Destiny (8 page)

"Dearest Maman." He came to her side and lifted her hand in his. "You're tired. You should rest more, you know. Come—why don't you let me show you to your room? I'll have your coffee brought up to you there. I'll send your maid to you—no arguments now. I promised Papa to look after you. You shall have a really good night's sleep. ..."

It worked like a charm. Louise rose, and leaned on his arm. She left them without protest. At the door, Jean-Paul looked back and gave Edouard and Isobel another wink. Isobel rose restlessly to her feet the moment the door was shut. She tossed her napkin on the table. Edouard, returning with difficulty from the room in Maida Vale, looked at her uncertainly.

"Does he always manage your mother Uke that?" The green eyes met his for a second, curiously. Edouard rose.

"Usually." He shrugged. "She adores Jean-Paul. She always has. He can do anything with her. . . ."He paused. "She doesn't mean everything she says, you know," he added defensively, for his mother often made him ashamed. "It's just her way of speaking. And she gets very strung-up. . . ."

"Oh, never mind, anyway." Isobel moved off impatiently. "Let's play some music. I want to dance. ..."

She reached for Edouard's hand and dragged him out of the dining room into another room which they sometimes used in the evenings. It had a smooth parquet floor, and sometimes Edouard would patiently wind the gramophone and play records while Jean-Paul and Isobel danced together dreamily in the center of the room. He had never danced with Isobel himself, but tonight she selected a record, she wound the gramophone, she pushed aside the rug.

48 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"Come on. ..." She stood in the center of the floor, and hfted her arms to him, scarlet lips smiling, emerald eyes glinting with amusement and challenge. "You can dance, I suppose? If you can't, I'll teach you. . . ."

"I can dance." Edouard stepped forward and took her in his arms. In fact, he danced rather well, and felt eager to demonstrate that, but when he attempted to waltz, Isobel pulled him closer.

"Not like that. Don't let's be ambitious. Let's just shuffle, it's more peaceful. . . ."

They shuffled. The music was soft and low, the record pleasantly scratchy; Isobel felt light in his arms, and after a while, Edouard relaxed. They stepped and turned, turned and stepped; his mind drifted away again to the afternoon, and to Celestine. He began to feel extraordinarily happy.

Once or twice, Isobel lifted her face and looked at him. The record ran down, she replaced it, rewound the handle, and drifted back into his arms with a little smile on her lips.

"You're laughing at me. ..." Edouard looked down at her.

"No, I'm not. I'm laughing at myself. It's a long time since I've felt so invisible. It's good for my vanity."

"Invisible? You?"

"Oh, Edouard. So gallant. There's no need to pretend. You're miles away. That's all right. I don't mind. I quite hke it. It's restful."

She sighed, and after a while, as they continued to circle, she rested her face gently against his shoulder. Edouard was a little surprised at this, but he said nothing; they were still dancing in this way when Jean-Paul returned to them. He stood and watched them for a while, leaning against a chair and smoking a cigarette. Isobel ignored him. When, finally, the record ran down again, Jean-Paul rewound it, and then he cut in.

"My turn, I think. My fiancee."

He danced with Isobel for the remainder of the evening, and it was only after she left, and they were alone together, that Edouard noticed his brother was not in a very good temper. Jean-Paul removed the record from the gramophone irritably, scratching it as he did so. Then he paced up and down the room, as if he found it confining.

"Was Maman all right?" Edouard looked up at him.

"What? Oh, yes. She was fine. She just wanted some attention paid her. Like all women." Jean-Paul slumped in a chair; one foot tapped the carpet.

"I expect she does miss Papa," Edouard began hesitantly. "It can't be easy for her. ..."

"You think so?" Jean-Paul gave a bark of laughter. "Well, you may be right, but I doubt it. I'd say it was simpler than that—she wants everyone at her beck and call, running round her in small circles, paying court to

DESTINY • 49

her. Isobel's precisely the same. I tell you, little brother, it wears me out sometimes. Women." He frowned. His face had taken on a sullen expression, and Edouard was puzzled. He felt a little embarrassed that Jean-Paul should speak in this way—it seemed to him disloyal. As if sensing that, Jean-Paul looked up. He stretched, and then grinned.

"Still. They have their uses, eh? We wouldn't be without them. So—tell me, let's get down to something more important. How did you get on this afternoon? Good, was she?"

Edouard was aware he was blushing. He looked at the carpet. Jean-Paul was adopting a man-to-man tone that he usually found flattering; now, for the first time, something in him resisted it.

"It was fine," he said stifiiy, after a pause. "Thank you, Jean-Paul, for arranging it."

Jean-Paul threw back his head and gave a bellow of laughter.

"He's embarrassed. I do believe my own httle brother is embarrassed. Fine? What kind of a report is that? Don't I get a few more details? I went to a lot of trouble, you know, Edouard, to fix this . . ."

Edouard stood up. He looked at his brother, and he thought of Celestine, and for the first time in his life two loyalties conflicted. He knew, quite suddenly, that he couldn't bear to tell Jean-Paul what had happened. He couldn't bear to tell anyone; it belonged to himself and Celestine.

"Oh, you know." He shrugged, hesitated. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"I see." There was a pause. "That bad, was it? Oh, well . . ."

Jean-Paul yawned and stretched once more. The smile on his face broadened, as if the supposition of Edouard's failure pleased him. Edouard looked at him in confusion: Why should that be?

Jean-Paul stood up and put his arm around Edouard's shoulders.

"Well, well, happens to everyone. Better luck next time. Don't worry about it, eh?" He chuckled to himself. "You won't be seeing her again, then? Well, there's plenty of others—just let me know when you want another address. Maybe she just didn't suit you. I shouldn't worry. Not yet, anyway, little brother. ..."

He went off to bed then, humming the dance tune to himself, obviously in a high good humor. Edouard watched him go with a sense of puzzled dismay. Beneath the bonhomie he had detected resentment, even rivalry— had it not been Jean-Paul, he might even have thought jealousy. The idea perturbed him, then he pushed it out of his mind. It was a ridiculous idea, and a disloyal one: Jean-Paul was his brother, he was the most generous of men.

Still, a certain caution remained, a slight wariness. The next afternoon he returned to Celestine and spent a rapturous two hours with her.

50 • SALLY BEAUMAN

When he returned to Eaton Square, Jean-Paul was there, and quizzed him on his absence.

"I—was walking in the park," Edouard replied before he could stop himself.

He had walked through the park on the way to Celestine's flat, but nonetheless it was a lie, designed to mislead, and Edouard knew it.

He felt guilty afterward, and ashamed. It was the first time in his life that he had ever lied to his brother.

HELENE

ALABAMA, 1950

Out back behind the trailer, there was a tree. She didn't know what kind of tree, and Mother didn't know either: it was an American tree, she said, they didn't have trees like that in England. It was real big—very big, she corrected herself carefully, and its branches hung down low. If she took a chair out and balanced on it carefully, she could pull off long strands of the stuff that grew on it. Spanish moss. Mother said it was called; it looked spooky when the hght was fading. But not now. Now it was the middle of the August afternoon, and very hot, and she had made a little pile of it in the dirt in front of the trailer.

Lovely soft crinkly gray moss. And some little rocks that Mother called pebbles, and some daisies. She was making a garden, an EngUsh garden, for when Mother came home.

The window of the trailer was open, and she could see the big round face of the clock that stood on top of the icebox. She could see the little red stickers Mother put on it by the four and the twelve. She couldn't read the time yet, not quite, but when the hands were pointing at those two stickers, Mother would be home. They were nearly there; not long now. The garden was all finished, and she had three crackers left. Maybe she'd eat them now.

She broke a comer off, and handed it to Doll politely, the way Mother had shown her. But Doll just stared up with her painted eyes, so Helene ate it for her. Then she ate the other crackers, and carefully brushed the crumbs off her dress. She looked down at her skirt anxiously. The dust was a horrible red-brown. It left marks everywhere, and Mother said to stay put, and not to get into trouble, not to move from right there in front of the trailer. Not to get dirty.

You didn't get dirty in English gardens. The grass grew the way it should there, and there were gardeners to keep it watered in summer, and the ladies sat in wicker chairs and the servants brought them iced lemonade in long cool glasses. Not nasty lemonade that came in bottles like

54 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Coke, but fresh lemonade, made with fruit and water and sugar, with a long silver spoon to stir it.

She glanced over her shoulder guiltily. She'd like some lemonade. Making the garden had made her throat all dry and tickly. She'd even like some Coke, or that funny green tea Mississippi Mary made, that tasted of mint like toothpaste. But she wasn't allowed to talk to Mary. And if the Tanner children came by, Mother said not to talk to them either, but just to go and sit inside in the trailer and wait for her to come home.

She pushed a long fair lock of hair back from her sticky forehead. The Tanner children wouldn't come by anyway. She knew where they were, she could hear them shouting. They were down by the river, in the waterhole there, and they were skinny-dipping. She'd never done that, of course, but she'd crept up on them once and watched them. It looked nice. It looked like fun. The boys and the girls, no clothes, and jumping in and out of the brown water and splashing. It looked so cool, that brown water, so cool and lovely. And besides, it was interesting. All the Tanner girls looked like she did, but the Tanner boys were different. They had this funny thing between their legs, like a little pouch, and then, just when she was craning her head to get a better look, one of the Tanner boys spread his legs, and held this thing, and a big arc of water came out, right down in the pool, and all the other children laughed. She told Mother about that, and Mother got very cross. She slapped her, hard, on the arm, so there was a big red mark. She said the Tanners were common. "White trash or black trash," Mother said, "either way, you stay away from them."

"But why do they have that thing, Mother?" she asked when she'd stopped crying.

"Because boys are different from girls."

"Do all boys have one? Did Daddy?"

"Yes. All boys have them." Her mother sighed.

"But what do they do with them? Why haven't I got one?"

"Because girls don't need them. They're dirty. Now, come and have tea."

Helene stood up. She felt guilty. She shouldn't be remembering that— Mother would be cross. Mother thought she'd forgotten all about it. But she hadn't. She remembered, even though it was a very long time ago, last summer maybe. And she often thought about what she'd seen, when she was in bed at night, and Mother was sewing, and it was so hot she couldn't sleep. Thinking about it made her feel good, and made her feel bad—and kind of funny, warm in between her thighs. Sometimes she'd put her hand there, in between her legs, and that felt nice too. Then she went to sleep.

But it was better not to think about that now. Now the hands of the clock were nearly touching the two stickers. She'd go and sit on the trailer

DESTINY • 55

Steps. That way she'd see Mother the moment she reached the dirt track. She picked up Doll, and brushed down her frock, and seated her on the hot step beside her.

From here, you could see the layout of the trailer park quite well, and Helene hked that. Over behind her was the creek, and the creek led down to the river, and the river went on a bit and then it joined the Alabama River, which was really very big, though not beautiful like the rivers in England.

In England there was the Thames, and that went through London, where the king and queen lived in a palace, and where Mother had lived too.

And then there was the Avon, and the Avon went through another town whose name she forgot, which was where Shakespeare had hved. Shakespeare was English, and he was the best writer in the whole world. Mother said. Mother had acted in one of his plays once, in a lovely dress. And when Helene was bigger. Mother was going to teach her some of his poems to say, and that was why she had to be careful now, and talk properly, like Mother, and not do that horrible droopy drawl like the Tanner children, so when she said the poems she would say them right, like an English lady. A E I O U—lovely and open and soft; she should have practiced her vowels this afternoon. She'd promised Mother, and then she'd forgotten.

She swung her legs back and forth now, mouthing the sounds, looking around the trailer park. Their trailer was one of the oldest, painted dark green, with the rust coming through. It had two rooms, a bedroom where she and Mother slept in little narrow beds, and the room where they ate their meals and she did her lessons, and where they hstened to the wireless in the evenings. Then there were the steps she sat on now, and the httle yard where she'd made her garden. 'Round back by the tree there was a pump, and what Mother called the outhouse, which smelled nasty and was full of flies in the summer. There was a white picket fence 'round the yard, and a httle gate, and a path. Then there were more trees—thank God, Mother said, because it meant they didn't have to see the other trailers. There were eight of them, two of them occupied by the Tanners, who had seven children and another on the way. Mother said. Mr. Tanner drank, and he beat Mrs. Tanner up sometimes—they could hear her screaming— but Mother said to take no notice, there was nothing they could do. Men were like that, she said, and Mrs. Tanner was an ignorant fool to put up with it.