sticks and Stones 25

After a few more at Les Americains, I drove the back way to Toulouse, which was a mistake. Everyone coming from the other direction seemed to have their full beam on or they had wonky low beams.
Once parked up, I went around looking for a menu somewhere and chose unwisely. It was a Spanish fish place, and they served up moules with a disgracefully industrial sauce. I complained and was offered moules au nature, but then the fish steak was undercooked so I had that taken back. When the owner declined to replace my dessert with a simple café nature, I strolled up to him, placed my money on the counter.
‘Ici, c’est pas bon,’ I said, and walked out.
I thought he might follow me and try and kick the shit out of me because the restaurant was almost empty and he had time, but he didn’t come out. He looked well past caring; another slovenly restauranteur beaten by the state.
The Frog and Rosbif was quite busy so I took my perch at a bar stool and ordered a pint.
I always sit in the same place at that pub and I always meet Brits who work for one or another aero-spatial company in Toulouse.
Tonight, I had Peter, a Gooner from Gibraltar and spacecraft controller, and Des, an Asian Manc and accountant to a satellite offshoot of Airbus.
Peter had to slow the beer-intake down because he was due to direct a satellite in space at eleven o’clock from his suite at the Sofitel until the early hours, and the game finished at a quarter-to eleven.
Des, on the other hand, was light in mood with his wife and child tucked up at home in Labege.
‘It needs a goal,’ he said at half-time.
‘Well, we’re not giving one away to your lot, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ I barked back, jokingly.
There were no goals in the match, but halfway through the second half, Peter got a call to say he could watch his match and get pissed because someone else was doing the shift for him, which brightened him up. He could get pissed.
After the game had finished, I explained that I’d had a bet. All I needed was a Real Madrid win to return 523 euros. The Real match was a later kick-off and I had an hour from then to get home for the result.
At some traffic lights on the walk back to the car, I whispered ‘hash’ to a young couple and they said ‘non’.
Moments later, I heard them call me back.
‘Anglais, non?’ said the guy.
‘Oui, Ingleesh,’ I replied.
We struck up conversation and they told me they liked the English. I followed them to a quiet backstreet and the guy gave me ten grams of hash for fifty euros. I gave him the money and a little bit of hash back.
‘Pour toi,’ I said.
I took his mobile number down and we said goodbye at the same traffic lights where we’d met.
I got in the car, drove a short way and then stopped to build a quick joint for the road. The motorway was clear, with the sound of the Chemical Brothers’ singles album on full blast and the imminence of a windfall at home.
When I got back, I fired up the internet and did a search for Real Madrid. It was in Spanish but there was David Beckham, all in white and celebrating. There was a little 0-1 underneath, so I naturally assumed I had won. This feeling lasted almost a minute, when I went onto the English version. I was horribly stunned when I read the text.
Real Madrid had won by a single penalty during extra-time after a nil-nil deadlock, which meant that I lost the bet. Being a cup match, bets were for the ninety minutes of normal time only and don’t include extra-time.
A few days have passed since that night.
I didn’t bother checking the newspapers to verify the score the next day, too hung over and negative to even contemplate the possibility of a reprieve from my run of bad luck.
It was Thursday that I saw the baby inside Suzie at the gynaecologist’s surgery, but it went badly.
Clara was a livewire and, after the doctor had shown us the baby and assured us that it was healthy and well, Suzie asked me to go to the café with Clara so that the doctor could show Griff and Maddy some more views of the baby, which Suzie thought might be too gruesome and graphic for little Clara.
We went, but as soon as we got outside a huge dog started barking and made its way over to us, so I scooped Clara up over my shoulders and walked off, but then a car tried backing into us in a cloud of exhaust fumes.
‘Fuckin’ French,’ I said, trying to kick the car’s bumper.
I put Clara down at the entrance of the café but she kept repeating my words.
We walked in with her practising her new sentence, ‘Fuckin’ French’, to everyone there, which didn’t help matters. (Suzie has already told me that if I teach her to say these words, no private nursery in the whole of England will take her.)
When Suzie, Griff and Maddy came in, I knew I was a beaten man. She asked if I would come back home with them, but I could only think in a negative way.
‘I just don’t think I’m a family man, Suze,’ I said, truly in pain. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to do.’
They left in her car. It was an eerie goodbye, silent but full of rejection. Suzie was speechless, and the children had a glaze over their eyes.
As I waved from the pavement, they looked at me like I wasn’t even there. Perhaps they all hated me.