Chapter 2: In the Beginning

Before continuing with my story l should properly introduce myself.

My name is Rafael Planchette. I was born in the small town of Le Boulou, which is about 20Km south of Perpignan and 10Km north of the Spanish border. I am the youngest of the three children born to Jacques and Isabella Planchette. My brother, also called Jacques after our father, is 5 years older than I am and my sister Brigitte, who is named for my father’s mother, is 3 years older than me. My mother was born over the border in Llanca, Spain, or Catalunya as she calls her country of birth, and my given name is that of my mother’s father. My father moved to Le Boulou from Clermont Ferrand with his mother when he was ten years old. His mother was widowed when my father was a babe in arms and thus he has no knowledge of his own father. Grand-maman Planchette found employment as housekeeper to Monsieur Desaix, the town’s premier butcher, and over time my father rose from being the delivery boy to being the manager of the establishment. When old Monsieur Desaix died he left the house and business to the Widow Planchette. The rumours were that she had been much more than merely the housekeeper of Monsieur Desaix. My grandmother died before I was born so I have no memory of her but judging by the photographs of her she was a voluptuous and attractive woman. Monsieur Desaix would have considered himself fortunate to have her warming his bed as well as his dinner plates. Of course nothing detrimental or disrespectful is said about Grand-maman Planchette in my father’s hearing.

As we own a butcher’s shop my family is considered to be relatively wealthy and marginally important citizens of Le Boulou. In fact my father has often been invited to stand as an independent candidate on the town council. So far he has declined the honour due to the amount of time required to attend the many meetings of the august body could not be found in his busy schedule of work and management of his butchery business. It is truly a family enterprise; my father and my brother do the buying of the animals and the butchering while my mother, and my sister before she went to university in Perpignan, serve in the shop and do the accounts. Until I left school at 15 to go into the hotel trade I was the delivery boy. I enjoyed a happy childhood and the Planchettes are a close-knit family. Naturally, we have our falling outs, but at the heart of our family is the knowledge that our parents love us and each other.

About the age of 14 I became aware of the opposite sex in a completely different way than I had regarded them when younger. It wasn’t long before some brazen young girl introduced me to sexual intercourse, and by the age of 15 I was well versed in most of the customs and practices of that wonderful gift from God. I’m not saying I was particularly adept in many of the techniques but I was always a willing and enthusiastic participant when invited to take part in horizontal dancing, as copulation is referred to by the locals.

After leaving school at 15 I worked at the Hotel de Pyrenees-Oriental in Perpignan as a ‘gofor’ and general dogsbody. All the dirty and/or menial jobs were given to the young lads like me who had been taken on as ‘Hotel Management Trainees’, the indeterminate title for an exploited, underpaid, overworked slave! However, even after nearly a year of being exploited, underpaid and overworked I still loved the job, and the knowledge I was earning my own money gave me a feeling of self-confidence that may have been lacking in my character thus far. I was convinced that one day I would be running a 5* hotel, possibly the Hotel George V in Paris.

The Hotel de Pyrenees-Oriental was fortunate to have a highly rated chef working in the kitchen, one Chef Zachery del Monde; an arrogant megalomaniac, bully, and sadist but a Master in all aspects of the culinary art. We hotel management trainee had to have a firm grasp on all facets of the hotel trade, and under Chef del Monde’s autocratic and harsh tutelage we learned the basic techniques of cooking. I acquired a certain skill and was sometimes permitted to work alongside Chef del Monde when he prepared his masterpieces of gourmet food. Not that I was ever allowed to grill, roast, or fry meat. I was a mere preparer of the comestibles that the great man would turn into the food of the Gods.

We trainees worked 12 hour shifts and had one day off a week. All hotel management trainees lived in, which meant the hotel had us on tap even when nominally off-duty and the bean counters employed by the American leisure conglomerate that owned the hotel could take our accommodation and meals costs from our meagre wages.

On my day off I would go home to get a good meal and a complete day of rest, and it was on one of those visits home that my life changed. I entered the front door of our house in Le Boulou and immediately felt that there was something wrong.

“Come into the front room, Rafael,” my father called out as I stood in the hall.

His voice was low, calm, and as neutral as usual. My mother used to say that if he called out “Fire” it would be in the same low, calm, and neutral tone of voice.

My mother was the complete opposite; voluble, volatile, and loud, and how these two dissimilar people fell in love and lived amicably together is a mystery to me, and probably to them. My father is about ten years older than my mother and they met when he accompanied the Le Boulou football team to Llanca to play in the Trans Pyrenean Football League Cup Final. My father was the manager and coach of the Le Boulou team and my mother, Isabel Xavier as she was then, the sister of the captain of the Llanca team. The home team won but over the three days the Le Boulou team was in Llanca my father and mother met and fell in love. They were married two months after the game and my brother was born nine months after the wedding night.