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

by Chris Dolley

  No, it was Remy … from the football team. As he slowed down his speech and repeated every sentence several times, I managed to translate his message. He was desperate. Racing Club were desperate. Could I play tonight? It was an important cup match against Sepx and everyone else had flu.

  I think my ego could have done without the translation of the last phrase. But my inability to refuse a drink is only exceeded by inability to pass up a game of football. After all, what a day it had been, and what better way to end it than with a pleasant kick about followed by a meal?

  And there’d be a chance to regale the entire team with my exploits – if not the referee as well. Who could pass up on that?

  Shelagh, for one.

  “I thought you’d given up football?”

  “No, I hadn’t.” I’d just taken a break, that was all. I didn’t feel much like training the day we’d discovered the theft. And the week after that we were in the throes of changing all the locks to the house.

  “Why don’t you come and watch?”

  I could tell by the glazed expression passing over Shelagh’s face that watching her husband play football had suddenly entered her ‘dead day’ chart.

  At a very lofty position.

  Nan, however, disagreed. Watching her son-in-law make a fool of himself was never ‘dead day’ material. Especially when accompanied by a car trip.

  Gypsy woofed approval. If she couldn’t sink her teeth into a criminal, she could at least have a go at the opposition goalkeeper.

  And so off we set later that afternoon, carefully avoiding all unexpectedly sticky road surfaces. At Cassagne, we joined the team convoy and plunged into another swathe of uncharted campagne.

  We were soon at the back of the convoy. Car drivers in France treat country roads as unmarked rally sections. Maybe they all knew the route, maybe the lead driver’s ESP told him that no oncoming traffic or stray cow would threaten his progress.

  I greatly doubted it.

  We flew along the straight sections. We swung into bends. We swung out of them again.

  “Gypsy doesn’t like this,” said Nan.

  I was not too enthused either. Only the car seemed to be enjoying himself – gone was all the nervous stuttering and stalling. Perhaps this is what he needed all along – company – to be part of a pack of wild boy racers.

  We climbed, we descended, we passed fields, we passed woods.

  Gypsy passed gas.

  It was one of those journeys.

  But we made it. We followed the convoy into the small town of Sepx; a place I could barely pronounce, let alone find my way back from.

  oOo

  The stadium at Sepx was superb. Like so many of the small grounds in the Sud, it was cut into the side of a gently sloping hill; giving magnificent views over the surrounding countryside, stretched out below, and a gently shelving bank above from which to watch the match.

  Breathtaking. Miles and miles of undulating countryside in late summer greens and fading yellow browns; the tower of a distant church, the sky edged red by the slowly setting sun.

  I soon discovered that Racing Club was not quite as desperate as I’d been led to believe. There were twelve of us getting changed. And, unless the laws of football had been altered in the last fortnight, one of us would have to be substitute. Surrounded by so much youth and fitness, the balding detective did not have to overstrain his little grey cells to solve that one.

  The game started with the Great Detective watching from the grassy bank.

  “Why isn’t he playing?” I heard Nan ask Shelagh.

  “He’s too old,” whispered Shelagh, “they’re afraid he’ll keel over and they can’t afford the insurance.”

  I could now see why Great Detectives did not include playing football as part of their post-dénouement revelries – too much scope for detective-baiting. The tension of the chase over, the sidekicks turn on their master and exact revenge on the monstrous intellect at bay.

  Five minutes later, Gypsy started singing. I wasn’t sure if it was a verse from some well known canine football chant or a plea to the Racing Club manager to bring on the ‘old guy’.

  “Gypsy’s cold,” decided Nan. “Look at her, she’s shivering.”

  “No, she’s not,” I said. “She’s shaking with anticipation. She can’t wait to see her master grace the hallowed turf.”

  Six pairs of eyes looked away from me – and the little bubble of dreamworld I inhabited.

  “Are you cold, mum? Do you want to go back to the car?”

  “I think Gypsy might.”

  Which, being as close to a ‘yes’ as anyone could extract without recourse to electrodes, was taken as an affirmative. I was abandoned. My entourage leaving for warmer climes. I suppose it was early October. And it was getting dark. The floodlights had just come on and added a cooling silver tint to the surroundings.

  Half time came and went. The game flowed back and forth with neither team gaining an advantage, a goal for us, a goal for them. The crowd swelled as more and more people came home from work.

  “When are you going to play?” asked Shelagh, on a flying visit from the car.

  I didn’t know. Every time I broached the subject with the manager, I received a Gallic shrug.

  “I expect they’re saving you for later.”

  When sidekicks give up baiting in favour of sympathy, you know you’re in a bad way.

  But I didn’t need sympathy – I was the Great Detective! The Great Detective on his Greatest Day! Nothing could diminish that. Surely it was only a matter of time?

  Indeed it was. With thirty minutes remaining and the score tied at one goal apiece, the call arrived.

  It’s tempting to suggest that playing me on the left wing brought a much-needed balance to the side; that the introduction of a fresh pair of legs and extra pace cut their defence apart.

  But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate.

  Once or twice in every player’s life, you play in a game where suddenly everything goes right. It’s hard to explain, there’s no reason behind it and it’s something that can never be coached. But every once in a while, one team can do no wrong and one team can do no right.

  This was one of those days.

  Every attack we made seemed to result in a goal. And if one of our players didn’t score, a Sepx player would step in and score for us. It was bizarre.

  With the final whistle fast approaching, we were 6-1 up. Amazing. We weren’t five goals better than Sepx – just five goals luckier.

  The game moved into injury time. We were awarded a corner on the right hand side. I took up position on the left side of the penalty area. As I stood there, I looked up at the sky. Somewhere, high above the floodlights, Fate was laughing. Who else could have wrought such havoc on a game of football? And would it be so bad to let some of that luck fall my way? Just a little goal. Just one. Was that so much to ask? Something so that I could say that I played in a French cup-tie at the age of forty-one and was still good enough to score a goal. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask?

  Silence.

  The corner came in hard and fast towards the near post. A gaggle of players leapt to meet it and the keeper punched the ball clear. It ballooned over my head, I turned and ran after it – I’d been the quickest to react. Time slowed around me as I set off in pursuit, keeping pace with ball. It was going to land about ten yards outside the penalty area. There was only one other player with a chance of getting there before me – a Sepx player running back towards the goal. Just the two of us, running towards each other, the ball dropping in between. Who would get there first? And what should I do?

  Shouldn’t I take advantage of Fate’s switch of sides? Wasn’t this the chance of a lifetime? For thirty minutes everything we’d tried had come off, hadn’t I been handed a carte blanche to try anything I desired?

  My mind flew back twenty-five years. What would I do if I was sixteen again? My back to the goal, ball dropping outside the penalty area, crowded goal mou
th?

  The looping overhead kick!

  There could be no other choice!

  I heard a scream from my forty-one year-old imagination. Are you mad? The overhead kick? You have to leap into the air, hang horizontal, nearly five feet off the ground, waiting for the ball to come into position. Then wham! Not the sound of the boot meeting ball, but head meeting ground as you plummet five feet onto solid earth.

  You’ll never walk again!

  But it’s the overhead kick! I’ve always wanted to score from an overhead kick in a big match and this has got be my best chance.

  Best chance of being hospitalised! Not to mention the effect that flying feet first at the head of an approaching player would have on said player.

  But…

  I forwent the full overhead kick in favour of a sawn-off version, a stretch and a lunge, with my left foot firmly planted on terra firma. The Sepx player stretched and lunged too. Two legs arcing out to reach the ball first.

  He got there first.

  By a fraction of an inch.

  And quickly wished he hadn’t.

  The ball flew off his boot, over my head and looped back towards the goal. Despairing defenders tried to get their heads to it … and failed. The keeper lunged and flapped at the ball with a hand. He failed too.

  In a scene reminiscent from the Great Goal, the ball looped over a crowded goal mouth and found the smallest of gaps between the keeper’s hand and the angle between the far post and the cross-bar. The net bulged and a cheer rang out.

  And a large overhead snicker from Fate.

  I was mobbed. An overhead lob from thirty yards? Never had such unerring accuracy been seen in the Ligue du Comminges. I tried to explain what really happened and pointed to the Sepx player, who quickly denied all knowledge of the goal – it hadn’t been him, he’d never touched it.

  oOo

  We had no trouble keeping up with the convoy for the trip back to Cassagne – I was too excited to be left behind. I may not have scored but I’d still been responsible, hadn’t I? Hadn’t Fate intervened the moment my feet hit the pitch? Turned a one all draw into a 7-1 massacre? What further proof did anyone need? Fate had forgiven me – more than forgiven me – Fate was now actively on my side!

  Gypsy woofed in agreement.

  She knew which side her bread was buttered.

  We pulled into the old square at Cassagne. Everything was in darkness. But not for long. Soon one, then two overhead floodlights flickered into life and the old square came alive – the church, the Mairie, the old stone buildings. Soon the square was bustling with people and voices, the clink of glasses and the smell of food cooking over an open fire.

  It didn’t take long for Gypsy’s nose to sniff out the latter. As we sorted through our change to find the 120 francs necessary to purchase three places at the meal, she turned her big brown eyes towards Shelagh and woofed a plaintive “four?”

  Shelagh looked at me and I looked at Gypsy. It was a day of celebration … and she hadn’t eaten yet. But…

  “They wouldn’t allow dogs, would they?” Shelagh asked.

  From my experience of the after-match football meals, there wasn’t much they wouldn’t allow.

  Gypsy nodded agreement.

  And it wasn’t as though she’d eat much…

  An angel would have been hard-pressed to match the expression of righteous probity that beamed up at us. Me? Eat much. Why, I’m practically a vegetarian.

  “We’ll ask Remy,” I said

  Who we found tending the barbecue, a glass of Ricard in one hand and a spatula in the other, and a large apron covering his ample middle.

  We pointed at Gypsy and asked if it was all right to bring her to the meal?

  “We’ll pay,” I added.

  But Remy would hear none of it.

  “Pay? Bah! Look at her tiny stomach,” he said – or words to that effect – reaching down and giving Gypsy’s wasp-like waist a squeeze.

  We froze, waiting for the crocodile jaws of our hell-hound to turn and fasten on Remy’s arm.

  The crocodile jaws cracked into a smile, a tongue popped out and rakishly draped itself over a set of teeth. A tail wagged.

  Someone must have switched dogs on us!

  We both eyed Gypsy suspiciously.

  Remy patted her head.

  We both flinched – expecting the worst – and I could see Shelagh’s eyes counting Remy’s fingers as he withdrew his hand.

  Definitely a different dog.

  Although, come to think of it, it wasn’t out of character at all; we’d become so used to Gypsy’s demoniacal behaviour at home, we’d forgotten what a paragon she was with strangers.

  Only my ankles and a yellow squeaky dinosaur named Kevin knew the real Gypsy.

  Nan tugged at Shelagh’s sleeve. “Do they have any chicken?” she whispered.

  Shelagh looked at the large tray of steaks and chops.

  Remy caught Shelagh’s glance. “Meat for victory!” he said, beaming as he pushed steaks around the barbecue grill.

  I wasn’t sure if this was some ancient blood-curdling oath or Racing Club’s win bonus. I wasn’t too sure how Nan’s request for white meat, sans sauce, sans spice would go down either. It had a distinctly defeatist tone about it to me – red meat for victory, white unseasoned meat for unmitigated defeat. But I had to mention it to Remy or Gypsy would be asking all evening – where’s the chicken?

  Remy couldn’t have been more helpful. His huge arms enveloped me, the scorer of goal number seven. Never had he seen such a goal. Chicken was a small price to pay to witness such a spectacle.

  Remy was not alone in thinking I’d scored. So did everyone else. I tried to disabuse them, explaining how it’d been the defender. But nobody believed me. Typical English reserve, I think they thought – lobs a packed penalty area from thirty yards and blames a defender!

  After my fourth Ricard, I agreed with them. And wasn’t it nearer forty yards?

  The drink flowed and the meat sizzled. The square rang with laughter and accounts of derring-do. I tried a few lines from the Great Detective’s exploits but found it impossible to translate. By the time I’d explained what a mutual fund was, why ours was in Dublin and yet we were English and the bank was in Spain, I’d lost myself as well as the audience.

  So I fell back on sign language, improvisation and – quite unexpectedly – a Giant Elk. People liked the road-layer story best; they’d never heard of a killer mutant road-laying Deathstar before, but they liked the elk. Which just goes to show that after six Ricards, any story with a Giant Elk in it is a sure-fire winner.

  Nan was in her element – surrounded by people and deep in conversation. The fact that no one understood a word she said was irrelevant. They were just quiet, she said. Like many English people of a certain age, Nan was convinced that all people were born with an innate knowledge of the English language. They might not know it, but if they heard enough of it, and it was spoken loudly, they’d remember.

  Gypsy was in her element too, surrounded by food and people feeding her. Why hadn’t someone introduced her to football earlier?

  “It has been worth it, hasn’t it?” I asked Shelagh as the last of the food made its final round.

  “If every day was like this one.”

  “Including the road-layers?”

  She smiled. “I think I could have done without the road-layers … and David Jarvis.”

  “And the wasps.”

  “And the insert.”

  “And the move.”

  “And the plumbing.”

  “But wouldn’t it have been boring? A year ago we rarely left our farm. Now we have lunch in the mountains and steak by starlight. All in one day.”

  Above us, a family of owls flitted back and forth from a nest in the church tower. We watched, enthralled, as they perched on a high ledge, their white faces picked out by the swathe of light. And then one would launch itself into the night, its huge wings outstretched embracing the cool night air
. And then it would be gone, swallowed up by the blackness. Back and forth they flew, hunting and feeding, silent and magnificent.

  Magical.

  I wanted that night to last forever.

  And it has.

  A Plausible Epilogue

  David Jarvis was interviewed by the gendarmes the following week, admitted responsibility for the crime but fell back on the ‘something snapped’ defence.

  He claimed that not long after our purchase, he received a package of mail to forward to us. It came in a large Post Office envelope and was partly open – so partly open that he couldn’t help but look inside. The first page he saw was the invitation to surrender an insurance policy and the next was a breakdown of what it was worth. He was in dire financial straits, a client’s cheque had recently bounced...

  And naturally something snapped: an honest man tempted into crime by cruel circumstance and entrapment by the postal services.

  Unfortunately for him, the Great Detective had yet to hang up his deer-stalker. As I explained to the gendarmes, why would the Post Office – be they French, British or Irish – hand over mail to someone who does not appear in any of the correspondence, is unknown to the sender and lives twenty miles away from the destination address?

  Not to mention the fact that we’d been receiving mail sans problème since the day we arrived in France.

  And there was other evidence.

  Like the extra deposit he’d asked us to pay on our house. As soon as we established the fact that David Jarvis was not to be trusted, we naturally started to look at our house purchase – had he cheated us on that, as well?

  We’d thought it strange at the time but, like many buyers in the throes of moving, we didn’t want to lose our house. David had given us a very plausible story, telling us that the major creditor was a bank that had had problems before with overseas buyers pulling out at the last minute. The bank was now insisting we paid a higher deposit of 16% to prove we were serious.

  He’d said he was phoning from a meeting with them and a decision was needed immediately. If we agreed, he could pay the money over for us and we could reimburse him. If we didn’t, they were likely to press for the house to be sold by auction instead.