by Jack Batten
“Sure, and it’s essential he stays in the dark,” I said. “I realize that. I also think I know what Swotty’s dander is up about. If I’ve read the portents correctly, he’s fretting over a possibly large piece of possibly missing money.”
“Haddon is involved in that too?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, I must say this is grim news.”
“But it isn’t first among your concerns, it’s not why you and I are meeting for the first time in beautiful downtown Villefranche.”
“Quite right.”
Archie picked up the little paper napkin that came with the coffee. He wiped the lip of his cup. Then he took a sip.
“My purpose in seeing you,” he said, “is to save my marriage.”
“I know how it feels, Arch. But if you don’t mind me breaking into the preamble again, background may be important. How did you cotton on to the affair?”
“An informant. I’ve been brought into the picture in some detail.”
“By Jamie?”
“That’s preposterous, Crang.”
“But not unprecedented.”
Archie ignored my remark. Or didn’t grasp it.
“When you had tea with Pamela ten days ago,” he said, “you would have met our housekeeper, Hilda.”
“Observed her comings and goings was more like it.”
“Hilda is my informant.”
“Hilda is? The woman who moves on little cat feet?”
“She is very loyal.”
“Try that on Pamela. She thinks she’s the one who’s got Hilda’s ear. Her silence too.”
“I know,” Archie said. “And Pamela is mistaken. Hilda was in my parents’ house from the time I was a teenager. She only came to us, to Pamela and myself, after Mother died. She sees her first duty as being to the Cartwrights.”
“The woman has to be deep as the ocean, fooling a smart cookie like Pamela.”
“Hilda came to me with her suspicions. More than suspicions, in actual fact. I couldn’t believe they were true, but I requested that Hilda find out more.”
“Hilda got on the inside with Pamela?”
“Pamela took Hilda into her confidence, yes. This was a few months ago.”
“Fantastic.”
“And I made it my business to learn what I could. About the Rowanwood apartment, my wife’s meetings there with Haddon, and so on.”
“That’s tough, Archie. It must have been painful.”
“And of course Hilda advised me when you entered the picture.”
“That was by invitation only, and purely investigational.”
“I appreciate your status, Crang.”
The waitress came by. I asked for a glass of white wine. Archie’s confidences were making me thirsty. He had another coffee. Across the way, the portly Teutonic tourists were flocking into St. Peter’s Chapel.
“Forgive my curiosity, Arch,” I said, “if you’ve known about the affair all this time, why haven’t you confronted Pamela? Played the outraged husband? Told Haddon to buzz off?”
“Fair enough that you should ask,” Archie said. He sounded like a first-year psychology lecturer acknowledging a student’s perceptive question. I didn’t think the question was perceptive. To me, cheating, in or out of marriage, called for an immediate response. Punch someone’s lights out.
“I decided patience was the wiser course,” Archie said. “I love my wife, Crang. I value my marriage. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep both.”
Archie was speaking in tones that added a dash of sanctimony to his normal pedantry. The combination made him a pain in the ass to listen to.
“I looked at the affair in the cold light of day,” Archie went on. “Believe me, that wasn’t easy. But after due consideration, it seemed to me ludicrous that the affair could last.”
I said, “Play the waiting game, I get it, Arch. Stick around to pick up the pieces, Pamela being the pieces.”
“I also considered the scandal that would come to our families if I brought the affair out into the open.”
“Very commendable,” I said. “But there’s one drawback, Arch. Your strategy has been a tad slow paying dividends.”
“That is true. And it explains why I am relying on you at this juncture, Crang. The sudden decision of Pamela’s to come to France, to where Haddon is, must indicate a turning point of some sort in their relationship. Would you agree?”
“That’s exactly right, Archie.”
Archie gave me a look of trust and anticipation. He was clearly waiting for me to continue. I didn’t. The silence between us lengthened. And the expectancy drained from Archie’s face.
“Well?” he said. He was annoyed. “I’ve just taken you into my confidence, Crang. Told you facts about my marriage I’ve revealed to no one else. Surely it’s only fair that you share what you’ve learned from your investigations over here. After all, it affects me in the most fundamental way.”
“Tit for tat doesn’t count in this instance, Arch.”
Archie looked bewildered again. Twice in one afternoon — probably a normal year’s complement.
“Perhaps I’ve used bad judgment confiding in you, Crang,” he said. He gave his words the brusque force he’d used on the phone.
“Hold your horses,” I said. “If I’m keeping back information, it isn’t because I’m invoking a solicitor-client privilege —”
“I hardly see where one could exist.”
“— but because I’m coining a new privilege. Call it first husband-first wife. When Pamela opened up to me, she didn’t foresee that her second husband and I would be exploring the same events from another side of the triangle.”
“See here, Crang, I spoke of patience. But I assure you mine is not unlimited.”
“I’m not about to blow Pamela’s secrets,” I said. “God knows most of them are almost public property anyway. But I’ll tell you this much, Archie, trust me on it, whatever happens in the next day or so should make a winner out of your team.”
Archie uncrossed his legs. He spread both hands on the tops of his thighs. His beautifully manicured fingernails were digging deep into his thighs.
“This is unacceptable,” he said. He had plenty of edge to the normal bray of his voice. Maybe the edge was supposed to bowl me over.
“Well, I’m not talking about a happy ending, like in the movies. Fade to man and woman walking toward the sunset, anything like that. When one partner in a marriage tumbles into an affair for whatever reason, what comes after can’t be unalloyed rapture. The other partner is hurt and wary, you in this case, Archie. But at least the chance is there for restoring the marriage to some semblance of a mutually trusting relationship. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Assuming the pre-Haddon marriage was a good one.”
“Much more.” Archie’s voice was choked. The choke didn’t bowl me over either.
I said, “This may sound strange, given the last year’s history, but Pamela may be hurting as hard as you right now, Archie. Different kind of hurt, the kind connected with guilt and remorse, but equally rough on her. If you approach her the right way, both of you might come out just fine.”
Archie sat with his hands pressing on his thighs. I sipped my wine. I was feeling like a noodle. What I’d told Archie could have been lifted from a primer for inept marriage counselors. On the other hand, I knew more than Archie about the current state of his wife’s affair, knew that Pamela seemed to be on the verge of giving Jamie the gate.
Archie shook his head slowly. “It isn’t satisfactory, Crang,” he said.
“You’re welcome, Arch.”
“I showed Haddon hospitality from the day I married into Pamela’s family. More than hospitality. Friendship. I welcomed him to our house. And this is the way he repays me.”
“Archie, you’re branching int
o areas I can’t help you with.”
“I don’t understand the man.”
“Archie.” I held up my hand in a halt signal. Archie barged on through.
“I blame Haddon completely,” he said. He was speaking into my face, eyes locked on mine. I couldn’t look away. “Who else can I blame except Haddon?” Archie said. “I can’t blame Pamela. I want her back. I can’t blame someone I want back.”
“So far she hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“Don’t be a fool.” Archie came down hard on the fool part. “Pamela may not have left me physically. But you can’t sit there and tell me our marriage will be the same after what Haddon has done to it with his insufferable selfishness.”
“The marriage could be better in the long run,” I said. “It’s been known to happen.”
“You can’t begin to comprehend my frustration,” Archie said. “If the man was anyone except Haddon, I could take steps. I and my friends could. Haddon’s name wouldn’t be worth mentioning in Toronto. But since it is Haddon, my hands are virtually tied.”
“He’s Swotty’s pet,” I said. “If you spoke up about the affair, many walls could come tumbling down. I understand your dilemma, Archie.”
“It has cost me heavily to keep my silence …” Archie’s voice faded out.
He looked down at his hands. The backs of them had gone white from the pressure of gripping his thighs. He lifted the hands. There were rows of oblong prints in his navy blue trousers. Archie smoothed them away.
I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and it seemed to me Archie had shot his bolt. Probably he regretted that he’d been so frank with me. Rich WASPs aren’t accustomed to letting their feelings run rampant.
Archie took a clip of franc notes from his pants pocket. He picked out a twenty and placed it under his coffee cup.
“I’ve no more time,” he said. The Toronto honk was reactivated in his voice.
“For what my advice is worth, Arch,” I said, “don’t give up on the silence yet.”
Archie walked away.
On the other side of the square, the jolly band of German tourists was preparing to descend on the cafe. I counted out enough francs to cover the rest of the bill. The Germans advanced. It looked like another breach of the Maginot Line. I left.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I walked back from Villefranche on the elevated sidewalk that circled the harbour. The sidewalk was separated from the water by fifteen yards of sand and pebble beach. Dozens of bodies lay on the sand and pebbles, toasting in the warm spring sun. The female bodies wore no tops.
I stayed on the move and marvelled at the diversity of breasts, the differences in size, shape, texture. Nationality too. The two slim teenagers touching their upper bodies had to be French. No self-consciousness about them. But the three young women lying side by side, almost rigid, I was betting they were Yanks, tourists from Cleveland or Dallas experiencing their first toplessness. I couldn’t classify the small woman with breasts to match, small but exquisite. She was wearing a black bikini bottom and a big straw hat plunked over her face and shoulders. And just to the left of her, two portly matrons with monstrous, spreading …
Hey, didn’t I know those small but exquisite breasts?
I picked my way through the prone figures on the beach and approached the big straw hat. I approached tentatively. If I had the wrong breasts, I might be explaining my error to the authorities.
“Pardon, m’dame,” I affected a sexy baritone.
“Look, señor.” The voice from under the straw hat was angry. “I told you once to take a hike.”
“You did?” I used my natural medium-sexy tenor.
A hand reached up and removed the straw hat.
“Oh hi, honey,” Annie said. “I already had to shoo away a Spanish guy making a pass.”
“Nobody’s blaming the Spanish guy.” I was crouching on the sand and pebbles. “But what are you doing like that?”
“Like what?” Annie started to sit up.
“You don’t have to sit up!”
“Why not?” Annie sat up. Her breasts glistened under a light coating of oil. “Crang, really, are you embarrassed on my behalf?”
“It’s on my own behalf I’m embarrassed.”
“Well, heck, look around you.”
“I was.”
“The beach is practically shimmering in bare hooters.”
“Hooters?”
“I wanted to see what it felt like,” Annie said. She set the straw hat on her head and began gathering her equipment. Tan oil, sandals, copy of Cahiers du Cinéma, bikini top.
“What’s the answer?” I asked. “How does it feel?”
“Lying in the sun is boring any way you do it, with or without a top.”
Annie strapped herself into the bra.
“I was having trouble with my reaction,” I said. “Seeing parts of a loved one’s anatomy in public that one is used to observing in privacy is disorienting.”
Annie grinned at me. “Well, big guy, it was just a try at a new thrill.”
Back on the elevated sidewalk, Annie asked me how I sized up Archie Cartwright.
“He’s shortlisted for the Mr. Ponderous title,” I said. “That’s his personality in general. In particular, at the moment, he’s only holding on by the fingernails. And who can blame him, the hand he’s been dealt … the cuckold.”
“He knows about the affair?”
“The housekeeper was playing a deep-throat role.”
“Wow,” Annie said. “What is it Archie’s holding on to by the fingernails?”
“His temper, which I’d rate as explosive. His sense of the tightness of things. His self-esteem. The usual.”
“What did he expect from you?”
“Café and sympathy,” I said. “And information. Mostly information.”
“That’s kind of thick. You can’t go on telling Archie what Pamela said, and Pamela what Dan said, and Jamie Haddon what Mike Rolland said ad infinitum.”
“I held my tongue. Practically bit it off.”
A trio of young French bucks lounging by an ice-cream stand gave Annie an up and down check-over. She had put on a shirt, unbuttoned, over her bikini. It made her look sexier than she had looked topless on the beach.
“After you left the apartment,” she said to me, “Snappy or Sneezy or whichever of the Seven Dwarfs has you on retainer called from Toronto.”
“Grumpy would be about right.”
“Poppy?”
“That’s George Bush,” I said. “What did Swotty want?”
“For you to phone him straight back.”
We went up the long flights of cement stairs that climbed majestically above Villefranche’s harbour on the east side. At the top of the stairs, we walked along the back road to our corner of Pont Saint-Jean.
“Love your chapeau,” I said to Annie.
“Three bucks at the supermarket in Beaulieu,” she said, “and I bought a present for you.”
“Something matching in straw?”
“A quart of Polish vodka.”
“You found a liquor store?”
Annie shook her head. “Also at the supermarket,” she said.
“Damn. Now that’s my definition of a civilized society, Wyborowa alongside the Heinz and the Kraft.”
I was behind Annie on the narrow stairs to our apartment. If the three young French bucks had had that perspective on Annie’s figure, they’d have gone mad with lust. I was mature enough to control such passions.
“Which is first?” Annie asked. “Phone the guy in Toronto or pour the vodka?”
“I was thinking of jumping your bones.”
“Be serious.”
“I am,” I said, “but in answer to your question, neither.”
“Swotty sounded like he might have s
moke coming out his ears. He’s very upset and anxious for your call.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, “and for the record, on your other point, you’ll have noticed I have gone without Wyborowa for almost a week, and there hasn’t been a whine out of me.”
“The fresh supplies have arrived. What’s holding you back?”
“Discipline is my middle name. I wish to carry out a job of work before taking my pleasure.”
“Gosh, it’s uplifting to stand close to such greatness.”
I asked Annie to make a phone call I needed. It lasted longer than I expected, ten minutes of French. Annie sounded coquettish, unless that was just the effect of the language. When she hung up, she placed a second call. It lasted twenty seconds.
“Jamie Haddon’s at the Beau Rivage in Nice,” Annie said when she got off the phone.
“He’s moved?”
“Sort of. That’s what all the wheedling was about.”
“I thought it sounded coquettish.”
“The man on the other end of the first call was that pleasant concierge I spoke to last week at L’Hôtel de Paris. Haddon’s keeping his suite there, but he’s moved to the Beau Rivage for a few days and doesn’t want the fact known. Those were his instructions to the concierge.”
“How did you loosen his tongue?”
“He remembered me favourably from the last time. Then I threw in an extra persuader.”
“What?”
“Said I was Jamie’s secret and married amour.”
“The spot is taken. But nice going, cookie.”
“Haddon’s definitely registered at the Beau Rivage. That was the second call.”
I got the train schedule from the table in the front hall and set about deciphering it.
“Why visit Haddon?” Annie asked. She’d taken off the bikini and wrapped herself in a towel.
“Give the pot one final stir,” I said.
I used my finger and tried to match up the names of the towns in the vertical column with the times of the trains in the horizontal column.
“Your brow is furrowing,” Annie said.