La Joie de Vivre

By Paddy Bostock

To escape a floundering relationship and writer's block, Ambler leaves London for La Rochelle, where he stumbles into a tangle of corruption and revenge with a grisly murder at its centre: a crime which could cost Ambler his freedom — and his sanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613091135

Book preview

One

Ambler wasn’t in La Rochelle by design. He’d flown into Bordeaux on a whim, hired the small white Renault at the airport, driven to Perigueux, liked neither the town nor its world-class truffles, and headed instead towards Charente-Maritime and the Atlantic coast. Past the empty camp sites littered all around Royan, which he hadn’t liked either, and then on to La Rochelle where he stopped only because he couldn’t be bothered going any farther. The place looked old, had a harbour with fishing boats and, according to the guidebook, boasted white-sand islands only a ferry or car-ride away. Seemed good enough to Ambler, especially as the biggest, the Île de Ré, had a population of only a few thousand out of season. And January was pretty much out of season. He would maybe take a trip there tomorrow, and, if it took his fancy, stay awhile. A week, a month. Who knew? Possibly the rest of his life. At this point, he wasn’t in much of a mood to care. His father had finally succumbed to the cancer after all the pointless operations; Lucy had left him for Malcolm the Tablecloth Fetishist downstairs, and his new Lad Lit novel, Boyz on Their Bikes , was still at an embryonic stage—so embryonic all it had was a title. Like a foetus with a name.

So sod the publishers and their big bucks for the two-book deal. They must have made enough from the film rights for Boyz in Bedz to keep them in champagne and oysters for a few months. Why the piece had sold as many as one copy, let alone the worldwide million, still beat him. It was crap and he knew it. Marketable crap as a rival to Chick Lit, but crap all the same. Maybe he would make a start on the sequel, or maybe he wouldn’t.

HE PARKED THE CAR OUTSIDE a two-star hotel needing a paint job and booked himself in with a morose-looking patron in his late fifties who winced at his French accent. With the money guaranteed by Hollywood, he could have afforded the four-star in the main square where the boss would speak English and treat him with international tourist respect, but he’d spent time in France in another incarnation when he and Lucy had still been lovers, and knew two-star was where you got the best food even if the patron sneered at your French. None of the lavish sauces that gave him a bellyache. Just simple soups, fish or meat and then fruit and cheese. A climbdown after London’s fifty-quid-a-nibble nouvelle cuisine, but climbing down was what this was all about. Reculer pour mieux sauter as the French had it. A small step back before the giant leap forwards. Or maybe just a small step back before several more short steps that would land him on his arse forever.

Ambler ordered a glass of red wine and the twenty-five-franc, three-course menu that included all the things he’d been hoping for, including fish taken from the sea that very day. The night was going to be good. Solitary and good. Ambler had no problems with time alone; he’d spent enough of it over the years. Learnt how to manage it, such that it had even become a pleasure. Time, wine and a decent meal. Think through this, think through that, reach no conclusions, swallow a couple of cognacs and stagger off to bed. Nice.

Take a look at the Île de Ré in the morning. Toss the iPhone into the sea. It wasn’t as though anybody was going to call him. Lucy was gone, the publishers could go fuck themselves, Pops was dead, and Mother was in her funny farm thinking she was on a P&O cruise to Bombay. Back to the plains in winter and the high stations in summer she’d never experienced, except from reading A Passage to India. Thinking, despite the time glitch, that she was Mrs. Moore. Not his fault.

"Monsieur?"

Mmm?

"La soupe?"

"Merci."

"Je vous en prie, monsieur. Bon appetit."

"Merci."

And it was fabulous. A consommé with vegetable extracts enough to feed an army for a week. He wondered, as the wine and a basket of rolls hit the table, how he would do justice to the rest of the meal. Slowly, he reckoned, because he was the only eating customer. None of the hour-per-couvert gobbling they did in London. If he wanted, he could spend all night chewing through his meal.

A number of nerves began to wind down. Across from him in the other corner of the restaurant, two old blokes in cheap blue denim were playing dominoes. One raised his glass to Ambler, and Ambler raised his glass back. Flashed headlights on a nighttime winter road.

He took fifteen minutes to deal with the soup, and then requested a cigarette break before the fish. Patron apologetic because, strictly speaking, smoking was no longer allowed in French restaurants but, on the other hand, this he considered a foolish law. And in any case, his was a small hotel in a small side street and he had known the local coppers since they were kids, so if the monsieur felt like a smoke, then this he considered the monsieur’s privilege and should there be music to face, the patron would face it. Amber warmed to the bloke. England could do with a few more like him.

A shout to Jacques in the back, therefore, to hold the fish before the man wandered over to the doms’ table to check out the state of play. Ambler threw his left arm over the back of his chair, rolled his head forward to ease the car kinks from his spine, then lolled it back towards his left shoulder. From that position he lit up the Gitane, sucked hard, blew smoke at the ceiling, and used the ten-minute break to concentrate on voiding his mind.

By the time the patron returned, he was feeling almost at peace with the world.

"Monsieur is ready for the fish now?"

And monsieur was. Monsieur smiled for the first time in a long time, stubbed out the Gitane and nodded. He smiled again when before him was placed a plate containing what looked like halibut plus sauté potatoes and haricots verts, all in some kind of garlic butter sauce. Hunger wasn’t a sensation Ambler had experienced much recently; but here it was again, back on duty.

"And, possibly a bottle of the white wine for monsieur?"

Is it local?

"Mais bien sûr, monsieur. And it will come with the compliments of the house."

Thanks. That would be great.

"My pleasure, monsieur."

More toasts from the domino players. À votre santé. The high-beam, low-beam routine all over again. One of the old blokes winked as he raised his glass. Good choice, son. Give or take a hundred years and you could become one of us.

And why not? Move on to Old Git Lit and see how that played with Hollywood.

Ambler cut the fish into segments and then rearranged the potatoes and beans such that the meal could be eaten in rotation, a habit he had maintained since school in order never to be left to face an entire plateful of boiled cabbage and a wigging from matron.

"The food was good, monsieur?"

"Formidable." So much finger-kissing the man frowned. Difficult people to please, the French. Plate sided in silence to be replaced with a cheese board and a couple of pears.

Ambler was slicing off a tranche of brie when the door of the hotel opened and Lisette walked in, dressed as far as he could tell in nothing apart from a black PVC mack that reached to just below her thighs. Brigitte Bardot for the twenty-first century.

"Bon soir, papa," she said to the patron before kissing him perfunctorily on both cheeks.

"Bon soir, Lisette. Ça te va bien?’

"Ça traîne mais ça marche, she said, glancing around the eatery without much interest. A drag but it’s okay."

She clearly knew the doms’ players, though, because she treated them to a sweep of her blonde hair over a shoulder and two or three winks. But then, after a few words with her father, she spotted Ambler and made for his table.

So it’s you? she said, plonking herself down on the chair, crossing her long bronzed legs and firing up a Marlboro Light. No worries about smoking bans for Lisette.

Two

M e? Ambler said, ratcheting the memory cogs but coming up with nothing recent. One of the book launches, maybe? The New York one? She was speaking Franglais, but the accent was American.

You. I am Lisette.

Hi, Lisette.

She leaned into the Marlboro, pulled hard, exhaled the smoke in his face and narrowed her eyes, which caused Ambler to fidget and her to grin.

"The line makes you nervous, non?"

Line?

She clapped her hands like a little girl with a birthday dolly. ‘So it’s you.’ I use it all the time. I am sooo tired of cliché, Lisette replied, recrossing her legs and unzipping the mack far enough to reveal the swell of her breasts. Papa tells me you’re English.

Yes.

On holiday?

You could put it that way.

We do not see so many English around here this time of year. Some fat yachtsmen, but otherwise...

I guess not, Ambler said, testing a pear for ripeness and peering at the cheese. I’m just passing through.

On your way to?

The Île de Ré, maybe.

"A pretty island, if it’s isolation you seek. You like my line, monsieur? It is part of a game I sometimes play."

It’s okay. What game?

"Un jeu sans frontières. If you win, I’m the prize. You want to play?"

Ambler swallowed and looked up from the cheeseboard.

I don’t think so.

You don’t think so?

No.

"Et alors," she shrugged, crushing out the Marlboro in the ashtray, zipping the mack back up and standing.

Wait.

"For what, monsieur? You do not want to play my game with me. Fine, so you do not want to play. It is your decision. One you may regret, but your decision."

Sit.

Like a dog?

I didn’t mean it that way. Please sit down again. Better?

It will suffice, Lisette said, lowering herself back into her seat, flicking her blonde hair from shoulder to shoulder and lighting a fresh Marlboro. "Monsieur...?"

Ambler.

"Très bien. Monsieur Ambleur."

It’s just that...

"You think I am a whore, n’est-ce pas? Because I look like a whore, this is what you think I am. Appearances can be deceptive, monsieur. It is only the reversal of the roles that causes you concern."

This is a pick-up though, isn’t it?

"No, monsieur. It is an invitation to my game. You should be honoured."

Why me?

"Why not you? You have a certain je ne sais quoi. I do not know. Maybe the sadness I saw. The little boy lost."

And you’re the good Samaritan?

Lisette choked on her Marlboro.

And in your father’s house?

"In my father’s house, monsieur, I do as I please. It is also my house, she said lowering her head so the hair cascaded around her eyes. You will not be disappointed, I promise. It is a tantalising game. Papa says I inherit the talent from my mother. Strictly entre nous, she said, finger-hooking Ambler across the table, I like to make him mad. It gives me pleasure. He too plays his games. You want to play with me, Monsieur Ambleur? Let things ride. You have somewhere else to go?"

The Île de Ré. Tomorrow.

"Bon, the Île de Ré demain. That still leaves tonight. What do you have to lose?"

Not a lot.

The stranger in a foreign land. And, who knows, you might win something. Like me. What do you say? Take the chance? Lisette said, unzipping the mack a little farther. This could be the first day in the rest of your life. But I guess you English don’t like risks.

Ambler shifted in his seat and took to checking out the fruit bowl again. He picked a pear, took a bite, chewed and replaced the remains on the table.

What if, just for once though, you were to try? A little charade for my father’s sake and then I will be gone. Pfffft! Just like that. I am the chimera, the fantasy, she said, splaying the fingers of both hands on the tabletop and gazing up at the ceiling. One moment I am here, the next I am not. But don’t tell me you dislike what you’re seeing.

Ambler didn’t deny it. Why do you want to make your father mad?

"That, Monsieur Ambleur, would be a very long story. One I could tell over coffee in my room if you decide to play with me. You too have a father?"

He’s dead.

I am sorry. And your mother?

Is...unwell, Ambler said, tracing a V from his eyebrows to his hairline with index and middle fingers.

Mine too, after life with that pig, Lisette said, waving her cigarette behind her at her father who was watching from the dominoes table. "Things we could share, non? Papa, a bottle of cognac over here," she ordered with a click of her fingers.

Lisette, could you perhaps...? the patron said as the bottle was plonked on the table, but he was dismissed with a look.

Share? Ambler said.

"It is strange, monsieur, the manner in which the lives of strangers can intersect, the parallels you would never expect to meet. But there are such moments, and they can sometimes help."

Another of your lines?

Not this time. The truth I think, she said pouring from the cognac bottle. "A tiny aspect of the comédie humaine. Want to play with me? All you have to do is act the punter for papa’s sake and then the two of us can go upstairs to my room where we can drink coffee and share our experiences. No strings. You want to play, fine; you don’t, well pffft! I shall be gone anyway. What do you say, Mister Englishman?"

Ambler picked up the remains of the pear and stared at it. I have no reason to do this, he said.

"Reason, treason. If reason were the only source of action, where would we all be? We French are famed for it, but...Your room is next to mine, Monsieur Ambleur, and there’s a connecting door. You don’t like the coffee, you have the escape route. Chin chin, she said raising the brandy to her lips. Not something I would offer to any man."

But I am any man. You don’t know me.

"But I will. This is not a pick-up, monsieur, as I have said. This is my game."

Pick-up. Game. What’s the difference? Look, if you don’t mind, I’d rather just finish my dinner and go to bed.

Lisette took the half-eaten pear from Ambler’s hand, bit into the core, and reached a hand across to ruffle his cropped hair.

Trust me?

You?

"Pourquoi pas? Look, she said, pulling the zipper back up to her chin, if it will make you feel better, I am not the whore you think I am. When I am not here, I teach at the Sorbonne. This is the disguise that irritates Papa the most. Why I use it. You should see me in my robes on graduation day. In Paris I teach the work of Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard..."

Who?

"Philosophers. In England, you do not have philosophers, am I right? Or you did, only people lost interest in what they had to say. Too busy being shopkeepers, non?"

I wouldn’t know.

You attended a university, Mister Ambleur?

Oxford.

Ah. Possibly the worst apart from Cambridge. What was it George Steiner said? ‘The English generally do not tolerate ideas, especially not at Cambridge.’ Something like this. I am probably paraphrasing. And after Oxford, what did you do?

Bits of this. Bits of that. I’m a writer.

Excuse me? Hand cupped round her left ear, leaning in across the table while dragging on a fresh Marlboro.

Writer.

Of fiction? Of history? Of newspapers?

Lad Lit.

Lad Lit? Of this I have not heard.

Sort of Chick Lit—not.

"Ah, l’homme révolté. And against the postfeminism. An admirable project. I am on your side, monsieur. The postfeminists, they suck. My doctoral thesis says how much. Always squabbling. Leastways here in France. Plus the feminists before them. ‘One is not born a woman, one becomes one.’ So much crap. You know what some of the later ones say?"

Ambler shook his head and sliced off a piece of brie.

"Their salvation lies in writing which you can recognise by its female style. But it’s just writing. Running and hiding, these ladies, Monsieur Ambleur. And you know why?"

Ambler bit into the brie, moved it around his mouth, swallowed and said, No.

"Because all they can do is talk. Talkie, talkie, talk, talk. Discuss, discuss. It is the French way. Not unlike your chattering English bourgeois, only these ladies are supposedly revolutionary. And of this, monsieur, I have had enough. Look, she said, shucking the mack off her shoulders to reveal two snake tattoos intertwined across the tops of her breasts. What you see here is also language, which also contains meaning. You want to become a reader, monsieur?"

I...

Come, Lisette said, reaching a hand across the table.

Look, I appreciate the offer but...

Please?

For a coffee.

A coffee and a talk. Plus maybe my game.

Half an hour maximum, Ambler said, checking his watch.

Deal.

What did Ambler have to lose, after all? Would Jonna—his series character in the Boyz books—have been sitting on his hands in face of an offer like this from a cracking French bird? Would he, bollocks. Jonna could fuck for England. And if Jonna could, why not his creator? Just as long as he didn’t think about Lucy. But then Lucy was shacked up with Malcolm the Tablecloth Fetishist, wasn’t she? So...

Three

A long the corridor and second on the left, Lisette told him, blowing a kiss to her father as they climbed the stairs from the bar. You go first and open the door. I have superstitions still. From the time when I was a little girl in this house.

Ambler did as he was told and walked ahead along the polished wooden floor until he reached the door, which he opened before motioning her inside.

"Non, first you. To check for the bogeymen."

He walked into the bedroom, opened and closed drawers, stared through the window, drew the curtains and then called back, No bogeymen.

Silence from outside the door. Some footsteps, he thought, but then her voice again. Still speaking Franglais, but without the American cadences. Not that Ambler paid much attention. Other matters on his mind—or more accurately, Jonna’s.

Nothing there? came the voice.

Nothing.

That’s a relief, she said, following him into the room, closing the door, unzipping her mack and stepping out of it to reveal an oiled body and the snake tattoos in their full glory.

Hot in here, huh? she said.

INITIALLY THERE WAS coffee taken at a small table by the window, but none of the sharing of experiences she’d promised. No mention of mothers or fathers; just a naked woman sitting opposite him rubbing unguents into her breasts while smiling. The snakes doing little dances as she rubbed.

So much for your game, he said.

"Game? The monsieur would like to play chess? It is Lisette’s favourite."

Later maybe.

Something to drink?

I still have coffee.

Something stronger?

What’ve you got? said Jonna Ambler.

Absinthe?

Sounds good.

The best, she said, placing two green liqueur glasses and an opaque blue bottle on the coffee table and pouring generous shots. "À votre santé. It is best taken in one shot like the Russians with their vodka. So down the hatch, n’est-ce pas? Chin chin." Raising the glass to her lips.

"Chin chin," Jonna said, lifting his own glass.

"The monsieur would like to see a movie perhaps? I have an interesting collection," Lisette said, standing and padding across the deep velour carpet to an angled corner cupboard which she opened to reveal a library of DVD boxes with triple-X-rated, black covers.

No.

For me? To give me pleasure? she said, bending to check her selection. This one, for instance. One of my favourites. Just a frame or two? she smiled, moving over to the TV and inserting the disk.

Why don’t we sit together on the bed and be comfortable while we watch? she added offering him a hand.

Okay, if you think...

"Think, monsieur?" she said, as the image of a woman naked except for a red chiffon scarf hit the screen. She was propped on an elbow on a purple velvet chaise longue smoking a cigarette with one hand and browsing Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu with the other.

She looked a lot like Lisette and smiled at the camera.

"Pretty woman, n’est-ce pas?" Lisette said, caressing a snake-tattooed breast which she then lifted to Ambler’s lips and invited him to nuzzle. Using her free hand, she unbuttoned his jeans and then slid her fingers under the waistband of his boxers.

"You like, chéri?" she said as the screen Lisette tossed aside her Proust, lay back on the chaise longue and ran a finger from her throat to her navel and then points farther south. Moaning now.

Nice one, Jonna said.

You want to take your clothes off now?

Yes.

"Or we could watch some more movie. Soon the madame will be receiving her lover. These are just the hors d’oeuvres. The entrée is very tasty, as you will see. Another absinthe, perhaps?"

No.

"Tell me your secrets, monsieur. What is it that turns you on? What do you like the most?"

Taking my clothes off.

"Ah, magnifique, mon brave, Lisette murmured. I should take them off for you? This I enjoy."

Feel free.

Lisette laughed at that and then nuzzled closer.

Kiss me? she said when Ambler too was naked.

And he did. Long and hard, all thoughts of Lucy and Malcolm the Tablecloth Fetishist vanquished. The onscreen Lisette was receiving her lover—a person dressed in a Louis Quatorze outfit only with an Elvis Presley face—but nobody was watching.

LISETTE WANTED TO DO it again and again and again. And—possibly spurred on by a rampant Louis Quatorze/Elvis—Ambler rose to the challenge. Desire didn’t leave him until four-thirty that morning, which was when he slept like a stone for seven hours, then awoke and spent a further twenty semiconscious minutes chuntering the name Lisette to himself.

Lisette, he whispered. Lisette, Lisette...

But when he felt for her next to him, Lisette—the chimera, the fantasy—was already long gone.

Four

L isette? he muttered again, staring across at the rumpled but empty side of the bed next to him.

Lisette?

Maybe she was in the bathroom.

Nothing. Silence apart from the—mainly male—voices from the café downstairs. Maybe she was in there amongst them drinking coffee and smoking her Marlboros. Maybe she’d be coming back with breakfast for him. Maybe...

But she’d said she’d be gone by morning, hadn’t she? Pffft! Just like that. Ambler thought that’s what she’d said, but thinking wasn’t coming easily. He closed his eyes again and saw her face. Odd when there were so many other parts of her he had also seen. But it was the face he remembered. The green-blue eyes and the blonde hair dripping perspiration as she thrust at him.

Lisette?

Rien. Nada. Nichts.

IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER midday by the time Ambler was able to face reality sufficiently to rise from the bed, test the connecting door to what had supposedly been his room, find it locked, then shuffle into the bathroom to find a mirror and inspect the damage, which was extensive. The face a road map, the body lacerated in several places, and the genitals shrivelled like walnuts. Ambler groaned, then peed painfully, sitting down like a girl because standing hurt too much.

Bugger, he mumbled. "Got to go downstairs