by Angela Huth
I accepted.
Along with his red Sunbeam Talbot, we boarded the ferry from Dover. In his holiday clothes George was perhaps somewhat less spectacular than in London, but very polished and neat in tweeds that merged into each other in a Scottish fashion. I noticed several middle-aged women turn their heads in admiration at the bar. After we’d drunk several pink gins we found two deck chairs on the deck. We sat enjoying the sun through the sea breeze, and looking in easy silence at the green-grey rocking waves. I thought perhaps he might hold my hand, not that he had ever done so before. In fact, he took a packet of pâté sandwiches and a bottle of hock from his briefcase. In my delight at his forethought (all around us people were eating packets of crisps) I made some extravagant remark about the receding cliffs of Dover. But George, concentrating on opening the wine, didn’t seem to hear.
‘It came to me in the night, about the sandwiches,’ he said. ‘I got up and made them then and there, in case there should be a rush in the morning.’ I think it was at that moment I wondered how I should ever get through to George, apart from food. Maybe the nights would do it.
We landed at Calais, and with great modesty George fell into perfect French, only when necessary. No inessential observations to the porters to show how good he was. I was grateful for that. Leaning back in the comfortable seat of the Sunbeam Talbot I knew for certain that should we cross the border into any European country, George would be just as at home, just as fluent in the language. Oh! he was wonderfully in charge. I shivered at the pleasure. He noticed, and covered my hand, which had strayed close to the gears, with one of his – gloved. Just for a moment.
‘Maintenant, mon chou,’ he said.
We sped away into northern France, dusk falling, the silence between us agreeable. Some hours later we drew up at an auberge set back a little from the main road. The Auberge Bon Femme, I seem to remember it was. A warm and cheerful place, a wood fire in the hall – the auberge of my fantasies. They seemed to know George there. The patron greeted him with many a jest, and kissed my hand, and called me madame with the seriousness of one who is always willing to partake of an English joke. We were shown to a room under the eaves, most of which was taken up by a vast double bed with brass ends. George began to unpack with great energy, almost filling the cupboard with his uncreased suits, leaving only two hangers for me. He seemed awfully happy. His walk, from cupboard to bed, bed to cupboard, was an anticipatory bounce. He hummed to himself, French tunes. Then suggested I should have a bath and change while he went downstairs to have a verre with the patron. We would dine at eight-thirty.
At eight twenty-five I made my entrance into the bar. I was wearing a modest little dress, sort of rhubarb colour which, I had noticed, glancing into the speckled mirror before coming down, enhanced the almost silly look of rapture on my face. The effect did not go unnoticed by George. He slid from his seat, welcoming.
‘Mon chou, mon ange,’ he said. ‘You’re beautiful. What will you have to drink?’ He put an arm around my shoulder, his exuberance perhaps encouraged by the two or even three verres he had had with the patron.
We had the best table, by another fire. And a most exquisite dinner. Pâté, first, the spécialité de la maison. Slices of dappled, skewbald stuff that lay glinting on clouds of lettuce. As we ate it, with great reverence and much sighing, George recalled so many pâtés in his past: those smooth, bland concoctions of whipped goose liver spotted with fragments of truffle; the rougher, country pâtés full of zest and brandy. He had had such experience of pâtés, George. I was amazed. He liked to amaze me, I could see. He ordered wine without looking at the list, and when it came he sniffed it with just the right amount of disdain before acknowledging it perfect.
We ate rougets, next: such rougets, simply grilled. And finally a cheese soufflé that was a buttercup puff of foam – a poem of a soufflé as George said. By this time my head was cloudy bright from the beautiful wine. George’s memories of past meals diminished a little with the petits fours, and he was quite silent by the time we went to bed.
The wine had made me careless. I undressed in a disorderly fashion, leaving my clothes in heaps on the ground. George was more meticulous. Under the camouflage of his dressing gown he slipped into silk pyjamas. There was some confusion about which side of the bed each one of us should have.
‘You wanted . . .?’
‘No, no. I don’t mind. You go there.’
‘Which side of a double bed do you normally sleep?’
I blushed, I know.
‘I don’t normally sleep in double beds.’
‘Very well, if you really don’t mind.’ He chose the side with the bedside table and the small lamp that glowed brownly under its antique shade. In bed, he took a tortoiseshell comb from the pocket of his dressing gown and resmoothed his already flattened hair with two quick, decisive movements. Then he lowered himself in the bed, and politely lifted the sheets for me to get in.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘we shall go somewhere that has the best burgundy you’ve ever tasted.’
‘That was a marvellous dinner,’ I said. We lay a yard apart. My skin stretched too tightly over my surging veins.
‘That was only a beginning,’ he said softly. Lovingly, I thought. I let the words seep into my flesh. Then peered up at him.
‘Do you always sleep in your dressing gown?’
His eyes were shut, his hands folded on his well-filled stomach. The position reminded me of those stone saints who lie on their graves, worn out by their good life, now happy in their good death. He snored a little. I reached across to put out the light. Well, I thought: I’m glad. It wouldn’t have done, tonight. Not with him being so tired. It might have been an anti-climax. It’s much better that he should get a good night’s sleep. For one so young, I was something of a cynic.
George slept very well. He hardly moved all night. In the morning he woke vigorously, ringing at once for deux cafés complets. I realised, then, how I had misjudged him. He was not, after all, a predictable man – a perfect dinner, a heady bottle of wine, make love. Such a conventional pattern of things, thank goodness, would not appeal to him. No: his method was more interestingly spontaneous. He would ask for love when he felt the desire come upon him, no matter what time of day. And judging by this, his eager early face, it could well be morning. I trembled.
How delighted he was by that first breakfast! The warm croissants flaked away in our fingers even as we touched them. The rich black coffee flared through my wakeful body filling it with longing. I felt my legs squirm under the bedclothes – careful not to touch George, just to let him know of the movement. Outside the open window a blackbird sang, the sky was cloudless. It was going to be a good day, but I didn’t want to enter it just yet.
‘George!’
He turned to me, specks of croissant on his mouth and dressing gown. Took my hand, shifted himself a bit.
‘Now. We’re going to leap out of bed and get to the market while it’s still early. It’s always best, early. There I shall choose for you the most perfect peaches and cheese for our lunch, which we shall eat under a poplar tree that Manet might have painted.’ His eyes strolled far away to this déjeuner sur l’herbe. ‘Does that suit you?’
An infinitesmal silence. Then new hope: a checked table cloth, the car rug spread in the long grass – why else would he have brought the car rug? A few more hours, that’s all.
‘Oh, yes,’ I said.
He was wonderful in the market. His fingers skimmed up and down fruits and vegetables, he muttered ‘Bah!’ sounds if he touched upon too ripe a flesh. Eventually he chose: two frail, dewy peaces and a wedge of Camembert that trembled on the brink of runniness. He bought butter and a knife and long flutes of fresh bread, and we roared off down empty roads between fields of smudgy lavender. He stopped at a place beside a small river for lunch: it seemed familiar to him. We spread the rug and sat in a cage of long grass, butterflies our only visitors. George took the corkscrew from his briefcase and un
corked a bottle of red wine, château something.
‘This is the life,’ he said.
In the sun, his brown shoes shone very brightly. There was something vulnerable about those shoes. I felt a surge of love for him: affection, regard, respect, desire. While he poured the wine I undid the top button of my shirt. After lunch, drowsy, we would sleep, perhaps. It would all happen, so drowsily, so drowsily. George’s mind seemed to be following my own. He lay propped on one arm and lifted a gentle hand to my cheek, his eyes melting.
‘There’s a little place not far from here,’ he said, ‘that sells the most irresistible truffles. We’ll go there directly after lunch, which will leave us plenty of time to get to the Bellevue by tonight.’ And he broke the long, sweet-smelling loaf.
We accomplished it all, of course: stacked a dozen tins of truffles into the boot, and arrived at the Bellevue in time for dinner. There we had a room crowded with Louis XIV type chairs, and extravagant satin curtains. There we drank a sharp little muscadet on the leafy terrace before dinner, and between the quenelles and the profiteroles he fiddled with the ruby clasp of my pearls.
‘You haven’t enough bosom to show off such pearls,’ he said, ‘but you’re becoming a delicious little gourmet.’ In the confusion in my head I sifted the compliment from the criticism and hugged it to myself, and quickly drank another glass of wine to ameliorate the sadness of my inadequate bosom.
Then, to my shame, in the dreadfully hard historical bed, I was the one to fall asleep first. Thoughtfully, George did not disturb me.
By the third day of our tour I learned that to join George in spirit, if not in body, was the only way. And so it was with greater, more desperate relish I came to appreciate the food. The days spun by, a galaxy of four-star interludes. I remember a hotel on a mountain top that overlooked half of France – the most delicate of boiled chickens under whose skin the patron himself had slipped fine slices of secret pâté. I remember the lightest of omelettes singing with fresh herbs (some of George’s phrases rubbed off on me); I remember pale fish whose sea-taste glowed through the creamy sauce. And then the puddings – my particular weakness: the irresistible trolleys of cream cheeses spun with white of egg into airy blobs, and floating through primrose coloured sauces. I remember sorbets, and exotic pastry things oozing with cream and fraises du bois, and whipped marrons hazy in chocolate sauce. Less clearly I remember swaying up many a staircase to a sagging French bedroom whose once grand wallpaper was now quite faded. There, in a dozen different beds, exhausted by our gourmet day, overblown with food and wine, George and I slept at once. At least – did we? I could never be quite sure. Wasn’t there the odd night when our bodies churned together, essaying some feat of love quite beyond us? I only positively know that we would wake each morning with our appetites for food renewed.
Somewhere in the Loire country I became aware of feeling a comfortable fatness. It slowed my movements: it happily dissipated all desire except for further food. George, I noticed, was at one with me in this feeling. The warmth of compatibility was upon us, and the days went fast.
We spent our last night in Paris. Began with champagne and those incomparable crisps at the Ritz Bar. Went on to a place whose menu, even to our experienced eyes, was dazzling. We took our time, weighing up the pros and cons of each dish, and indulged in a bit of connoisseur talk.
‘How about the pâté maison?’
‘But it couldn’t be as good as the Bonne Femme.’
‘Nor it could. But dare we try the agneau, after Mère Bise?’
In bed that night – a soaring cathedral of a bed, four posts and a domed ceiling of silk pleats, George remembered it was almost over. Sleepily, he held my hand.
‘I don’t know what you expected of this little vacance,’ he said. ‘I hope it hasn’t been a disappointment.’
‘Oh George! How could you? What an idea. I’ve never eaten such food in my life.’
With some effort he focused his eyes upon me.
‘I wondered, from time to time, if you really loved food. If it could ever become a way of life to you, like it has to me. I thought, tonight – your face – that perhaps I’ve accomplished one thing: I’ve made you a gourmet for life. Haven’t I?’
‘Ooh, you have.’ A slight, desirous stirring somewhere. But his eyes were half closed.
‘I’m so pleased about that. Diana?’ His stumbling hand felt for the clasp of my pearls. ‘I’m really so pleased about that.’
On deck next day, on the way back to Dover, I tried my best to thank him. Without my knowing, he had slipped out early that morning and filled his briefcase with charming things for our lunch. We huddled to eat it, once again, in deck chairs in the shadow of a life boat.
‘Thank you, tremendously, George.’
‘Glad you enjoyed it.’
‘Oh, I did. Tremendously.’ This time, the rocking of the boat made me feel a little uneasy. ‘But I think I was probably a disappointment to you, in some way.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’ His army hair glittered in the bright sun, his flushed cheeks bulged with surprise.
‘I don’t know, really.’
‘Utter nonsense. We came to France to eat, didn’t we? That was the idea, wasn’t it? Thought we had some damn good times, myself. I’ll never forget those meals. I shall remember them for ever and ever.’
‘So shall I,’ I said. ‘Definitely. For ever and ever.’
Back in London he kissed me goodbye on the forehead, and gave me a couple of tins of truffles.
‘Just to remind,’ he said. And that was the last I saw of him till we met again in Elizabeth Street.
His face was beginning to clear.
‘We had some good times in France, that, eh – wasn’t it? That time. Lots of good grub.’
‘Those rougets,’ I said. ‘Those puddings and pâtés.’
He paused. ‘There’s a new little French place somewhere near here. Not up to much, but the escargots aren’t bad. I was wondering, would you like a spot of lunch?’
I looked at my watch.
‘I can’t really, George,’ I said. ‘Not today.’ The shepherd’s pie was already in the oven. I had to do the sprouts.
‘Oh, well. It was just a thought.’ He swung his bag of flowering broccoli so that it banged against his leg. He glanced at my mature bosom, gave an almost imperceptible sigh. ‘Still, you might just come to Justin’s with me and choose a decent bit of quiche. I can never decide between the spinach and the mushroom. What d’you think?’
In memory of our gourmet heydays I went with him. His pleasure among the shelves of delicious foods was as inspiring as ever. For a moment I caught my plump, middle-aged breath; remembered some distant thrill. Should I change my mind about the escargots after all? Would this not be my chance to find out the answer to that silly question, which had been puzzling me all these years? Would George remember?
But suddenly he was on his way, three boxes under his arm. How nice it was running into each other like that, after all this time, he was saying. We must . . . some time. But he turned as he spoke, so I was unable to hear what we must do some time. But knowing George – dear George! – I supposed it might be to experience once again the absolute happiness of a gourmet lunch.
The Fall
Mrs Grace Willoughby, seventy-three years old and reduced by circumstances to a diminished way of life, endured the present while she lived with the past.
She understood, philosophically, that there were good times and bad times, and when good times came to an end they were inevitably replaced by less good ones. That was the rhythm of things – it had to be accepted. Not unwillingly, therefore, she accepted it. Nourished by the better past, she concerned herself with making tolerable the present
But it was a struggle. For all her efforts, she could never quite accustom herself to this high living. Her two-roomed flat was on the top floor of a tall block. Outside, when Mrs Willoughby dared look, were the summits of three other identical blocks; thin, soulless
buildings with no form of life at their windows. Mrs Willoughby had looked down only once, on the occasion she had first been shown the flat by the estate agent and her married daughter, Rose. The small patch of green ‘recreation ground’, the ant people and toy cars had looked so terrifyingly far away that Mrs Willoughby had never repeated the experience. Rose, however, thought the view was ‘lovely’. But then Rose was one of those people who, exhilarated by any journey up, only had to look down to find any view a delight. She was indiscriminate, like that, Mrs Willoughby thought privately. The estate agent, too, expressed an enthusiasm not only for the view but for the sparse qualities of the two rooms. He advised her to snatch at her lucky chance. Between them, they convinced Mrs Willoughby. Reluctantly, she snatched.
The idea of moving to London, after Edgar had died and the chemist’s shop was sold, was to be near Rose. What had not come into the calculations was that while Rose lived in north London, Mrs Willoughby’s new flat was south, and miles of difficulties lay between them. To begin with they tried to keep some form of routine. Every other Sunday Mrs Willoughby would set off early, negotiate a complicated route of trains and undergrounds, and arrive at her daughter’s in time for lunch. Once there, she never felt wholly welcome. It wasn’t that Rose was unfriendly, just busy. She had her own worries: five children and a tight income. Her engineer husband, Jack, surly at the best of times, spent their every spare penny on flying lessons. He fancied himself as a swashbuckling pilot. Rose half approved the fantasy and meanwhile had to do without a washing machine. Mrs Willoughby, for some reason cynical about others’ marriages despite the experience of her own happy one, once suggested to Rose that Jack might fly away for ever one day. Rose had just laughed.