“Student exchange?” Jane asked.
“A student of ours stays with a French family and attends school there for a couple of months. They tour battlefields, visit Paris, learn a bit of French. A French student, in exchange, comes here and learns British customs—they make tea, visit the Tower, learn how to queue properly. It’s all great fun, and the students love it. Some of the French students and teachers arrived in London this morning and I went to meet them.”
“Goodness, we are such friends with the French now. We exchange students with them and everything,” Jane remarked.
Fred smiled. “That’s where all the good cheese is. Anyway, Madame Cluse, our French teacher, normally accompanies me on these outings, but today she was unwell, and I went alone. I was there representing the history department. I don’t speak a lick of French, except ‘bonjour’ and ‘croissant.’ Only once I arrived did I realize they don’t speak a lick of English.”
“Oh dear,” Jane said. She did not understand many of his words, but she felt the warmth and wit of them. He spoke in a relaxed way, smiling and animated. Jane wondered at the change. Their interactions up to this point had felt so strained, but it seemed when he spoke of something other than her—when they weren’t speaking of the dislike and agitation between them—he became a different person. As if she brought out some tension in him that melted when he switched to easier topics. She did not feel dismayed by this, only intrigued.
“Madame Cluse will be very cross with me because I think I ruined everything. ‘Sacré bleu, Fred,’ she will say. ‘You are an imbecile.’” He smiled. “All I needed to give them was some information about visiting Bath, but I think instead I provoked some sort of international incident between the British and the French. I tried to communicate with my own made-up sign language. I also kept talking in English with a bad French accent, thinking they understood me.” He put his head in his hands in a gesture of mock agony.
Jane laughed kindly. “A diplomatic disaster,” she said.
“I offended them,” Fred continued. “Now there are three French people roaming around London doing who knows what. I hope I’ve not provoked a war. We’ll have to start calling chips Freedom Fries again and boycotting cheese imports.” He raised an eyebrow.
“Do the French students and teachers still wait at the place you came from?” Jane asked him.
“I guess so,” Fred said with a shrug. “They’re probably still eating lunch, and besides, they don’t know where to go otherwise.”
“I should like to meet these Norman folk of yours,” Jane said.
Fred checked his wrist clock and shrugged. “This way.” He showed her down a lane. They proceeded north toward the old village of Westbourne Green until they arrived at a row of town houses with pointed roofs below Westbourne Park Road. A shop selling teas and cakes sat on the corner. Fred showed Jane inside.
“Allo,” said a male voice in a thick Norman lilt as they entered the shop. A large man stood from one of the tables. He spoke in a soft, nervous tone and glanced at Fred with a sheepish look. Two adolescent children sat beside him, dressed in school uniforms.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” Jane said. She walked to the man, who raised his eyes in hope to Jane. “Are you the teacher, sir?” she continued in French. Fred snapped his head toward her.
The man smiled his delight. “I am, miss. Claude Poulan, at your service,” he replied, also in French.
“Welcome to England, Mr. Poulan. The French are most welcome here.”
Claude beamed and chuckled a deep, barrel-chested laugh. “Thank you. But please, call me Claude.”
Jane turned to Fred and returned her speech to English. “What shall I tell him?”
Fred smiled at her and shook his head. “You don’t own a watch or a phone, but you speak perfect French.”
“His French is perfect.” Jane shrugged. “Mine could be better.” Jane turned back to Claude. “Where are you from in France, Claude?” she asked him.
“Brittany,” said Claude.
“Beautiful. Do they still call Brittany ‘Little Britain’?”
“They do. Are you a teacher, miss?” he asked her.
“Goodness, no. I have not the patience, nor the skill,” Jane replied. “Monsieur Fred is an excellent teacher, though, from what I have heard.” She smiled at Fred and he shook his head again, searching her face.
“I have no idea what you’re saying, but it sounds brilliant,” Fred said. He cleared his throat.
“Please tell Mr. Fred I apologize,” Claude said. “I want to explain. Another teacher was supposed to be here, Miss Rampon. She speaks English, but she is ill and remains in the hotel. Now I have wasted everyone’s day.”
Jane explained the situation to Fred. “Is your day wasted, Fred?”
Fred shook his head. Jane did not need to translate this to Claude. The giant man smiled with relief and shook Fred’s hand, then kissed him twice on each cheek.
“Whoa, easy there, big fella.” Fred laughed.
They missed the next two trains back to Bath.
WHEN JANE AND Fred finally boarded the 6:17 P.M. service, the sun had set. They sat next to each other. The steel monstrosity pulled out from Paddington station and made its way to the West Country once more. Fred looked out the window.
“I was sent from the hall, the other night,” Jane told him. He ceased his looking out the window and turned to her. “A gentleman made me leave. I searched for you, but I could not get back inside.” He nodded. “I waited by the front of the building for at least an hour.”
“I looked for you, too,” he said. He smiled. Silence fell between them; the only sounds were the train’s wheels clacking below them and the wind whooshing against the glass outside. “That place you were looking for today—why was it so important?” he asked her after a time.
“It was there last time I went to London. But it is no longer,” she said.
