was scrubbing the black hole floor’, wrote my mother,
when P. came in almost breathless saying ‘Such news, M’. It was S.C.B.’s [Spencer Curtis Brown] letter to say Harcourt, Brace want TBW [to be called Questions & Answers over there] for 750 dollars. Quite knocked up, both of us … For the first time on such an occasion we are not wild: no rushings out & spendings, nor the desire to do so. Could eat but little lunch, anyway … We walked to P. Vendres after tea, feeling upset & disturbed with our wealth. Saw wirelesses, but spent nothing.
Six days later Curtis Brown sent news almost as exciting. The American advance was to be sent direct to France, which, with a modicum of discretion, meant they need not pay the penal British income tax! ‘We are so happy & settled in our economy that this wealth worries us,’ exclaimed my mother. Charming prospects opened up on every side. ‘We plan a 3000 mile round trip of Spain & Portugal’; ‘Take many turns around Collioure in a day, to look at cars.’ As concerns the latter, it is fortunate that they were not able to anticipate just how premonitory was to prove a sight glimpsed by my mother, given their alarming proclivity for experiencing traffic crashes: ‘On way home [from the dentist in Elne] saw vast car turned on its side in ditch, eh?’ Patrick did not as yet possess a driving licence, being content for the present for my mother to take the wheel.
Excited plans began for purchase of a car, while Patrick further contemplated buying a sailing boat which was for sale in the harbour. The latter disappointingly turned out to be in too poor condition to be worth even the modest 8,000 francs demanded, but a car they had to have. The noisy and crowded little streets of Collioure appeared ever more unbearably claustrophobic, and they longed for means of occasional escape. Friends in England offered them their Opel for £100, an offer so enticing that my mother travelled to London in July to bring it back, but from the moment she arrived, everything began to go wrong. Additional expenses mounted by the hour: garage bill, ferry fare, tax, French import duty … my poor mother was in despair: ‘I think my heart is breaking & I never want to see the Opel again, and how I love P. and am utterly lonely.’
Eventually the Bank of England prohibited the Opel’s export, and the same afternoon another car rammed the wretched car, breaking an indicator and smashing a window.
Altogether my mother totted up that she had spent a precious £35 on this fruitless errand, and her despair was only alleviated when her father, with whom she stayed in Chelsea, gave her £20. Battered and exhausted, she returned to Collioure, accompanied by Patrick’s son Richard, who was now to spend his first summer holiday with them, camping in Andorra. After his eventual return to England my mother noted despairingly: ‘Street noises formid able’, and a week later she and Patrick returned by bus to Andorra in the hope of completing a house purchase they had planned during their visit to that country. In the event a pied-à-terre was sadly to prove beyond their means.
Life looked up in the latter part of the year, but even in their days of direst poverty they rarely allowed themselves to feel downcast for very long, no matter how heavily the dice appeared loaded against them. They swam, walked, sunbathed on the plage St Vincent, and when they could afford it played tennis on the baking-hot hard court in the moat of the Château Royal. The plage in particular provided an ever-present refuge from their claustrophobic little apartement, although it had its own occasional hazards – noisy tourists, rowdy children, and (for Patrick that June): ‘A disagreeable day … A gull shat all over me, the rug and Thos. Mann.’
Odette and Buddug on the plage St Vincent
Odette Boutet (then Bernardi) recalls an occasion when my mother and she swam the traversée across the harbour, from La Balette on the south side of the bay to the plage St Vincent opposite. It being the first swim of the season, and the water icy, on emerging they found they lacked strength for the return swim. Accordingly they walked back past the town and Port d’Avall in their bathing costumes. It was an unusual sight in those days, and the contrasted attractions of the two brown-limbed young women – Odette dark-haired and olive-skinned, and my mother fair-haired and blue-eyed – drew much attention from the (chiefly male, I assume) inhabitants along the way.
In the evenings they read, played chess, or engaged in an improvised form of bridge for two. Although an enthusiast for both games, Patrick was (like Stephen Maturin) but a middling achiever at such pastimes, who more often than not found himself beaten by my mother. Once, after a particularly hard-fought contest, Patrick wrote defiantly on the score-sheet: ‘Bridge, a silly game. BY ORDER P. O’BRIAN. SEPT 1951’.
Ever adventurous, from time to time they escaped the town to explore the mountains. Their close friend Odette, who was quite as audacious, frequently accompanied them. In June 1951 the three of them (five, including Buddug and Odette’s dog Rubill) travelled on foot to the forest behind the Tour Massane, where they camped beside the wood. That night boars could be heard grunting close by. Peering from their tents at the moonlit glade, they were alarmed to discover a large female boar leading her offspring, and quickly clasped the dogs’ muzzles to prevent their alerting the irascible parent. The expedition was voted a great success on their return, despite Odette’s temporarily losing her voice from exhaustion.
Next month they set off on a much more ambitious expedition, camping for nearly seven weeks in and around Andorra. As ever, they found the little Pyrenean principality entirely beautiful, and largely untouched by the modern world. After a week they were joined by Odette and Rubill. The latter was promptly attacked by four fierce dogs, from which she was barely saved by the two courageous women. So far from displaying gratitude, Rubill constantly eyed their provisions, only to be as regularly forestalled by the vigilant Buddug. Prices in Andorra were much lower than in France, farmers hospitable to the campers, and the weather benign. Their diet was supplemented by wild strawberries and trout from mountain streams. Buildings were picturesquely medieval, and transport off the few main roads was conducted by cows drawing haycarts, while on steep slopes mules dragged loads of hay on angled wooden platforms.
Fortunately the dauntless campers were hardy, and carried on their backs tents, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, and even a heavy wind-up gramophone and collection of records. Odette remembered their dancing under the moonlight to Bach and Beethoven. It was on this or another of their expeditions that she recalled their getting lost one day in a heavy mist. After hours of more and more anxious wandering, they stumbled at last on their camp, having unwittingly strayed in a wide circle. Despite their hardihood, femininity persisted. Venturing beyond the camp to relieve themselves one day, the two young women were startled by a large snake, and fled shrieking back to safety.
In the meantime my parents’ concern was aroused by distressing news from Richard. As described earlier, Patrick was delighted when his son expressed ambition to join the Royal Navy. Nothing had been heard from him for some time, when on 23 May 1952 Patrick received what he described as ‘a sickening letter from Richard’. The news was indeed bad. He had failed the examination to Dartmouth, and the longed-for career was denied him. ‘I am very disappointed as I had worked hard and got nothing for it,’ he explained sadly. He possessed considerable natural aptitude for mathematics, and was skilled with his hands, but as he freely confessed was all but hopeless at exams. Regrettably, Patrick’s response has not survived. Given his own comparably abysmal experience, together with his understanding attitude towards similar disappointments on other occasions, I feel confident his reaction would have been supportive. Moreover, he knew that Richard was additionally occupied on Saturdays by such work as he could find to supplement his mother’s meagre income.
In July, as was mentioned earlier, Richard returned with my mother from London to Collioure, where he spent the summer holiday from July to September. (As the court judgment had ruled that Richard was to spend half of each summer holiday with his father, his mother clearly approved the extended arrangement.) This time he brought with him a good school report, and showed keen interest in joining the Merchant Navy. My parents had made extensive preparations, requiring further dangerous inroads into their ever-strained finances, to ensure that he had the most enjoyable holiday they could provide.
Tents,