The Dust That Falls From Dreams

by Louis de Bernières

  ‘And another thing. You are a bad wife in another way. Daniel has admitted it and I believe him.’

  Rosie was by now sobbing, quite unable to cope with this barrage that was forcing her to see herself from the outside.

  ‘Are you telling me to do my duty?’ she asked.

  ‘Duty! Paf! I am not talking about lying on your back and thinking of something else! I am talking about generosity, and plaisir! Are you a woman?

  ‘I will tell you a secret. This is a Frenchwoman’s secret, you understand, no? First of all, what did your mother tell you about, you know, making babies?’

  Rosie wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve, and said, ‘Mama said I would have to go through great humiliation, but it’s worth it for the children. She says that relations with a husband are the price you pay for marriage, and marriage is the price that a man pays for relations.’

  Mme Pitt was visibly shocked. She shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu! Your poor father. This is terrible! Oh là là! I will tell you what my mother told to me. She said, “Chèrie, a good wife is a lady in the drawing room and a slut in the bedroom.” ’

  ‘A slut?’ repeated Rosie incredulously.

  ‘A slut, my dear. Une salope! She said, “God Himself does not see what those who are married do when they are alone He minds His own business when people love.” And this is the most important of all: “If a woman does not bother with her husband she gives up her right to his fidelity. And if a man does not concern himself with his wife, he gives up his right to her fidelity.” Ça, c’est entendu partout. Tu comprends?’

  Rosie nodded her head.

  ‘I am talking about pratique,’ said Mme Pitt, ‘I am not talking about any theories or what it says in any Bibles.’

  ‘But women and men are so different, aren’t they?’ said Rosie.

  ‘It seems to me that this is the excuse only. I ask you a question, OK? What do you call a woman who only gives herself to a man when she wants something from him?’

  Rosie thought for a second, and ventured, ‘A prostitute?’ The word tasted vile in her mouth; it was difficult even to say it.

  ‘Exactement. I believe that you have been interested only when you wanted the baby, and when you had the baby, paf! No more interest.’

  Rosie flushed deeply and began to shake. She felt a most terrible shame and embarrassment, but also a rebellious sense of having been misjudged, and the sweat began to pearl on her head. She could hardly breathe. ‘Are you calling me a prostitute?’ she said at last.

  ‘I call you nothing. I was, you know, asking like Socrates. You know what a prostitute is. You told me yourself. You work it out. You use your brain.’

  Rosie bridled. ‘Are you going to let me speak?’

  ‘Well, of course my dear. Speak.’

  ‘Isn’t a…prostitute…a woman who does things with people she has no feelings for? I do have feelings. I realise more and more that I do love Daniel, and it pains me that I’m no good for him. I cry about it sometimes, and I don’t know what to do. I was very fond of him when he was a little boy, and now I know him properly and I admire and respect him, and I do love him. When I accepted his proposal, I knew it was right. But I have always felt as if…as if I was being unfaithful.’

  Mme Pitt leaned back and put her hands in her lap, looking at Rosie gravely. ‘Chérie, you are quite right, that is what a prostitute does, and I see after all that it was a mauvaise comparaison. Je te demande pardon. But, ma chère, you overcame your problem when you wanted to make Esther, non? And remember, you are talking about my son. He is not any man, he is my son, and I love him, and I am determined he should be happy.’

  ‘I’ve been sick with guilt. And worry. I think about it all the time.’

  ‘Chérie, I am certain that your dead man would not want you to be faithful to him. He would want you to be happy. He was a friend of Daniel, remember? And I remember him too. What a handsome and nice young boy! How we all loved him! To think he’s dead, ça me fait pleurer. But he would want you and Daniel to be happy because he loved you both, I am sure of it.’

  ‘What about…what about when we die?’

  ‘When we die?’

  ‘Afterwards. When I get to Heaven, who is my husband?’

  ‘Can’t you leave that to God? And I think the good Lord said that in Heaven there is no husband and no wife. I remember, because when I heard it I didn’t like it! When I die I will go straight away to find my husband, whatever it says in the big book!’

  Mme Pitt dipped a hand into her reticule and brought out a tiny lace handkerchief. She dabbed her eyes.

  ‘Once I had four sons and now I have only two. They are the most precious things I have on this earth. If Daniel is going to be miserable…Rosie, I can’t bear it!’

  ‘You are telling me to do my duty, aren’t you?’

  ‘Non, non, non! That is what your mother would say. I am not at all like her. It is not a question of duty. It is a question of generosity, of savoir vivre, savoir aimer. So, Rosie, ma chère, you will go to Ceylon. You will be a proper wife. You will open your heart. You will please your dead man by making a living one happy! You will remember that your dead man was once a very good friend of the living one, and the dead one would not want you to make his friend unhappy. You will make little brothers and sisters for your daughter! And one day, a long time from now, you will look back, and you will say, “Mon Dieu, I have been happy for years and I didn’t know.” This is what happened to me, Rosie. This is what happened to Gran’mère Pitt.’

  ‘I can’t go to Ceylon.’

  ‘Mais pourquoi pas? You must go. C’est evident.’

  ‘I can’t go. Esther would be broken-hearted to leave the cat.’

  ‘What? Are you serious? Come on, Rosie, this is not believable! What is the reason? Tell me! J’insiste! Your father has already told me your excuses, and I don’t believe them!’

  Rosie looked down at her hands. After some time she lifted her head and managed to say, ‘Daddy is going to die of a heart attack quite soon. I want to be here when it happens. I want to be with Daddy when he dies.’

  ‘Mon Dieu! Die of a heart attack! How can you possibly know this?’

  ‘He feels dizzy when he stands up. He gets pains in his chest and his left arm. Sometimes he’s very tired. He spent all last Sunday in bed. He said he was “having a browse” but he was feeling weak.’

  ‘What about the doctor? Surely you called in the doctor?’

  ‘Dr Scott says his blood pressure is very variable, too high or too low, and he has a heart murmur. He told Daddy not to run for trains, and not to play thirty-six holes in one day any more.’ ‘But does this doctor think there is danger?’

  ‘He says that we don’t have the proper skills yet, to know what is really happening, or what we should do. But I was a nurse. I know what I think, and I think that Daddy is going to have a heart attack. Ottilie isn’t as sure as I am, but she’s worried too.’

  ‘And does your father know what you think, chérie?’

  ‘No, Gran’mère.’

  Mme Pitt said, ‘Well, now I understand a little bit more. Comprendre c’est pardoner, n’est-ce pas? But you know what your father would say, don’t you?’

  ‘He would tell me to go to Ceylon. He already has. Lots of times. He shouted at me, and he’s never done that before, even when we were little. It was horrible.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Daniel? What does he say?’

  ‘I’ve only told him I’m worried about Daddy.’

  ‘You said nothing about the heart?’

  ‘Only to Ottilie. I have a superstition.’

  ‘A superstition?’

  ‘If I talk about it, I’m afraid I’ll bring it about. It’s like worrying about falling in a ditch if you want to leap it. If you worry too much about it, you always fall in, don’t you?’

  ‘Je ne sais pais,’ replied Mme Pitt. ‘I have never in my life jumped over a ditch. But I know what you me
an. Talking will often make things happen. But I do not think it will make heart attacks. Shall we agree something? Shall we say that if your papa falls ill, we will send a telegram, and you will come home immediately? I shall speak to my son, and he will not resist, je te jure.’

  Rosie nodded. ‘Even so, it takes two weeks to get back from Ceylon.’

  Mme Pitt reached down into her bag and brought out a book, wrapped in blue-grey tissue that matched her dress. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘for you. Un petit cadeau.’

  Rosie took the book and clutched it to her chest. She stood up and faced the old lady, kissing her on each cheek. ‘I know I haven’t been the kind of wife that Daniel deserves.’

  ‘Hush, hush!’ said Mme Pitt, waving her hand dismissively. ‘I love you. It’s enough. One forgives if one loves. And now I know what has been going on in your heart, ma chère. And, Rosie, I know I am asking for what is not possible. It is my duty to my son to ask for what is not possible, tu comprends? Il faut que tu m’excuses.’

  Rosie stood up and began to go, but then she turned and confessed, ‘I just want to say that I’ve been telling myself the same things as you have. For ages. All you’ve done is make me hear them out loud. I know you’re right. Daniel…how could I ever forget him vaulting over the wall?’ Rosie bit her lip, clutched her parcel to her chest, and looked at her mother-in-law. ‘The thing is, I’ve always loved him, without really knowing it. And now I have to make a new start. But leaving Daddy…it’ll be the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I just don’t know how I’ll manage to do it.’

  ‘Chérie, I’m so happy to hear you say this. But there’s been so much damage. How will you mend it?’

  ‘I think he still loves me. It mightn’t be too late.’

  Rosie went straight upstairs to her room and unwrapped her present. It was a book about Ceylon, and was mainly pictorial. Rosie looked at its religious monuments. There was a photograph of an elephant at the Temple of the Tooth, very smartly caparisoned. There were photographs of mountains curtained with mist, of water buffalo wallowing in paddy fields, of the elegant bungalows of the planters, of smiling tea-pickers who were plainly gleeful that anyone might want to take a picture of them. She read the opening lines, in which it said that Ceylon was originally known as Serendip, and that Muslims believed it was where Adam and Eve had reconvened after having been expelled from Paradise. She closed it and laid it on the bed, planning to read through all the text later.

  She picked up the Bible by her bedside, intending to look for the passage about husbands and wives in the afterlife, but instead came across St Paul talking about celibacy and marriage. ‘Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.’

  Further down she found the solution to something that had troubled her for many months, which was the issue of Daniel’s frank unbelief. ‘If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy.’

  Excitedly, she leafed through the pages until she found the passage for which she had originally been looking.

  She knelt by the side of her bed and tried to talk to Ash, but had no sense of a response apart from a growing feeling of optimism and serenity. There had been catharsis in talking to Mme Pitt. Sometimes one discovers what one really thinks because of having to say it aloud. Now that she had talked openly about her father’s health, the problem seemed to have got smaller. She found herself looking forward to Daniel’s return, and went to the window, just in time to see him come into the driveway in a cloud of aromatic blue smoke, and park next to the AC.

  She watched him fiddling with the levers, and then ran downstairs and out into the drive to greet him, almost being beaten to it by Esther, who was desperate to introduce him to her new French bear.

  ‘Gracious me,’ said Daniel, ‘what a welcome! Shompi, what a lovely bear! Is Gran’mère here yet?’

  Esther seemed to spring vertically in the air, landing neatly in the crook of his arm and puckering up her lips to kiss him on the mouth. Rosie put her arms around his neck and laid her face next to his. ‘My darling,’ said Daniel, astonished by her unwonted display of affection, ‘how nice it is to be back.’

  101

  Ottilie

  Ottilie was the quietest of the sisters, and on that account the most mysterious. She had the gift of serenity, and was capable of sitting quite still for an hour with her hands folded in her lap, which is to say that she had a rich interior life. She had survived her time as a VAD in Brighton without apparently having become too traumatised. It had instead given her an intense interest in the subcontinent. If she did not suffer nightmares, she did, however, retain very vivid memories of the heartbreaking suffering that she had witnessed, and of the utter exhaustion that had once been her normality. In the peaceful aftermath of such an implacable welter of death she had become someone who was surprised to be yet alive, her amazement constituting a kind of deep and placid pleasure.

  Ottilie was fortunate in possessing a tranquil faith in her own destiny, knowing that something good and satisfying was going to happen, but without having any idea what it might be. It was simply a case of waiting, with patient curiosity. Her mission in this life was simply to make sure that those she loved were as happy as it was possible to be, and to go to as many lectures and talks as possible, in the hope that one day she would meet somebody at one of them who would sweep her off her feet and console her for the absence of Archie.

  She had witnessed Christabel’s unconventional attachment to Gaskell mostly with anxiety on the former’s part. Like almost all her contemporaries, she had no clear idea of what such a relationship involved, either emotionally or physically, and so was protected from being shocked by it. She assumed quite naturally that Christabel would eventually meet the right man, marry him, and have children, and that Gaskell would be a dear friend to both. Fortunately, she liked Gaskell immensely, and found her inexhaustibly fascinating.

  Sophie and Fairhead had so obviously and irrevocably created each other’s paradise that she had no worry for them at all, other than to be niggled by the thought that every paradise carries within it its own tragedy, when it inevitably comes to an end. What on earth would Sophie and Fairhead do if something happened to the other? She had recently written a letter to them, ostensibly to congratulate Fairhead upon being appointed chaplain in a hospital, but really for the sake of the envoi: ‘My dears, be extra sure to enjoy every single minute, won’t you?’

  Of her mother, Ottilie thought very little. She was increasingly eccentric and difficult, but her father was adept at jollying her along, putting his foot down when neccessary, and repairing any damage behind the scenes. Of his mistresses, who were the principle reason why he was able to continue to live with his wife, she knew and suspected absolutely nothing. His dizziness and occasional chest pain she mainly ascribed to his cigar smoking, and so was not as troubled as Rosie about the state of his heart.

  As for Daniel and Rosie, the case was altogether different. They had not dived into natural bliss like Sophie and Fairhead, and they had not glided down into the mutual tolerance and respect that occurs as a marriage transmogrifies passion into friendship. From early on it had been clear that Daniel had been angry and confused, and that Rosie had often closed herself up, finding her consolation and satisfaction in Esther. Daniel, too, had only been coming home to be with Esther, pointedly embracing the child rather than his wife
whenever he returned.

  Lately, however, things seemed to have changed very much for the better. Rosie had at last become openly affectionate with her husband, and had apparently changed her mind about never wanting to leave the parental home. Ottilie knew that Rosie was obstinate enough to resist the pressure that she had been receiving from everyone except her mother, and now she could clearly see that Rosie was not behaving like someone who has been browbeaten or defeated. She was behaving like someone who has had a small revelation perhaps, or someone who has at last made the right decision and is proud of herself on that account. Her step was light, and she sometimes laughed as she once did before Ash was killed. A few days before Rosie’s departure, Ottilie knocked on the door of her room and came in.

  ‘It’s goodbye soon,’ said Ottilie. ‘I’m going to miss you most awfully.’

  ‘I expect we’ll be coming back once a year,’ said Rosie. ‘A lot of people do.’

  ‘Oh, but I might have absconded,’ replied Ottilie. ‘Who knows? I might meet an American millionaire and go to live in Guernsey.’ She sat on the bed. ‘Dearest, I want to say a few things to you.’

  ‘Do you? Should I be worried?’

  ‘Silly! Of course not.’

  ‘Well, what do you want to say?’

  ‘I just wanted to say that Daniel is a very fine man.’

  ‘I know he is. Of course I know he is.’

  ‘I want you to know it properly.’

  ‘Properly?’

  ‘Yes, really and truly properly with brass knobs on, and pink ribbons and silver bells.’ Rosie laughed and Ottilie continued. ‘I know…we all know…that…there are things…I mean, we all know that you can’t get over Ash. I think…even all your religiousness is to do with Ash.’