An angry shout in English cut through the background chatter of the French waterside cafe making me pause, my coffee cup halfway to my lips allowing me to look around for the source of the outburst.
Across the road a late thirties to early forties dark haired woman was wrestling over a bag with a pair of teenagers on a scooter, my guess was the pillion had tried to grab the bag and jumped on the scooter to make a getaway but she was having none of it. Her long wavy hair was flying around as she struggled to hang on.
American accented profanity floated across the busy road as the efforts continued until the passenger gave a shout of "Fuck off woman" and pulled a small-bladed craft knife from his back pocket stabbing it menacingly towards her, even so she hung on calling for help.
My Husband put his coffee down and with a curt "That's about enough" took off over the quiet road at a sprint, throwing himself at the two boys in a flying tackle, bringing them down in a crash of flailing limbs, broken plastic scooter panels and a cloud of exhaust gases as the engine raced. He knelt on the back of the driver and held the passenger in a wristlock warning that any resistance would result in a broken arm at the very least. His French is better than passable so I suspect the message got through. Having a hundred kilo rugby player sitting on them probably underlined the message. I stayed where I was, things seemed under control and the woman had been joined by a similarly aged man in a Rolling Stones T Shirt and baggy shorts. He took over the kneeling on the rider as Chris (my Husband) heaved the pillion to his feet releasing the flight bag back to the woman, who clutched it to her as if her life depended on it.
A small crowd of maybe 6 or 7 younger people gathered around the attempted robbery, they all seemed to be with the two Americans from the way they all spoke and interacted with each other. I shuffled my chair round so I could finish my espresso while I watched the show, which after the initial excitement had reduced to a group of people watching some other people, to be honest if I wasn't married to one of the protagonists I'd probably have lost interest quite quickly, in common with most of the other people in the café.
The first couple were the oldest of the group by some ten to fifteen years, which made them about the same age as my husband and me, she had shoulder length dark brown hair, a tanned almond shaped face, quite pretty, around 5 foot four with a slim, athletic figure, nice bum but quite large boobs. Looking at them I guessed she'd had some enhancement surgery along the track.
He was slightly shorter than Chris, who is six one which would make him around five eleven. He wasn't as solid either, with the build more of a tennis player or swimmer than a Rugby Player. Shaggy blond hair, piercing blue eyes and a few days stubble added up to a fairly pleasing package on the eye in an aging surfer dude style. Not as pleasing to me as my taller black-haired husband, forty one and no grey yet, with a solid body kept firm from evenings in the gym and weekends playing Rugby, grey eyes, a ready smile and a happy go lucky nature, I felt I was a lucky woman.
After a few more minutes the familiar honking of a siren announced the arrival of the Gendarmes who took a look at the two assailants and with a smile and a laugh snapped on some handcuffs and radioed for transport to take them away. I got the impression this wasn't the first time the two miscreants had been in cuffs, and probably wouldn't be the last.
Chris beckoned me over, so I left a ten euro note under my coffee cup, waved at the waitress who gave a gallic smile and nod to show she'd seen me paying, gathered up all our stuff and walked across.
"Hun, I need to give the police a statement which we can do at a restaurant and Sandy and Carl here would like us to join them so they can buy us lunch. What do you think?"
What did I think? We were on a two-week break on the French Atlantic coast, this was day three, Monday mid-morning and we hadn't planned much. I was aiming to get onto the beach so I could lose my top half tan lines, but we had plenty of time for sunbathing, so I supposed I was happy enough. It was only lunch and if they were hard work, we could always make our excuses and leave, besides which they were grateful and most of them younger than us and good looking so even if only for the eye candy it should be fun.
"Sounds like a plan" I said, to be greeted with whoops and cheers, just to prove they're American I suppose.
The two policemen told us they would join us to take statements from Chris, Sandy and Carl and if anyone else had seen what happened then any further corroboration would be welcome as well, so it looked as if I was making a statement too.
Chris made some introductions, as I'd already gathered from the conversation about the police Sandy and Carl were the older pair and as yet we didn't know any of the other names. They gave a round of "Darren, Paul, Charley, Ginny, Carol, Mona, Mike, and Deecee, which I promptly forgot, I remembered Charley was a girl but couldn't swear which one. One girl was ginger haired, one girl had a grade one buzz cut, there were a couple of blonde girls and one blonde boy. Everyone seemed fit and healthy with a clean-cut fresh-faced beauty about them all.
We pitched up at a beachfront restaurant that was above our usual lunchtime budget but the advantage of it being a bit pricey was that they had space for twelve. We were put on the sundeck sitting under blue parasols overlooking the rocky end of the beach where the blue Atlantic Ocean crashed into the granite rocks giving a gentle background noise that was nicer than any muzak could hope to be.
Sandy and Carl were struggling to get the waiter to understand their non-existent French, so Chris and I took on translating roles, being asked to order six bottles of Champagne, which we downgraded to Prosecco for a €400 saving. No one seemed to notice and as I was planning on offering to pay for the wine I was a lot happier that way. We did the same thing for food, explaining our way through the menu and ordering on everyone's behalf, their tastes were fairly adventurous with several plates of oysters, octopus salad and snails being served up. No one went for the burger or pizza option, I had moules if you're interested.
Once the food was ordered, bread was being nibbled and prosecco quaffed Chris and I sat back and relaxed just in time for the police to arrive and take the three protagonists from the morning's excitement away for a statement. On their return I was asked to make a witness statement which I was happy to, not least because the policeman was only in his mid-twenties and smelled delicious, plus who doesn't love a man in uniform?
Once I returned the prosecco was in full flow and there was a happy buzz around the table, one of the younger men with a birds nest of black hair above a smiley face, good looking in a boy next door kind of way, pointed at an empty chair between him and Sandy, down the table a way from Chris. I gave hubs a wave and settled down with a large glass. Sandy turned to me and asked what we were doing in Mimizan.
Mimizan is a small town in south western France on the Atlantic coast, we'd fallen in love with the region several years before and were slowly working our way through the entire coast two weeks at a time. We tended to come in early September as the weather was still reliably fantastic but the crowds had gone and accommodation was much more affordable. We had a two-bedroom villa for two weeks for under a thousand pounds and as my friend Jane was flying down to join us on Tuesday it cut the costs even further.
Sandy confirmed the cost savings, they had a four-building complex a mile or two outside town with its own pool and no neighbours and were paying half what they'd pay for something similar in California, even after they'd paid for the flights it was cheaper.
"So how do you all know each other? Do you work together?" I asked
Sandy gave a small laugh into her prosecco. "Yeah, sorta. Yeah. We do actually work together. We're making a movie. Your husband stopped the little asshole from stealing my bag with all our filming permits, work visas and insurance documents. If that had gone we'd have needed to get duplicates sent over from the states, but some of it you need to apply for in person so it may have meant flying some of us back which would have messed up the visas and work permits . I'd just been to the Mairie to get local stamps and countersignatures. If they'd gotten away with the bag, we'd have been done, no movie. And as independent movie makers no movie, no business. Your man may have quite literally saved our asses."
Carl was chatting to Chris across on the far side of the table, I tried to butt in to see if he knew what we'd stumbled over but they were too far away and seemed embroiled in a sports related chat, so I was never going to get in there.
"I saw him come flying over the road Man" the boy next to me was enthusiastically recounting "He hit them like an express train, like some Linebacker or something"
I took a sip from my prosecco and laughed. "Not a Linebacker. Openside Flanker"
