonsense, mon chéri!”—Oncle Fifi genially promised us the best lunch this side of La Manche!

    The main dish was lamb pieces “aux légumes printaniers”, that was, as Oncle Fifi explained, one stewed the nice pieces of lamb leg or shoulder gently (naturally with the usual mirepoix and herbs), then added small spring vegetables, in this case baby carrots and turnips, new potatoes and pearl onions, plus, his own touch, not shelled peas but snow peas (or “pois gourmands”) and stewed gently for another half hour. Naturally then reducing the sauce. The girls were amazed to find how magical the little turnips tasted. I of course had been expecting this and was able merely to look smug. Whereupon Oncle Fifi, beaming all over his round, red-cheeked face, broke into an involved description, half in English, half in French, of the genuine Navarin Printanière, which required cheaper cuts of meat and much longer cooking—and which clearly to the girls’ ears sounded no different from what we were eating. And we must come another day, giving him plenty of notice, and he would do it for us! But in general les Anglais didn’t know the difference, so they didn’t bother.

    And Alysse set the seal on his pleasure by declaring that she must bring Crumpy, he usually didn’t like turnip but she was sure he’d like this, it was wonderful!

    Naturally one would then have a salad—tho les Anglais of course never ordered it, horrible shrug—so we did. All smallish leaves, not out of a packet, bien sûr, but such and such, and this and t’other, chosen individually. Light, just sufficiently crisp and with the vinaigrette, superb!

    The family being momentarily all out in the kitchen, Alysse hissed, her eyes sparkling: “I say, your uncle has got it in for les Anglais, hasn’t he?”

    “Yes: after a life in the London restaurant business the bally old Iron has entered into his S.,” I agreed. “Wonder what cheese they’ve got?”

    It turned out to be Morbier. The girls looked askance at what appeared to be a line of mould through it.

    “That’s ash,” I explained. “It’s traditional.” –Not bothering to go into the interesting history of Morbier, I didn’t think deux Anglaises would bother to retain it. But to my relief they did like the cheese. Served with chunks of crusty baguette, natch.

    Then the dessert. Oncle Fifi’s wife, Tante Marianne, usually made the desserts, and she bustled in to serve it, all smiles. A lemon soufflé. Well nothing could beat Tante Louise’s glace au citron in the lemon dessert stakes but it came a pretty good second and was praised by all.

    The coffee that ended the meal was accompanied, for a treat, by guess what? The London LeBecs, all of whom had joined us for the coffee, looked most disconcerted as Alysse and Carrie-Ann broke down in giggles.

    “Oncle Albert sometimes serves it, but whenever he does, he always stresses it’s a special favour,” I explained.

    They got it. And with much laughter all round we toasted the famille LeBec de Londres in old Oncle Alphonse’s eau de vie de mirabelles.

    Of course I had work that evening, so I thought I’d better call a taxi—

    Non, non, mon chéri! Le Jacques du Cousin Georges drives a taxi, he’ll take you!

    Gulp. I somehow managed to hold it in until I was deposited at Mum’s building, but it was a near-run thing. I was shaking so much that I couldn’t get the key in the lock, so I rang for Mr Prosser.

    He gaped as I promptly collapsed in hysterics all over the lobby. “What’s the joke?” he groped.

   “They’re—clones!” I gasped. “It’s hilarious!”

    “Eh?”

    Weakly I endeavoured to explain that to all intents and purposes the cousins in London were clones of the cousins in Paris. Down to having a connection who’d always take you anywhere you needed to go in his taxi!

    Tolerantly Mr Prosser allowed that he got it, and took me up in the lift, advising me to set the alarm clock and have a kip before work this evening.

    Er—yes. Tho I hadn’t had all that much to drink but—yes. Okay.

    Next day being Sunday, we had a Junior Drones get-together at the Lamonts’ flat, to which Flossie turned up, all grins, with a big bunch of flowers for me, crumbs, tho unfortunately Egg couldn’t make it, it was his dad’s busy season at the stables, coming up to the Derby and then innumerable other important events in the racing calendar.

    “So what was the best thing?” asked the Crumpet kindly as the girls regaled the company with a breathless account of the marvellous lunch.

    Carrie-Ann voted for the lemon soufflé, but Alysse shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “The miraculous lamb stew with the little turnips.”

    “Turnips?” croaked Crumpy.

    “Turnips,” she confirmed dreamily.

July 14 Not. Continuing. Flossie insisted on seeing me home afterwards, tho as I pointed out I could always have rung up le Jacques du Cousin Georges (Jack to the wider community).

    “Do tell me, old chum,” he said affably as we travelled the short but sufficiently circuitous distance, “why, with all these cousins in London, have you or the siblings been stuck for accommodation in the great metropolis more than once?”

    I sighed. He’s like that. Every single little mystery has to be ferreted out, sorted, and catalogued neatly in the F. (James) Nightingale memory store, brain-box or leetle grr-rey cells, quite possibly to be cited against one at some point in the future.

    “You should have taken up the investigatory side of the law rather the forensic one.”

    “Go on, oh educated infant,” he said with a grin.

    Well actually it was he who told me the proper definition of the word “forensic” in the first place— Not saying it, he’d undoubtedly remember the fact, I explained heavily: “No room. Oncle Fifi, his wife and three large sons are crammed into the rooms above the restaurant and everyone else is in small flats without even room for a stretcher in their sitting-rooms. Well quite nice flats as London goes, but very small. Clear?”

    “Yes, thank you.”

    I sighed again.

    “Er, Mel, he said cautiously, “how’s the job at Crumpy’s bloody gaming club going?”

    “Fine. I’m learning a lot. Well mostly how not to do it, true, but nevertheless.”

    “Mm. And the slimy manager—Rooney?”

    Er… “I can handle that type, Flossie,” I replied without hope.

    “And?” he demanded.

    “Approx. fifteen arm-squeezes and one bottom-pat so far, all right? And don’t tell Crumpy! In any case he does it to all the girls, it’s a hazard of the job. And most of the time the terrifying Glennda is there to keep an eye on him.”

    “Oh, sure. You’re a damned idiot, Sister Bean. Look, I know some decent legal types who can always do with intelligent office staff. Um, well, joining their chambers myself as soon as I’ve finished the damned course, then it’ll be the bar exam, of course, but it can’t hurt to get in some experience as a dogsbody, eh?”

    “No, you’re very lucky to get the chance. Thanks, Flossie, I will bear it in mind. Like I say, I can handle the Rooneys of the world, but that sort of thing does get rather tarsome after a while.”

    “Right. I’ll hold you to it,” he said grimly.

    Well wait and see. But he did sound as if he meant it. Perhaps he was growing up at last, developing the sense of responsibility which according to his teachers at Marbledown School he’d always notably lacked.

    I waited but he saw me safely into the building without asking after Mireille. Bother.

    Next morning I phoned John’s number at breakfast time. “Not here at the moment, sorry. Email me and I’ll try to get back to you.”

    STILL? Bother and blast!

Next chapter:

https://theeggandfriendscomethrough-anovel.blogspot.com/2026/04/footloose-in-london.html