Day Twelve: You May Find Yourself Living in a Shotgun Shack
At a Monoprix in Narbonne, I bought some black cotton underwear, to ensure the lowest common denominator of cleanliness if I failed to find a lavage automatique today, as well as some snacky things for the evening. Narbonne did not invite me to linger... I saw some laundromats at the edge of town and thought I would circle back to them when I'd located my dwelling for the night, an ersatz hacienda called La Caille Qui Chante, located in the lunar landscape of Montredon-Corbieres, Bakersfield of Languedoc.
Well, all I can say is I'm glad I was fortified by the pleasantries of the Hotel L'Oronge before stumbling on this truckstop/cesspit. I had chosen it from the “Routiers Guide”, which everyone assured me was not REALLY for truckers, but more a down-home Triple A type organization. Everyone lied -- this was a truckstop. But full details in good time...
May I just mention that having spent five hours driving through the French countryside, I am (temporarily) mighty sick of it? Wild irises and mustard flowers out in force, though. Having seen (and hooted at) La Caille Qui Chante, I scooted farther up the N113 in search of a suitable place to turn around, being in no particular hurry. And what should I see, in the ever-so-pleasant town of Ledizgnan-des-Corbieres, but a laundromat... with a free parking space not ten feet from the door.
I leapt like a gazelle to take this opportunity -- was able to bestow my washables in one machine and settle in for the duration with my P.G. Wodehouse.
Now, please note this carefully -- the Republic of France frowns on people who do not own washers and dryers. To display the nation's disapprobation, the French laundromat is a desolate hovel of punitive design and stiff tariffs, where you will sit in the cheapest possible gray plastic chairs riveted to the concrete floor -- not even a garbage can will be afforded to cheer your sojourn, so the Bonox boxes mount up in homage to Andy Warhol beside the machines de lavage. The machines, dryers, soap dispensers and change machines will be as colorful and prettily designed as the accoutrements of a gas chamber. You deserve no beverage vending machine or place to wash your hands or surface to fold your clothes, so you have none. And you will spend forty francs (that's $8 for you spoiled Yanks) to wash and dry one load.
But hey, it beats being stinky. I head off into the Ariege with my carriage erect, because I do not smell.
Then I returned to the Caille, to face the next challenge to my cheerful good nature -- the reception desk, inhabited by Monsieur, a swarthy individual who need only turn around to be bartender as well as hotelier.
(Note to young people starting out in life: Avoid hotels where reception desk and bar are one piece of furniture).
Monsieur's particular friend was propping up the bar to the right of Monsieur and fixed our heroine with the sort of stare a wolf would give a lamb after a beer or thirty. Our heroine instantly found herself enthralled by the Flemish translation of the "regulations in case of fire" ("Haarjek boot senderlieb... Hmmmm.") while Monsieur rooted through a large sheaf of mostly blank papers in putative search for her reservation.
Monsieur (in stirring tones): You're ALONE?
Heroine (pretending not to hear the susussration of every head in the bar turning in her direction, winsome smile plastered gamely to her ashen face): Oui, Monsieur.
Monsieur: Well, you'll be in ROOM FOURTEEN. Room FOURTEEN -- on the RIGHT SIDE OF THE COURTYARD there.
Heroine: Great! Thanks a lot! (Gathering her bags quickly and taking command of enormous wadge of keys)
(Monsieur's particular friend seemed to have lost control of his tongue, which was seeping out of the side of his mouth in an unlovely fashion.)
Monsieur (speaking slightly louder, if possible): You're ALL ALONE, huh? Well, you'll find ROOM FOURTEEN very easily, along the RIGHT there.
Heroine: Thank you, Monsieur! That will be fine!
(And why don't you just start filling out the police report now, Monsieur -- Found dead, ALONE, in room FOURTEEN...) I scurried off (Monsieur's particular friend fortunately paralyzed from the neck down with alcohol poisoning), threw the deadbolt, locked the shutters and vowed to sleep in my clothes.
The room is exactly where you'd expect to end up if your divorced father decided to take you to Mexico for Labor Day weekend. (Aaaaah, I can see the Caille's new advertising campaign now -- "A little South of the Border in the South of France...") Dark pocked wood, industrial-weight stucco, "conquistador" sconces, padded velour headboard -- you have to say they’ve accomplished unity of theme. The bedside table is a mini-refrigerator, with a lock. I fossicked through it looking for an Orangina to calm my nerves -- instead I found beer and ginger ale and Collins mix and pampelmousse... What would be the category, for 500 points? Beverages that mix well with Scotch, Alex? I shuddered to place innocent Tip Top, my cheesy plastic Camargue pony, in such a degrading spot, so he currently reposes on a bare skeleton of desk under the window (beside the booby trap of spread bags and shoes with heels up).
The pictures on the walls -- seaside harbor and mountain lake -- are completed puzzles that have been glued together.
It's the bathroom that summons up the full horror of mortal existence -- it is so clearly a bathroom used by men, and not over-refined men at that. Either the mould in there is setting off my allergies, or I'm just plain allergic to squalor. The outside of the tub is mouldy. Paper towels are larger and thicker than the towels provided. I've seen prison lavatories more inviting.
I make my ablutions with wetnaps.
Very fortunate I'd more or less decided to blow off seeing the sights of Narbonne, "City of Flowers" (without a scrap of greenery visible), and will make a break for Carcassonne tomorrow.