'Tears Before Bedtime' and 'Weep No More'

by Barbara Skelton

  Who, then, would have foretold that fifteen years later, Bernard would also be a paterfamilias, supporting a charming wife and two delightful petites filles?

  Cyril and I went on keeping in touch. I used to feel quite lost if weeks went by without getting a letter from him containing snaps of Cressida and his son, Matthew, on the back of which he wrote ‘From your old baby’. But our meetings in London were never a great success. He became increasingly bored listening to my woes and would suddenly announce he had a train to catch. We would bustle off to Victoria and, sometimes, I would accompany him as far as Lewes, and take the next train back.

  What is sad, once a loving relationship is severed, is that there is nothing much left to say. Meals with Cyril became reminiscent of those we used to take with his mother when she came over from South Africa and her ‘darling sprat’ barely looked up from his plate.

  On another of Cyril’s visits to the mas, he seemed to have come in order to probe through a hoard of old letters and he spent most of his time on his knees before a large wicker basket in my bedroom, so dead set on what he was doing that he even refused to come down to one meal. After rummaging through the lot, his only comment was, ‘You certainly were a sexpot in your day,’ and even to this day, I don’t know what he took.

  The very last visit was after he had had an operation for a cataract. He arrived in September to spend his birthday with us, bringing a long-standing admiratrice, Shelagh Levita, the calm mother that he had always claimed he needed. Shelagh had long, sleek, dark hair, and a certain chic; she dressed in simple, well-cut, tailored suits. She was someone you could count on, self-sacrificing and kind. The only thing she lacked, from my point of view, was a sense of humour.

  On the morning of his birthday, Cyril sat out on the terrace with his back to the sun to protect his eyes. He was taking us both out to lunch; Bernard had declined. In fact, as Cyril sat studying the Michelin, an open car shot up the hill with the radio at full blast, and a scrupulously dressed Bernard strolled across the terrace, got into it and disappeared for the rest of the day.

  At one o’clock I went into Cyril’s room to see if he were ready, to find him fully dressed with his hat on, seated on the edge of the bed, bent over in pain.

  ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to call a doctor?’ I said.

  To my surprise, he said, ‘Yes, I would. I know what happens to people in my condition, they choke to death.’

  The only intimation I had had of his being at all ill was earlier that year when he wrote to say he had been quite unwell due to some heart trouble, ‘which is now under control, but my pills may not work if I do too much or get more infection; my second-hand valve is clearly deteriorating, mileage very heavy – but no high blood pressure, no warnings not to eat or climb stairs etc., only to avoid going out into the cold after a meal.’ Then I remembered that the previous summer, when he and Shelagh had come to stay, after swimming in the pool, he had had great difficulty climbing out and complained of a terrible pain in his chest, blaming it on the absence of steps leading out of the swimming pool.

  There was a very good heart specialist attached to the hospital in St Tropez, a Doctor Couve, who became the Mayor. His assistant came up immediately. Alas, there was no birthday lunch and the following day I drove Cyril into hospital to be operated on. The telephone was ringing when I got home. It was François Michel who had it in mind to come and stay. When told that Couve planned to operate to remove the liquid around Cyril’s heart, François immediately exclaimed, ‘Don’t let them. That operation always proves fatal.’

  After the operation, I asked Couve’s assistant what chance Cyril had of getting well and he employed a depressing analogy. His condition, he said, could be compared to that of an old car that needed to have all its spare parts renewed. That evening, I telephoned Deirdre. Shouldn’t she fly out? But she had no intention of doing that.

  The hospital did not have a very good reputation. The equipment was dated, the rooms were like prison cells. The nurses gave the impression that tanning was their main motive in being there. Bernard telephoned his cardiologist in Paris, who recommended a hospital in Cannes. Cyril was happy to leave St Tropez. He refused to be taken out on a stretcher. He dressed himself, put on his Homburg and walked down the hospital steps to the ambulance. Shelagh was with me and said, ‘Do you think I should go with him?’ And although I felt so sad and would have preferred her to remain, we agreed it was the best thing to do and she got into the ambulance. I was never to see Cyril dressed and on his feet again and for months afterwards, every time I saw the back of an ambulance, I relived the scene. That evening, I went into Cannes to pick up Shelagh and we drove back along the autoroute almost blinded by a thick sea mist.

  As Bernard and I slept at opposite ends of the house, and his quarters were next to the kitchen, contact was often made by notes being left in the sink. The following day, I read:

  Barbara. I would appreciate it if you and Shyla [sic] could control as much as possible your visits to the kitchen so that I can work a little. It is much less tiring for me to clear up the dishes left in the sink than to hear your sudden and incessant comings and goings. The noise of the dishwasher, because it is monotonous and regular, doesn’t disturb me as much. As for knowing whether or not that’s costing us a lot in electricity, I think you have dealt with the question by allowing the heating to be on practically all day. What’s more, as you know (because I’ve told you so many times) your steps, your manner of walking is abrupt.

  Of course this doesn’t mean you can’t go into the kitchen. All I’m asking is for a little good will …

  Soon after, Shelagh moved into a hotel in Cannes to be close to the hospital. Cyril complained of the food and asked me to take him some oeufs en gêlée. The heart specialist there was optimistic about Cyril’s future, and, in time, he was well enough to board a plane and, right up to the moment of his departure, he kept planning to take Shelagh and me to a final lunch in a star restaurant.

  Back in London he telephoned; his voice sounded very faint and would suddenly fade away altogether, as though the receiver had dropped out of his hand. Two weeks later, he was in the Harley Street Clinic and Shelagh wrote to say she had delayed writing to thank me for having her to stay so that she could give me news about Cyril, adding that I had made her feel very welcome long after she should have left:

  I am most grateful, as staying in hotels is awful alone. Cyril still eats nothing, though I think the food is good and a large menu. He is still very weak and finds walking from the bed to the bathroom very tiring. In the last two days, the breathlessness has come back at nights. On the other hand, they are giving him cardiograms or X-rays and taking blood pressure only twice a day, so one imagines they are not worried. He is seeing a heart specialist this Wednesday. They say breathlessness is from excess fluid in the stomach. Possibly the weakness is simply because he does not eat. You and Bernard did so much for him. Hope to see you here again soon …

  The next letter said that Cyril had seen a top London heart specialist, Lawson-McDonald, who had given him an optimistic report. He told Cyril he must stay a further month in the clinic, having injections of vitamins and diuretics, and at the end of that time, he would be and feel better. Doctor Goldman had seen him that morning and said they had been worried when he first went into the nursing home because he could not lose enough fluid, but he also believed that he had turned the corner and would improve.

  He is going to give Cyril the injections himself so that they are less painful. All in all, good news. C. sends a message that he would like you to get him some mangosteens [an exotic fruit] from Fauchon in the Place de la Madeleine to give to Andrew Devonshire in the hope that he may be able to grow plants from seed …

  And she looked forward to seeing me the following week.

  Chapter XX

  Cyril’s Death

  When I visited the Harley Street Clinic, the first thing that struck me was the dust and the array of dead flowers clutt
ering the room. Why had no one bothered to throw them away? My visits could not coincide with Deirdre, Sonia, Joan or Janetta’s. But Shelagh was always there until my last visit, when Cyril was alone. He was studying a medical encyclopaedia, when two doctors entered. They were doing their rounds. Cyril addressed them querulously:

  ‘Why is it I’m not getting any better?’ The doctors seemed to be baffled as to what was the actual cause of his illness. Was it a heart or a liver complaint?

  ‘Have you ever lived in the tropics?’ one of them said.

  Cyril was pitifully thin. He lacked appetite, but could be persuaded to drink a little glucose. If I sat too far away from the bed, a pained expression clouded his face. His vision was impaired. Although in exasperated moments he had often compared Ann Fleming to ‘an old French letter in a telephone booth’ he was hurt that neither she nor John Betjeman had been to see him. He said, ‘Nature’s become hostile.’ Then, maybe to test me out, he said he hoped to live another five years.

  ‘Please, Cyril, don’t talk like that,’ I said.

  ‘But five years is a long time,’ he replied, and proceeded to tell me how he would like to spend them. I left the clinic crying and soon after returned to Grimaud. Once more alone.

  Shelagh’s last letter said that Cyril had been transferred to King’s College Hospital where they specialised in liver diseases, but she gathered they were more concerned about his heart condition and that this had to be improved before turning to the liver, but she wished they would keep him on there, as they had a most competent team who were doing all they could and he was being fed intravenously.

  One rainy November day, soon after, Shelagh telephoned to say that Cyril had died that morning. She had been with him right up to the last moment.

  Then an odd thing happened. The days following his death, whenever I came back from shopping, though I had had no recollection of having touched the switch, the light bulb on the small terrace leading off my upstairs bedroom would be lit. It had never happened before and it was never to happen again. I like to interpret it as having been a signal of farewell.

  I drove to Normandy, where Bernard was staying with Sagan in her manor house, not far from Honfleur. On the first evening I was talking to the secretary, Isabelle, who said, ‘What have you been doing lately? I hear you’ve been communing with the dead.’ She thought it a huge joke. I must have been in a good humour, for Isabelle and I laughed so much that the film producer, Roger Vadim, who was talking to Françoise, turned to me and said, ‘May I ask where you come from?’ – a question the French often pose, meaning, where are your roots?

  ‘Maidenhead,’ I said.

  As Sagan had a full house (or should I say manor?), although her brother politely asked me to stay on, I drove to Seine-et-Marne for the New Year and spent it with François Michel.

  *

  Previous Convictions is dedicated to ‘B.S.’

  ‘Oak before ash, look out

  for a splash’

  With love as always to Barbara.

  Too bad I could not find an elm anywhere!

  It is also dedicated to you in the last sentence.

  December 1963.

  I have left out one phenomenon besides the search for truth and the obsession with the form and shaping of a work of art – the devotion which is distilled, after years, from all the possessive kinds of love; which may have originated in boredom, unhappiness, habit, or lust, from an accident of fusion that creates something profound and selfless (‘the giving which plays us least false’) like the love of parents for a child which yet keeps something of the child about it – a positive, permanent illusion, a projection of lost early loves on to one person. In the field of discovery and the world of love miracles still happen. The presence of one of these long-suffering accomplices in our last act of existence may help to ease us out of it, or, when all those whom we have truly loved are dead, they may suffice to tip the scales for death, until dying becomes a renewal of communication with them. The rest is mineral emptiness.

  It was during his last illness that Cyril arranged for me to meet his daughter, Cressida. As she seemed prepared to brave my evil eye, we met for lunch in Knightsbridge, where Cressida ordered the classic dish of steak and chips with a green salad. We got on well and have been seeing each other ever since. The following summer she came to Grimaud. Gerda was also staying on a short visit from the States and, although previously Bernard had never spent July or August in the Midi, for he dreaded the heat, he also turned up. It was an extremely hot summer. Gerda and Cressida spent their days basking beside the swimming pool. I was not at my best dealing with such diverse people, one of whom could not communicate in English. In the evenings, garrulous Gerda and I sat beneath the mulberry tree peeling and salting almonds that we had gathered to accompany our drinks. One evening, Bernard joined us. He was knowledgeably holding forth on Anglo-Saxon authors, when I jubilantly announced, French style, ‘à table’ and we all moved across to the café table where four roast quails were waiting. Cressida apparently did not care for small birds with legs like twigs unless they were overcooked. As Bernard had bought the quails, he got angry and accused her of being ‘mal élevée’; she began to cry and ran upstairs to her room. The following night, we had rougets for dinner and when Cressida raised her fork to sniff the fish to see if it were fresh, Bernard again angrily accused her of being spoilt and ill-mannered, and ordered her to leave the table; once again, she ran up to her room sobbing. I went up to console her, when we heard a crash.

  ‘Something’s been flung on to the tiles,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m used to that,’ I assured her.

  Finally, everyone calmed down and the four of us were once more seated at the table, when, to this day – the reason remains a mystery – Bernard rose slowly to his feet holding a carafe of red wine and emptied it over my head. Stunned, I just sat there, with wine pouring down my neck and Gerda couldn’t stop laughing. Cressida ran upstairs for the last time, locked herself into her room and did not reappear until the following day when, curtailing their visit, the ladies packed their bags and were driven to the airport.

  When, in 1974, the property the other side of the valley was put up for sale and the farmhouse had become uninhabitable, the Delmassos moved to the outskirts of Grimaud. Thérèse still went on coming to clean, riding up on a mobylette. Then, when the financial squeeze set in and nearly every villa on the coast had a ‘For Sale’ sign up, as I couldn’t afford to have her more than twice a week, she never abandoned me altogether but went to work full time for a hotel in St Tropez and came to me on her day off, when she could.

  One day, a bulldozer was seen ploughing up the track opposite. The farmhouse was then demolished, and in place of a copse of cork oaks one had a view of a new large house and what turned out to be a gleaming swimming pool.

  Soon after, in spite of everyone saying that the piece of land adjoining mine was only fit for sangliers, it was bought by the Marquis de Mirepoix, a charming gentleman whose family dated back to the tenth century. In the eighteenth century, there was a bishop of Mirepoix who liked to sign himself ‘anc’ (ancien); Voltaire pretended to read it as âne, so that his enemy, the bishop, forever after became known as the Mitred Ass or the Donkey of Mirepoix.

  Once again a bulldozer appeared. This time it shoved its way up the adjoining hill and the Marquis came to offer me a strip of land which had some very fine old trees (when I had too many trees already) in return for a strip of my land on the hill just behind the mas, the site he had chosen for his future villa. We would have been at shouting distance. When I declined his offer, his little wife came to charm me, for she too had been a mannequin and we were certain to come to an agreement. When I still refused to give in, the Marquis surprised me by saying, ‘In that case, you will not be invited to our housewarming.’ It did not deter him from continually dropping in on us later whenever his telephone was out of order.

  It took over a year for the construction of his
house and the din was infernal. Then during the levelling of the ground for the layout of a garden, the bulldozer blocked the ruisseau that channelled the heavy rain into the valley in winter; the ruisseau changed course and torrents of rain swept past my terrace. The Mirepoix were in Paris, I had to consult a lawyer. By this time, everyone in the valley considered the new residents to be a couple of casse-pieds and all romantic association with the area had vanished. For once the Mirepoix were installed in their pink, stucco villa, instead of the sound of birds when the shutters were opened, one would hear shouts, the hum of a mowing machine or belly-flops, for they too had built a swimming pool.