The Way Back to You, page 4
‘That’s definitely true,’ Ollie laughs.
‘As it is, I hadn’t heard anything of Raj until yesterday. And I know even less about Ian.’
‘But what about Sylvie? Did you carry on writing? Did you ever get to meet her? Did you find out why she wasn’t there?’ Anna asks rapidly. I didn’t realize she would be so interested in my teenage years.
‘No, I never heard from Sylvie again after that.’
‘She ghosted you?’
‘Ghosted me? What does that mean?’ I reply confused.
‘It doesn’t matter, carry on.’
‘To be honest, I still don’t know what happened. I presumed she’d gone off me. All I know is she never wrote again, and I didn’t have any other address for her so there wasn’t anything I could do. It sounds a bit daft thinking about it now, but I was absolutely devastated for weeks, months after that.’
I pause, thinking about it all. How crazy it was for us to just run away from school to France, back when hardly anyone even holidayed abroad. Back when we knew nothing about France, apart from the stereotypes that pervaded that era.
‘Do you still have any of the letters from her?’ Anna jumps up excitedly.
‘Probably. Why?’
‘I want to see them!’
‘I’m not sure about that!’
‘Oh, come on Dad!’
‘I don’t know. I got a box of my school stuff down from the attic earlier,’ I point to the box sitting the other side of the room. ‘I haven’t had a chance to look through all of it properly yet. They might be in there. Do you know what I also found? Loads of your old sketchbooks. I was flicking through them. They were so good. I still don’t know why you don’t try and do something with your talent.’
‘She really should, shouldn’t she,’ Ollie jumps in, raising his eyebrows at Anna.
I feel someone accidentally kicking me under the table before Anna jumps up from her seat to collect the box.
‘You know we’d help you if you want something from the attic,’ she exclaims, ignoring Ollie, as she starts rummaging through the ephemera of my youth. ‘Oh God, look at these.’
She brings the box over to the dining table and passes a few of the photos across to me and Ollie, giving him an irritated look.
‘Look at my hair in this one!’ I try to change the subject, worrying that I’ve said something I shouldn’t have. ‘Wow. I love these photos. It’s not just your hair, look at your clothes …’ Ollie admires the photos of me with long hair, big sunglasses, a very exposing V-neck shirt, and platform heels.
I smile, looking at me from another life. As I cringe at my haircut, I notice Anna pulling out a metal tin from inside the box and trying to remove the stiff lid.
‘Do you want a hand?’ I ask, realizing it’s not been opened in decades.
‘No, I’ve got it.’
She empties out a stash of letters. The letters that meant so much to me as a teenager. As I watch them cascade on to the table, my mind flashes back to the excitement of receiving them, and how I’d scurry them away in my bedside drawer so I could read them over and over again.
‘Are these them? Can I read them?’
‘Go on then,’ I reply reluctantly, knowing that nothing will stop her.
She goes silent, her face smiling as she reads.
I reach across and pick up one of the letters. The envelope decorated with Sylvie’s swirly handwriting, and a series of grey commemorative stamps of President Georges Pompidou lined along the top of the envelope.
I hesitantly unfold the seal and pull out the letter inside.
It is the first time I’ve opened these in years. Certainly since we moved here. Probably since school.
I skim through the correspondence, picking out lines.
‘It very nice that you say I that I look pretty in the photo. I don’t very much like the photo. It is for my passport. You look very handsome in your picture. I always blink in photos also! It looks like I always sleeping!’
‘I love T. Rex also! I think they are probably my group most preferred in the world. This is very bizarre. What is your song favourite? I think mine is “Hot Love”, but I love all their songs. I listen to a lot of music from UK. I like also David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, and The Sweet.’
‘In Bordeaux, there is very good record store, which has lots and lots of English records. I can listen to them before I buy them. I think you very much like it. I look to see when the new T. Rex album is there. I want it too. I hope you can save your money.’
Reading her words again transports me back all those years. I remember how jealous Raj was that I had a pen pal who shared our love of music. I remember the months when I was desperately trying to save up for the new T. Rex record. I remember the excitement of receiving all of Sylvie’s updates, of sharing about her life in France, of imagining the record store she talked at length about.
I chuckle to myself, thankful we’re only seeing her notes. I imagine how cringeworthy my teenage letters were.
‘Aw, these are so cute, Dad,’ Anna hands across another letter. ‘Wow, you’ve kept a mixtape too.’
‘Is that in there?’ I lean across excitedly.
‘Oh, there’s actually a couple,’ she pulls out two tapes from the tin, and starts admiring the handmade cover art.
‘Yes, so this is the one Sylvie made me, I listened to this over and over again. And actually this is one I made her.’ I point to the respective tapes. ‘But I took it on our trip to give to her, and obviously never got to give it to her.’
‘10cc. Mott the Hoople. Slade. Sweet. Elton. Bowie. T. Rex …’ Anna recites the track listing handwritten on the back.
‘You probably wouldn’t appreciate the time that was spent on creating these … We’d take hours curating the songs, waiting for them to play on the radio, and then you’d normally end up having the presenter talking over the end of the song. It’s not like now when you can listen to whatever song you want at the touch of a button.’
‘Can we listen to them?’
‘I don’t even know if I’ve still got a tape player, but we’ll have to try and find one.’
She reaches into the bottom of the tin to check if there’s anything else hiding. She pulls out the black-and-white passport photo of Sylvie, the only photo I ever had of her.
She pauses, and then smiles.
‘I can see why you cycled to see her now. She was beautiful.’
She hands the small, square photo across to me – its edges worn – and I look at the face I haven’t seen for years.
Teenage Sylvie poses in front of the wrinkled curtain of a photo booth. Her hair, parted down the middle, is long, straight and dark, flowing past her shoulders beyond the bottom of the photo, as if it’s endless. She smiles widely, as if she’s been snapped mid-laugh. She has a dimple on her right cheek. Her dark eyes glisten, framed by thin eyebrows. She stares directly at the camera, and now at me.
She is still smiling sweetly.
‘From these letters, it sounds like you got on so well,’ Anna pours herself another half glass of wine and offers to pour another for me, but I cover my glass with my hand.
‘Yes, we really did. That’s why it was so sad to lose touch with her, for whatever reason. But as I said, there wasn’t really anything I could have done. You have to remember we didn’t have Facebook or the like back then.’
‘But we do now.’
Anna launches herself off the chair excitedly.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To look her up!’
8
‘Anna? What do you mean?’ I call out, as I follow her.
She is already on her feet, walking out of the dining room, through the lounge, into the reception area towards the computer.
‘I reckon we can find Sylvie on Facebook!’ she calls back.
Ollie looks across at me sympathetically as we try and catch up with her.
With all my time swallowed up by the B&B, over the last few months Anna has suddenly taken it upon herself to find me new friends. Her obsession started with actively encouraging me to get involved with more of the groups in the village – I still haven’t forgiven her for the tedious evenings spent at the Neighbourhood Watch meetings. And then things got even worse when she forced me to sign up for online dating websites, and – given the tiny village population – the only person I matched with was Sue from the Post Office. Now it seems she has her next idea …
By the time Ollie and I join her in reception, she has already opened up Facebook and is typing in my email address.
‘What’s your password, Dad?’
‘I don’t know. The usual?’
‘With a capital, or lower case?’
‘Lower case, I think.’
‘Nope, that’s not it.’
‘It’ll probably be in the book.’
‘You’ve got to stop keeping all your passwords written in this book! Or at least don’t leave the book on the desk!’ She rolls her eyes.
‘How else am I meant to remember them all? Especially now you have to have so many letters, or special symbols, or whatever.’ I look at Ollie for sympathy but as a computer programmer there’s not much forthcoming.
‘Look at you, Mr Popular. Thirty-seven friends!’ Anna says as she eventually manages to log into my account, before hiding my book of passwords in the bottom drawer.
‘Thirty-seven? They’re all just people in the village. God knows why they add me when I see them every day anyway.’
Anna’s not listening as she starts typing into the search box.
‘What was her surname?’
‘Perrin. P-E-R-R-I-N,’ I spell it out to her but she’s already typed it out and pressed search before I reach the last letter.
‘I thought you were meant to be the tech whizz,’ I look at Ollie, as Anna scours through hundreds of profiles.
‘Programming, yes. But when it comes to online stalking, Anna has far more experience than me! Actually, it’s slightly scary!’ he whispers.
‘I heard that!’ she jokes, as she clicks the mouse.
I feel a strange tingling in my stomach as I wait for news.
‘Hmm, there’s a Sylvie Perrin living in Southampton … A Sylvie Perrin living in French Guiana …’ Anna talks to herself, as much as to me. ‘It looks like it’s quite a popular name.’
‘Maybe you’ve met your match,’ Ollie goads, placing his hand on her shoulder.
‘Shhh, let me concentrate,’ she utters.
I wonder if this is my fault for letting her stay up late on Sunday evenings as a child watching episodes of Poirot with me and Caroline.
I tap my hand against the desk, nervously fidgeting, as we’re all hunched over, watching her work.
‘OK, we can narrow down the search. I’ll try listing Bordeaux as her city. Maybe she has it listed as her city of birth, or maybe she still lives there.’
As I watch her quickly type, tap and scroll, I question whether I want to know what’s happened to Sylvie. I’m only starting to process the news about Raj.
She clicks on one of the Sylvie Perrins’ profiles.
‘God, she’s aged incredibly well if that’s her,’ I joke, looking at the profile picture.
‘No, it’s not her, she’s the wrong age … maybe this one though,’ she clicks on the next option in the list. ‘From her number of friends, I’d guess that she was around your age …’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘What year would she have been born?’ she continues, ignoring my question.
‘The same year as me … 1959.’
The profile which appears on the screen seems to be fairly bare. The profile picture is of a cat, and I quickly note the other details, before Anna clicks on to another page.
Lives in Bordeaux, France
From Bordeaux, France
‘I think I’ve found her!’
‘Really? Just like that?’
‘I told you she was good!’ Ollie smiles.
‘Well, there’s not much information. Her profile is fairly private and there’s just a photo of a cat. There’s no relationship info. No work info. But this Sylvie Perrin does live in Bordeaux and was born there in 1959. I can’t be certain, but it seems like it might be her?’
I suddenly feel a strange sensation as my stomach turns and flips.
‘I can probably find out more …’ Anna’s voice trails off as she starts scouring through this Sylvie Perrin’s friends.
‘What other private investigation services do you offer?’ I joke.
‘We might get some more clues from her friends, and obviously we could then use Google, and other social media. But I think you should send her a friend request, and hope she accepts.’
Anna hovers the mouse over the button.
Do you know Sylvie?
To see what she shares with friends, send her a friend request.
‘Do you want me to add her?’ Anna asks, as she turns around.
She and Ollie both stare at me.
I look at the screen, wondering – after all these years, after she totally disappeared off the face of the planet – if Anna really has found Sylvie in the space of a few minutes.
Just as Anna is about to click, the front door opens, and a guest – who’s clearly had one too many – staggers back in from the pub.
‘Thank you very much for trying to track Sylvie down for me, but I think we should leave the past where it belongs,’ I respond, turning the screen off, watching Sylvie Perrin from Bordeaux fade to black.
9
THEN
December 1974
(Seven months earlier)
‘Can I look at your homework? Please? I completely forgot to do it,’ Simon asks worriedly as he dumps his bag on the floor and takes a seat next to Raj at the front of the French classroom. The faded white walls are decorated with maps, posters of famous landmarks, and pennants of French football clubs.
‘I swear you never do your French homework!’
‘What’s the point? When am I ever going to need to speak French?’
Raj rolls his eyes but relents, sliding his exercise book across the gnarled wooden desk.
‘Just make sure you change it slightly, OK? You know what Mr Sullivan’s like.’
‘Yeah, of course.’
As Simon frantically copies down the answers, he occasionally peeks up to check if their teacher is approaching. However, the only person he sees through the door is Ian, who peers through the glass and sticks out his tongue, before he heads to his German class.
‘Bonjour messieurs,’ Mr Sullivan bellows as he bursts into the classroom, appearing out of nowhere. He is dressed, as ever, in a shirt, tie, jumper, and his trademark beige corduroy blazer. His hair is so firmly combed over that it wouldn’t budge even in a tornado.
All the boys, who have been larking around, fall silent and rise to their feet, standing to attention; their chairs screech as they are pushed backwards across the wooden floorboards. Simon quickly drops his pen on to the table, despite only being halfway through copying the homework, and discreetly nudges Raj’s book back across the desk. His only hope is to keep his head down and pray he doesn’t get picked on for the answers.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Sullivan,’ the class respond in unison, although their Bristolian accents are a far cry from sounding French.
Simon tries to stop his stomach from rumbling as Mr Sullivan keeps the class in silence. However, it sounds like he has swallowed a philharmonic orchestra, rather than the miserly kippers he had for his boarder’s breakfast.
‘Asseyez-vous.’
Simon and Raj take their seats first, and then the rest of the class slowly fall like a pack of dominoes.
‘I have some exciting news to start with today,’ Mr Sullivan announces, his voice always a decibel louder than necessary. ‘The educated ones amongst you will know that Bordeaux is Bristol’s twin city, and every year we run an exchange programme with a school there. I will be giving out more information about the trip next term.’
Simon sneaks a risky glance upwards as Mr Sullivan walks through the scattering of desks to switch on the overhead projector, the bulb always taking an age to heat up.
‘In the meantime, I’m delighted to say that for the rest of the year you’re going to be partnered with a pen pal from the same school.’
As he points to Bordeaux on the large map of France, the room erupts into groans.
‘Oh, great,’ Simon mutters under his breath, not the least bit interested in having a pen pal or going on the summer exchange.
‘I don’t want to write to some Frenchie,’ Mark Thompson, wearing his school tie as short as is possible, yells out from the back of the room to laughter from his mates around him.
Mr Sullivan picks the blackboard rubber off his wooden desk and chucks it full pelt at him. It skims precariously close to his left ear, missing by an inch. Mark sensibly opts not to smirk at the missed shot, and instead shuts up.
‘You’re lucky, Thompson. As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted … With your O Levels at the end of the year, it will be good practice for you to write to a native speaker.’
The boys all look around at each other, unsure and unconvinced.
‘I’ve got twenty-five letters here, I want you to take one and pass on. These will be your pen pals for the rest of the academic year. They’ve each written a little bit of information about themselves.’
Raj takes two of the sealed envelopes from the pack, and hands one across to Simon before passing the rest to the desk behind. They both tear open the envelopes simultaneously, Simon accidentally ripping the edge of the letter as well as the envelope.
‘Who have you got?’ Simon asks, as a black and white passport photo falls out of his envelope and flutters to the floor behind him. He quickly skims through the letter.
Le 03–12–74
Hello!
How are you? My name is Sylvie Perrin. I am a girl. I am fifteen years old. I live in Bordeaux, France. It is a nice city near the sea. I live in a house with my parents. I am an only child, but I have two cousins. I don’t have pets.
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