The Greengage Summer

by Rumer Godden

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “Then send for the uncle.”

  “Zizi.” Eliot had taken her hands. “I gave my word; besides . . .” I had the feeling he was choosing the words very carefully. “I can’t have the uncle, an Englishman, here now.”

  “Because he is English?” She sounded scornful.

  “I explained to you, Zizi. I can’t have talk yet.”

  “But a man in Southstone. That is in Sussex—it is far away from London.”

  “Not so far. I can’t afford to risk it.”

  “But if I don’t mind.”

  “I mind for you, and if there were talk it might spoil everything.”

  “But Sussex and London,” pleaded Mademoiselle Zizi.

  I did not know what they were talking of. I could have told them that Uncle William never went to London, but Eliot sounded as if he were . . . making excuses, I thought. He said now, “You never know.”

  “N-no,” said Mademoiselle Zizi slowly and . . . she is coming to heel, I thought. “Zizi, promise. Promise me you won’t do anything.”

  “Irène says . . .”

  “You know Irène would do anything to separate us. Promise.” Without looking I knew he had put his arm round Mademoiselle Zizi. I looked at the floor, the blood thrummed in my ears, and my little lemons throbbed. “Zizi.”

  “Let’s go out,” whispered Mademoiselle Zizi. “Let’s go away from here. Somewhere. Anywhere.”

  “But why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because?”

  “I can’t bear it,” cried Mademoiselle Zizi. “The house, Irène, them. All of them.”

  “Get a coat then,” said Eliot. He sounded as if he had given up. Why should he sound like that when it was Mademoiselle Zizi who had been defeated? I tiptoed out into the hall. He was there alone, but Mademoiselle Zizi was only fetching her coat; and she soon came back. He said as if he were very tired, “Come through the garden. We will go to the Giraffe.”

  As they reached the glass door it opened and Joss stood there. Behind her the garden was twilit now; she must have been alone in the dusk . . . in the orchard, I thought, looking at her drenched sandals; her feet and the hem of her dress were soaked, and it was only in the orchard that the dew lay like that. I did not think Joss knew where she had been. Her eyes still looked shocked.

  For a moment Mademoiselle Zizi and Eliot stopped. Then Mademoiselle Zizi walked past, her head high.

  Joss’s eyes went to Eliot. There was no appeal in them, she simply looked. There was a pause, like a breath. Then Eliot squared his shoulders as if he had made up his mind. He went after Mademoiselle Zizi and passed Joss as if she were not there.

  CHAPTER 10

  WHEN SOMEONE has been slapped in the face it is polite not to look at them. I went to a table in the bar, picked up a magazine and turned the pages over while Hester quietly gathered Vicky and Willmouse and took them to bed; I heard them go one after the other into the Hole, then the bedroom doors shut.

  The house had never seemed as big. I could hear Madame Corbet scolding Paul; I knew it was Paul because he did not answer as Mauricette did, then I remembered that Mauricette was not there. She had gone to the cinema with Monsieur Armand; soon after the quarrel began we had seen them cross the courtyard and go out arm in arm.

  Madame Corbet came from the kitchen and went into the office. I heard her lock up, take the keys and go out. Would she go to the Giraffe and spy on the others or to the convent which was where Paul said she went, though the convent would hardly be open at this hour. I could not guess, but soon after all the lights went off. That was one of Madame Corbet’s economies; if she wanted to go out and the house were empty of people—we and Paul did not count as people—she would turn off the electricity at the main; she would be back, the lights suitably burning, before Mademoiselle Zizi and Eliot came in.

  Though it was only dusk outside, the house was immediately dark, which made it more desolate. At other times when Madame Corbet had done this Hester and I had been in the garden with Paul, ‘talking gossip,’ said Joss scornfully, but quite often, ‘Not gossip, dreams,’ I could have said. We talked about what we should do when we were grown; I was to be a writer or a nun, a nun as Madame Corbet had wanted to be; Hester thought she might keep a tea-shop or an hotel like Mademoiselle Zizi; Paul talked about his lorries. “If I stay the summer,” he said, “I shall get the bonus,” and he told us again how, at the end of the season, Madame Corbet shared out the tips. “It makes a lot,” said Paul; he had seen a good secondhand Berliet at the garage; but now Joss and I were inside; even the dogs were away, they had gone with Eliot and Mademoiselle Zizi, and the house was eerie; it seemed to creak with invisible footsteps; a breeze in the garden sounded like rustling, a curtain flapped. There was a waxing moon, and the early moonlight, mixed with dusk, fell in at the windows and made the light more eerie still. Joss must have felt it, for she came and sat at the table by me. I could just see the pale oval of her face, the whiteness of her arms.

  “Shall we go to bed?” I asked.

  “I . . . can’t.” There was a pause. Our voices in the emptiness seemed small, then, “They have even kept our passports,” said Joss.

  “Our passports?” I asked.

  “Yes. How dared they!”

  “But . . . what should they have done?”

  “They are ours,” said Joss fiercely.

  “But why do you want them?”

  “I’m going home,” she snapped, “and one can’t travel without them.”

  “But . . .” Every sentence I said seemed to begin with ‘but’. “But how can you go?”

  “By myself if I must,” and she thrust at me, “You were quite happy without me when I was ill. You were happier.”

  The way in which she said it made it a guilty thing to have been, but I had to admit it. “But it is far more interesting now,” I blurted out.

  “You call it interesting!”

  “Yes. Oh, Joss! Don’t—don’t spoil it.”

  “Spoil it!” She bent her head.

  “I know it is sometimes difficult . . .” I began.

  “Difficult!” All she seemed able to do was echo my words, spitting them out as if they tasted bitter.

  “Yes, I know, but we are alive,” I argued. “Think how alive we are. It isn’t like Southstone, where we just went on and on and nothing ever happened. Here I can feel us living. Don’t you feel as if you were being stretched?”

  “It hurts to be stretched,” said Joss.

  There was a flapping sound that was oddly cheerful, not the flapping curtain but a flap of slippers, and a glimmer of light appeared that grew larger. Joss raised her head as Paul came through the kitchen doorway carrying two lighted candles in bottles. “Vieille guenon!” he said of Madame Corbet. “Carne!” The bad words sounded matter-of-fact and cheerful too. Paul put the bottles down on our table. “V’là ce que j’ai trouvé!” he said, felt in his pocket and brought out the champagne cork. He put it beside Joss.

  “Merci,” said Joss dully.

  “Vous n’en voulez pas?”

  Joss shook her head. “It doesn’t seem very lucky,” she said and, laboriously, “Pas bonne chance.”

  “C’est la vie,” said Paul without rancour. “Les gens.” People! I thought, and winced.

  “Psst!” Paul spat the people out on the floor. Joss did not even flinch. In fact, she looked better. Perhaps it was the chili in the elephant’s eye. Father had told us about that; in India, when an elephant has a wound that hurts so that the pain cannot be borne the mahout squirts chili juice into its eye for the smarting to distract it.

  I guessed that Joss would have liked to have spat too; then the anger faded; she rolled the cork forlornly on the table.

  Paul looked at it and her, then he whispered to me. “He kept the champagne,” I told Joss.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Le champagne c’est toujours du champagne,” said Paul. He added that he was not go
ing to let that she-cat have it.

  “The she-cat is Mauricette,” I explained to Joss.

  “What can we do with it?” asked Joss.

  “We could . . . drink it,” I said timidly.

  “Out of other people’s glasses!”

  “Only ours. Monsieur Joubert drank his. Ours and . . . Eliot’s.” Joss turned her head away.

  Paul came back with a round tray. He had tactfully poured all the glassfuls back into the bottle so that no one could know which was which. There were two clean glasses. “Where is yours?” and I asked clumsily, “Et pour vous?”

  A pleased look came into his face, but he looked at Joss. “Certainement,” said Joss.

  He fetched another glass and I filled it.

  “Ça fait du bien par où ça passe,” said Paul, drinking. His eyes seemed eager.

  “Santé!” I said, but Paul would not drink to that.

  He spat again, then lifted his glass, “Encore un que les salauds n’auront pas. Qu’ils aillent au diable, les cassepieds.”

  “Les cassepieds,” I said.

  “Les cassepieds!” said Joss, her eyes dark.

  We drank. I tried not to grimace at the strange feeling in my nose, but my eyelids flickered so that Paul laughed. Joss managed to hide everything but one long shudder.

  “Vous vous y ferez vite,” said Paul, but I did not think we should soon get used to it. He and Joss finished the bottle, then he looked at the empty glasses and asked, “Encore un coup, hein?”

  “Encore?” Paul tapped the bottle and pretended he was opening another. “But it’s all locked up,” I said.

  “Si,” said Paul mockingly,

  Joss thought he had not understood. “Madame Corbet a emporté—has taken the keys—les clefs,” she said.

  “Si,” said Paul and laughed. Then he flapped across the hall and went into Mademoiselle Zizi’s room. In a moment he was back holding up a bunch of keys.

  “Zizi, where are your keys? You had better give them to me.” How many times had I heard Madame Corbet say that and, “You are not fit to have them.” It seemed Madame Corbet was right.

  Paul turned towards the kitchen door. Behind it stone steps went down to the cellar.

  “But, Paul . . .”

  Joss cut across me. “Go on,” said Joss. “Allez-y.” She was not despairing now but sitting up straight. “Go on,” she said to Paul, and I knew that the hurt was really angry now. That made me afraid; when Joss was angry she did not care what she did.

  “Joss. He shouldn’t . . .”

  “Shut up,” said Joss.

  Paul came back with two tall bottles. “Vous en boirez pas du comme ça à l’étranger,” he said. “C’est moi qui vous le dis.”

  I was proud that I could understand him when Joss could not. “You won’t drink this away . . . outside France.”

  “Why?” asked Joss. “What is it? Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

  “Champagne nature,” and seeing we did not understand he said, “Blanc de blanc.”

  When I think of that evening it seems to run together into that name. ‘Blanc de blanc.’ It sounded like the name of a fairy prince—I think the bubbles in the champagne were mounting to my head—blanc de blanc de blanc de blanc . . .

  “We mustn’t drink it,” I said, but the words seemed to burst in the air and disappear.

  “We drank the other,” said Joss.

  “Our wine . . . given to us.” Now I seemed to have lost some words.

  “Shut up.”

  Paul caught that. “Shut up,” he said amiably to me and poured the wine. Joss lifted her glass to me and drank; she emptied the glass straight off. “Mazette!” said Paul in admiration. He filled it again and she laid her hand on his. “Thank you, Paul,” she said. “It was s-sweet of you to get this for us.” She had drunk too quickly. The ‘s-sweet’ was a tiny hiccup, but it was not that that sobered me. It was Paul’s face. Paul had not understood what she said, but his face had flooded with crimson and that pleased look was in his eyes.

  “Joss, don’t. He will think you mean it.”

  “W-what if he does?” She leant towards Paul and said, “You give cigarettes to Cecil. Why not to me?”

  “Cigarette?” Paul sounded dazed, but he brought out his packet. Joss took one and he tossed her the matches. It was not that he meant to be rude, but he did not know how to treat girls. Joss tried to light the cigarette, but the smoke got into her eyes. Paul laughed at her and, taking the cigarette, lit it himself, then he put it into her lips. For some reason I did not like to see that. “Joss, don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  I would not say ‘Why not?’ I said instead, “You will hurt him.”

  Her eyes narrowed into small glints. “I am g-going to hurt him.” This time the hiccup was loud.

  “You are getting drunk,” I said disagreeably.

  “I want to. I am going to get d-drunk.” She lifted her glass. “I am g-going to do all the d-disgusting things they do.” She drank the wine off and held out her glass while I was doubtfully sipping mine, I do not know how many Paul had had, but when he had poured for her the bottle of Blanc de blanc was empty. “L’autre,” commanded Joss.

  Paul picked up the other and showed it to me. “Bouzy Rouge,” he said.

  “Bouzy? Bouzy. Bouzy.” Joss started to laugh, and the laugh turned into giggles like the bubbles coming up. “C-Cecil. B-Bouzy!” but I was still with Blanc de blanc. It was a mountain, a pudding, shoe polish, a white poodle.

  “Boozy,” said Joss.

  “Blanc de blanc de blanc.”

  Paul looked at us gravely. He was swaying a little as he stood and said solemnly, “Il faut se mettre à genoux pour déguster celui-là.”

  I did not understand. “On our knees to drink this? Why?”

  He put his hands together and rolled up his eyes.

  I collapsed into more giggles; Joss giggled too. “What does Boozy say?”

  “He says we should . . . pray.”

  “Let’s pray.” She put her hands together, but I took violent exception to that. “Joss, you are not to. You . . . are . . . not . . . to!” I banged the table with the empty bottle.

  “P-pious p-prig!”

  “N-not a p-prig!” and I burst into tears. Joss looked as if she might cry too. She put her arm round my neck. “Don’t,” she begged. “Don’t!”

  “Then you don’t,” I said, still angry, and she pulled away, offended. “Cry then,” she said. “Howl. I don’t c-care. Tell Paul to open the wine.”

  Paul was having difficulty with the corkscrew. He located the cork, but as soon as he tried to spiral the screw in it slipped sideways. Now he tried again and seared his thumb. “Aïe! Merde!” said Paul. “Hit it,” said Joss, “tapez dessus,” and he hit the bottle against one of the console tables. The neck smashed off on the floor with a gush of red wine that spattered his apron and hand. There was an ugly great gash across the table.

  I was horrified. “Paul. Paul!”

  He swore at me with his new word. “Shut up!” and poured the wine.

  “I don’t want any,” I said, but he picked up my glass, drank the white and filled it with the red. It seemed to my bleared eyes that the whole hall was spread with red wine—the glasses were red and the pool on the floor. Paul and Joss’s hands seemed to come nearer and go away again, as did the candle flames in the bottles. When I looked at the walls they moved inwards a little, while the stairs went sideways. It was no longer blanc de blanc, that happy time; the red was terrible, and I began to cry again.

  Joss had drunk her glass already. I do not know why she was not sick. “Another cigarette. Encore une Gauloise,” she said.

  Paul looked at her. His eyes seemed to squint so that he looked hideous and he said, “Viens la prendre.”

  He was sitting back from the table, his knees apart, his apron dangling between them, a cigarette stuck to his lower lip. Now he pulled open his shirt and showed where the cigarettes were crumpled inside. “Viens-y,”
he said. Joss went pale and stood uncertainly up.

  I knew what he would do. I had seen him with Mauricette too often. Mauricette could look after herself, but, “Joss, you are not to” I screamed. “You are not to!” I pushed her down and screamed at Paul, “Ne la touchez pas!”

  He turned on me and ordered me to bed. “Toi, va faire dodo! Au pieu!”

  “I won’t. Joss! Joss!”

  Paul picked up the bottle. I do not know what would have happened if Joss had not settled it herself. She had been sitting where I had pushed her; now, quite softly, with a sigh, she fell forward on the table, knocking over my untouched glass. Her head rolled a little, her hair tumbled forward into the wine and began to soak it up.

  We heard footsteps. The garden door opened, Monsieur Joubert and Mademoiselle Zizi came in and stopped, with Eliot close behind them. At the same moment the lights went on and there was a scurry of steps in the kitchen passage; Madame Corbet had stayed too late and the others had beaten her; she came running in breathless and stopped too. “Grands Dieux!” said Madame Corbet. The others said nothing, they simply stood.

  It must have looked an orgy with the bottles and glasses, the candles burnt down in the bottles, the wine on the table, the cigarette-ends where we had thrown them down on the floor with more wine and broken glass. “Grands Dieux!” said Madame Corbet again.

  Then I saw the rat in Paul. “C’est pas moi! C’est pas moi!” His voice was shrill with fear. “C’est elle”—he pointed at Joss; “elle et Mademoiselle Cecil. Elles m’ont forcé!”

  “La ferme!” said Eliot, which was the rudest way I had heard of saying ‘Shut up’.

  Mademoiselle Zizi had stayed in the doorway; it was as if she kept her skirts held back. Eliot crossed at once to Joss, but before he reached her Monsieur Joubert came up behind and stood with his hands on her chair. It was as if he kept Eliot off. Monsieur Joubert bent and straightened Joss up, but she could not sit; her head fell forward again. “She is drunk,” said Monsieur Joubert to Eliot as if it were an accusation, and he said, in English too, “I do not know what has been going on here but it is not good.” He was not looking at us but at Eliot and Mademoiselle Zizi.