The lost hurrah

Nîmes, 10.23pm, 7 September, 2011 – On family holidays, on all holidays, the final meal has always been freighted with some special significance. Arriving in Nîmes I resolved, for the second time today, to happen upon a local bistro, to maybe order some frites…

This became the spur for long saunter, working up an appetite along the canals, around Roman remains, then through the narrow streets of the city centre at the time, surely the best time, as it shut up shop and the tourists skedaddled.

After a few hours I had drifted, far from the fountains and the shops full of luridly coloured macaroons, to the back streets, those residential alleyways that, when in a foreign city, always seem to seek out me. Not knowing the way, but knowing that, if you haven’t paid much attention to the map in the first place and didn’t much mind where you meander, you can’t be lost.

Nîmes closes early on a Tuesday it seems, that or I have been out a good while. No guidebook, no internet recommendations to hunt down, and no welcoming bistro in sight. The light fades in the unfashionable parts of the city. In a bar in a delirious, unshackled mood, I imagine joshing banter that baffles the barman:

‘What would you like, sir?’

‘A heavily diluted Pastis please.’

‘Eh?’

‘Un Ricard Long SVP’

Also in the bar I have my first encounter with the alluring Venus-fly trap of viscous, vicarious life once again. The tennis, the US Open, is on the television and I can feel myself being glued in.

*****

I don’t give up on food.

A ramshackled roadside pizzeria. In the glass cabinet out front there are canales. They look emaciated. I know that in my bag I have better one, and no one goes to a pizzeria for a canale. Besides, savoury is my thing. On the menu there is pan bagnat and salad nicoise too, but it has to be pizza.

I sit outside. Still moving after the all the walking. I see myself inside a zoetrope lit up by dazzling headlights that with regularity speed past. It is late but still warm. I am abroad.

The pizza comes thin and blistered. Dried oregano in the attack. Too much, but still good. A powerful lesson in the strength of combinations and place. Anchovy pizza, drenched in chilli oil, paired with – making even – Heineken taste good.

****

Onwards, bedwards, homeward. In a different part of town, half an hour after the pizza, I climb the hill towards the hostel. Alone in the city. Stars muted. The occasional cricket chirrups. Tarmac and the buzzing of electricity. I pause to stand and look at a pair of pristine, chunky white trainers which have been slung and dangle high over a power line.

A small motorbike breaks abruptly and stops just behind me. The helmet pulled off to reveal a stranger who gives every indication that he knows me. Speaking in the familial form, he uses one of the few non-culinary French verbs I know:

“Are you lost?”

No, not lost. Not anymore. Bewildered, yes, until I see, perched on the back of the bike, stacked boxes of pizza.