Read Online Dial M for Merde by Stephen Clarke - Free Book Online Page B

along.’
    â€˜That’s very flattering,’ I said, ‘but no thanks.’
    â€˜You scared or what?’
    â€˜Frankly, yes,’ I wanted to answer. I’d noticed that two of her buddies were watching our conversation from the promenade. Both were holding supermarket bags full of wine bottles, and their evenly divided loads seemed to be the only things keeping them standing upright. All of the girls were dressed as though the airline had lost their luggage and they were having to economize on clothes. They were in bikini tops and either tight trousers or miniskirts. They were tattooed Amazons on the hunt for male flesh.
    â€˜I’m waiting for my girlfriend,’ I said.
    â€˜Bollocks,’ my new friend said. ‘Girls!’ She shouted over her shoulder, and the two wine-bearers clinked unsteadily over to join us. ‘He won’t come,’ the first girl told her chums.
    They dropped their shopping bags and tried to lift me out of my seat.
    â€˜No, honestly, my girlfriend will be here any minute.’ I pulled my arms free. ‘You’ll only make her jealous.’
    â€˜She can come as well,’ the redhead said. ‘There’ll be loads of blokes. Look.’
    I turned to see four more girls staggering along the promenade, arm in arm with a bunch of guys. I recognized the commandos, even though they’d changed out of their shorts and into a different kind of uniform – clean jeans and short-sleeved shirts that showed off their biceps.
    The redhead beckoned her pals and their male escorts over, and my table was suddenly surrounded by loud drunks, including at least five soldiers.
    â€˜Hey, c’est l’Anglais!’ It was the commando with the dimpled chin, waving a beer bottle in my face.
    â€˜Bonsoir,’ I said, as you must.
    â€˜You know this tourist?’ another commando asked, a guy with a bulbous broken nose.
    â€˜Oui.’ The dimple-chinned guy told his mates how I’d followed him up the hill to the base. He didn’t look too annoyed, though. They were all laughing about it.
    â€˜What’s your name?’ the guy with the broken nose asked me.
    â€˜Paul West,’ I told him. No reason to lie.
    â€˜Ã‡a n’existe pas,’ he said.
    â€˜Yes it does exist,’ I protested.
    â€˜Paul North yes, Paul South yes, but West? No.’
    There were loud groans, and the other soldiers laughed and slapped him on the back.
    I groaned the loudest of all. Spoken with a French accent, my name sounded like ‘West Pole’. I had spent most of the two or so years I’d been in France pouring scorn on the French love of bad puns. And now I was one.
    â€˜What are they laughing at?’ the redhead asked me.
    â€˜Me,’ I said.
    â€˜They know you?’
    â€˜We’ve met,’ I said, and suddenly realized that I’d have to go to the beach party after all. These guys were drunk enough to draw me a map of every secret base in France, never mind discuss what fish they’d bumped into while diving.
    And M couldn’t possibly object. This wasn’t going to be an interrogation – it was going to be a drunken chat that the soldiers wouldn’t even remember in the morning.
    â€˜OK,’ I said. ‘Where’s the party, then?’
    My question was greeted with a victory whoop, and the broken-nosed soldier leaned in and breathed at me that they were taking the Anglaises to a little beach just aroundthe headland, a very tranquil beach, he sniggered meaningfully.
    â€˜I’ll just call my girlfriend and let her know where I’m going,’ I said, and walked away a few yards to make the call, while the others gathered up all the bottles and had a bit of a snog and a grope to pass the time.
    M was on voicemail, so I left a message telling her what I was doing. Then, feeling the need to let as many people as possible know where I was disappearing to, I tried Elodie. She was on