by Bev Spicer
Giselle visited the property to take photographs with an old camera Felix kept in his desk for the purpose and he himself wrote up the details to accompany the advertisement. The apartment was in need of updating, a new heating system and possibly rewiring. The area was used mainly for holiday homes for Parisians; there was on-road parking and no garage. Of course, there would be a more favourable version to send out to his client, for his approval. Next, the notaire called an acquaintance of his to arrange a viewing. There were three people he used as a rule and, as he paid them well, he could trust them to keep their mouths shut.
Clement Berger was angry. He was angry with himself for being happy. He had met a woman he liked very much and yet he had no business allowing himself to be distracted from his search for a job and a way out of the mess his father was in, without selling the apartment. For he still believed it would not come to that, even though there was a potential buyer scheduled to visit the following week. He had thought that it would take more time to advertise the property, and that people would come later, in a trickle, many out of curiosity rather than with a firm idea of buying. It seemed that Dumas worked efficiently. So, with all this going on, he did not want Martha to take up his time. He liked her, but she was older than him and there was a look in her eye that told him she could get serious about a relationship that would almost certainly have no future. Sooner or later, there would be complications. This, he did not relish.
Clement walked down the road to the boulangerie and bought pain au chocolat, passing on news of his father and accepting the good wishes of the proprietor.
‘Your father is lucky to have a son who is willing to take care of him,’ she said. ‘These days, it is not always the case.’
The customers in the queue nodded and murmured their agreement, looking up into his face, solemnly.
He was not offended by their comments, nor proud that they should trust in his loyalty. His father had been close to him ever since he could remember and he would not think of deserting him now. As he walked past the grocer’s he greeted the other people he met. They knew who he was, even if he did not know their names. His father was part of the community and had friends who cared about him, so they kept watch from a distance.
Ahead of him, Clement noticed a man walking slowly, glancing down at a piece of paper and checking the houses he passed, looking up as he approached his father’s apartment and finally stopping, moving back into the road, doing his best to look over the gate, which was too tall. Clement stopped too, and made to enter.
‘Good morning, monsieur,’ he said.
‘Ah! Good morning! You don’t happen to know whether the proprietor is in, do you?’ he asked, reading from the slip of paper.
‘Actually, the proprietor is my father,’ Clement replied, his hand resting on the gate.
The man looked as though he might kiss him, so delighted was he with this information.
‘My goodness! What a coincidence!’ he cried and, remembering that they had not been introduced: ‘I do apologise, my name is Frederick Schwartz.’ He held out a hand.
‘Pleased to meet you, Monsieur Schwartz,’ replied Clement, evidently none the wiser.
‘I should explain. I am looking for a residence for my mother. She wants to be near the sea,’ he threw out an arm towards the coast, ‘and, well, a friend of mine gave me your address. She knows the market and keeps her ear to the ground.’ He looked up and down the street.
‘I see. In that case, would you like to come up and look around?’ He could not very well turn the man away, and it might be advantageous to have more than one interested party.
‘Oh, well, if you are sure it would not disturb you?’
Monsieur Schwartz enthused about the size of the rooms, the elegance of the decor and furnishings, praised the layout in the kitchen and the view over the communal gardens and terrace. He had been reassured by the quietness of the street and unconcerned by the lack of parking. His mother was independent and a woman of means, who would bring her companion with her and be extremely comfortable. He left with Clement’s number and a promise to return when he had consulted his mother, who lived in Cognac and might want to visit.
Clement made coffee and ate his pastry in front of the TV. There were two new emails in his inbox. One offered him the chance to invest in Chinese stocks and the other told him that his recent application and second interview for the post of journalist on a community magazine had been unsuccessful. He listened to the news, letting the unemployment figures wash over him, and wondered how on earth he would save his father’s home. It was true that, following a call to the care home by Felix Dumas, an agreement had been reached, allowing Clement three months to settle the account, in which time, the notaire had assured him, a sale would have been secured. Three months was not a long time to find a job that would pay off the mounting debt and provide a sufficient income to continue paying the not insubstantial costs. Even if he took his father out of the home for a while, there would then be the possibility that he would not have a place to return to, in addition to which, he would probably miss his friends and the staff who took care of him. It was difficult to see a way out. What Clement needed was a miracle.
At six o’clock, having spent the day at various recruitment agencies, filling out forms and agreeing that he would take anything at all in the short term, the last thing he felt like was going to spend an evening in the company of Martha’s parents. It was an altogether strange arrangement, but she had seemed so keen to see him that he had seen the funny side of it. Meeting the parents. So absurd that it might be fun.
Thirty-six
Things were looking up.
Angeline had taken on one of the local girls and she had made a good choice. Alicia was fast and careful, only needing the company of the radio to keep her amused. In the three hours that she worked, she got through more or less all the ironing from five large loads of washing. What was more, she folded the clothes beautifully and packed them neatly into bags so that, when Angeline returned at eleven thirty with more laundry, Alicia had done everything she had asked of her and more.
Adrian was booked in at summer school, so his mother took on more clients and made deliveries in the mornings, washing the next loads in the afternoons, ready for Alicia to iron, going out with a second delivery when she had finished.
At first, the girl came three times a week, just in the mornings, but soon she was there four full days a week, working flat out. The laundry room was large and light, with plenty of space for the extra business, but Angeline wanted to have sturdy shelves built to store the bags of laundry safely and neatly so she called in a neighbour and paid him to build some. She bought a new washing machine to add to the one she already had, choosing one that took almost twice as many kilos and which spun the clothes so well that they did not need to be hung out, but could be tumble dried for a few minutes and ironed straight away.
The mornings were the busiest time for Angeline; she got Adrian off to school and loaded the van for her deliveries. There was little time to spare, although she always made her clients feel as though she had all the time in the world to give them the best possible service. In the afternoons, as the machines whirred, she sometimes slept and sometimes did the mounting paperwork that came with the new business. This, she was good at. Then, she went out with her afternoon deliveries, making twice as many as the previous month, sometimes coming home with more than twenty envelopes containing various amounts of cash. She ran her affairs efficiently and profits were increasing. As a result, her savings account was growing fast.
On Wednesday mornings, Alicia had said she could not come and so Angeline made herself beautiful, loading the van with a few bags and setting out early, as soon as she had dropped her son off at his school.
‘I will be here at midi, my darling. Work hard and do your lessons well,’ she said.
Then, after making a few deliveries that would not wait until the afternoon, she would drive to the large house on the ou
tskirts of the next village and pull off the road out of sight, taking two medium-sized bags to the door and knocking gently.
‘You look beautiful! I have missed you! So much time to wait!’ he said, as she skipped into the hall and teased him with her carefree attitude.
‘I am busy. I have to work. I am not rich like you, and I need new shoes. Look at these! I would like to come with beautiful shoes to see you, but there are too many bills to pay and there is no money left for me,’ she simpered.
And afterwards, when they had made love and he had told her he would do anything for her, he gave her money and she laughed, saying she could earn more in an hour, that she would not have time to come every week to see him. Then he would hand her his wallet and watch her dance down the steps, back to her husband and child, until the following Wednesday. And the next time, he would make more of a fuss of her – telling her that he loved her and could not be without her.
Angeline Roche was a businesswoman. She did not consider that she was being unfaithful to her husband because she did not love Felix Dumas. His love making was quick and gentle, almost as though he made no effort at all to arrive at his pleasure. Then he would stare at her and say that she was beautiful and that he wished they could marry and move away to an island somewhere, where people would not know them and they could live a simple life. She would listen and think to herself that he was mad to believe she would go away with him, unless it were to live in a palace with servants and money to spend on the high life she desired. And, at the same time, she knew that he did not mean any of it, any more than she did. He was happy with the arrangement they had and so was she. Of course, now that the business was going so well and Guy had started at the hotel, there was plenty of money coming into her home and it would have been easy to put a halt to her affair. But she saw no harm in it and always thought of the fatness of her lover’s wallet, as he handed it to her at the end of her visit. She never took all of the notes; the most she had taken in the past had been the two hundred euros for the van repair. Usually she had taken one hundred euros, estimating that there were always at least five hundred left. Now she took two hundred, sometimes three. She thought this was reasonable and supposed that he did too.
After she had showered and tidied her hair and make-up, Angeline left, never forgetting to take his laundry, pulling out onto the deserted country lane and sticking to the back roads, avoiding the village.
Adrian would come out and wave to her as he said goodbye to his friends and chattered like a bird, throwing his arms around her neck, kissing her and telling her about his day. Angeline rarely spoke to the other mothers, who, it was rumoured, thought her stuck up. Of course, they were envious of her success. She did not care. Let them stare. She had a few good friends in the village and that was all she needed. If the others wanted to gossip about her and stick knives in her back, it was of no consequence to her whatsoever.
At home, Angeline would get lunch and wait for her husband to come in from work. Wednesday afternoons were leisurely and she loved to watch Guy playing with their son, while she tidied away the dishes and straightened the kitchen. It occurred to her that it had been over three weeks since she had seen her husband with a cigarette in his mouth and, although she could not be sure, she thought that he might have stopped altogether. Certainly, when Adrian put a hand into his work jacket these days, there was nothing to steal.
She would not ask him about it so soon. It would be better to wait for him to tell her.
Thirty-seven
‘It’s lovely to meet you, Clement,’ said Mr. and Mrs. Burton.
‘Enchanté,’ he replied, grinning and winking at Martha.
They were on first name terms immediately, her parents completely charmed by the gently spoken handsome young man.
‘It’s a little early to be meeting the parents!’ laughed her father, after his second glass of wine.
‘Really, Alan! Leave the boy alone, can’t you!’ tittered her mother, her face pink with embarrassed delight.
‘Family is very important,’ replied Clement, catching the gist of the conversation and relying on Martha to translate when he got stuck. He smiled brightly and jumped up to help set out the food on the table.
The atmosphere was convivial and the underlying tension almost indiscernible, as Martha flashed a desperate look now and then at Clement, who grinned back at her, maddeningly. She wondered when they would have a moment without her parents’ wildly enthusiastic questions and uncalled for anecdotes about her childhood, most of which were too detailed for Clement to understand, thankfully.
‘I hear your father is unwell,’ said her father, just as he had poured the dregs of a second bottle of Bordeaux into his glass, and signalled for Martha to open another one.
‘Alan!’ said her mother, once again.
‘No, Margaret. It’s not a problem. I can tell you about my father’. Clement put down his knife and fork and poured himself a glass of water. ‘He is unwell a long time, with a disease that makes difficult his moving and his speaking. Do you know Parkinson’s syndrome?’
‘Oh, yes. We do, Clement. But your father is too young, isn’t he?’ said Mrs. Burton, still savouring the way her name sounded so exotic on Clement’s lips and loving his flawed English.
‘Well. It is true that this disease does not usually affect young people. My father is not a lucky man.’
Martha translated for her parents, telling them that the illness had started with a tremor in his father’s left hand and that his writing had become very small, which was another early sign.’
‘I didn’t know that, did you?’ said Mr. Burton to his wife.
‘No, dear, I didn’t!’
‘Shall I take your plates?’ asked Martha.
‘My father has problems with his speaking sometimes, and with his eating and drinking. He gets, how do you say...?’ Clement moved his head around, looking disoriented.
‘Dizzy!’ cried Margaret Burton, clapping her hands together.
‘Yes. Dizzy. Thank you Margaret. So he cannot care for himself.’ Clement passed his plate to Martha and assured her again that it was all right for her parents to ask their questions.
‘Is there anything the doctors can do?’
‘Not much, Margaret. In fact, the drugs they give make him forget, I think. But he needs them for his brain to move his body.’
‘Well, if there is anything we can do…’ said Mr. Burton, now beginning to slur a little.
‘That’s very kind, Alan.’ Clement smiled and asked, ‘How long do you stay in France?’
At this, there was laughter and relief in equal quantities and the subject of Clement’s father was laid to rest. They ate a chocolate mousse for dessert and drank a small coffee before playing Uno and finding out that Mr. Burton could not remember the rules, and most of the time invented his own. Clement recommended places to visit while they were in the area, mentioning attractions that Martha had not heard of. Margaret Burton remained under his spell and Alan Burton disappeared into the lounge for a nap. Martha silently cursed her mother more than once, and eventually said that it was time to stop the game of cards and say goodnight. Even then, Margaret Burton hung around, only leaving them when her daughter gave her a particularly pointed look.
‘I had a lovely evening,’ murmured Clement as they stood on the pavement together, close, but not touching. ‘Your parents are very nice.’
She laughed and wondered whether he would kiss her, this time.
‘I will call you,’ he said, pulling out his keys and looking over to his car in the square.
‘Okay,’ she nodded, looking up into his gentle face and taking his hand.
He touched his lips to hers and caressed her waist, making her shiver. Then she watched him walk away, trying to tell herself that it was better this way. That this man would not rush into anything and that she must be patient. Martha had been moved by the way Clement had spoken about his father and wondered whether there was something more that he kept to
himself that made him seem preoccupied and a little tense. As he crossed the square, looking around him before climbing inside his car and reaching for the seatbelt, she wished she could know what he was thinking.
Clement waved as he drove away and she waited outside for a moment, listening to the silence of the square, before turning to go back inside, where her mother would be waiting. It was after two o’clock in the morning and Michel’s downstairs light was still glowing. She hoped that he would buy the house on the coast and go away for good. Having him near her was becoming intolerable. The thought of their intimacy repulsed her now, and she wished he would come out, into the night, so that she could tell him that it was over between them, unambiguously and categorically. The thought of his being awake behind the curtain and watching Clement leave made her worry that he would spoil things in some way.
‘Damn you, Michel,’ she muttered. ‘Damn you!’
Thirty-eight
Whenever Patrice went to his father’s offices, the hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he passed from the daylight into the gloom of the large building. And every time it happened, he looked about him for an explanation. He could not find one in the thick stone walls or the shadowy corridors but seemed to come closer to one in the air around him and particularly in the murmuring of the receptionist or the clients who glanced out at him from the small waiting room. Their low tones seemed to say: ‘There he goes, the young successor to his father’s practice.’
If he could, he would wait outside for his father to arrive, but today Estelle came out to tell him to go up to the next floor, where his father was almost ready.
He smiled at her, although his smile was thin, not knowing why she was so cold towards him and suspecting that she disliked him. Her shoulders hunched forward and her head angled towards the floor as he followed her back into the building and carried on past her desk, up the dark staircase, feeling her eyes on his back and blushing fiercely. She was a very attractive young woman, after all.