Grand Affair

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Don’t say “see” like that, Ottilie, it’s vulgar. And don’t wriggle your feet. Keep still when I’m talking to you. So, there didn’t seem much point in talking to Mrs Ballantyne, did there? Well, perhaps you will think there is some point when I tell you that unless we get rid of some of these clothes, and soon, there will be no pocket money for you for the next six months, at least!’

  Mrs Cartaret’s sudden tempers, coming from nowhere, were something to which Ottilie had been forced to become used when she first came to live at the Grand. Sometimes she would even stamp her foot, or throw something at her mirror. Edith always murmured under her breath, if she was an unfortunate witness of one of her sudden squalls, ‘Take no notice, Miss Ottilie, just take no notice. Whatever happens, just take no notice.’

  But Ottilie found it difficult to take no notice, particularly if, like now, she was trying to save up all her hard-earned pocket money to buy Lorcan a fishing rod for his birthday.

  ‘I could ask Mrs Le Martine if she has a friend who would like something. How would that be, Mamma?’

  ‘Mrs Le Martine! You and Mrs Le Martine, you make me sick both of you, thick as thieves and always gossiping and carrying on. Mrs Le Martine tells lies just like you do. You both tell lies. She is nothing but a liar, pretending to be something she is not. And so are you. You’re a liar.’

  Mrs Cartaret sprang up from her dressing table stool and ran at Ottilie in sudden fury, her hairbrush in one hand.

  ‘I’m going to beat you for telling lies, and then I’m going to lock you in that cupboard, you horrid little girl,’ she shouted. ‘I’m going to lock you up until you promise never to tell me lies again!’

  Ottilie froze. It was such a very long time since Mrs Cartaret had last beaten her, she had quite hoped that she never would again. The last time was when the sauce chef had left without warning and Ottilie had tried to help out in the kitchens and dropped a whole tray of plates. She had been marched from the kitchens, in front of the whole staff, and beaten and locked in a cupboard. She so hated that word ‘beat’. I am going to beat you. She would never say that word when she grew up, not ever. She would never say ‘beat’. She would never beat anyone either, as Mamma was trying to beat her now.

  ‘Please, Mum – Mamma – please, don’t beat me. I’m sorry for telling you a he, really I am.’ Mr Cartaret appeared at his wife’s bedroom door as Ottilie started to plead with Mrs Cartaret. ‘Please, please, please don’t beat me, please, Mamma. I didn’t mean to tell you a lie, really I didn’t!’

  ‘In for a beating, are you?’ Ottilie heard him ask. But he went away before Ottilie started to cry out. And later he said to her as he passed her in the corridor when Edith had let her out of the cupboard, ‘We all have to go through it, you know. I was beaten. Did me no harm, really it didn’t. Besides, being in a dark cupboard’s nothing to complain about. Quite good for you, I understand.’

  What he did not say to Ottilie was why it was good for you. Nor did he tell her the real reason why Mrs Cartaret had flown into such a particularly bad temper that afternoon.

  Ottilie had managed to dry her tears long before a welcome ray of light illuminated her lonely and terrifying sojourn locked among Mrs Cartaret’s heavily scented clothes and Edith, creeping silently in once Madame had gone to make her entrance down the golden staircase, was able to let Ottilie out and take her back to her own suite where she bathed her in silence, both of them avoiding looking at the red marks or into each other’s eyes.

  If Edith and Ottilie had met each other’s eyes they would have been unable to avoid telling each other the truth, which was: ‘Mrs Cartaret is mad.’

  So they did not look into each other’s eyes, and while Ottilie listened to Edith reading to her from yet another chapter of her favourite book her mind went back to the old days when she was the centre of Ma’s life, her little star, and she lay beside her basking in the warmth of their early mornings together, while Ma sipped her morning tea and music played from her pride and joy, the great grand mahogany radiogram.

  One day soon perhaps Ottilie would be able, somehow, to go back to what she still found herself longing for so heartily, would feel herself once more trotting beside Ma heading for Number Four and all its warmth, but as it was now there was just Edith. Yet at least that was something, at least she was lucky in Edith.

  ‘Edith?’

  ‘Yes, pet?’

  Edith stopped, placing her finger under the word she was about to read, which she always did most precisely.

  ‘Now I won’t be having pocket money for six months I shan’t be able to give Lorcan a birthday present, will I?’

  ‘No, pet, I don’t suppose you will.’

  Edith looked grave. It was grave. Very grave. The whole thing was extraordinarily grave. After all, as they both knew, in six months Lorcan would be twenty-one years of age, and as Edith always said, there was no birthday more important than that, surely?

  ‘Perhaps I could do a paper round, like Chef’s daughter does?’

  ‘Oh no, pet, that wouldn’t be allowed. Never. Not for you, Miss Ottilie.’

  ‘What could I do, then?’

  ‘Just try and be good, and hope for the best.’

  ‘I do try and be good, but it doesn’t seem to work, does it, Edith? So there doesn’t seem much point in hoping for the best.’

  ‘It does do good sometimes,’ Edith said, her eyes quickly returning to the book. ‘I often hope for the best, Miss Ottilie.’

  Ottilie closed her own eyes with one of her particularly deep and shuddering sighs. If only she understood more about everything maybe it would make it easier to be good. In the morning, long before Mrs Cartaret was up and about, she would go and see Mrs Le Martine and they would laugh and talk and maybe some of those things in her life that she so loved would be all right again.

  But in the morning when Ottilie crept down to see Mrs Le Martine she had checked out of her suite, leaving only an envelope addressed to Ottilie by her dressing table mirror. Inside the envelope there was a card. The words were printed very carefully on the card.

  For you, Miss Ottilie, to spend as you wish.

  Inside the envelope there was a great deal of money, a frightening amount. So much that Ottilie ran back to her own suite and Edith, unable to face counting it herself, quite terrified at just the sight of it.

  ‘Why did she want to give me all this, Edith? Quick. Hide it. Or Mamma will think I have stolen it, won’t she?’

  Ottilie practically threw the envelope at Edith, and Edith, sort of knowing at once why neither of them must say anything to anyone about it, that it was a terrible secret between them, immediately stashed the envelope and the money in the side pocket of her uniform as if she was afraid the door would suddenly be flung open and they would both be accused of having stolen it, and it would be taken from them.

  ‘You mustn’t say, Miss Ottilie, and I wasn’t going to tell you, but it appears that Mrs Le Martine heard all about what happened to you – you know, being punished – and she wouldn’t stay here after that. Not a minute longer. She wanted to say goodbye to you, but you were fast asleep, and she was that upset she wouldn’t stay until morning, took a hire car and left. There was a terrible row between her and Madame, at dinner. Everyone was very shocked in the dining room, I hear, and several regulars left early. But you were asleep by then, thank goodness, because it was not nice, as I understand it, not nice at all.’

  Colour flooded Ottilie’s face and she could feel not just the pain but the terrible humiliation of the beating the previous day. ‘Oh, but I didn’t want her to hear about that, really I didn’t.’ Ottilie started to cry. ‘I didn’t want Mrs Le Martine to hear about that at all.’

  Edith bent down to Ottilie and put her arms awkwardly around her, because although they were always together they did not usually hug each other.

  ‘You must feel proud, really, Miss Ottilie, because Mrs Le Martine really went for Madame when she heard from someone on the staff that
she’d been beating you. She said you were the nicest little girl she’d ever met and she wasn’t staying a minute longer. She blamed her something terrible, blamed Madame in front of everyone. Mrs Tomber said she heard from Chef who heard from Thierry the head waiter that it was terrible to hear how Mrs Le Martine went for Madame, but of course they were in Mrs Le Martine’s corner, although they can’t say so, because of their jobs.’

  Ottilie tried to stop crying but she could not, because she knew now that she would never again be able to pretend to Mrs Le Martine that she was a cheerful, mischievous little girl. Now Mrs Le Martine would know all about her mother, and about Ottilie’s not really being cheerful at all. The two of them would not be able to pretend any more, would not be able to tease each other and make believe. It was all over, for ever and ever, just as Joseph and Sean were all over, not wanting to see Ottilie any more, and perhaps even Lorcan too because of not being able to save up for the fishing rod, because of no pocket money, because of everything.

  As Ottilie dried her eyes, Edith went on, ‘I know all about what she’s been on at you for. Mrs Le Martine told me everything, Miss Ottilie. Trouble with Madame is she has clothes mania, begging your pardon, Miss Ottilie, but truly that’s what she has. They’ll be the death of her, one day, they will really, those clothes of hers. Never content, never happy, enough is not enough for her. Sending you round to people like Mrs Le Martine, making you ask them if they want to buy her old clothes indeed. She’s just punishing you because she’s bored and cross. She doesn’t really need the money at all, not like my mother needs money. It’s as if she wanted to humiliate you because of her own poor little girl drowning in the sea when she was lunching and not paying attention. Now look, see. I’ll keep this money for you. No-one knows about it except you and me, and we aren’t telling, are we? We’ll keep it under our hats. And I’ll buy that fishing rod you want to give Mr Lorcan for his birthday, when the times comes, so I will, and I’ll wrap it for you, and all that. You just leave it to me and I’ll do everything. And not a word to anyone, mind? Mrs Le Martine will be back next year, course she will, as right as rain and twice as wonderful, as they say. She’ll be back. You see if she isn’t, mark my words. And then you can thank her for everything, quite quiet, when no-one’s around, and that’s that. No more to be said.’

  But there was something more to be said. Ottilie looked up at Edith, her eyes dry of tears now, but even so she had to speak slowly so as not to be upset again.

  ‘Edith?’

  ‘Yes, pet?’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Course, pet.’

  Edith adopted her most mature expression and waited for the inevitable question.

  ‘Will I ever grow up?’

  Part Three

  Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring

  The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:

  The Bird of Time has but a little way

  To Fly – and Lo! the bird is on the Wing.

  Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

  Eight

  1964

  By the time Ottilie was sixteen most of the Grand’s regular visitors had died. All the old ladies with their fur stoles and their reticules, their long dining dresses and their vague aroma of camphor, had gone, quietly and elegantly departing for another life, making way for a new and very different age where no-one stood for the National Anthem, revered the Church, or cared to know what it was to use papiers poudres to lessen the shine on their noses, and the Beatles were widely thought to be more famous than Jesus Christ.

  Of course it was inevitable, it was bound to happen and everyone said so. It was only to be expected that with change came change, but knowing this did not make it any easier. Particularly for the Cartarets, and most especially Alfred Cartaret, for Alfred did not like change, to put it mildly. In fact he abhorred it. He still wore black tie and embroidered slippers for dining in the evenings even if he and Melanie were dining alone in their rooms, and he would raise his hat in greeting to everyone along the sea front outside the hotel, although it sometimes meant that by doing so in a force ten he risked seeing his precious hat from the specialist hatter in Savile Row blow off into the sea.

  Observing the steady decline in the Grand’s bookings as the Sixties approached and then overtook them, Alfred had taken on less and less staff as each new season began. Those few workers that he had taken on had been foreign, but when they found it too hard to bear the low wages and the cold English winters, while the countries they had come from could offer holidaymakers air flights and a week’s break for what it cost for just a few nights at the Grand, he had been reduced to using only his hard core of local staff from the town. ‘That’s what a good hotel depends on, after all, its old timers, both behind the reception desk and in front of it. Regulars will always finally come back to regulars, you know,’ he would say, as if he had planned this all along, as if he really wanted to manage with only a quarter of his original staff.

  But despite the regular staff at the Grand, despite the same Swiss chef, Blackie the porter and Thierry the head waiter, now a grandfather – despite everything’s staying reassuringly the same, with the old regular visitors dying off one by one it seemed that all Alfred’s optimism was purely and simply talk.

  Nowadays no young people wanted to stay in a great old-fashioned seaside hotel with thick white linen cloths in the dining room, and thick white linen sheets in the best suites, and a staff who would not dream of presenting a newspaper on a breakfast tray without its having first been ironed. Outside the slow life at the Grand no real fires were being burned in hotel grates any more, and no-one cared to be offered three different vegetables in their own sauces with seven tablespoons of butter added to the creamed potatoes, and pancakes were no longer flambées at table in front of admiring guests who watched through lorgnettes and sighed with delighted appreciation.

  Of course the reluctant knowledge of the Cartarets’ new difficulties did not dawn upon Ottilie suddenly. It came to her little by very little as she was maturing, and it was actually the very personal things which she started to notice first, beginning with her mother’s entrances down the great gold staircase.

  Melanie’s long-awaited entrance into the dining room, of which Ottilie had used to be so proud, and everyone had used to like to talk about, was among the first of the changes she noticed, because it was no longer watched by all her mother’s old gentlemen admirers with their military moustaches and short-back-and-sides haircuts, but by embarrassed young waiters waiting, all too often, to serve only the proprietor and his family of two.

  At first Melanie no longer bothered to dress up and come down at the beginning of the week, because even she must have realized that she had started to look just a little foolish sweeping down the stairs to an empty restaurant. Then, gradually, bit by bit, she stopped appearing at all on weekdays, until finally her grand entrance was limited to Saturday nights only, and even then only if Edith could reassure her that at least half the tables were full, otherwise she would stay in her room and talk back to the newscasters on her small Bush television, loudly denouncing the Labour government for encouraging cheap foreign holidays at the expense of the British tourist trade, her glass of gin beside her chair, her bottles of pills comfortingly near in the bathroom.

  ‘I don’t know what to do, I just don’t know what to do,’ Ottilie overheard Alfred saying out loud to himself one day at the start of winter. ‘I just don’t know what to do, really I don’t.’

  Ottilie knew that he must be alone and talking to himself because his voice sounded so low and worried and he never sounded like that in front of anyone else. She could hear him opening his desk drawer and pouring something into a glass, and she knew that he would be staring at the accounts books in his office trying hard, hoping against hope, to make them add up to more than they could possibly ever do in these dark times when not even Americans would come to England.

  As she heard him saying ‘I just don’t know what
to do’ yet again, and as she imagined him, his grizzled head bent over the accounts books, trying to convince himself that he would be able to make ends meet very soon, that soon the telephone would be ringing and all the old timers would be flooding back to stay with them and there would be an orchestra playing on Saturday nights, Ottilie flattened herself against the corridor wall outside his office. For some reason which she really could not understand, despite its being autumn and the hotel’s being eighty-five per cent empty she had hoped to find him in a more buoyant mood than he had been in of late.

  ‘What do you know about anything, anyway?’ That was all Melanie ever said to Ottilie nowadays if she made any suggestions for improvements at the hotel, and then as Ottilie turned away, knowing that it was useless to argue with a woman who took pills and drank gin at the same time, she would add, ‘I’m just sorry we took you on, really I am, just so sorry we adopted you. I know your father isn’t sorry, but I am. You’ve been nothing but a drain on us from the very beginning, a constant drain, and there’s no two ways about that. All those clothes I bought you, all those toys – I could do with that money now, you know.’

  Ottilie never bothered to anwer her when she was in that sort of mood, which was practically every day now – none of the staff did. The long-suffering hotel housekeeper, Mrs Tomber, would merely raise her eyes to heaven, and even the saintly Edith would purse her lips, and then they would all carry on as they had been, trying to make up to Mr Cartaret for his wife being as she was, all well aware that they took on twice as much work nowadays because they wanted so much to get the Grand through the present very difficult times until eventually, somehow or another, the old days would come romping back and people would appreciate the ‘old-style’ grand hotel once more.