Monday-Wednesday

Fags not too many, drink minimal

Packing agony. Especially the whole do-I-need-a-jacket-or-will-it-be-too-hot question. Usually take my nice light raincoat but unfortunately left it in New York, either in cinema on my last night when wept so copiously at the end of 'Gladiator' that was too distracted to remember it, or chez New York boy who has been using it for foul sexual purposes in my absence and now has had to chuck it out because it's too revolting. I suspect (b) but he is denying it. Well, he would, wouldn't he. Still, it means I have NO LIGHTWEIGHT JACKET OF ANY DESCRIPTION. Hooray, shopping opportunity! Then remember I have a white raincoat which looks like a doctor's coat and I keep meaning to give to Sparkle as it will go perfectly with her naughty nurse's outfit. Take that. Hope no-one expects me to do any emergency operations, though.

Thursday

Large quantities of fags, an Americano cocktail and a bottle plus god knows how much very good red wine

Arrive in Paris to be met at Charles de Gaulle by Sophie, my lovely French PR, looking super-chic as always. Sophie is definitely a tart. Get into taxi and head off for dinner with French journos: Marie-Caroline from French ELLE, who is going to do an article on me and Sparkle for the website, and Alexandre from Madame Figaro. Alexandre just described me in an article as 'pulpeuse', which sounds awful but is (allegedly) a Good Thing, meaning a chick with a bit of flesh on her bones, hopefully in the right place. Don't know M-C but she endears herself to me at once by spotting my strapless frock and immediately unbuttoning her cardi to reveal her own cleavage with great enthusiasm. M-C obviously also a tart. Eat noix Saint Jacques (little scallops) in saffron sauce and magret de canard (duck). Also a rather weird pudding which is poached dried plums in eau de vie (brandy) which is of course why I ordered it.

Friday

Practically no drinking at all, v virtuous.

Unpack, the horror. Have told Sophie of my shopping needs -- Montana perfume and jewellery from this beautiful shop she took me to last year. I got a ring with citrines, amethyst and peridots which I wear all the time. Stella Duffy warned me that the shop would be very expensive but it wasn't, hah! So definitely want to go back there. Can't today because me and French editor are going to Rouen to do a book signing. Trip fine but since (a) the weather is good and (b) France are playing (football, European Cup) not a single person shows up. Still, the bookshop has got me a nice plate of strawberries (for Strawberry Tattoo) and some customers have rung in to request signed copies, so not a total loss. Buy Chinese food with French ed. and consume it on the way back in the train, making loud smacking eating noises to punish bloke who has selfishly insisted on sitting in our compartment.

Saturday

Fags, beer, wine, champagne, wine, champagne again, may stop keeping this part of the diary as too embarrassing.

Festival du Polar at the Place de la Bastille, big annual French crime event. Sit in huge tent ostensibly signing books for members of public. It's very hot. Drink huge amounts of water and keep nipping across the Place to the loo in the nearby bar. Am talking a bit of French by now, not that I have the opportunity to practice much on the public, who are avoiding me like the plague. Still, sell a few copies of 'Too Many Blondes' to French brunettes or, more commonly, blokes who are buying them for their brunette girlfriends/wives. At 6:00 my friend Brice turns up, looking very alternative Parisian trendy in shades and streetwear, with his little Scottish terrier Mingus on a lead. Drink cocktails (whoops, forgot to put those in) with him, Sophie, Penelope (v elegant French journo who did article on me last visit). Then go to a book party round the corner, having picked up a couple of further French tart friends of Sophie's -- Gaelle, very pretty brunette, and Cathy, a redheaded randy tart with mad staring eyes and a sexy little crop top. Eat huge amounts and drink lots of bad red wine. Go to two parties, snagging cabs all over Paris. Brice not at all unhappy at being surrounded by positive harem of what, for France, are now raving alcoholic tarts. End up at fab party in eighteenth-century mansion, sensibly stripped bare apart from huge quantities of drink, with a very pretty little inner garden. Lie on grass, tickle Mingus, contemplate existence. Decide not half bad. Finally stagger home -- dancing difficult as am wearing flimsy sandals instead of nice solid dancing shoes -- and cab back with Sophie, leaving Brice and Beatrice (another French friend, v cool chick) making up after love fight in garden. Brice later complains that every time he got up for drinks or the loo, Cathy backed him into a corner and attempted to have her way with him. She's tres formidable.

Sunday

Lots of Solpadeine. Beer.

Have to get up at 10:00 to make it to Cafe Litteraire at Place de la Bastille to discuss state of French crime writing. Fortunately have brought codeine-based painkillers. Cafe Lit. of course starts really late and then runs on endlessly as loads of French blokes with stubble, Gauloises, and glasses of beer argue it out. The moderator is the same guy, Phillipe, who, last year, asked me and Stella if we were 'members of the Women's Lib', causing us to laugh so hard we nearly wet ourselves. He clearly has not forgotten me and is barely friendly. Take my revenge by, when he asks the women present what it's like writing crime as a women, pointing out in bad French that no-one EVER asks that question of a bloke and how sexist it is. Ask all the blokes what it's like writing crime as a man. They are all silent. Enjoy myself tremendously but bet Philippe is never going to let me near a panel of his again. Tant pis.

Monday

Fags. Japanese beer. More beer. Mirabelle brandy.

Shopping with Sophie, hoorah! First we get in a cab and go to Sephora (same as US store) to buy perfume. I get my Montana for a ridiculously cheap price and thus can afford to buy some nail polish (L'Oreal v cheap in Paris) and Yves Saint Laurent sparkly body glitter for my sister's birthday (aah). Sophie goes crazy over Clarins and spends more than I do. Walk to the Marais -- gay area, very pretty, very pretty boys. Sophie points out a shop for gay boys called TTBM -- Tres Tres Bien Membree, which means Very Very Well Hung. Unfortunately have forgotten my camera so cannot take a photograph for Tart City alas. Buy more things. Then tragedy strikes -- it's a heatwave AND there's a fire in the city, v selfish of fire as all the taxis are diverted and we have to WALK HOME IN HIGH HEELS the horror of it all. Collapse exhausted on bed. No-one knows how much I suffer. Finally shower and drag myself out again to meet Beatrice for dinner. Eat lots of Japanese brochettes, gossip about Brice -- he's a film director just about to start making a 30-minute musical and as a result is v self-absorbed (when isn't he). Have a nice girl talk (subject: men: can't live with them, can't kill them except in a ridiculously narrow set of mitigating circumstances). Go to a brasserie for dessert but they have run out of my favourite fresh fruit gratin. Sulk. No-one knows how much I suffer, Part Two. Go to another brasserie for crepes for me. Brice finally turns up and tells us latest horror stories about pre-production for musical. Drink pear brandy (Mirabelle). Have cunningly forced them to come to area of my hotel so am a one-minute walk from home. Whee!

Tuesday

Beer. Kir. White wine, lots.

Catch train to Montpellier. I am going to another crime festival, in Frontignan, which is a small village ten minutes from Montpellier. But since I'm in France already the organisers decided it would be easier to bring me down a few days earlier rather than make me fly back and forward. So I have three days to kill in the South of France. Quel dommage. Met at Montpellier station by the festival organisers, Michel and Martine. They are a couple and they fight a lot of the time in a very passionate French way -- not about l'amour, as far as I can see, but about the festival arrangements. Actually it seems to be mostly Martine telling Michel that he's wrong about everything and Michel trying feebly to disagree. It's very Italian -- I used to do that with my ex all the time (and of course I WAS right). Feel very much at home. They whisk me off to the sea for a lavish dinner -- giant prawns with mayonnaise, mussels, more giant prawns, bourride (white fish cooked in tomato sauce thickened with aioli, garlic mayonnaise). Finish with sorbet (virtue). Have a stimulating conversation about psychoanalysis and the crime novel -- in French, wey-hey! -- with a guy called Herve and his gorgeous flamenco-dancing wife Laurence. Another tart. Fall into bed.

Wednesday

Beer. Kir. Rose wine.

Unpack. Again. Do an interview at ten in the morning (quel horreur) with local newspaper at a cafe outside the hotel. They have, with near-psychotic cruelty, brought a photographer. Cram on my sunglasses immediately. Then take a bus out to the beach. Am pestered by a load of Moroccan boys commenting on my tits. Great pick-up line, guys. (Wish I knew how to say that in French.) Find a little fenced-off bit of beach with loungers and umbrellas and take refuge there -- Moroccan boys don't have the money to come in, haha. It's only 40 francs so feel expense more than justified. Eat more noix St Jacques with tagliatelle (overcooked, the French style) in saffron sauce. Swim. Read Walter Satterthwaite's Masquerade -- detective novel set in France in the 1920s. Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein are characters, very funny and well-observed. A real caper comedy. Swim. Read. Etc. Finally take bus back from beach -- more Moroccan boys listening to music v loud and poking me with the aerial of their stereo. Annoying. Get dressed, go out to local internet cafe. Bloke running it asks me out to the local music festival on but I decline. Feeling too knackered to spend the evening fending him off, and I want to have dinner alone without speaking French to anyone but the waiter, what bliss. Eat tuna carpaccio and tournedos Rossini (steak with foie gras on top). Floating Islands for pudding. Too sweet, alas. Take rest of wine back to hotel minibar (waiter finds me a cork, thinks it's hilarious). I watch If Only on TV instead -- not bad, but a bit too London-trendy for my liking. No-one I know lives in flats painted those colours and there are no cool half-empty bars with piano players doling out advice to the lovelorn. Ah well. Fall asleep half-pissed with the air conditioning on. Bliss.

Thursday

Beer. Kir Royale. Large quantities of red and white wine -- but not quite enough, alas.

The festival is getting underway. Get up in time for hotel breakfast and read interview with myself in local paper. Everyone in the hotel has read it already and the woman on reception gives me a big smile as she hands it to me. Feel smug. Photo is rather odd. Thank God I wore my sunglasses. At the internet cafe the bloke says: "I didn't realise you were THE Lauren Henderson", which I find amusing. Like he knows more than one. Anyway, have lunch with Martine (paella, not bad) and go to see the worst work-in-progress theatre piece I have ever seen. Like a student exercise first week in drama school. Pull it to pieces as Martine whisks me to station to meet other British writers, John Harvey and Bill James, who are arriving today. We do a TV interview with them getting off the train and then me answering a load of rapid-fire questions in French from the journalist, God knows what I said. Later the three of us do a panel discussion at a French bookshop called Fnac. It's a chain. John and I think the word Fnac is hysterically funny but none of the French do, so our jokes fall on stony soil. Usual debate about British crime writing, hampered somewhat by the fact that neither John nor Bill read any apart from their own and a couple of friends. John says I'm not representative of British crime writing. Get rather huffy. Just cos I don't write series featuring gloomy cynical cops with bad nutritional habits living in rainy provincial towns. Pout. Have my revenge by talking about critical theory a lot, which he loathes. There is a funny clash between Anglo-Saxon and Gallic styles of crime writing -- Herve turns up and asks the only question. First he says that he thinks women can't write violence because they are more gentle and thus can't imagine it as well, bless him. Tell him to go off and read Vicki Hendricks and Val McDermid. Then he says isn't crime writing a way of exorcising the demons inside and goes off on a description of how he thinks the impulse to caress someone is v closely tied to the impulse to strangle them. All good interesting stuff but John, called upon to respond, says abruptly that he doesn't know who Herve is but that he'll be happy to get up a collection for his psychiatrist's bill. Whoops. Herve not I think too offended. Promptly nickname him Herve the Perve. Funny how John and Bill write novels about child abuse, etc. but don't want to talk about why at all -- it's a keeping-it-at-arm's-length technique, like men who don't want to talk about their feelings. Dinner that evening in very posh restaurant -- beautiful, leafy terrace lined by conservatory, fountains and flowers, food brought under silver domes, didn't know they did it anymore. Unfortunately the food sucks -- and really small portions too, which is ironic. I am starving after my main course but there's a guy the size of a small whale next to me who doesn't seem hungry so I am hindered from ordering more out of shame. Later I find out that the other Brits ordered chips down the other end of the table. Bastards. Still, have a great conversation with Baby Whale Bloke, who edits a crime magazine, about film noir, which keeps us going till we've all drunk enough to loosen up. My dessert, lemon meringue tart, is worse than something you would buy from a flea-bitten pastry shop down the Holloway Road. Still, I am hungry so I eat it. The other Brits go to bed at eleven-thirty but I am determined to maintain the honour of the nation and only get up to go at a quarter-past-one as Michel, eyes red and shiny, stands up calling out: "Anyone want a digestif?" Actually I could have lasted longer but we'd been an hour without any more wine and I really need my fuel if I'm going to keep going while talking in French, goddammit. Walk daintily back to hotel in my new high-heeled sandals, fending off blokes who shout "Ooh la la" at me. Didn't know they said that any more. Find it a bit wearing after a while.

Friday

Red wine, red wine, red wine, rose wine.

We're on the road, moving to Frontignan, where the festival is taking place. Actually we're staying in Sete, a pretty little village just down the road, as Frontignan hardly has any hotels; we're in the Grand Hotel, on the waterfront. It's a beautiful old stone building with an inside courtyard which has been glassed-over with a huge skylight; my room is actually off one of the balconies which run all around the outside of the courtyard. I hang over the edge and take aerial views of the other Brit writers sitting on the sofas, three stories below. Lunch in Frontignan, loads of us outside on benches at little rustic bar. Lots of squid. It seems to be the local theme. Squid pops up in practically everything. Bill James is getting worried they're going to put it in the ice-cream. Nicholas Blincoe and William McIlvanney arrive; Nicholas I know already but I'm very excited to meet William as I used to love his books (haven't re-read them for ages, hence the past tense). Val McDermid has already assured me that he's a good guy, which was a big relief. Always so depressing when you meet your heroes and they're seedy old guys or pathetic attention-seeking emotional cripples (and Val knows who I mean by that!). William was apparently described to Nicholas, who had to meet him at the airport, as looking like Magnum; he's got one of those lean, lined Scots faces with very blue eyes and a grey moustache which, surprisingly, works. Reflect how unfair it is that he'll be handsome till he dies -- men allowed to have lines, in fact it can add to their appeal. Hopefully by the time I age there'll have been a Tart Revolution and all my wrinkles will be highly desirable. Do our Brit-writers panel. It's more or less predictable, not the fault of Maxim Jakubowski, who's chairing it. (Maxim is the eminence noir of Brit crime fiction with very hard-boiled tastes. He is also the Erotica King of Japan where his rude books apparently outsell Anne Rice's.) It's just that there are too many of us and no clear theme. Things spring to life a bit when I mention that I'm writing an anti-Bridget Jones novel and a group of young chicks in the audience immediately start a discussion about how much they hate her. I think some of the guys on the panel think this isn't terribly serious but sod them, what do they know about sexual politics? Afterwards the chicks come up to me with a copy of Strawberry Tattoo to sign, bless 'em. (Though there were three of them and only one book, which I thought was a tad mean). Go back to hotel, sleep, get dressed for dinner which is on the bank of a canal, with jazz playing from a barge. All very nice but it's bloody windy and all the people who were here last year are wrapped up in huge sweaters and saying things like "Oh, did nobody tell you it would get really cold?" sympathetically, without of course offering a loan of their sweaters. I have dressed for effect rather than warmth and am freezing my tits off. Drink loads of red wine -- the food is canteen-style and needs drowning -- and catch an early minibus back to the hotel. We have a few of these with drivers who are allegedly at our beck and call. Not bad, eh? At the hotel we all want to drink something but, bizarrely, there is no bar. All the British lot go into spasm, particularly me -- "What do you MEAN there's no bar? Isn't this a GRAND HOTEL? I want a bar and I want it NOW!" -- and William. We head for a sweet little back room off the courtyard, all leather armchairs and soft lights, and convince the guy on the front desk to bring us drinks. It takes 45 minutes. I go up to my room to get the bottle of rose from my minibar in the meantime and drink it out of the bottle. I JUST WANT A FUCKING DRINK AND I DON'T CARE WHAT I LOOK LIKE. Offer it around but everyone else, oddly enough, declines. By the time the drinks arrive the atmosphere is wake-like. William and I sing "Every Time We Say Goodbye" and "In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning" to each other; he does some Tony Bennett, I do some Marilyn and a French publisher obliges with some pretty French love songs which have the refrain "I loved you. And you loved me." Everything goes horribly wrong for the lovers. Sundered hearts, etc. We get maudlin. A French chick with a voice like honey over broken gravel -- three-pack a day habit -- sings a Jeanne Moreau song, something about broken dreams and hopeless memories. We get even more maudlin. Also the echo in the courtyard outside is making us self-conscious. People start leaving, presumably to go to bed and sob hopelessly about their own personal broken dreams and hopeless memories. I don't quite make it to the bitter end. Fall into bed fortunately too drunk to get too miserable over sundered hearts, foolish nostalgia, broken dreams, etc.

Saturday

Muscat aperitif, white wine, rose wine, rose wine, red wine, gin and tonic, Calvados.

Lunch at charming little restaurant with bamboo roof. I am feeling delicate as a dodgy mussel at dinner has pretty much cleaned out my insides completely in the course of the night. Since John Harvey arrived complaining in detail about the over-liquid state of his stomach, all I have to do is to tell the Brits that I have a case of the John Harveys to be instantly understood. Still, manage to eat lunch, though avoiding the fish, and drink two glasses of wine, so obviously the mussel has passed through and can do no more damage. Hoorah! In the afternoon am grabbed by Martine and frogmarched into tent to sign books. Am feeling v jovial and chatter away to all the poor sods who stop at my table, hence selling large amounts of copies. V smug. John Harvey is in a bad mood because he had to do a debate with French and Spanish writers, involving huge amounts of lengthy cross-translation and an annoyingly passionate Mexican called Paco (apparently v famous) who grabbed the mike and shouted into it, apropos of nothing: "Now I want to go outside and vomeeet on the grave of Agatha Christeee!" The moderator asked John if he wanted to respond but he took the dignified course and declined. Told him that he should have said that he'd be perfectly willing to vomit spit on the grave of any Mexican crime writers -- if he'd heard of any. Dinner in main square in Frontignan, entertained by extraordinarily eccentric brass band who do cover versions of "You're The One That I Want" and "Money Money Money", dressed in berets and false moustaches. There is a very pretty euphonium player who most of the men fall in love with. All the blokes are pig-ugly, unlucky me. No totty to ogle. "Aye," Willie McIlvanney breathes gloomily in a moment of Celtic depression during the Abba cover, "that's true enough. It's a rich man's world." Disperse to local bar across the square and keep drinking. Return from toilet to find Nicholas flapping at my bag -- apparently I dropped a cigarette inside and it set fire to my raincoat. Brush it off blithely, thinking he was exaggerating, till I get home and find that there is indeed a hole in my right lapel. Try to cover up the burnt bits with nail polish.

Sunday

Last day. Wake up this morning feeling keen to go home. Afternoon spent signing: in the evening we eat at a lovely restaurant which is literally on the sea. The sand comes right up to the terrace and is level with it, and just beyond there's a pretty little bay. Have brought my swimsuit and though rather embarrassed at stripping off in front of assembled multitude, Bill James is doing it and he's seventy-five (though very well-preserved, he looks a lot longer) so decide it would be cowardly to hold back. The water is wonderful. Swim out of the bay accompanied by a young bloke who works for the festival and wants to have an in-depth conversation about crime writing while swimming. On our return Nicholas says: "You should have talked a bit louder, Lauren, I couldn't make out everything you were saying when you got beyond the bay". Splash him heavily. Put on my t-shirt, which says "Little Miss Drama." on it. Nicholas says that if we're all wearing self-descriptive t-shirts he wants one saying "Arrogant Northern Bigot". We try to translate this but we can tell from our listeners' appalled expressions that it sounds much worse in French. Over ice-cream and grappa another black-wearing young bloke next to me wants to talk about new UK rock groups. His accent is strong, I've had a bit to drink and it's really hard to understand French people when they pronounce things like "Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine" and "The Verve". After half an hour, nice as he is, I feel like my brain is seizing up. Blame it on the grappa, which is the kind of thing you can run your car on in an emergency. Up early next morning -- dragged away to waiting minibus, waving, kissing and sobbing in maudlin fashion over the necks of Martine, Michel, and everyone else. Glad to be going home, though.

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