Night Without Stars (28 page)

His eyes met mine. “ Women like that never retire, m'sieu. They are born to active conspiracy. Tell me, are you likely to be seeing Mme. Delaisse again?”

“Yes. To-morrow.”

“I should like your undertaking that you will say nothing of this call.”

“I give it you.”

He got up. “You're staying in France a few weeks more?”

“It's rather indefinite. Probably only a week or two.”

“I'm sorry you don't feel willing to help me in my task.”

“Not unwilling. Unable.”

“Ah,” he said. “Divided loyalties. Dangerous, as I've pointed out British nationality, at times so valuable, is at others a snare. One feels a little withdrawn, aloof, and so becomes more deeply entangled than one realises.”

We walked to the door.

“If at any time you feel you want to talk things over you will find me at M. Lemaître's house, or care of any police station.”

“Thank you,” I said, and watched him go.

I had to force the pace on Wednesday. Either way I stood to lose, so it was better to go down making a fight of it.

It may be at that time that I gave the impression of being an obstinate and persistent man to more people than Charles Bénat. If so there was another cause beyond the obvious one. The feeling I'd mentioned to Rachel had never been shaken off: it was a confused conviction that because of getting my sight back I “owed” something to life. I'd never got properly straight with myself over it; and now this feeling had perversely associated itself with Alix. Of course I wanted her for herself; but the moral issue had wormed its way in and wouldn't be got rid of. I felt I
had
to help her, somehow.

Possibly Charles's cynical comments weren't far off the mark; I don't know. I remember when I saw her walking across the square to me on the Wednesday all these things seemed to come up together.

She said with a smile: “Hullo. Am I late? I had to make a couple of calls for Charles on the way.”

“No,” I said with difficulty. “It's all right. I got the boat.”

“Good. There's quite a breeze, though. Do you ever feel seasick?”

“Practically never.”

We began to walk down to the old quay. It had been agreed that we should spend part of the day sailing and fishing and I'd hired a cutter, though this time with an outboard motor.

As we got in she said: “ I hope it doesn't rain.”

“Not much likelihood, is there?”

“Well, we can't put in to Villefranche this time.”

“I'd not be popular?”

“They don't understand your lofty motives.”

“I had no lofty motives,” I said, “except to find you.”

“It would be difficult to explain that.”

The sea was a bit choppy out of the harbour because a strongish southeasterly breeze was blowing. But it was hot.

“I liked most of them,” I said. “It's a pity we had to quarrel.”

“… I think they liked you.”

“Roquefort … and Scipion, and Uncle Henri, and Mère Roget—whatever their real names were.”

She didn't speak.

I said: “ Is Mère Roget's name Jeanne-Marie Friedel?”

That made her look up. “Why do you ask?”

“Idle curiosity.”

“Who told you? You're not—going on …”

“No.” I was tempted to warn her again about Deffand, but didn't like to break my undertaking. To some extent he'd been right: I was trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. It didn't do.

While talking of Villefranche there had been something in her voice. “ D'you go there often now?” I asked.

“I've not been near since last July.”

“That's rather surprising.”

“My life has changed since then.”

“Anyway I'm glad you don't go.”

“Why?”

“Well, they run the risky end of these jobs you're doing. There'd be no fun in being there if the place were raided.”

“Oh … there's not much risk of that.” Nevertheless she was thoughtful for a minute or two and glanced at me.

I said: “Do they dislike your having gone to live with Charles?”

“I've never consulted them.”

This seemed to lead to a blank wall, and I didn't want to start trouble so soon. We got well out into the bay and then put out lines to see if there were any fish about. The breeze was blowing her hair back from her face, making her look like a stranger. She'd got blue linen trousers and a blue jumper on. The trousers had a red stripe down the side and she wore a red belt. We'd divided the fishing lines; two were to be mine and two hers, to see who caught the most. For a long time there wasn't a suggestion of a bite. Then I caught two tiny fish, so we tried another and westward tack.

She said: “I haven't been fishing since that day a year ago.”

“I used to come out with my father when I was a kid. We had three or four holidays here.”

“Lucky.… I've never had a holiday here—not that sort. When we lived in Dijon we used to go to an aunt who had a farm near Aries; that was our holiday every year. I hadn't really seen the sea until I was sixteen.”

“I suppose you were in Charles's company a good bit in those days.”

“I don't remember a lot before Father—died. That seems to belong to a life almost before I was born. I remember when it happened.… Charles seemed to grow up overnight. He was only fourteen. After I went to the convent I used to see him every holiday. Then we were inseparable. It was strange for me, you know, to come from a convent where everything was founded on discipline and devotion, into the company of Charles who even then was all for indiscipline and irreverence.”

I said: “ I came back to this coast to try to recapture the old feelings; but it's a dead quest from the start. It's not the place that's changed, but you in the years between. Didn't you feel that when you went home to Dijon?”

She rolled up her sleeve and dipped her fingers into the rippling green water; her arm over the side looked like marble, reflected the glimmer of the sea.

“I had plenty of other things to think about.”

“Did you stay long?”

“About four months.”

“Four
months
?”

She withdrew her hand, let the water drip delicately from her fingers. “I was ill. I had a nervous breakdown.”

“Oh? … I'd no idea. I'm sorry.”

“I … stayed with my aunt—Father's sister. It took time.”

“… Did Pierre hurt you before Charles came?”

“Only my throat. It was all right in a week.”

“I got the feeling that you didn't love Pierre, but I was a long way from guessing the reason. At least Jacques's death was avenged.…”

“What? Oh …” She half laughed. “Yes.…”

I was startled at the laugh.

I said: “But perhaps you look on revenge the way Charles does, as an act of justice. In this case I think I should myself.”

“I don't look on it in any way any more.”

It was not very promising to be choked off for the second time in half an hour. I had a feeling of having come towards the same forbidden ground from another angle.

“Sometimes surely you must think of that time still, your friendships, your life with Jacques, the kindly bits as well as the unhappy ones.”

She said: “Will you change the subject, Giles, please. I don't want to talk about it.”

“Right enough. You choose.”

“Tell me about your life. What your father and mother were like, about England and the things you have done and want to do.”

I tried to fill the gap as she wanted it filling, but I wasn't thinking too hard about what I said. The things she'd spoken of or left unsaid went round and round. And to begin I think she was the same. My words had wakened something in her and it wasn't easy to lay it all to sleep again. Her face puckered into a frown once or twice and she seemed glad when I had another couple of bites and hauled in two modest mackerel.

Then there was another bigger one, and she said, with a sudden change of mood: “You're having all the luck. The boat will be loaded down your side and I shall not have even a crab.”

“You can have this baby sole to put the ballast right.”

“No, thank you. I can buy much better than these when I get home. I shall buy twenty kilos and take them back as the fish I've caught.”

“In the Studebaker?”

“No. You can drive me home to-night. Then your car will stink of fish and you'll not want me any more.”

Ahead of us seagulls were fighting over something, and Alix moved to the bows of the cutter to see if she could see what it was. As soon as she turned her back I hauled in her nearest line and hooked one of my mackerel on to the end, then slid it back into the water.

“It's a piece of shark's fin or something,” she said, bright-eyed. “Not an appetising morsel. You see there's no rationing in the seagull world. They leave it to common sense and then the strongest gets the biggest share.”

“Stop moralising and come and take your line. There's something on it at last.”

She clambered back in haste and gleefully pulled the line in.

“A mackerel! My luck has turned. Not a very big fellow but it's a start! You unhook him, will you, Giles? That's the nasty part of fishing.”

I dutifully unhooked it and dropped it in her basket. She bent over it, blinked as hair blew across her eyes.

“He doesn't seem very lively. Didn't all yours kick and wriggle? He's not really moving at all.”

“Sometimes they swallow the hook differently.”

“Do they?” She bent and touched the fish gingerly with one finger. “Why, he's nearly stiff!”

“What?” I leaned over from the tiller. “No, it's only the same as mine.”

“Yes, but yours have been in the basket for five or ten minutes.…” She stopped and looked up at me accusingly. “ It
is
one of yours!”

We passed close by the quarrelling seagulls but she paid no attention to them. She crouched on her heels, looking up at me with a slight frown.

“Did you do that to tease me or to please me?”

“The first if you found out, the second if you didn't.”

There was a long silence.

She said: “I think perhaps I know now why I liked you last year. Because sometimes you are a little like a—a savant and sometimes you are a little like a schoolboy, and sometimes you are just an ordinary man like other men; and I never know one minute from the next which I have to contend with.”

“I don't know where you get the savant from, but if all that's meant to be kind, thank you.”

“It's not meant to be kind. It is just—meant.”

I laughed. “Well, let's get on with the fishing.”

We got on with the fishing. The shadow between us had noticeably grown less. We had run across the southeast wind towards Cannes, but we turned the cutter face on to the breeze and just kept enough way on to prevent drifting. We ate some sandwiches.

She said: “What sort of fish do you eat in England?”

“Never touch fish. Only roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.”

She looked at me.

“And boiled cabbage,” I said.

“That's interesting about boiled cabbage. I know it is a good joke, but also it's true because my father said when he visited England as a student he was given nothing else! Why is that?”

“It's puzzled the deepest thinkers. The English, of course, don't turn their whole imagination on food.”

She said: “I used to think the English were lacking in imagination, but now I know that's not so.”

“Another sandwich?”

“No, thank you.”

“A pear?”

“No, thank you.”

“Don't let me interrupt you,” I said. “ This is a most interesting conversation.”

She smiled slightly. “ Have I been paying you compliments?”

“That was my impression.”

“Instead of heaping insults on you. Poor Giles.”

“Lucky Giles.”

“Why lucky?”

“I can
see
.… And I'm out in a boat with you, and we've caught eight fish and the sun's shining, and there's still seven hours of daylight.”

“And I,” she said, “ am now going to be sick.”

“Lie down,” I said, “ put your head on this cushion. It may pass off.”

“Go away,” she said. “I don't want you to see me being sick.”

“My dear Alix,” I said. “That doesn't matter. It isn't going—”

“… Dear Alix?”

“Oh, yes, you are whether you like it or not. I'm seven years older than you, and—”

“Giles! Go away!”

I went away. After five minutes she said: “ Well, I have not been sick, if that's any consolation.”

“Better?”

“Not much. Are we going in?”

“As fast as our engine will take us.”

After a few more minutes she sat up, with one hand to her head. “My God, what a horrible feeling.”

“Don't move about. You're better down there.”

She lay and watched me. I sat whistling faintly into the breeze and glanced at her now and then. Her colour was coming back.

She said: “What a fool!”

“Nonsense. Lots of people would have been prostrate hours ago.”

She was quiet for a bit longer and then she said: “ I think, Giles, the woman you eventually marry—when you've got over me—will have a great sense of—of support, of balance, of security. Perhaps balance most of all.”

“Very useful in a rough sea.”

“No. I mean it. For the balance is in you. If she gets bumptious, arrogant, cynical, you will—pull her down. But if she makes a fool of herself, feels silly and humiliated, you will—help to restore her self-esteem. You would be a steadying factor, a point of stability.…”

“You don't know how flattered I am. A pity the one woman who recognises these virtues doesn't want to make use of them.”