by Michael Bond
Taking his key from the rack behind the reception desk he caught Tante Louise’s eye and gave a sympathetic palm-down shake of his right hand. He would not make a good patron. Confronted with such clients he would be hard put to keep his temper, even if their complaints were justified. That would have made him crosser still. There was nothing worse than arguing a case when you knew you were in the wrong.
Opening the door to his room, he reached round the corner and switched on the light. The bed cover had been turned back and his pyjamas laid out with the arms crossed as if in a position of repose.
He glanced into the bathroom. In his absence a large jar of bath crystals had been placed on a small table. He began to feel even more guilty at the way he was taking over things.
He checked the drawers to make sure they were as he’d left them. The single hair he’d left at the side of each was still in place, the tiny mound of talc on top of the wardrobe door hadn’t shifted. Nothing had been touched.
Doing his own round of inspection, Pommes Frites looked considerably less confident. His computer was hard at work again, absorbing the evidence afforded by his nose, sifting and sorting it. The more he sniffed the less happy he became. There was a great deal to think about. His pending tray was full to overflowing. He was glad now that he’d insisted on accompanying his master. The adjoining room received his special attention. Several times he went inside and stood with his paws on the edge of the bath peering in like a cat on the edge of a goldfish bowl.
Had Monsieur Pamplemousse been in a more receptive state of mind he would have recognised the signs and perhaps done something about them. As it was, his only ambition was to get undressed and climb into bed. Sleep was the order of the day, or to be pedantic, the night. A drowsiness triggered off by all the wine he had drunk was beginning to take over. Aided and abetted by far too much food, it was enveloping him like a cloud. Work would have to come later, or to be pedantic again, much earlier. First thing in the morning. There was so much to do, so much to read. There were lists to be prepared. In his mind’s eye he’d pictured his room as the nerve centre of the whole operation. The walls covered in charts …
In the square outside there was the sound of a car door slamming, then a second door. An engine started up, revved impatiently into life by the driver. There was a squeal of protesting tyres as the clutch was let in much too quickly, then a roar and more screeching as the car disappeared into the night.
It would be an unhappy drive back to Orléans. No stopping en route to admire the Loire or any of its many tributaries by moonlight.
Monsieur Pamplemousse lay back and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift, wondering what the Director’s wife might be like as a travelling companion, or Elsie … or Madame Terminé. Madame. Terminé would have had a job getting into the 2CV. There would be no room for hanky-panky.
A few moments later the sound of heavy breathing filled the room. Not to be outdone, Pommes Frites lay down and curled himself up on the lion-skin rug at the foot of the bed, resting his chin on his paws in a way which would enable him to keep a watchful eye on both his master and the door. If he was going to do guard duty he might as well do it in reasonable comfort.
How long he slept was – and Monsieur Pamplemousse would have been the first to admit the fact – a matter of academic importance beside the reason for his waking. Beside the reason for his waking it was of as little moment as the loss of a grain of sand might be to the Sahara Desert.
The reason was simple enough; it was a clear case of cause and effect. The cause: a chemical reaction brought on by the juxtaposition of oysters and bread and salmon trout and sauces and rabbit and prunes and pastry and wine and apricots and cream and coffee and other embellishments and condiments too numerous to mention. Confined for too long and tiring of each other’s company, they were now trying to make good their escape by the quickest route possible. Had he paused to consider the matter, Monsieur Pamplemousse might well have laid the blame fairly and squarely on the subversive activities of the oyster and the prune, but pausing to consider anything other than the rumbling demands of his stomach was not uppermost in his mind at that particular moment. All his senses were concentrated on one objective, and one objective only; the relief of Monsieur Pamplemousse.
Cursing his lack of foresight in not taking a room with a toilet in the first place, fulminating on the idiocy of having a lion’s head rug in the middle of the room as he tripped over it and nearly went headlong, apologising with a singular lack of conviction to Pommes Frites as he trod on him, he wrenched open the door and made his way along the corridor, balancing as he went the opposing needs of haste and the inadvisability of disturbing still more an already seriously upset status quo.
As he reached the door at the end and tried unsuccessfully to open it, Tante Louise’s words in the hall that morning came back to him. It was followed by a feeling of panic. ‘Merde!’ He racked his brains in an effort to remember the alternatives he’d been offered the day he arrived. Was the room next to his the one with the hand basin and W.C., or was it numéro trois? And if it wasn’t either of those then which one could it be? It was a mathematical problem with complications of a complexity he had neither the time nor the inclination to solve.
Seeing a narrow flight of stairs to his right he made a bound for them. Tante Louise had said there was another toilet on the floor above. Logically, the door that faced him as he reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner would be the one he wanted. But logic and plumbing at the Hôtel du Paradis did not go hand in hand.
As the door swung open he clutched at his pyjama trousers, fumbling to do up the cord again as he skidded to a halt. Madame Terminé looked shorter than he remembered her. Perhaps it was the absence of shoes. Her feet and ankles were slim like a young girl’s. Her thighs, silhouetted against the light from a small table lamp, were firm and white. Standing with one hand resting on the knob of a brass bedstead, her long hair loose and hanging down her back, her breasts large and firm, the nipples as prominent as if they were fresh from a dip in a mountain stream, she looked for all the world like a Botticelli come to life.
How long they stayed looking at each other he knew not. It seemed like an eternity, but it could only have been for a second or two. Surprise gave way to other emotions. She moved as if about to say something, but before she had time to open her mouth he spared her blushes.
‘Pardon, Monsieur.’ He gave a slight bow. ‘Excusez-moi.’
He was not a moment too soon. Conscious that he’d punctuated his attempt at gallantry in a loud and most ungentlemanly way; at one and the same time a full stop, an exclamation mark, and a long drawn-out series of dots – a signal that it would be unwise to linger, he raced back down the stairs again, hoping she wouldn’t take it as a true expression of his feelings.
Pommes Frites gave him a jaundiced look through bloodshot eyes as his master dashed into the room and then disappeared again clutching a franc in his hand. He decided to stay where he was for the time being. Many things were possible, but being in two places at the same time was not one of them.
As decisions went it might not have altered the course of events; events that those who believed in such things would have said were predestined anyway from the moment Monsieur Pamplemousse got into his car in the eighteenth arrondissement and set course for St. Georges-sur-Lie, but it did lose Pommes Frites a ringside seat at their actual fulfilment.
Having lost several seconds fathoming out the security arrangements which protected the occupants of the Hôtel du Paradis from the outside world – no less than three very stiff bolts and a chain, followed by several more seconds grovelling around the cobblestoned square in search of his franc which he’d dropped in his haste, Monsieur Pamplemousse arrived outside the Sanisette.
Thankfully, though not surprisingly, the light was at green, indicating that it was unoccupied and ready for use.
Breathing heavily and with a trembling hand, he inserted his co
in in the slot of the electronic cash-box located beside the list of instructions and waited impatiently for the quarter-circle stainless steel suspended door to slide open on its base guide. One of the more infuriating things about living in an increasingly computerised world was that man had to wait for machine, and machines refused to be hurried. It was just the same with the garage beneath his block of flats in Paris. Instead of just driving in you had to break a beam of light and wait while an arm which barred your way was lifted. It usually took up to ten seconds. An eternity if you were late home and in a hurry.
Had there been anyone abroad at that time of night they might well have paused, and having paused wondered what kind of dance Monsieur Pamplemousse was performing. Was it a Gavotte or the Boston Two-Step? Or even the jive? Perhaps a combination of all three, with some jungle rhythms thrown in for good measure as he thumped unavailingly and impotently on a door made silent by a core of fibreglass wool sound-deadening material.
At last there was a whirr of machinery from somewhere inside. Having examined Monsieur Pamplemousse’s franc and not found it wanting, the coin analyser sent it on its way and issued instructions to admit him. At the same time two fluorescent tubes mounted above the laminated glass base of the sky-dome were switched on, along with an air heater in the technical area at the rear, an extractor fan in the roof, and the sound play-back system.
Unmoved by the speed at which Monsieur Pamplemousse entered the public area, the door closed again in its own good time, two air jacks securing it in a locked position. Outside, an orange light came on illuminating the word ‘occupé’, whilst in the technical area the heater, having ascertained that the ambient temperature was within the permitted tolerance either side of 19°C as laid down in the handbook, switched itself off.
Having no need for either coat-hook or handbag-hanger, ignoring the hand-basin with its automatic soap and presence-operated warm water dispenser, indifferent to the many and varied items of electronic gadgetry at work on his behalf, Monsieur Pamplemousse sank gratefully into place, offering up as he did so a prayer of thanks.
Given the fact that they were the last coherent words he was to utter for some while to come it was perhaps as well that he addressed them heavenwards. At least it gave him the benefit of having made early contact with the forces of good on high, rather than with their opposite number below, directly connected as the latter were with the Sanisette by means of an enamelled cast-iron drain trap in the base.
Even the least mechanically minded of occupants would have detected a change in the normal pattern of events as a clunking and grinding began somewhere towards the rear.
Monsieur Pamplemousse clutched frantically at the bowl as he felt it begin to tilt, slowly and inexorably turning him head over heels in a backwards direction to the sound of the Grand March from Aida. Jamming him doubled-up and powerless to move in the opening behind, it exposed him to the depredations of a high-speed revolving brush, a brush which sought out corners and probed where no man had probed before. The final indignity was provided by a centrifugal pump which completed the cycle by unleashing a spray containing a mixture of water, disinfectants, detergents, germ killers and, for good measure, a bio-degradable anti-fungus agent.
To say that his whole life flashed before him while all this was happening would have been an exaggeration. Forty seconds, however long it may seem at the time, was nothing for one who had led such a long and adventurous life. To say that Monsieur Pamplemousse spent the time marvelling at the way so much equipment had been packed into such a small space would have been as far from the truth as it would have been to say that he emerged a happier, cleaner man than when he went in. Cleaner, yes. Not since he’d been a babe in arms had he felt quite so cleaned and scrubbed and disinfected. But happier, no.
As he tottered back across the square for the second night running, Monsieur Pamplemousse couldn’t remember ever having felt quite so unhappy in his life.
He let himself in to the hotel and crawled up the stairs with but one thing in mind; an overpowering desire to sink as quickly as possible into a very deep bath.
Pommes Frites’ look of surprise at his master’s appearance changed to one of consternation and alarm when he saw what he had in mind. Jumping to his feet, he began racing round the room like a thing possessed, rolling his eyes as if in the grip of some kind of fever. Then, seeing it was getting him nowhere, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and for the second time that day let out a howl, only this time it was a howl of warning rather than sympathy; a cry of anguish not just from the heart but from his very soul. It was the kind of howl that would have caused any members of the Baskerville family, had they been staying at the Hôtel du Paradis, to sit up and take immediate notice before pulling the blankets over their heads in an effort to shut out the noise.
But for the time being at least Monsieur Pamplemousse was too far gone to care. Battered and bruised, smarting all over, still hardly sure whether he was coming or going, standing on his head or his heels, he felt as though he had been passed through a lavage automatique backwards. At least in a car wash they posted signs, telling you to retract your aerial and warning of possible damage to badges, wing mirrors and other protruding accessories. Some of his accessories felt as if they had been damaged beyond repair.
Turning off the hot tap he sprinkled the crystals into the bath and then clambered in, sinking slowly back until the water was lapping his chin. Oblivious to all but its soothing effect, luxuriating in its new-found softness, unable to summon the energy to reach up and turn on the heater, he closed his eyes and relaxed.
Pommes Frites eyed his master mournfully for a moment or so, and then he, too, lay back on his rug. He’d done his best. No one could say he hadn’t done his best. What happened now was in the lap of the Gods. Far stronger forces than his were needed to cope with a master whose indifference to his fate, whose inability to cope with even the simplest of messages, whose sublime disregard not only for his own safety but for the feelings of others were of such proportions they were almost beyond belief.
7
NONE BUT THE BRAVE DESERVE THE FAIR
‘I am sorry, Monsieur, such a thing is not possible. In any case we cannot accept complaints from the general public. It is necessary to go through the proper channels.’
Monsieur Pamplemousse took a deep breath, counted up to ten, and with commendable restraint, began again.
‘Monsieur, I have been through so many channels this morning it makes the Loire look as placid as an enfants’ paddling pool on a hot day. I have been on to the Mairie, and there I have spoken to the Service de la Santé, the Chef de la Salubrité Publique, the section dealing with the environnement, and the man whose job it is to judge the suitability of candidates for the village fleuri competitions. All of them have assured me that it is not their responsibility. They none of them wish to know. I have now been in this telephone kiosk for over half an hour getting absolutely nowhere while contributing to its upkeep to the tune of so many francs I have long ago lost count of them, and it is very, very hot. I am speaking to you as a last resort. If I do not get a satisfactory reply I shall catch the next train to Paris where I shall take great pleasure in squeezing one from you, drop by drop. When I have done that I shall make use of my many contacts with the press to make sure that before I call in and see my Député while en route for my lawyer, the affair which you treat so lightly receives maximum publicity.’
Taking advantage of the momentary silence, Monsieur Pamplemousse poked his head outside the booth and mopped his brow. All around the square stalls and tables were being set up. They had been arriving since dawn, along with battered vans full of junk and delivery vehicles laden with hams and sausages. Smoke rose from a mobile crêperie and he caught the pungent whiff of cooking oil from a hot-dog stand. To say that it was hot inside the telephone booth was the understatement of the year. It felt like an oven, draining reserves of both strength and temper. It was always the same; one co
ntained oneself up to a certain point and then let rip on some poor, unsuspecting individual who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘With the greatest respect, Monsieur …’ the voice was more conciliatory, as he knew it would be. The press had its uses. ‘Innumerable precautions have been taken to ensure that such an accident cannot possibly occur. On entering the toilet an infra-red beam detects your presence. Then there is an electronic detector with not one, but two sensitivities. First of all it ascertains if your weight is more than 4 kg, then it checks to make sure that it is more than 25 kg. This happens whether you are standing or sitting. Only when it is happy does the detector allow the door to be closed. On leaving, the door closes and locks automatically, then no less than three independent mechanical, electrical and pneumatic systems come into operation to make absolutely certain there is no longer anyone present. Only then, and I repeat, only then can the cleaning cycle begin. The floor and the toilet bowl tilt back to be received by the technical area …’
Monsieur Pamplemousse fed another five franc coin into the machine. He could see that in no way was it going to be a quick conversation.
‘Monsieur,’ he began, ‘I yield to no one in my admiration for your product. I have acquired an intimate knowledge of its working parts. I know exactly what happens when the cleaning cycle begins. I have, as you put it, “been received” and I bear the scars to prove it. I can see that it is clearly a scientific achievement of the first magnitude. It has raised what is, after all, one of man’s most basic and universal and necessary functions to the level of space travel. No doubt the day will come when one of these devices will be sent up on a rocket and landed on the moon for the benefit of any passing astronauts, regardless of race, colour, creed or sex, who happen to be taken short. However in the meantime, last night, here in St. Georges-sur-Lie …’