The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “Or Soupe de moules safranées,” the doctor continued. “What about that? That comes from the Loire, where they grow a lot of leeks. It has leeks, of course, and saffron. The husband of the local midwife makes that, you know. He’s from the Loire.”

  Paul smiled. “I need to visit the bathroom,” he said.

  The doctor made a gesture of acceptance. “It’s tactless of me to discuss mussels—please forgive me.”

  “It’s nothing,” said Paul.

  “I wish you a quick recovery,” said the doctor. “But, on second thought, I’m going to confine you to bed for four days. You must remain where you are in order to give yourself a chance to recover. Your system will have had a bad shock.”

  Paul protested. “But it’s just a touch of food poisoning.”

  The doctor shook a finger. “Monsieur, I’ve had patients who say just that and then—pouf—the next day they’re dead. E. coli is very deadly. Very.”

  Paul did not argue. There was a sharp pain in his stomach and he needed the bathroom more than ever. He nodded his assent and went out into the corridor, past Chloe and the twins, who were scurrying away, embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping on a medical consultation.

  When Paul returned to his bedroom, he found Chloe awaiting him. Seated in the easy chair beside his bed, she looked at him sympathetically as he eased himself back under the duvet.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear what the doctor said,” she began. “We must follow his instructions. Four days.”

  “I doubt if it’s necessary,” said Paul. “Usually these things are over in a day or two.”

  “Be that as it may, you really must do as he says. The twins speak very highly of him. They say that he’s one of the best doctors for miles around, and he hasn’t charged you a bean. He’s their cousin, you see, and he never charges them.”

  “I’m very grateful,” said Paul.

  “And as for the restaurant,” Chloe continued, “Thérèse and Annabelle are most concerned about that. They’ve spoken to Claude, who’s devastated. He’s refunded the cost of our meal and he’s insisting on visiting you. I suggested tomorrow—when you’re a bit stronger.”

  “It’s not his fault,” said Paul. “I won’t hold it against him.”

  Chloe was clearly pleased by this. “They are very attached to him,” she said. “And I can understand why. I spoke to him this morning and he’s utterly charming.”

  “Good,” said Paul. “However, I’m not sure that his restaurant is all it might be.”

  “They say he tries terribly hard,” Chloe said. “He works at it, but…” She looked sad. “Poor dear, he doesn’t seem to get anywhere with it. And his nephew, who helps him in the kitchen, is no better, I was told.”

  “And then there’s Audette.”

  Chloe groaned. “Yes. She needs a little instruction, I’d say. Serving people in a restaurant is a bit of an art.”

  Paul closed his eyes. He did not want to think about restaurants or food. The pain in his stomach had abated, but he still felt weakened and shivery. He thought about the damage that a few quite invisible bacteria could wreak on the human system. We were Goliath and the bacteria were a tribe of tiny Davids, and they could lay us low within hours.

  “How about tea?” asked Chloe. “There’s nothing like tea to restore you.”

  Paul accepted, and in a few minutes Chloe was back with two mugs.

  “You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” said Chloe. “I’ll keep you company for a while, and then perhaps you can sleep.”

  “You do the talking,” said Paul. “I’ll just lie here.” He took a sip of his tea. “Tell me about your husbands.”

  Chloe affected reproach. “You’d think I spoke about nothing else,” she said.

  “You only told me about your Italian,” said Paul. “And you mentioned the American, but just mentioned. He was called Jack, wasn’t he? I would like to hear about—”

  “It would be best to do them seriatim,” Chloe interrupted. “Jack was number four, in fact, so we can talk about him some other day. We have plenty of time.”

  “So who was number two?”

  “Well,” began Chloe, “after dear Antonio Gigliodoro I was still in what I might describe as a Mediterranean mood. After you’ve been…been involved with a man from those latitudes, northern men seem a bit, well, insipid. There’s a lot to be said for Latins, you know. They have a certain vigour, shall we say.”

  Paul smiled. “You put it so delicately, Chloe.”

  “And so I should. If there’s one thing one should not talk about, Paul, it is the secrets of the bedroom. That is of no concern to anybody else, and it is very bad taste to disclose what happens there.” She paused. “That isn’t to say that you can’t talk about what other people get up to in that department—that’s a matter of great interest to all of us—but you shouldn’t talk about yourself in that way.”

  Paul pretended to be chastened. “Of course not.”

  “Good. Well, after dear Antonio was conscripted into the Italian Lunatics’ Regiment, or whatever it was, we drifted apart, as I think I told you. The Pope was so understanding, and the annulment came through in record time—Antonio’s family were connected with the old Roman black aristocracy, as they’re called. They pulled strings and those strings were attached to the Pope’s right hand. He signed the papers and that was that—as far as the Church was concerned, we’d never really meant to get married and the whole thing could be put aside. Such a sweet pope.

  “I was free to go. Antonio’s family had been generous and I received a large sum intended to tide me over for a few years. In fact, they were used to living pretty highly and they miscalculated how much I actually needed. They gave me enough to live on for fifteen years, perfectly comfortably. I think they may have got their decimal places mixed up, but they could well afford it and I didn’t want to embarrass them by pointing out the error. It would have been tantamount to accusing them of being bad at maths, which I would never do, Paul.”

  Paul nodded. “Of course not. Tactful you.”

  “I needed to get away, and so I went off to Madrid. I had a friend there who was working as an au pair for a Spanish family before she went off to do a degree, and she invited me to come and stay with her. The family was apparently happy for her to have guests, and so she asked me to join her for a few weeks. She could get me work with one of the family’s friends, she said, if I wanted it. Or I could help her look after her family’s two children, one of whom suffered from anger issues—at the age of four—and needed a lot of supervision.

  “I liked the family, and even the four-year-old with anger issues was not too bad. I discovered that you could calm him down by throwing a bucket of water over him. That worked, although you’ll find that nowhere in the books, Paul. People are reluctant to take on these little monsters, you know, the tantrum-prone two-year-olds and so on. But I wasn’t, and it really worked. I’ve told people about it, but they don’t believe me. They’ve all read these dreadful books telling you to negotiate with two-year-olds, but that’s a waste of time, in my view. A bucket of cold water thrown over them stops them in their tracks, and they generally behave themselves after that. Or at least I have no trouble with them.”

  Paul’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure these days, Chloe…”

  “Oh, don’t give me these days, Paul. Children haven’t changed, and the way to deal with bad behaviour down amongst the toddlers hasn’t changed either. A firm response is what’s required. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point was that I was there in Madrid and I met Octavio, who was ten years older than I was. I was just twenty, then, Paul, and…”

  “Twenty,” muttered Paul. “You can’t be blamed for anything you did at twenty.”

  Chloe smiled. “How kind of you. Yes, it’s a headstrong time—a romantic time, too. And I had this te
ndency to fall in love, I suppose. Some people have a weakness, and mine is to fall in love.”

  “If it’s a weakness.”

  Chloe thought it was. “It makes you vulnerable. Very strong, very determined people are able to resist such impulses. They’re above all that.”

  “But think what they’re missing.”

  Chloe shook her head. “I’m not sure being in love is always a positive feeling. It’s a state of enhanced awareness, I suppose, that may be exciting at times, but I was…I was…” She searched for the right word. “I was disconcerted—I always have been when I first tumble—and that’s the word I should use, perhaps, rather than fall. You tumble in love…or stumble in love, perhaps. Trip, too. We trip in love, which might describe more accurately what happens to you.” She paused and looked quizzically at Paul. “How much of a classical education did you have, Paul? I forget the details.”

  He made a sign—the distance between barely separated finger and thumb. “Not much. I had a Latin teacher who didn’t exactly inspire. He loved Horace’s poetry and kept going on to us about Horatian odes. He said that we should aspire to being like Horace with his Sabine farm and his rural melancholy, which is ridiculous when you’re talking to sixteen-year-old boys. We were more interested in Catullus and the spicier bits.”

  “Who wouldn’t be at sixteen?”

  “So not much of a classical education.”

  “No.” Chloe waved a hand airily. “I had tiny fragments. But some of it stuck, I suppose, and I still know who Homer was, although he possibly didn’t exist, you know. He was a sort of committee, I believe—a committee whose job it was to remember vast screeds of poetry, all made up by the committee in the past. And there’s far too much fighting for my taste—rather like the Old Testament. Dreadful bad behaviour there—smiting and so on. Quite a lot of begetting, too, which is infinitely better than smiting. But lots of grudges. Anyway, I picked up some Latin at school and take great pleasure in using it if I have half a chance.” She sighed. “Which is so rarely these days. People look at you blankly when you start quoting Latin to them. Even the Catholics, who used to get a bit of Latin here and there, but no longer. They’ve lost so much, haven’t they? Latin, Purgatory, indulgences—all that baggage. And what are they getting in return? Guitars and happy clapping—that sort of thing. Anyway…”

  Paul was silent. The room was warm. If it were not for the queasiness in his stomach he might have drifted off, lulled into sleep by Chloe’s monologue.

  “What I was going to say to you, Paul,” Chloe continued, “is this: Ira furor brevis est. Anger is a brief madness. It’s a Latin proverb. But you can change it so easily into Amor furor brevis est—love is a brief madness. So apt.”

  Paul reminded her. “Octavio?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I met him in a coffeehouse. They have those in Spain, you know—those rather plush places where people sit and read newspapers and drink strong coffee. I had wandered into one of those when it was looking rather full and I was about to go out again. But there was Octavio, and he signalled to me that there was a place at his table and I could sit down if I wished. He was by far the most interesting-looking man in the place, because all the others were at least forty, and at twenty, forty is positively ancient.

  “So I sat down and Octavio called the waiter over and ordered for me. He could tell that I couldn’t speak Spanish—there’s a look about people who can’t speak Spanish—and his English was quite good. So he introduced himself and I fell in love with him there and then. It took two minutes, at the most. It was like getting an anaesthetic. You start counting backwards from ten and you’re out by the time you get to eight. Bang. Love.”

  Paul stared at the ceiling. He wondered why this had never happened to him. Had he been in love—ever? Or had he just been in something less—in friendship? Was love no more than that, just intense friendship? Or intense friendship plus sex? Or was that thoroughly reductionist—cheap, even—because love was something far greater than that: a cherishing, a valuing, something not far removed from agape? You could love somebody passionately and yet not want the physical…Or could you?

  “Octavio asked me all about myself. He was one of those people who do that—he was always interested in you, not just himself. That’s the big distinction, Paul—people who are interested in themselves and people who are interested in other people. And you can always tell. The people who are interested in themselves never ask you anything about you. They just don’t. It’s a very simple test. Count the number of uses of the first-person-singular pronoun and then tot up the number of mentions of the second-person singular. If there are more of the first than the second, you have your answer. Self-obsessed. Watch out: selfishness ahead.

  “We talked for over an hour that first time. It was as if I had known him forever—you’ll have met people like that, won’t you? They’re so sympathetic you feel as comfortable with them as if they were old friends. Then he invited me to meet him for dinner, and for lunch the next day, and dinner too. And then, after about two weeks, he proposed to me and I accepted on the spot. I think I probably even said yes before he had finished his sentence, but that sometimes happens. Apparently, it happens a lot in Germany, because German puts the verbs at the end, as you know. The poor girl sits there waiting for the verb to come along and says yes before he finishes because she just can’t bear the strain. That’s not a problem in more succinct languages, like English.”

  Paul looked at Chloe. She smiled back at him.

  “Octavio’s family was quite different from the Gigliodoro clan. They were delighted that Octavio was getting married and they gave me a most effusive welcome. Octavio’s mother—Señora Flores de Flores—said, ‘Thank God! At long last!’ and his grandmother started to pray. She said that it was a prayer in thanks for deliverance. For deliverance, Paul!”

  Paul wondered if that had been a warning—but apparently not.

  “There was nothing intrinsically wrong with Octavio. He was good-looking; he was intelligent; and he was faithful. That’s so important, Paul—faithfulness. If you don’t have that in a marriage, then what’s the point of being married in the first place?”

  Paul looked up at the ceiling. He did not feel strong enough to engage in debate and he wanted to hear more about Octavio. So he simply nodded and said, “Very important.”

  “Crucial,” said Chloe. “Faithfulness is at the heart of marriage—the very heart. And Octavio never gave me cause to think that he was less than one hundred per cent faithful. And yet our marriage just didn’t work. It was my fault.”

  “Is it helpful to talk about fault?” asked Paul.

  “In some cases, yes. Octavio would still be married to me today if I hadn’t brought the marriage to an end. And that was to do with his job. I couldn’t abide what he did.”

  Paul was intrigued. “Which was what?”

  “He was a bull-fight journalist,” answered Chloe. “He covered bull-fighting for El Mundo, one of the big Madrid newspapers.”

  Paul was silent.

  “Yes,” said Chloe, her voice full of apology. “I’m afraid that’s what Octavio did.”

  Paul felt for her. To have married a bull-fight journalist sounded like a grave error of judgement. “I’m all for cultural relativism,” he said, “but…”

  Chloe shook her head. “Well I, for one, am not all for cultural relativism—nor moral relativism, while we’re on the subject. Some things are wrong—just plain wrong—irrespective of cultural differences. Head-hunting, for instance. Ritual murder. Slavery. All of these are wrong even if some benighted cultures may endorse them.”

  Chloe’s tone was forceful. Paul sought to placate her. “I’d agree,” he said. “Except many people would look askance at any reference to benighted cultures. You can’t say that, you know.”

  “Why not?” Chloe asked indignantly.

  “Bec
ause…” Paul shrugged. “Because there’s a climate of opinion about these things. Benighted suggests that you think your own culture superior to somebody else’s.”

  Chloe was silent. She looked at Paul with what seemed like genuine puzzlement. Then she said, “But it is. Not just ours—any culture that disagrees with slavery is superior to one that allows it.” She frowned. “How can anybody—anybody—disagree with that?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Paul. “Perhaps it’s just a question of tact. Perhaps it’s the historical context in which a remark is made. You…” He hesitated, but then continued, “You, you see, Chloe, are part of a culture that in the past treated many other cultures with, at best, condescension, and at worst with complete contempt. And this means that you have to be careful that what you say now—when that attitude is so strenuously rejected—does not sound condescending. Or does not sound as if it fails to value other cultures—to respect them, really.”

  “But I don’t respect people who enslave others,” said Chloe. “I don’t respect people who treat other people badly in any way. I don’t respect men who put women down. Why can’t I say that?”

  Paul sighed. “I don’t want to sit here and argue with you…or, rather, lie here and argue with you.”

  Chloe reached out and put her hand on his brow. “No, of course not. You still have a temperature, don’t you? Should I get some ice and put it on your head?”

  Paul smiled. “That sounds so odd. Should I get some ice and put it on your head? How often does one have the chance to say that?”

  “Well, should I?”

  “No, I’m fine. Let’s get back to Octavio. You didn’t like what he did?”

  Chloe shook her head. “Not in the slightest. And I suppose I should have had it out with him right at the beginning. I should have stopped things at the very first mention of bull-fighting. I should have said that I couldn’t have anything to do with a man who thought that the tormenting of a poor, frightened creature in a public ring was a sport. How can anybody think that, Paul? How can they?”