Ripley's Game (20 page)

Tom went up to Paris and spent a whole day listening to harpsichord lore from the dealer, looking at instruments, trying them out with timid chords, and making his decision. The gem he chose, of beige wood embellished with gold-leaf here and there, cost more than ten thousand francs, and would be delivered on Wednesday, 26 April, along with the tuner who would at once have to get to work, because the instrument would have been disturbed by the move.

This purchase gave Tom a heady lift, made him feel
invincible as he walked back to his Renault, impervious to the eye and maybe even the bullets of the Mafia.

And Belle Ombre had not been bombed. Villeperce’s tree-bordered, unpavemented streets looked as quiet as ever. No strange characters loitered. Heloise returned in a good mood on Friday, and there was the surprise for her for Tom to look forward to, the arrival of the large and delicately handled crate containing the harpsichord on Wednesday. It was going to be more fun than Christmas.

Tom did not tell Mme Annette about the harpsichord either. But on Monday he said, ‘Mme Annette, I have a request. On Wednesday we have a special guest coming for lunch, maybe for dinner too. Let’s have something nice.’

Mme Annette’s blue, eyes lit up. She liked nothing better than extra effort, extra trouble, if it was in the cooking department. ‘U
n vrai gourmet?’
she asked hopefully.

‘I would think so,’ Tom replied. ‘Now you reflect. I am not going to tell you what to prepare. Let it be a surprise for Mme Heloise also.’

Mme Annette smiled mischievously. One would have thought she had been given a present too.

14

T
HE
gyroscope Jonathan bought for Georges in Munich turned out to be the most appreciated toy Jonathan had ever given his son. Its magic remained, every time Georges pulled it from its square box where Jonathan insisted that he keep it.

‘Careful not to drop it!’ Jonathan said, lying on his stomach on the living-room floor. ‘It’s a delicate instrument.’

The gyroscope was forcing Georges to learn some new English words, because in his own absorption, Jonathan didn’t bother speaking French. The wonderful wheel spun on the tip of Georges’ finger, or leaned sideways from the top of a plastic castle turret – the latter a resurrected object from Georges’ toy box, pressed into service instead of the Eiffel Tower shown on the pink page of instructions for the gyroscope.

‘A larger gyroscope,’ Jonathan said, ‘keeps ships from rolling on the sea.’ Jonathan did a fairly good job of explaining, and thought if he fixed the gyroscope inside a toy boat in a bath-tub of tossing water, he might be able to illustrate what he meant. ‘Big ships have three gyroscopes going at once, for instance.’

‘Jon, the sofa.’ Simone was standing in the living-room doorway. ‘You didn’t tell me what you think. Dark green?’

Jonathan rolled over on the floor, propped on his elbows. In his eyes the beautiful gyroscope still spun and kept its miraculous balance. Simone meant for the re-covering of the sofa. ‘What I think is that we should buy a new sofa,’ Jonathan said, getting up. T saw an advertisement today
for a black Chesterfield for five thousand francs. I’ll bet I can get the same thing for three thousand five hundred, if I look around.’

“Three thousand five hundred
new
francs?’

Jonathan had known she would be shocked. ‘Consider it an investment. We can afford it.9 Jonathan did know of an antique dealer some five kilometers out of town who dealt in nothing but large, well-restored pieces of furniture. Up to now he hadn’t been able to think of buying anything from this shop.

‘A Chesterfield would be magnificent – but don’t go overboard, Jon. You’re on a spree!’

Jonathan had talked today about buying a television set, too. ‘I won’t go on a spree,’ he said calmly. ‘I wouldn’t be such a fool.’

Simone beckoned him into the hall, as if she wanted to be out of Georges’ hearing. Jonathan embraced her. Her hair got mussed against the hanging coats. She whispered in his ear:

‘All
right.
But when is your next trip to Germany?’

She didn’t like the idea of his trips. He had told her they were trying new pills, that Perrier was giving them to him. that though he might stay in the same condition, there was a chance the condition would improve, and certainly it wouldn’t get worse. Because of the money Jonathan said he was being paid, Simone didn’t believe that he wasn’t taking a risk of some kind. And even so, Jonathan hadn’t told her how much money, the sum now in the Swiss Bank Corporation in Zürich. Simone knew only that there was six thousand francs or so in the Société Générale in Fontainebleau, instead of their usual four to six hundred – which sometimes went down to two hundred, if they paid a mortgage instalment.

‘I’d love a new sofa. But are you sure it’s the best thing to buy now? At such a price? Don’t forget the mortgage.’

‘Darling, how could I? – Bloody mortgage!’ He laughed. He wanted to pay off the mortgage at a whack. ‘All right, I’ll be careful. I promise.’

Jonathan knew he had to think of a better story, or elaborate on the story he’d already told. But for the moment he preferred to relax, to enjoy merely the thought of his new fortune – because spending any of it wasn’t easy. And he could still die within a month. The three dozen pills that Dr Schroeder of Munich had given him, pills that Jonathan was now taking at the rate of two a day, were not going to save his life or wreak any great change. A sense of security might be a fantasy of sorts, but wasn’t it as &al as anything eke while it lasted? What else was there? What else was happiness but a mental attitude?

And there was the other unknown, the fact that the bodyguard called Turoli was still alive.

On 29 April, a Saturday evening, Jonathan and Simone went to a concert of Schubert and Mozart played by a string quartet at the Fontainebleau Theatre. Jonathan had bought the most expensive tickets, and had wanted to take Georges, who could behave well if he were sufficiently cautioned beforehand, but Simone had been against it. She was more embarrassed than Jonathan, if Georges was not the model child. ‘In another year, yes,’ said Simone.

During the interval they went into the big foyer where one could smoke. It was full of familiar faces, among them Pierre Gauthier the art dealer, who to Jonathan’s surprise was sporting a wing collar and black tie.

‘You are an embellishment of the music this evening, madame!’ he said to Simone, with an admiring look at her Chinese-red dress.

Simone acknowledged the compliment gracefully. She did look especially well and happy, Jonathan thought. Gauthier was alone. Jonathan suddenly remembered that his wife had died a few years ago, before Jonathan had really become acquainted with him.

‘All of Fontainebleau is here tonight!’ said Gauthier, making an effort to speak above the hubbub. His good eye roved over the scores of people in the domed hall, and his bald head shone under the grey-and-black hair he had
carefully combed over it. ‘Shall we have a coffee afterwards? In the café across the street?’ Gauthier asked. ‘I shall be pleased to invite you.’

Simone and Jonathan were about to say yes, when Gauthier stiffened a little. Jonathan followed Gauthier’s glance and saw Tom Ripley in a group of four or five, only three yards away. Ripley’s eyes met Jonathan’s and he nodded. Ripley looked as if he might come over to say hello, and at the same time Gauthier sidled to the left, leaving. Simone turned her head to see who both Jonathan and Gauthier had been looking at.

‘Tout à l’heure, peut-être!’
said Gauthier.

Simone looked at Jonathan and her eyebrows went up a little.

Ripley stood out, not so much because he was rather tall as because he looked un-French with his brown hair touched with gold under the chandeliers’ lights. He wore a plum-coloured satin jacket. The striking blonde girl who seemed to be wearing no make-up at all must be his wife.

‘So?’ Simone said. ‘Who is that one?’

Jonathan knew she meant Ripley. Jonathan’s heart was beating faster. ‘I don’t know. I’ve seen him before but I don’t know his name.’

‘He was at our house – that man,’ Simone said. ‘I remember him. Gauthier doesn’t like him?’

A bell rang, the signal for people to return to their seats.

‘I don’t know. Why?’

‘Because he seemed to want to get away!’ Simone said, as if the fact was obvious.

The pleasure of the music had vanished for Jonathan. Where was Tom Ripley sitting? In one of the boxes? Jonathan did not look up at the boxes. Ripley might have been across the aisle from him, for all Jonathan knew. He realized that it wasn’t Ripley’s presence that had spoilt the evening, but Simone’s reaction. And Simone’s reaction had been caused, Jonathan knew also, by his own uneasiness at seeing Ripley. Jonathan deliberately tried to relax in his seat,
propped his chin on his fingers, knowing all the while that his efforts were not deceiving Simone. Like a lot of other people, she had heard stories about Tom Ripley (even though at this moment she might not recall his name), and she was perhaps going to connect Tom Ripley with – with what? At the moment, Jonathan really didn’t know. But he dreaded what would come. He reproached himself for having shown his nervousness so plainly, so naively. Jonathan realized he was in a mess, a very dangerous situation, and that he had to play it calmly, if he possibly could. He had to be an actor. A little different from his effort to succeed on the stage when he’d been younger. This situation was quite real. Or if one liked, quite phoney, Jonathan had never before tried to be phoney with Simone.

‘Let’s try to find Gauthier,’ Jonathan said when they were moving up the aisle. The applause was still pattering around them, gathering itself into the co-ordinated palm-pounding of a French audience which wanted still another encore.

But somehow they didn’t find Gauthier. Jonathan missed Simone’s reply. She did not seem interested in finding Gauthier. They had the baby-sitter – a girl who lived in their street – at home with Georges. It was almost 11 p.m. Jonathan did not look for Tom Ripley and did not see him.

On Sunday, Jonathan and Simone had lunch in Nemours with Simone’s parents and her brother Gerard and his wife. As usual, there was television after lunch, which Jonathan and Gerard did not watch.

‘That’s excellent that the
boches
are subsidizing you for being one of their guinea pigs!’ Gerard said with one of his rare laughs. That is, if they don’t do you any harm.’ He had come out with this in rapid slang, and it was the first thing he had said that really caught Jonathan’s attention.

They were both smoking cigars. Jonathan had bought a box at a
tabac
in Nemours. ‘Yes. Lots of pills. Their idea is to attack with eight or ten drugs all at once. Confuse the enemy, you know. It also makes it more difficult for the
enemy cells to become immune.’ Jonathan rambled on quite well in this vein, half-convinced he was inventing it as he went along, half recollecting it as a proposed method for combating leukemia that he had read about months ago. ‘Of course there’s no guarantee. There could be side-effects, which is why they’re willing to pay me a bit of money for going through with it.’

‘What kind of side-effects?’

‘Maybe – a decrease in blood-congealing level.’ Jonathan was getting better and better at the meaningless phrases, and his attentive listener inspired him. ‘Nausea – not that I’ve noticed any so far. Then of course they don’t know all the side-effects as yet. They’re running a risk. So am I.’

‘And if it succeeds? If they call it a success?’

‘A couple of more years of life,’ Jonathan said pleasantly.

On Monday morning, Jonathan and Simone drove with a neighbour, Irène Pliesse – the woman who kept Georges every afternoon after school until Simone could fetch him – to the antique dealer on the outskirts of Fontainebleau where Jonathan thought he might find a sofa. Irène Pliesse was easy-going, large-boned, and had always struck Jonathan as rather masculine, though perhaps she wasn’t in the least. She was the mother of two small children and her house in Fontainebleau was more than commonly full of frilly doilies and organdy curtains. At any rate, she was generous with her time and her car, and had often volunteered to drive the Trevannys to Nemours on the Sundays when they went, but Simone with characteristic scrupulousness had never once accepted, because Nemours was a regular family affair. Therefore the pleasure of using Irène Pliesse’s services for the sofa-hunting was an unguilty one, and Irène took as much interest in the purchase as if the sofa was to be in her own home.

There was a choice of two Chesterfields, both with old frames and both recently covered in new black leather. Jonathan and Simone preferred the larger one, and Jonathan managed to knock the price down five hundred
to three thousand francs. Jonathan knew it was a bargain, because he had seen the same sized sofa advertised, with a picture of it, for five thousand. Now this vast sum, three thousand, nearly one months’ earnings of himself and Simone combined, seemed positively trifling. It was amazing, Jonathan thought, how quickly one could adjust to having a little money.

Even Irène, whose house looked opulent compared to the Trevannys’, was impressed by the sofa. And Jonathan noticed that Simone didn’t at once know what to say to pass it off smoothly.