It’s nearly seven o’clock as I roll down the main street of Ducey, an unfeasibly straight road that I can see heading west for miles into the coastal flatlands of Brittany, where Mont St Michel stands in the distance, back-lit and spiking the sea horizon.
The centuries flash past – Ducey’s modern outskirts, where recent bungalows have filled the gaps between cottages, the mid-20th Century clustering around the round-about at the top of town, then the 19th Century on the straight high street, and increasingly ancient as I descend the hill. Finally, at the river, I reach late medieval, the stub of a chateau and some smart manorial outhouses.
They are collected around a bridge, three hefty stone arches that were once a main crossing point into Brittany. A lorry thunders past – evidently it still is. Modern engineering may have taken the major roads closer to the sea, pillared above the coastal meadows, but in the time of young Lawrence, this would have been the main road.
Just before the bridge I turn left to my hotel. The Auberge de la Sélune is itself a combination of ancient and modern. Its foyer sits in a construction, glass hovering in a web of red ironwork between two traditional stone buildings, river glinting in the middle distance, beyond the garden. As I head upstairs, the corridor momentarily shouts mid-century boarding house, but once ensconced in my room I relax into modern style - the sleek feel of brightly coloured, striped wall-paper and neat woollen throws. Curtains, blankets and wall-paper are decorated in parallel lines of scarlet and biscuit, or lime and teal, or lime with fuschia.
After a shower I sit on the bed, drawn and exhausted. Not so much that delicious sensation of being physically used; this has a slightly grittier edge to it. I know that if I allow myself to lean back I will fall into the sleep of the drugged. It has been that sort of four days. Normandy has been quite a long way to ride – around 80 miles a day – racing between the stops at TE Lawrence’s sites to write endless notes, take photos and film, and then in the evenings, trying to think, to fit fleeting impressions into coherent patterns. I continue to sit, slack-jawed, mind in neutral.
But two things penetrate the mental fug. And you’ll have to bear with me on this, please – when not delicious, physical exhaustion can be a little delirious. The first is so wonderfully weird that it leaps into a new dimension of surreality (does the word even exist?). The box of tissues, on the desk, has a cloth cover that transforms it into a miniature sofa. No… But yes…! There it is, a tiny settee, lime green, suitably sized for a recumbent mouse and so unbelievably kitsch as to be admirable.
I decide to honour it immediately. Hey, my gps has also been working hard – the poor thing even suffered an ontological breakdown two days ago - so it shall be accorded the benefit of the comfort. I plug it in so that it can recharge electrically as well, and then let it recline, in pride of luxurious place, on the mini sofa.
The second thing I notice is my muscles, which are itching oddly, creeping under my skin. Even sitting is strangely uncomfortable, not because of any strains or pulls. There is a weird rebelliousness about them – my trapeziuses (trapeze-ei?) and latissimusses are fidgeting and scratching, my hamstrings and quads are in near riot. It feels as though an angry octopus has got under my skin.
It is 7.30 pm and the sun is still warm. Perhaps some gentle use will make them feel normal again.
For all the confident straightness of the main road, which strikes through the meadows to Brittany like a lance, the gentle section of river that it crosses tells a more relevant story of Ducey. Clearly the stream has been meandering happily here for millennia. Just a few metres from the main road I am in a quaint, quiet section of town, built of the same ancient, chunky, mid-brown stone but older, and now by-passed in so many ways. There is an arched washing house, now covered and supporting a small car park, there are river-front houses, a mill house turned hotel, all centred on another, more ancient stone bridge. It all centres on a tiny weir, which gives a soft wash of white water.
Even here the centuries are jumbled: shoe-horned in between ancient buildings are newer blocks, though even these are old. Others have uncomfortable restorations bolted onto ancient fabric. It’s pretty, but does nothing for my discomfort. I roll my shoulders, trying to shrug away the itch... Not even remotely satisfying... I repeat the action until I realise that I look like a man possessed, alone on a pavement, preparing for a boxing match. I force myself to relax. And soon, in my befuddled state, my attention fixes on the small curtain of white water. A minute later I conclude that a man mesmerised by water is about as useless as a man with uncontrollable fidgets. It’s time to return to the Auberge.
A garden terrace overlooks circles of lawn set in sumptuous gravel and bordered by roses and other flowers. Beyond a stone wall is an island and then the river itself. Just the occasional, dull metallic thump reminds me of the main road. I order a beer. And continue with my calisthenics as unobtrusively as I can: crossing my legs, scrunching up and leaning forward intently into a book - really stretching my legs and back. And then checking around me before reaching out with all four limbs, as though riding an imaginary motorbike from the 1970s (you know, those easy-rider bike with their ridiculous handlebars).
At 8.30, in the golden light and the last of the warmth, the high clouds are suddenly sliced by black flashes. Birds, darting with joy, twisting and rolling, tumbling on the wing, dipping over water and soaring around the steep Norman roofs and mansards, singly, in pairs and threes. I wrack my exhausted brain for a name:
‘Ah, mais Msieu, des hirondelles.’
Of course, how could I forget such a lovely word? To us they’re swallows. And I head in to dinner. Time to fit impressions into coherent patterns. And perhaps some sustenance will diminish the octopus’s anger. In fact perhaps I should even order octopus in revenge.
