by Janet Tanner
‘I see,’ Lola said drily. ‘And what is the name of this paragon?’
‘I don’t suppose you would know him,’ Charles replied, ‘but his name is Bernard Langlois.’
Bernard Langlois whistled as he rode his bicycle along the St Clements coast road. The news, as read by Alvar Liddell of the BBC, might have been bad that day, reporting as it had that Italy and Germany had signed a so-called ‘Pact of Steel’, but for him personally things had never looked better. For the morning post had brought the letter he had been hoping for – an offer from Charles Carteret of a position with his company, Carteret Tours.
‘Are you sure it’s secure?’ his mother, Edie, had asked sharply when he had showed her the letter. ‘I don’t know why you want to chop and change, Bernard. At least you know where you are in the electricity offices.’
Bernard had refrained from saying that he knew exactly where he was in the electricity company offices – trapped in a deadend job that had him filing most of his working day and which offered him the prospects of rising to the giddy heights of a clerk if he stayed there long enough and did nothing to disgrace himself in the meantime. It was, of course, as Edie had said, a steady and respectable job and it gave him a regular, if small, wage packet and the prospect of a pension when he retired. But Bernard knew he was worth more than that. He did not want to spend his life filing pieces of paper and filling in forms – and he certainly did not want to have nothing more to look forward to than a gold watch and a few shillings pension at the age of sixty-five. The very thought choked him. But he had been very afraid there were not too many positions of interest open to him, a boy who had been forced to leave school as soon as he was old enough to help his family keep a roof over their heads.
For as long as he could remember Bernard’s life seemed to have been dominated by money – or the lack of it. He was the oldest of three sons and home was a small terraced house in St Clements. His father, too, worked for the electricity company, though not in the offices, and his mother, a faded little woman who seemed to spend her entire life on her knees polishing the yards of linoleum that covered the floors of their home, always described him as ‘an electrician’. Bernard knew better. His father was not an electrician but an electrician’s mate, and not a very good one either if the strange wiring arrangements he was responsible for at home were anything to go by. As a boy, learning physics, Bernard had wondered about the wisdom of some of his father’s handiwork, now, as a young man, he was convinced it was a miracle the whole house had not gone up in flames long ago. But he knew it would be more than his life was worth to say so, and he kept silent – though he did make certain his bedroom window was never jammed and would allow him a hasty exit should the necessity arise.
Although it held their lives in such a stranglehold money was never actually discussed in the Langlois household and Bernard was never quite sure whether his father was really so badly paid or his mother a poor manager. But whichever, it had always been only too clear there was very little cash to spare. As a child Bernard had become used to having his pullover darned at the elbows so often that it became a patchwork of different shades of grey, and dinner towards the end of the week always consisted of faggots (which Bernard enjoyed) or tripe and onions (which he did not). But it was when he had won a scholarship to the Grammar School that he had realised for the first time just how hard up his family was.
‘He can’t go – we can’t afford it,’ Edie Langlois had said, her lips fastening tightly around the Woodbine cigarette that seemed to be permanently anchored there.
Bernard had wanted to cry from disappointment. But for once his father had spoken up for him.
‘Seems a pity, Edie. After all, we don’t have to pay.’
‘Oh, is that what you think? Where’s his uniform coming from then?’
‘Well the boy’s got to wear something in any case. He can’t go to school in his underpants, can he?’
This had set Bernard’s two younger brothers sniggering, but Stan Langlois had continued unabashed: ‘If he’s got to have a pair of trousers they might as well be the colour the school wears as any other.’
‘Oh yes, and what about the blazer with a badge on the pocket? And a satchel – and a tie – and football boots and shorts, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘It’s a good chance for the boy,’ Stan persisted. ‘A chance for him to make something of himself – do better than I did.’
It was the only time Bernard could ever remember hearing his father refer to his failure to get on in life. Ever afterwards he was made to feel as if by attending the Grammar School he was somehow getting above himself.
How the money was found he was never quite certain but to his delight he was able to take up his place wearing the regulation items his mother had referred to and carrying his lunch, a brand new fountain pen and a box of pencils in a somewhat battered leather satchel which Edie had found at a jumble sale and which he had polished lovingly until the worn bits scarcely noticed at all.
Once at the school Bernard had settled down to make the most of his God-given opportunity. He was not the most brilliant of boys and was under no illusion that he was but he soon discovered that by dint of sheer hard work he could not only keep up with the rest of his classmates but actually beat a good many of them. Whilst they surreptitiously passed notes or flicked little balls of rolled-up paper at one another Bernard sat in the front row listening intently and scribbling away as fast as he could with his new but rather scratchy fountain pen. The other boys called him a ‘swot’ and a ‘creep’ but the insults rolled off him without causing him too much distress. At primary school, in his jumper with the darned elbows, he had been called worse – and to no purpose. This was different – the start of a path that would lead him to a better life. And besides, he knew he could redeem himself when it came to games. He was an extremely reliable, if fairly uninspired, full back at football and quite a tidy bowler on the cricket field. Bernard knew, as every schoolboy does, that the boy who can hold his own at sport will be forgiven almost anything by his peers.
Unfortunately for Bernard by the time he reached school leaving age the family finances were creaking under the strain of supporting three growing boys and he was put under pressure to go out into the world and get a job. The prospect of wasting his education had sickened him but he had known he had no choice. And as he had gone about his soul-destroyingly mundane jobs in the offices of the electricity company he had made up his mind. One day he was going to make use of his talents and pull himself out of the rut of grinding poverty that had trapped his parents. One day he would have a nice house and a fast car and maybe even a boat. He would travel the world, for business and for pleasure, he would have good food on his table and fine wines in his cellar. Just how he would acquire this Bernard was not sure but he was determined that when the opportunity presented itself he would grasp it with both hands.
Now, as he cycled home along the St Clements coast road, Bernard was thinking that the job Charles Carteret was offering him could very well be that opportunity.
‘Visitors to Jersey will come to expect more and more in the way of entertainment – and it is going to be our business to see they get it, whether it be coach tours, boat trips or theatre tickets,’ Charles had told him. ‘I want a young man with an eye on the future, someone not afraid of hard work, to help me develop what I believe can become a really profitable enterprise.’
That’s me, thought Bernard. A young man with an eye on the future. The stiff breeze coming off the sea burned his cheeks and made the breath catch in his throat but he pushed down hard on the pedals, fired up with excited enthusiasm and a sense of destiny encountered stronger than anything he had experienced in his life before.
Somehow it was as if everything he had done had been in preparation for this moment. And Bernard Langlois was very, very sure that Carteret Tours was going to provide him with the springboard to make all his hopes and ambitions bear fruit.
On the day that he l
eft school Nicholas Carteret put his school cap in the dustbin, making sure it was so soiled with kitchen waste that it could never again be worn, and broke the news to his mother that he intended to join the army.
‘So – you are a grown man now,’ she said, pausing in her inventory of the flour, sugar and dried fruit that she was stockpiling in her walk-in larder against the shortages that she knew would be inevitable if war broke out. ‘It is time you decided what you are going to do, Nicholas.’
‘Oh, I have decided,’ he said – and told her.
Lola listened, growing paler and paler until there was no more colour in her face than in the bag of flour in her hands.
‘Nicholas, no! I forbid it!’
‘You can’t forbid it, Mama. As you just said, I am a grown man. And besides, I’d have thought you would be pleased. Your father was a soldier, so it’s in my blood.’
‘My father died because he was a soldier. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you. Tell me this is not true, Nicholas. Tell me you will forget this stupid idea.’
‘I can’t, Mama. Besides, if war comes I shall be called up anyway. They are already asking boys of nineteen to register so they can be sent for when they are twenty. I’d rather go now and join the regular army than wait to be sent for.’
For a moment Lola was silent. She could see the sense of his argument. Perhaps it would be advantageous to be a regular soldier rather than a conscript. But the thought of Nicky going to fight at all was almost more than she could bear.
‘Wait a little while, Nicholas,’ she begged. ‘Just long enough to give your mother time to get used to the idea.’
And perhaps to give yourself time to change your mind, she added silently.
Nicky looked downcast. He hated arguing with his mother.
‘Well, I’ll leave it for a week or so,’ he agreed. ‘But then I shall write away for all the information. And I have to tell you that nothing you can do will stop me.’
Something did happen, however, if not to stop Nicky enlisting, at least to take his mind off it for the time being. Her name was Vivienne Moran.
Vivienne Moran had a way of attracting boys as a discarded sandwich attracts seagulls on the beach. They flocked around her wherever she went, falling over themselves for her favours, and Nicky was no exception.
Vivienne was nineteen years old, with flaming red hair, creamy skin and the greenest eyes in Jersey, so green and clear they were almost like bits of emerald glass. But it was not her eyes that boys usually noticed first. Top of her assets as far as they were concerned were her breasts – big and thrusting above a tiny handspan of a waist.
Besides being very pretty, Vivienne was vivacious, vital and fun to be with. As if all this was not enough she had the added glamour of having a father who worked in the city of London during the week and flew home at weekends and a mother who had been on the stage.
Nicky met her on the beach – the wonderful expanse of golden sand that follows the entire curve of the bay from St Helier to St Aubin. He had gone there with his friends to swim but as they walked along the sand looking for a place to leave their towels he saw her and forgot all about swimming.
‘Who is that?’ he exclaimed, though he did not expect an answer. In her white two-piece swimsuit with a sun-visor set at a jaunty angle on her flaming red hair she looked for all the world like a film star or model and must almost certainly be a summer visitor. But to his surprise Jack Pickard, one of his friends, knew her.
‘That, Nicky old boy, is the lovely Viv Moran. The girl with the most luscious tits in Jersey – for all the good they’ll do you!’
‘You mean – she lives here?’ Nick asked.
‘She does. But it’s no good you drooling like that. Her old man’s got money and plenty of it. She gets around with a crowd of her own sort. And she’d certainly never look at you.’
‘Want to bet?’ Nicky said.
Apart from a few harmless flirtations and one relationship which had lasted six weeks Nicky had never bothered much with girls though the lack of interest could not have been said to be mutual. Nicky was taller than average, with a body lithe and well-muscled from hours of swimming and tanned from frequent exposure to the sun and sea. His hair was thick with a natural wave, his eyes were the same startling violet as Sophia’s. Nicky Carteret had made plenty of female hearts miss a beat but he was virtually unaware of it – and the lack of awareness was part of his charm. Now, however, intoxicated by this stunning girl, he was suddenly buoyed up on a wave of confidence which all that admiration had unconsciously engendered.
Without even responding to the banter of his friends he walked straight up to her and threw himself down on the beach beside her.
‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Nicky Carteret and my friends just bet me you’d turn me down if I asked you for a date. So how about proving them wrong?’
She turned quickly with a haughty flick of that flame red hair, ready to slap him down. Then as his eyes met hers, confident, challenging, her expression changed from annoyance and outrage to interest. For a long moment she returned his look, then her eyes slid brazenly over him and a corner of her voluptuous red mouth turned up.
‘Why not? Winning a bet is always fun, isn’t it?’
‘That’s just a part of the fun,’ Nicky corrected her, amazed by his own cool. ‘The best part might be something quite different.’
‘So it might be,’ she said and again her eyes were tantalising. ‘When are you going to take me out – and where are we going to go?’
Nicky’s confidence faltered slightly. This girl would be used to the very best – and he had no money of his own to speak of. He certainly could not afford expensive restaurants or entertainments. Then to his relief she said: ‘ Wait a minute, I have a much better idea. I’m having a party on Saturday night. Why don’t you come?’
Nicky did not know whether to be relieved or dismayed. The invitation eased the financial problem but he was not ecstatic at the idea of venturing alone into unknown social territory without even being sure that he would ever get Vivienne on her own. However under the circumstances he had little choice – he would just have to brazen it out.
By Saturday morning his apprehension had increased. He spent far longer than usual over his toilet, Brylcreemed his thick wavy hair into submission and put on his best suit.
Vivienne lived in a converted farmhouse in St Lawrence, a good four miles from La Maison Blanche. Nicky thought about cycling but decided against it. Vivienne’s friends probably had their own cars – a bicycle would look extremely gauche. Better to arrive on foot.
It was a hot summer evening and by the time he reached the farmhouse Nicky had had to remove his jacket. But when Vivienne’s mother opened the door to him he saw her look of faint surprise and when she led him through to the extensive garden he realised the reason for it. In a suit he was hopelessly overdressed. All the young people were in shorts or even swim wear as they laughed and romped around a large swimming pool.
Vivienne, looking lovelier than ever in an emerald green halter-top and matching shorts, greeted him. ‘Oh darling, didn’t you realise it was a pool party?’
Suddenly Nicky was angry. He could not possibly go all the way home to change and she knew it. She had succeeded in making a complete fool of him. But he had no intention of giving her the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.
‘Never mind, it’s our date isn’t it?’ he said, taking her hand in a grip of iron and putting it through his arm. ‘You’d better introduce me to your friends, hadn’t you?’
He saw her green eyes flash and expected fireworks. But he went on smiling at her, a hard fixed smile, and holding her hand in his arm so that to all her friends by the swimming pool it appeared that she was greeting him with pleasure and a certain amount of intimacy, and after a moment she threw back her head and laughed.
‘You’re quite a guy, aren’t you, Nicky Carteret? All right, come and meet the others. And who knows, I might be able to persuade my bro
ther to lend you a pair of swimming trunks.’
‘Don’t do me any favours,’ Nicky said coldly.
‘Mm.’ Her eyes ran teasingly over his broad shoulders and the ripple of muscles that was clearly visible beneath the slightly damp shirt. ‘Oh no, I think it’s me I’d be doing a favour. I’m sure you’d look very good in swimming trunks or even better … well, you never know, we might just do some skinny-dipping later on …’
The meaning behind her words was obvious, her appreciative look intoxicating. But Nicky was determined not to drop his guard so easily. He wanted Miss Vivienne Moran, yes – but he wanted her in his time and at his instigation, not hers.
An hour or so later, however, when he thought he had made his point and when some of the others were beginning to complain that it was not really very warm in the pool now that the sun had gone down, he accepted Douglas Moran’s offer of the loan of a pair of trunks, executed a perfect swallow dive from the spring board and swam a few lengths. Some of the boys, understandably annoyed that his beautiful effortless crawl put their clumsy splashing to shame, gave him black looks and turned their backs, but more than one of the girls watched with admiration in her eyes and a heart that was beating a little faster, and Vivienne’s smile turned to one of satisfaction.
Much later, when the garden beyond range of the gaily-coloured lanterns was quite dark, she did not protest when he pulled her into the shadows. All evening she had been longing to discover how it would feel to be kissed by that hard full mouth – and she was not disappointed. Nicky Carteret might not be rich, he might not know what was ‘ u’ and ‘non-u’, as Nancy Mitford had so neatly put it, but oh! he was deliriously sexy, every inch a real man!
Over the next few weeks Nicky saw a good deal of Vivienne. Before long, in spite of his unpromising start, he was accepted into her circle and to his relief he discovered it did not involve spending a lot of money. Mostly the entertainment – and the refreshments – were provided by indulgent parents. But Nicky thought that the best times were had when they were enjoying the pleasures that came free – the beach parties and the ‘ghost hunts’ when they trekked across the causeway at low tide to Elizabeth Castle or clambered around the rocks beneath the forbidding Hermitage where St Helier, for whom the town had been named, was said to have been murdered by pirates in the sixth century. Nicky learned to speak as they spoke, to adopt their lazy, laid-back attitude to life, to ride a fast motor cycle around the shady curving lanes and to pull a champagne cork without losing half the bottle in a foaming fountain – unless of course that was the intention. But he also learned things that made all the rest pale into insignificance. With Vivienne to egg him on and point him in the right direction, Nicky also learned to make love.
