Brief Lives (12 page)

I came to accept all this because Owen struck me as phenomenal and always had. If it was his desire to live as he did, it was no desire of mine to prevent him from doing so. I could not understand him, and so, to a certain extent, I felt lonely even in his company, but that was because after all those years he was still a stranger to me. But I was getting stronger. Exceptional circumstances, I knew, would somehow bring us together, and that beautiful summer, when we drank an early cup of tea sitting at the small table near our bedroom window, entranced us to such an extent that when it was time to begin the serious business of getting ready for the day we would look at each other and smile like children, for pleasure. I like to remember that. Sometimes in the evenings we would be drawn to the same window to watch the sky turn a light green and the first star appear. It seemed never to be dark. When we went to bed we slept, again like children.

Those summer days, smelling of fruit, were very kind to me, and I think I was as happy as I had ever been. I wore a cotton dress and sandals all day, ate a bit of bread and cheese for my lunch, and walked about in what I considered to be my private time, that fierce hour between two and three in the afternoon, when the sun was at its hottest, when the sounds of cars died away into the distance, and when men in shirt sleeves left pubs looking stupefied and happy, as if they were on holiday. Everyone seemed to be experiencing pleasure. My own pleasures were simple; I was a quiet person who needed few distractions. It was enough to wander the streets, knowing that nobody could find me. I felt an odd freedom, began to see that some of my obligations were self-imposed and could be taken less seriously.
The cup of coffee I made myself when I got back home marked the end of that particular interlude and the beginning of the time when I was simply an adjunct to somebody else, Vinnie, Owen. But it was a good time. When Owen came home we ate early. We ate cold veal with a tunny sauce and strawberry tart. Owen was with me for quite a long spell that summer. Most people were away. We almost never went away because with Owen’s schedule the only place where he could have a rest was Gertrude Street. Even during those rest periods he was always making telephone calls, then kissing me briefly, saying, ‘Don’t wait up,’ and going off to meet someone. I got used to it. Most women married to ambitious and effective men do.

When he told me that he would be gone for a few days, that the Mulgroves were thinking of moving from their present house near Cannes to a larger one further along the coast, near the Italian border, I was a little sorry but not altogether surprised. An early morning cup of tea at the table near the bedroom window may have been pleasure enough for me but it was hardly the sort of thing to distract Owen for long. We had had a very nice couple of weeks, during which he had been slower than usual and I had been quicker; the heat affected us both in different ways, but in a manner which brought us into some sort of equality, levelling out the rhythms that separated us. Owen asked me, exceptionally, whether I would like to accompany him. ‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘The weather is so perfect here that it couldn’t be better anywhere else. Anyway, you’ll be back at the weekend. And you’ll move more quickly without me.’ He didn’t mind; he never minded going off alone on his adventures. I was getting used to my own company, which I was discovering as a precious resource, and one
which I desired to explore. I was looking forward to my few days on my own.

I sent him off in his pale blue seersucker suit in which he looked so handsome. He was still an impressive man, ruddy, solid, his blond hair thinning a bit, but with an air of indestructibility greatly increasing with the passage of time. Women have often envied me my husband, with his alertness, his shrewdness, his air of prosperity. In many ways I knew myself to be fortunate. The only trouble was that I never knew what went on in his head. I think he was probably driven by a daemon, since sex and affection played so small a part in his life. His energy, which was so far above the average, and which earned him so much appreciation from men and so many admiring glances from women, masked, I think, a personality which despised, which feared weakness. If weaknesses, misgivings, even loneliness were there, they must never be shown, must never be given a chance to manifest themselves. Anything less than a show of strength was forbidden.

While he was away I sat in the garden, which Hermione had had conveniently paved over, and when that seemed too uneventful I would walk up to the park, taking some bread for the birds. I knew that I was behaving in a juvenile manner but it pleased me to do so and to talk to the mothers with small babies. How beautiful they looked! I no longer regretted not having children, although other women’s children attracted me irresistibly. I was getting older, and I tried not to have regrets. Perhaps not having been loved was one of them. But one gets used even to that. Perhaps the snatch of a song revives it, one of the old songs, but even then one learns to manage.

Everyone was away. Julia and Charlie were away, so there
were no telephone calls beginning with the admonitory ‘Now look here!’; no summonses to Onslow Square, no long, meaningless, decorative, but occasionally menacing conversations, no opportunity to discuss unsuspected or unnoticed shortcomings. These days alone provided me with perfect peace, and also the opportunity to be myself again, as I had been as a girl. With the light so bright I would get up early, have my bath, do the washing, all before breakfast. My shopping was finished by half past nine, my cooking completed and cleared away an hour later. Then the day was mine. Nothing to do except refresh my face, tidy my hair, take my purse and go out. My activities were completely inconsequential; they were simply a pretext for being out in that glorious light. Sometimes I wandered into town and had a sandwich and a cup of coffee for my lunch at inconspicuous cafés—one could still find them—counting the money out from my purse as if I were a schoolchild out alone for the first time. Then I would make my way back to the house, which did not seem so ghastly when the brilliant sun outside made the uncompromising colours look as striking as perhaps Hermione had intended them to look. Nobody bothered me. On two occasions, as I stepped into the blue drawing-room, I felt a vibration in the air, as if the telephone had stopped ringing. I took no notice; I did not wish to be disturbed. I assumed that the calls were for Owen, as they usually were. I could not have done much good if I had answered them: I had no idea where he was. I was alone and free, my last experience of these conditions. I have been alone ever since, and free, perhaps, as some would see it, but I have never been so unburdened as I was in those two or three days. Even now, looking back, I see it as a blessed time.

I was out for most of every day, and I was tired when I
got home. I discovered the pleasures of going to bed early, with a book. I thought it might be quite possible to live like this, much later, when I was old. I was in bed, watching the sky deepen outside the window when the telephone rang. The call was from Bernard Langdon, Owen’s uncle, who told me that Owen and Jack Mulgrove had been killed. They had been travelling towards Menton in Jack’s new car, had taken an inland road to avoid the dazzle and glare of the upper corniche, and had come to grief a little way beyond Eze. A boy had found the curiously silent car smashed against a tree at the roadside. The road had been deserted; the fierceness of the sun had decreed a long siesta. The boy had reported the incident to the police. There was no uncertainty; Jack’s wallet had been found and Owen’s diary. At first sight it looked as if Jack had had a heart attack. The consul at Nice had been informed, and, failing to make contact with me—that telephone ringing in an empty room—had got on to the office.

‘You’ll have to go out there, Fay,’ said Bernard. ‘I’ve booked you on an early flight tomorrow morning. Frances and I will follow later in the day. There are certain formalities to be gone through. Knowing the French, there will be quite a few. The funeral, and so on. Unless you want him brought back here?’

‘Dead?’ I said. ‘No, not true. Owen can’t be dead.’ But I knew suddenly that he was, and a great coldness spread over me, despite the heat of the night.

‘Now listen, Fay,’ Bernard went on. ‘Your plane leaves at nine o’clock, there’s no problem there. Your ticket is waiting for you at the Air France desk. Unfortunately, I’ve had great trouble finding you an hotel room. Everything seems to be booked; it’s the height of the season. I’ve got you something, but I don’t know what it’s like. It’s the
Hôtel de Plaisance, in the Baumettes district. Rue des Baumettes. Are you writing this down? Frances and I will stay with the Spencers at Villefranche. I’m afraid you’ll be alone some of the time. Stay at the Plaisance until we arrive in the late afternoon. Don’t do anything until I get there. Just telephone the consulate and give them your number. Fay? Have you got that? I can’t talk long, my dear. I’ll have to go round and tell Vinnie. Just get yourself to Nice and wait for me.’

‘Owen dead?’ I repeated into a silent telephone. ‘Dead?’ My voice became high, incredulous. ‘Dead?’ I must have said it several times to the dialling tone. And finally, when no one answered, I got up and stood at the window. I stood there for most of the night, I think, seeing Owen in his pale blue seersucker suit, with his pigskin bag, ready, anxious to be away. I felt unable to leave the relative safety of the bedroom and that window. I sat, finally, at the table where we had had our morning tea, and thought of the impossibility of Owen’s death, and how cruel it was that he should have died when he was enjoying himself. The sun, the beautiful air, the friendly proximity of the rich and powerful should not have ended with heart failure and the impact of a car against a tree on a deserted roadside. I knew that I had to see him, and the sudden urgency brought me stumbling to my feet. I pulled a suitcase from the cupboard and put in a nightdress and a hairbrush and a dark blue dress. I had no black and would not have worn it even if the perfect and appropriate garment had been available. Despite the growing heat of the early day I dressed in a suit, a cream-coloured linen suit, hopeless for travelling, and a cream silk blouse. I have never been comfortable in that colour since. I was out on the street before seven o’clock, unfed, desperate. I got a taxi straight away.

During the flight I felt ill. I could feel real illness threatening. The sleeves of my silk blouse darkened with sweat and my head was hammering, with one of those migraines that came to plague me in times of great distress. The stewardess gave me a cup of coffee and two aspirins, and asked me if there were anyone to meet me at the other end. ‘No one,’ I said. No one would ever meet me again. I was alone, and now, at last, I knew the true meaning of loneliness. The contentment I had felt during the two or three empty days of Owen’s absence had been a lure: this was the real thing, and it was terrible. I doubted my ability to get from the airport to the hotel, to sit out the time until Bernard came. My linen skirt was already crumpled, my feet swollen. I did not see how I could be expected to leave the plane. Yet what I wanted above everything else was to see Owen and to talk to him, to ask him how this thing had happened. I wanted to hear it from his lips alone. After a while this seemed to me entirely feasible.

‘My husband is waiting for me,’ I told the kind stewardess, who took a handkerchief from my bag and wiped away my tears. ‘I was wrong when I said that no one would come for me. At least, not entirely wrong. I have to go to him.’ ‘Let this lady off first,’ the stewardess said sometime later, shepherding me to the door. ‘She needs to lie down.’

Then the true nightmare began, in comparison with which everything earlier had been a rehearsal. The heat, which had been beneficent in London, was ferocious in Nice. The leather seats of the taxi were scorching, the driver’s cigarette a burn in my throat. The blinding sun entered my aching eyes like a sword. I had no dark glasses. I felt faint and sick in turn. All I wanted to do now was to reach the Hôtel de Plaisance and to sleep. Bernard could wake me when he came. And then I would see Owen.

The Hôtel de Plaisance was in a narrow corridor off a street dark in shadow, a populous commercial street now emptying for the midday lunch hour. I rang a bell on the desk, and a bulky looking woman emerged from behind a smoked glass door, wiping her mouth. She gave me a key, and I trudged up a narrow staircase, past a green plant in a brass pot on a tiny landing: the room I let myself into was small and dark and smelt of somebody else. Thick dusty tulle curtains covered a window which would not open. Two flies circled endlessly around the bulb of a central light. Outside, somewhere below me, empty bottles were being stacked, new cases being manoeuvred out towards the street entrance. I went downstairs and asked the woman if I could have a cup of coffee.
‘On ne fait pas de cuisine ici,’
she said.
‘Vous avez le bistrot en face.’
I gave up, went back upstairs, and fell on the bed. I must have slept, for the next thing I heard was the weak jangle of the telephone, which woke me. Bernard had arrived.

By that time, in the beautiful evening, with the lights blooming in the indigo sky and the air redolent of vanilla, I was weak and shaking, and did not know where I was going. I sat next to Bernard in a taxi, my teeth chattering. He was enormously uncomfortable, muttered slightly to himself, clearly would have wished to perform this task alone. ‘Vinnie took it very badly,’ he said. ‘She wants me to bring him home. How do you feel about that? Fay? Now compose yourself, my dear. We have to formally identify him, you know. Will you be up to it, or do you want me to do it?’

‘Oh, no,’ I said. ‘I want to see him.’

‘He may be, how can I put it? Damaged,’ he said, taking my elbow. ‘We’re here now. Be brave.’ Bernard was a ghastly colour. Why not? The dead inspire fear. But I
rushed forward, my ankles twisting, into what I suppose was a mortuary. In a room in a basement, with strip lighting humming in a concrete ceiling, a man in a green cotton uniform pulled open what looked like the drawer of a filing cabinet. Inside was Owen, still in his pale suit, the right leg and sleeve of which had been cut away. There was a huge bruise on the side of his head. His feet, his beautiful marble feet, were bare. The expression on his face was strained, almost ecstatic, as I had sometimes seen it, as nobody else should see it. Bernard, a handkerchief to his mouth, nodded to the man, who slid the drawer shut again. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to see him again. I want to stay with him.’ Bernard pulled me outside, and then I fainted.