Free Dial M for Merde by Stephen Clarke Page A

my best to describe the sturgeon I’d seen in M’s photos. ‘You know,’ I told the guy, ‘the fish that give caviar. I have heard that they live here, too, near Collioure.’
    â€˜Near Collioure?’
    The first couple was now down on a makeshift mattress of discarded clothes and getting into some serious entente cordiale, but the guy with the dimpled chin was gazing deep into my eyes as if he might see a picture of a sturgeon, or even a tin of caviar, engraved there.
    â€˜Yes, near Collioure,’ I said, trying not to whimper as his massaging thumb began to drill into my collar bone. ‘Have you seen any?’
    â€˜Paul!’ An urgent female cry cut through the breaking waves. I hoped it was M, come to get mad at me for joining in at a beach orgy. Anything to escape from here.
    But suddenly my other shoulder was getting punished, and this time it was the redhead who’d come to claim her pound of flesh.
    â€˜You’re missing out on the party,’ she said, tugging hard at my shirt.
    â€˜Fous le camp, grognasse,’ the commando hissed at her.
    â€˜What did he say to me?’ she demanded.
    I didn’t like to translate that it was ‘Go fuck the camp, silly whining woman.’
    â€˜Casse-toi, pauvre conne,’ he said, tugging at the other half of my shirt. ‘Can’t you see we’re talking?’
    â€˜You what?’ She looked to me for help.
    I kept silent, although I’d worked out that it was something like ‘Bugger off, you poor vagina.’ She seemed to have got the gist, though, because a bare female arm shot across my line of vision and just missed the commando’s chin.
    This violence was clearly more his kind of thing. He laughed and pushed her back. Her grasp of the basic skill of standing up must have been weakened by alcohol and the slippery pebbles, because she fell backwards, taking one sleeve of my shirt with her. Before I could complain, she was upright again, and trying to kick the commando, using my body as a shield from retaliation.
    The soldier, who still had his hand clamped to my collarbone, chortled at her drunkenly swinging feet until one of them connected with his ankle, at which point he swore and leapt backwards, a large portion of my shirt still clutched between his fingers.
    â€˜Merde!’ I’d had enough of all this violent possessiveness. ‘Look, I’m not into boxing threesomes. So just give me those bits of my shirt back and I’ll say goodnight.’
    â€˜Er, excuse me.’
    I felt a timid tap on my bare right shoulder, and swivelled to find a young guy grinning at me.
    â€˜And you can fuck off, too,’ I told him.
    Deciding to leave my shirt to its two new co-owners, I made for the lights of the village, swigging on bad red wine and trying my best to steer a path through the maze of writhing limbs without stepping on anything vital.
    I had got temporarily stranded between a large rock and a particularly active couple when a shadow appeared a few yards in front of me and started to shout in French, ‘Police, nobody move!’
    A large group of similar shadows emerged from the gloom and began rushing towards us.
    The French are not an obedient nation, even when they’re in the services, and the commandos were on their feet in an instant and sprinting away, chased by dark-uniformed men with fluorescent ‘gendarmerie’ banners on the back of their jackets.
    I was a sitting – or standing – duck. A man in a blue pullover appeared in front of me and ordered the naked girl at my feet to stand up.
    â€˜I can’t find me knickers,’ she told him.
    â€˜You don’t understand,’ I said, scanning the pebbles for her clothes. I saw some likely-looking panties and handed them to her. ‘I wasn’t – I didn’t want to …’
    My stuttered protests were ignored by the cop, who grabbed my arm and stood waiting for the girl to