Philippe listened politely, then went and proposed the salary he had had in mind. We were not told how much that was. Josée, unlike the men, showed her pleasure and became devoted to his interests.
On the morning of the great day, friends, notables, everyone connected with the Company including drivers’ wives were invited to a vin d’honneur on the bus lot. The big Panhard, the handsomest of the string, decked out with blue and white ribbons was launched by Oriane breaking a bottle of champagne over its bonnet (my mother’s bet had not been taken on) as it was slowly driven by Philippe himself on to the road and its first trip Sanary–Toulon–Sanary. The other six followed at intervals each with a full complement of festive occupants. The Company had offered free rides for the entire day to every inhabitant of Sanary. It was amazing to find how many people had business to transact that day at Ollioules, La Seyne and Toulon.
Each bus was accompanied by a friend on its first journey, a sort of godfather or mother seated next to the driver. I had been allotted Bus No 6, and was therefore in a position to witness the first dilemma faced by the Desmirail line. As we approached the bus stop – new as paint – at La Seyne, we found a largish crowd waiting to try out the transport that had been widely advertised in Le Petit Var and on Louis’s posters. When they found that there wasn’t even standing room, they became offensive. The free-riding Sanaryans snug inside the bus laughed and jeered. There had been the previous vin d’honneur. The frustrated crowd responded, the youths inside asked for nothing better and it looked as if a fine bagarre was to erupt. Just before it came to blows, two sensible men first blocked, then pulled shut the entrance door and shouted to the driver to be off. This he did, followed by jeers and threats.
Bus No 7 ran into a similar fate. The prospects of the Compagnie des Transports du Littoral didn’t bear too much thinking about.
Next day the donkey-man called at Les Cyprès to leave three neatly shaped strips of pasteboard inscribed with our respective names. They were passes for free travel on the CTL. A covering word from Philippe expressed his hope that these might be of some small service to his friends.
I do not quite know what had made me tell my family on arrival that I would stay for one month only. Some instinct must have come into it that it was time for me to stop being bundled about and exercise my own choice instead (as well as an instinct for some detachment from Oriane?), but then my choice was staying at Sanary, not in London which I had ceased to love. I had liked my work there – if giving improvised language lessons can be called work – had liked the sense of independence (and self-importance?) it had given me, and I fancied it my duty not to let my pupils down. No illusion of being indispensable: merely the facts that I had entered an implicit contract to get them to a certain stage, that they or their parents would be inconvenienced having to make a change, that I was getting them somewhere (my own love of French playing a part). It was nice having a little more money: not having to depend at the end of the month on the punctuality of the trustees’ cheque, buying more books, drinking better wines in Soho with Rosie. So I had told my pupils that I would be back after a month of extended Christmas holidays, then take them on for three months more.
To my mother I said I would be back at Sanary in April, if that was convenient. She took it nicely: I must do what I thought best – by the way, was I working on my interpreter’s exam next year? indirectly, I said – she would miss me, I should think of Les Cyprès as my home and could still change my mind about leaving. I was pleased with that, and with myself for a show of independence. Or was it a pig-headed whim?
I sometimes wonder whether my staying on that winter would have made any difference. It is an uneasy thought. Yet I cannot really believe that my presence would have had an influence on events. True, I might have been a companion to Alessandro who did not like doing things on his own – he had just been given a third commission, a villa to convert at Le Lavandou (the Wall Street crash had not much affected affluent Europeans yet) – while my mother was tied to decorating the place above Bandol; but then I can reflect that Alessandro and I had spent time on our own before and look at the results.
Between the bus launch and my own departure, Doris von R. reappeared well announced this time by post. Paul’s, her fiancé’s, divorce was dragging its slow course with no prospect of their getting married before late summer or the autumn; she, Doris, was recovering from a bout of flu, Paul thought it would be good for her to spend some months in a warm climate rather than hang about in freezing Berlin: he was taking a few days off to bring her South, and would explain everything himself. She was sure that we would like him and she hoped we’d like the idea of having her live near us for some time.
They arrived (by train and wagon-lit), she looking as much like a waif, though a cherished waif, as ever. Paul, lover and protector, the architect who wasn’t a philistine although he built department stores, turned out to be a tall blond Jew with a charming careworn face, looking older than his age which was the early forties. We booked them into the Hôtel de la Plage which kept one floor open during the dead season. He was able to spend only two days, and did indeed a good deal of explaining, closeted with my mother.
The weather was exceptionally fine – blue, wind-still days – Alessandro, Doris and I spent the late morning hours in one of Sanary’s most sheltered winter corners, Schwob’s outdoor terrace, absorbing the sun, talking little, glancing through newspapers, looking at the sea, drinking innocent things like grenadine and vermouth-cassis. I was having serious second thoughts about going to London.
Paul meanwhile was telling my mother that Doris’s health needed watching, just watching – after all her mother had died of TB at just about her age. There was no question of that with Doris, so far she was just delicate, as we could see. She had been seriously under-nourished as a child during the war, and poorly fed afterwards in the pension years. Yes, the pension was closed down – after a fashion, Paul explained – Grandmammerl was staying on in the flat to which she was attached, as she was to Berlin, she belonged there and too old to change, that’s why he had not dragged her here. Nor was she left rattling on her own in a large empty place, it had been arranged that she kept on one or two of her lodgers, the ones she liked most.
Paying lodgers? my mother asked.
Not regularly, perhaps, Paul said with a smile. Nor should young Doris be left on her own, she was no good at looking after herself. Berlin was not the right place for her at present, too many rackety friends, late hours, too many night clubs … It was the life she was used to. Poor girl she’d never had much of a chance. All that would be different when he could look after her properly. What she needed now was warmth, some feeding up, no snacks at three a.m., and someone to keep an eye on her.
My mother apparently said she would.
His wife, Paul told her, had offered to take Doris on a cruise or to winter sports. She was a very nice woman, she liked Doris, they got on. Civilised. He was a lucky man. However, it wouldn’t do – the divorce for one thing if it came out … and his wife, here he smiled again, did have other commitments.
In the evening we all tried to decide where Doris had better live. My mother proposed at Les Cyprès with us, it would be nice, she said, to have something young in the house.
Alessandro and I avoided looking at each other, something we often thought wise to do.
Paul thanked her but thought it would be better if Doris stayed entirely independent. Alessandro knew of a small house nearby which it would not be beyond the wit of man to heat adequately. Again Doris let Paul speak for her. She was not domestically inclined he said, hadn’t even cooked a breakfast in her life. Besides starving, keeping house would be no fun for her – what she liked, and hadn’t had much of – unless you counted the grandmother’s pension – was hotel life. And so it was to be: a sunny front room was booked for Doris at the Hôtel de la Plage, she could eat there or with us as she felt like. Having just devoured Emilia’s dinner, Paul agreed. He tried to express h
is admiration of her cookery; as he had no Italian and poor French, my mother relayed the compliments to Emilia. She received them with dignity. Signor, she said and gave him a slight smile. (He was a man who exuded kindness and strength.) He went on to say how much Doris looked forward to future enjoyment of Emilia’s delicious food. Again my mother translated. Emilia’s face closed. A clipped Sì, Signora, and not a glance at Doris.
I hoped that this passed unobserved by our guests. Emilia approved and disapproved in a mysterious way.
Some practical questions remained. Paul wanted to leave her with plenty of money – to be able to buy clothes, to go over to Villefranche or Nice where there might be friends. A bank account? She wouldn’t be able to manage one. Cash in the hotel safe? She’d manage that even less. He’d better leave it all with my mother – Doris said that would be all right. Paul was about to produce manilla envelopes, my mother had the blessed sense to say, You’d better leave the money and the bills to Alessandro. Doris again concurred.
Then the men discussed how to get Doris’s Chrysler roadster to the South of France, as Paul felt she would like to have her car. Some reliable tourist to drive it down? Shipment by train – not easy in those days, with a frontier and all. They hoped to find a way before long.
When Paul left – greatly relieved, he said, to be leaving his dear girl in my mother’s hands – he and Doris took a taxi to the station so as to have their goodbyes on their own. We all said how much we had taken to him, and how devoted they were to each other.
On that morning I had a letter from Rosie Falkenheim. Some details about Upper Gloucester Place no doubt – oh dear. I put the letter in my pocket. I opened it after luncheon. Rosie did not express herself particularly well on paper, her letters were understated, brief, one got their gist. When I had read this one, I showed it to my mother. She said two things, Women, how they carry on, most of them don’t seem to know how to run a marriage. The second, This, dear girl, is a cry for help.
From me? I said. How could I help?
‘You can’t. I should have said, a cry for the illusion of help. It often comes to the same. Unburdening oneself … A new witness arriving on the scene … Perhaps your friend, I mean the obstinate one, may even be waiting for someone to jolt her out of her folly.’
‘You haven’t met Toni.’
‘Real help is usually unlikely,’ said my mother.
What had been in Rosie’s letter simply was that Toni had forbidden Jamie to go on seeing Finchingfield, or rather she had put an ultimatum: he must choose between her and those people. It wasn’t clear what that choice involved, except that Toni would not put foot into the Essex cottage as long as Jamie had not renounced the visits to his friends. The letter ended, ‘Now Jamie is digging in his heels, not that I blame him, he is selfish, but you shouldn’t make a man look a fool. Unless something stops Toni soon, they are both headed for a great deal of misery.’ A postscript said, ‘It would be good to have you back, I hope you haven’t changed your plans and we can expect you on the twenty-third.’
‘What is so wrong with Finchingfield?’ my mother said, ‘It can’t be just those games?’
‘It is. Her not being good at them … She’s convinced she is superior, they take no account of her – it’s all a matter of hurt intellectual pride,’ I said, feeling I’d hit the nail on the head.
Oriane put herself out persuading me to stay. ‘You can’t miss the house-warming, our crémaillère.’ This was to be on a day in mid-March which happened to be my birthday. In the end she relented, ‘We’ll give a party for your twenty-firster instead. In two years’ time? That’s a promise.’ (It was one she kept.)
2
But I had not hit the nail on the head. When I arrived in London I found that matters had got worse, much worse. There was no longer an ultimatum; for Jamie no more choice. The question was not Toni putting a foot into Essex but Jamie putting his into their London flat. Toni had asked him to leave.
Rosie was calling her sister a mad woman and her brother-in-law a fool. I had not unpacked yet: what had been happening?
‘Jamie’s been having an affair with Cynthia.’
‘Oh.’ Cynthia was a Finchingfield habituée, a young woman I rather liked. ‘Oh. Why?’
Rosie exploded. ‘Why do people have affairs? You should have asked why it hasn’t happened earlier: Jamie is an attractive man … given Toni’s attitude …’
‘But is it … is it serious?’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t have thought so for a minute. Toni does.’
‘She knows?’
‘She knows.’
‘Oh my God.’ Then, ‘How did she find out?’
‘In one of the oldest ways. Basically there are three: the well-meaning friend, finding a letter, confession. The first two may be odious but the third is the most culpable because it’s so stupid.’
‘You mean Jamie …?’
‘Yes. He did.’
‘How could he?’
‘He was very down-hearted about that ban on Finchingfield. I don’t believe that Cynthia thing started before then. It might of course and in that case Toni acted on instinct, but I don’t think so. Well, he defied the ultimatum, he thought Toni was being unreasonable, and went on seeing his friends at the weekend. Toni stuck to her not coming to Essex and was icy to him in London. Finchingfield – they are bright people – saw that Jamie had been put into an intolerable position, they sympathised … A little feminine sympathy can go a long way … It can be consoling – among other things. I’m being a realist: an affair must have been quite a change for him. So now he had one more reason for not giving up Finchingfield. Hung for a sheep …’
I tried to take it in.
‘So far so bad. Then Jamie must go and have flu. During the week. In London. Bad flu. Toni looks after him, worries, gets the doctor in, does all the right things. Jamie is touched by her nursing – he must have longed for all to be well again between them. They are fond of each other – deeply. So he tells her he will cut down on Finchingfield, not all at once, he can’t drop A.J., and – you won’t believe this – there is someone else, he told her, he can’t hurt by an abrupt break, it would be so rude: he’s done something he feels awfully sorry about and hopes Toni will understand and forgive, as she doesn’t set much store by such things herself.
‘And indeed at first my dear sister didn’t have an idea what her husband was talking about. So Jamie spelt it out: he’d been having this affair with Cynthia and it doesn’t mean anything and he won’t do anything like it again but Toni must see that he can’t just walk out on Cynthia from one minute to the next.’
‘He must have been delirious.’
‘He was running a temperature. Look at it this way: he was feeling low, he was feeling guilty all round, he was feeling fond … Wanted to eat his cake and have it.’
‘I always thought Jamie was such an intelligent man.’
‘Oh intelligence,’ Rosie said.
I girded myself for the crucial point.
‘Toni didn’t say a word. Nursed him for two more days. When he was fit to get up, she told him to leave.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Jamie was shattered. He didn’t know what to begin to do, he couldn’t believe it. Toni stayed silent. It was morning and as he was dressed, he decided he might as well go out to work. At the door Toni said to him, “You haven’t packed. You ought to take at least one suitcase now, the rest can be sent on later.” “Well, if you won’t have your things tonight it will be your fault.”’
Jamie went to his office and somehow got through the day. At teatime he took a bus home. He let himself in with his key. Toni hadn’t put up the catch or had the lock changed or anything of that kind. When she heard him, she appeared at the top of the staircase, the dog bounding down, she said, ‘I told you you were not to come back.’ She said it in such a way that he pushed the dog in, and left.
�
��Yes,’ Rosie said, ‘she hadn’t locked him out, he didn’t attempt an entrance – it must have been a matter of her will. He came straight here.’
‘How long ago was that?’
‘The day before yesterday.’
After she had given him some tea, made him lie down, seen him into an hotel, she had gone to her sister.
Toni had been calm, monosyllabic, stonily determined.
‘Determined to what?’
‘Ruin her own and Jamie’s life, I should say.’
And this is how things stood on my arrival. They did not stand still. Next day Jamie received a letter at his office. In reasonable language Toni wrote that it would not be right for her to stay on in the mews flat as it had been lent to Jamie by his American patron, she would therefore leave it as soon as she found a place to live in. It would be helpful if Jamie would give her an indication as to the rent she would be able to afford. She was leaving all future arrangements to him. Perhaps he would also advise her about an inexpensive lawyer; lawyers, she supposed, were indispensable for the divorce. There were unlikely to be any points of disagreement, perhaps they might be able to manage with one only? She had complete confidence that Jamie would be honourable in the necessary financial dealings. She signed herself, Yours, Toni.
‘Divorce?’ Jamie said to Rosie and me, ‘she hasn’t mentioned divorce before.’
‘She was taking it for granted,’ said Rosie.
* * *
To me Rosie said she would like to shake her but would try reason again … For the third time. Alas she knew her too well.
She came back defeated. Toni would say nothing beyond: He is in the wrong. His fault. He must pay for it. I cannot remain married, I’m divorcing him, I have no choice.
Jigsaw Page 27
