Perfectly Ordinary People(97)

Yes. That at least shifted things into the realms of possibility.

So come on, tell me. What happened?

Well, the first Sunday of October was a week away, so the most urgent thing was to find somewhere cheaper to stay. Christophe found a boarding house in Vauxhall that was half the price, including half board, so we moved there.

Half board?

Yes. Breakfast and the evening meal were included. Breakfast was only a cup of weak tea and a slice of toast with either butter or jam and dinner was always pretty awful, but it was something, at least.

That boarding house was run by a dreadfully authoritarian woman, and she had rules about absolutely everything. There was this huge list pinned up in the porch, a list of all the dos and don’ts. It said things like do keep your room immaculate, and do behave politely to other guests, and don’t play the radio so loud it can be heard outside your door, and don’t congregate in communal areas . . . There were so many things on that list . . . hundreds . . . and I remember Christophe saying that no human being could possibly remember them all.

But the houses two doors down had been bombed to rubble by the Germans – there were bombed-out houses everywhere because of the Blitz – so it was cheap.

But tell me what happened at Speakers’ Corner. I’m dying to know!

<Laughs> I will, don’t worry. But there’s one more thing that happened first. An important thing.

OK. Go on.

One night, after I got Guillaume to sleep, Christophe asked if I minded if he went out for a walk. I said I didn’t mind at all, but if he did so, the next night it would be my turn. There was so much to see in London, and it was pretty claustrophobic in that room.

Just after eleven, I was woken by a tapping noise on the window. He’d had to climb up the drainpipe because one of the many rules on that list we hadn’t read was that guests had to be in by ten thirty, after which the door would be locked, and not opened under any circumstances.

Gosh, that is strict.

So I got up and helped him climb in the window, and I could see immediately that he was terribly excited.

It turned out he’d stopped at the first pub he’d come to – a place called the Royal Vauxhall Tavern – and at first, because there were so many soldiers there, he’d assumed he was in a military pub. He’d been ‘enjoying the view’, as he liked to call it, sitting in the corner, watching all the young soldiers chatting to each other, when suddenly, they’d turned a spotlight on the stage, and a drag queen had appeared. Can you believe that?

<Laughs> Are you saying that he’d stumbled upon a gay pub?

Yes! Isn’t that the funniest thing? And in 1945, I suspect it was the only gay pub in London.

Yes, I can understand why he was excited.

Especially because, unlike in Paris, say, homosexuality had been illegal in Britain since the 1500s. So to just stumble on a place like that . . . The next night . . . Actually, let’s see if you can guess what happened the next night.

Um, it was your turn to visit the pub?

<Laughs> No! Try again. Let’s see how well you know your gay men.

Ah! Christophe wanted to go back again, even though it was his turn to babysit?

Yes.

And you let him.

Yes, I did. We’d been through so much misery, you know? So just to see him looking happy, like that . . . Plus, if I’m telling the truth, going out didn’t appeal that much to me.

Why didn’t it appeal?

Well, for one, I was still grieving for my parents. And if anything excited me it was the idea of finding Ethel the following Sunday. So the proposition of a night out didn’t really do much for me at all.

But Christophe loved it – he went back every night that week. He’d get home just minutes before the landlady locked the door and he always had a smile on his face.

Did he tell you what he got up to?

No, and I didn’t ask. I could guess, anyway. I knew the kind of shenanigans that made Christophe grin that way.

On the third or fourth night, he slipped into his bed beside me and said, ‘Christ, I love London!’ And I realised that if I was going to lose Christophe at some point in the future it would be because I had to go home, rather than him wanting to return to Mulhouse. And so I prayed that Ethel was still in London, so I could find a way to keep them both.

On the Sunday, we left the house early so we had time to find Speakers’ Corner. As we crossed the hallway the landlady came out and said something about how she was happy to see we were good God-fearing citizens.

She assumed you were on your way to Mass?

Yes. Christophe said, ‘Just imagine if she knew what sinners we are!’ and we giggled about it all the way.

We got to Hyde Park ridiculously early. We didn’t know our way around London at all, and we had no idea how long anything would ever take, but it only took about half an hour to walk there so we did laps around Hyde Park with Guillaume. There were still piles of sandbags where the anti-aircraft guns had been, and the wartime allotments they’d created were still there too, so we spent some time identifying the various vegetables people were growing.

There was a pond, too, so we watched a family feeding the ducks, and then Guillaume started to run around with a little boy and in the end they played together at the water’s edge for almost an hour even though they couldn’t communicate at all.

I’m telling you this because Christophe said something that stuck with me. He said how it was funny because if you put three children together – one English, one French and one German – they’ll simply play together. ‘I wonder what happens when they’re older,’ he said. ‘I wonder why they all end up killing each other?’