Chapter Four
When I told Luc Mandeville I knew Nice pretty well, it was the truth.
I’ve been here a number of times over the years, both as a child and teenager on family holidays and later, before I had Carl, on a couple of short breaks with a girlfriend and then once, the last time I was here, with a boyfriend.
The latter was just before Covid when Carl was going to spend part of the Easter half-term with my parents.
My father had promised to take him to various military attractions for children: Portsmouth Historic Dockyards, Farnborough, Aldershot – the British Armed Forces run their own tourist industry these days.
Dad knew, correctly, that Carl would love it all.
For my part, I was far from sure I would be quite so appreciative of watching the boys play soldiers.
Besides, I was dating this guy at the time, and it was looking good, very good in fact.
So, encouraged by my friends and even my mother, we booked a couple of low-cost flights to Nice.
I liked the guy, more than liked him. He was good with Carl, and we seemed to share the same interests.
He was even above average in bed. Not in Giancarlo’s class, but that’s not unusual; Giancarlo’s made a lifelong study of sex.
Personally, I think there’s too much emphasis on the wonders of sex these days.
Of course it’s great when it’s good, but if social media were to be believed, it seems we’re never satisfied; instead, all in constant search of the ultimate gratification.
Hook-up sites, men sending you pictures of their equipment, demanding a snap of yours.
It all strikes me as not just juvenile but infantilised.
It’s not sexy at all. It’s the lisping ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’ of children.
One of the reasons the guy I went to Nice with lasted longer than most of my boyfriends was because he had no taste for that sort of thing either.
Admittedly, there were certain things about him that I found a little irritating – the way he would tease me about my height, for example – but in general we were enjoying each other’s company.
Everything boded well. I remember feeling really excited about the trip and looking forward to it.
We’d planned to visit the wonderful galleries and museums, stroll along the Promenade des Anglais and wander together hand-in-hand around the labyrinthine streets of Old Nice.
Nice is street life and it’s not just the culture.
Nice is not simply nice; it’s pure romance.
The first danger signal was that literally the very second we had landed, he whipped out his phone and started taking photographs of everything, and I mean everything.
All backed up by what proved to be an obligatory selfie.
The airport, the taxi driver, the taxi itself, our suitcases, every single thing on route.
By the time we’d got to our hotel, he’d taken more photographs than David Bailey and Man Ray combined.
And it didn’t stop there. He photographed the hotel.
Then another selfie. He photographed our room, then a selfie, our bed, selfie.
We went out to stroll along the famous Promenade des Anglais and he photographed it.
Selfie. We stopped to look out at the glories of the Baie des Anges with the sun setting and he photographed it.
Selfie. We went down to the beach and he photographed it.
Yes, same again – selfie. I remarked the pebbles on the beach were tricky to walk on in high heels and he photographed them, the pebbles that is, although I think he might have photographed my feet when I wasn’t looking.
By the time we had found a restaurant – photographed – selfie – were sitting down and about to order dinner, I felt as though I was in the company of a phone with legs. Then he started photographing our food…
So that was the end of that little dream. We went our separate ways. The last time I saw him, he was at a café in the Cours Saleya, standing on a chair to photograph his cup of coffee and a waiter was telling him to get down before he broke the chair.
Ah, yes, the Cours Saleya. That would cheer me up.
The Cours Saleya has to be one of the most beautiful open-air markets not just in France but in the whole world.
Over two centuries in age, the Cours Saleya is at the heart of Old Nice.
Devotedly preserved in the classic Franco-Italianate style, the faded reds and sun-bleached ochres of the painted architecture that surrounds it are a joy in themselves before you add the cafés, the restaurants, the bars, the gaily striped awnings over stalls laden with meat, herbs and vegetables, flowers, fish and fruit, all so exquisitely arranged as to resemble a still-life painting by Cézanne.
Then there are the amazing street performers at every juncture.
You can sit at a café and watch acrobats, jugglers, breakdancing or simply listen to the always fantastic musicians.
It’s more than a proverbial feast for the eyes; the Cours Saleya is a living experience.
No face in the crowds that always throng the Cours Saleya ever looks unhappy.
People these days say it’s been spoilt by high prices and the selling of tourist tat, but where hasn’t?
To me, on that Saturday morning the week before Christmas, the Cours Saleya was everything I remembered and now needed.
I decided that before doing the shopping I would sit down at a café and have a cup of coffee while soaking up the atmosphere.
It was still only mid-morning, and it had, after all, so far been quite a morning.
‘Excuse me, but is anyone sitting here?’
I twisted back from watching a skilful and amusing act of two young women juggling ladles, soup tureens and their lids to see a man standing on the other side of my small table, indicating the empty chair opposite me.
‘It’s just that the café is full, Madame, except for this one seat.’ Glancing behind me, I saw this was indeed true but then wondered what was coming next. I gestured at the chair.
‘Be my guest,’ I said, before immediately realising that was probably not the wisest response.
‘Thank you.’ He sat down. A waiter bounced over and he ordered coffee and something else I didn’t quite catch in rapid French; authentic, rapid French, that is, not an Englishman speaking the usual clunky stuff.
Intrigued despite the standard misgivings – although what possible danger could he present in broad daylight in an open-air market with scores of people around? – I could not help asking curiously, ‘How did you know I was English?’
He smiled at me, an attractive smile; he was pretty attractive all round if you go for the Fred Sirieix type.
Tallish, with a close beard and buzz-cut scalp, he was dressed in the classic American preppy style with light-coloured chinos and a denim shirt with a knitted grey tie under a pale-grey, flecked-tweed jacket.
His eyes, very dark, regarded me with a singular intensity, as if I were a specimen under a microscope. Yet his manner was easy and relaxed.
‘How do you think?’ he said and grinned again as he said this, but as if I amused him, which made me bristle slightly.
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ I replied coldly.
His coffee arrived at this point, along with a plate bearing a slice of socca, the chickpea flatbread that is a speciality snack of Nice. It smelt delicious. He saw me looking at it.
‘Can I order some for you?’ he asked politely. Despite an instinct to refuse, temptation overcame me. The fact was I was extremely hungry, as, apart from the breakfast croissant, I hadn’t eaten properly for at least twenty-four hours.
‘Thank you, that would be lovely.’
He summoned a waiter.
‘It’s your hair,’ he explained in answer to my question, cutting a neat little slice of his socca, popping it into his mouth and chewing rapidly. ‘The colour of your hair. So very blonde… donc,’ he shrugged his shoulders as if that said it all, ‘English.’
‘I could be Swedish.’
He reared back slightly. ‘Are you Swedish?’
‘No.’
‘That’s just as well because I don’t speak Swedish.’
‘Anyway,’ I remarked, ‘everybody has blonde hair these days.’
‘True, but it’s not natural.’
‘How do you know mine is?’
‘I’m an expert.’
At this there was a pause. Oh dear, I thought, perhaps he was a hairdresser.
That would be in line with the schmooze.
Male hairdressers go in for it. I dated a hairdresser once and all he kept saying was that I needed to change my conditioner.
Before I could ask, however, the man sharing my table asked me what I was doing in Nice.
Was I on holiday? I told him, no, I was working here as a chef, a temporary chef.
‘What about you? Are you on holiday?’
‘No, I am on business. I live in Brussels; I am Belgian.’ Finishing his socca, he wiped his fingers on the paper napkin provided and stretched his right hand across the table to me. ‘Jules Croisset, Madame,’ he said with old-fashioned courtesy as we shook. ‘How do you do?’
Feeling we’d got rather beyond formalities, I nonetheless replied in kind.
‘Alix,’ he repeated thoughtfully, winning himself a place as one of the very few people in my life to pronounce my name correctly without having it spelt out for them. Then again, it might just have been his accent. ‘That is a pretty name.’
‘Thank you.’ My socca arrived. I started to eat, trying not to gobble, but he looked on approvingly.
‘Delicious, isn’t it? For street food, the Cours Saleya is one of the best places in the world.’
My mouth full, I nodded vigorous agreement.
‘Yet, did you know, Alix, that this, the Cours Saleya,’ he waved a hand at our surroundings, ‘was once the haunt of intellectuals?’
I shook my head. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Writers, artists, this was where the intelligentsia would congregate. Here is where many of them would dine.’