George's Grand Tour

by Caroline Vermalle

  ‘Oh for heavens’ sake!’ Thérèse exclaimed loudly. ‘Stop getting so het up about Françoise. She said she wasn’t going to call for two months, so this is your chance! Go and do your Tour the way you planned and everything will be fine.’

  ‘Yes, but … I suppose I just find this … this radio silence a bit weird. She didn’t say anything to you?’

  ‘No, no. Well, I mean … No more than she did to you, I don’t suppose,’ answered Thérèse, avoiding his gaze.

  Annie tried to distract Justine, who was reaching for the knives on the table. To keep her happy she gave the baby her mobile phone, which Justine immediately tried to put in her mouth.

  ‘And if she did turn up out of the blue, she’d call me straight away and I’d take care of it, and of her. So stop obsessing about the daughter, and the granddaughter for that matter, and off you go!’ said Thérèse.

  ‘Still,’ said Charles, ‘we’ve got to do something about Adèle, otherwise George will never agree to it. Right everyone, lunchtime.’

  Suddenly, the phone that Justine had in her little plump hands started to make unexpected sounds. Annie managed to wrangle it back from her and looked at the screen.

  ‘What’s she done to it? Oh no, what does that mean, “Call divert activated”? She’s gone and changed all the settings, it’s stopped working. Franck! Justine’s mucked around with the phone and now it’s saying “call divert” or something …’

  Wearily, Franck took the phone and, wiping the dribble from the screen with his sleeve, pressed a few buttons and put the phone into his jeans pocket.

  Charles looked at Franck, and then down at his plate, and then at Franck again. Finally, he asked:

  ‘So what does that “call divert” thing do?’

  ‘Well, if I choose to divert calls to your home phone, when people call me on my mobile, the calls will go straight to your landline.’

  ‘But they don’t know that’s happening?’

  ‘They don’t know.’

  ‘And you can do that with landlines as well?’

  ‘Yes, you should be able to.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

  He got up from the table noisily. Thérèse sighed.

  ‘Charles, my veal is going to go cold.’

  ‘Thérèse, what did you do with the phone directory?’

  Charles was hopping with excitement. Half an hour and a conversation with Franck later, he went over to George’s place.

  Justine smiled, showing her two teeth.

  George was woken from his slumber by the sound of Charles’s footsteps in the garage, but they sounded different from normal. Had he really been asleep for that long? The clock next to the fridge was showing 1.30 p.m.

  Charles burst into the room and shouted confidently:

  ‘George, there’s no need to worry. There’s a solution to the Adèle problem.’

  ‘But isn’t it—?’ George began.

  ‘What’s your mobile number?’

  George had to lever himself painfully out of his garden seat and walk out into the corridor to the telephone table. ‘There it is,’ he said to Charles, pointing at the notecard tacked to the wall next to the postcards of London, on which Françoise had written in her beautiful handwriting: ‘Your mobile number: 06 20 15 89 15.’

  Charles pulled a piece of paper covered in code out of his pocket, picked up the landline phone, and after very carefully keying in several different combinations of numbers, hashes and stars, he replaced the handset with an almost solemn expression on his face.

  ‘Right,’ said Charles, who seemed to be waiting for something.

  ‘Right,’ said George, who was wondering if Charles was going to give him an explanation or whether he was going to have to get it out of him himself. ‘Right, well, so that’s …’

  ‘Where’s your mobile?’

  ‘I think it’s in the chest of drawers in the living room, under the card set.’

  ‘OK, here’s what you have to do,’ said Charles, who now seemed to know what he was doing. ‘You’re going to go and get it. I’m going to go back home and then I’m going to call you and we’ll see which of the two phones ring.’

  ‘But what number are you going to ring me on?’

  ‘The landline number.’

  ‘So it’s the home phone that’s going to ring, then.’

  ‘No, actually,’ answered Charles. ‘If it’s worked, the mobile should ring.’

  George looked at him with a slightly pitying expression.

  ‘I see,’ he replied gently, deciding that it was better to say nothing than to worry everyone now. Still, it was a shame that Charles was losing his marbles. And at such a young age.

  Charles left, feeling gratified that his friend’s knowledge of telecommunications made his own seem fairly extensive. He was back in less than five minutes, only to find George sitting in his chair again.

  ‘And? Which one rang?’

  ‘Oh, neither of them.’

  Charles looked perplexed. ‘You weren’t asleep, were you?’

  ‘Not a bit of it! I was wide awake and there was no ringing. But which number did you ring?’

  ‘05 49 57 68 34.’

  ‘Well, there you go,’ said George. ‘That’s the landline. What was all that stuff you were doing on it? Now it’s not working. Thanks a lot!’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Charles, sounding annoyed. ‘It’s the mobile that should have rung. Now I’ll have to get back on the phone to France Telecom …’

  ‘But Charles,’ said George kindly, ‘of course the mobile didn’t ring, you called the landline. And anyway, the mobile wouldn’t ring even if you did call it: it’s switched off.’

  ‘It’s switched off! Well that explains it! Where is it?’

  George handed him a brand-new phone inside a spotless plastic cover. It had clearly never been used.

  ‘I’m going to take it with me. I’ll be back in a bit,’ said Charles, who was already halfway to the garage.

  George sat back down in his chair, reflecting that it was the fate of all elderly people to lose the plot eventually, and he tried to go back to sleep in order to banish this depressing thought. He was going to have to break it to Charles that they weren’t going. But before he could think of how to do it, Charles was back. His hip must have been in a frightfully good mood that day.

  ‘It works, dammit, it works! I’ll explain it to you.’

  Adèle could call him at home all she liked; she’d never know a thing! They were free to do the Tour in peace. Charles initiated George into the mysteries of call diversion, and while he was about it, the wonderful world of modern communication in general – in such depth and detail that his veal and carrots were put in the fridge in a Tupperware container, along with his salad and his rice pudding. He even missed his Ricoré coffee and his four o’clock hot chocolate … His boyish enthusiasm had triumphed over his stomach and most importantly, it had silenced George’s voices. They had gone quiet out of politeness. Because voices can torment a man, drive him mad with doubt and sing the praises of laziness and cowardice. But they know not to get in the way of neighbours.

  Six days later, a metallic blue Renault Scenic with satnav and sunroof was approaching the bend in the tree-lined road in Chanteloup, sparkling in the proud late September sun. In the rear-view mirror, George watched Charles’s family waving them off. He saw Thérèse wipe away a tear as the house where he had lived for eighty-three years became smaller and smaller, until it had disappeared entirely behind the trees. His chest felt heavy and there was a lump in his throat, but he had no regrets. As for Charles, he was driving with one hand and waving the other out of the window, and looked utterly ecstatic. With one hundred and fifty-nine years between them, they set off on the Tour de France.

  Thursday 25 September

  Chanteloup (Deux-Sèvres)–Notre-Damede-Monts (Vendée)

  Their epic journey in the Renault Scenic was to follow the itinerary of the 2008 Tour de France to
the letter. This was made up of twenty-one stages (except that George and Charles’s Tour would leave out stage 4, as they had decided not to count the individual time trial in Cholet). They had given themselves two or three days to complete each stage, so that they could explore the surrounding area a little. But they were to change hotel almost every night. Their route was planned out as follows:

  Stage 1: Brest–Plumelec

  Stage 2: Auray–Saint-Brieuc

  Stage 3: Saint-Malo–Nantes

  Stage 5: Cholet–Châteauroux

  Stage 6: Aigurande–Super-Besse

  Stage 7: Brioude–Aurillac

  Stage 8: Figeac–Toulouse

  Stage 9: Toulouse–Bagnères-de-Bigorre

  Stage 10: Pau–Hautacam

  Stage 11: Lannemezan–Foix

  Stage 12: Lavelanet–Narbonne

  Stage 13: Narbonne–Nîmes

  Stage 14: Nîmes–Digne-les-Bains

  Stage 15: Embrun–Prato Nevoso

  Stage 16: Cuneo–Jausiers

  Stage 17: Embrun–L’Alpe-d’Huez

  Stage 18: Le Bourg-d’Oisans–Saint-Étienne

  Stage 19: Roanne–Montluçon

  Stage 20: Cérilly–Saint-Amand-Montrond

  Stage 21: Étampes–Paris Champs-Élysées

  Three extra stages had been added to take them from Chanteloup to the official starting point at Brest – which, as Charles pointed out, was ‘a heck of a way away’. He had called them stage 0 (Chanteloup–Notre-Dame-de-Monts, staying with Charles’s sister, Ginette Bruneau), stage 0a (Notre-Dame-de-Monts–Gâvres, overnighting with Charles’s cousin Odette Fonteneau), and finally stage 0b (Gâvres–Brest).

  They started by taking the first turn out of Chanteloup. As they went, the little roads with dandelions growing in the cracks were replaced by roads whose surface had been fixed so often it resembled a tarmac patchwork. They passed many familiar names on the rusty signposts: La Timarière, La Châtaigneraie, Le Bout du Monde. Then white strips started to appear on the road and all of a sudden they were driving alongside lorries and trucks. That’s when they knew they were really on their way.

  The car was not full: the only things in the boot were George’s little suitcase and Charles’s large one – twice as big as his companion’s, in fact, and much more modern, with wheels (when Charles went travelling, he did so in style) – as well as a whole box of tourist guides. The one for Southern Brittany had been put in the glove compartment, along with the GPS user manual and Charles’s Vichy pastilles. Thérèse had also provided them with a picnic set – they couldn’t go eating in restaurants every day, after all. She had even managed to sneak in a little crate of tomatoes from the garden and some ham won in a round of belote without them noticing.

  George and Charles did not talk much in the car, which still smelled of new leather. Apart from the silky and monotonous tones of the GPS, it was a rather silent journey. There was an atmosphere of reflection, and contemplation. Autumn had barely arrived, the leaves were just starting to change colour, but it was still a beautiful sight. George, who had not left his small corner of the world for years, sat back and took it in.

  On the route from Deux-Sèvres to the Vendée they passed through sleepy villages with geraniums in the windows, smart houses covered in Virginia creeper, and church steeples breaking through the clouds. Bit by bit, the landscape changed as they drove on. The green palette was flecked with a hint of yellow here, a touch of black there. The undulating forests flattened out into windswept plains. Now and then a windmill would come into view, or a thatched cottage hidden amongst the pine trees, or a sign towards a campsite or the salt flats. They were approaching the sea.

  Notre-Dame-de-Monts was a clean, discreet seaside town. What was particularly charming about it was the lack of high-rise buildings. This part of the Vendée had suffered from a wave of construction in the 1970s that had left a number of towns in the area permanently scarred. The beautiful beach ten kilometres down the coast in Saint-Jean-de-Monts had been blighted by concrete monstrosities, fast-food chains and noisy arcades. Notre-Dame-de-Monts, on the other hand, had been miraculously spared, its houses set well back from the lovely seafront, screened by the long grass on the dunes. All of this was familiar to Charles, as he had often come to visit his sister, who lived here all year round. But this was George’s first time in the town, and he was enchanted by what he saw.

  They arrived at 11.30 a.m. As they were not expected at their hostess’s until lunchtime and didn’t wish to impose, the travelling companions decided to go and admire the sea, which sparkled beyond the flags lining the esplanade. The sun, which had barely made an appearance all summer, was warming the sand on the beach and encouraging the last of the summer holidaymakers to linger. With their feet in the sand and their eyes gazing out over the Atlantic, George and Charles were happy, even if they didn’t yet dare express it to each other.

  It was almost as if the two neighbours had become shy of one another. The fact was their friendship had played out against the same background for thirty years (almost forty, come to think of it). They shared cups of tea in front of the weather report. They celebrated birthdays and family events together. Initially they had been the kinds of neighbours who invited each other for the dessert and coffee courses until one day, about fifteen years ago, Charles had invited George and his wife – perhaps by accident, perhaps not – for the starter and main course as well, when the conversation was still serious, ties were still in place and sisters-in-law were still being polite. Their friendship had also sustained a lively trade in lettuces, screwdrivers, pokers, freezer bags, various types of string, cousins’ addresses and small favours. The same routine had suited them both for all this time; God knows why they had decided to play adventurers and give it all up now!

  All of a sudden, there on the seafront at Notre-Dame-de-Monts, they no longer knew what to say to each other. Their friendship was breathing in new air; time would tell if it would survive the change.

  George and Charles arrived at Ginette’s house at twelve-thirty on the dot. Kisses, did you have a good trip, well, a bit of traffic around Le Perrier as always, but otherwise yes, it was fine, the weather’s still nice, you’ve brought the sun with you, it was such bad weather this summer, yes fine, can’t complain. It was the same exchange they had every year, a game of question and answer that they knew off by heart, where everyone spoke at the same time as if joining in with the chorus of a song they knew and loved.

  Ginette suggested eating on the patio, where the table was already set. Was it the Atlantic air or perhaps the sweet scent of the pine trees he could smell as they drank their coffee in the garden? George hadn’t felt this good in years. He had met Ginette a few times at family lunches, and he had always found her a little haughty. But seeing her in her own home she seemed very different. She scarcely looked seventy-three with her reddish hair, cropped trousers and orange plastic sandals. He had never before noticed her youthful energy – or perhaps widowhood suited her? Whatever it was, here in her own garden Ginette’s manner was much more playful and her natural authoritativeness was at once heightened and yet more agreeable, like the autumn wind that rustled the stone pines. And perhaps a little like this dangerously drinkable plum brandy.

  Charles was keeping an eye on him. For George, having fallen for the charms of Ginette, or of her plum brandy, or perhaps both at once, was beginning to make a fool of himself. He suddenly remembered lyrics to songs he had not sung for sixty years. He recounted the numerous glories of the Tour that they were going to relive one by one, stories of the past told in the future tense. The shy neighbours had found their tongues again.

  They moved from brandy to chocolate, from Petit Chinon to herbal tea. The afternoon turned to evening and the evening became night. After a dinner that was no less sumptuous than their lunch, it was time for a round of rummy.

  Ginette got out her playing mat and the two decks of cards. George was already sitting at the table in the living room, hunched ov
er his tea. It even looked as though he might already be sleeping off the plum brandy. As she dealt the cards, Ginette asked:

  ‘And George, your granddaughter, Adèle, how is she getting on over there, in London? She works in film, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know what she actually does. Well, I suppose it was her decision … She never tells me anything, you see.’

  George suddenly felt very low – no doubt a side effect of the drink – and Ginette was in turn overcome by a wave of melancholy.

  ‘That’s how it is with the young nowadays, they always leave …’

  ‘Oh Ginette, young people have always left home. Even we did.’

  ‘Yes, but we never went far,’ Ginette pointed out.

  ‘No, we didn’t go far,’ Charles interjected. ‘But we might as well have done. My parents were still in Bressuire when I left to move in with Thérèse in ’54. Before Chanteloup we were down in Pougne-Hérisson, near Parthenay. Now, travelling twenty-five kilometres to see the family doesn’t take long these days, but you’ve got to remember that in ’54, twenty-five kilometres on a bike was a real slog – it felt much further than it does today! It’s not like we were there every weekend, and we didn’t spend hours on the phone, or on the internet, or emailing each other or I don’t know what else. With young people today, the further away they are, the more they’re on your back all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. But sometimes … George, it’s your turn.’

  George looked distractedly at his hand, before continuing in the same vein.

  ‘Yes, yes, the telephone. Argh! They’re all glued to their telephones, like you wouldn’t believe! It was bad enough before, even if a phone came in handy now and again. But now with all these mobile phones—’

  ‘And it gets worse,’ Charles cut in. ‘Wait’til you hear this. My grandson from Parthenay, right, he comes to stay with us in the holidays. And he’s only reading his emails, that’s right, his internet emails on his mobile phone!’ To underline the absurdity of the thing he banged his fist on the table emphatically and leaned back in his chair. ‘I mean, I’ve seen that kind of thing on telly, but I just thought no, that’s for people who are in the know, who work in telecoms, or maybe even a couple of the big CEOs, but no! My grandson! A butcher in Parthenay!’