Serge Bastarde Ate My Baguette (24 page)

  I half-stumbled, half-ran back to our caravan to tell Helen the shocking news.

  'This isn't a nature reserve, it's a nudist camp!' I yelled. 'The sun's brought them all out. It's the opposite to vampires.'

  She just laughed.

  'No, it's true, honestly.'

  'Oh well, never mind,' she said. 'We'll just have to brazen it out. We've run out of water. Could you fill our plastic tank?'

  'How can I go out there?' I said.

  'Try it, you might like it. Just strip off and stop being so sensitive.'

  'What, go out there in the nuddy?'

  'Why not?'

  I was taken aback. I know Helen stripped off at every chance in the garden but I had to convince myself I could cope with this. I pondered for a minute.

  'OK, I'll do it,' I said.

  I divested myself of my shorts, pants and T-shirt and set off. But I felt strangely eccentric hefting the empty polythene tank with fresh air circulating freely round parts that were usually hidden away. I peeked into the front of Serge's van just to assure myself he was asleep. Happily he was still snoring loudly, dead to the world.

  As I walked along the gravel path headed for the water taps I felt myself slip automatically into the 'Naturist's Saunter', turning my naked body and leaning back to catch the sun's rays. I was beginning to feel I could pull this off. I looked the part and I actually felt like a real nudist – enough of one anyway to allay all suspicions.

  I looked around in vain for evidence of other naturists, but there was no one about. The beach ball girls had vanished and there was no sign of the nude family.

  As I filled my water tank I inadvertently splashed cold water on my private parts and jumped back in shock. I was starting to realise just how uncomfortable performing seemingly simple day-to-day functions could be without clothes on. When I staggered back with the full tank Helen couldn't stop laughing. 'You might as well empty our chemical loo while you're at it,' she giggled.

  Yes, why not? There was nothing to be afraid of. I was starting to get into the swing of this nudist lark. Everyone was equal in the buff. It was somehow invigorating and liberating at the same time.

  I set off ready for the task in hand when from behind I heard: 'Hey, Johnny, how's it hanging?'

  I turned round, surprised. Serge had come up behind me. He was stark-bollock-naked. And he had a big smug grin on his face. But what struck me most was how amazingly hirsute he was. So much so that he didn't really need any clothes at all. It was an uncalled for and slightly repulsive revelation.

  'So that's what
à poil
means?' I said.

  'Yes, of course, Johnny. I thought you knew. Mind if I join you? I fancy a shower.'

  'OK, certainly,' I said, trying to act normally. We set off up the path with me carrying the plastic Portaloo and Serge walking beside me with a towel over his shoulder.

  'It's turned out nice again,' I said, trying not to look at his hairy body. 'Much warmer than yesterday.' It felt like a scene from
Carry on Camping
.

  'Beautiful,' he said. 'And we'll soon get nice and bronzed, won't we?'

  I couldn't help noticing he was doing the 'Naturist's Saunter', leaning back to catch the sun. Was this really his first visit to a nudist camp?

  As we approached the toilet block we came face to face with a couple of builders wearing their traditional blue overalls and a woman I guessed to be an architect, examining plans spread out on a table. They were all fully clothed and the two of us were now in the unenviable reversed role of being stark naked. They ignored us, heads down, discussing what I presumed was to be some type of new building.

  The woman looked up and smiled broadly at me.
'Bonjour…'
(and then I could have sworn she stared pointedly at my private parts)
'… m'sieu!'

  She glanced at Serge, appeared slightly appalled and looked quickly away.

  The two builders gawped at us and one of them raised his eyebrows and smiled almost conspiratorially. As Serge and I entered the toilet block I realised he probably thought we were a gay couple on holiday together. My face was on fire. I wanted to tell them we were neither homosexuals nor nudists. We were in fact impostors who had snuck in undetected under false pretences.

  As I emptied our Portaloo, I could hear Serge singing to himself in the shower, puffing and blowing like a grampus. I waited and he came out steaming, rubbing himself with his towel and making no attempt at modesty, like we were two pals up at the YMCA.

  I looked out of the door hesitantly, dreading having to pass the builders and the woman again in such a vulnerable state. But I needn't have worried. They were climbing into a smart car and driving off.

  Then, surprisingly, as we re-emerged, the world appeared to have reverted back to its 'naked as nature intended' state. There were nude couples wandering hand in hand, the man I had seen earlier with his wife and family reappeared and there were other naturists cavorting about bursting with health. Bare skin was in vogue again.

  I ambled back with Serge towards our caravan, feeling quite at ease. We were managing to pull off this naturist lark. It wasn't as hard as I had imagined. All you had to do was keep a clear head, try not to panic and avoid any erotic thoughts that could lead to an embarrassing arousal situation.

  As we approached our caravan I saw Helen at the window laughing hysterically before ducking down out of sight.

The room was packed to the rafters and buzzing like an all-night party. Dealers pushed through to bag a place, greeting each other warmly and shaking hands. Women were kissed ardently on both cheeks and pleasantries exchanged. In this sa
lle des ventes
(auction room) it was hard to imagine these same dealers would be fighting like hyenas to outbid each other once the sale started.

  It was a couple of weeks after our visit to Lourdes and Serge had persuaded me that a six-hour drive deep into the heart of the Auvergne on a buying trip would be worth it.

  'They're still living in the Dark Ages over there and you can pick up good old rustic furniture for nothing… they're practically giving it away.'

  I was hoping – probably in vain – that he still had some vestiges of the new man left in him, so decided to accept his offer. After all, he'd been right about the Mickey Mouse cheque.

  The countryside had been stunning but the trip a fraught one. My van had begun to play up in a most alarming manner. The accelerator stuck and the engine raced, sending us hurtling down a steep hill into a sleepy village, careering dangerously from side to side as I fought desperately to regain control. When I eventually managed to stop in neutral with the engine screaming we climbed out like Laurel and Hardy, looking baffled. Serge managed to fix it more by luck than judgement, but the trouble kept recurring and we needed to get to a garage and have the problem sorted out by a proper mechanic.

  I was worrying about it as we pushed our way through the throng of dealers trying to get a look at the furniture.

  My experience of salerooms in Britain had left me unprepared for what went on in France. Helen had told me but I hadn't really believed her. Here, as in most French auctions, there was no catalogue with descriptions of the items and their lot number. You had to remember what you wanted to buy and wait until it came up. There appeared to be no rhyme nor reason as to when goods were picked out to go under the hammer and the sale verged on the farcical. This was in no small part due to the mother and daughter team who ran the place. They had a passable double act going between them which would not have seemed out of place on the variety stage.

  The daughter was perched high up behind a desk on a dais, while the mother helped out the teenage porter, moving round the hall, showing off special items, shouting comments and cracking jokes. She was sixty if she was a day and fancied herself as something of a femme fatale.

  She decided to model a fur coat that was up for sale, slinking down the aisles like Brigitte Bardot to wolf whistles from the crowd, fluttering her eyelids and throwing lewd wisecracks at a dealer half her age she had the hots for. The daughter, meanwhile, who was trying to run the auction, periodically halted the proceedings to threaten her mother with her gavel, telling her to act her age and stop fooling around.

  I felt a nudge in the ribs. 'Oi-oi, mate. 'Ow's it goin'?'

  I turned to look into the deeply lined, weather-beaten face of Reg, an English dealer I'd seen around.

  'Bleedin' froggy farce, eh? What
are
they playing at?'

  He raised his eyebrows and they disappeared under his shaggy mop of hair. He'd stuck with the same Rolling Stones style all his life, only now it was streaked with grey and was perhaps even more unruly than it had been in the sixties. He lifted his arm to shout out a bid and revealed a muscled forearm covered in tattoos. Reg's tattoos weren't the fake tribal designs of today's youth. Besides stylised bluebirds like the one I had he sported dripping daggers, tombstones, staring skulls and tributes to Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead.

  'I see you've got your froggy mate with you,' he said, nodding at Serge, whom he viewed with a mixture of amusement and contempt.

  'Is his surname really Bastarde? Unbelievable! Is that why you hang out with him, just for a laugh?'

  I ignored the remark but felt slightly chastened. Despite his bigoted bluff exterior, Reg was nobody's fool. I couldn't help feeling he had an uncanny insight into what made us tick.

  He play-punched Serge, who grinned and gave his hair a tug. I knew Serge was impressed by him. He referred to him as
Le Pirate
and recognised a fellow jovial degenerate when he saw one.

  The mother and daughter team were well into their stride now. The daughter had knocked down an ormolu clock to someone at the back of the room and a squabble broke out. The dealer who thought he had won the bid began to argue vociferously when he realised the clock was going to a rival. Voices were raised in anger and a certain amount of bad-tempered jostling began. Any sensible auctioneer would have nipped a dispute like this in the bud, cancelled the sale and restarted the bidding. But the daughter joined in the fight, pointing and screaming, insisting that her decision was final. The mother seized the opportunity to back the loser and a slanging match developed between the pair of them.

  Serge sided with one of the dealers and, to my horror, began shouting disparaging remarks about the daughter's competence.

  She exploded in a temper tantrum. 'Any cheek from you, Bastarde, and I'll have you thrown out!' Her face was bright red. She looked like she might burst a blood vessel.

  The mother jumped straight in on Serge's side, defending him and berating her daughter. She winked and smiled at Serge and I got the distinct impression they might have had some history together.

  'Seems like you're notorious even round here,' I said.

  He chuckled and nodded.

  'Better go easy though,' I said. 'We haven't managed to buy anything yet.'

  'Don't worry about that, Johnny. I've got the piston, friends in the right places. Me and the mother, we had a bit of a thing going a while back. She'll see me right.'

  So my suspicions were correct. He'd been her 'boyfriend'. The crafty old devil!

  The daughter calmed down and began auctioning off a box of books. But the mother insisted on helping her, picking them out one by one, thumbing through and choosing passages she thought might interest us, reading out loud as if we were pupils in a class. There were a few yawns and shuffling of feet but no one complained or shouted 'Get on with it!' as they would have done in an English auction room.

  I decided this was the time to nip to the loo but it seemed like everyone had the same idea because when I got there the place was packed. As I shuffled behind the line of men waiting to use the stinking urinal, I was thinking about how I was going to get the van fixed, and absent-mindedly looking at the back of the neck of the chap in front of me. He turned his head slightly and I noticed the end of a livid scar running from one ear down across his throat. Where had I seen that scar recently? It was hardly the sort of thing you could forget. Then it hit me: it was Bruno the Basque! Surely he couldn't have followed us out here intent on revenge.

  I changed my mind about taking a piss and pushed my way out, through the corridor and into the street.

  Breathing in the fresh air I fought to get a grip. I hadn't realised what an ugly impression Bruno had made on me. Reg was leaning against a wall in the shade.