Chapter 7 #4
No sooner are they seated than a man crosses the room to speak to them.
‘Hello, ladies!’ he says in a thick, slightly drunk French accent. ‘You are English?’
‘We are!’ Jill says, smiling and fluttering her lashes, causing Wendy to roll her eyes in dismay.
‘I love the English,’ he says, already pulling up a chair to join them. ‘I am Théo.’ He holds out his hand so they shake and introduce themselves. ‘So you are here on holiday?’ he asks.
‘We are!’ Jill tells him. ‘It’s beautiful here.’
‘I like too,’ Théo says. ‘It’s… how you say… good to look at. Jolie.’
‘Pretty?’ Jill offers.
‘Yes. This. More pretty than Lille where I am coming from. But Lille is maybe more easy for the talking.’
‘Really?’ Jill says, as if that’s the most interesting fact she’s ever heard. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes, people in the south are not so easy. You talk to me because the English same. The English are easy like the people of Lille, I think.’
‘Oh, we’re very easy, aren’t we?’ Jill giggles.
Wendy smiles despite herself. She’d been in the process of thinking up exit strategies – calculating ways of getting away from Théo. For her, it’s an automatic reflex. But now they’ve been labelled friendly representatives of their country, it’s become more difficult to do so politely.
‘You are from London?’ Théo asks, glancing between them.
‘No, but not far. The south-east. Maybe an hour away. A one-hour drive from London.’
‘My best friend live in London. I visit him two time. I like. Maybe you know him…’
So they stay, and Jill and Théo natter easily, randomly, about anything and nothing, frequently talking at cross purposes because of the language barrier. And once the third spritz kicks in Wendy finds herself joining the party.
Théo explains that he’s an ex-teacher become estate-agent ‘because the money is more big’ and touchingly reveals that his wife is currently in hospital undergoing chemo.
When he returns to the bar to refill his glass, Wendy suggests they slip away while he’s distracted.
‘Oh,’ Jill says, checking the time on her phone. ‘Really? It’s still early, babe. The restaurants serve late here, don’t they? I think it’s like Spain.’
‘We can go somewhere else first, if you want,’ Wendy says. ‘In the meantime, I mean. I just think it might be a good idea to lose you-know-who. He’s a bit insistent, don’t you think?’
‘Oh, don’t be like that,’ Jill says. ‘I think he’s cute.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Wendy says. ‘He’s not cute at all. He looks like a frog in a suit.’
‘… bit racist…’ Jill mocks.
‘Oh I didn’t mean… that…’ Wendy says. ‘But you get my point. If his eyes were any further apart he’d be a fish.’
Jill laughs so suddenly, so unexpectedly that her drink goes up her nose.
‘That’s true, actually,’ she whispers, once she’s pulled a tissue from her bag.
‘I’m struggling to look at both eyes at once.
But I’m enjoying having a chat with an actual Frenchie, aren’t you?
He’s sweet. Anyway, he’s married. His poor wife, though.
I wonder how bad it is. I didn’t dare ask. ’
‘He’s drunk,’ Wendy says, glancing over at the bar. ‘And so are we. And wife or no wife, he’s definitely chatting you up.’
‘You’re only jealous because I’ve still got it,’ Jill laughs.
At that moment, Théo returns carrying a tray of drinks – a pint glass of beer and two fresh glasses of spritz.
‘Oh, no, really…’ Wendy says. ‘I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Théo, honey, that’s sweet, but we can’t,’ Jill agrees. ‘We have to go soon.’ But her tone of voice and body language are expressing the exact opposite.
‘You do not refuse my drink, please,’ Théo says, sounding serious, as he slides the tray on the table. ‘This is how we do it in Lille. We buy our friend a drink. Do not be like the Nicois!’
In the end, even Wendy relaxes into the moment, though after four spritzes in three hours, this isn’t something for which she can claim any credit – the alcohol is fully to blame.
But an hour later, when they stumble from the bar, they are easily as drunk as Théo, and he’s unarguably their new best friend.
After a random stumble through Nice, and without anyone visibly deciding, they end up in a strange old-fashioned ballroom where Théo’s best friend Cyril just ‘happens’ to be waiting to make up a foursome.
‘What was it you were saying about the eighties?’ Wendy giggles, as they check their coats into the cloakroom.
‘More like 1955,’ Jill says, looking around wide eyed. The ballroom, with its glitter balls, gold-painted chairs and white tablecloths wouldn’t look out of place on a cruise ship.
They choose a table at the edge of the dance floor and watch the elderly yet spritely crowd jiving to a French version of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ performed by an equally old-school five-piece band.
‘Isn’t this amazing?’ Wendy murmurs in Jill’s ear. ‘Who even knew that places like this still exist?’
‘That’s what I love about being on holiday,’ Jill says. ‘Mad things happen out of nowhere.’
A bottle of blanc de blanc that Théo has apparently ordered arrives, and once they’ve clinked glasses and taken sips, Cyril stands, bows, and offers Wendy his hand.
‘Oh, no…’ Wendy splutters through laughter. ‘I can’t dance rock-and-roll at all.’
‘If she can do it, you can do it,’ Jill says, pointing at a woman in her late seventies, being twirled around the dance floor by a bejewelled man channelling Liberace.
‘No, I mean I don’t know how,’ Wendy says. ‘I’ve never danced with a partner in my life. Not so much as a tango.’
‘Is OK,’ Cyril says, taking her hand by force and yanking her to her feet. ‘All you do is follow me.’
‘That was the most fun I’ve had in years,’ Jill slurs, as the two women stumble along the wet pavement back towards town. It is almost midnight and, this being a rainy Thursday in November, the streets are all but deserted. ‘But Christ my feet hurt.’
‘Mine too,’ Wendy agrees. ‘How old do you think he was, by the way? I kept wondering.’
‘Mine?’ Jill asks. ‘Or yours?’
‘Cyril. He must have been in his seventies, right?’
‘Mid-sixties, I’d say. Just ravaged by drink and cigarettes, which should be a warning to us all. But it’s hard to tell. Théo said he’s sixty-four, which came as a bit of a shock. I thought he was more my age.’
‘And did he really not try anything on?’ Wendy asks, tripping up the kerb and grabbing Jill’s hand to steady herself.
‘He did not,’ Jill says. ‘Not so much as a grope. They really were perfect gentlemen.’
‘You sound disappointed.’
‘Nah,’ Jill says. ‘Not really.’
Wendy laughs. ‘I know you. You’re feeling snubbed.’
Jill snorts. ‘By the end I was starting to find him quite attractive.’
‘Beer goggles,’ Wendy says, ‘or rather, spritz goggles,’ and Jill finds this so hilarious that she momentarily has to stop walking so that she can double over and laugh.
‘Spritz goggles,’ she repeats, when she can speak again. ‘That’s exactly what it was.’
It seems to take forever to reach the car park, but eventually Jill stops walking and points. ‘That’s the one, right?’ she says. ‘That’s where we parked the car. I remember because of those funky lamps.’
‘Yess!’ Wendy agrees. ‘Now all we have to do is find the car.’
‘And you’re sure you’re OK to drive?’ Jill asks, as the lift descends.
Wendy, who has eaten a plate of chips at some point during the evening, and who quite valiantly refrained from drinking anything else from that point on, suspects she’s over the limit.
In fact she’s sure she must be over the limit.
All the same, she feels reasonably straight.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, analysing her own gait as they leave the lift.
‘I think I’m OK…’ She tries, successfully, to walk along a painted line on the floor of the car park.
‘Perfect,’ Jill says. ‘See? Now my turn.’ Jill’s mere attempt at walking in a straight line is enough to make her crumple to the floor in a fit of giggles.
‘Good job you’re not driving,’ Wendy says, as she holds out a hand to haul her friend back to her feet.
‘I don’t think they bref-le-lies people in France anyway,’ Jill says, enunciating with difficulty. ‘You know what continentals are like. Drink driving is almost compulsory.’
‘Bref-le-lies?’ Wendy repeats mockingly.
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ Jill says.
‘Luckily, I do.’
It takes ten minutes of traipsing up and down various ramps for them to locate the Renault, and by the time they’re seated, the icy chill of the car park and the stress of worrying about finding the car have left Wendy feeling perfectly sober.
Yes, she struggles a little more than usual opening Google Maps on her phone, but that’s only because her eyes are tired. And maybe she does forget that the gearstick is on her right, not once, not twice, but three times. But overall she’s fine. She’s quite sure she’s totally fine.
‘More bloody rain,’ Wendy mutters, blinking repeatedly in an attempt at getting her tired eyes to focus on the shiny road-surface of the Promenade des Anglais. ‘And why did they have to make these lanes so bloody narrow?’
Jill, who a second ago had been drifting into sleep, forces her eyes open and peers out, but the drunken blur of her vision plus the droplets sliding across the glass just combine to make her feel woozy. ‘Windscreen wipers, maybe?’ she offers.
‘Good idea,’ Wendy says, then, ‘I was about to do that, actually. But do you see what I mean? Do you see how narrow they are?’
‘Umh,’ Jill agrees, already closing her eyes again. ‘They are very narrow, honey.’
Luckily there is little traffic at this time of night and Wendy feels proud when she realises that she has managed to negotiate the full length of the seafront without incident, narrow lanes and all.