by Mary Stewart
He hesitated, and I tried not to hold my breath. Then he dropped my arm abruptly, and said: ‘Very well. I’m sorry I scared you, but I thought – well, you shouldn’t have told me those lies. I’m a little anxious about David, you see, and I thought you were stalling me off. I’ll see him at the bus.’
He started quickly up the street towards the parked car. I walked as casually as I could to the corner, then, once out of sight, I broke and ran for the church as if hounds were out and I was the hare.
Luckily there was no one about in the porch to see me tear into the building as if I were bent on sacrilege. If David weren’t there – I couldn’t think beyond that possibility. But he was, curled up in a big pew in a side aisle with Rommel asleep at his feet. He straightened up with a jerk when he saw me.
‘David,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Don’t ask questions. He’s looking for you. Come to the car – quick!’
He threw me one scared and wondering look, and came. As we reached the porch I hesitated for a moment and scanned the square, but could not see the big grey car. We turned right and tore across the open space, and as we ran I saw out of the tail of my eye the bus for Montpellier slide out of the rank and turn on to the Montpellier road.
Then we had found our side street and the car, and were threading a maze of narrow streets away from the square.
‘Our luck’s in …’ I breathed. ‘The Montpellier bus … it left early … he’ll follow it until he finds out, and by that time—’
Two minutes later the Riley slipped out of Nîmes and took the Avignon road.
7
Never—
(Browning)
We were some way out of Nîmes before either of us spoke. Then I said carefully: ‘You saw your father at the Arena, didn’t you, David?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was low and expressionless, and I didn’t look at him; my eyes hardly ever left the driving mirror, where I was watching for a big grey car with a GB plate. ‘I heard him speak first, then I looked over and saw him. I didn’t think he’d seen me.’
‘He hadn’t. I gave you away by mistake. I met him up at the Temple of Diana. Up in the gardens.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, he tried to make me tell him where you were. I told a few lies and got caught out in them – I never did have much luck that way. Then I managed to make him think we were getting the Montpellier bus.’
‘I suppose he’ll follow it?’
‘Yes, I’m hoping so,’ I said cheerfully. ‘And it’s in quite the opposite direction from Avignon.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Something in his tone made me glance quickly at him. He was sitting, hugging Rommel between his knees, and staring in front of him with an expression I found it hard to read. He was still very white, and there was a look of strain over his cheek-bones, as if the skin were stretched too tight. His eyes looked enormous, and as he turned to answer my look I could see in them misery and a kind of exaltation, through the tears that were slipping soundlessly down his cheeks. My heart twisted uncomfortably, and I forgot to be casual any more. I put out my left hand and touched him on the knee.
‘Never mind, David. Is it very bad?’
He did not answer for a bit, and when he did his voice was coming under control again.
‘How did you find out about my father?’
‘I’m afraid there was some gossip at the hotel. Someone who’d followed the – the case recognized your step-mother. Did you know he might be in Nîmes?’
‘No. I thought he might be following us down here, but I didn’t know … I thought it couldn’t do any harm to have one day out. You – you didn’t tell him we were staying in Avignon?’ The terror was back in his voice as he half turned to me.
‘Of course not. It’s very important that he shouldn’t find you, isn’t it?’
He nodded hard over Rommel’s head.
‘Terribly important. I can’t tell you how important. It – it’s a matter of life and death.’ And somehow the hackneyed over-dramatic words, spoken in that child’s voice with a quiver in it, were not in the least ludicrous, and were uncommonly convincing.
‘David.’
‘Yes.’
‘Would it help you to talk about it?’
‘I don’t know. What did they tell you at the hotel?’
‘Not very much. Just what was in the papers at the time. You see, if you’d told me about your father when you saw him first in Nîmes, this needn’t have happened. From what I had heard at the hotel, I gathered that it might be – undesirable – for your father to find you again, and then when I met him in Nîmes and realized that it was his voice that had frightened you in the Arena, I knew that whatever happened you didn’t want him to catch you. That’s all.’
The driving mirror was still blank of anything but a narrow white road snaking away from the wheels.
‘That’s all there is,’ said David at length. ‘Except for one thing. Mrs. Selborne, there’s one thing that’s terribly important too.’
‘What’s that, David?’
He spoke with a rush: ‘Don’t tell anyone – anyone, what’s happened today!’
‘But, David – how can I help it? Your step-mother ought surely—’
I saw his hands move convulsively in the dog’s fur, and Rommel whined a protest. ‘No! Oh, please, Mrs. Selborne, please do as I say. It would only worry her terribly, and it couldn’t do any good. It won’t happen again, because I won’t go out, and anyway, we leave in a few days for the coast. So please keep it a secret! I wouldn’t ask if it didn’t matter.’
I was silent for a moment, and the Riley sang up a steep rise in the road. A little way ahead I could see the deep trees and the golden arches of Pont du Gard.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why, but I’ll do as you say. Though I still think I ought to tell your step-mother. But I won’t.’
‘Cross your heart?’ I don’t suppose the childish oath had ever been administered with such an agony of urgency. I smiled at David.
‘Cross my heart.’
There was a little sigh beside me. ‘You’re awfully nice, aren’t you?’ said David naïvely.
‘Thank you.’
‘How – how did he look?’
I slowed down and pulled in behind a big brake van with a Vaucluse plate. Still nothing in the mirror. But in front of my eyes rose Richard Byron’s face, dark and angry, with scowling brows and hard mouth, and I could feel the bruises on my wrist where he had hurt me.
‘He looked well enough,’ I said carefully, ‘but of course he was pretty angry, and so he wasn’t too pleasant. I don’t blame you for being scared, you know; I was scared silly. I wondered—’ I broke off abruptly.
‘You wondered if he was mad?’ said the small voice beside me. ‘Well, I think he is – I think he must be. Quite mad.’
And we drove into Pont du Gard and drew up in front of the hotel.
* * *
A hasty look through the tables on the terrace satisfied us that Louise must have already gone home, so we set off once more for Avignon. On the second half of the journey we hardly spoke; I watched the driving mirror and drove as fast as I dared, while David sat crouched together beside me holding the dog. We swung through Villeneuve-lès-Avignon shortly before six o’clock, and crawled over the suspension bridge. It was queer, after only two days, how much coming back into Avignon felt like coming home; I suppose that after the events of the day the hotel was a refuge, a bolt-hole, where one could hide and lock a door.
I took the car straight in through the Porte del’Oulle this time, feeling that another ten minutes of exposed driving on the perimeter road was more than I could stand. We threaded the narrow streets as fast as a homing cat, and the Riley ran into the garage and stopped with a little sigh, just as the clock in the Place de l’Horloge struck the hour.
L’heure de l’apéritif. And Louise would be sitting in the quiet courtyard drinking her vermouth, just as she had done yesterday and the day bef
ore.
I smiled at David, and got out of the car.
‘I think a bath before dinner, don’t you? And we had a very pleasant, very ordinary day in Nîmes. You were very impressed with the Arena, I remember.’
He managed a smile. ‘Thank you for taking me,’ he said.
I watched him through the court into the hotel, then I turned sharply, and went back into the street. I almost ran back to the gate which commanded the suspension bridge, and there, in a crowded little café, sitting well inside, against the wall, I had my drink – a cognac, this time. For half an hour I sat there, watching the narrow bridge that joined the city with Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.
But no big grey car with a GB plate crossed the bridge. So after a while I got up and went back to the hotel.
I found Louise, not in the courtyard, but in her room, thumbing through her sketch-book. The inevitable vermouth stood on her dressing-table.
‘I just came to make sure you were back. I thought you must be when we didn’t see you at Pont du Gard.’
‘I came back after the light began to change,’ she said. ‘Did you have a good day, or were you broiled alive?’
I pushed the hair back off my forehead, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘It was fearfully hot,’ I admitted. ‘I didn’t finish the course, I’m afraid. I just could not climb the last long mile to the Roman tower. But the other things were well worth a visit. How did the sketches go?’
Louise knitted her smooth brow at her sketch book.
‘Oh, so-so. The shapes are wonderful, but oh Lord, the light. It can’t be got. If you leave out the reflections the arches look like American cheese, and if you put them in they look like fat legs in fish-net nylons. The colours just aren’t there in the box.’
She sipped her drink, and her eyes considered me. ‘Are you sure you haven’t overdone it a bit, Charity? You look done up. Don’t forget you’re not quite as tough as you think you are.’
‘I’m all right.’
‘Well, be careful, that’s all. This isn’t the climate to take risks with—’
‘I’m all right,’ I said again. ‘Or at least I shall be when I’ve had that dinner I’m beginning to dream up.’
I went to my room to change. I hadn’t time for a bath, but I took a quick cool sponge down, and put on my pale green dress. I looked in the mirror as I brushed my hair, and saw with a faint surprise that under their faint tan my cheeks were quite without colour. I leaned closer to the mirror. Something about the eyes and the corners of the mouth reminded me vividly of David’s face as he had turned to me in the car, some trace seemed to be there of strain – and fear. I frowned at my reflection, and then fished in a drawer for some rouge, annoyed that my encounter with David’s father, which I had been trying to put out of my mind until I could think it over without disturbance, should have apparently had such a profound effect on me. After all, what did it amount to? A bruised wrist and some abuse? The natural fear of a sane person confronted with the unreasonable? For certainly no sane man – even discounting David’s terrible little confession to me on the homeward drive – would have behaved in that way to a strange woman, even if she were apparently obstructing him in his desire to see his son.
I smoothed the rouge faintly over my cheek-bones, back towards the hair-line, then dusted over with powder. That was better. My coral lipstick next, and the face that looked back at me was an altogether braver affair. Thank God for cosmetics, I thought, as I put them into my bag; one not only looks better, one feels better, with one’s flag at the top of the mast again. I would not think about Richard Byron again this evening. He had not come to Avignon, of that I was sure. David had only to lie low for a few days more, then he was to go to the coast, and surely France was big enough for a small boy to get lost in? There was nothing more that I could do, and up to date, even if I was left with food for a nightmare, I hadn’t done so very badly.
I picked up my bag, and as I did so, I caught sight of the blue marks on my wrist. I turned the arm over, and examined the dark prints where Richard Byron’s fingers had bitten into the flesh. Then I remembered my wide silver bracelet, and, hastily searching for it, clasped it round my wrist, over those tell-tale bruises. To my fury, I found that I was shaking again.
‘Oh damn everything!’ I said aloud, with unwonted viciousness, and went to get Louise.
The dinner that I had dreamed up proved to be every bit as good as the dream. We began with iced melon, which was followed by the famous brandade truffée, a delicious concoction of fish cooked with truffles. We could quite contentedly have stopped there, but the next course – some small bird like a quail, simmered in wine and served on a bed of green grapes – would have tempted an anchorite to break his penance. Then crêpes Suzette, and, finally, coffee and armagnac.
We sat over this for a very long time, and then we went up to the Place de l’Horloge and had more coffee and sat again. Louise talked a bit about light, and reflections, and a picture by Brangwyn of the Pont du Gard that she had seen in a Bond Street exhibition, but I was not listening very hard. I was not even thinking, at any rate not usefully. I just sat and drank black coffee and felt very, very tired.
We went back to the hotel at about half-past ten, to find the courtyard empty save for the thin cat at the foot of the tree Yggdrasil. I said good night to Louise and went to my room. The tired feeling still persisted, and it was with slow mechanical movements that I took off the green frock, creamed my face, brushed my hair, and went through all the motions of getting ready for bed. I was even too tired to think, and with the edge of my mind I remember feeling glad about this.
Finally I wrapped my housecoat round me, and went along the corridor to the bathroom, which was at the far end from my room.
I was in the bathroom, and was in the act of closing the door softly behind me, when I heard a quick tread in the corridor, a man’s tread. A door opened, and I heard an urgent whisper:
‘Loraine!’
I froze. It was the voice of the man I had overheard with Loraine Bristol on the Rocher des Doms.
‘Loraine!’
‘You! What is it? What has happened?’
‘Loraine, he’s here! I saw him. Today. In Nîmes.’
There was a sound like a deep-drawn breath of terror. Then the door shut behind him, and I heard the click of a lock.
I shut the bathroom door and leaned against it for a moment, my brain revving up like a tired engine.
Marsden. On the bus to Nîmes. I had forgotten all about Marsden.
I must ask David where Marsden came into the picture. I crept out of the bathroom without a sound, and paused outside Loraine Bristol’s door. There was the barest murmur inside, of voices. I tip-toed on, round the angle of the corridor, to David’s door, and lifted my hand to scratch at the panel, wondering as I did so if Rommel slept in the room with him, and if he would bark.
Then I stopped, with my hand half-way to the panel, and froze again.
From inside the room came the sound of a child’s desolate sobbing.
I stood there for a long moment, then my hand dropped to my side and I went back to my own room.
8
– While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both …
While the one eludes, must the other pursue:
(Browning)
All things considered, I did not sleep too badly. I was wakened at about nine o’clock the next morning by Louise, who stopped to knock on my door on her way down to breakfast.
I got up slowly, and dressed. The shadows under my eyes were still there, and so were the marks on my wrist, but I put on my coffee-cream linen dress and my silver bracelet, and felt pretty well able to face what might come. I went down to the courtyard for breakfast.
David was there, looking as if he had not slept too well, but he gave me a gay little smile of greeting, and Rommel, under the table, wagged his silly tail. Loraine Bristol looked up from lighting one cigarette from
the half-smoked butt of another. She, too, looked as if she had not slept, and the lines from nostril to mouth were sharply etched on her lovely face, giving her suddenly an older, harder look. I felt sorry for her.
She said: ‘Good morning, Mrs. Selborne. It was so good of you to take David yesterday. He has been telling me how much he enjoyed the day.’
I said, lightly: ‘That’s all right, it was a pleasure. Nîmes is a lovely place, except for the smells. I hope David will be able to come with me for another trip some day.’
I saw David’s swift upward glance, then Mrs. Bristol said: ‘It’s so nice of you. Perhaps. But we plan to leave Avignon soon, and we will go then to Nice.’
‘I hope you enjoy it,’ I said, and we smiled at one another like two mechanical dolls, and then I went to our own table and sat down.
Over the coffee and croissants I looked round me. Mamma and Papa from Newcastle were there, and Mamma waved cheerfully when she caught my eye. Carole, apparently, was not up yet, or perhaps it took her a long time to complete her fearsome toilette. The young American couple, each-in-other-absorbed, sat with heads close together in their corner. The Frenchman, Paul Véry, was nowhere to be seen. But Marsden sat at his table beside the vine-covered trellis, imperturbably eating his croissants and reading Little Gidding.
‘At breakfast!’ said Louise in an awed voice. ‘A man who can read poetry at breakfast would be capable of anything.’
You’re probably right at that, I thought, remembering the decisive voice in the dark … I got you out of the mess before, didn’t I? … I’m in charge, and you trust me, don’t you?
‘More sight-seeing today?’ came Louise’s voice. I shook myself free of my thoughts, and poured another cup of coffee.
‘I’ll do what you do,’ I said.
‘Sit in the shade and drink iced grape-juice?’
‘Just that.’