By Hamish Brown

MILTON AND ISSARLÈS (cont)

"Hey, Fatso, what about sending your girl your picture?"

"She might take it for an elephant." (Meg could be cruel.)

However, slowly, photographs began to pass between the towns' adolescent populations. Randy and I were confident enough in our own looks, ("Say, Allan, you're no really so bad looking," was praise indeed from Andy) that we went to the photo kiosk when next in Kirkcaldy and spent half a crown each posing before the lens for our six wee mug-shots. Over ice-creams in La Speranza we chose the best ones to send to Issarles.

We waited for the replies with considerable impatience. Spring was in the air I can recall - the geans were pink down the Burnside - and we practised all sorts of flowery declarations of love to our unknown partners. Ma MacKendrick could only sigh and smile. She had succeeded all too well in making us write in French.

When Randy asked her the French for 'paramour' she never blinked an eye but gave him a word which was carefully incorporated in his next effusive effort. "French is so much more expressive, Allan," he told me in pompous tones but Ma MacKendrick had had the last laugh; Monique was quite puzzled to find she was corresponding with an 'undertaker's assistant'. We never quite trusted Miss MacKendrick after that. Our dog-eared pocket dictionaries, while more limited, were safer.

Andy's Monique and my Gentianne (Landrin) were close friends and we could hope to make a happy foursome if and when we reached our appropriate senior classes, which made an exchange each year, Issarle's to Milton on odd years, Milton to Issarles on even years, which would be us. Already the girls were suggesting some things we could do together and some made us blush at their temerity and others made us blanche at our timidity. We felt like those male spiders described by Jean Fabre who, unless they looked sharp, were apt to be eaten alive by their mates.

Later we would see the very spot, the Abbaye de Notre-Dame des Neiges, where Monique and Gentianne photographed each other with a borrowed box camera. Their waiting to do so during the privacy of a class outing we regarded as planned torture; we went through 27 days of agony and suspense before welcome letters with their red Madelaine stamps reached Milton of Baltormie. And what a let down. For me anyway.

Monique was simply a smasher and Randy Andy kissed her picture and waltzed about with it hugged to his blazer behind the music block where we'd met to compare portraits. I could hardly bear to produce my photo of Gentianne. She was plump and plain and Andy's laugh on looking at the picture had the chilling effect of the burle (winter wind) off the Mont Mézenc.

No wonder the royal portraits of mediaeval brides are all so uniformly flattering. Sadly, the camera never lies and I'd landed with the dullest pen-pal in all 2B's Issarles. Writing became a boring routine thereafter, a chore for improving my French rather than giving wings to the amorous imaginings of youth. I even went so far as to voice my disappointment to Miss MacKendrick. the French teacher. She told me a silly story about a frog princess who, when kissed by prince charming, turned into a lovely girl again and they married and lived happily ever after. I ask you: did she imagine if Gentianne and I ever met that I want to kiss her? Yeuch!

(To be continued next month)

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