Читать книгу George's Grand Tour - Caroline Vermalle - Страница 7

Friday 19 September

Chanteloup (Deux-Sèvres)

‘The Tour de France?’ exclaimed the young postman, somewhat taken aback.

‘That’s right,’ George replied proudly.

‘Blimey … But, um … you know … with your bad knee and everything, isn’t that going to be a bit, um, you know, a bit of a challenge?’

‘What makes you think that? Our feet are barely going to touch the ground!’

‘Well, exactly! That’s what’s worrying me! Three thousand five hundred kilometres on a bike, that takes some muscle!’

‘Oh, no, no, no … We’re doing it by car,’ replied George, disappointed that he had to correct this rather appealing misunderstanding so quickly.

‘Oh, I see! Gosh, you really scared me there!’ said the postman, laughing. ‘I get it now. You had me worried there for a moment. There was I thinking—’

‘Well, it’s still going to be a long trip. Twenty-one stages and forty-nine villages. It’s going to take us about two months, all in all.’

‘Yeah, but, well, it’s not like doing it on a bike, is it?’ The young postman seemed to have lost interest now and he was just about to change the subject when George said:

‘Yes, but even so, I can assure you it’s taken a hell of a lot of organising. See, me and Charles, we’ve been working on this for months. He’s been on the internet and everything.’

‘Oh right,’ said the postman politely. ‘Well in that case, let me know what you want me to do with your post.’

There was no point pushing it. It was not the first time this had happened. He could have explained that they would be going to far-flung places, some of them dangerous, or even downright foreign (Italy!). He had sometimes found himself regretting that they were not in fact going by bike, just to see the look on people’s faces. It got him down when people seemed to think his grand plan was worth peanuts. After all, even in a car it was still three thousand five hundred kilometres.

George sighed and got out his old orange notebook.

‘Yes, right, you can give my mail to Thérèse … from the twenty-fifth, so this coming Thursday until … wait, let me see … until 24 November. That’s a Monday. If we end up taking longer, Thérèse will tell you, alright? Well, you’ll work it out with her.’

‘Great, I’ll do that then. And the same with parcels? Oh that reminds me, one came for you earlier. Here you go.’ He held out a small package about the size of a shoebox that was covered in what looked like home-made wrapping paper. George had been waiting for this for quite some time; it had not been easy to come by.

He went home and put the package into his suitcase without opening it. He had even left a space for it. Just as he was closing his rather sad little case, he was overcome by the absurdity of the whole project. It now seemed ridiculous, far-fetched and pointless. He returned to his armchair, wedged a few cushions behind his back, picked up the remote control and switched on the television. As he had done every lunchtime for years. It was just so easy to stick to a familiar routine. And here he was getting ready to start the Tour de France. Madness.

Why had he agreed to go with Charles? He of all people, who had so rarely left the bocage, even when he had been in the peak of good health. Why, at the age of eighty-three, had he suddenly caught the travel bug? His last chance, that was probably what everyone was saying. Go on, Grandpa, have one last go at it for your pride, buck yourself up and make yourself feel invincible one last time, pretend you’re getting stronger, not weaker. ‘Realising a boyhood dream at his age, isn’t that great?’ they’d say. Oh, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like the idea of getting people talking; he still had his pride, after all. But the whole thing made more sense for Charles, who was still young and healthy, relatively speaking, and had a large and happy family to boot. Things were so different for George. People were right, it was his last chance. It was his last chance to make a grand exit. It didn’t even need to be dramatic, his exit. Just dignified. Standing.

His patched-up body was holding up, admittedly with a little discomfort, but holding up all the same. But the man inside had been in bad shape for a long time. Having more or less admitted defeat, he had sat back and waited for the doctors’ prognoses to come true, for the statistics to be proved right and the odds to catch up with him. But they never did. So he had decided to go out and face the odds head on. Eighty-three years old, one set of aching limbs, three thousand five hundred kilometres and a two-month expedition. What it all added up to was so blindingly obvious that he had been surprised at Charles’s insistence he go with him. And yet he had to complete this epic circuit, before the army of paramedics descended upon him to unleash an assault of well-intentioned humiliation and take every last freedom away from him.

But all this was by the by. These were all things he had told himself before, when he was still feeling brave. In those mad moments of enthusiasm, bravado and unbridled determination. But in the last few minutes, that had all gone out the window. Enthusiasm, determination and bravado had all deserted him. All that was left were the voices in his head. Those damned voices.

No, he wasn’t losing the plot. The voices were of the common or garden variety. But this afternoon they really had him. They were the voices of his chair and the weather report, of his herbal tea and tomato plants, of all his familiar possessions and the house itself. They sang of the joys of everyday life, repeating a chorus we’ve all heard before: what’s the use in change? The voices were telling him it would be easier to let fate come to him, to let it cradle him gently, oh so gently. To let the days run into one another, until his time was up. The voices were even whispering a ready-made excuse: this unexpected phone call.

The more George thought about their plan, the more he found it deeply, painfully ridiculous. This wasn’t audacity, it was idiocy; not wisdom, but delusion. He looked at his suitcase sadly. It was neither Wednesday nor Saturday, so Charles would be coming over, and George would have to explain his change of heart. His knee was also playing up again, now that he came to think of it. And Charles would understand about that, what with his hip.

It was with a feeling of relief mixed with sadness that he turned his attention to the one o’clock news, and, avoiding the sight of his suitcase that was patiently waiting by the stove, he began to doze off. He had given in.

But on the other side of the garden, Charles had not given up. He was going to do this Tour de France, even if it meant dragging his friend along by the skin of his backside.

‘The Tour de France? In a Runner Speedit?’

Little Lucas looked up at his grandfather, his round eyes filled with admiration.

‘Granny, what’s a Runner Speedit?’

‘A Renault Scenic, Lucas. It’s a car,’ Thérèse answered calmly.

‘Yes, but it’s also got loads of gadgets inside it,’ Charles added quickly.

‘What gadgets, Grandpa?’

Charles was already regretting going down this rather slippery path. Discussing gadgets with a seven-year-old expert was a battle he was sure to lose.

‘Lots of options, if you catch my drift.’ There, that wasn’t a bad response.

‘And how many hours does it take?’

‘Oh no, Lucas, we’ll be doing our Tour de France over several weeks.’

‘Oh. So you’ll stop lots.’

‘Yes, we’re going to stop lots. Exactly,’ Charles replied, disappointed.

They were all sitting in the kitchen, Charles and Thérèse, their granddaughter Annie and her husband Franck and their two children, Lucas and seven-month-old Justine. The little kitchen, whose wallpaper had probably been rather fashionable at one time, smelled of leeks and Mr Muscle. A little vase of dahlias from the garden stood on the Formica table. Photos of the grandchildren were tacked all over the walls, and strings of last year’s tinsel were still hanging on the old grandfather clock. Everyone felt at home in this kitchen, especially Thérèse; this was her kingdom. Thérèse was small and round like a typical granny in a television show. She had no neck and small feet, neatly pressed blouses, bobbed grey hair worn with a brown clip, and an iron will. Charles and Thérèse had been married for fifty-nine years: they were happy and they knew it. Life had been kind to them, more or less, but the Lepensiers had learned to think positive long before the concept had become fashionable. Finding solutions to men’s problems was Thérèse’s area of expertise, and the women of the family had all inherited this talent.

Charles was now relying on his wife’s ingenuity, as he had so many times before. It was unthinkable that they would abandon the project now. He and Thérèse had put all their hopes into it. And he couldn’t do it alone, partly because George was financing the entire trip including the brand-new Renault Scenic, and partly because … well, he just couldn’t do it on his own.

‘You know, Thérèse, we’re not on the road yet. Even though we’ve been planning for ages … Now George has got a problem. His granddaughter.’

Thérèse, who was setting the table for lunch, stopped what she was doing and looked at Charles anxiously.

‘What kind of problem? You mean the granddaughter who lives in London and never calls?’

‘That’s the one. Except that now, she does call. Françoise must have asked her to. Well, I don’t know what goes on between those two but the point is, Adèle called and now George is panicking.’

Thérèse was staring down at the tablecloth. Charles went on.

‘Now George isn’t the kind to let people walk all over him. But when it comes to his daughter, it’s another story. He says she’ll have him put in a home if she finds out what he’s planning.’

Annie, with her baby on her knee, asked her grandfather:

‘Do you really think Françoise would do that?’

‘Well, I dunno … she isn’t exactly easy-going.’

‘I guess she gets that from her dad!’ interrupted Franck, who still had memories of one particular stormy encounter with George.

‘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.