George's Grand Tour (13 page)

In the corridor, Adèle passed a black hospital worker who smiled at her, but all her attention was fixed on the room numbers and she didn't see him. She finally found number 412, gave a tiny knock on the door, and walked in as quietly as possible. She was afraid; afraid that she would not have the courage to face her grandfather's suffering, afraid that she would not prove a worthy granddaughter to this man who might not survive the night. She saw her grandfather and was struck by how old he looked. And much thinner than in the photos her mother had shown her. But she also saw that he recognised her, and that his eyes had filled with tears.

She wished she could erase all the years she had been absent, and do something, anything useful and generous. But even stronger than that was the urge to flee, so she wouldn't have to say any of the things she had prepared in her head. In the space
of a few days, she had begun to get to know her grandfather; now long-buried memories were starting to float to the surface of her mind. Nothing tangible, nothing she could have put into words, no precise images, just outlines, just the vague feeling that she had once been a child, that she was no longer a child, and that she and her grandfather had had some good times together, once.

He was happy to see her; he seemed at peace. He took her hands in his, which were surprisingly soft.

‘How are you, how was the journey?'

‘Oh fine, it's actually not that far, you know,' lied Adèle.

‘That's good,' said George, holding her gaze. ‘I'm so glad you came, you didn't have to – and your bosses weren't angry with you for missing a few days?'

‘Oh no, I'll go back this evening. But how are you, Grandpa?'

‘Fine, I'm fine. Don't think I'll be around for much longer, you know.'

Adèle didn't know how to react to this.

‘You mustn't say that, Grandpa, you'll get better. I bet you'll be up and about in no time.'

Her grandfather said nothing, and stared down at his hands. After a moment he looked up at her and said:

‘It really means a lot to me that you came, sweetheart. It really does.'

Neither of them knew what to say after this. Adèle, unable to bear the silence, said:

‘Oh, you have a television in your room, that's good. Are you comfortable here?'

‘You know, Adèle … There's something I've been thinking about a lot over the past few days.' He paused for a moment, and
looked around the room, before looking back down at his hands, clasped in his lap.

‘Do you remember the time when you, your grandmother and I went to see the nativity scene in Bressuire?'

Adèle could indeed picture the sight of the brightly lit manger that had seemed so huge and majestic that it had looked like a whole town to her, illuminated by thousands of tiny lights – it had been magical. This was a very old memory.

‘You know, I think about that day a lot.'

‘It was a lovely evening.'

‘When we all got home, you refused to go to sleep; the whole thing had made you far too overexcited. You must have been about eight or nine years old, no more than that. And at the time, we were more than a little worried about your grandmother's health, and I wasn't in great shape either. It wasn't that we were unhappy, your grandmother and I, but … let's just say it was a difficult patch. And your parents had their own things to be getting on with; it was the holidays and we were always happy to have you with us, sweetheart. But your grandmother and I were both exhausted. And you know I had an angry streak back then. Oh, these things fade with time, you know, that's just the way life goes. But at the time it wasn't a good idea to get on my bad side. Anyway, where was I …? Oh yes, on that day, we came home from the nativity and you were very overexcited. Do you remember, you just wouldn't go to bed, jumping up and down on the bed? There was no stopping you. Your grandmother tried to get you down from the bed as you were jumping so you pulled her hair. And I just lost it.'

He paused again.

‘I grabbed you and smacked you so hard it left a red mark on your bottom.'

Adèle smiled. She could remember the nativity scene, but not the smack. She looked at her grandfather, laughing.

‘Well, I'm sure I deserved it, I know I was a little difficult at that age!'

She realised this was the end of the story. Her grandfather put his head in his hands.

‘Oh sweetheart, I was so angry with myself at the time. I was younger then, and I'd like to think I've changed since, but I never forgave myself. And the older I get, the more I regret that evening.'

‘But Grandpa, I can't even remember it, I promise!'

‘After that you stopped coming so often, and then when you were a teenager you barely came to see us at all. And whenever I thought about it, I was reminded of that evening after the nativity. In our day, you see, we were always smacked when we'd been bad …'

He carried on; Adèle let him speak. He also clearly felt guilty about the long silence between them. He also blamed himself for it. How could she tell him that it had nothing to do with that unfortunate incident, which she couldn't even remember? Still, it would have been a simple explanation for ten years of silence – a little thing that could be dated, analysed and categorised, where there was a perpetrator and a victim. It would have left nothing for the psychiatrists, everything could have been resolved, the angry blow forgiven and everyone would live happily ever after.

But was this true? No, of course it wasn't. The real reason was much more difficult to express. Adèle finally interrupted him and took his hand.

‘Grandpa, I really don't remember you smacking me, I promise I don't. I remember the figures in the manger and twinkling lights everywhere, I remember being enchanted by the whole thing. But you smacking me …'

Her grandfather looked at her but did not reply.

He could have said, as Irving Ferns might have: ‘How time passes, my dear. We old people know how it goes. Time takes our friends from us, puts our grandchildren at a distance and plays tricks on our memories. And all the while you young people know nothing of time, you're all invincible, always on the go, always out of reach.' But this was no time for grievances. He had wanted to apologise for what he had done. And now he had.

Now it was Adèle's turn. And she wanted to tell the story of Irving Ferns.

Irving Ferns had been cast primarily because of his physique. In the novel, Agatha Christie had described the character, eighty-three-year-old Aristide Leonides, as a small, ugly man who nevertheless possessed an irresistible charm that women seemed to find incredibly attractive – in other words, a complete nightmare for even the most talented casting director. It turned out that Mr Ferns was about the same age, and happened also to be small and very ugly. As for irresistible charm, his sixty-year career in film and theatre would see to that. Irving, as he was known in the business, had enjoyed a respectable career both on screen and on stage, but since turning sixty he had had to make do with minor television roles in exchange for pitiable fees. This perhaps explained the vivid impression he had made on Adèle when she had first accompanied him from his taxi to the set: everything about Irving Ferns, his eyes, his mannerisms,
his whole body, seemed to be apologising for not being younger; he seemed to be desperately and silently fighting off the indecent advances of old age. But in vain: Adèle knew that his age would make him an outsider amongst his younger colleagues. When she saw he had difficulty walking, she offered him her arm. Initially they simply exchanged small talk, and as they covered all the usual pleasantries, Adèle decided that this man probably lived alone. The collar of his shirt was too big and his thin neck resembled that of a chicken. Having lost contact with her grandparents, Adèle, like most cosmopolitan young people, barely came into contact with ‘the elderly'. There were no elderly people in London: had they all left or had they been forced to leave? The streets of the city belonged to the young: to the yuppies, City boys, It girls and yummy mummies, second-generation immigrants and those who had just arrived – all of these people were young. Talking to Irving Ferns was like talking to a character in a novel. Yet just as she was about to start feeling really sorry for him, Irving Ferns surprised her by changing the subject from the weather to something altogether different.

Gradually a connection formed between them. Irving must have known that it was Adèle's job to keep him happy, but he took this as an opportunity to engage her in conversation. Adèle had won him over with her natural warmth, and it was not long before he opened up to her as a friend. Although timid at first, the tone of the conversation became more and more lively, and after a while their age difference, far from being an obstacle, became a distance that, paradoxically, seemed to make them even more at ease with one another. Whether in the green room, on set or in the cafeteria, they always found something to talk about.

Irving told her a lot about his past, and Adèle had to admit that it was a fascinating story. He had worked with some of the greats of British cinema and had, like many actors of his era, been a great fan of the practical joke, and of farce comedy. He also told her about his on-screen love affairs, his successes and his failures. Adèle found his stories funny and moving, and she began to see Irving as he had once been: an up-and-coming actor, a cultivated dandy, and a romantic at heart. He began to feel young again in front of Adèle, his newly captivated audience.

On the second day of shooting, Irving sought out Adèle in the canteen at lunchtime. She was more than happy to sit with him and escape the chattering of the other girls. This time, he paused occasionally in his monologue to ask the young girl about her life: where was her family from, how long had she been living in London, and so on and so forth. France and the French became, amongst others, a subject to which they regularly returned. Irving's brother, who had been dead for some time, had survived Dunkirk. He remembered the letters from him, and the stories he had told him after the war. He did not, however, turn this story into a tragic tale of a family separated by the war, choosing instead to recount the more comic aspects, something for which Adèle was extremely grateful. She even managed to forget the stress of the first days of shooting. She found herself opening up about her childhood, her plans for the future, her thoughts on
her native country and her career, and many more things besides.

After she had refused a sticky slice of sponge drowned in custard, Irving asked her if her grandparents were still alive. She said yes, she had a grandfather who lived in the French countryside. Did she visit him often? No, in fact she had barely spoken to him in ten years. She had seen a lot of him when she was younger, but you know how it is, people lose touch with one another and then, well …

Irving looked at her carefully. Yes, Irving knew. And he knew what came after the ‘and then' that Adèle had left unsaid. Indifference.

Irving Ferns left the set having shot his last scene. Adèle had continued to escort him between the dressing rooms and the set but it was as though the heart-to-heart of the previous evening had never happened. Irving was as polite as ever, of course, but nothing more; the note of complicity in his voice had vanished. Anyone else would have assumed that he was simply in a mood. Actors were known for being rather volatile in this respect – even Adèle, who was just beginning, knew that. After all, they were carrying all kinds of characters around in their heads and were often under immense pressure. But Adèle couldn't help but wonder. Perhaps Irving Ferns had been disappointed in her. Perhaps he had thought that she wasn't the type to forget about her grandfather.

Irving Ferns had awoken an old feeling of guilt that had lain dormant for a long time, and which weighed a little more on her conscience with each birthday that went by. Every time she thought about it, she would tell herself … What did she tell
herself? Nothing at all, because there was nothing to say about it. She just tried not to think about it. She was almost twenty-three, she ought to have outgrown her selfish, capricious teenage nature. Why hadn't she contacted her grandfather for so long? Was she secretly harbouring bad memories of the holidays she had spent with him? No, Adèle had always mistaken what was in fact a very happy childhood for a boring one. She had no regrets, no grudges, no skeletons in her closet. Had her grandfather been a fairy-tale villain? No. Had he held extreme political opinions, had friends in the wrong places or a dark past? No, not as far as she knew. And yet she had grown so far apart from him that when she spoke about him, she did so in the past tense. He wasn't dead. Not yet. He had had health problems in the past, of course, and the death of his wife had been a grave blow. He had lived alone for so many years and still, still Adèle had not made any effort with him.

That night Adèle turned her conversation with the actor over and over in her mind, and kept coming back to her unfinished sentence. In the darkness she felt her grandfather's loneliness just as she had sensed that of Irving Ferns. And although she had been able to empathise with an elderly actor she had known for a couple of days, she had not been able to do the same for her grandfather, the man with whom she had spent all of her childhood holidays. Suddenly, she felt ashamed of herself and fell asleep resolving to call her grandfather the very next day.

And that was the story of her and Irving Ferns. Without dramatic declarations, without shocking revelations, without pearls of wisdom or pomposity, the old man had helped Adèle take this decisive step that had changed so much over the past few weeks. And now she had to tell her grandfather the story.

Adèle gathered all her courage and began talking, her voice trembling slightly.

‘You remember, Grandpa, I told you I was working on a film about the murder of an old millionnaire. And on the first day we filmed the scene … the scene where the body is found.'

‘Oh sweetheart, and that made you think of your old grandpa lying there in his place? Murdered! Well, that would be something wouldn't it?' he said jokingly.

‘Oh no, the whole thing is so staged, and there are spotlights everywhere, and wigs and stuff dangling all over the place, and
the crew all around you; it's pretty hard to lose yourself in the scene. And I couldn't see much of the action anyway, so … But the man who was playing the part was about your age. And … I ended up getting on pretty well with him.'

She paused for a moment to steady her voice, which was becoming increasingly shaky.

‘And because I got on so well with him, I thought to myself, there's no reason why I wouldn't get on just as well with you. I think when you're young, and a teenager and all that, you forget that you can still be friends with your granddad, you know.'

She stopped talking. Her grandfather looked at her encouragingly.

‘You're right, sweetheart. I felt the same way. When you're old, you forget that you can still relate to young people.' He laughed. ‘We're a right pair, aren't we?'

He sniffed, then took his granddaughter's hand.

‘You know, Adèle, people always say that life is too short. But for so long, for
so
long, I thought that it felt too long. But now … I'm starting to think it's been exactly right.'

George-from-Cameroon spent a lot of time in George-from-Chanteloup's bedroom. He came to see him after Adèle had left, and found the old man looking a little shaken.

That evening they talked for a long time – or, for as long as the coming and going of the nurses and doctors allowed them to – and carried on well after visiting hours were over. At first, George-from-Chanteloup was the one speaking, with George-from-Cameroon chiming in with the niceties that have always accompanied great friendships. ‘You're always your own worst
enemy'; ‘It's just like with family reunions; better to leave while you're still having fun, so you keep the best memories.'

But sometimes, George-from-Cameroon spoke more, and George listened carefully; talking things over with his new companion made everything seem simpler. They discussed the moving phone conversation with Françoise, and what she had told him. The small, crumpled orange notebook was brought out, scribbled on, put back, brought out again, consulted, scribbled on again, inspected, put away and brought out and put away again. Every now and again they would stop talking for a moment and just listen to the sounds of the hospital. Their voices grew quieter as the conversation went on, so that by the time they said goodnight they were almost whispering. George thought about this conversation and what had been said, and wrote letters to Charles, to Adèle, to Françoise, and to Ginette. Would this be enough? Was it ever enough?

By this time it was already getting light. It was the morning of the operation.