Louis shrugged his shoulders in response. He sat down on the floor, his back against the side of the sofa, and Odile found a place next to him.
“We use first names in our group,” the leader said. “My name’s Gilbert.”
He introduced the blue-eyed brunette with the pleated skirt and the boy with the signet ring: “Françoise, Alain.” Then the others.
“Marie-Jo, Claude, Christian…”
Louis and Odile said their names in turn.
“You’re brother and sister?” Gilbert asked.
“No, cousins,” Louis said without thinking.
The ship had started to rock and now the movement grew more noticeable.
“I hope you don’t get seasick,” Gilbert said. “It usually doesn’t last long. The crossing is pretty smooth, actually.”
He took a pipe out of his pocket.
“Personally, I have a radical cure for seasickness: a pipe! Axter and me, we agree about that. He’s a great one for pipe-smoking too.”
Odile curled up, closed her eyes, and rested her cheek against the back of the sofa. Gilbert lit his pipe. With his crew cut and large lips, he looked like a good little schoolboy, and Louis imagined him in short pants, at the top of the class, raising a finger every time the teacher asked a question and saying, “M’sieu! M’sieu!”
On the armchair, the dark-haired boy with the ring was flirting with Marie-Jo, the girl who seemed older than her seventeen years. Then he kissed her, interminably. His arms were crossed behind the girl’s neck and Louis suspected him of glancing secretly at his wristwatch to time how long the kiss lasted.
“You don’t want a puff, do you, old boy?” Gilbert said.
He offered him the pipe. Louis refused.
“Your cousin is asleep, old boy,” Gilbert said, pointing to Odile.
The ship rocked more and more. Odile’s suitcase, sitting at the foot of the sofa, slid a little and Louis caught it. He had put his backpack back on.
“Wearing that pack doesn’t bother you, old boy?” Gilbert said.
“No,” Louis said. “I’m used to it.”
The dark-haired boy and Marie-Jo were still in their embrace. Other romances were springing up between members of the group. The chubby-cheeked girl was holding hands with a short redheaded boy whose accent sounded French Algerian. The brunette with the blue eyes and pleated skirt seemed jealous of Marie-Jo, held close by the dark-haired boy.
“The problem is that they won’t learn English because they’ll spend all their time pairing up with each other,” Gilbert said. “I’ll have to have a talk with Axter about it. Good-for-nothings… Now you and your cousin are setting a good example, at least. That’s how it should be.”
One of the mysterious singers by the bridge table was feeling seasick and holding his large velvet beret ready in case he needed to throw up in it.
“We’ll get to Southampton around seven in the morning,” Gilbert said, with his pipe between his teeth.
Odile opened her eyes and looked sleepily at Louis. Just then, the lights flickered and went out. There were shouts and exclamations from all sides. Someone, who sounded like he was from the south of France, shouted: “Fuck the Queen of England!”
Laughter. A hubbub of conversation. Hiccups, no doubt from one of the singers with the velvet berets, Louis thought. Several voices shouting in unison: “Lights! Liii-ights!”
Some people lit their cigarette lighters. Louis leaned over to Odile.
“Let’s go to bed,” he whispered in her ear.
He picked up Odile’s suitcase and they left the “salon,” trying their best to avoid the tangle of bodies on the floor. A dim light was coming from the gangway.
Eventually they found the corridor of cabins, and Louis took a ticket out of his pocket to check for their number. Two couchettes. They lay down. Louis clutched the backpack and suitcase tight and wondered what their group leader would think if he knew that Odile and he had a cabin, which Brossier had reserved for them back in Paris. Gilbert would surely be hurt that these two cousins were not sleeping in the salon with the rest of the “youth exchange.”
•
Everything was floating in a white mist. Disembarking from the Normania, they passed through English customs and Gilbert took them to a bus waiting on the pier.
A man in the back of the bus greeted Gilbert.
“How are you, Mr. Axter?”
“Well, thank you. And you? Was it a pleasant crossing?”
He spoke French with a very slight accent. A blond man, in his forties, with curly hair and big tortoiseshell glasses, a red tweed vest, and a pipe.
The members of the group sat down in the bus, with Odile and Louis sitting a little farther back. Axter looked worriedly around the group.
“Tell me, Gilbert, do you have in your group a certain… Louis Memling?”
“Louis? Louis? Ah, yes, the cousins.”
He pointed out Louis and Odile.
Axter smiled at them.
“Michel Axter,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
There was a certain coquetterie in the way he Frenchified his first name. He shook hands with Louis and Odile and then sat down across the aisle from them, keeping his head turned to face them.
“Roland de Bejardy phoned me last night to let me know you were coming. He is a very good friend of mine, you know.”
He stuffed his pipe, a smile fixed to his face. Gilbert kept a respectful distance, surprised at this sudden intimacy between Axter and Louis and Odile. Surprised and maybe a bit jealous, too.
“I would go so far as to say that Roland and I are childhood friends.”
This time his face opened up in a real smile. Gilbert, more and more taken aback, nervously brought out his pipe, as though trying to win back Axter’s attention with the gesture and reestablish the complicity between them. He stammered: “Still a fan of the Amsterdammer, sir?”
But Axter wasn’t listening. He leaned toward Odile and Louis.
“I am so pleased to welcome you to our school in Bournemouth.”
Then, from where he was sitting, he counted the members of group with his index finger.
“Everyone here?”
“Everyone is here, Mr. Axter,” Gilbert said.
“All right, tell the driver.”
The bus started and Gilbert sat back down, very near Axter, Odile, and Louis. He was probably afraid that they would say bad things about him if he wasn’t there.
“It won’t be long. Bournemouth is very close by,” Axter said.
“So how is your wife?” Gilbert asked, desperately trying to get Axter’s attention.
But Axter opened a newspaper and read it with great composure.
Outside the windows, everything disappeared in a bright white fog, and Louis wondered by what miracle the driver was able to see where he was going.
•
A few minutes before they reached Bournemouth, the sun reappeared, which prompted Axter to say, “You see, it’s always sunny in Bournemouth.”
Gilbert, not wanting to pass up a chance to rejoin the conversation, added: “It’s a Mediterranean climate. Lots of pine trees, and flowers. As Mr. Axter has often remarked, Bournemouth is the Cannes of Dorset.”
His fawning fell flat. Axter shrugged his shoulders.
He took a list out of his pocket and, turning to face Odile and Louis, said, “We’ll drop off the young people with the families they’re staying with. It won’t take long.”
“We’re arriving at Christchurch, sir,” Gilbert said gravely, sounding like the guide on a jungle expedition, pointing out a path to his client.
Axter checked his list.
“We have someone getting out at Christchurch. Marie-José Quinili, with the Guilfords. 23 Meryl Lane. Tell the driver to stop at 23 Meryl Lane.”