A Period of Adjustment (35 page)

Howard M. Buffer was tall, youngish, prematurely balding, with a paisley bow-tie, rimless glasses and a wide expanse of cosmetic teeth. ‘We have everyone here, it is
truly
international. Truly! We have American, Italian, Korean, German, English, Japanese, some French even, and quite a few Hispanics. It is a full, all-round education in basics. French is compulsory in class. You can all speak what you like out of class. And here is Ma'm'selle Nadine Goldbaum, who will take care of you. Nadine, this is Giles Caldicott, he's English and is joining us in September.
We
all had our vacations in June. Now we all prepare for the
rentrée
– four weeks to go!'

One evening I saw Mon-Ami and Clotilde far down by the pigeonnier with a pocket measuring-tape. There was a certain amount of striding about, pointing, head-shaking, head-nodding. She had a small pad and pencil and scribbled things down. Something was afoot. Someone had made a suggestion. I kept my distance, and when they had collected themselves, and their modes of transport together, they shouted up to say ‘
Ciao!
', both smiling. Mon-Ami even waved, put on his helmet and clumped off to his bike. Clotilde pushed hers out into the track. They called affectionately to each other, he turned to the right, she to the left as was usual, except, and this did surprise me, she had not replaced the bit of lace in her bodice. Or removed the rose at her ear. Or, as far as I knew, her lipstick. Defiance?

I went up to the terrace as the sounds of their bikes faded and Giles came out of the house holding a bulging plastic bag.

‘Greengages. From Clotilde, or perhaps from him? They are from our tree. Did you know we had a Reine Claude tree? That's the French name. Did you?'

I said I didn't and suddenly, just as I sat down, he leant across and kissed my cheek. I looked, I suppose, as surprised as I felt.

‘And the other one. You have to have two, Dad.'

‘Two what?'

‘Kisses. From Clotilde. She said to give them to you and say, “Merci trés, trés bien!” I don't know what for. Do you?' I accepted the second kiss. He was smiling uneasily. ‘Is it something you gave her? A present or something?'

‘Something like that. I am glad she's pleased. Thank you, Giles.'

So, something might be coming together from my ‘disgraceful bribe'. It was just about time that the effects were due to be made apparent. I wondered when I might hear the magic word ‘Tahiti', but kept perfectly calm and let the days slip into each other seamlessly until August was almost used up. Very gradually it became a habit (intensely pleasurable for me) that Florence would come over to Jericho and, as she said, ‘take advantage of the calm and the air, away from the heat'. She brought Thomas, Céleste and, occasionally, Annette. They carried a ‘pique-nique' with them, at her insistence. She wanted no ‘favours', and they usually went over to sit in the shade of the giant cedar in the château ruins and spread themselves out. I saw, but never intruded. Sometimes I heard Thomas yelling, a voice calling, sounds of admonishment. Florence wasn't starting work with the vétérinaire in Sainte-Brigitte until September, so she was here often, on account of having to drive them. I was
extremely happy about that. Giles was irritated because I made him keep away.

‘I can't see why, Will. It's a bit boring all by myself now. I'm very good with Thomas, he likes me. I could take him some of the biscuits. Masses of them. Ginger?'

‘Stay where you are. If they want you they'll come for you. Don't push yourself, leave them in peace and if you are bored, go and have a swim in your pond . . . cool off.'

He mumbled and waved his arms about. ‘I already have … so did Mon-Ami. Only he couldn't. It's too small. He just sat. He looked very funny, he's really big.' Then he turned quickly, arms akimbo, listening, a finger held high: ‘A car! I heard a car, Dad . . . Someone's here.'

Madame Prideaux pushed the iron gate and began to walk up the path towards us. Giles went down, slowly, to welcome her. She took his hand lightly and they came up together. She wore a long flowing flowered dress, a wide straw hat with a frayed brim, white ankle socks and crisscross, leather sandals. In the crook of her arm swung a battered raffia bag.

As I stood, and as she drew near, she waved to me that I should not move. ‘Ne bouge pas! Don't move at all, it is far too hot. I have come to see my family. They are in the château grounds I imagine? Their car is here.' I pulled a chair into the shade. ‘I detest August. I have a blinding headache. There is no air to breathe. Giles? Why do you not go to see your cousin, Thomas, hein?'

Giles looked at me resentfully but hopefully. ‘Dad said I must not push myself. He said . . .'

Sidonie Prideaux removed her large hat and some pins, smiled approvingly, ‘Quite right. But I say this time that you
may.
So go along, I want to speak to your papa.' Giles sprang away to get biscuits and she put her hat, hat pins and bag on the floor beside her. ‘This frock which I wear is
unusual you will think? I wear it only in extreme heat. It was made for me in Algiers many years ago. There was a “little woman”, you know? It is formal, of course, to wear on ceremonial occasions with the Colonel. I spoke to you about the Colonel? My husband? Murdered . . .'

‘You did, Madame.'

‘He so liked this frock. It was most suitable.'

‘It is very becoming.'

‘It was useful. You will never tell Florence? About her papa? It was a confidence between us.'

‘I understand. I'll never speak of it. I promise.'

She smoothed the flowered voile over her knees, shook her head sadly.

‘Too good to waste, so I wear it here. I am still too hot.' Giles slithered across the terrace, a tin of biscuits in his hand and raced down to the gate. ‘The energy! I so hate being my age. Now . . .' She eased herself in the chair, plucking at the ridge of steel which was her corset, poking through the thin floral voile. ‘I am alerted, by my notaire, Monsieur Duvernoise, that a sum of money has been paid into my bank. I imagine that you know what that is?' I nodded. ‘And I have the receipt from a jeweller in Cannes. Thank you. I am always amazed how much people value these vulgar trinkets. A gold watch! So much! Boff! … It is disgraceful.'

‘It had a jewel for each quarter. A ruby, a sapphire, an emerald and a diamond to mark mid-day. It was rare. Especially commissioned.'

‘I prefer not to know. But I am not proud. I accept the money for Thomas.'

‘Not a great amount, Madame. The best I could do.'

‘I am grateful.' She looked up into the heavy canopy of the vine above. ‘I am sorry about the de Terrehaute affair, he seemed a pleasant boy and she was, I imagine, quite charming. Ah well. . .'

From far across the garden, behind the motionless fig trees, a clatter of laughter, a voice calling, Giles shouting, Tow! Pow! Pow!'

Madame Prideaux picked up her hat and the raffia bag. ‘To hear laughter again at Jericho is very pleasant. Florence likes to be here, after all.'

‘To my astonishment and pleasure.'

‘She would not even come over to check the fabric of the house after a mistral. The place filled her with dread. Astonishing indeed.'

‘She laughs now, you know?'

She got to her feet, set the hat on her head, moved to the steps. ‘I know. I am aware of it. Thank you, Monsieur. Ah look! Above! The swallows are very high. A change in the weather, we shall have a great storm, a wind is coming, it is so still. No air, the sky is like copper.' She skewered the pins into her hat, patted her hips, the bag swinging from her wrist. ‘Ah! I almost forgot this: most important. I grow older and sillier.' She fished in the raffia bag, brought out a sealed envelope, handed it to me. ‘From Duvernoise. We have discussed the situation, Florence and I, and he has been most helpful. A good man. You and I do
not
discuss anything, you must do that with him at his convenience. My husband trusted the firm implicitly … I hope that you will also and we never speak of Oran? Good day.' She turned and started down the path to the gate. As she pushed it open she called up sharply. ‘This needs oiling.' Then she closed herself out and was lost behind the wall of the pigeonnier.

I went into the shadow cool of the Long Room, ripped open the envelope. Jericho could be mine in permanence if I wished, no rentals. At a reasonable price. Monsieur Fabrice Duvernoise, Notaire, was ‘at your disposal when convenient'.

In the kitchen Clotilde was singing, shutting drawers,
closing cupboards. ‘Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise . . . birds in the trees . . .' I went out on to the terrace. The vine above was heavy, motionless, in the heat. ‘Can it be true, someone like you could love me . . .'

I sat down on the top step, the letter in my hand. Folded it, refolded it, tapped it on my knee.
Monsieur le Propriétaire.
I said it aloud, just to try it. It sounded good.

My relationship with Madame Prideaux had always been as crisp and fragile as a brandy snap, but it had held. In some odd, and unexpected, way we had come to terms with each other. I liked her, and obviously it had shown. She trusted me and I had made it clear that she could. The story of Oran and her husband's brutal death was proof. My behaviour towards Florence, her adored only child (now that Raymond was dead), my ease with Thomas, the determined changes I had made to Jericho, the behaviour of my son, Giles, my tact about mudguards and the full awareness that I
knew
what she had set out to do, and why, all these things had added up to this unexpected gesture: the offer to sell me her house and land, the admission that she was desperate to have the money. She had delivered herself into my hands. She was concerned not with
her
inheritance, not with her ‘land', but with securing some kind of future for Florence and her unhappy child. It was fortunate that, through Helen, I had become aware, and sympathetic to, that overwhelming oddity in women, the arbitrary, unexpected, often wild, mood swings. They all seemed to manage it with ease. Florence, Lulu at our last meeting, Dottie herself even and, without any question at all, Madame Prideaux. Guarded, hostile, cold at first, changing to become a close accomplice in conspiracy, almost with a shadow of respect? At least I chose to see it that way. Selling one's land to a stranger
and
a ‘foreigner' was, for a Frenchwoman, a devastatingly extreme gesture. She had made it today. I
would accept willingly. My whole future and Giles's lay shimmering ahead in the blazing sun. In four rather bewildering months my entire life had altered for ever.

Florence suddenly appeared down at the gate, came slowly up the path, walking cautiously barefoot. She offered me a battered biscuit tin (a bit of junk from Simla Road) with one hand, an empty Evian bottle with the other. ‘Biscuits! Almost finished. Now he'll be sick . . . Then Giles was showing us all how fast he was with a gun, being Clint Eastwood and upsetting the last of our Evian water. Pow! Pow! Pow!' She sat beside me, leant against the trellis. ‘We are all parched! Can you give me another bottle?' She was smiling, her hair sticking to her brow with the fine beaded sweat from her walk.

I got a fresh bottle, took, and rattled, the biscuit tin. ‘Two left? Three? Goodness! This water isn't chilled. It's cool enough in the room though.'

She reached up and took the plastic container. ‘I am sorry, William. I didn't say it to you before. It is perfectly appalling about Louise de Terrehaute. It is the cruellest, cruellest thing . . .'

‘Yes. Cruellest. At least it was instantaneous as far as we know . . .'

She nodded slowly, moving bare feet in the heat of the sun, arching her back against the trellis. ‘I hear that someone has already been to the villa, clearing it. It's going to be on the market, they say in the village. So, that is that . . .' She stood up slowly, pushed the hair from her brow. ‘I'll take this over. They are so thirsty. You have a letter from Mama, it is so? She didn't forget? Perhaps you will think it over?'

‘No. I have it. Thought it over. Tell her yes. Absolutely yes. I will speak to her notaire tomorrow. Will you, also, say thank you? I understand what it means to her.'

For a moment she stood quite still, then looked slowly
around her, down to the gate, back to the house, across to the still, brooding cluster of the fig trees. ‘How strange it is,' she said quietly. ‘Another Caldicott at Jericho! I will tell her.'

‘You are not cross? Sad? You don't mind . . . Florence?'

She shook her head slowly. ‘Not cross, why? Not sad? What for? If you will be happy here . . .' She shrugged.

‘I will … I will. I am overwhelmed, rather.'

She smiled a very little smile and turned down to the path. Enigmatic, calm, but certainly more familiar than she had ever been before. Another example of her change of mood? But this, I reckoned, had been almost entirely due to the news from Marseilles. The intense relief from desperate stress, apprehension and fear. I took the biscuit box down to the kitchen.

Clotilde was washing the floor, a final swing with her mop. ‘Mon Dieu! It is hot, there will be a storm. It is
too
still! I hate it when it is still like this, and it is getting so dark. No air, nothing moves, even the birds don't fly. You see . . .' She wrung out her cloth in the sink, spread it out to dry, started to untie her apron. ‘Gilles has said thank you, eh, Monsieur? My papa was very . . . pleasant . . . very shy! He said that he would go to Saint-Basile, soon, to speak with the papa of mon ami.' She hung her apron on a hook behind the door. ‘Now
that,
that, Monsieur, is like the tiger walking with the lamb! You are a writer! You have a way with words! It is magic.
Truly
magic' She leant out of the window over the sink and called out to Mon-Ami, who was carrying a pile of cut grass and garden rubbish on a pitchfork. ‘No more! It is time to finish. There is some cold beer here.' She had deliberately turned away from me to avoid, out of shyness, any further comment on the ‘tiger and the lamb' situation. She had, in her few words, thanked me fully, and that was accepted. We discussed, instead, what she had left us for supper and then I got a list of things I
had to buy the next day when I went into the market. I left her singing again, and laying up our evening tray.