by Carla McKay
Within two days Judith had packed up and left The Chase whilst everybody was on leave. This had been planned beautifully she thought. Her mortification was complete and she spoke to nobody except her friend Jane in London who told her to come and stay with her for as long as she liked while she considered her future plans. Thank god for Jane, thought Judith, though already she knew that London wasn’t far enough away.
10
Ben lay in bed with his eyes closed. It was 7.00 am and he had to be at school by 8.00 am. He lay rigid with his fists clenched and thought of the day ahead.
He had attended the local secondary school in Vevey for a year now and it wasn’t getting any better. When he and his mother had moved down to the south of France last year ‘in search of better life’ as Fern put it, she had assured him that he would much prefer school in France and that he would pick up the language easily. Wrong on both counts.
His comprehensive back in Bicester hadn’t been great but he’d had good pals and had enjoyed all the practical lessons like carpentry and information technology. And he had played in the first football team who were absolutely ace and could beat the shit out of all other local teams. By contrast, French school was really horrible.
For a start, it was unbelievably regimented. He hadn’t believed it at first when someone told him that there was a national curriculum in France which meant that every schoolchild is learning the same subject at exactly the same time all over the country, but it was true. And everything, he found, was run on almost military lines like that. The students sat in rows, head down, copying stuff from the board all day it seemed, and the teachers didn’t teach, or discuss anything, they just lectured. And they had no relationship with the students at all. They hardly even knew their names.
Even worse, it was all just academic work all day. There were hardly any extra-curricular subjects like art or drama or music – all of which Ben enjoyed. And only a bit of physical education. If you wanted to play football you had to do it outside school hours by joining a local club. How sad was that?
But, of course, the very hardest thing for Ben was the language. He couldn’t ever really speak to anybody, let alone make friends. French schools made no concessions to non-French speakers and you just had to get on with it. And it wasn’t like his mother said. He couldn’t just ‘pick up’ French because hardly anyone ever spoke to him. And when they did, it was to make fun of his halting French and foreign ways. It was OK for little kids. Apparently it was easy to learn a new language up until about ten years old, but Ben was now sixteen – fifteen when he arrived.
The work was so hard too, whether you were French or English. Non stop maths, French and science. Hardly any Geography and then only about French rivers, and History was a complete joke. No wonder the Frogs were so nationalistic – they only ever seemed to learn about that git Napoleon and all the battles they were supposed to have won.
He couldn’t bear it. He really couldn’t. And worse, he couldn’t really talk to his mother about it. She had managed to make a go of it alone in France with him and he didn’t want to let her down. His father had buggered off when he was twelve and after three miserable years living hand to mouth in Bicester, Fern had finally decided that if they were going to be poor, it would be better to be poor in the sunshine.
It had been a struggle at first nevertheless and they had lived for a couple of months in a caravan in the garden of Fern’s neighbour’s sister and her husband which was why they had come to this part of the Languedoc. Fern had never heard of it before. Now they had found a small house rent on the edge of Vevey and Fern had found a job she liked in an arts-and-craft shop in the old centre of town and started to make friends and feel more at home.
Ben loved his mother and being a sensitive soul, didn’t want to make her life any more difficult than it was. She had had hopes of meeting a nice, rich man down in the South of France (‘Well, there aren’t any in Bicester are there?’) but so far she hadn’t had any luck. Both of them were lonely, if the truth be told. He, in particular, was extremely lonely and desperately missed his friends in England. Fern had promised they could go back at Christmas. But it was May, for god’s sake. How could he last till then?
He lay now paralysed by the thought of another day, trying to fight back the tears that came now embarrassingly frequently, unbidden. At school, he would sometimes have to go and stand in the lavatories till the sobs stopped, emerging red-eyed but with no sense of relief. He squeezed his eyes tightly now to stop them, but if anyone had come into his room at that moment they would have noticed two trickles sliding down his cheeks and been alarmed for him.
Not far away that same day another lonely teenager was also almost in tears. Rose had just learned from Gillian that Judith had agreed to see her that afternoon to give her some coaching.
‘How could you?’ stormed Rose at her mother. ‘I don’t want coaching from some old bat here. It’s my half term, or had you forgotten? It’s bad enough having to be away from all my friends at home and being dragged to a million awful barbeques with you lot without your fixing up extra schoolwork this week behind my back.’
‘Rose, you should be pleased,’ said Gillian. ‘Judith is a very nice English teacher and she’ll be able to help you with that coursework on Romeo & Juliet that you’re finding so difficult. Really, I thought I was doing you a favour. Besides, you’ve got nothing else to do today.’ ‘No, quite.’ said Rose. ‘That’s my point. There is nothing else to do here but that doesn’t mean I want to discuss Shakespeare with some boring old teacher. This is supposed to be a holiday from all that.’
Gillian despaired. The child was so unpleasant and sulky at the moment. Why couldn’t she be more like that Stanhope girl who managed to combine being a teenager with a certain degree of charm.
In stony silence, they set off for Judith’s in the car after lunch with Rose clutching her heavily annotated edition of Romeo & Juliet and a few notes she’d scrawled on the coursework she’d been set. It never crossed her mind that the ‘boring old teacher’ was equally irritated at the thought of the coaching session to come and was quickly having a coffee and a cigarette in anticipation of a dull couple of hours with the sulky teenager she’d met briefly the night before.
Two hours or so later both Judith and Rose were surprisingly enjoying themselves. Both had realised that their first impressions of each other were mistaken and were now chatting like old friends. Judith had dealt with Rose’s assignment – ‘The course of true love never runs smooth’. Discuss this with reference to Shakespeare’s play Romeo & Juliet. Your own experiences can be bought to bear on the subject too (optional).’ – easily and efficiently. Rose thought she now properly understood Juliet’s crucial balcony ‘What’s in a name?’ speech and the subject had naturally lent itself to a more general discussion.
Judith was so helpful and so understanding that Rose found herself confiding in her all her problems about school and boyfriends and the fact that nobody understood her. Judith understood only too well. She herself had been there plus she had spent 22 years learning from and listening to young girls and she sympathised with Rose’s lament that she couldn’t get a boyfriend because she was too shy and awkward and didn’t have the right figure – unlike Sophie Stanhope she added.
Judith then said something that startled Rose and made her think. ‘I don’t think Sophie’s very happy either.’
‘Why not? She’s got a body to die for and all the boys buzzing around her like flies.’
‘It’s true she’s an attractive girl,’ admitted Judith, ‘but, from my limited observations, I would say that she’s just as insecure about herself as you are. Maybe she just disguises it better with all that showing off and bogus sophistication.’
Rose would have given anything at that moment for Sophie to hear Judith describe her adult ways as ‘bogus sophistication’.
‘I also think’, continued Judith, rather indiscreetly, ‘that she’s a bit of a poor little rich girl. Her parents don
’t seem to notice her behaviour or care about what she’s doing very much. I think a lot of what she does and says is attention-seeking because she doesn’t get much notice taken of her by the people she wants to notice her.’
‘That’s probably true,’ said Rose thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t looked at it like that but you’re right. I mean, my parents wouldn’t let me hang around people like Lance Thingy in the way she does. Anyone can see that he’s a dirty old man who’s just lusting after her. She can’t see that someone like that wouldn’t be interested in her scintillating conversation alone. I couldn’t believe it when she told me after that barbeque that she’s going out to dinner with him – just the two of them – at the end of this week. I asked her if her parents would let her and she just said of course they would and that they probably wouldn’t even ask her where she was going.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Judith, thinking that she mustn’t let on just how horrifying she found that bit of information. ‘You complain about your parents shepherding you around everywhere like a little girl, and fussing over you, but you wouldn’t like it at all if they didn’t care where you were or what you were up to. I think, by the way, she paused, selecting her words carefully, that you should try to dissuade Sophie from going out to dinner with Lance if you see her beforehand.’
‘Oh, I’ve already tried,’ said Rose, ‘but she doesn’t listen to me. She thinks I’m just a baby and that she’s so smart going out with older men. Anyway, Sophie’s nothing to me. I just wish I had some decent friends my own age around here, that’s all. Mum’s already told me that we’re spending most of the summer holidays here too, worst luck. Will you still be here then?’
‘I should think so,’ smiled Judith. ‘This is my home now. I’ll tell you what, when you come back in the summer, I’ll introduce you to a young friend of mine out here. You might get on well. He’s a little older than you and called Ben. I occasionally give him lessons in French because he moved to Vevey with his mother last year and is still struggling with the language.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Rose. ‘Thanks, Judith,’ she added. ‘May I call you that? You don’t seem like a teacher at all. You’ve been really helpful.’
And so have you, thought Judith. But what I do with the nugget of information you’ve brought me, God only knows. I just don’t think I can interfere. Lance gives me the creeps but he’s friendly with those Stanhopes and it really is none of my business. Maybe he is only taking a fatherly interest in Sophie, but I doubt it.
She waved Rose off with Gillian. ‘Take care, Rose,’ she called, ‘everything will be all right, you’ll see.’
11
When Lance arrived rather breathless at Café Le Square the night of the barbeque, Roland could see at once that he was out of sorts.
‘What is it, my friend? A girl has said no?’
‘No, no, no,’ said Lance, exasperated. ‘Be a good chap, Roland, and get me….’ He was going to say whisky so as to continue the way he had started, but then remembered that French bars only stock ridiculous export whisky with bogus names like Sir Edward’s.
‘I have just got in some especially good red wine,’ interrupted Roland, reaching below the counter for a bottle. ‘You will love it, Lance.’ He kissed his fingers appreciatively. It is from Provence, very old, very good. A wine from Bandol – you have heard of it? Made from the Mourvèdre grape – very spicy, very good for you.’
Lance thought, not for the first time, that it was odd for a small, scruffy café cum restaurant in the sticks to buy in such decent wine. Roland had produced several magnificent bottles on different occasions. Sometimes Lance would buy a dozen off him. Roland knew how to charge for it and Lance supposed he made a small commission on it, but so far it had been well worth it. Now he swirled a little round in his glass sniffing it in the way his more wine-literate colleagues had done in the heady days of four-hour lunch breaks at Le Gavroche.
‘This is excellent, Roland,’ he pronounced. ‘I feel better already.’
Practically all the restaurant’s customers had gone for the night. Roland’s father now appeared from the back, wiping his hands on a filthy apron. ‘Bonsoir, Jean-Baptiste,’ called Lance genially, all thoughts of Judith now firmly on the back burner, ‘comment ça va?’
‘Eh Bien,’ growled Jean-Baptiste turning back into the kitchen. Grumpy bugger thought Lance, but you had to admire somebody like that, who had had such an appalling war and lost most of his friends in it. Roland had told him that he hadn’t really been the same since the terrible shootout, not that he would know, since he hadn’t been born then. Things hadn’t improved apparently after Jean-Baptiste’s wife had done a runner with the local butcher when Roland was about twelve. ‘These things happen’, shrugged Roland philosophically whilst relating this tale. ‘The women in the village looked after us – better than my mother en effet.’
‘Let’s take this upstairs with us,’ he now said, nodding at the bottle after his father had gone. ‘I have some new things of interest to show you.’
Happily, Lance trotted after him up the dark, narrow staircase that led to Roland’s bachelor quarters. It was really very good being friendly with the natives, he thought. He was rather privileged. Not many of his fellow countrymen had managed to integrate at all. Of course, most of the clots couldn’t speak French well enough and were still bleating about not being able to find baked beans in the shops. He had heard of some villages, mostly in the Dordogne and Lot admittedly, where the English had organised local cricket teams. Why didn’t they just stay in England, Lance wondered. They lived in France like bloody outlaws: they didn’t get a carte de sejour, allowing them to stay in the country; they didn’t make tax returns in France (well, neither did he to be fair); they never bothered to re-register their cars, even though it was a legal requirement after a year; they badgered the local épicerie to stock Marmite. They were hopelessly insular. He was surprised that they didn’t try to drive on the left. He thought he was probably the only one of their number who had actually been invited inside a Frenchman’s house.
He wondered now how the latest upstart to hit the area, Bill Bailey, would get on. ‘Have you met the new Lord of the Manor yet?’ he asked Roland who was downloading some pretty meaty stuff. ‘I wouldn’t shake his hand if you paid me’, said Roland darkly. ‘I have plans for him, my friend. He will not trouble us for long, I think.’ Lance chuckled, wondering, not for the first time, if Roland was some kind of hit man on the side.
Jean Campion had no intention of waiting up for Lance. She knew well enough that he would return drunk and aggressive and try to pick a fight with her if she was still up. Wearily, she made herself a camomile tea and went upstairs to their room. If only she could at least have a separate bedroom, she thought. Over the years it had become increasingly impossible to get a good night’s sleep with Lance snoring and coughing beside her, especially now that he drank so heavily.
Sex, thank god, was hardly ever on the agenda anymore. On the occasions it was, it was an entirely unilateral affair; she was not consulted, either before, during or afterwards. To think she had once been in love with the man and couldn’t wait for him to hold her….
Everyone had told her she was making a mistake in leaping into marriage with Lance, especially her watchful parents who were alarmed that their much-loved only child was throwing herself into the lion’s den. Lance had been dashing and amusing with his ironic drawl and worldly sophistication. He was also ten years older than she was and much, much more glamorous and interesting, she thought at eighteen, than the boys of her own age who fumbled with her unattractively and couldn’t even afford the price of two cinema tickets. By contrast, Lance in his late twenties was already running his own PR & advertising business. A big man, his stockiness was offset by stunning pale blue eyes, regular features and longish thick fair hair – he resembled nothing so much as a proud young lion she used to think. His energy was intoxicating and there was something incredibly sexy about his self-beli
ef. He was also, as her father gently tried to point out, narcissistic and carelessly cruel.
Even before they married, Lance would laugh at her opinions and ideas. ‘What do you know, sugar lump?’ he would say. ‘Leave the thinking to me’. And she would laugh with him, thinking what a relief it was in a way to surrender even her thoughts to this charming, clever man. If Lance had told her the world was flat she would have believed him. And if he did go too far and humiliate her in front of his friends so that she was close to tears, he would make it up to her later, catching her round the waist and nuzzling her ear. ‘Sorry, sugar,’ he would say. ‘You know you’re my favourite little girl, don’t you? I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.’ But he did hurt her, Jean reflected now, and had gone on doing so. The worst of it had been his treatment of their daughter, Sarah. It had been fine until she was around thirteen and a sunny, sweet-natured child. But at the onset of puberty, the self possessed little girl who had never given them any trouble and was the mirror image of her patient, sweet-natured mother became moody, detached and difficult. With Jean, she was still amenable though withdrawn; but when her father claimed her attention or reprimanded her for her lack of motivation, her face clouded over and she usually stormed from the room. Lance’s reaction had been anger and he would shout and rage at both of them. Jean had tried to point out that most adolescents go through a bad patch, but he wasn’t interested in what most people did. ‘She can go to hell’, he stormed. ‘I’m not paying through the nose for that little bitch to go to private schools. She’s learning nothing except how to be unpleasant.’