One More Croissant for the Road. Felicity Cloake

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ it’s probably quite safe, I’m saved from myself by Matt, a man never known to lose his temper, who gently points out the name of an Alpine restaurant carved onto the wooden handle. The guard, perhaps a vegetarian, is unimpressed (though, as I decide not to point out, it’s in the Michelin Guide and everything). Just as my bottom lip begins to tremble embarrassingly, he calls his supervisor. ‘Oi, mate, over here a second.’

      The boss appraises the situation with a cursory glance.

      ‘Look behind you,’ he tells me. ‘What’s in there?’

      I turn to see a Perspex box a little over half full of vicious-looking flick knives and something that appears to be a large cutlass.

      ‘Offensive weapons?’ I suggest tentatively.

      ‘THEY’RE THE SAME,’ he says firmly. (They’re totally not.)

      It seems because my little knife has a locking function (useful with a crag of Alpine cheese, or a well-matured saucisson), it’s illegal under UK law – but possibly because I’m at serious risk of Making a Scene, and seem unlikely to stab anyone but customs officials, I’m eventually allowed to keep it on the strict basis that I never attempt to travel with it again. As the homeward leg seems laughably far off, I make the promise in good faith and we’re allowed to pedal off with picnic kit intact. Matt swears blind he hears one of them mutter that it was more trouble than it was worth to fill in the confiscation paperwork, but I prefer to believe that I just don’t look like the kind of girl to go on the rampage with a steak knife. (In Paris, five weeks later, this same knife is waved through by security guards at the Musée d’Orsay, who presumably realise any civilised person likes picnics too much to want to slash Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe.)

      After this drama, I accept the official prohibition on cycling onto the ferry itself without a murmur, so my final, anticlimactic contact with British soil comes while battling to keep Eddy upright as I wheel him onto the ramp, his generous rear end trying desperately to remain in Hampshire as I steer him onwards to adventure. Lashed to a large pipe on the back of the ship, perfectly positioned to catch the salty swell over the stern, I quietly forget Condor’s advice about never letting him get wet in favour of skipping up the stairs to find the restaurant.

In the absence of any pork pies, I’ve been distracting Matt with titbits about Brittany Ferries catering, lovingly detailing the glorious buffet of hors d’oeuvres awaiting us on board, plates groaning with prawns and smoked trout, Russian salad and devilled eggs, and as much baguette and Breton butter as you can fill your boots with. After ranging the length of the Normandie Express, dodging excited children and clicking up and down stairs in shoes already beginning to annoy me, I’m forced to concede that this particular vessel boasts little more than a bar – so as the engine finally grinds to life, and Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower recedes into the distance, we head out on deck to raise a bottle of ‘Gourmandie’ cider (see what they did there? I didn’t, until Matt pointed out) to the success of the expedition instead.

      Once on the open sea, having realised Matt knows an awful lot about the Royal Navy and its various aircraft carriers for a man who allegedly works in another department entirely (definite spy), the cider and the excitement soon catch up with me, and I spend much of the rest of the voyage passed out in a reclining chair, waking up only once when my companion brings a microwaved boeuf bourguignon back from the café, and then, apparently only seconds later, finding myself staring at the foggy harbour walls of Cherbourg in puzzled stupefaction.

      ‘Why does it say port militaire in English?’ I ask Matt, discreetly wiping the dribble from my cheek.

      ‘I think you may need a coffee,’ comes the polite reply.

If cycling onto a ferry is a joy, disembarking is the reverse: there’s nothing like a boatful of Brits eager to get to their chateaux in the Dordogne to put the wind up you when you’re not quite sure which side of the road to choose. Special as we may have felt among the cars in Portsmouth, turns out we aren’t the only cyclists to have made the crossing, just the tardiest, and as we wait in line for passport control we discreetly size each other up. Only one woman has more luggage than me, and, sensing the chance for some friendly one-upmanship, I try to get close enough to ask her what she’s up to, but on seeing her American papers, the gendarme whisks her to one side to fill in various forms and we stream past, casually flapping our maroon passports. ‘Wonder what it’ll be like next summer,’ I hear a man behind me say.

      The rumbles of continental geopolitics come a distant second to those of our stomachs, however; having not eaten more than a few peanuts since that avo toast back in King’s Cross, I’m ravenously hungry – which is, of course, the very best way to arrive in France. After only a few angry honks, we lose the stream of ferry traffic to the autoroute and find ourselves in a prosperous-looking little port, the quayside thronged with people strolling in the evening sunshine, boats bobbing in the breeze. I check Eddy into the luxury of the hotel’s laundry room, where I suspect he’s gearing up to leak chain grease onto the stacks of clean sheets, hang up my Lycra ready for tomorrow (spoiler: this is the last time it will be thus honoured until my mum gets hold of it in the Alps), and go downstairs to find Matt already halfway through a bottle of La Cotentine Blanche, named after the Norman peninsula we’ll be tackling over the next few days.

      First beer polished off at appropriately British speed, we repair next door to the Café de Paris, recommended as ‘a true seafood brasserie – invigorating!’ by the Michelin Guide. The dining room is full to bursting with tables of merry French eating seafood.

      ‘Well, this looks good!’ said Matt cheerfully as we’re led to the back of the dining room … and then up some curved stairs to an empty room decorated in the height of 1980s ferry chic, all pale pine and frosted lights and napkin fans on the tables.

‘Do you think this is where they put the British people?’ he whispers, his voice echoing around the space.

      We laugh and order kirs (because one celebratory drink is never enough), and are halfway down them when another party is ushered in, men and women alike clad in faded chino shorts, pressed polo shirts and expensive waterproof sailing jackets. Before they even begin to speak, Matt winks. We are indeed in the Anglo-Saxon ghetto.

      The food, happily, is pure French, and proves a distraction from their disappointingly dull boat-related conversation. Star of the show is a magnificent platter of fruits de mer bedecked with fat oysters and tiny crunchy little prawns barely bigger than Morecambe Bay shrimps, and just small enough to pop in whole in all their whiskery glory. Below sit bigger prawns, firm and salty-sweet, the best winkles I’ve ever had (too much information?) and a selection of curiously round clams I later discover are known as dog cockles in English, and more poetically in French as almonds of the sea. On the side, half a baguette and a bowl of piquant yellow mayonnaise.

      The punchy Calvados sorbet that follows, melting into granular fruity sweetness on the tongue, is pure delight – the first in a long line of shots of local firewater masquerading as desserts that make me wonder why we don’t make more of the digestif tradition in the UK. I, for one, would certainly order a sloe gin slushy if I saw it on the menu.

Strong liquor it may be, but excited to be off at last, I spring eagerly from bed the next morning as the chilly light of morning brightens the eaves (happily ignorant of the fact that this will be the last such springing for several weeks) and pull at the curtains to reveal … a misty grey world of damp slate rooftops. Oh well, I think cheerfully, yanking on the Lycra, at least this will give me the chance to make a pretentious joke about the Parapluies de Cherbourg when I see Matt. Every cloud and all that.

      Clearly, СКАЧАТЬ