Living As a Moon (17 page)

‘He didn’t want to get married,’ Katherine said. ‘He had that experience with Frances, and I think his parents’ marriage was pretty unhappy. Not that he talked about them a hell of a lot, but it was a sad family in many ways, I think. There wasn’t any neglect, or abuse, or anything, but an absence of warmth I suppose.’

I looked at the counter trays of sushi, so many different compositions that seemed the same at a glance. I remembered the separateness of Michael’s parents within their marriage, and the brisk personal ambition he and Frances showed when they were together. ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

‘I need to talk to his mother. She should know that Michael’s left a child shouldn’t she. My hope is that she’ll welcome it — a grandchild to make up just a bit for Michael. That’s my main reason, but also I think I’m entitled to some support from Michael’s estate. He was going to buy an apartment for us and see to things when I couldn’t work. You know he was quite well off by ordinary standards, and my job isn’t highly paid. I stayed there at the office mainly because of him. Everybody there knew.’

Even in that situation, having lost the man she loved, and left pregnant and unmarried, Katherine could show sensitivity to the feelings of Michael’s family. I admired her a lot for that. She could have gone in guns blazing to get what she could for herself and the baby, but she had concern for Mrs Chute, Penny and Michael’s memory. She had never met his family until he was dead, and wanted my advice, my assistance as to the best way to make an approach. She didn’t want to go there with demands, she said, but as someone who had loved Michael as much as they had, and with a living part of him to share. ‘I don’t think I can do it on my own,’ she said, ‘but you’ve known them for years.’

‘Well, not really. I saw a bit of them when we were at school and varsity, but bugger all since.’

‘At least they know who you are.’

‘Katherine, I’m happy to do everything I can,’ I said. ‘You’re in a hell of a position, and the family needs to be told for all sorts of reasons. It’ll work out.’

What a situation for her, but I never doubted her sincerity. I’d seen them together, I knew the loyalty of Michael’s nature, and in an age of DNA testing there was no swiftie to be pulled regarding paternity — not that I mentioned that to Katherine. Did we make a comfortable couple, sitting on our high stools in the sushi bar and talking confidentially? She looked as slim as ever to me. Who could guess that we talked of a road killing, personal and family grief, an unborn child, and money. Michael had come to the best time of his life, and not been allowed to prolong it. ‘At first,’ said Katherine, ‘I thought of ending it for both of us as well, but I snapped out of that.’

I rang Mrs Chute and said I’d like to come down for a chat about Michael. I didn’t mention that Katherine would be coming with me, because that would lead to questions I didn’t want to answer on the phone. The Sunday we went was a cloudless day, with the blue sky like a great suction cup that threatened to draw us from the surface roads, shelter belts and green dairy farms. Katherine and I talked about the trip to the Melbourne Cup, and the Central Otago trip, and she asked me about Michael when he was younger. She was surprised when I said he had something of a reputation as a tightwad, and hated to be taken in over anything to do with money. She said he was always wanting to buy things for her, and often left money in her office desk. She was surprised too that he’d been so good at sport, and said he’d jogged and gone to the gym only for health reasons. Recently he’d become interested in local government through his work, she said, and I remembered his talk about what was needed to preserve the lifestyle he enjoyed in the Waitakeres.

Katherine wasn’t feeling great, and we made two comfort stops before Tauranga. She was going as the pregnant girlfriend to visit the unsuspecting mother of her dead lover: enough to deal with surely without having morning sickness. The paleness of her face accentuated her dark hair, and she had small emerald studs in her ears. There was a symmetry about her as a woman that was especially attractive. Everything seemed to be in keeping. ‘How do you think she’ll take it?’ she asked as we neared the Chutes’ place.

‘Whatever the outcome, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of at all.’

Mrs Chute hadn’t gone to any trouble for me. She was in her gardening clothes and wielding secateurs when we arrived. I think she assumed Katherine was my girlfriend, and didn’t seem too put out by her appearance. The three of us sat on white plastic chairs on the verandah, the overhang of which reduced somewhat the blue, expansive sky. Mrs Chute said she was finding the section a trial, and was thinking of selling and moving to be closer to Penny in Palmerston North. She remembered that Katherine had worked for Michael’s firm, and she said she’d had a very nice card from the partners and staff there.

It seemed to me that the longer Katherine and I left telling her the reason for our visit, the harder it would be, and I didn’t want Katherine to have to do it. When Mrs Chute went into the house to get coffee for us, I followed her, and stood by the bench as she prepared the tray. ‘I hope you both won’t mind instant,’ she said. ‘I’ve got used to it now there’s only me. I don’t bake now either.’

‘Katherine was Michael’s partner,’ I said. ‘They were together for over two years before he died.’ Mrs Chute was feeling the side of the jug to judge its temperature.

‘Well that’s all over now,’ she said. ‘Michael never mentioned anything to me, but it’s very sad for her. Maybe she’d like to visit the crematorium gardens and see the plaque. I had it put on the natural stone terrace wall, quite close to his father.’ I think that was the first time I ever heard her refer directly to her husband.

‘She’s pregnant with Michael’s baby.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she said. ‘Nothing’s been said about any pregnancy, and Michael’s gone, hasn’t he.’ I suppose I had expected Mrs Chute to show signs of shock, or dismay, or even joy perhaps, but she didn’t look directly at me, kept fiddling with the tea things, the kettle, the cellophane on the chocolate sultana biscuits. Just the way she had found distraction when Michael’s father was alive. There wasn’t any easy way to drive things home to Mrs Chute. I told her there wasn’t any doubt about the baby, and what a wonderful thing it could be for all of them. On the other hand there could be an appeal to the court for recognition of parentage and support from Michael’s estate, with all the publicity for the family that entailed.

‘Michael loved her very much.’ I said. ‘He often told me.’ He hadn’t, but it was true nevertheless.

‘Why didn’t they get married then?’ asked Mrs Chute.

‘Ask yourself what experience he had of marriage,’ I said. ‘What he saw of marriage here, and then with Frances. Why would he want any of that again?’

It was abrupt and cruel. I knew that even as I said it, but there wasn’t time for sensitivity. Katherine was waiting on the verandah, alone and pregnant. I expected Michael’s mother to fire up at what I’d said, but she turned to me, gave a sort of smile. ‘But you’ve never been married have you?’ she said. She was looking directly at me: for the first time I noticed how dark were the irises of her eyes in comparison with the hollow paleness of her complexion and her hair from which age had leached out the vital colours. ‘Never mind, never mind,’ she said after a pause, as if I’d made an apology. ‘I’ll go and talk to Katherine. What’s her other name again?’

‘Katherine Broughton,’ I said.

She took the tray with the instant coffee and bought biscuits, walked from the kitchen down the passage. I didn’t follow immediately. The rest was up to them. It was women’s work: sons, lovers, pregnancy, babies, families, compromise. When I did go to the door I could see them farther down the verandah, talking steadily, or listening. Mrs Chute’s stained gardening gloves were still on the round table, but she didn’t fiddle with them. I stood far enough out from the door to enjoy the porcelain sky and a glimpse of the sea, but not close enough to overhear Katherine and Mrs Chute. I imagined Michael as a boy in that house. His physical strength, and the indifference to other people’s opinion of him that never left him. I remembered him telling me that his mother didn’t keep well, and now she was making vital decisions, and he was dead.

Everything that I heard about matters after that visit came from Katherine. I’ve never been in touch with Mrs Chute, or Penny, again. Katherine said that Penny was by far the more understanding of the two, and she was the main benefactor of Michael’s will. Mrs Chute didn’t put up any obstacles to a fair settlement, but she showed no great interest in the baby girl when she was born, while Penny was supportive and wanted her own children to grow up knowing their cousin. I know that was important for Katherine. I like to remember that on the way back to Auckland that day, Katherine told me she didn’t think she could have gone down to see Mrs Chute without me.

I helped Katherine find a house to buy in Mount Eden, and Michael’s firm did all the legal work for her on that and the settlement without charge. If there was any heavy lifting to be done with furniture she’d give me a call, and I visited her in hospital when baby Alice was born, and in the months afterwards I’d sometimes take them for a drive in the weekend. Katherine said she felt stir crazy from being inside too much.

I don’t see much of them now. Katherine married when the little girl was two. A geographer from the university whom she met at the gym. A lucky man. He seems a nice enough guy, but I don’t call round. It could be awkward: some male friend of the child’s father hanging about in an undisclosed capacity. They have a baby boy of their own now. I get a Christmas card, and I’ve been twice to dinner parties. The geographer asked me for share market advice. Little Alice looks just like her mother, and she’s fortunate in that. I tell myself the best of Michael is bound to be there too.

Maybe I’ll go to Tauranga one day and see Michael’s plaque in the crematorium, maybe see if Mrs Chute is still in the same house, and ask her why she’s not interested in his daughter. No, I’ll never do it. So much about people is difficult to understand. There were a swag of possible outcomes to the friendship Michael and I had, but this is the way it turned out, and nothing can be done about it now.

Sometimes these things begin in casual ways that give no indication of the final significance. David wouldn’t have been at the party in Monaco but for an Italian rail strike that prevented him travelling on. He stayed an extra day in Nice with the Ramages, who were close friends of a close friend of his at home. The Ramages had expected their hospitality to be at an end on the Monday, and so had accepted the party invitation. ‘Don’t worry about me a bit,’ said David. ‘I’m quite happy to stay here. It’s kind enough of you to put up with me for an extra night. I could go to a hotel, or a B and B.’ The Ramages hadn’t been captivated by David, but they were polite people and dutiful hosts. They rang their Monaco acquaintances and were assured that an extra guest would be okay.

David didn’t speak French, but most of the party goers were ex-pats, or possessed several languages. Monaco is that sort of society. He didn’t get introduced to the hosts, as the Ramages were distracted at the rather splendid tiled entrance by an assortment of potted plants. Helen Ramage was a potted plant enthusiast capable of distinguishing fourteen varieties of fern. Cóte d’Azur parties are different from Kiwi parties in several ways, one being that those attending don’t expect to know everybody. David had canapés with two South African men on a yachting voyage to Crete, goats’ cheese and filo with a local couple who marketed antique curios, and spilled a little vin rouge on the dress of a tanned, elderly woman before he could find out much more concerning her. In retreat from that débâcle he skirted the pool and found a stone bench behind tubbed cypress trees from which the Grimaldi castle was visible against the darkened skyline. How warm the air was, how pleasant the fragrances.

It was there, as he was finishing his Beaujolais, that he was joined by a man whose insignificant body seemed just the necessary bearer of a large and pleasant face. ‘Attlee Kellor,’ the man said.

‘David Wilson.’

‘Do you mind?’ Attlee said, and he sat down beside David. Even seated the height difference was apparent, although David wasn’t quite six foot. ‘My hearing’s not so good now in a crowd, especially for French, or German, and I get tired because of needing to concentrate. I take a little time out every now and then. I’m not disturbing you?’

They told each other what they did, and how they came to be there, which is what you do at such gatherings. Attlee said he was a futures broker and financial adviser: the host was his client. David explained his local government work as an events manager, and his decision after his wife’s death to have an overseas trip. ‘I don’t know the hosts at all,’ he said. ‘I’m an acquaintance of a friend.’

They got on well, perhaps partly because they had no shared past and no likely future … The very randomness of their meeting encouraged them to openness and surmise. Attlee discussed the impact of the spread of the Euro currency, his prostate concerns, and his philosophy in giving financial advice. ‘My clients are successful people,’ he said, ‘so I ask them what course they think is best, and then encourage them to take it.’ David talked about the balance of delegation and supervision in team leadership, the use of most of his savings for medical expenses before the death of his wife, the nature of living alone.

‘I’ve always wanted to see Italy,’ David said. ‘Tomorrow the trains are supposed to be on again, and I’m heading for Venice.’

‘Ah, Venice.’

‘Then Rome. A couple of weeks in all, and then I might come back and go on to Spain for a bit if the money holds.’

‘I have to go to America quite soon. The south, Florida, on business, and then back to London where I spend most of my time.’ People stood on the patio only metres away, strung lights showed glimpses of coloured dresses between the slender cypresses, and voices carried. The stone of the seat was still warm to sit on. ‘I have a place in Arles,’ said Attlee. ‘It’s where I’m staying at present. Why don’t you spend some time there when you come back to France? Days, a few weeks: I feel better having someone in my places when I’m away.’

‘A house sitter?’ said David.

‘I suppose so, yes.’ Attlee took a few steps out to be in better light, fossicked in his wallet, and then came back to the seat. ‘Here’s my card. Email me, or ring, if you want to stay, and I’ll tell you how to get the key.’

That was the sort of place it was, the sort of party it was. Where people of substance and judgement were accustomed to making decisions quickly and with confidence. Where no big fuss was made of such an offer. Attlee said he meant it. ‘You’d like Arles,’ he said. ‘It’s a good hub, a historic place and not too big,’ then he went on to talk about other things. They parted when the hostess rang a bell, and everyone went in to eat: fifty or sixty people standing about the tables, drifting through the rooms, eating their main meal at almost eleven o’clock at night. David heard Attlee talking to others in French, and didn’t see him again.

‘Attlee Kellor?’ said Paul Ramage the next morning, when David had already packed. ‘Attlee Kellor is a very rich man. Travels the world and has places in New York and London.’

‘And Arles,’ said David.

‘I believe so. He’s a high flyer is Kellor. Someone told me that he was born Hungarian and changed his name for business purposes. Interesting guy.’

‘I thought so,’ said David, but he didn’t mention anything about the invitation to stay in the place in Arles. He didn’t want the Ramages to think he was the sort who bludged his way around Europe, and he didn’t expect to take up the offer anyway. The disparity between his situation and Attlee Kellor’s was too great to make acceptance easy, or risk rebuff if he made contact.

In the end he did take the risk however. He came back from Italy with many memories and very little money. He didn’t feel he could impose on the Ramages again and they hadn’t pressed him to return. If he had to pay accommodation, he couldn’t stay much longer before flying home, and he doubted if he’d ever be back. Time in Arles could be the special cap to his travels. David took the train to Marseilles, and stayed in a backpackers’ hostel close to the station. He felt like a grandfather there, solemn among the quick movement and flirtatious laughter, although he too was in good humour most of the time. Not all the backpackers were travelling in couples, or groups, but their youthful sociability made him doubly aware of being alone. He found an internet café and sent a message to Attlee asking if the offer to stay in Arles still held. He signed himself David from the Monaco party. ‘Absolutely,’ said the brief reply and gave him a name and address, wished him well.

The railway station at Arles was surprisingly small, and few people got off there, even though the tourist season was barely over. There seemed to be no bus service, and David took a taxi to rue Molière and the workplace of Madame Desmarais. He expected to meet a lawyer, or an estate agent, but Madame Desmarais was a florist, and busy behind sprays and bouquets wrapped in coloured cellophane, or pale gauze. Her English was surprisingly grammatical, but spoken with a strong accent that baffled David at first. Yes, she knew about him, yes, M Kellor had said he was to be allowed the key. Madame Desmarais must have been in her sixties, but her slender figure, pampered skin and arched cosmetic eyebrows allowed her to retain a certain feminine glamour once sexual radiance was gone. She took David’s arm and manoeuvred him to a chair at the side of the counter. Soon she would herself take him to the house she said. When she finished with the one customer remaining.

‘A gypsy,’ she told David with a touch of disdain. They watched him leave the premises: a stocky man in an expensive suit with bold stripes, and gold on his fingers. David found the gypsy’s obvious pleasure in the flowers he bore appealing, but said nothing. Madame Desmarais hung a small sign at the door, locked the shop and set off briskly. ‘Rue de la Monnaie,’ she said. It was more of a walk than David expected, and he was thankful that his case had wheels, which clattered over the concrete and cobbles, but people were used to that.

Rue de la Monnaie was in the old town, not far from the river, and David’s guide stopped before a high wooden door in an even higher stone wall. Within was a small courtyard, the cobbles humped in places because of the roots of a large, dark-leafed tree in the centre. Beneath the tree was a small fountain with water flowing from the throat of a bronze bird. The three villas that formed the other sides of the courtyard had elaborate carvings on the lintel stones of their main doors. That’s how it used to be hundreds of years ago — beauty and privilege hidden behind high, blank walls.

Attlee Kellor’s home faced the gate, and Madame Desmarais took David into every room on both floors, advancing into each one with a sweeping gaze as if taking inventory. The kitchen was modern, and all else wonderfully preserved, with shrouds suspended above the beds, unusually high, patterned ceilings, and relief picture wallpaper of fêtes, market days and wars, all in grey on white. David ran his hand lightly over it. ‘So old, so old,’ said Madame Desmarais, ‘but I must return to my flowers.’

They stood for moment on the steps. ‘The Benoits are on your left, and Madame Lefevre on your right, but she’s in Paris at this time of year,’ she said. ‘Do you want someone to come and cook and clean?’

‘No, but thank you,’ said David.

She gave him the large key for the gate and one barely less large for the door. ‘I come to collect the mail each day,’ she said. ‘Leave a note there, or come to my shop if you need to ask me anything. There is an electricity switch beneath the kitchen bench.’ She seemed to have no curiosity concerning the length of his stay, and went away without looking back. David made himself coffee and stood at a window of one of the smaller upstairs bedrooms. Despite having been empty, the house was warm and surprising sweet-smelling — something of wood and fabrics and flowers. The climate accounted for the warmth: David supposed Madame Desmarais responsible for the freshness. From the window he could glimpse the narrow rue de la Monnaie beyond the wall and the curved orange tiles of lower houses. He would sleep in that small bedroom, he decided, and not Attlee’s room, which had silver-backed brushes and silver-rimmed photographs on the inlaid and gold-scrolled dressing table. He had difficulty in recognising his absent host in any of the photographs. The men in them were young, with the sheen and shimmer of young men so that they seemed to fret slightly within the frame, and anyway David had spent time with Attlee only during that one evening of the party, and already his appearance had dimmed. David remembered that he was short, that his face was lined and his longish hair was grey: just a generic description of an older man. And yet there was David standing in his house at Arles, touching his brushes, looking at photographs that must have chronicled some part of his life.

At dusk, David went cautiously into the old town and had a light meal at the first restaurant he came to, because he didn’t want to get lost in the dark. The meal wasn’t a good one and the wine was a poor rosé sold to tourists, but he didn’t mind, for on other days he could find better places. He went back to the house, taking pleasure in using the two keys, and went to bed early. He was tired, but he lay for a while on the hard, clean bed, with the shutters still open, and looked at the wonderful figured wallpaper that had plentiful small signs of long wear, but none of abuse. How much better than the backpackers’ in Marseilles he thought, or the shabby cell of the Rome hotel. Many generations of affluent and civilised people must have lived in the house, minor family oligarchies waxing and waning. How his wife would have loved it, and thinking of her he fell asleep.

Before noon the next day, David crossed the small courtyard and knocked on the door of the Benoits. M Benoit seemed taken aback slightly by the neighbourly visit of introduction. A tall, shy man who was polite, but showed no curiosity about David. Perhaps his diffidence arose from his limited English, though David felt he considered the visit slightly transgressed custom. He met M Benoit and his wife only occasionally afterwards, passing in the courtyard, and they would smile and give soft greetings in their own language. After lunch he found a bunch of dried lavender on his step, and thought Madame Desmarais must have collected the mail. Most mail days afterwards there were flowers of some sort left for him, although he saw her only on his occasional visits to the shop in rue Molière.

During the first week or so David developed a routine of exploring Arles in the mornings, eating out as inexpensively as possible, and then returning to the house to read, or record his experiences. He had begun his journal as a way of capturing material for his emails and letters to his daughter, Anna, but increasingly it became his way of working through his life — youth, career, marriage, ambitions, and the death that put all of them in question. Attlee had a small study on the first floor, looking out to the courtyard. The desk was heavy with computer, printer and related equipment, there were framed pen and ink drawings of Provence on the walls, but very few books on the shelves. It was for Attlee only an occasional home, of course, and there would be more evidence of his character in London and New York.

David visited the Roman amphitheatre and baths, the old bridge, he strolled the walkways alongside the Rhône and through the park on the Boulevard des Lices. He saw the gargoyles on the Musée Réattu and found cheap restaurants in the back streets close to quai de la Roquette. He became accustomed to the supine, begging dogs with the card beside them — pour vivre merci. In her fragrant shop, Madame Desmarais gave him directions to the Vincent van Gogh display, and said that during the mad artist’s stay the citizens of Arles had taken up a petition to throw him out of town. A nice irony that now the association is trumpeted in tourist publicity. And in the afternoons David would relax in the lovely old home behind the high wall, and make his notes, reflect, and enjoy whatever flowers Madame had left on her last visit to collect Attlee Kellor’s mail. And he would try not to be sad.

Towards the end of the first week, he had the first telephone conversation with the woman in Barcelona. He had had the occasional call from people who spoke no English and so disconnected in confusion, or people who rang off just as quickly when told Attlee Kellor wasn’t there. The woman from Barcelona was the only one who hung on determinedly. ‘But you’re an associate of Mr Kellor’s, right?’ she said, when David explained he was a guest in the house at Arles. David told her he had a cellphone number and an email address for Mr Kellor that he could give her. ‘I’d be very obliged for your advice as an associate,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to bother him if it’s not necessary. It’s just straightforward advice I’m hoping for.’