Four of us go for lunch once a month. My hippy ceramist neighbour, Geoffrey, is a foodie and one of the best cooks I know. He was born a few years after the second world war and, along with his brother, who went on to become a Michelin-starred chef, developed an interest in food from his English, Belgian and Italian grandparents and Swiss mother. I couldn’t afford to heat the little painting studio downstairs this winter and have only sold one work since November, so our choice of restaurants has been necessarily modest. The menus include dishes made with items from the end of the butcher’s counter that I, vegetarian for most of my twenties, still avoid: pied et paquets (sheep’s feet and tripe stuffed with pork), tête de veau (boned and boiled calf’s head) and andouillette (a coarse and malodorous sausage made from colon).
Geoffrey loves this stuff. He often berates us for avoiding it, but even he wouldn’t eat andouillette in company because of the smell. Our favourite place is more expensive at €20-30 a head for three courses where they serve 12 fabulous oysters for €18, and, occasionally, andouillette. ‘It’ll be all right here. A really good one shouldn’t smell too much, but don’t worry, I won’t have it,’ Geoffrey says if it’s on, choosing hake or something else normal like the rest of us.
A while back a friend called. He was coming to the coast for a week and asked if I’d like to meet for lunch, his treat. Because he’s good fun, smart and unavailable – and therefore perfect, uncomplicated company – I said yes. In England recently, after my heavily pregnant middle daughter was discharged from hospital following a nasty bout of flu, and her husband and little daughter also became ill, I ran a field hospital for a week. Once they were on the mend they decided I needed a night out and put me back on Bumble. ‘This guy looks all right: your age, ex-naval officer, lives in a nice village,’ said my son-in-law, a Navy diver. ‘He writes a good sentence, Mum, and he goes to the gym,’ added my daughter. ‘All very well but is he clever and amusing? Does he read? And what does he smell like?’ ‘Mum, it’s just dinner. You don’t have to marry him.’
I swiped right. A first. Two days later we met in a pub restaurant. On the way I told my son-in-law that my date didn’t drink. ‘Well that’s not going to work,’ he said. I got there early and took a large gin and tonic into the garden and smoked two cigarettes. It was the first time in my life I’d agreed to meet someone I didn’t know. We collided awkwardly in the bar but he was friendly and pleasant. I relaxed. While we waited for food I asked him if he read. He had a thousand books, he told me, most of them on management. ‘Any novels?’ He thought for a while and remembered he’d read Wolf Hall last year.
I showed him a photo of my cave house in Provence and he showed me pictures of his house, a modern build in a pretty village in Wiltshire. Inside all was shipshape. The tasteful contemporary objects of uniform colour, the row of pictures painted by the same hand, 50 pairs of polished shoes and the huge rail of perfectly ironed shirts couldn’t have been more different from the live rock walls and barely contained bohemian chaos of my place.
I swiped right. A first. Two days later we met in a pub restaurant
I listened to him – he had an interesting story. But when he asked about me, I couldn’t stop talking about Jeremy. My date liked ballet. I like opera and Radio 3. He liked ballroom dancing. I like jumping up and down in a mosh pit. But it was a pleasant enough evening. In the car on the way back to my daughter’s house he put on the heated seats and played Olly Murs, whom he loved but I’d barely heard of. He was disappointed in my lack of enthusiasm for the music. A decent man, but romance wasn’t in the air.
No more dates for me. Lunch or dinner with pals and colleagues only. Back in Provence, I met my friend from the coast in a hilltop village restaurant. He suggested a kir royale to kick off, then said: ‘What will you have? I’m tempted by the andouillette.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I said, noticing for the first time that he was looking at me intently and had nice eyes. ‘Yes, I love it!’ ‘Show off. I’ll have the chicken, please.’
We were engrossed in chat and halfway down a good bottle of local white when the food arrived. The smell was worse than I could’ve imagined – slaughter-house offal bin with top notes of a 1980s surgical ward laundry basket: blood, pus, faeces and rotting toe. My favourite French cheeses, Époissesand Morbier, smell awful but taste delicious, so emboldened by the wine I asked if I could try the andouillette. ‘Half a teaspoon…’
It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever put in my mouth. I immediately spat it out on to my hand and, without thinking, put it back on his plate. ‘I’m so sorry.’ After a fit of the giggles and a glug of wine I composed myself. He leaned forward in his seat. His hand edged towards mine. ‘What?’ By way of an answer he looked into my eyes and sighed. Fumes of andouillette hit me square in the face.
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