The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

Harry eventually fell asleep in a chair, and woke up before daylight, and his watch told him it was a quarter past five.The pen rolled to the ground at some point, and a large puddle of ink leaked out, like a corpse falling off a cliff.The room was chilly, the windows kept leaking, and the concierge said it was a "structural problem" that couldn't be fixed unless the whole thing was taken down, so the issue was put on hold.Harry moved his stiff shoulders, bent down and picked up the completely useless pen, wrapping it in his handkerchief.

Alex rolled over on the bed and called his name.

"Sorry," whispered Harry, lowering his voice for some reason he didn't know, "do you want me to turn off the lamp?"

"Come to bed."

"I can sleep in a chair."

"Don't be silly, this is your room."

"I'm surprised you remember this."

"Come here." Alex picked up the crumpled boutonniere next to the pillow and threw it to the ground. "We used to do this a lot, didn't we?"

"We were nine years old then."

"Is there any difference?"

Too much.Harry wanted to say that, but couldn't find the right words for a while.Alex moved to the wall to make room: "Mr. Prudence, if you hesitate any longer, we'll all freeze to death."

Harry reached over to switch off the lamp.

-

Prudence stopped, resting against a rock, and checked how much sand was on his leather shoes.Perhaps feeling threatened, a seagull suddenly screamed at them, spread its wings, and glides away towards the foamy algae-green sea.The reporter looked back at the beach where they walked, and the waves had almost wiped away the shoe prints.All that remains of the nursing home is a small brown patch on the porch.The mist and sea breeze dampened his hair, making it sticky.The lighthouse is still far away, not getting closer at all, as if it will never be reached.

"Later, I gave him the spare key directly so that he would not knock on the door again in the middle of the night." Prudence sat down on a flat place on the rock, and the reporter followed, "To Alex, You will always compromise, it's just a matter of time. After I got the key, he came often, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes at night, and I woke up several times in the morning to find him sleeping next to him, and he didn't even take off his coat. If When I'm away, he'll leave little presents on the desk, wine, apples, half a King's Cake, a new pen. He's terrified of being alone, though he's never explicitly admitted that he wouldn't if he didn't come to me Stay in your own room honestly. In my first year at Oxford, people had already started whispering about Alex's 'friends', there were a few girls, mostly boys, I met a few of them, but neither Remember their names, these people came suddenly and disappeared very quickly. I never asked, and Alex never said."

“As you can imagine, Alex’s social tentacles spread across Oxford and London, reaching out to the surrounding country clubs. Everyone was his friend, from the dean’s daughter to the doomsday believer no one wanted to talk to. He Pulled me into his social world too, those dinner parties, salons and receptions, especially the salons, sound glamorous, but are really just a bunch of drunk people fighting for the right to speak, everyone talking loudly, Interrupting each other with absolutely no one listening, arguing like a flock of wild geese. I'm Alex's shadow and people either pretend they can't see me or get overly enthusiastic. For a while Alex loved Go to those clandestine left-wing rallies and listen to fanatical students discuss how to dismantle their own class. Barry used to hold these rallies at home, yes, 'the middle is an a not an e' Barry, his full name is Bran Don Morton, later at the Foreign Office."

"Wait." The reporter frowned. "Brandon Morton is a Soviet spy."

"Yes, Barry once ran a left-wing magazine in school. MI1955 put him on the watch list as early as 1972, but he still stayed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than ten years, and the incident was not completely resolved until 1991. Unmasked. Barry tried to escape via Istanbul and was shot dead on the ferry. MI[-] didn't release Barry's file until [-] and it was made into a movie, if I remember correctly."

"I know, I only knew about Morton because of that movie. I never thought he was related to Mr. Loiseau."

"University, Whitehall and Downing Street are a small circle, and we are all connected in some way, whether we want to or not."

Three swimmers holding thick blankets passed by and greeted them. They spread the blankets on the icy beach, took off their large sweaters to reveal their swimsuits, and walked towards the sea water while huddled.The reporter and Prudence looked at the swimmers with the air of a moth darting to a flame.They laughed, pushed each other, plunged into the icy water, and let out cries of pain or excitement.

"Only a Breton can do that," commented Prudence, straightening up, patting the rock as if to thank it, and continuing on to the lighthouse.

"How far is it?"

"Three ten minutes or so. Do you need an extra break, young man?"

"No, thank you."

A boardwalk emerges from the sand, leading towards the breakwater.The boards were soaked with water, limp and black, and badly rotted, but at least they were more comfortable than walking on sand.The sea breeze was whistling, and the reporter was worried that the recording pen could not clearly record Proust's voice, and secretly regretted not bringing out the pen and coil book.

"Alex loves Brittany, but in our day, the journey was very strenuous, we usually took the night ferry from Cornwall, disembarked at Brest, changed trains to Saint-Malo, two days That's how time is wasted. That was before I became an expatriate correspondent for Point View, and then I was too busy to spare an afternoon. Many people don't know that Point View has one in Bonn as well as Paris Office, I have stayed in both places. Did you notice that Alex sent a lot of letters to Germany? That address was the "Viewpoint" newspaper at that time, which no longer exists. When I went back in the 90s, It's turned into a supermarket. A supermarket! For God's sake." Proust shook his head. "To be fair, it wasn't easy to go to Cornwall, the summer of George's wedding - it was July 1953. April - Alex and I spent a day and a half bumping through potholed country roads in the rain, neither of us being skilled drivers, the car Barry lent us, a striking bright blue Brisbane Took 7, but unfortunately it broke down halfway, and it couldn’t be started anyway. We walked eight or nine miles in the wilderness before we found a suspicious tavern. Two quid."

The two young students had no choice but to pay.While Alex was describing the problem to a mechanic with a thick Scottish accent at the dealership, Harry took off his dripping jacket and surveyed the gloomy place.The only customer was a man sprawled over a table in the corner, wearing dirty fingerless gloves who didn't look like he was breathing.Rain beat against the grimy windows, and the bartender studied them, probably trying to figure out how much more they could squeeze out of them.

Alex hung up the phone and shook his head: "We're going to spend the night here."

The bartender lazily quoted a price, and Harry couldn't help laughing because it was so absurd: "This money is enough for us to buy gasoline for a swimming pool."

"Either it's here, or it's outside, you choose."

The guest room was upstairs, with a low ceiling that brushed over Harry's head.Two single beds were side by side under the narrow transom, the mattress sunken like a quicksand, covered with yellowed sheets.After the fireplace was lit, the whole room was filled with a pungent smell of smoke.The only lamp had no shade and cast a dim, flickering yellow light, and the two of them had to be very careful not to bump into the hot bulb as they moved about.The luggage was still in the car, and they were wrapped in rough, musty woolen blankets, waiting for the fire to dry the clothes spread on the chairs.

"It's all Barry's fault if we get our throats slit in the middle of the night by bandits in eighteenth-century costumes and minced up for dog food," Alex said to the fireplace, curled up in a little ball under a blanket.

"Maybe this isn't a good place to bring up murder." Harry surveyed a tan splatter on the wall. "Do you think it's a water stain?"

"It's best." Alex patted the pillow and lay down. "Even if the repairman arrives early tomorrow morning, we will be late for more than twelve hours."

"We can call tomorrow morning to explain."

"Being late isn't entirely a bad thing."

"why?"

"Cut down social time. Believe me, Harry, not every Loiseau is as interesting as I am."

"I can imagine." Harry looked at the ceiling, crossed his hands behind his head, "You haven't introduced who the lucky bride is."

"I haven't seen her, to be honest. Her father introduced her to George. Her surname is Hartford. Her father has a modest title like mine, but he has a lot more estates. Poor girl, she should Haven't figured out that George's real love is airplanes." Alex was silent for a while, and the two of them lay there separately, listening to the crackling of logs in the fireplace, "Do you remember a time when we all thought Is he dead? Didn't expect him to be back before Christmas?"

"I remember."

"There was a time," Alex cleared his throat, "for a while when I was a kid I thought he actually crashed in the channel with the plane and came back as a ghost. George just looked harsh, but never a Serious man. You should see him now, a fakir in Air Force uniform."

"I remember you wrote a story about a big bird eating a man or something."

"I can't believe you can twist the story like this."

"That's what you wrote."

"Harry."

"what?"

"It's too cold here, can I go over to your side?"

"If I say 'can't,' will you stay where you are?"

"will not."

Harry sighed, "Come here."

It was not a peaceful night, the rain was beating the dilapidated log cabin, and the clanging of metal and glass could be heard from the downstairs bar from time to time.As long as there was a creaking sound of boards outside the door, Harry would wake up suddenly, worried that a shadow with a knife would sneak in.Alex, the proponent of the robber theory, had no such worries and never woke up once.

They left the tavern at dawn, refusing expensive quiche and bacon, and returned hungry to find the broken-down car.The Bristol 400 is now deep in the mud after a night of heavy rain.The mechanic arrived around noon and spent three hours banging, changing a tire and finally working with them to push the car out of the mud hole.The two finally continued to set off at tea time, and drove up the gravel road leading to the mansion before the daylight completely disappeared.

As usual, Martha was waiting in the hall, paler than Harry remembered and a head shorter than he was.She covered her mouth as soon as she saw Harry, exclaimed that he had "grown up so much", then asked why they were "looking crumpled", and drove them in after hearing Alex's explanation. kitchen.

The kitchen was exactly as Harry remembered it, with its long table, large fireplace and circular transom window, and even the wicker baskets where the potatoes were in place.In preparation for the wedding, there was a pile of marinated meat and unfinished garlands, a basin of whipped cream was placed on the table, Alex dipped a little, put it in his mouth, and was hit by Martha on the back of his hand with a spoon .He caught Harry's gaze and blinked.

Martha put Harry in his old room, on the second floor of the West Wing.Harry dragged the suitcase in, put it on the carpet, and walked to the window.The armchair was smaller than he remembered, and the wood looked flimsy.He opened the window, and the chestnut trees outside were silhouetted in the twilight, and the fog-shrouded fields were a cloudy gray-brown, with the lights of the new highway flickering in them.

The sheets and pillows smelt slightly of soap and dust. Harry moved the pillows, but of course there was nothing underneath. Maybe he could ask Martha if she had seen his mother's handkerchief, but he quickly dismissed the idea.He turned on the lamp and looked at the small room again.Exactly 11 years later, he is home again.

tbc.