They were three secretaries from Nantes, hoping to fool everyone into believing them to be Paris fashion models. To the chagrin of the two older girls, it was Jeannine, the youngest and plumpest, who seemed to be attracting most attention—and her the office junior! It was especially galling to Madeleine who had recently split up with her husband on account of having landed the prize job of Personal Assistant to the Director—and was still aglow with the pride of being Topic Number One of Office Gossip. She could not understand how the male population of this beach could prefer Jeannine’s teenage curves to her own sleek, smooth limbs. True, she hadn’t got big breasts, but neither Paul nor Jean-Pierre, husband and boss respectively, had ever complained. Huffily, she swept aside the communal heap of garish nylon orange and blue kitbags to give the world a better view of her flawless shoulders and the nape of a neck le Directeur had declared to be irresistible….
Jean-Claude could never resist the sight of his wife’s bare mid-riff. His mother had commandeered the shadiest spot for the huge basket of lunch and now she was controlling her grandchildren with the magnificent skill and bossiness of all French Mémés. The bronzed and muscled god who was her son was unaware of the gasps of admiration on all sides as he stripped to a minute pair of trunks. He was too busy trying to control his inflamed desire as his wife pulled off her shirt and jeans to reveal a body hardly marred at all by child birth. He switched his attention to their pretty twin daughters toddling off towards the water and, swinging up his podgy little baby son, followed them protectively. Marie-Noël, thankful to be relieved of maternal obligations, stretched out luxuriously on her white towel, leaving her mother-in-law to fuss about tidying the buckets and spades, the cameras and other family paraphernalia.
Miss Merrick hated clutter. She had arranged three car rugs in an orderly fashion for herself and her two companions. They sat, consciously carefree in their long-brimmed straw hats, three schoolteachers from Bexhill. Miss Merrick, Head of Geography, had insisted they all invest in this distinctive head gear the first day of their holiday: to affirm immediately their place in the Breton scene. Their bags were not as satisfyingly uniform. Two were identical neat beige hessian with labelled compartments for macs and umbrellas. They had been shown to Miss Green in ample time during the planning sessions for the vacation. But Babs Green had spoiled the overall effect by her navy denim compromise. It, too, was lettered on the outer pockets—Raquets and Balls, Sylvia Stotts, Number Two in the Department of Comparative Religious Studies, was continually striving to cover the offensive word with a corner of her beachtowel. Babs, games and English, had defended herself by explaining that it was a hardly-used Squash bag Mummy had salvaged from brother.
The sun had risen to its maximum height. Jean-François marshalled his teenagers and they trooped back to the Clubhouse to partake of a five-course lunch which would have made their English contemporaries partaking of School Dinners green with envy or disgust—depending on their reaction to Coquilles St Jacques with lashings of garlic, Braised Hare, teeth, tongue and all. Madeleine provided fat-free yoghourts and Evian water. Memé dispensed long pâté sandwiches and strawberry tarts leaving Maman to spoon khaki-coloured slop from a jar into the dimpled naked baby. Miss Merrick handed round hard-boiled eggs and the group enthused yet again on the excellence of the crusty baguettes. Thibaut’s sparse casse-croute—Gruyère and an apple—prepared hygienically if unlovingly by Madame Derrien, lay undisturbed in its foil parcel with his small heap of belongings, at the edge of the seaweed drift. He had long ceased to be of interest as he dissolved into the general mass of bobbing boats and surf-boards, swimmers” heads and mooring-buoys.
After a short siesta, the bored crowd of over-mature school children were whisked off by Jean-François in a coach to visit the town of Quimper, one of the amenities their considerate parents had paid for. They resigned themselves to an hour or two of enforced culture, anticipating the relief of a smoke and coke and plenty of flirting at a pavement café.
Isabelle went off to fetch ices for herself, Jeannine and Madeleine—and returned with the welcome news that she had been propositioned by three Italians in a sports car. Bags, dresses, sandals were swept up in haste, hair tweaked into place, bras snapped on—the girls strolled, seemingly-casual, towards their handsome prey—a scream of tires, a cloud of dust and they were gone.
Baby being fractious, the twins quarrelsome, the French family left the hot, dry sand to return to the coolness of their rented gîte.
The mass exodus emphasised the isolated pile of Thibaut’s towel, shirt and beach bag, shoes higgledy-piggledy somewhere nearby.
“Mad dogs and Englishmen….” Babs yawned, craning her neck to examine her lobster red back. “I’m burned again….”
“I suppose that means you want to make a move,” said Miss Merrick with a hint of the spite which always entered her voice when someone else put forward a suggestion—attempted to “take over.”
Sylvia Stotts, scenting dissension, suggested a swim now that the tide was on the turn. Babs declined, declaring that she simply must finish her chapter. Miss Merrick sniffed her disdain of the type of erotic literature this teacher of Milton and Shakespeare indulged in abroad. Why she should imagine it less disgraceful to read Harold Robbins in France, Geraldine Merrick simply could not fathom. And those three pages she had glanced at last night while Babs was in the bathroom—disgraceful! She slipped off her towelling kaftan, revealing a barrel body encased in elasticised nylon, and picked her way over the pebbles to join Sylvia, already manfully striking out in classic breast stroke.
As they made their way back half an hour later Sylvia remarked first on the emptiness of the beach compared with the morning and early afternoon. Then her eye was caught by a splash of red.
“I say…” she ventured casually, “that young chap’s been gone an awfully long time….”
Geraldine Merrick swung round and scanned the horizon.
“What colour was his sail?” she asked. “Mind you, I can’t see a single one of those sailboard things left out there….”
Geraldine Merrick’s forté was Emergencies. She had spotted the Gendarmerie by the car park where they had left the Ford Escort. Delighted to be able to show off her Français Courant, she demanded an immediate alert to the SAMU sea-rescue patrol. Soon the beach was a hive of activity and shrieking sirens as the blue van arrived and discharged a black rubber boat and two skindivers who raced across the mud dragging oxygen cylinders. A curious audience gathered along the sea wall to watch the team zoom off towards the rolling Atlantic Ocean. Miss Merrick & Co. were kept busy answering questions from two gendarmes with notebooks. The red bag, striped towel, blue shoes, the crumpled teeshirt—were relocated at the top of the slipway next to the SAMU van.
Two hours later, in the cool of the late afternoon, the three English ladies drove disconsolately back to their modest hotel. The SAMU team had departed, still in loud radio communication with Base. The gendarmes stood surveying the deserted beach—the sacred hour of dîner approached. Thibaut’s beach bag, an embarrassment, a mystery, remained where he had left it, his other belongings, refolded after a brief inspection, pathetically unclaimed, beside it.
The real-life drama of the finale to the story which I was later to have published in my first collection of Adult Tales, had put an end to Robert’s satirical commentary. I felt the need to use it because when the boy had first appeared we had both commented on his resemblance to Tony and I’d wondered if Tony would like a sailboard. At times like this, it was good to have money, I was thinking, when suddenly we became aware of the significance of the sea-search going on in front of our eyes. I was so glad I had not got round to offering Tony such a deadly plaything. Writing about the incident must surely exorcise it from being a bad omen for Tony.
We were naturally rather subdued after this event and I kept looking at Tony, remembering the resemblance of the missing boy, though only superficially I now realised—a matter of age and build. Not the same as th
e carbon copy likeness of darling David I thought with the usual dreadful pang. How thankful I was that Tony was safe….
“Perhaps Lilian would like to drive back,” I suggested, vaguely feeling the need to over protect Beryl’s boy, having once again been reminded of the ever-present possibility of the sudden descent of tragedy into anyone’s life.
“She doesn’t drive,” said Robert quickly.
Lilian said nothing. She looked gorgeous in her brief white bikini, a powder blue beach robe slung casually round her shoulders. Tony opened the back door for her and I could see that he was longing to be close to her.
“You then?” I asked Robert, and got into the front passenger seat. As we screeched off up the narrow dusty lane winding through fields of ripening corn I wished I had taken the wheel, much as I dislike driving. Robert drove like a maniac, rivalling the French who are masters of the art of breakneck speeds, desperate braking and a general belief that the road is meant for one car only—the one they are in at the time. We hurtled through the sleepy village of Ploughmoughelen, hardly pausing to swerve round the War Memorial. I wondered if he always drove like this or if he was annoyed about something. Perhaps he was as frustrated as I was at the presence of others hampering our intimacy.
As the two young people unpacked the hampers from the boot, I suggested lightly that we send them off to dine “à deux.”
“Oh, er, do you really think that’s a good idea?” he said. “Tony—they—might be offended.”
I was hurt and I let it show.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, looking at me apologetically so that my heart melted and my legs began to tremble.
“I thought we’d be eating here tonight,” said Tony. “Lilian loves crepes.” He was having difficulty tearing his eyes away from her. “Besides, what about the car?” he added.
“We could get a taxi,” I said. “But if you’d rather stay here, I think I’ll show Robert your Two Queers Restaurant.”
He nodded, delighted, and I wondered if he were thinking ahead to having the run of both gítes and Lilian to himself. He was certainly very considerate and helpful as I got ready.
“I really like Lilian,” he said, over and over again. “She makes me feel so—peaceful.”
Robert did not enjoy the funny little establishment opposite the tiny railway station.
“It”ll be noisy, with the trains,” he grumbled before we’d even got to the door. He’d listened in silence while I relayed Tony’s description of the personnel.
“Didn’t Lilian think they were funny?” I asked.
“She didn’t say anything—I don’t suppose she noticed,” he said gloomily.
Considering his brilliant sketches of the people on the beach that afternoon, I was puzzled at his sudden indifference.
“Hm!” I commented, a little sourly. “She can’t be too sensitive to your friend the Major, then. He was apparently shooting off his mouth about them in no uncertain terms.”
He did not reply, and I saw that he was offended but whether it was my remarks about the ex-soldier or about his sister that had done it, I was not sure.
I tried to draw him out all evening: he’d been so entertaining earlier in the day. All my jokes kept falling flat and to make matters worse the langoustines were small and overcooked.
“Are you thinking about the accident?” I asked.
He shook his head. “C’est la vie!” he said and I could not make out whether he meant that accidents are bound to happen or that it was life which was depressing him.
“You’re not worrying about Lilian, are you?” I asked, hoping that my irritation at the idea that this could be so was not too evident. “I’m sure Tony’s intentions are—fairly honourable.”
My attention was diverted by a touching little scene half-visible through the service door to the kitchen.
“I say, do look—I think they’re having a cuddle,” I urged him.
“You do surprise me,” he said quietly, not turning his head. “I would have thought you much more blasé; I didn’t put you down as an excitable voyeur.”
I brooded about this for the rest of the meal, one of the worst I’d ever had in France.
I was still trying to work out my own feelings when he stopped the car on the way back.
“There’s a lovely little spot down here,” he said. “It’s a bit rough—can you manage in those shoes?”
For answer I slipped them off and followed him barefoot down a path half-hidden amongst the gorse, to a tiny stone pier built in a small cove. He held out his hand and helped me pick my way over some large rocks. Then we were on a tiny strip of sand. He pulled me into his arms.
“I’m sorry…”
“Robert, I’m…”
We both spoke at once. It seemed simpler just to hold each other. I felt him hard against me and I forgot all the puzzling little thoughts that had stung me all day like gnats that one brushes away so as to enjoy the loveliness of the evening.
He slipped my dress from my shoulders and cupped my breasts. He pressed me gently back against a huge smooth boulder. I pulled impatiently at his firm thighs and we were united, shuddering with pleasure: he began to sob convulsively as I clung to him.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, my darling,” he said.
“For what…?” I whispered. “It’s I who should be sorry, being so—schoolgirlish about those two pansies.”
He shook his head and drew me down to sit cuddled close to him on the sand.
“I’ve been edgy all day,” he said. “Otherwise I’d probably have laughed a little, too. But I must say in all truth I don’t find homosexuality all that hilarious. If they’re happy—if they please each other—and they’re not harming anyone else…”
“Chacun à son goût,” I suggested tentatively.
“C’est la vie!” he replied.
These words were to become our intimate code, our private communication, on many future occasions.
I thought of Tony and wondered whether he were at that very moment embracing the lovely Lilian.
“Robert,” I said, shifting slightly in the comfortable niche I had found beneath his strong shoulder. “Couldn’t we make some arrangement? I’d like to spend the night with you.”
I felt him stiffen and my heart sank as I remembered Jacques’ reluctance to let me into his bed.
Am I built for speed, not comfort? I wondered, recalling an old joke of Beryl’s when she’d had a short-lived affair with a racing driver. Why do my lovers all need to keep me at a distance?
“I’ve looked after Lilian ever since our parents died,” said Robert. “I get down to St Ives most weekends and the rest of the time there are our lodgers to keep her company. She gets scared away from home.”
“But…if she and Tony…” I began.
He sat up and looked at me, distressed.
“You don’t think,” he said. “Tony wouldn’t…”
“Only if she wanted him to,” I said indignantly. “And if they’re happy, if they please each other.”
I threw his own words back at him remorselessly.
“We’d better get back,” he said and the look in his eyes was so cold, he could have been a stranger.
My attitude to Lilian was changing fast. I knew I couldn’t really blame her but she did seem to be claiming a lot of my lover’s attention. I wished she hadn’t come. Then I thought of Tony’s pleasure in her company. It couuld all have been so perfect—two blissful pairs of lovers. But surely, if I were patient, it might work out like that eventually….
All the same, I was disappointed when we found them sitting decorously on a stone bench at the edge of the gravel sweep in front of the château. Josephine was standing chatting to them and this was surprising as she’d had so little to say when I met her. I did not miss the shadow that passed over Tony’s face as Lilian rose eagerly to greet her brother, oblivious to the fact that he was in mid-sentence.
As I fell asleep, I remembered the little cove and wondered hopefully
if the real Thibaut of my story hadn’t simply misjudged the craggy coastline and beached somewhere remote like that. I prayed fervently that this would indeed prove to be the case.
I had an un-nerving experience when we visited the basilica of St Anne d’Auray. We watched the old ladies from the village of Ker-Anna arrive for the service in their heavy black dresses and tall lace headdresses. It was like seeing the illustrations in the guide books come to life. Though several tourists made a great play of focussing their cameras, these grim-faced women seemed totally unaware of themselves as a picteuresque attraction. To them, the traditional costume was part of the solemn business of going to Mass on Sundays and Saints’ Days.
We stood quietly behind a pillar and watched the intensity of their worship. My eyes roved along the hard wooden benches from which the devout congregation had slipped onto their knees.
Suddenly, I clutched at Robert’s hand. An elderly man three rows in front had half-turned in my direction and smiled. He was the image of my father. No, my impression was stronger than that, I saw my father looking at me. Robert squeezed my hand and the church stopped spinning. I glanced behind to see if the man had been smiling at somebody further back. There was only Lilian, remote and bland of expression. I looked back at the congregation. The people were standing now and I could no longer see the man who had made my heart stand still.
With Men For Pieces [A Fab Fifties Fling In Paris] Page 9