CHAPTER 19
“Why the tears, Maman?”

She held me tighter, but turned her head away. “It is as I said to you the other day. I mourn my son”

I went to pull away, to make room to apologise, but she pulled me back, her head now on my breast.

“Sophie, I know absolutely that you are where you should be, how you should be, but each time you cross another threshold I feel loss, the loss of my boy. And at the same time, it is joy. I rejoice in your happiness, and yet…”

She pulled my head lower so that she could kiss my forehead. “Does a mother not weep when her child marries? I weep in that same manner, but I also see how much you have missed in your childhood. Forgive this foolish woman her tears, and tell me of your evening”

I could feel the blood rising into my face, and at that, as if a switch were thrown, my mother laughed.

“We must talk, and you must tell me of your evening, and it is traditional for a mother and daughter to do so in dressing gowns and with chocolate, and I am nothing if not traditional. Upstairs and change, and I shall make the drinks”

I looked at her, my cheeks even hotter, and she grinned like a much younger woman. “No, I do not need to hear EVERYTHING! Be quick now”

Nightdress and gown, slippers and a hairband, and I was soon beside my mother on the sofa, a bowl of hot brown delight in my hands.

“Elle, she will have been friendly with her boy?”

I almost spat out my drink with laughter. “Oh, Maman, friendly is not the word! We sat together, with the boys outside, and I do not think she saw much of the film!”

“And how much did you see, my sweet?”

“Enough…”

Once more, I could feel the heat in my face. Maman touched the back of her hand to my cheek. “And he was a polite young man?”

“Very, Maman”

“And how was the kissing?”

The door banged, saving me from having to answer, and Rollo was home from work. He entered the living room after doffing his boots and jacket, and saw us sitting together with our chocolate. Something worked in his face, and then he smiled, and there was the sound of the refrigerator as he went to the kitchen for a beer. Glass in hand, he settled into the armchair opposite us.

“It went well, my sister?”

Once more my face betrayed me, and he smiled, and it was a sad one. “Sophie, if only things were that simple. Is he a good boy?”

I just nodded. Rollo sighed. “All of this, my mother, we should have seen so many years ago. I do not think I ever had a brother, at any time. Sophie, you like this boy?”

“Yes. Very much”

“Then you must not be tempted to tell him, no? There is no way of knowing how he would feel, and you are young yet. Your strumpet friend, she had a good time?”

So abrupt the switch. He had delivered the warning, enough to make sure I understood, and then moved to joking about Elle.

“My brother, I thought she was going to devour his entire face at one point. There is kissing, and then there is, I don’t know, assault on someone’s mouth”

“And this kissing–it was enjoyable?”

“Rollo…well, yes, it was, and it was gentle, and the thing the most important was that it was RIGHT, it was what should be. Maman, brother, it was what I have not known I was dreaming of, but when it happened, I knew, yes?”

Rollo sipped his beer. “And this boy; he didn’t try to go where he should not?”

“His name is Benoit, Roland. And, well, he might have let a hand move towards my breast, but that is what boys do, no? And when I took his hand to stop him, he was stopped, he did not try to go further. Rollo, you do not try to touch Margot’s breasts, then?”

I had not realised my brother himself could blush. “That is different. Margot and I…look, both of you, we are family, yes? We are our own world, within the world of others, we are our own strength and support?”

I felt Maman tense beside me. “Yes, we are. Are you telling us that there may soon be more to our family, Roland?”

Once more he blushed. “No, Maman, not like that. We have not…she is young, my sweet ones, but she is not young in other ways. She is wiser than I would have expected from her years and no, she is not like the girls I have had before. Oh, mother, you know I have been a very…successful young man in the town, a very hot rabbit. Margot is not one of those girls. What I meant was…”

He was clearly nervous, and I suddenly understood. For the first time ever, I saw my brother in love, and it was not the face or the legs of some air girl he would take to bed a few times, but rather more.

“Sophie…Maman….”

He was trembling, I saw. I left my mother’s side and went to sit on his knee. Tall as I was, he was still so much bigger, so much stronger. “Rollo, we are a family, this is love, this is our world. Are you saying what I think?”

He squeezed me with his arm, and smiled up at me. “I need to speak to Guillaume…oh, Maman, you do blush too, then? I need to speak to him about this”

He twisted beneath me, and his other hand went to a pocket of his trousers, whence he removed a small box. I knew immediately, and started to laugh.

“You wound me, my sister!”

“No, my sweet brother, no! It is just…”

I had to wait till my laughter eased, and then, as I spoke, I kept my gaze on my mother.

“Margot has said to me that she needs to marry you before her father marries Maman, otherwise she does not know whether the law will allow such things! You have had your answer before you have asked the question!”

I looked across to our mother’s face, mouth open and cheeks red. “Maman, we have both seen, no, we have all three seen that you and her father have an attraction. Is there anything that is wrong with that?”

She shook herself, rather like a dog. “No, my little one, there is not. And, yes, we have looked at each other, and perhaps we have both looked again”

Rollo in turn laughed. “You have devoured each other with the eyes would be more truthful!”

He turned my head with his hand, strong yet so gentle, like Benoit, like my Benoit, and stared into my eyes, just a hint of moisture in his own. “This is truth you speak, about Maggie? That she has this desire?”

“Rollo, she is absolutely smitten with you. There is never a day she does not speak of it. She will say yes, have no fear, and I am sure that her father will approve. After all, he likes the family, or at least one of us, eh, Maman?”

She was still flustered, but with another shake she made herself once more the matriarch. “Next weekend, then, you have no work, Roland. We have a…we have a meal for ALL of the family we wish to gather to ourselves, yes? You ask this thing, but we speak to Guillaume before you speak to Margot, yes? And Sophie, this boy, this Benoit; you will invite him. I would see where my daughter’s ayes are looking. Is that a plan”

The sofa is big enough, just, for three.

Monday morning and my friends were all aboard the bus, and Elle was already telling the more salacious details of the cinema excursion.

“And here she is, the other temptress!”

“I am no temptress, Elle”

“Not true, not when I looked at his trousers, he was very tempted!”

She then held her hands apart and there was more space there, surely, than any male member could span. Fatima made some remark about fishermen and escaped prey, and I looked to see how Margot felt. Just a smile, and a squeeze of my shoulder.

“How is Rollo, Sophie?”

“Tired, Maggie”

She blushed. “It is only him that calls me that…please don’t”

“Oh, my little friend, I know. Maman has asked if you will dine with us on Saturday, you and your father. Will you be free?”

“I think so. I will ask. Oh, here are those boys…”

Matty and Benoit had just boarded the bus, two stops before school, and Matty came directly to Elle, where they proceeded to make a spectacle of themselves. Benoit just stood and smiled, so I held out my hand for his, and when he took it I kissed his own. There was a loud sigh of delight from my friends, but there were no seats by us for the boys, so what could two of us do but give ours up in return for their laps?

“Benoit, what are you doing on Saturday? Would you be able to come for the midday meal?”

“I will ask. Your family would be happy for a stranger to eat with them?”

“It was Maman’s idea. There will be six of us”

School, for five days. English and art and French, how delightful, but also mathematics and other impositions. Each break, a meeting with my Benoit, a kiss in quiet places, and too short a ride home together at the end of the day. All week, a steady inquisition from Margot about my brother, who she would not see till the Saturday. Each answer of mine as reticent as could be.

Maman did two of her specialities that day, the soup from Sá¨te and then the salmon in a crust, and Guillaume had clearly known from some secret source that it would be fish, because he brought bottles of a good Chablis, a premier cru. Benoit was in a suit, three pieces including the waistcoat, and a tie, and I fully understood Elle’s desire to indulge in the tearing off of clothing. As we kissed in greeting, my mother watched, and once more I saw how her emotions conflicted each with the other, but she was cordial, and accepted his bottle of Muscadet with a smile.

Margot was beautiful beyond my words to tell. Simply that. I could list her clothing, describe her hair, but it would all be inadequate for the purpose. I clearly saw why my brother had desired her, but then I knew the inside Margot, the good friend and confidante. Her father, I must admit, definitely had charm, and again I could see my mother melting.

Soup, with wine and chatter. Salmon, Maman and I making Margot sit down again as we brought in the salmon and its accompaniments. Rollo for the cheeses, and then my own summer pudding, the first thing I had been taught to prepare by my mother, and then coffees, and a few sheep droppings left over from Christmas, and then…

“Margot…”

“Yes, Rollo?”

“You know, my family knows, that I have been very popular as a young man. I hope…I hope that causes no worries for you, but I would like to say that I wish to stop being popular and simply become faithful. Would you accept…?”

That small box again, and a look of such shock on Margot’s face, shock, and then joy, tears, and finally, “Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes!”

We all kissed; it seemed appropriate.