What did Pete say verbatim? said Cress.
That he’d spent ‘many a happy night in a gem of a hideaway on the main square’。
Cress closed his eyes and channelled. Main square main square main square. Straight on, he said, opening his eyes. Sure? Positive, he said.
And as the eight o’clock bells chimed, the Jowett Bradford rolled into the main – and only, it had to be said – square, and stopped in front of a bistro with rows of white lights and a red neon sign flashing Chambres.
We’ve found the gem, said Ulysses.
At the front desk, Claude pecked on the bell and out from the dusty curtain an older landlady appeared, as if she was the glamorous denouement of a magic act. Bienvenue, welcome! she purred. （No willkommen as it was still too soon for Germans to be welcomed in the village.） She said she had one room left and would organise a camp bed for the kid and newspaper for the parrot. She flicked a switch behind the desk and the red Chambres sign went out. Full, she said proudly.
She led them into the dining room, hazy with smoke and chat from salesmen. The photographs that adorned the walls were of her many lovers and husbands, she explained. At least that’s what they thought she said, as their ears tried to sift through the broken fragments of her English. Beef bourguignon and chips? she said. Yes please, they nodded. She seated them at a table overlooked by moribund Denis, a local boules champion with a huge moustache and an impressive trophy.
She brought out a carafe of red wine and sunflower seeds for the perroquet and made eyes at Cressy in a way that made him wish his shorts were longer.
When she left, Cress poured out the wine and kid held out her glass and said, Fill it up now, Cress.
Cress said, You’re too young. Give it time.
And kid said, Is this how it’s going to be?
How what’s going be?
Because I could’ve got this at home, and kid sat back and scowled.
And there’s Peg, thought Ulysses.
Half an hour later, kid was asleep across a plate of frites.
They were the last to leave the dining room. The landlady brought out brandy on the house and Ulysses told Cress that him being with them had made them whole. Cress didn’t know what to do with such a declaration, all that love again. Ulysses paid the bill and lifted the kid without waking her.
On the way out, he suddenly stopped at the photograph nearest the door. Here, Cress, look at this, he said.
Cress squinted. Blimey. Is that who I think—？
Yeah, smiled Ulysses.
Well I never.
It was Pete at a piano caught in a clinch with the landlady. He was wearing a large beret. And little else.
I’ve never seen him in a hat before, said Cress.
Me neither, said Ulysses. It’d look even better on his head.
The kid was put to bed and Ulysses felt an added preciousness that night, a greater need to watch over her. Cress came back from the bathroom with the front of his pyjamas soaked. The hot tap’s cold and the cold’s hot and there’s a lot of pressure in the pipes. Thought I’d better warn you, he whispered.
Thanks, Cress.
Gave me a bit of a shock—
Well if you’re not expecting it—
All this newness—
Expands the mind.
Cress took the left-hand side of the bed and settled down. When I was a kid, he said, I used to lie like this and think there was a world out there. And now I’m in it, Temps.
Feels good, right?
Feels like nothing else.
Early start tomorrow, Cress.
Don’t worry, I’ll be there.
Eight days, it would take.
Eight days to cross three countries and countless landscapes. A map was consulted occasionally, but there was mostly a feeling of holidaying in the air, of spontaneity, and that was because of Cress. Cress joining them had changed everything. He looked out of the window, a quiet understanding that his life would have been less had he died without witnessing another corner of the planet. Kid only looked up from her sketchbook when the smell of farmland with its mucky fetid lilt filled the car.
They slept in sleeping bags under stars, downwind from smouldering campfires to keep mosquitoes away. Mornings came early with the rise of sun and a chill river to wash in. A crawl into the nearest village brought bread and jam and coffee and the kid got a taste for the stuff and took it milky. They chose hot meals at lunchtime but at night it was bread and cheese and wine, and lots of stone fruit because fruit was sweet and plentiful. Cress got the shits and the following day they travelled slow. Lost a bit of time while Cress dug holes across the mountainous Jura. Dark forests and fast-running silver streams and pockets of pervasive silence. Worse places to wipe an arse. That was the day they found out about Davy.