Dial M for Merde Read Online Free

insisted.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Look, there’s an empty call box. Go over there for some privacy if you want.’
    â€˜I’ll call her later.’
    â€˜Do it now. Now!’ This was typical Elodie. Her time at business school had turned her from bullish into a bulldozer.
    I sighed and reached for my phone. With her in this mood, resistance was useless.
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    â€˜M? It’s Paul. Paul from Venice Beach?’
    I said it as a question, casually, as if two cosmopolitan people like us might forget a night of sex in California.
    â€˜Paul. You’re back in Europe?’ Her voice was as warm as I remembered it. She sounded pleased to hear from me.
    â€˜Yeah, in Paris.’ No need to say it was my first day back. I didn’t want to look desperate. ‘You in London?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜What are you up to?’ I asked.
    â€˜Oh, the usual, you know. The ocean isn’t getting any healthier. Things need to be cleaned up.’ She laughed, as if this was a private joke. ‘I’m coming to France for work, as it happens.’
    â€˜Yeah? Maybe we could hook up?’
    â€˜Sure. I have to go to the south coast. Collioure, down by the Spanish border. Do you want to come with me?’ Which was the trigger for my aforementioned fantasies about chilled rosé, a yacht and a sunbathing girl.
    â€˜Great,’ I said.
    â€˜Oh,’ she said, as if she was surprised I’d accepted. ‘I can’t pay you.’
    â€˜Pay me? What on earth do you want me to do for you?’
    â€˜Ah, sorry, I thought …’ Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.
    â€˜I’m not looking for a job,’ I told her. ‘So I wouldn’t expect anything in return for helping you out. Well …’
    She laughed, and we were both teleported back to that hot night in Los Angeles. The pleasure was clearly mutual.
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    â€˜Alors?’ Elodie had finished her glass of champagne while I’d been phoning, and her eyes were bright with alcohol and expectation.
    â€˜Does Valéry love you very, very much?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yes, he’s crazy for me. Why?’ She looked apprehensive.
    â€˜Well, do you reckon he’d mind if we went back to your place right now?’
    â€˜What?’ Elodie blushed, an event that probably happens less frequently than the creation of a planet hosting intelligent carbon-based life forms.
    â€˜I’m sorry, but I just can’t wait,’ I told her.
    â€˜Paul,’ she whispered, ‘this passion is very un-English of you.’
    â€˜I know. Do you think Valéry would understand if we went online straight away and used his platinum card to book me a plane ticket?’

M’ S THE W ORD

Collioure
    1
    Collioure is since always the inspiration of artistes who was inspired by her celebratted tour and the colourful life of the fisher’s boat’s activities thanks to the anchovies, and the sun. Here is the reason for the painters to be mounting their easel in Collioure since one century or plus already.
    T HE WEBSITE had obviously been translated by a French person who got the job because they once managed to understand the ingredients on an imported ketchup label. But after a couple of glasses of honey-coloured rosé, it started to make sense, and I was able to deduce two things about the town where M had invited me to join her.
    One, judging by the photos, it had a church belltower shaped like a giant willy.
    And two, it was where the painters Matisse and Derain invented Fauvism.
    Fauve was translated as ‘big cat’, but French artists havealways taken themselves very seriously, so Matisse and co. were probably thinking more along the lines of a lion or tiger than a large tabby. The paintings on the website were impressionistic landscapes of primary-coloured blobs. The painters had clearly decided that they were doing something very wild – throwing away their black paint and capturing