“No one is being hurt.”
She didn’t answer.
“Cheer up.”
She shivered.
“What is it?”
“The goose walking over my grave.”
“It will be all right,” Oscar said. “I’ll take you to the cinema.”
The telephone calls did something to the atmosphere. They washed and changed but did not touch as they crossed and recrossed the bedroom. Oscar could not get the image of Daisy, glued to the TV screen, out of his mind.
“I should be doing the evening surgery now,” Marie-Céleste said as she pulled a black sweater over her head. When they woke the following morning the pall of conscience had dissipated for both of them.
“I’ll take you for a drive,” Oscar said, “Monte Carlo.”
They took the coast road.
“So many jewels,” Marie-Céleste said, “and you drive so beautifully, my Oscar.”
He looked at the colours surrounding them as he negotiated the bends, sapphire, emerald, topaz, lapis, all twinkling in the sun. He knew Karen was nervous when he drove. It impaired his performance. Beside Marie-Céleste he was a giant.
They got no further than Villefranche when Marie-Céleste declared herself hungry.
“My God! I don’t know where you put it all,” Oscar said, looking at her skinny frame and his own waistline.
“I could eat a horse.”
“Let’s hope you won’t have to.”
They left the car in a little square where parking was expressly forbidden and walked hand in hand towards the harbour. The sun painted the water; small boats with lifebelts and indolently curled ropes bobbed merrily; the buildings were ochre and lime and rose and pink, some with striped umbrellas and awnings against a backdrop of dark green hills.
“This is it,” Oscar said. It was one of the rare moments of tangible happiness.
They had lunch on the waterfront outside the Welcome Hotel. Salade Niçoise, bouillabaisse, cheese and coffee.
They sat with their faces in the sun and Oscar closed his eyes and opened his shirt to the waist.
“Here comes the entertainment,” Marie-Céleste said.
A man in glasses wearing a floral hat with a monkey on his shoulder was playing the violin while he rode a bicycle backwards and forwards along the water’s edge. There was a gasp from the tables as he almost went over the side; another as he rode out directly in the path of passing cars to swerve out of the way only at the last moment.
“Pity Rosy and Daisy aren’t here,” Oscar said. Then he was sorry he had.
The man was riding now not only with no hands but with his feet in the air. He stopped dead with the front wheel of the bicycle exactly half way over the harbour wall. He fiddled his tune to a rapid finale then bowed for his well earned round of applause. He left the bicycle and came round tables, the monkey on his shoulder, for contributions in the floral hat. Oscar searched his pocket for loose change.
“I like it here,” Marie-Céleste said.
Oscar looked at her, beautiful, happy, relaxed as he had never known her.
“Then we’ll stay.”
When the waiter brought the bill Oscar asked to see the patron. He came, dark and swarthy. Oscar drew up a chair for him.
“We like it here. We’d like to stay. We are in Nice where it is dirty and noisy. Have you a room?”
The patron made his thumb and forefinger into an eloquent ‘O’.
“The best. With the finest view in the whole world.”
He waved his arm across the harbour and leaned forward contemplating. “You know, according to the story our beautiful harbour was created by Hercules. He was, of course, a demi-god. One day he opened his arms, so, and Port Hercules was born. Later it became Cieuta Franca and finally our unique Villefranche. Everybody is happy who comes to Villefranche. In summer the air is fresh, in winter sweet. How many days?”
“Four.”
“Four days in paradise, Monsieur. Of that I give you my assurance.”
They accompanied him through the hotel where flowers, gladioli and carnations, were everywhere. The room he showed them had fresh blue and white bedspreads and matching curtains. The sea was so close they might have been on a boat. They did not want to go back to Nice to get their luggage.
“You stay,” Oscar said. “I’ll see to it.”
“You are so kind,” Marie-Céleste said. “How is it you always understand?”
She made him feel good. It was out of character for him to drive back alone, settle the bill, pack for both of them – how did she like her things arranged? – to organize. He couldn’t think why he’d offered. He wanted to.
She drew back the bedspread and touched the white bolster.
“I’ll rest while you’re gone. The lunch has made me sleepy. Don’t be too long!”
He took her in his arms.
“This feels like our place.”
“Drive carefully, chéri.”
The next morning Oscar woke early and refreshed. He opened the shutters to find the sun dancing on the water.
He looked at Marie-Céleste sleeping. Yesterday she had reduced him, a grown man, to tears of happiness. Unconsciously she had fulfilled a desire previously revealed neither to himself nor to Dr Adler.
He had got back ill-tempered and hot from settling their affairs in Nice.
“No room to bloody park,” he said, flinging the cases on the bed. “Couldn’t fold your dresses…”
“Why didn’t you ask the chambermaid?”
“Didn’t occur to me.” He lay on the bed. She came to his side. She was wearing a blue and white checked silk gown with huge scarlet poppies here and there.
“I’m pooped,” Oscar said.
“I’ll ring for some drinks.” She lifted the receiver off the telephone. He slid a hand beneath the gown.
“You should never have taken up with an old man.”
“Tut-tut!”
“How do you mean, ‘tut-tut’?”
“You like to feel sorry for yourself.”
He pulled her on to the bed. “Never mind the drinks.”
The short, shining curtain of hair fell over her face as she leaned over him.
“Leave everything to me,” she said.
“How do you mean?”
“I’ll show you, ‘old man’, I don’t want you to do a thing.”
She removed his clothes, then with a smile on her face began to caress him from head to foot like a baby; stroking him as if he were a child, leaving no place untouched, her hands as tender as the expression on her face.
When he could stand it no longer he put his arms round her.
“Uh-uh.” She disengaged herself.
“You’re driving me crazy.”
“Not a muscle!” she warned.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.” She continued her stroking. He stood it for a few more moments, then he drew her down.
“You ask too much. It’s worse than the Chinese water torture.”
“I’ve only just begun…”
He pulled her down. “Marie-Céleste…”
“Yes, old man?” Afterwards they lay very close. There were tears in his eyes.
“What did you do to me?”
“It’s known as TLC.”
“TLC?”
“Tender Loving Care. It works with most complaints; particularly with old men who are past it…”
“That’s enough,” he shut her mouth with his.
“Do you realize,” he said, “that we started backwards? Sexual curiousity. It was a pretty wham-bam beginning when you come to think of it. Biblical in a sense. It says you should take a wife, then love her.”
“I’m not your wife.”
“I’ve never felt closer to anyone.”
She moved away.
“Where are you going?”
“To order those drinks!”
They spent the rest of the day in an afterglow of peace and happiness from which he could not di
smiss entirely a sense of hubris. Your punishing conscience, he heard Dr Adler say.
He turned from the window to find Marie-Céleste looking at him, her gaze steady; they did not speak. He went back to bed. Later, she disappeared into the bathroom which was not unusual. She was in there for some time and he heard a lot of water running. When she came back her face was white and there were beads of sweat on her forehead. She leaned against the door.
Oscar ran to her, helping her on to the bed.
“What is it, darling, what is it? You look terrible. Tell me what to do. Have you got a pain or something?”
“It’s all right, Oscar. I’ll be fine in a moment. I was sick.”
“Poor darling. What did you have to eat yesterday? Bouillabaisse! That’s it, bouillabaisse. It must have been the bouillabaisse.”
“Not the bouillabaisse, my Oscar.”
“Perhaps the wine?”
“Not the wine.”
“What, then?”
“I think I’m pregnant.”
Ten
“When did you first suspect?” Oscar asked. He bathed her forehead with a damp flannel, his hand shaking from the shock of her pronouncement.
Marie-Céleste was watching him. “It is not your child.”
Instead of relief he felt anger.
“But you told me…”
“I know.”
“I thought Ernest…?”
“I was never sure about Ernest.”
“Then…?”
“It must have happened before you and I…before Christmas.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. I suppose I denied it; the evidence, because of you; us.”
“It could be mine.”
“Do you want it to be?”
A moment before he had been horified at the possibilty. Now that it was being removed her felt affronted. The colour was returning to her face.
“I want it to be.” He looked down at her. “I love you. It will be a boy.”
He had always reassured Karen that he was happy with Rosy and Daisy, that he had no particular desire for a son. It had taken Dr Adler to reveal to him his deeply concealed disappointment.
“Something tells me the child is mine.”
“I’m sorry, Oscar.”
“I suppose you want to telephone Ernest.”
“It can wait.”
“I haven’t asked you if you’re happy.”
“I have always wanted to be pregnant.”
“Why are you crying, then?”
“Women cry when they are happy.”
“Crazy!”
He wiped her tears with the sheet.
“We shan’t actually know for certain; whose it is.”
“You never give up!”
“I shall assume it’s mine.”
“Suppose it looks like Ernest?”
“Poor child!”
He got up from the bed and walked to the window, drinking in the splendour of the bay. When he looked round she had her eyes closed. There was a beatific smile on her face.
“Marie-Céleste?”
She opened her eyes.
“Do you love me?”
“I do.”
She made it sound like the response in the marriage ceremony. “Do you, Oscar, take this woman…to be your lawful wedded wife…do you, Marie-Céleste Louise Chantal Françoise…”
“We have two more days.” She read his thoughts. There was no point in discussing anything. There was nothing to discuss. “I would like to go for a drive.”
“Then you shall. I’ll get the car.” It was good to have something positive to do.
“I’ll meet you on the quay.”
“Are you all right?”
“Completely. Morning sickness passes quickly.”
“I don’t want you to suffer.”
“Don’t be melodramatic.” The expression on his face told her he was not being melodramatic. “I’m sorry. Really I am all right.”
“I wish we could stay forever.”
“It would be nice if life were like that. If we could take a rubber and erase what we did not like.”
He did not want to erase Karen and Rosy and Daisy and the house in Primrose Hill. He wanted it all. Greed; he heard Dr Adler say, never satisfied at the breast. Bullshit.
“I’ll see you on the quay.”
As he went through the lobby the patron greeted him from behind the desk.
‘My wife is expecting a baby,’ he wanted to say. He said instead: “Bonjour, Monsieur le patron,” from shyness rather than the fact that it was neither his wife nor his baby.
They drove away from the coast and up towards St Paul. They left the car outside the ramparts and climbed up the steep, cobbled slopes. They admired the view, the land slipping away down the hillsides towards the sea. They visited, through doorways where they had to stoop, potters’ and artists’ studios. Within half an hour Marie-Céleste was hungry. She refused to go to Les Oliviers with its pretentious menu and three red crossed spoons and forks in the Michelin. He knew it was the sort of place she would have to go to with Ernest. Taking his hand, she led the way down the hill and through the narrow streets which became narrower, more winding and more malodorous as they progressed. “I think I know where there’s something!”
By the time they emerged on the other side of the ramparts where the view was even more spectacular he felt as if he had been through a maze.
“We’ll be lucky if we see the car again!”
“There is a restaurant round here.”
“There’s one,” Oscar said, pointing at a sign. “Vietnamese! If you think I’m coming all this way to eat…”
Marie-Céleste was laughing. “No, it’s not that! Just a tiny place, round this corner, look, here!” In triumph she pointed to a narrow door. Oscar was sufficiently familiar with France to accept the unprepossessing exterior of La Palette.
They were the only customers. They sat at the first table, facing the door, through the glass panes of which they were able to watch the view and whoever might be passing by. To their left, through the serving hatch, Madame in her little kitchen with its shining pots and copper bains-marie could be seen bustling about. Oscar knew at once he would be glad they had not gone to Les Oliviers.
Madame and Marie-Céleste went into conference. By the expression on their faces you would have thought them to be discussing affairs of the state.
The outcome of the consultation, served at a fitting pace, was a basket of the most beautiful crudités Oscar had ever seen, an unsurpassed dish of quennelles aux brochet, an escalope Viennoise of both paper thinness and whiteness, and a mousse au chocolat fit for the gods. Madame herself brought coffee, a pink, translucent cup for Marie-Céleste and a turquoise blue one for Oscar.
In his halting French he presented his compliments. He meant it when he said he knew no other place where one could eat so beautifully and that she had aptly named her tiny restaurant La Palette. She was indeed an artist of the premier rang.
It was at this stage that Monsieur appeared, a florid, rotund testament to his wife’s cooking, and begged them to join him in a verre, reserved only for very special customers. It was well into the afternoon before they were able to stagger out with promises to return, leaving a beaming Monsieur and Madame at the door.
Replete with food and love they did not, could not speak. It had been a few hours which were special. Food was like music was like love. When the orchestra left the stage the curtain fell, it took time to return to reality. In contented silence they drove back to Villefranche and fell into bed, to sleep.
The next day both of them were edgy. Marie-Céleste refused breakfast and Oscar felt that even the sun, sprinkling the water with diadems, had lost something of its magic.
They were to go to Cannes, have lunch with Marie-Claire and say goodbye. Marie-Céleste was quiet and pale. Oscar could not be bothered to shave, then pulled himself together and did, leaving the awkward whiskers on his throat. When he came out
of the bathroom Marie was leaning on the balcony staring into space. He put an arm round her. “It’s stupid to waste our last day.”
“I know.”
“I was brought up during the war,” he said. “I didn’t go abroad until I was twenty-one. Not like today; seventeen, knapsack on your back, hair to your waist, Nepal and Peru without so much as a watch or by your leave. I’ve made up for it since; book material; but it’s not the same. One gets too old. It matters if you have a bed for the night; you’re inhibited by arrival and departure dates; become frustrated by the bureaucracy of the whole thing. I’ve been to a fair number of places but I’d always come back to France. Don’t ask me what it is. Rude, surly, grasping bastards, present company excepted; it’s a purely gut reaction, grabs you by the entrails, that’s what I go by; with most things. I’m not really good at travelling anyway; too obsessional. I have to pay my bills, put whatever book I happen to be working on in a fireproof safe, tidy my desk. ‘Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order…’ That’s what Katherine Mansfield said. I imagine ‘them’ going through my things after the plane crash; the earthquake, ‘two hundred British victims’; the avalanche from which they have unearthed my frozen corpse, carryng it warily down the mountainside; the coach which has slipped over the edge of the unguarded road in Greece from which they recover my mutilated, mangled body, my nearest and dearest will have difficulty in identifying…oh yes, do not think I travel lightly.”
Marie-Céleste smiled. “I can see why you are a writer.”
“It is not easy to be so tortured.”
“Do you realize I have not read one of your books? Will you give me one? The one you like best.”
“I don’t like any of them. As soon as I’ve finished them I think they’re a load of crap and feel utterly ashamed.” (The body products, the faeces; Dr Adler.) “I can’t understand anyone liking them. I want to go into a corner and hide.”
“If you don’t give me one I shall have to buy one.”
“Then I shall be rich. I shall take you to the moon. No, that’s not funny any more. I shall spirit you away on my magic carpet. Oh bloody hell, what’s the use of pretending. I’m bloody miserable and so are you. What are we going to do?”
“Get dressed and go to Cannes.”
“Do you wish we’d never met?”
The Life Situation Page 16
