by Michael Bond
‘You do not mind vin rouge?’
‘I do not mind vin anything,’ said Caterina.
She looked around at the other diners. ‘It isn’t quite what I expected. Do you think I’m overdoing things? Nobody else seems to have bothered to dress.’
‘You are looking absolutely ravishing,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘That is no crime. I doubt if there is a girl here who does not envy you, nor a man who would not wish to ride off with you on his white charger.’
Suddenly aware that another passenger seated on the opposite side of the coach was listening intently to their conversation, Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced across and looked the other up and down. Having registered pointed black shoes, polished until you could see your face in them, and what he could only describe as an old-fashioned dark pin-striped suit – he couldn’t quite say why it struck him as old-fashioned, perhaps it was the cut, or the over-wide stripes – a white silk shirt, pencil moustache, thick black hair, brilliantined and brushed back – it somehow went with the suit – he formed what was probably a wholly irrational dislike of the man. ‘Il Blobbo’ would be a good name for him. The fingernails of the left hand, which was holding a small glass of colourless liquid – it could have been Grappa – looked freshly manicured. Eye contact was rendered impossible by virtue of a pair of impenetrably dark Bausch & Lomb glasses.
Monsieur Pamplemousse was irresistibly reminded of the famous anti-Nixon campaign slogan ‘Would you buy a second-hand car from this man?’ The answer in the present case was most emphatically ‘no’. From the studiedly insolent way in which the other took his time before seeking shelter behind a copy of La Stampa, it was clear that the feeling was mutual, although he hoped it was for a different reason.
‘Pardon?’ He suddenly realised the girl was talking to him.
‘I said, grazie. It is always nice to have compliments.’
Caterina eyed Monsieur Pamplemousse curiously as he produced a notebook from under the table. ‘It is true, then, that you eat for a living?’
‘Don’t we all,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘in our different ways?’
‘So what will you say about this?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse regarded his plate, then applied his knife to the steak. ‘I shall say that the meat is of good quality and that it has been cooked as I asked it to be. It is pink in the middle and juicy – not dried out. The pommes frites could be crisper; they have been kept a little too long. The petits pois, which might have teen disappointing, are surprisingly good. They have the right amount of sweetness. The French beans … comme ci, comme ça …’ He shrugged.
‘I also have to ask myself the question: would I feel the same way if we were eating in a restaurant instead of hurtling through the night at over one hundred kilometres an hour?’ He was tempted to add ‘together with a young and undeniably beautiful girl’, but it might have sounded too gauche, particularly with others around.
‘Normally when I am working I eat by myself so that I am not distracted. Unlike taking a photograph of a distant mountain, where it is possible to add a tree or a shrub to give foreground interest. It is easier to be analytical when you eat alone.’
‘I am sorry if I am a distraction. I have never been called “foreground interest” before.’ It was said with a smile.
‘I forgive you.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse broke off to add a few more notes. ‘For my taste, there are too many vegetables. They are probably trying to make it look like value for money.
‘And you? What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I think,’ said Caterina, ‘I think it is all very wonderful. I can’t tell you what it feels like to be free.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed at her. What was it the poet Lemierre had once said? ‘Even when a bird is walking, we sense that it has wings.’ Perhaps it went with being brought up in a convent school. When the door to the outside world was opened the inmates often grasped their new-found freedom with both hands.
‘Be careful it does not go to your head.’
‘But that is exactly what should happen,’ said Caterina. ‘It is like champagne. Where else should it go?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse could think of a dozen answers, but rather than risk getting into deep water he changed the subject.
‘What do you plan to do when you leave school?’
‘I shall become a model. I get all the magazines.’
It accounted for the weight of her valise. He wondered where she kept them hidden back at the convent. Under the mattress? It was exceedingly doubtful they would be approved reading.
‘It is a hard life,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘For every one who reaches the top of the ladder there are hundreds – thousands – who have to content themselves with clinging to the first few rungs. It is also a comparatively short one. Age has no mercy.’
‘That makes it all the more of a challenge,’ said Caterina simply. ‘For those who do make it, there is a fortune waiting. A top model doing the circuits can easily earn $10,000 a show just for marching down a catwalk. Naomi Campbell started out at fifteen. She walked into the offices of Elle and sold herself on the strength of a portfolio of photographs. By the time she was twenty-one she had a million in the bank.’
‘At that rate,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse drily, ‘by the time you are that age you will be able to retire and open up a boutique … a chain of boutiques. You could have one in Rome, another in Paris, one in London … another in New York.’
‘Why run a shop when you can be paid more to open one for somebody else?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed at her. She had it all worked out. He also had a feeling she was holding back in some way. It all sounded a little too glib. It wasn’t just his imagination – his years in the Sûreté had given him a sixth sense in such matters. Her eyes were focused on his, and yet the overall effect was that of a television personality reading someone else’s lines from an auto-cue. He couldn’t help but wonder why.
‘Be careful you do not become like a Dugong.’
Caterina looked at him inquiringly.
‘A Dugong,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘is a fish which inhabits the Indian Ocean. It reaches a length of four metres and attains a weight of some 700 kilograms. Leather, ivory and oil are obtained from it, and as if that were not enough, its flesh is considered very edible. In almost all respects you could say it is a very successful fish, consequently it is in great demand. So much so that it has completely disappeared from some areas where it once thrived.’
‘I shall be careful,’ said Caterina simply.
‘And your parents? What do they think?’
The girl pulled a face. ‘Papà will go mad. If he had his way he would keep me behind walls for the rest of my life. There would be no choice.’
A clattering of china from somewhere below the table broke into their conversation.
‘I know one who enjoyed the meal.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse wiped his own plate clean with the last of the bread. He pointed to the tray.
‘On a more mundane level, right now you have a choice. There is a carton of yoghurt or there is clafoutis. It is a fruit-filled pastry from Limousin – made with black cherries.’
The girl’s eyes dwelt longingly on the clafoutis.‘May I? Would you mind?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse put away his notebook. There wasn’t much you could say about a yoghurt that hadn’t already been said.
‘I know what you are thinking. You are thinking if I am to be a model I shouldn’t be eating this. But I am lucky … I burn it up. See …’ Reaching across the table she half rose and struck a pose.
Monsieur Pamplemousse hesitated. ‘Would you mind if I took your photograph? It would be nice to look back on.’
‘I would like that too.’
‘In that case I will fetch my camera.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse began the hazardous journey back to his compartment, battling with the sliding doors as the train swayed from side to side. The conductor was putting the finishing to
uches to making up his bed when he arrived. It took longer than he had anticipated, and he occupied his time reloading the camera with black and white film.
By the time he got back, the dining-car had begun to fill. Someone else was sitting at the table previously occupied by the man with the dark glasses. He reached his own table at the same time as a party of English. They eyed the empty plates.
‘Nobody sitting here.’ It was a statement rather than a question. The speaker scarcely waited for an answer before unloading his tray.
Monsieur Pamplemousse made a grimace in Caterina’s direction. It had been a wasted journey. Now was not the moment for taking pictures. Conscious once again of eyes watching their progress, he led the way out of the car.
It was the girl’s idea to make use of his compartment. Not that Monsieur Pamplemousse wished to blame her in any way, of course. He had been a willing partner; but in retrospect and for the record …
Having got the attendant to unlock the door, and seeing that Caterina was waiting expectantly, it seemed like a good idea when she suggested it.
She posed easily and without a trace of embarrassment, throwing her head back as she sat on the bed so that her hair cascaded down over her shoulders like an inky-dark mountain stream. Her lips parted as she undid the top button of her dress. She would be equally at home on a cat-walk or in an Italian rice field. Silvana Mangano in Bitter Rice? Sophia Loren in Black Orchid? It was wrong to compare. Comparisons were odious. She was her own person.
Focusing on her eyes, Monsieur Pamplemousse stepped back into the corridor trying to frame the picture. As he did so, he glanced round to see if he was being watched. It was not quite what he’d had in mind. He wondered if the girl’s reflection could be seen by the couple in the next compartment. Clearly, from the rapt expression on their faces, the answer was oui.
As the first flash went off the woman pursed her lips. It struck him that she looked like an outsize version of Madame Grante. Probably, like Madame Grante, she went through life voicing silent disapproval. She nudged her husband as the girl took up another position and Monsieur Pamplemousse fired off a second flash. At least she was getting value for money out of her journey. It probably confirmed her worst suspicions of ‘the Continentals’.
Monsieur Pamplemousse took some more pictures and then came to the end of the reel. ‘I will send them to you when they are ready.’
‘Papà may not approve.’ Caterina thought for a moment and then felt in her handbag. ‘I will leave you an address.’ She tore a piece of paper from a small pad and wrote on it.
Not to be outdone, Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for his wallet. ‘Here is my card. It has my telephone number in case there is a problem. I will get the films processed as quickly as possible – before the end of your holiday.’
‘You are very kind.’ She stood and suddenly leaned forward. ‘Thank you for looking after me so well.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse was totally unprepared for the kiss which followed, still less for its nature. The merest double brushing of lips upon cheek, starting with the right and ending with the left, as in Paris or Lyon, he could have taken in his stride. Intuition coupled with reflexes honed to perfection over the years would have enabled him to cope with regional variations; the Ardèche habit of starting on the left and adding a third, or even the Midi method, where four was the preferred number.
Brillat-Savarin, in his learned and often amusing work, The Physiology of Taste, devoted a section to the tongue’s place in the natural scheme of things. It was a subject dear to the good doctor’s heart. Having waxed lyrical on such matters as the number of papillae on the tongue’s surface and the amount of saliva furnished by the inside of the cheeks when the two made contact, he then divided the sensation of taste into direct, complete, and reflective.
Caterina’s kiss was both direct and complete, and it was in reflective mood that Monsieur Pamplemousse hovered in his doorway. Like a schoolboy reeling from his first encounter with the opposite sex, he watched her progress down the corridor.
When she reached her compartment she turned and gave a final wave before disappearing inside. Monsieur Pamplemousse returned it weakly. As he did so he caught sight of the conductor, now safely ensconced in his tiny office at the far end of the coach, a position which enabled him to keep a watchful eye on the comings and goings in his domain. He didn’t actually utter the words ‘Mamma mia!’, but the look on his face said it all: a total lack of comprehension that a man could spend an evening with such a beautiful girl and yet sleep with a bloodhound. It was, thought Monsieur Pamplemousse, a typical Italian attitude.
Retreating into his own compartment, he closed the door and sat on the bed gazing out into the darkness. It was still warm from where she had sat. Recognising the symptoms, Pommes Frites gave his master a despairing look, followed by a deep sigh. It was the kind of sigh a dog emits when it realises it could be in for a bad night.
Monsieur Pamplemousse ignored the interruption. Had not the learned Brillat-Savarin’s researches also brought to light certain other facts concerning tongues? Fish had to make do with a simple moveable bone; birds a membranous cartridge. Pommes Frites was as other four-legged creatures, his tongue lacked the power of circulatory motion. Once Pommes Frites’ tongue had been given the go-ahead it went straight to its target, veering neither to the right nor to the left. Food scarcely touched the side of his mouth. Reminders that he should chew every mouthful at least thirty times would have been a waste of breath. Osculation was a pleasure denied him.
Monsieur Pamplemousse closed his eyes. Circulatory motion of a brief but undeniably sensuous and exploratory nature had been apparent in every second of Caterina’s kiss.
There was a rustle of linen as Pommes Frites climbed up beside him. He pointedly turned round several times, then fell heavily into a heap in the middle of the bed, forcing his master into a corner.
It was Monsieur Pamplemousse’s turn to sigh. Having expressed his feelings in no uncertain manner, he went out into the corridor and beckoned to the conductor.
The man took his time over the paperwork he was engaged in. Then, with an exaggerated gesture, he put down his pen and came to see what was required of him.
‘Would it be possible to make up an extra bed?’
There was an intake of breath. ‘The signore’s reservation is for a singolo.’
‘Oui,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse patiently. ‘Maintenant I would like un doppio.’
Silence reigned.
‘Per favore?’ He pointed to Pommes Frites. ‘Per il cane. For the dog.’
‘Per il cane?’ The man looked him straight in the eye.
Monsieur Pamplemousse reached for his wallet again.
‘Sì, signore. Pronto.’
Communication established at long last, Monsieur Pamplemousse watched from the corridor while the operation was carried out swiftly and with practised ease.
‘Il cane – he will be able to climb the ladder, signore?’
‘I shall be taking the top bunk,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘Sì signore.’ As the conductor emerged, Monsieur Pamplemousse slipped him some folded notes.
‘Grazie, signore.’ The exchange didn’t pass unnoticed by the couple in the next compartment. Clearly they feared the worst.
It was as he retreated into the compartment that Monsieur Pamplemousse caught sight of his reflection in the mirror over the cupboard and noticed the lipstick. He pulled down the blind, slowly undressed, then climbed the ladder to the top bunk.
Tired though he was, sleep eluded him for a while. He had to admit to himself that he found the thought of the girl preparing for bed in her compartment further down the coach strangely disturbing.
He started going over the encounter in his mind, trying to recapture the moment. Caterina’s lips, full and inviting, had felt but a foretaste of what lay within and beyond. The experience had been at one and the same time both innocent and yet intensely pleasurable; investigative and exp
loratory, as natural and unforced as a rosebud bursting forth in spring. He wondered if everyone received the same treatment. Probably. It would be flattering his own ego to think otherwise.
The next thing Monsieur Pamplemousse knew it was morning. He looked at his watch. It showed seven-forty. Hearing the sound of the train changing pitch, he peered round the side of the blind and saw they were passing through Dijon. They must have stopped somewhere during the night, for they were now travelling in the opposite direction.
There was a clear blue sky overhead and the hilly countryside beyond the city was white with frost. Mistletoe grew in profusion on avenues of leafless trees. There was no sign of life anywhere; no people, no animals.
He washed and dressed quickly, swaying with the motion of the train as it gathered speed. It felt as though they were making up for lost time.
Breakfast arrived promptly at eight o’clock on a plastic compartmentalised tray. While the conductor folded up the bunks and restored things to normal, Monsieur Pamplemousse led Pommes Frites outside. He was just in time to see the man he had silently crossed swords with in the dining car the night before disappear along the corridor towards the front of the train. Il Blobbo, as he’d mentally christened him!
The couple next door were exactly as he had last seen them. He wondered idly if they had been sitting up all night. Perhaps the woman was too large for her bunk, or perhaps they had read about the spate of robberies that were reported to have been taking place on sleeper trains from Italy and weren’t taking any chances.
Back in his compartment, Monsieur Pamplemousse settled down and began analysing the breakfast. The chief wasn’t going to get away with things that easily. A lengthy report wouldn’t come amiss.
Espresso coffee in a china cup. Two small packets of sucre. Tinned jus d’ananas. Bel Paese cheese. A packet containing two thin slices of Dr Jaus Roggenvollkornbrot bread – the exact composition of which was translated into Italian, French, English and Spanish. It sounded unappealing in all five languages, but turned out to have a pleasant taste all its own. It went well with the cheese. A bread roll, also done up in plastic. A small pack of butter. A honey-flavoured confection made of naturally leavened cake shaped like a ringed donut. It was called La ciambellina and it was both warm and delicious. A packet of Pan Brace San Carlo toast. A hygienically wrapped plastic knife and spoon.