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

skilfully peroxided plaits and ostentatiously Parisian accents. Léon suddenly felt Louise take his arm – something she’d never done before.
    â€˜Look at those stuck-up mam’selles with their parasols,’ she said. If you ever catch me with a parasol like that, you must shoot me.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜That’s an order.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I’ve no one else to ask.’
    â€˜All right.’
    After that they walked on in silence, side by side like a long familiar couple with nothing left to prove. While sitting on their bikes and pedalling they had been free and unconstrained because their destination still lay in the future and the present wasn’t what mattered. Now there was no obstacle and no escape left; now it was the present that counted. But even now, as they walked round the harbour, they were neither guarded nor uneasy, just incapable of putting their feelings into words.
    Where Léon was concerned, the warmth of Louise’s hand on his arm was enough to render him perfectly happy. It was the first time in his life he had been privileged to walk so close to a girl. That he could, if he bent his head sideways only a little, breathe in the scent of her sun-warmed hair was almost more than he could bear.
    They walked along the mole to the lighthouse that marked the harbour entrance, sat on the wall and watched the steamers and sailing boats going in and out. When the sun was nearing the sea they made their way back to the little town, walked up the Rue de Paris and visited the Eglise Saint-Jacques, the town’s landmark.
    Just on the right of the entrance was a Madonna they stood in front of for a long time. It was a crudely modelled plaster figure with a flat face, Dutch doll red cheeks and black, boot button eyes. The Virgin’s robe of gold-embroidered blue velvet was entirely covered with slips of paper rolled up or folded several times. These were attached to the garment with pins, but other slips of paper were wedged between her fingers, pinned to her kerchief, or lying on her halo and her feet. Slips of every size and hue could even be seen between her lips and in her ears.
    â€˜What are those pieces of paper?’ Louise asked.
    â€˜They’re from seamen’s wives asking the Mother of God to keep their husbands safe,’ said Léon. ‘I’ve seen them back home. They draw their men’s fishing boat on a slip of paper and hope it’ll come safe home under the Holy Virgin’s protection. Others fold up a lock of their consumptive child’s hair in a piece of paper and ask the Virgin to cure it. These days, you’ll also see soldiers’ photos.’
    â€˜Shall we look at some?’
    â€˜It’s bad luck to do that. The ships would sink, the children die, the soldiers be blown to bits by a shell. And your fingers would rot off if you even touched one.’
    â€˜We’d better not, then. Shall we go?’
    â€˜Just a minute.’ Léon took a notebook and a pencil from his breast pocket.
    â€˜You’re going to write one?’ Louise laughed. ‘Like a seaman’s wife?’
    Léon tore the page out of the notebook, rolled it into a cylinder, and stuck it in the Madonna’s right armpit. ‘Let’s go, it’ll soon be low tide. I’ll get us some mussels from the rocks for supper.’
    Léon bought two baguettes, some carrots, leeks, onions, thyme, and a bottle of Muscadet from a grocer’s shop in the Rue de Paris. Then they fetched their bicycles and wheeled them down to the casino in the light of the setting sun. From there a wide boardwalk of oak planks led across the shingle beach and past a long row of whitewashed bathing huts. Behind them stood proud seaside villas with encircling verandas and white curtains that silently, airily billowed and subsided, billowed and subsided, as if they were breathing.
    Léon had noticed from the lighthouse that, far