by Janet Tanner
‘Of course I’ll be all right!’ Sophia said impatiently as she set out.
It was the most pleasant of afternoons, the sky that deep rich blue that is like an accumulation of all the lighter blues of summer pasted layer on layer, the sun low and bright and there was enough breeze going to keep the air pleasantly fresh. Though there was still an almost childlike quality about Lola she had recovered well physically. She could stride out with a resolve that almost surprised Sophia each time, they took a walk together, and now she set a cracking pace along the coast road. As she struggled to keep pace Sophia felt, but ignored, a niggling pain like a toothache somewhere in the depths of her body. It felt quite different to the pains she had experienced when Louis was born and it did not occur to her that one labour is rarely exactly like another.
Sophia was sitting on a rug on the beach, watching Lola digging happily with Louis when she experienced a sudden hot rush between her legs. Oh God! she thought in panic. Either her waters had broken or she was having a haemmorhage. Trying to conceal her anxiety from her mother Sophia struggled to her feet, squinting over her shoulder at the wet patch on the back of her skirt. At least it wasn’t blood – Sophia supposed she should be grateful for small mercies. But the thought of walking all the way home with this sticky fluid dripping down her legs was not a pleasant one. And besides she had no way of knowing how long it would be before she went into labour proper.
‘I think we should be going, Mama,’ she said briskly.
‘Oh, but we have only just arrived!’ Lola protested, disappointed as a child. ‘ It’s such a lovely afternoon! Can’t we stay a little longer?’
‘Not now. We’ll come back another day.’
‘But soon it will be winter. You know how cold it is in winter when the snow comes.’
‘You’re thinking of Russia, Mama.’
‘Am I? Oh, perhaps I am. I get so muddled sometimes. I had a beautiful fur hat and a muff. Did I tell you, Sophia? We would go skating and sometimes we would go whooshing over the snow in the sledge drawn by horses. It was wonderful. Except when we heard the wolves. They make such a mournful sound, you know, when they call to one another.’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Another rush of fluid trickled down Sophia’s leg. Oh God, she thought, I am going to die of embarrassment!
She bent over, folding up the rug and putting it into the carrier on the pushchair. Lola was still chattering and it was only when she straightened up again that Sophia realised that Louis was missing.
‘Louis!’ She looked round anxiously. ‘Where is he?’
‘He was here a moment ago. He can’t have gone far.’
There were a couple of families on the beach but no sign of a small fair-haired boy in a white blouse and blue shorts.
‘Louis!’ Everything else forgotten Sophia ran to and fro, a few steps in one direction, a few in the other. Louis seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Someone had kidnapped him, she thought in panic. Or else he’d run down to the sea and drowned! She would never see him again! ‘Louis! Louis!’ she called frantically. ‘Where are you?
‘Excuse me!’ a voice called. ‘Have you lost your little boy?’
‘Yes!’ Sophia called back. ‘Did you see what happened to him?’
‘He’s here, playing with my daughter.’
Sophia looked. She could see nothing. ‘Where?’
‘Here – behind my pushchair.’
‘Oh!’ Sophia wanted to weep with relief. She ran across the beach. Sure enough Louis was squatting on the sand hidden by the pushchair and completely engrossed in a baby, about six months old, who was lying gurgling on a rug. ‘I though I’d lost him!’ she gasped.
She bent over to scoop him up and as she did so the first pain caught her, almost taking her breath. As it passed she straightened to see the young mother gazing at her anxiously.
‘Are you all right?’
‘No, not really. I think … my baby’s started.’
‘Oh Lord! Is there anything I can do? Call an ambulance or …?’
Sophia was overcome with longing for Bernard and the aura of safety he always engendered. ‘Perhaps if you could phone my husband …’
‘Of course.’ The young woman got up, lifting her own child into her pushchair. ‘Look, you wait here, or make your way slowly up to the road. I’ll get help for you if you give me your husband’s number. I’m Susan Feraud, by the way. And this is Molly.’
Sophia nodded, too engrossed in her own situation to take much notice. Another pain gripped her as she watched the young woman struggle across the beach with her pushchair and child. And she little realised that as a result of this chance encounter she and Susan would become firm friends and the reverberations would continue for another generation.
Thanks to Susan a very worried Bernard was soon on the scene with his newly acquired car and was rushing Sophia, Louis and a very confused Lola, home. Then he called the doctor and sat holding Sophia’s hand and rubbing her back until he arrived.
‘Off you go and have a cigarette or a stiff whisky while you wait,’ the doctor told him. ‘ It won’t be long and she’s in safe hands now.’
‘I’d rather stay,’ Bernard said.
The doctor shot him a glance. A father present at the birth – unheard of! But everything was happening so fast he was too busy to argue. So it was that Bernard was there, a little pale, but very excited, when Robin Charles Bernard Langlois made his hasty and quite unexpected appearance, crying lustily and looking very pink and fresh and also very hurt at being thrust into the world a little before he was ready for it. As Bernard afterwards told everyone who would listen, he would not have missed it for the world!
Chapter twenty-three
1948
In the spring of 1948 Bernard called a family conference.
‘I want to talk to you, Nicky and Catherine,’ he said to Sophia, who was in the middle of bathing Robin. She looked up in surprise, supporting Robin with one hand and lathering soap with the other.
‘What do you mean, you want to talk to us? You see Nicky practically every day and I’m here. Talk to me now.’
‘No, I want to talk to all three of you together,’ Bernard said. ‘Really Paul should be there as well but since he is in Germany that’s obviously out of the question.’
‘Is something wrong then?’ Sophia asked, slightly alarmed. ‘The hotel isn’t in trouble, is it? It’s been doing so well!’
‘Everything is fine,’ Bernard said. ‘It’s no use you ferretting away, Sophia. As I said, I want the three of you together.’
‘Well that sounds pretty silly to me,’ Sophia replied, needled. ‘ I am your wife, after all. I hope you’re not going to become pompous in your old age, Bernard.’
Bernard smiled. ‘With you to keep me in line, Sophia, I should think there’s very little danger of that. Now, how does three o’clock tomorrow afternoon sound to you?’
‘All right I suppose.’ Sophia was still irritated at not being taken into Bernard’s confidence. ‘If you are being so businesslike I’m surprised you haven’t sent out formal agendas. I’ll take the minutes if you like.’
Bernard, who was quite used to Sophia’s sarcasm, only smiled.
‘That’s not such a bad idea. You could say this is our first board meeting.’
‘I expect you are wondering why I’ve called you all together,’ Bernard said. He was standing beside the fireplace in the sitting-room of the annexe. Clutched to his chest was a brown manilla folder but the label, if there was one, was hidden in his deep-blue Guernsey sweater, and his expression gave nothing away.
‘We are wondering, yes,’ Nicky said from his wheelchair which was positioned in the convenient gangway between table and door.
‘It’s quite exciting isn’t it?’ Catherine settled into the big soft armchair, curling her legs up beneath her and hugging them.
But Sophia, who was expecting Robin to start crying at any moment – he had seemed to have colic when she had given him his
last feed – merely shifted impatiently.
‘Oh do get on with it, Bernard. Tell us what it’s about and we can all get on.’
‘All right, I’ll put it in one sentence. I want to buy another hotel.’
He looked from one to the other of them, a faint smile on his lips, his eyes direct. After a moment Nicky laughed.
‘That was short and sweet. Come on, Bernard, elaborate. Tell us what you have in mind.’
‘Very well. The Summerton in St Clements Bay is up for sale. It’s in a prime position, right on the coast road and facing out to sea with its verandah practically on the beach. I knew it as a boy – I always thought it must seem like a little bit of heaven to mainland visitors staying there. But it was occupied by the Germans during the war. They made a pretty mess of it and obviously the owners haven’t had the heart to go in and do anything about it. It’s been empty – and falling into a worse state of repair – ever since. Now they’ve decided to put it on the market and I would like to buy it.’
‘What with?’ Sophia asked.
‘That’s the whole point, really. Although we’ve been doing very nicely, both with the guest house and the tourist agency, I don’t actually have the wherewithal. We would have to remortgage La Maison Blanche as collateral. And La Maison Blanche isn’t mine to use in that way. It belongs to the three of you – and to Paul.’
‘And Mama,’ Catherine said.
‘No,’ Sophia told her. ‘Strictly speaking Papa’s will left everything to be divided equally between the four of us with the proviso that we should always afford Mama a place to live. He was thinking of simplifying matters, I expect, when he did it, though he could never have guessed that when we inherited, Mama would be quite incapable of making any decisions anyway.’
‘Right. And since Catherine is still under twenty-one her share is a trust. But she’s an intelligent young woman and I feel it is only morally right to ask her opinion too.’
Catherine smiled at him. She liked Bernard. He never treated her like a child and she sometimes thought Sophia gave him an awfully rough deal.
‘If you think it’s a good idea then I expect it is, Bernard,’ she said.
‘Thank you for your confidence, Catherine,’ he said seriously. ‘What about you, Nicky? And Sophia?’
‘What exactly do you have in mind for the Summerton?’ Sophia asked.
‘I’d like to see it become a good class hotel, medium to top end of the market. I’d like to include on the premises all the facilities that people staying at other hotels come to the agency for and more – a private swimming pool, a ballroom with dancing and a cabaret nightly, a beauty shop where the ladies can be pampered. I am quite certain Jersey is just coming into its own as a holiday island – if the Tourist Board promote it properly I can foresee the day when visitors will come flooding in, and who could blame them? Now the war is over everyone wants a good time and to make up a little for what they have been forced to miss. I want to make the most of the boom I know is coming – and to do that we have to expand.’
‘But suppose it doesn’t work out?’ Sophia said. ‘We could lose everything, couldn’t we, if we put La Maison Blanche up as security?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Bernard said gravely. ‘That is why I felt I needed to talk to all of you together. I don’t happen to think it is very likely – if I did I would never be suggesting it. I’m not a fool. But actually I did want to talk about La Maison Blanche too. I think the time has come to upgrade it. ‘‘Guest house” is not really the right image any more. I want to turn it into a hotel.’
‘What’s the difference?’ Catherine asked.
‘A fine dividing line. When we installed the lift that was a step in the right direction and so is the new chef, temperamental though he might be. But I have a few more plans in mind – a cocktail bar, for one, where guests can enjoy a pre-dinner drink, and perhaps a night porter so we don’t have to lock the doors at night.’
‘It all sounds very ambitious,’ Nicky said. ‘Where would you find the space for a cocktail bar? La Maison Blanche isn’t very big.’
‘Exactly.’ Bernard was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘ I think what we should do is buy a house for us to live in and make the annexe part of the hotel.’
‘More money,’ said Sophia.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. But if we ever want to get this off the ground we have to be prepared to speculate.’ Bernard’s eyes were shining with enthusiasm. He tapped the manilla folder. ‘Here I have various sets of details from the estate agents. The Summerton is amongst them, of course, but you’ll also find particulars of some of the houses I thought might be suitable, too. I’d like you all to have a look at them.’
‘Just a minute, Bernard,’ Nicky said. ‘This all seems very cut and dried to me and I don’t care for it. It’s my mother’s home you are talking about. She might not be very compos mentis these days but that’s no reason to disregard her.’
‘I’m not disregarding her. It will benefit Lola just as much as the rest of us if I can lift us into another league.’
‘And if it fails and we end up without a business and without a roof over our heads either?’
‘It won’t fail,’ Bernard said shortly.
‘How can you be sure of that?’
‘I don’t know. I just am.’ Bernard spoke with a zeal that was also quietly confident. ‘Anyway as regards the house I am quite willing to take that on as a purely personal thing. Sophia and I have a growing family; we need a home we can call our own. Catherine, of course, would be welcome to live with us, though I dare say before long she’ll be off to college and then getting married. And of course that invitation extends to you too, Nicky.’
Nicky nodded. ‘Thank you, Benard, that’s kind, but I think I shall stay where I am if it’s all the same to you. The lift and the wide doorways are convenient for my chair. A small house probably wouldn’t be. And I’d be on hand during the winter months to act as a sort of live-in caretaker.’
Bernard nodded. ‘I take your point. But I hope we won’t need a winter caretaker. I intend to push the image of Jersey as an all-the-year-round resort. The holidaymakers won’t come, of course – at least not the ones who want to worship the sun – but business people might. What better place for a conference when mainland Britain is in the throes of a dreary November or February?’
‘Good heavens, Bernard,’ Sophia said. ‘You have got some ambitious ideas!’
Bernard smiled. ‘ I’ve always believed in setting my sights high, Sophia, and generally speaking I have to say it works. Now, I’ll put these property details on the table so you can all have a look at them. And when we’ve come to some agreement amongst ourselves I’ll write to Paul, tell him what we plan and ask for his blessing.’
‘I don’t suppose Paul will mind much one way or the other,’ Sophia said. ‘And I for one think you are right, anyway. I don’t care much for the thought of all the upheaval but I know that’s a very negative point of view. On balance I’m all for pressing ahead and trying for real success.’
‘I agree.’ Nicky wheeled himself over, holding out his hand for the manilla folder containing the property details. ‘I take my hat off to you, Bernard, you’ve done a great deal more than I would have been able to do even if I still had all my faculties. Go ahead, I say. Make an offer for this other hotel and raise whatever cash you need to put it in order. I’m right behind you.’
‘Catherine?’
‘Oh – yes.’
‘That’s it, then,’ Sophia said. ‘Seventy-five per cent backing for your plans, and the other twenty-five per cent almost certain. Now I must get on. Louis will be waking up from his afternoon nap and I think I can hear Robin crying.’
She got up, hurrying upstairs to the big sunny room that served as a nursery.
How things had changed! she thought – and Bernard with them. These days he was so positive and powerful it was difficult to remember the quiet and rather diffident young man he had once been. But perhaps the
strength and ambition had always been there concealed beneath his unprepossessing manner. It was just that she had never been able to see it until that night when he had asked her to marry him and laid down the ultimatum that had changed the balance of power between them for ever.
Sophia smiled to herself. Good for you, Bernard! she thought.
And was warmed by a glow of love and pride.
That summer was one of the busiest Sophia had ever known. As she supervised the loading of all their possessions into tea chests and spring cleaned the new house they were moving into, as she went over the interior decorators’ suggestions for colour schemes at the Summerton, which Bernard had been successful in buying, and which he intended to rename the Belville, as she chatted to guests and took charge of a hundred and one household arrangements and all with her ‘three babies’ as she referred to Louis, Robin and her mother, to look after, Sophia wondered how on earth Lola had managed to run a guest house with four small children under her feet.
Looking at her now it was almost impossible to believe she had ever been such a strong and driving force. The sleek hair had turned dove grey and her severe hairstyle did nothing to hide the gauntness of her once-handsome face. She had put back on some of the weight she had lost in the concentration camp but it seemed to have gone on in the wrong places – it was her stomach now that protruded rather than her breasts and she would never recover the good health she had once taken for granted. Every germ that was going seemed to find her, she went down constantly with colds and influenza and all too often they turned to bronchitis and even, on one occasion, to pneumonia. Sophia had thought then that she was going to lose her but somehow she had pulled through. Even more disturbing was what had happened to her mind – sometimes she was perfectly lucid, at others she seemed to forget Charles was dead and wandered about in distress looking for him. Once Sophia had found her in the garden in her nightdress and she had become quite abusive when Sophia tried to persuade her back indoors.
