by Melvyn Bragg
Joe decided he would not despoil the card. He bought envelopes and notepaper. He lit a Disque Bleu, sipped the brandy. A sudden shot of memory hit him from the time, years before, he had been sitting outside the Café Flore in Paris writing a letter to Rachel. He could still be disturbed by memories of Rachel. He let the memory pass by, not wanting to seize on it, not wanting to revisit a past best buried. This letter was for his father and mother. He had not written to them for some weeks and the guilt, reinforced by a nostalgia for ‘over there’ which was in equilibrium to his sense of being overawed ‘over here’, unbuttoned him.
He described the Chateau in detail, the grounds with their two small lakes and carefully ragged woodland in which he had twice gone deerstalking with the men who worked on the estate, expeditions that had ended in a savagely skilful butchering of the deer, the carcass hooked up and hung, preparing for its journey to the kitchens. The formal gardens which once competed with royalty were now, in academic hands, reduced but still resilient in neglect. There were caves in which the estate wine was stored. He told them of the size and number of the rooms and of their bedroom, more like a flat, he wrote, as big as the whole of their flat in Finchley, and they had their own bathroom in which there were sofas, heavy curtains and like everywhere else in the Chateau rich materials, antique furniture, the sense of almost-museum.
In Paris, he wrote, Véronique and Louis had held a cocktail party. André Malraux, the famous French hero-author, had arrived and shaken hands and chatted, though in unrelenting French. Others, probably equally renowned but off his radar, had made courteous overtures of good-mannered inclusion. Gilbert had been in full fig.
Gilbert had driven them down to the Chateau; Gilbert was the butler, valet, manservant, a Breton who had now served nine academic masters and never lost his sense of good fortune – ‘I was an orphan,’ he would say, ‘now look.’ François, Natasha and he were in the family car, the others followed in the much grander university vehicle. He told Sam and Ellen that he had introduced his wife and brother-in-law and Gilbert to the pleasures of ‘I Spy’. He had been annoyed when François and Natasha cheated. Gilbert played by the rules.
He described what Natasha was doing for François and how much he seemed to have improved while in England. François was to return to France now and finish his studies there. Natasha would miss him.
There followed a eulogy on Natasha. He wrote of her wonderful poetry, her effortless talent for drawing, her ideas for a novel; he wrote about how she made him understand that you could have a life you wanted and not a life that others wanted you to have. He wrote about how funny she could be, how cutting, but also how she appeared to examine everybody and every idea with such seriousness, just as she examined herself, just as she examined him.
She hated newspapers. She had become fond of the radio. He knew that she was not particularly well informed and yet she managed to sound informed or intelligent on everything their new London acquaintances discussed. She could be very direct and personal and even shocking in public. He had told her that her comments on his programmes and on his writing were overly critical, but she had asked him what else should she do? She said so much that made him think. For instance just this afternoon she said, ‘The idea of the Holy is gone; and I am glad. You miss it, though, Joseph, don’t you? Never mind, there is still the Sacred.’ And then she laughed.
Her father, he wrote, had told him some more about her. He had said that her mother’s family had owned large properties near Trieste, confiscated by the Communists; that Natasha’s title, of countess, came down the female line and that neither her mother nor Natasha had wished to acknowledge it; that the death of her mother, so young and Natasha still in arms, had devastated everyone in the family for years but Oxford and marriage had helped her. Louis, he wrote, gave him a pair of antique gold Venetian cufflinks and Natasha said that was significant.
Joe’s letter, which became something of a despatch from the front, wound on to include Véronique, the children, Isabel and Alain who had come as guests, Pierre, the stout red-faced ‘keeper of the caves’ on the estate who reminded him of Diddler, Gilbert and his unavoidable service, and his own research into who had lived at and visited the Chateau over the years, the statesmen, the men of letters and once, most cherished of all in the town, a royal prince, a Bourbon.
He was tired by the time he had finished. There were now more than half a dozen people in the bar. He put the letter in the envelope alongside the postcard but did not seal it. Having written in such terms about Natasha, he wanted to engineer that she read it. He paid and then hurried back, through the side gate, almost trotting up the great drive, guided by the solid band of ground-floor light in the Chateau, worried that he was late for dinner.
‘A house like this needs many more servants,’ said Isabel.
‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!’ said Alain.
‘Not when you are cold and the food is cold, the rooms are cold and everything is fading away. Look at those curtains.’ They were in their suite, a little whisky before bed.
‘I like decadence,’ said Alain. ‘I prefer decomposition. If it were all new I would distrust it.’
‘Hypocrite!’
‘Speak of yourself. You adore the Chateau. I see your eyes. I see you nod, like this,’ he nodded, ‘that means – I like it. I recognise this from shopping.’
‘It is too gloomy. But it has style. It was a great period for the French.’
‘Some of them.’
‘Us.’
‘Isabel! You are insupportable.’
‘Louis loves it,’ she said. ‘Véronique is uncomfortable.’
‘Louis does not notice it. Véronique is always uncomfortable.’
‘Alain!’ She held out her glass. ‘The merest touch,’ she said, ‘and a single jet of soda.’
He waited on her, as he always did.
‘So what do you think?’ she demanded.
‘Isabel! Not again! Every night – whisky and Natasha. Whisky and Joseph. They are still happy. Is that not enough of a miracle for any marriage?’
‘I want your analysis.’
‘I offered it to you last night. And the night before. Since then nothing has happened!’
‘Is she deeply happy?’
‘Chérie! That is not a question for adults. You will now ask it again.’
‘But do you think she is really happy?’
‘I consider,’ Alain raised his whisky glass and gazed on it enigmatically, ‘that Natasha is happier than I would ever have thought possible.’
‘Do you not see the nervousness still, and the sudden disappearance of her personality?’
‘Not more than usual. In fact I find Joseph more nervous than Natasha. There is a history to Joseph which he very courageously conceals.’
‘What history?’
‘I don’t know. He conceals it.’
‘You talk nonsense.’
‘It is the only solution.’ He raised his glass in a toast.
‘He is much more confident. He is so full of plans now. He wants to write novels, he wants to make films, he wants to conquer the world.’
‘You make it sound like a crime.’
‘Perhaps it is.’
‘Not in the young. And not in the honest heart.’
‘Are you sure he is honest? Honest! What does that matter? True. True to Natasha.’
‘We have only the moment to judge, my dear: and in this moment – yes. He is true to Natasha.’
‘She is stronger. Despite having to nurse François.’
‘That was a kindness,’ said Alain. ‘Louis is grateful to her.’
‘It was an imposition!’ said Isabel. ‘Louis and Véronique ought to be ashamed of themselves.’
‘François looks better.’
‘We’ll see what happens when Natasha leaves him.’
‘Can we please talk about the cold dining room?’
‘No.’
‘The horrible wine? The good conversatio
n?’
‘Monologue.’
‘About Malraux, and the war?’
‘No. I was never fond of André Malraux. I must take you to bed, Alain. You are tired.’
‘Not so very tired.’
‘We are old, Alain my sweet, and not at home.’
Louis walked alone for half an hour after breakfast and about three-quarters of an hour after lunch. He did not care much where he walked. The grounds of the Chateau were no more or less inviting than the Boulevard St Michel. He preferred familiar routes so that he could go onto automatic and think. Walking accompanied disturbed him.
Natasha knew this and felt a weight of apprehension when he asked her to join him after lunch. He went, as usual, directly and unseeingly through the formal gardens to the path by the nearest wood which he would follow for the allocated minutes and then turn a hundred and eighty degrees and retrace his steps.
He waited until the formal gardens were behind them. Then he took her arm and a surge of privilege warmed through Natasha, a feeling that she was being given her rightful place, a late but due blessing. It built on that afternoon in Oxford.
‘I want to thank you, Natasha,’ he began, ‘for the care you have taken with François.’ He patted her hand and paused and held it for a moment or two while he looked at her directly and she was for that moment healed. ‘He is so much more confident. He is calmer. The results are not marvellous but they are better than they were here in France.’
They moved on. Natasha realised that the conversation was over. He increased his pace.
Natasha had wanted to be the one who instigated this discussion. As the silence built up, not a worrying silence but certainly a determined silence, she regrouped. It was not the time for circumlocution.
‘I think it would be a mistake for him to go back to l’Ecole in Paris,’ she said.
‘Why is that?’ His eyes were now looking ahead.
‘He doesn’t want to. He will never be engaged. He only worked hard in London because he wants you to be proud of him. He is not made for your type of work, Papa, and the sooner we let him leave it behind the better.’
‘But he has to finish. He has to pass all the examinations. There is no question.’
‘He will just get depressed again,’ she said, ‘and I can’t be in Paris.’
‘No, no. He is better now. He will take the examinations and then we will have a discussion.’
‘With him?’
‘Of course.’
‘What if he wants to give up all formal education for ever? What if he wants to do something wholly different?’
‘That is possible. What, for example?’
Natasha took a deep breath. She had not planned it to come out this bluntly.
‘Drive a lorry?’
‘That is very funny, Natasha. Good!’ He looked at his watch.
‘Go in the navy.’
‘He will need examinations. And his sciences are not solid.’
‘Just travel, around Europe, for a year, to get his bearings.’
‘And then come back after a year to begin his education once again? That will be much more difficult for him.’
‘But he hates academic work.’
‘That can change.’
‘Why does he have to change? He is fine as he is. He is kind and gentle, he is helpful and he wants so little. Why does he have to change?’
‘You have spent too much time with him,’ Louis said, and patted her hand once again. ‘My wife said that it would be a great strain for you. She was worried for you and now I see her point of view. So you must stop now, Natasha; you and Joseph have done more than I could have hoped for. François must not spoil your life or your marriage.’
‘I loved being with François. I was happy with him. It was a pleasure.’
‘I understand.’
‘Please. Papa. Let him go his own way.’
‘He will. But only when he has passed all the examinations. Then he will go his own way.’
‘Please.’
‘No more. I am very grateful to you . . . Do you see the gate over there?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is where I turn back. But we must step out.’
Joe roved under a bright half-moon. The grounds were picked out almost as clearly as they had been on the dawn hunting trips. Now he was alone, walking, smoking, rather cold, having ignored Isabel’s advice to wear a coat, wanting in some macho way to impress her, needing to be alone to let in the dislocating largeness of all that was happening to him. Film stars left grand parties and strolled in such grounds with a reflective cigarette, he thought, though usually in a dinner jacket. He had just turned twenty-three but he felt himself in that celluloid tradition of the evening strolling grandee. His sense of the specialness that had been thrust upon him was accentuated by the unremitting attention Gilbert had paid to his wardrobe . . . the clerical grey suit bought for him by his mother and father more than five years ago, his sartorial camouflage for his journey into the interior of Oxford University, had been ironed and brushed and somehow rejuvenated; the clean white shirt had been pressed flawless, as had the college tie – and the shoes glittered, pacing before him, shining black mirrors, reflecting the moonlight.
He tried to impose order and occupy himself by picking out features in the moonscape, measuring them, filing them for later use; but his heart was not in it. The general flux of the life in this borrowed palace, the crystal, the candelabra, the paintings of French victories and French luminaries on the walls, the ancient and studied luxuriance of style unearthed him.
There was a ballooning in his mind and in his body. It was as if both were ready to burst open simply with the fullness of what was happening. The mixture of reality and fantasy, the smiling eyes of Natasha whenever he sought them out, the compliments of Isabel, the gratitude of Véronique, it was as if he had been turned into a different person. He had no idea what he should or could do about it. He had to force himself back into the Chateau.
Natasha was in the chair nearest the bed, smoking, reading. At Joe’s suggestion she had begun The Cossacks but he could tell, as soon as he came in, pink-faced from the cold air, that she wanted to talk.
‘It was fantastic out there!’ he said. ‘I wish you had been with me.’
‘You went so quickly,’ she said. ‘Sometimes you do. You move from impulse to act with nothing in between.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘Sometimes.’
Her tone was flat, unusually so, without any of that resonance which made her so alive for him.
He sat down opposite her. He would have liked another drink but to go downstairs in search of alcohol was unthinkable.
‘I didn’t leave when I shouldn’t, did I?’
‘No.’
‘Nor say anything wrong?’
‘They think you are perfect, Joseph. You have parachuted out of the sky like a saviour.’
‘Please.’ He could not read her in this mood and always feared the worst. ‘Don’t say things like that.’
‘It is true.’
‘It can’t be true,’ he said, firmly, as he thought, drawing a line under it.
‘I’m sorry, Joseph,’ she said, ‘this is very bad of me. I apologise in advance – but I read the letter you have written to Sam and Ellen.’
It was always a little rub against the grain when she uttered his parents’ Christian names. But it declared an independence in her that he admired.
‘Well?’
He remembered how lovingly he had written of her and waited for the appreciation.
‘Joseph.’ She took a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘You must not send this letter. And you must not say these things. Not to anyone. Please. You must not.’
‘What things?’
‘Sam and Ellen will not know what to say to me. It will be too much for them. And I like them: I like them to know me as I am, not through this!’
‘What?’ he asked, but he knew the answer.
‘Jose
ph! The boasting. The meaningless title and confiscated property and all of it! I hate it, Joseph! Don’t you understand that? How can you not understand that? How can you not? How can you know me and not understand that I abandoned all that many years ago? I am here now because of François and because I see how much you love it and I want to be near my father when he is so benevolent, but I left all this, Joseph. I could not live in this air, I left it to live a life of my own, whatever came of it, of my own, don’t you see? I cannot carry all this past with me. I will not. I will not! You must not put it back around my neck!’
‘Why do you say that?’ He felt a chill from her accusation.
‘Because it is true.’
‘I’m not a snob.’
‘It’s easy to be influenced by all this, Joseph. Especially . . .’
‘As I’m a peasant.’
‘You can see what they have done to François and therefore what they did to me.’
‘You told me your father was a teacher. He isn’t. You said he was ill. He isn’t. You said Véronique was the wicked witch. She doesn’t seem like that to me.’
‘You have taken me off their hands.’ Natasha’s tone was bitter. ‘They think, they hope, that everything has changed. But my past has not changed.’
‘So I’m just somebody who did them a favour.’
‘. . . Not for my father, no. I can see that he admires you. And Véronique is grateful for François, although she has learned nothing.’ She paused and, for the first time in the conversation, she looked at him without anger. ‘Poor Joseph. You are so miserable now when you were so happy a moment ago.’
‘I’m perfectly OK.’
‘It is better not to mix these things. We shall be on our own, tabula rasa, both, somewhere anonymous, with one or two friends, writing together and reading and talking together. That is all we need.’