Read Online Léon and Louise by Alex Capus, John Brownjohn - Free Book Online

beach?’
    â€˜I’m going on a trip to the seaside. There today, back tomorrow.’
    â€˜Just like that?’
    â€˜I want to see the sea again. Eighty kilometres. I’ll be there in five hours.’
    â€˜And then?’
    â€˜I’ll go for a walk along the cliffs, collect some more bits and pieces on the beach, and look for a dry spot to sleep.’
    â€˜And you need four blankets for that?’
    â€˜Two would be enough.’
    â€˜You mean me to come too?’
    â€˜It’d be nice.’
    â€˜If I did, you’d try to get into my knickers.’
    â€˜Wrong,’ he said.
    â€˜What do you take me for, an idiot? Any man tries to get into a girl’s knickers if he’s alone with her among the sand dunes.’
    â€˜That’s true,’ Léon conceded. ‘I won’t, though.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜No. What someone wants and what they do are two different things.’
    Léon got up and went over to his bicycle. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘there aren’t any sand dunes at Le Tréport.’
    â€˜No?’ Louise laughed.
    â€˜Just cliffs. And a shingle beach. I won’t, honestly. Not as long as you don’t.’
    â€˜Word of honour?’
    â€˜I promise.’
    â€˜How long do your promises normally last?’
    â€˜A lifetime. I’m being serious.’
    Louise frowned and pursed her lips, then breathed out through her nose. ‘Hang on, I’ll go and get some more cigarettes.’
    They rode out of town and headed west towards the sea along the wide, dead straight, deserted highroad that led through the charming pastureland of Haute Normandie, which has so generously supplied its inhabitants with the necessities of life since time immemorial. The sun was high, the horizon distant, and they sped past pale-green fields of wartime wheat, as sparse and patchy as an adolescent’s beard because they’d been sown by inexperienced women and children. Later, in the hilly terrain far away from the villages, birch saplings were already growing on steep fields that hadn’t been ploughed for years.
    Louise rode fast, but Léon, being rested and in good shape, easily kept up with her. They looked straight ahead at the road, legs pumping rhythmically up and down, not talking much because their thoughts were focused entirely on the ride and making good progress and getting to their destination. They were happy. Louise pretended not to notice when Léon occasionally glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Once they held hands while going full tilt and coasted for a bit like that, side by side. Then Louise rang her bell from sheer happiness.
    They reached their destination at half-past two that afternoon, quite suddenly and earlier than expected. The sea hadn’t announced its presence; the air was no saltier, the sky no wider, the vegetation no sparser, the soil no sandier. The Normandy countryside, with its rich arable land and lush meadows, simply broke off and continued a hundred metres down at the foot of chalk cliffs washed by the grey surf of the English Channel. They rode past the Canadian military hospital that had established itself in a sea of white tents on the cliffs, then along the river and into Le Tréport.
    The place had once been a fishing village. Ever since the railway had linked it with the capital, however, the inhabitants’ main source of income had been the Parisian holidaymakers who had built themselves fine villas with sea views at the foot of the cliffs. Léon and Louise left their bicycles on the Quai François and walked round the harbour. They watched the fishermen mending their nets, repairing sails, coiling ropes and sweeping their decks with gnarled hands and half-smoked cigarettes in the corners of their mouths. They also eyed the holidaymakers with their pink bootees and gleaming spats, their white sailor suits and translucent linen skirts, their panama hats,