The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  She lay there for half an hour, flattened by the situation and that narcotic effect of love which turns happiness into rapture and sorrow into desolation. Finally, she rose from the bed and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was blotched and her eyes red and puffy. If David were to see her like this, she reflected wryly, it would solve the problem altogether. He would turn and run from this streaky monster.

  Thinking about him made her feel better.

  She washed her face, dabbed her eyes with cold water and put on a little lipstick. She would find an opportunity to telephone him after dinner. If things went on like this, she would just have to run away with him. She rejoined the others in the drawing room. They all looked up as she came in, as though they had been talking about her. Prelati gave her a particularly beaming grin, his teeth white as a row of war graves.

  ‘I thought you were trying to dodge me there, uh, Marie. You’d make a great three-quarter with a swerve like that.’ He laughed heartily to show he was making a joke.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Prelati. I had a sudden attack of hayfever. Thunder sometimes brings it on.’

  ‘Is that so? Well…’

  ‘Thunder gives me the creeps,’ said Francesca, shooting Marie a glance of – could it be? – sympathy.

  Dinner was dreadful. Mr Prelati told anecdotes that seemed odd coming from a clergyman, though perhaps they ordered things differently in California. Hubert made little donnish jokes about international law on which he was an expert (Marie noticed he never made jokes about money). And Francesca tucked into her food with a kind of suspicious voraciousness.

  ‘What d’you call this, Hubie?’

  ‘That is a coulis of tomato.’

  ‘Coulis? It’s kind of thin for ketchup. And this?’

  ‘That is a rouille.’

  ‘Rooey phooey. Tell you what, it’s giving me hot lips.’

  After dinner, they all sat in the drawing room and drank coffee. The men had an Armagnac each and Francesca had a green Chartreuse, which she called chartrooze.

  ‘You ought to have one, Marie,’ she said. ‘It’s sticky like some kind of candy.’

  She was becoming progressively more matey.

  Finally the storm began. The fat raindrops had stopped, started again, held off, and now like some kind of celestial pee in the night after a party, the clouds could hold off no more. All heaven seemed to be emptying around the villa while peals of thunder bounced and banged about the house like a rackety lavatory seat.

  Francesca got up and walked a little unsteadily to the door.

  ‘I can’t take this. I’m going off to bed. I’m going to climb right down under the covers and I’m going to stay there. Coming, honey?’

  ‘Er no. I’ll just sit up for a while. I can’t sleep when there’s a storm.’

  ‘Suit yourself. Hope the thunderbugs don’t bite.’

  Marie thought maybe the two men would take the opportunity of calling it a day as well. Mr Prelati must be tired from his travels and so indeed must Hubert, but they were pulling their chairs closer together and starting to talk earnestly in low tones, while refilling their glasses with Armagnac.

  ‘We’re going to be talking shop, Marie,’ said Hubert, pleasantly enough, but there was no mistaking what he meant. ‘We wouldn’t like to think we were boring you,’ chimed in the Reverend.

  She could see there was no point in waiting. There had to be some other way of getting in touch with David. Why were there so few telephones in Le Bavelot? There was, after all, a socket in the wall of her bedroom, but there was no receiver. She thought she knew what the reaction would be if she asked for one. Perhaps if she got up very early in the morning…

  ***

  She woke at half past five to a morning of crystalline, pristine freshness – the storm’s reward. She leapt from her bed, slipped on a frock, brushed her hair and, with feet of thistledown, crept from her room.

  A floorboard creaked in the corridor. She paused, listened, and then went on – down the marble stairs and into the marble hall. The dining room door was shut. She advanced and very quietly turned the handle. It wouldn’t move. She thought there must be some mistake and turned it harder – still nothing. The disagreeable truth hit her. The dining room was locked.

  She stared about her. It had never struck her for one minute that she wouldn’t be able to get to the telephone; and now she thought, overreacting again with love’s adrenalin, I’ll never be able to reach him. But, with an effort, she controlled herself and reflected upon the situation, realising something she should have thought about before – to telephone now, at this hour of the morning, would have raised the most awful problems at the Bleu Rivage. Of course, what she would have to do was write a note and deliver it by hand so that he would get it with his breakfast. She found notepaper and a pencil in a drawer of the marble-topped table by the wall and hastily scribbled a message.

  ‘Darlingest David, I am held captive in durance vile while some Americans are here. If I can’t get in touch it’s not because I don’t love you, in fact I love you all the more, and it grows like a pearl in my sadness at not seeing you. I will contact you again at my earliest convenience. Far more love than I can afford, M.’

  She had just finished writing it and was pushing it into a little brown envelope when she heard a faint sound behind her and turned in terror of discovery, thinking it must be Hubert. Her feelings were modified but not entirely allayed by the sound of a female voice.

  ‘Hello, honey. And what might you be up to so early in the morning?’

  Francesca stood halfway down the stairs in a little-girl nightdress. ‘That candy syrup was stronger than I reckoned,’ she said. ‘Drink always makes me wake too soon. What about you? A billet doux?’

  She had seen the envelope.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Marie too quickly. ‘A letter I’ve been meaning to write.’

  ‘You can confide in me, honey. Don’t worry. I won’t let on to old dry-as-dust.’

  The temptation to tell someone about her predicament was too great. They sat on the stairs while Marie explained something of the situation in a low voice. Francesca made appropriately soothing noises as she heard that she and her father had been the reason for the interdict on Marie’s excursions. She did, however, demur at one point.

  ‘But honey, marry him? Aren’t you both a little young? Why not just enjoy yourselves and think of marriage later. There’s always other boys. Have you … You know … been with him?’ Francesca leaned forward earnestly, her fringed top lip slightly drawn up over her front teeth.

  Marie was far too far into her confession to deny the truth.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Francesca, ‘enjoy, enjoy. Is he a good fuck?’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘Not like that? What is it like? Back to back? Soixante-neuf?’

  ‘We love each other.’

  ‘Ah, yes, love. I’ve heard of that. It’s a gas.’

  Marie remembered a hymn they used to sing at the convent and it didn’t seem blasphemous to quote it now.

  ‘If he is mine and I am his, What can I want or need?’ she said. It wasn’t a gas. It was a solid.

  ‘Right, right,’ said Francesca. ‘Like it. Poetry always gets me in the gut.’

  She patted her slightly protuberant stomach. Her bosoms also wobbled their literary sensitivity. Marie felt that ideally she would have preferred a more delicate confidante but there was no doubting the robustness of Francesca’s attention.

  ‘So what you going to do now?’ demanded the American.

  ‘Well. I thought I’d slip out now and find a taxi or get a lift, walk if I have to, down to the Croisette, and drop the note into the hotel. He might be up. I could see him and come back here without being missed.

  ‘Good thinking,’ said Francesca. ‘It’s worth a try. Shall I come with you?’

  The idea of the strapping Californian lurking around while she was assuring David of her undying devotion did not strike Marie as being the ideal
background for her message.

  ‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble.’

  ‘Trouble nothing. I eat trouble.’

  ‘Well … I think perhaps I’d better go alone. I mean you’re not dressed.’

  ‘I understand. You don’t want to take a gooseberry. I’ll cover for you while you’re gone. Off you go.’

  She put her hand on the latch and turned it obligingly for Marie. But the door did not open. Francesca looked dismayed.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said, ‘the son of a bitch is locked. Of course. The whole thing’s on alarm. You know what he’s like about security.’

  Marie felt a surge of panic again. She was never going to get a message to David. It was going to be a replay of their earlier debacle. She felt the tears start to prick behind her eyes, and turned away miserably.

  Francesca stepped forward.

  ‘Look, honey, I know what it’s like. I’ve been in love. Have I been in love? I had this guy called Hamilton. What a creep.’

  She went on about how she’d loved Hamilton and how her father had disapproved and Marie, in spite of her dejection, started to grow a little bit impatient. After all, this was her misery. She didn’t need reminiscences of back-seat bundling in Venice, California, to jolt her out of her sorrow here and now. Then Francesca redeemed everything.

  ‘If I’d had you around then, honey, you’d have done the same for me. So I realise the least I can do is do it for you.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Why, deliver the letter, dumbo.’

  Of course. It would be much easier for Francesca. She didn’t have Hubert’s eye on her all the time. She could pretend to go shopping or something, and just slip the note into the hotel. Marie was so moved she kissed the American on her hairy top lip.

  ‘That’s really fantastic of you. Could you … would you do it today?’

  ‘Sure. Nothing simpler. Just as soon as they open the goddam door. Well … after breakfast, anyway.’

  Francesca liked her food. It was hardly fair to expect her to go on an empty stomach. Marie gave her the envelope.

  ‘You’ll just leave it, won’t you? I mean, there’s no need to wait for an answer,’ she said.

  She still didn’t like the idea of David and Francesca meeting. It wasn’t jealousy or anything – just a sort of instinctive prudence. Francesca seemed the kind of person who could be indiscreet.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to steal your beau.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. I meant…’

  ‘What’s this? An early morning pyjama party?’ It was Hubert’s voice, jocularly disapproving.

  ‘We were thinking of going out for a swim before breakfast,’ said Francesca coolly. ‘Only some bimbo locked us in.’

  She had secreted the envelope somewhere among the little girl flounces of her nightdress, and looked every inch the Californian baulked of her bathe.

  ‘I thought we might be having a problem,’ said Hubert, ‘so I came down with the keys. An unfortunate necessity, I’m afraid. They’ve had a number of break-ins around here. There we are.’

  The door opened. A brilliant morning bounded into the hall.

  ‘We’ll just get our swimsuits,’ said Francesca. ‘You coming?’

  ‘I won’t join you,’ he said. I’ve got to call Tokyo – But go ahead. I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  ‘He didn’t notice anything,’ whispered Marie in the corridor upstairs. ‘Thank you more than I can say.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. If you can’t rely on your friends who can you trust?’

  ***

  Good as her word, Francesca suggested a trip into town to her father over the breakfast table.

  ‘I need some things. Like, would you believe, seems I only packed one swimsuit. A Californian with one swimsuit,’ she included Marie in the conversation, ‘is like a cat with one life.’

  ‘Maximilien can take you down,’ said Hubert, smarmily.

  ‘I think I’ll stay up here if you don’t mind,’ said her father, smiling away at everybody. ‘It looks as if it’s going to be real hot. I know what you’re like when you go shopping, honey.’

  ‘I’m sure Marie would keep you company,’ said Hubert pointedly. ‘She’s a great one for trips to town.’

  Marie almost felt tempted to accompany her – but on second thoughts she decided it might prompt Hubert to come and keep an eye on her, although he normally made a point of avoiding the town by day.

  She was about to plead the excuse of a slight headache when Francesca forestalled her.

  ‘To be honest, I prefer to be alone when I’m shopping. I don’t know why. I guess I feel I can take my time. You don’t mind, honey?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘That’s settled then. I’ll be back for a swim before lunch.’

  She drove off with Maximilien after disposing of an orange pressé, two croissants and several cups of coffee.

  ‘I realise I’m going to need a bigger size,’ she said. ‘These pastries really get to you.’ She patted her stomach just above the point where poetry really got to her.

  ‘Goodbye, honey,’ she whispered as Marie saw her to the car. ‘Don’t worry about a thing.’

  The morning passed in a gathering saturation of brilliant heat. Marie went down to the pool and swam, and lay in the sun, and moved to the shade of one of the umbrellas where she tried to read.

  Tony changed into his trunks and came over to where she was lying, the gold bracelet on his wrist shining like a snake in the black grass of hairiness. She sensed he wanted to talk, but then Hubert walked down in his white ducks, and Tony and he sat at a table in the shade, apart, and spoke about money.

  Marie thought she would go mad waiting for Francesca to come back. The sun itself seemed to have stopped in its tracks, stuck at noon in a liquefying firmament. At last, she heard the sound of a motor and the distant cornflake crackle of the gravel. She lay there, not liking to show too much interest or to betray, by expending too much energy in the heat, the stir of her emotions. Finally, Francesca appeared in a very pretty one-piece whose sides were cut almost up to the armpits.

  ‘Very fetching,’ she heard Hubert comment.

  ‘Honey, if you were naked you’d be more decent,’ said Tony, approvingly.

  Francesca dived in, swam four lengths and, at long last, came and lay down beside Marie.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s done. I gave it to the concierge.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. Did you see him?’

  ‘Honey, it’s about a hundred in the shade down there. Everyone’s on the beach. Anyway, I thought you didn’t want me to see him.’

  ‘I didn’t and I did.’

  ‘Love is a hallucinogen,’ said Francesca. ‘Frankly you’re better off with dope.’

  ***

  Marie wasn’t expecting to hear from David immediately, but after two days she became nervous.

  ‘What’s happened to him?’ she asked Francesca. ‘You’re sure you took the letter to the right place?’

  ‘Relax, honey. Sure I’m sure.’

  Two more days passed, a week, and still there was nothing. She would be going back to Scotland in hardly more than a fortnight. The situation was becoming impossible.

  The more depressed she became, perversely, the more the atmosphere at the villa seemed to lighten. Hubert became positively jocular while the Prelatis seemed locked in a permanent rictus of mirth. Only Marie spoiled the party. Only Marie wandered about like a black cloud looking for a suitable place to precipitate. Was it her imagination or was Francesca becoming progressively less interested in her? Marie concluded it must be her fault; weep and you weep alone. But she couldn’t stop weeping alone in her bedroom and in the solitary walks among the orderly French flowers at the top of the garden where the shadows of the cypress trees cut pools of blackness out of the overtended lawn.

  ‘Come away, come away, Death. And in sad cypress let me be laid,’ she thought, looking down on
the boisterous group by the water’s edge. The party had been joined by two new arrivals from America: a beefy merchant banker called Durstine and a small, smart art expert called Snell. Snell had Mrs Snell with him. Mrs Snell was also small. She wore a great deal of dark feathery hair and various ornaments of gold upon which her head seemed perched like a parrot’s. She thought her husband the cleverest and funniest man in the world so long as he agreed with everything she said.

  The additional guests did nothing to cheer Marie’s state of mind. The villa was full of laughter but to her it was like the yelping of hyenas. Finally, she could stand it no more. She got up early one morning, pocketing her passport and money and resolved to go down to Cannes at any cost, even if she had to break her way out of a window. The front door, however, was only latched. Evidently the burglary risk had suddenly taken a dive. There was something slightly worrying about it – nothing was simple where Mr Brickville was concerned – but she did not let it hold her up. She was too intent on going to see David.

  Normally the walk down to the Croisette would have taken the best part of half an hour. She did it in twenty minutes, hardly noticing the road beneath her. She was going to be with him again, that was enough. David would get her out of this horrible house, rescue her from these laughing strangers. His kindly parents would entirely see the point of them getting married at the earliest possible opportunity.