I thanked Jeremy for the update. I took Mr. Brown for a walk down to Marie-Anne's and I had a very fine filet steak…trés cuit as usual. Then we went home, I gave him his evening meal, and I went downstairs for a coffee with Monika. The coffee took a long time. A long and erotic time and the devil came knocking at my door as you might suppose. And, needless to say, he came knocking at Monika's door as well and hers was usually somewhat ajar, if you will excuse the expression. But mine remained firmly locked. The trouble of course is that the devil is a persistent, persuasive and patient bugger and time, as the debauched and voyeuristic bastard well knows, is on his side.
I smoked the day's last cigarette on my balcony and idly wondered, not having had the benefit of today’s IHT, how many conflict deaths there had been on our planet yesterday.
DAY 28
I woke up thinking—surprise, surprise—about Jeremy Parker and his asteroid manipulation stories. My neurons were refusing to be duped in this manner. It was an affront to their intelligence and to the unwavering pride they had in their unassailable ability to explain everything and anything existing or occurring on or within their home planet. It was merely a question of taking the required steps to acquire the necessary knowledge on each occasion, and to use that knowledge and extrapolate it into an appropriate and befitting conclusion.
What had Jeremy Parker done this time? The neurons had thought about it, they had considered it, they had performed an analytical review of the facts, and they had formulated a conclusion. They didn't know much about Mars and I wasn't going to spend my time to allow them to add to their few basic nuggets of information on the Internet. So they had just had to work with what they had.
It didn't matter whether Mars was one of the closest planets to Earth or not. What mattered was that Mars was much closer to the asteroid belt and was consequently in the unfortunate position of facing a bigger risk of being struck from that source. Struck by asteroids, meteorites or comets—they are all just flying lumps of rock or minerals or rubble and/or ice—escaped from the orbit of Jupiter and/or of the sun. Mars has over 43,000 detectable impact craters of five kilometers or more in diameter, and there could have been a lot more were it not for its atmosphere. Unlike, for example, our moon, Mars has an atmosphere, albeit 95% carbon dioxide and albeit very thin, but it has served to protect it to some degree from many of the smaller objects intent on colliding with it, because they burn or break up entirely when hitting that atmosphere.
Nevertheless, and even though it is only around half the size of Earth, there is no doubt that Mars is a prime candidate if you are on the hunt for a local bombardment range. Not that Mars is hit, in our terms, very frequently. But in galactic terms, it has been hit very frequently. And so, my neurons had concluded, on the one hand our friend Jeremy has a more than acceptable candidate for bombardment, and on the other he has some tremendous astronomical knowledge which permits him to know that next Monday, as it happens, an object of a decent size is due to impact Mars' surface. The same explanation as for the Jupiter impact. He simply has the knowledge.
Not very convincing, I told my neurons; the backup for the logic is extremely shaky. We agree on that, they replied, but there is no other possible explanation. The only alternative, that alien powers are at play, is impossible. Don't forget, they continued, that it was Jeremy himself who justified the choice of Mars, admittedly not very difficult for him to do, and let us not forget that it was also Jeremy who named the date. He simply happens to have the requisite knowledge.
All of this took me through the shit, shave and shower routine. I am not going to worry about it. With all due respect to my neurons, both explanations are ridiculous. And on top of that, there is nothing else that is possible. So I am not going to let the subject ruin my day, or any of my other days come to that. No point.
I asked Mr. Brown to accompany me to the petrol station and we had just reached the bottom of the stairs when Monika came bursting out of her apartment.
"Peter," she said, fighting off Mr. Brown's morning greetings as best she could, "It's good that I caught you. I heard you on the stairs. My sister has been taken to hospital. She says she has cancer. She will be operated on. I told her I would be with her by this afternoon. She lives in Leverkusen."
I never knew she had a sister, the subject had somehow never arisen. Cancer being one of the nastiest possibilities arising from the many incompetent blunders committed while designing the human being, the only thing you can do is hope that it happens to other people; like all of the other potential disasters lying in wait for you as you try to make it through your allotted time. Had I been allowed to manage the draughtman's office at the time, things would have turned out differently. But I wasn't asked, and so life, as Woody Allen once said—I think it was him—is short and hard and then you die. That is a factual statement and he gets full marks from me for that.
"I am so sorry…" I began.
"Peter, thank you. I'll see how it is when I get there. The question is, do I take your car? You are leaving tonight."
"Yes," I said and I went back upstairs to pick up the vehicle documentation and the keys and the key for its garage and we made the swap.
She gave me a very long kiss. A very long loving kiss, not an erotic one.
"What about Mr. Brown?" I asked.
"Don't worry, I'll be back home some time tonight. Definitely."
"But what if you can't? What if you have an accident?"
"Then I'll make sure Marie-Anne takes care of him. She loves dogs."
"But what if you are injured, what if you can't call her?"
"Peter, don't worry," she replied. "I am going to give her my key to your apartment right now. She will take him for a walk tonight and she will keep him with her until I get back. And if I don't get back, she will keep him with her for as long it takes until you get back. But I would need your hotel details in Spain. She or I would have to let you know if a problem arises. And in the worst case scenario, we would make sure he ended up in the dogs' holiday home. Don't worry, Peter, Mr. Brown is my friend, I love him, I'll make sure nothing happens to him."
Yes, and he is my friend too, and I also love him. His well-being is as important to me as anything else in my life. And that would have remained the case even if Céline had come into it, which she hadn't. I checked my mobile's address book and gave Monika the hotel name and address and the telephone number. I told her to please not give any of the details to anybody, including the police, and to tell Marie-Anne the same. She gave me a querying look and then she gave me another very affectionate kiss and then she was gone. I would, I knew, miss her greatly as usual.
I lit up a cigarette and Mr. Brown and I headed off to the petrol station. Then we went down to the river and I had two coffees and three more cigarettes at Marie-Anne's and I read my newspaper—exactly ninety conflict deaths today—while Mr. Brown bounded, jumped and sniffed his way around the park area. And then we went along to my bank and I picked up a large amount of cash. I didn't want to assist anybody by having to use my cash card or my credit cards during the next few weeks.
Back at the ranch I checked my mail and my bank account. The latter showed me that the €25,200 from United Fasteners had arrived. Life was good.
Delsey called. He was polite this time. Very polite.
"Mr. O'Donoghue, good morning," he said.
"Ah, Mr. Delsey, good morning," I replied.
"I am sorry to trouble you," he went on, "but there is considerable concern at the highest level."
I didn't say anything.
"The prime minister's meeting with Mr. Parker apparently went very well. We have not been given any of the details, but it appears that the matter could well be one of national importance and that another…mmm…event is due to take place next Monday which is likely to confirm that. First of all, I and my superiors would like to thank you for the role you played in persuading us to have this matter raised at such a high level. We would also like to apologize for our ini
tial doubts regarding the veracity of your assertions and we hope you appreciate that our reactions at that time were…mmm…logical ones, normal ones. Understandable ones indeed, in view of the nature of the circumstances."
"Certainly I understand Mr. Delsey," I said. "The whole thing is completely outside of anybody's normal experience."
"Yes. Well…thank you. Now…we have not been told what next Monday's event will be, but we have been requested to ask for your assistance and cooperation in addressing a concern raised by the prime minister."
"And that concern is?"
"That concern is how to reestablish contact with Mr. Jeremy Parker, should contact with him be lost for whatever reason. In such an event, would you be prepared to provide us with your cooperation on that?"
"I would be prepared to try, Mr. Delsey. But you appreciate what difficulties might arise if Mr. Parker were to decide that he didn't wish to be contacted."
"Yes…indeed, quite clearly. Well, Mr. O'Donoghue, it is very kind of you to agree to make the attempt should the need arise. May I assume that I have your agreement for me to report back along those lines?"
He was certainly being very careful, possibly the conversation was being recorded as well.
"Yes, Mr. Delsey, you do," I said.
"Thank you, Mr. O'Donoghue. By the way, I assume you are at home at the moment?" As if he didn't know.
"Yes, I am at home. In Germany." But I wouldn't be in a few hours' time, my friend.
"Well, then I wish you a pleasant day," he said, "and thank you for your continuing cooperation in this matter. It will be much appreciated by all concerned."
And then I went to bed and slept on and off for as long as I could. Unless you are mentally deficient, you need to be well rested before setting off on these long night drives. When I got up, I switched my mobile phone off and stored it in the linen cupboard, I packed a big suitcase, I put my laptop in my shoulder bag and I stored the cash in a safety pouch I use when on vacation and which is worn inside the waistband. I gave Mr. Brown another walk, I gave him his meal, I gave him the other half of his chocolate and I hugged him goodbye. My faithful friend and companion, I will miss him as always.
It was around 9 p.m. when I went down to Monika's car and stored the luggage. I hung three lightweight suits and a summer jacket in the back of the car, I checked that all the lights were working, I adjusted the seat and the mirrors, and then I drove off. I tanked up at the petrol station and fixed the tire pressures, always a couple of notches higher, front and rear, than the manufacturer's recommendation. And then it was onto the A66, and east toward Frankfurt in order to pick up the A5 going south.
The A5 takes you straight down past Karlsruhe and Freiburg to Basel in Switzerland and I would normally have chosen this route. You then continue on through Bern, Lausanne and Geneva and that is the point at which you enter France. But I wanted to avoid Switzerland and the passport check of a non-EU country. Not a serious matter, but I wanted to leave as few traces lying around as possible and in any case Monika's car didn't need to advertise a Swiss autoroute toll sticker on its windscreen (yes, I know, but have you ever tried taking one of those things off?). And so I cut off the A5 before reaching Basel and entered France on the A36 to Mulhouse. There is in fact very little difference in the distance travelled whichever route you choose.
DAY 29
It is just around 1,500 kilometers by road from Frankfurt to Barcelona and it is all autobahn and autoroute and autopista. At night you are quickly through Germany and into France and after that you can safely travel at just over their speed limit, say at around 140 kilometers per hour. And so the total driving time to Barcelona, allowing for reduced speeds here and there for road works and the like, and for the French and Spanish toll payments, is about 12 hours. Theoretically, that is. But add on the two stops needed to tank the car—and possibly another one just before Barcelona—the coffee breaks, and the time lost in the heavy morning traffic in Spain, and you are looking at a realistic estimate of 14 hours total.
After Mulhouse you drive past Besançon and switch onto the A6 down to Lyon, La Route du Soleil, and you just stay on the autoroutes all the way to Montpellier and Perpignan. And then you coast through into Spain and past Gerona and on down into Barcelona.
Driving at night suits me. I have good eyesight and I don't tire easily and you get to where you want to get to much faster than you can with daytime traffic volumes. Of course you miss a lot of the French countryside until the planet's anticlockwise spin exposes this particular section to the sun's rays again, but that's the price you have to pay. And it is a price. Whether it's the Massif Central, the Alps, Provence, Brittany, the Loire valley, the Côte d‘Azur, the Pyrenees, the Basque country around Biarritz or wherever else you go, France is just one beautiful country.
And that is not the only thing I like about France. I like their language, I like their chansons, I like their food, I like their movies, I like their wine and I like their women. I love their women in fact. French women are very conscious of the fact that they are female and they are very conscious of the fact that you are male, and they like to keep it that way. They don't try to change themselves and they don't try to adopt or copy male characteristics. If a man stares longer than he should at an attractive French woman, mentally undressing her as usual and having his customary sexual dreams, she takes it as a compliment and not, like many of her mutated western counterparts these days, as an insult. She is more au fait with life, sexually and intellectually. And even if she only has twenty Euros with which to buy a blouse and a skirt, she still manages to look chic and feminine and female. Don't ask me how or why, it's just the way it is. And I like the French people in general also. This is admittedly only possible if you take the trouble to learn their language properly, rather than wandering around their country spouting a load of unintelligible, grammatically incorrect, Birmingham-accented junk. Because then they don't like you and you do not, correspondingly, like them. Nor do they have a problem with that; the problem is yours if you want to make it one.
I had some great classical music going as I drove on down into Spain. The sun was shining merrily in its habitual Spanish manner and I was feeling pretty good. The Céline ache continued to recede inexorably further into the very depths of the archives of matters past, albeit the section reserved for painful ones.
Spain is a very different kettle of fish from France. It is—except for the north-western area and part of the Pyrenees—a much browner place, a more parched and dusty country, which even the stunted pines to be found in this north-eastern coastal area cannot fully disguise. There are also plenty of dilapidated, uncared-for or abandoned buildings—although not nearly as many as in Italy of course, the Italians rival the ex-Soviet Union countries in that respect—and this tells you that you are in a different environment from the moment you cross the border. The culture is totally different also, not surprisingly in view of the fact that most of the country was dominated for centuries by the Arabs. The Spanish language still contains thousands of words derived from the Arabic.
In fact it is the language, more than anything else, which is the distinguishing feature of this country's culture. Someone once said—and I concur fully with whomever it was—that in order to be able to have a conversation with a Spaniard, you need to learn how to shout while you listen. To this we have to add the use of the hands and the arms and sometimes other body parts, all of which play an important role in both grammatical punctuation and descriptive syntax. And finally, we must include the frequent usage of obscene—but in Spain, not necessarily offensive—nouns and verbs such as 'cunt' and 'fuck', spoken, as already indicated, at loudspeaker volumes irrespective of where you happen to be. 'Hola, coño' is a friendly way of greeting an acquaintance. 'Joder!' is an amicable expression of concurrence and/or wonder. 'No me jodas!' translates literally as 'don't fuck me', but is a polite enough assertion of surprise. 'Hijo de puta' can be a friendly greeting you receive, or it can be used as a direct
insult of the kind involving your mother and yourself. And the latter is also true for 'La leche' which refers to your mother's milk rather than a cow's, but politely refrains from advising in which context or exactly what may have been wrong with it—polite omissions which in fact can stoke the recipient's imagination to the point where irritation and displeasure mutate into a passionate display of uncontrolled wrath. These delightful expressions are accepted in restaurants and in the presence of women and the list is a long one. A different culture, you understand.
* * * * *
But I am digressing again. It was slower than usual entering Barcelona, it being a Friday morning. Even so, it was still only just after eleven as I drove down the ramp into the underground car park near the Paseo de Gracia—Passeig de Gracia is what it's called since they translated it into Catalan. I put my shaving kit and a tube of toothpaste and a change of clothes into my shoulder bag and took one of the suits and ties from the car and headed up into the street. It was already hot, pushing 30˚ centigrade and very humid. That is a problem I have with Barcelona, the frequent humidity. I can take 40˚ in Madrid any day. It is usually a dry heat due to the fact that that city sits on a plateau at around 650 meters above sea level. But Barcelona is the kind of place with days when you can take a shower, walk for twenty meters, and then need to take another one.
Knowing this, I put my plan into action. Señor Pujol's offices were close by, just around the corner in fact in the Calle—or Carrer as the Catalan has it—de Mallorca, and there were two or three good hotels just down the road. I walked into the first one and told them I wished to book a room for a week but that I had to attend an important meeting in about half an hour's time and was there anywhere I could change until whatever time it was that a room would become available. Yes sir, there were los servicios just down the corridor and if I would be so kind as to leave my passport, they would prepare the reservation in the meantime. My room would be available by 2 p.m. at the latest. Ah, I said, my passport was unfortunately in the car but as I would be taking my travelling clothes back there and picking up my suitcase, I would bring the passport along then. The logic to this has some tolerably large holes in it of course, but the reception guy said yes sir, no problem at all sir.
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