The Second-Worst Restaurant in France

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Gloria agreed. “What the public wants is books about French people eating really nice food. They like to read about that, and they like to see that on television.”

  Paul looked up at the ceiling as he spoke. “Television?”

  “Yes. We’ve had an approach. The people who did your last series. Some of them have hived off and started a new company to make documentaries and so on. The usual stuff. Anyway, they—these hived-off people—have been in touch with me about you.”

  “About me?”

  “Yes. They were very polite about you, actually. They said that the ratings for your last series were pretty good and now it’s being rebroadcast all over the place. Lots of repeat fees, Paul. Lots.”

  “And?”

  “And they said, ‘Do you think Paul might be interested in doing something about French people eating nice food?’ Well, those weren’t their actual words, of course, but that was the gist of it. So I said, ‘He might be—I can ask. At the moment he’s writing a book about the philosophy of food.’ And you know what, Paul? There was a long silence…That didn’t press the right button with them. But they said, ‘Come back to us if he changes his mind.’ And I said I would.”

  Paul said nothing for a few moments. His thoughts were inchoate, but rapid.

  “Paul?”

  “Yes, I’m thinking. I’ve had an idea, Gloria.”

  “Oh good. That’s what we need, Paul. Ideas…”

  “No, just listen. How about…how about a television series that follows the progress of a young man—a really good-looking young chef—not me, of course, but a young Frenchman called Hugo, for instance—who works in this really awful restaurant run by his uncle.”

  “Called?”

  “The uncle would be called Claude. And I would be there, but only in the background, as narrator, so to speak. Anyway, this restaurant they have is failing badly. People are calling it the second-worst restaurant in France.”

  “No! That could be the title of the series. The Second-Worst Restaurant in France.”

  “It could be. So we follow the fortunes of this young chef and his efforts to pull the place up by its bootstraps. We go to market with him and see all the…”

  “Mushrooms,” said Gloria. “People love looking at mushrooms on television. Put a mushroom into anything and the ratings go north. No, I’m not joking. I heard that from somebody. They said everybody in television knows that.”

  “All right. The camera lingers on the mushrooms. And Hugo picks up mushrooms and sniffs at them. The viewers will love that. And then we see him in the kitchen making a dessert, perhaps. A clafoutis.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a sort of flan. You put cherries in it and the cherry juice seeps out into the flanny bit.”

  “Oh my God, Paul. I can see that, I can see the juice seeping out.”

  “Can you? All right. They’ll love that. Then we see him tasting the clafoutis. Putting it into his mouth…”

  “His mouth?”

  “Yes. And then we see the diners in the restaurant and hear what they have to say. Maybe we learn a bit more about them. Where they come from, and so on. We see Hugo discussing the dishes with them. And so on, and so on, until the inspector from Michelin drops by and says, ‘You’re not doing too badly, young man.’ ”

  “Oh, Paul, this is good. Really good. They’ll leap at it. I know they will. And there’ll be the book to accompany the series. You can do that, can’t you? I take it you actually want to write this one.”

  He told her he did.

  “In that case, Paul, we’re in business.” She paused. “But Paul, can you actually instruct the Michelin people to drop by? If this is a proper documentary we can’t use actors, you know.”

  “This will be real, Gloria. Authentic. And no, you can’t instruct the Michelin people to do anything. We’ll just have to hope.”

  “Because that would be a great ending, wouldn’t it? A Michelin rosette.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Paul.

  14

  France, France

  Aramis arrived in a Moses basket that was elaborately decorated with antique Normandy lace. This lace had been retrieved from an attic by Thérèse, washed, ironed, and lovingly tacked around the edge of the basket. In addition to the basket, there were bundles of sheets and towelling, and a whole box of soaps, lotions, and bottles of various descriptions. Paul watched as the house that he and Chloe had been occupying so comfortably was converted into an infant’s caravanserai. Annabelle and Thérèse were clearly in charge, directing Audette, who seemed to accept their authority meekly and without question. They showed her the room she would occupy; they demonstrated how the eccentric taps in the bathroom preferred to be operated; they identified the cupboards in the kitchen in which she could stack her stolen food, relegating some of Chloe’s provisions to a back shelf in the process; they pointed out where, in the garden, she might sit and not be observed by anybody from the village.

  “Nobody need know you’re here,” said Thérèse, “as long as you don’t go out. Paul can go to the village for you, if you need anything. You can do that, can’t you, Paul.”

  Paul did not object. And nor did Chloe, who might have been expected to be bemused—at the least—by the way in which the house that she had, after all, rented was being taken over, mid-lease, by its owners. She was preoccupied, though, with her own plans, which involved, Paul noted, lengthy and somewhat furtive telephone conversations. She gave no explanation for these, and Paul did not presume to ask. Nothing was being revealed about her trip to Paris, although Claude, who appeared shortly after Audette had moved in, was given a full briefing in the courtyard. Paul watched him being spoken to by Chloe, and saw the nodding of his head in agreement, and other signs of his thraldom.

  “Is Claude driving you to Paris?” Paul asked.

  “He is,” said Chloe.

  He waited for her to venture more information.

  “You couldn’t have gone by train?”

  She shook her head. “Not this time,” she said.

  By ten o’clock Chloe was ready. The car was packed and a picnic, prepared by Claude, was loaded. Annabelle and Thérèse were still fussing over Audette and Artemis, and Paul, having waved goodbye to Chloe and Claude as they made their way down the drive, set off for the restaurant. He had spoken to Hugo on the phone and had promised him that he would be available for preparations for both lunch and dinner. Hugo had found a friend to help out as waiter, leaving Paul free to help him in the kitchen. They would go to the market at Montmorillon, too, before they started getting ready for lunch.

  Hugo was in the kitchen when Paul arrived. Several books, annotated and stained, in the way of well-used recipe books, were open on the table. He greeted Paul effusively, pointing to one of the recipes in front of him.

  “This will do for tonight,” he said. “If we can get good artichokes and some sheep’s-milk cheese. What do you think, Monsieur Paul?”

  Paul looked at the recipe. It was elaborate, by any standards. He glanced at the book’s title page. “Escoffier?”

  Hugo nodded. “I bought it from a book dealer. He said it had belonged to a well-known chef. You’ll see the notes on the sides—and the dates he made some of the dishes.” His finger went to a cluster of pencilled notes in the margin. “You see. March fourth, 1938. July third, 1939. And then nothing until 1946.”

  Paul gazed at the tiny handwriting. There had been a war. Rations must have been tight, even in the natural larder of France. Food had been commandeered to feed Germany.

  “It’s hard to imagine now,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “Occupation. Or Vichy. Being frightened. Being hungry.” He flicked a page. “Particularly being frightened.”

  He looked at Hugo. He looked at his bright eyes. Something m
ade him ask, “Have you been frightened, Hugo?”

  The young man moved away from the table. He opened a window, busying himself with the tasks of preparing the kitchen. “Me? Frightened?”

  “Yes.”

  Hugo hesitated. He looked outside, past the fringe of creeper intruding upon the window; past the sign that said La Table de St. Vincent. “Possibly. Now and then. But who isn’t?”

  “Hardly anybody,” answered Paul. “Well, there may be a few big heroes here and there. But most of us…no, we’ve been frightened at some stage of our lives.”

  “Yes,” said Hugo. “We have.”

  “And then we discover that we don’t need to be frightened. We switch on a light, you could say, and the light shows us that there was nothing to be frightened about.”

  Hugo was silent. Paul saw that he was fiddling with the strap of his watch. He met the young man’s gaze and held it.

  “So,” Paul continued. “Who is it, Hugo? Who are you frightened of? Your uncle? Is that it?”

  The corner of Hugo’s mouth twitched. It was all the confirmation Paul needed.

  “Why don’t you speak to him?”

  Hugo shook his head. “No. I can’t. All my life he’s been trying to make me something that I’m not. I can’t go and tell him now. Not now.”

  “You can’t tell him to his face that you don’t want to be like him?”

  Hugo nodded.

  “You can’t tell him now that you don’t want to have anything to do with his hunting, and all that outdoors stuff? Or his politics?”

  Again there was mute confirmation.

  “You can, you know. Or, if you like…” Paul had not thought it through, but he pressed on. “If you like, I can speak to him. Sometimes it’s easier that way.” He paused. “Sometimes other people can do the things that we find it too hard to do.”

  Hugo took a step backwards, and for a moment Paul thought he was going to run away. But then he stood still. He wiped his hands on the apron he was wearing. Then he examined them.

  “All right. If you don’t mind. But…” His voice betrayed his anxiety. “But what are you going to say to him?”

  “To let you go. To let you be yourself.”

  “He won’t do that.”

  “I think he might. I suspect that he actually loves you, you know, but has an odd way of showing it. I think he also needs to let himself go. He needs to…”

  “…stop trying to cook,” Hugo interjected, and then grinned. Paul laughed.

  Hugo drove Paul to the market in his small van. They wandered along the stalls, gradually filling the two large bags they had brought with them. At one stall that sold mushrooms, Paul asked Hugo to pick one or two out of the tray and sniff at them. “I’d like to take a photograph of you doing that,” he said.

  “Like this?”

  “Just like that. Perfect.”

  Over coffee, their provisions bought, he sent the image to Gloria. Here we are, he wrote in the accompanying text. This is Hugo, and this is a mushroom in the Montmorillon market. What do you think?

  The reply came quickly. Perfect mushroom. Perfect young man. Love, G.

  “What are you doing?” asked Hugo.

  “I’m writing to my editor,” Paul explained. “And by the way, Hugo, what would you say to being part of a story?”

  Hugo shrugged. “I don’t mind, I suppose. You’d like to use me in one of your books?”

  “Yes, as the main character. It would be a story about the second-worst restaurant in France and how it’s transformed into one of the best restaurants in the country. It’ll be a sort of rags-to-riches story—for restaurants.”

  Hugo smiled. “With a happy ending?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then that’s fine with me.”

  Paul reached out to shake his hand.

  * * *

  —

  It was three days before Chloe and Claude returned from Paris. It was a time of unremitting hard work for Paul. In the mornings he accompanied Hugo to market or to one of the farms from whom he bought supplies directly. There were trips to the charcutier and to a cheesemaker who lived at the end of a remote and inaccessible track. In the afternoons, once lunch was served, he helped him prepare the evening menu. Hugo knew more than Paul had imagined he would, and he found himself learning as much from the young man as Hugo learned from him.

  The day before Chloe returned, they went to the market together earlier than usual. There were things to be had, Hugo explained, that disappeared quickly. In particular, the oyster van would not stay long, and if you did not get there early you might miss the best of the oysters. And the same thing went for some of the green vegetables. “They put the best out at the beginning,” Hugo said. “They know that the people who go to market early know what they’re looking for. The best. You’ll see.”

  They parked outside one of the churches above the town square, and walked down the narrow street that wound its way towards the river. Although it was barely eight o’clock, the town was already active. In the square, most of the stalls were already erected, and the traders were busy covering trestle tables with the day’s offerings. Paul spotted the oyster van, an ancient Citroën with a pull-down panel on one side. This provided a surface on which large trays of ice had been laid out. The oysters were displayed on these like little dishes with corrugated edges.

  They bought a cup of coffee from one of the cafés before they began on their purchases. The smell of the coffee mingled with that of freshly baked bread from the boulangerie next door. Paul closed his eyes and remembered how he had sat in his kitchen back in Edinburgh with just such a cup of coffee before him, and had tried to be mindful, as his friend had recommended. That seemed like a long time ago—in a place that seemed very far away. Now he closed his eyes again, just for a few moments, and filled his lungs as deeply as he could. Coffee, bread, a whiff of diesel fumes from a passing vehicle, stone, the river…a palette of smells that, if called up later, would bring him unerringly back to this moment, standing in the coffee bar, close to the door, and feeling the sun now on his face.

  Hugo had finished his coffee and was agitating to go. Paul drained the last few drops from his cup and replaced it on the counter. The woman behind the bar smiled and nodded.

  They had jointly made a list, and they worked through it in order. The last item, after the oysters, was olive oil.

  “There’s a place on the other side of the bridge,” Hugo said. “They only sell olive oil. But wait until you taste it.”

  “Good?”

  “It’s the best. The best you can get in France. Italy’s another matter. I don’t know much about their oil, although I know it’s pretty good.”

  “I can tell you about all that,” said Paul. “I tried hundreds of their Tuscan oils last year. Well, not hundreds, but a lot. The Tuscan ones are the best. They’re the lightest.”

  Paul noticed that Hugo was looking wistful. He regretted mentioning his familiarity with Tuscany. To those who had never gone anywhere—and he presumed Hugo was one such—the mention of elsewhere might simply emphasise the limits of their world.

  “It’s Provence for us,” said Hugo. “You can always tell.” Then he added, “I’ve never been there.”

  “You’ve plenty of time,” said Paul.

  “It’s hard to leave.”

  Of course; of course. The father. The accident.

  Then Hugo said, “They’d like to meet you, you know—my people. They know all about you. That’s what the village is like, of course. Everybody knows everything.” He paused. “We could go there after this.”

  “I’d like that.”

  And now, confronted with rows of bottles of olive oil, they dipped small fragments of bread into tasting dishes. Hugo seemed to know the man who was attending the stall and he replied at some length to h
is queries about the health of his father. Paul concentrated on his tasting.

  The man turned to Paul. “You know where that’s from, monsieur?”

  Paul shook his head. “I’m not an expert.”

  The man smiled. “You could spend a whole lifetime becoming an expert on olive oil. And even then, you’d not have the time to taste half of them.”

  He reached for an unlabelled bottle of oil and poured a small amount into a spoon. “Here,” he said, passing the spoon to Paul. “Try this one.”

  Paul noticed the colour. “It’s very dark,” he said.

  “As it should be,” said the man.

  Paul raised the spoon to sniff at it.

  “Pepper?” said the man.

  Yes, there was pepper. And something else. Dust? The sky? Heat?

  “The trees are very old,” said the man. “You won’t get that from new trees.”

  Paul took a sip of the oil. He shut his lips and allowed the oil to move around within his mouth, coating it with…He tried to place the taste, and eventually alighted on artichoke.

  “Precisely,” said the man. “Well done, monsieur. That’s exactly what I get from that oil myself. Artichoke.”

  “You see,” said Hugo. “You see. You’ve only been with us for a short time, and you’re becoming an expert.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” said Paul.

  “Ah, you’re too modest, monsieur. You’ve been singled out by somebody.” The man pointed skywards. “They decide up there who will be able to appreciate olive oil as it should be. It’s not up to us at all.”

  “We should take some of that stuff,” said Hugo. “Four litres.”

  “Les Mées,” said the man. “That’s where that’s from. The cultivar’s pure Aglandau olives. From the plains. Oils from a hill are different.”

  “They’re clearer,” said Hugo. “The hill oils are much clearer. It’s the soil.”

  The stallholder was impressed. “You know what you’re talking about, young man,” he said.