A Period of Adjustment (36 page)

In the Long Room I re-read my letter, almost in disbelief. The first letter I got from my publisher accepting my third attempt at a book had had exactly the same effect. One of amazed, but doubting, joy. I had to return to read it constantly just for reassurance that it really was true, and that I had not made some grave error, or that perhaps there was some dreadful hidden clause tucked away in the sparsely encouraging prose. But all was well. It was a clear and simple statement. Jericho was mine. If I wanted it.

I looked up, probably with an inane smile on my face, and saw Florence coming back up the path. Behind her, down at the gate, Giles and Madame. Prideaux, with the straining figure of Thomas in his reins, were crossing the garden.

‘Come on! Come on! You can, you can!' Giles's voice was light with encouragement and laughter.

Florence put the half-empty bottle of water on the tin table. ‘We are leaving. It's late, and Mama fears that we shall have a terrible mistral. It's so still, do you notice, oppressive? Annette is stealing from the de Terrehaute land. Can you believe it! Marjoram! There is a big patch there. She can easily buy it in the market for a couple of sous, but it is more attractive to steal it from the field! The peasant mind . . .' She stooped and started to ease into her old espadrilles which she had stuck under her arm. ‘I must go and help Céleste, she's struggling with all the pique-nique things. Annette is so stubborn.'

‘I only hope that if this, shall we call it “transaction”, between your mama and myself goes through, there will be enough cash for you to afford
another
Céleste. That's the idea, isn't it?'

She smiled, fixed an ear-ring which had fallen. ‘Correct. A Céleste for the
night!
It is a night-time job often. That is
difficult.' Céleste passed the open gate carrying a couple of plastic sacks. Florence waved down to her and shouted that she was coming to help. ‘I must go. She is a saint but not a very young saint. I'll have to call for Annette too, silly woman. What a funny day, William! Do you feel strange when you think that you never knew that this house existed until a few months ago? There was no Jericho! No de Terrehaute! No Teeobalds even!'

‘No Giles
even!
And no Florence …'

She looked at me steadily, the smile fading, her eyes kind, ‘Ah yes! There was always a Giles and a Florence. It is just that you didn't know . . . But this is an old, old house, it has seen many, many hundreds of people. We are only fragments, shadows, in its existence. It will outlast us all . . . the Prideaux and the Caldicotts! Voilà!'

‘And all the others since – when? Sixteen-whatever. Since the first cornerstone was set into this hillside. All the children who were born here, the people who have died, whole generations long before us. And it'll go on, Jericho, sheltering new generations. We only rest here for a little time, then others move in. Maybe Giles? I hope . . .'

Down at the gate stood Annette, laughing. She called up waving a fat bunch of green leaves, under her other arm a bundled travelling rug and a paper parasol. ‘Voilà, Madame Florence! C'est tout fini.' Hurried to Céleste and the car.

‘A new dynasty, do you think that?' Florence was still smiling.

‘I think of that. Yes. Sure. I think of that, starting again, then I think of all the ghosts that there must be watching us -'

Swiftly, suddenly, she placed her hand over my mouth, shaking her head. ‘No ghosts, William! No ghosts. I see no ghosts.'

Leaning towards me she kissed my cheek at the exact moment that Clotilde's voice cut into the still heat of the
darkening afternoon, high, harsh with terror. ‘M'sieur! M'sieur! At the
back!
Vite! Venez vite! Vite!'

Florence froze, arms half raised. I turned and raced to the back of the house, up towards the rearing cliffs and the red earth path. Running towards me, hair flying, arms waving frantically, face flour-white, Giles, mouthing silently, agonizingly. He saw me, screamed, ‘
Don't
look!
Don't
look! He fell –
he fell in!'
Then he crashed into my side, burying his face into my body, burrowing, clutching. I thrust out my arm to stop Florence as Mon-Ami came down towards us, in his arms the swinging sodden body of Thomas, arms and head bouncing, jigging, water dripping, mouth agape.

Florence screamed, ‘No! No! No!', broke my hold, tearing towards Mon-Ami as he slowly lowered his burden to the grass.

‘C'est trop tard,' he said. ‘Trop tard.'

Florence was on her knees grabbing, pulling, cradling the wobbling head with its sagging mouth, water-spiked hair. ‘No! No!
Thomas?

Behind me somewhere the gull-cries and mewing of the terrified women. Crushed against my side the shuddering body of my son. Standing far up, by the cane-break, hair tumbled in a frayed silver rope, her skirt muddied at the knees, the tangled harness bunched in one hand, Sidonie Prideaux. For a shocked instant we looked across the terrible tableau of grief between us. She dropped the leather reins loosely, and with an almost obscene gesture of benediction, raised her empty hands towards me. Smiling gently, head high, eyes wide, fingers spread.

No one had fallen.

Dirk Bogarde
10.5.93
28.12.93

For
FANNY BLAKE

With my love
and admiration

This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London
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Copyright © Motley Films Ltd, 1994
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ISBN: 9781448206858
eISBN: 9781448206780
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