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Funny Money
The Investment Diary of Bernard Jones
Friday 15th
September: Queuing for the Stelios
Paris, here we
go. Alarm set at 1.30am. Of course, couldn’t sleep anyway,
worrying whether the taxi driver was going to oversleep and we’d
miss the flight. Fortunately, he was on time. Still, a round
£100 fare including tip brings this little EasyJet jaunt up to
the price of fractional jet ownership.
Things got
worse. Deprived of two bottles of water at security and then had
to pay £1.20 each to replace them in duty free. What a rip-off!
Eunice lost a large jar of Clarins face cream and a lipstick to
the same officious security berk which will undoubtedly set her
back much more. Yes, we forgot, but how ridiculous all this
security is. I mean, if the next bunch of Al Qaeda wannabees in
Dagenham or Dudley are discovered to have pencilled on the back
of a gas bill a plan to carry explosives sewn into their
underwear, we will then undoubtedly have to board aircraft
knickerless. Then M&S really would be in trouble.
Never mind that
it’s the middle of the night, Eunice can still window shop for
England. Lost track of her by Claire’s Accessories and she
finally pops up by Gifts4All. All this means we are last on the
plane with only odd seats left. I’m at the back next to the loo,
which cabin crew are overheard referring to as ‘the Stelios’.
Bumpy on
approach to landing. Cockney wench in adjacent aisle seat spills
bottle of duty free perfume, which she rightly calls a disaster
because it’s ‘a stale odour’. She then compounds her error by
treading heavily on my foot in her rush to the Stelios.
Arrive at hotel
at 9.45am, almost hallucinating through lack of sleep. However,
we are told our room still occupied until midday and will not be
ready until 4pm. While our four poster is otherwise occupied, we
are reduced to making a corral of Eunice’s suitcases in the
lounge and snoozing through CNN business bulletins. Am chased
through fitful dreams by the chairman of the Federal Reserve who
insists he has mislaid his long bond.
Saturday 16th
September: Homage to catatonia
Awoke
in the four-poster refreshed after a long sleep, to find Eunice
still rasping her way through the nasal version of the
Marseillaise. Blissful night untroubled by hippopotamus
manoeuvres, helped perhaps by giant late-night Courvoisiers
consumed in a little bar around the corner. Splendid time at the
model railway exhibition. Fantastic double O gauge displays
which have given me a lot of ideas for the layout at home.
Picked up a bargain level crossing and signal box set. Eunice
behaved admirably considering she must have been bored witless.
Still feeling very guilty about my initial criticism of the
trip. I have to confess I’m enjoying myself, despite the
proximity of a) lots of French people. b) becoups de merde de
chien.
Elevenses:
Wander into gorgeous patisserie which is like heaven on earth,
with the smell of warm bread and window displays of home-made
chocolates and bon-bons. While Eunice had a café noir I devoured
a paddling-pool-seized café au lait, a pain au chocolat
and a marvellously squishy custard tart. Not a word of reproach
was issued. What is she up to?
2pm. Department
store shopping. Eunice now in full flight. Meanwhile I had my
own problem.
All
I did was ask: “Ou est la toilette?” This middle-aged female
shop assistant, lifted her librarian glasses and screwed up her
face as if I’d asked for the giraffe embalming department. She
then turned to an assistant and repeated what I’d said syllable
by syllable. Huge gallic shrugs were exchanged, then they turned
to me and each offered a volley of rapid French. Defeated by
this linguistic stonewalling I finally lapsed into English.
“Ah,” she said. “You are English.
‘Ou
est la toilette!’ But of course.
Let
me tell you.” After exchanging a guffaw with her colleague, she
then proceeded to give me in machine gun speed French, with
copious hand movements, directions which when followed as best I
could manage led me to a dimly-lit and deserted loading bay,
adorned with skips. In the corner was a bucket, which had
already been inaugurated. Alright, then, when in France….
Sunday 17th
September – French resistance
Last night was
Eunice’s piece de la resistance. The restaurant she had booked
proved its authenticity by its obscure location, the Proustian
length of its menus and the lack of English either written or
spoken. While I studied the three leather-bound volumes, she
surreptitiously looked up the descriptions in her pocket
Collins.
“Oh,
that’s calf brains. Yuck. No, what about this one?” She pointed
to another line. “Confit de gésier.”
“That’s duck jam
isn’t it?”
“No. Duck is
canard. Oh. It says gizzards. Gizzard jam. Oh, I don’t know if I
fancy that.”
Forty-five
minutes later we had chosen, having picked our way around the
three quarters of the offerings based on offal. How odd, when
you charge enough to get the best ingredients, that you mainly
rely on the slaughterhouse sweepings? Nevertheless, starters
were superb and it was only my under-done steak that proved the
bone of contention. After it had travelled back to the kitchen
and then returned, the waiter had something to say to Eunice.
“Bernard, he
says the chef won’t cook your steak any more. He says he refuses
to ruin it.
“But look at it.
This isn’t medium rare, it’s running with blood! This is a
restaurant, not a hyena den in the Serengeti.”
The wine,
however, was superb and my mood recovered after rounding off the
meal with a wonderfully-caramelised crème brûlée. Only then over
Cointreau did Eunice come round to the real subject that was
bothering her, and the real reason for the trip.
“Bernard, I am
quite concerned about our marriage.”
“What do you
mean?”
“Well, since you
retired you have hidden yourself away. We hardly ever do
anything together and our love life is a sham. You spend all
your waking hours hunched over that computer screen, checking
share prices and just getting angrier and angrier. Why don’t you
just give it up? We can manage on what we have, you know.”
“But we can’t,
certainly not while having trips like this. We should have paid
off the mortgage by now, but we just added the cost of the
conservatory to it. I know the MoD pension is very good, but I
didn’t get high enough amongst the pen pushers to make us really
comfortable. I mean if you look at Peter and Geraldine Edgington…”
“That’s the
problem isn’t it? You want to be as well off as Peter. I don’t
think we ever can be, and we shouldn’t try. The important thing
is that we have each other, and our health.”
Oh Lord, here we
go. Looks like a major assault on the biscuit front. But no I
was wrong.
“You see,
Bernard, I don’t ever catch you looking at me like you used to.
Not with lust or passion or even love. And I have to say I miss
it.”
Lost for what
to say I put my hand on hers.
“You do love me,
don’t you Bernard?”
“Oh, Eunice, words cannot begin to describe…”
“That, Bernard is because you never let them have the practice.
You used to send me poetry, do you remember? Now the nearest I
get is a scrawled note saying you are off to Kwik Save or the
Share Club. Why don’t you write me a love letter? It doesn’t
have to be anything too elaborate, just a couple of pages.”
Oh God. I thought I’d finished with having to write out lines
after I left St Crispin’s.
Monday 18th
September: Shop now, calculator
Waiting for flight at Charles de Gaulle airport. Eunice is
trying to calculate the cost of her shopping with some currency
converting gadget she’s just bought.
Tap, tap, tap, tap. “Oh, that’s good. You know, Bernard, that
silk scarf only cost £1.40.”
“I doubt it.”
“I think I’ll get a couple more, one for Jem and one for
Geraldine.”
“I should double check that before you race off to buy a dozen
more.”
“And the brandy at
the bar last night. That was
€3.60. Tell me, what is €3.60?” tap, tap, tap.
“£4.80. Is that right.”
“No, that’s definitely wrong. A euro’s about 65p, so multiply
3.60 by 65p for pounds,” I said.
Tap, tap, tap. “What, £234? That’s wrong for a start. You have
to divide by 65, surely? That would make the number smaller.”
Tap, tap, tap, tap. “Oh. £0.05. That doesn’t seem right
either.”
“No, Eunice, listen. Multiply 3.60 by 0.65, which is 65 pence in
terms of pounds. Come on, give me
that.” Tap, tap, tap. “See, £2.34. The brandy cost £2.34.”
“I have to tell
you, Bernard, life was a lot simpler before the euro. When it
was francs all you had to do was multiply by ten and you knew
what the cost in pounds was.”
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Funny Money
The Investment Diary of
Bernard Jones
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© Samara Bryan
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