*
The village shop was tiny, but surprisingly well stocked. As well as tins and packets (three kinds of cassoulet, but no instant coffee) it offered bread baked on the premises and a counter that sold cheese and charcuterie by weight. The young woman behind the till greeted Flora politely. Flora wandered along the shelves, savouring the pleasure of the unfamiliar wares, while an elderly woman completed her purchases at the counter.
She was negotiating for a petit pain and a couple of slices of ham when an English voice spoke behind her.
‘Hello.’
Flora turned to see a man of about her age, tall and greying and squarely built, wearing Englishman-abroad chinos.
‘Hello,’ she said, giving the word as little inflection as she could manage. After yesterday, English company really wasn’t what she wanted, and the English male aroused a reflex suspicion honed by years of experience. But the man grinned, as though pleased with his find.
‘I thought you were English,’ he said. ‘I saw you in your car the other day. Are you staying in the village?’
‘Outside it.’
‘Ah, chez Abelard?’
‘Yes.’ There was a pause. ‘You?’ Flora asked.
He cocked his head vaguely towards the door of the shop. ‘I have a house round the corner. I’m Martin Carver.’
‘Flora Macintyre.’
Flora took her parcels from the shopkeeper and handed over a twenty Euro note. She hoped the man would take her place at the counter now and let the conversation lapse, but he didn’t move when she stepped aside to make room for him. She felt a flash of annoyance, but she was conscious of something else too. Curiosity, perhaps, or the scent of a challenge.
‘Staying long?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure yet. A few days.’
‘Come and have a drink,’ he said. ‘It’s only two minutes away.’
Flora shook her head with a smile she hoped was polite but firm. ‘The table d’hôte awaits,’ she said.
Martin Carver pulled a face: Flora recognised the amused pout of the middle-aged man flouted in a small and reasonable request.
‘Cup of tea?’ he said. ‘I can run you back to the Abelards’ afterwards.’
Flora stared at him. She had no idea, really, whether he was being rude, or whether she was – but what good was forty years in the NHS, she asked herself, if she couldn’t refuse a cup of tea? What on earth would Mark Upward think – infamous Mark Upward, whose name, perfect fodder for surgical wit, was never invoked in jest by his juniors, and whom she’d beaten to the clinical directorship of surgery only five years before?
‘That’s kind,’ she said, ‘but no, thanks.’
Martin’s face cleared. ‘Hubby waiting, I expect,’ he said. ‘Stupid of me. Not that I meant . . .’
‘My husband’s dead,’ said Flora. ‘Two months ago.’
She regretted those last three words as soon as they were spoken. They were superfluous, and they changed her reply into one that might be mistaken for feel sorry for me. But Martin Carver spared her any compunction on that score.
‘No excuse then,’ he said, and although the laugh that followed indicated quite clearly that he realised he’d hit the wrong note, it gave Flora an exit she didn’t hesitate to take. Slipping her purchases into the capacious pocket of Madame Abelard’s coat, she moved decisively towards the door.
‘Perhaps we’ll run into each other again,’ Martin said.
Flora wasn’t deceived by the forlorn note in his voice. As she left the shop, she felt a swell of triumph.
*
She took the longer way back to the Abelards’. The road led past the Mairie, where the Tricolore idled on a flagpole, then circled the church, built of the same white Touraine stone as the rest of St Rémy and boasting a fine altarpiece that Flora hadn’t yet seen. She crossed the bridge beneath which a little river flowed quietly, fringed with reeds and an abundance of yellow flowers. Just beyond the last of the houses, she turned off onto the footpath that led through the woods.
The rain had stopped entirely now, and the woods were filled with a lightness and stillness that came as a surprise. Flora’s footsteps were muffled by leaf mould and the insulating canopy of trees; there was hardly a bird to break the silence. It was singularly peaceful, but she felt something more than that, something more subtle: a lack of expectation or anticipation. The day was simply being. The world was simply being. The interval of calm after rain could have been provided as an object lesson.
And then it occurred to her that she had made a mistake with Martin Carver.
She stopped, literally brought up short, while the scene in the shop replayed itself in her mind. She was on her own in a foreign country, surely entitled to resist the approaches of strange men, and he had been unduly persistent. But she knew he hadn’t meant to offend; his final faux pas had made him, if anything, less unlikeable in her eyes. She knew all about men like him – and there was no need, nowadays, to see them all off as a matter of course. He’d offered her a drink, and she hadn’t stopped to consider whether his motives might be straightforward or his company interesting. Perhaps it was her own motives, her own feelings, that she hadn’t wanted to scrutinise.
Flora looked up at the fragments of sky between the branches, streaked now with purple and grey. She remembered this feeling from childhood, from the many times she’d ignored her mother’s wishes for the sake of it: the empty pleasure of prevailing. She’d felt it since then too, more often than she liked to admit. Well, she thought; spilt milk. Perhaps after all she’d move on somewhere new tomorrow, or the next day. There was plenty more of France to see. There was the whole atlas, pages and pages of villages like this one. But she knew, even as she thought it, that perpetual motion wasn’t the answer. She couldn’t become a nomad, passing unnoticed through the land and moving on whenever she stopped being a stranger. That was no way to live.
She shook her head a little, a characteristic reflex dismissal of uncomfortable thoughts, and went on up the path until she emerged again into the fields where the Abelards’ cows, as pale and creamy as the local stone, grazed quietly in the evening sunshine.
10
The hall was empty when Flora pushed open the heavy front door, but while she was hanging up her borrowed raincoat Madame Abelard appeared from the back of the house. Materialising, Flora thought, like the spirit of the place.
‘You had a good walk?’ she asked.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘The dinner is at eight o’clock. You will join us?’
Flora’s spirits rose. Madame Abelard didn’t cook for her guests every evening, and despite what she’d said to Martin Carver, Flora hadn’t been sure this was a table d’hôte night. The roll and ham she’d bought in the shop would keep until tomorrow: she felt suddenly that she’d spent quite enough time alone today.
‘Certainly,’ she said.
Madame’s dining room was furnished with heavy oak pieces that looked as though they had been in the family for generations, but her china was light and delicate and there were always flowers on the table. Flora wondered, as she took her seat, whether she and her husband – who never appeared, never played any part in the chambres d’hôtes operation – ate the same delicious food, off the same china, as the guests who passed through their house.
It was fortunate that Flora was disposed to be friendly this evening, since a Swiss-German couple who’d arrived that afternoon were keen to practise their English.
‘What region of England are you from?’ asked the man, as they ate their soup. Friedrich, he was called. Friedrich and Elisabeth, round-cheeked and well-dressed, leaning forward slightly in their eagerness to communicate.
‘Not far from London,’ Flora said. ‘About an hour away.’
‘The Cotswolds?’
‘Not quite.’
‘We have been to the Cotswolds.’ Friedrich beamed. ‘It is very beautiful. We like England very much.’
Flora smiled too, spooning
up the last of her soup.
‘It was raining hard today,’ Friedrich ventured next. ‘We were in the car all day. Mais le temps fera mieux demain, n’est-ce pas, Madame?’
‘Oui, j’espère.’
Madame Abelard removed the soup bowls efficiently, and reappeared a few moments later with a platter of roast pork, ready sliced and doused in gravy. There were roast potatoes too, smaller and crispier than the floury English type, and a bowl of courgettes cooked to a sweet softness. Flora watched hungrily as Madame dished it up.
‘That smells wonderful,’ she said. ‘What herb is that?’
‘Genévrier,’ Madame said. ‘Geniper.’
‘Juniper,’ offered Friedrich. ‘Like for gin.’ He smiled again. ‘It is very good with pork. It makes it taste like boar.’
The emphasis he placed on the last word made Flora think of someone reading a story to a child and putting too much into the wolf’s menacing voice. Madame’s eyes met hers as she passed the plates around, and Flora thought she saw a thin smile.
‘You have an appetite, after your walk?’ Madame asked.
‘Yes,’ said Flora.
‘And you have met Monsieur Carver?’
‘Monsieur who?’
‘Monsieur Martin.’ Madame’s pronunciation fell between the English and French forms: it took Flora a moment to understand. ‘He telephoned before dinner. To apologise.’
‘For what?’ Flora could feel her heart accelerating, and she wished it wouldn’t.
Madame shrugged. ‘He would like you to go to his house on Friday, for lunch. It is a very beautiful house.’
Flora said nothing. Was the beauty of the house Madame’s opinion, she wondered, or part of the sales pitch Martin Carver had put her up to?
‘We understand you have visited the château of Montallon,’ Friedrich said. ‘We are planning to go there tomorrow.’
Flora felt a little slump in her stomach. Montallon and Martin Carver, she thought. It seemed impossible to resist associations, however lightly one travelled.
‘It’s quite a journey from here,’ she said – then, with an effort, ‘but it’s certainly worth a visit. The gardens are lovely.’
‘Monsieur Martin is a wine merchant,’ said Madame Abelard.
‘Is that so?’ said Flora. It was the wrong phrase, unnecessarily ungracious, but none of them would understand that. None of them, she thought with a mixture of relief and weariness, understood more than the surface inflection of her language, and she understood even less of theirs.
There was cheese to follow, and a tarte aux abricots which would no doubt be delicious, but when Flora had finished her pork she lifted her hands in apology.
‘I’m rather tired,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get an early night, if you’ll excuse me.’
There were brief murmurings of concern and regret, then the clatter of plates being cleared. As she slipped out of the door, Flora heard Friedrich switch back into French.
‘C’était délicieux, Madame,’ he said. ‘Mes compliments.’
*
Persuasion was still sitting on Flora’s bedside table: she stood for a moment staring down at it before moving over to the window. The curtains were open and the sky looked very dark after the yellow glow inside. The clock on the dressing table said nine thirty. Flora looked around at the room’s modest traces of occupation: the little case, empty now, sitting under a chair; the pile of books; the washbag beside the basin.
What did she think she was doing, escaping from the dinner table like that? They were perfectly pleasant, Friedrich and Elisabeth. The world was full of people like them, and Martin Carver. She might as well get used to them. Why not taste the local cheese, hear about the artisan fromager in the next valley, compliment Madame on her tarte?
She put her hand on the window frame and pushed it open, letting in a draught of night air, cold and faintly scented by the garden. Without warning the ache of grief for Henry flooded her body: just that, a sudden engorgement, like water soaking through a sponge. Not so much an emotion as a physical sensation, a spreading stain, impossible to resist or to disguise.
This was why, she thought: why she couldn’t bear multilingual Friedrich or the cheesemakers’ decades of experience. Why the spell cast by the woods could only throw a veil over her situation for a little while. If it were as simple as water, as sorrow, there was some hope that it would diminish over time. But the fury she felt – at Henry, for wasting so much of their happiness on other people, and at herself, of course at herself too – none of that would evaporate so easily. Fury and regret and disappointment. No point denying it: the wrong decisions. The wrong priorities.
Flora collected herself: no, not that. She’d done her best, kept faith with her choices – not quite a pioneer, but a woman who’d forged her own path. She couldn’t allow herself to wish she’d done things differently, despite the difficulties and sacrifices and lost opportunities. Not even choosing Henry. Better Henry than a man she was bored by, or had never loved. He’d been right about that.
Outside in the garden the trees shifted slightly in the breeze. The night sky stretched away, no stars visible, no horizon in sight. The familiar refrain returned to her head: a whole world left to her, and what was she to do with it? What more was there to want from life? That was the crux of it. She’d got what she wanted, as far as anyone gets what they want from life, and now it was all gone. The professional acclaim, the intellectual challenge, the satisfaction of keeping everything afloat all those years: what had they left her with? The same blank sheet she’d started out with. Why must everything happen at once in life, and end all at once too? Why hadn’t anyone told her to plan for this, investing a little time, year by year; laying down a nest-egg of interest or habit or disposition to keep her comfortable in her retirement?
11
The grand Victorian façade of the music college, its white stucco newly painted, shone in the sunlight. The central panel rose to an arch spanning the full height of the building, with two figures that could be nymphs or angels reclining just below the summit. Heaven might be a bit like this, Kitty thought as she approached the familiar portico: beautiful, but rather intimidating. Somewhere you should be glad to be admitted, but weren’t quite sure you wanted to be part of.
She climbed the broad steps, her old school satchel slung over her shoulder. She’d found it at home after Henry died, chucked in a cupboard years before and forgotten, and it had become one of her props this year. One of the details she’d added to the persona of the music student, as much to convince herself as anyone else.
Professor Davidson’s room was on the third floor. Kitty knocked and waited. The door opened, as always, on the count of ten, with a flourish that was too business-like to be theatrical. The room was sparsely but elegantly furnished – a wide desk, a piano, several oak chairs. Its tall windows overlooked the busy road, and the college’s high spec glazing reduced the scene below to a silent movie, buses and taxis moving noiselessly past.
‘How are you, Kitty?’
Janet Davidson looked the part for a professor of composition, Kitty thought, tall and thin, with white hair sweeping past her shoulders. If this was Heaven, she was definitely God. Kitty accepted the chair opposite her and smiled, conscious that she didn’t have much else to offer.
‘OK,’ she said.
Professor Davidson waited for her to say more, then cleared her throat: a familiar tic, enough to strike terror into most of her students, but not Kitty.
‘You know it’s an honour to be selected for the showcase series, Kitty,’ she said – a statement, not a question, Kitty thought. ‘And you know the performers will need some time to rehearse before the concert. Shall we say – performance version ready by next Monday?’
‘OK,’ Kitty said again.
Professor Davidson had been understanding, or perhaps just pragmatic, while her father was dying. They all knew him, of course; it was hard for them to ignore what was happening. But it seemed they weren
’t quite as ready as Kitty to write off her year here. It was nearly June already: only another month to go, Kitty thought, and what was she going to achieve in that time? It hadn’t been a wasted year. She’d got something out of the course, kept herself as busy as she could manage, but they must realise . . . She stared back at the face of God, wondering how to explain herself.
‘You have talent,’ Professor Davidson said now. ‘This is just the beginning, Kitty, but you have to deliver on this piece.’
Kitty nodded. Pointless, she thought, to disagree. It was Prof Davidson’s job, after all, to regard an MA in composition as something important and relevant, not just a way for someone to pass a year when they didn’t know what to do next, or wanted to please their dying father. All over London there were people who regarded other obscure pursuits as just as important and relevant. She could spend the rest of her life hopping from one course to another if she wanted to, amazed each time by the earnest conviction of her teachers. Ancient Greek, fashion photography, forest management. What fun she could have.
‘Have you got the manuscript with you?’ Professor Davidson asked. ‘Shall we look at it?’
Obediently, Kitty took a plastic wallet out of her satchel. She was working on a song cycle, a setting of poems by Ted Hughes from a book Henry had given her. She’d done nothing to it for weeks, and she was relieved to find that it didn’t look quite as sketchy as she’d remembered.
Janet Davidson spread the sheets out carefully, moving her chair round to the side of the desk so that they could both see them. Then she put her hands back into her lap and leaned forward slightly, her eyebrows locking in the frown that indicated full concentration. Kitty had long ago got used to her methods: everything written out by hand until the final performance version, without resorting to the software everyone else used these days, and an overriding belief that music was shaped in the head, not the ears. Beethoven, she had said with devastating finality in their first meeting, hadn’t needed his ears to write the Grosse Fuge – and that, as far as she was concerned, settled the point.
The Things You Do for Love Page 8