A Period of Adjustment (3 page)

Dottie came through on to the terrace with the coffee. The clatter and clash of the bamboo and bead curtain, whispers in the sweetness of the afternoon, swung gently behind her.

‘Arthur, move the things, the table is like a Harrods sale …'

We collected plates, stacked, clutched cutlery, rattled it into a neat pile.

‘Giles is staying on for the afternoon. So your nap will have to wait.'

Arthur poured the last of the wine into our glasses, said he was delighted, and that he only napped when he had nothing else to do and no one with which to do it. Giles
would be very useful to him. They could clean out the small aviary.

‘When will you collect him?'

‘About five? Is that all right?'

‘Perfect,' said Dottie. ‘And don't try to give me a hand with the washing up or I'll kill you. I know where everything goes and it goes where it lives, in my own time. I don't want to have to search drawers, long after you have gone away, to find a pickle-fork.'

I left shortly after, hazed in Frascati comfort, not in the least drunk, merely eased – braver, if you like – to meet Florence, which was my next stop.

Before I left I called up to Giles, scrabbling somewhere up among the roses by the bird-cages. He half ran down the hill towards me, apprehension in his urgency, but I stopped him with a hand and shouted that I'd collect him very soon, about five. He came down a little nearer to me, shading his eyes from the sun. His feet were bare; he carried a little bunch of green feathers in one hand.

‘Sure?' he said. Almost uncertainly. We went through this every time I left him anywhere. Even here, with Dottie and Arthur whom, I knew, he liked and trusted. Somewhere along the line in Parsons Green, when I had not been actually present, like abroad doing research, or merely up in the North for a few days doing Signings, someone had not been quite truthful, or perhaps just a little unreliable? Giles, I was discovering more and more, was terrified of being abandoned. Odd.

‘About five o'clock. Okay? I have to go and see your Aunt Florence about this morning. It might take a bit of time. But I'll be back.'

He brushed his forehead with the bunch of feathers. ‘Okay. But you will… ?'

‘I will. Promise.' I crossed my heart.

That seemed to satisfy him. He turned and ran, a loping
sprawl, back to whatever he had been doing, and I drove over to Bargemon and Florence.

Waiting for Florence on an upright cane chair, in the conservatory stuck on to the side of her mother's house, I realized, I suppose for the first time ever, that even though I had been a visitor to the place for some weeks, I had never got further into the house than here: the conservatory, stuffed with creeper, ferns, a small banana tree, a tank of goldfish and pots of lilies and scarlet geraniums. Very French. I had never seen a sitting-room, a dining-room … nowhere else but here. Apart from crossing the hall, with its heavy banisters, solid staircase, vase of pampas grass, Turkey carpet, I had no territorial knowledge of Florence or her life and habits. And she had always made it quite clear that I never would. Keep-Off-The-Grass was writ large. I had obeyed.

Presently she came in, tall, slender, neat, good legs and ankles, clear grey eyes, hair in a fringe, a white shirt, open at the throat, grey flannel skirt. She'd never be noticed in a crowd. Deliberately, it seemed. And she was rushed, as usual, and as usual was trying to button a cuff, one arm stretched out, fingers fiddling. An impression, very distinct, that she had just finished washing up, painting a wall, or kneading dough, that there had been some compelling action before my arrival, and that I was interrupting something rather more important that she had to do.

We had not seen each other since, the day before, she had pleaded with me in this very place to drop my search for her ‘husband', my brother, and save her and her family the ‘pain' and ‘distress' of his possible discovery somewhere. ‘He's dead. James sought oblivion. His wish. Honour
that,'
she had said, in so many words. She had long ago resigned herself to his disappearance, and had come to terms with spending a life caring for her disabled child and her domineering
mother. The typical only-daughter bit. The fact that Solomon Aronovich had promised to call me, when he had digested my threat that I would seek official help from the British Consul and the local police if he did not, had disturbed her greatly. I had refused her pleas to leave well alone.

So our meeting today was one of great concern to her, although this she was determined to hide. Fiddling with a shirt button was the only outward sign of confusion and apprehension.

‘I was busy in the kitchen with Celeste,' she said, finally fastening her sleeve. ‘So, what did Monsieur Aronovich have to say? Has he been quite amazing and finally discovered James? Is that it?'

We spoke together in French, easily and colloquially. My French was pretty slangy, her English good, but it always fussed her to use it. So we stuck to her formal French and my lightly accented efforts.

I pulled up a second cane chair, told her to sit down, that what I had to say was difficult and might be distressing. She obediently sat, a slightly mocking smile on her face trying to disguise the agony in her eyes. ‘Oh, la la! We are to be lectured, is it?' She folded her arms in her lap; her hands were shaking.

‘Florence. I found James. He was not in Tunis or Corsica or anywhere. He was in Cannes … he had been in Cannes ever since he left you in January.'

‘Was! Had! Past tense … so?'

‘James is dead.'

She flinched, shut her eyes, then looked briefly round the conservatory. Her fists were clenched on her lap, the knuckles white.

‘Go on. You are certain?'

‘I saw him.'

There was a longish pause. I could hear a pigeon cooing
somewhere up on the roof and someone clanged shut an iron gate in the street outside.

‘Will you tell me where? Am I not to know?'

‘In the Villa Mimosa, above Cannes.'

‘I don't know this place. Should I?'

‘It's a private clinic, Florence. He died from AIDS.'

For the first time she looked at me, her face white, bleak, expressionless.

‘Aronovich told you this? Where he was?'

‘Yes. He's been his guardian all the time. He got him into the place. He took me there this morning.'

She got up slowly, walked away from me, her arms swinging loosely, fingers splaying, as if she was at music practice. Then she stood quite still by a large pot of something, bowed her head, shook it from side to side so that her short hair flung wild, and began to weep helplessly. I made no move. I knew that to touch her would be disaster, her grief was not to be shared or comforted.

After a minute or two she stopped, wiped her face with both hands, brushed them on her skirt, then she turned and came back to the cane chair and sat down. ‘So. That is that. Poor James, poor boy. The ugliest of deaths for the most fastidious of creatures. Are you content now? You have your proof … I have always known,
always.
It is something every woman knows the moment the heart dies. Shrivels, withers, rots … I told you so often, I begged you not to search, you ignored me. I pleaded with you to let things alone, to accept the fact that he wished to just creep away, die like a beast in a dark corner, but you were cruel, unthinking! He was
my
husband … I knew …'

And I cut in swiftly and angrily. ‘He was
not
your “husband”, but he was
my
brother. He was merely your romanticized ideal of a husband – he was as much married to you legally as I am married to Celeste or Brigitte Bardot. It was all in your mind. All nonsense, Florence! I told you
yesterday afternoon, here in this very place, that I just couldn't let him fall off the edge of the world and not do something to find him. If I could have helped him I would. He is
my
flesh and blood: it counts in the end. He was only someone who took your virginity, someone you gave yourself to willingly because you had never loved anyone before, and had never expected to … James used you, as he used so many people, to amuse himself and give himself an illusion of security, ordinariness, normalcy. He desperately needed that, and therefore he needed you. But when his child was born he knew that he had lost. He lacked the true courage to overcome that, to handle it bravely, as you have done. Instead he took all the blame on himself and fled back to his disgusting little friends to seek punishment for his “sins”. God Almighty! He
got
his punishment!'

During this tirade, and I was bloody angry, I know, she sat motionless before me, head bowed, weeping silently. The tears just dribbled down her face and chin, there was no sob or gulp. Silent, ugly misery and suppressed pain splashing out helplessly. I knelt beside her and took a listless hand; it was wet with tears. ‘I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. You know it's true, and I know it's true, we have both been dreadfully hurt in our different ways, but I know that what I did was the right thing. I could never have given up. I had to find him and now that I have there is a terrible relief. He's gone, Florence. We know that now. For certain.'

She withdrew her hand from mine, wiped it across her ruined face, combed fingers wearily through her hair, blinked, brushed her eyes. Her nose was red.

‘What will we do now?'

‘A funeral. A cremation. Aronovich will cope with that.'

‘Will you help me? With Mama, the household, Celeste. What can we say?'

‘Say? That he died of pneumonia in Cannes. I traced him. We don't have to go into more than that. I'll have to notify
the British Consul, which shouldn't be very difficult, and the mayor of your village, or wherever he got his papers. His resident's permit, the bank … Aronovich will deal with anything else, apart from money, and I can deal with that.'

‘I don't have to go, do I? To a funeral…'

‘Of course not. I'll go … to the cremation. After that, well, we'll see.'

She got up slowly and walked over to the fish tank, dipping a trembling finger into the bubbling water. Everything she did, and said, was as if she was half asleep. The clock in the church tower in the square suddenly jangled with its tinny clang. It was four o'clock. She looked up, shook her head, folded her arms.

‘What will you do now? After? Go back to England?'

‘I don't know. I might. Might not. I really don't know.'

‘How long did he have it? This … How long did he have the virus?'

‘I have no idea. No one does. Maybe Aronovich? I think that sometimes it can be a long time, sometimes a short time. I really don't know.'

‘I wondered. I only wondered. About myself, really. I suppose there is a chance, isn't there? That I might carry the virus. Or Thomas? We might both be infected. It's possible?'

We stood looking at each other in complete silence. The oxygenator in the fish tank bubbled quietly.

‘It's possible,' I said. ‘I don't know.'

She picked a leaf, shredded it slowly, dropping little green scraps on the tile floor. ‘After Thomas was born, there was nothing. Of course. Nothing. We never touched. Never touched. But before …' She dropped the stalk of the leaf, shrugged her shoulders slightly. ‘Before, it was sometimes very fine. Sometimes. But it is, I suppose, just possible?'

‘I suppose. I'm going back to the Theobalds', I left Giles
there. And I have to go to the hotel to explain things to Madame Mazine. She was off duty when I arrived here.'

‘They know, at the hotel. The telephone call this morning evidently was news. She called my mama the moment you had left for Cannes. I knew too … anyway, something.'

‘Something,' I said. ‘Not everything.'

‘No. Not everything. Not that he was dead. From pneumonia …'

‘And that is all anyone has to know. Nothing else. That's how he died, and he did.'

‘Mama will not weep, I fear. There will be no tears shed.'

She opened the door into the dim hall, and we walked together to the front door. She had straightened now, was crisp once more. In control. As I stepped down on to the white gravel path she said, very quietly, ‘Thank you, William. Forgive me.'

I waved a dismissive hand, walked down to the gate. When I turned back the front door was closing. I wondered, as I set off for La Maison Blanche and Madame Mazine, if she knew that her mama had once tried to kill James? Tried to run him down in her car. Failed to, of course. She was a bad driver always. Florence didn't know about that little effort. Florence never would, either.

Madame Mazine turned the ledger on her desk so that it was facing towards me, pointed to the page headed MAY. It was filled. So were JUNE and JULY, and the bookings leaked into AUGUST. I pushed it gently back towards her.

‘You run a very successful hotel, Madame. And with reason.'

She nodded agreeably, closed the ledger. Giles was squirming uneasily beside me. I told him to go off to the lavatory by the bar.

‘So after the twenty-sixth I am roomless? And the boy?'

‘Hélas! Monsieur Forbin has your room every year, regular as the swallows, and the Doumer family always take your son's room. They are all walkers. I did warn you, Monsieur. I am desolate.'

So was I at that moment. Less than a week left of my booking, and far too much to do in the week. She was regarding me kindly. She knew the situation. I had told her my news from Cannes, and she was a close friend of Florence's mama, Sidonie Prideaux. So she would be filled in with every detail from that source. No, she said sadly, there was no other hotel near. A Novotel in Sainte-Brigitte, and perhaps I might find a room at La Source? Or … and
she rubbed her forehead with the palm of a hand as an idea drifted towards her. Or, if I was prepared to be not very comfortable and share with my son, perhaps I would like to look at the Pavilion in the garden? It was empty, apart from the hotel linen which was stacked there after ironing. No one used it unless the hotel was absolutely full. There were two beds, a shower. Would I care to look? I would, and we did.