Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (13 page)

Jim had decided that until Monica returned he would stay on three legs and eat nothing but chips. The only thing more pathetic than a whippet is a three-legged whippet, and he got a lot of attention as he hopped through Watten.

The town has one main street, varied, unkempt, Flemish. Shops, brick and off-white houses, narrow pavements. The street is called Rue Charles de Gaulle and halfway along there is a square. Here a plaque records the general’s speech from London of 18 June 1940, declaring his contempt for Marshal Pétain, who the day before had announced an armistice with Germany.

Rulers thrown up by chance have found themselves able to surrender, overcome by fear, mindless of honour, delivering the land into slavery.

Close by the plaque there was a restaurant. At the bar a big man with white hair, and his younger friend, who was small and smiled and smoked. Jim lay on the floor grieving, waiting for chips.

Your town was not destroyed, I said—I mean not like Calais or Abbeville—most of your buildings are old. There was no fighting in Watten,
monsieur
, said the old man. The troops passed through and then they passed through again. But night after night there was bombing. A couple of kilometres away in Eperlecques we have the blockhouse, built by slaves, for the V2 rockets. After the bombing there was nothing left of Eperlecques. Here fifty people were killed—people I knew. Louis Gokelaert was killed and his wife and five of his six children. Two were twin girls, one year old. Planes were shot down—one was a Spitfire, another was the American one with two engines, the Mitchell B-25. One man went down with the plane. Three jumped but one of the chutes did not open. Many of your airmen are buried here.

We had Germans billeted on us—the last one was Austrian—his cap had a feather. He got us coal and wood. He knew we had a radio. You could be deported if you had a radio.

Up here you were not under Pétain’s Vichy government, I said. No, said the younger man, we were not part of the Free France. In Britain we did not think Vichy France was free, I said. No, no, of course it was not free, said the old man—but you must realize,
monsieur
, the Marshal Pétain was the hero of the first war, of the siege of Verdun, the turning point.

In the war you were part of Belgium, I said. Both men rose from their seats—Belgium, never,
monsieur
. Belgium? We are The France. No, I said, in the Second World War the Department of the North was administered by the Germans from Brussels. Ah yes, it is possible, they said, and sat down.

Did any of your family fight over here? the younger one asked. Yes, I said, two of my uncles. One was a stretcher-bearer in Normandy. He was twenty-four. The other was a paratrooper at Arnhem. He was twenty-seven. They were both killed. But look at your infantry who died while we were getting away from Dunkirk. And in the Resistance there were many mindful of honour.

Yes, said the old man. Six from round here were betrayed for a few hundred pounds and condemned to death for helping a Canadian airman.

Before her judges, Madame Illidge took a proud and noble stance, saying—I regret nothing. If it were to do again I would be more careful and work alone.

When the judges left the courtroom, they gave her a military salute.

I wonder if Louis Aragon knew about Madame Illidge, I said. His ballad—the one that spread across France during the occupation—we know it in England too.

One word and you can live

One word and you can save

Your body Only give

One word and live—a slave

If it were to do again

I’d do it—count on me

Her words rise from the chains

Speak of the days to be

There were many, said the younger man, and not just on the last day. He shook my hand and lit another cigarette and bought me a beer and folded his newspaper and patted Jim and went out, all in one movement.

WHEN MONICA CAME BACK JIM THREW HIMSELF against her again and again, and then he threw himself against me—You fool, you fool, you let her escape, but here she is—I got her back and I forgive you, you fool, you fool. He started eating and walking again. Even when he was standing around he did it joyfully.

He seems to have expressions, I said. Of course he has expressions, said Monica. But he can’t really have expressions, I said. The human face has dozens of muscles, and he hasn’t got room for that many and they’ll all be different to ours anyway and he’s only a dog. Look at him, said Monica. Jim was lying on his back, his paws bent over, his body doubled, making the growling noise he makes when he would like you to pat his stomach. He was smiling broadly.

You know, said Monica, I feel fine now I’ve had a break and realized what is going on. I never really thought about what it would be like if we got across the Channel. I thought it would be a holiday. If we had spent half our life on boats and we were thirty, perhaps it would be. But for us it’s new, and it’s hard work, and it could go either way. I feel different now—I expect nothing but hardship and pain.

I’m sorry the boat was in a mess when you got back, Mon, I said. It’s just that I met these chaps in the town and we talked about the war and they came to see the
Phyllis May
. And then the old one wanted his girlfriend to see it and the younger one wanted to show it to his mother. Then there was the vet and his wife who came along for coffee and Malcolm from the yacht next door told me about his alcoholism and his operation and how he sailed over the Channel and when he got over he was so tired he fell on the pontoon and broke his arm in two places. And a French family on a cruiser took me into Dunkirk in their car. And I left my glasses in the restaurant and the
patron
brought them back and we had a beer.

You’re anybody’s, said Monica, you’re just an old tart. I like talking to people, I said, but they all start talking to Jim anyway. You’ve seen how they kiss him and he licks their faces. You’ve got to speak to them.

I’ll tell you something about the French, I said. You get an English couple on the
Phyllis May
and they will sit where you put them, and they will talk in normal voices and in their turn, unless they are drunk or dicks. The French love the boat but when you show them a seat they take no notice. They come right up to you and shout at the tops of their voices. If you move back they corner you up one end of the boat and you have to listen to them and answer them properly. If you do not they pull at your clothing.

Jim was still on his back. Smiley Broadling, the horizontal hound.

ON OUR LAST DAY IN WATTEN JIM AND I WALKED down the canal. The café was called the Relay of the Fisherman and it was one of those waterway cafés that sells fishing tackle and bait. Outside was a notice:

On the way back my younger friend from the restaurant stopped me. He was carrying a box with an antenna, and a book. Thierry, please keep this book about the war in the region. War is not funny but there is a story—the Germans built hundreds of planes out of wood and put them in the fields to one side of St. Omer airport. The RAF came and dropped bombs on them—wooden bombs.

Thierry, it has been exceptional.
Bon voyage
—we will think of you both and Sheem. I will return now to my little submarines.

We walked back to the boat past the notices for a circus. It had left town, taking its camels.

THE FRENCH FAMILY THAT HAD DRIVEN ME into Dunkirk had given us a map marked for a voyage to Armentières and into Belgium. You have to visit the Ardennes, they said, they are very nice, and I had said, Of course, wondering who they were. We were to go across south-west Belgium and approach Paris from the rear.

Jim knew we were leaving before we did. As we cast off he stood in the middle of the boat, shivering, ears folded, eyes brimming—Look you know I really really hate this boating business—I am an athlete, an artist, I need space. I need a stable home environment, friends, room to grow.

South to Arques, down the Dunkirk—Escaut link, on the
grand gabarit
, down the great water. So much sun, so much sky, so much green towpath: rich fields, people waving, or astonished and waving back—
Beau bateau, beau bateau
.

This is it, we are boating in France. This is freedom alley, this is Route 66, this is the golden road to Carcassonne. Burn it, burn that diesel baby. A full fathom under us—now we haul ass.

Look behind you, said Monica, squeaking like the pantomime clown, look behind you—if a big barge comes up it could be goodbye. I kept looking but after a while I stopped. We forced on alone, and when a barge came towards us we almost welcomed its giant company. It moved to one side and I turned into the wash and enjoyed the counter kicking beneath my feet.

Wearied by betrayal, Jim had gone to sleep in his bed out on the sharp end. A whispering, a whispering over my shoulder—My God, within feet, a barge! But its thousand tons came by slowly, light of foot, and there was no wash. The lady on board held up her little girl to see us.

After three hours we reached two locks. These were not Earth locks—these were the locks of the biggest planet in the universe. One was thirteen metres deep—a black hole from which no light emerged.

I don’t want to go in, said Monica, I can’t see anything, I’m scared—but the signal was green and she did. An arch spanned the lock, and there in a window was the tiny head of the
horla
. Behind us a guillotine ground down like the portcullis of hell. We tied to a floating bollard in the darkness under the girdered gate and I thought When they open the gate paddles that will be it—overwhelmed and sunk in seconds. But water came from beneath and quietly we rose. In twenty minutes we were back on Terra, safe on our blue bauble hung in space, with its trees and its sun and its gongoozlers. We turned left off the
grand gabarit
into the river Lys, moving at summer’s pace.

In the river Lys the long plants lay all the same way and the sun played across them and oxygen bubbled from their leaves. Fish flicked and rolled. This could have been an English canal, but it was better. The water was clearer, the navigation was wider, the sun was brighter, the poplars more towering, the flowers bolder, the views larger; there were water lilies, there were no other boats. Maybe it was not really better—how can you compare?—but for sure it was the Hollywood version, in widescreen and colour with stereophonic ducks. Central Casting had supplied some ecstatic gongoozlers safely distant on the banks, and fourteen herons in a fifty-yard stretch.
How many herons did they say, Nat? They didn’t? Oh hell, better send the lot, and if you get a chance spread ’em out a bit this time willya?

Aire-sur-la-Lys has a shallow pool where only a dinghy or a narrowboat can moor, and we did, with our gangplank. The town was once rich but now it is dirty and broken, the shops scattered among empty houses. We walked around, jumping away from the cars. In England cars go quickly on main roads, and in side streets and car parks they don’t. In France there is no alley so humble that a little car will not rush down it, no turning so tight that it will slow a Frenchman down. They hurtle across car parks as if on a motorway. They come up behind you on shrieking motorbikes. They come at you out of drains.

WE TURNED INTO THE MARINA AT ARMENTIÈRES.
Hinky dinky parley voo
, said Monica. It was the fourteenth of July. We were the only boat with bunting and flags, and the French boaters approved, though alarmed by the flag with the red dragon, perhaps because the dragon was six feet long. Where’s the party? we asked. Tonight there is dancing,
monsieur
, said the
capitaine
, and fireworks, in the town. Jim is good with fireworks, because they take place on land, and we all went to town.