George's Grand Tour

by Caroline Vermalle

  The countryside they were driving through was magnificent. The lanes wound through a sea of green, passing grey chapels and little fishing villages tucked away in deserted bays, and every so often at a bend in the narrow, bracken-lined roads, they caught breathtaking views over the Bay of Brest. Signs along the way reminded them that they were crossing Armorica Regional Park, and pointed to rows of standing stones. Armorica, and the menhirs … This brought back memories for George, who had read the Asterix stories to Adèle when she was a little girl.

  When the road took them through thick forest, they had the strange feeling of being caught somewhere between day and night. And that if they ventured to look further beyond the trees, they might have seen something, a something that only existed in fairy tales. They went from rocky landscapes to purple heaths, to rutted tracks and, further on, empty expanses of peatland.

  It wasn’t time for lunch yet, but Charles wanted to stop in Le Faou. George naively assumed he wanted to see the old houses, and the pretty port with its mud flats. Not at all; Charles kept driving until they reached a wisteria-covered farm at the very edge of the village. Apparently, this was where the best cider in the region was to be found. George, who was still feeling a little nauseous, wondered aloud if this was really necessary, and stayed in the car. Charles and the owner returned with two crates, which they placed in the Scenic’s spacious boot.

  It would soon be time for the first official lunch of the Tour. George grabbed the guidebook from the glove compartment and began to read:

  ‘So, the Black Mountains. Let’s see. Blah blah blah sixty kilometres blah blah blah Le Ménez-Hom blah blah blah blah blah dense forest blah blah blah blah schist blah blah blah blah blah blah blah three hundred million years blah blah blah blah hidden charm blah blah blah slate blah blah blah blah. Right. None of that tells us where to take a pit stop.’

  ‘Look up Châteauneuf-du-Faou, we’ll be there soon,’ advised Charles.

  Châteauneuf-du-Faou was a pretty market town perched on a hillside in the Black Mountains. The pair found a picnic area in the grounds of the Trévarez estate, one of the prettiest parks in Brittany. They took the picnic set out of the car, along with the crate of tomatoes and the provisions picked up at a corner shop in Brest. They both took out their old Opinel knives. The château ruins, the verdant riverbanks and the tranquillity of the place inspired George to write another text. He hesitated for a moment before sending it: it wouldn’t do to send too many … but anyway, a text was never a nuisance and didn’t necessarily require a response. Even if George did love receiving them from Adèle.

  We r in Chateauneuf-du-Faou, nice twn, picnic w breton cidr.

  (We are in Châteauneuf-du-Faou, nice town, picnic with Breton cider.)

  They got up to leave when they saw dark clouds gathering on the horizon. Charles, who was normally extremely conscientious, sometimes even obsessively so, surprised George by leaving his leftovers on the immaculate lawn. As he got back into the car, seemingly unaware, George picked up his rubbish for him, grumbling under his breath. How funny that even after thirty years, he still did not really know his neighbour.

  In Guémené, they had dinner in a little restaurant that offered regional specialities. But the trials of the Tour – and the high jinks of the night before – had left them both exhausted. They were in danger of falling asleep into the Kirs they had ordered to mark the occasion, more out of a sense of duty than fun. They soon ran out of jokes about Guémené, the hometown of andouille sausage, and at half past nine the companions were lying in their respective rooms in their striped pyjamas, in a bed and breakfast that Charles had booked online. George sent a last text to Adèle and noticed that ‘andouille’, like ‘dessert’, was difficult to abbreviate in text language. And as his doctor had banned him from eating pork anyway, he decided to omit this detail from his message.

  We r in Guémené-sur-Scorff, luvly cttage, nice frnt. Rstrnt w rejonal spcialities, 2 end a lng day. Celebr8d 1st stage of tour w Kir. 2moro Plumelec, lnch in Guern. Gd nite Adl.

  (We are in Guémené-sur-Scorff, lovely cottage, nice front. Restaurant with regional specialities, to end a long day. Celebrated first stage of Tour with Kir. Tomorrow Plumelec, lunch in Guern. Goodnight Adèle.)

  He pressed ‘send’ just before turning off the bedside lamp around 10 p.m., and fell asleep straight away. Apart from the obligatory 4 a.m. loo trip, it was a long and peaceful night’s sleep. Which was lucky, because in the days to come he would not sleep anything like as soundly …

  Tuesday 30 September

  Guémené-sur-Scorff–Plumelec (Morbihan)

  The second part of this first stage of the Tour was just as pleasant, interesting and exhausting. They stopped for a picnic of andouille and cider by the cemetery in Guern, next to the village fountain, where the music of the falling water inspired another text to Adèle, which also went unanswered, but George understood that his granddaughter was very busy.

  They reached Plumelec, where a charming bed and breakfast awaited them. This time Charles and George would have to share a bedroom, which was furnished with twin beds with white crochet bedcovers and a cushion with a yellow knitted cover embroidered with flowers.

  For dinner they opted, like teenagers, for a takeaway pizza from a pizza van that came to the town’s church square every Tuesday. Charles, who had been put in charge of ordering, chose one pizza for them to share, as they were not very hungry – perhaps because of their excessive sausage consumption earlier that afternoon. When Charles came to choosing toppings, the pizza man began to miss his teenage customers. Charles didn’t garnish his pizza so much as pile it high with every possible ingredient. Most of the available toppings were heaped onto the poor thing, which inevitably crumbled under the great weight. They needed an extra box just to catch the excess spilling over the sides. The pizza man would not forget these two granddads; as for George and Charles, they were delighted with the result.

  Before going to bed, George sent a last text to Adèle:

  We r in Plumelec, in Chouan country. Pizza 4 dinr, Charles snds his luv, me 2. Gd nite Adl.

  (We are in Plumelec, in Chouan country. Pizza for dinner, Charles sends his love and me too. Goodnight Adèle.)

  Charles was leaning on the sunflower-yellow cushion and concentrating hard on his Sudoku – Holiday Special, his knife-sharpened pencil in hand. George was impressed; he was so tired he hadn’t even had the energy to pick up his book. They started chatting, and continued their conversation after they had turned the lights out like the boys in boarding-house dormitories they had once been.

  And neither he nor Charles woke up when the phone played the little jingle signalling the arrival of a text message, just before eleven. A text that was not from Adèle.

  Meanwhile, around nine o’clock, Adèle was coming to the end of a long day that had begun at six in the morning. She hadn’t had time to respond to the last text from her grandfather as there had just been some bad news that had cast a dark cloud over the whole crew, and turned the shooting schedule on its head. His agent had called the producer late that afternoon: Irving Ferns was dead. The actor who had played Aristide Leonides, the murdered grandfather, had passed away in the night at the age of eighty-one. The producers were now tearing their hair out because even though they had already shot the opening scene with him, he had been supposed to reappear in a flashback that was scheduled to be shot next week. So they not only had to find a replacement for the scenes still to be shot, but also for the ones in which he had already appeared. For the production manager, this was catastrophic: there was no budget for this, blah blah blah, they would have to recreate the scene and décor exactly, blah blah blah, costumes made to measure, blah blah blah, moustache continuity, blah blah blah … For Adèle, and for most of the crew, this meant a few extra days of shooting. And she had thought she would have a day off on her birthday … Not any more! But above all, the actor’s death had deeply upset her.

  She was the last person to colle
ct her things in the crooked house. The place was quite eerie when it was empty, with dark walls and a creaking floor. She had to lock the front door and give the key to the porter down the road. She couldn’t stop thinking about Irving Ferns. Would she send flowers? She had only known him for two days, but she had been shocked by his death. She had sensed that he had felt alone and that he would have liked to continue their conversation, open up more. But Adèle had not wanted to confide in him. He had been the reason she had called her grandfather for the first time in years. Contrary to what her grandpa seemed to think, her mother had never asked her to do anything. But Irving Ferns had.

  She looked at her phone. So many messages from her grandfather! At least five a day. He told her all about the trip, the villages he passed through and the countryside he was seeing. He was going way beyond the daily update she had asked for; this was more like a travel diary. She read his texts as if they were the logbook of an explorer. It gave her a chance to escape a little.

  But Irving Ferns’ death helped her see these little text messages for what they really were. They weren’t a travel diary, written for her, the reader, with the sole purpose of keeping her entertained. They were an invitation to start a dialogue between a distant grandfather and an absent granddaughter. Up until now, Adèle had always unknowingly refused this invitation. And this was probably her last chance to accept.

  She reread all of the texts, which she now saw in a different light, more faded and melancholy. Because most of them had not been replied to, they now seemed to contain a sadness that she hadn’t noticed before. She was struck by her own selfishness, the egotism of youth, just as she had been after her conversation with the ageing actor.

  And so, once again, she decided to try to make up for lost time.

  A few hundred kilometres away, in Brittany, George was also wide awake. The night had begun well but his bladder had woken him up, as it always did, around four in the morning. It was then that he realised he had forgotten to pack an essential item in his suitcase: a torch. It was pitch-black in the room and he didn’t want to switch on the bedside light and wake up Charles. In a flash of inspiration he remembered that the mobile phone lit up when the buttons were pressed. Feeling his way, he found the phone and pressed a few buttons so he could make his way to the bathroom without stirring Charles. He paid no attention to the distant ringing noise he could hear. He thought it was probably the plumbing. It was only when he put the phone back on the bedside table and was about to pull the cover over him that he heard: ‘Hello? Hello, George?’ George grabbed his phone and was horrified to see ‘Ginette Bruneau’ on the screen. He had obviously woken her up. Mortified, he pressed as many of the buttons as he could until finally the talking stopped. He was relieved for a moment until the panic returned: if he knew it was Ginette he had called, then Ginette must have known it was him who had hung up on her in the middle of the night. This would worry her, no doubt about that. How had the blasted thing managed to find Ginette’s number of all things? Stupid blasted machine.

  He went back into the bathroom to call Ginette back to reassure her, but before he dialled the number, he saw that he had received a text. From Ginette.

  Ginette Bruneau 30/09/2008 22:49

  Dear George, I am thinking of you both on your journey. I won a lovely begonia in the dance contest for the Charleston; it was a lot of fun. Maybe one day you’ll be able to come to one of the dances. I hope you are doing well. Yours, Ginette.

  George did not call her back. This was an extremely delicate situation. He had to think about it, and not rush into anything. And most importantly, he mustn’t say a word of this to Charles. For even if it had been sent at a perfectly reasonable hour, Ginette’s message gave cause for secrecy.

  Wednesday 1 October

  Plumelec–Auray (Morbihan)

  The next day was a one-off: they drove all the way to the next destination without stopping. They arrived before lunchtime. The hotel, which was situated in a clearing on the outskirts of Auray, was magnificent. It was refined without being pretentious, with discreet service, antique décor and plush carpets. Guests watched the rain battering the trees from the comfort of the winter garden. Their lunch was utterly delicious. It was the most beautiful place they had stayed yet.

  George was overcome with the desire to relax, to collapse into one of the great wicker sofas that looked so inviting, a perfect place for contemplation and reflection, but Charles was not to be persuaded. They had left the afternoon free to visit the world-famous Carnac site. Charles had been saying since the beginning of the trip that what he really wanted to see in Brittany was Carnac, with the Louison Bobet Cycling Museum a close second. No matter the weather, Charles was determined to get out there. George also wanted to see the Carnac standing stones, of course, but the driving rain was enough to make his rheumatism play up just thinking about it. In the end, Charles’s determination won out against George’s rheumatism, and George pulled on the red fleece that Françoise had given him. They got back into the Scenic and set off for Carnac.

  From the car they could already see some of the stone alignments but they would have to walk much further to take in the sheer scale of the three thousand menhirs, dolmens and tumulus that Charles had heard so much about. But the rain had turned into a deluge, and leaving the car now was out of the question. So they waited in the car park by the town hall, and waited some more, for at least an hour, but the water continued to flood the windscreen. George had to bite his tongue not to mention Ginette, which he did for so long that he fell asleep. After a while Charles shook George awake and suggested they go and visit the Museum of Prehistory on the square. From the car, they could see the large white classical stone building with its impressive doorway and a palm tree in the courtyard that was being pulled here and there by the wind.

  George had always found museums rather boring. Not that he wasn’t interested in culture or history. He had an excellent memory for facts, and his general knowledge was superb. But there was something profoundly, fundamentally, soporific about museums. He felt bored to death just at the thought of dragging himself down dimly lit corridors and pressing his head against the glass to read the Lilliputian print on the information panels. The first thing he did, as he had done every other time he was made to visit a museum, was to find a bench to sit down on. There were always benches in museums, and they always had old people lined up on them, like sparrows on a wire. There were always clusters of teenagers as well, hanging around in their trainers and talking loudly. George watched them. He knew these snot-nosed kids on a class trip, who couldn’t care less about prehistory, found it pathetic how old people did nothing but wait around on benches. But what the sniggering youths didn’t know was that the old man in the red fleece was planning what to write in a text to his new girl. That would have knocked them for six! George chuckled to himself on his bench.

  Charles returned, having enjoyed the exhibition, and bought at least five books on the stone rows at the museum shop. George asked the woman at the till if it was possible to buy a torch here but she patiently replied that no, surprisingly enough, the Museum of Prehistory gift shop did not sell flashlights. They went back to the hotel where, finally, George was able to collapse onto a wicker sofa.

  Thursday 2 October

  Auray (Morbihan)–Mûr-de-Bretagne (Côtes-d’Armor)

  Things became difficult when Charles saw the bill for their stay. Never had the question ‘What’s the damage?’ been so appropriate. What he had thought was the total price at the time of booking turned out to be the price per person without breakfast. With taxes, all the other extras and the two lunches, the total cost was staggering and he was in a black mood by the time it came to paying. Or rather, by the time it came to asking George to pay, as George was this Tour’s sole sponsor, and while he had been incredibly generous when it came to the main expenses, for anything that might be considered an ‘extra’ he kept his purse strings drawn rather tight. By some miracle he was in an excellent
mood that day and paid the full amount without hesitation, and even gave the receptionist a big smile as he did so.

  Admittedly, he had just been pleasantly surprised by a text from Adèle on his screen:

  Adèle 01/10/2008 22:36

  Alwys wnted 2 c Carnac. If u giv me the name of htel, mayb ill go 1 day, u nvr no! Spk 2moro.

  (Always wanted to see Carnac. If you give me the name of the hotel, maybe I’ll go one day, you never know! Speak tomorrow.)

  If the family was going to come back here, it was probably a good idea to smile at the receptionist.

  Charles was eager to visit Auray, where he had been with Thérèse many years earlier. The summer tourists had all left and this little corner of Brittany was just as beautiful as he remembered. The town sat majestically on top of a hill, with the old port, Saint-Goustan, at the foot of it. Charles and George walked down Rue du Belvédère, with its terraced gardens and medieval houses, until they reached the banks of the Loch. They stopped in the shade of some large trees to take in the stunning view of the port. They could even see the watchtower that saw the ships in every day. They walked for a long time, panting as they climbed the steep streets and uneven steps that led to the church, totally forgetting to buy a torch for George, even though he had kept going on about it. Finally, the exhausted visitors were grateful to sit down on the terrace of a restaurant with purple walls and striped sofas. By now they should have been in Baud, or even in Pontivy, about sixty kilometres from where they were, but never mind.