Free George's Grand Tour by Caroline Vermalle Page A

in the warm and at the heart of the action, but at the last minute someone had sent her off to find a prop and she hadn’t been able to get back in as filming had already started. They had obviously decided they didn’t need what they had sent her off to get. Adèle sighed and sat down on the floor. In the corridor, the assistant electricians were talking with the lorry drivers who had come in to grab a coffee. Two actors who had gone through make-up hours ago were pacing up and down and going over their lines. The assistant hairdresser was clearly still hung-over from the night before and was sitting slumped on the stairs. Adèle looked at her watch for the umpteenth time: 11.12 p.m. At least another two hours before she could go home. She yawned, then switched on her phone. Oh joy, one voicemail and three texts. That would eat up at least a few minutes. All of the texts were from her grandfather.
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    Grandpa 28/09/2008 19:02
    We r in a rstrnt in Brest, Finstr. We r fine.
    (We’re in a restaurant in Brest, Finistère. We’re fine.)
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    Grandpa 28/09/2008 20:58
    Still in St-Malo rstrnt. V gd chavignol galett n strwbry crep. V nice atmsphr. Spking pig latin like in gd old days. Spk 2moro.
    (Still in Saint-Malo restaurant. Very good Chavignol galette and strawberry crêpes. Very nice atmosphere. Speaking pig Latin like in the good old days. Speak tomorrow.)
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    Grandpa 28/09/2008 21:09
    Rstrnt is in Brest, bt called Crepri St-Malo. Spk 2moro.
    (Restaurant is in Brest, but called Crêperie Saint-Malo. Speak tomorrow.)
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    Adèle couldn’t stop herself from smiling.
    The voicemail was also from her grandfather and had been received at seven minutes to eleven – which meant seven minutes to midnight in France. What was he doing up at that hour and why was he calling her? It was with some trepidation that she pressed play. She listened to the sound of noisy laughter and waited for the message that never came. Her grandfather had dialled her number by mistake and what she was hearing was the background noise of the crêperie. It did sound quite fun there, actually. She was about to erase the message when she picked out the sound of men’s voices singing ‘Jean-Françoué de Nantes … Jean-Françoué’ and then ‘The Bretons know how to have a good time!’ That was definitely her grandfather’s voice.
    Adèle laughed to herself. If this was stage one, they were going to have to be treated for alcohol poisoning by the time they reached the end of the Tour. This man matched up less andless to the image of her grandfather she had in her mind. When she was little, she had been given a ‘Grandpa Kiki’, the grandpa version of the soft toy monkey that had been such a craze in the eighties. Grandpa Kiki was grey all over, with glasses, a three-piece suit and a pair of carpet slippers. Since then, she had always pictured her grandfather as a Grandpa Kiki, who just sat in his box, and whom she would send the occasional card out of habit and politeness. And here he was jumping out of his box at the age of eighty-three! Grandpa Kiki dancing Saturday Night Fever ? The mental image made her smile.
    Adèle liked getting these texts; they distracted her from the monotony of the shoot. She looked up and saw that Alex, the apprentice hair stylist, was watching her. He was tall and slim, and most likely gay. Like many of the Australians she knew, he was friendly and laid-back, and loved going out. He must have been wondering why she was grinning in the middle of all these people who looked like they were about to die of boredom.
    Adèle whispered:
    â€˜I just got a text from my grandfather, he’s eighty-three. Apparently he’s sitting in a crêperie in Brittany knocking back cider. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was dancing on the tables by now.’
    â€˜So your grandfather’s in pretty good shape, then!’
    â€˜No, not even!