by Dirk Bogarde
In the end we all clambered into one compartment together in the middle, just in case anything hit us in the front, or from the back, and then we were assured by Lally, we’d be completely safe and not get squashed which was often the case On French Railways.
“I do think it’s exciting!” said my sister happily, but no one answered her because, with a terrific shriek of the whistle and three big jig-joggy-jerks, the train started to steam out of the station into the sunlit town.
Amy O’Shea sat bolt upright looking fearfully out of the windows to see how fast we were going, and Angelica and Beth just stared ahead. Paul went to sleep.
“He’s just like the Dormouse in Alice,” whispered my sister.
Lally took off her gloves and started to count all the bits of luggage on the racks, nodding her head and counting under her breath, and suddenly we roared into a tunnel and everything was black and I heard Amy O’Shea cry out in fright but we were soon through and out into the fields and woods running quietly through lovely flat fields full of streams and little clumps of willows. There were men and women working in the fields with horses, and a girl of our age, with a flock of sheep, waved to us and we waved back like anything. Except the Chesterfields, who just sat.
The Hôtel d’Angleterre was very nice and on the promenade looking straight on to the sea. We had stayed there before so the fat lady in black, with pearls and a rose, knew us right away and kissed my sister who didn’t like it much because she always used to shout at her, “O! La belle poupée!” which Lally said meant what a pretty doll; and my sister didn’t like the doll part. She didn’t look like one so it was a bit silly, but kind, I suppose.
Our room was the same one we always had, tall windows over the sea, with a balcony, a big bed for Lally and two smaller ones for us. In one corner there was a screen, and behind it was a place to wash your face and hands and another, on the floor, which was for washing your feet—which seemed a good idea because ours were always so sandy. The wallpaper was very pretty, covered in roses and lilac and there was a huge wardrobe and an armchair and a little table with three chairs for us to have our meals at.
Looking over the balcony you could see all the people on the beach, the waves flapping along the sand, and the blinds of the hotel right below. We were only on the first floor in case of a fire happening. Lally said she wasn’t going to risk being any higher thank-you-very-much, which is why we always had to book the same room well in advance. If you looked to the right you could see down to the canal bridge and the spire of the church, and if you looked left you could see more hotels and then the lovely big green hump of the cliffs. There were no motors on the promenade, only bicycles, so that you could run out of the hotel down the steps, across the road, and on to the beach. It really was the nicest place in the world. Abroad.
The first thing Lally unpacked, before our suitcases even, or the big trunk, was her little wicker basket. In it she had a titchy teapot, three cups, a little tin kettle, and a very small stove-thing which she stood on a tin tray by the washbowl, with a bottle of milk and a spoon. Then she lit it, and the whole room started to smell of methylated spirits. There was a curious pale blue flame, and in almost no time at all, the tin kettle was boiling and steaming the mirror over the washplace. And then we all had a “good strong cup of tea” on the balcony before we did anything else. Not that my sister and I wanted tea at all: but it was the rule, and we had to stick to it with Lally.
After we had unpacked almost completely, Lally went off to the W.C. across the corridor and emptied the teapot and cups down the lav while we were changing into our summer things. Sandals, shorts, and our rather silly white cotton hats which we both hated. Lally was sure that we would get sunstroke while we were shrimping, so we had to wear these awful white cotton “hates”, we called them, which pulled down right over our ears.
“With all this sun burning down on your heads they’ll be boiled like a couple of eggs, sure as sure. You wear them until your mother says not. Then it’s out of my hands.”
After a day or two we managed to lose them somewhere, but for the first day it was The Rule.
The Chesterfields seemed better and more cheerful, although Amy was still dressed in her two-piece with a veil round her hat to keep it in place. We all went shrimping and I caught three baby flounders and about a dozen shrimps which we kept in a bucket until we had to go back to the hotel to meet Our Parents. Lally made us throw the shrimps and the flounders back into the sea, because last year we had taken them all back to the room and filled the thing for washing your feet with sea water, some pretty seaweed, a lot of shrimps and some more baby flounders. One of us left the tap running just a little bit so that they could get oxygen, and during lunch in the big restaurant under our room, quite a large part of the ceiling fell down on some people at a table near us. There was a lot of fuss and water and plaster everywhere and it was all because the rather stupid feet-washing basin thing had overflowed and gone through the floor.
Our room was a bit of a mess too, with sand and seaweed and the flounders all plopping away on the floor gasping, poor things. I got a terrific walloping from our father and lost my Saturday franc for two weeks to help pay for the damage to the floor and the ceiling of the restaurant. Which seemed a bit unfair really, because two francs can’t have been nearly enough to pay for all the mess. And we had to say we were sorry, in French, to the people who had got wet and covered in plaster, and also to the Lady who owned the hotel in black and pearls and a rose. And she wasn’t very smiling either. At least, my sister said, she didn’t grab her and call her a “belle poupee” any more for that holiday and that it was almost worth all the punishments we had to have in order not to be frightened out of her wits on the staircase every morning. Anyway. Back we had to throw them under Lally’s firm gaze, and back we all trooped to the hotel.
Our parents were very handsome we thought. More handsome than Mr and Mrs Chesterfield by far. Our father was very brown and cheerful in white trousers with a tie round his waist and a very French shirt all stripy like a sailor’s, and our mother was looking very beautiful in beach-pyjams with a funny white hat called a Dough-Boy hat because it was what American sailors wore in the war and they were called dough-boys. I don’t know why.
Aunt Freda had a pointed nose just like Angelica, and wore a hat with a rose and a huge brim which came so far down that all you could see was her nose sticking out and her pointed chin; she had to hold her head quite high up and backwards to see where she was going. Uncle John was rather jolly with a big belly and a pipe and always laughed a good deal. They weren’t really our Aunt and Uncle but we had always known them, ever since before we were born, and so they got to be almost Family.
We all had dinner together at a huge table in one corner of the restaurant, and we were allowed a wine glass of beer or a glass of red wine with mineral water while we ate. This was a special treat this holiday for it was a sign that we were “growing up” and should be allowed to get accustomed to it. Lally was terribly shocked but kept herself to herself and only said how awful it was when we were getting ready for bed later. “Starting the Rot,” she said.
Our mother said we should have an early night after such a tiring day and that tomorrow we would all go on a lovely trip to the oyster beds outside the town, and that we could go in a real coach with a horse pulling it. Which sounded very interesting.
“I thought that wine was very nice, didn’t you?” said my sister from her bed in the corner, and I agreed although I thought that tomorrow I’d probably try the beer instead in spite of what Lally said about it starting the Rot.
“I don’t feel a bit homesick yet, do you?” asked my sister.
“We’ve only been here today … it’s too soon. It comes on later.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be homesick here. I think it’s lovely.”
“I wonder if the Chesterfields will be sick in the coach tomorrow?”
“I wonder. Fains we don’t sit beside them.”
Lally called out and told us to be quiet and get to sleep or we’d all be sick in the coach with a good hiding. So we went to sleep; it seemed the best thing to do.
The Chesterfields were all sitting at the breakfast table when we got down. Amy was in a green frock but still wore her hat. She had a little book in her hand and was reading it very carefully through her shining glasses.
“Reading at table indeed!” said Lally in a pretending-stern voice and setting us all round the big table. Amy closed the book and took off her glasses.
“Not actually reading, just glancing through. The tea’s fresh, they just brought it in, although it’s as weak as dishwater to me.”
Lally poured us all a cup and helped herself to sugar.
“I have to agree with you, Amy, dishwater it is … however, remember that I’ve always got my little supply upstairs if you ever feel the need. Nice strong Mazawattee, and a ginger snap, makes a great difference to the afternoon, I always say. What is your little book then?” You could tell she was very curious about the book because she had offered Amy her precious tea before she asked the question.
Amy picked up the book and put on her glasses again. “It’s a French phrase book. It once belonged to my father, God rest his soul, and I thought it would be useful for the children if we learned a few things to say … like where is the Church please? Or can you direct me to the cemeteries … things like that, you know? Otherwise we’d be at the mercy of foreigners wouldn’t we?”
“Well for dear-knows-whose-sake!” cried Lally. “You aren’t going to take the children round all the churches and cemeteries of France, are you, Amy? There are lots of nice things to see! It’s morbid.”
“It’s what?” said Amy.
“Morbid.”
“Morbid to learn a few phrases, is it?”
“No … that’s all right. But morbid to dwell on cemeteries and such.”
“I’m not dwelling on them, I assure you. It just so happens that I have a very dear brother in one of them.” She looked rather pink in the face. “And I’ve a notion to go and find him.”
Lally looked very uncomfortable and told my sister to take her elbows off the table which they weren’t on. So we knew she was a bit flustered about the brother in the cemetery.
“I’m very sorry, I’m sure,” she said. “I didn’t realise that at all. Is it here?”
“It’s here,” said Amy. “Not a few miles away from this very town… he was hit in ‘17 and I just feel that I’d like to find him.’
Lally was spreading marmalade on a piece of toast. “Well, we’ll just have to ask the Porter at the desk and he’ll know and then maybe we could all go and help you. That is if you’d not object I mean to say?”
Amy seemed pleased at the idea and said she didn’t relish the idea of going on her own and that one day soon perhaps we could make an excursion, it wasn’t very far away and she also believed that Miss Cavell was buried in the same place and that would be very interesting for us all. We didn’t know who Miss Cavell was so I didn’t really see that it could be so very interesting to go and look for two people we didn’t know and had never heard about and who were dead. It was much better to be on the beach. But if Lally had offered then we had to go, for nothing would put her off once she had made up her mind or given her word.
“Fancy having to go and look at dead people when you are on holiday,” grumbled my sister when we were all standing in the lobby waiting for The Parents to come down and start the morning by going to the oyster beds. “I think it’s very silly indeed. And we don’t even know them so it won’t even be interesting.” But she said it in a whisper to me so no one else heard and she knew I agreed because I nodded. But it wasn’t going to be today, and with any luck they might forget all about it in time.
The oyster beds were quite a way from Wimereux, along a very pretty road running straight as an arrow through lovely flat fields which rolled away for miles and miles to the sky. It was a very hot morning, and sitting up on the top of the coach-thing I could see all round me as we clip-clopped slowly along behind a bony white horse. The coach was black, and the old lady driving the horse was all in black, with a floppy bonnet on her head. Angelica and I, being the eldest and tallest, had to sit on the top beside her, one on each side, while Amy, Lally, and the other three all sat squashed up inside. Our parents had gone on ahead in our father’s big silver O.M. motor-car, all laughing and talking.
The sun shone down on the little streams and woods, and sent long black shadows from the tall trees along the road, across us like black bars. We could hear the birds singing, and the clip clop of the horses hooves and that’s all, except for the creaking of the carriage which swayed about a bit and made Amy feel rather giddy.
Angelica sat staring ahead, holding onto the little iron rail round the seat, as if she was on a rather nasty thing at a fairground. I wished my sister was there instead because she would have much preferred it—she was very fond of horses, even the back part of them which was, sometimes, rather rude. Swaying about on top of the carriage, and feeling so happy in the sun and being so high up and looking forward to the oyster beds, I asked Angelica who the dead lady was with Amy’s brother. Angelica gave me a pitying smile and pushed her pigtails over her shoulder with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the iron rail.
“Miss Cavell is nothing to do with Amy’s brother. She’s just been laid to rest in the same place as he has. That’s all.”
“But who was she? I mean why does Amy want to go and see her grave?”
“She was a very brave lady who was a nurse and a spy and got shot by the Germans,” she said, all in one breath so that I could hardly understand her, what with the swaying about and the clip clopping and creaking and the old black lady wobbling about between us. “Was she really a spy?” I called out, wondering if I had heard her correctly.
“Yes. Yes, she was a sort of spy but she was a nice one because she was British, and the Germans hated her and shot her at dawn.”
The coach joggled about over a large pot-hole in the road and she grabbed the iron rail with both her hands and didn’t seem inclined to say anything more on the subject. So I didn’t say anything else either.
Suddenly the old lady made some noises to the horse, and pulled at the reins and we turned off the main road down a little rutted lane, which made the coach wobble about very alarmingly and even I had to grab the iron rail at my side lest I slipped off or fell into the old woman’s lap. And then we were rolling along a quite high dyke which ran in a straight line down to the sea. On either side of us were huge square ponds, almost as big as tennis courts, and they shone and glinted in the bright sunlight like mirrors lying flat in the fields.
“The oyster beds! The oyster beds!” I cried but no one heard me inside the coach and Angelica had gone pale from the rutted road and didn’t seem a bit interested.
It was very beautiful indeed. At the far end of the dyke there was a little clump of buildings like a farm, and I could see the sun shining on the silver of our father’s motor-car, and streaking the sea with long lines of gold. It was very hot, and for once I was quite glad to be wearing my white cotton “hate”.
It was a farm, an oyster farm, and as we clattered into the yard the Parents, who were all sitting at a long wooden table drinking out of little glasses, waved and cheered as if we had arrived from Africa or somewhere. They were all very jolly and helped everyone out of the coach while Angelica and I started to clamber down the sides. Angelica said she must go first and I was to wait until she got to the ground. She was just frightened that I’d see her bloomers or something. I was much too excited to see the oyster beds to bother about her old bloomers anyway.
We had a very nice time at the oyster beds, and were allowed to go with an old man who only spoke French to catch our own in a thing like a big wire shrimping net. The water in the beds was so clear, and so shallow, that you could see the oysters quite plainly, lying all over the sandy bottom, like fat buns. Some had g
reen seaweed growing on them, some were very small indeed, and some were really very big. We carried them back to the table in a wooden bucket and the Parents cheered and seemed delighted and made us sit down together as if it was a sort of a party. Which in a way it was, all of us together and in the sunshine and so happy. Our father said that as it would be our first oysters we should be allowed a little glass of wine to have with them, and when Lally looked a bit put out, he said that it was a Celebration to have your first oyster and it was like launching a ship: you couldn’t do it without a little wine.
So the glass jugs of wine arrived at the table, and lemonade for Paul, who was the youngest and didn’t have wine or oysters yet, and then the big plates arrived surrounded with seaweed and piled high with the oysters all opened and sparkling in the sun. My sister went white when she saw them.
“They’re raw,” she hissed.
“I know. That’s how you eat them.”
“Raw?”
“Yes. Sometimes they get cooked.”
“Alive?” Her voice was almost a wail and Angelica and Beth looked at her with a start and then at the great plates of oysters before them.
“They can’t be alive!” said Angelica. “It’s like being a cannibal!” Then big bowls of cut lemons and bottles of vinegar were plonked on the wooden table and all the parents started to stretch out for the food. My sister sat shocked into silence while everyone except Lally and Amy raised their glasses in a toast and cried “Bon appetit!’ No one took any notice after that, on purpose, and just got on with the eating part. Our father said to me to watch how he did it, with a fork, while Uncle John just took up the whole shell and emptied everything into his mouth.