A cautionary fable of modern times – quite short - set in a fictional part
of France and populated by residents whose existence and situation are the sole product of the author’s imagination,
with some explanatory detail to assist non-Francophone readers
M. Prénom and Mme Sans-Couleur had been adulterously
attached for fifteen years. Each year they dined out to celebrate their marital
wickedness but this year they would be avoiding Le Restaurant au Bon Courage. Their
respective spouses – irritated by their continuing absences – had formed their
own adulterous relationship and had booked the Bon Courage two months
beforehand. M Prénom and Mme Sans-Couleur could foresee problems about which
couple got which table and had reluctantly chosen the only alternative, Le
Jazz, a pizzeria which had so far attracted zero reviews in Trip Advisor.
Le Jazz was located in the centre of a Zone Industriel which
meant driving. In fact neither ever walked anywhere so choosing which car was a
recurrent problem. Both had Citroens but Mme Sans-Couleur had persuaded her
husband to buy her one with a slightly more powerful engine.
“It has a motor with an extra seventy-five centimetres
cubed,” she said winningly. “It is more chic, chérie. Also it has a radio.”
M. Prénom gave in. He usually did. But who would drive,
given that a more draconian version of the Suppression of Public Drunkenness
law had recently been introduced. There were rumours – probably facetious –
that the Ile du Diable prison in French Guiana was to be re-opened for extreme
offenders.
“I will drive,” said Mme Sans-Couleur. “And I will drink
only one glass of wine.”
“But this is a celebration. Where is human equality in
that?”
Mme Sans-Couleur tentatively suggested one glass of wine,
shared between them.
“Yes,” said M. Prénom, “but we must fill up our half-glasses
of wine with water. To prove our gaiety.”
They both agreed, knowing that red wine at Le Jazz was
bought directly from the supermarket at €3.99 a bottle and the mark-up was a
mere 25%. That they would, as usual, drink four bottles of red and drive back
in drunken stupor with the headlights turned off.
A Zone Industriel is an industrial zone
The Zone Industriel had never really caught on and the only
occupants were three companies, all near bankruptcy, devoted to processing used
car tyres. A piercing smell overhung the area and Mme Sans-Couleur insisted on
what she called “la route touristique” even though it quadrupled the
three-kilometre drive. They arrived at Le Jazz twenty minutes late but this was
of no consequence since the only other diner was a local character known
familiarly as Le Clochard (The Drunk) who, in effect, hired a pizza and left it
to grow cold, allowing him to order an unending sequence of house reds.
“He adds character,” whispered Mme Sans-Couleur gaily. But
with character came body odour and they took a table as far away as possible,
even though this brought them uncomfortably close to the pizza oven.
Le Jazz didn’t really do starters. They rejected the paté,
ominously unchristened, and, after some
debate, the Regional Plate which consisted of three gherkins, three cocktail
onions and a wizened tomato. A €1 supplement proclaimed the Chef’s Salad and
this seemed a favourable omen. True it included two curled slices of salami and
a clump of oily greenery finally identified as artichoke heart. But at the
centre was the French restaurant trade’s ultimate insult to diners of any
nationality: a triangular metal foil package containing a whitish
cheese-flavoured paste and labelled La Vache Qui Rit.
“What do you think the cow was laughing at?” asked Mme
Sans-Couleur, her gaiety undimmed.
M. Prénom recognised the need to share his partner’s good
humour. It was after all a celebration. “I will add the phrase to your climax.”
He didn’t often refer to their physical antics and Mme
Sans-Couleur’s jaw dropped slightly. Then she smiled bravely. “Ah, my brave
knight.”
In France a flank steak is called a bavette
Neither enjoyed pizza and they opted for flank steak,
printed in a discouragingly small typeface on the laminated menu. This visibly
angered the patron’s wife acting as waitress and they both averted their eyes
as the equally angry patron wrenched open the door of the freezer and rattled
among the mini-icebergs probably untouched for half a year. Both M. Prénom and
Mme Sans-Couleur were capable of being embarrassed, given their irregular
sexual arrangements, but by now they were already into their second bottle of
red and a certain fatalism had descended. Less than prompt service seemed
inevitable but there was no reason why they should limit themselves to four
bottles of wine.
M. Prénom looked fondly at his lover, slightly surprised
that his ardour had lasted as long as it had. Fifteen years! Not bad at all;
there were times at home when he had to remind himself he was actually married
to the solemn churchgoer he shared the house with. He had been drawn to Mme
Sans-Couleur by her cherubic face but this attraction would have hardly lasted
a year if it hadn’t been for her willingness to spend a great deal of her
husband’s money on clothing. Each occasion they met she wore something
different. He found this strangely exciting, perhaps because these fashionable
garments were so easy to remove. Today she wore a white two-piece with navy
blue trim; the jacket secured by a single, large padded button offering all the
facility of a garage door. The sheath skirt must be held at the waist with
built-in elastic, he felt sure. So convenient.
“You out-class Le Jazz, my dear,” he said, taking hold of
her fierily manicured hand.
“I would rather hope so,” she said with glowing sincerity.
“But I’m with you - "
French “caff” owners don’t willingly do cocktails
The latter sentence, which had started so promisingly, was
fated never to end. The pizzeria’s rackety door burst inwards to admit M. Sans-Couleur,
the new lover of Mme. Prénom. Greatly stressed, he barked, “Table for two?” and
the patron nodded resignedly. The flank steak had only just thawed. M. Sans-Couleur
shrank with relief, glanced around and noticed M. Prénom for the first time. It
should have been a moment of profound sexual tension but M. Sans-Couleur had
obviously been confronting other, more pressing, demons. “Bon Courage had
forgotten my reservation. I shall sue them in the courts. Meanwhile Le Jazz is
my only hope. I trust we may be civilised about this.”
M. Prénom glanced at Mme Sans-Couleur. “Of course,” she
said, “but we shall be leaving quite soon.” A coded message to the patron to be
less languid.
M. Sans-Couleur bustled out of the pizzeria and returned
with Claudette, M. Prénom’s neglected wife. A tiny shaft of pain traversed the
regions of his husbandly stomach when he saw Claudette was wearing a wafty
full-length dress – could it really be Versace? – he had no idea she owned.
Where had she found the money? Not from M. Sans-Couleur who was notoriously
mean. M. Prénom’s mind flitted through meals he had eaten at home over the past
year; had there been economies which had saved the necessary cash? But then
Claudette had always been a lousy cook and any shortfall would not have been
noticed.
Nods were thought appropriate greeting under the
circumstances and for several seconds the gathering resembled a Japanese
art-house movie. In a loud voice M. Sans-Couleur ordered two gins-and tonic and
was rewarded with a look of pure venom by the patron.
You pay local taxes at the Trésor Publique
Their two tables were consecutively positioned and it was
quickly evident that even the most furtively whispered conversation would be
audible. This led to briskly clear exchanges about absolutely nothing: car
service intervals, rudeness at the Trésor Publique and PSG’s inexplicable
inability to score goals. Despite the banality of this talk maintaining the
flow proved exhausting and an increased consumption of red wine.
Finally, and quite accidentally, Mme Sans Couleur averred
that petunias made perfect bedding plants and Claudette’s eyebrows – plucked
for the occasion – rose in thin arches. From then on the two women were lost to
gardening babble and the hosts could sit back in silence and drink even more
heavily.
When M. Prénom finally paid his bill (the others were still
waiting for their flank steaks) the two men wished each other a gruff “Au
’voir” and the two women nodded, smiling with horticultural fervour.
Mme Sans-Couleur sat motionless at the Citroen’s steering
wheel, perhaps waiting until the nearest of the three tyre-processing plants
stopped rotating in space. Now she started the engine. “You know, chérie, they will
be ages. We would have time to visit our little nest.”
It took M. Prénom a while to acknowledge the meal they had
just eaten was intended to celebrate physical needs they had sated over the
years with each other. His mind was on other things, or one thing in
particular. That dress! Its style. Its cost. Its mysterious acquisition. And
the way it had hugged Claudette’s derrière over a contour he’d never known
existed. He kissed Mme Sans-Couleur with more force than he’d intended, dimly
aware of a decision he might well articulate quite soon.
“Alas choufleur*, the wine. Rather too much of it. Next
week, I promise, we will make love.”
* Cauliflower
