We flew into Nice at the end of the season, but not so late as to bump into a Graham Greene character. Staying at a villa in the hills, we’d all pile into the car and roll between Cannes, Antibes, Cap Ferrat and the rest; eating, drinking and generally having a good time.
There came a day when one of our party wanted to swim
in the sea, so we took ourselves off down the coast to find a quiet beach. It was a Saturday and our mission was doomed to failure. In the
end, we gave up and defaulted to a busy public stretch with a small handiplage at
the end of it full of slings and hoists. I wanted to try them, but it was
deemed inappropriate.
We found the remaining postage stamp of beach that had
not yet been occupied and sandwiched ourselves between an old French couple, a
gaggle of girls tanned to a butterscotch brown and four Australians who, with
admirable foresight, had brought an icebox of beer along.
The elderly French lady removed her bikini top and her
breasts began an intimate conversation with her ankles. Behind me, the Australians
were discussing precum. Their broke from this topic when a girl in their number
noticed a tattoo on her neighbour’s forearm and asked what the green script
meant.
“Oh, it’s in Thai. It means ‘Hot Chicken, Cold
Chicken’.”
The girl, not unreasonably I thought, asked why.
“Oh, because sometimes you get chicken and it’s really
really hot, but other times it’s really really…”
Cold?
“…cold.”
Right. I padded off down the beach, waded into the sea
and struck out for a buoy in the distance.
_______________________________
The word buoy is difficult one. I remember having a
conversation with someone who followed the Olympic sailing (can you imagine?)
and said that Ainslie—"Harriott?" I gambled wildly—had got into all sorts of
trouble for touching one.
“I should bloody well think so,” I replied, incensed,
“I’m astounded he was allowed to compete at all.”
“No. A buoy.”
“Well indeed. It’s a disgrace. Prison was it?”
“No, a buoy.”
etc.
_______________________________
We returned home to eat chicken. Hot chicken.
