Soon she was back at her desk at home, and the letter to Dennis had to be put aside while she dashed off the ecology report on her French typewriter. Always best to get it done while it was fresh in her mind.
Then it was time to prepare dinner. She had picked up the mince. The kitchen was old like the house, but it had a modern gas stove and a refrigerator. Her father had set the table, as he always did, and he hovered in the hall in his chair, leaving her room to pass to carry things to the table.
“Anything new happen today?” asked her father.
“Ha! What’s ever new? No, indeed! Nothing!” Odile replied cheerfully, stirring butter into her cooked fresh spinach.
She and her father spoke in French, though Odile had the habit of speaking Italian to Trixie, Italian being cozier than French, in Odile’s opinion, and more suitable for children and animals. She gave Trixie her dinner of raw diced steak and a couple of dog biscuits, then she and her father sat down. Odile had a good appetite and ate more rapidly than her father, who of course dallied because it was his only social event of the day, and Odile always sat on as long as she could stand it.
‘You ought to get out more, Odile,” said her father.
“Oh? And where?” Odile replied, eyebrows raised, smiling. “And with whom? Do you know the people around here have never heard of Céline even? You expect me to have intellectual conversations with these hicks?” She laughed good-naturedly, and so did her father. “You took all your pills today, Papa?”
“Ah, yes, I don’t forget,” he answered with resignation. As Odile was pouring her father’s décaféiné at half past nine, the telephone rang.
“And there’s Marie-Claire,” said her father calmly, just to be saying something.
Odile, who had poured her cup of real coffee, good and strong, excused herself and took the cup to the telephone on the other side of the room.
Marie-Claire Lambert rang nearly every evening between nine-thirty and ten. She was Odile’s best friend, almost her only friend in Ezèvry. They had made acquaintance a couple of years ago at an ecology meeting. Marie-Claire was also unmarried, about thirty-two, raised in Paris, and she had inherited a large property on the southeast edge of town, including a château, part of which she rented to a married couple, plus two houses in which working-class families lived, paying Marie-Claire a rent that was rather low, because the families tended the garden and the grapevines and generally looked after things, not to mention that one of the wives was a full-time housekeeper in the part of the château where Marie-Claire lived. One thing Odile and Marie-Claire had in common was boredom with the town and its inhabitants. They could at least make each other laugh with their stories of tedium, stupidity, inefficiency, or whatever other local drawbacks they might have encountered in the course of the day.
That evening, after their usual chitchat, Marie-Claire proposed a trip to England during Odile’s Easter vacation in April. “Six days. I just happened to see this special rate in Hercule’s window this morning.” Hercule was the tiny travel agency of the town, based in a shop which sold electrical appliances.
Odile was interested. Her mind fixed at once on Dennis Hollingwood, whose face she knew from photographs on the jackets of his books. She wondered if she could somehow wangle a meeting with him, or at least see the outside of his house?
“. . . Brighton, ha-ha,” Marie-Claire went on, reading from the brochure. “Hotel’s not included, you understand, this is just the aller-retour, but my God it’s cheap!”
They both had to watch their pennies, Marie-Claire considerably less, but Odile appreciated her friend’s sympathy for her smaller income and thought it rather noble of Marie-Claire to be concerned with economizing. Marie-Claire had a great-aunt in England, Odile knew, and Odile had gathered from Marie-Claire’s description of her big country house that the great-aunt had money. Was Marie-Claire deriving some money from her? Odile had never asked and never would.
“Got time for a bite of lunch on Sunday?” asked Marie-Claire, switching to English as she often did.
“Dunno why not,” Odile replied. “With pleasure. What time?”
Odile did not turn her light out that night until two in the morning, as usual. She had corrected and graded seven of the nearly one hundred English exam papers which she had to finish by Monday, and indulged in starting a letter to Wilma Knowles, an elderly writer of romance novels who lived in Canada, and who now and then answered a letter from Odile, which Odile admitted to herself was more gratifying than writing to a stone wall like Graham Greene. She and Wilma Knowles led rather the same kind of quiet lives in small towns, Odile thought. Wilma Knowles had written, at Odile’s request, a description of her daily life, work in the mornings, maybe some shopping in the afternoons, she lived alone with two dogs in a country house a mile from town, and she still did her own housework and drove her car at the age of seventy-two.
The next morning when Odile stopped at the post office just after eight to collect her post and buy stamps, she received, besides an Eléctricité de France bill, a letter from Ralph Cowdray of Tucson, Arizona. This gave Odile a lift. She read it, sitting in her DC.
Dear Miss Masarati,
Can’t write French but it’s plain your English is great. Thanks for writing me. Glad you enjoyed A Dead Man’s Spurs so much. Not my best in my opinion. Sorry I took so long to answer your letter but I’ve been busy doing research for my book-in-progress. You asked what color hair I’ve got? It’s slightly red, not what we call carrot red here but still red.
Sorry your life is so boring in that little town which ought to have some pretty spots, if you look for them. Your story about your mother being hit by a car and about your lost love (if I may venture to call it that) touched me very much. Maybe you should write all this tragedy out some time, just for your own sake and kind of get it out of your system.
Meanwhile I’m pretty flattered that someone in a small town in France has discovered my books and likes them. My publishers still publish my stuff (paperback only of course) but I still can’t make ends meet without the waiter’s job I told you about in first letter, summers and Christmas in a hotel here.
Best of luck, keep your chin up,
Ralph Cowdray
This was Ralph Cowdray’s second letter, and Odile answered it that very evening. Her letter was four foolscap pages long, written on both sides in her flowing, legible hand.
The Sunday lunch on Marie-Claire’s handsome terrace (which faced in the right direction for sun, unlike Odile’s) made Odile more excited about the coming trip to England. Marie-Claire had booked them at the Hotel Sherwood near the British Museum. And Easter holidays were just a few days off!
“Have some more oysters, dear,” Marie-Claire said, gesturing towards the well-filled platter garnished with parsley and lemon halves in the middle of the table.
Odile did. They were lunching on oysters only, thin bread and butter, a good chilled white white, to be followed by Marie-Claire’s early fraises des bois now in a bowl on a silver tray of ice. Marie-Claire looked pretty and animated today, her light brown hair fluffy and fresh. Like Odile, she wore a sweater, slacks and flat shoes. After lunch, they were going for a walk across the fields. Odile had brought Trixie.
“Do you know, I saw Alain going into the bar with that blonde whore this morning when I was buying bread?” Marie-Claire said during the fraises.
Odile knew the two she meant: Alain the recently married son of the grocery shop owner, and the blonde whose name Odile thought was Françoise. “Oh, she’s not a whore. Is she?” They were talking in English, and Odile thought the word a bit strong.
“Well, everybody’s girlfriend, shall we say? Alain’s drinking more pastis than he can hold. He’ll lose his wife and his job, if he doesn’t watch out. And his wife’s pregnant, did you know?”
Odile knew, and thought it all too boring, though sh
e didn’t say so. Her thoughts were of England, the huge city of London, the old buildings, its accents that she had to make an effort to understand sometimes, its theaters, lights.
Then the day came. Odile was up before dawn. One of the two women at Marie-Claire’s, the one who was not Marie-Claire’s housekeeper, had agreed to look in at the Masarati house twice a day, to see that Odile’s father had everything he needed, to tidy the house, and to walk Trixie a little because all her father could do was let Trixie out on the terrace.
This same young woman, Jolaine, arrived in her car at six in the morning with Marie-Claire to drive them to Marseille for the train. Then the train from Marseille to Paris, very fast indeed and more thrilling than an airplane, then the train from Gare du Nord to Calais, and the Channel ferry on which they dozed on bench seats part of the time. Victoria Station at dusk in a light rain evoked Sherlock Holmes stories for Odile, hansom cabs, gas lights. The lovely, grimy English cruddiness! Was that the word? If so, Odile meant it affectionately.
They slept like logs in the high-ceilinged room at the Sherwood. Then a morning at Foyle’s, which Marie-Claire loved too, but not with such passion as Odile, a walk to Trafalgar Square and to Piccadilly, where Odile fell in love with a tan raincoat at Simpson’s, but the price really was sky-high, considering what she had just spent in orders from Foyle’s, so she ended by buying a cheaper though much the same kind of raincoat at Lillywhites.
“Got to think of my aunt, you know?” said Marie-Claire that evening when they were in their hotel room. She frowned a little as if she suddenly had a stomach pain. “May as well ring her now.”
“Want me to leave the room?” Odile asked, giggling.
“My great-aunt? Ha-ha.”
Marie-Claire made the call while Odile looked at the Evening Standard. She heard Marie-Claire making a date for “tomorrow afternoon” and getting the times of trains out of Victoria. Marie-Claire chose an 11:20.
“No, no, Aunt Louise, thank you anyway. I’m with my friend Odile and we’re in a hotel, so—Thanks, I’ll ask her.” She addressed Odile with her hand over the receiver. “Want to come for lunch?”
Odile screwed her eyes shut and shook her head. ‘Tell her thanks.”
“Odile says many thanks, but she has a date somewhere,” said Marie-Claire.
By noon the next day, Odile was at Liverpool Street Station, having seen Marie-Claire off at Victoria. Odile had bought a hardcover copy of Devil’s Bounty for Dennis Hollingwood to sign, if she were lucky enough to meet him. No matter, to glimpse his house would be enough! She bought a day-return ticket to Chelmsford, and boarded a train.
At Chelmsford, she was told that there was no transportation to Little Starr, Dennis’s village, except a bus at 4 P.M., but it was only five and a half miles away, Odile knew from a detailed map she had at home, so she took one of the taxis at the station. The driver asked where she wanted to go in Little Starr.
“The main square,” she replied. “The center, please.”
They sped through a couple of communities that were towns, judging from their name-markers at the edge of the road, then the driver came to a halt in a village square bordered by two-story houses and shops and graced by several elms. Odile paid and got out, realizing that she would have to ask someone for Five Oaks, otherwise she could go marching off in quite the wrong direction. She saw a plump and cheerful-looking man arranging apples in front of his fruit shop.
“Five Oaks,” he repeated. “Mr. Hollingwood’s place.” He looked at her with more attention and what might have been surprise. “That’s—” He swung round, pointing. “—down that road about a mile. On the left.”
“Thank you very much.” The man probably thought she had a car, but Odile didn’t look back to see if he were watching her. She had decided to walk.
Along the curving two-lane road, Odile passed a few houses which became ever fewer. She well knew how long a mile was, and when she saw on her left a two-story house of whitish stone with two chimneys and a climbing rose at the doorway, set a hundred yards or more back from the road, she felt sure that it was Five Oaks. She saw four oaks. There was a garage to the left, nearly concealed by trees and bushes.
Was Dennis Hollingwood at this moment bent over his typewriter, composing first draft prose, his handsome face frowning? Or was he wandering into the kitchen for another cup of coffee or tea to take back to his desk? A window to the right of the door was half raised. Could that be the window of Dennis’s study or workroom? Could he see her now if he looked out?
A pang of shame and excitement struck Odile. She would be visible, just, if Dennis looked out, even though a hedgerow would conceal half her figure. She knew Dennis was not married, and she presumed he lived alone.
But the minutes went by and nothing happened. The spring wind blew softly in Odile’s ears, and seemed to whisper friendliness and courage. Odile advanced along the smooth gravel driveway that wound towards Dennis’s garage. A flagstone path went off to the right and led to the house. Odile would of course not go to the door. But as a matter of fact she did have her brand-new hardcover of Devil’s Bounty in her big handbag which she pressed hard against her side out of nervousness. Her steps grew smaller, slower. Couldn’t she dare knock on his door—she saw a brass knocker—and ask him for an autograph? Since his telephone number was unlisted, she couldn’t have rung him, and he would realize that. When she was some five yards from the house, the front door opened.
Dennis Hollingwood stood in the doorway, tall, blondish, frowning in the bright sunlight!
“Afternoon,” he said. “Help you?”
“Good afternoon. I’m—” Odile’s eyes devoured his figure, and she realized that she was trying to memorize every detail as if he might vanish in a split second: he wore brown corduroys, a white shirt with sleeves rolled up, a dark green sleeveless sweater. “I’m Odile Masarati. I’ve written you once or—” She stopped, because he had thrust his fingers through his hair with an air of irritation. “I don’t mean to disturb you. I have a book of yours with me and I’d—”
He nodded, and came down the two steps on to the path. He had a pen in his right hand. But suddenly he stopped and looked at her, still frowning. “How’d you find my house?”
“I asked. In the village.” She was fumbling with the first pages of Devil’s Bounty, looking for the title page, so Dennis could sign below his printed name. “I’m sorry if—”
He ruffled his hair again and tried to smile. “No, it’s just that—Right here on my property, you know—” He signed his name rapidly with a hand that shook slightly.
His hand shook with repressed anger, Odile knew. She saw a muscle in his jaw tighten. “Thank you!” she said, taking the book back.
“I hope you’ll understand—I can’t answer those letters of yours. Too many, too often, you know?” He took a step back from her. “Good-bye, Miss—”
“Masarati,” she said. She added in a feeble voice that was a ghost of her own, “Good-bye, Mr. Hollingwood.” Then she turned and walked towards the road.
He had turned away first, and she heard his door close firmly.
She walked back towards the town of Little Starr in a daze of shame and confusion. He had detested her! And she had nourished a fantasy of being invited in for a cup of tea, invited to take a look at the desk where he worked! Odile felt that she had just made the worst social gaffe of her life. She had intruded, like a piece of riffraff off the street! She walked with her eyes on the ground, never looking up until she found herself in the square of Little Starr again, and she set about finding a taxi to take her to the station at Chelmsford.
In the taxi, her tears came, though she held her head high. It was as if Dennis Hollingwood had suddenly died, had suddenly been erased from—what? From her circle of friends and beloveds, anyway. No letter that she might write him could ever explain or excuse her advancing
up the path to his house. Maybe he’d been having difficulties with his work today, but no matter, she had been the invader of his privacy, unannounced and uninvited.
Even after the train journey, Odile’s mood was no better and no different. She felt that her guilt must be visible, as if she wore a hair shirt.
She was supposed to meet Marie-Claire at their hotel around six. That didn’t matter any more. Eschewing the taxis at Liverpool Street Station, Odile walked on towards the tube station called The Angel, where she could either look for a taxi or take the tube in the direction of her hotel, or even just keep on walking. Then at a corner near The Angel station, she deliberately stepped out in front of a taxi which was making a turn quite fast. Odile had wanted to injure herself, perhaps kill herself, though she had realized this only a few seconds before she leapt into the taxi’s path.
Odile woke to find herself lying on her back in a bed, and she felt pain all along the right side of her head and face. She lifted her right hand, and her fingertips encountered thick bandages that extended under her chin. The light was dim, but she could make out beds on either side of her and more beds against an opposite wall. Palely-clad nurses came and went. One nurse, noticing her arm movement, perhaps, turned with a tray to look at her.
“Waking up now? Want another painkiller?—You speak English?”
“Oh, yes,” said Odile in a faint voice.
She was given a pill. Odile learned that she had suffered a concussion and a “laceration” down her right cheek. She was asked where she had been staying in London. The hospital had found her passport in her handbag. Odile told them the Hotel Sherwood, and they rang Marie-Claire Lambert, who came at once, even though it was nearly midnight by then. Marie-Claire was both shocked and relieved. She had thought Odile might have been kidnapped and maybe also murdered.
“Me kidnapped? For what?” Odile could still joke.
Odile had to remain in the hospital another five days at least, and Marie-Claire wanted to stay on in London and wait for her, but Odile insisted that she go back on her return ticket. Odile had some money with her, and could pay her hospital bill with a transfer of money from her father, which Marie-Claire promised to arrange. Marie-Claire pressed Odile’s arm, and departed, promising to come again the next day.
Mermaids on the Golf Course: Stories Page 19