THE ANGEL OF THE NORD

Her face looks sad. Peter Shufflebottom sits and stares at it. He stirs his grande creme, though it has no sugar, and licks the froth from his teaspoon. She has an exhaust trail down her left cheek. She doesn't look back at Peter. His gaze gets more intense as he scans her body for more detail. She is unaware of the attention. Without looking down, he picks at the detritus of his croissant; the slithers and crumbs have formed a scrapyard on his serviette.

He'd feel sick if he smoked in the mornings now. It's been a long time. Jean-Paul Sartre made him nauseous. At the Sorbonne. During the miner's strike in Emile Zola's socially real novel Germinale. Sipping Monaco's. Smoking Pall Mall rolling tobacco. Albert Camus' rats made him phobic, paranoid. These days fashionable young women of the Group d'Intervention Gendarmerie National, the Anti-Terrorist Para-Military Police, wear blue berets, urban camouflage and postpone the use of their Uzi 9mms until the very last moment.

Back home at this time he'd be sitting in a greasy spoon: egg, two sausage, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tinned tomatoes, tea and two toast. And those girls from the council offices. He'd look right at them, the full metal jacket, till they went back to their fags and tabloids.

He focuses on her legs now. Her toes are rounded and neat. He watches as a pigeon sheds its load over Calais. Calais is one of the statues in the arches over the Gare Du Nord. She needs a clean. Parisian carburation, guava and Gallic neglect have all taken its toll on Calais. His architectural survey over, Peter goes back to spying through the mirror at the full-lipped brunette and her friend who are far too chic for the brazen eye-contact he pours on Calais every morning over his four Euro fifty petit dejeuner on the Rue de Dunkerque.




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