by Weldon, Fay
‘I know it’s for me, sir. Is it Meg? Is she all right?’
‘Perfectly all right.’
‘Then what is it, sir? Is it Thompson?’
‘Custom is, my boy, to keep bad news to the last day of the tour. Since there’s nothing one can do about it—’
But Jim told him.
‘Thompson was shot by a farmer. He’d been worrying the sheep.’
Timmy was silent for a while. The smell of chicken à l’ail – chicken stuffed with twenty heads of garlic, and simmered in stock – filled the galley and indeed the rest of the boat. It was a comforting smell.
‘Poor Meg,’ was what Timmy said. ‘Poor Meg! All alone up there without even a dog to keep her company. At least I’ll be home for the birth.’
‘I think I’ll just about miss Zelda’s,’ said Jim, thankfully. ‘I’m not much good at childbirth.’
The second Routine was from Operations Base and told them to make for home at all speed. The captain passed the news on to the Engine Room and opened the second canister of Zelda’s wine and again he added a little blood, in the interests of universal brotherhood, and a little cochineal: they drank, and Jim carved. The cooked garlic cut and tasted somewhere between fresh young turnip and good potato. They savoured that, and the good red wine. It was half past eleven. (Dinner had drifted earlier and earlier, through the tour. Hunger seemed to gnaw more anxiously as the weeks passed.)
‘“Go thy way, saith the preacher,”’ quoted the captain. ‘“Eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart, for God now accepteth thy works.’”
Timmy, it being time, thought of Meg and heard a dog barking. It was so firm and real and loud a noise he looked round for its source.
‘Sir,’ said Timmy, ‘do you hear a dog barking?’
‘I hear no barking,’ said the captain. ‘How could I? We are under the sea.’
But whether it was the agreeable sound of the banana and rum fritters frying; or the richness of the red forbidden wine – or perhaps indeed the spirit of poor murdered Thompson touched him – at any rate, presently the captain said—
‘You know, if a Routine came through to push those buttons, I wouldn’t! What, and lose all this?’
Delights of France or Horrors of the Road
Miss Jacobs, I don’t believe in psychotherapy. I really do think it’s a lot of nonsense. Now it’s taken me considerable nerve to say that – I’m a rather mild person and hate to be thought rude. I just wouldn’t want to be here under false pretences: it wouldn’t be fair to you, would it?
But Piers wants me to come and see you, so of course I will. He’s waiting outside in your pretty drawing room: I said he should go, and come back when the session was up: that I’d be perfectly all right but he likes to be at hand in case anything happens. Just sometimes I do fall forward, out of my chair – so far I haven’t hurt myself. Once it was face-first into a feather sofa; the second was trickier – I was with Martin – he’s my little grandchild, you know, David’s boy, the only one so far – at the sandpit in the park and I just pitched forward into the sand. Someone sent for an ambulance but it wasn’t really necessary – I was perfectly all right, instantly. Well, except for this one big permanent fact that my legs don’t work.
I’m a great mystery to the doctors. Piers has taken me everywhere – Paris, New York, Tokyo – but the verdict seems to be the same: it’s all in my head. It is a hysterical paralysis. I find this humiliating: as if I’d done it on purpose just to be a nuisance. I’m the last person in the world to be a nuisance!
Did you see Piers? Isn’t he handsome? He’s in his mid-fifties, you know, but so good-looking. Of course he has an amazing brain – well, the whole world knows that – and I think that helps to keep people looking young. I have a degree in Economics myself – unusual for a housewife of my age – but of course I stayed home to devote myself to Piers and the children. I think, on the whole, women should do that. Don’t you? Why don’t you answer my questions? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Explain me to myself? No?
I must explain myself to myself! Oh.
Behind every great man stands a woman. I believe that. Piers is a Nobel Prize winner. Would he have done it without me? I expect so. He just wouldn’t have had me, would he, or the four children? They’re all doing very well. Piers was away quite a lot when the children were young – he’s a particle physicist, as I’m sure you know. He had to be away. They don’t keep cyclotrons in suitably domestic places, and the money had to be earned somehow. But we all always had these holidays together, in France. How we loved France. How well we knew it. Piers would drive; I’d navigate; the four children piled in the back! Of course these days we fly. There’s just Piers and me. It’s glamorous and exciting, and people know who he is so the service is good. Waiters don’t mind so much… Mind what?... I thought you weren’t supposed to ask questions. I was talking about holidays, in the past, long ago. Well, not so long ago. We went on till the youngest was fifteen; Brutus that is, and he’s only twenty now. Can it be only five years?
I miss those summer dockside scenes: the cars lined up at dusk or dawn waiting for the ferry home: sunburned families, careless and exhausted after weeks in the sun. By careless I don’t mean without care – just without caring any more. They’ll sleep all night in their cars to be first in the queue for the ferry, and not worry about it; on the journey out they’d have gone berserk. Brown faces and brittle blonde hair and grubby children; and the roof-racks with the tents and the water cans and the boxes of wine and strings of garlic. Volvos and Cortinas and Volkswagen vans.
Of course our cars never looked smart: we even started out once with a new one, but by the time we came back it was dented and bumped and battered. French drivers are so dreadful, aren’t they; and their road signs are impossible.
How did the paralysis start? It was completely unexpected. There were no warning signs – no numbness, no dizziness, nothing like that. It was our thirtieth wedding anniversary. To celebrate we were going to do a tour of France in Piers’ new MG. It can do 110 mph, you know, but Piers doesn’t often go at more than fifty-five – that’s the speed limit in the States, you know, and he says they know what they’re doing – it’s the best speed for maximum safety – but he likes to have cars that can go fast. To get out of trouble in an emergency, Piers says. We were going on the Weymouth/Cherbourg route – I’m usually happier with Dover/Calais – the sea journey’s shorter for one thing, and somehow the longer the journey through England the more likely Piers is to forget to drive on the right once we’re in France. I’ve noticed it. But I don’t argue about things like that. Piers knows what he’s doing – I never backseat drive. I’m his wife, he’s my husband. We love each other.
So we were setting out for Weymouth, the bags were packed, the individual route maps from the AA in the glove compartment – they’d arrived on time, for once. (I’d taken a Valium in good time – my heart tends to beat rather fast, almost to the point of palpitations, when I’m navigating.) I was wearing a practical non-crease dress – you know what long journeys are like – you always end up a little stained. Piers loves melons and likes me to feed him wedges as we drive along – and you know how ripe a ripe French melon can be. Piers will spend hours choosing one from a market stall. He’ll test every single one on display – you know, sniffing and pressing the ends for just the right degree of tenderness – until he’s found one that’s absolutely perfect. Sometimes, before he’s satisfied, he’ll go through the fruit boxes at the back of the stall as well. The French like you to be particular, Piers says. They’ll despise you if you accept just anything. And then, of course, if the melon’s not to go over the top, they have to be eaten quite quickly – in the car as often as not...
Anyway, as I was saying, I was about to step into the car when my legs just kind of folded and I sank down on to the pavement, and that was six months ago, and I haven’t walked since. No, no palpitations since either. I can’t remember if I had palpi
tations before I was married – I’ve been married for ever!
And there was no holiday. Just me paralysed. No tour of France. Beautiful France. I adore the Loire and the châteaux, don’t you? The children loved the West Coast: those stretches of piny woods and the long, long beaches and the great Atlantic rollers – but after the middle of August the winds change and everything gets dusty and somehow grizzly. When the children were small we camped, but every year the sites got more formal and more crowded and more full of frites and Piers didn’t like that. He enjoyed what he called ‘wilderness camping’. In the camping guides which describe the sites there’s always an area section – that is, the area allowed for each tent. Point five of a hectare is crowded: two hectares perfectly possible. Piers liked ten hectares, which meant a hillside somewhere and no television room for the children or frites stall – and that meant more work for me, not that I grudged it: a change of venue for cooking – such lovely portable calor gas stoves we had: you could do a three-course meal on just two burners if you were clever, if the wind wasn’t too high – is as good as a rest from cooking. It was just that the children preferred the crowded sites, and I did sometimes think they were better for the children’s French. An English sparrow and a French sparrow sing pretty much the same song. But there you are, Piers loved the wilderness. He’d always measure the actual hectarage available for our tent, and if it didn’t coincide with what was in the book would take it up with the relevant authorities. I remember it once ending up with people having to move their tents at ten in the evening to make proper room for ours – we’d driven three hundred miles that day and Brutus was only two. That wasn’t Piers’ fault: it was the camp proprietor’s. Piers merely knocked him up to point out that our site wasn’t the dimension it ought to be, and he over-reacted quite dreadfully. I was glad to get away from that site in the morning, I can tell you. It really wasn’t Piers’ fault; just one of those things. I’m glad it was only a stop-over. The other campers just watched us go, in complete silence. It was weird. And Fanny cried all the way to Poitiers.
Such a tearful little thing, Fanny. Piers liked to have a picnic lunch at about three o’clock – the French roads clear at mid-day while everyone goes off to gorge themselves on lunch, so you can make really good time wherever you’re going. Sometimes I did wonder where it was we were going to, or why we had to make such time, but on the other hand those wonderful white empty B roads, poplar-lined, at a steady 55 mph… anyway, we’d buy our lunch at mid-day – wine and pâté and long French bread and orangina for the children, and then at three start looking for a nice place to picnic. Nothing’s harder! If the place is right, the traffic’s wrong. Someone’s on your tail hooting – how those French drivers do hoot – they can see the GB plates – they know it means the driver’s bound to forget and go round roundabouts the wrong way – and before you know it the ideal site is passed. The ideal site has a view, no snakes, some sun and some shade, and I like to feel the car’s right off the road – especially if it’s a Route Nationale – though Piers doesn’t worry too much. Once actually some idiot did drive right into it – he didn’t brake in time – but as Piers had left our car in gear, and not put on the handbrake or anything silly, it just shot forward and not much damage was done. How is it that other cars always look so smooth and somehow new? I suppose their owners must just keep them in garages all the time having the bumps knocked out and re-sprays – well, fools and their money are often parted, as Piers keeps saying.
What was I talking about? Stopping for lunch. Sometimes it would be four thirty before we found somewhere really nice, and by four you could always rely on Fanny to start crying. I’d give her water from the Pschitt bottle – how the children giggled – Pschitt – every year a ritual, lovely giggle – and break off bread from the loaf for her, but still she grizzled: and Daddy would stop and start and stare over hedges and go a little way down lanes and find them impossible and back out on to the main road, and the children would fall silent, except for Fanny. Aren’t French drivers rude? Had you noticed? I’d look sideways at a passing car and the driver would be staring at us, screwing his thumb into his head, or pretending to slit his throat with his finger – and always these honks and hoots, and once someone pulled in and forced us to stop and tried to drag poor Piers out of the car, goodness knows why. Just general Gallic over-excitement, I suppose. Piers is a wonderfully safe driver. I do think he sometimes inconveniences other cars the way he stops at intersections – you know how muddling their road signs are, especially on city ring roads, and how they seem to be telling you to go right or left when actually they mean straight on. And Piers is a scientist – he likes to be sure he’s doing the right thing. I have the maps; I do my best: I memorise whole areas of the country, so I will know when passing through, say, Limoges, on the way from Périgueux to Issoudun, and have to make lightning decisions – Piers seems to speed up in towns. No! Not the Tulle road, not the Clermont road, not the Montluçon but the Châteauroux road. Only the Châteauroux road isn’t marked! Help! What’s its number? Dear God, it’s the N20! We’ll die! The N147 to Bellac then, and cut through on the B roads to Argenton, La Châtre... So look for the Poitiers sign. Bellac’s on the road to Poitiers—
So he stops, if he’s not convinced I’m right, and takes the map himself and studies it before going on. Which meant, in later years, finding his magnifying glass. He hates spectacles! And you know what those overhead traffic lights are like in small country towns, impossible to see, so no one takes any notice of them! Goodness knows how French drivers survive at all. We had one or two nasty misses through no fault of our own every holiday; I did in the end feel happier if I took Valium. But I never liked Piers to know I was taking it – it seemed a kind of statement of lack of faith – which is simply untrue. Look at the way he carried me in, cradled me in his arms, laid me on this sofa! I trust him implicitly. I am his wife. He is my husband.
What was I saying? Fanny grizzling. She took off to New Zealand as soon as she’d finished her college course. A long way away. Almost as far as she could get, I find myself saying, I don’t know why. I know she loves us and we certainly love her. She writes frequently. David’s a racing car driver. Piers and I are very upset about this. Such a dangerous occupation. Those cars get up to 200 mph – and Piers did so hate speed. Angela’s doing psychiatric nursing. They say she has a real gift for it.
I remember once I said to Piers – we were on the ring road round Angers – turn left here, meaning the T-junction we were approaching – but he swung straight left across the other carriageway, spying a little side road there – empty because all the traffic was round the corner, held up by the lights, ready to surge forward. He realised what he’d done, and stopped, leaving us broadside across the main road. ‘Reverse!’ I shrieked, breaking my rule about no backseat driving, and he did, and we were just out of the way when the expected wall of traffic bore down. ‘You should have said second left,’ he said, ‘that was very nearly a multiple pile-up!’ You can’t be too careful in France. They’re mad drivers, as everyone knows. And with the children in the car too—
But it was all such fun. Piers always knew how to get the best out of waiters and chefs. He’d go right through the menu with the waiter, asking him to explain each dish. If the waiter couldn’t do it – and it’s amazing how many waiters can’t – he would send for the chef and ask him. It did get a little embarrassing sometimes, if the restaurant was very busy, but as Piers said, the French understand food and really appreciate it if you do too. I can make up my mind in a flash what I want to eat: Piers takes ages. As I say, he hates to get things wrong. We’d usually be last to leave any restaurant we ate in, but Piers doesn’t believe in hurrying. As he says, a) it’s bad for the digestion and b) they don’t mind: they’re glad to see us appreciating what they have to offer. So many people don’t. French waiters are such a rude breed, don’t you think? They always seem to have kind of glassy eyes. Goodness knows what they’re like if you’re not apprec
iating what they have to offer!
And then wine. Piers believes in sending wine back as well as food. Standards have to be maintained. He doesn’t believe in serving red wines chilled in the modern fashion, no matter how new they are. And that a bottle of wine under eight francs is as worth discussing as one at thirty francs. He’s always very polite: just sends for the wine waiter to discuss the matter, but of course he doesn’t speak French, so difficulties sometimes arise. Acrimony almost. And this kind of funny silence while we leave.
And always when we paid the bill before leaving our hotel, Piers would check and re-check every item. He’s got rather short-sighted over the years: he has to use a magnifying glass. The children and I would sit waiting in the car for up to an hour while they discussed the cost of hot water and what a reasonable profit was, and why it being a fête holiday should make a difference. I do sometimes think, I admit, that Piers has a love/hate relationship with France. He loves the country; he won’t go holidaying in Italy or Spain, only France – and yet, you know, those Dégustation-Libres that have sprung up all over the place – ‘free disgustings’, as the children call them – where you taste the wine before choosing? Piers goes in, tastes everything, and if he likes nothing – which is quite often – buys nothing. That, after all, is what they are offering. Free wine-tasting. He likes me to go in with him, to taste with him, so that we can compare notes, and I watch the enthusiasm dying in the proprietor’s eyes, as he is asked to fetch first this, then that, then the other down from the top shelf, and Piers sips and raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, and then hostility dawns in the shopkeeper’s eye, and then boredom, and then I almost think something which borders on derision – and I must tell you, Miss Jacobs, I don’t like it, and in the end, whenever we passed a Dégustation-Libre and I saw the glint in his eye, and his foot went on the brake – he never looked in his mirror – there was no point, since it was always adjusted to show the car roof – I’d take another Valium – because I think otherwise I would scream, I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t love and trust and admire Piers, it was the look in the French eye—
