Welcome to Ping Pong
Created | Updated Oct 29, 2010
I was the getaway driver. At least that is how you will think of me. There was a lot more to my role than that, but I'll let the media have their shorthand. It's not that that I want to tell you about. It just explains why I was driving quite so fast up the A1 towards St Denis. I took the slip-road just past the Stade de France and as I came up to the point where you cross over the autoroute, well, that's where it happened. You think, of course, that I lost control, and plunged over the side onto the autoroute. What actually happened, as I remember it, was that, just as we were about to hit the rail something hit me in the chest, and then there was a little track off to the left. I took it. It spiralled round a small domed circular building and then crossed the autoroute on a slender bridge landing on the other side between two similar round buildings - it reminded me of Veryan in Cornwall - but with conical roofs, like those 'trulli' you find in the south of Italy. Or a Moroccan cookpot! And, on the white wall of the left hand house was a sign. "Bienvenue a Ping-Pong".
Somehow I was now driving a strange little car, like one of those odd Fiats from the 1970's that looked like a Noddy Car. Seriously weird. I looked at the steering wheel; the horn button in the middle said 'NODDY'. And I was alone. I'm not sure what happened to the other guys. So, here I am, driving very quietly alone, along an empty road with wide manicured (very French!) lawns either side fronting neat rows of Trulli from Puglia. I noticed, too, that they were progressively more decorated, with mortar mouldings of increasingly dramatic organic shapes in a sort of 'Gaudyesque' fashion. Yes, I know that you think I am just some sort of bandit. It doesn't mean I know nothing of architecture. Yes, I carry a gun, but I am not a Philistine. As the little houses became more gaudy (forgive me!) people started appearing on their lawns, at their windows, chatting with neighbours, and the whole place became very calm, as did I.
And then, to spoil it all, up ahead was some sort of scruffy, dark Napoleonic block of a grey building. A queue, mostly of old folk, snaked its way from the front entrance to the roadside. I drew up near to the end of the queue. I don't know what made me do as I did. It just felt that that was what I was supposed to do. So I did it. What, anyway, was I doing here, in this strange car? A youngish woman in hospital whites with hair tightly scraped back into a ponytail and a clipboard met me at the kerb. "Monsieur P?" she asked. I nodded and got out of the car. "Suivez moi." I did as I was told, and, as I did so, a young man similarly clad in white, slipped into the car and drove it away. I wasn't alarmed, but was beginning to feel a little odd. I followed the woman as she parted the queue so we could walk through it and around the end of the building. Here it was dark, made gloomy by a huge hedge of conifers. I shivered a little. I followed her into the side door.
We were immediately in a sort of office with a large desk behind which sat a bulky guy, also in scrubs, but red. There were no other chairs. The guy in red looked up. "Monsieur P, on peut parler en Francais ou Anglais?" A very gruff voice, maybe a pipe-smoker. "English would be good." I replied cautiously. He beckoned me forward. The girl stayed at the door, clutching her clipboard to her chest. He sat up straight, fingers intertwined, arms resting on the desk in front of an open folder, and looked straight at me.
"Now then, Mr P, what we have here is a little review." Sounded like a nice chap. He paused, and looked at the folder.
"A review of what, exactly?" I spoke quietly.
"We will find this all much quicker if you don't speak, Mr P" he said, raising his right eyebrow. And, as he did that I felt my throat tighten. I couldn't speak. So, he was some sort of hypnotist,
"On the credit side we have just three acts of kindness. That must be some kind of record for a life of, what, fifty six years. And, two of those acts were in your childhood. You once gave your sister an ice-cream with no ulterior motive and you once tried to comfort your mother after she had been beaten by your father. That's it. Oh, and just two days ago you gave a beggar at the Gare de Lyons twenty euros. Getting soft in your old age? Three acts of kindness in a lifetime! I'm pretty sure that's a record." He paused and looked again at the folder. I could neither move nor speak. "Not a good record." He stared straight at me, poker-faced.
"On the debit side we have two thousand seven hundred and eighty seven acts of unkindness and seventy six acts of evil, including eight murders. And we haven't even included the crash victims, yet. They'll be in the manslaughter column. Again, I suspect a record." He looked me straight in the eyes and raised his eyebrow.
I could speak again. "Now listen here, matey" I used my chummy voice. "I ain't murdered no-one, and I'm kind to me muvver. Respect, matey, is due." I thought a bit of East End, you know, a bit of the old jovial chit-chat, might go down well, but he raised his flippin eyebrow again. And, as it turned out, those were my last words ever.
He had more to say, of course. Bleated on and on. Names, places methods. All that. All spot on of course, but I couldn't deny anything as I normally would. I mean I had proper organised alibis for most of this stuff. Why do you think I'm not rotting away in some French gaol? Rooted, literally, to the spot I was, listening to him droning on. It got very tedious - if that�s not a French word. Then, he changed tack and I started listening again. "We have, of course, carefully considered your fate. You will have got a clue as you entered the village."
I had no idea what he was on about at that point. I tried to make my eyes say "And....???" but he ignored me.
"Some years ago we have a record of you saying, slumped on the sofa, watching table tennis at the Beijing Olympics. "I can't watch this stuff any more, it's boring as hell!"." He looked up at me. "We are placing you at the back of the auditorium in a table tennis hall in China. You will be invisible, untouchable, still and silent for" he looked again at his ledger, "ever".
And, here I am. Fun, it ain't. My legs are numb, my brain is dead and I'm long past wishing my life had been different. You know what, when this all started I thought the ping pong would kill me, I mean, can you imagine? Ping bloody pong all day long. But, in reality, if that's what this is, it's the days and nights when nothing happens - weeks on end with just an occasional cleaner to look at - that are the real killer. The ping pong itself comes as as a relief, something to look at. No kidding. I am actually looking forward to the next tournament. Bring it on!
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