As I’m sprinting, in flip-flops, my heart pounds against my chest: with adrenaline, with the fear of being caught, but also with excitement, because the picture I glimpsed on the wall on the way out told me something: Jasper Le Maistre is the beautiful man from the airport.
Hot Suitcase Guy is Hot Tampon Man!
Though I must not call him that.
Jasper, he is now just Jasper.
4 September 1991
Dearest Al
I can’t believe the summer is over. I yearn for the sound of the sea. I miss Jersey and I miss you like a limb. Do you have to start the Greece job so soon? It will mean I only see you twice before Christmas. Phone calls and letters are no substitute for your company, your touch, your face.
I have a confession to make; I took the coin back with me to Bristol. I wanted it to be a surprise but now worry you might notice it gone and think it lost. I am going to make a setting for it, a glass-fronted locket, so it can be worn as a necklace, the two halves set together as one. I hope it will be ready for next weekend and you can take it back to your grandmother – won’t she be thrilled, Al? Don’t give away the secret before I have it made.
Miserably missing you,
Annie
Chapter 14
Having started to walk down Trinity Hill, I manage to intercept a bus to take me the rest of the way into town, so I’m back at the Weighbridge in ten minutes. Strangely, they don’t seem to have bus stops here – they just write ‘BUS’ at intervals along the road where the bus is going to stop.
‘Any luck with the man hunt?’ Ted asks when I meet up with him outside the hotel.
‘Not really,’ I say. I don’t want to tell Ted what I witnessed at Maude’s house; I’m too embarrassed to admit I walked into the woman’s home like that. I do tell him I found out that Jasper is due back from a lifeboat training exercise this evening, so I expect to get my suitcase back soon. He must have dumped the case before leaving and not even realised the mistake yet.
‘I bought you something,’ says Ted, handing me a brown paper bag on his lap, which I open with a curious frown. ‘Jersey wonders,’ he says. ‘You wanted to try the local cuisine. I know this lady who still makes them the old-fashioned way, only fries them while the tide is going out.’
Inside the bag are a dozen small knots of baked dough. I take one out and bite into it, then offer them back to Ted. They are soft and sweet and still warm, and I let out an appreciative moan.
‘Oh, those are good,’ I say, covering my mouth with a hand. Ted gives a small nod.
‘They remind me of— Have you ever been to New Orleans?’ I ask and he nods.
‘Beignets?’
‘Yes!’ I grin, amazed he knows what I’m talking about. ‘Beignets are the best.’
The summer we were twenty-six, Dee and I did a road trip across the States. It was one of the most exciting holidays I’ve ever been on; we felt like Thelma and Louise, but without the sad ending. ‘When were you in New Orleans?’ I ask.
Ted pauses and his face changes. The laughter lines around his eyes fade.
‘My wife, Belinda, she loved travelling,’ he says softly, and I’m worried I’ve unsettled the clear water of our conversation by reminding him of his wife.
‘Not you?’ I ask.
‘I used to,’ he says, eyes straight ahead. ‘When we met, we were fuelled by wanderlust. We both worked in conservation, took jobs in far-off places and lived out of backpacks. We were boundless.’ Ted sniffs, ‘I was the one who changed, I guess, decided that I was going to retrain as a doctor. I had to root myself in order to study, and then I found I’d outgrown the wanderlust.’
‘But she hadn’t?’ I ask gently.
‘She said she was happy to stay still for a while, but I always sensed this restlessness in her. I think she associated standing still with having a conventional life. In the note she left, she said she didn’t want a life full of gas bills and school-gate mums, washing the car, picking up milk, trips to the hairdresser’s.’
‘But you wanted all that?’ I ask.
‘Trips to the hairdresser’s?’ Ted says with a rueful smile and pats his beard in a way that makes me smile. ‘Well, yes, maybe the rest of it.’ He shrugs. ‘Though mainly I just wanted her.’
Looking at Ted, I imagine this is what heartbreak looks like, and I wonder for a moment if true love really is worth the risk. My mother said she never fell in love again after Dad died. If she’d had the choice, I wonder if she would have swapped those four intense years with Dad for a lifetime with someone else, even if the intensity had to be diluted.
As I watch the emotion on Ted’s face, it makes me feel strangely powerless. If you believe in fate leading you to love, do you also have to believe it is fate who leads love away? Are we all just floating in the sea, completely dependent on the tide and the universe to steer us to a happy harbour, or do we have oars? Do we have a chance to steer ourselves to shore?
‘Thank you, Ted, for the doughnuts, that was thoughtful of you,’ I say, moving the conversation away from heartbreak and back to food.
‘You’re welcome. I’ve got to give you a proper taste of the island,’ and as he says it, the smile returns to his eyes.
When we arrive back at St Ouen’s at around five, Sandy is folding napkins and stacking them onto paper plates on the table in Gerry’s garden. She introduces me to her husband, Ilídio, who is scraping down a greasy-looking barbecue to take down to the beach. He is short, with dark stubble, tousled black hair and bright white teeth, which I assume must be veneers. I ask if I can help them get ready for the party, but they insist they have everything under control, so I take the opportunity to have a shower and wash my hair. I now have yesterday’s clothes back from the hotel, but Sandy has kindly left me an emerald-green wrap dress to borrow. It’s too big for me, but it’s clean, and if I wrap the cord around my waist twice, it just about works.
I look at my laptop and feel guilty at how little work I have achieved today. I need an angle for the mini-break piece, reasons to visit Jersey outside the summer season. Suki wants something original, and I thought being here would inspire me. Then I think of Ted’s wonders, the story of only making them when the tide is right, the community fete with all the homemade produce, all the potato fields and the cows. Food does feel like a big part of the island’s identity. Could I tell the island’s story through food – ‘a Taste of Jersey’, perhaps?
As an idea begins to form, my phone buzzes.
Vanya: Did you escape the sex dungeon? Been thinking about what you said, about whether you can be a feminist and a romantic. Love this quote from the singer Eartha Kitt: ‘I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me. I want someone to share me with me.’ That’s how I feel. V
I love that Vanya has kept thinking about our conversation. How many nights have we stayed up late with a glass of wine, talking about Schitt’s Creek one minute and Dostoevsky the next? I will never find a flatmate who can replace her.
Outside, I hear voices and poke my head through the doorway to see a group of people gathering on the beach beyond the fields. Ted is fixing balloons to a wall that follows a narrow footpath down to the sea, and I walk down to join him.
‘How’s your puff?’ Ted asks, handing me two uninflated balloons.
‘Excellent,’ I say, reaching for one.
Ted looks at me, resting his gaze on my smile for a moment.
‘You look pleased with yourself?’
‘Your Jersey wonders, they gave me an idea for my article.’
‘Around the World in Eighty Doughnuts?’ he suggests.
‘Something like that.’
‘Has your suitcase man called yet?’
‘Not yet, but he will,’ I say, pushing my tongue into my cheek, and Ted gives me an unreadable smile.
‘Ted, Laura, get on down here, will you!’ Sandy’s voice travels up from the beach. ‘Ilídio’s going to burn the sausages to a crisp if someone doesn’t stop him.’
‘We’ve been caught slacking,’ Ted says, securing the balloons to the wall with a rock.
The whole village of L’Étacq has turned out for Gerry’s leaving do. It’s a perfect warm evening for a beach party, and people have brought their own camping chairs to sit on around the campfire. There are about thirty of us in all, a collection of Gerry’s friends from all over the island. Half a dozen of Ilídio’s extended family are here. He tells me his parents moved over from Madeira when he was a baby, and his mother fell in love with Jersey, so persuaded all her sisters to move here too.
Sitting between Sandy and Ilídio’s sister Teresa, they ask about my Jersey connection. I explain my father’s family are from here.
‘What are their names?’ Sandy asks.
‘Well, I’m a Le Quesne like my dad’s family, but my grandmother was a Blampied before she married.’
‘Proper Jersey names,’ says Teresa.
‘Sorry, Ques-ne?’ Sandy asks with a frown, ‘Q.U.E.S.N.E.?’
I nod my head. I’m used to having to spell out my surname.
‘Um, I think you’ll find that’s pronounced Le Cane,’ Sandy says, collapsing into laughter.
‘What? No, it isn’t …’ I trail off. Sandy is doubled over, snorting like a warthog.
‘Trust me, it’s a common Jersey name, with a French pronunciation – you don’t say Ques-ne.’
My mind starts doing backflips. That’s how the woman from the airport pronounced it. Now I think about it, people have said my name like that before, and I just assumed they didn’t know how to anglicise it. Why would Mum have taught me my name wrong?
‘But no one speaks French here!’ I say indignantly. ‘You have all these French names for things, but then pronounce them in English.’
When Sandy finally stops cackling about the fact that I’ve been mispronouncing my own name my entire life, she says, ‘The island was originally French, before William the Conqueror got involved.’
‘It stayed part of Normandy until 1204, and the traditional island language, Jèrriais, is a form of Norman French,’ chips in the man sitting next to Sandy. He is in his sixties, dressed entirely in brown, and has long grey hair tied back in a ponytail.
‘This is Raymond, he’s a bit of an island expert,’ says Sandy, shooting me wide eyes.
‘All the original road names were French,’ Raymond explains. ‘Some get pronounced the original way, some have been mangled into English, which can get confusing, but people’s names stay as they always were, pretty much.’
Am I going to have to change the way I say my name? I wonder, as Raymond shifts his chair around to better join our conversation. Then he says, ‘Jersey history goes back more than two hundred and fifty thousand years. It’s only been an island for six thousand.’
Sandy is still looking at me with wide, unblinking eyes. She must be worried that Raymond is about to dispense quite a significant volume of history to me, because she quickly changes the subject, pointing out how good the surf is this evening. Then she tells me what a good surfer Ted is, how he used to sneak out surfing at night if he knew there was a big swell coming in, then go to school with seaweed in his hair.
Ted catches my eye from across the circle. He shakes his head, but his eyes are smiling and, with a beer in his hand and his friends around him, he looks more relaxed than I’ve seen him all day. I can’t believe how at home I feel, among these people I’ve only just met. It crosses my mind that I can’t think of the last time I made a new friend back in London.
Ilídio walks over and nestles down in the sand at Sandy’s feet, reaching up to hold her hand, smiling up at her with his huge white teeth. The affection between them appears so easy, so delightfully unfiltered. The thought prompts me to check my phone, waiting for Jasper to call. Surely, he’ll call this evening.
Picking up a jug from the camping table, which is doubling as a bar, I help top up people’s drinks around the circle. When I reach Gerry, he beckons me to sit down in the empty chair beside him.
‘Is everyone making you feel welcome, Laura?’ he asks, and I shuffle the chair closer so I can hear him better.
‘Oh yes,’ I nod, ‘incredibly so.’
‘What a night for it, eh?’ He nods towards the fading light on the horizon, the warm red of the clouds as the sun disappears behind them. Gerry’s face is remarkably free of worry lines; he looks cheerful, even though he is about to say goodbye to the only home he has known. I watch his limbs vibrate in constant motion, and I imagine how exhausting his condition must be.
‘Can I ask you a personal question, Gerry?’ I ask, the glasses of sangria I’ve consumed loosening my curiosity about him.
‘Of course – the best kind of question.’ He smiles and widens his eyes.
‘How do you stay so positive? Do you worry what’s around the corner?’ He pauses, and I’m worried I have offended him. ‘Sorry, that’s a big question to ask.’
‘It’s a good question,’ he says, putting his drink down in the camping chair’s cup holder. ‘The thing is, with a degenerative condition like mine, if I look back at everything I could do before, the things I used to love – sailing, woodwork, playing the guitar – it can only depress me. Equally, if I look ahead to tomorrow, no doubt I’ll only be able to do less than I can today. The tremors and my eyesight might be worse, my step less steady. This is not something that gets better,’ Gerry says with a calm smile. ‘So, if I can’t look back, and I can’t look forward, I’m forced to live here, right now. Today, I can sit around a campfire and talk to my friends. Today I can watch the sunset, even if the outline is getting hazy. Today I have made a new friend and I’m enjoying her company and her vibrant conversation.’ He makes a single, slow nod in my direction. ‘The Roman poet Horace said: “Don’t hope or fear, but seize today, you must! And in tomorrow put complete mistrust.” All any of us have is today.’
Calm washes over me as I listen to Gerry talk. His words feel like a parent stroking my hair, and there is something in his outlook that reminds me of Mum. It makes me wonder at how petty my own concerns are by comparison, how much time I spend dwelling on the past and fretting about the future. How many times have I asked, ‘Why me?’ Why did I have to lose both my parents before the age of twenty-seven? Why haven’t I found love yet? I look at Gerry, at what he’s lost, and I doubt he has once asked, ‘Why me?’
Across the circle, Ted stands up and clinks two bottles together to garner people’s attention. Sandy walks around the circle and tops up my glass on her way past.
‘Everyone here knows I’m not one for speeches,’ Ted says, and there are some jeers from the group, ‘but I just wanted to say a few words about the man we’re all here to celebrate. I’m sure he’ll have a few words to say himself.’
Gerry raises his glass in the air and says, ‘Always,’ and everyone laughs.
‘Firstly, this is not a goodbye party. Dad’s going to be just around the corner at Acrebrooke, and I know you will all be visiting him. If you don’t, he’ll be calling you all endlessly, persuading you to come – Oh, and while you’re about it, will you bring him those cheese biscuits he likes.’ People laugh, and Gerry bites his lip and nods. ‘But, while it’s not a goodbye, Dad moving is the end of an era. Our family have lived at Sans Ennui for over two hundred years, and this house has seen happy memories, as well as some sad ones. So, I’d like to raise a toast to Sans Ennui – this beautiful house that has been a home to Palmerstons past and present. May whoever takes it on, be as happy here as we have been.’
Everyone raises a glass, and I hear mutters of ‘To Sans Ennui.’
‘And Dad, whose life has been changed so much over the last few years, I just want to say that I’ve never known anyone who’s borne the hand they’ve been dealt with more unbridled positivity. I think we’d all be happier if we woke up in the morning and tried to be a little more Gerry.’
I swallow a lump in my throat, and looking around I see it isn’t just me who’s been moved by Ted’s wo
rds. He sits down as people clap, then Gerry is helped to his feet by his friend Raymond.
‘All seems a lot of fuss for a shaky old codger like me,’ he says, directing a wink in his friend Ruth’s direction, ‘but I appreciate all the effort, and Ted’s not wrong about the cheese biscuits. Oh, and sloe gin, if you please.’ People laugh while Ruth smiles and shakes her head. ‘I don’t have much to say. “There’s a change,” you’re thinking. But one thing I have learnt in this life, as a wise woman once said to me, “Tide and time wait for no man.” So get on your surfboard and catch that wave, even if you’re shaking like a rattle all the way in, because I’m yet to be reliably informed if there’s decent surf in heaven.’
Everyone cheers, Ilídio whoops, and Gerry slowly presses his hands together in thanks, before carefully lowering himself back into his chair.
‘There’d better be surf in heaven or I’m not going,’ Ted calls across to Gerry.
The words make me well up, and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to try and cauterise the feeling. It doesn’t feel appropriate that I should be the one getting so emotional – I only met the man this afternoon.
The party proves great fun. I chat with Gerry’s friends, help Ilídio with the barbecue, and run around giving everyone sausage baps in napkins. Sandy keeps topping up my glass with her ‘secret recipe sangria’, which puts a glow in my cheeks and then a stagger in my step. Gerry laughs with everyone, beckoning people to come and sit next to him, making sure he has made time to speak to everyone individually.
‘You know Gerry is one of the best cabinet makers you will ever meet,’ Ilídio tells me, as he tops up my glass. ‘He taught me everything I know, but I’ll still only ever be half as good as he was.’
Just Haven't Met You Yet Page 13