by Dirk Bogarde
In the late afternoon, when she left, all frivolity had been banished, and all that remained was perhaps the sprig of honeysuckle, or the little rose, but fixed firmly to her handlebars. We’d lock up the house together, so I was near enough to notice the change, the plastic combs, the wiped-off lipstick, which still left a faint pink stain, the ‘frill’ at the cleavage replaced, and then she’d bounce off down past the mossy pillar, and I’d start up the Simca and follow behind her ample body on my way to collect Giles.
This was the usual routine now. Over to Dottie and Arthur at five, perhaps a glass of wine, an exchange of any news, and back to Jericho with my ‘little Frenchman’, always slightly bemused to realize how quickly a boy of that age (or child I suppose) could readjust and begin to speak French almost without an accent. Something which, starting far later in my teens, I had found difficult to fully eradicate. And still did.
‘You do speak it very well, Will. Giles must take after you. He seems to have an affinity for languages. Useful, you know? I always tried to drum it into my wretched parents. Let their children concentrate on German or French: even if they refused Latin because “it’s a dead language, he’ll never need it”. Oh God! the narrowness! However, Giles seems to have escaped that. Perhaps because of your “ear”? One really should have two languages in life now. Terribly important. Half our Government can’t even say “Bonjour”. Appalling, really, when you consider the responsibility they have, sitting about there in Geneva and Bonn or wherever, with a ruddy plug stuck in their ear listening to “instant translation”! Bland, accentless usually, unemotional, no nuance, no subtlety. How much they must miss, the idiots!’
Arthur was off, if I let him, to climb upon his hobby horse. ‘The awfulness of the British Government. The British people, and their “shocking insularity”.’ It was really harmless, not at all vicious, but worrying because we had all heard it so often before and could only agree or disagree and keep him on an even keel so that he didn’t lose his temper. Dottie had some excellent, private signals, which she made from time to time signalling a moment for changing the subject instantly and easing her adored husband into calmer waters. She did it now, and sweetly.
‘Will read French history for two years at the Sorbonne, darling. I expect it was ever thus, wasn’t it, Will? Or was French used far more in England after William, your namesake, invaded? Will, dear, have a tiny slice of tapenade … so good with your wine.’ And we drifted away from the ‘wretchedness’ and ‘bigotry’ of the British Government. At least for a while.
‘Of course,’ Arthur said after a sharp look at his wife (aware that he had been deflected), ‘now that Giles has Frederick to yatter away to, it’s a great help. They only speak French, as far as I can hear. I don’t pry, mind you, but when I do overhear them, up there with the cages and the birds, it’s usually French. Odd French, archaic sometimes.’
‘Archaic? Why?’
‘He’s from America but from Louisiana. Very old family, very proud, and some of them still use the French they came over with during the Revolution! I think it is an affectation frankly. He speaks perfectly terrible American when he wishes.’
On cue the two boys came running down the path from the aviaries, Giles with his espadrilles wagging in one hand above his head.
‘Arthur! Arthur! The lory are starting to nest. The red one’s tearing up huge bits of those branches.’
‘Pushing them into the nest box,’ said Frederick. ‘And God! Is the hen ever making one hell of a racket! Listen!’
Frederick did indeed speak perfect American-English, pleasantly, as pleasantly indeed as he looked. Taller than Giles, auburn hair, a slim build, wide mouth, long legs, well-set eyes. Very like his mother, in fact, who I seemed to recall rather too vividly from our last, and indeed first, meeting a few days before.
Arthur got to his feet, pushed easily into his laceless boots, and stuck his straw hat on his head. ‘You mean the chattering lory, I assume? Not just “the red one”. Well, I was rather expecting that. I’ll go off and see. School finished half an hour ago. Right? What’s today’s date? I must make a note of it. I mean the lory nesting.’
Dottie walked with us down to the Simca under the big olive and just as we got there the open-top Mercedes, which belonged to the de Terrehautes, turned in off the road. Lulu de Terrehaute was driving, scarlet headscarf, wrap-around glasses. She raised an arm a-glitter with clattering gold bracelets in greeting.
‘Hi, y’all!’ she called, took off her eye-shades, and for the first time looked directly at me.
I stood perfectly still as if something inevitable was about to happen. The moment before the earthquake. A flat, singing silence.
Then Frederick yelled, ‘Lookie, lookie! There! On the stone.’ Giles cried out, and there was a scuffling of feet and the sound of Dottie calling out to leave it alone, it was only a lizard. Then the slam of the Mercedes door and her feet on the gravel, and she called out to the scuffle, without once taking her eyes from mine, and said, ‘Let it be. You’ll wreck the roses!’ And slid her eye-shades into the pocket of her white silk trousers.
Dottie called out about the flowerbed, but there was still a modest riot I could hear taking place somewhere to try and find a lizard. I knew now what a horse felt when it wore blinkers. I could see ahead, see Lulu de Terrehaute’s eyes, hear the laughter and the scolding and the rumble of stones and Dottie saying, ‘Enough! Enough! Go home both of you.’ But I could see absolutely nothing else. Whatever was happening to left or right of me was obliterated by the intensity of the eyes before me.
Dottie’s voice somewhere was still light, but now underlined with impatience. ‘Little blighters, they’re trampling stuff to death.’ And then she stopped, took off her straw hat, started to fan herself lightly (I could now just see all this beyond my blinkers), but she was aware of us and said briskly, ‘Lulu, dear, cart the fruit of your loins back to your château, will you? And the same goes for you, Will.’ Then she turned away and yelled out to the scrabbling boys. I heard stones fall. ‘Oh! Do leave it! Frederick, Giles! What harm has it done to you?’
Lulu said, evenly, quietly, ‘Shall we lunch?’
‘Yes. But I have my son …’
‘So have 1.1 can fix that. No problem.’
Dottie said, somewhere out of sight, ‘Now come on, you little brutes, both of you. Look at the mess you have made.’
Frederick’s voice was still high and excited. ‘A lizard! Blue and green, with a yellow belly.’
And Lulu, still looking at me calmly, called over her shoulder, ‘Freddy! Let’s get back now,’ then broke our look by pulling off the scarlet scarf so that her hair spilled down to her shoulders in a cascade of auburn curls. ‘I have people for cocktails! Can you believe such a term? Cocktails for the Bernards, the de Rocquemontforts. Alastair Whistler and his dusky boy lover – do you know them?’ I said no, I had only just arrived in the area, and she laughed and turned away and said, ‘Dottie, darling, bring me my child, and the bill for any damage to your divine garden.’ And, turning to me again, she asked if I had a telephone number. I couldn’t remember for an instant, then did, and saw the lightly mocking smile widen as I wrote it hurriedly down on the back of a receipt from the traiteur in Saint-Basile. She took it and slid it into the same pocket as she had put her eye-shades.
‘Don’t lose it. Sorry. It’s all I had to write on,’ I said.
‘I know. I know. I won’t lose it.’ She was still smiling, her hand outlined in the silk of her tight white trousers. She waggled her fingers, saw me drop my gaze to them, laughed and said to Dottie, ‘Oh God! What a fuss for a crazy old lizard. Come on, boys. Henri – you know my chauffeur? -has trodden on a nail, do you believe? He was playing around in the yard and trod on this plank. I mean, the man is so thick … Bare feet and treads on a nail! In a plank! So I have to come and find Junior. Can you imagine? Walking about with bare feet in the yard of the garage? He could have slipped in sump oil, or something, broken his peasant neck.’
>
Dottie, brushing down her denim skirt, asked if the nail was rusty, because if it was he’d probably get tetanus unless he’d had a shot. Lulu said she really didn’t know or care, but he was in bandages and that it was a good job that she could drive. Otherwise where in hell would she be? She directed the last line at me, and then broke the group by pushing Frederick into the car, kissing Dottie, clipping Giles lightly on the ear, never again noticing me until she slid into her seat and started up. Then she looked swiftly and directly across to me, waved, then began to back down the drive.
‘Bye, y’all. Until tamarra! Dottie, now lissen, it’s got to be me at dawn, don’t watch out for it. Promise not to peek? I look like the wrath of God naked, at that hour. Goddam Henri!’ And as she started to manoeuvre the large car round she called, ‘My eye-shades! Where are my eye-shades?’ I told her they were in the pocket of her pants, and she laughed, as if she hadn’t known, and said clever old you for noticing, and wasn’t she crazy, and drove rapidly away.
Dottie and I walked over to my Simca. Dusty, rusty, very proletarian. Giles got in slowly. ‘It was a huge lizard. Like a dinosaur really. Hugh knobbly ridges down its back. You really should have seen it.’
Dottie folded her arms, hat hanging in her hand. ‘She’s very … vibrant … is that the word? Lulu de Terrehaute … Arthur and I call her the “Shrimping Net”. Rather rude, really.’ She laughed lightly, raised a hand in salute. ‘Tomorrow? As usual?’
I called above the running engine, ‘As usual. I hope they haven’t really mucked up your roses.’
She was smiling, shook her head.
‘Why Shrimping Net?’ I said.
‘Oh! Well, not just “shrimps”, you know? You can catch all manner of things with a shrimping net. Quite large prawns, sometimes, plump little crabs, hiding away out of sight. Find a nice quiet little rock pool, poke about? You never know what you’ll catch. Lulu’s very good at it.’ She was now smiling broadly, stuck her hat back on her head and with a wave turned up towards the house as I swung with a crunch across the gravel and headed down for Jericho.
Giles sighed heavily, theatrically, stuck his pen in behind his ear. ‘I think it’s very silly, all this writing invitations. We’ve got a telephone now, can’t we just telephone everyone?’
‘We could. But it’s more polite to write, personal. It’s your birthday, the cards are all ready, printed. All you have to do is stick in their names and the time and date. Surely that won’t kill you?’
He was sitting slumped at the table, a scatter of cards and envelopes, his fist screwed into his cheek. ‘All the addresses,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve got to write all the addresses? I mean, I go to Arthur and Dottie every single day! And I could easily just walk to Florence’s house when we are in the village, and give Frederick his when he comes to Dottie’s – three times a week – and I can’t spell “Violette” or whatever it is.’
I heard Clotilde singing in the kitchen, little bursts of song between heavy thumps of wood on flesh. Giles looked up with sudden interest. ‘Whatever’s that? Clotilde banging away?’
I finished lacing my garden boots, stood up. ‘She’s tenderizing the veal. Schnitzels. You have to beat them hard with a rolling pin. I’m going down to the potager. When I come back I would be extremely pleased to see that you had done those cards. Tough luck! So get on with it.’
He scowled and I went out into the heat of the morning. It was Saturday, so no ‘school’, and I was trying now to assert my authority. Writing out the invitations was one way. I knew, perfectly well, that I could just have telephoned everyone. But that was not the right method of setting an example.
Anyway, I wasn’t over-anxious to speak to Madame Sidonie Prideaux honestly. There had been no message from Florence. No card, note or call. Perhaps she was back? Perhaps she had news? Perhaps she was not back, and had no news, and, anyway, I couldn’t very well ask Sidonie Prideaux if her daughter had had a satisfactory trip to Marseilles. And, in any case (I picked up my pioche and the heavy spade), I didn’t have a number for the de Terrehaute place. She had mine. She hadn’t called, and now it was the weekend she probably wouldn’t.
So Giles could write the things. It made the supper table larger, inviting Frederick and his mother, but it also made it rather jollier. For Giles anyway. He had complained that his birthday was going to be full of old people. Well, now it wouldn’t be. So that should please him. If they came. And that would please me: but perhaps I’d meet her before then? It was still almost two weeks away. I realized, fully, that I was far more concerned for myself than for Giles. I wanted to see Lulu de Terrehaute very much more than he did. She had said, hadn’t she, ‘I can fix that. No problem’?
Suddenly, down at the little iron gate at the end of the path, there was a sharp stab of brilliant-laser light: the sun blazing on a motorcycle standing just outside the wall. A bright, red and chrome, glittering Honda, with a hefty blue plastic-wrapped chain to secure it. But no sign of an owner anywhere.
I wandered back to the potager, began hacking slowly, thoughtfully. I had plenty to think about. Pleasing things, curiously erotic things. And the time passed, hacking through the dry soil, shaking earth from dead roots, watching the pile of sun-dried weeds and grass by the path grow larger, feeling the sweat run down my neck and chin, drip down my chest. A far cry from Simla Road. I wouldn’t ever get a sagging gut doing this. And then Giles came wandering slowly barefoot down the path to say that he had finished the cards and where were the stamps and did I know that there was someone in the kitchen with Clotilde? I didn’t. How did he know?
‘I haven’t actually seen anyone. Just heard a voice. When she had finished the thumping business, she spoke to someone and he answered her and she laughed. That’s all. But I heard, not clearly, but voices anyway. A man.’
‘Perhaps someone has come to deliver something from the village. There’s a Honda parked outside the gate down there.’
Giles looked over to the path. ‘I don’t think so. I think it’s Mon-Ami.’
‘Mon who?’
‘That’s what Clotilde calls him.’
‘Calls who?’
‘Her friend.’
‘I didn’t know she had a friend. How did he get here without me seeing him?’
Giles shrugged, kicked a stone and sent it scuttering through the rough grass. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he came up through the little orchard. You were inside anyway. I think that’s his bike. Must be.’
‘Well, who is this friend? She tell you?’
‘Nope. Just said, “Mon ami est très beau, très gentil.” Pretty silly. I saw him leaving one day, far away down through the trees, and she was just going home, and I said who is that? And she said, “Mon ami,” and that’s all. And where are the stamps? Have we any?’
I was sweaty and curious. Who was this stranger in my house? Could he be a threat to the stability of the place, the comfortable arrangement we had come to with Clotilde and her father? Could this be the reason for the pink lipstick, the deeper cleavage, the flower tucked in her hair, the softness of her, now that the plastic combs had been removed? Anxiety pulled at me. I was hot. So I had every reasonable excuse to go down the steps to the kitchen and get an iced beer from the fridge and check the visitor out. If I lost Clotilde, God knows who I’d ever find to replace her. She ironed my shirts as if they had come straight from Jermyn Street, was starting to run my life. Sod him!
In the kitchen Clotilde was flouring the schnitzels, her face flushed from heat and labour, hands snowy from the flour carton, a single red rose pinned to her hair. On a chair, across the room, sitting with long legs wide apart, hand clasping a shining helmet between his thighs, a burly young man with tight gold curls and red and white leathers. When he saw me he instantly got heavily to his feet as I came down the little steps into the room. Clotilde smiled happily, sprinkled flour over the chopping-board, nodded brightly.
I said, ‘Bonjour!’ and went to the fridge for the beer, and Clotilde said, in a pretty,
but unusual little-girl voice, ‘Ah! Monsieur Colcott. This is mon ami. He is a very good worker, he knows all about the land, the vegetables, the trees, the seasons, he is a good carpenter, a maçon, and he has come to offer you his services. C’est vrai, mon ami, eh?’
Mon-Ami appeared to be about six foot three or four, and I began to feel like a shrimp indeed. Not even a prawn. I would not have been in the least surprised to learn that he had modelled for Greek coins or that he had once reduced Praxiteles to tears of envy and despair. He stood there before me in the modest kitchen among the pots and pans and ropes of garlic and peppers like a misplaced god. Strong, clear of eye, firm of mouth and chin, large capable hands holding his glittering casque.
Now I understood why Clotilde had taken herself in hand. Here was the reason for lipstick, cleavage, tight ribbon and flirtatious rose. This spendid specimen of about twenty-two, erect, strong, perfectly secure and quietly confident.
‘Mon ami est tellement timide!’ said Clotilde, casting flour about in a little cloud.
And shy indeed he was, blushing red, and lowering eyes, but standing his ground. Legs apart, shoulders square.
‘You must say to Monsieur Colcott all the things that you can do!’ said Clotilde as if to a child. ‘He is a busy man, and you must unstick your tongue. He will be patient. Hein?’ Mon-Ami nodded. A thread of exasperation slipped into Clotilde’s voice. ‘Bien. Tell him where you are working now then? At the pépiniéristes near Saint-Basile-les-Pins? Eh? Chez Gavery? Say?’
Mon-Ami turned his casque in his strong hand. ‘C’est ça,’ he said, and looked to Clotilde for help. He may well have had splendour between his legs but it would seem that there was precious little between his ears.
‘Why’, I said kindly, ‘do you want to offer your services if you work for such a big firm as Gavery? You have that splendid Honda, eh? He must pay well. Hondas and leathers and casques like yours are not won at a village fête.’
Clotilde was setting anchovy fillets on to a tin plate. She looked apprehensively at Mon-Ami, who seemed not to have quite understood me. Perhaps I had used too many words and confused him? Possible.