The Widow (19 page)

‘She's been taking drugs?'

‘We're in a realm of conjecture. The opium derivatives, at least, are not accumulative. Even clinical tests might find it hard to show whether, and to what extent … She has refused to submit to any medical examination.'

‘But is there any evidence?'

‘Of taking stimulants, or possessing such – no. To wonder what a girl of this age gets up to is to frighten oneself with false fire. The fact is that both from her father and myself she has stolen prescription forms. You're aware that they come like cheque books, with counterfoils and carbons? These have been abstracted, falsified. Oh, in no great number. There is of course a traffic in such forged papers. We have taken precautions. We have said nothing. The circumstances did not warrant a complaint to the authorities. There is no evidence that she stole them for use or for profit. I should be obliged if you treat what I tell you in the greatest confidence. Can I count upon you?'

‘You can.' I've got you there, thought Arlette; to conceal the theft of prescription forms is an offence. ‘You think it more likely that she was doing a favour for a friend?'

‘I think nothing at all. I should like to correct a view you may have formed, of her father's character, conceivably my own. I do not approve of forcing young persons into a clinic for the purpose of tests, against their will. I think it likely that as much harm as good might result. I believe that in her hostility towards her father, anything construable as a repressive action might be grave. But she's a worry, Madame, I don't attempt to hide it from you.'

‘She didn't object to a suggestion that Doctor Rauschenberg take a look at her. Understandably, he disliked the idea without parental authorization.'

‘Joachim Rauschenberg is an old friend and I see nothing amiss with that. It is not quite what I was turning over in my mind. I believe that nothing is to be gained by behaving as though you had not the interests of this girl – my niece – at heart. You have, I think, to some extent her confidence?'

‘I showed her some commonplace kindness, gave her a sympathetic hearing but beyond that …'

‘Your reticence does you credit,' with the first sketch of a smile. ‘I am not proposing that you weasel confidences from her. Or spy upon her. I would suggest that you try to familiarize yourself with her friends, her haunts. On a confidential basis. Briefly, Madame, I seek to trust you. And trust me in your turn. I do not seek anything prejudicial to my sister's child, the more so that I have for many years lost sight of my sister.'

‘That is fair.'

Freddy had not moved from behind his desk, exactly as though he were in his consulting room. He felt in his pocket, and unlocked a desk drawer.

‘This should be putupon a professional basis. The best for all concerned. You should have some tangible evidence of this delicate trust. An authority, we may put it. Furthermore your time to consider, your expenses…' He opened a cheque book,
wrote quickly, blotted it, tore it out: a cheque for a thousand francs. ‘A basis for trust, Mrs Davidson.' One can't curtsy while sitting down.

‘I'm afraid your patients will be waiting for you, Doctor Ulrich; I'd better set you free. You've set me free – and I'm grateful.'

‘I have a good eye, clinically speaking,' said Freddy. ‘If I may say so you have a healthy eye. I congratulate you upon it. Keep it.' He escorted her with formal courtesy. ‘This, you must forgive my insistence, remains between us. I think it best if you make no approach to my brother-in-law.'

‘I agree,' said Arlette with a small grin. ‘Can I send her home, with no reproaches made? I'd like to see her back in a pattern as near possible normal.'

‘That is sensible. You may rely on that.'

‘These Premises are under Electronic Surveillance,' said Arthur.

‘Are they?' asked Arlette, startled.

‘Of course not. But if one put a big notice in the hall saying they were, enough people would believe it.'

‘Aha. A deterrent.'

‘Can't be done, alas. Rauschenberg's patients wouldn't like it. The Big Ear's listening to them. We think perhaps those bullseye convex mirrors of polished metal, set at an angle, like at blind corners you know? Periscope effect. How've you been getting on?'

‘I'm employed by Freddy to enquire tactfully into Marie-Line's background because he thinks she might be taking drugs, and here's the proof. If she goes home by the way she won't be harassed.'

‘That's to the good – splendid. Paul doesn't mind, but she pilfers ten-franc notes from Claire's bag.'

‘She has a variety of tiresome little tricks one wouldn't want to live with for any length of time. Admire this. Do I frame it?'

‘Paribas Bank, rather haughty. Cash it, you idiot; framing one's first pay-cheque is a cliché.' Nothing Arthur detested more than cliché. He sought them out, pounded upon them, took them by the scruff and kicked their arse.

‘So much won from the capitalists.'

‘Kiss it, don't spit on it. No such thing as laundered money nowadays. All stolen, every penny. What does old Flaubert say? – Be very bourgeois and conventional in your life, the better to concentrate the originality of your art in your work; I don't claim to paraphrase exactly.'

‘Marie-Line taking drugs, or passing them – rather a cliché too?'

‘You know, one must beware. I recall the first time I ever landed in America: Boston, the first thing I saw was a great huge Irish cop, gigantic belly soaked in sweat, all hung about with hickory sticks and forty-five guns, dangling handcuffs, western boots and John Wayne hat, the lot. Deplorable I thought, exactly like that Los Angeles chief that believes in setting up gallows at airports, hang any skyjackers on the spot. Cliché's a funny thing. Go to Chicago, of all places. You'll find a police chief that's highly civilized; thoughtful, soft-spoken, and black to boot. Clichés there all the time, deadening, brutalizing, tempting one into cheap crude prejudice.'

Cheap crude prejudice. The words fell on her like three blows of a stick. She felt too tired and stupefied to react. She sat heavy and passive on the nearest chair as though crouched at the foot of some rubbish heap. Let them pelt her then, with anything that came handy; cabbage stalks, empty beer cans, old roots, clods of soil. Bones, stones, lumps of guts: she could only cower there. She shut her eyes so as not to see the grinning faces: in an unconscious stylization she laid her hands flat alongside her face, as though she had to protect her head from
another hearty thwack. She felt quite unable to cry: how unfair that was; she needed to cry. Angry self-pity came to her aid and a nasty little hot tear oozed out. A gentle voice spoke to her.

‘My poor girl, you're tired to death.' A gentle hand with a hanky wiped her face. This of course made her cry harder than ever.

‘That's delayed shock,' said Arthur in a clinical tone. ‘Hot tea.' He went away for a moment while she struggled and snuffled, and was just feeling that she was getting back on top of herself when she was rearranged and firmly cuddled, at which she went woo wah hah in an enormous crash, tumbling down from top to bottom of the rubbish heap and lay there like a mass of foolish dough, being petted and not deserving it. Then at last she sat up and said, ‘That kettle's boiling its head off.'

There was silence for five minutes, broken only by small comforting household noises. The bump of the kettle put back on the stove, tinkle and roll of something small that fell, and a mild curse from Arthur at his clumsiness, musical tang of porcelain and plink of silver; sliding sound of a tray placed on the table; tock of a sugarlump in a cup and purring of tea poured out, the whee whee of a spoon stirring. She could not open her eyes.

‘Easy now,' said Arthur's voice and the rim of the cup came hard and burning on her lips. She took a sip of scalding tea, choked, and began to cough without being able to stop. She went on coughing for about an hour until the voice said ‘catch' and she got a handkerchief, a real lawn handkerchief agreeably drenched in eau de cologne, at which she gave a colossal sneeze, stopped coughing, mopped and blew her nose, sat up, drank her tea, and felt vastly better. Arthur was so Good. At this she had to cry again, but not for long. She made various attempts at smiling, blew her nose some more, took a huge gulp of tea to stop her teeth chattering, and declared that she felt much better and it had done her a world of good. Which, as Arthur instantly said, was the cliché to end all others.

‘Catharsis. Which sounds like catheters somehow and not very nice.
Se casser les nerfs
, as the French say sensibly. I've locked the door, put the Back-Tomorrow thing on the phone thingy, and you will now go to bed and have a sleep.'

‘I don't want to go to bed. I want another cup of tea. The rest is a good idea. I can't face anybody for another hour. God, I'm an incompetent old cunt.'

‘Really? Not the way the object in question strikes me, but tastes differ. Don't tell me Freddy brandished. I must ring him up with a lecture then about his Hippocratic oath.' This idiotic chat braced her.

‘I felt humiliated.'

‘What, at being given a cheque! No French person is ever humiliated by receiving money.'

‘Please stop being so annoyingly English. I was mortified at having a lot of preconceived ideas, and getting them kicked about my ears. Talk about selfish, insensitive bourgeois. Accurate description of myself. I know nothing, I'm fatuous, and I had the insolence to go in there looking down my nose.'

‘
Ay de mi,'
said Arthur. ‘Happens to us all. First book I ever wrote, a work of immense brilliance and no importance, should never have seen the light of day but for that fatal urge to see oneself in print, I was chided in the
Times Literary Supplement
for not being serious. Being young and foolish I sat down with that balm to vanity, the pen dipped in acid, and wrote a splendid letter showing that the reviewer was a reactionary imbecile, that he was motivated by personal animus, and that he was not in the least serious himself, having no knowledge whatever of the subject but was an accomplished mouthpiece for fashionable attitudes. All true. I then realized that from trivial, piteous and ignoble motives he had said something absolutely true. So I couldn't send the letter. But I had a great deal of fun writing it.'

‘Yes,' said Arlette. ‘The thing is, Freddy's not like that. Rigid, narrow, blinkered if you like, puritanical and viewing himself as Elect, and still capable of nobility. Like Sir Leicester Dedlock. And I felt like that revolting Esther, smarmy little
bitch: everybody keeps telling her she's wonderful and is she ever pleased with herself in her tiny gentle ever-so-sweet little voice' bellowing. Arthur, tickled, got the giggles.

‘The tiny sweet little voice,' wiping his eyes. ‘May I die!' She became intensely uptight, and then got the giggles too.

‘Listen,' said Arthur, who had been casting about for better sociological examples. ‘I know nothing whatsoever about music, can just barely recognize a tune when it's thumped out. Now you – you have informed good taste and judgment. Who's the best conductor you ever heard?'

‘Carlos Kleiber, without much hesitation.'

‘Excellent. Now will you be kind enough to give me your views on the Herr von Karajan?'

‘Yes, I understand. One is forced to admit, grudgingly, that he's not a charlatan. Can indeed be better than tolerable. But oh, oh, oh, the death in one's heart.'

‘You see? You're able to apply honest standards of criticism to your self. It's a thing few can do.'

‘I'd like to go out tonight,' said Arlette.

‘Have you got tickets?' asked Arthur startled. ‘Where to?'

‘I didn't mean like that. I want to go and see that frau of my Mister Demazis.'

‘I see. You find Inspector Simon a poor critic, and too easily satisfied with preconceived ideas?'

‘Arthur, who shot at me? Silly phone calls are one thing – though Demazis told me he got weird phone calls. And vandalism, smearing blood on the door or blowing up the letterbox with bundles of bangers. You and Rauschenberg say that's just the result of the nonsense in the paper, the feeble-minded rallying to stamp on something that attracted an outcry. Is that true, you think?'

‘You're not seriously thinking that Demazis was knocked off because of talking to you and having been told not to.'

‘No. Nobody could know what he said to me, assuming he was followed or observed; nobody could know I took an interest. Nobody could assume I reacted. True, I went down to the PJ office but so what? They weren't even enquiring into
his death – it's classified. I'm a sleeping dog, so why should anybody stir me up? But suppose I stopped being a sleeping dog?'

Arthur thought.

‘Woman, your time is your treasure to spend, as you see fit to spend it. As for these manifestations of violence or, it may be, hatred born of fear or misery, I'm like the man in the James Bond book. Two might be happenstance, but any more and I'd go to the cops. What good that would be likely to do I've no idea: it might relieve my conscience. Cops are like hospitals: you're apt to come out a great deal filler than you went in.'

‘I don't understand that whatever I do – quite peaceful, conciliatory sort of things – I seem to arouse hostility. Ulrich showed me clearly enough that Siegel is a prickly defensive kind of person who feels vulnerable in all sorts of ways. But why did he have to strike at me so fiercely? And these other people – what have I done?'

Arthur dropped his joking manner.

‘You're doing something new, that's all. There's an inherent mediocrity in human beings, a love of the lowest common denominator: hm, that's best left to the philosophers. The sociologist will tell you that it's fear. The slightest untoward happening sets off fear like a big choking cloud of gas. People fear in a big way that's obvious and understandable, like wars, plagues, typhoons, earthquakes. And they fear the unknown, the dark and the silence. You've been alone in a forest, at night? Or at sea? Ghosts and ghouls. This somehow never becomes a cliché, even if it's a truism. Harder to sympathize with are the small mean fears. Of losing one's position and one's standing, so painfully acquired and laboriously wriggled into. Fear of suddenly coming face to face with oneself in the cruel looking-glass. There's a fear of science, and a fear of art. Every work of art in any sense original arouses great hostility and even hatred: Yeats said that. Why? Fear of the unknown, or fear of catching sight of themselves? The dark hates the light, the hypocrite hates truth, the phony hates the real.