1982 - An Ice-Cream War (11 page)

Felix coolly raised a palm in response, struggling to keep the emotions that had suddenly begun to turmoil within him in check. He was happy to back away as a path was cleared to allow the major—dizzy, streaming-eyed, and breathless—to make his farewells. Then the gears were engaged, Cyril tooted the horn and the car slowly pulled away to renewed cheers from the guests, the smiling faces of the happy couple framed together in the small rear window, waving good-bye, until a turn in the drive and a dense clump of rhododendrons eventually obscured the view.

26 July 1914,
Trouville-sur-Mer, France

Charis loved Gabriel. Of that fact she was absolutely sure. But there was no doubt that he was behaving most oddly.

They walked now along the crowded promenade at Trouville above the bright and frantic bathing beaches. It was eleven in the morning, they had been married for twenty-four hours and her virginity was still intact.

The journey from Stackpole to Trouville had been a frustrating history of delays. Cyril drove them down to Folkestone smoothly and expertly enough, but for some reason the steamer left the harbour an hour late, thereby ensuring that they missed their train to Paris. In Paris their planned stop for an evening meal had to be cancelled, and they rushed from the Gare du Nord to the Gare St Lazare and only just managed to catch the Amiens—Trouville express. The journey to the Normandy coast took four and a half hours and they arrived at Trouville/ Deauville station at half past midnight. Charis was extremely disappointed. Trouville Casino held a ball every Saturday night and she and Gabriel had counted on attending it, even if only for an hour. Worse was to follow. When they eventually reached the Hotel d’Angleterre it was found that one piece of their luggage was missing.

Charis also noticed, as they approached their destination, a distinct, uncharacteristic increase of tension in Gabriel’s manner. Curiously, this seemed to be relieved by the loss of one of their cases rather than exacerbated. He saw her established in their suite of rooms, wolfed down a sandwich and a glass of milk and went directly back down to the station to see if he could get any sense out of the night porters. “Back soon, darling,” he had said. Charis undressed, put on her night clothes, got into bed and lay patiently waiting for him to return.

She thought it a little peculiar that the missing case should prove so important to him. But Gabriel knew best. When he returned an hour and a half later it was with the case but she was asleep, exhausted by the long day. She woke up as he climbed into bed beside her, her heart suddenly beating faster and a faint sense of panic over what she knew must next take place. But all Gabriel did was to lean over and kiss her affectionately on the cheek.

“Got the case, Carrie old girl. Let’s get some sleep, shall we? Honeymoon starts tomorrow,” was all he said and turned away from her, pulling the sheets over his shoulder. He was asleep within minutes, or so his even breathing seemed to indicate, Charis lay awake for a while longer, savouring-the unfamiliar experience of sharing her bed with a man. She thought vaguely about the morning and her ‘initiation into womanhood’. Aunt Bedelia had solemnly and ambiguously informed her about Gabriel’s nuptial duties. Gabriel was right, she reassured herself again, it was too important an event, too sensitive to risk while they were both tired and a bit irritable.

But in the morning Gabriel was up before her, standing on the balcony outside the bedroom.

“Wake up, Mrs Cobb,” he said with his familiar wide grin when he saw her sitting up in bed. “Far too nice a day for sleepyheads.”

He seemed in a very good mood and did not disturb her when she put on her clothes in the dressing room. She selected a v-necked blouse from the once-missing valise and reflected that, after all, he
had
been correct to spend half the night searching for it: it would have spoilt things not to have all her clothes with her on her first full day as Mrs Gabriel Cobb.

On their way down to the dining room, on the landing outside their rooms, Gabriel put his arms round her shoulders and gave her a kiss. His good humour was infectious and dispelled any lingering doubts she had about the events—or rather the lack of them—of the preceding night.

During breakfast they laughed and joked about the other guests in the hotel, trying to guess their identities. “A German Hebrew financier,” Gabriel said of one. “A millionaire from Dakota,” Charis suggested. ‘A pork-packer with his front-row tottie’, ‘two boudoir boys’. The Angleterre was, they both agreed, rather a ‘smart’ hotel, even if most of the fashionable crowd went to the Roches Noires across the street.

Later, they sat for a while on the hotel’s terrace. Gabriel read a copy of
The Times
that was two days old.

“It seems funny,” he said. “To think we weren’t married then.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It seems as if we’ve been married for ages.”

Charis wasn’t sure what he meant—she hardly felt married at all—but he said it so warmly that it seemed like the deepest compliment. Her eyes prickled with tears for a moment, so intense was her feeling of love for him. Dear, good Gabriel! She lowered her head to flick through the magazine she was holding. She heard Gabriel reading something out to her from
The Times
. She caught something about ‘Austria’ and ‘Russia’, but she wasn’t really paying attention.

A patch of sun inched across the terrace. She watched its slow progress towards her feet, happy for a while to be idle and still with her husband. She felt an unfamiliar pride in her new status and for a few minutes luxuriated in her contentment. But soon the sunbeam was warming her feet and she began to sense an irritation at Gabriel’s stolid absorption with the newspaper. He would have lots of time to read later, why did he have to take up so much of the first morning of their honeymoon? She saw him take out a cigarette from his cigarette case without his eyes leaving the page. He patted his pockets absent-mindedly for matches, eventually locating a box, and lit his cigarette.

Charis swallowed. The taste of breakfast coffee still in her mouth. How she longed for a cigarette! But Gabriel had told her more than once that he disapproved of her smoking. Ridiculous, silly old Gabriel. It was that family of his. He could be stuffy sometimes. Gabriel looked up.

“Everything fine, darling?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Is the paper so terribly interesting?”

“It is, actually,” Gabriel said, not detecting the implied complaint. “Didn’t have a chance to catch up with the news, what with the wedding and all.” He frowned. “Serious business.” He looked back at the front page again.

“Shall we bathe?” Charis suggested, prompted by the sun on her ankles.

“Mmm,” Gabriel said, still reading. “If you like.”

“I’ll go and get my costie.”

“
Darling
.” Gabriel jokingly rebuked her slang.

In the hotel room Charis smoked a cigarette out of a feeling of mild rebellion. She packed her swimming costume in a cotton draw-string bag. As she walked back down the stairs she chided herself for her irritation. It was Gabriel’s honey-moon too, she reasoned, and if it made him happy to linger over a newspaper after breakfast then he should do exactly as he pleased.

Now, as they walked along the promenade, Charis linked her arm through his and felt the cosy feelings of love—and self-congratulation at her own good fortune—return. He stood so tall above her; his shoulders as high as her head. They passed another couple from the hotel and Gabriel tipped his boater.

The beaches and the promenade were thronged with people, even though it was Sunday. If anything the crowds seemed better dressed in honour of the Sabbath. The promenade, her Baedeker said, “has been pithily described as the ‘Summer Boulevard of Paris’.” It was one reason why she had chosen Trouville for her honeymoon.

“Shall we go across to Deauville?” Gabriel said. “They say the beach is quieter there.”

“Oh no,” Charis said. “Baedeker says the beach is distinctly inferior. That’s why everyone’s here. Besides it’s such a long way,” she said. “And I’m roasting.”

“As you require, Mrs Cobb,” Gabriel said with mock deference, and led her down the steps onto the beach. They walked carefully across duckboards to the Hotel d’Angleterre’s striped changing tents.

“See you
dans la mer
,” Gabriel said as he turned towards those reserved for men.

Inside the tent it was dark and very warm and at first Charis could see nothing.

“
Bonjour, Madame
,” came a surprisingly loud and hoarse shout from one corner. Charis looked round in some alarm. The speaker was a very small old woman in black who was struggling to get out of a sagging wicker chair flanked by a mound of fresh towels and swimming costumes. With operatic gestures she ushered Charis into a canvas cubicle. She helped Charis undress, hanging up her clothes with great care and much fastidious smoothing of creases.

“
Maillot?
” she yelled, as Charis slipped her camisole top over her head.

“What? Oh…sorry,” Charis said, self-consciously covering her breasts with her arms. “
Non
,” she said, pointing towards the draw-string bag. “
J’ai…dans le sac…
”

The old woman shuffled out and Charis quickly pulled on her costume—knee-length knickerbockers, flouncy tunic and bathing hat, in red piped with yellow. Outside she blinked at the brightness of the sun and the sand. Down here on the beach it was much noisier than it seemed to be from the esplanade. There were shouts from beach vendors, bathers and children playing, and the regular soft crash of waves on the beach. People sat in deckchairs reading. A game of cricket was in progress a few yards away. A man in a rubber bathing cap and a huge towelling beach robe flapped up the sand towards the men’s tent. “Splendid!” he shouted at her as he stumbled past.

Charis couldn’t see Gabriel anywhere, so she assumed he must already be in the water. She picked her way, gingerly at first, and then with more confidence, down towards the breakers. The sand was loose, deep and warm on the upper reaches of the beach. Charis was glad she hadn’t worn her bathing shoes, she liked the feel of the sand beneath her bare soles.

At the water’s edge stood a group of men in uniform black swimming costumes. They were very sunburnt and their hair and bodies were sleeked with water.

“
Guide baigneur, Madame?
” one of them asked as she approached. “
Soixante centimes
.”

“No thanks…Non,” she said. The waves didn’t look too big and besides she didn’t need these men to support her in the water now she had her husband, wherever he might be.

“There you are,” Gabriel called, wading laboriously out of the surf. “Come on in, the water’s lovely.”

He walked up the beach to join her, shaking his head and wiping the water from his arms. Beside the bodies of
the guides baigneurs
Gabriel’s arms and shoulders looked very white and pink. She saw drops of water glistening in the wiry curls of chest hair that were visible above his costume top. The dark wool of his costume was shining and heavy from the water, sticking closely to his body. Charis didn’t dare let her eyes wander lower than his chest.

“Oh yes,” Gabriel said, admiring her bathing costume. “Very ultra-modern. Come on, let’s get it wet.”

He seized her hand and pulled her protesting down the beach. They ran into the waves, Charis gasping with shock as the water splashed on her warm skin, letting out a half-stifled shriek as the first sizeable wave thumped into her midriff, rocking her back on her heels.

“Gabriel!” she cried, catching hold of him for support. She felt his hands grip her waist. Beneath her palms the skin on his shoulders felt cool and fine.

“Steady, old girl,” he shouted, his square face smiling happily into her own, settling her on her feet. “You’re on your own now,” he said, then he turned and plunged into the throat of an incoming breaker.

That night as she dressed for dinner, Charis thought about the perfection of the day. The swim, luncheon, a visit to Deauville racecourse to see the horses training, tea at the Eden-Casino, then back to the hotel and a delicious bath. It had been marvellous fun, Gabriel joking and laughing, giving her surreptitious kisses and hugs whenever they found themselves unobserved, calling her ‘old Mrs Cobb’.

She checked her reflection in a looking glass. Her hair was up, an ivory satin band around her head, her hair brushed low across her brow. She took a tiny spot of rouge on the tip of her little finger and rubbed it into her lips. She was wearing a new dress for the first time, part of her trousseau, an ankle-length dress in black velvet with silver beadwork on the bodice and sleeves. She walked out into the main room of their suite. Gabriel stood there in his evening suit, smoking a cigarette.

“Good Lord,” he said. “My, you look a swell, Mrs Cobb. Ain’t I the lucky chap.”

Charis smiled, a little automatically, she realized. She half-wished Gabriel didn’t feel he had to keep up this relentless joking and gaiety. It wasn’t necessary, they didn’t always have to be laughing and playing about. But Gabriel would persist. Now he clicked his heels and offered his arm as if he were a Prussian officer.

“Shall we see what’s for grub?” he said.

People looked round as they walked into the dining room. It was busy but not full up. August was the most popular month in Trouville, coinciding with the race meeting. It was Paris-by-the-sea then, she had read.

During the meal Gabriel ordered champagne which, she noticed, he drank considerably more of than her. Indeed, his mood grew steadily more subdued as the meal progressed; he spent a lot of time gazing around the room as if unwilling to catch her eye. Charis understood. She felt the same sensations in her chest: a kind of breathlessness, as if foreshadowing the onset of a panic. To calm them both down she started talking about the times they had had when they first met in India.

Charis had been born there. Her father was a railway engineer. Her mother had died of some fever or other when Charis was very young, so young that she retained no memory of her whatsoever. Charis had been promptly sent back to England to stay with a family who took care of ‘Indian children’. From there she had gone to Bristol to live with her Aunt Bedelia (her father’s sister) and attend the small private school for girls she ran. However much she had loved Aunt Bedelia she had been ‘bored blue’ by life in Bristol, and consequently at the age of eighteen went out to India to live with her father. For a year her father was based in Bombay, which she had thrived on, with its exotic cosmopolitan life—its yacht club and taxi-cabs, natives in European clothes, its box-wallahs and millionaire merchants.