Barbara Cleverly - Tug of War

‘Pierre! Alphonse!’ He called the boys down. ‘What a useless pair! You’ll never be aero-engineers on this showing. What’s this you’ve designed? A Blériot special?’

‘No, sir!’ His suggestion was dismissed with scorn. ‘We’re designing something that will cross the Atlantic. Papa says there’s a huge prize offered to the first man to cross without stopping. Papa thinks it should go to a Frenchman.’

‘Well, take the word of a trained engineer — this is never going to work. Look, why don’t you put a paperclip on the tail to weigh it down a little? And while you’re at it, think of refolding the fuselage. Like this. May I?’

Honoured to have the full attention of the mayor, the boys closed round, kneeling with him in the middle of the path, all eager interest. Didier began to unfold and smooth out the sheet of newspaper the frail craft had been fashioned from and stopped suddenly. His gaze fixed on the sheet, his voice stilled, his breath began to come in harsh rasps. He groaned and muttered something unintelligible to the boys.

‘Are you all right? Sir? Monsieur Marmont?’ Anxious, they looked at each other, startled by the abrupt change from bonhomie to distress.

‘He’s having one of his turns,’ said Alphonse. ‘Look, his lips are blue and he can’t breathe. Ah, yes, he’s clutching his chest,’ he said knowledgeably. ‘Seen my uncle do that. . week before he snuffed it. You stay here. I’ll run for my mum. She’ll know what to do.’

The rescue party, which included the local doctor, was soon at the spot. They found the mayor, breathing fitfully and in obvious pain, but still alive and, improbably, clutching the remains of a paper aeroplane to his breast.

‘He’ll be all right,’ pronounced the doctor to the worried crowd beginning to collect. ‘It’s his heart problem, of course. But he’s had this before and bounced back, haven’t you, old chap? And this time — you see — he’s smiling! Yes, he’ll be all right.’

‘A wart on the backside, was it, then?’ Dorcas enquired without emphasis. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what makes Dominique so distinctive?’

She’d waited until her lemonade and Joe’s black coffee had been served in the cool interior of the tea shop they’d used the previous day before she referred to their interview. A pair of elegant old ladies nursing matching apricot poodles were taking a very long time choosing the brand of tea they would have served in china cups. They spent even longer deciding which cakes their sculptured pets would prefer but at last, their order given, changed and given again, they settled to look around and smile indulgently at the kind uncle entertaining his niece at the next table. A civilized scene until Dorcas struck up. Joe wondered if they spoke English.

He breathed deeply. Would he ever become accustomed to this wild girl’s free way of speaking, her irreverence bordering on rudeness? He blamed Orlando. His loose life and the dubious characters he chose to associate with had had a devastating and probably irreparable effect on a child who lurked behind sofas, listening, understanding and copying speech and manners that ought never to have been exhibited in her vicinity.

‘No? Well then — a birthmark in an intimate place? A dislocated penis perhaps?’ she said, her voice rising. ‘There’s a boy in our village whose father has trouble with his tyres and his tubes. .’

He had learned the wisdom of cutting her off the moment she called in evidence ‘a boy from the village’. More of them than he privately thought possible had uncles who’d passed through Port Said and sisters who’d worked in armaments factories. All had returned only too willing to share their worldly knowledge. And, at the end of the chain of information apparently, was Dorcas.

‘One more attention-grabbing word and my lips are sealed for ever in the matter of Dominique’s distinction,’ he growled. He waited for and accepted her silence with a nod, then went on: ‘Let us say. . front elevation, left of centre, port-wine stain, so slight and so centrally placed as to escape the examination accorded by the medical establishment.’

‘Interesting! We shall have to return to the doctor and ask him to look again. I say, Joe, this seems to me like proof positive that he’s who she says he is.’

‘Well, thinking ahead — as I’ve been taught! — I rang the good doctor when I slipped back to the hotel just now. While you were buying postcards.’ To his chagrin, Joe couldn’t hide his pleasure at scoring a point over Dorcas. ‘I asked him to supply further and better particulars regarding Thibaud’s nether regions. We’re in luck. It’s the day for the patient’s weekly bath and delousing and Varimont agreed to bring forward Thibaud’s time and instruct the orderlies who officiate at these ablutions. He’s intending to supervise the operation himself and record anything interesting. I’m to ring him for a report this afternoon.’

‘So, we should know very soon that Thibaud is French and we can carry on with our journey?’

‘I rather think we’re committed to spending a day or so with the Houdart family,’ said Joe. ‘It’s all fixed. I telephoned to say we’d arrive the day after tomorrow for the weekend. And besides — it would be a shame to pass up the chance of wearing your blue dress.’

‘You’ve made your mind up to see each of these claimants, haven’t you? You’re ignoring what the Inspector had to say. And what you said yourself — “I’m only here to establish whether he’s English or not” — that was just so much blather. You can’t resist a puzzle, that’s what. And you can’t bear to leave the solving of it to anyone else.’

‘I honestly don’t believe that there is any way of establishing that he’s English,’ said Joe patiently. ‘But, on the other hand, there may be a way of proving decisively that he is a Frenchman which fills our aims just as neatly. And that’s what I’m going to attempt to do. Yes, I’m going to take a look at the other claimants, hear their stories. . I thought Thibaud was probably a fine man and I would like to see his problems resolved. And I don’t fall victim to the first romantic tale I’m told. Now, when you’ve finished that. . I’m off to see the widow Langlois. She claims that Thibaud is really her son, Albert. She lives in a small village a few miles away from here. Martigny. Do you want to come?’

The countryside rolled by, patchwork squares of green and gold seamed with narrow white threads of chalk roads as they drove eastwards. The caterpillar stripes of the vineyards gave way increasingly to fields of ripe corn where the harvest was well under way. Teams of heavy horses pulled fantastical pieces of machinery, toiling alongside workers a good number of whom were women in pinafores, headscarves and clogs. They stopped work at the sound of the engine and shaded their eyes to stare with suspicion at the oncoming motor car before responding to Dorcas’s cheery wave.

‘The natives don’t seem particularly friendly,’ she said.

‘If you’d had your village destroyed and the land laid waste by several warring armies swarming all over it you’d learn to take a long careful look at foreigners motoring through. And here we are. Martigny,’ he said, parking in the market square and looking around. ‘The new Martigny. Bit hit and miss. But it’s an attempt. They’ve got their priorities right, you see — the café, the inn, the boulangerie , the school and the mairie. . pretty bell tower. . And the place we’ve come to visit is there on the corner opposite the boulangerie — the grocer’s shop.’

‘ Le Familistère ,’ Dorcas read out. ‘ Succursale no. 732. Guy Langlois, Patron. Were you prepared for a patron? I thought we were coming to see a woman?’