Monday, January 21, 2013
Episode 1 Cruising Away From The Atlantic
CRUISING AWAY FROM THE ATLANTIC
A French summer day in 2012 , three days after the Fête Nationale.
A gleaming white Citroën DS named Madeleine slices eastward through the dawn air of the tree-lined Route Nationale between the Atlantic coast and Poitiers. Regiments of sunflowers stretch uphill to the horizon on the left, all facing the sunrise; a carpet of maize spreads to the foot of the wind-turbines and the distant hazy ash-tees of the Marais Poitevin, to the right.
Long-wave radio fills the interior with a non-digital France Inter news programme: the new président and the month-old government are settling in, and haven’t left for holidays, yet. The radio news suggests that, at this very moment, in the Elysée Palace, the recently-arrived incumbent and his lady friend may be exchanging harsh words of discomfiture over their confiture aux fraises about journalism and Twitter accounts…
In contrast, all is well with Madeleine and her conducteur.
Travelling alone in the DS on this idyllic morning is rather like sitting in a plush cinema, watching a favourite 1950’s Cinemascope film unfold. The hydropneumatic suspension, conceived a lifetime ago for roads such as this, quietly goes about its work of making the car feel like a cruising Caravelle airliner. The retro-gallic experience is completed by the heater fan’s wafting of air which is perfumed with remnant Chanel Number 5, Dunlopillo foam and Gauloise Disque-Bleu.
The soft, ballooning smugness of the moment begins to deflate only when a rumbling sound, which has been emanating on occasion from under the bonnet for the last twenty years, gives way to a series of screeches.
The driver identifies this as Morse code:
“Le roulement de l’alternateur est foutu”
(Author’s Morse/French/Strine translation ) :
T-H-E…A-L-T-E-R-N-A-T-O-R-…B-E-A-R-I-N-G… J-U-S-T C-A-R-K-E-D-I-T…….M-A-T-E
On occasions such as these, when he lived in Australia, the driver always used to follow his mate Ralph’s advice :
“Stop and get the billy boiling”.
This being France, he adopts the French solution:
“Pull in to the nearest village, buy a croissant and a café au lait, and see what adventure unfolds once you start talking to the locals”…
Episode 2: PMT at the PMU
We left the DS and The Driver looking for coffee, a croissant and an alternator in a French town near the city of Poitiers. The Driver found all three, and lots more besides… (Bonus “DS-Vinci Code” historical treasure hunt: readers may like to look for three hidden dates in the story, and suggest a link to do with battles in the province of Poitou…)
The Driver parks Madeleine, the sleek white D Spéciale, next to the seventeenth-century oak-framed market hall of Délymèle-sur-Grogne. A signpost indicates in dark blue enamel letters on a rusting ivory background that Poitiers and Limoges are an hour away in opposite directions.
The alternator stops screaming Morse code as he turns off the ignition and applies the foot-operated parking brake.
He sits for a moment in his armchair behind the mono-branche steering wheel.
Madeleine sighs as her owner alights, and the hydropneumatic suspension’s green liquid makes silent compensation for the change in ballast.
He’ll go to the Mairie first, and ask for a list of garages in the town.
This is a working day, and with two hours to go until the Mairie opens, breakfast beckons. He buys a croissant from the boulangerie near the halles du marché. The pastry purchase takes twenty minutes, because the boulangère tells him that she is from Le Mans, four hours’ drive to the north, and insists on giving her recipe for rillettes.
The church clock shows 7.32 as he walks across the square to the PMU.
The PMU sells a selection of poverty-related items: betting slips; scratch-cards; cigarettes. Early morning is usually a good time for a quiet décafféiné, because the other clients are invariably engrossed in hangovers, the first Gauloise of the day, and the racing pages of Paris Turf.
The lady behind the counter is wearing a trowelful of make-up and a scowl: Brigitte Bardot circa 1979 on a bad hair day. The red illuminated PMU sign behind is partly obscured by her ample bosom, and by the rear quarters of her German Shepherd companion. It seems to read: “PMT”. The Driver takes the half-hidden advertisement as an avertissement, and does not attempt conversation. Instead, he passes un moment agréable being enlightened by two matinal and threadbare Stella Artois-drinking habitués, on the subject of all of the money they’ve won over the years. He shouts them their drinks, and receives 5.07 Euros in change.
The alternator stops screaming Morse code as he turns off the ignition and applies the foot-operated parking brake.
He sits for a moment in his armchair behind the mono-branche steering wheel.
Madeleine sighs as her owner alights, and the hydropneumatic suspension’s green liquid makes silent compensation for the change in ballast.
He’ll go to the Mairie first, and ask for a list of garages in the town.
This is a working day, and with two hours to go until the Mairie opens, breakfast beckons. He buys a croissant from the boulangerie near the halles du marché. The pastry purchase takes twenty minutes, because the boulangère tells him that she is from Le Mans, four hours’ drive to the north, and insists on giving her recipe for rillettes.
The church clock shows 7.32 as he walks across the square to the PMU.
The PMU sells a selection of poverty-related items: betting slips; scratch-cards; cigarettes. Early morning is usually a good time for a quiet décafféiné, because the other clients are invariably engrossed in hangovers, the first Gauloise of the day, and the racing pages of Paris Turf.
The lady behind the counter is wearing a trowelful of make-up and a scowl: Brigitte Bardot circa 1979 on a bad hair day. The red illuminated PMU sign behind is partly obscured by her ample bosom, and by the rear quarters of her German Shepherd companion. It seems to read: “PMT”. The Driver takes the half-hidden advertisement as an avertissement, and does not attempt conversation. Instead, he passes un moment agréable being enlightened by two matinal and threadbare Stella Artois-drinking habitués, on the subject of all of the money they’ve won over the years. He shouts them their drinks, and receives 5.07 Euros in change.
An hour or so later, he is pushing open the creaking door of La Mairie.
There are over 36 000 Mairie doors in France, and all of them creak. Fortunately, this one is no exception.
There is a rhythmic, urgent shuffling emanating from the council chambers on the first floor. The sound has the unmistakable timbre of soft leather on wooden floorboards….
Episode 3: Madeleine, Marianne et La Mairie
Click on Marianne for an auburn surprise...
In the previous episode we left our DS Madeleine’s driver quietly closing the Mairie door in Délymèle-sur-Grogne.
He had breakfasted in the PMU café, received two FREE racing tips, avoided a tongue-lashing from a Brigitte-Bardot-bad-hairday lookalike, learned a new recipe for rillettes, and set out seeking a repair to his DS alternateur…
Read on for a free (adult- style) French lesson, and to discover why Patricia, the secrétaire de mairie, always turns up twenty minutes early for work…
The Driver glanced over his shoulder at DS Madeleine, and made a mental note to re-spray her wheel rims the coming week-end.
He was determined to get the colour right, this time: on the last occasion he had visited his local paint supplier to request “un litre de peinture grise”, the vendor had replied with a wry smile:
“Monsieur, j’ai du noir. Il y a un noir. J’ai du blanc. Il y a trente-cinq nuances de blanc. Mais le gris, monsieur, IL Y A CINQUANTE NUANCES DE GRIS!”
Wondering if this may be a theme for the day, he put Citro-nerdery thoughts out of his mind, and entered the Mairie...
Hidden Features of the Mairie
The Mairie door slammed shut with a single-glazed window-rattle.
Built in the 1920’s the edifice was the size and shape of a maison bourgeoise of the époque. There were two reception rooms on the ground floor which were now marked “accueil du public”, and “bibliothèque”. There was a wide, elm staircase leading to the “salle du conseil” . In this room, as in each of France’s 36,000 or so Mairie’s, a bust of Marianne oversaw proceedings, flanked by a tricolore and the European Union flag.
The Marianne in use at Délymèle was an effigy of Catherine Deneuve.
The present Maire, Gilles Dubonque, had been born in the same year as the iconic auburn sixties sexe-symbole, and remembered her “Belle de Jour” days. He had always nurtured a soft spot for her. Perhaps it was the hair colour? Gilles’ father, Claude Du Bonk had been a refugee from Flanders, and had passed on his ginger gene to his son…
As was customary at the time of its construction, little attention had been paid to La Mairie’s thermal or acoustic insulation. Over the years in the attic, layers of fibreglass, then rockwool, had been added as dotations (grants) had allowed, thus tempering the loss of kilowatts to the outside Poitevin winter air.
But the sound-proofing problem been tactfully ignored over the century.
Throughout the greater part of the twentieth century, Conseil Municipal succeeded Conseil Municipal at six-year intervals. Only a period of occupation, collaboration and résistance interrupted the electoral rhythm. Batch after batch of local councillors, adjoints and maires pretended to ignore the enforced intimacy, as noises from each corner of the building were transmitted and channelled to every other extremity. This meant that nothing was secret in the Mairie, and that, for example, the public toilets in the library were very public indeed.
It also meant that, at 8.59 am on this particular July morning, the oak floorboards which separated the rez-de chaussée entrance hall from the council meeting rooms on the upper floor were acting as an amplifier for the movements which were taking place one metre above the intrepid Citroënist’s head…
From the urgent and unmistakable sound of soft leather on polished oak, it was clear that an exchange was occurring in the meeting rooms which, firstly, was of an intensity unlikely to be disturbed by the creak and rattle of the door and, secondly, even with Catherine Deneuve looking on, would not be finding its way into the “Compte-Rendu” ledger. (Official Register of Minutes).
Nine Chimes for Patricia
For a moment, The Driver hesitated, and considered returning to the armchair comfort of Madeleine La DS for ten minutes. He could imagine her settling in her Citroënesque manner: white, gently and with a sigh, next to the Monument aux Morts at the other end of the gravelled pathway.
As Madeleine’s groundward motion reached the suspension stops in the sunshine next to the war memorial, the leather sounds above the hallway slowed and were followed by two simultaneous ecstatic gasps, one tenor, one contralto. The Driver thought that he detected an utterance of “Mon Dieu”, then realized that this was unlikely in a Mairie, where both law and protocol ensured that all references to religion were forbidden.
In the quiet which now descended, The Driver could only ask himself what the more tactful of his antipodean Citroën mates would do in such a situation. “They’d probably laugh” he concluded.
He decided instead to hold his breath, listen to the nine chimes from the church clock, turn silently to the door, open and close it for a second time, and then cough.
After half a minute, and as, in the French rural manner, the nine chimes rang out for the second time, he heard firm, unhurried stiletto heels crossing the parquet to the top of the stairs. He watched, through the frosted glass of the stair-well, a high-heeled, knee-length boot lower itself on to the top step. Through the glazed haze, as the wearer descended, a shapely silhouette poured itself into the triangle of glass.
With a shake of flowing russet locks, Patricia walked into the entrance hall.
She was wearing Christian Dior: perfume and glasses, a tailored short-sleeved blouse of dazzling white, and even tighter-fitting black jeans. Her complexion was AC84 Blanc Meije.
The jeans were soft, matt leather.
Two Great Tits and a Budgie
The Driver supposed that she was in her early forties and that, with eyes of a green which was rare in this region of France, red was likely to be her natural hair colour. He reflected for a moment that the person who could now be heard making adjustments to his dress on the upper floor would probably be able to confirm this.
Her smile was not that of the usual straight-laced fonctionnaire: it was rather that of tabby cat who had been stalking the local avian fauna, and had just started her day with two great tits, the Maire’s budgie and a generous helping of cream.
She looked past The Driver, and through the panel of the Mairie door. Her emerald gaze drifted back into the entrance hall.
She slid a freckled, long-fingered, perfectly manicured hand into a leather pocket. Her smile revealed the Mairie’s only set of perfect teeth. She placed something in the hand of the Mairie’s visitor.
A cough sweet.
The wrapper unwound itself slowly in his palm, and the medicated lolly almost throbbed with residual heat. She parted her pouting lips, and spoke without clearing her voice.
“J’adore les DS. Mon papa était taxi et il en avait une à Paris. Que puis-je faire pour vous, monsieur ? »
Upstairs, Gilles Dubonque, Maire of Délymèle-sur-Grogne, performed his week-day morning ritual of removing his sports jacket from Catherine Deneuve’s bust, depositing two snipped cable ties into the waste-paper basket, and tying the shoelaces of his suede desert boots. He headed, stealthily as a post-coital ginger tom, along the dimpled stiletto trail towards the staircase…
Outside, unseen by The Driver, The Maire or Patricia, a fine jet of steam escaped from the rear water-pump seal of DS Madeleine…
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