The King of Fools

by Frédéric Dard

  I bought an English newspaper from one of the piles on the reception desk. An ominous headline announced a general transport strike across the whole of Great Britain.

  I was a prisoner in Edinburgh for the unforeseeable future.

  I woke to bright sunlight in my room and thought for a moment that I was back in Juan-les-Pins. The sensation was so strong that I found myself reaching for the right-hand side of the bed, and the touch of Denise. But Denise was fast asleep, two thousand kilometres from here.

  It was barely seven o’clock and, miraculously for Edinburgh, a beautiful summer’s day was breaking. Through the vast, terrifying window, beyond the blackened rooftops, I beheld a cloudless Mediterranean sky, and concluded that this whole business would work itself out, the mysteries would be solved, and Marjorie would be in my arms before the morning’s end.

  Outside in the street, the bagpiper’s nasal whine could be heard already, announcing the arrival of a fresh coachload of tourists. I took a shower and ordered a pot of black coffee. I had no desire to confront the elaborately groomed old ladies in the dining room.

  One hour later, bright and ready for the day, brimming with energy and hope, I climbed aboard a number 12 bus on Princes Street.

  The vehicle was thronged with passengers now. The city was full of a kind of muted joy that morning, agreeably solid, no longer the brutish, dark pile that had lowered my spirits the day before, but a picturesque ancient citadel, proud of its past and facing the future. Rather than ride “backwards” on the bottom platform, seeing the street names once they had passed, I climbed the stairs to the top deck and was lucky enough to find the exact seat that Marjorie had occupied the day before. Seen from above, the streets were an entertaining spectacle. I could observe the life of the tenement buildings, too. I searched again for a hotel I might have missed the night before, but there were no others along the route.

  Through tall windows, I saw bare-chested men, and women in dressing gowns. I immersed myself in solemn and fanciful interiors – fleeting images gathered here and there, but they fed my growing awareness of the city. Uniformed delivery men placed milk bottles on doorsteps. Red mail vans the colour of fire engines zigzagged from one side of the street to the other. On their polished doors the gilded arms of Elizabeth II glittered fresh and bright in the sunshine. Passengers called out to one another, exchanging the same cheery phrase: “Lovely day today!”

  The sunshine intoxicated them like cheap, heady wine. At every stop, the same sign was repeated over the tops of doors: Bed and Breakfast. I had not noticed this before. The revelation was like a shaft of light: travellers to Edinburgh could stay not only in hotels, but in private houses. People rented out part of their home, just as they do in the most popular parts of France. A bed for the night, and breakfast the following morning!

  I stepped down from the bus. I was three stops beyond Princes Street. I should have turned back and begun a systematic search, visiting every bed and breakfast from the start of my route. But I was too impatient.

  I rang at the first door I saw, bearing the now familiar sign. A tall, horse-faced man came to open it.

  “Excuse me, sir, would you have a guest by the name…”

  I rang at fifteen or so houses. This was no time of day to be calling at private addresses, as was made abundantly clear: the owners were eager to rent out their deceased parents’ or soldiering son’s bedroom, but they were quick to shut their door in my face with a brusque “No Mrs Faulks here, sir!”

  If I continued from door to door, I would soon be singled out across Edinburgh. But my obstinate quest was not without a certain heady fascination: all those early-morning interiors, their panelled hallways full of copper plant holders and old prints. Bathrooms gurgled and sleepy children wailed. Sometimes, through a gap in a door, I glimpsed the wary features and tousled hair of the lady of the house.

  “No, sir, I’ve nobody by the name of Mrs Faulks!”

  In one house, a tiny, surly pug greeted me with a ferocious volley of barking. His mistress was forced to restrain him by the collar, or he would have thrown himself at me as I framed my question yet again.

  I was conducting my search in reverse, heading back towards Princes Street. If Marjorie was staying at a bed and breakfast, she would have chosen a house close to the centre of town.

  I kept count at first, but quickly lost track of the number of houses I had visited.

  The building before me now was a large house showing traces of past finery. The steps leading to the front door were much wider than elsewhere, and flanked by two sparkling copper lamp posts. The sign offering rooms to let was tiny and difficult to see. The proprietor – or, more likely, the proprietress – was clearly diffident about the need to supplement her income in this way. I imagined an elderly lady facing ruin, or a dignified widow determined to keep hold of a residence that was now beyond her means.

  I rang the bell. Almost immediately, the sound of galloping feet was heard in the hallway beyond, culminating in a dull thud that made the door frame shake. A key rattled in the lock, turned by an unsteady hand, and the heavy, iron-clad door swung open to reveal a charming small boy with blond, curly hair, looking me over from bottom to top with intense interest.

  An elderly lady with an affected, sing-sing voice called out from somewhere in the house.

  “Could you ask them to wait a moment, David? I’ll be along instantly!”

  David nodded in response. I smiled, but he remained grave and attentive.

  The hall was a respectable size, suggesting an equally sizeable house. It was painted white, with a stone-flagged floor partly concealed under still-resplendent rugs. A gallery ran around the top, framed by a finely turned wooden balustrade. Suddenly, a door opened on the first floor, doubtless leading to one of the bathrooms. I looked up expecting to see the elderly lady whose voice I had just heard, but it was Marjorie who stepped out onto the landing. She was wearing a white bathrobe, with a towel knotted around her head. She started upon seeing me and I thought she would cry out in surprise. At the same time, the hostess emerged from one of the downstairs rooms.

  She was not as old as I had expected, with a dumpy figure and heavy make-up. She wore a gaudily coloured dress, and held me firmly in the sights of an old-fashioned lorgnette. Everything happened at once, on two different levels. The proprietress gratified me with a nod after inspecting me through her eye-glass, and Marjorie, plainly horrified, gestured eloquently for me to ignore her completely.

  “How may I be of help, sir?”

  “Do you have any vacancies?”

  “Alas, no!”

  Upstairs, Marjorie had disappeared into her room, and I thought I could just make out the sound of voices.

  “Then pardon me, Madame.”

  “Oh, you’re French!”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m really very sorry, but we’re full…”

  She concluded with an affable smile, fondling the little boy’s head. For the first time since my arrival in Edinburgh, someone had softened towards me, quite spontaneously. I flashed a winning smile. She had given Marjorie a room, and there could be no higher virtue in my eyes. I bowed my way out of the hall with due ceremony. The proprietress was visibly disarmed.

  Out on the street, I crossed to the other side to get a better look at the façade. I saw Marjorie’s small, anxious face at a window on the first floor. She stared at me, motionless. She seemed crushed, somehow, and oppressed. What could have happened? Someone must have spoken to her from another part of the room: she turned to answer. I risked attracting attention if I remained planted outside on the pavement.

  I walked away slowly, looking desperately for a hiding place where I could watch the house without being seen. But the street was lined by private houses with no porches. I walked a hundred metres but found nowhere to conceal myself. I reached the crossroads. Here, the quiet neighbourhood shook itself out of its slumber and came hesitantly to life. I bought a newspaper from a street vendor. The big, p
rinted pages offered a screen of sorts – flimsy, but better than nothing.

  I stepped into a patch of shade, to wait. I could see Marjorie’s house from the crossroads. Close by, a clock tower struck nine.

  10

  After fifteen minutes, the newspaper vendor – a little old man wearing a vastly oversized fisherman’s smock – began staring at me in surprise. A man on the lookout does not behave like a man merely waiting. I worried him slightly. I watched as he engaged a customer in conversation. The man turned and fixed me with a hostile stare. With my tanned complexion and raw silk suit, I was about as inconspicuous as a fly in a bowl of milk. If I continued my surveillance for much longer, I could find myself in trouble.

  Half an hour went by, then an hour. I trembled with nerves. The old vendor was staring at me continuously now. I checked the street names, then walked over to where he stood.

  “Excuse me,” I asked, in a low voice. “Would you have seen a French car parked here just now, before I arrived? Two of my compatriots told me to meet them at the corner of East London Street, and they don’t seem to be anywhere near arriving.”

  The newspaper vendor gave me a contrite smile, with an abundance of stubby, rotten teeth.

  “Not seen nothing, sir.”

  “I’ve an idea they’ve stood me up. I’ll wait a while longer, though. It’s their first time in Edinburgh and they may have—”

  I broke off. A couple was approaching on the opposite pavement, and the woman was Marjorie. She made commendable efforts not to look in my direction, but I could see she had spotted me. Her companion was a tall, thin man in a dark suit and a broad-brimmed, grey felt hat. A camera in a leather case knocked at his ribs. They stopped at the street corner, and Marjorie darted across the road to buy a newspaper. I watched from the corner of my eye as she quite deliberately dropped a screwed-up piece of paper. She went back to her companion and the couple walked away. I placed my foot over the paper, not daring to pick it up straight away in front of the newspaper vendor.

  “What make of French car?”

  I stared uncomprehendingly at the little man. He was unshaven, and his red beard was fading to white. He smelt bad. The collar of his smock shone with grease, as if it had been waxed.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your friends’ car?”

  “A Citroën. Do you know it?”

  “Of course. You see quite a few around here.”

  I let my newspaper fall to the ground and stooped to pick up the ball of paper. It was still warm from being clenched tight in Marjorie’s hand.

  I walked a few metres then unfolded it with trembling fingers.

  Dear Jean-Marie,

  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Thank you for being here. Alas, I’m with my husband. I’ll explain. Be in Princes Street Gardens near the bandstand this evening at 5.

  Je vous aime.

  “Your Ma Jolie”

  Seized with emotion, childishly I pressed the piece of paper to my heart.

  Je vous aime! Written in her own words.

  The couple was still in sight, at the end of East London Street. I felt the urge to chase after them, seize Marjorie by the arm and lead her firmly away with me.

  To kill time, I did something rather ridiculous for a man in my situation: I took a tour of the city aboard a special coach crammed full of British tourists. The driver was a solidly built, very old man with a shiny complexion and gold-rimmed glasses, delivering his own commentary into a microphone affixed to his chest. He paused the vehicle in front of houses once occupied by people whose names he recited with emphasis, none of whom meant anything to me.

  When his explanations ran into extraneous detail, he would rise and turn to face the passengers, surveying his small world like a school prefect keeping a wary eye on an unruly band of pupils. Unlike most tourist guides, he seemed to know what he was talking about and was keen for us to take an interest. And so I visited the principal sights of Edinburgh: the castle, Mary Stuart’s royal palace, the cathedral, Parliament House and a host of other places, doubtless all worthy of interest but which left me yawning with tedium.

  By four o’clock in the afternoon I was on Princes Street. I passed through an iron gate leading to the gardens and walked down the sloping path to the lawns. The valley separating the old and new cities was filled with cool, sweet air. The lawns smelt of fresh grass. They had been mown and raked with such care that – to use a schoolboy cliché – they looked like expanses of baize. Neat flower beds, clipped and tended to remove every last wilting, withered petal, formed geometric patterns in the centre of the burgeoning greens. Broad, neatly trimmed paths wound their way through the spacious park in artful curves. The weather was fine, and there were more people about than the previous day. Scruffy-looking children drank at the fountains, splashing passers-by. On the stage of the open-air theatre, the fat lady was setting up her microphone. Couples in national costume were arriving, ready to dance.

  Girls in white or blue dresses wore fine wool sashes pinned to one shoulder, in their clan colours. Musicians in threadbare dinner jackets stood chatting around a grand piano. I spotted a stone bench near the theatre, a short distance from the ticket booth. An old gentleman in a bowler hat was drinking tea from a cardboard cup. The thermos flask and packet of biscuits placed beside him only served to heighten the effect of a weary clown performing his sad routine.

  His nose was veined with purple, his lower eyelids were sagging and red, and his hands shook.

  “Lovely day, sir.”

  “Lovely day!” I agreed.

  Yes, it was a fine day indeed. A day to delight the people of Scotland. Some had doubted it, and were out strolling now with raincoats or umbrellas on their arms.

  The musicians took their places behind the music stands and tuned their instruments. The lady announcer spoke a few words, and the band struck up – a simple but lively tune with a brisk pace. The dance began. Gradually, passers-by filled the seats.

  I gazed desperately around me as five o’clock approached. I could see no sign of Marjorie and feared she may have been prevented from coming at the last minute.

  Then, exactly as this morning, there they both were, though I had not seen them arrive. He was guiding her by the arm, hurrying her towards the theatre entrance. I caught Marjorie’s eye and thought I saw a confused apology, and a promise. Something – I have no idea what – alerted Mr Faulks: he turned sharply before pushing through the turnstile. And, straight away, he fixed his eyes on me, dazzling but cold as glass. It lasted a mere fraction of a second, but I felt he knew who I was, and what I was doing there. Then the Faulkses were swallowed up into the crowd.

  I had no idea what I should do. I was an adolescent boy once more, sighing in turmoil and dread before a married woman’s door. The fact was, I had been behaving like a lovelorn kid for the past several days.

  The old man in the bowler hat poured himself a fresh cup of tea and ate a couple of biscuits, humming the band’s tune as he munched.

  “Do you like the Scottish dancing, sir?” he asked me, during a break in the music.

  “Madly.”

  “Ah! It’s a fine tradition. A warrior tradition.”

  “A fine, warrior people!” My hint of irony went undetected.

  “Aye, that indeed we are, sir! Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

  “No, thank you, I’m not a tea-drinker, myself.”

  The old man looked as if he might toss his cup of hot liquid in my face. But there was no time to enjoy his comical outrage. Marjorie had just left the theatre, alone. She did not walk in my direction, but shot me a glance, urging me to follow her. She walked quickly, her head sunk between her shoulders like an escaped convict caught in a searchlight. She reached a broad, sloping lawn behind the theatre stage. I caught up with her. She was waiting, motionless, arms hanging loosely at her sides, eyes closed, quite unable to move. I took her in my arms and pressed her close against me, sighing:

  “At last…”


  I had never felt such true, fierce, total happiness. Her heart was beating violently, to my alarm.

  “Oh, Jean-Marie!” she breathed, opening her eyes, “you’re far more handsome and strong than I remember.”

  Then she held me at arm’s length in a gesture more tender still than my embrace.

  “He knows everything, Jean-Marie.”

  I was bathed in the serene light of pure happiness, but here was a revelation calculated to bring me back down to earth.

  “How so?”

  “He was supposed to join me here in eight days. But at the last minute, he wanted to surprise me, and said he was coming too.”

  She spoke in quick bursts, shooting terrified glances all around her.

  “I have to hurry. He thinks I’ve gone to the Ladies’ toilet. If ever he…” Then she continued her story:

  “We arrived the day before yesterday. The Learmonth was fully booked, do you see?”

  I saw only too well, and began to glimpse what was coming next.

  “So we went to a bed and breakfast he had heard of. Yesterday, he went to the hotel without telling me, while I was in the bathroom, and he found your telegram.”

  “Why did he do that? Did he suspect something?”

  “A jealous man will always suspect something. And I suppose I haven’t been myself since coming home from France. That’s why he wanted to accompany me here, in fact.”

  “So what—?”

  “No, I must go back to him, Jean-Marie, I must!”

  “But my telegram… What did he say?”

  “He showed it to me and asked me what it meant.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “The truth, what else could I tell him?” Marjorie stammered, burying her forehead in my chest.