Grace was frightened, and his language offended her, but she said nothing about it, certain that in talking about Michael with too much passion she had betrayed herself. This response was instinctive jealousy. She prayed that he would not ask her to confirm his suspicions – right now, she would have to lie again, neither of them would get through the day otherwise. Did a painful day mean more than her marriage, then? Dear God, she was still hung up on Michael’s good opinion.
The car was cruising evenly, so she opened her eyes and reached over to touch Nick’s arm. ‘I do love you, Nick,’ she said. It did feel true when she said it.
He was still glaring malevolently at the tanker in his mirror.
‘You’re so normal. Such a normal man. You forget our anniversaries, you can’t say “I love you” except in bed and you turn into an animal in a car.’ She felt weak and childish, almost out of control.
‘I suppose you’d rather I was an animal in bed and said “I love you” in the car? What’s so lovable about it? Sounds pathetic to me.’
‘I don’t know – something seems so right about you. You’re just the way you have to be. I’m sorry, I’m not making sense … have you got a handkerchief?’ He had real handkerchiefs, old-fashioned cotton squares that she found impossible to get clean in the wash; every Sunday he boiled seven of them in a saucepan. She pulled one from his trouser pocket, a crumpled item smelling faintly of lubricating oil, and dabbed her eyes. ‘There’s nothing to be nervous over,’ she added, feeling that he needed reassurance.
‘I’m not nervous.’ This was said with a bitterness that she had never heard him use before. Guiltily, she waited for his accusation, but all he said was, ‘Let go of my arm, I’ve got to change down.’
Despite her brave red dress, Grace knew she was overwrought. She made herself take deep breaths, trying to calm the tension that was eating into her mood like acid.
‘Did you do your spit test this morning?’ he asked without warning.
‘Damn, no. I forgot. I’ll do it when we get back.’
‘You have to do it in the morning. Hormone levels are highest then.’
‘Then I’ve missed a day. I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to apologize. You can just skip a day.’ Now she was irritated. All through their infertility treatment he had been one move ahead of her, just because he knew more about medical procedures, and conscientiously cross-checked her treatment with his books or his colleagues.
‘I wish you’d be my husband when we’re talking about this, instead of being another doctor – you make me feel incompetent, and that I haven’t got any privacy.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought I was being helpful.’ An icy tone. They were having a row, in as much as they had rows. He was afraid of confronting her. Nick hated aggression and certainly, with him, Grace checked her temper; she was afraid their connection was too fragile to survive a real fight.
In silence, they were approaching Saint-Victor’s castellated battlements, which enclosed the crown of the highest hill for five hundred miles around. The road forked at the bottom, sweeping around the base of the fortifications. The old stone walls curtained with creepers looked inviting after the valley of commercial brutality below. Grace was never happy to be early for a party, so he chose to drive through the town.
They passed an imposing façade behind elaborate iron gates, with a tricolour hanging from a flagpole. It was a police college. Eager to sweeten the atmosphere, she was suddenly enchanted. ‘This must be the prettiest town in France,’ she exclaimed, craning out of the window as he turned up the main street. The buildings were all of white stone washed with pale gold, decorated with colonnades and porticos, the elegant townhouses visible through noble gateways under carved coats of arms. Humble doorknockers enchanted her, the lace curtains were adorable, the ironwork balconies were the finest she had ever seen and she marvelled that even the paving slabs were of the same yellow-veined rock.
‘But it’s too pretty, isn’t it? It’s almost artificial. Why …’
‘The town burned down some time in the seventeenth century and they rebuilt it all at the same time and all in the same stone. The yellow tint comes from local deposits of chromium.’
‘That’s not in the Michelin.’ She had already opened the guidebook.
‘Jane Knight told me.’ He turned off into the level, gravelled area at the top of the battlements, once a military parade ground, now a site for fêtes and dances, with a municipal bandstand and pink tamarisk trees shading the boules pitches. ‘And here’s the bar with the best view in Gascony.’
‘Did she tell you that too?’ He noticed that her mood deflated at the mention of Jane.
‘No, I figured it out for myself.’ He ordered coffee for himself and her preferred kir aux mûres, made with blackberry liqueur, but while they were waiting for the order to be executed he got to his feet and walked away from her to the edge of the flattened ground, where he leaned on the battlement wall and looked out over the misty patchwork of fields. She knew better than to follow. When they were troubled he would go away by himself for a while, then return, thinking he had avoided the storm. Sometimes he was right.
His coffee was tepid by the time he came back. After a while, he said, ‘I thought there was something not quite right about Jane Knight.’
‘I thought she was your heroine.’
‘She was but she seemed – washed out, somehow. I see it in patients sometimes, when they’ve been suffering a long, long time, so long that the pain is almost their best friend. Then it becomes the most important thing in their lives, and they actually don’t want you to get rid of it for them. It’s one of the real mysteries in medicine, how people can love their pain, even while it’s killing them.’
For a while she sipped her drink in silence, arranging her thoughts, remembering his innocence in the ways of her old world. ‘Have you heard the stories about Michael? About women, I mean?’
He shook his head. ‘Well, Michael has a lot of women. A lot of affairs. He always has had, all through their marriage. I don’t know why she stays with him. He’s a terrible husband. That’s the kind of man he is, one woman is never enough, even the most wonderful in the world.’
‘What is it, then? Sex?’
‘I don’t think he’s a very sexual man. Not the way you are.’ Careful, don’t give too much away. ‘He wants the big stuff, the love and the care and the worrying and the praise and the reassurance. I think it’s part of his ambition.’
‘You didn’t say he was ambitious.’
‘No, I didn’t.’ She shook her head, considering the power of Michael’s persuasion, even after all these years. ‘Because he hates people to think he’s ambitious. He wants it all, you see. Absolutely everything, including everyone’s love, everyone’s admiration. And he must need something special from women, because he just eats women up, one after the other. Greed, that’s what it is.’
‘So that’s how a man gets to have everything, then?’
‘Just by being greedy for everything? Maybe.’
He reached across the table and squeezed her arm; she was comforted and so was he. Somehow, they had told each other what they both needed to hear.
‘We’d better go,’ he said. The waiter came, and she stood up with reluctance, holding out her dress to let the breeze shake out the creases of the journey.
‘Stephen, we have to find a pharmacie.’
‘OK. We can ask to stop on the way to the house. There must be one in the town somewhere.’
Imogen favoured him with a warm, grateful smile; men were such suckers for female biology. Just hint that something to do with periods was coming down and they were so keen to get into deep empathy mode that you could get away with anything.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Oh, sure.’ She tossed him the reply sarcastically. ‘You know I love Daddy’s parties.’ That old familiar feeling was creeping up her throat. Standing there in the middle of all those people being asked moron
questions about what she was studying and what she wanted to do, Jane’s horrible brats festering around the place and those great dreary lumps, the Moynihan kids, sniggering behind their hands because she wasn’t like them, she wasn’t doing European Studies or a gap year teaching leper children in Somalia, and she didn’t have twenty pounds of puppy fat and half a million zits to lose. And Daddy, exaggerating everything and trying to pretend he was proud of her, but really just storing up things to criticize her for afterwards. She felt as if she could start choking at any moment.
Between fields and orchards, the train was crawling along the flat floor of the Garonne valley. They had travelled nearly three hundred miles and where the earth was exposed it showed rich southern colours, reds and ochres; against it the spiky onion tops gleamed almost blue and the young potatoes foamed emerald. The vines here were already golden. Stacks of fruit crates stood in the corners of the fields, waiting to be filled with melons, yellow peaches, white peaches, early apples and late strawberries.
They got out at Agen, where the full force of the summer heat beat up from the platform and the whole station shimmered in a haze. A young woman with long dark hair was looking out for them.
‘Hi there, I’m Mrs Knight’s nanny, my name is Debbie.’ Imogen surrendered her bag. So many arrivals, so many strange young women introducing themselves in the same form. It was good to be adult at last, and no longer dependent on these hired personalities for the success of the summer vacation.
‘We need to stop at a pharmacy,’ Stephen explained.
‘No problem,’ she responded, ‘There is one open somewhere all day today, for medicines. I wouldn’t mind picking up some stuff for Emma at the same time. We’re getting through her cream really fast, with them being in and out of the pool all day.’
Damn, the nanny was going to come in with her. They drove around the town looking for the Sunday dispensary, and when it was found Imogen bought tampons and Debbie bought skin cream. As they came back to the car, Imogen allowed Debbie to lead, and made sure she was in the driving seat before flouncing to a halt on the pavement. ‘I’ve left my stuff,’ she called out and went back into the shop. So simple. They didn’t suspect a thing. Three disposable syringes into the bottom of the bag in thirty seconds, and out she came again. The girls in the dispensary never reacted, the French were so busy shooting themselves full of vitamins and collagen.
In the back of the car she sank down in the seat out of view of the driving mirror and began to freshen her makeup. The microdot was in the bottom of the purse, almost winking at her. Quite safe to take it now, because if it was too much to handle she had the T to bring her down. Some dope would have been nice; the ideal way was to mellow out first and then get going from that base. Especially with new stuff, that was the best, but Marc was reliable, she’d heard no bad word on microdots and if there had been any dope Stephen would have made her leave it behind. Dear man, he was talking to the nanny about the weather. It had been hot, but the forecast was stormy, she was saying.
Imogen uncapped a pot of lip balm and rubbed a spot in the centre of her lower lip, then licked her finger, picked up the dot and transferred it to her tongue with the same gesture. Excellent. Even if she was visible in the mirror, that girl would never have seen anything. She closed her makeup purse and put her feet up on the seat, waiting to go somewhere more interesting than down the Roman road and past the old watchtower to Les Palombières.
Children. As they emerged from the track between the sunflowers, and Les Palombières stood before them decorated for the celebration, Grace realized that there would be children. Respectful of her car’s low suspension, Nick turned slowly into the field where cars were parked. There were six or seven little figures in bright-coloured clothes running up and down the terrace at the side of the house. Some of them must be Michael’s. Everyone will be watching me and thinking how hopeless I am with them and how fortunate all round that I can’t have any. I will not have this ridiculous thought in my head. She flipped down the vanity mirror and reached for her lipstick.
‘This can’t be worse than scuba-diving.’ Nick came over and helped her out of the car. Unconsciously, she had been touching the scar on her forehead.
She shook her head, fluffing up her hair. ‘You can’t burst a lung leaving a party early. Let’s plunge in.’
A large new Mercedes, a large old Mercedes, a classic BMW and a Mitsubishi Shogun already occupied the parking field. The route to the terrace was marked with posies of pink roses tied with green ribbon and fixed to the tree trunks.
A maid held a tray of cocktails, the Rapier Thrust, champagne and pousse rapière liqueur made from oranges and Armagnac. ‘Un pour tous,’ Nick toasted her. ‘Et tons pour un,’ she replied and drank. It was not right, they could not be one for all when they were only two.
Staff in green and white invited them to move down the terrace, and through the arch overhung with honeysuckle which led to the pool. At the top of the steps they paused involuntarily to appreciate the scene. The pool and its surrounding garden were nestled between two spurs of creamy white rock, and large boulders of it seemed to have tumbled haphazardly down the hillside. Between them, cypress spires and low bushes grew; there was no obvious colour scheme, but the planting favoured lavender bushes and strong pink and purple flowers. Here and there stood large earthenware pots.
‘It’s a bit Marie Claire Maison.’ From Nick, this observation came hesitantly with the hint of a question, since he was unsure that he had the name of the magazine right, what Grace’s feelings were about Marie Claire Maison, or if the vista was indeed typical of it; he was only sure that it was an intimidatingly expensive sight and he felt out of place.
Conscious of making her entrance, Grace walked slowly down the curved gravel path. The paving had been done with old dressed building stones of a light grey which was gentle on the eyes. The pool itself was a classic rectangle, with an iron lion’s head fountain spouting quietly at the deep end; across the water the view down the shallow valley was interrupted only by a pair of immense terracotta pots from which geraniums trailed in abundance.
About twenty people were making eager conversation under the sunshades. Grace saw Michael at once, and was surprised to feel nothing particular. His face was more lined, he seemed bony rather than slender, his hair was still brown and needed cutting – as always. He did not see her. Alan Stern of Altmark dominated the gathering with no effort. ‘Who’s the Mount Rushmore face?’ Nick whispered, and she told him.
Stern was built on a heroic scale, broad and muscular, blond hair swept back from a high forehead; he matched his host in height but beside his athletic solidity Michael looked fidgety. The wife, Berenice, was posed beside her husband, glancing warily up at the cypress trees as if she expected them to fall on her at any moment. She wore a yellow silk hat which hid most of her black hair, and a matching yellow linen dress with a strapless top and gilt snaps down the front. At the edge of the group a young man with slick dark hair, fashionable in collarless shirt and waistcoat, hovered at Michael’s elbow, waiting for the moment to raid the conversation and make his mark.
‘There’s Jane, right over there behind the hippopotamus in the spinnaker.’ Nick was half-whispering in her ear.
‘It’s Andy Moynihan. She’s always been that big, she can’t help it. They used to be good friends.’ Now there was a stab of emotion. She had no recollection of her first meeting with Andy, after her accident; Michael had introduced them two years later, when Andy had made an offensive hash of explaining their connection. Now she could detect a formality between the two women which prompted her instinct that they were no longer friends.
‘She could help that dress, though. We’ll have to lash her to the deck if the wind gets up.’ It was a garment typical of Andy, yards of splashy batik.
‘They’re the only people we know, we’re going to have to talk to them.’
‘Not necessarily.’ He nudged her elbow and she saw Louisa undulating towards them,
radiating social expectancy. For six tempestuous months, Grace’s newspaper had retained Louisa as food editor, a role she interpreted as requiring monthly trips to Paris, to the severe detriment of the features budget and to the benefit of Grace, who had never dined so well in her life.
‘Grace! My dear, what a surprise!’ One cheek after the other, excessively made up for the climate and the occasion, was offered for kissing. ‘And is this your husband?’ Nobody pronounced the word ‘husband’ quite like Louisa, although some people had a similar breath-held way of saying ‘Galapagos tortoise’or ‘white rhinoceros’.
Jane’s attention was attracted by the loud greeting. She was still disturbed by the events of the night, and playing cool was beyond her. She eyed her husband’s sometime mistress with blatant fascination. Striking, definitely, taller than she had imagined, wonderful bones. Jane willed herself to approach, noticing that the couple were standing independently of each other. ‘And this scarlet woman must be your wife?’ she heard herself say brightly.
‘We met years ago, when I worked with your husband.’ Plainly delivered, with neither offence nor pretence, followed by a dry handshake; neither of us is quite the kissy-kissy type. How extraordinary, we are not at all alike. Grace found herself inspecting Jane; in fact, Jane was almost offering herself up for it, standing quietly with her hands by her sides as if to say, well – this is me, a neat figure in a cinnamon brown tunic, the dowdy mate of the showy male.
‘How brave you are to wear red.’
‘Not really – I feel brave once I’ve put it on. I think it’s braver to be subtle.’ A flush of pleasure, even under the tan. Relaxing, Grace noticed details of the terrace; the old foundations restored as ornamental arches, the blending of colours in the garden, the placing of each cypress so the eye was led in tantalizing steps past the shining water and out to the view beyond. ‘How lovely you’ve made this house.’
Harvest Page 20