The Big Frog Theory - 4

The weekly serialisation of my Magic Realism novel.

SEVEN

He had not gone very far when he decided to cross the road. There appeared to be a greater variety of things to see on the other side of the avenue, and so with this in mind he walked to the edge of the pavement and came to a halt.

The traffic roared past him at ever increasing speeds such that crossing on foot began to look nothing short of suicidal. He waited for a few seconds, trying to catch a break in the onrushing wave of cars, but still they came like an unstoppable tide.

‘Monsieur! Monsieur!’

From somewhere above his head a voice called down to him, and Neville looked up to discover a man in the cage-like bucket of a small mobile crane suspended some twenty feet off the ground.

‘Yes?’

‘You wish to cross the road, no?’

‘Actually I do, yes. But it’s very busy.’

‘Eh! It is always busy. People have died trying to cross here. Morte, n’est-ce pas? Perhaps I can help you.’

With this the man signalled to his partner sitting in the cab parked in the centre of the road. Immediately the basket began to descend. Once at pavement level, the man opened the gate and beckoned Neville on-board.

‘We are checking the street lights, and this little machine’ — he tapped the cage — ‘means that we don’t have to climb ladders all day long!’

‘Very useful.’

By this time they were already off the ground and swinging out over the speeding traffic.

‘They drive very fast,’ Neville offered to his host, keeping a special eye on the taxis.

‘Fast? Bien sûr; they are French, monsieur!’

Within a few moments they were out across the centre of the road (Neville remembering a wave of gratitude to the man in the cab) and on their way to the other side. As they began their descent, Neville noticed that the pavement he had just left now seemed the more bustling and attractive. However, it was too late to go back.

With a bump they hit ground.

‘That was very kind of you,’ Neville said, as he stepped from the cradle.

‘My pleasure. Always happy to help an American.’ And with that the workman was up again, once more aloft and brushing the branches of the trees.

Neville continued his walk away from the Arc de Triomphe. He strolled slowly, relaxing as the cognac took effect, not a little hopeful that the drama of this extraordinary day might be over.

The shops promised a variety of delights: clothes shops with immaculately turned out mannequins displaying chic beyond most people’s wildest dreams; music shops pumping out popular songs by renowned international singers; jewellery shops, glittering in the mid-afternoon sun. And punctuated between these, the terrace cafés where occasionally all three — chic, jewellery, and fame — would come together as the rich and famous paraded themselves as if they too were part of one gigantic shopping experience.

Neville only browsed in the windows. He had no desire to go into any of the clothes shops — he had not forgotten his tuxedo, but Paris he had decided, was not the place to buy it — and music shops held little fascination for him.

After a short while, he came to the entrance of an arcade which seemed to offer something a little different. Inside was a plaza populated by small shops of myriad variety, and a number of mobile stalls selling everything from perfume to parasols. He thought of Covent Garden. Perhaps every capital city had its own version.

He had been looking at some silk handkerchiefs on one of the stalls, when a voice called to him from the barrow alongside.

‘Psst! Over here!’

Following the call, he found himself looking at a display of earrings, brooches, and general ornamental trinkets. He smiled noncommittally at the stall holder, who smiled back. The voice had not been hers.

‘Hey! Here!’

Neville was beginning to gain some experience in locating disembodied voices by now, and his semi-trained gaze turned to a small tray of brooches and badges. Apart from the standard jewelled offerings, there were a number of slightly more unusual objects on offer; one of these was a small brooch boasting the white painted face of a Pierrot.

‘Monsieur; how are you?’

‘Very well, thank you.’

Neville looked up at the stall holder and smiled again, just to affirm that she would not be concerned over his conversing with an item of her stock. She nodded back with a little more conviction than before, perhaps entertaining the idea that she might soon have a sale.

‘How has your day been so far?’

‘My day? Pretty eventful, I guess.’

‘You like Paris?’

‘It’s my first visit, and this is my first day, so it’s a bit early to say — but yes, I think I do.’

‘Sure you do! That is good.’

Neville began to glance at some of the other items when the Pierrot called him back.

‘Hey! Need a guide?’

‘A guide?’

‘To Paris, while you are here. Can’t do worse than ask a native!’

There was something about the Pierrot’s accent which suggested that its birthplace could be called into question; the lilt, if it could be called that, was more American than French.

‘Are you offering?’

‘I’m your man! I know this city inside out; you just tell me what you want to see and I’ll show it to you. I’ll even show you some of the things you don’t know you want to see!’

‘May I?’ Neville extended his hand in order to pick the brooch from the tray.

‘Sure.’ And the badge winked at him as he lifted him in his palm. ‘Not so heavy am I? And you could wear me on your lapel; that way I’d be nice and close to give you a commentary whenever you wanted.’

The lady behind the stall had now risen and was smiling hopefully at Neville.

‘Deal?’ The Pierrot asked hopefully.

‘Deal,’ Neville said, and asked the woman the price. He pulled some notes from his wallet and handed them over. She smiled again.

‘Thank you, Monsieur.’

Neville eased the pin from the Pierrot’s fastening and attached it to his jacket collar.

‘Hey! Thanks man, that’s great!’

Neville thanked the stall holder again, and continued to wander around the stalls in the arcade, all the while the pierrot chattering excitedly and full of generally useless information. Neville stopped walking.

‘Look...’

‘Pierre. Can you believe it?! Pierre the Pierrot. Some people have no imagination!’

‘OK Pierre, do me a favour; I know you’re pretty excited, but can you keep the chatter down — maybe restrict yourself to giving me advice when it’s obvious I need it, or if I ask you something. Is that OK?’

‘Sure, that’s fine. But...’ Pierre paused.

‘My name’s Neville.’

‘Neville, we will just chat sometimes, yeah?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good,’ Pierre paused again. ‘Neville; that’s not a French name is it?’

‘Pierre.’

‘Yes, Neville?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Oops!’ And in the reflection of a shop window full of cheap imported Chinese T-shirts, Neville saw Pierre smile a little.

Within a few minutes Neville completed his tour of the arcade and made his way back to the street. To his surprise it was now dark, and the Champs Elysées was already brightly lit by cafés, cars, and street lamps. The suddenness of the vision took Neville aback a little and he came to a halt on the pavement.

‘Pretty, n’est-ce pas?’ Pierre offered.

‘Yes, very.’

There was something magical about the place. People still thronged the pavements, cars still raced up and down the avenue; yet the myriad of lights against the darkness gave the whole experience a different tone.

‘Where too, Monsieur?’

‘Any thoughts, Pierre?’

‘A little night life perhaps?’

‘Why not?’

A bright yellow cab pulled up in response to Neville’s raised arm. Once bitten, he bent low to get a good look at the driver before opening the rear passenger door. This time all seemed normal.

When seated, the driver looked at him in the mirror and uttered a low guttural grunt rather than anything as intelligible as an enquiry about his destination.

‘Rue St. Dennis’, Pierre whispered, and Neville echoed this back to the driver.

Again there was nothing more than a murmur in response. Neville wondered if he might now be receiving the treatment normally reserved for Parisian natives; he could certainly equate the attitude with a number of Birmingham taxi drivers he had encountered.

Briefly they headed up the Champs Elysées towards the Triomphe, then pulled right and headed into the city. Pierre — as good as his word — was dutifully silent, except when his role as guide demanded he make a little professional interjection to point out some feature or other to his client. Thus, as they drove past the brightly lit Opera, Pierre offered a potted guide to the building that took all of seven seconds, yet seemed to Neville as if he had been told all he would ever need to know about the place.

‘Boulevard Haussmann’, Pierre offered as they entered a broad street, lined on both sides by more shops and more cafés, each providing their own particular illumination of the scene. Neville tried to recollect an image of Paris that he had locked away somewhere in his memory.

‘I know the painting you mean, but that is of another avenue on the south of the river.’ Evidently, Pierre could read minds too.

After a few more minutes the taxi pulled to a halt and Neville handed his fare to the less than monosyllabic driver. As he stood and watched the taxi pull away, he felt disappointed by the ride, as if it had offered him little and added nothing to his experience. Perhaps he was simply beginning to expect too much.

‘So, what now? What is this “Rue St Dennis”?’

‘What or where?’ Pierre teased. ‘Where? It is just there, fifty metres ahead on the right. What? It is Paris!’

Neville walked on, allowing Pierre his cryptic indulgence because he was so boastfully a Parisian, and because he professed to love his city so much. They passed a small shop which was in darkness, and a café that was less lustrous than those he had seen earlier. Indeed, he began to realise that they were now in a markedly less fashionable area.

On the corner of Rue St Dennis, Neville stopped. Their destination appeared to be nothing more than a side street; indeed, it was sufficiently narrow for it to be one-way only to traffic, though this did not deny it a steady, if somewhat subdued, flow of vehicles. There were also a fair number of people strolling along its pavements. The whole picture was of a darker and slower Paris that he had seen thus far.

Without waiting for the prompt he sensed was on the verge of Pierre’s lips, Neville began to walk down the street, adjusting his pace in accordance with his fellow pedestrians. After a few yards, he had seen nothing at all inspiring.

‘Pierre.’

‘Monsieur?’

‘What am I supposed to be doing here?’

Pierre laughed quietly.

‘For now Monsieur, just looking.’

‘Looking? At what?’

‘Across the street, now; what do you see?’

‘People walking. A couple of girls talking in a doorway. That’s about it.’

‘And the girls?’ Pierre’s whispered glee betrayed him as almost revelling in some kind of private game. ‘What do you notice about the girls?’

Neville glanced across again.

‘They are quite young, I suppose. Attractive, too. What of that?’

‘And their clothes?’

Both were wearing short skirts and skimpy blouses that seemed a little risqué.

‘A little provocative perhaps.’

‘Now Monsieur; watch!’

And as Neville slowed his gait a little, he saw a man approach the two girls. After a few seconds talking, the man and one of the girls disappeared through the door outside of which she had been standing.

‘Perhaps in a few minutes he will be out — and with a smile on his face too!’ And with that, Pierre gave a low whistle.

Neville’s recognition of the situation came as suddenly to him as the night had come to the Champs Elysées. The girls were of course prostitutes, and the street was full of them. He looked back over his shoulder: he had already walked past at least four doorways with two or three girls standing in each. Ahead — no more than ten yards ahead — there was another.

‘Ah,’ Pierre exclaimed with hushed enthusiasm, ‘the centime has dropped, n’est-ce pas? Now, do not appear interested Monsieur; a casual glance, no more. Remember you are a tourist, not a customer!’

With that advice — and he had asked Pierre for advice — they approached the next group. Neville glanced, for the briefest of seconds, to see three girls again dressed in very little (hot pants appeared to vie with miniskirts for favouritism) and all dissembled being disinterested in the passers-by. Without exception they were young and attractive.

‘Amazing,’ Neville confessed as soon as they were past.

‘Magnifique, yes?’

‘Compared to England; the girls here appear so beautiful, and so aloof.’

‘That is their skill, Monsieur; because they are Parisienne. They can all make themselves attractive, it is their magic. And aloof? Non! They have a kind of radar, yes? They can sense a customer, always. And when they fish, they never fail to catch. You understand?’

‘I think so, Pierre.’

There was a brief pause. Neville noticed a policeman controlling traffic a little further down the street.

‘Ah yes. The government is also Parisienne. It knows that she cannot stop this, so she looks after it, takes care of the girls; there is no trouble here. It is very safe. And for the customer too.’

Had Pierre been able to, Neville felt certain that at this point he would have felt an elbow dig into his ribs. Pierre had made a distinction between tourist and customer, yet perhaps if Neville had decided to “trade up” then the Pierrot’s poorly disguised secret project might have been a complete success. But Pierre had no arms, and in any event, at this precise moment, Neville would not have felt the prod at all.

He had come to a complete halt on the pavement and was staring, quite blatantly, across to the other side of the road. Heading in the opposite direction to him — but separated by some twelve feet of tarmac — was the most stunning woman Neville had ever seen in his life. She was tall and slim, with long dark hair. Her face was not classically beautiful, but simply captivating, and she walked with a confidence and pride that added to her aura. As she was wearing a long flowing coat, he could see little else of her — apart from exquisite ankles above small leather boots. Indeed, in the half-light of this particular street, even the colour of the coat was denied him.

‘Monsieur. Neville!’

Neville was roused by Pierre’s voice and a bump delivered by a passing pedestrian. He was in the way. He apologised automatically. When he looked across again, the woman was nowhere to be seen.

‘Monsieur!’

‘Did you see her, Pierre?’

‘Who?’

‘You know who I mean! You can read my mind can’t you?’

‘Unfortunately at this time, yes I can.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Who is she?’ Pierre paused for a split second. ‘Do you mean, do I know her? Or does she “work” here?’ He paused again. ‘Perhaps. But we should go, yes?’

Neville did not want to go, but he could see no sign of her and he sensed that his dithering might be rousing a degree of interest in the other girls.

‘If you would like a little more night life, we could try La Pigalle. More wonderful Paris!’

‘Not tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. I think I would just like to go back to the hotel.’

And accompanying those words, another yellow taxi pulled to Neville’s side and he got in.EIGHT

Neville awoke to the sound of the telephone at the side of his bed. It rang three times and was then silent. On his return to the hotel the previous evening he had arranged an alarm call and that triple chime was, he assumed, the result.

The room was still dark, the heavy curtains keeping out most of the early morning light. It seemed quiet too, so perhaps they kept noise at bay as well. For a few moments he lay still, allowing his mind to retrace the events of the previous day. He recalled the Champs Elysées and Pierre — his jacket hung on a hook at the back of the door — and remembered the Rue St Dennis and the raven-haired woman he had briefly glimpsed there.

He smiled to himself. Appropriate, was it not? After all, wasn’t Paris supposed to be a romantic city, full of chance encounters? Not that the woman had really been any kind of ‘encounter’ at all; an encounter assumes some kind of contact, rather than a one-way stare across a one-way street. Still it was a memory for Neville to lock away for the future, whatever that might be — and however long it might last.

Getting out of bed, he went into the bathroom and began to run a bath.

From his room came a knock at the door. He grabbed a complementary bath robe, donned it, and answered the door. A young maid stood there with a small tray: his breakfast. He had not ordered breakfast in bed, but perhaps the service was standard here.

‘Good morning, Monsieur.’

‘Morning. Could you put it on the bed please?’

He watched the girl as she walked in, placed the tray on the bed, then left. He wondered, as he took a bite out of a warm chocolate-filled croissant, how often the maid — a pretty if slight young thing — had been propositioned in the line of duty; her job could take her into dangerous territory. Then — more abstractly — he wondered if he might not be chewing on a chunk of one of Maurice’s “relatives”.

The coffee — which was piping hot — brought back a memory of the café he had visited the previous day, and also — for a fleeting moment — an image of Mirelle. From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Neville carried the coffee and the remains of his first croissant into the bathroom. The bath was nearly full. He checked the temperature of the water, stuffed the last of the croissant into his mouth, slipped out of the bath robe and into the bath. The shower head, which had been motionless a few moments before, began to unwind as soon as Neville turned off the water.

‘Made it then?’ the shower head said as it joined Neville in the bath, lying along one side, fixing him with its one-eyed stare.

‘Apparently.’

‘Good time last night? Didn’t hear you come in.’

Neville choose to ignore this rather grumpy line of enquiry and looked around for the soap and shampoo.

‘Behind you; small green bottle.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Not as good as the stuff they used to give guests here, but then I suppose it’s a sign of the times.’

Neville cupped some water in his hands and doused his hair. The shower head wriggled uncomfortably.

‘Hey, what’s wrong with me? That’s my job.’

‘Really?’ And again Neville poured water on his hair from his cupped hands. He couldn’t be certain why, but he was in no mood to be nagged at; he wanted to be in control.

He unscrewed the cap from the small green bottle and poured some of the shampoo into his hair. As the cold gel began to run against his scalp he started to massage it in, creating a reasonable rather than luxurious lather. By this time the shower head was beginning to get excited, and its originally rather relaxed movements had begun to get more and more exaggerated.

‘Okay, okay!’ it hissed, ‘Now you have to use me!’

‘”Have to”?’ And Neville made to fill his cupped hands with water again.

‘I’ll give your scalp a really healthy massage too. Pulsating jets; no extra cost. Come on!’

Neville pulled the shower head from the water, then turned the knob on the tap unit. After a slight splutter, water gushed out of the shower head with a satisfied hiss.

True to its word, the shower head delivered pulsating jets of water firmly into Neville’s scalp as he rubbed. The soap suds flew away, and Neville could feel his head tingle under the refreshing barrage. After a few seconds the rinsing was over, and Neville was able to turn the water off and return the shower head to its resting position.

‘Hey, wasn’t that good?’ It dripped enthusiastically. ‘Best shower head this side of the river.’

Neville slipped down in the bath — which was actually very long — so that only his head remained above the surface of the water.

‘So what’s on the agenda today, Monsieur?’

‘Today?’ Neville remembered his itinerary. ‘Montmartre and Notre Dame I believe; but I’ll have to check with my guide.’

‘Your guide?’

‘Yes. A little badge; called Pierre. Picked him up yesterday.’

‘No a pierrot by any chance?’

Neville was a little surprised.

‘Yes. Why?’

‘You know what a pierrot is, Monsieur?’

‘A clown, of sorts.’

‘Of sorts, yes. But from a pantomime. And sometimes these pierrot are not what they seem.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Just be careful, Monsieur. In French pantomime the clown often makes others look the fool, rather than himself. You understand? I don’t know about your Pierre, but I have heard stories; that is all.’ And with a final dribble, the shower head uttered its last hiss and was suddenly motionless.

Neville remained in the bath a little while longer, and then pulled the plug and rose. Within a few minutes he had demolished the remains of his breakfast and dressed. It was only on this second morning, as he prepared for another day in Paris, that he noticed how well packed his suitcases had been and the appropriateness of the clothes they contained.

Having consulted some of the tourist pamphlets provided with the room, Neville pulled his jacket from the door. The badge still in place, the movement woke Pierre. The pierrot gave a long yawn.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur. Did you sleep well?’

‘The sleep of the just.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Sorry; English saying.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘Tell me,’ the shower head’s words were fresh in his mind, ‘I’ve been wondering; what kind of role does the pierrot have in French theatre?’

‘Role, Monsieur?’

‘What do you actually do?’

‘Do?’ Pierre paused. ‘We are clowns — I think that is your English word. We make people laugh, enjoy themselves; that is the point of pantomime.’

‘And who do they laugh at, you?’

Pierre paused slightly.

‘I understand in your English theatre the clown is something of an idiot, non? Ridiculous, comical. In French we are a little more subtle, with a little — excuse moi — “savoir faire”.’

Neville said nothing further, but walked to his bedside table to pick up his wallet.

‘Why do you ask, Monsieur?’

‘Oh, just interested.’

Five minutes later they were walking through the foyer of the hotel. A bell boy came over.

‘Can I get you a taxi, Monsieur?’

‘No thank you. I’ll walk a little first.’

The boy nodded, and disappeared behind the Concierge’s desk.

‘Walk?’ Pierre seemed a little surprised.

‘For some fresh air,’ Neville explained, as they left the building, ‘It’s good for me. Now, which way?’

‘Left, Monsieur. But where are we going?’

‘I thought history was on the list today; Montmartre, Notre Dame...’

‘And later?’

‘Pierre; one thing at a time. Now, are we going in the right direction?’

‘Bien sûr.’

Neville walked on. It was relatively early and the city was, to a large extent, still waking up. Shutters rolled up on shop windows as he passed them, and buses rumbled by full of people on their way to work. Always there was the sound of car horns, and the flash of speeding taxis. Neville suddenly thought of Samuel, and wondered what he would be doing during his three days here.

At the next junction Neville waited for the traffic lights to change so that he might cross safely. He noticed a MacDonald’s restaurant on the far corner, and heard the rattle of the metro as it passed nearby. He closed his eyes for a moment and remembered his six years in London. He had met Mirelle at a party in Hammersmith.

‘Monsieur, the lights.’

Neville crossed on command, then paused.

‘OK Pierre; Notre Dame or Montmartre first?’

‘That depends Monsieur on a number of things, but given the general time of day and the weather etcetera, I would suggest Notre Dame.’

‘Taxi?’

‘Bien sûr.’

Within minutes he was once again ensconced in a yellow cab heading across town.

When they reached Notre Dame, large and looming against the skyline, Neville was surprised to find only a few tourists loitering in its precincts.

‘It is early, Monsieur. In Paris we are a little more enthusiastic for the late nights rather than the early mornings.’

He had read a little about the cathedral from one of the guides in his hotel room and expected much from the rose windows, the vaulting architecture, and the view from the top of the tower — especially after the five hundred steps it took to get there. Each of these expectations was met with a little disappointment. He had visited Chartres once with Mirelle and remembered the glory of the windows. Here he found nothing awesome in the architecture, and the view could in no way match that initial sighting of the city from the rickety old bus when they rounded the road on the hill.

When he left the cathedral and found himself in bright sunlight again, he wondered if the day was due to be one of disappointment and anti-climax.

‘That is up to you, Monsieur,’ Pierre offered. The pierrot had been a dutiful if somewhat subdued guide during their tour of Notre Dame, and Neville had sensed his boredom. Where Pierre’s passion lay was all too evident.

‘So.’ Neville said, open-endedly.

‘Monsieur?’

‘And now? What shall we do now?’

‘You are a little bored, non?’

‘A little.’

‘And Montmartre? She is still on your list?’

Neville nodded.

‘But perhaps a coffee first.’

Pierre directed him to a small café nearby where Neville — sitting inside rather than on the pavement this time — ordered a coffee and a small pastry described by his guide as “one of the best in all Paris”. In the event, that proved an exaggeration too, but at least the coffee did not let him down.

He was preparing to leave — the coffee was finished and he had begun to address himself mentally to the prospect of Montmartre — when he saw a woman across the far side of the café who looked vaguely familiar. She had just risen from her table (where she had been sitting alone) and was chatting to the waiter who had served her.

‘Pierre?’

‘Monsieur?’

‘That woman; over there, walking to the door.’

‘Oui?’

‘Do I know her?’

It seemed a ridiculous question, and he had no time to retrieve it.

‘Do you know anyone in Paris, Monsieur?’

Neville ignored the rhetorical nature of Pierre’s reply. There seemed something about the woman as she moved, in her attitude. For a moment, although she appeared very different — almost blonde hair, for instance — he was certain it was the same woman from the Rue St. Dennis.

‘Pierre, is it her again? The woman from last night?’

‘How can I say, Monsieur?’ And Neville felt the word “perhaps” form on Pierre’s lips but then fall silently away, unspoken.

He rose sharply from the table, pulling a note from his wallet as he did so, and walked to the door. Once outside he looked around, knowing his search would be in vain.

And so it proved. The crowds had thickened all the while he had been in the café, and finding someone amidst this new, animated throng was impossible. Neville thought briefly about Pierre’s attitude to the woman, his lack of assistance, the warning he had received in his bathroom just a couple of hours ago... He was suddenly not happy.

‘Taxi,’ he said, almost as a command, and turned his back on the cathedral and the crowd in the square.

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