French Fried: one man's move to France with too many animals and an identity thief

by Chris Dolley

  But the car did look more abandoned than parked. Slued, as it was, across several car parking spaces and at a jaunty angle to the wall.

  And slued it would have to stay. I’d had enough car parking for one day and I had a Post Office to find.

  oOo

  I’d never felt so self-conscious before. Castlenau wasn’t a large place. It was a small town. A high street, a couple of squares, a network of side streets. And around any corner, at any moment, could come David Jarvis.

  I wasn’t sure how I’d react. Would I confront him ... or run? He could be innocent, he could be dangerous.

  All things considered, I thought it preferable we didn’t meet.

  It took a while to track down the Poste. I thought I’d been very clever. I’d noticed a hotel called the Hôtel de la Poste and deduced the post office couldn’t be far away. Elementary, I thought to myself, and I would have been right too – if I’d arrived in 1972. Unfortunately the Poste had since moved to a new building.

  I placed detection on hold and asked directions.

  It was a small post office: two counters and enough room for a small conga line. And on the wall a poster advertising something called Posteclair – a fax service.

  This was encouraging. I placed the copy of the fax header on the counter and asked, “can you tell me if this fax originated from here or Villeurbanne?”

  The woman studied the page for a short while before pronouncing, “ici.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oui.”

  This was much better than I’d expected.

  “But the stamp here says 17h. Villeurbanne says 14h15?”

  A shrug. Followed by something I couldn’t quite catch.

  I asked if she could say it again more slowly.

  “The stamp always says that,” she exclaimed and showed me the stamp – Castlenau, 17h. They never changed it. It’s always five o’clock in Castlenau.

  Which I thought sounded pretty nifty as a song title.

  “Do you know who sent this fax?”

  I knew this was pushing my script to the limit but I was on a roll. And amazed I’d reached so far without meeting a blank stare or a non.

  “Oui.” she replied.

  I hardly dared ask the next question.

  “Who?”

  “This man,” she said pointing at my name on the fax header.

  The French are definitely a very trusting people.

  I tried to explain to her that that was me but I think I just made things worse. If it was me, why was I asking who sent the fax? Was I stupid or just forgetful?

  “I’m English,” I explained.

  “Ah.” she smiled, “Anglais.”

  No need to say any more.

  oOo

  But I had solved the riddle of the wandering fax. All international faxes from the Castlenau Poste were routed through an agency in Villeurbanne. So there had been no attempt to disguise the fax’s source or lay down an elaborate plan to frame anyone.

  Outside the Post Office, I was just digesting this new piece of information when I saw two familiar figures walking along the pavement towards me: Shelagh and her mother.

  “I thought we were going to meet back at the car?” I said as we moved into hailing range.

  “We haven’t found a toilet yet,” came back the terse reply. I could tell by Shelagh’s tone that the search was not progressing well.

  “We’ll have to try a cafe,” I suggested.

  Nan’s eyes lit up. The thought of having a coffee, perhaps staying for a meal, was a pleasant one to contemplate.

  But not for Shelagh. She had a meal waiting at home. And she’d been to restaurants with her mother before. The words – I can’t eat that, I don’t like them and I’m not touching those – still chimed through her memory.

  Anything with red meat or remotely concerned with internal organs was out. Pasta was inedible and vegetarian dishes were a cheat. And no sauces.

  Which just about closed the book on French cuisine. It was difficult enough struggling with a menu written in French without having a fatwa against anything tasty.

  We found the nearest cafe and ordered three coffees.

  And waited for Nan to come back from the toilet.

  Which she did unexpectedly quickly.

  And with the words, “I can’t stay here,” pushed passed us and headed for the exit.

  Something had happened.

  Shelagh managed to head her off at the door and tried to find out what was the matter.

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Silence.

  “Was there someone in there?”

  An inkling of possibility. Was it one of those mixed toilets? Had Nan walked in and found a man in the Ladies?

  She wasn’t saying.

  We had another bout of What happened? You know! No, I don’t. Yes, you do – which I stayed out of and quietly sipped my coffee.

  Eventually a quiet voice whispered the terrible truth. “Somebody stole the toilet.”

  Even a Great Detective’s mind can boggle. And mine was no exception.

  Why would anyone want to steal a toilet? And how? It’s not the sort of thing anyone could sneak away from under your nose. Well, perhaps not your nose but under your...

  I was told to shut up, I was making things worse.

  Shelagh went in search of the missing toilet and I was told to stay with Nan.

  And then came the answer.

  The cafe had one of those hole-in-the-ground affairs. Which, now I came to think about it, did look suspiciously like the aftermath of a daring sanitary appliance raid.

  We tried to explain the idiosyncrasies of French plumbing to Nan but there were certain standards that could never be compromised. A hole in the ground would always be a hole in the ground. Never a toilet.

  We downed three very quick coffees and left.

  But we had to find a toilet.

  Which meant another cafe.

  And another three coffees.

  I suppose we could have marched in, used the facilities and left but it didn’t feel right. So I hovered by the bar, checking the menu while Shelagh went to inspect the sanitary ware.

  Which apparently passed the test. Shelagh appeared with a relieved smile and waved Nan over. And I ordered the coffees.

  “Anglais?” the barman asked as I passed him our order.

  “Oui,” I replied, wondering if it was my accent or our preoccupation with sanitary ware that gave us away. Most customers chose a restaurant by their menu. Only the English check the toilets.

  And soon I was doing likewise. Two cups of coffee in quick succession had taken their toll.

  oOo

  Safely ensconced back at home, I reflected upon the events of the day. It hadn’t been an overwhelming success. The Great Detective had intended to enter Castlenau like a shadow in the night – arrive, detect and quickly depart – leaving no trace of his ever having been there.

  Instead, he’d terrorised half a car park and placed every restaurant on red alert – watch out, health inspectors!

  But that was in the past, Shelagh had let slip that we knew other English couples in the area and Nan wanted to meet them. Immediately, if not sooner.

  I could feel another attempt to convert us to coffee mornings and house parties coming on.

  Mothers never give up.

  I was just in the process of ringing round with the first batch of invitations when I remembered that Lynne probably knew David Jarvis better than most people. I remembered her saying once that she’d been one of his first customers. He’d only been in business a few months and they’d kept in touch ever since.

  Had she ever heard of Peter Kennedy?

  I asked, nonchalantly slipping the name Peter Kennedy into the conversation.

  “Oh, Peter. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

  “What? You know him?” I tried not to sound surprised but I was too shocked to carry it off. I’d been so sure he didn’t ex
ist.

  And I had to ask. “What’s he look like?”

  “Peter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, very much like David, really.”

  Small, well dressed, minced?

  “Yes.”

  Fair haired, fluent French?

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  No, but I had a nasty feeling he knew me.

  Sherlock Holmes’ Darker Brother-In-Law

  Even Great Detectives are allowed a break on their birthdays. I was allowed cake as well.

  Two of them.

  I could tell by the disgruntled, “oh,” that met the mention of Shelagh’s imminent chocolate cake that something was amiss. And when Nan answered, “nothing,” to the question, “What’s the matter?” my suspicions were confirmed.

  “Where is it?” I asked her.

  “What?”

  “The cake.”

  Silence.

  But I knew. Nan being the only person who regularly, and secretly, carries six pounds of fruitcake and a slab of icing in her hand luggage.

  I used to think it was because she’d seen one of those disaster films where the plane crashes and the survivors have to draw lots on who’s to be eaten first – six pounds of fruit cake being worth at least a couple of legs on the open body parts market.

  “You haven’t brought a cake with you again, have you?” cried Shelagh.

  This is the joy of families – everything you do is remembered, catalogued and used in evidence against you later.

  Shelagh reminded Nan of the incident of the suitcase that wouldn’t close on her trip to Majorca. Of how she found not one but two slabs of fruit cake buried amongst her clothes. And how they agreed she’d never do it again.

  “You agreed!”

  “We agreed!”

  From there the conversation dwelt on the wisdom of eighty year-olds travelling light and an Englishwoman’s inalienable right to bake.

  “But I wanted to make a birthday cake!”

  “You could have made it here! If you’d said, I’d have got the ingredients ready for you.”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “It still could have.”

  “No, it couldn’t.”

  “Yes, it could.”

  And so on. From that point the conversation became interesting only to the participants as previous grievances – and there were nearly forty years of them – were aired in quick succession.

  I’d heard them all before so I slipped quietly out. I knew if I stayed there was the distinct possibility I might be asked to arbitrate and I knew that families and arbitration did not mix.

  I still remember the incident of my mother and the two sweaters. I thought I’d been clever – wearing one of her two presents to pick her up at the station. Instead I walked straight into: “What’s wrong with the other one? Don’t you like it? I can change it if you want.”

  I was not going to be asked to choose between two cakes.

  I left to the strains of, “you used to be such a nice little girl,” followed by the plaintive wail, “you never let me have a puppy!”

  oOo

  Shelagh spent the rest of the weekend doing a passable impersonation of a Chernobyl reactor minus its concrete cover, while Nan occupied her time making the kind of helpful suggestions that only a mother can.

  I kept a low profile.

  And thought about Monday.

  I decided we’d need more than a script for our rendezvous with the bank. We’d need a letter. Something we could hand over and set the scene before we launched into a series of questions about how the account was set up, did he remember the man, were we in debt?

  For one thing, I was worried about who the bank would recognise as the true owner of the account; the person who opened it or the person whose name he used? Would we drive all that way only to be denied access to the account details?

  I thought the best idea was to present all the facts, produce every scrap of identification we possessed and mention the gendarmes as often as possible.

  And hope the manager spoke French.

  Of course there was the remote possibility that he spoke English. But it’s hard to be that optimistic when you’ve been impersonated, robbed, abandoned, and shunted by your brother-in-law.

  oOo

  Monday came and we were ready to leave early. We had thought we were going to travel alone. But had reckoned without Nan. Gypsy wasn’t the only one who ran to the car door whenever a journey was in the offing.

  If there was a trip to Spain, she wasn’t going to miss out. I tried to explain that this was not a sightseeing visit. We had to track down a bank and talk to a bank manager. That was it. No shopping, no restaurants – with or without toilets.

  It didn’t work.

  Neither did our suggestion that she take advantage of the gorgeous weather and a well-stocked fridge meet with any favour. Apparently sitting in the sun all day was classified as a ’dead day.’

  I had forgotten about ’dead days.’

  It was Nan’s classification of life. She believed that at eighty you should live each day as if it were your last. And days that did not come up to the mark were ’dead days.’

  Sitting in the sun doing nothing was a ’dead day.’ As, apparently, was watching television or reading a book.

  Sitting in a car outside a bank, however, was, surprisingly, not a ’dead day’.

  Gypsy wasn’t so lucky. No amount of crying or circumnavigation of cars would buy her place in the back seat. She’d need a rabies vaccination to be allowed into Spain. I mused momentarily whether there was a similar regulation for mothers-in-law. But, wisely, kept the speculation to myself.

  Guinny was never so reticent. She caught Gypsy’s eye and expertly demonstrated the length of the rabies needle and suggested she book an early visit to the vet.

  We drove away to the accompaniment of a howled lament.

  And a dog’s head protruding from the cat flap.

  oOo

  It’s an easy journey into Spain, fast dual carriageways to begin with followed by a gentle climb up a mountain pass. It would take barely an hour.

  But an hour was apparently too long for some people. Or, more accurately, some people’s bladders.

  “Can you stop at the next wooded bit?” enquired my front seat passenger, aka Shelagh.

  Which, of course, made the landscape immediately change. All ’next wooded bits’ promptly disappeared and wide open rocky bits pushed themselves to the fore.

  I slowed to a crawl. My eyes darting from side to side, checking out anything that looked like a track or a side road or something that might lead towards a bush.

  “Are we there?” piped Nan from the back seat.

  Was this another coded query? Had another bladder tightened?

  Apparently not. The car’s slowing had aroused thoughts about shopping. What were the shops like at Bossost? Was it a big place? Was that where the big supermarket was?

  I again produced the party line that this was not a shopping trip, it was a quick visit to a bank and an even quicker trip home.

  The party line did not play well to the back seat electorate and it was with immense relief that I espied a small copse up ahead and pulled over.

  Sherlock Holmes never had this trouble. Mrs. Hudson never waylaid him on his doorstep and insisted he take her shopping. Or drop her off at Honiton for a cream tea on his way to Baskerville Hall. And he never had to stop for Watson to relieve himself behind a bush. Come to think of it he never had Mycroft run into the back of his Hansom Cab either.

  Which is the difference between fact and fiction; fictional detectives can ditch their families before the turning of the first page. Real detectives have to live with them, find them wooded bits on demand and promise a long stopover at the supermarket on the way back.

  oOo

  We snaked higher into the Pyrenees; passing tiny villages, the house roofs steepening as we went, grey slate replacing the warm pink terracotta tiles of t
he valley floor, grassy meadows clinging to steep valley sides, the vast flat fields of grain and sunflowers a distant memory in the rear-view mirror.

  The road turned and climbed, following the Garonne, sometimes on its left bank, sometimes on its right. The river flowing fast, flecked white over a bed of boulders and giant stones. Everything closing in upon itself; the sky, the fields, the houses. The valley sides steepening into huge rock faces and sheer cliffs. Untouched natural beauty interspersed with quarries and clouds of rock dust. One village we passed through was caked white. The road surface, the house fronts, the roofs – all covered in a permanent wash of white from the neighbouring factory and the procession of heavy lorries.

  The pass continued dotted with bends and houses. Some tucked so snugly into the folds of the valley that they could never see the sun. I wondered why anyone would build there. Who would want to live in a house never touched by the sun? Even on a sunny day the house looked cold and damp – the stone walls and slate roof glistening dark, grey and moist.

  We passed the little customs post near the border – empty as usual. I think they only manned it during lorry strikes. Which seemed bizarre to me – to wait until the frontier’s blocked before manning the customs post.

  Two miles later we crossed into Spain. The road signs changed and the Garonne became La Garona.

  oOo

  We decided to visit Les first. It was on the way to Bossost and I wanted to check out the handwritten address on the bank statement.

  Maybe the bank was in Les – a sub-branch of a larger branch in Bossost? Or the address might belong to a hotel – a temporary address given by my impersonator to the bank staff. Either way it had to be checked out.

  The road widened and flattened as we entered Les. We’d reached the top of the pass. Hotels, restaurants and large white houses shone in the sun, their gardens alive with late summer greenery set against the hazy browns of the surrounding peaks that stretched around us for miles.

  It was a lovely spot, high up in the mountains and bathed in sun, the peaks set back and forming a natural bowl.

  I slowed the car as we peered at the numbers on the houses and strained to catch a road name.

  And then there it was. The address we’d been looking for – 48, San Agueda.

  It was a bank.

  The bank.