George's Grand Tour (6 page)

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 been 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, and 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:

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.

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.

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 …