With Men For Pieces [A Fab Fifties Fling In Paris]

by Sophie Meredith

  The tree fairy could only leave the tall oak when the moon shone full. Then she would skip and dance in the forest glade till dawn.

  The rock gnome could only leave the granite boulder when the sun shone full. Then he would caper and prance in the forest glade till dusk.

  The water sprite could only leave the silver stream under cover of darkness. Then she would sway and glide round the forest glade till the light of day.

  The Wizard of the Forest had to find a spell to release all three magical creatures at the same time. For Princess Sulky had demanded their presence at her marriage to the Prince of the Plains.

  “Why ask for such an awkward thing?” asked her father, the Forest King.

  “I’ve never set eyes on my Groom,” said the princess, moodily. “I may not like him at all. If he’s as plain as his name, I’ll need the Dance of Good Fortune at my wedding in the Forest Glade.”

  The Wizard of the Forest studied his book of Magic for seven days. Then he chanted to the Forest King:

  MAKE HER A DRESS OF MOONBEAMS

  COMB OUT HER LONG DARK HAIR

  THERE’S JUST ONE TRIAL

  AND THAT’S HER SMILE

  LET’S HOPE THE PRINCE IS FAIR.

  The Forest King did not quite see how this verse would help, but he had known the wizard for six hundred years, so he decided to trust him.

  On the morning of the wedding, the Wizard of the Forest hurried to meet the procession. He was dazzled by the sight of the lovely Royal Maiden in her beautiful gown. The only thing that spoiled the effect was her Royal frown.

  “I hope you’ve done your work well,” she snapped. “I must have the Dance of Good Fortune to bring me luck.”

  “I’ve done my best, your Highness,” said the grizzled old wizard.

  All the forest folk gasped with admiration as the Royal Bride swept gracefully along the fern-edged path to meet her Royal Betrothed.

  “But such a pity,” they whispered amongst themselves. “Her mouth turns down at the corners!”

  As the princess entered the cool green glade, her dress of moonbeam silk shimmered white and pure, as bright as daylight. The tree fairy leapt from the oak and began the Dance of Good Fortune.

  As the princess paused by the river bank, she shook out her cloud of soft, dark hair, dark as midnight. The water sprite leapt from the silver stream and joined in the Dance of Good Fortune.

  The Wizard looked hopefully across the forest glade. The golden bracken parted and the Prince stepped through. He was so handsome and cheerful-looking that the Princess could not help but smile at him. Her mouth turned up prettily at the corners and her smile was as brilliant as the mid-day sun. The rock gnome leaped from the granite boulder and completed the Dance of Good Fortune. The princess felt sure that the prince was as kind and clever as he was handsome.

  There was feasting and merriment for seven days in the Forest Glade.

  “I shall change your daughter’s name to Princess Merry,” said the Prince to the Forest King. Then he called for his white horse and swept the princess into the saddle.

  “Thank you, Wizard. Thank you, Spirits of the Forest,” called the princess happily.

  The magical creatures were still dancing.

  “We’re so tired!” they sang out.

  But even as they spoke, the Price galloped off with his Bride to the Kingdom of the Plains and the spell was broken.

  Inside the Oak, the tree fairy was at rest.

  Inside the silver stream, the water sprite lay still.

  Inside the granite boulder, the rock gnome snored.

  The great forest slept.

  “She can’t read, okay?” Robert growled, slapping down my manuscripts. Tony was whistling in the shower. I could not meet my beloved’s angry eyes. “She’s mentally retarded—a freak! Like Joséphine—only it doesn”t show so much on the outside,” he said in a cold, bitter voice.

  “Poor Tony,” I muttered. “I think he’s in love with her….”

  “It can’t be!” he cried. “You see that, don’t you—it simply can’t be. I wanted to explain it all to you—I thought I could make you understand. But…you disappointed me over those two fellows—and, after all, your great friend Jacques….”

  “I know, I know….” I said. “I—I’m ashamed of myself. If you only knew how stupid I was when I first learned about Jacques. Girls were not so world wise in those days, and I took it all in my stride. I’ve let myself be swept up in this modern cynicism—and I hate myself for it. But not half as much as I hate myself for being so cruel to your poor sister.”

  All of a sudden he, too, was contrite. He flung himself down in front of me. His shoulders shook as he buried his face in my lap.

  “What shall we do, Gaby?” he asked in anguish.

  “Perhaps—we won’t have to do anything,” I said, as calmly as I could. “After the holiday, when we—when they—don’t see each other.”

  His arms groped for me, but he did not look at me. I bent over him, stroking his beautiful hair.

  “We must—play it cool,” I said, feeling anything but that. “I told you; Tony’s committed to some sort of missionary trip—to India—in a few days’ time—careful, I think he’s coming….”

  Robert told Tony that Lilian had a headache and would not be coming out with us.

  “I’ll stay with her,” he offered eagerly at once. “I’m not all that hungry.”

  “That’ll be the day,” I said, my heart fit to break for him. He seemed suddenly resigned and I was soon to realise why.

  We found an elegant restaurant with finger bowls and champagne buckets and for once, Tony was indifferent to the food. It became pathetically clear that he was asking Robert’s leave to pay his court to Lilian in the sweetest old-fashioned way. My heat bled for my boy. Robert looked at me, pleading. I made some facetious remark about the suitor’s prospects.

  “I know,” said Tony quietly, looking from one to the other of us. “I know about Lilian’s—limitations.”

  Robert and I were equally shocked but we had to hear him out.

  “I’m still crazy about her. I want to look after her. And in return—well, she calms me, soothes me—what’s wrong with that? And after all, if you two….”

  He was so gentle, so sincere.

  “Tony,” said Robert. “I must explain. There’s something more. Lilian can’t ever have children….”

  “I don’t care about that,” declared Tony, reddening.

  “You might not—now,” said Robert. “But, later, believe me, you’d probably regret it terribly.”

  He looked at me sadly.

  “We had an aunt, my father’s sister. She was the same as Lilian. It’s in the family. That’s one of the reasons I’ve not married—why I couldn’t offer any of the women who’ve—wanted me—children.”

  I felt myself tauten against this disaster. I felt surprisingly strong. I put my hand over Robert’s where it lay on the table amongst the debris of the bread rolls we had all three been tearing to pieces. The waiters, sensing a family drama, had left us undisturbed.

  “And me?” I said in a small voice.

  “I can’t give you up,” he said hoarsely. “We’ve got to work something out—if you could bring yourself to accept a childless union….”

  There was a horrible sound from Tony.

  “Can’t you see I feel exactly the same—about her?” he cried.

  “Tony,” I said. “Let’s wait—let’s go home and talk to Beryl.

  The idea of Beryl learning what I’d let Tony in for was not appealing.

  We drove back to the château along roads cut through the magnificent forests stagily lit by a brilliant moon. We did not speak, but I leaned forward from the back seat and gripped Tony’s hand while Robert drove like the devil himself. At our door, I said foolishly, “I think the weather will be fine after all for our boat trip.”

  I tossed and turned for two hours. The moonlight penetrated the room relentlessly, more disturbing as cloud
s scurried across. I put on my negligée and went out into the courtyard. I wondered if the geese were sleeping. My eyes were drawn towards the track that led to Robert’s quarters. I made my way along it slowly, my flimsy slippers soon thick with dust. It hadn’t rained for weeks. I watched the ominous gathering of dark clouds. Suddenly the storm broke. Thunder roared. Lightning flashed; in moments, I was soaked through. Yet I still stood there, my hair streaming, staring at the small building—undecided.

  At last I pushed gently on the stable-type door. It opened easily. I crossed the spacious living room. The lightning flashes pierced the closed shutters, thunder rumbled for minutes at a time.

  I’d forgotten which of the two bedrooms was Robert’s, but I opened the first one I came to. A rose-shaded lamp by the bed revealed the scene clearly. Lilian lay voluptuously enmeshed in Robert’s naked embrace. I heard a gasp behind me. Tony had followed me.

  Maison De Campagne

  (First version, written on boat, rejected many times, then broadcast on BBC Woman’s hour—but I knew I would write a truer version later when the pain had worn thinner)

  “We shouldn’t go in for anything too isolated,” said Diana. “We must plan ahead for when we’re two old dodderers.”

  “Nonsense!” her husband had replied. “We can get a strong young village maiden to come in daily to “do” for us and bring in milk and bread.”

  The Carters had long planned to own a country retreat and, as they spent all their holidays in France, they were in the market for a maison de campagne. So when the agent told them of the broken-down but well-proportioned stone building in Brittany, they snapped it up eagerly.

  It had been originally three farm-labourers’ cottages and the restoration took them four years. Keith did a lot of it himself in the long summer vacations. Diana was happy, combing the local small towns for antique dressers and smothering them with the rather gaudy blue and orange Breton pottery which seemed to mellow magically into acceptable splashes of brightness against the dark Amorocaine wood. As it gradually took shape, Keith and Diana were justifiably proud of the way the house blended into the quiet corner at the end of a primitive lane in the mysterious and abundant woods of Haute-Bretagne.

  Keith’s early retirement, made possible by a judicious investment in his firm’s shares just before it had sold out to an American company, was suddenly, startlingly imminent.

  Despite their long-term planning, they found themselves in a rush when it came to winding up their affairs in England. There was the house in Barnet to be sold, most of their furniture to dispose of and endless frustrating red tape to entangle their nerves. Neither one admitted to the other their times of doubt—and the moments each woke during the night in a cold sweat of fear never happened to coincide.

  Yet the first few weeks in their new home were like a second honeymoon. They had not fully anticipated the glorious sense of freedom, of release. They ran from room to room, giggling like teenagers on an illicit holiday. They ventured into each other’s territory. Keith became a dab hand at cooking, he who had not known where to find the egg-whisk in their old kitchen. Diana made herself familiar with the workings of the emergency generator, laughing when it regurgitated black oil all over her jeans, she who had lived in terror of appearing at a W.I. meeting with slightly mussed hair. He promised to work his way through her poetry books. She said she would try her hand at fishing.

  Later there was invasion of this much-prized privacy. Distant relatives looking for a cheap holiday, friends anxious to profit from the exotic-sounding location, business acquaintances eager to make their own investment in a European property—all angled for invitations in a long, tiring stream the first spring, summer and autumn. To the Carters’ relief, the rush of visitors waned during the second round of seasons due to the disillusionment of finding the couple so far removed from beaches, shops and pleasure spots. Gradually, even letters from Engand stopped. They were now well and truly left to themselves. They did not care that they had lost touch with all their previous circle. There was no really close family left….

  Keith began his novel. He had always talked of doing it. It was to be about Industrial Espionage though no such excitement had ever touched the quietly-lucrative Electrical Controls factory of which he had been Marketing Director for twenty years.

  Diana, too, began to write. Her stories were for children and were mostly inspired by forest folk-lore. Every tree in Brittany, she had learned, is inhabited by some kind of wizard or fairy. She could well believe it, looking out at the twisted moonlit trunks from their safe little haven.

  They told each other often how contented they were in each other’s company, working at their chosen activities with the delicious feeling that they had no obligation to sit at their desks longer than Inspiration lasted. Then they met the Abbredo sisters.

  Their nearest neighbours, the three unmarried ladies, living on the remnants of a once-thriving farm, had kept their relationship to the nodding level when glimpsed by the river or across a field. Then one day, at the beginning of the Carters’ second Winter, Marie-Noël, the oldest sister, appeared at their door. She asked Keith to translate a letter for her. Diana found its contents thrilling, but the rather gaunt woman who, like Keith, was just fifty years old, took it very calmly. It was from an American, one of the many the farm family had hidden, along with their parachutes, and sheltered from the Germans who occupied the local château during World War Two. Keith felt his imagination stirred: he wondered if he could use the story in his book. He invited Marie-Noël to bring her sisters the following day for apéritifs. The Carters had heard a little about the family from the house agent. They knew that Marie-Noël ran the farm with a little seasonal help. That Odette was a shop assistant in Auray. That Joséphine was…not quite right.

  Diana, watching for the visitors the next day from the kitchen window, saw them approaching across the meadow.

  “Why, she’s sweet!” she said over her shoulder to Keith, bent over an exercise book at the table. “Almost a dwarf…but not repulsive. Dainty—almost attractive—surely much younger than the others. Hard to tell though—possibly in her twenties—what do you think? Do come and look….”

  Keith put down his pencil and joined his wife behind the lace curtain. He was glad he had—better to be prepared for such a shock rather than let it show when Joséphine was introduced. For she was, he decided, despite Diana’s running commentary, a wierd little creature. The middle one, though,—she was quite attractive. He did not wonder that Marie-Noël was a spinster—raw-boned, unsmiling, forceful as she was—and Josephine—well, that was obvious. But the other one—there was a mystery within her pleasant face, excellent figure….

  But they were too close now to be spied upon. Keith took bottles from the fridge. Diana went to open the door.

  “You’ve worked wonders,” said Odette in slow, precise French, out of deference to her foreign hosts. “It’s years since I was up here, but I remember the cottage as ruins.”

  “Yes, we never see a soul round here,” said Keith, rushing his words, exaggerating his vowels, to assure Mademoiselle Abbredo that there were no language difficulties on his side. “The lane is so narrow by the river—drivers choose the opposite bank—the motorway—and walkers are probably afraid of getting lost in the woods.”

  “You’ll get no-one through here,” agreed Marie-Noël who was blossoming with the champagne. “And nobody fishes the Sal just here—except me—and you, of course, Mr. Carter.”

  There was a new tone to her voice, an invitation almost, as she smiled at Keith. A little too hastily, he began to enthuse over his plans to get a rod for Diana.

  Joséphine looked round the big, uncluttered living-room with its wide expanse of easily-cleaned marble tiles, its rough white walls, wooden ceiling. She was not dumb, the Carters realised—she had said Yes, No, Please and Thank you—but there was a sort of vacancy in her slightly-bulging eyes and she had not spoken from her own initiative.

  “You like th
e room?” Diana asked her.

  Josëphine nodded her over-large head vigorously.

  Odette turned to Keith.

  “I congratulate you, Mr. Carter, on your taste. The whole conversion is charming.”

  Diana was piqued at this assumption that the good taste was entirely attributable to Keith.

  “I found most of the furniture locally…” she said.

  Odette shrugged and continued to stare at Keith. He coughed and loosened his collar. All this female attention, and in front of Diana, too, was…disturbing.

  “Er…what do you think of the name?” he asked.

  The three visitors looked blank.

  “We’ve called the house Kercarter,” he said, and felt suddenly self-conscious, apologetic—and rather foolish about it. As if it had been Dunroamin’.

  Odette put him out of his misery.

  “Ah, yes, Ker meaning house or village in Breton, yes?” She had given him her blessing but hardly enthusiastically.

  Reddening, Keith stuttered, “And—er -Plou—er—means parish, I believe—so there must have been a Daniel here once in Ploudaniel.”

  “There have been many Daniels,” muttered Marie-Noël. “But not now—only we women now. This little corner holds few attractions—as your visitors found out….”

  There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Then Odette turned to Diana.

  “You’ll be wanting help in the house, won’t you, Mrs. Carter?” she asked.

  “Why, yes, I suppose…” mumbled Diana, puzzled by the sisters but unaware of the strong undercurrents between them and her husband.

  “You can have Josephine,” said Odette bluntly.

  Keith and Diana looked at the tiny person who from a distance could pass as a seven-year-old. Her face, with its snub nose, puckered mouth, fresh complexion and wrinkled eyes was a strange mixture of young and old. Her head was completely hidden by a black headscarf. Diana wondered if she were bald—she kept touching the scarf to make sure it was in place. The Carters did not know quite what to say to acknowledge this abruptly-proffered gift.

  “She can come every day except Sunday!” said Marie-Noël, as though everything was settled.