Beyond the Green Hills (13 page)

‘You like horses. Do you ride?’ he said abruptly, as if it were a matter of great importance.

‘Yes, I can ride, but my knowledge of horses comes more from observation. I lived with my grandfather, who was a blacksmith. Horses were his joy as well as his livelihood. And I also had a friend with a gift for drawing. She taught me to observe how painters tackle the difficulties, like a horse rearing up.’

To her surprise he came round to the front of his desk, leaned against it, and followed her gaze.

‘As in this picture?’

‘Yes. That one is very accurate. The painter must have spent a long time looking at the way this particular animal moves. Like Degas, when he watched the ballet dancers. He saw them as dancers, rather than as women. He watched how the muscles flex, the effect that has upon the skin …’

She stopped, aware she was getting enthusiastic. There was a sudden flicker of his eyes she could not place, but his next words made no reference at all to her comments.

‘So you lived in the countryside, mam’selle?’

‘In the countryside, yes. A small place, not even a village, near Armagh, in the North of Ireland.’

‘Such places are often very backward,’ he began thoughtfully. ‘Even those who are well educated can sometimes retain their conservative views. I think perhaps your country is not very forward looking,’ he said tactfully.

She smiled, thinking he was better informed and
much sharper than he chose to appear. She could guess how Ronnie would reply.

‘I have a friend who once taught me a French expression he thought described our country very accurately. He used to say, “Whatever the weather, they always pee behind the same tree.”’

The effect on the little bald man was extraordinary. He beamed and shook his head, said he knew the expression well, asked if her friend had been in Brittany.

She nodded, said a little about Andrew’s time in France, told him how upset his grandmother had been when his accent did not please her Parisian-tuned ears. As she spoke, she thought how totally extraordinary it was that she should be sitting here, in Paris, talking to some very senior official of a national bank about Andrew and The Missus. Since she’d made her vow not to think about him, she’d broken her rule time after time. Now she’d even referred to a piece of their private language, described him as a ‘friend’ to a complete stranger.

‘Tell me, Mam’selle ’Amilton, what do you know about money?’

For the first time since she’d come into the room, she was suddenly aware that this was supposed to be an interview for a job. She’d been so interested in the questions this little man had put to her, she’d not considered at all what her answers might be revealing or whether they were appropriate.

‘I know how to live on very little money,’ she began tentatively. ‘I know that money is power. That it is opportunity.’

She looked at him directly and saw he was watching her closely, listening carefully, as he had listened to all she’d said. She decided that he was rather a shy man, but a very shrewd one. There was no point whatever in being anything other than herself with him. She smiled suddenly and said what she’d been thinking all the time.

‘And I know, of course, that money is the root of all evil.’

He laughed. A small uneasy laugh, as if it was something he didn’t do very often. Then he composed himself again.

‘But, mam’selle, if you have to work in the world of money, how will you understand the language of bankers and of banking?’

‘New words and new ideas aren’t a problem if you have the structure of a language,’ she began. ‘It would be no different for me to learn the language of banking than to learn the language of any other activity. For example, when I worked in a picture gallery that also sold antiques, I learnt about faience, and ormolu, and repoussé work. They were all new to me, but there was a context which made it easy for me to understand.’ She glanced up at the chestnut mare and thought of Ginny. ‘Like when a friend taught me to ride. If I didn’t understand what she was telling me to do, I only had to ask her to explain.’

‘Eh bien,’ he said suddenly, as if he had made up
his mind.

He went back behind his desk, pulled out
a heavy drawer and took out a newspaper, which he handed
to her. It was the previous day’s copy of
The
Times.

‘I am quite certain your French will prove entirely adequate for the tasks we will ask of you, but I regret that I speak very little English. Would you be so kind as to read to me from this newspaper.’

Clare took the newspaper, refolded it to avoid the columns of deaths, and scanned the inside pages. Suddenly, a thought struck her and she smiled.

‘Mam’selle?’ he said, leaning forward to look at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, grinning broadly. ‘I was thinking of my professor. He used to say to me: “Clare, you must read. Read every day. Always read
Le
Monde.
If ever you want a situation in France, it will stand to you. Read
Le
Monde
!”’

She laughed easily. ‘When I write to Professor Lavalle I shall tell him he misled me. He is such a nice man, it will amuse him.’

‘Lavalle? I know that name. Henri? Yes, that’s it. Henri Lavalle?’

He looked across at her as if the Christian name was a matter of great significance.

She nodded. ‘Yes
.
He was kind enough to write the recommendation which I think you probably have on your desk.’

He rifled hastily through the papers which lay in front of him, found the letter, looked at the signature and smiled as he set it aside. He turned back to her, a trace of a smile still on his face.

‘I never read letters of recommendation. I prefer to make up my own mind, which I have already done, but it may amuse you to know that I went to school with Henri Lavalle, rather a long time ago in
Coutances. He was a nice man even then. In fact, he was such a nice man I wondered if he would ever survive in the world beyond our village. A professor, you say? In Belfast?’

She nodded, amazed by the coincidence. She felt a surge of delight that the man who had been so kind to her, who had taken such trouble to find her a French family when she needed a summer job, had somehow managed to retain his character, despite what other people regarded as his weaknesses.

‘You may tell him when you write that I asked you to read
The
Times
purely for the pleasure of hearing you speak English,’ he said, leaning comfortably back in his leather armchair.

‘Now, proceed, if you please,’ he said politely. ‘In ten minutes’ time, I shall send for my secretary and make you an offer which I hope you will find quite impossible to refuse.’

A
fter the cool spaciousness of Robert Lafarge’s room, the heat and brightness of midday came as a surprise to Clare as she made her way down the steps of the bank into the crowded square. All around her men in shirt sleeves and women in light blouses headed for the shade of the umbrellas or the heavy canopies that sheltered pavement cafés and restaurants.

Suddenly ravenous, she was tempted to cross the square and patronise the establishment immediately opposite the bank. But as she tucked her folder of papers more securely under her arm, she changed her mind. The obviously popular meeting place was already crowded. Besides, she knew she was far too excited to sit down.

She turned right and kept going, walking quickly till she felt the tension ease. Half a mile from the bank, she turned left suddenly, in search of the first possible place to eat. She was delighted by her luck. Shaded by its chestnut tree, Le Café Marronier was pleasant and much less crowded. She dropped down exhausted at the nearest empty table.

‘Mam’selle. What can I bring for you?’

‘Coffee, please,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘And a glass of
water,’ she added hastily. ‘I’d like something to eat. Do you have a menu?’

‘I am the menu today, mam’selle,’ he replied nonchalantly.

He rattled off a list of salads and filled baguettes that left her head reeling. She could understand him perfectly, but the effort of deciding what to have almost defeated her. When he disappeared and returned immediately with her coffee and a glass of iced water, she knew she’d agreed to a filled baguette, but what the filling was now completely escaped her.

‘Never mind. At least I don’t have to worry if I can afford it,’ she said to herself, as she searched in her handbag for a couple of Anadin. She swallowed them, drank most of the water and leaned back in her chair, remembering what Marie-Claude had said about breathing. The last hour had been so extraordinary, she’d probably been holding her breath for most of it.

Reading to Robert Lafarge had been easy enough, though he’d sat listening with his eyes shut for more like half an hour than the ten minutes he’d proposed. He’d
then sent for his secretary and asked her to draft a memo of the offer he was about to make, so that both he and Mam’selle ’Amilton would have the details to be inserted into the printed contract he hoped she would sign tomorrow. He began by offering her a salary that took her totally by surprise.

It sounded extraordinarily large. The problem was she couldn’t think in francs so she’d no real idea
what it actually amounted to. Whenever he paused to allow his secretary to catch up with the details he was dictating, she’d made hasty attempts to convert francs into pounds, but each time she got an answer that seemed quite ridiculous.

The second time the figure was mentioned, she’d glanced surreptitiously at his secretary. But she sat scribbling away as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. Could the exchange rate have altered dramatically since she’d been in Paris two years earlier? But she’d have noticed at the Ulster Bank when she’d collected her francs for the journey.

She sipped her coffee gratefully and took out her fountain pen. The paper napkins provided by Le Café Marronier were quite unsuited to the nib of her favourite or any other pen, but slowly she inscribed the figures in the absorbent paper and divided the French francs by what she thought the present exchange rate must be. She stared at the result unbelievingly and checked it once more. There was no getting round it, that was what it came to. For the moment, she really couldn’t believe it. Until Gerard checked it out this evening she would simply try to forget all about it.

She picked up her coffee cup and leaned back in her chair. Beyond the shade of the chestnut, the sun poured down on the cobbles, glancing off the worn façades of houses and shops. A woman in a blue dress strode vigorously along the pavement opposite. Long loaves of bread stuck out of a straw basket she carried in one hand, in the other, a bunch of flowers – white daisies and something blue –
wrapped in paper from a flower seller’s stand. She’d tied her mass of dark hair back with a spotted scarf, the soft fabric of her dress billowed as she walked, her bare legs brown, her leather sandals revealing carefully painted toenails. Clare watched her till she was out of sight, absorbed by her easy movement, her freedom to move through the warm air.

Among the exposed roots of the chestnut, the noise of the sparrows reached a sudden crescendo as they bathed in pools of dust, scuffling luxuriously, indifferent to the passage of mere humans. She moved her chair slightly to get a better view of the dusty bodies, cheeping and fluttering in outrage at some disruption among themselves. Quite suddenly, the crisis was resolved. A waiter shook a cloth nearby and they rose like a cloud, flew off at great speed, returning only seconds later to peck devotedly at the crumbs he’d provided.

She crumpled up the napkin that bore her calculations. Whatever her salary turned out to be, it was a salary. Slowly it
began to dawn on her. She was in Paris. She had a job. Now she too could walk down a street, buy food, or flowers. She’d have a place of her own somewhere in this city she so loved. For a moment, she felt as if some great insight was about to be revealed to her. But nothing happened.

Her baguette arrived and she bit gratefully into its well-filled length. Whether it was what she’d ordered or not, it tasted wonderful. Slices of ham and Brie, garnished with fresh watercress and sliced tomato were layered generously between crusty
morning-baked bread. She munched devotedly. She thought of making midday meals for herself and Robert, champ and stew, and herrings cooked in the oven, in a world where Brie and watercress were unknown, ham was a Christmas treat, tomatoes only affordable in a hot summer if all the locally grown ones ripened at the same time and produced a glut.

The sunlight filtering through the leaves of the chestnut cast dappled patterns on her plate, where only crumbs remained. She looked up into the spreading branches as she gathered them together with a damp finger and finished them off.

Under
the
spreading
chestnut
tree
the
village
smithy
stands.

Charlie was always keen on reciting Goldsmith. She could hear him now, the measured couplets resounding in his rich Ulster accent. He could quote huge tracts of poetry by heart, pouring out the lines and filling the shadowy room with the same passionate ring as his regular evening greeting,
Erin
go
Brach.

Well, the smithy was gone now. It didn’t even exist as a tumbled heap of stones, its door permanently open to the birds, the wind, the rain and the occasional curious passer-by. The world of her childhood had gone with it, not only because Robert had grown old and died, but because the life Robert had known had disappeared with him. Charlie was right. The days of the blacksmith were over. The car would soon entirely replace the pony and trap. The electric would come to the remotest hamlets and bring with it television and telephones.

‘Sure yer man ought to be in Parliament.’

She smiled to herself. Robert couldn’t stand it when Charlie got launched on the subject of social change and particularly when he rode his great hobby-horse, the backwardness of the Province. He’d listen all right, intrigued by how much Charlie seemed to know about such matters, impressed in spite of himself by the passionate rhetoric of his convictions. But, once Charlie had gone and Robert was taking his boots off, he’d make some dismissive remark. Not unkindly. Rather, it was more a deflection, an invitation for her to agree that Charlie was living in a world of his own, not really of much importance to ordinary folk like themselves.

But by her last years at school, she’d known Charlie was right. Later, she’d found herself grateful that Robert had gone before change had disrupted the world in which he had managed to live, relatively undisturbed, for all of his eighty years.

‘What now, Clare?’ she asked herself quietly, as she finished her coffee.

She had no doubt which world she belonged to. Whatever happiness she’d had in the world of her childhood was safe in the files of memory. The hardship, the effort and the loneliness of that now distant time were not forgotten. But she would not do what so many Irish emigrants had done in the past. Make a new life and never cease to long for what they’d left behind, because they chose to remember only rose-coloured pictures of the life they’d once had.

She thought of Ronnie, his dark eyes upon her, as
he sang ‘The Leaving of Liverpool’. He had been sad, disappointed, regretful, when he left, but once he’d gone, he had looked back with clear eyes and taken all that his new life offered him, a new life and new loves.

New loves? Well, no doubt in time there would be new loves. She felt sadness cloud the brightness of the day. Sometimes in the last weeks she simply could not stop herself thinking about Andrew. Often she dreamt about him. Once she dreamed they were making love and all was well between them. She’d woken up and felt desperately bleak and miserable as memory flowed back and told her they had parted. Parted in bitterness.

She’d confessed to Marie-Claude.

‘But, chérie, Andrew was such a big part of your life. You were friends as well as lovers. Five years is such a long time when you are young. You may always love him. Women often go on loving their first love all their lives. But that does not mean they should marry him.’

The more she heard, Marie-Claude declared, the more she was convinced Clare had done the only thing possible for her at that moment.

‘You must trust your judgement, chérie. It’s hard, but you must. Besides it’s only a few weeks since it all happened. Don’t struggle to chase away the memories. Let them come to you. The more you try to put him out of mind, the harder you will make it. When you have other thoughts to occupy you, it will be easier.’

Well, there were plenty of other thoughts to occupy
her now. She touched the folder, which contained copies of the printed contract and of the memo which Monsieur Lafarge’s secretary had typed up for her.

Sometimes in the weeks since she’d arrived in Paris, she’d felt like a little creature that comes out from under a stone and sits in the sun for the first time. She knew she could never live in that tight, airless world she saw every time she stepped over the Richardson threshold, not even for Andrew’s sake. She had to go, and now she had a job, she’d made good her escape. She was free to make a life of her own. She had dear friends to help her and the city she’d loved from the first minute she set foot in the Gare du Nord, three long years ago, an au pair on her way to an unknown family.

No, she would not look back. She would not confuse herself with regrets, with might-have-beens. Fortune had been kind. She would take all it offered with both hands and make of it the best she could.

Clare and Marie-Claude pored over her draft contract all afternoon. There were pages and pages of it. It went into minute detail about hours of work, additional payments for hours worked beyond regular office hours, hours worked during evenings, hours worked at weekends. There was even a clause about hours worked on national holidays.

‘Are you sure, chérie, you won’t mind being available so much of the time. It will make it difficult for you to have a social life.’

Marie-Claude was quite meticulous. She read every word of the huge document. When Clare admitted she couldn’t quite grasp the details of an elaborate scheme of additional holiday, in addition to payments for extra hours beyond a certain level on a weekly, monthly and bi-monthly basis, Marie-Claude read the relevant paragraphs over and over again till she was satisfied.

‘So, chérie, when you travel more than one hundred kilometres from Paris, or when travel to another country is involved, additional days’ holiday will be given in addition to the additional payments,’ she pronounced firmly.

Clare laughed. ‘That sounds like an awful lot of addition. I haven’t got over the basic salary yet, never mind all these extras.’

‘You must not be too excited, chérie, till Gerard has looked at these conditions,’ Marie-Claude said cautiously.

She looked so serious, Clare simply couldn’t manage to be sober and sensible over the contract any longer. She began to giggle and before long Marie-Claude was laughing too.

‘And what’s the news from the financial sector?’ asked Gerard, smiling, as he came into the sitting room and caught sight of the document awaiting his attention. He looked from one pair of bright eyes to the other and threw up his hands in despair.

‘Perhaps, if I were to be given a little aperitif, I might be able to make some small contribution,’ he said, lying back luxuriously in his favourite chair,
while Marie-Claude poured him a drink and Clare brought him the contract.

Clare watched, amused by his performance. Gerard was adept at creating an appearance of nonchalance, almost of indifference. He flicked through the sheaf of pages as if he were scanning the morning paper just to make sure it contained nothing of interest. The only thing that betrayed him were his eyes. When they were in contact with printed matter of any kind, there was a focus so intense Clare could imagine it creating a very high-pitched buzz.

‘Well then, Gerard. What do you think?’ Marie-Claude enquired earnestly.

‘I think “Bravo, Clare!”’ he said, raising his glass towards her and grinning at Marie-Claude. ‘They pay well, always have done, that’s how they get the best people, but this is just a little bit special. They do not always insist upon the immediate opening of an account and the provision of funds to do so by means of an advance on salary. I’ve heard of it, but it is not common. It would seem, too, that there is to be a lot of travel. They will expect you to be available, but they do compensate you rather well for the inconvenience. Your lovers will have to be patient, Clare, the bank comes first.’

‘Do you really think there will be much travel, Gerard?’ she asked quickly, unable to conceal the excitement bubbling up inside her.