George's Grand Tour. Caroline Vermalle

had to lever himself painfully out of his garden seat and walk out into the corridor to the telephone table. ‘There it is,’ he said to Charles, pointing at the notecard tacked to the wall next to the postcards of London, on which Françoise had written in her beautiful handwriting: ‘Your mobile number: 06 20 15 89 15.’

      Charles pulled a piece of paper covered in code out of his pocket, picked up the landline phone, and after very carefully keying in several different combinations of numbers, hashes and stars, he replaced the handset with an almost solemn expression on his face.

      ‘Right,’ said Charles, who seemed to be waiting for something.

      ‘Right,’ said George, who was wondering if Charles was going to give him an explanation or whether he was going to have to get it out of him himself. ‘Right, well, so that’s …’

      ‘Where’s your mobile?’

      ‘I think it’s in the chest of drawers in the living room, under the card set.’

      ‘OK, here’s what you have to do,’ said Charles, who now seemed to know what he was doing. ‘You’re going to go and get it. I’m going to go back home and then I’m going to call you and we’ll see which of the two phones ring.’

      ‘But what number are you going to ring me on?’

      ‘The landline number.’

      ‘So it’s the home phone that’s going to ring, then.’

      ‘No, actually,’ answered Charles. ‘If it’s worked, the mobile should ring.’

      George looked at him with a slightly pitying expression.

      ‘I see,’ he replied gently, deciding that it was better to say nothing than to worry everyone now. Still, it was a shame that Charles was losing his marbles. And at such a young age.

      Charles left, feeling gratified that his friend’s knowledge of telecommunications made his own seem fairly extensive. He was back in less than five minutes, only to find George sitting in his chair again.

      ‘And? Which one rang?’

      ‘Oh, neither of them.’

      Charles looked perplexed. ‘You weren’t asleep, were you?’

      ‘Not a bit of it! I was wide awake and there was no ringing. But which number did you ring?’

      ‘05 49 57 68 34.’

      ‘Well, there you go,’ said George. ‘That’s the landline. What was all that stuff you were doing on it? Now it’s not working. Thanks a lot!’

      ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Charles, sounding annoyed. ‘It’s the mobile that should have rung. Now I’ll have to get back on the phone to France Telecom …’

      ‘But Charles,’ said George kindly, ‘of course the mobile didn’t ring, you called the landline. And anyway, the mobile wouldn’t ring even if you did call it: it’s switched off.’

      ‘It’s switched off! Well that explains it! Where is it?’

      George handed him a brand-new phone inside a spotless plastic cover. It had clearly never been used.

      ‘I’m going to take it with me. I’ll be back in a bit,’ said Charles, who was already halfway to the garage.

      George sat back down in his chair, reflecting that it was the fate of all elderly people to lose the plot eventually, and he tried to go back to sleep in order to banish this depressing thought. He was going to have to break it to Charles that they weren’t going. But before he could think of how to do it, Charles was back. His hip must have been in a frightfully good mood that day.

      ‘It works, dammit, it works! I’ll explain it to you.’

      Adèle could call him at home all she liked; she’d never know a thing! They were free to do the Tour in peace. Charles initiated George into the mysteries of call diversion, and while he was about it, the wonderful world of modern communication in general – in such depth and detail that his veal and carrots were put in the fridge in a Tupperware container, along with his salad and his rice pudding. He even missed his Ricoré coffee and his four o’clock hot chocolate … His boyish enthusiasm had triumphed over his stomach and most importantly, it had silenced George’s voices. They had gone quiet out of politeness. Because voices can torment a man, drive him mad with doubt and sing the praises of laziness and cowardice. But they know not to get in the way of neighbours.

      Six days later, a metallic blue Renault Scenic with satnav and sunroof was approaching the bend in the tree-lined road in Chanteloup, sparkling in the proud late September sun. In the rear-view mirror, George watched Charles’s family waving them off. He saw Thérèse wipe away a tear as the house where he had lived for eighty-three years became smaller and smaller, until it had disappeared entirely behind the trees. His chest felt heavy and there was a lump in his throat, but he had no regrets. As for Charles, he was driving with one hand and waving the other out of the window, and looked utterly ecstatic. With one hundred and fifty-nine years between them, they set off on the Tour de France.

       Thursday 25 September

      Chanteloup (Deux-Sèvres)–Notre-Damede-Monts (Vendée)

      Their epic journey in the Renault Scenic was to follow the itinerary of the 2008 Tour de France to the letter. This was made up of twenty-one stages (except that George and Charles’s Tour would leave out stage 4, as they had decided not to count the individual time trial in Cholet). They had given themselves two or three days to complete each stage, so that they could explore the surrounding area a little. But they were to change hotel almost every night. Their route was planned out as follows:

      Stage 1: Brest–Plumelec

      Stage 2: Auray–Saint-Brieuc

      Stage 3: Saint-Malo–Nantes

      Stage 5: Cholet–Châteauroux

      Stage 6: Aigurande–Super-Besse

      Stage 7: Brioude–Aurillac

      Stage 8: Figeac–Toulouse

      Stage 9: Toulouse–Bagnères-de-Bigorre

      Stage 10: Pau–Hautacam

      Stage 11: Lannemezan–Foix

      Stage 12: Lavelanet–Narbonne

      Stage 13: Narbonne–Nîmes

      Stage 14: Nîmes–Digne-les-Bains

      Stage 15: Embrun–Prato Nevoso

      Stage 16: Cuneo–Jausiers

      Stage 17: Embrun–L’Alpe-d’Huez

      Stage 18: Le Bourg-d’Oisans–Saint-Étienne

      Stage 19: Roanne–Montluçon

      Stage 20: Cérilly–Saint-Amand-Montrond

      Stage 21: Étampes–Paris Champs-Élysées

      Three extra stages had been added to take them from Chanteloup to the official starting point at Brest – which, as Charles pointed out, was ‘a heck of a way away’. He had called them stage 0 (Chanteloup–Notre-Dame-de-Monts, staying with Charles’s sister, Ginette Bruneau), stage 0a (Notre-Dame-de-Monts–Gâvres, overnighting with Charles’s cousin Odette Fonteneau), and finally stage 0b (Gâvres–Brest).

      They started by taking the first turn out of Chanteloup. As they went, the little roads with dandelions growing in the cracks were replaced by roads whose surface had been fixed so often it resembled a tarmac patchwork. They passed many familiar names on the rusty signposts: La Timarière, La Châtaigneraie, Le Bout du Monde. Then white strips started to appear on the road and