Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette (12 page)

  He brought his face up close to mine. 'Maybe if you offered her a good price she might consider it.'

  'Why, how much were you thinking of?'

  'Oh, I don't know… maybe she could let him go for a million francs.' (Roughly one hundred thousand pounds sterling.)

  Something in my expression must have struck him as funny because he erupted with laughter, bending over, almost choking on his cigarette smoke.

  He recovered, stood up, pulled out a voluminous linen handkerchief and blew his nose.

  'Money! What good is money? I never seem to be able to hang on to it anyway. The taxman comes chasing after it and people steal it before you get a chance to spend it. We'll just keep Regine's little teddy here in case the family need the cash for a rainy day.'

  He replaced the bear carefully in the cupboard and locked the door. 'I trust you, Johnny. I don't know why. Just forget you ever saw him, OK?'

  We went back outside and the sun was shining, the birds were singing. But I have to admit Regine's supposedly priceless black Steiff teddy bear was uppermost in my mind. I was pretty sure Serge was having a joke at my expense. The black bear was a fake and he'd set up the whole thing to see how much I really knew about antiques.

  When it was time for me to go he insisted I take an armful of his home-made bears.

  'No need to pay anything now,' he said. 'Just give me half of what you sell them for.'

  The eau de vie had hit the spot. My senses were swimming and I tripped a couple of times on the way back to the car.

  'Listen, Johnny,' said Serge. 'What about we make that expedition into the country this week? The one we keep promising ourselves. The weather forecast is good and we'll have a laugh. What do you say?'

  'OK, Serge,' I said. 'Why not?'

  'I'll give you a ring tomorrow and we'll sort it out,' he said.

  Regine and the kids came out to see me off and as I bumped along the dirt track I could see them all in my rear view mirror smiling and waving. The fake bears were bouncing around on the seat next to me and I was wondering just how many other little surprises Serge had hidden up his sleeve for me.

I arrived home in time to find Helen unloading boxes of 'smalls' (bric-a-brac, sadly, not frilly underwear) from our beaten-up Renault. I remembered she had been to an auction in Biarritz.

  'What do you think of this?' she said, pulling out a crystal chandelier. 'Guess how much?'

  'I don't know, about a tenner.'

  'What planet are you living on?' she said, replacing it carefully in the box.

  I was cradling a pair of Serge's faked-up teddy bears, cuddling them close.

  'All right then, what do you think of these?' I asked. 'Sweet or what?'

  'What are they for?'

  'I thought we could sell them. Serge gave them to me. I just have to give him half the profit.'

  'But they're fakes,' she said.

  'Is it that obvious? I thought they were really good, just like the real thing.'

  'Have you been drinking or what?' she said. 'I thought we agreed we weren't going to sell fakes.'

  'So you wouldn't reckon they were genuine Steiff antique teddy bears then?'

  'How much
have
you had to drink?' She was laughing but I sensed she was genuinely worried.

  'I just had a little taste of eau de vie,' I explained.

  'And the rest! We can't sell these. You'd better give them back to him. I think you've fallen for the classic antique mistake. You think you've found something worth a lot of money, you get swept up in the heat of the moment, you get excited and later in the cold light of day you get a reality check. Best not done in public but we all do it.'

  I was disappointed, unwilling to concede I'd been duped. 'OK, but I think we should give Serge's bears a go. Where's the harm in it?'

  'That's up to you, but the man's a complete idiot and I don't know why you're hanging about with him.'

  Now she came to mention it, what was I doing hanging about with him? It's what everyone was saying. They were probably all right. I made a mental note to try and avoid him in future. When he phoned up in the week to arrange our little
'expédition',
I was definitely going to put him off.

It was a balmy morning in mid-October and it had taken me ages to find the bar in the old quarter of Bayonne. It was hidden away down a shady alley and at first I thought it was closed. But when I pushed the door it swung open and I found myself in what I can only describe as a chapel dedicated to the glory of the slaughter of bulls. The bar was called 'La Corrida' so I shouldn't really have been surprised to find it was crammed with all the paraphernalia of the bullring.

  Against all advice I had agreed yet again to meet up with Serge and help him out. I was kicking myself for being a complete sucker, and thinking trust Serge to pick a place like this for a rendezvous.

  I'd always believed Spain was the country where all the bullfighting went on. I'd even been to a bullfight as a 'bit of a lark' when a teenager on holiday there. Now there is a groundswell of opinion in Spain against the barbaric sport, with moves to ban it.

  When I moved to France I was under the misapprehension that if there were any bullrings here then they didn't actually kill the bull. Just teased it a bit and then, after everyone had had their fun, released it back into the fields to recover and fight another day.

  This is pure propaganda. Bullfighting is alive and well in southern France and growing in popularity, especially among the young. And the bulls are killed all right. When the season opens there are long queues outside the box offices and the local supermarkets always have a good supply of
daube de taureau
(slaughtered bull meat) for sale. Many little villages and towns have their own bullrings.

  I ordered a coffee, seated myself at a corner table and tried not to look at the gory framed photos, posters and bulls' horns and ears that bedecked every spare inch of the walls.

  Serge had phoned last week to tell me an old pal of his had tipped him off about a 'fantastic house clearance' that was going to 'earn us a fortune'. I was dubious, but figured maybe I'd give him another chance. What harm could it do? Now I was starting to wish I hadn't given in. When he still hadn't turned up three quarters of an hour later I decided to leave. Forget the whole thing.

  Then he walked through the door with a character so downright thuggish and malodorous I immediately wished I'd followed my instincts and gone ten minutes earlier.

  'Eh, Johnny.' Serge pumped my hand. 'Let me introduce to you my good friend, Bruno the Basque.'

  The bloke reached out and when he gripped my hand I felt my flesh creep. The general impression he gave of seedy untrustworthiness wasn't helped by an ugly scar that ran right round his neck from ear to ear. My first thought was that someone had tried to cut his head off and failed. Then I guiltily realised the poor chap had probably undergone a terrible operation, possibly for throat cancer. But when he spoke his voice was strong with that throaty edge I'd noticed as being typical of some men of the Basque region and I returned to my original idea – someone had most likely tried to cut his head off.

  'So, you're the
rosbif
Serge has told me so much about?' He held onto my hand and looked me up and down as if he were sizing me up.

  'His name's Johnny,' said Serge with some irritation, 'not Rosbif. It's rude to call him Rosbif when you know his name's Johnny.'

  I appreciated Serge defending me, but thought it a bit rich as he'd called me Rosbif many times himself, and I was aware he called me Johnny not John because he was a Johnny Hallyday fan.

  I retrieved my hand and noticed I was involuntarily wiping it down the leg of my jeans. 'That's OK,' I said. 'It doesn't bother me, I'm used to it.'

  'Yeah, they call us Froggy, so where's the harm in it?' said Bruno gruffly.

  Serge called the barman over and ordered two Ricards and another coffee for me. 'It's not nice this term
rosbif
,' said Serge. 'So we eat frogs and you eat roast beef. Ha, ha, very funny. But this expression
rosbif
says more than you think. To a Frenchman it also mocks your complexion. It means rose beef, or red meat, which is a way of poking fun at what we see as your cherry-red skin. It's not nice at all and I don't like it.'

  Bruno reached under the table and put his hand on my leg.

  'OK, Serge, don't worry. I'll never call Johnny Rosbif again, not if you don't like it.' He leered at me and gazed deep into my eyes. He made me feel like I was a piece of meat, and I got a glimpse of how a woman must feel under the unwelcome gaze of a lecherous old man.

  'Eh, I had that little mini-skirted whore who hangs round the Old Quarter last night,' he said turning to Serge. '
Truite crue!
As much as I wanted, as long as I wanted. Fantastic! And cheap too.' He grinned at me like I'd understand.

  Serge laughed. 'You're a
gros mangeur,
Bruno. Aiyee! The last of the
gros mangeurs
. Come on, let's drink up and go. We've got work to do.'

  They knocked back their Ricards and I was relieved to get out into the clean air. Serge and I followed Bruno's white Mercedes in my van as he drove out of Bayonne and into the open country.

  'Robespierre OK?' I asked.

  'He's fine. Settling in nicely. My next door neighbour is looking after him while I'm out. She's got nothing else to do and she loves animals.'

  He lit up one of his Gitanes 'mais' cigarettes, with their distinctive yellow paper, much loved by French farmers and sons of the soil.

  'Eh, Johnny, I think Bruno likes you.' He blew out a stream of acrid-smelling smoke. 'Don't take any notice of him, it's just his manner. I've known him since we played as lads together. He made a few mistakes later in life and got on the wrong side of the law. But he's still stayed my friend after all these years. He's not a bad person.'

  You didn't have to be very bright to realise Bruno the Basque was the kind of old friend you'd be only too pleased to get rid of, and the sooner the better.

  'What's
truite crue
?' I asked. I had a pretty good idea but wanted to hear it from Serge.

  'It literally means "raw trout" – it's not a very nice expression,' he said prudishly. 'Bruno has some fairly earthy tastes when it comes to sex. He's not the sort of bloke you want to hang around in bars with late at night.'

  'Don't worry, I won't,' I said.

  'But if you ever want a gun of any sort – pistol, machine gun… whatever – he's the guy to get it for you. He's cheap too, and no questions asked. He brings them in from Eastern Europe and only deals in quality merchandise.'

  I couldn't imagine a situation where I'd need to buy a gun off Serge's old buddy Bruno the Basque. But there again, you never know. Even so, I was getting a distinct feeling that agreeing to come on today's outing had been a big mistake.

  The Merc had pulled off the road onto a dirt track, and we followed it through an oak wood until we came to a high stone wall where we pulled up in a cloud of dust.

  Bruno and Serge got out and I watched them pointing and arguing together. If I backed up quickly and turned round I could drive off and leave them to it. I seriously considered the idea. But what about when I bumped into Serge at some market or other, which I was bound to do? I didn't think I could endure the embarrassment of explaining why I had run off.

  They appeared to have come to a decision because Serge came back and climbed in beside me.

  'OK, Johnny, Bruno got lost for a minute there. No problem, we just have to backtrack a bit and follow the road that runs parallel with the wall. We should come to a gate.'

  We reversed out and did as he suggested. The mud track snaked through the woods, twisting and turning, with Serge shouting out in affirmation as he watched for signs of the wall through the trees. We came to a crossroads, turned off and arrived at an iron gate which was chained up with a hefty-looking padlock. They both got out and tried wrenching at it, without success. Eventually they gave this up and Bruno fetched an ugly-looking crowbar from the boot of his car and set about attacking it with frightening ferocity. But it was made of heavy iron and wasn't going to budge. Then they tried to lever the gate off its hinges but Serge caught his hand between the wall and the crowbar and leaped back and began hopping about swearing.

  This wasn't good. If they legitimately had business here, why hadn't the owner given them a key? They appeared to be trying to break into private property. And where did that leave me? If the gendarmes arrived it would be useless to plead I didn't know what was going on. I'd be an accessory and the thought of being banged up in a cell with Serge's pal Bruno the Basque was the stuff nightmares were made of. I was about to tell them that maybe we should contact the owners and ask for a key when Bruno managed to break off one of the gate's hinges. Serge stopped sucking his hand and steamed in to finish the job. The pair of them huffed and puffed until they snapped the other hinge and swung the gate back in triumph.