Mr Hire's Engagement (11 page)

She opened her eyes wide, waited motionless for what would come next. And Mr. Hire, putting the Bonds into the pocketbook again, explained hesitatingly.

'Suppose we began by going to Switzerland, travelling separately. As soon as we were across the frontier, we'd send a telegram.'

'To the police?' she cried with a start.

And he answered simply:

'Yes. They arrest him. After the trial we come back and . ..'

Alice kept a grip on herself. She stared fiercely at the floor, struggling to get her breathing under control. She found herself looking at Mr. Hire's slippers and the turn-ups of his trousers. She swallowed twice, and at last managed to raise her head and produce something resembling a smile.

'I don't quite know . . .' she whispered.

'It's the only way. I've been thinking it over. Now it's your turn to think.'

He came a step closer and took her hand in both his, which were hot and moist.

'Will you trust me? I think I could make you happy.'

She could not manage to speak. Her hand lay like a dead weight, her eyes were staring.

'We could live in the country . . .'

His hands travelled up her bare arm as far as the elbow. Mr. Hire moved much closer.

'Let me know to-morrow . . .'

And he suddenly laid his cheek on the dairy-maid's shoulder. She could see him in the mirror, his eyes closed, his lips parted in a faint smile.

'Don't say no straight away!'

It was the warmest part of his cheek, the round rosy patch, that was touching Alice's skin.

VIII

W
HILE
she was undressing, with those few movements which custom had turned into a ritual, and which brought the lines of her body gradually into dearer evidence, until the moment when the white nightdress was pulled over it, the dairy-maid avoided turning her face towards the blank stare of the three sheets of brown paper. She could display her breasts and hips. She could press her thighs and stomach against Mr. Hire, and she would not have shrunk away if he had responded to the invitation, instead of closing his eyes in tender emotion.

What she could not do was to let him see her face, which was merely sullen and preoccupied.

As soon as her nightdress was on she switched off the light and, to be on the safe side, got into bed for a moment, while the light in the room opposite went out in its turn. She had been thinking so hard that her forehead felt as though barred with iron. She got up noiselessly, groped for her shoes, slipped her bare feet into them, then put on her green coat over her nightdress. She had already opened the door when she turned back and picked up off her dressing-table a bottle which had once contained hydrogen peroxide.

When the sleepy concierge worked the mechanism of the front door, Alice was greeted by a gust of wind which dashed her with raindrops from head to foot. The road was bare and glistening. The last tram was waiting at the stop, in a halo of yellow light, on the far side of the crossroads. One of the cafés was still open.

Close to her, right in the doorway, the girl saw a shadowy figure and paused for a moment before plunging out onto the wet pavement.

'So you're there?' she remarked calmly.

It was the youngest of the inspectors who stood, with his coat collar turned up, huddled in the far corner of the entrance.

'A nice job, yours! I don't feel well. I've caught cold. So I got up to fetch some rum.'

She showed him her little bottle.

'Would you like me to go for it?'

'And what if he came out while you were away.'

Her voice sounded quite natural. She walked close to the wall, head lowered, feet splashing into puddles, and the inspector watched her go into the corner
bistro
, where the glass-paned door set a bell ringing as it opened. Four men were still playing cards there, and the wife of one of them was waiting.

'I want some rum please.'

And as the proprietor poured some into a pewter measure:

'Hasn't Émile been?'

'He left at least an hour ago.'

'Alone?'

'Alone,' replied the man with a wink.

'I'll pay to-morrow. I haven't brought my bag. When you see Emile, tell him I want to speak to him.'

Her grey, drawn face betrayed anxiety, but her voice was calm, her manner normal. She went out, carrying her bottle, and without glancing at the empty cross-roads, from which the tram was now noisily departing, she walked back under the house walls, her shoulders getting wetter and wetter and the hair beginning to curl on her forehead because of the damp.

The inspector was waiting for her, standing very upright now. He had straightened his hat, which, before, had been pulled right down to his ears, and as Alice put out her hand to ring, he stopped her.

'What's the hurry?'

Obediently, she turned towards him, and the man, bending forward to look through the opening of her coat, exclaimed:

'But you're in your nightdress!'

'Of course.'

'And you've nothing on underneath?'

He smiled, and extended a hand to touch the top of the white cotton nightdress.

'Your fingers are frozen.'

'Is this better?'

His hand closed round her full breast, above the nightdress, and the inspector went on:

'One would never think there was so much of it!' . Alice was waiting, still holding her bottle, and she leant back against the door, while the man came nearer, standing in the rain, cutting off her view of the road, talking to her from so near that she could feel his breath on her face.

'To think that you're going back to a nice warm bed, while I have to spend the night out here!'

His hand was still squeezing her breast, which had not even quivered, and he put his face close to the girl's neck, sniffing at it, now and then pressing his lips against it, at the roots of her hair.

'You're tickling! So you haven't finished your inquiry yet?' Big drops of cold water were falling from the brim of his hat onto Alice's hand.

'It won't be long now, unfortunately. And then I shan't be able to enjoy these pretty things any more . . .'

She smiled non-committally. 'Are they going to arrest him?'

'It won't need much. One more little clue. He's feeling hunted. As soon as that happens, they never fail to make blunders.'

'You're hurting,' she protested, as he crushed her breast. 'You don't like that?'

'Yes,' she said, without conviction. He smiled, his mouth an inch away from hers.

"This sex-maniac business thrills you, doesn't it now? Of course it does! I've noticed it! Women are all the same . ..'

Her legs were frozen, her feet soaking in her shoes, and the man's fingers still clutching the same breast had begun to feel as though they were scorching her.

'Do you suppose you'll arrest him to-morrow?'

'If it depended on me, I'd never arrest him, so as to . . .' And leaning forward, he pressed his mouth against hers, and straightened up, delighted.

'But we might meet somewhere else . . .'

'We might,' she rejoined, taking advantage of this respite to pull the bell.

'You'll dream about me?'

'Perhaps.'

As the door opened he put his foot against it, went in after Alice, took her in his arms in the dark passage. She could see the lighter patch of the sky through the opening into the yard, could smell the breath of the cold, rainy night, and the cigarette smell from her companion's mouth. Without taking his lips from hers, he was kneading her with both hands, from the thighs to the shoulders, and his knees were beginning to shake.

'Careful! . . .' she murmured.

And she fled towards the courtyard while he, satisfied, shut the door and went back to his corner, turning up his collar again and gazing with a smile at the shiny cross-roads and the corner café, where the shutters were being closed as the last customers said good-bye on the threshold and went their way down the different streets.

Alice sat on her bed, gradually warming her feet in her hands.

Mr. Hire, his hat already on his head, lifted up a corner of the brown paper and looked with cosy regret, through the curtain of rain, at the empty room opposite, the unmade bed in a hollow of which lay a hairpin.

But just as he was going out, his briefcase under his arm, he came back, took the cardboard box out of the wardrobe, and removed the pocketbook with the elastic band. When he finally opened the door, the Government Bonds were in his briefcase, and moreover he had torn up his school photograph.

This was the hour when the house was full of a myriad noises, children leaving for school, men dressing and hunting in vain for the things they needed, and the coalman coming upstairs, filling the whole width of the staircase with the sack on his back.

Mr. Hire was going down with his usual dignity, when he saw a door open on the second floor and found himself face to face with the inspector, coming out of someone's flat.

He said nothing. Neither did the inspector. But their eyes met for a second, and Mr. Hire felt almost ill as a result, as though his breakfast lay like a lump in his stomach.

He went on down the stairs. A woman's hand emerged from a room to hold back a child who was just leaving, and in the passage, where rainwater was trickling in from outside, five or six tenants were clustered round the concierge, in front of the lodge.

As he went past they all stopped talking. Out of habit, Mr. Hire touched his bowler hat, puffed out his chest and went on, his step more jerky than usual.

The wet, heavy wind caught hold of him as it had caught hold of Alice during the night. In front of the dairy, nothing had been left outside except pumpkins and milk-cans. Mr. Hire scarcely turned his head, but he caught a glimpse of Alice's rosy face, her white overall and bare arms, behind the counter. She watched him as far as the tram-stop.

He looked the other way. There was only one house opposite his own; it was a removal business, and four men were standing at the door, with the little bearded inspector, observing him from a distance.

He began to walk faster. He had forgotten to put up his umbrella. Just as he reached the cross-roads, he wheeled round and saw that quite a large group was standing at his own house-door. The little bearded inspector had dashed forward. They got to the tram almost at the same moment, and there the policeman was met by a colleague.

So there were at least three of them at Villejuif. Mr. Hire half-heard the words:

'What did the chief say?'

He held his breath in vain; he couldn't hear what came after that. The tram started off. The two men remained standing on the platform, and as they talked, one of them turned from time to time towards Mr. Hire.

Only one followed him into the Métro, but that made it all the more disturbing. In the Rue Saint-Maur the fire would not light, and Mr. Hire spent more than a quarter of an hour kneeling in front of the stove, blowing to make it draw.

He had no need to go to the window and look for the inspector. The man had now discovered the little
bistro
next door and was sitting just inside its glass front, chatting with the waitress as she polished the bar-top and the coffee machine.

But he might come out at any moment. And at the stage things had reached, he probably would not hesitate to squat down and stare in at the barred window.

Mr. Hire set to work to collect hundreds of paintboxes which were stacked at the far end of the cellar, and build them into a kind of wall in the middle of the room. He was not hurried. He was working slowly but steadily, at his usual pace.

When he found he could sit down without his hands being seen from outside, he fetched his overcoat, a pair of scissors, and a tin box which he took from a filing-cabinet.

He spent two hours in unpicking and sewing up again the striped sateen lining of the sleeves, which was thicker than the rest of the lining. He wore a thimble, like a tailor, and bit his lower lip as he worked. At last the Government Bonds were safely sewn in, and with the same slow persistence, Mr. Hire demolished his rampart of paintboxes.

The fire had gone out. There was no more wood left. He put on his overcoat and set out to buy some at the coalman's. Passing the
bistro
next door, he noticed the inspector, sitting happily with a glass of hot toddy in front of him, holding forth for the edification of the waitress and the proprietor. Catching sight of him, the policeman started in alarm and hurried to the door, but had no need to leave his shelter, for Mr. Hire was already going into the coal merchant's shop.

When Mr. Hire came back, with a dozen bundles of kindling, the little
bistro
looked just the same. The three people inside were as still as statues. But hardly had he gone past the window, when the proprietor and the waitress ran to the door, even came out onto the pavement to get a better view of him.

All this did not stop his doing twenty-three parcels, with the labels, the registration slips and all. The stove was roasting his back now, the lamp on his table was lit, the window to his right had become a grey rectangle, crossed by feet and legs and sometimes by the spindly wheels of a perambulator.

By the time the last label was addressed he had also managed to write two letters, so cautiously inspector would have known nothing about it even if he had been watching him closely. The first was to Victor, the café waiter who served the bowling club.

'My dear Victor, 'You are the only person to whom I can turn for the following service.

When you get this note, please jump into a taxi and go to the Villejuif cross-roads. On the right there is a dairy; go in there and buy something.

You will certainly see the assistant, a red-haired girl, and be able to get the enclosed letter into her hands without being noticed.

'I rely on you. I will explain another time. Meanwhile, thank you.'

He selected a brand new hundred-franc note and re-read the second letter, which was for Alice.

'I will be waiting for you at the Gare de Lyon at 5.40 tomorrow morning.

Take every possible precaution. No need to bring any luggage. I love you.'