I turned up fifteen minutes early. Not a "camping-car" in sight. But an old man was waving at me from beside his dusty white Renault people carrier and I had to face my fate. He gave me a kiss on each cheek and gestured towards our fellow car-sharer, a tall mixed-race man with glasses and a flat-peak cap, who was smoking. "J'espere que vous n'avez pas peur des chiens!" No, I'm not scared of dogs. Then I saw his dog. Enormous. The size of a bear. When I got into the car the smell of its breath hit my nostrils hard and I had to grit my teeth not to gag. When we set off, it leapt up and tried to lick my face; I squealed and Daniel F ran round, opened the boot and shouted "PILOU! ARRETES!" whilst pummelling the great beast in the stomach. All this happened in the middle of a busy street; buses were hooting their horns and people on the street were stopping to stare. I quickly realised that Daniel F was un vieux fou, a mad man, a point which was reiterated by his constant attempts to make slightly sexual jokes about English girls and constant failures to apply the brakes properly. I resigned myself to a long journey spent politely fake-laughing, breathing through my mouth,and glaring at the back of the flat-peak-cap-man's head, jealous that he'd gotten the front seat and wasn't chilling in the back seat with the beast. He knew it, too, and looked round to laugh every time the putrid bear-dog decided to lick my hair.
Then the third passenger got in. She'd already made us an hour late demanding we detour to pick her up. And, it transpired, she was terrified of dogs. She was from Burkina Faso and when she spoke French her accent was mad and beautiful, lilting and drawling and speaking twice as fast as I could follow. And once she started talking she could not keep her mouth shut. Screaming wildly every time the dog came near her, babbling about how the French are sick and strange for loving animals enough to let them in their houses, to feed them at the dinner table, to let them sit on the sofa and watch TV like human beings. When I eventually fell asleep I kept waking up periodically to find that she was using my arm or leg as a prop to illustrate a point in some wild story or other she was telling Daniel F, who was partly loving her loud-mouthed honesty and partly terrified. Flat-peak-cap was sleeping, too, or at least pretending to like me.
Then Daniel F stopped the car because the radiator was too hot.
This happened several times. He kept getting out to put water in the reservoir and every time he opened the boot he had to wrestle the bear-dog to stop it running into the motorway (RESTES LA PILOU RESTES LA!!!) Later, Pilou the bear-dog attacked Burkina Faso and she threw her blackberry at his head.
When, five hours later, we arrived in Paris, we couldn't have gotten out of that car faster had it been on fire. Once Daniel F was out of earshot, we all looked at each other. I said, "Camping car?" and flat-peak said "LOOOL!" and Burkina said "Camping car MON CUL!" and we all laughed, united, at least, by our collective discomfort and disappointment.
Next time, I said, I'm taking the train.
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