by Jonathan Coe
A few minutes later, two more people appeared on the terrace. It was Claire Newman, one of his oldest friends from King William’s, and her husband Stefano. They had driven all the way from Lucca, via La Spezia, Genoa, Nice, Cannes and Aix.
Claire and Benjamin had not seen each other for about fifteen years. It had been an impulsive decision to invite her here for the opening party. ‘After all, in European terms, we’ll more or less be next-door neighbours from now on,’ he had emailed, facetiously, not expecting her to be swayed by this argument. But here she was, after all. And just as he remembered her: grey hair cut into a stylish bob which made her look younger – much younger – than he or Lois did, perfect cheekbones, crow’s feet and laughter-lines drawing attention to the open and generous shape of her eyes. After kissing her tenderly on the cheek, and releasing himself from Stefano’s firm, protracted handshake, Benjamin went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of Prosecco in their honour. He called for Lois to come down from the first floor but she didn’t seem to hear him. He brought four glasses outside anyway, but the fourth one remained empty, and then, after Claire, Stefano and Benjamin had all clinked glasses and wished each other ‘Santé!’, Claire looked at him with that searching gaze that he remembered so well (and which always made him slightly fearful), and said, ‘Well, Ben, you’re looking wonderful, but what we all want to know is – what the hell is going on in Britain at the moment? All the Italians think the Brits have gone completely crazy.’
*
The next morning, Sophie found Aneeqa sitting on the riverbank opposite the house. She had a sketchpad open on her knees and was just finishing a fine, delicate drawing of the old mill wheel and the attractive jumble of outbuildings that surrounded it, their pale, dry-stone walls patterned with ivy and bougainvillea.
‘That’s lovely,’ said Sophie. ‘They said you were good at this sort of thing.’
‘I have my moments,’ said Aneeqa, tilting her head to look at the drawing and privately concluding that it wasn’t bad.
‘I may have a job for you,’ said Sophie. ‘Do you think you could paint a sign for us?’
‘What sort of a sign?’
‘We need something to replace that.’ Sophie pointed at the archway which led to the house’s front drive, and to which someone, many years ago, had nailed a now decaying rectangle of wood with the words ‘Le Vieux Moulin’ painted on it in faded capitals.
‘Really? I think it has a certain … period charm.’
‘It’s not the sign itself. It’s the name.’
‘What’s wrong with the name?’
‘ “The Old Mill”? What could be more boring than calling an old mill “The Old Mill”?’
‘True. Do you have a better idea?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
Aneeqa pursed her lips. ‘Do we have the right sort of paints? The right brushes?’
‘Probably not. But I was going to drive back to Marseille today anyway. I’m sure I could find something, if you tell me what you need.’
‘Or I could come with you. I’ve been dying to go there. Do you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
Sophie was, in truth, glad to have the company. Compelled though she felt to revisit the city, to allow herself another, yearning glimpse of the Frioul islands, she was also somewhat dreading it. And so it was a relief, after leaving behind the coolness and quietude of the mill house, enduring a hot and gruelling ninety-minute drive down the busy A55, cooling off with drinks in the Cours Julien, readjusting herself to the urban energies of the city, the noise and the music everywhere, the walls encrusted with graffiti, the kids on skateboards, the rappers and street entertainers, the tangy aroma of North African spices in the air, after reminding herself of all that, and after finding a shop that sold artists’ materials fifteen minutes before it closed for the weekend, giving Aneeqa just enough time to scoop up the things she needed, after they had done all of these things, and walked down to the Vieux Port and rushed aboard a navette that was on the point of leaving, it was a relief for Sophie to have Aneeqa by her side, so that she could talk to her, and point out landmarks, and tell her something of her personal history with this city, and not be left alone with melancholy thoughts of that week in the summer of 2012 and the missed opportunity that sometimes, even now, she felt it represented.
‘I feel like I’m walking on the moon,’ Aneeqa said, as they trudged across the barren, stony landscape of of Ratonneau on their way to the Calanque de Morgiret, where Sophie and Adam had once had their moonlit swim. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and the heat was almost unbearable. The sun assaulted their eyes from two directions: bearing down on them from a sky of flawless pale blue, and dancing in patterns of fragmented, dazzling light on the surface of the sea.
‘You’ll feel great once we get in the water,’ said Sophie, who had insisted that they both bring bathing costumes.
The beach was crowded with swimmers that afternoon. Wading into the water, Sophie struck out, as she had done once before, towards the mouth of the cove, heading for its furthest, deepest point, and then swam strongly backwards and forwards across the bay, from one rocky side to the other. Aneeqa – much as Adam had done – stayed in the shallows, crouching down, simply enjoying the coolness of the water and not really attempting to swim. Afterwards, they walked up the winding path which led to a ridge high above the beach, and Sophie recognized the same wide, flat rock where she and Adam had sat down to talk. Here they both rested: Sophie sitting upright, clutching her knees, Aneeqa stretched out full-length on the rock, shielding her eyes from the sun’s fierceness.
‘I’m not used to this kind of light,’ she said. ‘I could get used to it, all right. Hopefully it’ll be the same down in Spain. But if you’ve grown up in Birmingham, and spent the last two years in Glasgow, it’s a bit overwhelming. Imagine living with this light all the time. You’d actually be able to see the world, instead of just making it out through a grey fog occasionally.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Sophie. ‘And yet I’m moving up to the North-east next week. Where the light is as grey as it gets, and not many people go swimming in the North Sea to cool off.’
‘You don’t sound wildly enthusiastic,’ said Aneeqa, lifting her hand from her eyes temporarily to gauge Sophie’s expression. ‘What’s taking you up there?’
‘New job,’ said Sophie. ‘My best friend’s husband’s started a charity. He’s setting up a new sort of college and he’s asked me to be director of studies. Running the timetable, scheduling the courses, coordinating everything. It’s a great opportunity, actually. I’m quite fired up about it.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ said Aneeqa. ‘And at least you know some people there already. So you won’t be alone.’
Sophie smiled. ‘I won’t be alone anyway. My husband’s coming with me. In fact he’s packing up our old flat this weekend. That’s why he couldn’t come here.’
‘Very self-sacrificing of him,’ Aneeqa said. ‘Must be a nice guy.’
‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘He is a nice guy.’ It was a statement of fact, and not a complicated one, and she knew that her task for the next few years – probably longer, much longer, although she was too scared to use the phrase ‘the rest of her life’ – was to reach an accommodation with this fact, to accept it, to allow it to be enough for her. In the last few months, since her unannounced arrival at the flat that afternoon and the reconciliation that followed, it had proved an easy enough task. Whether it would continue to be so, who could say? But for the moment, she felt that this was where she had to place her trust.
‘Does he have a job up there as well?’ Aneeqa asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Sophie. ‘He might start giving driving lessons again. That’s his thing – driving.’
‘Somebody’s got to do it.’
‘And in the meantime, he’s going to have plenty to occupy him.’
She looked at Aneeqa, and felt a sudden urge to say more, to confide in her. She felt very cl
ose, today, to this friendly, reserved, obviously very talented woman who had turned out to be her unexpected companion on this indulgent sentimental journey. How easy it would be, and how liberating, to unburden herself to someone like this, a sympathetic stranger she would probably never see again once the weekend was over.
But Sophie managed to resist the urge, and stuck fast to her original resolve: to share the secret with her mother, for now, and nobody else.
*
Late on Sunday afternoon, there was a momentous arrival at Le Vieux Moulin: Benjamin’s first writing student.
His name was Alexandre, and he was a small, earnest young man who had come by train all the way from Strasbourg. He smiled nervously when Lois greeted him and looked around in bewilderment at the signs of frantic last-minute activity: Lukas carrying three planks of wood through the hallway, Sophie and Claire on their knees in the kitchen, painting a skirting board. Lois ushered him away from these tell-tale signs of unpreparedness and offered words of welcome, showing him up to his room and telling him that he was invited to join them all for dinner at nine o’clock that evening.
And so there were ten of them, in all, seated around the long oak table out on the second and larger of the terraces overlooking the river, as the light began to fade. Above the table, grapevines interwoven with lavender and flame-coloured campsis were coiled densely around an ancient pergola. Lois and Grete and Benjamin had prepared huge bowls of salade Niçoise, to be followed by steaming pots of ratatouille made with fresh Provençal courgettes and aubergines. There seemed also to be an endless supply of red wine. Then there were calissons and tartes Tropéziennes, and then dessert wines and cheese, and coffee for those who wanted it, and brandy and cognac and even pastis for those who wanted to carry on drinking, all furnished in such abundance that it was long after midnight before the end of the meal was even distantly in sight.
As conversation became more sporadic and subdued, and the candles ranged on the table and on the walls all around them started to burn low, Claire turned to Alexandre and said:
‘So, what are you hoping to learn from your week here, I wonder?’
Alexandre, who was not used to being among strangers and had been quieter than anyone all evening, now cleared his throat and said: ‘I’ve brought with me a collection of short stories – unpublished, of course – and I’m hoping that Mr Trotter will be able to read them and tell me how I can make them better. It will be an honour for me to hear the opinion of the author of A Rose Without a Thorn. Or Rose sans épine, as it’s called in France.’
‘It’s a beautiful book, isn’t it?’ Lois said.
‘What for me is most moving about your brother’s book,’ said Alexandre, picking his way through the words carefully, ‘is that it conveys the desolation of a life which is built entirely upon failure. For me, it’s the story of a man who has failed in every area of his life, and so he entrusts all his dreams of happiness to this one woman, this one love affair, and this turns out to be the greatest failure of all. It’s a life which lacks any kind of achievement, any kind of self-knowledge and so, in the end, any kind of hope.’
A short but fathomless silence descended upon the table at the end of this speech. One or two of the other guests laughed nervously.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Alexandre, ‘did I say something funny? Is my English not so good?’
‘Your English is perfect,’ said Claire. ‘It’s just that you gave the most brutal assessment of Benjamin’s life that he’s probably ever heard.’
‘Oh, but I didn’t mean –’
The silence returned, but was broken this time by Benjamin himself:
‘Sitting here in this amazing place,’ he said, ‘with you guys for company, I find it hard to see my life as a failure. In fact –’ he rose unsteadily to his feet ‘– I think this calls for a speech.’
Lois and Claire put their heads in their hands. Benjamin had been drinking for several hours now, and didn’t look as though he was capable of talking coherently about anything. However, there didn’t seem to be any way of stopping him.
‘Six English people,’ he began, ‘two Lithuanians, a Frenchman and an Italian all had dinner together one beautiful evening in September. Sadly, this is not the set-up for a joke. I wish it was. Nor is it the opening sentence of my new novel. I wish it was that too. In fact I wish I had a new novel for it to be the opening sentence of. But what it is – if anything – what it represents, what it symbolizes, I should say …’
‘We get the message,’ said Claire, when it seemed likely that he was going to stutter to a halt altogether. ‘It’s a wonderful example of European harmonization.’
‘Exactly,’ said Benjamin, striking the table for emphasis. ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to say. What could be more inspiring, what could be a more powerful … metaphor … for the spirit of cooperation – international cooperation – which prevails, which has prevailed – which ought to prevail, if … if we, as a nation, hadn’t made this … regrettable, but understandable – in some ways understandable …’
‘Sit down and shut up,’ said Lois.
‘I will not,’ said Benjamin. ‘I have something to say.’
‘Then do you mind saying it a bit more concisely?’
‘Concision,’ said Benjamin, ‘is the English disease.’
‘Well, you seem to have been cured, and made a full recovery,’ said Claire.
‘Fine,’ said Benjamin. ‘I can say what I want to say in two words.’ He paused and looked around the table at the circle of expectant faces. Then, in a tone of belligerent triumph, he said, ‘Fuck Brexit!’, and sat down to a round of applause.
‘Really?’ said Stefano, after a moment’s reflection. ‘There are six English people here, and not a single person who voted to leave? Not a very representative selection.’
‘I almost did,’ said Charlie, sitting next to him. ‘I was in such a bad place round about then that I almost did it just to give Cameron a kick in the nuts. Benjamin saw me that week. He knows how low I was. Broke and sleeping in my car. Him and his fucking austerity. But I decided it would be a stupid way of making my point. Not nearly as satisfying as punching him in the face, if I ever got the chance.’ Stefano was starting to give Charlie a wary look, and to lean away from him slightly in his seat. ‘Oh, no – don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m not a violent person. I mean, I used to be, but prison knocked that out of me.’
Looking less than reassured, Stefano merely said, ‘Of course. I understand.’
‘Cameron’s only part of the story anyway,’ Charlie continued. ‘The way I see it, everything changed in Britain in May 1979. Forty years on, we’re still dealing with that. You see – me and Benjamin, we’re children of the seventies. We may have been only kids then, but that was the world we grew up in. Welfare state, NHS. Everything that was put in place after the war. Well, all that’s been unravelling since ’79. It’s still being unravelled. That’s the real story. I don’t know if Brexit’s a symptom of that, or just a distraction. But the process is pretty much complete now. It’ll all be gone soon.’
From the other side of the table, Aneeqa said: ‘I don’t want to go back to the 1970s, thank you very much.’
‘Fair enough,’ Charlie agreed. ‘It would have been a shit decade for someone like you. But try to think of what was good about it. Something’s been lost, since then. Something huge.’
Claire intervened, at this point, to challenge Charlie’s interpretation of history, and to point out that the decade he was seeking to idealize had also seen record inflation, economic instability and industrial unrest. The conversation among the four middle-aged English diners became heated, and then broadened out to include Brexit, Donald Trump, Syria, North Korea, Vladimir Putin, Facebook, immigration, Emmanuel Macron, the 5-Star movement and the contentious result of the Eurovision song contest in 1968. Everybody around the table had something to say (at least that was Benjamin’s memory afterwards) but also, one by one, people started to
drift away and go to bed. Those who lingered drank more wine and lost track of how late it was until, finally, the only two left were Benjamin and Charlie. And Charlie was almost falling asleep.
‘Listen,’ said Benjamin. ‘I want to play you a song.’
‘Uh?’ said Charlie, opening his eyes slowly.
‘What you were saying before – about the world we lived in when we were kids, and how it’s all gone. I’ve got a song to play you. It sums it all up.’
‘All right. Bring it on.’
‘I’ll just go and get my iPod.’
Finding the iPod in his bedroom was easy; finding the portable speaker more difficult; finding batteries for the portable speaker almost impossible. When he returned to the dining table, about ten minutes later, Charlie was gone.
‘Oh,’ said Benjamin, aloud. He sat down at the table, took a sip of wine, and looked around him. Where was everybody?
All was quiet. The only thing to break the silence was the rippling of the river as it slid past. Benjamin sat and listened to it for a few minutes. It sounded strange, not what he was used to. Alien. This was a French river. He felt a keen pang of homesickness, both for the country he had grown up in and the country he had just left behind, even though these two countries were by no means the same.
He turned the volume on the speaker up loud, and pressed Play, and soon the haunted, resonant voice of Shirley Collins was sounding out through the night, singing the ballad that Benjamin had not dared to listen to since the day of his mother’s funeral.
Adieu to old England, adieu
And adieu to some hundreds of pounds
If the world had been ended when I had been young
My sorrows I’d never have known
He took a final sip of wine, but knew that he’d drunk far too much tonight, and that it was time to sober up.
Once I could drink of the best