Madame drives me to the station just before five. She and Daniel and I have just had a cuppa together and a wonderful cake she has made in my honour. My French has deserted me today, but we converse well enough for forty minutes till it is time for me to load the bike pod and backpack into her car.
At the station I thank her profusely for her hospitality; she thanks me for staying in her chambre d’hôtes. Real affection flows between us. She is a lovely woman, beautiful face, a kind and pleasant nature. I tell her Vera calls me her good man and she says “D’accord. You are a gentleman!”
As the train whooshes us through the Massif Central to Clermont I reflect that the first part of my journey, mon voyage, is over. Tomorrow I join 16 people from a bike shop in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. We’ll speak Orstralian in broad accents and Langeac will recede into memory.
And suddenly, having left my private oasis in Langeac, the world turns and I feel its sullen weight upon me. Once more I push the bike pod before me. Clermont station has no ramps so I must lug the bastard up and down stairs.
Three young people are at the guichet when I enter to sort out a ticket problem. The automatic ticket machine will not issue my ticket for Grenoble because the credit card I paid with is no more, cancelled because of fraud. I did not, of course, commit the fraud, but I am about to pay for it.
“I cannot give you a ticket,” he tells me. “You will have to buy a new one.” The SNCF print-out I hand him has my reference number and surname on it. I suggest he need only look it up on his computer.
“And I can tell you the 16-digit number of the cancelled credit card, if that helps.” He consults the beautiful, delicate, slender young woman working with him. They agree that it is not possible. I must buy a new ticket. I will get a refund for the ticket I cannot use—minus 10 per cent.
The new ticket will cost more than the old ticket. Their hands are firmly round my remaining testicle and squeezing. I surrender; I have no choice.
My carefully chosen hotel and already booked room are 100 metres from the station in dirty, seedy Avenue Charras. A sign on the hotel door tells me it is closed—not the door, the whole hotel. And not for ten minutes till someone returns from having a fag, but closed indefinitely for ‘work’.
No way am I lugging the pod around this town that is treating me badly looking for another hotel. Across the Avenue Charras is the entrance to the Hotel Moderne. It looks rough as guts. Reception is up a dingy staircase on the first floor. A ravaged dowager emerges and slides open a hatch.
It’s €25 for a room without bath or shower. No way would I take a bath or shower in this place so I save sixpence and take a room without. The key is brass and big enough to knock the door down with, but I use the lock.
I expect the worst. No surprises, unless it’s the basin and toilet at the far end of the room. Like in a prison cell. But is it a toilet? It’s definitely not a bidet, or a bath. It had both hot and cold taps, and a plug. Perhaps it’s basin for midgets.
I throw my pack on the floor and go back down and haul the pod up four flights of stairs then step out immediately to get out of the place and to hunt up some food. I risk leaving my pack and the pod but dare not leave any money, the Macbook or my passport in the room.
I walk the length of Avenue Charras but greasy spoons are the only eateries on offer and sinister-looking dudes in tight sweaty tee-shirts with fags dangling from the corners of their down-turned gobs populate each dive.
The better part of town is only better because the gangsters up there have fat tattooed molls with them and the grease is higher octane. Eventually I retreat to the station foyer were a bright young thing sells me a stale sandwich, a muffin and an Orangina at inflated prices. I open my wallet and let her take whatever she pleases.
I’m typing this over the high basin because there’s a small fluorescent globe supplementing the seven and a half watt ceiling globe. I think I’ll lie on the bed under a couple of paper napkins rather than get in it.
The 8:58 for Lyon and Grenoble leaves in ten hours. Rock on!
Oh, by the way, I rode 76kms this morning through St-Georges, St-Margueride, and Fix-St-Geneys. France has too many fucking saints if you ask me. But you didn’t, did you?
The 15% über-grunt up to the chateau ruins in Allègre is well worth the major effort involved.
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