At 5:00am yesterday morning I walked into the lobby of the five-star Carlton Hotel in Cannes. I had bare feet and was wearing my baby blue pajamas with the pink stripe on the pocket. Despite the early hour, the lobby was busy with very important television executives and the hideously rich, all catching sleek black Mercedes to the airport.
My pajamas had been a gift from my friend Bernie. She had made them herself. They were soft and fluffy. I have been told they make me look like Cary Grant. Admittedly, that was by a woman blinded with lust (i.e. my wife). Still, the concierge could tell by looking at them that I was a person of quality.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” he said.
“Bonjer,” I said. “Jay oon problem.”
My accent produced the faintest of deep physical revulsion from the concierge. “How may I help you, sir?” he asked.
“Well, you see, there was this woman,” I said.
He nodded.
“No. It wasn’t like that. She’s a lesbian,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows.
“We work together. We were sharing an apartment a couple of blocks away. She left this morning, but something happened and she was shouting up at the window and somehow I ended up in the street in my pyjamas.”
“I see, sir,” he said. I could sense the most ephemeral of smirks straining behind his eyes.
“Let me try again,” I said.
A woman came up beside me clutching a small dog and a bottle of champagne and a bottle of scotch. “Henri, can you look after these?” she asked, putting the bottles on the counter.
“Absolutement, madam,” he said.
The woman’s eyes flicked up and down my pyjamas. She frowned, shielded her dog from me with her body, and continued into the hotel.
“Never mind,” I said to the concierge. “I’m locked out. But it’s only a spring lock.”
“Ah, bien,” he said. “You would like a piece of plastic to force the lock.” He elegantly mimed sliding a card into a door jamb.
“Exactly!” I said.
He held his hands palms up in a shrug. “I think it is very difficult,” he said. “Maybe there is someone you could call.” He looked up at the clock. “I think maybe it is too early, though.”
“I think I might as well try to open the lock,” I said.
He nodded and vanished from behind the counter. A couple of minutes later he reappeared with two blank plastic room keys.
“Merci,” I said.
“Bonne chance, Monsieur,” he said.
I left the Carlton and walked through the flurry of chauffeurs in front of the hotel. The sprinklers were on and the paving stones beneath my feet were wet.
A work colleague and I were in Cannes for a conference. We lost our hotel rooms at the last minute and the organisers booked us into a two bedroom flat.
My companion was catching an early flight and a car had come to pick her up. As I lay in bed, I heard her getting ready and open the door. Then there was a period of silence. It occurred to me that she would need her key to get the elevator to work. I got up to see if she needed any help. Her luggage was there propping the door open but she was nowhere to be seen. Very odd. I was still a bit asleep. I wandered into the lounge. She wasn’t there. I peered out the window. There was a car below the apartment. A man in a suit stood by the open driver’s door. I couldn’t see my friend anywhere. I could hear what sounded like a bird making an odd strangled cry.
I opened the window and poked my head out of the apartment. The driver noticed me and waved at someone over to my right. “Alors!” he said. “He is here.”
My friend came from around the corner. She had been shouting up at my window trying to get my attention. Being English and a lady, she had been trying to shout discreetly and so ended up sounding like some kind of exotic bird rather than a human being.
“I’m sorry, Chris,” she said. “I’ve locked myself out. Can you help?”
“No problem,” I said. I closed the window and looked around for her keys. I couldn’t see them anywhere so I went back to my room and got my own. Soon I was out in the street with the luggage. My friend kissed me on the cheek as the driver loaded her bags into the car and then they were off.
I went back inside the building and took the elevator upstairs. I put my key into the apartment door but the lock wouldn’t turn. I suddenly had a mental picture of where my friend’s keys were. They were inside the apartment, stuck into the lock from the other side.
I fiddled and strained and jiggled but to no avail. The lock wouldn’t budge. I went outside and peered up at the building. I considered trying to climb up to the balcony. There didn’t seem to be an obvious route that didn’t involve one of those cool rappelling things that batman always carries around in his belt. I wandered out into the middle of the street. It was deserted. The streets were annoyingly free of litter. If I was in London, I was sure there would be all manner of rubbish including discarded wallets filled with customer loyalty cards perfect for popping the locks on French apartments. But here an army of invisible minions kept every brick and knob polished at all times.
And so, a short while later I found myself two blocks away in the lobby of the Carlton.
The concierge was right. Popping the lock was difficult, but not impossible. Once I was back in the apartment, I found my friend’s keys right where I pictured them to be. I took them out of the lock and put them on the table in the kitchen. Then I washed my feet in the bathtub and went back to bed.
As I slept that morning in my Cary Grant pyjamas, I dreamed of the film “To Catch a Thief”.
