Beyond the Green Hills (15 page)

It was smaller than her room in Belfast, but much lighter, the pale primrose walls catching the light even on cloudy days. The furniture had been carefully chosen to match its proportions, so the room actually appeared more spacious than her old one, encumbered with a tall wardrobe, heavy sideboard and bulky settee. At night, the lights reflected in the river were so colourful, she sometimes sat for a little in her dressing-gown, curtains undrawn, lamps unlit, watching the barges moving by with quiet urgency on the gleaming water.

She sighed and adjusted her chair so that her bare legs caught the warmth of the sun.

‘What I miss most is being able to have a quiet think,’ she said to the empty room. ‘Feast or famine, that’s the problem.’

Back in Belfast, she’d had all the time in the world to sit and think. Too much, in fact. Often, she’d been bored, just as often lonely. Now she scarcely had time to be bored and was hardly ever alone. Even when she travelled and would have liked simply to watch the passing countryside, or let her mind float through the piled-up clouds, she was sure to have documents to be read before she arrived.

What she found most difficult of all was arriving back with her mind full of Bordeaux, or Lyons, or
Marseilles, the sights and sounds of the city, the experience of working with new people, the words and expressions she’d learnt. She always had the greatest desire to sit still, even in the cramped office, with the banging and hammering of the builders moving closer all the time, but the next piece of work was waiting for her, or one more set of visitors arrived at reception. When the telephone rang on her desk, it was a real effort to get up and go out to greet them.

‘I’ve landed, Marie-Claude, but I’m not sure when I take off again. I’m going to have a bath to try to get my head shirred,’ she’d confessed to Marie-Claude on the phone, one evening.

So long ago now, on the beach at Deauville, speaking English because Marie-Claude had asked her to, she’d let slip the old expression.

‘Shirred? Please, what is “shirred”?’

‘Possibly it relates to the textile industry,’ she’d begun. ‘Fabric is drawn together so that it lies in parallel ridges. Or perhaps it relates to the sediment settling to leave a liquid clear,’ she continued, quite sure that Marie-Claude would want a proper explanation. Then she caught the look on Marie-Claude’s face.

‘Oh, Clare, you are so
sérieuse
,’
she said, bursting out laughing.

‘Yes, I am,’ she’d admitted, ruefully. ‘Sorry. Maybe it’s my Scots ancestors and their respect for the “word” and for book learning.’

Ever after, it became a part of their shared language, just as it had been a part of what she
shared with her grandfather.

She thought of him limping in of an evening, after a day of continuous comings and goings at the forge, longing for the comfort of silence and his pipe by the fire.

‘Ach, sure I need to get my head shirred,’ he’d say, as he pressed the tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with a well-practised thumb.

‘Four years ago this month,’ she said softly.

As vividly as if she were standing at the door of the house, she saw him walking down the lane to the forge on that lovely, frosty October morning, a bent figure in a flat cap and work-worn clothes. As the sun passed its zenith, she went on sitting, letting herself move round the dark kitchen, her own small bedroom, the ‘boys’ room’ with her table and books. She stepped out into the orchard, cycled down well-known lanes and visited places she’d not had the chance to think of for what seemed a very long time now.

Suddenly, she jumped up from her chair and shivered, the sun now long past its zenith. ‘Time to shower and dress,’ she said, and laughed at herself, aware how often still she spoke her thoughts out loud when there was no one around to hear.

As she pulled on her trousers, tucked in her shirt, she realised she was absolutely starving. She’d have to go shopping, but not until she’d looked at her post. She went to the cupboard, found a solitary tin of pâté and dipped gratefully into Madame’s carrier bag for more fresh bread.

Back in her chair, she sorted her post into little piles. Two cards and three letters in one and a bank statement, an electric bill and a charity appeal in the other.

‘Oh, Louise,’ she laughed, as she picked up one of the postcards and tried to translate the Italian below the picture. A very large man was ogling two slim, but well-endowed young women in bikinis. It reminded her of seaside postcards from her childhood. She couldn’t quite manage the Italian on the front, but scrawled on the back Louise had written, ‘Wish you were here,’ in English, and then, in French, the suggestion that they have a holiday together
without
‘le grand Monsieur’, Robert Lafarge’s nickname among the younger staff.

Clare laughed, so pleased at the thought of someone as lively and vivacious as Louise Pirelli wanting to holiday with her. Louise was the most striking woman she’d ever met. With wonderful blue-black hair, devastating dark eyes and a beautifully shaped figure, she turned heads wherever she went. At the bank, she was a constant trial to Madame Japolsky.

Madame had taken Clare to the office the two girls would share. A surprisingly small room, straight out of Dickens, a complete contrast to the Second Empire elegance of the rooms she’d seen so far. Louise was perched on a stool, swinging her shapely legs, her very high heels lying on the floor, her jacket draped over the back of a chair.

The tight-lipped expression on Madame Japolsky’s face made it perfectly clear that such a
relaxation in dress was not acceptable. Even out of sight in these back rooms, jackets and shoes were to be worn.

‘You were feeling unwell, Miss Pirelli?’ asked Madame Japolsky acidly, as she stared at the discarded jacket.

Clare tried not to smile, for Louise looked the very picture of health.

‘Oh yes, Madame. Suddenly, I felt so unwell,’ she replied, rolling her eyes and putting her hand to her stomach.

It was exactly the gesture poor Jessie made once the morning sickness got going. A look of horror crossed Madame’s face, till she realised she was being teased. She drew herself up to her full height and turned to Clare.

‘I will leave you with Miss Pirelli for the moment,’ she said, an icy edge to her voice. ‘She will show you the staff rest room and bathroom.’ She paused significantly. ‘I hope she will also explain the standards of personal presentation we expect from
all
our staff,’ she added, as she swept out of the room.

The moment she was gone, Louise burst out laughing, then held out both her hands to her.

‘She is impossible, n’est-ce-pas? But I will tell you how to keep on the right side of her and what to watch out for.’

In that first exhausting week, however, they hardly laid eyes on each other. Instead, Louise would leave little notes on Clare’s desk. ‘
Headache
tablets
and
cologne
in
my
drawer.
Please
use
,’
was decorated with a very sad pussycat. ‘
If
you
need
something
to
take hom
e
for
your
supper,
try
Ricardo
in
Rue
Scribe
,’
showed a very contented one.

Louise had been so delighted, too, when her own newest evening dress fitted Clare.

‘Don’t worry about dropping your champagne and canapé, chérie, Madame Japolsky will foot the cleaner’s bill,’ she said, as she helped her out of the dress and back into her costume. ‘Good luck with your Americans.’

Even when they were going off in different directions and had only five minutes in the staff cloakroom, Louise would tell her the best place for a quick lunch or the nearest place to buy stockings. When eventually they found themselves working together in their cramped office, they shared the funniest of the misprints, new words they’d never met before and their observations on the state of Madame Japolsky’s temper.

The other postcard told her that a costume and an evening dress were ready for fitting at her earliest convenience and that the autumn collection was now available should she wish to view it.

She turned to the letters. They were from home. She recognised the handwriting on all of them. She turned them over in her hand, remembering her very first Sunday evening alone in the apartment. After moving her chair to the window, she’d set up the dining table and written to her grandparents, Jessie and Harry and the Wileys. She’d also sent wee notes to all the people in her address book. Three months later, hardly any of them had replied.

It made her so sad that the people she’d shared
lectures and seminars with for four years simply couldn’t be bothered to write even a postcard. Only one girl out of the Honours year had responded. Mary McCausland thanked her for her congratulations, wished her luck and told her to make sure she got in touch when she came home to visit.

But there was one nice surprise. She’d never imagined Keith Harvey would make much of a letter writer, but he’d sat himself down regularly to tell her about his teaching job in Belfast and pass on news of mutual friends. She read quickly through his latest effort, as lively and amusing as the rest.

‘What do you do, Clare, when someone is being rude or unpleasant? Do you try to give an English equivalent? Or do you clean it up? I’ve just read
Zazie
dans
le
Metro
and greatly extended my vocabulary!’

There’d been nothing from Liskeyborough. Not a word from Uncle Jack or any of her cousins. Granny Hamilton could be excused, because of the state of her hands, but her dear brother might just have scribbled a word or two to tell her they were all well.

The next letter was Charlie Running’s. She smiled when she saw how thick it was. He’d done a lot to make up for her family’s silence. Although he seldom mentioned Robert, she knew he still missed him. What really surprised her was the enthusiasm with which he reported his historical researches.

His first letter had contained a vivid pictorial account of the deployment of troops at the Battle of
the Yellow Ford, together with sketch maps. In the next, he told her he’d discovered a row of trees had disappeared between a late eighteenth-century map and the 1835 Ordnance Survey. He was sure they’d been cut down in 1798, to make pikes for the United Irishmen. All he had to do was prove it.

‘Never forget,
Clare,
the
active
role
that
France
played
in
Ireland’s
struggle
for
freedom,’
she read, laughing wryly at his next comment.

‘
I
wonder
if
you’ve
had
time
yet
to
explore th
e
history
of
those,
like
Matilda
Wolfe
Tone,
who
had
to
remain
in
France
after the 1
798
rebellion
“
f
or
the
good
of
their
health
”.’

The last was a note from Harry, a single sheet, the back of an invoice, as always.

She sighed as she looked at the familiar invoice form and the Ulster stamps on the discarded envelopes. Was she homesick? Only a few days earlier, she’d
been asked the same question and it had taken her completely by surprise.

‘Mam’selle ’Amilton, Monsieur Lafarge wishes to see you immediately in his room.’

Totally absorbed in translating a document, she looked up, startled, into the coal-black eyes of Madame Japolsky. Her stomach lurched with apprehension, till she remembered Madame had been in a bad mood for days and everything she said had an ominous edge to it. There was nothing at all unusual in Robert Lafarge sending for her. He did it quite regularly and he was never anything other than courteous.

She hurried up the long staircases and tapped at his door.

‘Viens.’

To her surprise, he addressed her as Mam’selle Clare for the first time, a departure from his usual formality. He waved her to a corner by the window where two comfortable armchairs turned their high backs on the room and looked out over the Place de l’Opéra below.

‘You are preparing for our London visit, no doubt,’ he said easily. ‘I have a question to ask you. When the directors of this consortium came to us here some weeks ago, I observed that you watched one of them, Monsieur Langley, a great deal …’

He paused, as Clare looked slightly embarrassed.

‘I would appreciate it if you would give me your opinion of this gentleman.’

Clare took a deep breath, suddenly aware his question was not just a compliment but a responsibility.

‘He reminded me of … someone I once knew well, a young man with a similar background, what the English themselves call “the public school type”. I felt he was doing his best to be enthusiastic about a project in which he has no heart. He was making a considerable effort. He had done his work thoroughly in preparing his arguments and his figures. I’m sure he is very competent and perfectly trustworthy, but he has no feeling for the importation of fruit.’

Robert Lafarge nodded briefly and looked pleased. He then asked her for her opinion on the other members of the group of businessmen proposing to link a whole network of French and Italian co-operative producers directly with the English market.

‘Thank you, Mam’selle Clare, you have been most helpful. We may speak again of this matter in London after our next meetings.’