Charlie made no answer. She could have been talking to the sky. Did he believe in God, this man at her side? Was he a Catholic? He had never visited a church during the months since she had met him but neither had she. Yet, as a child, she and her mother were always at the local église, always present in the same pews for the Sunday-morning service. Praying, weeping for Bertrand’s safe return.
‘I had a brother. He was older than me.’ Her voice was soft and hoarse. ‘We think he was killed in the war. “Missing” was what the letter said. Did you fight, Charlie?’ She opened her eyes. The Englishman was lying beside her, back flat against the stony wild-flowered earth, staring at the heavens, watching a cloud scud by. She rolled towards him, lifted herself onto her elbows and studied his face from above. He looked so serious. ‘Did you, Charlie?’
‘What?’
‘Fight in the war? Is that why you’re in France?’
He spun his gaze towards the nature, concentrating on the hill to his left, thinking about the best spot to plant a few trees for shade and build his house. Just a simple home that he had silently dreamed he might share with Marguerite. He swung his attention back to her, those lilac eyes crawling all over him, examining him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I fought.’ She waited, wanting more. ‘My mates were killed. I was seriously injured, head messed up, unable to return to duty. Leave it now.’
‘Killed where? Here in France?’
‘Drop it, please.’
She lifted up his shirt, gently easing the cotton away from his body, exposing his flat, tanned torso. ‘Do you have scars?’ she teased, but her heart was beating fast. She felt something shift within her, an emotion she had never known before. A yielding, desire.
He watched her, in shadow against the backdrop of the sun, rays like a halo encircling her blonde head. Those agile, almost feverish features of hers piercing and puzzling as she slipped the soft, warm palm of her hand against his flesh. He let out a release of air and she began to stroke her hand back and forth. He felt his own hunger awaken and blaze within him and he raised an arm to draw her tight against him, inhaling the scent of her – ‘Oh, Marguerite’ – before he kicked his legs and rolled them both over so that she lay on her back.
‘Ouch!’ She felt a stab of thorn in her shoulder blade. A flash of uncertainty registered. She studied the man on top of her. He was handsome, this stranger from another land.
‘Your first time?’ he whispered, as he felt her body go rigid in spite of her determination to see this through.
She nodded. ‘But I want to do it, really I do.’
‘Sure?’ He scoured her features for an assent.
‘I really like you, Charlie. Please, let’s do it.’ It was a rasped command. Too late now to divulge the morning’s encounter with Katsidis, she squeezed tight her eyes. Better to get it over with. Better to do it with Charlie, her best friend, than anyone else. She wanted to be a woman who knew the secrets, craved it now, not a girl who was ignorant of passion, who was afraid when a man drew close, who didn’t know what this sex business was all about. She wanted to be able to look Katsidis in the face – equal to equal – not brave this territory of longing and passion from the wrong side of the fence, looking in from beyond a closed gate. She would learn to be ‘earthy’. She would train herself.
Charlie kissed her on the mouth and she closed her eyes, kissing him back as she had seen it done in the pictures, wiggling her head about. Then the brush of his tongue caused a rush of tingling to wash through her. She felt the expanse of his body looming over her and his proximity pleased her, thrilled her. Was this passion?
Charlie was unbuttoning her trousers and tugging them away. His hand was fidgeting with her underpants, fingers delving. It stung a bit, felt ticklish, but not horrible. He let out a moan when he slid a finger into her, which caused her to open her eyes again and study him but she as quickly shut out the image of him, fearing the desire expressed in his features. As he moved his hand, she began to experience a sensation she hadn’t known before: a melting of limbs, a moistness seeping out from within her. Without any prompting she spread her legs, felt herself go a little a faint, weak like a rag, a relaxation unfamiliar to her until he pulled aside her knickers and positioned himself, thick, hard, against her. She cried out into the soft air, the blue sky, with no one to hear as he entered her, groaning, and began to rock against her, pushing her into the hard earth. Blades of grass pressed like razors against her cheek.
It was a sacrifice given up for her art. But it was done, over with, and she was liberated. A fully-fledged woman, and it had been quite all right.
On the bus back towards the coast, they barely spoke but for perfunctory, essential exchanges about bus tickets. Marguerite’s trousers were stained green on the backside and down one leg from the herbs she had lain on and the pressure of this man, and she feared there may have been a few drops of blood but she hadn’t been able to look, not in front of Charlie. She was sure that everybody on the bus knew what had caused the stains on her clothes and was well aware of what the pair had been up to. She recalled her mother’s chiding tones when she and Bertrand had returned to their little house, muddied and unkempt, leaves in their clothes and hair from afternoons of climbing trees, wading in the river, horse-playing about the countryside.
She felt such a tangle of emotions and did not know how to handle them, how to manage all that was erupting within her. Was she falling in love? No, that couldn’t happen. Perhaps she shouldn’t have chosen Charlie for her experiment. Her initiation into passion. Perhaps she should have found someone who meant nothing to her. But, then, it wouldn’t be passion … or would it? She was so bewildered, and yet a bit of her felt warm and safe. Charlie, by contrast, was more light-hearted than she had ever known him. Humming softly, nudging against her upper arm as the bus rocked and rolled down the hills towards the summer coast. La mer. He crooned the first lines of her favourite song, grinning at her. He had attempted at several moments to hold her hand but she had swiftly withdrawn it.
‘We could go to the pictures tonight, if you fancy it? Let’s see what’s playing in Cannes or Nice.’
‘I’ve got work to do later. Big test soon,’ she replied. ‘I can’t be wasting any more time.’
‘Wasting time? But I thought –’
‘Well, don’t think. Please, Charlie, let’s not get romantic,’ she snapped.
She would resist any further flesh contact with him, for the present at any rate and quite possibly for ever. Passion, or sex at least, was a rough untidy business, she decided. It caused confusion, was best left aside and not dwelt upon, but at least she knew what it was all about now, and Katsidis would not dismiss her as a pipsqueak. She was a mature woman as of this very afternoon, an equal to all of them, and in a few days she would show Katsidis what she was made of, the woman she was, the passion with which she could imbue any scene, and he would applaud her and she would be sailing to America to a new life. Stardom. Charlie was a good, kind man, but simple. He had dreams, too, of course he did, but they were modest ones. Of flowers on hillsides. Copses and shacks. Hers were limitless. Boundless. They traversed continents.
On the Sunday, their mutual day off, Charlie invited Marguerite to revisit ‘his’ plot with him. She agreed because she wanted to make amends, to soften the unkindness she had dealt him, and because she was so agitated about the following day that she needed to keep herself occupied.
‘I’ve signed the promesse de vente for it,’ he told her proudly. She wondered how he’d earned the money. Were his family rich from their apples? Did they send him francs in an envelope? She’d never seen him receive a letter. Ever. ‘I want to walk the boundaries,’ he explained. ‘See exactly what I’ll be getting before I pay the final visit to the notaire’s office in Cabris, sign the papers and hand over the cash.’
After they left the bus, it was a fair hike in the heat to the outskirts of his territory. He was carrying a scruffy hand-drawn map, which he kept touching with his finger, glidi
ng it from one spot to the next. They had brought a picnic, which they’d made for themselves in the kitchen at Lady Jeffries’. Still, they had got off the bus in Grasse, several stops earlier, to buy some fresh baguette and some beer and cigarettes for Charlie at a tabac. The church bells were ringing in the town. They drowned the warbling of the turtle doves. She enjoyed the squares, taking time to watch the locals on their day off, many dressed in Provençal costume with white frills, strolling beneath the wide umbrella pines. It was a world away from the war years here, cooler than at the coast, and Marguerite felt more comfortable in this higher-altitude climate. As they began their walk out into the open countryside, the air was perfumed with jasmine. It was a heady, exciting scent. She was glad to be having this outing.
‘They will begin the harvest next weekend, the first in August,’ Charlie told her. ‘I’ve signed up to lend a hand. Saturdays and Sundays, all day.’
‘What about your work for Lady Jeffries?’
‘I’ll be leaving there shortly,’ he returned softly. ‘I spoke about it to her ladyship yesterday, explained that I’m moving on to begin my own life. She agreed that it is the best choice for me. I think she knows that …’ he mumbled inaudibly, and his words faded away as he footballed a stone from under his boot.
The fields were white with the unfolding stellular blossoms of the jasmine, as though a blizzard had passed that way. Acres and acres of tiny stars. Charlie paused to breathe in the scent and to dream of his own future there. ‘My land will produce the same,’ he said. ‘I intend to specialize in jasmine.’
Marguerite didn’t know whether he was talking to himself or to her. Her mind was on more selfish matters. She regretted her heartless dismissal of him the other evening, and she wanted him to know it, but she could not utter the words to broach their physical act of the other day. And what was she going to do without Charlie? It had never occurred to her that he might be the first to depart. She had taken it for granted that he would be there for her, to support and encourage her, until she had taken those first essential steps on the ladder of fame. She had also taken it for granted that when she left for America, as she was sure she would, and possibly very soon with Katsidis, the final separation between her and Charlie would be a natural step for both to take. It would be painless for them. But what if she could not live without Charlie? What if she pined for him? She was fond of him and getting fonder but she had never taken a good look at what he meant to her deep down. And now she was losing him.
‘A penny for them,’ he said to her, hiking the strap of his shoulder bag, which contained their cheeses and meats and a bottle of local red wine.
‘Do you know when you’ll go?’
He shook his head. ‘As soon as the documents have been completed.’
‘Where will you live till you build your house?’
‘I’ll work up here for one of the flower producers, learn the trade. Growing from seed, bedding in young plants, pruning, pest control, harvesting. He’ll give me board and I’ll prepare my own land in the evenings and at weekends. I’ll erect a shack, a temporary abode, live there until I have the business up and running, then build myself a modest house. My needs are not great.’
He had given this a great deal of thought, without ever discussing it in detail with her, his closest friend. She was crestfallen, a little miserable. ‘I’ll miss you, Charlie.’
He threw back his head as though laughing but there was a burning in his eyes, almost of anger. ‘The film festival is in six weeks. Two weeks later, it will be over. Your famous man will be sailing back to America and, as you have made clear to us all, you’ll be going with him.’
‘He hasn’t exactly promised me a passage yet.’
‘But he will.’ Charlie turned away from the wall at the edge of the field where the stones were warm from the heat of the morning sun and, hands in pockets, began to trudge the length of the dusty lane. Marguerite held back, watching his shirted silhouette, pondering how life would be without him. Facing the future alone. She sure as hell hoped she wasn’t falling in love.
Kurtiz, London, Summer 2012
The sun was shining on this first anniversary day. A kind of mockery for all the days that had been counted, survived through. Kurtiz was driving over to Hampstead to pick up a book she had ordered from Daunt’s. It was Saturday on Heath Street, and crowds were milling up and down the pavements and massed outside the hillside cafés. She had forgotten how busy the village became at weekends. She rarely drove this way now, hating to pass the Royal Free Hospital where Lizzie had been born. People holding glasses were spilling out of the pubs, engaged in chatter and laughter. A day of leisure. She was in a queue of cars, stopping, starting, attempting to find somewhere to park. Glancing from one side of the street to the other, hoping for a space, for another car to signal its departure.
It was then that the two girls, arm in arm, backs to her, caught her attention. One glanced in her direction, beckoning and laughing. It was Angela Fox. A third adolescent joined the pair. So dumbstruck was Kurtiz that she almost drove into the rear of the preceding car. Someone hooted violently. She lowered the window. Yes, it was Angela. Definitely. With Lizzie. Oh, my God. LIZZIE. And a third: a black-haired teenager was approaching.
Was it Lizzie? She couldn’t be sure – she had to pull over.
Kurtiz slewed to the left, jammed on the brakes, exasperated by the lack of opportunities to dump the wretched car. Damn it! ‘Angie!’ she yelled. ‘Lizzie!’ She switched off the engine, fumbled for her keys. The door opening caused another to swerve. Cars hooted. Drivers and pedestrians cursed her lack of caution. She sprinted across the street.
The girls were waving to someone inside one of the coffee bars. No tables free outside. Backs to her, they hadn’t spotted her. She pushed her way towards them. Jenny Fox, blonde, svelte, expensively presented, was seated at a table for four. She was signalling to her daughter and friends. Kurtiz lunged forward and grabbed Angela and Lizzie by the shoulders. ‘Lizzie!’
Angela and her friends swung about, frowning. Vexation on their faces for the violent hand.
‘Oh, hi, Kurtiz.’
Kurtiz looked from one to the other. Angela’s two companions were strangers to her. One, light-haired, almost sandy-toned. The other darker. She stared from one to the other. How Angela had grown, developed over a year. She was wearing make-up. Quite pretty. Not like Lizzie … But this wasn’t Lizzie. Not Lizzie. At such close range, the teenage girl didn’t even vaguely resemble her daughter. How could she have … ‘Sorry … I …’
The girls stared awkwardly, a little fearfully. Wide-eyed, not daring to move.
‘You okay, Kurtiz? You look a bit … Mum’s over there, if you’d like to say hello.’
‘I … I …’
Jenny, at her table, smartphone to her ear, was glaring, open-mouthed.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Mrs Ross?’ one of the girls suggested.
She shook her head, gave a brief wave. More a lifting of the arm. ‘I … I j-just wanted to say hello. How’s – how’s school?’
Angela nodded. She swung a glance back to her mother, who was now rising from the table and approaching.
‘Nice to see you,’ mouthed Kurtiz. ‘I’d better …’ and she stumbled back into the glaring sun, the crowded street, head bent, tears blinding her.
Unexpectedly, a hand reached gently for her upper arm. ‘Kurtiz?’
She lifted her head.
‘Do you want a drink? The girls are fine on their own. We could pop across to the pub … I’ve been meaning to call.’
‘Jenny. No, I’m … badly parked. I’ll get a ticket … towed away … I – I just …’
Jenny studied her with roving, pitying eyes. ‘Look, I’m sorry about Oliver …’ she began.
‘What about him?’
‘Oliver and …’ A frown crossed Jenny’s features. She appeared to be examining Kurtiz, with surprise or puzzlement. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while, you know that, don
’t you? Not since before Lizzie disa–’
‘Disappeared? Yes, we … It was her birthday last week. She’s seventeen.’
Jenny dropped her gaze. She patted at her slacks, desiring a cigarette. Her bag was on the table in the café. ‘Are you all right? I mean … Jesus, I truly hope you and Oliver are finding a way through all this. I wanted to call, to offer to … I don’t know … help, do something, but … I am so very sorry, you know, for everything.’ Jenny leaned forward and gave her an awkward hug, then disappeared back into the dark well of the coffee bar. When Kurtiz turned to the street, a clamp was on her wheel and a pick-up truck was readying for the tow.
Marguerite and Charlie, La Côte d’Azur, 1947
Marguerite sat in the reception area, scratching her knees with her chewed fingernails. She had painted her toenails and it pleased her to gaze at the small beads of scarlet that looked fine through the open-toed canvas sandals for which she had paid three francs at the Cannes market two days earlier. Her hair was curled and looked quite fancy, her face perfectly made up, lips red and bow-shaped, eyes ringed with kohl. Her chemise was cut low; it hugged her skinny frame, exposing the outline of her rosebud breasts. On the afternoon they had made love, Charlie had told her that her breasts were like ‘rosebuds’. May roses, the most perfect of all blossoms. She liked that. She mustn’t think about Charlie and his leaving, not now.
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