Sensible Life

by Mary Wesley

  “Who did you expect to find?” Milly, already in bed, laid down her book. “I can’t get on with this,” she said, “it’s rubbish.”

  “Could you get on with me?” Angus made his voice gruff.

  “Of course I could.” Milly held out her arms.

  Flora, in pyjamas and dressing-gown, watched Mademoiselle pack. Having laid shoes in the bottom of the suitcase, missal and bundles of letters along the sides, she now levelled a platform to receive her best clothes by padding over lumps with underclothes, stockings, handkerchiefs and scarves. Her one good dress was neatly folded on the bed with tissue paper, as were her two blouses, waiting to be packed last after the tweed skirt and cardigan of daily wear.

  “Labels, I need labels,” muttered Mademoiselle. “Run, child, and ask at the desk for two labels.”

  “Like this?” Flora spread her arms, exposing skimpy pyjamas and bare feet.

  Mademoiselle sighed gustily. She was a fat young woman. “You are no help; I must do everything myself.”

  “The desk will be closed in five minutes.” Flora eyed the open suitcase. “Won’t tomorrow do?”

  “Tomorrow is too late.” Mademoiselle left the room, taking with her a musty smell of perspiration overlaid with cologne. Flora wondered whether she would miss Mademoiselle more or less than she had missed the Signorina with whom she had spent a year in Italy. The Signorina’s smell had been of lesser strength, but had the same base. Flora raised her arms and sniffed at each armpit. She tightened the belt of her dressing-gown. As she leaned down to peer into Mademoiselle’s suitcase she remembered quite jolly times singing the Fascists’ song Giovanezza with the Signorina, who had a brother who wore the olive-green uniform and black top-boots of the Fascisti and thought Mussolini wonderful. Among Mademoiselle’s letters were postcards; one of particular interest. Flora knew the message: “We visited this museum yesterday—we return Paris tomorrow—Danish food does not suit Maman—Copenhagen disappoints—Hans Andersen lacks panache—Babette.” The card was from the Thorwaldsen Museum; the picture on the card was of a sculpture of a naked man reclining on his side. With her back to him, also naked, a girl lay, her back and legs fitting into the curve of the man’s body, her head supported by his arm. On receiving it Mademoiselle had remarked that Danish sculptures were peculiar; to her mind the pair would look better upright. On receiving an identical postcard from her mother she had observed that the Danes were a repetitive people and refused to explain what she meant. Flora thought the recumbent figures wonderful; how delicious, she thought, to lie like that against the marble man. She asked Mademoiselle to give her one of the postcards since she had two. Mademoiselle refused; she collected stamps, she said.

  Flora leaned down and with finger and thumb extracted one of the postcards from the bundle. About to look at it just once more, she heard Mademoiselle returning, talking as she came to Gaston.

  “If you give me the suitcase now,” said Gaston, “I will send it to the station with a visitor who is taking the train to Paris. That way you will save a taxi and a porter’s tip. What else have you got?”

  “My overnight bag,” said Mademoiselle as she opened the door. “I can carry that.”

  Flora pocketed the postcard. Mademoiselle finished packing. Gaston helped her shut the case and tied on labels, picked it up and departed, saying goodnight and bon voyage.

  “Go to bed, child. I shall be gone before you wake.” Mademoiselle pecked drily at Flora’s forehead. “Bonne chance, petite.”

  Too late to return the postcard. Flora mumbled a token kiss onto Mademoiselle’s plump cheek and went to her room, where she put the postcard in a drawer and covered it with a vest; she would gloat over it tomorrow. But now she pulled the spare pillow round so that she could lie with her back pressed against it and imagine smooth, cool, comforting marble.

  EIGHT

  THE FRIENDLINESS AND GOOD humour of the Shovehalfpennies, as they inevitably became known after Angus’ mention of the late Baron’s first name, acted as a catalyst among the visitors of Dinard. It did not matter to Elizabeth, Anne, Marie, Dottie and Dolly to what age group anybody belonged. They played tennis with young children, bridge with their parents and roulette with Angus, Milly and their mother. They danced with Cosmo, Blanco and their brother and went through the shops like a dose of salts. Sophisticated Mabs and Tashie, arriving from Paris, were not to have it all their own way. If, at seventeen, they outshone the other girls, had shingled hair, wore lipstick when Milly was not looking, had shed their puppy fat and could dance not only the Charleston but the foxtrot, they had yet to acquire the ease of manner of the Dutch sisters. Under their benign influence the young people from the various hotels coalesced into a homogeneous group which ebbed and flowed about town, forming and reforming like a flock of birds. Three girls from the Britannique knew a boy and his sister in the Marjolaine and they had a cousin in the Angleterre whose school played Cosmo and Blanco’s at cricket. Fours were made up for tennis, riotous rounders were played on the beach. There were expeditions along the coast and from five o’clock onwards dancing in the Casino, le The Dansant. All the girls were in love with Felix.

  Flora Trevelyan, too young and too shy to join in, watched from a distance, awed by the exuberance. She was painfully jealous of Mabs and Tashie; she had seen them arrive from Paris and noted their smart navy blue suits, dazzling white blouses, knee-length skirts, their cloche hats pulled low over pert noses. She too was in love with Felix.

  Felix might have belonged to some other breed than his sisters. They were dumpy, he was tall; they were fair, he was dark; they were high-spirited, he was quiet, soft-spoken, gentle. From time to time he disappeared in his car with his sister Elizabeth.

  “He takes her with him because she is so old he is sorry for her. She is twenty-six, poor thing, not a sign of a husband.” Tashie sat with Mabs and Cosmo on the hotel terrace trying to decide what to do next.

  “Actually, she’s an archaeologist. They go to look at the menhirs,” said the sandy-haired girl with buck teeth who was listening to the group, though not exactly of it.

  “What’s a menhir?” asked Tashie.

  “A standing stone,” said the buck-toothed girl, whose name was Joyce.

  “What’s a standing stone?” asked Mabs.

  Cosmo, foreseeing his sister about to be caught displaying ignorance, got up and sauntered down the street to where he could see Blanco staring through the window of the patisserie. “What’s a standing stone, Hubert?”

  Surprised at being called by his proper name, Blanco said, “What’s a what?”

  Cosmo repeated his question.

  “Lots of them in Cornwall and Wales, all the way from Asia Minor to the Orkneys. Something to do with Druids, Stonehenge, that sort of thing.”

  “What a lot you know.”

  “Been talking to Elizabeth Showers. Shall we go in and eat some of those?” Blanco pointed at the alluring display of cream cakes. “My mother sent me some money. I’ll treat you.”

  “Terrible for our spots,” Cosmo demurred.

  “What do spots matter with Felix around? We might as well not exist.”

  “True.” Cosmo led the way into the patisserie. They sat at a table, ordered cakes, leaned back and surveyed the street through the plate-glass window.

  “The married Showers are leaving tomorrow to return to connubial bliss.” Blanco bit into an éclair. “Delicious.” He licked his fingers.

  “Elizabeth told you? I wonder what their connubial bliss is like.”

  “Your parents?” suggested Blanco.

  “Oh, come on!” Cosmo laughed. Then, “Elizabeth and Anne are coming to meet the Tarasova; they want to get some pointers for backgammon, crafty Armenian dodges. Oh look, there goes that peculiar child.” Through the window of the patisserie the friends viewed Vita and Denys Trevelyan window-shopping on the opposite side of the street. Flora trailed several yards behind them.

  “My shins are still bruised,” said Blanco. “She look
s rather miserable.”

  “One would with those parents.” Cosmo watched the Trevelyans move out of sight.

  “They’ll be back in India soon, with hordes of native servants and all that jazz. Anne says the Dutch are the same.”

  “As what?”

  “Downtreading and squashing the inferior race, that sort of thing—grinding their noses into the shit in the East Indies.”

  “Father says—”

  “Your father is an imperialist warmonger. Have another cake?”

  “Thanks. I’m missing lunch.” Cosmo was laughing. “The imperialist warmonger is worried to death about the strike,” he said. “He’s no nose-grinder, though.”

  “I hope for a revolution. Encore de gateaux, s’il vous plait, Mademoiselle. What is your father going to do about it? Can he take on the strikers single-handed?” Blanco enquired, teasing.

  “He’s—” Cosmo stopped what he was about to say, then said, “He isn’t a warmonger. Yes, he votes Conservative and yes, he is a magistrate, but he thinks war is an abomination, and revolution leads to war. That’s why he is so twitchy at the moment. All our fathers are Conservative.”

  “Speak for yourself, I have not got one.”

  “Don’t use your war orphanhood as a damper.” Cosmo was good-humoured. “My point is that were he alive, your father would vote Conservative.”

  “I like to think he wouldn’t,” said Blanco. “Anyway, your father has got it back to front: revolutions are nourished by war, they start in wars. Look at Russia—”

  “No thanks. Look, Blanco, thanks for the cakes. I have to go and do something for my father.”

  “What?”

  “Just a chore.”

  “Shall I come too?”

  “No.”

  “Shall you be long?” asked Blanco.

  “I might be.”

  “Right, I can see I’m not wanted. I have a chore of my own for Madame Tarasova. She is going to write a letter in Russian to my cousin Thing; Anne can post it in Holland.”

  “What for? What about?”

  “Just a little tease. He was beastly by post to my mother. It’s just a silliness.”

  “Sometimes I can’t make you out, you and your cousin Thing. It’s an obsession.” Cosmo ran a surreptitious finger across his plate to catch the last of the cream and, licking it, rose to go.

  As he walked towards the quay he patted his pocket to make sure the money his father had given him was safe. Reaching the quay, he saw the vedette had disgorged its passengers and was casting off, ready to leave.

  Perched on a bollard with her back to him, her legs wound about it, sat Flora, watching the vedette. On impulse, as he ran past, Cosmo caught her by the hand and said: “Come with me to St. Malo.”

  Flora was surprised, but allowed him to run her down the steps and jump on board. “Let’s sit up forward.” He pushed her ahead of him. They sat in the bows. “D’you know St. Malo well?” he asked. Flora nodded. “You’ve had some of your hair cut off,” he said, watching her hair swished across her face by the wind.

  “And washed. The hairdresser tried to charge extra for the shampoo.” Her tone was flat.

  “Because it’s so thick.” Cosmo remembered Vita’s voice saying blackheads. He wanted to say her hair was lovely, which it was, but did not; he said, “All women’s heads are shingled, the man must save a packet on shampoo.” He caught a quick glance from Flora’s enormous eyes. “I wonder what they charge to shampoo eyelashes,” he said. Flora looked puzzled. Perhaps she did not know that she had extraordinarily long lashes? He would have liked to touch them. “I see you about sometimes,” he said, remembering now that he had noticed her during the last weeks, glimpsed alone or with Igor, disappearing round corners. “I saw you this morning with your parents,” he said and wondered belatedly whether he was getting her into trouble taking her off without permission. “I was in the patisserie.”

  “They’ve gone to Dinan,” she said. “They’ve taken a flat; they are buying things for it.”

  “So you’ve left the hotel. I thought—”

  “They have, I haven’t.”

  Cosmo couldn’t take this in. “When will they be back?” he asked, remembering his dislike, fearing a confrontation, explanation. What explanation?

  “Tomorrow, perhaps.”

  “Do they leave you on your own often?”

  “They like to be together.” Her lips closed with almost adult discretion.

  Cosmo said, “Oh.” Then again, “Oh.” After a while he said, “I am on an errand for my father. Secret from my mother. Nobody is to know. He doesn’t want to alarm her so you mustn’t tell a soul. I am to buy a revolver.”

  “A pistolet?”

  “Yes. He is going to travel up north in his car when I go back to school. Afraid of trouble, he feels he should be armed.”

  “I shan’t tell anyone.”

  “I only told you because I asked you to come with me and you might be surprised to see me buy a revolver.” Cosmo felt he should regret his impulsive action, but did not. “Father said, ‘Find a gunsmith, there must be one,’ but I haven’t the foggiest. I don’t even know what a gunsmith is in French or how to ask; my French is still pretty basic. I can ask for patisseries and that sort of thing, but I don’t know the word for gunsmith.”

  “I do.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  “Armurier.”

  “Oh, thanks. I must write it in my notebook. D’you think you could ask someone?”

  “There’s one in a side street round the corner from where your sister and her friend bought hats. Your sister bought a green one, her friend a blue.”

  “What an observant little thing you are.” Flora shot Cosmo a glance of amusement. The hats had not noticeably impressed Felix, which had been the object of their purchase; she had observed that also. “You’d better pretend you are eighteen,” she said.

  “I’m not half-witted,” said Cosmo crossly.

  NINE

  COSMO FELT RELIEF STEPPING out of the gunsmiths; he had felt rather ridiculous making his purchase. He could hardly believe that the parcel he carried concealed under its wrapping a lethal weapon. The man had asked no questions but casually laid out a choice of revolvers, naming the price of each as he placed it on the counter, turning the price label towards Cosmo.

  Cosmo picked the make his father had asked for; there was no need to display his ignorance. All the same, while perfectly polite, the man had angered him. A heavy man, no taller than five and a half feet, large-stomached, heavily jowled, with black eyes which slid over his customer. Coming from behind the counter when there was no apparent need, he twitched at a display of knives in the window, straightening a row that was already straight. Returning, he let his hand rest on Flora. It did not rest long; she moved so that the hand fell to his side. Wrinkling her nose, she removed herself into the street. A word passed. The shopkeeper looked sharply from the closing door to Cosmo, pursed his lips, finished wrapping the parcel, took the money, gave change and wrote a receipt. “Merci, Monsieur.”

  Flora waited across the street.

  “Let’s find somewhere that sells ice-cream. What did you say to that man?” asked Cosmo, intrigued.

  “Maquereau.”

  “He didn’t look too pleased. What does it mean?”

  Flora grinned. “They have lovely ices in Jules’ café by the harbour,” she said.

  Cosmo memorised “maquereau”; he had come out without his notebook and was disinclined to use his pocket dictionary in front of Flora. As they walked, he thought Blanco would have called the gunsmith “priapic”. He was not sure what that meant, either. He said, “How old are you? And I still don’t know your name.”

  “Flora Trevelyan. I am ten.”

  They threaded their way through the narrow streets to the harbour. Flora indicated a café facing the quay. “Will this do?” They sat.

  The patron came out in a rush and gave Flora a smacking kiss on each cheek: “Alors, peti
te, ça va? Tu veux une crème glacee? Fraise? Vanille? Chocolat? Et monsieur? Bonjour, monsieur.” He shook Cosmo’s hand. “Alors, votre choix?”

  Cosmo chose chocolate, Flora strawberry.

  “Do you come here often?” She was obviously a favoured customer.

  “With Madame Tarasova.”

  “Oh.”

  “Once or twice with Mademoiselle.”

  “Oh.”

  “Madame Tarasova alters dresses for Jules’ wife; she is getting rather fat.” Flora spread hands outwards from her stomach. “Madame Tarasova lets them out.”

  “I see.”

  “Jules likes fat ladies.”

  “Does Madame Tarasova teach you the piano?”

  “Russian, and they are asking her to coach me at maths before I go to school.”

  “Where are you at school?”

  “Nowhere. I start in the autumn.”

  “So you haven’t been yet?”

  “No.”

  “What school are you going to?”

  “Some place they have chosen.”

  “How peculiar.”

  “Why?” She seemed indifferent.

  “It seems peculiar not to know where you are going.”

  “They decide. It’s in England. I can’t live with them in India because of the climate.”

  Cosmo thought it odd the way she referred to her parents as “they”; he was reminded of Blanco’s name for his cousin, “Thing” or “Chose.” “Mabs and I were taken to see our schools,” he said, “to see whether we thought we’d like them.”