Monsieur Pamplemousse Stands Firm

by Michael Bond

  The couple gazed at him in disbelief. All too well aware of the woman straining to look over his shoulder, Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced round. Elsie was bending over the bed, whiling away the time by smoothing down the cover where he had been sitting. She had her back to them.

  Pulling the door shut behind him, he decided that attack was the best form of defence. In any case he had burned his boats. Retreat was now totally out of the question.

  ‘You are from Paris?’ he inquired.

  ‘Oui. Naturellement. Monsieur Blanche … from the ninth floor. My wife …’

  ‘Then I fear you must be mistaking me for my twin brother.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse cut short the introductions. ‘My surname is Pamplemousse, certainly. But my first name is Albert.’

  It worked. Disbelief gave way to incredulity, to be followed moments later by a grudging acceptance of the fact that truth was sometimes stranger than fiction.

  Though he said it himself, it had to be one of his better essays into the craft of acting. The Director was not the only one capable of thinking on his feet. The only shame was that he couldn’t be there to witness it for himself.

  Monsieur Blanche raised his hands. ‘Mon Dieu! It is an incredible likeness.’

  ‘In looks only, I fear,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Deep down we are very different.’

  ‘A thousand pardons, Monsieur. I had no idea.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse allowed himself a faint smile of forgiveness. He raised his right hand as though in absolution. ‘A not unnatural mistake. It is not the first time. Although I have to admit it is one which hasn’t happened for a number of years.

  ‘Aristide and I went our separate ways soon after we left school. He was always the do-gooder, the studious one – his nose for ever buried in a book. Whereas I, I found it impossibly hard to live up to the example he had set. When he was only six he could recite the whole of the Lord’s Prayer – backwards.

  ‘Poor Aristide.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself warming to his part. ‘Is he still doing good works? He should have become a priest, that one. Do you not agree?’

  ‘Not from all I have heard,’ said Madame Blanche grimly. Her lips were set in a straight line. They bore an uncanny resemblance to those of Madame Grante in accounts when she was dealing with a particularly problematical P39.

  ‘Oh, really?’ Monsieur Pamplemousse stopped in his tracks, curiosity overcoming a desire to make himself scarce as quickly as possible. ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘Nothing that bears repeating,’ said Madame Blanche firmly. Denied a view of his room, eyeing the torch in his right hand with disfavour, she was doing her best to get a closer look at the polaroid photograph in his other hand. Monsieur Pamplemousse hastily turned it round so that the back was towards her.

  ‘Well, do please remember me to Aristide when you are back in Paris. On second thoughts …’ Fearing that in his enthusiasm he might have been overdoing things, he had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Perhaps it is better if you say nothing at all about our meeting, not even to his wife Doucine …’

  ‘Doucette,’ said Madame Blanche. ‘I know her well. We often meet in the launderette.’

  ‘Do you now?’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse thoughtfully. He looked Madame Blanche straight in the eye. ‘Well, from all I remember of Doucette, she would be most upset. She made Aristide swear never to mention my name again. It will only reopen old wounds.

  ‘And now, à bientôt.’

  Feeling behind him he made contact with something infinitely softer and more yielding than a doorknob.

  ‘Oooh!’ said Elsie. ‘You are a one.’

  ‘Pardon.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse realised all too late that the door to his room had swung open again.

  ‘I was hoping you’d help me with my bra,’ said Elsie in her best voice. ‘It’s been and gone and got itself all twisted. Can’t think how it happened.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself hoping the Blanches’ command of colloquial English was less than perfect. But at that point fate intervened on his behalf. It manifested itself in the shape of the three Americans he had seen in the restaurant earlier in the evening. They arrived upstairs in a bunch and squeezed their way past without so much as a ‘pardon’ or an ‘excusez-moi’, leaving in their wake a trail of whiskey fumes and the smell of stale cigars. At close quarters he wouldn’t have trusted any one of them more than he could have thrown them – which wouldn’t have been very far – and he found himself instinctively checking for his wallet. Doubtless they had fared no better than anyone else in the restaurant, but that didn’t excuse bad manners.

  He gazed after them as they disappeared round a corner at the far end of the corridor. They were an odd collection. He couldn’t help but wonder what strange machinations of fate had brought them to that part of France. They must all have been in their late sixties. Successful in whatever it was they did for a living if the combined weight of gold bracelets and other adornments was anything to go by.

  Away from the dining-room they looked even more like fish out of water; they would have been more at home in a night club than in an out of the way sea-side resort: the Negresco in Nice rather than the Hôtel des Dunes in the Landes. Perhaps they had been taken for a ride by their travel agent. If that were the case he wouldn’t like to be in the man’s shoes when they returned home.

  At least the diversion had solved his problem. When he looked round Monsieur and Madame Blanche were heading back along the corridor towards their room. Madame Blanche with scarcely a backward glance, Monsieur Blanche with as many as he could decently get away with.

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Elsie.

  ‘A slight case of mistaken identity, that is all. I thought they would never go.’

  ‘I could tell that,’ said Elsie. ‘That’s why I thought I’d come out and ’elp.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse put the photograph on the table beside his bed for safe keeping, then as soon as the coast was clear he ushered Elsie out of the room and locked the door behind him.

  ‘Quick … before they come out again.’ The Blanches looked the sort of people who would most likely take a stroll before going to bed. The less he saw of them from now on the better.

  He paused on the first landing as a sudden thought struck him.

  ‘Tell me, when did you first notice them?’

  Elsie thought for a moment. ‘I dunno. They came in halfway through the meal … just after Pommes Frites went out.’

  ‘Aah.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse breathed a sigh of relief. He might just get away with pretending to be his own twin brother, but suggesting Pommes Frites was anyone other than Pommes Frites would be pushing things; two pairs of identical twins could be carrying probability to extremes.

  It was even more imperative that they find Pommes Frites as soon as possible. If they were seen together his cover would be blown and no two ways about it. From the expression on Madame Blanche’s face he might just as well ring Doucette himself and get it over with.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, he rushed out into the night leaving Elsie to follow on behind as best she could.

  Blissfully unaware of the interest his earlier perambulations had caused, totally uncognisant of the deep waters his master had got himself into, Pommes Frites stirred into action the moment he heard the front door of the hotel open and he recognised the sound of familiar footsteps.

  Apart from one brief return trip to the dune, he had been waiting patiently behind a bush for some considerable time, and he was anxious for a spot of action.

  For the first half hour or so after leaving the hotel he had been in his element. As far as he was concerned the previous day’s outing on the beach at Deauville had been a mere warming-up, a preliminary canter to get the limbs moving. Pleasant enough in its way, and certainly not to be sneezed at, but as nothing compared to the joys of gallivanting about on the Dune du Pilat in the dark.

  Finding the ‘jambon’ had been an unexpected bonus. Pommes Frit
es’ immediate reaction had been to rush back to his master bearing the evidence of his discovery. Unable to shout ‘Eureka! I’ve found it!’ as Archimedes had done when he stepped into an overflowing bath and hit on the principle of buoyancy, he had contented himself with a muffled bark or two.

  But that had been over half an hour ago. Since then reaction had set in, and during the time at his disposal Pommes Frites had been doing a lot of thinking.

  Whilst a long way from being able to claim a laser-sharp mind when it came to working out problems, Pommes Frites was nevertheless blessed with more than his fair share of common sense.

  During his time with Monsieur Pamplemousse they had stayed at a great many hotels: some good, some bad. There had been establishments where dogs were treated as welcome guests and others where they were barely tolerated. In most hotels they were able to share a room, but on other occasions such an arrangement had been frowned upon. However, not since the time when they had stayed at an hostelry belonging to an aunt of the Director had the food been quite so abysmally bad. It was not simply abysmally bad; in Pommes Frites’ experience it was uniquely abysmally bad.

  Since his master was clearly intending to stay for more than one night – Pommes Frites recognised the signs – the unpacking of the bags, the hanging up of clothes – there was only one possible explanation, and Monsieur Pamplemousse’s appearing at dinner without a tie confirmed it; they were there for reasons unconnected with work.

  Pleased with his deductions, Pommes Frites had rested his brain for a while, at the same time keeping a watchful eye through the window on goings on in the dining-room in case he was missing anything. He saw Monsieur and Madame Blanche arrive. He saw his master and Elsie get up and leave. Soon after that he saw Monsieur and Madame Blanche do likewise.

  The rest had done Pommes Frites good. Almost as soon as he returned to his thinking he came up with the answer. If they were not there for reasons connected with work, then they must be there for pleasure. In other words they must be on holiday. Normally if they were on holiday his master would have brought Madame Pamplemousse, but that was a minor point. Pommes Frites decided it was not for him to reason why.

  The important fact was that, food apart, they were there to enjoy themselves. It was a time to relax. For the nonce work was a dirty word. Games would be the order of the day, and Pommes Frites decided it should be kept that way.

  Pommes Frites knew his master better than most. Give his master a problem and he was liable to retire into himself for days on end with scarcely a word to anyone.

  It was his, Pommes Frites’ duty, to ensure that didn’t happen. Having reached that conclusion he made his second excursion of the evening to the Dune du Pilat.

  So it came about that when Monsieur Pamplemousse rushed out of the hotel shouting ‘va chercher… va chercher … fetch … fetch’, and then, realising the remaining occupants of the dining-room, having little better to do, were watching his every move with more than a passing interest, did a double take and almost immediately began shouting ‘cache-le… cache-le… hide … hide’, Pommes Frites scarcely batted an eyelid.

  Clearly it was all part of a new game his master had invented; a variation on hide and seek.

  Entering into the spirit of things, Pommes Frites disappeared into the night leaving his master and Elsie to follow on as best they could. Racing up the dune, he steered a course which took him away from the spot where he had first found the jambon, whilst at the same time avoiding by a long way the spot where he had reburied it.

  Pommes Frites reappeared several times during the following quarter of hour or so, each time hovering a tantalisingly few metres ahead of his pursuers, before racing on again, leading them higher and higher and further and further away from the hotel.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse was the first to crack.

  ‘I think,’ he gasped as they paused for breath, ‘Pommes Frites is of the opinion that he is, how shall I say? … playing a game.’

  ‘I don’t know ’ow you say it,’ gasped Elsie. ‘I think he’s being bleeding difficult. If anyone ’ad told me when I left ’ome that I’d find myself chasing a dog up a bloody great ’eap of sand in the dark I’d ’ave told them to get their ’ead seen to. Or, better still, have ’ad mine examined.’

  ‘Life is full of surprises,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.

  ‘Yeah? Well, I’ve got one for you,’ said Elsie crossly. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand about the sea-side it’s the bleeding sand. It gets everywhere. It’s not my scene. How they stand it in the Foreign Legion I don’t know.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse considered the last remark for a moment. The possibility of joining the Foreign Legion to be beside the sea had never occurred to him. He doubted if it had to many of those who had actually taken the plunge and signed along the dotted line.

  ‘I have heard tell that it drives some men mad,’ he ventured.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Elsie. ‘Talk about bleedin’ Beau Geste.’

  Not for the first time Monsieur Pamplemousse found himself wondering why Elsie had picked on the Hôtel des Dunes for her baptism of fire. A mattress beneath a parasol on the private beach reserved for patrons of the Carlton Hotel in Cannes would have been more up her street. From all the Director had said she could have taken her choice from anywhere in France.

  On the other hand he had to agree with her. Running up and down the Dune du Pilat was not his idea of a fun way to spend an evening either. Montée assez difficile was how Michelin, with their flair for understatement bordering on pedantry, described it. Monsieur Pamplemousse could have thought up many other alternatives. It would take him a week to get rid of the sand. There was sand in his shoes. There was sand in his hair. There was sand where in the normal scheme of things no sand should ever be allowed to enter.

  For a brief moment he would have swapped places with the Director. The Director would have had his portable telephone with him. Assuming the buttons had not been jammed with grit, he would have lost no time in summoning help. Helicopters would have been taking off from Mérignac.

  He cast his eyes around. They must be at the highest point of the dune, some hundred metres or so above sea level. The wind had dropped – perhaps because it was now high tide – and the sky was clear. At any other time, and in any other circumstances, it would have merited one of Le Guide’s Easels – the symbol for an outstanding view. He could see lights twinkling like a giant necklace of pearls strung round the bay as far as Cap Ferret. Behind them lay the Médoc and the vineyards which lined the left bank of the Gironde – the vineyards of St Estephe, Pauillac and St Julien, whose names went around the world.

  Between the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula and where they were standing he could dimly make out the darker shape of the Ile aux Oiseaux in the centre of the bay. Fig trees grew there, and tamarisk and sea heliotropes.

  He wondered what Brémontier, the architect of the whole scheme, would have thought of it had he still been alive. In carrying out the government’s order to stop further erosion from the sea by fixing the soil with low-growing plants, he could hardly have dreamed that in such a short space of time there would be so much change. The Atlantic winds had done more than their share of creating a natural monument to his achievement: two hundred kilometres of fine golden beach now lined the west coast of France.

  He caught the sound of a motor boat – probably a local fisherman, and glancing down he thought he saw a glimmer of light from somewhere far below, then it disappeared.

  Of Pommes Frites there was neither sight nor sound. He had either given up the game or he was biding his time for a fresh assault.

  The dunes rolled away into the distance, unfolding along the seashore as far as the eye could see, and behind them lay the vast forest of the Landes, the largest in Europe, dark and brooding. It was hard to believe that a hundred years ago it hadn’t even existed; a wilderness of scrubland and shifting sands and marshes, where the inhabitants walked about on stilts as they
tended their flocks of sheep. Now there were over three and half million acres of pine trees. He gave a sigh.

  ‘It is very romantic.’

  Elsie took immediate precautions.

  ‘That’s as may be,’ she said meaningly, ‘but I’ve got a headache.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse was reminded of a remark the Director had made shortly after he’d first introduced Elsie. ‘A nice girl, but she suffers a great deal from mal de tête.’

  At the time he suspected it might have been a case of the Director covering his tracks, but now he wasn’t so sure. Elsie was what some of his coarser colleagues would have called a prick-teaser.

  ‘What do you think ’e’s done with it?’ asked Elsie, breaking into his thoughts.

  Monsieur Pamplemousse shrugged. In the excitement he had almost forgotten the reason for their being there. Perhaps he should have rung the local Gendarmerie in the first place. At the time it had seemed sensible to find Pommes Frites first. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Tell you something, if ’e’s buried it anywhere round ’ere we’ll never find it in a month of Sundays – not unless ’e wants us to.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse had to agree. He knew Pommes Frites of old. Once he had his mind set on something he was not easily diverted.

  ‘What we need,’ said Elsie, ‘is a late-night butcher’s.’

  ‘Comment?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. If you was to buy a leg of lamb – well, it doesn’t ’ave to be lamb, of course – it could be anything. But if you was to do that and give it to ’im it’s just possible he might go and bury it in the same place.’

  Monsieur Pamplemousse’s first inclination was to dismiss the idea as impractical. The possibility of finding anything, let alone a boucherie open at that time of night seemed highly unlikely. On the other hand it was better than doing nothing.

  Playing for time while he made up his mind he removed a dog whistle from an inside pocket and blew into it.

  ‘Shouldn’t think that’ll do much good,’ said Elsie.

  ‘It is not meant to make a noise,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘It is a silent one.’