Her Lover (74 page)

CHAPTER63

Maroon, with savaged mudguards and standing oddly tall on woebegone wheels, she threw a tantrum in the Avenue de Champel, jogged up and down, then weaved away erratically, leaving a snaking trail of black oil in her wake. One moment consumed by fury and the next pensive and musing, but with bonnet permanently festooned with belching vapours which spurted like sea water from the blow-hole of a whale, she turned at length into the Chemin de Miremont, where her master strove manfully to coax her to a halt. After backfiring three times and discharging an angry squawk, she yielded, though not without exacting a terrible revenge in the form of a final squirt of oil which spattered a pleasant-natured little bulldog as it went about its lawful occasions.

Tall and gaunt, with shoulders stooping and moustache drooping, Ariane's uncle extricated himself from the clutches of the beast still snorting with hate, extinguished both oil-burning headlamps, gave the bonnet an amiable pat, doffed his Cronstadt to the neighbours' maid, and pushed the front door open.

In the hall, which was a litter of books, he smoothed down the drooping ends of his moustache and scratched his close-cropped dome. Hm, yes, he was awfully late. What would she say? He climbed the stairs, knocked gently on a door on the landing, and went in. Euphrosine opened one eye, poked her hairy chin over the bedclothes, and grumbled that it was a fine thing to be kept waiting for her supper until all hours like this. Inserting his monocle then removing it immediately, he said he was sorry but he'd had to stay with his last patient, who was seriously ill.

'I'm ill an' all,' the old girl muttered, and she yanked the bedclothes over her sprouting chin. 'I gotter have a cheese omelette, with four eggs in, that's wot I gotter have. Oh yus!'

When he returned with the tray, she spurned the omelette and said she wanted another one that was more runnier. For the first time, he stood his ground, pointed out calmly that the omelette was perfectly edible, and said she wasn't going to get another one. She tried to make herself cry, but, observing that this got her nowhere, craned her head towards the plate and proceeded to stuff its contents into her mouth, pausing occasionally to cast a sly, leering look in his direction.

When she'd finished her dessert, he tucked her in again, patted her pillows, and, carrying the tray, went off to the kitchen, where he dined on a boiled egg and an orange and was interrupted three times by the ringing of Euphrosine's bell. On the first occasion it was on account of crumbs in the bed — which in her gaga-speak she called 'pricky-prickies'. On the second it was to demand her herbal tea -which she drank out of the spout of the teapot. And finally because she wanted her face wiped with a flannel damped with eau-de-Cologne. After which she snuggled up to the wall and pretended to go to sleep.

At two in the morning, the ringing of the telephone starded him into wakefulness. Holding the receiver to his ear, he smiled at Madame Dardier, who apologized for disturbing him but her baby had been crying for more than an hour and, what with all this talk of diphtheria, didn't he think? She was really very sorry to disturb him at such an inconvenient time. Not at all, he said reassuringly, he was glad of the chance to get out of the house, it was such a pleasant night.

'Et vera incessu patuit dea,'
he muttered as he hung up.

Quite wonderful, the passage where Aeneas recognizes his mother, Venus, who has appeared in the guise of a young huntress. Wonderful, but very tricky to translate. In flowing nightshirt, he sat motionless for a while trying to find a rendering worthy of the original. Suddenly remembering the screams of baby Dardier, he dressed hurriedly, carefully smoothed down the ends of his long moustache,
and went out. Standing by his car while the bells of St Peter's chimed a thin snatch from
The Village Soothsayer,
he shook his head and thought of the delightful Dardiers. A fine family, large and very close-knit. Relative newcomers to Geneva, of course, but very well-connected. Pity no Dardier had sat on the Little Council under the old regime. It would have completed the family's moral credentials very nicely.

After lighting the lamps, he poked the starting-handle into the front of the car and heaved on it, using both hands. Upon a whim, having decided for once to act normally, the capricious old rattletrap roared into life first time. Whereupon her owner climbed up into the lofty driving-seat, seized the wheel, and the monster, already spewing fumes through divers orifices, but not before executing a preliminary solo featuring castanets, bounded forward with a noise like elephants. Proud of his prompt start and feeling that among drivers he was an old and steady hand, Agrippa d'Auble gave the bulb of the ancient hooter a triumphant squeeze.

'Now let's see.
Et vera incessu patuit dea.'

All at once the vehicle mounted the pavement, for the solution had just come to him. Yes, simply say: 'By her progress was she revealed a true goddess.' Perfect. It was elegant and caught the succinctness of the original. Wait a jiffy, no, not perfect after all. The 'true' was heavy. Perhaps he should suppress 'true' and say 'revealed a goddess'? Yes, but
vera
was in the text. Say that by her progress was she truly revealed? He declaimed this new version aloud to get the full effect. No, the adverb was leaden. How about 'By her progress was she revealed a veritable goddess'? No, that sounded lame, and come to think of it 'progress' was clumsy. Why not just say 'gait' and have done with it?

In her progress (or gait), the bucking motor ran the goddesses of antiquity a very poor second in the gracefulness stakes, and weaved along the Rue Bellot driven by chance, for the Latinist's mind was on perfection. Then all at once it abandoned its wayward slaloms and steamed dead ahead, for he had found the answer.

'And her gait revealed her to be a goddess!' he announced loudly, and he beamed with innocent pleasure.

That was it! Ignore the
vera!
You had to know when to be unfaithful! 'True' tacked on to 'goddess' served no purpose, since goddesses are always true, that is from the pagan standpoint, of course. The fact was that Virgil had only inserted
vera
for reasons of metre.
Vera
was a padding-out word and was useless in a translation, no it was worse, it was positively detrimental.

'And her gait revealed her to be a goddess!' said the kindly doctor, rolling the words around his tongue.

While he pressed the Dardiers' doorbell, he smiled at the goddess of the graceful gait. He never suspected for a moment that he was in love with the young bare-kneed huntress who had appeared to Aeneas, and that his painstaking translation was a way of paying respectful court.

On his return to Champel, he felt too exhausted to hang his clothes up, and threw them over the back of a chair. Getting into his nightshirt, which was trimmed with red embroidery, he slipped between the sheets and gave a contented sigh. After all, it was only three in the morning. He had four solid hours of sleep before him.

'For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever,' he murmured. Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Toing and froing in the large drawing-room at Onex, her apple-pie bonnet sheltering beneath her open parasol, his sister Valérie repeated that someone was ringing the doorbell and told him to go and see who it was. He rubbed his eyes, realized that she was mistaken, that it was the phone. What time was it? Four o'clock. He picked up the receiver and recognized the rich, golden voice at once.

'Uncle Gri, I can't sleep. Look, would you be an angel and come round to keep me company?'

'You want me to come out to Cologny at this time of night?'

'Yes, please, I do so need to see you. But I don't want you to come in your car, it's bound to conk out and I'd worry. I'll phone and they'll send a taxi to pick you up. We'll have a nice long talk.'

'Yes, we'll talk,' he said, closing his eyes to snatch a little more sleep.

'And I'll get back under the covers and you'll sit by my bed, won't you?'

'Certainly,' he said, and he sat back against his pillow.

'And you can read a book while you hold my hand, and that'll send me off to bye-byes. But you'll have to take your hand away very quietly, bit by bit, so as not to wake me up.'

'Very well, dear girl, bit by bit. I'll go and get dressed now.'

'Listen, Uncle Gri, I'm terribly happy because I've got a friend, a girlfriend, I like very much, she's due to come the night after tomorrow, she's tremendously clever, you wouldn't believe how clever, and such a noble mind.'

'I see,' he said, completing a yawn which he disguised as best he could. 'And is she a Protestant?'

'No, not a Protestant.'

'Catholic?'

'Jewish.'

'Oh, I see, capital, capital. They're God's chosen people, you know.'

'That's right, Uncle Gri, God's chosen people, I'm sure they are! Listen, we'll have breakfast together, nice and cosy, and I'll tell you all about my friend. Her name is Solal.'

'Capital, capital. I know a Solal in Paris. First-rate cardiologist.'

'Tell me, Uncle Gri, how far have you got with your Calvin book?'

'I've finished chapter twenty,' he said, suddenly springing to life. 'It's all about Idelette de Bure, an excellent widow with several children, whom Calvin married in 1541, using Bucer from Strasburg as go-between, after rejecting the candidate suggested by Farel as unsuitable. On the other hand, Idelette won his heart by dint of her modesty and sweet nature. The rather touching thing is that he was the best of fathers to the children she had had by her first marriage. Alas, her daughter Judith, who married in 1554, committed adultery in 1557 or 1558. Hardly thinkable is it, the Reformer's own stepdaughter an adulteress!'

'Yes, it's awful!'

'It grieved him no end.'

'Yes, it's awfully sad, it really is. But anyway, best foot forward, I'm going to ring for the taxi.'

'I'll get a move on then,' he said, and he got out of bed, a tall figure in his long nightshirt.

Twenty minutes later, wearing the new suit he'd got from The Prodigal Son and a panama hat secured by a cord attached to the top button of his waistcoat, he was smiling blithely in the taxi, raring to go, feeling bright as a new pin and sniffing the coolest-before-dawn air. Already the blackbirds were singing their joyful little song to a world in which it was a pleasure to be alive.

He crossed his legs, smiled at the thought of Ariane, who looked like the goddess who had appeared before Aeneas, the huntress with the bare knees. How delightfully enthusiastic she had been when she'd told him about this Solal girl, who was in all likelihood a relative of the cardiologist and therefore of good stock. Darling Ariane, so pretty, the image of her grandmother about the time of her marriage. What a pity he had not thought to bring the latest pages of his manuscript. The sweet girl had shown such interest. The other evening she'd been most taken with the chapter on the doctrine of predestination, he'd noticed that most particularly. And, just now, her indignant reaction when she'd heard that Calvin's stepdaughter was an adulteress was genuinely heartfelt. She was truly dear Frederic's daughter. 'No doubt about it,' he said, nodding his head. Well, in the absence of his manuscript, he would read her chapter thirteen of the first epistle to the Corinthians, so wonderful and so affecting, and afterwards they'd discuss it together. He looked up at the sky and smiled, certain of one sublime truth. Dear old Agrippa, good and gentle Christian, I loved you and you never suspected. Dear Geneva of my youth and long-dead joys, proud republic and noble city. Dear Switzerland, land of peace and gentle living, upright hearts and tranquil minds.

CHAPTER64

'Here's your coffee, though I don't s'pose you taste coffee like this every day of the week, and get these croissants ate up while they're still warm from the oven, but look lively now, shift yourselves, and mind you don't go getting no splashes on my wallpaper, silk it is, cost the earth, so don't you go ruining it.'

She stood there, her podgy hands folded across her stomach, leering at the two deckyrators, who were young and a sight for sore eyes, as they tucked in with a will. Good lads as painters went, they'd even brought along a couple of buffing-pads so as they could put the shine back in the parky floor when they was done with their daubing. As they went back to work, she sat down on a stool and started shelling peas, keeping an eye on every stroke of their brushes, sensuously luxuriating, and feeling ever so pleased for Madame Ariane, who'd be over the moon when she saw her little sitting-room all gleaming, like one of them bijou places, you might say.

Towards the end of the morning, a delivery van brought a parcel and she guessed what was inside. She attacked the string with gusto, eager to bask in reflected glory. She took a handsome dressing-gown out of the box and held it against herself.

'Pure silk. Top quality. I bet your girlfriends can't afford anything as smart as this! When you got money you can do anything! Oh, and there's something else, I was forgetting. Seeing as how you've finished your painting you can come with me, I got something to show you. (In the dining-room, where the Shiraz intended for the little sitting-room had been put for safe keeping, she parked one hand on her hip and launched into a commentary.) It's what they call a Sheerage, that's its name, it comes from somewhere down Algeria way, just look how fine it's wove, all hand-made, them coons certainly know what they're doing, you gotter hand it to 'em. Now if it was me I'd've kept the small one where it was before, it belonged to Mademoiselle Valérie, most likely it was a Sheerage too, but it's her business, if you pay the piper you can call the tune, like Monsieur Pasteur used to say, he's the one who invented the rabies, like wot dogs get, because the family's not short of the ready, they're real nobs, oh is it twelve already, must start thinking about something to eat for me, no need to bother about Madame Ariane, she's gone over to see her uncle, he's a doctor, got my nosebag ready last night, the peas is for tonight.'