Au Revoir, Mate!

Allan McFadden

Description

My name is Dougay Roberre. My passport reads: Douglas Roberts. I don't think either is real. At age three, my parents fled France to go into witness protection. I grew up in Sydney, Australia, among the sun, the sand, and the surf. As I neared forty, I had a yearning to discover my French roots, selling my Bondi Beach apartment and buying an attic apartment in Nice on the Cote d'Azur. I can speak French, though not read nor write it. I can use my fists - as a teenager I was taught to box. Without academic qualifications, I take whatever employment comes my way. I am a man for hire. I looked to where the car had stopped. On the footpath was a dark form - a non geometric shape. Curiosity aroused, I crossed to it. It was a person. I turned the body over and she moaned, "Don't phone the police. Don't phone the police."

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398441972
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A u R evoir, M ate!
Allan McFadden
Austin Macauley Publishers
2022-11-30
Au Revoir, Mate! About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
About the Author
Allan McFadden trained as a secondary school music teacher and has worked as an actor, a theatre composer, director, pianist and teacher. With fellow Australian Peter Fleming, he has composed many musicals, among them  Air Heart; Madame De, Frank Christie Frank Clarke! and Noli Me Tangere.  A lover of fiction writing and fiction film/television, as he approached his sixty-ninth birthday he had a desire to write the stuff.
Dedication
Chris Blackam and Ian Cook
—Blackie and Cookie—
great mates, who like to read.
Copyright Information ©
Allan McFadden 2022
The right of Allan McFadden to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398441965 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398441972 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd ®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5AA
Acknowledgement
My thanks go to: Chris Blackam, Ian Cook, Rowena Dawson, John Ellis, and Lori Jeffrey, for their positive comments, constructive ideas and encouragement. And to Bill Conn whose lessons in editing always ring in my ears.
Notes
All characters and situations in “Au Revoir, Mate!” are fictional. They bear no resemblance to anyone alive or dead.
The areas and streets of Nice and Cannes exist, though the buildings occupied by the characters do not.
Au revoir (French) means ‘farewell’ or ‘goodbye’.
Bon nuit (French) means ‘goodnight’.
Dva (Czech) means ‘two’.
Maman (French) means ‘mother’.
Mate (Australian) is a term for a friend, though it can be used ironically.
Chapter 1
My name is Dougay Roberre. The name on my passport is Douglas Roberts. Neither name is really mine. I don’t know what my real name is.
I was born here in France, I believe, about forty years ago. My passport says I’m forty-one, my birthday is listed as March 16.
At the age of three, I was taken, without warning, by my parents to Australia. There, they were placed into a witness protection program. It was soon after locating to Sydney, they destroyed all evidence of their French existence. I have no photographs of being held in the arms of loving grandparents or doting aunts.
I grew up in the land of drought, flood, fire and surf. It was a wonderful upbringing. Then again when you’ve never experienced anything else, what do you have to compare it to? No, it truly was wonderful. I do have photographs of that as evidence. There’s a photograph of me sitting on the bonnet of my first car, proudly smiling; me trying to stuff a sausage on a slice of bread into my acne riddled face; and me standing next to my first surfboard with a beautiful teenage girl, whose name went the way of the surfboard.
As I approached my fortieth birthday, I became uneasy. It wasn’t an overnight thing, and I don’t believe it was the impending doom of suddenly finding myself on the wrong side of desirability, rather it was something internal, something from the gut. I’d always found it difficult to settle, after both my parents had passed on. Their deaths were natural, not associated with their sudden departure from Paris, or Lyon, or Marseilles. I also do not know where I was born or from where they fled.
This disconcerting feeling grew so much so, that four months ago—in February—I uprooted myself and returned here. There were no broken-hearted lovers left behind. A few drinking mates teased that I’d be back in the New Year. I celebrated my birthday—alone—in an unknown bar I stumbled across near to the hostel I was staying in.
I had owned a small apartment overlooking Bondi Beach, in Sydney’s east, which I’d bought cheaply as a young man. The only sensible thing I’d ever done. Over time, the Sydney property market increased in value and with the money I made from its sale, I bought myself a similar place here in Nice—though this apartment doesn’t overlook the sea. I couldn’t afford that! Being mentally an Australian, who’d lived by the sea, the Riviera was the perfect fit for me—and Nice was the only place I could afford to live in, along the Cote d’Azur.
I bought the apartment ten weeks ago. I’d seen it online, along with two others in my price range, back in Sydney before I left. Once here, I inspected the three, though I knew the one I wanted. Yesterday, I took possession of it.
Somewhere in the middle of next month, my budgeted transitional money will run out. I’d opened a bank account when I arrived, depositing the balance, however, I now needed to find something to do and something that would pay. I was planning on keeping that deposit as a nest egg—even gradually building on it. I know the merits of saving, as opposed to living on credit. My parents taught me well about a great many things, though not my family history.
Because of my parents, I can speak excellent French, though I cannot read nor write it. Oh, the basic phrases I recognise, however I’ll never have a job translating Moliere into English. I have no qualifications which are recognisable here in France. No qualifications which are recognisable in Australia for that matter. There, I’d always been a man-for-hire.
That is me—Dougay Roberre: L’Homme Engager .
When one relocates to a new country, it’s hard to find a job at the top end of town. I was prepared to start at the bottom. I’m a realist—never thinking I’d stay down there forever. Whoever does?
My apartment is on the top floor of a Belle Epoque building on Avenue Auber, near Place Mozart, very near the T-junction with Rue Beethoven. Parallel to Avenue Auber runs Rue Gounod and across it runs Rue Rossini. Nearer the beach is Rue Saint-Saens. I’m not making up these street names. According to the agent, there are no buskers in the vicinity, as they are psychologically restrained from performing by the standard of musicianship inherent in the street names around them.
Place Mozart sounds as if it’s a highly regarded, must-see oasis in the middle of the tourist bustle, a tribute to the boy-genius. It isn’t. It is simply a square piece of grass over and around a car park. At the time, I didn’t know that I would come to frequent it as often as I would and like anything through constant use, I’d come to regard it as a natural extension of my home.
My apartment was once two small attic studios. Someone had knocked out the wall and converted it into a reasonably sized two-bedroom loft. I’d carried in my two suitcases of clothing, unfurled my Australian sleeping bag and tossed it onto the floor of the bedroom on the right.
The whole place needed work—though the plumbing and electricity were operable; the roof didn’t leak; and the floor didn’t sag. Being a handyman—a jack-of-all-trades—I was looking forward to renovating it, bit by bit. First, I needed to buy a bed, a sofa, a table and chairs—second-hand, of course.
For the past ten weeks, waiting for the sale to be completed, I had walked these streets, getting a feel for the area I’d one day be living in. I bought a coffee each morning at a different café, hoping eventually to find the one I preferred. I didn’t—I equally enjoyed them all. Until one morning, that is, when the simplest of gestures ended up cementing a relationship for the future.
At the pretentiously named L’Opera Mozart , the owner struggled clearing several tables.
“I’ll take those for you.” I held out my hand and after hesitating and giving me a curiously suspicious eye, he stacked five cups and saucers onto it. He gathered the remainder and I followed him inside. I placed them on the counter and turned to leave.
“Wait! You’re not working this morning?” the owner asked.
“Oh—I’m looking for a job.”
“My partner is ill.” The proprietor went on to explain. “I need someone to do the washing up. Three days from nine until two; then seven until whenever. Cash in hand—no questions asked.”
I thought about it, though not for long. “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time,” I said. “Lead me to the kitchen sink.”
The café owner was Claude Tanguay—a pleasantly spoken and honest-faced man of fifty, with an overall cheery disposition. He was bald, with a wide row of hair above the ears and around the scalp. He had a natural air of ‘mine host’ about him and for the three days I worked there, he wore a black waistcoat over a white shirt—though every day the shirt was a fresh and neatly ironed one.
He paid me as promised on the evening of the third day. I was pleasantly surprised. I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve had to hassle for what is rightfully due me.
“Don’t gamble it away.” He smiled at his warning.
“No. Tomorrow I’m off to buy a bed,” I explained. “I’ll need every euro cent.”
“What?” he questioned, curious that I’d lash out on something so mundane, though to me so necessary. I explained my newl