CHAPTER 41
“Who was it, Pascale?”

“It was not Forgeron, but I do believe they may be acquainted. They are from the same part of the city”

“So what must I do?”

She smiled at me, a little sadly, I thought. “Nothing, my sweet. The Directorate of the school, as well as the Mairie, are fully aware of your…situation. The law is the law, and this is France, and it is the law that we follow, no?”

I explained to her about Georges, and the perception that I was somehow either malicious or infectious.

“But you turned him around, Sophie, no? You sent him back to his peers to explain that they were but foolish children? I do not see you as the Easter hare, for all that chocolate would surely have added greatly to your weight. Do not worry: I will speak. Now, it is early to speak of this, but are you to depart south once more this Summer? I would have a use for you, once more, with the people from the Open, if you wished?”

That was a decision I needed time to consider, for it would mean a Summer apart from my family. I had done that already, of course, but it had been when Sophie had collapsed into despair, and even now, even with this letter, this complaint, I was no longer that woman. I had strength, I had the understanding and love of my family. I thought of Janet, in her lust for my dear brother, and smiled.

“Pascale, I rather feel that such a Summer would be a very nice one”

She smiled. “I would hope so, for you would have your own class, not just act as an aide. Sophie, I saw this in you, that first time. Teaching, educating, it is something you do as naturally as drawing your breath. You know the meaning of 'educate', no? That is what you do: you do not imprint, you draw out the best your children have. Remember Benazzi?”

She smiled, and gave me an embrace. “This letter, this silliness, we shall speak to the people who deal with this and it shall melt away with the sun. Now, you have the bigger ones next, no?”

She was as good as her word, and apart from the occasional pout from the Little Miss Forgeron, things seemed to become quieter for a pair of months. Large notices and visible cameras now covered the school’s entrances, and my little blue scooter had found a place in the store room of the maintenance workers.

I thought back to my earlier years, how Forgeron and his companions in malice had made such a thing of riding their little scooters, such a show of machismo, and to me it was one of the most feminine things I owned. Then again, the Scotch men wore their own skirts, and nobody accused them of daintiness. A complicated world, indeed.

The Easter hare, or so it was claimed, came and went, and of course I had to deliver my own eggs to my little god daughter, who was growing rapidly. Not such a bundle of noise and smells, but more a person, and I could see so much in the faces, for the child’s love of her parents shone like the sun at our beach, and Matty, he seemed to melt in its warmth, become softer than I had ever seen. Elle made efforts, each time I saw her, either to be the practised woman of maturity, or else my tiny and over-excitable friend, but each time she failed, because she now had a focus beyond telling. She was friend, she was daughter, she was wife, but she was above all mother, maman, and that was where her own glow shone from her.

It was strange, for I felt no envy of her ability, her motherhood, for as I had told her so long ago I had my own children, my own delights, and I did not really have a desire to deal with crying and filthy napkins. But just…just, every now and again, there was a tiny stab to my heart, that I could not take that step, that my choice was not there. And each time, every time, I remembered him. I watched Maggie, at those times, and I saw more in her, for she wanted a child, children, and yet her men saw clearly, and unselfishly. Our girl must be allowed to realise the potential that lived within. Not just wife and mother, as Elle had chosen, but more. It was at those times that I saw how my sweet brother, my dear Papa, how they cared so deeply for her.

The full Spring surged out, and then the blossoms announced the beginning of the examination preparations, and I found myself absorbed beyond distraction. I had another Benazzi, of a different name but of the same character, one who had been told of his lack of worth until he believed it. He was from a family that had dealt in cooked meat for generations, and the concept of learning was even more foreign than the language I taught him. I found the key to his door in an unusual place, for I saw his interest in the nature around him, and the teacher of natural sciences spoke to me of his animation in that class.

There is a series of books by one Hugh Lofting, and they told of a man who strove to learn languages, but those of a pig, a dog, many different animals, and as I helped young Gaston through the stories he began to move ahead, and I had hopes that were realised at last one Monday even before his Bacca.

He was all shyness, and I smiled to myself at a memory of bent and slightly crushed flowers from a boy dressed as a gangster

“Mlle Lapalace…may I say something?”

“Of course, Gaston!”

“It is…the last two days, Papa he took us, my brothers and myself, to Portsmouth, to sell things to the English, that market in the Gun Wharf, yes? The ferry, it is dear, but our prices, well…”

He was grinning, and I smiled back. “That was not what you wished to tell me, that you are a shopkeeper of sharp practice and inflated prices, no?”

His face became more serious. “No, it is not that, though it is true. It was Papa…we had the customers, and he has always worked with the grunt and the lift of the eyebrow, yes? But this time, I spoke to them, and I could explain what each meat was, the making of the saucisson, and we finished with more money in our little chest than he had ever seen, he says, and he looked at me…”

There were movements in his face. “He said that he did not see why, if this thing, this English, makes us so much money, if it does, that I should not continue, that I should not take higher studies, at Jean Monnet, for I said that it was my teacher, she who had done this, and it had been her school…”

And he ran out of his store of words, and abruptly seized me to place his lips to my cheek before dashing away while wiping at his eyes. Pascale had seen the exchange.

“You see, Sophie? That is your metier, your skill. How much of what you have done for that boy has been prescribed in the official syllabus? No, no, my sweet, that was no criticism. You have educated, drawn forth, no? Do I then have you for the Summer?”

I had to smile, and accept. We continued to work together for more mundane things, though, for the Baccas and other examinations were soon upon us, and it was only what I now saw in myself, my passion, that carried me through the heavy work and the continuing sneers of Tiffanie Forgeron. I would catch her stare, and then immediately see the glare returned from little Georges. It was not finished, but it seemed to be at least quiescent.

Examinations finished, my Summer holiday became devoted to preparing for the arrival of the rosbifs. I had to drag Pascale aside, physically, at one point.

“We must speak. You have said nothing, for months, about a subject that is clearly not a closed book”

She looked away from me, and that was a first, to see my assured teacher and friend uncertain. I knew, at that moment.

“There was more than one complainant, not so?”

She sighed, and nodded.

“How many?”

“Eight families have complained. No, Sophie, see it not like that. These are families whose infants are not disciplined, not well-behaved. They seek to use you as the excuse for their children’s, their own failings, and I have told them they were failing long before your arrival”

There was a flash of a grin. “I actually told Mireille Gaultier, mother of that little trollop Yvette, to go bugger herself in her own arsehole, but perhaps that was not done with a witness to hear”

She pulled herself up straighter, placing her hands on my shoulders before giving me the kisses.

“You are my teacher, Mlle Laplace. I protect my own. Do not worry. Now, we have the English to welcome…”

Once more I took a little room in that tower, and the classes were as delightful, even if Laurent’s jokes were the same and the songs for the music evening as banal. Each Thursday, they got very drunk and there was most definitely a lot of sex, but I was above such things as a lofty lecturer to adults. Janet had returned for another experience, and there was a sigh when I mentioned Rollo’s wedding, so of course he had to visit for a drink and some worship from the next stool at the bar. Tactfully, Maggie was left at home.

“Sophie, I met someone today” he offered, as Janet went to ease herself.

There was one of his delightful smiles attempting to invade his face. “Do you remember that English, Welsh girl I told you about? The one like you? She was back again, with her husband, and another, one more like you, and HER husband, yes? Do you see, now, how things can happen? We have an invitation to England, if we wish, but I do not wish to travel alone, or with Maggie, because we do not speak the English, and so you, my sweet sister, you have a duty to perform, no?”

Sweet, sweet Rollo. So transparent to the eyes of women. I decided, just then, that perhaps we could think of this visit, some day. But, just then, I had pupils, and work, and enthusiasm to deliver.

At the end of that year’s Open University, it was finally time to leave my little cell of a room and return to my last days of rest in the sunflower house. More children to meet in September, another Christmas ahead of us: where was the time running away to?

I parked my little blue scooter just inside the gate, and stared. Every single sunflower was down on the soil, broken. THAT word was painted on my door.