Doctor's Wife (11 page)

    That evening when, as usual, he joined Miss Purdue
at dinner, he did not bring up the incident. The lovers’ table
remained unoccupied, although the restaurant was full and there was
a line of non-residents waiting to be seated. A little after nine,
Ahmed came by, reset the table for four, then seated four waiting
non-residents at it. Miss Purdue ordered coffee. When Ahmed came,
she asked, “Number 450. Has that couple left?” “No,
Madame
,” Ahmed said. “Office tell me they have booking for
two weeks. But they did not come in this evening. If they come
later I will give them a table in the bar.”

    “How very odd,” Miss Purdue said to Mr. Balcer.
“Imagine paying pension rate and not taking advantage of it. I’m
afraid I’m much too parsimonious ever to do a thing like that. It
does seem so wasteful. So American.”

    “By the way, have you read who’s supposed to be in
Nice today?” Mr. Balcer said. “Cary Grant.”

    “Cary Grant? Oh, he should be worth at least three
points. I hope I bag him.”

    “I hope I see him too,” Mr. Balcer said. “I remember
him in
Notorious
.”

    “Do you?” Miss Purdue said. “It must be thirty years
since that film.”

    When he had finished his coffee and said good
evening to Miss Purdue, Mr. Balcer set off on an after-dinner
stroll. The doctor had told him to walk as much as possible; it was
good for his heart. But unless a walk had a purpose (like the girls
on the beach), Mr. Balcer found the exercise boring. Halfway across
the square, he decided to go up to the top of the town to see if
those Brazilian cigars were in yet at the cigar shop on the main
Nice-Monaco road. Normally, he found the climb too steep. But
tonight, with a goal in mind, he set off at a good pace, navigating
a flight of steps which came out on a square midway through the old
town. As he crossed this square, passing a café on the ground floor
of a small hotel called Les Terrasses, he experienced the thrill of
a hunter who comes on sitting game. There they were, holding hands
and talking, over the remains of a meal. The Irish lady wore a
white dress and a red carnation pinned to her right breast, that
breast Mr. Balcer had earlier seen nice and round and nude. She was
very good-looking, he decided, but too tall, must be five ten or
eleven; she and the boy towered over the other diners. Mr. Balcer
eyed her figure. I wouldn’t mind fucking her myself. I’d like to
have her put her hand inside my pants and rub my prick. It was more
exciting, somehow, when you thought of some nice-looking
respectable lady doing things like that to you. Stiff in his pants,
slower than before, Mr. Balcer resumed his walk, going all the way
up to the Corniche road. The shop was still out of Brazilians, so
he bought himself a nice Schimmelpenninck Corona instead, then went
back down again, recrossing the square. Their table at Les
Terrasses was empty now, a wine botde upended in the ice bucket. As
he went by, a light came on, on the first floor of the hotel above,
and from habit, he glanced up. The window was open, tulle curtains
floating out, and there in the lighted window was the Irish lady
with the boy behind her, both of them looking down at the lights of
the port. For a moment he was puzzled: what were they doing up
there, when she had a room at the Welcome? Ah! This must be the
boy’s hotel. He walked on. He must tell that to Miss Purdue
tomorrow. When he reached the Welcome, the TV was over for the
night, the public rooms deserted. He took up an old
Paris-Match
and sat in the TV lounge to finish his cigar
before going to his room. There, all alone in the quiet, he heard
someone’s footsteps in the lobby. A woman’s voice.

    “Were there any messages for me?”

    “No,
Madame
.”

    “No phone calls?”

    “No,
Madame
. I have been here all evening.
No calls.”

    “Thank you.”

    Mr. Balcer, rising from his chair, saw her in the
lobby, the white dress, the red carnation pinned on her breast.

    “Do you wish your key,
Madame
?”

    “Yes, you may as well give it to me now. I’m just
going out again for a breath of air before I go up.”

    “
Alors, bonsoir, Madame
.”

    “
Bonsoir
.”

    Going out again, was she? Off for more fucking?
Intrigued, Mr. Balcer came from the TV room and passed by her, as
though going out for a stroll himself. And, sure enough, outside in
the shadows, waiting like a prowler, was the boy. Mr. Balcer,
puffing on his Schimmelpen-ninck, strolled across the square and
soon heard the light, rapid sound of her footsteps as she hurried
past him to rejoin her lover. Mr. Balcer slackened his pace and
drew on his cigar, pretending to savor its aroma. He watched the
young man emerge from the shadows.

    “All right?”

    She nodded. “No calls.”

    “So he’s not coming tomorrow.”

    “Looks like it. He might phone in the morning,
though.”

    “Are you worried about him calling during the
night?”

    “No,” she said. She kissed the boy’s cheek. “Let’s
go back to your room.”

    Mr. Balcer, tonguing the tip of his cigar to glue
the wrapping leaf which had loosened, watched them climb up the
steps toward the square. He thought again of her fingers rubbing
the boy’s prick outside his pants. He touched his hand to his own
and felt it grow stiff. Turning, he went back into the Welcome.

    •

    The bed in Les Terrasses was small, its mattress
worn and hollowed by thousands of previous occupants. To get out of
it without disturbing her fellow sleeper seemed impossible. She
eased herself up carefully, hearing the bed-springs groan as she
stood. Moonlight came through the tulle curtains, lighting his
face. He did not wake. She negotiated the armchair and bidet which,
with the shower, was on the left of the bed, and went to the window
to look out at the deserted square. Beyond its rooftops she could
see the moonlit bay and the millionaire’s yacht at anchor. For
hours she had been unable to sleep, her state one of excitement and
a concomitant unease. In a few days all this would end. It could
end the moment Kevin phones to say he’s coming. Oh, please, God,
let him not come.

    She had thought “God.” The word usually came to her
lips these days as a meaningless ejaculation. She no longer prayed.
She remembered when all that had changed, at the time of Pope John.
It had begun when people lost their fear of hell and damnation. If
you no longer feared damnation, you no longer had to believe in
heaven. It was, she sometimes thought, a bad joke that when the
people at home no longer believed in their religion, or went to
church as they once did, the religious fighting was worse than
ever.

    She remembered what had happened two years ago:
Danny noticed that his father no longer went to Mass, and one
Sunday he suddenly refused to get dressed for church. “Daddy
doesn’t have to go, so why should I?” And when Kevin laughed and
was not angry at Danny, she said to herself, They’re both right,
why do we keep on with this compulsory church attendance, when was
the last time I knelt in a church and actually prayed? We don’t
believe, any of us. We don’t have to go to Mass or communion, or
any of it. And so they all slid out of it, and now never put their
feet inside a church door except on great occasions like a wedding
or a funeral. Just like Protestants. Of course, she had to lie and
make excuses to the parish priest when he came around a couple of
times a year with his hints and veiled reproaches about not seeing
them at church functions. And of course, if anyone asked her, she
would still say she was a Catholic. In Ulster today, to declare
that you were no longer a Catholic was to risk being thought a
turncoat. But she did not think of herself as a Catholic. Not any
more.

    Yet tonight, having said “Please, God” to herself,
she remembered how, once, she had asked God’s help in everything.
She thought of her old fears, her familiar sins, and thought how,
long ago when she was a schoolgirl, she would feel a special
happiness after making her confession. And how, the next Sunday
after Holy Communion, she would walk down the aisle to her seat
knowing that if she died at that moment she would go to heaven, her
sins confessed and forgiven, her soul purged and in a state of
grace. It seemed like another life, that long-ago time of rules and
rewards, when prayer and sin were real. Yet tonight, in the quiet
of this moonlit room, that feeling came back to her, that pure
Sunday communion peace. It filled her, shocking her, for wasn’t
this
sin, here in this room, committing adultery with this
boy, how could this be that same state, that pure feeling of peace?
Yet it filled her, it possessed her totally. It was as though wrong
were right. Her former life, her marriage, all that had gone
before, now seemed to be her sin. These few days with Tom were her
state of grace. She turned, went back to the bed, and lay down
beside him, holding him in her arms, pressing against his warm
body. She closed her eyes. I am in grace. In my state of grace.

    Chapter 7

    • Next morning, after breakfast, they went down to
the Welcome, ordered a picnic lunch, and, at the desk clerk’s
suggestion, walked across the peninsula of Cap Ferrât to explore
the public beach at Beaulieu. Again, they drank a whole bottle of
wine with their lunch and afterward a Belgian boy came up and asked
if they wanted to play catch. Soon, they stood, all three, in a
triangle, tossing the ball, absorbed as children. She felt careless
and content, tossing the bright-pink ball in the air. She knew she
must be putting on weight, eating these big lunches and drinking so
much wine, but she didn’t care, and now Tom, unexpectedly reversing
the order of throwing, threw the ball, not to the Belgian, but back
to her. Determined not to be the first to miss a catch, she ran,
splashing into the shallows to make the save. Both males applauded.
She stood, small waves lapping her calves, wondering which one to
throw to. Both began to signal, vying for her attention, so she
feinted, pretending to throw the ball back to Tom, but instead
hurled it hard in the direction of the Belgian boy, who caught it
stylishly, using only one hand. He did not throw it back but
hesitated, then asked what time it was. Tom said it was after
three. The Belgian boy smiled and shook hands with both of them,
saying his parents were waiting for him in town. Arm-in-arm, they
watched him run off up the beach.

    “Shall we start back ourselves?” she asked. “Let’s
go to your hotel today.”

    “Okay. But I guess we’d better check at the Welcome
on the way.”

    She looked at him. “Have you been worrying all day
about a message?”

    “Sort of. Haven’t you?”

    “No. I’ve stopped.” She kissed his cheek. “It’s
easier that way.”

    An hour later, having walked back across the
peninsula, they came along the quay at Villefranche toward the
entrance of the Welcome. “Wait here,” she said. “I won’t take a
minute.”

    In the lobby, the desk clerk was talking on the
telephone. She looked at her pigeonhole, but there were no messages
in it.

    “Anything for me? Room 450?”

    “No,
Madame
.”

    “No telephone call?”

    “No,
Madame
.”

    She went out of the hotel and waved in a victory
sign.

    “Nothing?”

    “Nothing.”

    “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go to my room and
change.”

    “You mean go to bed,” she said. They laughed.

    •

    At five, somewhere in the narrow streets behind Les
Terrasses, a church bell tolled the hour. Lying in the deep
declivity of his single bed, knowing he was asleep, she moved
slightly, turning to face the window and the tulle curtains
floating outward in the evening sun. I am the one who must make the
choices: he knows that. That’s why he gets angry and talks about
never being with a married person before.

    She lay, her eyes open. The church bell tolled the
half hour. I should get up and wash my hair. I’ll set it, then iron
the chiffon dress I’m wearing tonight. We’ll go into Nice and have
dinner. I’ll get up now and leave him a note.

    Decided, she slipped out of the bed. His hand caught
her wrist. “Where are you going?”

    “To the Welcome, to wash my hair.”

    “Wash it here.”

    “Can’t. Besides, I want to change.”

    “Come back to bed.”

    “No. I’ll see you at seven. Let’s go to Nice for
dinner.”

    “Why Nice? What is this, a farewell dinner? Our last
night?”

    “It’s not our last night,” she said.

    At the Welcome the proprietress greeted her with the
usual question about dinner and, on hearing she would not be dining
in the hotel, again brought up the matter of pension.

    “I know. Just bill me for pension. That’s all
right.”

    “
Bien, Madame. Comme vous voulez
.”

    Upstairs in her room, the neat bed reproached her
absence. Unused room, uneaten meals, wasted money. She took out the
chiffon dress and laid it full-length, like a person, on the bed.
You be my substitute. She matched shoes to it, deciding on her blue
sandals, then took a shower and washed and dried her hair. Later,
she sat at the mirror, dressed, making up her face. He dreams me
and I dream him, we dream each other as perfect. And, mirror, never
my friend, you can’t deny that suntan, the look in those eyes. She
smiled at the mirror. This chiffon dress is pretty. I look pretty.
This is grace, the state of grace.