Night Without Stars

by Winston Graham

  I went out and walked round the town. It was a sultry day and busy in spite of the heat, and everyone was wearing the gay clothes of the season. I walked along the front for a bit and then up into the town. I thought: perhaps if I’d made an effort, perhaps if I’d gone across to her and argued with her again. Less than two days ago everything was all right—or it seemed so—it might have been so if I’d never let her go back. That’s the way you chucked your life away. If you’d handled things rightly we might have been leaving together to-night. There’d have been trouble later perhaps, but at least we should have had our chance. In England, a thousand miles away, the old links …

  Well, it was too late now. I was off on my own. The chance had gone. It was for the best. I tried to think myself into the mood of yesterday, to picture Charles and Alix up in their villa sympathising with each other over the police raid, discussing ways of preventing another, perhaps arguing over my part in it, she wishing to be grateful, he hating the sound of my name, Grutli at their feet waiting for the tit-bits. A united family.

  To-day I couldn’t begin to think what had come over me last night. It had all seemed clear as anything, a sort of drunkard’s clarity. I wasn’t sorry I’d not turned him over to the police, but I couldn’t follow the arguments I’d used on him, convinced then that I was wounding him in his tenderest spot, his intellectual self-esteem. They seemed as much nonsense to me to-day as perhaps they had to him last night. No doubt he would make a good bit of fun out of them when Alix had forgiven him for the attempt on my life.

  I walked up the Avenue de la Victoire, and something made me turn in at the familiar café and sit down at the usual table. Sentiment. I ordered white wine and sat gloomily sipping it. I didn’t know how long I sat there, but when I looked at my watch it was five. There was only just time to pick up my things at the hotel and get to the station. I hadn’t the energy or the inclination to move. But if I didn’t go to-day it was all to do again to-morrow. I was still suffering from shock, was stiff and bruised, and could do with a day or two in bed. Should I stay? That was the coward’s way. Better to make the clean sweep as intended.

  Alix sat down at the table.

  She said: “I’ve been watching you for nearly an hour.”

  She was as pale as a sheet. I remember she was wearing grey,

  and that made her look thin and young.

  I said: “ Where were you?”

  “Over in that corner. I was there when you came in.”

  At the sight of her something had turned over inside me. I wanted

  to say, oh, darling, I … And then it all froze again.

  I said: “ What do you want?”

  “I’ve been watching you, trying to come over and speak to you

  all this time. I hadn’t the courage.”

  “Courage again?”

  She said: “Listen. Can I talk to you a few minutes?”

  Something made me say: “I’ll miss my train.”

  Her eyes went very dark. “ Very well, Giles. I’ve no right—to keep you.”

  I said: “ Hell.… There are a million trains.”

  She put her hand on the table, spread out her fingers in that way she had. “Let me, please, say what I have to say—and then you can go. After you’d left last night I came down following you; but I couldn’t go to your hotel—couldn’t face you—I think you hate me now. I—stayed out all night—walked a lot. This morning I saw you go out to the doctor’s. Since then I’ve been walking again …”

  I stared at her. “ I don’t hate you. Only I know now it’s no use.”

  “What’s no use?”

  “Expecting you to break away from Charles. It’s too strong for me.”

  Her lips curved down painfully. “I broke last night.”

  After a long time I said: “Why?”

  “Because I’m an idealist, a romantic—what were all those things you said? Because I expect too much of all the people I love. Fidelity from my husband, loyalty from my brother, friendship from my friends.…”

  “Dear God,” I said, with a dreadful feeling of humiliation; “ and what did you expect from me?”

  She didn’t answer, but sat there looking at her hands. “Yesterday morning—they told me about the raid on the Café des Fourmis; Charles said it was you. I didn’t believe it. Only in the afternoon when you didn’t come—and Deffand came instead.… When at last you came, and I realised what Charles had done, I saw then that you must hate me for ever having any connection …”

  I stared at her. “It wasn’t that at all.” I wanted to explain the things I was only just realising about my own feelings yesterday. Since I came back to Nice there’d been one idea in my head, one thought—her; it had gripped like a vise on everything; all the rest shoved aside. On Wednesday night her sudden giving in had left a vacuum and the vacuum had filled up with all the doubts there’d never been room for before. If you argue with someone for a long time, and then he suddenly gives way, it’s common enough to feel for a minute, well, am I certain I’m right after all? It’s the human reaction you can’t get away from; the very vehemence of your own argument tells against you. That was what had happened to me. All these thoughts early yesterday morning.… And my feelings after the attempt on my life. I wanted to explain this to her now, but I didn’t seem able to find the words. It was a new experience for me.

  The waiter came across, but I waved him away. I saw her shoes were covered in dust.

  “Did you come down in your car?”

  “No. I—left it there—phoned for a taxi. It—was his car, bought with his money.…”

  “You’ve been out all night?”

  “Yes. Oh, it doesn’t matter. I felt I had to see you this once. Then I hadn’t the heart. Then when you came in here.… I’m sorry if you’ve missed your train.”

  I said: “ Yesterday, over the phone, Charles said you were unstable, contradictory from day to day.”

  She flushed. “He’s right, I suppose.”

  “He’s wrong.”

  She looked out of the window, shook her head as if to get the tears out of her eyes.

  I said: “ The instability’s been in the people you’ve loved. Isn’t that the truth? Nothing else at all.”

  She searched my face for a minute. “I don’t know. I never have known.”

  “Well, now’s the time to put it to the test.”

  She said with a sort of wretched determination: “Yesterday you hated me.”

  “… Yesterday I was nearly as jealous of Charles as he is of me.”

  She tried to smile, but it was a failure.

  I said: “Listen, dear Alix. Listen to me.” But then I couldn’t get any more out. I swallowed to clear my throat but it didn’t help.

  We stared at each other for a minute.

  She said: “I love you, Giles. And I want to cry.”

  “Not here. Come on.” I put out a rather shaky hand to her.

  “Where to?”

  “Back to my hotel first. Have you your passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank Heaven for that.”

  She didn’t move. “ But … are you quite sure again?”

  I said: “ Dear God, and I might have caught that train.”

  I took her back and rang up Maurice in Cagnes, asked if he could come over and pick us up. He said he could at nine. I told him it would be a long drive, but didn’t say where. I didn’t know myself yet. I wanted to be out of here as quickly as possible. It was a premonition. Alix had dark shadows under her eyes. It would be silly to underestimate what the break with Charles had cost her.

  The people at the hotel accepted the change of plans phlegmatically enough. My room was not let, and I was welcome to use it, they said, until I left. A few minutes after we went up the phone rang. It gave me rather a shock, and if Alix had not been there I don’t think I should have answered it. I went across with misgivings.

  “Hullo?”

  “Giles? This is John. I tried to get you earli
er.”

  “Confound you,” I said, “for an interfering fool.”

  He sounded a bit taken aback. “You mean—about Deffand?”

  “Of course.”

  “My dear old boy, it wasn’t of my seeking. He approached me. He was full of inquiries about you, wanted to know what sort of a reputation you had—all the rest. Apparently you’d been seen hanging round the Café des Fourmis. I told him no more than I could help.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry. You see, I naturally thought.… What’s the trouble now?”

  “Not trouble exactly. But I thought you might like to know. A fellow came in about five and told me that Bénat had given himself up to the police.”

  Queer twist in my stomach. Alix was looking out over the balcony.

  I said: “ On what—er—charge?”

  “I don’t know. You hadn’t heard anything?”

  “No. Nothing. Look, John, I’m leaving for England soon. If I don’t have a chance to come round … Thank you for all your help.”

  “Rather sudden, isn’t it? Is everything all right?”

  “Quite, thanks. You know I’d been intending to leave.”

  “Ye-es. What’s happened about Bénat’s sister?”

  “I’ll write you from England, John,” I said.

  As I put down the receiver she turned. “That was John Chapel, the man from the British Consulate. You’ve heard me speak of him.”

  Something in my tone made her look at me quickly, but she didn’t speak. Over supper we tried to be normal, matter-of-fact, to discuss the details of a journey that wasn’t properly decided yet. I felt no triumph, no satisfaction over the news from John—rather a discomfort, as if I was partly in the wrong, as if some good had gone to waste, some rich talent squandered in a world of poverty.

  Abruptly I said: “How did you leave Charles? Or would you rather not talk about it?”

  She fumbled with a piece of bread. “Sometime I’ll tell you—not now. It was—awful I said … All the same it’s like losing—some last link. With the past, you understand.”

  “… Did you tell him you were coming to me?”

  “I think he thought it.… Giles, why would you not give him away?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t quite know. It all seems out of focus now.”

  But was it? I thought. Some grains of truth in all the nonsense, some sting in his pride that spread its poison, and would not be pulled out.… The last glance he’d given me had seemed to come out of the darkness of his spirit.

  I looked up and found her watching me. She smiled with her eyes. No, I thought she’s the cause, what she said to him, her action in leaving him for good. The break would tear both ways.

  Anyway, whatever brought him to do what he had done, it was something to feel that he could make no further move to separate us now.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I like that frock.”

  “You like all my frocks. I don’t believe you are very discriminating, Giles.”

  “Well, I always give you a reason. I like that because it reminds me somehow of our meetings last year.”

  “I had it last year. Now it’s too short. But I felt—when I left …”

  While she was speaking a monstrous suspicion came into my mind. Charles couldn’t separate us, but Deffand might. In a second the suspicion got out of hand. Was this Charles’s way of taking up my challenge? Suppose he agreed he could not accept his liberty from me—and so gave himself up, because by so doing he could take Alix away from me again. Confession to Deffand—bringing in Alix—anything was on the cards—even a confession to last year’s murder. Nothing was impossible in a certain mood.…

  “Sorry,” I said, in a cold sweat. “I’ve just remembered I—have to phone.”

  I ran up the stairs, got to the bedroom, and tried to think. Marseilles. I rang up the airport at Marseilles. It took a few minutes and then a few more before getting through to the right official.

  “No, m’sieu, I regret there is no plane leaving for England before fourteen hours to-morrow.”

  “None in the morning?”

  “No, m’sieu.”

  “Is there any leaving for Gibraltar or Malta—or Cyprus?”

  “… There is one leaving for Cyprus at thirteen hours.”

  I chewed my bottom lip. “Can you offer me nothing better than that at all?”

  There was a slight hesitation. “We have an Iraqi Airways private charter in from Baghdad, Nicosia, Athens. It will be leaving at six in the morning for London, but I don’t think there are seats.…”

  Something in the voice made me say: “For a consideration …” “Well.… I will see what I can do. Two seats, m’sieu. Be at the

  airport by five-fifteen.…”

  When Alix came in I was on the balcony.

  “… Is there something the matter?”

  “Yes, everything’s the matter. I’ve got what I came for. Now I

  want to take it home.”

  She came and stood beside me. “ Have patience, darling. I’m

  coming.”

  We held hands almost without knowing it. The evening was

  cooling. There had been great banks of cloud over the city during

  the afternoon.

  She said: “Have you decided how we must go?”

  “Yes. Marseilles, I think.”

  She looked at her watch. “The car should be here in half an

  hour.”

  We didn’t talk much then, but I think I prayed.

  She said: “I have no clothes, no money.…”

  “Do be sensible.”

  She said: “Is this our car? It looks.…”

  A car had stopped outside the hotel and a man got out. It was

  Maurice.…

  On the way out of the hotel I said good-bye to the proprietor,

  told him we were leaving for Monte Carlo. Maurice came towards

  us with a smile and a bow, apologising for being early.

  A big car came quickly round the corner from the lower end,

  accelerated towards us, seemed about to stop, then passed on. I

  let out a slow breath of relief. But there would be no proper relief

  for many hours yet. Not till after six to-morrow morning.

  At the door of the car Alix paused, looked at me with a little

  turn of the lips, then round at the street, the houses, the shops,

  and the sky. She took a deep breath, as if filling her lungs with it.

  Then she got in. I followed her.

  Maurice lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “ I don’t

  think it will rain after all,” he said. “ The stars are coming out.”

  Copyright

  First published in 1950 by Hodder & Stoughton

  This edition published 2013 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-5452-2 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-5451-5 POD

  Copyright © Winston Graham, 1950

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