Chapter 23 Regrets
Charlie arrived at Ned’s hotel the next morning early enough to bribe Ned’s driver to find other ways to spend his day. Not that Charlie didn’t appreciate the luxury of being driven around, but he wanted privacy today. For Ned’s sake, he assured himself.
Ned slid gracefully into the passenger seat beside Charlie, roadmap already in hand. “No one would guess you are a respected father with that grin on your face.”
As revenge, Charlie put a bit of extra weight on the pedal as they sped out towards the main road. “Well, no one would guess you were only thirty-eight instead of sixty-eight with that scowl on your face. Plus, how are my children going to learn to misbehave properly if I don’t teach them?”
“Tell me all about them.”
Charlie adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, getting more comfortable with the vehicle’s rhythms as he also fell back into familiar patterns with Ned. “Asking a father about his children, you’re sure we’ve enough time?”
Frank and Ellie were the best parts of Charlie’s life, and being away from them for even a few days made his heart hurt. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture he’d carried since leaving London.
“This photograph was taken the week before I left, although Frank is such a beanpole at the moment he is probably already a foot taller.”
Ned held the photo gingerly, cradling it in his hand. “Good God, they look just like you.”
People said so all the time, but this was the first time the comment made Charlie blush.
“They have my hair for sure, but Frank has his mother’s brown eyes.
Both turn into bright red tomatoes in the sun the way I do.
It's not the looks that get to me, though, it's their personalities. Ellie put her hands on her hips and glared at me like a miniature version of her grandfather when I tried to put her to bed the other night. Frank has a way of cocking his head to the left when he’s thinking that is all his mother.”
“What do they have of you?” Ned’s way of focusing his attention on Charlie, as if nothing could be more important than what he was saying, always had him spilling more than he would to anyone else.
“There’s lots of little things, what they like to eat, the books they enjoy, but also I think Ellie's brave like me? Or maybe it's stubbornness. In any case, ever since she was a baby, if she saw something she wanted to do, she went and did it, damn the consequences. Frank, well, he likes people the way I do.” Charlie glanced over at the photograph in Ned’s hands.
“Will you be joining the parental ranks anytime soon?”
“My parents make the obligatory annual nag about carrying on the family name, but I think even they have given up at this point. Plus, my cousin has been salivating over the prospect of inheriting the title for the past decade, and it might kill him if the situation changes.”
Charlie laughed because that was what Ned wanted him to do, but he felt a twinge of sadness. Ned was a generous, loving man. He would have made a good father. Charlie cleared his throat and changed the subject.
“Betty made me promise that I was not to get too drunk, or in any way behave like an eighteen-year-old again.”
Ned gestured to the borrowed motor that was speeding them away from their responsibilities for the day. The light caught the shine in his black hair as his fingers elegantly pointed towards the road.
“Don’t look at me,” Ned said. “As if I could stop you from doing anything.”
???
Amiens Cathedral, with its gigantic size, history, and strength, was like nothing else Charlie had seen. He stood at its entrance in awe, trying to memorise the details of every figure that arched up and around the door.
“This should help.” Ned thrust a thin printed booklet in front of Charlie’s face. “I remember how much you liked to read all the plaques when we used to go to the museums in London.”
Flipping open to the descriptions, Charlie followed Ned into the cathedral’s cavernous space, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim light of filtered colours streaming through stained-glass windows. “The book says this is the largest cathedral in France.”
“One could argue they were compensating for something.”
Apparently Ned still hadn’t come around to the joys of mediaeval art. Charlie shrugged mentally to himself. No one was perfect.
“What on earth is that?” Ned pointed to the floor, where a geometric zigzag of black and white marble lines took up the majority of the space. “Looks like some sort of occult symbol.”
This was why explanations were important. “According to the guide, it’s a labyrinth. Deciphering it was to be a pilgrimage for those who couldn’t travel to the Holy Land.”
Ned was barely listening, one hand under his chin, the other tracing lines in the air, trying to solve the puzzle. Smiling to himself, Charlie left Ned to it and wandered in and out of the pillars, delighting at the stained-glass windows and carved statues.
After their tour, Ned and Charlie sat side by side on a stone bench on the edges of the cathedral square, enjoying an improvised picnic of bread and cheese purchased by Ned in an impressive display of fluent French.
The bread was the perfect balance of crusty outside and buttery soft inside.
Charlie had been sceptical of the cheese, but Ned had picked one that was smooth and creamy.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and around them chimed the sing-song notes of French as people bustled and meandered down the streets.
It was the best moment Charlie had ever spent in France.
“That labyrinth,” Ned broke the silence as he tore off another chunk of bread.
“Still trying to figure it out?” Charlie smirked.
“As I told you, I did decipher it. I just didn’t want to ruin it for you by showing you.”
Charlie quirked his eyebrow, which he knew Ned found grating and very occasionally charming.
“In any case, it made me feel peaceful. Hard to believe that it is hundreds of years old.”
Charlie nodded, because that tension between the ancient and new was exactly why he liked the cathedral and mediaeval art in general.
Passing him an extra bit of the cheese, which Charlie was really going to need to get the name of, Ned said, “Do you know that both Villiers and Pinsent are French names?”
“You’ve met my family. Have you seen any frogs?” Charlie’s family was London-born and bred as far back as anyone cared to look.
“Neither of our ancestral trees have been French for a very long time, but once they were both Normans.”
Charlie had to admit that he was sort of charmed by the idea of having a distant ancestor galloping around on a horse in armour, saving fair maidens.
“Did they come over the channel with William the Conqueror?” he asked.
“That, I don’t know. Perhaps they fought side by side at Hastings.”
Mediaeval war seemed so much more civilised compared to what they had lived through. The stained glass and carvings showed knights in armour engaging in battles of skill, not struggling to breathe through gas masks while waiting for the whistle of a shell to fall.
“I wonder whether Frank’s and Ellie’s children will go to Thiepval, and if it will feel as distant to them as Hastings feels to us. If they’ll ask how men could have ever killed each other in battle.”
Ned turned to look at Charlie with renewed focus. “Do you really believe we fought the war to end all wars?”
“Of course I do. Fools like Pemberton might bluster, but people remember the loss, the horror. We just built a massive fucking gate to remember it.”
Ned absent-mindedly played with the last crusty end of the bread. “His Majesty’s Government committed to ten years of disarmament. That decade is up.”
Ned’s words were ice in Charlie’s veins. “The British people are stupid, but you can’t think we are that stupid?”
“I know that last time Europe plunged itself into a world war because a madman assassinated an Austrian prince. Only this past May, the president of France himself was shot dead in a literary salon.” Ned stared at the massive cathedral in front of them, which had seen nations rise and fall in its history.
“We are on shaky ground. We used to think one million unemployed was a scandal, and it has been over two million for how long now? It’s no wonder communists and fascists run amuck. ”
How was Charlie supposed to answer that? That there were desperate people didn’t surprise him; they were his neighbours and family. That Ned thought their desperation might plunge Britain, the world, back into war—that was impossible.
“May I ask a favour?” Ned asked, clearly changing the subject. “There was a place I wanted to visit, but I didn’t think I would have time.”
Charlie gathered up his jacket, more than happy to leave this disturbing conversation behind. “Where to?”
???
Ned directed Charlie to a cemetery outside of Amiens. Charlie didn’t need to understand the German on the intricate metal gate to know what the words forged over the entrance meant. “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgr?berfürsorge.”
Ned didn’t meet Charlie’s eyes. “You can stay in the car if you want.”
Without really thinking, Charlie reached for the door’s handle and stepped out, feeling the gravel crunch beneath his shoes.
The cemetery was nothing like the Imperial War Graves—no Stone of Remembrance, no Cross of Sacrifice. This cemetery was part of the landscape, rolling hills and a mix of wood and iron crosses marking each grave.
The rows stretching beyond imagination were the same, though.
Charlie swallowed hard, his eyes burning at this place reserved for the enemy, with grave after grave after grave of men he had never known, but had possibly killed.
For his part, Ned had removed a small piece of paper from his pocket and was counting the rows. He trotted off towards the middle of the crosses and Charlie hurried to follow. He felt like they were pirates following a map to buried treasure, counting out their paces.