do you mean, she’s worried … about you? What, just today? What’s she getting worried about you now for, all of a sudden?’
‘Yes, I was a bit taken aback as well. But I reckon it’s her mother who’s worried. So she must have asked the kid to, you know, keep tabs on me.’
‘Blast it. Your women don’t half choose their moments.’
‘You’re not wrong about that.’
‘She’s not going to come here though, is she?’
‘Oh no, that wouldn’t be like her. And even if she did decide to, I worked it out: it would take her at least thirteen hours to get here from London. No, what’s really bothering me is that she’ll call, you can bet on that. Probably not every day or anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if her mother had asked her to call once a week. Think about it, if I don’t pick up the phone once or twice, all hell will break loose, and Françoise will come haring back from her Peruvian mountains. Just imagine what’ll happen if they can’t get hold of me for almost two months!’
‘We should have seen this coming,’ growled Charles, barely concealing his annoyance. ‘It was too good to be true that your daughter decided to disappear off to the middle of nowhere for two months, no phone calls or anything. I could barely believe it, to be quite honest. I guess we just forgot she had her daughter up her sleeve.’
They had spent many hours discussing George’s only daughter, Françoise. The woman who, since her divorce and the death of her mother five years earlier, had not let her father alone even for a moment, the woman who – rightly or wrongly – believed her father to be seriously ill, had suddenly decided to fly off to the depths of the Andes to take part in an endurance expedition. This in itself was not surprising as she was always signing up for marathons, treks and other such activities favoured by the moneyed classes. But on every trip, no matter the time difference, she would find a moment to call her father, every evening if she could. This time, however, she had promised two months of total radio silence. It was the chance they had been waiting for, and George and Charles had leapt at it. This was the moment to put their plan into action, or they never would. And now, with a week to go before their grand départ, they were back to square one.
George could feel himself being rapidly swept under a rising tide of dejection. If even Charles was losing faith in their plan, they were done for. The click of the kettle made Charles jump. He poured the tea in silence. Without looking up from the cups, he finally spoke.
‘I know we’ve already talked about this but, George … are you sure you can’t tell your daughter and granddaughter?’
‘No, no, definitely not, let’s not get into that again, for Pete’s sake! If Françoise found out … you’ve seen what she’s like, Charles. She’ll put me straight into an old people’s home where I’ll get needles stuck in me every fifteen minutes and be escorted to the loo to take a piss, you can be sure of that. She’d have me preserved in formaldehyde if she could. She ought to be halfway up a mountain as we speak and she promised me, y’see, promised me, she drummed it into me that she wouldn’t be able to call me at all for two months. So that’s that, and so much the better. Now Adèle, being the clever girl that she is … we mustn’t fool ourselves, she’ll find a way. And then, and then, with a couple of clicks on the internet, bam! I’ll find myself with a squadron of nurses on my tail. No, Françoise can’t find out about this, not from me, not from you, not from Adèle. And that’s that. Pass the tea.’
He lifted the cup to his lips and put it down again before continuing his rant.
‘You see, for you, it’s simple. None of this bothers your wife at all. She even encouraged you to do it, to go off for two months. I’ve got to tell you, Thérèse really surprised me there. Ah, Charles, I suppose we’ve only got ourselves to blame for the way our kids turn out!’
Charles smiled, but he looked deflated. The two men drank their tea in silence. The ticking of the clock became almost deafening in their ears. George was the first to speak.
‘Come on, show me what you’ve got.’
Shyly, like a child who had just been told off, Charles pulled out his leather satchel and retrieved the printouts and travel guides, spreading them over the wipe-clean tablecloth.
‘What’s all this, then?’ asked George. ‘Ah yes, of course, Sauveterre-de-Comminges, between Lannemezan and Foix. Stage eleven, that’s a good one, that.’
These were the undisputed highlights of the evening visits, when the tea-drinking ritual was enlivened with a sense of adventure. Poring over the guidebooks and running their fingers over the dog-eared atlas, the two men sat surrounded by hotel reservations and colourful brochures, going over their route again and again, suddenly feeling thirty years younger. In seven days, they would embark on the Tour de France.
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
