A Period of Adjustment (6 page)

We walked back to the house slowly. ‘If you do stay on at Jericho, what about schooling? I mean proper schooling. Arthur can really only chat and explain grammar and so on. But he'll need maths, history and so on. Won't he?'

‘He will. But just for the present, while I'm sorting out
my life, and his too, might we go on as we are? With Arthur? Is it a fearful imposition? Do say!'

She raised her hand with a swift gesture. ‘Not at all! Not a bit, my dear Mr Caldicott. Look, I'm going to call you Will too. It's too silly banging on with formalities. Will, Arthur and I are childless, as you might have gathered. My fault, not his, alas. I can't carry a child. We've tried, God knows. So doing what we did, teaching, living with the young, advising, caring, even cherishing sometimes, did rather fill what might have been the dreadful emptiness of our lives. And even though we do love each other quite terribly, we both simply longed for children of our own. Isn't that silly?'

‘Not at all. And I forgot my child's birthday. Until he arrived here two weeks, or whatever, ago, I'd frankly almost forgotten him. I'd grown apart from my family. Perfectly contentedly. Just forgotten they existed. Almost. One can.'

‘And now? Any change of heart?' Her voice was quizzical, cautious.

‘Complete. Complete change of heart. I'm getting used to it fairly quickly. I actually find that I like my child very, very much indeed. How's that?'

‘That's simply excellent. He's a good fellow. Really very well brought up. He was not absolutely, shall I say, secure? Not secure, just at first … but I can feel that altering daily. Being taken into your confidence has had a very big effect on him.'

‘His mother was a bloody good mother. Brought the two of them up marvellously. Without much help from me, I fear. I was pretty useless. Never wanted them, frankly. I was only anxious to make Helen happy. Rather like buying a puppy at Christmas to please the children and to hell with the pee stains on the carpet. Know what I mean?'

We had reached the kitchen door, clattered through the bead and bamboo curtain. Dottie filled a jug with water,
stuck the roses in it, and then rummaged about for a ball of string and scissors, talking all the time.

‘Yes, know exactly what you mean. So fortunate for you two. So fruitful! Oh God! I'm sounding wistful. Sorry. Well, just look after him, he does rather look to you for, ummmm … ? Salvation is far too strong a word. Help will do.' She tied the roses in a bunch, stuck them back in the jug. ‘There you are, sweetness for the smelly room. Yes, take care of him. A responsibility, but very worth while. We'll do what we can for him. Until you decide to make proper arrangements. Don't think that it's an imposition. It's a joy. Honestly.'

‘Thank you. I think that his mother finds him surly. And I think he probably was, and I know the reason now. He found that there were rather a lot of strange new “uncles” floating around. He didn't mind terribly at first until he discovered that they sometimes occupied my side of the bed when I was away. You understand me?'

Dottie put the scissors on a hook by the stone sink. She cleared her throat and simply said, ‘Perfectly. That'll take a lot of forgiving.'

‘I'm rather afraid it will. For both of us.'

‘Perhaps Jericho will be a terrific healer? You know? A complete change-around. A new life. One doesn't often get a second try at life, does one?'

‘One doesn't. No. Point well taken. As soon as Helen deigns to telephone, and I get the next hurdle, “Who Has Giles, You Or Me”, out of the way, I'll move over to the house and just sit it out, with or without a telephone. We'll go over to Jericho now, poke about, see what's happening to the garden. I've not had any time since the sad discovery of my little brother. And now that is all put behind me I can worry about, well, invasive mint and seeding poppies.'

As we drove over to Jericho through the lanes in the late
afternoon, the air was sweet, the sunlight glinted and flashed on the new green of the vines, and threw deep purple shadows across the red earth ploughed and cleaned of the old winter weeds. Giles was leaning out of the window, his hair ruffling in the breeze. He was singing something under his breath.

I said, ‘Look. I'm sorry about not remembering your birthday. Didn't even know you had one so soon.'

‘It's all right. I don't mind. You know now. I'll be ten. Wow!'

‘I know now. What about a birthday supper? A special event for being ten?'

‘With wine?' He was instantly interested.

I nodded. ‘With a modest amount of watered wine. Yes.'

‘But who would come? We don't know anyone.'

‘Dottie and Arthur? Why not? Madame Prideaux and Florence. What about that?'

He considered the list for a minute, squashing a bright green insect on the windscreen with his index finger. ‘All right. They are all a bit old, but all right.'

‘I can ask them. Eugène would cook anything you really longed to have to eat, providing it's in season. How about that?'

He nodded, folded his arms across his chest, leant back in his seat. ‘Supposing Mum is still here. At Valbonne? She might remember it's my birthday. She always did. What then?'

‘Yes, indeed. What then. We might, of course, be asked over to Valbonne, to Eric Thingamigig's house. I gather he's got a fab pool … so she said.'

There was a long silence. I did not break it, just let what I had said sink in. His voice was anxious. ‘Do you think they'll still be here? In a month's time? Where is Valbonne?'

‘I don't know. Not very far. It's a sort of smart village. Full of foreigners. He has the place there. “Villa Dafydd”.
Very typical. When, if, she telephones, I'll find out all their plans.'

‘But you won't say about my birthday, will you?'

‘No. I won't say. If you don't want me to, I won't.'

‘Because if she asked me to go, I wouldn't. So don't say. Please?'

‘Fine. But any reason? Why wouldn't you go? A fab swimming-pool?'

‘I don't like Eric Rhys-Evans. I don't want to go to his house.'

‘Reason. You haven't said why. If I'm to make your excuses, if it should happen, I have to have a reason in my mind. Something. Not just because you don't like him.'

I had to slow down, turn right at the sign for Saint-Basile. 3 km.

‘At home, when he came to stay, he took the key from the bathroom door so you couldn't lock it.'

‘What on earth for?'

‘Well, he said what if I was ill or something, they couldn't get in to help me. If I had a fit or something.'

‘A fit! You?'

‘He said. Sometimes he came in. When I was in the bath. He came in …' He was scratching his arm, looking away from me so that I could hardly hear him.

‘Well? So what? Perhaps he wanted something, shampoo or something.' It was a pretty lame remark.

Giles knew it too. He barked a kind of laugh and then looked directly ahead, avoiding me. Suddenly he said, ‘He was staring at me. Quite cross. He said, “What are you hiding there?” '

‘Hiding? Were you hiding something? Come on, what?'

‘No. My facecloth. I put it over … over me, when he came in. Then he said, “You are being deceitful! Stand up at once!” He was really cross. So I did. And he made me
drop the cloth in the water. And made me stand there …' Suddenly he wiped his mouth with a fist.

My heart had started racing. Keeping a very level voice I heard myself say, ‘And then what? What then, Giles?'

‘He … touched me.'

‘Shoulders, head, where?'

‘There. He touched me there. You know …' He was still looking straight ahead.

A goat suddenly pushed through the hedge, skittered about, I swerved, it pushed back again in a scatter of leaves. I slowed down.

‘And? Anything else?' I was still calm, quiet.

‘He said, “What a lucky little boy.” I don't know why.'

‘And did he go?'

‘Yes. He went away then. I cried a bit. A little bit. I don't know why. So I only had a bath after that when he wasn't staying. Not if he was there, and Mum got furious sometimes. But I never said.'

‘I'm glad that you said it to me. Thanks. I don't know why he did that. Perhaps he was just being … I really don't know … funny, jokey? What about that?'

‘He was cross! His face was red. He squeezed me there hard. I hate him. You are my best friend, you don't mind I said that?'

‘I'm very glad you did. I'm honoured to be your best friend. Thank you.'

‘So you won't tell, will you? I mean you are. My very best friend. Of course you are the
oldest
best friend I've ever had, but you don't mind, do you?'

‘Not in the very least. Thanks.'

But my blood was raging. Ahead another sign board. Saint-Basile 2 km.

We turned right with a screech of tyres. I was taking the corner too fast, but I knew that if I ever set eyes on Eric Rhys-Evans I'd end up in the Old Bailey. Guilty.

The next morning I got up well before Giles, as I usually did in the Pavilion, and washed and shaved while he lay as if for dead. There was not enough room for the pair of us to move about with soap and razor or socks and shirts. So I got myself ready first and, knotting my tie, called him to wake up.

‘I
am
awake. I've been awake for hours.'

‘Why didn't you get up?'

‘Nothing to do. What would I do?' He clambered slowly out of bed and shook his head. ‘It's a really mouldy room this, and the lav's miles away.'

‘I'm going down to breakfast. Don't take all day, I want to get over to Jericho early and I've got to dump you at the Theobalds before. Clean your teeth. Remember?'

In the trellis-and-rose-papered dining-room only Monsieur Forbin, the walker who had moved me out of my room, and I were present. He was pouring coffee, reading
Var Matin
propped against a pot of white daisies. We nodded across at each other. He set down his coffee pot, poured milk. He was about seventy, in stout walking-boots and flapping khaki shorts. Eugène came swiftly through the swing door from the kitchen with a small foil-wrapped
packet and a half-bottle of Evian which he set on Monsieur Forbin's table, then brought me my coffee and a dish of hot croissants covered with a little cloth.

‘The boy will come?' He hardly awaited my word of agreement, hurried away with a rustle of white apron through the click-clacking door.

A small dog careered suddenly into the room followed by two thin women with short grey hair and knitted cardigans. They were laughing quietly about something, took their places at a corner table with a scraping of chairs. One of them called the dog away from Monsieur Forbin's side, where it sat expectantly. He ignored it entirely.

‘Dollie! Dollie! Viens!'

Eugène came in again with a tray of fruit juice in a jug for them. The conversation was animated, the dog sniffed about at Eugène's feet, with a little hiss he lightly kicked it. Then Giles wandered in, his curly hair now seal-sleek with water, his tie squint and the top button of his shirt undone. He thudded into the chair, slumped opposite me as Eugène swiftly came to the table, said good morning and would the young man like fruit juice or, perhaps, some tinned grapefruit. Iced?

Breakfast was eventually ordered. I told Giles to do up the button at his neck. The dining-room began to fill with a murmuring of new residents. The season had commenced with vigour. Giles watched everyone with intense interest, dropping crumbs and swinging his legs.

‘Don't swing your legs at table. You're shaking everything.'

‘I only do it when I'm thinking. I'm trying to understand what they all say. They talk so fast. Will you get me some more toothpaste today? If I have to clean my teeth
all
the time I use it up quickly. And this is my last clean shirt. Remember?'

Eugène came hurrying through the kitchen door with a
tray of metal coffee pots. He called across to me, ‘M'sieur! Telephone! In the cabin.'

Giles looked up at me quickly. ‘Mum? Maybe Mum?'

‘It could be. You wait here.'

Madame Mazine nodded good morning, indicated the cabin with a bob of her head, switched something on the board in front of her.

‘Attendez, Madame. Il arrive!'

In the quilted cabin, rioting with parrots in faded chintz, Helen sounded near, bright and quite unapologetic.

‘Didn't
I give you the number here? At the airport? Oh silly me! We only got in a couple of days ago. Just flaked out. God! It's a brutal job, but huge fun really. Are you both well?'

I filled her in with the barest detail. All that she really had to know and nothing more. She was kind, sorry about James (whom she had never met), and glad that eventually he'd been discovered, even though it was what she called a ‘sad discovery'. I agreed.

‘Well, anyway, William, now you know. I was beginning to think he'd just evaporated or something. Really! Pneumonia. People don't die of pneumonia now. They give them shots and things.'

I explained (avoiding all the true facts) that James had let things go too far, had been very run down and had become a recluse.

She sighed. ‘Oh, God. I suppose because of the child? The Down's Syndrome business? Some people
can't
come to terms with that. You haven't asked about Annie, your
own
child, if I might remind you? She is very well, thank you. Mummy is buying her a pony! Quite mad. Now then, when can we meet? It's been absolutely ages. We must have a chin-wag. Lots to talk over. The house for one.
Me
for another. So when?'

‘And where? I'm free, utterly free. Giles is at his tutor, I
can be with you when and where you like. Do you want to come over here?'

I knew she'd rather die.