CHAPTER 12
That term continued, and my friends became closer. The late Summer soon gave way to gales up the Manche, and the leaves span off the trees and into piles of awkward mulch on the footpaths. Serge had disappeared into a past that felt to me sometimes as if I was watching some elderly motion picture, sepia and silent. Sophie, she was here and now, and in laughing colour. My breasts, no longer ‘teats’ but true breasts, were slowly emerging from their lair in my chest. I do not mean to say that I suddenly developed attributes to match my age, but that it was no longer a case of a sensitive pair of nipples but of a true cushion forming behind them. If only one thing could withdraw from view as others appeared.

We shared, the girls and I. Secrets and gossip, tips and criticism, especially of Elle’s attempts to raise herself to higher things by the use of shoes. I was exasperated. Outside of school she was experimenting with ugly things, items of blocky platform and unpleasant shape, which made her walk like the monster of Baron Frankenstein. Margot, at least, tried.

“Elle, look, it is proportion. You are not a dumpling, just petite. Things must be in proportion. Look at Sophie, she has bigger feet”

“And your nose is how large?”

“Be quiet, Sophie. Elle, her shoes are in proportion, they are elegant, even if the heels are higher than mine. A shoe must flow, it must have grace and sweetness of line. Yours must therefore have lower heels, otherwise they will be of extreme silliness”

Elle pouted. “And you say this, you with the legs of a model in Milan?”

“My legs are too fat for Milan”

I snorted. “Not what Rollo thinks”

Both girls turned to me, and Fatima, who had been listening, raised her eyebrows. Elle put her chin onto one hand.

“Yes? And he says what else besides?”

I was blushing, but I had to get the gossip out. “My brother, he…he first wanted to know how old Margot was, and I think he likes her legs, but the rest of her is something he is also fond of. And that I should have kept a secret, girls, so please respect that”

Margot looked as if she was in a dream. “Rollo, he says things like that?”

I had to say something to break that spell. “Rollo, he believes that a girl in school is not something that a grown man should show any interest in. But, yes…”

Margot looked pleased and unhappy at one and the same time, and it was Elle who spoke with reason.

“Margot, my sweet one, think. Roland, he is not like the boys we know at school. He is a mature man–stop laughing, Sophie, the opinion of a sister is never that of other women. No, Margot, he is a man who will measure his choices before they are made, and that is a man worth knowing. Sophie, is he a patient brother?”

I thought back through the years, the silent reels of the Serge film playing in my mind, and it was there and it was true.

“He gets angry sometimes, Elle. He gets angry with people who do the things he thinks they should not, the violence, the dishonesty. He has nothing but patience, patience and calm, for those he loves or respects”

Elle was nodding as I spoke. “So, Margot, is this a boy to moon over and make calf’s eyes at, or is it a man that perhaps you can entice by patience and honesty, maturity and guile? Not one to trip as he walks and fall to the ground before he arrives there?”

Margot looked down her nose at Elle, and then started to laugh. Elle frowned.

“I was trying to be serious, Margot!”

“Oh, I know that, but I was just thinking that you were being very crude, and I was going to be supercilious and look down my nose at you, and then I thought, I must always look down on you even when you have the silliest shoes on!”

Some time later, when our laughter was stilled and our eyes dried, and my resolve was awakened to find some form of eye colouring that didn’t flow with my own tears, Margot became once more very serious.

“No, Elle, you are right. He is a special man, and that is true in all words. If I am to capture his heart it must be as a woman, not as a pair of too-fat legs or a silly laugh. This is not someone to undress with my imagination and dream of his piece”

“Big feet…”

“Oh do shut up!”

Elle mused for a while, and then a spark lit in her eye.

“We have a plan!”

I had been sitting like a spectator at a tennis match till then, as their sallies flew past left-right-left. I had to ask.

“This plan. What does it involve?”

“My mother, silly one! She can help both of you!”

Margot frowned slightly. “Help me in what manner?”

“Well, she is to help Sophie be a woman, why not you?”

“But Sophie–my apologies–Sophie is not like us, no? I do not need help to be, well, female”

There was exasperation in Elle’s voice then. “Silly person, Maman is not helping Sophie be a woman, but a lady! She has been a woman, or at least a girl, all of her life, and if Maman is to teach her to be more…refined, then perhaps this great blonde may learn something as a by-product”

Margot was blushing. “Sophie, I hope you know the way I meant that statement, I was not saying, you know…”

I took her hand. “No, dear one, I know. It is like…for me, it is as the woman with the strawberry mark, where the make-up must be special to let her live as an unremarkable person. Anyway, I am growing into the role more each day”

Elle’s eyes were once more alight, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know what she means! Sophie, we must see---please?”

And so, once more, my friends sighed with gratification as my new form became more evident with each week.

That Sunday, we had dinner guests, in Emil and Françoise, as well as their little one, and to my delight Margot stepped off the bus twenty minutes after their arrival, She hugged me, laughing.

“More and more, Papa is happy for me to go out on my own. This is your doing, Sophie! This evening, he will collect me. I will be happy to introduce you”

I gave her the three bisous required. “How is it my doing?”

“He says I have become more sensible and mature since we met, and less like…”

She pointed at Elle, and put on a parody of a man’s voice.

“…that little mad thing that leads me into foolishness and the waste of my time”

The laughter was free and easy, and we adjourned to the dining room where Maman had prepared a potage before our main dish, which was to be magret de canard.

“Sit, all. His highness is yet to arrive, but it is cold, and we shall warm ourselves with the soup and be uncivilised for this once. Emil…Roland said he would speak with you?”

The little man frowned slightly. “Yes, he said he wished to, and I felt he was about to take me into some confidence or other, but then he withdrew, and said he would make things clear today”

Elle looked at me, and I nodded. She turned to her parents. “Papa, Maman, I know what it is that Roland has to tell you. Perhaps…”

The door banged, and he was there, and I saw a shiver pass through Margot that told me instantly that this was no adolescent fantasy.

“Salut, all! I have the fresh bread”

Maman squeezed it. “Not that fresh, but adequate for soup. Wash, return cleaner, yes?”

She turned back to us as he left. “Perhaps…he is the man of the house, no? We must let him do his duty”

Rollo was back in a very short while, and made the rounds of the table with bisous and handshakes, spending perhaps a short time longer with one girl, and then he caught the looks.

“Ah. You have perhaps already broached what I was meaning to?”

Emil smiled. “Not quite. My darling daughter apparently has some idea, but your arrival was timely”

“Right. Sophie, please be so good as to serve our guests with the potage, and I shall begin”

“Not the Emperor again?”

“No, my beloved sister, simply the facts”

I moved round the table with tureen and ladle, stirring and pouring, as Maman cut the bread, and Rollo began.

“Emil, I do not remember how much I told you about my family, but when I changed my post there were a number of changes in our life”

Emil grinned. “Oh yes, that win. Not the biggest, but not to be dismissed, no?”

“Not at all, my friend, It brought us here, it bought us space, it brought us the life that my mother and sister deserved. Before then…”

He took a number of breaths. “Elle knows what pain Sophie had to bear in the city, is that not true? Yes, you nod, but perhaps you do not know how much of a hell it was. I only found out by accident. Once, from a colleague, and then, then I was made to see. Sophie…Sophie had problems when born that may only now come to be sorted and corrected”

Françoise widened her eyes. “Oh. I think I see... May I ask a question, my little one?”

“Yes, Madame”

“Françoise, please. My dear…what was your name?”

Elle gasped, and her mother simply lifted one eyebrow. “And my own life before Papa? I have not seen such things? Sophie…? Am I correct? Oh, you poor child. Elle, you were aware? Margot? Yes…darling daughter, I am proud of you”

“Serge”

I had to repeat it, louder. “Serge. That was my name. Rollo called me Sacha; it was his joke, my big brother”

Emil whispered in his wife’s ear for a moment or two, while my heart pounded. Then, a smile.

“Sophie, this potage is excellent. Did you perhaps help your mother in the preparation?”

There was duck, and a sorbet, and good cheese, and then tarte tatin. And not a word was said about Serge.

And Elle, that silly girl, she cried.