‘OK, now you can speak pig Latin. Yes you can, don’t be shy, you can do it. So, ask the aiterway if we can order some alettegays with eglay of orkpay.’
He slapped the table and burst out laughing.
‘Stop messing around, George, you know perfectly well the waiter doesn’t have any galettes with leg of pork.’
That shut George up. He stared at Charles in surprise. Charles liked the idea of pig Latin, it made his brain work hard, and that was no bad thing these days.
The waiter started to laugh as well.
‘What kind of language is that you’re speaking? If you like, we can speak Breton!’
‘No thanks, I think we’ve had enough for now. Right, we’ll take two galettes, a fermière and a Chavignol, please.’
‘But while we’re on the subject of foreign languages, Monsieur—’ George cut in.
‘Oh, because Breton is a foreign language, is it?’ said the waiter, outraged. ‘And in Brest, of all places!’
‘Sorry, sorry! My apologies. But might there be some young person here who can speak text language?’
‘Oh yes, we’ve got an expert here, Alexandre. If you’ll wait a moment, I’ll get him for you. Alexandre!’
‘Alexandre, send through an order for two galettes, a fermière and a Chavignol, and then would you kindly explain to these gentlemen – as quickly as possible, mind, you’ve got other things to be getting on with – how to use text language?’
Young Alexandre, a blond boy of about twenty with a whisper of a moustache, stiffly gelled hair and a piercing in one ear, answered shyly:
‘Well, you don’t have to know text language to—’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ interrupted George, ‘but if you write it the way you’re meant to, you know, swoosh.’ He gestured vaguely with his arms. ‘We want to learn, so show us.’
The young waiter perched on the end of the banquette and took hold of the biro hanging around his neck.
‘So, the point of the whole thing is to shorten words as much as possible. So, like, “How are you?” would be “hw r u”, you see?’
He wrote ‘hw r u’ on the paper tablecloth.
‘So, in a text, you’d know that means “How are you?”.’
‘You mean, the point is to leave out vowels?’ said George.
Alexandre thought for a moment.
‘Actually, not always. You’ve just got to shorten the word as much as possible. So, um, OK, you can leave out letters, or you can write with numbers. For example, the “one” sound can be written with a figure “1” and the “to” sound with a figure “2”, and so on.’
‘OK, let me give it a go,’ said George. ‘Let’s see … “I’ve gone to a restaurant in Brest”.’ Then he wrote on the tablecloth: ‘Iv gon 2 a restaurant in Brest’.
‘I would have put a Brest restaurant,’ Charles pointed out. ‘Then it’s even shorter.’
George shot his friend a disapproving glare. Alexandre seemed more enthusiastic now, and grabbed the pen from George to correct the sentence.
‘But you can make it even shorter.’
He crossed out George’s words and wrote:
‘iv gon 2 a rstrnt in Brest.’
Another waiter appeared.
‘What are you all doing?’
‘We’re writing text messages,’ George replied.
‘On a tablecloth? I’m not sure they’ll get very far! Ha!’
Ignoring the joke, George studied the sentence, frowning.
‘OK, I see. Well, “rstrnt” doesn’t sound as nice as “rest-aurrant”, but OK, if it works better …’
‘So, the most important thing,’ said Alexandre, ‘is that you now have more space to write other things. You’re always trying to save on each word so you can put as many as possible in the text.’
‘That’s just where you’re wrong, young man. I save for the sake of saving!’ George exclaimed.
‘Alexandre,’ Charles interrupted. ‘Show us another example, so we’re sure we know how to do it. We don’t want to make any mistakes!’
So Alexandre carried on the lesson.
‘OK, let’s say: “I’m going to have dessert at the restaurant”.’
‘No,’ said Charles. ‘Why don’t you say: “I’m going to have dessert here”. Because we already know how to write “restaurant”.’
Alexandre leaned over the tablecloth, which by this point was covered in scribbles, and started writing. When he sat up again, George and Charles saw: ‘Im goin 2 hav dessert here.’
‘It doesn’t look that much shorter than the normal version,’ Charles said, suspiciously.
‘Isn’t there a text word for “dessert”?’
‘Not that I can think of, off the top of my head.’
Alexandre crossed out the word several times on the tablecloth, adding and taking away letters, before finally admitting defeat: ‘dessert’ was just ‘dessert’.
‘OK, so “dessert” doesn’t really work. But you probably won’t use that word very much anyway; I mean, how often do you write texts about dessert? But there are loads of words that we use all the time that you can make much shorter.’
‘For example?’ asked Charles.
Alexandre thought again.
‘I know! “Speak tomorrow”. You write that all the time.’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed George. ‘I’m going to use that one every day!’
Alexandre wrote ‘spk 2moro’ and looked at the two pensioners with an air of satisfaction.
‘Look, I saved five characters just like that! OK, it doesn’t sound like that much, but—’
‘Yes, it does, you’ve saved almost fifty per cent! Bravo, young man! Let’s have another one.’
‘Hmm, I don’t know … Oh wait, that’s perfect! “I don’t know”.’
He wrote ‘I dno’.
‘Hmm, I’m not sure how much we’re going to be needing that one,’ objected Charles. ‘Especially as we’ll be following the map all the way.’
‘OK, I’ve got a better one! “Want to”. You use that all the time, right?’
‘Ah yes,’ agreed George. ‘One of the modal verbs, very common.’
‘OK, check this out: “wan2”.’
‘Waan two?’
‘No! “Wan” plus “2” makes “want to”!’
This time, George and Charles were really impressed. Alexandre felt pleased with himself.
‘And I saved three characters, including a space, which isn’t bad either.’
‘Well, would you look at that! Right, Charles old chap, we’d better get started … And that’s all very well, young Alexandre, but have you ever heard someone speak pig Latin?’
Alexandre had not, but by the end of the evening, with the help of some local cider, he could speak it fluently, along with the rest of the kitchen staff and quite a few of the other diners, and the restaurant resounded with all kinds of onsensenay. At around one in the morning, they ran out of Breton songs to sing, so George brought out some of the classics: Maurice Chevalier, Ouvrard, Milton … But when he was the only one left singing, everyone decided it was time to go home.
Adèle was bored. She spent all her time waiting around. Whether on her own or with the crew, day or night, she waited. There was no way she could leave this musty old house and go and stretch her legs in Brick Lane. If someone shouted her name, it was her job to appear instantly. It was impossible for her to read, or start a crossword, or anything; she just had to wait around and try her best to look interested.
Once again she found herself sitting in a corridor with a few other crew members. It was a different corridor this time, one that led to the large drawing room, but it was just as gloomy, with the same velvet curtains cloaked in dust and the same old windows that let in draughts.
The drawing room, where the scene was being shot, was big enough to have allowed her to find a small space for herself in the warm and at the heart of the action, but at the last minute someone had sent her off to find a prop and she hadn’t bee
n able to get back in as filming had already started. They had obviously decided they didn’t need what they had sent her off to get. Adèle sighed and sat down on the floor. In the corridor, the assistant electricians were talking with the lorry drivers who had come in to grab a coffee. Two actors who had gone through make-up hours ago were pacing up and down and going over their lines. The assistant hairdresser was clearly still hung-over from the night before and was sitting slumped on the stairs. Adèle looked at her watch for the umpteenth time: 11.12 p.m. At least another two hours before she could go home. She yawned, then switched on her phone. Oh joy, one voicemail and three texts. That would eat up at least a few minutes. All of the texts were from her grandfather.
Grandpa 28/09/2008 19:02
We r in a rstrnt in Brest, Finstr. We r fine.
(We’re in a restaurant in Brest, Finistère. We’re fine.)
Grandpa 28/09/2008 20:58
Still in St-Malo rstrnt. V gd chavignol galett n strwbry crep. V nice atmsphr. Spking pig latin like in gd old days. Spk 2moro.
(Still in Saint-Malo restaurant. Very good Chavignol galette and strawberry crêpes. Very nice atmosphere. Speaking pig Latin like in the good old days. Speak tomorrow.)
Grandpa 28/09/2008 21:09
Rstrnt is in Brest, bt called Crepri St-Malo. Spk 2moro.
(Restaurant is in Brest, but called Crêperie Saint-Malo. Speak tomorrow.)
Adèle couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
The voicemail was also from her grandfather and had been received at seven minutes to eleven – which meant seven minutes to midnight in France. What was he doing up at that hour and why was he calling her? It was with some trepidation that she pressed play. She listened to the sound of noisy laughter and waited for the message that never came. Her grandfather had dialled her number by mistake and what she was hearing was the background noise of the crêperie. It did sound quite fun there, actually. She was about to erase the message when she picked out the sound of men’s voices singing ‘Jean-Françoué de Nantes … Jean-Françoué’ and then ‘The Bretons know how to have a good time!’ That was definitely her grandfather’s voice.
Adèle laughed to herself. If this was stage one, they were going to have to be treated for alcohol poisoning by the time they reached the end of the Tour. This man matched up less and less to the image of her grandfather she had in her mind. When she was little, she had been given a ‘Grandpa Kiki’, the grandpa version of the soft toy monkey that had been such a craze in the eighties. Grandpa Kiki was grey all over, with glasses, a three-piece suit and a pair of carpet slippers. Since then, she had always pictured her grandfather as a Grandpa Kiki, who just sat in his box, and whom she would send the occasional card out of habit and politeness. And here he was jumping out of his box at the age of eighty-three! Grandpa Kiki dancing Saturday Night Fever? The mental image made her smile.
Adèle liked getting these texts; they distracted her from the monotony of the shoot. She looked up and saw that Alex, the apprentice hair stylist, was watching her. He was tall and slim, and most likely gay. Like many of the Australians she knew, he was friendly and laid-back, and loved going out. He must have been wondering why she was grinning in the middle of all these people who looked like they were about to die of boredom.
Adèle whispered:
‘I just got a text from my grandfather, he’s eighty-three. Apparently he’s sitting in a crêperie in Brittany knocking back cider. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was dancing on the tables by now.’
‘So your grandfather’s in pretty good shape, then!’
‘No, not even! That’s the crazy thing about it. Everyone said he was on his last legs. But I haven’t told you the funniest part: he’s been surgically attached to his slippers for twenty years and now all of a sudden he decides he’s going to do the Tour de France.’
‘The Tour de France? On a bike?’
‘No, in a Renault Scenic. But still …’
Adèle briefly summed up the story for him, not without a hint of pride. They carried on whispering and laughing under their breath until the cast and crew came out of the drawing room more than two hours later. They talked about their misguided hopes, all the unbearable waiting, how hard it was to make real friends, how cynical the industry was – but they also discussed their future plans, eccentric relatives, holidays in Brittany and faraway countries. There was a little gossip, but this time Adèle found it funny. It was the first time since her conversations with Irving Ferns that she had opened up to someone on set. And even if she never saw Alex again, this hadn’t been a bad evening at all.
When George returned to his room in the Hôtel du Centre, the walls were no longer the urine-yellow and concrete-grey of the night before; they now looked like sunshine and soft grey cashmere. The room was no longer anonymous, but welcoming. Beyond the uPVC window, the night was filled with future promise, with things that had long lain dormant but were coming back to life, full of energy and vigour. The source of this unexpected jubilance was, amongst other things, the memory of a baby girl in a maternity ward twenty-three years earlier, and his joy at being a grandfather for the first time. But a whole host of other thoughts were also contributing to his happiness as he sat down on his bed.
George had been an atheist, and occasional opponent of the Church, ever since his catechism lessons with Père François some seventy years ago. So what was behind this sudden urge to thank someone who was not an actual person? Someone who would understand and who knew where he came from, someone who made the rain fall and the sun shine, who had control of his body and the events that affected him. All his life he had avoided churches; he was not the sort to go asking God favours. He, or perhaps Arlette, was the ship’s captain, and he never asked anyone, not the Father, the Son or the Holy Ghost, for anything (even if Arlette, he knew, had occasionally done so in secret, especially towards the end). And after all, he had lived no worse a life than most, far from it. And yet in these moments it was tempting to be grateful to someone other than his own pile of flesh and bones, which, he mistakenly thought, hadn’t been responsible for any of it. He was content and grateful. He had to admit, there was something straightforward and cheering about thanking the angels, in whom he had never believed, but who existed that evening just to share in his new-found happiness.
The next morning, he felt the full effects of the night’s good cheer.
Monday 29 September
Brest (Finistère)–Guémené-sur-Scorff (Morbihan)
George and Charles reconvened the following morning in the hotel breakfast room. There was no avoiding it: they were both hung-over. Charles was groaning and complaining, while George was trying as hard as humanly possible to hide his discomfort. In the buffet area, the appetising aroma of the pastries mingled with waves of woody aftershave and a heavy dose of lady’s perfume. The guests approached the buffet as if walking on stage, shyly muttering, ‘Morning, morning’, and standing up very straight. They all put on their best manners, neatly cutting the cheese and taking care not to overfill their plates, fighting off the desire to try everything and make the most of the ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet. Charles and George, on the other hand, were not concerned in the slightest with keeping up appearances, especially in the absence of their wives, and piled their plates high with bread and cheese – which admittedly looked a little plastic, but would do the job fine.
Once they had devoured their breakfast, Charles said:
‘You know, I thought for a moment there we weren’t going to do it, George. But here we are: stage one of the Tour de France. And with a stinking hangover to boot! I have to say, I didn’t see that one coming.’
‘Maybe it would be a good idea to wait until after lunch before we get back on the road,’ George suggested tentatively.
‘Out of the question! I’ve been waiting until after lunch for forty years to do this bloody Tour. Come on, let’s go!’
The first morning of the Tour was chilly but stunning. The sun was shining over Brittany, a
nd if the photographs in Charles’s guidebooks were anything to go by, the landscape promised to be wild and full of mystery.
George and Charles allowed themselves a few detours, to see the countryside and give them some stories to tell in the postcards.
The rhythm of the epic journey had been set: it was to be a stroll, rather than a sprint. So they spent the first day discovering the lovely Plougastel peninsula, with its grey stone chapels, impressive calvary and L’Auberlac’h, the tiny shellfish port lined with little blue boats, which was so charming that George felt a surge of poetic inspiration. It was perhaps a little early for the evening text, given that they hadn’t even eaten lunch yet, but there was nothing wrong with reassuring Adèle in the morning as well. Just in case she had had a sudden worry overnight. George got out his mobile and wrote:
We r in L’Auberlac’h, Fnstr, nice port w blu boats.
(We are in L’Auberlac’h, Finistère, nice port with blue boats.)
He tried to think of a shorthand for ‘boats’ but didn’t want to confuse Adèle, so he left it as it was. The response came almost immediately.
OK, hv fun.
(OK, have fun.)
George really did find the little port rather charming.
They did not talk much about the Tour during this stage. George tried to start a game where the aim was to name the years in which Breton cyclists had stood out from the pack. A good half-hour had gone by before George realised that he was winning by miles and that Charles’s only contribution was the occasional ‘Ah’, ‘Ah yes, you’re right.’ George, on the other hand, surpassed himself: he had remembered Jean-Marie Goasmat, known as ‘The Elf’; Alfred Le Bars and his journey from Morlaix to Paris; the ‘Bulldog of Morbihan’, Le Guilly; Malléjac, the factory worker from Brest who took the yellow jersey in ’53; George Gilles, of course (the ‘Breton Van Steenbergen’); ‘La Pipe’ and his Mercier bike; the Groussard brothers; ‘Jo Talbot’; Ronan Pensec with his mane of hair (with a name like his, he could only be from around these parts), and so on and so forth. George reproached Charles for his lack of enthusiasm, but he replied that he was concentrating on the road, and couldn’t do two things at once. So that was the end of that.
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