by John Dummer
'I've got a good feeling about today, Johnny. A delicious free meal and now this bronze here. Is our luck starting to change or what?'
6
SNOBS
We drove along with the bronze statue bouncing about on the seat between us and Serge shouting out the chorus from a French popular song from the forties. I'd heard it before – a favourite on our local radio station – about a Romeo farmer who can service all his mistresses in the one day thanks to his trusty Mobylette.
He stopped singing. 'Quick! Pull in here. This place looks like it's owned by bourgeois richos with more money than sense.' We were passing a large house with blue painted shutters set back from the road. There was a swimming pool in the garden and a couple of shiny cars parked out front.
I had little faith in Serge's snap judgements but followed instructions and swung into the drive. One of the cars was a four-wheek drive jeep and as we drew nearer I realised it had an English number plate.
'This is no good. It's owned by English people,' I said, braking and starting to reverse out.
'No, carry on, Johnny. I've often bought stuff off the English. They clear out their old junk the same as the French.'
A woman appeared from round the back of the house wearing a floral-print dress and floppy straw hat and carrying a trug and a pair of pruning shears. She came towards us with an expectant look on her face. I felt stupid and wasn't sure how I was going to play this. But she spoke before I had a chance to explain.
'Vous cherchez quelque chose?'
Her French was good. It was obvious she wasn't just someone over for a short stay in a holiday cottage.
I was tempted to answer her in French and pretend we were lost. But Serge was watching me closely and would have noticed I wasn't going through the rigmarole of asking if she had any valuable antiques she was willing to unload on us for a song.
So instead I spoke in English, the first thing that came into my head.
'Sorry to disturb you like this… we seem to have made a mistake and come to the wrong house.'
Serge nodded and grinned as if he knew exactly what I was saying.
He was pleased the woman had spoken French because he chipped in, 'Mais oui, et je peux payer en espèces pour les belles choses.' (Yes, and I pay in cash for anything good.) He predictably pulled out his wad of euros and wafted them under her nose.
She looked shocked and slightly repulsed.
'Does your friend make a habit of waving his money about?' She had a cut-glass English accent.
'We're on our way to do a house clearance,' I said. 'I'm sorry about that, he never misses an opportunity to try and pick up a bargain.' (I was starting to make up a pack of lies just like Serge. I was turning into him. That was it! I was definitely not coming out with him again.)
'Why, have you got a shop?'
'No, we're brocanteurs. We only do the markets,' I said.
'What's the matter, darling?' A man appeared dressed in a pair of brightly coloured swimming shorts and sporting a brilliant white Panama hat.
'These people are knockers,' she said, making it sound like it came just below paedophiles in her list of utter scum.
'Really?' said the man.
'Not knockers, exactly. We're professional brocanteurs.' I could feel my face reddening. She reminded me of a particularly scary teacher from my infant school. 'Actually, I've only just started and he's showing me the ropes.'
'But your friend appears to be a knocker. He's certainly vulgar enough with his fistful of money.' She pulled a face as if there was a nasty smell under her nose.
'He's a bit keen but he always pays a fair price,' I lied. It was becoming second nature to me now.
She raised her eyebrows. 'So which is it to be? Are you knockers or are you lost?'
'We're supposed to be picking up some stuff from a house round here… It's for a friend of his,' I said lamely.
I glanced at Serge with his grazed nose and scruffy jeans holding the wad of euros. He had a smear of cherry pie juice on his chin. I wasn't much smarter myself. We looked like just the sort of unsavoury characters these people had come to France to avoid.
'Is he a Gypsy? He looks almost too disreputable to be one.'
'No, he's a Basque,' I said trying to lighten the mood.
'He looks like a common or garden knocker to me. Perhaps he's not the best person to model yourself on if you're hoping to be a legitimate brocanteur.
Serge was wondering what we were on about.
'Tell them the mayor sent us,' he said. 'That always does the trick.'
I laughed like this was some sort of joke.
'Yes, well, we'll be off and leave you in peace,' I said, deciding it was best to cut and run. 'Sorry again to have bothered you.' I went to get back in the van.
'Come on, Serge, let's go.'
'Have they got any old English furniture they want to get rid of?' said Serge. 'Save them going up the tip.'
I ignored the remark, laughing it off. 'He's like a little terrier once he scents a bargain.'
I pulled a tight face at Serge. 'No, they haven't got anything. Let's go.'
But he wasn't ready to give up so easily.
He went up to the man, grinning with his hand out.
'The mayor asked us to come round and see you,' he said, immediately calling the man 'tu' in an overfriendly manner. 'We've visited all your neighbours.'
The man took his hand and shook it. 'Well, that's strange because I am the mayor and I've never met you before in my life.' He spoke perfect French.
Serge was completely wrong-footed by this remark.
'No, that's not possible. You can't be the mayor.'
'I can assure you I am,' said the man.
'But you're English.'
'Yes.'
'And the mayor?'
'Yes.'
Serge was dumbfounded.
'I think it might be best if you both stop telling stories and leave, don't you?' said the woman darkly.
I started the van and Serge climbed in zombie-like beside me. I pulled away, sticking my head out of the window.
'Bye then,' I said, accelerating up the drive.
But they had turned away and were disappearing into the house.
We drove along in silence. Serge appeared deeply troubled. After a while, he said, 'They were a bit snobby, weren't they?'
He was right. What an understatement. It was indicative that the French had to borrow an English word to describe a characteristically English attitude. They were bloody snobs all right.
We were entering a village. 'Pull over here,' said Serge pointing to a cafe, 'I need a drink.'
We sat at the bar while he revived himself with a stiff brandy.
There was a young English couple talking in loud voices at a nearby table and a party of friends joined them and started ordering drinks and laughing loudly together.
'You get a lot of English in here?' I asked the cafe owner in French.
'You're not joking,' he said. 'The place is full of English. In fact, even the mayor's English.'
'We know, we just met him,' said Serge hollowly.
'Well, he's not what you might call really English, more of an Anglophile. He's actually French but he grew up in England and married an Englishwoman,' said the owner. 'He gets on well with all the English in the commune and they voted him in. He's all right, but his wife's a right dragon.'
'We know, we met her too,' I said.
'Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking it; English money's as good as anybody's. But house prices have shot up. Our young people can't afford to buy here any more. My son and his wife have had to build their own place two villages away. It's beginning to cause bad feeling.'
I'd heard about this. When the English first began buying up all the old properties the French were delighted to unload them for what they thought were extortionate prices, as the young French, bored with country life and lack of jobs, moved to the larger towns. At least the English were white Europeans (if they'd b
een Arabs it would have been a different story) and were generally polite and enamoured with la vie française. But now the sheer number of Brits was starting to change the landscape forever. Resentments were building. There had even been critical exposés of the phenomenon on the telly.
As we walked back to the van I noticed there were a lot of pasty overweight people in shorts and straw hats strolling about. Normally a French village like this would be dead so soon after lunch.
We were driving through the outskirts when a police wagon overtook and signalled us to pull over.
'Mother of Jesus,' said Serge. 'What have we done now?'
I stopped and a pair of formidable-looking gendarmes climbed out. 'Leave me to do all the talking, Johnny,' said Serge under his breath. 'I know what to say to les flics.'
My confidence in Serge's ability to deal with the police was nil from previous experience, and looking at these two I was even more sure he had no chance. They didn't even bother with: 'Would you mind kindly stepping out of the vehicle, sir?' One of them pulled the van door open and almost yanked Serge from his seat. The other hustled me out and we were pushed unceremoniously up against the side of the van. I was very conscious of the heavy pistols holstered in their shiny leather belts.
'Pièces d'identité,' demanded one of them, holding out his hand.
Serge, who looked cowed, needless to say couldn't find his.
The gendarme took this very badly. He looked as if he might become violent, given the slightest excuse.
He turned on me. 'What about you then?'
I felt for my carte de séjour, shitting myself that I might have forgotten it. I located it in my back pocket and handed over the laminated card.
He examined it closely and checked me against the photo.
'Where do you live?'
I reeled off the address.
'It says here you're a foreigner. Where are you from?'
'England,' I said.
'Yes, OK, but whereabouts?'
'London originally.'
'You like living here in France?'
'Yes, it's good. The people are very nice.' (Slime, slime – creep, creep, I thought, hating myself for being so pathetic.)
He pondered this. His attitude seemed to be softening slightly.
'Your French isn't that bad. I thought you were a Belgian.'
I wasn't sure whether to take this as a compliment or not.
He rounded on Serge. 'So you're leading this Englishman astray, are you? What have you been up to, you halfwit?'
Serge registered innocent surprise. 'Up to? We haven't been up to anything, officer.' He was hurt at being called a halfwit.
The other gendarme had been rummaging around in the front of the van and emerged holding the bronze figurine.
'Where did you nick this from then?'
'We just bought that,' said Serge. 'We paid for it fair and square.'
Our gendarme looked incredulous.
'It's the God's honest truth,' said Serge. 'Up the déchetterie. Ask that cowboy bloke who runs it. He sold it to us.'
'What, Lucky Luke?' Our gendarme took the bronze figurine from his partner. 'Very nice.' He was smiling despite himself. 'I can see why you'd want to nick it.'
'We didn't nick it,' insisted Serge. He was unwisely growing slightly self-righteous about it. 'Go and check with that bloke… that Lucky Luke character – whatever his name is – up the déchetterie if you don't believe me.'
They looked at him like he was dirt, hardly worth bothering with.
Our gendarme came over to me. 'Is this true? Did you get this from Lucky Luke up the déchetterie?'
I nodded. He pulled me to one side.
'Why are you hanging around with this little shit? It's not really a good idea.'
I explained how I was just starting out and Serge was showing me the ropes.
'Yeah, well, my advice is get someone else to help you. This idiot's a heap of trouble.'
He pulled open the doors of the police wagon. 'OK, in the back, you.' He was talking to Serge, who hesitated, looking shocked.
'Are you arresting us, officer?'
They ignored him.
'You too.' He was talking to me. We both got in and sat on the bench seat next to each other. We pulled away and they turned on the flashing blue light and siren. They probably didn't get many chances to use them.
I looked at Serge and he gave me a reassuring grin. Was that gendarme right? Maybe I shouldn't be hanging around with him. It was true he was a bit of a rogue but 'little shit' was laying it on a bit strong.
We arrived at the déchetterie in a cloud of dust, lights blazing, siren wailing. The dog on a string set up a frantic barking and Lucky Luke emerged from his hut, his eyes wide in disbelief.
We watched from the wagon as the gendarmes questioned him.
They showed him the bronze and gestured back at us. He shook his head, slowly at first. Then as they continued to quiz him he held his hands out, shrugging and shaking his head emphatically. He looked over at us curiously as if he'd never seen us before.
'He's denying it,' said Serge, 'the arse-licking ponce.'
Our gendarme strolled over grimly. 'He says he's never seen either of you or the bronze before.'
Serge stuck his head out of the window and shouted at the top of his voice: 'What about the hundred euros I paid you? Tell them what you've done with that, you wanker!'
'That'll do,' said our gendarme. 'We don't want this to degenerate into a slanging match.'
'The guy's a complete arsehole,' said Serge. 'It's obvious he's lying.'
'Possibly, but if he won't corroborate your story there's nothing we can do about it.'
'It's come to something,' said Serge, 'when a bloke can't go about his business without being arrested at the drop of a hat.'
'And you can shut up, you little shit!' The other gendarme had come back over. He looked ready for a bit of gratuitous violence. 'The mayor isn't keen on filth such as yourself touting round his commune conning innocent citizens out of their valuables.'
Our gendarme, who was more sympathetic, turned to me. 'Look, was it really such a good idea to go round and bother the mayor like that? His wife phones and we have to do something about it. She's always on at us… We never get a moment's peace.'
'What, that old dragon?' said Serge. 'What does she know about France or us, the French people?'
I thought he'd already gone too far, but he was incensed, getting into his stride.
'So that's it now, is it? Foreigners calling the shots and we have to jump? Le Pen was right, France is being ruined.'
Our gendarme nodded in agreement. 'We're just doing our job. We're not paid to think.'
'What about my bronze?' said Serge.
'That's confiscated,' said the other gendarme. 'We'll check it out and if it's been reported stolen you'll be in deep water.'
Serge opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it. I began to wonder where Lucky Luke had got it from. If he'd nicked it we were both in trouble. I was still worrying about it as they drove us back to our van and dropped us off.
As they were about to leave us, our gendarme beckoned me over.
'Don't forget, best distance yourself from your little copain there. He'll drag you down, believe you me.'
I looked across in embarrassment at Serge to see if he'd heard, but he was staring vacantly ahead.
'And if either of you come within farting distance of this commune again you're dead men,' said the other one.
We watched them drive off.
Serge was livid. As we trudged all the way back to our van he swore imaginatively about the gendarmes and Lucky Luke. Then he turned the full heat of his fury on what he described as the snobby English.
He cursed the mayor and he cursed his dragon of a wife.
Then he cursed all the thousands of English in France and bemoaned how they were ruining everything.
'But I don't count you in all this, Johnny,' he said, apologetically. 'You'r
e not one of them, are you? You're more like one of us.'
He raised his fist in the air, yelled, 'France up the mountain!' and began singing an obscure patriotic song.
Was he right? Was I more like him? I was beginning to question exactly where my loyalties lay. I knew one thing for sure – they weren't with that high-and-mighty mayor and his snotty wife.