by Michael Bond
‘So you are back where you started, monsieur.’
Monsieur Leclercq hesitated. ‘Oui, Aristide, and then again, non.
‘I have to admit that all has not been well in the Leclercq household since I arrived back from America. The fact that the end of my tie was missing was only one item in a long list of problems. Placating Chantal has been a costly exercise.
‘However, that is now by the by. There are a number of much more important issues we need to discuss.’
Rising to his feet, he picked up a remote control, reopened the sliding door leading to the balcony, and led the way outside. Not wishing to be left out of things, Pommes Frites followed on behind.
The Director didn’t utter another word until he had made certain the door was safely closed behind them. Even then, he looked uneasy and began making faces, as though attempting to come to terms with whatever it was he had on his mind. For several moments not a word passed his lips.
Pommes Frites put his tail between his legs and looked the other way.
‘What I have to say, Pamplemousse,’ he began at long last, ‘has to be treated with the utmost confidence. It must not, under any circumstances, reach ears other than your own.
‘Looking out from this balcony,’ he continued, abruptly changing the subject, ‘what do you see?’
Monsieur Pamplemousse paused for a moment or two while gathering his thoughts. Alive, as always, to the prevailing atmosphere, Pommes Frites relaxed. Assuming one of his more thoughtful expressions, and following the direction of his master’s eyeline, he placed his front paws on the balcony rail and stared into space, clearly hoping he might be of some assistance.
‘Different people see different things,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Personally, gazing out over the rooftops of Paris and seeing it all laid out before me like some giant oriental carpet, has always been one of the great pleasures of life. I count myself lucky that I am able to do so from the balcony of my apartment in Montmartre. From here I get what is in effect a mirror image.
‘Immediately in front of us lies the Esplanade des Invalides, with its avenues of lime trees on either side, and to its right, the Hôtel des Invalides, home to Napoleon’s tomb.
‘Beyond the Esplanade there is the Seine, and beyond that again lies the Avenue des Champs Élysées, with the Place de la Concorde at one end and the Arc de Triomphe at the other.
‘I see the Jardin des Tuileries and the Opera, where, unknown to most passers-by, five hives on the roof above the stage house over 100,000 bees. During the season their search for nectar takes in not only the chestnut trees in the Champs Élysées, but the linden trees behind the Palais Royal, along with acacias and sophoras lining the Péripherique. Some even stray as far afield as the Bois de Boulogne.
‘You can buy the result of their labours in the Opera House shop and in Fauchon …’
‘Yes, yes, Pamplemousse,’ said Monsieur Leclercq impatiently, ‘that is all very interesting, but what else do you see?’
‘What else?’ repeated Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Well, beyond the Opera and the Madeleine, across an ocean of blue rooftops and pink chimney pots, I see Montmartre, where Pommes Frites and I often walk together of a morning, and where long, long ago Saint Denis is said to have picked up his head after he was decapitated by the soldiery, and carried on heading north with it under his arm.’
‘How very inconvenient for him,’ said the Director. ‘It is a miracle he could see where he was going.’
‘There is a statue commemorating the fact,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse stoutly. ‘It is by the fountain where he supposedly washed away the blood before moving on.
‘Above all, I see a city where the old happily rubs shoulders with the new. Here and there on the surface, Monsieur Hector Guimard’s original fin de siècle entrances to the Metro still stand – there is one at Abbesses, again near where I live, while below ground, on the Météor line, high-speed driverless trains whisk passengers to and fro between the Gare St Lazare and the Bibliotech Nationale.
‘It is much like a very grand child’s play area contained within the bowl of the surrounding hills.
‘As for Pommes Frites, it is hard to know what he sees, or indeed what he is thinking. I suspect he is not greatly concerned with landscapes. I have often noticed when we are out driving that he is more interested in things immediately in front of his eyes; trees and lamp-posts, the occasional rabbit. At this very moment, for example, he is probably taking note of the men playing boules on the Esplanade, or the lady who is going past with a Dandie Dinmont tucked under one arm …’
Realising the Director’s eyes had a somewhat glazed look about them, Monsieur Pamplemousse’s voice trailed away.
‘Interesting, Pamplemousse,’ said Monsieur Leclercq, ‘very interesting; particularly if you happen to be writing a guide book. You are, of course, absolutely correct when you say Paris means different things to different people. Allow me to tell you what it means to me.
‘In my mind’s eye I see well over a thousand hotels and restaurants listed in Le Guide. On a clear day, with the aid of my telescope, I am able to locate over one hundred that have been awarded one or more Stock Pots.
‘Sixteen of them have two Stock Pots. They include the oldest restaurant in Paris, La Tour d’Argent, which has been in existence since 1582; not so many years after the death of Christopher Columbus. It was there that an eating implement called the fork was first introduced to Parisian diners, and it is on record that the Duke of Richelieu once hosted a party during which a whole ox was cooked in thirty different ways.
‘I can pick out Taillevent in the rue Lamenais; under Monsieur Vrinat, without doubt the best run restaurant in the world. Nearby, I see Pierre Gagnaire, one of the more innovative chefs of our time, and with the further aid of the brass plate set in the balustrade, I can locate the remaining eight who have been awarded the supreme accolade of Three Stock Pots in Le Guide.’
Monsieur Leclercq broke off.
‘And that is only Paris, Pamplemousse. There is the rest of France to consider.
We should be proud of the small part we have played in their owner’s success, but it is a heavy responsibility nevertheless.
‘There are times when I lie awake wondering if we are doing any restaurateur a favour by awarding him or her three Stock Pots, especially when you think of all it entails.’
‘If I may say so,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘it is their chosen vocation.’
‘That is indeed true,’ said the Director, ‘but by the same token we have chosen to act as their judge and jury. Assessing all the evidence every year and reaching a verdict on the many hotels and restaurants appearing in Le Guide is no easy task.’
‘The pursuit of excellence is never easy,’ mused Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘But afterwards they have to live with the certain knowledge that others, including many they have trained, are coming up fast behind them. They cannot afford to rest on their laurels as the ancient Greeks so wisely put it.
‘Other than being a head of state, there are few areas where the pressures are greater than in the world of haute cuisine; a film director perhaps, a prima ballerina, an opera singer …
‘It is to the credit of French chefs that they have always treated food with respect. Carême set down the guiding principles in his vast twelve-volume work, elevating gastronomy to an art form destined to take its place alongside painting and music. The highest honour you can bestow on a person is to name something after them; in the case of cuisine, a dish such as Pêche Melba.
‘But, to stay in front of the pack you have to innovate. Some engage a full-time PRO, others open up less expensive clones, some try to duplicate their success abroad, in countries like Japan and America. Some put their names to packaged foods; others dabble in all four at the same time.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse glanced round at the Director. He wond
ered where the conversation was leading. Clearly, he had not been ordered back simply to talk about the problems of running a restaurant. It had to be something much nearer home; internal problems with Le Guide perhaps? Surely … surely Monsieur Leclercq wasn’t allowing it to get to him to such an extent he was heading for a breakdown.
He decided to take the bull by the horns.
‘I have always prided myself on running a happy ship,’ said Monsieur Leclercq, in answer to his question. ‘Tight, but happy, and as with all great leaders, I have made the well-being of those under me my number one priority.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse wondered. He didn’t doubt the Director’s sincerity, but his remarks put him in mind of the late President Mitterand.
When asked what quality a great statesman needed most, his answer had been ‘indifference’. In his view, nothing really mattered except his own political career. He maintained it had a knock-on effect. Upon his success depended the well-being of others.
But then he was a supreme pragmatist, which wasn’t the same as being selfish.
‘Currently,’ continued Monsieur Leclercq, assuming the ensuing silence meant tacit agreement on the part of Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘currently, I am being assailed on all sides; both from within and from without.
‘Shortly before you arrived, my wife telephoned to say she had taken delivery of a bouquet of flowers courtesy of the airline, along with a letter apologising for all the trouble I had met with on the flight back from New York.’
‘But surely, monsieur, that was only good public relations.’
‘They were addressed to my daughter,’ said Monsieur Leclercq.
‘We have weathered worse storms,’ he continued philosophically. ‘Force 8 gales are not unknown in the Leclercq household. It usually ends in my having to underwrite a spending spree on her wardrobe.’
‘Most marriages have their bad moments; their little misunderstandings,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘C’est la vie. It is all part of life’s rich tapestry, as the saying goes.’
‘I agree,’ said Monsieur Leclercq. ‘And on a personal level I can cope with such problems, but when it is something that threatens to affect the reputation of Le Guide, it is an entirely different matter.
‘I can no longer grass over the fact that someone or some body has launched a three-pronged attack on us. As far as the internal workings of Le Guide is concerned, there is a whispering campaign; rumours, as you rightly say, are rife. They are for the most part totally untrue, but they are having a devastating effect on staff morale.
‘Worse still, and much more worrying, is the fact that someone has been infiltrating our files. Nothing major, as happened on the previous occasion – simple things, more a matter of additions and subtraction, but for that reason alone they are potentially more dangerous.
‘For example, the entry for Tour d’Argent no longer makes mention of their canard. When my wife and I last dined there our duck was numbered 1,027,078 – and they only began numbering them in 1890! As for the wine list, it simply recommends a demi-carafe of the house red.
‘That, in a restaurant whose cellars boast over 400,000 bottles, enumerated in a wine list that is larger than most family bibles.’
‘That is serious, monsieur.’
‘Serious, yes, but not fatal. Worse, much worse, are the additions. Egg and chips figures largely in lists of specialities. Imagine the reaction at the Tour d’Argent had they seen it starring as their main signature dish.’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘Another thing, Pamplemousse. Have you encountered the family Cimicidae in your travels?’
‘I don’t think we have met,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. He was having difficulty in keeping up with the Director’s constant changes of direction. He watched as the other removed a folded sheet of paper from his wallet, and held it up for him to see.
Although only in silhouette form, the character depicted was indeed a fearsome sight; reminiscent of the notorious Tarasque of Tarascon, a hideous monster with six paws, a serpent’s tail, and an insatiable taste for human flesh.
‘If that is the patron, he looks like a wanted poster for a rapist of the very worst kind,’ he said. ‘The suggestion of tusks doesn’t help matters. It is like Frankenstein without the terminals. It’s a wonder he has any customers at all.
‘It is not a he,’ said the Director, impatiently.
‘Well,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, ‘If it is Madame Cimicidae, then I wouldn’t like to meet her on a dark night. It could be Lucretia Borgia when she had one of her headaches; very off-putting.’
The Director clicked his teeth impatiently.
‘Sex doesn’t enter it, Pamplemousse. Bedbugs have other ways of satisfying their appetites. It has entered Le Guide as our latest symbol.’
‘A bedbug!’ Monsieur Pamplemousse peered at the picture with renewed interest.
‘I think I can honestly say that in all the years I have worked for Le Guide, I have never encountered one.’
‘At yesterday’s count,’ said Monsieur Leclercq grimly, ‘over 1000 hotels listed in Le Guide are now credited with being home to them. The symbol you are looking at has been sprinkled at random throughout the text like confetti on a windy day.
‘Had it been allowed to go through unchecked we would have been made a laughing stock. Untold harm could have been done to the tourist trade. Writs would have been flying right, left and centre. Fortunately we caught it in the nick of time, but we need to remain focused.
‘We must take action, Pamplemousse. Failure is not an option. With the new edition already in the pipeline, time is not on our side. It is essential we find out as soon as possible who is behind it all.’
‘You don’t suspect any of the other guides?’ asked Monsieur Pamplemousse.
‘Dog eating dog?’ The Director dismissed the idea. ‘I think not. Our nearest rival is Michelin, and they would never stoop to such a thing. Besides, they have had their own share of troubles recently.
‘There was the unhappy occasion when they awarded rosettes to a restaurant in Belgium that hadn’t even opened. The whole edition had to be pulped.’
‘A singularly unfortunate oversight on someone’s part,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse dryly.
‘These things happen even in the best-regulated houses,’ said Monsieur Leclercq.
‘However, it is something we couldn’t possibly afford. We do not enjoy the same financial backing as Michelin. They enjoy the luxury of having their tyre sales to fall back on; as large and as comfortable as Monsieur Bibendum himself.
‘We rely solely on the proceeds from the sale of Le Guide to those people who are looking for somewhere suitable to stay and who are interested in food.
‘Then there was all the fuss when one of their inspectors wanted to write a book about what he chose to call “goings-on behind the scenes” …’
‘An ex-inspector,’ corrected Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Pascal Rémy.’
‘Exactement. We shall never know the truth. They also value anonymity, although perhaps not quite as strictly as we do.
‘Unlike Michelin, we do not announce where we are from at the end of a meal. It has been that way ever since that ill-fated occasion soon after I joined Le Guide when I revealed the purpose of my visit to the owner of a restaurant in Belfort who was passing off a run-of-the-mill chicken as Poularde de Bresse. If you recall, he tried to murder me. After that our founder made total anonymity the rule.’
‘And Gault Millau?’
‘There was a time when they made us all look to our laurels. Their off-beat reports and their inspired journalistic use of the term “nouvelle cuisine” set the pace for a while. But since the two partners retired, it has had more owners than Elizabeth Taylor has had husbands.
‘For a time Pudlowski was our main rival in Paris, but now he has made the quantum leap to covering the whole of France he has his hands full.
‘No, Pamplemousse, other
forces are at play, and we must on no account give way to them.
‘Le Guide’s responsibility is twofold. Firstly, to the reader. Secondly, and of equal importance, we owe it to the establishments we choose to recommend. We must offer them our support and encouragement. In order to do that, we not only need to preserve our independence, but in order to criticise others, we must be above criticism ourselves.’
A sudden gust of wind sent odd scraps of paper flying in the street below them, effectively bringing all conversation to an end.
The Director gave a shiver, pressed the remote control to open the sliding doors, then turned abruptly on his heels and led the way back into his office.
Monsieur Pamplemousse signalled Pommes Frites to follow.
Pausing for a moment while he operated the sliding door, Monsieur Leclercq gazed reverently at the founder’s portrait.
‘Above all, Aristide,’ he said, ‘we must not let him down. Probity is the word I am seeking. Probity was Monsieur Hippolyte Duval’s middle name, and no matter what, we must ensure Le Guide continues to reflect the high standards he laid down all those years ago.
‘In the words of the President of the United States of America, Pamplemousse,’ he said grandly, ‘“Failure to do so will not happen on my watch”.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse began to wish he hadn’t mentioned Napoleon earlier. As it was, the Director suffered from an image issue, but the close proximity of the Emperor’s tomb often brought out the worst in him.
‘Perhaps,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘we should take heart from the fact that even Monsieur Duval’s life wasn’t entirely blameless.’
He glanced up at the portrait, remembering the occasion when Monsieur Leclercq had instructed him to deliver a Renault Twingo to an address in Roanne, where the founder’s illegitimate daughter lived. You never could tell.
As he had said at the time, ‘Still waters run deep’.
The point went home.
‘The reason our founder never married,’ said the Director simply, ‘was because he was too immersed in his work. He was approaching sixty years of age when, for what was probably the first and only time in his life, he strayed from the path of righteous behaviour. And that only came about because he was taken ill while snowbound at a small hotel in the Auvergne.