CHAPTER SIX
(July 2002)
Heather and Ingrid started their travels almost immediately after their Finals, taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, then spending one night in a posh hotel in Caen before setting out for real. The ground rules for that opening, European stage of their world tour were simple. Money wasn't particularly a problem but they were going to behave as if it was. After Caen they set a small seven day budget for travel and accommodation and, when that was used up, they walked and slept in the tent until the start of the next week. That was the way to meet interesting people and have meaningful experiences, they believed; avoiding luxurious establishments, stopping off in hostels, camp sites or farmers' fields, hiking or using the cheapest local transport.
First stop after Caen was Bayeux, where they saw the famous tapestry, toured the ancient cathedral and stood in silent awe in the War Cemetery, amidst thousands of brilliant white headstones. Best of all, they lunched at a crêperie, pigging it on the strawberry ones.
The Landing Beaches came next, starting with Utah, through Omaha, Gold and Juno to Sword. Being on Omaha made them think of Saving Private Ryan and they stared at the cliffs, wondering what sort of madmen would want to land there. The neighbouring "British" beach, Gold, was flatter and a much harder place for an enemy to defend; even two girls who hated warfare could see that.
Gold also had the remains of the mulberry harbour, Port Winston, originally designed to survive three months and still recognizably there after nearly sixty years. From the Canadian beach, Juno, they took time to visit Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer so Heather could send her dad a postcard. Her dad had only ever been out of Yorkshire a handful of times and abroad just once, on a prehistoric school trip to that very place. These days the farthest he got from home was Skipton; she knew the card would make him laugh.
Leaving the beaches and war cemeteries they at last set off south, walking and talking much of the way, keeping mostly to the coast and taking over a month to reach Spain. As they went they took in the cities of Nantes and Bordeaux but far preferred the countless small towns and villages, becoming self-taught experts on local food and wine. Being outdoors nearly all of the time gave them both their best-ever tans. All that walking gave them bottomless appetites for baguettes, fresh from the oven. And talking virtually incessantly fine-tuned their bonding . . . so much so that Heather soon knew more about Ingrid than she did about anyone else on earth, even Mary Rose.
Ingrid got her blue eyes and blonde hair from her mother, a Swede who had married an Englishman and was now proud to call herself a "Londoner". For her part, Ingrid considered herself one hundred per cent English, except from the times she was supposed to feel "British" . . . meaning when she was watching the Olympics or Eurovision. She only ever felt European when watching the Ryder Cup and reserved the right to be Swedish when it suited her; saying her mum's two all-time heroes were Bjorn Borg and Ingemar Stenmark, if anyone needed a clue as to how often that was. And she hated ABBA unless she was really drunk, when she was apt to tell everyone how marvellous they were.
On the subject of sex Ingrid would listen happily to tales of Heather's exploits while maintaining she was cowardly herself. She would admit feeling attracted to a certain type of woman . . . citing Brigitte Nielsen as utterly staggering . . . and supposing part of that had something to do with the irresistible attraction that strong, Viking-like men had for her. She reckoned this had been her downfall in finding a decent bloke, adding that she didn't know about Swedish Vikings, but all the English Vikings she'd ever met acted like cavemen. When Heather said she'd thought that was sort of the idea, Ingrid had laughed and said of course it was the idea, she just didn't want to give up the dream: somewhere out there, there was a caring, romantic and loving Viking, waiting just for her.
Heather enjoyed their sex-talk enormously, not least because it was unpredictable. During the Easter planning stage she'd pro-actively emailed her companion-to-be, promising there would be no repeat of her indecent proposal. Ingrid had replied saying she'd secretly been flattered but okay, best keep things simple. But please, please, please tell her all about everything; they were going to be great friends and must never hold back.
So Heather told her about a boy who'd helped rid her of virginity before being her over-worked (but very willing) slave throughout a long-ago summer break. And about Mary Rose, who'd taught her that sex came in so many varying flavours. She'd confessed her two favourite were The Manor Sixth Form Schoolgirl (sweet, long-lasting and utterly wonderful) and Part-Tamed Neanderthal (rough but not too rough, shorter-lasting but mind-blowing in its own way), although she liked lots of others as well. And she'd confessed she'd gone to uni determined to be promiscuous.
'I planned seventy-five per cent of my waking hours for degree work,' she'd said, 'twenty per cent for sports and five for enjoying myself. Five per cent obviously wasn't enough for a full-time boyfriend or girlfriend, so I decided I'd just play the field for three years. And it's been a big field.'
Ingrid said she'd had half a dozen boyfriends over the same period, mostly Viking-flavoured and all ultimately too rough and uncaring. She insisted none of them had been even remotely abusive, but Heather didn't buy that; not entirely. It was obvious her friend believed she'd been too submissive. In Ingrid's exploits her men had rarely shagged or made love; usually they'd just fucked her. 'That's how I like it,' she claimed, 'the harder the better. Lips and tongues don't really do it for me.'
Except she couldn't hear enough about Heather's A-level in Cunnilingus. And two or three times she had admitted she wished she'd been more demanding that way with her blokes.
Talking about sex had always thrilled Heather. In her opinion, talking about sex was nearly as good as actually having it, especially when true stories were involved and gritty details abounded. Normally she with-held names, to protect the not-so-innocent, but Rachael had already told Ingrid more than she should have, and a lot of her other liaisons had hardly been classified information. Consequently some of her scenes were only too easy to picture.
'Tell me more about Rachael's piercings,' Ingrid would say. 'Tell me again about Emily's favourite games.' She couldn't get too many intimate details and found it difficult to understand why Heather had bothered with men at all. 'Girls sound so much more fun,' she'd said one day. 'And men can be such pigs.'
'It was the emotional side that put me off,' Heather explained. 'I always seemed to connect with fellow female students before sleeping with them. It was like extra foreplay, and it made the shag infinitely better, even if it did eat up some of my waking hours. Trouble was, it also encouraged relationships, which I didn't really need. Blokes don't have to connect to shag. And shagging's nearly as good with blokes, even if they don't have the same skill and affection. Or the staying power.'
More than once Ingrid had laughingly accused her of behaving like a man; of wanting to fuck every attractive stranger she met. Heather accepted that as partly true. She had the same wild urges as men but believed she was more in control . . . apart from the occasional rugby semi-final, that is! And she'd genuinely wanted her time at uni to include "wild". She didn't drink heavily, only smoked the odd reefer and never did drugs. Sex was her sole indulgence. In fact, apart from sports, she had no other hobby and she was particularly good at it. She was telling the truth when she told Ingrid that every last one of her university lovers had come back, begging for more.
Uni was behind them now, though. The era of promiscuity was (in theory at least) over. Not that either of them intended to live the life of a nun. Their gap year ground rules left the door open for them to have casual encounters whenever and wherever they pleased. Yet neither of them took advantage of that freedom during those first weeks in France. From the off they had planned to take a break, way down the line, spending ten days or so pretending to be holidaymakers in Benalmadena. When actually having sex was ever mentioned, "I'm saving myself for Ben Maddener," was the standard reply.
Or it was until they camped in a field outside Bayonne.
CHAPTER SEVEN
(Ingrid's Interruption I)
