Brigitte, Manny Macron’s foster mother, rang the other day and asked me over for a cup of tea. “You’ve got to come, Alex,” she cooed, sexily stressing my name on the last syllable. “Mon petit just won’t listen to reason.”
Realising this was perhaps Britain’s last chance to avoid a no-deal exit from the EU, I decided to brave Covid, curfews and quarantines. I really had no other choice – the two countries could no longer do without my mediation.
I arrived at the Elysée Palace yesterday, just in time for tea. As I approached the salon, I overheard Manny complaining: “Maman, why did you have to invite that sal con de rosbif?”
At that point I came in, interrupting Manny’s tirade and instantly changing his expression from petulant to almost welcoming. After perfunctory greetings, Brigitte led us to the table which she had prudently laid with styrofoam cups, plastic cutlery and paper plates. She and I exchanged knowing smiles.
Such parsimony was the legacy of Manny’s numerous tantrums, in the course of which he had already smashed a Louis XIV tea service against the wall cup by cup, thrown a Sèvres vase out of the window without opening it first, and chased Brigitte all over the palace with a Henry IV ‘Ravaillac’ dagger.
The centrepiece of the table was a traditional Christmas log cake, the bûche de Noël. Brigitte expertly sliced off three pieces, each about two inches thick, and put them on our plates.
She then said grace: “Our father, which art in Brussels, hallowed be thy federalism, sacred be the fruit of thy loins, a single European state. Bless this repast in the name of Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman and all thy other angels and archangels…”
Before she finished, Manny reached over the table and dug his plastic fork into my piece of the bûche, which elicited an instant reproof from Brigitte: “What on terre are you doing, mon petit?”
“Nothing, maman,” said Manny. “I just want my slice of the cake.”
“But you already have your own slice, you imbécile,” said Brigitte. “You have your cake and you can eat it.”
“But maman,” objected Manny. “If I eat my cake, I no longer have it, but no? Yet if I first eat Alex’s, I’ll still have mine, isn’t that so?”
“I can see,” frowned Brigitte, “that I did a better job teaching you logic than manners. You can’t just aider yourself to our guest’s piece of the bûche. He might think you were brought up by a fishwife.”
“Don’t remind me!” screamed Manny and threw his plastic fork on the floor with some force. “Those rosbifs want to have our fish and eat it! I’ll nuke London before I let them steal our poisson!”
“But chéri,” objected Brigitte, “they say the poisson is really theirs if it swims in their territorial waters. It’s like Alex’s bûche…”
“Exactement,” agreed Manny and used his plastic knife to lop off about a third of my slice. “You don’t understand, maman. What’s ours is ours, and what’s theirs is… well, ours too. That’s what l’Empereur taught us.”
I almost opened my mouth to remind Manny of Waterloo, but stopped myself. After all, I wasn’t brought up by a fishwife.
At that point the phone rang, and Brigitte picked it up. “Oh hello, Boris,” she said, “how wonderful to hear from you, tenth time today… Yes, I know you never got the chance to talk to mon petit… Hold on a second.”
She covered the receiver with her hand and said to Manny: “It’s Johnson for you”.
“I don’t want to talk to that con,” said Manny, shoving the rest of my bûche into his mouth. “But chéri,” said Brigitte, “he’s been calling all day…”
“Maman, what part of va t’faire foutre doesn’t he understand?” screamed Manny. “Just tell that crétin to leave un message!”
Brigitte talked to Boris for another couple of minutes and hung up. “He says you can’t have your cake and eat it, mon petit,” she told Manny.
“But well sure I can,” said Manny and triumphantly held up his own paper plate with a slice of bûche gloriously intact.
All that was left for me to do was bid the couple good-bye, lamenting yet again the gross inadequacy of my diplomatic skills. On the way out I wondered what that bûche tasted like.
As the door shut behind me, I heard Manny speaking on the phone to someone else. The only words I could make out were those he kept repeating: “Jawohl, Mutti!”