When I Was Young Read online

  In the compartment, we three girls sat on one bench seat and Miss Baxter sat opposite. A French man sat beside her and stared at us. He was smoking and the scent of his cigarettes was like nothing I’d smelt before. I watched as he stubbed one out and took another from the blue and white cardboard packet. ‘Gitanes’ was the name on the packet and excitement welled up in me again. The strange smell and the name and the outskirts of Paris, that I could see flashing by my window, meant that I was actually abroad.

  I leant close to the window and scanned the horizon hoping I might see the Eiffel Tower in the distance but it wasn’t in sight. Other buildings caught my eye though, particularly the tall grey houses with steeply pitched roofs and shutters on the windows. They were apartment blocks, I supposed and as the train slowed to go through a small station I saw a woman brushing the pavement outside one of them. ‘La concierge,’ my mind told me, loving the sound of the word.

  Soon the houses were left behind and we were travelling through industrial areas and they looked different too, older somehow and less harsh than the new buildings which had gone up on the outskirts of our town. Even the factories had architectural embellishments, some with different coloured brickwork around the windows and others with stone balustrades between the walls and roofs. I was fascinated and couldn’t take my eyes off the scene.

  “Eleanor. You’ll be first to get off.” Miss Baxter broke into my sight-seeing. She was studying her schedule again, knowing it by heart but nervous of the responsibility she had taken on.

  “Yes, Miss Baxter.”

  “I will have to leave you there so I can remain on the train to accompany Janet and Margaret to La Rochelle. You will be alright, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” I nodded and turned back look out of the window. The city had gone now and the suburbs petered out into flat countryside. I could see roads and villages and miles and miles of flat fields as our train thundered south west.

  My host family lived in the Loire valley in a village twenty miles south of Angers. I’d looked up the region in the school library and after my initial disappointment of not going to Paris I was relieved to discover that there was plenty to see in the area.

  “Angers, home of the Plantagenets,” said Miss Baxter dreamily when I’d showed her the address of my hosts. “Oh, what a lucky girl you are, Eleanor. The churches, the chateaux …wonderful. You couldn’t be in a better place.”

  “Boring!” giggled Suzy under her breath. “No smart shops.”

  I thought about that as we headed south. Would my hosts take me to these chateaux? Would they even take me as far as the small town which was only about two miles away from where they lived. The letter I’d received had said nothing about their plans. Was I imagining that they had somehow been very grudging about my visit? Sitting on that French train as it sped towards the Loire, the excitement I’d been feeling started to dissipate and I closed my eyes hoping that sleep would wipe away my unease. As I drifted off Dada’s face swam before me, Mother’s snort of derision filled my ears, I felt torn between poles.

  By the time we pulled into Angers station three hours later, I felt a bit sick. I’d never been anywhere before and now I was consumed with nerves.

  “Are you ready, Eleanor? Miss Baxter stood up and opened the compartment door.

  I swallowed. “Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. My pigskin case was on the netted shelf above my head and I reached up to get it but by now the train was rocking into the station and as it went over the points it lurched and I staggered, almost falling over.

  “Pardon mademoiselle.” It was the Gitanes man who stood up and carefully took the case down and set it on the floor beside me.

  “Thank you,” I said and then flustered added, “I mean, merci, monsieur.”

  “Bye. Have a good time, said Margaret, remembering her manners sufficiently to pause in her ongoing conversation. Janet grinned, “See you in three weeks.”

  It was busy at Angers station that late afternoon. I could see adventurous children being held away from the platform’s edge and hear their little squeals of joy or terror as they were enveloped in steam. Their mothers were struggling with raffia baskets full of produce and one even had a couple of live chickens stuffed into a shopping basket.

  But as I stood waiting, the platform rapidly emptied. A few stragglers were heading towards the exit and the only people now left were those bidding goodbye to the passengers who had just got on board.

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” Miss Baxter stood beside me, her small head bobbing this way and that as she searched for a person or persons making their way towards us. “Where can they be?”

  The whistle sounded and the guard at the rear of the train waved his flag and leapt athletically on board. Porters were hurrying down the platform, slamming the doors and one lone passenger raced through the barrier and wrestled open a door in the coach close to the engine.

  “Oh!” Miss Baxter moaned desperately and pulled anxiously on my arm. Nearly five minutes had passed since the train pulled in, ample time for my hosts to arrive and it was obvious that they weren’t coming.

  This was it. I turned back towards the open door of the train knowing that I would have to go home, somehow. The exchange was the disaster Mother, if not in words, but in her own inimical way, had predicted.

  Suddenly Miss Baxter gave a little scream and pointed dramatically down the platform.

  “It’s them, I’m sure,” she said. Without further thought or question, she called out, “Goodbye, Eleanor. Have a lovely holiday,” before jumping eagerly back onto the train. I watched, dumbfounded, as her excited face disappeared in a cloud of steam.

  Despairing, I turned away from the departing train to look back up the platform. A man and a woman were approaching, the man eagerly, striding along with easy confident steps. The woman who followed was almost dragging her feet and, to my dismay, I realised that she wore expression of what could only be described as profound boredom.

  They stopped in front of me.

  “Perhaps it is Miss Eleanor?” asked the man.

  He was of more than middle height and strongly built with broad shoulders which so strained the seams of his blue cotton jacket that the stitching could be seen. His dark brown hair was partially covered by a faded cap which he wore pushed to the back of his head.

  “Yes.”

  The concerned face broke into a smile. “Good,” he said and shot out a large tanned hand to grasp mine in a welcome shake. “Welcome, Miss Eleanor. Welcome to Angers.” He flung out his arms in an expressive gesture that I soon learned was his normal way, “to France. I am Étienne Martin. This,” he looked down to the silent woman beside him, “is my wife, Mathilde, Madame Martin.”

  “Hello.” I reached out to shake her hand. Somehow I didn’t think I was going to get a kiss on both cheeks like the one Suzy had received from her hostess.

  Madame Martin parted her thin lips in a tiny smile. She was small, smaller than me and had a slight, girlish body and a pale heart-shaped face. Her eyebrows had been plucked out completely and two black pencilled crescents drawn in their place. She had dark brown eyes which bulged slightly making the whites seem contrastingly prominent, like cow’s eyes. They gave her a strange look, not unattractive but almost audacious as though she might at any time do anything.

  She wore a purple felt hat shaped like a small trilby which was perched at an angle on top of her head. It must have been held in place with elastic under her hair which was the blackest I’d ever seen. It hung smoothly down to her shoulders from a side parting so that one of her unusual eyes was partially covered.

  If I’d expected a warm welcome, my feelings would have been dashed but I think I’d always known that I wouldn’t get one. “Good afternoon,” she said, evenly and, transferring the cigarette which she’d been holding between her fingers to her lips, limply took my hand.

  We stood there, the three of us staring at each other, Étienne grinning and me gawky and shy. Mathilde gave up
her smile and waited.

  The train carrying Miss Baxter and her two charges to La Rochelle was now out of sight and the platform was empty. Overhead, the sky had darkened and raindrops, the size of pennies, started to fall, splashing dark circles onto my school blazer. In the distance, there was a rumble of thunder and looking over the tracks to the gold and green fields which stretched away beyond the town, I could see a bright rainbow arcing across the purple sky.

  “Come on, now,” Étienne ordered, picking up my case, “before the storm arrives,” and he led the way out of the station, past the taxi cab rank and into the street.

  We drove the twenty miles to our destination in a small silvery-blue metal van, the three of us squeezed together on a wooden bench seat. My precious suitcase had been stowed in the back, wedged between an oil canister and a wooden box of groceries; I was concerned for its safety. Once, I looked over my shoulder at it and saw, with horror, that the box of groceries swayed every time Étienne dragged the van around a corner or applied one of his last minute brakings. He drove with verve, never slowing until absolutely necessary and exchanging insults out of his open window with other less adventurous drivers.

  I found myself not only praying for safety but that the oil wouldn’t spill out of the rusting canister or that the melons which perched unsteadily on top of the wooden box wouldn’t burst and spread their golden flesh over the lustrous pig skin.

  “You have a good journey, yes?” asked Étienne after we’d left the outskirts of Angers and were tearing along a country road.

  “Yes,” I said, faintly, too panicky to speak up or to venture into a longer reply.

  Étienne didn’t appear notice my nervousness. “I have been to England, once,” he said. “But I didn’t learn to speak the language very well. So you must speak to us in French. That is alright nnn, yes?”

  I swallowed, now speechless and was only able to nod. When I looked at him out of the corner of my eye he was grinning.

  We were now driving along a broad, tree lined road and looking ahead I was entranced. This was exactly the picture of France that I’d had imagined. A Napoleonic road where the stormy light was splintered by dark tree trunks. The photograph in my French grammar could have been taken at this very spot. But even as I marvelled, Étienne swerved the steering wheel to the right and we left that road to drive down a small winding lane, where the verges overflowed with tall vegetation and a smell of hay fields and vineyards wafted in through the open windows.

  Mathilde gave a little tut of annoyance, the only sign of animation she had shown during the entire journey. The ash from her cigarette fell onto her black and white dress and she brushed it away with small irritated movements. I watched as she threw the stub out of the window and then opened her shiny black handbag to take out another loose cigarette. She lit it from a paper match book that she had been holding in her hand.

  It had stopped raining now and the black rain clouds had moved majestically away to the north exposing a dazzling sun, which reflected fascinating shimmers of light on the road ahead. My blazer itched around my neck and I could feel my face getting redder as the heat intensified.

  I was wondering how much longer this journey would take when suddenly, Étienne took his hand from the wheel and pointed through his window. “That is my farm, there,” he said and I leant forward and looked over the fields to where a low stone building could just be glimpsed between the profusion of pale pink musk mallow and hedge parsley.

  Oh! It was beautiful. I remember reading a book when I was a little child which had a coloured picture of a farm. Then I couldn’t believe it, because I lived on a farm and our place was nothing like the drawing and I had thrown the book aside in dismay. Now I realised what the artist had been imagining. Étienne’s farm could have been the one in the picture that I’d seen, long ago.

  His house was pillowed in the midst of rising lush green fields and huge shade trees. I could see fat, pinky beige cattle grazing contentedly, their tails giving the occasional swish to drive away insects. Beyond them was another, higher field planted with rows of little trees and with a rush of excitement, I realised that they were grape vines.

  I thought of home. I thought of how hard it was and how even the smallest job involved a struggle. Compared to our bleak stony hillside where the scrubby grass only just provided enough food for the sheep, Étienne’s farmland was bursting with life.

  We drove on for a few more minutes, winding round the narrow lanes until we rattled through an imposing arched stone gateway and came to an abrupt halt in a cobbled courtyard.

  “It is here,” Étienne announced. “Riverain. My home.”

  It was a pretty house, built of the same pale beige stone as the gateway and covered with a white flowering creeper. A higgledy-piggledy array of small, blue shuttered windows faced the courtyard, their bizarre distribution giving no indication of where the floors of the house could possibly be. Eventually, when I was taken inside, the oddness of internal steps and landings and rooms off rooms, confused me for days. It was a house which had been added to over the centuries without any apparent thought other than to provide extra space. But it was utterly entrancing and I adored it from the first. It’s not only people you fall in love with, and stones and brick shouldn’t be able to love you back. But I was enchanted by the place and it comforted me. Foolishly, I thought I would fall in love too with the group of people who waited in front of the arched doorway.

  The teenage boy would be Jean Paul, I supposed. I’d wondered why he hadn’t come to meet me at the station, but thinking about it afterwards, his absence was quite reasonable. That bench seat in the van only held three people and it would have been awkward for me to ride with Jean Paul and Étienne. Later, I re-thought this when I realised that Mathilde drove perfectly well but by then I also understood that she wouldn’t have come for me.

  Jean Paul was dark like his mother and at sixteen had heavy eyebrows and the shadow of a pubescent moustache. He leant against the stone porch, one hand in his pocket, watching as Étienne braked in front of the group. I noticed, with dismay, that far from giving my arrival a welcoming grin, his face was set and unsmiling. A mirror image of Mathilde’s.

  The other two in the group were an older woman and a little girl. The woman was in her sixties I guessed and was short and heavy set with iron grey hair scraped off her face into a tight knot on the top of her head. That face was strong and tanned and almost like a man’s face, an older version of Étienne. She was dressed entirely in black from the long sleeved blouse held at the neck by a gold bar brooch, to the calf length cotton skirt. I almost expected her feet to be shod in boots, like the women in the Impressionists posters Miss Baxter stuck up in the French room. Instead she wore a pair of comfortable looking black gym shoes.

  She wasn’t smiling either and as my heart sank even further I took a deep breath and reluctantly slid out of the van to stand on the cobbled courtyard in front of my hosts. Mathilde, who had been sitting between me and the door had got out as soon as the van came to a halt and gone straight into the house. I envied her. What wouldn’t I have given at that moment to disappear from sight?

  “I can present ma mère, Madame Martin,” said Étienne coming to join her. “Grandmère,” he added unnecessarily.

  “Good evening, Mademoiselle,” said Grandmère, taking my hand and examining my face carefully. “Welcome.”

  “Thank you,” I said and smiled.

  “Now,” said Étienne. “Here is my son, Jean Paul.”

  Jean Paul nodded silently and stood upright and stuck out his hand. “Bonjour,” he muttered and obviously feeling he’d done his duty, started to turn away. A small growl from his father stopped him in mid step.

  You wanted this, my mind was screaming at me. You wanted so much to come to France. And it was going to be wonderful, wasn’t it?

  I felt weary. I’d been travelling since midnight and all my hopes were being dashed. I could see Mother’s sarcastic face swimming before my eyes
and hear her dismissive chuckle. And it was that thought which forced me to look him in the eye and speak.

  “Hello,” I said, searching for a correct thing to say. “I have been so looking forward to meeting you.”

  Immediately I could have bitten out my tongue. How foolish, how forward that made me sound and I could feel a flush surging into my face. In embarrassment I dropped my eyes and stared at the little puddles in the yard which were glittering and steaming in the sun.

  But maybe my French hadn’t been very clear or maybe Jean Paul was too stupid to appreciate a possible faux pas; I learnt over the following weeks that it was the latter, because all he did was to mumble a further greeting in execrable English and then look hopelessly at his father.

  We could have stood there forever but the third member of the group came forward and grabbed my hand.

  “This is Lisette,” said Étienne. “Jean Paul’s sister.”

  Lisette was about six or seven years old.

  “Allo,” she said. “You are tall, like Papa. Have you other clothes? Those aren’t very pretty.”

  I laughed. It was impossible to take offence at the remarks of the child. She was small and willowy with pale brown hair and hazel eyes. She was wearing a washed out blue smocked dress with short sleeves and over it, a little white pinafore. As I gently shook her hand, my eyes travelled down to the child’s thin legs which disappeared into white ankle socks and incongruously, a pair of women’s red high heeled shoes.