Moonlight Over Paris

by Jennifer Robson

  Just then, a bell rang inside. Micheline was reduced to almost comical levels of anxiety at the thought of interrupting Helena while she was painting, so they had come up with the bell as a tolerable means of summoning her to meals. She tidied away her things and headed back to the house.

  The villa was cool and dark, its shutters still drawn against the sun, and its tiled floors felt pleasantly cool against Helena’s bare feet as she went upstairs to wash her face and hands.

  Agnes had a love of cold soups, the more exotically flavored the better, and as Helena joined her aunt in the dining room she braced herself for that day’s offering. The soup from yesterday, which had contained ground almonds, of all things, had reminded her unpleasantly of melted ice cream.

  Today’s first course, however, was a concoction of tomato, cucumbers, and onions, as well as a headily fragrant amount of garlic; when they’d first had it the week before she had thought it delicious.

  “I’ve forgotten the name for this,” she said.

  “It’s gazpacho. The Princesse de Polignac has a Spanish chef and I persuaded him to explain how it’s made. So wonderfully refreshing.”

  It was, and Helena had a second helping before devouring a plate of cold, grilled vegetables and several slices of day-old bread, also grilled, that had been rubbed with olive oil and yet more garlic.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” her aunt asked.

  “I’m going down to the beach, as usual. Why don’t you come with me? The Murphys have half a dozen parasols all set up, so you’ll be in the shade, and—”

  “Not today, my dear. I didn’t sleep at all well last night. Bad memories, you know.”

  “Then you should stay here and rest. May I bring Hamish, though? He loves playing with the Murphys’ dogs.”

  “Those wild things?”

  “They’re no bigger than Hamish, and very friendly animals.”

  “Oh, I suppose,” her aunt said, sighing gustily. “You will carry him home, won’t you? He’ll be far too tired to manage.”

  “Of course I will, and I’ll have a spot in the shade where he can rest, and a bowl of water, too.”

  “Don’t forget the lemon. He loves a squeeze of lemon juice in his water.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  It didn’t take long to prepare for the afternoon, for Helena kept a bag ready packed with almost everything she needed, her swimming costume included. All she had to do was rub some sun cream on her nose, put on her espadrilles, and clip Hamish’s lead to his collar.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Rrruff,” he answered, and together they set off for their afternoon in the sun.

  THE MURPHYS WERE already at the beach, with Gerald hard at work, as he had been every day since their arrival, on the task of clearing away the mountains of seaweed that had been allowed to accumulate. Only the hardiest winter holidaymakers ever went swimming, and the locals appeared immune to the charms of sand and sea. The section of beach he and his friends had cleared, while modest, was more than sufficient for the purposes of their small group, though the smell of the remaining seaweed could be a trifle overpowering at times.

  “Hello, Helena,” called Sara from the water, where she and Honoria were paddling. “Agnes didn’t come with you?”

  “Not today. But I did bring Hamish.” She bent to unclip his lead, watching fondly as he waddled off to join the other dogs.

  “Do help yourself to a glass of sherry or lemonade. And there are sandwiches in the basket.”

  “I think I’ll change first.”

  Never inclined to do anything by half measures, the Murphys had set up a small pavilion-style tent for use as a changing room. Helena slipped inside, taking care to tie shut its flaps—she didn’t wish to see her modesty in tatters thanks to a sudden breeze—shrugged out of her frock, cami-knickers, and espadrilles, and wriggled into her bathing costume. It was new, bought in Nice at the beginning of the summer, and while not immodest, at least not compared to others she had seen, its skimpy décolletage and abbreviated skirt would certainly have alarmed her mother. What her father might think of it she didn’t care to imagine.

  Only then did she remember that Mr. Howard would be at the beach, and she very nearly balked before urging herself forward. Of course he wasn’t likely to notice what she was wearing, or even care. It had been years since anyone had noticed her in that way, and that state of affairs was unlikely to change as a result of one passably chic swimming costume. Besides, she really did want to go for a swim.

  She spotted Mr. Howard as she was leaving the tent, and rather than walk down to the water right away she stood and watched him for a moment, admiring the way he played so unaffectedly with the Murphy children. He had rolled up his trouser legs, shed his shoes, and, at the boys’ direction, was patiently excavating a moat around a sand castle they were building.

  “Helena! Are you coming?” called Sara. “If you are, could you bring me my hat? It’s on the table.”

  “Coming!” she called back. She collected Sara’s hat and, holding it well above her head, crossed the hot sand to the water’s edge. A few more steps and the water was past her knees, then her waist, and then she was standing on tiptoes an arm’s length away from Sara and her daughter.

  “Here you are,” she said, passing the hat to her friend. “I’m going to swim for a bit. Honoria—you will shout out if you see any pirates? Promise me you will.”

  “I will,” the child said, giggling.

  “Good. Don’t start the treasure hunt without me.”

  The beach at La Garoupe was on the western side of Cap d’Antibes and oriented rather more to the north; as she paddled away from the shore, the view before her was of the smaller Baie des Anges, and not the great expanse of the Mediterranean. She wasn’t a strong swimmer, but here, in the sheltered bay, the water was shallow and nearly still, and it was easy to touch bottom and walk back to shore when she did grow tired.

  It really was such a joy to swim in water such as this. The seasides she’d known at home, in Cornwall and Devon, had been beautiful places, but their water had rarely been so warm, and certainly never as calm. Swimming there—and she’d never gone very far, for fear of the tumbling waves—had been bracing rather than pleasurable, and she’d never been tempted to linger.

  In her first weeks in Antibes, Helena had been able to swim for ten minutes at most before stumbling, utterly exhausted, back to the beach. Now she swam for half an hour, sometimes more, taking pleasure in the feeling of strength in her limbs as she carved through the water, letting her thoughts wheel and wander as freely as the gulls overhead. It was glorious to feel like herself again, to feel young and alive, and so hungry for every experience life could offer her. For so long she’d been starving, in body and in spirit, but a banquet awaited her now.

  Honoria was waiting with a towel and robe, all but jumping up and down with excitement, when Helena emerged from the water. “Come, Ellie, do come! Mother says that as soon as we’ve eaten we may start the treasure hunt. But we can’t begin until you’ve had something, too.”

  She followed Honoria back to the little encampment the Murphys had established, accepted a glass of lemonade, and sat down on an empty mat near the children.

  “Mind if I join you?” Mr. Howard asked.

  “Not at all. There’s room on the mat, or we could find you a chair . . .”

  “The mat will do just fine. How was your swim?”

  “Lovely. Very refreshing. You should go in. I’m sure Gerald has a swimming costume he can lend you.”

  “I’m all right here on the beach,” he answered affably, and he did seem perfectly content, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His feet were bare, she noticed, and the cuffs of his khaki trousers were still rolled up. She flushed at the strangeness of sitting next to a man she hardly knew while looking at his bare feet and calves, so near to him that she could see the bright coppery gold of the hair on his legs.

  Such a missish response
to something entirely normal in this day and age. If she didn’t pull herself together, she’d be laughed out of art school come the autumn. Good heavens—what if she were asked to draw a nude? Only the worst sort of small-minded country bumpkin would balk at that.

  Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t immediately notice that Mr. Howard was talking to her. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I wasn’t attending just now.”

  “I was only saying that I’d give almost anything for a cold beer,” he answered, then looked ruefully at his glass of lemonade.

  “You don’t care for sherry?” she teased, her sense of equilibrium beginning to return.

  He shook his head. “On a day like this? No. What I want, right now, is a beer that’s cold enough to make my teeth hurt. That’s one of the things I miss most about home.”

  “Isn’t it against the law to drink beer in America?”

  “Ah, yes. Our delightful Eighteenth Amendment. A triumph of antediluvian legislation. Any American over the age of ten can walk into a corner drugstore and buy a bottle of patent medicine with enough laudanum in it to knock out a platoon of GIs, but it’s against the law for a grown man—or woman—to have a cold beer on a hot day.”

  “Were you still living in America when it was enacted?”

  “I was, but not for long. I’ve lived in France for a little more than four years.”

  “Do you miss it? Home?”

  “Apart from the beer I can’t legally buy? Sure I do. I miss my family, and my friends there. I miss being able to watch a baseball game, and I miss having a real winter—not months of rain and damp like they have in Paris. But I’m not sure I’ll go back, not for a while. What about you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Have you always lived here? Or is England still home?”

  “I only have the one year here,” she admitted. “That is, my parents have been kind enough to let me come here for a year and study with Maître Czerny. But it’s not a forever sort of thing. I can’t just stay here.”

  “Can’t you?”

  Flustered by his question, she took a sip of lemonade and considered how best to answer. “I could stay, I suppose. My aunt wouldn’t mind. But I said I would come home after a year. They . . . well, they worry, you see. As parents do.”

  “Yes, but most parents let their children grow up. How old are you, anyway?”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “I don’t mean to be rude. I just mean that you’re not a child like Honoria. Why can’t you decide where you’ll live and what you’ll do?” There was an edge to his voice as he spoke, as if her words had irritated or even offended him.

  “I do. I mean, I have decided, and I’m happy to have just the year.”

  He shrugged and looked away, and she was struck even more strongly by the notion that she’d somehow disappointed him. Which was a ridiculous thought, for it wasn’t as if he knew anything about her, or what had happened after the war, or indeed only a few months earlier.

  “Have you ever been to the south of France before?” she asked brightly, hoping to find a neutral topic of conversation.

  “No, this is my first time seeing the Med. I’ve gone to the Atlantic coast, though. I went to Brittany last summer with some friends. Reminded me of home.”

  “You grew up at the seaside?”

  “In New York City. But we went to Connecticut most summers. My parents have a house there, right on the shore. I loved it.”

  “Do your parents—” she started to ask, but was interrupted by whoops and cheers from the children. Gerald had just presented them with a map for the treasure hunt, and they spread it out on the mat next to Helena and Mr. Howard, Honoria reading aloud so her brothers could follow along.

  “We have to draw lines between each of these places, I think, and at the bit in the middle where they go crisscross, we dig for treasure. Is that right, Dow-Dow?” she asked her father, using the name she’d given him when she was just a toddler.

  “It is. Where shall we begin?”

  “With the mermaid’s perch!”

  The children ran off to a chalk-white boulder at the shoreline, in their excitement forgetting to bring along the map. Helena stood, brushing sand from her posterior, and admired the beautifully detailed work of art that Gerald had created for his children, which resembled in every respect a child’s expectation of what a pirate map should be, down to its charred edges and weather-beaten appearance. He must have labored on it for hours.

  Once the four markers had been located, the children decided that Mr. Howard, having the longest legs of anyone else on the beach that day, would pace out the intersecting lines. He readily agreed, though he complained piteously that the hot sand was hurting his feet. This just made the children laugh all the louder.

  Once the X had been found, it remained only to dig down to find the pirates’ “bunty,” as Patrick called it. Mr. Howard was again pressed into service, though he began to protest when the hole had reached a depth of two feet with no sign of the promised treasure.

  “What if we got it wrong?” he asked. “What if we’re digging in the wrong spot?”

  “Noooo!” they cheered. “Keep digging!”

  At a yard deep, Mr. Howard’s little spade—he was using Patrick’s sand toys to dig—scraped against something hard. A wooden box, tightly wrapped in oilcloth, emerged from the hole. As the youngest, Patrick was accorded the honor of opening the box, and he nearly swooned with delight when the lid fell back. Inside were heaps of golden coins, so many he gave up on counting them right away, and a letter from a long-dead pirate that, by some miracle, was addressed directly to the children.

  Once the excitement had subsided and the treasure had been tidied away for later play—the coins were checker pieces that Gerald had gilded—the children insisted on going for a swim, and ignored Helena’s protests that she’d already been in the water. Mr. Howard excused himself, explaining that he hadn’t brought his swimming costume, but he promised to stand at the edge of the water and keep watch for sea serpents or enemy submersibles.

  When they had finished their swim, which was really just an excuse for the children and dogs to frolic in the shallows, he brought her a fresh towel, which fortunately was large enough to act as a makeshift cloak. He didn’t wink or smirk or even smile at her—was perfectly well-mannered in every respect—but she did feel uncomfortable. If only he’d thought to bring a swimming costume. That would have made things easier, since they’d have been on equal footing, sartorially speaking.

  “When do you start your classes?” he asked, his gaze focused on the sea.

  “In September. At the Académie Czerny.”

  “The name is familiar. Do you know the address of the school?”

  “It’s on the rue du Montparnasse, just off the boulevard.”

  “Then it’s not far from where I live.” He turned his head, one hand shading his eyes. “Will you look me up when you’re back in Paris? You can send me a petit bleu at the paper.”

  “A little blue . . . ?”

  “A pneumatic message. I doubt your aunt has a telephone—hardly anyone does—and the post isn’t very efficient. You can buy the forms at the post office or stationers.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. I could only wrangle a few days off from my editor. Blochman fell down the stairs last week, and he and I are the only ones that can make much sense of the cables from New York. So back I go.”

  “Is he all right? Your colleague?”

  “He’ll be fine. Will teach him to avoid stairs when he’s had a snootful.”

  It was the first time she’d ever heard that term, but for once it didn’t have to be explained to her. American words were so terribly expressive.

  “I had better go home,” she said presently. “My aunt will be expecting me.”

  “Looks as if Gerald and Sara are marshaling the troops, too.”

  It really was a shame he wouldn’t be staying longer. She wondered if sh
e’d have the courage to find him in Paris. “Thank you again for your help yesterday.”

  “You’re welcome, Ellie. Or should I say ‘duchess’?” He smiled again, for the first time since she’d admitted her decision to stay only a year in France. “Look me up, will you? It’s always nice to have an old friend in a new city.”

  “I will, though it may be a while. I’ll need to get settled at my aunt’s house, and I don’t know how much time I’ll—”

  “I don’t mind. I’ll wait.”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Howard.”

  “Call me Sam. Please.”

  “Good-bye, Sam.”

  He walked away, holding little Patrick’s hand as they followed the path up to the seawall, his head bent to listen to the child’s happy chatter. She watched them until they were hidden by a stand of palm trees, and then she clipped Hamish’s lead to his collar and set off for home.

  PART TWO

  Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?

  —Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

  Chapter 7

  The last weeks of the summer slipped by in a languid, sun-drenched blur. Agnes departed for St.-Malo in the middle of August, taking Vincent and Hamish with her, and without her animating presence the villa felt cold and silent, even on the hottest of days. Jeanne and Micheline stayed on, for they remained in Antibes year-round; and though they were friendly enough, their work kept them too busy to offer much in the way of company for Helena.

  It would have been unutterably lonely if not for the Murphys. If ever she felt at loose ends, or in need of conversation, she had only to wander over and they made her welcome. Sara even invited her to stay with them at the hotel, but Helena hadn’t wanted to intrude, or to be seen as presuming on their friendship. She still saw them at the beach most afternoons, and often went with them, too, when they paid visits to their villa, where renovations were nearly finished and the garden was in full, riotous bloom.