As he stood at the rail of the ship and watched the gap in the clear water widen from the shore, he had this same feeling of wistfulness.
David was 35 and liked his life. He flew Lancasters in the war and on one mission, flying back to base with his plane punctured by gun fire over Germany and Messershmitts chasing the whole squadron, he knew he wasn't to get it back to the airfield. As he reached Amiens he got the crew to bale out and, ensuring he wouldn't crash over a village, he baled out himself. Lucky for him the Resistance guys were out and grabbed him as he landed, whisking him off before the Jerrys, following the trail of his drop, found him.
Some people took him in and he hid on the farm as a dumb and mentally ill relative until the war ended.
Of course spending two and a half years there he married the farmer's daughter and now lived permanently in France. Had three children who were bilingual and joined in the Boule matches, had a two hour lunch and three hour evening meals like a proper l' homme de la maison.
His wife ran a patisserie making delicious cakes and pastries and when he was not on his normal run he made the deliveries for her.
His parents visited often but never wished to move to Amiens as Britain was special for them living in the town with cinemas, golf by the sea. A pier and Gladys.
Gladys was important to them as she was in fact engaged to David before he left on that disastrous mission but he was posted missing for so long that she found another fella and married him fairly quickly, possibly to forget. It was never really a love match and eventually the marriage fell apart.
She hadn't forgotten David and, living near to the parents and being like a daughter to them, it followed that when in England she became important to David also.
He began to spend longer in England to help his family supposedly but in fact re-falling in love with . . . maybe the past. They would spend time revisiting all the places where they had been so happy, more so because of the war and time being so short.
He felt that he had to make a decision as to which part of his life was more important; he certainly did not wish to lose his children or hurt Madeline but sometimes he just found it so hard to leave Gladys.
As it was he had an excuse to be in either country with his job and maybe he should just enjoy the opportunity that it gave him.
On one of his crossings he met up with a lovely old gel and she was having so much fun leading the fellas on, 'cause she knew she was safe, they were not getting their hands on her bit of money she had left after her life of crime. And as he listened to her he realised that he too could have it all and so he kept on leaning on the ships rail as the area of clear water once more grew between the countries and thought I shouldn't be doing this, after all I am the captain of this ferry and it doesn't do to let the crew see a small tear fall from his eye.