The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

by Alexander McCall Smith

  They sat down at the small table near the kitchen window. Hugo had produced a bottle of wine, and had poured a glass for Paul and one for himself. “Chinon,” he said. “One of my favourites.”

  Paul raised the glass to his nose. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

  “Tuffeau limestone,” said Hugo, and then, as if embarrassed at his knowledge, added, “The soil, you see. It makes the wine like this.”

  “It’s good that you know these things, Hugo,” said Paul. “You don’t have to apologise. Not to me.”

  “You’re the one who knows. You’ve written all these books.”

  “I know for a short time.” Paul laughed. “Then I forget. A real chef remembers in his bones.” He raised his glass to Hugo. “To La Table de Saint Vincent—and its distinguished future.”

  Hugo cast his eyes down. “If there is one.”

  “There should be.”

  Hugo was looking at him intently, as if there was something more that he wanted to say. He had not begun to eat his omelette.

  “Don’t let that get cold,” said Paul.

  “No, I won’t.”

  But he did not lift his knife and fork.

  “Anything wrong?” asked Paul.

  Hugo shook his head. Then he said, his words half mumbled, “When are you going back to Scotland?”

  Paul shrugged. “I haven’t decided. Perhaps in a month or two.”

  Hugo lowered his gaze. “A month or two,” he echoed, with regret. He paused, and then, lifting up his fork, he plunged it into the omelette. It was a gesture of disappointment; it was the way in which an omelette would be attacked by one who was not happy with the world.

  “I have a life to lead at home,” said Paul. “I have to work, you know.”

  “You could work here.”

  “In France?”

  “Yes. Right here.” Hugo made a gesture that encompassed the whole kitchen. “We could run this place. We could make something really great of it.” He hesitated. “Together. You and me. Without Uncle. He’s lost interest.”

  Paul began to laugh before he realised that laughter was not the right response. Hugo was entirely serious. He stopped himself. “I’m sorry.”

  “I meant what I said.”

  “I know you did,” said Paul, quickly. “And I shouldn’t have laughed.”

  “Then why not?”

  “Because I have a life elsewhere.” He paused. “And because I think you could do this by yourself. You could, you know.”

  Hugo looked at Paul in disbelief. “Me? Run this place?”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you think I could?”

  Paul smiled. “I think you have the makings of a great chef.”

  Hugo said nothing for a few moments. Then he asked, “Do you really think I could?”

  Paul said he did think that.

  “But Uncle?”

  “Let’s see what happens,” said Paul.

  13

  Stranger Things Have Happened

  When Paul made his way into the kitchen the next morning, Chloe was already up. She had brewed coffee and the smell of the freshly ground beans wafted over from the stove. Paul sniffed at the air appreciatively. He glanced towards the window, under which the morning sun was basting the flagstones with buttery yellow. This was the difference, he thought; this was the difference between France and home, between this place, with its soft southern sunshine, and Scotland, with its attenuated, pale blue light. Scotland seemed so far away—in every sense. It had its moments, of course—everywhere did; but they were radically different from the French drama into which he had wandered—or been thrust, perhaps. He glanced at Chloe; if he had not had that lunch with her back in Edinburgh, then he would not have found himself here, immersed in this full-dress rural opera. He smiled at the thought. We imagined that we planned our lives; but we did not, or only rarely. We felt our way through them. We lurched. Our lives were not like a Swiss railway timetable—ordered, predictable, and running along predetermined lines. Our lives were…the metaphor escaped him, and he sniffed at the coffee again. Time to smell the coffee…Or was it roses?

  Chloe looked at him in a businesslike way. “Everything is arranged,” she said. “You were asleep when I came back last night. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I helped to tidy things up at the restaurant. I was tired.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  He thought he should apologise. “Thérèse asked me about Audette’s coming here,” he said. “She presented it as a fait accompli, I’m afraid. I told her she’d have to ask you, but she was in full flow. I’m not sure that she took it in.”

  Chloe was unconcerned. “Oh, she asked. Well, sort of. Some people ask in such a way as to make it impossible to say anything but yes. It’s what I call an ask-demand.”

  “She made an ask-demand?”

  Chloe chuckled. “Of the most classic variety. But there we are. Ibi sumus, as my Latin teacher used to say—if I had a Latin teacher, which I can’t quite remember. There was somebody who was described as the Latin teacher, but I’m not sure that she actually taught any Latin. She was very fond of putting her arm about you—quite respectably, of course—and saying, ‘You must read Catullus one day, my dear. He wrote such charming love poems.’ Such teachers are so inspirational, aren’t they?”

  “Times have changed, Chloe.”

  “Of course they have. You don’t have to tell me that, Paul.” She gave Paul a disapproving look, as if he, single-handed, had been responsible for a seismic shift in social mores. “There are so few inspirational teachers left, aren’t there? They’re all busy filling in forms and meeting targets and so on. And fending off their ill-disciplined charges.” She paused for long enough to shoot another disapproving look in Paul’s direction. “Do you realise, Paul, how much teachers have to put up with these days? Do you realise that the children actually swear at them? And then the teachers are told not to respond because it’s elitist—elitist!—to discourage everyday language. The view is taken that if that is how people talk, then that is how they talk. It’s not for us to tell others how to express themselves.”

  Paul sighed. “Stupidity.”

  “Stupidity on stilts, Paul!” Now she frowned. “That was Bentham, wasn’t it? Or John Stuart Mill? I confuse the two of them—I always have. Those two and Epicurus. For some reason I think of Epicurus as being in their company, but he wasn’t really, was he?”

  “You were thinking of Jeremy Bentham,” said Paul. “And he said Nonsense on stilts about natural rights.”

  Chloe nodded. “Oh well, there you are. And he’s the one they keep in a cupboard at UCL, isn’t he? Have you seen him?”

  Paul had. He had been taken to the cupboard by a friend at the university, who had pointed out the wax head placed on the actual skeleton of the philosopher. The clothes, stuffed with hay, gave shape to the bones. “They take him to faculty meetings,” the friend had explained, “and record him as being present but not voting. It’s bizarre, but they consider it great fun. You know how odd the English are.”

  “We shouldn’t be talking about Bentham,” said Chloe. “We should be talking about Audette and the baby, since they are coming to stay in…” She looked at her watch. “In exactly thirty minutes—if they’re punctual, which they won’t be.”

  “Has the baby got a name?” asked Paul.

  “He’s called Aramis, apparently.”

  “One of the Three Musketeers—remember? Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. I loved that story as a boy.”

  Chloe waved a hand airily. “It meant less to me. In fact, it meant nothing. But that’s what the baby’s called—somewhat surprisingly. I don’t immediately associate Audette with French literature. Or any literature, for that matter.”

  Paul thought of something. “There’s a perfume of that name, isn�
�t there? Aramis. You see it at airports, in the duty-free.”

  “So there is,” said Chloe. She poured herself a cup of coffee, topping it up with milk she had heated on the stove. “Milky, white, not all that hot—café au lait, or is it a café noisette? Or do they say caffé latte, like everybody else? It’s so confusing, Paul—life, that is.”

  “Café au lait is coffee with lots of warm milk,” said Paul. “And café noisette is coffee with lots of milk, but maybe not quite so much. It’s meant to look the colour of a hazelnut.”

  “And you needed a bowl for café au lait?”

  “Traditionally,” said Paul. “And it was really for breakfast.”

  “This is such a wonderful country,” said Chloe. “What can we do but admire a culture that encourages people to sit in pavement cafés and drink milky coffee from bowls.”

  “Audette and Aramis,” Paul reminded her.

  “Yes. Them. Well.” Chloe became businesslike once more. “We must give them sanctuary. They are Mary and the blessed infant seeking a stable. We cannot turn them away. And this wicked Bleu, this voleur d’électricité, is Herod—on the rampage. We shall not allow him to find our little family.”

  Paul looked at Chloe in astonishment. “There are some analogies one should not push too far,” he said.

  “Oh, Paul, don’t take me so literally. We are Homo ludens as well as sapiens, remember. We must have our fun.”

  He thought: And our deceptions, or, perhaps, our fantasies, Mrs. Pangloss?

  “I’ve already prepared a room for them,” Chloe continued. “It’s the one next door to yours. I’ve put out the towels and bowls and things that will undoubtedly be needed. Babies require such a large support system, don’t they? Endless bottles and pads and disinfectants and the like. The room looks to all intents and purposes like a hospital ward.”

  Paul was thinking of the implications of having a baby living in the next-door room. “How long will they be staying?” He added hurriedly, “Not that they’re unwelcome.”

  Chloe shrugged. “I suspect that they will be here for a few days. By then the danger should have receded, I hope.”

  Paul thought that unduly optimistic. “What about the lawyer? What about his custody claim? Those things grind on and on. They take ages. That means that our friend Bleu will be here for some time.”

  Chloe conceded that the law moved slowly, but seemed unconcerned. “True, he might prove tenacious, even if his legal claim is weak. However, that might not be too much of a danger for us. Bleu might have bitten off more than he can chew.”

  “I don’t see that.”

  “Bleu might find it necessary to make himself scarce,” Chloe said. “He might think it wiser to move on—sans Aramis, which one might translate, roughly, of course, as unperfumed.”

  Paul blinked at the joke. “You’re very clever, Chloe,” he said.

  “Thank you. It was just a thought—a little wordplay to relieve us of the gloom that might otherwise descend. Levity, you know, is always the best cure for gloom. A spot of levity and the clouds lift—usually quite miraculously.”

  “But why would he move on?”

  Chloe, who had been standing near the window during this exchange, now sat down at the pine table that dominated the centre of the kitchen. “Because,” she said, “there are times when people like that encounter, well, people like that. And they don’t like it.”

  Paul struggled to make sense of this. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite…”

  Chloe raised a hand. “It’s best not to discuss these things too much, Paul. That’s what I’ve learned in my career.”

  Paul frowned. “Learned in what career?”

  Chloe ignored this, but Paul continued, “What career, Chloe? You’ve never spoken about a career.”

  Chloe turned to look at him directly. Her voice became colder. “Don’t underestimate me, Paul. And don’t condescend, either. Women don’t like male condescension.”

  “I’m not condescending,” Paul replied. “And I certainly don’t underestimate you. I was just wondering what you meant by ‘my career.’ You never said anything about it.” He did not say what he was thinking—which was that having that many husbands could in itself amount to a career. He assumed she did not mean that.

  “Sometimes we sound metaphorical, Paul. Surely you know that. We live by metaphors.” Her voice had become warm again—almost coquettish. And what other woman, Paul said to himself, could sound coquettish when talking about metaphor?

  “So career is a synonym for life,” said Paul.

  “It could be,” agreed Chloe. “Or possibly not. It’s contextual, I should say.”

  Paul took a sip of his coffee. “Oh well.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Chloe. “Oh well.” She put down her cup and wiped her lips with the corner of a handkerchief. “The plan, Paul, is as follows. They—that is, Audette and le petit Aramis—come here. Annabelle and Thérèse will provide back-up. They’ll cook and so on while I go off to Paris for a few days. I shall take Claude with me.”

  Paul was unprepared for this. Chloe had said nothing about Paris. “What? You’re going off?”

  “Yes,” said Chloe. “It is necessary for me to go up to Paris for a brief visit. I shall not be away for any longer than is necessary.”

  “But in the middle of all this?” Paul protested. “Do you have to? Can’t you go when things are a bit more settled?”

  Chloe’s reply was brief and unambiguous. “No. Can’t.” Then she went on. “And since Claude will be away too, do you think that you could possibly help Hugo in the restaurant? You two will have a lot of fun.” She paused, but only for a few seconds, before continuing. “That’s so kind of you, Paul. You really are a very kind man, you know.”

  She was concerned about his book. “Of course, you shouldn’t forget that you’re writing a book. Don’t let that slip.”

  “Was writing one,” said Paul.

  He told Chloe of his decision to abandon The Philosophy of Food. “The whole thing was inauthentic. I didn’t really believe—”

  “Let me stop you there,” said Chloe. “You’re absolutely right to abandon the whole thing. If you feel inauthentic, then the book’s inauthentic—beyond a shadow of doubt.”

  “I haven’t told them yet,” said Paul. The thought appalled him. He would have to speak to Gloria, and she had already arranged matters with the publisher; all of that would have to be unstitched. What would she think? What had Gloria done to deserve all that?

  “ ‘Them’?”

  “My editor, Gloria. She’ll tell the publishers.”

  “Because you can’t face them?”

  Paul felt miserable. Chloe was right; it was cowardice that was preventing his telling the publisher that The Philosophy of Food would never be. “I know what I have to do,” he said. “And I shall do it. I’ll e-mail Gloria later today.”

  “Phone,” said Chloe.

  He looked at her. She had no right to tell him what to do. What was wrong with breaking the news to Gloria by e-mail? He silently posed the question, and immediately answered it himself. E-mail was the easy way out. Talking directly to somebody was more morally courageous than merely sending a message.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll call her. It would be…”

  “More courteous.”

  He nodded his assent.

  “When?” she asked.

  “This afternoon,” he began. But Chloe had produced her mobile telephone from the pocket of her jeans and passed it to him.

  * * *

  —

  Gloria was slow to answer and Paul was about to ring off—not without relief—when she eventually picked up the phone. She seemed pleased to hear from him. “I’ve been thinking about you,” she said.

  He had been thinking about her too, he reflected. No
t constantly, as one may think about a lover, but certainly every day, at odd hours and unexpected times. He did not say this, but said instead, “Me too.”

  This seemed to please her. “I meant to phone you. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  There was a brief silence, during which Chloe looked expectantly at Paul. Then Gloria said, “The book? Is everything going well?”

  There was another silence.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes, I’m still here. France is still here. The book…”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “You might say that.”

  Silence.

  “Paul?”

  He took a deep breath. “I don’t want to write it. I hate it. I hate The Philosophy of Food. It’s rubbish.”

  From the other side of the room, Chloe raised an eyebrow.

  Then Gloria said, “Well, it’s funny you should say that, because you know what? I never liked the idea.”

  Paul stopped her. “What? You never liked it? Never?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Gloria. “I know I encouraged you, but that was because you wanted to write it, and it seemed to me that I should support you in what you wanted to do. And then when I went to the publishers they said ‘Great idea,’ but I could tell that they weren’t thinking ‘Great idea.’”

  “You could tell?”

  “Yes. When people say ‘Great idea’ in a flat sort of way you know that they don’t think it’s a great idea. English is more of a tonal language than we think, Paul.”

  Paul felt a great surge of relief. Chloe, who could hear much of this, made a thumbs-up sign.

  “So, you want to call off?” asked Gloria. “Because it seems to me that nobody wants The Philosophy of Food. You don’t. I don’t. The publishers don’t. And that leaves the public.”

  “They don’t want it,” said Paul. “You develop a sort of sixth sense about what will run and what won’t. And my sixth sense tells me that the public thinks: The Philosophy of Food? No, bad idea. That’s what the public is thinking, Gloria.”