First Prize
Heat
by Caitlin Hart, St Paul's Girls' School
Sophia lies almost entirely still under the weight of the heat as it settles over her, pressing into the dips and grooves of her body. Thick air tickles her parched throat and tongue; sweat clings to her hair and slithers down between her breasts, catching in the dip of her collarbone. She feels herself slowly being smothered to death. When Peter comes back out of the bathroom the first impression she has of him is perfect teeth, gleaming in the light from the open window.
"It's the Louvre first today," Peter says to the mirror, letting the 'r' slide back casually into his throat, as unmistakably upper-class English as it is French. "We'll visit the Galerie Vivienne, of course. Notre Dame in the afternoon. St Julien le Pauvre before cocktails with Gillian, unless the heat's unbearable."
When Sophia tries to speak she finds her lips swollen and clumsy with thirst; she swallows, her throat aching. "Don't you think we could—see something French?"
Peter looks at her in the mirror, one eyebrow raised as he frowns. "Fifi, it doesn't get more French than Paris."
"Then let's see Paris," Sophia persists. She knows she cannot stand another day of museums and drinks with Peter's friends, his little lectures on Gothic architecture and the aphrodisiac qualities of Roquefort cheese. After only two days the trip is already beginning to feel like Berlin with its endless English parties and cramped taxis between must-sees. Sophia can't remember a single attempt at conversation with a Berliner; they were ferried everywhere in the sterile cocoon of Peter's competent, businesslike German, all instructions or a polite danke schön.
"This is Paris," Peter says with a snort. "Darling, I know you haven't exactly traveled much, but you have to trust me—I know this city like a second home. You'll see everything worthwhile, I promise." He pauses to run a hand through his hair, frowning at his reflection appraisingly before, satisfied, continuing: "anyway, what else would you want to see?"
Asked so directly Sophia can only shrug, turning her face away from him to rest her cheek on the sweat-damp pillow, gazing at her thin summer dress draped carelessly over the chair. With Peter's stare pressing into the back of her neck she cannot articulate what it is she wants exactly: little snatches of hopes fade away like memories of a dream when she tries to catch at them, crumbling in her fingers.
"It's the heat. I always said that it was a terrible idea to come to Paris in July," Peter says knowingly. "We should have gone straight on to Cannes." Sophia feels the bed behind her dip and the press of his palm on her belly, fingertips brushing away little beads of sweat as he sighs. She can imagine him shaking his head, a little vindicated smile beneath his frown. "This is just too much for you. Why don't you rest some more and meet us for lunch? I can have a taxi sent here for one o'clock to pick you up."
Sophia's heart skips a beat irrationally as if she were a girl again, feigning illness to be allowed to stay home from school. She can hardly make herself nod.
"I'll tell them about the air conditioning," Peter says before kissing her cheek, his lips hot on her already-flushed skin. "It's ridiculous after what I've paid for this place."
Even after Peter is gone, the door clicking smoothly shut behind him, Sophia is trapped for a moment, motionless on the unmade bed. Traces of his presence still linger in the stagnant air of the room. She is suddenly paralysed by freedom. Where to go? What to do? Peter will have taken the little guidebook, of course—he always does, though he never uses it. For a moment she feels horrible to have allowed him to leave her behind under false pretences. Guilt curdles in her belly as she forces herself to get up, movements slow and clumsy in the heat, and take a shower. The water is lukewarm, sticky on her skin, and she holds her hair back so that she can stand under it for only a second as she washes the stale sweat from her body. Her dress clings to her skin as she pulls it on over her head, catching her in a brief, vicious grip of claustrophobia.
Outside the heat is easier to bear, a tiny breeze tickling the back of Sophia's neck, the press of people about her a distraction from her discomfort. Immersed in French, a tumultuous flow of unfamiliar sounds, it takes her a moment to gather herself, to remember which way the river is. She saw it from the taxi the night before, and it gives her a little thrill of pleasure to be able to find it again, the dirty water glinting in the sunlight, its banks rushing with people—children with ice creams, clusters of fashionable teenagers, tourists with brightly-coloured hats and cameras dangling about their necks.
Before venturing down to the riverside Sophia dips into the nearest café, lured by the cold air gushing out from the doorway. As she steps under the fan a swell of cool washes over her, sending shivers down over her skin. The man behind the counter smiles, saying something which she doesn't understand; Sophia smiles back anyway, undaunted.
"Une limonade, s'il vous plaît," she says very carefully, and flushes with pleasure when the man pulls one from an icebox and hands it to her. The can is cold and wet under her fingertips, and drinking the chilled liquid feels like taking a first deep breath after almost drowning.
Second Prize
Chabrol's cowboy
by Jessica Edith Sinyard
A warm winter means trouble. I knew it as the snow was thawing underfoot in Times Square. My boots squeaking and my thighs throbbing. I had walked for what seemed like weeks: from terminals to platforms, from platforms to planes, from planes to cabs and finally here. My Parisian purr was barely audible above the sirens and sudden laughter as I asked for a paper or bagel.
"Say what?"
This was the first English phrase I ever heard, and likely to be the last I ever forget. The American accent was elastic in their mouths, bouncing and snapping. The Russians snarled, the Italians sang, the Chinese chirped, and the New Yorkers—boing, boing, boing—chatted and crackled like electricity. I straddled the Atlantic Ocean as I paced the streets; my heart and mind in Paris, the soles of my shoes in New York City. The two existed in extremes. The wealth and poverty were respectively staggering. The glass of the Louvre threw back the sun in flat blank blades, piercing as eyes. The buildings that I passed here had no windows to return the stare. Only wooden boards chewed by damp and printed with the defeated hands that had hammered them up.
"Nothing disorientates you like a map," my father insisted when he left his behind and set out in a new city—Marseilles—that we had moved to a year before he died. Maps were not merely a sign of weakness to him, a physical admission that you did not know where you were going; they were "broken binoculars" that forced you to look down and inward rather than out over new terrain. Only now did I truly believe it, peering down at the paper's intricate veins—the lifeblood of my route—and colliding with the natives.
"Watch it."
The meeting of my shoulder with theirs, of France with America, of my past with my present was precisely that. A collision.
I fling the map aside. I must not lose sight of why I am here. The manuscript lies self-conscious and immaculate inside my father's briefcase. A fresh chick from an ancient egg. This was to be my epiphany. My French roots were the bulb in the dirt and America was to be the flower. I bit my tongue even as I thought it, clutched my chest. The guilt had thorns. I walked faster, kicking at the frozen slush, knowing that I could not outrun who followed me. Preceded and followed me. Every reflective surface I passed—the hotdog stand instead of the patisserie, the subway stairs instead of the patio—my mother's eyes shone out from my head, black as fresh olives. My father's briefcase beat against the backs of my legs. Dépêche toi… Dépêche toi. Could one have a French gait? A loose, irregular, intelligent gait. I believed I did and tripped trying to disguise it.
I am here to sell a script. The script that I hold now at arm's length. My father disappointed me when I confessed that I would rather go abroad than remain with him and my uncles, plucking grapes, stirring vats, selling wine. In the room of barrels and round, ruddy faces, a deathly quiet descended. I had prepared myself for flailing limbs and eyes white with anger, cheeks red with alcohol, but was met with grey. Pale, wounded gazes. Even the colour of his voice was ashy when he told me: "Alright. But take the briefcase. Perhaps you will grow to suit it. Or it to suit you."
But I am the phoenix risen from the ashes. By a newspaper stand on the corner, I pass a pair arguing passionately with splayed fingers and hair falling onto their faces. They are French and my heart quivers when I hear my own voice coming from their throats. Passing them without a word is like pulling out my tongue, moist and squirming. I do not look back and their voices fade… fade… and are gone. My mother's eyes water in my head. My father's briefcase beats against my legs like a pulse. But he is far below a ground that I may never tread again.
I reach the Agency as a soft snow falls. The frozen flecks lay lifeless kisses on my lips and eyelashes, and the building is a block. There is no artistry to it. It requires a stretch of the imagination—the imagination on a rack—to comprehend that passion and talent and expertise are housed here. With a shiver, I remember when Hollywood was a mere whisper to me while Godard and Truffaut crusaded across the screen. And Chabrol was a purr in the back of my French throat, a rumble in the back of my French mind. His work was what I had become, made lean by travel and heavy thought, compelled toward some unseen destination. That was what I had always loved of his films. The destiny of them. The inevitability. They set me on rocking scales between eagerness and despair. Chabrol and I had a flag over our shoulders as we paced the streets together that day. A flag that glowed red, white, and blue—ravaged by stars and stripes. A disgrace, my mind hummed. But I was cold and combusting with nerves. No iron curtain—no iron theatre curtain—had ever descended between French and American cinema.
But the Agency building was bleak and artless. The pens packed into mugs were gummy and bitten at the ends. The saucers were still smeared from brunch, the knives wreathed in jellied orange innards. Snow cascades off my shoulders as I pat them. I kick into cowboy boots under a desk. They have socks rolled inside and smell of leather and bad cheese. I hope they are not to be part of my assimilation. Chabrol's cowboy. C'est moi.
A woman with a high hairstyle clicks painted fingernails along the doorframe as she
studies me.
"And you are?"
"French."
"Nah, nah, nah, nah. S'your name?"
Third Prize
St Vincent & The Grenadines
by James Gibson, Desborough School
The sun was shining, the weather was sweet. The luscious green landscape dominated the scene. The rocky cliffs were high and intimidating. The palm trees that lined the sands were tall and thick, densely covering the area just away from the beach. The Union Jack was flying high, the little red figures were running to their positions. Lieutenant Colonel George Etherington was leading the defence of this beautiful emerald island in the Caribbean Sea.
The blue, white and red stripes of the French flag were flying just as high as the Union Jack as the French ships approached. The Cambresis Regiment was at the forefront for the attackers. A loud noise erupted from the coast, the battle for St Vincent had begun.
The red figures of the British Empire were running between positions, the hills to the west of the capital were full of gun fire, hailing down on the invaders. The beach was a swarm of red men down on their knees firing their weapons. The French ships returned fire, their cannons making quick work of the beach based defenders. The first ship landed.
The Caribs were coming out of the mountains behind the British, hard and fast, willing to accept French rule at the expense of the British. They were running through the forestry with the kind of speed the British had not seen from them before, not even during the First Carib War on the island. Governor Valentine Morris was sitting comfortably watching the action unfold below. His face turned into a picture of worry and concern as he heard the cries of the Caribs away in the distance. The woman that lay beside him, drew a weapon, lunging at the Governor. He was quick to his feet, grabbing an iron poker to defend himself with. His gaze was fixed on the blade in the woman's hands. He was careful, patient, waiting for her to make the first move, there it was. She jumped across the empty space between them and thrust the cold, metal blade towards his head, narrowly missing, he spun on the spot as she landed on the floor behind him. In one, swift, beautiful, but deadly movement, his arm took on a mind of its own, thrusting the poker through the woman's back. A high pitched shrill escaped her lungs, then the body collapsed, as dead as a piece of driftwood. "What a waste." Valentine shook his head and threw the poker to the ground.
He ran back towards the window, the sand was stained red. The sun was glinting off of every man's sword as they were drawn into close combat. The French were forcing the British into retreat, towards the Caribs, the Caribs were then forcing them back towards the French. They were surrounded. A trumpet was heard from above. French eyes were diverted towards the sound. Gun shots were heard as more British soldiers came running down the hill from the fort they had been defending.
"I knew that woman was useless!" The French captain turned to his men, "Get ready, men. Tonight, we dine with the Governor!"
The French turned to face the new British force, leaving the Caribs to deal with the already battered and depleted force that had been defending the beach. They drew their swords, as soon as the first British soldier was spotted, it was as if the Devil himself had entered the battlefield, the French relentlessly cut away at the red-coated scum.
Lieutenant Colonel Etherington was swinging his sword with deadly accuracy, crushing any Carib resistance that stood before him, but his sword bearing arm was beginning to tire. The Caribs were falling fast, and he could hear the French destroying his countrymen in the trees behind him. The last Carib fell, Etherington glanced around, only a handful of defenders from the beach remained, he retreated back to the fort. Governor Morris was preparing to fight. "My lord, you cannot be serious! They are destroying us out there, if we do not surrender then there will be none left to fight another day." Etherington was speaking tremendously fast, his words barely distinguishable. Valentine looked into his eyes, "OK, surrender, all hope is lost, their numbers are far superior, go, but we must prepare to escape at once. Ready the boats, we will need to leave as soon as we have surrendered."
"Yes sir, you two, go, prepare the boats, the rest of you, come with me."
Etherington, walked out of the fort, sword in hand, the French were just metres away from the gates. The well-drilled French infantry held their fire, their commander stepped forward.
"What is this? The mighty British Empire are surrendering?" His accent made Etherington want to punch him in the face, right there and then.
"Yes, we offer our unconditional surrender, we are no fools, we can see that we have been overwhelmed, and so in the name of Governor Valentine Morris, and the King, we surrender the island of St Vincent to you."
That was 1779, today is 1783, and I, Lieutenant Colonel George Etherington, one of the very few survivors, stand in Versailles, asking why. The Emerald of the Caribbean Sea is ours once more, St Vincent is once again in British hands. Just four years ago, our comrades gave their lives in defence of the Empire, but it all seems pointless now, a piece of paper has just been signed, a piece of paper which means that they gave their lives for nothing. I lost many friends, and it could all have been saved if only we had talked things through as we have on this day. I can now go home and make love to my wife, but not them, they died in a foreign land, far from home, in a place that their wives and children will never be able to visit. The Union Jack will fly high in St Vincent once more. Violence is never the answer.
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