2.7 Breakfast at Château Mourey
2.7.1 Ada and Alenby Breakfast
A Kitchen Alcove, Maison Mourey
About 9:00 am Friday 27 November 1987
On the night of her escape from Restaurant le Gardon, Ada had been happy enough to be restored to her home. But the next morning, in response to Alenby's call to breakfast she came to the table sluggishly and with face set in an expression of discontent. She plunked a vial of pills on the table and sat down heavily.
Her self diagnosis was right, Alenby thought. She looked the very picture of constipation. So often in the past life in U he had seen the signs of that malady--the grayish complexion, the sagging features--reflected in the mirror while shaving. He recognized the label on the vial: Xaludurc, the right stuff. Or at least the best that remained from his partly used and by now half-forgotten stash of health-maintaining chemicals.
Ada surveyed the breakfast fare with evident distaste. "Sweet of you, Alenby," she said. "To go to all that bother, I mean. To cut up this--grapefruit, isn't it?--anyway, to cut it up so neatly into its segments and all that sort of thing. It may have been the favorite of this crime figure celeb you mentioned--"
"Jean Troisgros."
"Whoever...but it really isn't what I want. I need something tasty--and, you know, substantial. The label says Xaludurc is supposed to be taken, I mean inserted, with meals. That's meals, not a heap of little bits of fruit. Fruit's mainly water anyway--there's no sustenance to it. Le Cèpe always made me scrambled eggs or an omelet or something....
Scrambled eggs. The words set Alenby on a reverie.
Winter in the Dordogne, at lunch in peak truffle season at a modest, moderately busy place in Sorges called Auberge de la Truffe. Waitress lifts the lid of the porcelain pot. Soft, black-speckled yellow curds, enticingly disreputable aroma flooding out....
He came back to reality with old negative feelings rampant: anger at u's mean-spirited prohibition, and nostalgia for a former life in U. That universe had its faults, to be sure, but through the winter months it was a paradise where oeufs brouillés truffés of acceptable quality were to be found throughout northern Provence and the Dordogne, and savored free of fear of a police crackdown.
But now he felt another emotion in the mix. It was another sense of loss--he no longer felt an overwhelming desire for scrambled eggs, or eggs of any kind. Or for matter, for lamb's brains beurre noisette, for duck foie gras poêllé, Roquefort cheese, or any of the other comestibles formerly the focus of his most ardent dreams. He felt nostalgia not only for those foods, but for the now-lost thrill of desire for them. Suddenly his world seemed dismal as a restaurant shuttered by the Department of Health. Life held no charms, nothing to look forward to....
He rose from the table inwardly reeling at this sudden perception of bleakness in his inner life, and excused himself with the mumbled mention of some tasks in the garden.
2.7.2 A Critical Malfunction
The Kitchen Garden, Château Mourey
About 10:30 am Friday 27 November 1987
Outside on a seasonably cool, partly sunny morning, his spirits revived. He found himself humming the joyful melody of Fühl' ich zu dir so süss mein Hertz entbrennen from the bridal-chamber scene in Wagner's "Lohengrin." Why did one feel cheerful so soon after losing all hopes of a nice lunch? Could those hopes have been replaced by hopes of another sort--hopes of pleasing a woman despite a dismal track record in that department? He ran the idea through his mind. One's virility problem seemed to have faded away--no need for the pump any more, no need for meds. Admittedly, Olympe's charms fell short of the conventional ideal of prurient interest. She was a muscular animal. No sex kitten, she. More toward the big-cat end of the gamut of feline similes--gaunt-lioness sort of thing. Awkward in person, yet one sensed in her a ferocious lust for life....
He'd intended to scrabble for new potatoes. Peruvian fingerlings adapted to the chill of the high Andes, and here in France the last potatoes of the season. The tubers ought to have particularly good flavor, developing as they were in the relatively cool conditions of autumn. But he saw a problem. It was Jules Cesar's practice to raise potatoes in square-meter sized raised beds, each of them a fertile mix of dirt and well-aged chumanure, alive with earthworms, each bed enclosed in a box with demountable sides for ease of harvesting. The question was--should one remove the side of a box now, or wait until the harvest was more assured? Putting that side-panel back without disturbing the roots was a tricky proposition. In the event of a screwup, Jules Cesar would be annoyed....
Alenby was pondering this point when he heard the squeak of the gate and looked up to see Ada coming into the garden. Much brighter looking than at the breakfast table, he noted, though moving rather stiffly--
"It worked!" she cried, "that Xaludurc is marvellous stuff! But it has left me with the embarrassment and maddening rectal discomfort of--whatever you call it, the second H of CHAOS AND OUCH? I should know because users are always moaning about it--"
Alenby hardly had time to suggest trying whatever might be left of his supply of R-solace before his voice was drowned by a hooting sound apparently coming from the house.
"Holy humanure!" wailed Ada. "It's the Düngermischmaschine! It must have detected an excessive concentration of acid-forming nitrogenous matter in my stool, stemming from my recent ingestion of illegal animal-based foods-like substances of high protein content, and that's set off the alarm!"
She spun around and started running back towards the house. "PROFATPOL will be on their way!" she yelled over her shoulder. "They'll nail me as a user! We gotta get outta here in a hurry!"
Alenby shared the feeling, though for a different reason--his abiding fear of being caught and identified as the Red Baron. Panicked, he made haste to follow her. It did not occur to him until it was too late, that the only vehicle at his disposal was the one most indelibly associated with the exploit that earned him that sobriquet--the tomato-red Mercedes 650 SEX.
They set out with none of their possessions save their oms and an assortment of charge cards. And in Alenby's case, his few remaining sentimental links to his former universe--his tire pressure gauge and the key to his Borstal Aero.
"South," Ada responded to his question. "Barcelona. Spanish PROFATPOL is lax. They're affordably bribable. We'll eat tapas, and drink young sherry." Her eyes blazed and reddish spots showed on her cheeks.
She's out of her mind, he thought as he backed out the Mercedes. Tapas, after all, were abominably salty, and young sherry lacking in nuance. It occurred to him to give her something to bring her to her senses, a couple of Paxitins, for instance, but he carried no medications of any description. He simply went along with her suggestion. Eating tapas and drinking young sherry was better than getting into a tangle with PROFATPOL. He steered toward l'Ile Bouchard, as good a place as any to cross over the river. Cross over and head to Barcelona before PROFATPOL caught on....
A red warning light came on--fuel low. Not unexpected, Ada told him, in a hycell that had been standing unused for months. She sputtered an explanation--something to do with a significant fraction of adsorbed hydrogen atoms migrating across the platinum-nickel coated graphitic storage surface to end up in stable adsorption sites. Unclear, but the point was inescapable--they would have to stop for hydrogen.
They pulled into the Station Hydrogène on the Place du Marché on the ile, half-way across the bridge on the left. A robot swiftly swapped full fuel pods for empty and debited Ada's card, and they were about to move off when Alenby spotted in the rear-vision mirror a familiar shape.
"Hmm, that car behind us, it's a Borstal Aero," he said, and--"Hey, that's my car! And they've painted it black!" Ignoring Ada's pleas for caution, he leaped out of the Mercedes and, a second later, he was about to wrench open the door of his Borstal and grab the occupant by the collar and hurl him out on the pavement and kick the humanure out of him, when he recognized him as Leo Barton, the actor, now costumed in the black uniform of a PROFATPOL officer!
He segued to an approach more diplomatic, using the inane accent and locutions he'd picked up at Oxford:
"Smashing wheels! A Borstal Aero isn't it?"
"Yes, Excellency," said Leo, "I can hardly believe my good fortune, but yes, it's really a Borstal." He opened the door and climbed up out of the low-slung vehicle. The two men shook hands.
"Picked it up for a song at the Roissy unclaimed-property auction," Leo went on. "Not on my own account--PROFATPOL's. Took a certain amount of persuasion, but I got them to accept a British car as the flagship, so to speak, of our pursuit fleet. Actually, I'm hoping we'll get permission to use it also as the flagship of our HV publicity campaign. Anyway, this is its first outing--we've been assigned to convey Her Lowness Dr Lynch to Restaurant Le Gardon Frit, the venue of a meeting she is urgently required to attend...."
As Leo was saying this Alenby noticed a couple of PROFATPOL Peugeots quietly moving into position to block any escape attempt. He launched a plan of action.
"I say," he said, bending down and peering into the interior of the Borstal, "isn't that a rather unusual roll-bar?"
"Wood, instead of steel? Unusual is one word for it, but amateurish is more apt, I'd say. In a roll you'd be toast--with splinters. Of course we'll have that--that sign of the previous owner's lapse into idiocy, you know--we'll have it replaced without delay. Meanwhile we're lucky this baby is a ground-hugger, just about impossible to roll. And lively! BMW 380 horse power plant with 24-valve overhead twin veeblefetzers--the most eye-popping panoply of technical innovation, I'd venture, ever lavished on the outmoded yet still beloved stinkpot."
"Oh, quite," said Alenby, "outmoded, yet as you have neatly twigged, retaining the éclat of the golden age of the gasoline-powered sport car. Hmm, nice cockpit, too, by the look of it. Mind if I take a closer look?"
Leo didn't mind, and a moment later Alenby was ensconced at the wheel, receiving an extremely unnecessary briefing from Leo on the design of the instrument cluster.
"Yes, I agree," said Alenby. "Spartan, that's the word all right, spartan. No buckle-up warning light--excellent safety belt design, though. And no inflation pressure indicator, either.... I say, I have a bad feeling about one of the rear tires--they're 185/60 Michelin Classics aren't they? Yes, the left one, I think it's a trace under-inflated." He produced his tire pressure gauge and handed it to Leo. "Do be a good chap and check it. No use being half safe!"
"Certainly not," said Leo, accepting the proffered tire gauge and moving eagerly to the task. "Safety first, that's the way to go!"
Meanwhile, Ada quietly joined Alenby in the cockpit. The two fastened their seat belts. Alenby turned the ignition key, and the engine bugled into life....
2.7.3 Alenby and Ada Submit to Recapture
L'Ile Bouchard
12:00 noon Friday 27 November 1987
Seconds later, parked under the bridge, Alenby emerged from an euphoric zone in which all goes as planned, doubts and errors are inconceivable. He had judged to the microsecond how long it would take for the PROFATPOL drivers to concede the game of chicken and move apart to allow the flagship-designate of their fleet to rocket between them.
The rollover had gone as planned, a leisurely revolution with a momentary hesitation at the half way point, a perfect four-point landing on the road along the river's edge. And at Ada's urging he'd immediately backed up into the shadows under the bridge, for the moment out of sight of pursuers.
Their fantasy of flight to Spain was over. Better by far, they wordlessly agreed, to play it safe, submit to the will of Madame Cava and proceed meekly to Le Gardon Frit. Accordingly, Alenby soberly backed the Borstal along the riverside track up on to Route D16, and turned in the direction of Pouzay. PROFATPOL Peugeots quickly moved in fore and aft to guard against another escape attempt, and the convoy moved off.
Alenby's mood was somber. He knew at last that his boyish affair with automobiles was over. One-lane U-turns, rollovers, chicken--all his hard earned driving skills seemed rather childish now. His obsession with cars had gone the way of his obsession with a nice lunch. Without those ruling passions, where was the joy in life?
He perceived a glimmer of hope--no, not a mere glimmer of hope, a golden glow become a blaze, Olympe! Upon arrival at Le Gardon Frit, one will spring out of the Borstal, and brushing aside all impediment sprint to the keypad behind the potted palm, enter Olympe's password--
Now what was the Gaeadamned password again? Six letters, meaning to revoke or abrogate by legislative enactment. RE something...RECALL? No. RESCIND? No. Better direct one's thoughts to something else altogether, such as whatever Ada is saying....
Without making out exactly what she was saying--her despairing monotone was not easy to comprehend--he picked up at least the most-repeated points: "They're going to grill me on this Gaeadamned fiasco they call the War," and "They're going to get me on a one two punch--first the Cat, then that smarmy smart-Alice sow Willa 't Hellenbach. She's going to make me look like a cretin just when I want to look Czarina-ish!"
He understood her fear and loathing of Willa 't Hellenbach. Seeing her conducting an interview on HV had awakened painful recollections of contacts with a person like her at Oxford. In debates, the fellow had a trick of appearing humbly attentive to one's argument, nodding in faked agreement or eliciting an expanded version to clarify points on which he pretended to be confused. And at the end he would deliver, with a faint pitying smile, one clearly enunciated sentence of impeccable logic that exposed one's entire line of thought as sheer bunkum. Most annoying of all, the fellow was always right. What could one do against such an adversary? Nothing really, except think of something he hadn't already thought of....
"There's only one way you can hold your own with this Willa t'Hellenbach bitch--I mean sow," he said. "Get in first with something she hasn't thought about. Something outside the box, like--hey, I've got it! The password--Repeal! That's R-E-P-E-A-L, repeal."
"Repeal!" Ada's tone was scornful. "You mean repeal Prohibition? That's so--asinine! Repeal--that would like giving in! Surrender! Surrender to the evils of Substance addiction!"
"Be that as it may, repeal worked in U. Passed without a hitch."
"You're mad," she snapped, and she maintained a resentful silence for the rest of the way to Le Gardon Frit.
***
Upon their arrival, Ada was hustled into the Espace Taillevent by a pair of short but not particularly slim female PROFATPOL agents, and the door locked shut behind them.
Alenby, meanwhile, sauntered across the reception area towards the entrance to Restaurant Le Gardon. He located the key pad behind the potted palm and was about to enter the password, when he suffered an unwelcome interruption--Leo again.
"Yo, Baron! Here's your tire pressure gauge--the pressure was spot on, by the way."
Alenby accepted the gauge and turned back to key pad, but Leo persisted:
"Fantastic rollover! And the rollbar held--amazing! You must be the fabled Red Baron. You do admit it, don't you? Well, the evidence is now pretty clear. Dude, you're up humanure creek without a paddle! A couple felony counts, evading PROFATPOL roadblocks. Not to mention cost of a new paint job on my Borstal Aero. You'll have company though. The Cat's looted Le Gardon Frit. Now it's going down, exposed for what it is, a sleazy--she's picked Le Cèpe to take the rap. And the broad that was running the front, she's going to cop a felony too--"
At the reference to Olympe, Alenby half-turned and glared down at Leo with such ferocity that the actor involuntarily shrank back and switched to a more conciliatory tone:
"No no, Excellency, listen--don't go in there! PROFATPOL agents'll be storming the joint soon's they've finished the-- Listen, it's not healthy around here! I'm busting out, and there's room for you too. In my Borstal--c'mon, we'll head for Spain--"
A generous offer and an eloquent presentation, but he'd lost his audience. Alenby had entered the password, slipped through the briefly opened door and slammed it shut behind him.