A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  When she did leave Mme Fournier was on the front door-step. Flavia thanked her. “Now you promise to come again?” “I will.” “To meet our young people.” “The young people?”

  As Flavia was about to trot down the drive she told herself, the world is not full of bugbears. Next moment she nearly tripped over her espadrilles, the lacing had got undone; as she was stopping to tie it again she heard Mme Fournier’s voice, always strident, from inside.

  “First time that thing’s been of some use!”

  And his voice now, too, angry and loud, “Rosette—one day I will strangle you.”

  “Unless you have a stroke first, cher.”

  “One thing, I’m not going to help you use that girl.”

  “Suit yourself. I don’t think I’m going to need you.”

  2.

  For Flavia these were social days. Days of social thin ice. Or not? There was no one to ask. One evening Loulou had arrived. He looked almost exactly (had kept up looking?) like the full-length self-portrait of some twelve years ago. The stance, so rugged, so burly, so male, little-boy male; the scrubbed primary coloured clothes, the cotton trousers with the buckled belt, the brilliant shirt, the rolled up sleeves. And the head, the solid round head with the thick short hair, the smooth round face with the innocent look, the sturdy look, the poet’s look—the sad, slanting eyes.

  He seized Flavia by the shoulders and shook her, looked into her face and bellowed, “So that’s the little girl who reads Voltaire at the bistro.”

  She grinned at him. She felt, it did happen to her with strangers, immediate sympathy: she liked him.

  Loulou charged up to each new arrival, thumping and hugging in a demonstrative greeting. That over, the vitality seemed to go flat; he remained a center, yet had little else to say. Good to see you, Loulou—Tell us, Loulou—Well then, Loulou——

  Dinner was served. The host filled glasses, made a show with the carving things, held out his plate. Flavia saw that he ate and drank very little.

  “How was Cap-Ferrat?”

  “Hot.”

  “How was Venice?”

  “Hotter.”

  “How is Fabrice?”

  “Bearing up.”

  “How is Marie-Rose?”

  “Carrying on.”

  “Have you finished her?”

  Loulou made a gesture, “Finished . . . Who ever does? Except that fellow Van Dongen.”

  “But you sold it, Loulou?”

  “Sold it. The viscount paid in advance.”

  Therese said, “He brought the photographs, c’est une belle toile.”

  Paul said, “She’s right, it’s a good Loulou, even a spectacular Loulou.”

  “Oh shut up,” Loulou said. His own words were taisez-vous, which was more gentle and sad.

  Flavia, in two or three minds, looked on. The painter—? L’uomo simpatico—? Therese’s husband—? What do married people tell each other? Is it . . . am I, worth telling about? What does he know, what does he think? What does she think for that matter? Is it better or worse or nothing because I am a woman? Here they are—their words, their faces, but what, oh what, goes on behind people’s skulls? And here are my words and face.

  “Yes, thank you. I will, thank you. Go to Toulon to the bal musette? All of us? Too late? Yes, oh no, I’d love to.”

  “Loulou is tired,” Therese said.

  “No more than usual—we’re all tired—the whole world is tired. Not that one,” he pointed at Flavia, “that’s not her problem yet.”

  Manners are supposed to help carry things off. But what kind of manners? What is the code? Is there a code for this? Constanza says that the novel plays such a part in shaping social behaviour. Perhaps the novel has not caught up?

  “What are you giggling about, Flavia?”

  “Aspects of the novel.”

  They went in two cars, Giles’ and Therese’s, Loulou’s Buick being turned down as too showy for the quarter. But the Bugatti is even longer, said Flavia, look at the bonnet. That’s all right they told her, everyone loves a sports car.

  Loulou danced twice with Flavia, once with Therese and twice with Jeannine and sat down for good after that; Flavia danced also with Giles, with Paul and with Therese who was able to show the steps. Therese danced also with Bobbie and Paul; but most of the time the women in their party danced with the men who between dances stood watching against the wall. Many of them were sailors.

  Therese had explained the rule here that a girl must either accept to dance with everyone who asked her or not get up at all. The band was two accordions and the tunes were chaloupes and javas valsées, penetrating, jerky, fast, and they were danced with extreme devotion and virtuosity. The dancers did not speak. The place smelt of caporal tobacco and hot light bulbs. There were a few wooden tables and benches and those who occupied them drank diabolo, white wine clouded with crème de menthe. The men against the wall drank little or nothing, and the most serious devotees danced chiefly with one another. Therese was much sought; one time the other couples stopped and fell back, and she and her partner, a slight man with a pock-marked face, received a solemn ovation.

  On their way home they first dropped Jeannine. Loulou flung his arms about her and kissed her lovingly on the mouth. “Ah, la belle fille——”

  “Hurry up, Loulou,” Paul said, “we still have Bobbie and Flavia.”

  On her own doorstep Flavia, relieved to know the form, returned Loulou’s kiss with pleasure. Turning away she called, “Ah, le beau garçon——”

  •

  For the second time that month Flavia slept late. When she got to her desk she saw that it would not do; it was not an essay day but at that rate there would no essay to write; she had not done her week’s reading. She cut out her morning bathe, cut down her luncheon to minutes, stuck to work till the end of the afternoon (Concentrate, Don’t stop: if Michel can do his kind of reading in an open car in the street . . .). She could not keep from the house on the bay but went late for a brief evening swim and, elated with resolution, left soon after dinner. Loulou saw her to the gate. He did not kiss her good night. It flashed through her, He only kisses in public.

  By the end of the next day Flavia had caught up with her work.

  •

  “Where are they? Where’s Loulou?”

  “Loulou is trying to paint.”

  “Trying——?” said Flavia.

  “They’ve had a row,” said Jeannine.

  “Oh.”

  “Therese doesn’t want him to go off to paint the Belgian ambassador’s wife.”

  “Belgian minister’s wife,” said Giles.

  “Don’t spoil Loulou’s fun.”

  “Why doesn’t she want him to?”

  “For one thing she thinks he needs a rest and the children will be very disappointed.”

  “And the second thing?”

  Jeannine shrugged.

  Giles said, “The whole set-up is not for her.”

  “Loulou wants her to go with him,” said Jeannine.

  “Can you see her?”

  “Therese could go anywhere,” said Flavia.

  “Indeed,” said Giles. “Anywhere she wants to. She doesn’t want to.”

  “Loulou is a very attractive man—he is, isn’t he?”

  “Giles laughed. “How would I know? Don’t you know for yourself, Flavia?”

  “Oh, I do think so, I want to know if he’s considered so?”

  “He is considered so,” said Jeannine.

  “By the Belgian minister’s wife?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “And is he . . . fond of her?”

  “Loulou’s fond of everyone.”

  “You mean, not really fond?”

  “Quite.”

  “Except Therese,” said Jeannine.

  “Ah, yes, except Therese.”

  “So it isn’t that she . . . objects to?”

  “Therese and Loulou,” said Giles “have been married a long time. The
y understand each other.”

  “I see,” said Flavia. Presently she said, “Then why did they have a row?”

  “She thinks it’s bad for him to go up there, the North, he really hates that country——”

  “The country of his youth,” said Jeannine.

  “But he was born in Rumania—Larousse says so? I thought that is why his long name ends in ov.”

  “His father and mother immigrated when he was two. They came to France to find work.”

  “In a cable factory and the mines.”

  “Did Loulou wish they’d come and settled here in the Midi instead?”

  “They would have starved in the Midi.”

  “Are his parents alive?”

  “Very nicely set up, thanks to Therese.”

  “And now he goes back to paint the Belgian ambassador?”

  “Therese feels that it’s, well, unnecessary.”

  “At any rate she wants him to work less hard.”

  “To work less. She thinks they don’t need all that money.”

  “But she spends it,” Jeannine said. “Therese is insanely generous.”

  “But she doesn’t like money and she doesn’t like him to like it. She doesn’t want Loulou to want the things he wants: for her it’s a weakness, Therese is a moralist.”

  “A moralist somewhat disguised,” said Jeannine.

  “Not an obvious one, but mark you, Flavia, a moralist.”

  “Yes,” Flavia said, “a moralist at the core—I think I know someone else like that.”

  “You must have had a full life?”

  “Oh, I suppose in a way I had.”

  •

  “Therese, I went to a party last night.”

  Therese absently but kindly said, “Good.”

  “A soirée: young people, dozens of them.”

  “Very good.”

  “There was peach cup—that was very good; and we played guessing games and I won three times and later on they rolled up the carpet—figuratively—we just went out on the terrace and turned on the gramophone and danced.”

  “You enjoyed that, coco?”

  “Quite.”

  •

  “Therese, I’m going dancing again tonight.”

  “Splendid.”

  “I’ve taken to it.”

  “What, coco?”

  “Dancing. It’s conducive to thought.”

  Therese let that pass. Then, waking to responsibility, “You are not going dancing in Toulon?”

  “Nothing like it. I told you—paper-games first, young people, students, they’re all going to be professors and head-mistresses the day after tomorrow.”

  •

  These members of her own generation, give a few years, were undeniably pleasant, serious, clever. A long chalk from resort children. A long chalk, also, it would appear from their aunt, Rosette Fournier. There were the agronomist nephew and his wife who was already a schoolmarm, two younger brothers, one having finished his philo, the other his service militaire, a niece who was at the Sorbonne and her fiancé reading economics at the University of Rennes. They were staying in the house and were joined almost daily by a number of their friends on holiday on the coast.

  Articulate, easy to be with; filled with ideas and knowledge; nor could anyone say that they were a bad-looking lot, the young men got their sunburn, the girls were pretty and well-turned out. Surely they must be interesting? Flavia enjoyed the paper-games and, as she had said, the dancing; she went nearly as often as she was asked (better not hang about too much in the house on the bay); she enjoyed the company. . . moderately. Not one of them struck her fire. Recently we have been learning that young animals, puppy dogs, even a giraffe, brought up exclusively by humans will be unable later on to identify themselves or establish emotional contact with their own species. Thus Flavia was unable to feel a sense of kinship with people who were not decisively older than herself, who were not real grownups as she still called them.

  On one occasion she caught her host’s eye. He responded. “It’s still here. I keep it locked up these days.”

  “You think I might——?”

  “Slip out? Come along then. No, I tell you what, I am going to show you the place where I hide the key. Then you can go by yourself whenever you want to.”

  “How kind,” she said, “how kind people are trusting me with their keys.”

  So sometimes she would sit out a dance or two by herself in the outhouse, by the Gironde, by the Garonne, in the Haut-Médoc, the Graves, Entre-Deux-Mers. She wondered if her father had ever been there? really been there, in the flesh?

  •

  One night after shuffling absently through a foxtrot, Flavia was walked a few steps into the garden by her partner and given a kiss, she quite cheerfully accepting this custom of the country. Bocca bacciata non perde ventura. . . .

  Two dances later (had word got round?) another partner, it was the philosophy brother—or could it be the soldier brother?—kissed her. Unlike Loulou, this young man did not stop but began to kiss again. Flavia stepped back smartly. In a clear voice she said, “What’s all that about?”

  The young man faltered, but managed, “If you’ll only let me show you——”

  Flavia looked at him, but it was too dark for him to see her face: she had to add, “What do you think you are doing?”

  “Eh bien—I thought—I——”

  “You don’t want to go to bed with me?” Flavia continued in ringing tones.

  The young man faltered again.

  “No, you don’t. You hardly know me, you know nothing about me, you don’t like me enough. I don’t like you enough.”

  The young man had recovered enough to sulk. “Oh—L’amour.”

  “We are not talking about l’amour,” Flavia said, keeping the stern face he could not see. “I’m talking about liking people, liking them enough to be friends. Going to bed with one’s friends doesn’t matter; but one’s got to be friends.”

  “Quite a speech,” he said.

  “I’m not unsurprised myself.”

  The young man said, “You are a funny sort of girl.”

  Flavia still wonderfully cool, said, “That’s as may be. Now if you wanted to sleep with someone just to find out about it, I can understand that, but surely you are . . . beyond that stage?”

  For the first time, the boy laughed, “You’re right there.”

  “So why don’t you go and find a girl you really like and who likes you very much.” She added kindly, “It shouldn’t be difficult for you, you are good-looking, aren’t you? There are plenty of pretty girls just now, the beaches are full of them.”

  •

  “I was out dancing again last night.”

  “Did you enjoy yourself, coco?”

  “I did rather. I found I had a code.”

  “What did you say?”

  “A code of behaviour.”

  “You are hopeless. But what were you doing?”

  “Dancing at the Fourniers.”

  “The Fourniers? Have you been going there?”

  “About three times a week. But you knew?”

  “You didn’t say so.”

  “You didn’t ask me.”

  “I don’t ask you where you are going, coco,” Therese said.

  “True enough,” said Flavia. “Anything wrong with my going to the Fourniers?”

  “None of my business.”

  “But you don’t like it?”

  Therese admitted as much.

  “He isn’t so bad, you know, I could tell you something about him——”

  Therese dismissed them, “Ce sont des bourgeois.”

  There were too many angles to that. Flavia remained silent.

  Presently Therese said, “Come out in the boat with me.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the mistral?”

  “There won’t be mistral. We are going to the islands.”

  “A picnic?”


  “We’ll take one.”

  “The boys will like that.”

  “The boys are not going.”

  “Who is going?”

  “You and I.”

  •

  It was a clear day. They sailed, they landed, swam from rocks in clear water. They found a place in the shade to take their bread, fruit and wine.

  “Does anyone come to this island?”

  “Only the shepherd and not this time of the year.”

  The afternoon was hot and still; timeless. Flavia said, “Epoi non se muove.”

  Therese said, “Comme j’aime ce pays.”

  Presently Flavia said, “I did miss you so.” Therese said kindly, “So did I, mon coco.” And added, “Don’t worry about things, there is nothing to worry about.”

  “Very well then, I shan’t.” To herself she said, I trust you. And then, quietly, intensely, “I do like you, Therese, I like you very much.”

  Therese touched Flavia’s cheek. “T’es un brave cœur.”

  Oddly moved, oddly comforted, Flavia said, “Oh, I do hope so.”

  They saw the sky. Time to go? They went into the sea once more, then ate the last of the fruit. As Therese untied the boat, Flavia said, “I would like to come back here.”

  Therese said, “Oh, you will.”

  •

  “Loulou has put off his journey.” The engine was on now and they were running smoothly towards the mainland.

  “He is not going to Belgium?”

  “He is going to stay here for a while.”

  “Oh, Therese, I am glad. That was what you wanted, isn’t it?”

  “He needs the rest.”

  “Will he do a . . . still-life?”

  “Possibly. One doesn’t ask Loulou about his work.”

  “Therese—I am fond of Loulou.”

  “He likes you, too.”

  “Up to a point?”

  “Oh, you know what Loulou is, he needs a hundred people.”

  Presently Flavia said, “Doesn’t he come out with you, doesn’t he come to the island?”

  “He’s never been out in the boat. He hates the sea. Some people do.”

  “The boys don’t, they’re going to be sailors. Do they mean the navy or having their own fishing-boat?”

  “At the moment Pierrot wants to be captain of a transatlantic liner and the twins are going to be purser and head steward.”