Son of Serge Bastarde (8 page)

  The auctioneer was getting hoarse, shouting for calm. His face was red and he was losing it. 'Quiet!' he yelled above the hubbub. 'I can't carry on with all this noise! Shut up!'

  There was a brief lull in the conversation, and then the commotion started up again, even louder than before.

  This time his temper exploded. 'If you don't shut up, next time any of you have guests I'll come over to your houses and dance on the table shouting!'

  There was total silence for a moment, suddenly broken by a small, frail voice.

  'And will you be wearing a thong?' It was Josette's mother.

  There was a roar of laughter, complete pandemonium. Any possibility of the auctioneer regaining control had gone. Dealers reached over to pat Josette's mother on the back. The women were hysterical, shouting at the auctioneer and describing to each other how they imagined he would look in a thong.

  Helen was laughing, too. She squeezed my hand. 'We can go upstairs now and pick up some of the stuff we've bought. It's OK, there's nothing down here we want anyway.'

  We worked our way through the raucous crowd, up the back stairs and onwards up a wide, winding staircase to the first floor. This
maison de retraite
was magnificent. There were long halls with high windows at each end overlooking the gardens. Running off the passages were tastefully decorated bedrooms and small dormitories. I couldn't understand how such a pleasant old people's home could be closed down like this. It seemed almost sacrilegious.

  Helen led me through to a small dormitory. 'I've bought this bed in here.' She pointed to a bed with
chevets
(pot cupboards – sometimes referred to as 'bedside tables' by antique dealers).

  'I'll dismantle the bed then, shall I?' I said. As luck would have it I'd brought my special little tool with me for unscrewing the bolts on these ancient beds, and I set to it on my hands and knees.

  'I'm going downstairs,' said Helen. 'You'll be all right here?'

  'I'll be fine,' I assured her, grunting as I tried to shift a stiff bolt. I managed to disassemble the bed and started off along the corridor carrying the large wooden headboard, intending to load it into our van.

  As I made my way along the dimly lit passageway past the open bedroom doors I suddenly had a strange vision. I felt there were confused old people leaning out from those doorways looking at me, wondering what I was doing. In my mind's eye they appeared deeply disturbed, as if they weren't sure what was going on. It was a strange feeling, strong and quite vivid. It reminded me of the time after my Uncle Tom had died and I went with Helen to see my Auntie Elsie. I had an overpowering feeling he was there in the room welcoming me and overjoyed to see me. I sat in his chair and could sense him standing beside me, beaming as my auntie chatted away. Was I dreaming up these lost souls? It didn't feel like it. They seemed very real and I found myself talking softly in French to them as I passed, assuring them that everything was fine and they shouldn't worry. I remembered how I had done the same thing, reassuring Gaston, the deceased previous owner of our house, that we meant no harm in our farmhouse when I had knocked down the interior wall. I must be losing my grip on reality.

  I met Helen on the stairs on her way up to see me and told her about it.

  'Do you think I'm going mad?'

  'Yes,' she replied, matter-of-factly.

  'Actually, I had a similar feeling earlier,' said Helen. 'I was on my own and went into a room to see what was in there. I had the feeling I wasn't alone, that someone had come in. I turned to say
"bonjour"
and there was no one there.'

  I told her I didn't find it frightening, but that I felt sad that they were so lost and worried.

  When I returned for the rest of the bed I thought the feeling might have evaporated but it was just as strong.

  As I loaded the bed and
chevets
into the van I saw Serge coming towards me. He too looked bewildered. But as he got nearer I realised he was not so much confused as annoyed. He was cursing like an expert, spitting out expletives.

  'Do you know what that son of mine has done now, Johnny?'

  I said I didn't, as I had been upstairs dismantling a bed.

  'Did you see that massive oak table in the dining room?'

  'Helen told me about it, it's a big one, isn't it?'

  'Big? It's giant-sized,' he moaned. 'It'll take about eight men to shift and it will never go in my van. Diddy paid well over the odds for it and he expects me to cough up and foot the bill. I tried to tell the auctioneer I don't want it but he says Diddy bought it fair and square and he won't re-auction it now.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'And that's not all, Johnny,' he continued, ignoring my question, 'he's bought a load more stuff. Bedpans! Who wants bedpans these days?'

  'Sick people?' I offered.

  'Yes, but I've got two hundred of them. Do you need one yourself, maybe? I can let you have a couple dead cheap.' He made a noise halfway between a laugh and a groan.

  'I don't know, he doesn't seem to have a clue that boy. He's going to ruin me. He's not got the sense he was born with.'

  'Oh, come on,' I said. 'He's not that bad, surely; you told me last week it was nice having your son working alongside you.'

  'I thought it would be, yes. But sometimes I can't believe a son of mine would be so clueless. He doesn't take after me, that's for sure.'

  'No, perhaps not, but he's inherited your spirit of enterprise, Serge,' I said, trying to cheer him up.

  'Do you think so?' He was flattered. 'Well, OK, maybe I can shift those bedpans as trendy flower pots, or perhaps wine coolers.' He was perking up visibly at the thought.

  'Mmmm.' I nodded and smiled. 'You could be on to something there, Serge.'

  ... Not! Rustics who still kept potties under the bed for relieving themselves in the night tended to snigger uncontrollably at the sight of a potty being offered for sale as a desirable antique. How would they react to bedpans?

  'I meant to ask you, Johnny, how was the Musée du Béret? I bet you enjoyed yourself while poor Helen was working away here on her own trying to grab a bargain.'

  'It was quite interesting,' I conceded. 'But not as much as a Musée du Chapeau Melon would have been to us English.'

  Serge found this remark incredibly funny. He exploded with hysterical laughter. When he eventually managed to regain control he took one look at me and he was off again, slapping his knees, pointing at my deadpan expression.

  'You English are so funny! What a sense of humour, eh?' He wiped his eyes.

  'I'd love to see you in a
chapeau melon
, Johnny. If I ever see one on the markets, I'm going to buy it for you.'

  'Don't bother,' I said. 'The only way I'd ever don a
chapeau melon
is if I was wearing a codpiece with one eye made-up like Alex in
A Clockwork Orange
.'

  He looked at me, baffled. I'd lost him on that one.

  'Hang on a moment though, Johnny, I have got something to show you that I'm sure you'll appreciate.' He jumped into the back of his van and I heard him banging about before he emerged with what looked like an old brown fibre box. He undid the strap and pulled something out wrapped in tissue paper. It was round and made of a blue woollen material and looked suspiciously like a beret!

  'This came up in the sale with some other hats today and I couldn't resist buying it.'

  He removed the tissue paper and carefully positioned the beret on his head.

  'Well, what do you think?' He struck what he intended to be a noble pose. 'It suits me, doesn't it?'

  I looked at him in amazement. It suited him, all right. The beret was huge and floppy and stuck out prominently like the top of a giant drooping blue mushroom. He was proudly sporting a classic version of
le béret
extra large
, the one that was ideal for people with big heads.

  'I like it!' I said, trying to keep a straight face.

We sat and stared balefully at the beautiful walnut buffet that Diddy had originally sold to a rich customer, who had returned it, complaining it was 'making strange noises in the night'. Serge said he thought it was some sort of wood-boring beetle at work and we had to annihilate it. We had taken the doors off and lain the top half with its little carved wooden figures and ornate finials against the wall in Serge's garage. It was around midnight and we strained our ears to hear, hardly daring to breathe.

  And there it was – a kind of crunch, crunch, crunching sound. It was hard to tell where the noise was coming from exactly. But it appeared to be from somewhere deep inside the wood.

  Serge got down on his hands and knees and put his ear up close. He cupped one hand and listened, moving his head up and down, trying to pinpoint it. After several minutes of this he shook his head and stood up.

  'That young idiot! I've told him so many times. If there are holes, treat it. Kill the little beggars, because if you don't,' he waved at the buffet, 'you're going to be left with sawdust.' He sat down on a chaise longue with horsehair sprouting through holes in its velour cover and put his head in his hands.

  Since he had told us about his break-up with Angelique, his separation from his baby boy Adrien and his dog Robespierre, I had begun to see Serge as vulnerable. I felt sorry for him and tried to help him whenever I could.

  'Can't you just give the man his money back?' I asked.

  He lifted his head and gave me a look that suggested I was born yesterday.

  'Give it back? Give the money back? No, of course he can't give it back! The little idiot's spent it. You think Diddy has any money to give back to people? He's up the casino gambling it away or on the Internet buying clothes. He can never give any money back. It burns a hole in his pocket. He's got no idea of the value of it. Besides, the guy who bought this is a real heavy with contacts all over Eastern Europe. You see all these other pieces?' He pointed to several
chevets
, chandeliers and wrought-iron lamps. 'He's filling a container of French antiques and exporting it to his warehouse out there. I've got to pack a load of my better stuff in boxes for transportation. He wants the stuff cheap but he can shift a lot of antiques so it's worth it to me.'

  We had picked up the buffet earlier that evening in Biarritz from the man who had complained about the noises it was making.

  'This guy is rich,' Serge confided, 'and when I say rich I mean
rupin
, filthy rich.' He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. 'And he's powerful, too. I can't afford to offend him. He'd have me done – just like that.' He smacked his hands together as if he were killing a bug.

  'It was Bruno who put me onto him. He's a really good contact. I've got to keep him sweet.'

  This information about the link with Bruno made me feel uneasy. I had come up against Serge's dubious friend Bruno the Basque in the past and I had an intense dislike of the man.

  Serge's rich client owned a smart penthouse apartment in Biarritz. We had gone up in the lift and rung his doorbell on the eighth floor. We stood outside the door waiting in the plush hallway.

  'This is impressive,' I said to Serge.

  'Yeah, well he's a Romanian, he likes things just so.'

  'A Romanian? You didn't tell me he was Romanian. Does he speak French?'

  The door swung open to reveal a man dressed in a turquoise towelling dressing gown and blue silk pyjamas. It was four in the afternoon. He was tanned with silver-grey hair combed back like a fifties thug. He looked like the sort of grumpy, tough person you wouldn't want to annoy. He signalled impatiently for us to enter and we followed him through into a sumptuously decorated living room with a panoramic view over the sea. We both stood, spellbound, watching the boats go by.

  'Right, you two clowns,' said the grumpy old man, breaking our reverie. He spoke with a strong Eastern European accent 'That whoring thing, it keeps on going tap-tap-tap night and day. It is driving me crazy. Get it fixed. I don't care how you do it, just do it!'

  'Don't worry, sir,' said Serge obsequiously, 'my colleague here and I will sort it out. We'll take it back to my workshop and find out what the trouble is.'

  The man was unimpressed. 'You better.' He glowered.

  Serge grovelled pathetically and promised it would all be fine, and we hefted the buffet through the dining room, trying not to bump into any of the incredibly valuable pieces of antique furniture that adorned the flat. On the way to the front door we hit the wall and ripped a piece out of the expensive designer wallpaper. Serge hurriedly licked his finger and stuck back the telltale tear. We tried to manoeuvre the buffet through the front door and in doing so scratched the paintwork and scuffed the polished wood of the buffet.