26th October 2002.
Ooh shivers, it’s October. Sooty Sid’s hearth-fire coal smoke annoys. As does someone who parked their swanky Mercedes C-Class estate across two ‘small car only’ parking bays in Brock Road. A note written in black marker pen stuck under the rear wiper poked at the powers of puffery: ‘You a f***ing fisherman?’ And a mum down the way wows her daughter’s seen two British monarchs, three prime ministers and four chancellors of the exchequer and she’s only four-months old.
Meanwhile, the hardy bare-skinned bob the waves of Petit Port beach. Butterflies sun-bask between mu-ahs of the maritime foghorn. Ladybirds and daddy-long-legs exchange compliments. And, during my backpack’s clear out, snuggling in a sticky, scrunched paper wrap, an exhumed sliver of candied orange peel prompted the missus to WhatsApp photos…
Returning from Romania me and the missus had shared custody of our friend Lulu’s parting gift: Savarine. Of eighteenth-century French origin the baked, sweet whipped cream crammed, rum syrup soaked, yum-scrum cakes topped with jam and candied peel had been been reduced from a half dozen to a pair. And those were slightly the worse for wear as our Paris taxi sped toward Montparnasse station for the train to Saint-Malo. From where it’d be the ferry to Guernsey.
Blurring past Pickfords removals delivering Brit awkwardness through high balcony French windows my grumbles about having a headache got cut short. By a promised task. “Don’t forget Lulu wants us to take photos of Saint-Malo for him,” reminded the missus. “He’s never been but thinks the name’s ‘foarte romantic’.”
“Very romantic? Hmm, s’pose it is in a way,” I demurred. “The place was named after a fifth century Welsh monk. St Malo was a Gallic immigrant. One of St Brendan’s acolytes. Who himself’s the patron saint of whales. The aquatic sort.”
“You’re pulling my leg,” snorted the missus
“Nope. St Malo came from Wales. Țara Galilor to our Savarine … Land of the red dragon, daffodils, leeks… eisteddfod.”
“Odder than what-od is your willing desiccation. Possibly the cause of your headache?” the missus said matter-of-factly as we crossed the Pont Des Invalides.
Common sense really. Lacking a bladder of steel, my antidote to the jiggle and squirm of travel is a denial of libation. “Yep, I’m dry as the Cezembre garrison.” A slight exaggeration.
A mere 44-acres Cezembre is nowt but a twee saddlebacked isle. With rock stack bookends, it wallows off Saint Malo’s shore. A wooden statue to St Brendan stood in the chapel there. Once walkable to at low tide, multitudes of pilgrim virgins used to prick its nose with a pin and implore they each be granted a wondrous marriage. A holey icon, indeed.
Faced with such facts, the missus queried: “Were they virgin whales, love of mine?”
Lamentably the statue got napalmed by the Yanks in 1944. The actual target being the resolute, three hundred strong German-Italian garrison supplied with Guernsey drinking water brought in boats dragooned off bona fide Bailiwick fisherman. A practice ended by the Allied navy. The Cezembre garrison surrendered out of thirst.
I surrendered to savarine. On Montparnasse station’s busy concourse. I self-consciously gave my remaining share a desperate suck. People averted their gaze. The missus had me go buy proper fluid and had few sotto voce words to say about Orangina when finally aboard our train.
So, to a two night apartment stay. In Saint-Malo’s Saint-Servan quarter. Café, boulangerie, charcuterie and market cheese stall fortified our souls. A butcher’s shop sign offering ‘BBC’ tickled curiosity. Investigation found it meant bleu, blanc, coeur, blue, white, heart, and pertained to Aquitaine beef.
A tall fountain depicting chubby cherubs and severed heads arrested the eye. More so the dog taxi express: a zippy motorbike. In its saddle, a bare-kneed gent wearing a burnt-orange gilet. Jack Russells rode handlebars and pillion plus got towed ‘a la cart’. The whole caboodle seen and gone in a rush of phone camera taps.
“Woah! Bit faster that than the escargot troops sliming our apartment’s balcony as owls hoot,” I commented as we ambled downhill armed with a sustaining, warm, baguette. To the Bastion Saint Philippe with its views of Cezembre beyond the tidal swimming pool’s diving board and Fort Du Petit-Bé.
Created by filling in the sea and sheltered behind high curtain walls, the bastion, in the 1800s, earned itself the nickname ‘La Californie’ due it being home to wealthy rapscallions and gold diggers and where warehouses were chock-a-block with the cornucopia of Empire français.
In a tall house boasting a sun-dial on its elegant chimney stack dwelt a Legion of Honour winner: the Napoleonic buccaneer and slave trader Robert Surcouf, who with his brig ‘Créole’ caused rank misery for African souls. However, the smart granite building visible today isn’t the original. Nor are any of the bastion’s others. An impressive rebuild occurred through the 1950s and into the 60s. Why? Because simultaneous to Cezembre’s suffering, Saint-Philippe suffered an awfulness of fire-bombing that had Nazi defenders in their thousands waggle the white flag.
Surcouf’s house is now itself a popular a café. Its sign above the door: a jolly sailor wearing a gaudy yellow sou’wester and oilskins gripping a capstan wheel. History attempts to rewrite itself. A righteous monk turns in a forgotten grave. Lovers embrace on the ramparts. Fleeting hearts are drawn on the sand.
Did I catch the Saint-Malo vibe that inspired ‘Laüstic’? I’d asked myself. I reckoned not. Marie of France’s twelfth century love poem about a throttled nightingale wazzed by a huffy Malouin hubby at the boobs of his window-gazing wife of unfaithful thoughts doesn’t quite resonate in our uncertain times…
“Lulu says mulțumesc for the photos!” whooped the missus…”Oh, hang on. Says he’s a bit disappointed. Saint-Malo doesn’t look as he thought the name suggested.”
“A job finally well done,” I said.
The saverine wrapper and candied peel bunged into recycled memory I must now close the window to escape the ladybirds, daddy-long-legs and Sooty Sid’s niffy chimney quicker than any Jack Russell Express.
Illustration & text © 2022 Zum Beamer/Charles Wood.
Zum Beamer 