The Janeites

by Nicolas Freeling

  “Oh yes, I’ve met a few of those.”

  “A depressingly simplistic viewpoint. The strongest and most successful genes, surviving and evolving from the stone age, are those of the most vigorous rapists. The whole structure of society is of no further interest. A sort of nihilism. You the woman make yourself attractive to be available to the biggest dick, which is the greediest dick, and help me first.”

  “It sounds familiar. I thought like this for a while. Do you want to try to get to the top?”

  “No, I’ve blisters on my heels already; wait until these boots are properly broken in.”

  “Don’t sit down there, that’s an ants’ nest.”

  “I wouldn’t have got far, would I, in stone age circles? Get stamped out, pretty smartish.”

  “Gains ground, this theory.”

  “Sure it does. Natural resources are running short. Water. Top-soil. Good places to go on holiday – the unspoilt beaches. So grab. Brutalist logic – the successful grabbers are the rich.”

  “I like you the way you are.”

  “A shrinking minority. God. Civilization. Iphigenia. Antigone. They were due for the chop. So are we.”

  “What did Antigone do?”

  “She went out at night to pay the last rites of religion to her dead brother, against the king’s express order. He caught her and had her buried alive.”

  “She knew, and she did it.”

  “Yes. That is the Spirit.”

  “Would you?”

  “I don’t know, you see, and I’m very much afraid of being asked to find out.”

  This thin sandy ground dries out quickly, which is an advantage when walking home in one’s socks.

  “The Volk,” she said, making coffee. “Give it a jig or a tale of bawdry and it’s happy.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Mustn’t hate it, or it would be A la lanterne with me, pretty quick. But I feel something pretty close to contempt. Harlotry is the only thing that sells. The rapists – yobs one and all.”

  “Yes, it isn’t so much they’re being unchristian that offends me but the Ignorance. No letters and no history, no art and no manners, and above all no humour – what am I getting Heated for?”

  “Bernard of Clairvaux scourging the infidel,” bringing him his cup. “You see? – you can laugh. We’re on holiday. We love each other.”

  Yes, that’s what worries him, but he keeps quiet about that.

  “I keep thinking about pigeon pie,” Joséphine went on. “I must have a word with the forester, see if he can get us some.”

  William’s day begins, alone in this house built for more people, with green tea. This brew was like Jane; for some time you were unsure, before discovering that you couldn’t do without it. Odd. His little teapot holds three cups (but two will do, the third’s a bit stewed). Disconcerting is perhaps a good word.

  His whole life, he couldn’t start without three cups of coffee – the last after a shower, shaving – sliding over clean teeth.

  One day in England, accompanying the Marquis on a call upon his opposite number there – Downing Street, an extraordinary rabbit-warren; we know about Number Ten but what are all the others – he had been peeled off by a deft soft-voiced secretary and given a taste of their amused hospitality together with tea; the ‘real thing’. ‘Milk and sugar?’ they enquired blandly. ‘The way you have it’ – not to be outfoxed in diplomacy. Much merry laughter when he tasted it.

  ‘Now picture yourself’, said his charming host, ‘crouched on some draughty airfield, in a flying-saucer helmet and a nest of sandbags getting strafed by the Luftwaffe, they dug you out of the débris, handed you a mug of this and instantly you grew a new arm and a new leg. Inside there it’s tinkle-tinkle with the Wedgwood and something disgusting like Earl Grey but yours is the real thing – made by the police sergeant, you’re a man now, my son.’ Even the gentleman in question permitted himself a small superior smile.

  “You’re looking a whole lot better,” said Bernadette. “Odd job mine,” economically finishing a halfcup of stonecold coffee “see that written on a piece of paper, what do you make of it? Nothing at all. But Orally… a whole lot, a whole lot, or a whole lot better, Madame the judge might be let to draw three different conclusions, pity the poor woman, who knows that all three are lying.”

  “All three are telling the truth,” said William.

  “That’s this dotty doctor of yours?”

  “Haven’t seen him for a while. Away, I think. Don’t want any doctors.” Even the massage sessions were down to twice a week. Only Dolores still, determined to get to the bottom of Emma Woodhouse (not long to go now). He doesn’t know how to explain that. Uh, broadminded woman. Intelligent, experienced woman. A good and true friend. There’d be nobody he’d rather confide in. But dammit, a judge; nothing bleaker than a Judge of Instruction when it comes to that impenetrable maze and quicksand bog which is human behaviour. What words would one adopt? ‘It’s a very select society and you’ve got to be a Janeite in your heart or you won’t have any success.’ She’d think it was a Sect. Judges have a great distaste for sects, which are suspected of preaching subversion, of disobedience to the laws and the rules of the Republic. Bernadette isn’t a candidate for the Janeites: he’s not even sure he’s one himself.

  Police training, for one thing. Years in the Marquisate – yes and before that; the private lives of Ministers, and Presidents too, have little enough to do with the official face shown to the world, and their private thinking not very presentable on television either – have loosened and shaken a lot of shibboleths thought of as being as fixed in their orbits as the planets. But in the PJ, when you are a rising young man and they begin to think of picking you for the exacting training that will lead to special duties, they like to be sure that your thinking is sound. It isn’t only medicals and workouts in the gym. There are the political indoctrination classes too. Total loyalty, absolute obedience. (William’s conventions about thinking and doing have interested Ray Valdez.)

  The Republic doesn’t like sects. Dotty American groups – all claiming liberty of conscience, tax exemption. And the right to bear arms, under various articles of the Constitution embedded in jurisprudence and frequently upheld by the Supreme Court – are held up as horrible examples: we won’t allow any of this in France. These fixed beliefs of ours go back to Jacobin tenets on which the Hexagon was built. Long before the Republic.

  Police instructors lectured bored young men who had forgotten the history lessons they had yawned over at school. You go back before Louis Quatorze, yes even before Cardinal Richelieu, to the times when kings could scarcely call Paris their own, royal authority kicked about by Dukes of Burgundy, of Brittany, of Berry (places one can scarcely find on the map…) Piecing the Hexagon together had been a lengthy, difficult and blood-boltered affair and you had better believe it. Look at Corsica, will you – know how to find that on the map, do you? Nobody wants it and we can’t get rid of it. Forever blowing themselves up – and us too, given half a chance. Independence my foot; can’t you see that this would simply encourage more of those bastards in odd corners who steal explosives from quarries and don’t want to speak French.

  William’s was a receptive ear; it all sank in and stayed there. It’s only a step from there to people who put up a statue of the Guru ten metres high on the mountainside. From there, my friends, to Theosophists and Soroptimists and the whole gang of them. The slightest laxity and they’ve the bit between those long yellow teeth – preaching Civil Disobedience. The lesson you’ll all learn, before tomorrow morning, is you don’t give these people an inch.

  Yes but the whole point about Janeites is that they couldn’t care less about Corsica. He can’t remember even the fussy ones, like Mr John Knightley who lives in London, as much as mentioning the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. Hell, they don’t even mention the Duke of Wellington. Jane’s people live their lives in this marvellous indifference to anything outside. Is that shocking or is it
splendid? It’s all inside him; he can’t talk about it.

  “I really wanted to ask Albert’s advice about the garden.”

  “He’s outside there now. Deep in thought about a vegetable marrow. You might ask him whether there are any beans left and if so to bring them in because I’d like them for lunch.”

  Turning things around in his mind, thought Bernadette. Whatever it is, doesn’t want to talk about it. Nor am I going to push him. I’m not in the office now.

  A woman, possibly. Our William (for she is very fond of him) wouldn’t have any problems about Sex. If it were only that! Big tall old boy, not exactly ‘good-looking’ but definitely handsome. Riding around in that ridiculous Porsche; the girls would be falling over one another trying to climb into his pocket. There can’t ever have been a shortage. Kept tight in a special compartment because of all those conscientious ideas about Duty: you couldn’t get married there in the lifeguard brigade, it wasn’t fair on the wife. Getting knocked over flat, there by the Honourable Alexandra (whom Bernadette has never met but knows a good deal about) – that was shocking bad luck. He’d had his years of great responsibility and unending strain, before marking time there with that extremely lordly Foreign-Minister, who obviously had great pull in the circles of the mighty, to keep anyone as senior as William.

  This tale had been told her. William held officer rank, and lifeguards of that calibre can look forward to a nice desk job; you won’t have to punch a time card. The girl had plenty of money. Building that lovely house, William all set for a cosy sinecure, perhaps the Interpol office (no shortage of these grandiose institutions in Strasbourg and all of them basking in money, while a poor lousy investigating magistrate can’t even get proper office equipment) – and the bitch walks out on him. In Madame Martin’s book, the crimes listed in the Penal Code can each and everyone be attended by files-full of circumstance, explanatory if not extenuating, you don’t seek to excuse but you do seek to balance. But this isn’t penal: it’s sure as hell in the Moral Code though. Bernadette Martin isn’t a moral theologian, and glad of it. These are the structural, load-bearing foundations of society. ‘This is something one just does not do. In this she can’t find any matter for debate or discussion.’ Albert can, or says he can. Very sorry but there are some things she cannot give way on.

  From the kitchen window they are visible, heads together and deep in talk. There are things men mull over together – not all of them mechanical contrivances – and a woman ‘putting her oar in’ is seen as a source of confusion. Was that the source of this homely phrase? A woman does not row in the same rhythm. She hears a different drummer. Quite a few of Madame Martin’s discussions with lawyers, prosecutors, tribunal-judges, meet with the same fundamental variance in standpoint. If she were ever to meet the Honourable Alexandra the girl would get given a piece of her mind.

  Albert was deep in contemplation of the compost heap.

  “Right, William, getting out into the garden, put a bit of colour in your face. Apart from being too pale you’re looking fine, you know.”

  “It’s about tackling the garden I want your views. Sick of looking at it. Want to make a start, but don’t quite know how my energies will hold out.”

  “Be a job, all right. Single-handed, boo, even if in perfect health. That garden firm which did the original layout, why not get them to come and put it in shape? You could go on from there. Expensive, I realize.”

  “Yes. I was sort-of keeping that idea in reserve. In case it got too much. I was thinking, maybe that weedy jungle isn’t as bad as it looks. Thought of asking perhaps would you come over, cast an eye, tell me what you made of it.”

  Foolish at the start, William thought himself; should he be saying from the start? The garden firm had offered a maintenance contract. Frank or Fred comes round every six months with a workman. Clean and refresh, prune and repair, spray against pests, sell him a few new goodies. He’d economized – foolishly – in the reaction after spending too much. And at that time he’d been wanting to do everything himself. On top of the world. The feeling of having won the Lotto, of the good life awaiting him. Joséphine saying she didn’t want a baby ‘just yet’, making jokes about Victorian phrases like ‘filling the nursery’. There was plenty of time.

  The potty adventures, of former days. The conquests, idiot echo of the Marquis’ way with girls: ‘notorious philanderer’ was another Victorian in-joke. The bargain-basement time; since they’re that cheap have as many as you like. The trouble with that: one is so damn cheap oneself. Whatever one said (one said and thought plenty) about the ‘Honourable Alexandra’ – she was not cheap.

  The Baroness, with her ladylike ways. That upright carriage, that clear-boned face. A – a – purity about it. Hardly the right word? No but the only one he had found.

  Let’s not get sentimental, laddy. He won’t let himself think about it, now or ever. He’d made this huge mistake. No, she said, the mistake was hers – as though it were a cake that they could cut in half and share. She’d taken a ruthless path out of this mortal tangle. Married and not-married. He’d given in. Foolishly? This kind of thing happens, nobody knows why. People find it doesn’t work, they get divorced. He doesn’t like it, but if there’s no other way…? Joséphine had simply refused, wouldn’t speak of it.

  The furthest she’d go had been ‘I won’t discuss it. I’ll think about it in a year’s time.’ To that, better say nothing. Better do nothing? He’d taken that problem to the Marquis, who disconcertingly agreed with her. ‘Reach for the lawyer, will you? The six-shooter is no way to handle a woman of that quality, you shoot yourself in the foot. Spend a great deal of money, gets you nowhere. Wait and see.’

  He’d waited but all he’d seen was an upset stomach that went chronic and to which doctors, damn them, pinned a nasty name. So he’d given in his resignation, on all this, exactly the way he’d shoved the job; there’s no going back.

  What did he have left? This beeyoutiful house. She took nothing but the few oddments she’s brought with her. No wedding presents, nowt. What about the house then? ‘Treat it as yours.’ Not nastily – nothing cutting or contemptuous: factual. He’s never heard anything from Geoffrey; the two men had barely exchanged a word after she left. He never heard anything from the tax people. What did he have? A wife which was no wife. Himself, a man that is now a no-man.

  Feel like having a girl? Not going to run to la mère Bénédicte. Who wants callgirls anyhow? Somewhere out there, he’d thought, he might get a second chance at living. Meanwhile what does he have? Emma Woodhouse!

  What’s that phrase which Ray Valdez likes to quote?

  ‘Believe me, Brother, there’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.’

  What between the feeling better and ordinary curiosity – Ray’s phone didn’t answer. He’d tried the secretary at that Institute.

  ‘Away,’ she said indifferently. How long for? ‘Sorry, don’t know.’

  Part Four

  ‘The staff’ sounds pretty grand; Dr Barbour speaks of ‘my people’ and every secretary is now a personal assistant: they speak of him and the word ‘parano’ is often used. These overblown expressions are a way of simplifying complicated structures. PermRep like all politicians lends himself to caricature but the reality is a bundle, complex and devious and tortuous, like most people. He’s stiff with employees, talks about precision, exactitude. ‘Don’t ever use a phrase like round-about-midnight, he’ll ask whether you mean ten to or a quarter past.’ He runs a tight ship; is rigid, fussy, suspicious, authoritarian. Paranoid is a silly word because it’s lazy.

  Partly it would be his upbringing, and schooling. Fifty years ago he would have been given to Latin quotations, and still corrects the punctuation in written reports. Partly it’s an inheritance of moral principles and political certainties. He has an annoying way of always being in-the-right, and rubbing-it-in. Being without humour is no help. Recently he seems to have been unusually tetchy. He hasn’t been feeling very wel
l, and hasn’t made up his mind what to do about it.

  It would be useful to consult a doctor but there are difficulties. He hadn’t thought of it when last on leave and has at present no good reason nor even pretext for making the trip. In European medicine he has no great confidence; has heard of a good man in Heidelberg but there’s a language problem. In England they speak English of a sort, but he doesn’t like the fuss involved. To minimize the feeling that this is all too much ado he went to see a man locally, making the appointment himself. Dr Roger (whom he has met socially) is well thought of in the Community and there’s no ice to break. A wide general-practice among the diplomatic crowd; an easy-smiling cheerful man and the great advantage is that he speaks English. He has a nice duplex in the Contades, is experienced with the Community’s little ailments (epidemics of laryngitis. Carpal-tunnel Syndrome), makes little jokes, gives good parties, plays a lot of golf and tennis: small wonder that though his name is Pilkington he’s always known as Blessington. But he’s a careful man too, and serious.

  Listens to PermRep, examines, writes prescriptions, would rather like a blood test. Dr Barbour jibs a bit at that; rather too public in his view (Eleanor can be sent to the pharmacy). Dr Roger understands diplomats; he’s one himself. It is always good sense to have a second – a specialist – opinion. He suggests an eminent and excellent Professor in the Faculty. In this confidential consulting-room sphere his patient allows himself to pull a face; unenthusiastic. Dr Roger isn’t a fool by any account. Man shares a widespread view; that the French are brilliant but unreliable.

  “I do know a man, speaks excellent English, regarded as good if unconventional; does a lot in close harmony with colleagues in the States: suppose I were to give you a note for him?”

  This would be comic but for Dr Barbour’s obsession with never being indiscreet: the name Valdez means nothing to him. Crystal has spoken, too much and too often until she learned better, about her ‘onetime’ eccentric in the research institute. The name ‘Ray’ had been dropped, but not listened to. In community circles, for Strasbourg is a gossipy town, in this respect much like Bonn, Raymond’s reputation begins to be known to a few people, such as Dr Roger, but hasn’t reached the Permanent Representative, who allows himself to prefer a man in private practice to haughty specialists who speak a humiliating technical French and are arrogant, condescending…