Jumper: Griffin's Story (15 page)

"Git."

"Twit."

The 5:29 rolled in and Henry turned to watch. If he'd been my height, he would've been craning his neck and standing on tiptoe, but he didn't have to.

I'd realized early on that I was there for moral support.
What the hell
–
why not?

Tricia really was stunning–tall, blond, green–eyed, and if she had any of Henry's problem with pimples, makeup was hiding it entirely. Her roommate was shorter, thank God, probably my height without heels, but slightly taller with. She had dark glossy hair half over her face, brown eyes, a turned–up nose.

"
Griffin
O'Conner, Martha Petersham."

"Delighted," she said.

"Charmed," I said, sounding rehearsed and phony and stupid.

We took the Tube back to

Tricia and Martha checked in with the headmaster as required and he placed the reassuring call back to St. Margaret's. They were to call again when they reached Martha's aunt's flat in
Kensington
Gardens
after the ball.

Henry and I escorted them into the ballroom.

I don't know what I was expecting–probably something like a Merchant–Ivory production with a butler announcing the arrivals. It was kids in good clothes dancing to a nice punk band from the
East End
. Every six songs or so, the band would break and they'd play slow recorded music and a few students but mostly the chaperones would get out and fox–trot.

"I don't know how to dance," I told Martha early on, "but I'll take instruction."

This, apparently, was the right thing to say. I just thought about it like kata, or two–step
kumite,
and took instruction. She relaxed a great deal and bossed me around unmercifully. There was lots of laughter and some teasing because Henry and Tricia did all the slow dances.

Henry and I were returning from the refreshments table with drinks when we saw Watters, Henry's in–school nemesis, trying to pull Tricia onto the dance floor. I took one look at Henry's face and said loudly, "Why's the headmaster coming over here?"

Watters released her arm like he'd been scalded and turned.

Henry looked like
murder
so I stepped forward, between him and Watters, my drinks held out before me. "Watch out, drinks coming through!" I weaved a bit wildly and Watters stepped back, eyeing the drinks and still looking around for the headmaster.

Tricia, also eyeing Henry's expression, moved suddenly, taking Henry by the hand and saying, "I
love
this song." She pulled him onto the dance floor and kept moving until she was on the other side, near where two of the chaperones sat, nibbling cake.

I turned, more cautiously, and handed Martha her fizzy water. "Here you go, m'dear." I turned back to Watters and offered him the other. "Thirsty, mate?"

His reply was inarticulate. He turned on his heel and left. I didn't turn my back until he was well away so I was surprised when Martha kissed me on the cheek. I felt my ears go hot.

"What's that for?"

"Being clever," she said. "Being brilliant when it was needed." She was blushing a little, too. "Come on, dance."

We took a taxi after and Henry and I saw them all the way to the aunt's flat in
Kensington
Gardens
.

Henry and Tricia snogged the whole way, and on the steps, before Martha punched the buzzer, I got kissed, too. And not on the cheek.

They scanned our passports, and along with fifteen hundred other souls, we trooped aboard the
MV Bretagne.
The brochure said it could handle over two thousand, but it was off–season. The cars had been loading for over an hour.

"Dad actually sprung for a cabin. Usually I just do the trip in one of the reclining chairs, which is a lot cheaper, but I guess there's a certain economy with two. He's not paying for two cabins, after all."

I nodded. I vaguely remember taking the ferry to
Calais
from
Dover
as a child and my mother insisting we not speak a word of English until we were back in the
UK
. I think they were both in graduate school then and we had three weeks off.

She was pretty serious about it and I learned the words for my favorite foods pretty quickly.
Pommesfrites, Maman, s'il te plait?

They had a cinema aboard, bars, shops, several restaurants. We could've eaten in the fancier table service, Les Abers, but we hit the self–service place, La Baule, instead.

"Not fish and chips again?"

"Eat what you want."

I had the baguette with Brie and tomato and basil, and pie a la mode for pudding.

As we got out into the channel, the ship began pitching around and I began to regret the pie. We'd been thinking about hitting the cinema but it was something we'd both seen, so we returned to our tiny in–board cabin and lay down. Henry dropped off promptly but I couldn't get to sleep–it was still early afternoon by my clock. I started to get up again, but the ship was still dancing and my stomach lurched. I lay back down and dozed, more or less, through the night.

The ship was far calmer when we awoke, sheltered from the north winds by the
Cotentin
Peninsula
. We got our stuff together, then hit the La Gerbe de Locronan cafe for tea and a roll. The Isle of Jersey was bathed in wisps of fog to the south. We docked at Saint–Malo at eight but it took a bit to get off.

Cousin Harold was waiting on the other side of passport control. "No trouble?"

"Not this time," said Henry. "Mr. Harold Langsford, young Master Griffin O'Conner."

We shook hands and I asked, "Is there trouble sometimes?"

Harold smiled. "Sometimes they get concerned about youngsters traveling alone. I've had to step up more than once to show he's being met. But," he looked up at Henry's face, "since Henry's shot up, I expect they're not paying that much attention." He glanced at the people streaming around us. "Let's give the car park a shot, why don't we? I'd like to clear out before they start unloading the cars."

It took less than forty–five minutes to make it to Pontsor–son. We went on the coast road but it turned inland before we could see Mont–Saint–Michel. "Later," said Cousin Harold. "Don't want to go today, anyhow. There's less tourists during the week."

We had four days.

Cousin Harold's gray stone "cottage" had four bedrooms, a walled garden, and a vast slate roof. Everything in the garden was brown and wilted but tidy, beds well covered with mulch. It had been foggy in
Portsmouth
but by the time we parked his Citroen, the sun had burned off the light mist and the sky was blue as Mum's eyes.

Well, like they were.

His home wasn't quite in the village; it was fifteen minutes to walk in. "Thought we'd have lunch at the cafe." On the way he said, "You've just crossed into
Normandy
."

"It's not at the river?" The bridge was still ahead.

"No, in ancient times it was but now it's west of the river. There's a saying: 'The madness of the Couesnon put Mont–Saint–Michel in
Normandy
. But modern
France
doesn't depend on the vagaries of rivers."

He fed us fish soup and potatoes and salad and poured us half glasses of white Muscadet. "Right then, you bugger off–I'm going to take my nap. Tea at five?"

We walked around the village and Henry pointed out a large three–storied house with dormer windows sticking out of the slate roof and shielded by a wrought iron and stone wall. "That's haunted, you know."

"Tell me another."

"Well, doesn't it
look
like it's haunted?"

"Oh, aye. Movie–set haunted. Like the haunted house in
Disneyland
. They have that at Euro Disney?"

"They call it the Phantom Manor, I think."

We walked down around the Hotel Montgomery and then down by the river, the Couesnon, and the walkway that ran all the way to Mont–Saint–Michel.

The sun made everything lovely–still, warm air–and I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist. Back by the train station there were lots of little models of the
Mont
and I asked the clerk, a bored young woman, which she thought I should buy, to try my French. She looked at me like I was crazy but entered into a conversation readily enough. I began saying things like, "Well, if I wanted to hit someone, which would be the best? And which do you recommend for throwing? For feeding to disliked relatives? For clogging a toilet?"

This killed thirty minutes and I could feel my ear for the accent improving. She asked where we were from and, fortunately, didn't want to try her English when she found out. Then a large busload of tourists returned from the
Mont
and filled the shop, killing time before their train. I bought a medium brass
Mont
and a postcard and we fled from the crowd.

"Well, your accent is still atrocious," said Henry.

"She
didn't seem to have any trouble understanding me."

"Triumph of content over style. Your vocabulary is still bigger. Couldn't follow all of it."

"Thought you studied it in school?"

"Used to. This year it's Arabic."

"Oh."

"Because it looks like my parents are making a speciality of the
Middle East
. And, er ..."

"And?"

"Tricia, too. She's fluent."

I laughed and laughed, until he turned red and punched my arm.

"Nous devrions parler seulementfrangais tandis que nous sommes ici."

He had me say it more slowly and finally got it.

So we did–only French for the rest of the trip. Cousin Harold was fine with it. He'd been fluent for years. Henry didn't talk near as much as he usually did but we worked hard to drag him into conversations.

The next day, Henry and I walked all the ten kilometers to the Mont and spent the day wandering from Gautier's Leap to Gabriel's Tower, then spent some time toddling around the mud banks, though we stayed away from the areas marked

SABLES MOUVANTS!

I discussed it with Henry, in French of course. He picked up a rock and heaved it onto the wet sand and
bloop,
it sank right down. Very quick sand indeed.

I sketched a great deal, annoying Henry, who was snapping pics with his camera, but got a good sketch of the lace staircase and the statue of Saint Michael slaying the dragon. He kept wanting me to hurry up but I'd just send him off to get us drinks or snacks.

Having decided we'd walked quite enough, we took the train station shuttle back to Pontorson.

We relaxed the next day, helped Cousin
Harold
clear leaves out of his roof gutters. I sketched, and we watched a Manchester United match on the telly. We were keeping the deal though, not speaking anything but French.

By the time the
MV Bretagne
had pulled into
Portsmouth
(Cousin Harold came back with us, to hand us through passport control and do some shopping) my accent was much better and we'd managed to increase Henry's vocabulary by about fifty words.

"You visit me this summer and we'll make a real breakthrough–get you speaking like Griff here," said Cousin Harold, finally reverting to English while we waited in the British–citizen line at immigration.

They were scanning the bar code on the passports and glancing at the pictures, and saying, "Welcome back, welcome back, welcome ba–" The terminal beeped when they scanned my passport and two bored–looking guards leaning against the wall were suddenly blocking the route out to the car park and the taxis and the buses.

"Mr. O'Conner, I'm afraid I'll need you to go with these officers."

Shit!
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Did my passport expire?"

He shook his head. "No."

Cousin Harold and Henry had gone through before me and gotten yards on the way, but Henry tugged on Harold's elbow and they came back. "What seems to be the problem, Officer?"

"Are you traveling with this lad, sir?"

"Indeed I am.
In loco parentis,
so to speak. Were you worried he was an unaccompanied minor?"

"No, sir. There's an alert out. He's wanted for questioning."

"Questioning? For what? I should really call his parents, then."

"I'd be surprised if you could, sir. According to this alert, they were murdered six years ago. This lad's been missing ever since."

Henry was frowning but when he heard this his eyes went wide. "Nonsense. Griff's dad teaches computers and his mother teaches French lit."

The immigration control officer narrowed his eyes and looked interestedly at Henry. "Tell you that, did he?"