Night Without Stars (7 page)

“Oh, well,” she said. “We had six weeks—though he was away half that time. It's as much perhaps as you cart expect, isn't it?”

“I don't know. I don't know the answer at all.”

“Father Mathieu talks about resignation to the will of God. I spoke of that to—to someone I know—and he said the will of God is the priest's name for anything that looks like the will of a stupid ape.”

“It's a point of view.”

“Well, hasn't it been so in your case too? Doesn't everything seem wanton, aimlessly wicked?”

“… You should have asked me six weeks ago. I'd have cheered for your friend then. Now one feels faintly less worked up. That's your doing.”

After a minute she got up. “ Have you a cigarette, please?”

I lit one for her and knew that her lips weren't quite steady. I said: “God knows, I'm completely uncertain about everything. We all are these days. But it's all much too difficult to put in simple terms.”

“Can it be put in any terms?”

“I don't know.… As for you …”

She stirred her coffee, which must have gone cold. “As for me?”

It was on my lips to say, “There's Pierre Grognard,” but I knew somehow that it wasn't so. She might be going to marry him, but he didn't make up for the man she'd really cared for.

“Something may work out.”

“Yes,” she said. “Something may work out.”

I turned at a sound in the doorway behind us, and Alix said:

“Ah, Mère Roger, this is my English friend, M. Gordon.”

Mère Roget had a deep voice and a hard hand. I pictured her as a woman of about sixty, formidable and untidy. She wore carpet slippers.

“Gordon is a French name, m'sieu.”

“Is it? It's also English and Scottish.”

“There is a village near here called Gourdon, which is also known as the Eagle's Nest because it is high in the mountains.”

“That is Gourdon, Mother. Giles's name is Gordon.”

“Nevertheless it is said it was the birthplace of the Gordons. Have you ever been there, m'sieu?”

“No. But I shall go”

“A wonderful view. But pardon, of course, I forgot”

So she also had heard of me.

“We were out sailing Mother, and got caught in the storm.”

“Well, it is over now. In an hour you will be able to start back.”

Later we went into the back room, and Armand, the brother, came in; and then two more men. All the men were a bit surly, Mère Roget polite with a hint of reserve. I wondered if they were pro-Grognard or merely anti anyone who threatened to replace Jacques. I would have liked to go, but couldn't leave without Alix.

There was a piano in this room, and someone started strumming on it, while the place filled up. It's always more difficult to pick out things when there are a lot of people in a room. A fisherman with the agreeable name of Roquefort began to sing the choruses, and several of the others joined in. Alix was in the kitchen talking to Mère Roget, and I felt rather out of it.

Eventually the pianist gave up and noisily refused to do any more. He slumped over to a table near by and I could hear him gulping his wine.

They were a queer bunch, more mixed than one expects to find even in a French café. Two people at the next table were discussing the effects of inhaling chloride of ethyl. They were the first cultured voices I'd heard except Alix's.

Alix said: “ you play yourself, don't you, Giles?”

She'd come in unnoticed in the din and had evidently been watching me.

“I used to know ‘Bluebells of Scotland,' ” I said shortly.

I might have guessed that that wouldn't register.

“Would you play something now?”

“Good God, no!”

“Please. To please me.”

“It's high time we went. It'll take us two hours to get back.”

“Never mind. Just a little tune. Do you know anything French?” Some of the others were listening.

I said: “You're embarrassing me very much, Alix. I haven't touched a piano for three years. Well go now and say goodbye to Mère Roget.”

She put her hand on mine. “ Please, dear Giles.”

It was a bit silly to get hot and indignant, but I couldn't help it. The last thing I wanted was to be made conspicuous.

“Hell!” I said, and got up and groped round to the piano. Somebody clapped politely.

I'm not a good pianist by any respectable standards—partly because when I was ten I found I could play any tune I could whistle without learning the notes. But in the old days I'd been able to make a show among friends.

Now I wasn't among friends. I sat on the chair in embarrassment and couldn't think what to play. Quite a lot of the people had stopped talking.

I thought of a thing my mother had played and that I'd learned from her, a short thing by Liszt which ends up with a whole pianoful of octaves and is generally the sort of showy piece that fits a bad temper.

Anyway I went crashing into this, desperately out of practice and playing a piano for the first time without seeing it. But perhaps annoyance helped and I got through the whole thing with only about six mis-hits.

When it was over quite a lot of people clapped and I heard them say:
“ Tres bien!”
and “Bravo!” and “
Écoutez le donc
!”

I wiped my hands down the sides of Armand's alpaca coat and tried “ Gardens in the Rain.” Debussy is a good starter in most company, if the company isn't chichi, and he went over well here. I dropped three bars in the middle, but nobody seemed to mind. Everyone had stopped talking.

“Go on, please,” said Alix, who'd got round to the piano.

Then I suddenly thought of those Provencal songs I'd learned here twelve or thirteen years ago. By this time I was feeling better about it all and gathered the company was feeling better about me. Halfway through the first song Roquefort the fisherman came up to the piano, and after a bit of coughing and shuffling he joined in. Others followed him. But they sang quite decently, not shouting each other down. When I'd played four, someone handed me a glass of wine and Gaston patted me on the back, and they all crowded round asking which others I knew.

In the end it was dark before we left, and we had to leave the cutter in the harbour and go home by bus. They said they would phone up the man who owned it—they all knew old Gros-Jean—and put it right with him. They'd have it returned in the morning.

In the bus Alix said, delighted: “ It was just on the impulse, I had a feeling that something was needed to make you feel at home and make them … accept you. Then when I saw your expression when Vallon was playing I remembered you said you could play. But of course I didn't guess it all …”

I grunted, feeling a bit ashamed of myself after the show-off.

“I know you were angry about it at the time,” she said. “But not now?”

“Absolutely unpardonable.”

She patted my hand. “Now you're a friend there. You will always be welcome.”

The crowded bus roared and swayed madly towards Nice, full of talking laughing, arguing passengers.

When we got out I said: “ Friday, as last week?”

“I'll try.”

“Promise.”

“All right I promise.… But it may not be for very much longer, Giles. I wish I could say different”

“You wish you could say different”

“Well … In a
way
.… You understand.”

“You mean you wish you could say different—for my sake.”

She didn't speak. Some of the bubble had gone out of her.

“Whether I understand that or not,” I said, “there's one thing I find hard to take in. Your husband being what he was—and you thinking of him as you do—doesn't it make it specially hard going for Pierre?”

“Why?”

“Well—he made money out of the occupation, didn't he?”

“Who told you that?”

“Someone I know.”

“Well, it's not true … or it's only half the story.”

“I'm glad to hear it.”

She stirred something on the ground with her toe.

“Pierre kept his restaurants open and was much patronised by the Germans. Of course he made money out of that. In fact he openly collaborated. But he really used his restaurants to pick up information from them and pass it on to the F.F.I. In fact he was a member of the same resistance group as Jacques. He was arrested just before Jacques and only escaped death by a miracle. He was decorated for his work. He was Jacques's closest friend.”

I got a letter from Cousin Lewis.

D
EAR
G
ILES
[it ran].

Thanks for yours of the 19th. I saw a Treasury official about your case yesterday, but he was not too hopeful. Permits can only be issued on health grounds if it can be shown that the condition of the patient's health necessitates his going or staying abroad. The most obvious case is that of a man with tuberculosis needing to winter in Switzerland. But his view was that the condition of your eyes was something which would remain the same anywhere and therefore there were no grounds for a permit being issued.

Of course we shan't leave it there, but I don't know if it will be possible to get the decision altered. My own suggestion is that you should come home and consult Halliday again; he might be able to pull strings that we can't as you're a war victim. If you are set on remaining, perhaps there is some possibility of your earning some money out there. I don't know if Chapel could help you in this, but there must be occasional legal work to do with the consulate.

I had a letter from Parker the other day, and he has definitely decided not to rejoin the firm. This is a disappointment, and his place will be difficult to fill.

You don't mention the condition of your eyes, but your letter suggests they are not good. It may well be that the constant bright sunshine is bad for them and that a little London fog would rest them and bring about an improvement. But then no doubt you know best how you feel. Mother is keeping well, thank you, and sends her kind wishes.

Yours sincerely. L
EWIS
.

The typing was double-spaced, but I had to get Old Larosse to read it to me.

I took John and his wife out to a meal.

John said: “All the information we've got, old boy, is that things will get worse instead of better. What's going to happen when sterling becomes convertible I don't know. The rosy-faced boys in Westminster seem to think it won't make any difference. But my guess is that every country in Europe—as well as some outside—will demand payment in dollars the minute they're entitled to it. Then there'll be a crisis and all the Westminster boys will have to eat their words. Obviously it's going to be more and more difficult for Britons to live abroad or travel abroad unless they can earn money as they go.”

“I don't know why everyone is so anxious to come away,” said Kay. “I long to see a bit of England.”

“Those who are in want to get out, and those who are out want to get back. That's the way it comes, old dear. You shouldn't have married an empire builder.”

She gave a little laugh. “ Is it builder or liquidator these days?”

John said to me: “There are some still carrying on the old Max Intrator trade. I expect you've discovered that?”

“The barman at the Bouquet d'or hinted as much.”

“Did you swallow the bait?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I shouldn't if you want to fiddle, do it with pound notes, not cheques; you haven't got to sign ' em.”

Kay said: “Are all consular officials as helpful?”

John shifted in his chair: I'm only giving sensible advice to an old school friend. I wouldn't give it to every good-time playboy. They don't need it anyhow.… Of course everything's heading for chaos. The war's put Europe in the crazy situation of needing a non-European currency to keep the wheels going. By the way, Giles, if you want to spend your time in France, why don't you get tied up with our export drive? If you can only do that a grateful government will lavish sterling on you. Aren't there any strings you can pull?”

“I've never been much of a string-puller.”

“Get Cousin What's-it to go through the family clients for you: there's sure to be one these days who's exporting typewriters to Belgium or bottled pickles to the Alpes-Maritimes. It's only a question of getting to know.”

“Weren't those somebody's famous last words?” Kay said.

But by now the wine was warming John to his theme. “Of course to do the thing properly you should get Lewis to find a family with a skeleton in the cupboard. Once you've proof that the second marquis was born out of wedlock you can practically go and demand anything you like.”

Kay said: “You'll have to excuse John for being so out of date. He doesn't realise yet that it isn't the marquises who can pull the strings. And the people who
can
wouldn't be frightened of a family skeleton. They probably take it with them every day to sit beside them in the House of Commons.”

I said with a grin: “I wonder if we export tin cups and mouth-organs.”

There was a faint embarrassed pause.

John said: “My dear old boy, blindness is a minor disability compared to what some of the people I meet are suffering from.”

“But John told me you could see a bit,” Kay said.

“I can see a lot,” I said, sorry now to have brought the thing up, even as a joke.

They went on for a while, asking what specialists I'd been under, etc. I had a feeling they were glad to get on a topic where there wouldn't be any sparks struck, so I let them plug away. There was an air of strained cheerfulness about them to-night that suggested unmistakably a squabble not long blown over.

Later we went along to the Municipal Casino and gambled a bit, and I met a slim-built, sophisticated youngish man called Charles Bénat whom John said I ought to have much in common with, seeing that he was one of the most successful lawyers in Provence.