‘Not the front. Let’s find a back street. And before we go,’ said Jacques, ‘we should drink a toast to our future work.’
Thomas lifted his glass. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I propose we drink to that phrase of yours, if I remember it right. “The meeting-point of thought and flesh”.’
They drank solemnly. ‘Don’t finish,’ said Jacques. ‘I have another. It was something you said, in your ancient French – your former language. It was a fine phrase and I think we should drink to that as well. It was the words that made me know you would be my friend, which is why I ran back to the pension to get food and drink. I propose a toast to: “The way in which functions the mind of the human”.’
They drained their glasses. ‘If,’ said Thomas, ‘I am to be your friend and we are to speak in French, we will need to find some better words for “mind”.’
‘Very well. You can be the master of words.’
‘I may force some Anglo-Saxon distinctions on you, or we may improvise with German.’
‘Good. But now . . . To breakfast.’
They laboured back over the cold sand and walked into the town, heads down, glancing up only to see if they could find a café that was open.
That afternoon, when Prince Albert had slowly cleared the plates of langoustine shells, the Muscadet bottle, peaches and grapes, Richard said he needed to go up to the room for a rest. He had returned at two in the morning from the gambling room of the Trouville casino and was enigmatic about how the night had gone for him. Sonia set off with Thomas to hire a boat.
‘Do you know how to sail?’ she asked, as they walked along the front.
‘Yes. I learned that summer at Mablethorpe. But I imagine we would take a man with us.’
It was a hot afternoon, and most of the holidaymakers stayed indoors behind the shutters of the new Norman villas. Sonia wore a wide-brimmed straw hat held in place and fastened beneath the chin by a pink scarf; even so, she felt uncomfortably warm in her long skirt and high-necked blouse.
‘Do you like Deauville?’ she said.
‘It needs to be used a little more, doesn’t it? I don’t like the way that all the streets are at right angles to one another. I think I like the look of Trouville better. It has more character.’
‘That’s where the boat man is.’
‘Perhaps we should stay and have dinner in a dirty old café after our sailing.’
‘I would love to. But . . . Well, we can’t, can we?’
‘No.’
There was a pause, then Sonia brightened. ‘And in any case the food at the pension—’
‘I know. Those langoustines. And the little cheese things afterwards. I could grow very fat in that dining room.’
They came to the boat man’s house down a small path on the hillside above the bay; it seemed to belong to an earlier century than the houses of the resort and there was a long silence after they had knocked at the splintery front door. They could hear an old man’s voice calling out from inside, then the sound of boots crossing a flagged floor. The door scraped back and they found themselves looking into the startled face of a tousle-haired young man, whose eyes moved up and down Sonia’s figure, from the bonnet to the boots, finally coming to rest on Thomas, somewhere in the region of his chest.
‘Yes, yes, come in,’ he said, when Thomas explained why they were there. ‘Come and sit down for a moment.’ He pulled back two chairs from the table in the cool parlour and disappeared.
Sonia and Thomas looked round the room, where lobster pots and fishing tackle were piled up between the chairs. He raised one eyebrow.
‘Can you swim, Queenie?’
‘Stop it. You know I can.’
The young man returned. ‘This is my grandfather. It is his boat.’
Thomas held out his hand to be shaken by the owner and found it grasped with painful firmness.
‘Guillaume,’ said the powerful old man. ‘You can call me that. My grandson is also Guillaume. Little Guillaume.’
‘And your son?’ said Thomas. ‘Is he—’
‘I have no son. The boy’s mother is my daughter. I always wished for sons, but alas . . . So the lad and I run the business together. Staying in Deauville, are you? I remember when it was just a swamp. Even young Guillaume remembers, don’t you? Where are you from?’
‘From England,’ said Sonia.
The old man looked surprised. He rubbed his hand through the white bristles of his cheek. ‘We’ve never met a . . . Anyway, I will send the boy with you. Guillaume, don’t forget to look at the pots on the way up this evening. Mind your step on the way down to the boat.’
Young Guillaume beamed with impatience. ‘Shall we go?’
He went ahead and held out his hand for Sonia as she descended, lifting her skirts to avoid the sharpest of the small rocks. He took them to a jetty and helped them into a wooden skiff, which he then rowed out to an anchored sailing boat. When they were safely embarked, he took off his shirt and shoes and flung them down on the deck; then he rowed the skiff back and attached it to a wooden buoy closer to the shore; to Thomas and Sonia’s surprise, he then dived over the side and swam back to them, hauling himself up into the sailing boat, disdaining Thomas’s offer of help, and slithering aboard like a familiar dolphin, shaking off the drops of seawater as he set about rigging the sails. Sonia sat on a bench, her lips pressed together, trying not to catch Thomas’s eye.
Guillaume soon had the boat heading out into the bay, picking up what small breeze fluttered in the torpid afternoon. He had replaced his shirt, with mumbled apologies, but his rolled cotton trousers still dripped onto the deck. As he whisked the tiller from side to side, shouting instructions when the boom swung across, he kept his gaze fixed on Sonia, as though not quite able to believe that a woman as elegant as this was in his grandfather’s battered craft. Thomas asked a few polite questions about the resort and the weather, which Guillaume answered without taking his eyes from Sonia.
Eventually, after a sudden change of tack, he found himself opposite Thomas. ‘And you, Monsieur, you are also from England?’
‘No,’ said Thomas, ‘I am from Vannes. In Brittany. Do you know it?’
‘No, no, we have not travelled far in my family.’
‘Really, Thomas,’ said Sonia in English, ‘you are a child sometimes.’
‘I know. But not for much longer. I shall soon be twenty-one and then I shall find the cares of the world pressing in on me. There’s not much time left to be a child in.’
‘No. Not for either of us, I suppose.’ Sonia looked over the sea for a moment. ‘But he seemed to believe you, didn’t he? I must say your French is extraordinary. What happened?’
‘I did a rapid course last night. It lasted twelve hours, from when we said goodnight in the hall, to about ten this morning. I spent the whole time with Jacques, the young man from the boarding house. I have never met anyone like him. He is wonderful. He is just like me—’
‘Is that why he is wonderful?’
‘Let me finish! He is just like me, but completely different at the same time. He has had all the same thoughts yet they have come from a different life, a different world. It’s like two men bumping into each other in the jungle when one started in Iceland and one in China – and finding they are reading the same book. He has a marvellous mind, he’s so lucid, yet at the same time he makes me laugh. I want to laugh all the time when I’m with him, though I think he is a sad man, really. I have never had a friend like this, ever. The boys in the village, I mean, I liked fighting them and the boys at school, or at Cambridge there were one or two, of course, but that was like befriending the man in the next cell. But Jacques – Jacques, I feel as though I’ve been waiting all my life to meet him.’
Sonia laughed. ‘My dear Thomas, you sound as if you are in love.’
The boat tracked back and forth, heading west into the Deauville bay and then beyond.
‘Stay out as long as possible,’ Sonia told Guillaume, who nodded vigorously. She
rearranged her hat, to shade her from the sun, and settled back against the side of the boat.
‘And you?’ said Thomas, looking up from where his fingers split the white water by the hull.
‘Me what?’
‘Are you in love?’
‘Oh, Thomas, you cannot ask that question of a married woman.’ Sonia looked away.
Thomas knew the answer, but thought Sonia might like to tell. ‘Did love come?’ he said. ‘As mother said it would?’
‘It’s not right to ask me such questions.’
‘Did it?’
‘Yes,’ said Sonia. ‘Yes, if you really insist on knowing. I have great affection and respect for Richard. He has many fine qualities and I like trying to manage his house.’
‘It sounds as though you like the job of being a wife more than—’
‘I do enjoy it. I like cooking, as you know. I try out some of the old receipts I learned from Mrs Travers.’
‘Sheep’s head broth?’
‘Do you remember that?’
‘I used to dread Tuesday suppers. Every day from the previous Wednesday.’
Sonia laughed. ‘Kidney pudding he likes. And I got away with giblet pie.’
‘Why is money so short?’
‘I think the sugar business has not proved as easy as we thought. There have been sugar brokers in London for a long time, and some of them are very large and powerful companies. And the partners in the business have been reckless. There’s one called Jackman who has been especially ill-advised, I am told.’
‘Is it a problem with buyers or suppliers?’
‘It’s no use asking me. I don’t understand how the business works and I have been told very little about it. My husband says it’s not something for me to know about.’
‘And do you mind that?’
‘Of course not. He does his work and I do mine. Though I wish sometimes he would not be quite so strict. My dress allowance has been cut to almost nothing. I made the curtains for the bedrooms myself. It’s not that I mind or that I think it is beneath me, but he ordered four new coats for himself. He says he must have them to impress his clients. And I am hardly allowed out at all.’
‘Poor girl. No parties.’
‘I am not able to go to parties because he has sent the little coach away and I am forbidden to take a cab.’
‘Poor Queenie. I am sorry.’
‘It doesn’t really matter. As long as I please him.’
‘And when will you start a family?’
Sonia stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. ‘I have been to see a doctor about it. He says he can see nothing wrong with me, but I fear there may be. Sir James Bannerman was his name. He has a brass plaque in Wimpole Street. I asked Mama if she would pay his account because I didn’t want my husband to know.’
‘Did he have no solution at all?’
‘He recommended patience.’
‘Might it not be worth Richard going to see a doctor?’
‘No, no! I did mention it to him but he told me he was perfectly healthy. No, Thomas, I think the problem lies with me.’
They were far from land and could make out no more than the smudges and outlines of the town.
‘Sonia, would you mind if I went for a swim?’
‘But you have no bathing costume.’
‘I know. But I love the feel of the water on my skin. It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world, to swim in a deep sea.’
‘How will you dry yourself?’
‘The sun will dry me quickly. I’ll explain to Guillaume. You look the other way while I undress and dive in.’
Guillaume grinned incredulously when the plan was explained; he slackened off the sail and a few moments later Thomas dived into the cold green water. He surfaced, spluttering and exclaiming.
‘It’s wonderful! I feel like a primitive animal in his element at last. Sonia, you must come in.’
Sonia laughed. ‘You silly boy.’
‘I mean it!’Thomas disappeared under the water and re-emerged on the other side of the boat. He gripped on to the side, gasping and laughing.
‘It’s so wonderful. You feel it wash you clean. It’s like being an animal, a porpoise. I’m sure we must once have lived in the sea.’
‘Is it cold?’
‘Not at all. Do come in, Sonia. I’ll make Guillaume look the other way, then I’ll hold up my shirt for you when you want to come back.’
‘Thomas, don’t be ridiculous. I am a respectable married lady with—’
‘No, you’re not! You’re little Sonia from Torrington. The little girl from the big house. Or the not so big house in fact, but don’t tell your husband.’
‘I’m not telling him anything of this nonsense.’
‘Will you please do what I say, Sonia. Get in at once.’
‘You are a bully, Thomas.’
‘I am a strong character, Sonia. There is a difference.’
In Sonia’s green eyes he saw the look he had most loved in any human being in his short life, the look of modesty at war with daring. He admired both qualities in his sister, the fact that they could exist together and the way that daring always won.
He explained to Guillaume that he must fix his gaze on the land behind Trouville until such time as he was told otherwise.
‘Sonia, tell me when you’re about to be indecent and I shall dive under the waves. Then jump in.’
He could see Sonia’s skirt and stockings being laid on the bench on the other side of the sail; they were followed by some undergarments, and when she was dressed in only a shift she called out, ‘I’m coming!’
Thomas sank beneath the waves and held his nose for as long as he could. When he came up, it was to hear Sonia screaming from the other side of the boat. ‘It’s freezing!’
He swam round to her, laughing so hard that he could barely breathe.
‘Isn’t it marvellous?’
‘It’s freezing! You horrible man, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Swim up and down, you’ll soon get warm.’
Sonia did as she was told, her head above the gentle waves, its hair still neatly parted in the centre as she cautiously breaststroked to and fro.
‘You liar, you horrid liar,’ she spluttered through her chattering teeth.
‘But you did it, you did it!’
‘I know. And now I want to get out.’
‘All right. Look the other way while I clamber in. Then I’ll hold up my shirt for you.’
Thomas heaved himself up over the stern and pulled on his cotton drawers. ‘Trouville!’he shouted to Guillaume. ‘See if you can make out your grandfather’s cottage. Tell me what he’s cooking for your dinner. Come on, Sonia. Lift yourself up while I look towards England. I am holding up my shirt for you. Dear old England! If she only knew . . .’
Sonia managed to pull herself, shivering, back into the boat and put on Thomas’s shirt. She went back to her place, shaking and laughing.
‘You’ll soon warm up,’ said Thomas. ‘Do you want my jacket?’ He draped it round her shoulders and hugged her as he did so. ‘You are a sport, Sonia. Dear God, let no one in the world ever deny that.’ He kissed the salt water on her cheek.
‘All right, Guillaume,’ he said, ‘you can look now, so—’
‘No, he can’t. My legs! Tell him to wait.’
When Sonia was dry enough to dress again, Thomas went to sit with Guillaume in the bow until such time as Sonia said they could turn round.
Thomas pulled on his trousers and resumed his seat, allowing the early evening sun to dry his bare chest.
‘All right, Guillaume, once round the bay, then home for dinner.’
‘Very well, Monsieur.’
Sonia was still shivering slightly, but apart from that, and her damp hair, had so resumed her former bearing that no one could have told that she was not the most conventional young wife in Deauville.
That night Jacques packed his small suitcase to return home: a white shirt that was a patchwork
of Tante Mathilde’s repeated needlework, a dissecting knife, a pair of hairbrushes given to him by Abbé Henri. He stowed them neatly against the check lining of the cheap case, but as he did so, he felt sick. The months ahead were like a tundra, a grey plain through which he would have to drive himself until he could arrange to see Thomas again.
He sat down on a cane-seated chair in the window, where he parted the shutters and looked down on to the garden. Prince Albert was delivering what looked like a jug of citron pressé to Sonia and her husband at the table beneath the magnolia. Jacques felt his heart giveanother lurch. Sonia looked flushed beneath her hat and a little uneasy; there seemed an awkwardness between her and the English husband. Yet in her open face, her pale pink dress with its white sash and the gentle movements of her hands as she stirred her drink, Jacques saw all the qualities that had been absent from his life. Perhaps his anguish was more complicated than he had thought.
When they said goodbye on the beach the next morning, Jacques wanted Thomas to swear an oath in blood, a promise that they would always be friends, but feared that Thomas might think it puerile.
‘But you will write a letter from England, won’t you?’
‘Yes, I will. There is not much to do on those cold evenings in East Anglia. And you will reply?’
‘Of course,’ said Jacques.
They faced the sea for the last time. ‘One day, Thomas, we will work together. We will do great things to alleviate the suffering of human beings.’
‘I hope so, Jacques, if we are not—’
‘No, we will do it. There are no ifs. It will happen.’
‘I was going to say, if we are not deflected by the petty demands of life, the need to make money, families, idleness . . .’
‘My family does not really exist. As for money, we will make enough together. We will both be doctors of one kind or another and there is always a need for medicine.’
‘Will you come to England one day?’
‘One day, Thomas. When I have some money. Tell me what your plans are now.’
‘I shall finish my degree. I will train further. I will travel. I don’t know exactly.’ Thomas felt Jacques squeezing his arm ferociously. He laughed. ‘I am too young to be certain.’
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