A Period of Adjustment (13 page)

‘That was all there was to it, Florence. His ashes were in a hideous little white plastic urn. I hardly noticed it. If they
were
his ashes. You can never be certain. I threw the urn into the sea as well. One day, perhaps, some happy child will find it washed up on a beach, use it to make sand-pies … and that was that. The end for James. There are many worse ways. I have done all the dull official bits and pieces, as I said. The Consul, the bank. It's over. He had no possessions, just the bag, some bits and pieces which Aronovich gave me. Apparently there was a watch which he liked. He sold it eventually. Had to. For nothing. But that was all.'

She lay back in the grass, arms beside her, eyes closed, her pale face shadowed by dancing flickers of leaves from the tree above us. ‘It was a Piaget. He was given it by one of his circle in Paris. He was very proud of it. I hated it, but he kept it. How strange it all is, to suddenly realize that I will never use his name again. Never call to him. For his lunch or the evening soup, or in this garden. Never hear him laugh again. Do you remember his laugh? Very light, like a flute! And then deep, like a cello. Oh! Of course …' She rolled over on her stomach beside me, chin cupped in her hands. ‘Of course I didn't hear him laugh for many months. Months. Ever since Thomas was born. The laughter stopped. But how strange things are. I still called him to his meals, still called his name, touched him. Even though he hardly spoke to me in the last year he was in this house, I knew the scent of him, I heard his steps, when his door shut, the bolt run in …' She rubbed her face vigorously. ‘Well, it's done. I have his son. At least that. I still have poor inelegant, helpless, mongoloid Thomas. And I love him desperately.'

Looking at us both from across the dereliction of blowsy garden, it would have been perfectly easy to take us for a happy, relaxed couple talking idly about Bonnard or Leaf-cutter bees, or Gershwin, or simply the state of the Government. We could even, from a short distance away, just have been lovers. She on her stomach, chin cupped in hands. I lying beside her chewing a piece of grass. Discussing where to be married? Who to invite? What music should be played? But it was not at all like that.

‘Florence,' I said, cautiously, with infinite care not to hurt her, ‘I have told you this before. I know you understood at the time, but I don't want you to forget. I am
in
love with you. I love you very much indeed. Perhaps I am too old to use the word “desperately”, but it is a strong love. I am stubborn and I'll be patient, as I promised you before, and wait. Until you are ready to consider me. Will you keep that in mind? At the very back of your mind? I will be there.'

I risked touching her arm lightly. She made no move, didn't even flinch away. Encouraged, I said, ‘Your most difficult problem now is how to restart your life. I understand that.' It was a singularly unoriginal remark, and the slight hunch of her shoulders made it quite clear that she had hardly bothered to consider it.

‘Boff!' she said. ‘Boff!' And sat up briskly, brushed her skirt of dust and crushed leaf and said carelessly, not looking at me, ‘I am going away shortly. To Marseilles. I'll take Thomas. Celeste will come too to help with him. He is so active and exhausting on a voyage. He thinks it is all such an adventure. Somewhere new, fun.'

I sat up beside her. ‘When will you go?'

‘I don't know. It depends on the clinic. On Dr Pascal.'

I heard myself repeat her like an echo. ‘
Clinic?
Pascal? What is this, darling?'

She looked studiedly across the garden, golden-hazed in afternoon sun. ‘Just a few days. That's all. I can't do very
much about restarting my life, as you say, until I know that I have one to live.'

Across the garden I suddenly saw Giles wandering about in his floppy shorts, a hand shading his eyes. I supposed he was looking for me. Us. I called and waved and he waved back and made a sign with his hands that he was going to get something to drink. Or eat. Drink, I think. I shouted out, ‘Okay. In the fridge.' And to Florence I said, ‘Marseilles? Why do you have to go there?' Although I knew what her answer would be. I had spent a long time evading the subject which was obviously in both our minds.

She was wearing a string of olive-wood beads, turned it round to find the clasp, found it, unscrewed the little silver ball, screwed it back again, rearranged the beads. ‘To see if I am HIV positive. And Thomas. It is possible. I'll go to Marseilles, Dr Pascal's clinic is there. It is very discreet. If I took the test anywhere near here it would be disastrous. They make vicious gossip if you alter your hairstyle, or buy a “restaurant” instead of a “baguette”. So I'll go to Marseilles. Mama has friends near there. At Allauch. It's not far.'

‘Oh, my darling! I can't see that there is the
remotest
chance of you being -'

She turned to me quickly, her fine grey eyes flat with anger. ‘
What
can't you see? How can you even remotely know
what
situation I am in? How? Were you holding the candle during those months in this unhappy little house? What do you know about this disease? No one
knows.
They can only tell me if I am positive or not. If I carry the virus. And I assure you, my dear William, that
you
have no possible way of knowing that! Even I cannot be sure. And, you must forgive me, but I am
not
your “darling”. As far as I am concerned, I have never been so, and never could be. You are good and kind, and I am forever grateful to you for everything that you have done to comfort and help me. For
finding James, and sending send him into the “wind and the sea”, as you have said. Your gentleness and tact have given me immense courage to continue.
But.
I loved one man. The first I ever loved, and the last I shall ever love. I love him passionately, no matter what happened to us both in the end. I always will, and I will cherish his child, until the day comes when he too must be cast to the wind and the sea. He is all that I have in my life, and all that I need. Thank you, my dear, good William, but that is all. C'est tout fini.' She got up slowly and I joined her, stuffing in the front of my shirt which had pulled out of my trousers.

‘All right. I heard all that. But just one thing, please? Let me take you to Marseilles? Be with you, share this last wretched hurdle with you. Please?'

She put a hand on my arm, a gentle movement made to diffuse the anger in her words. ‘You intrude, William! Don't! I make my own plans, I am quite capable. I am a colonel's daughter, remember? We are trained to cope. I don't need your help. I did not require it when you arrived, uninvited, in this place, I do not require it now. He was your brother, that I had to understand and come to terms with, but he was my “husband”, however much you may mock the word. We lived and loved as man and wife. I shall keep his name and I shall cherish that part of my life for ever and ever. Nothing,
nothing,
can erase that.'

Through a giant tumble of going-over peonies Giles was waving something glittering in one hand, a bamboo pole over his shoulder. Florence and I turned and began to walk towards the little terrace where he was standing, legs apart, arms signalling.

‘We don't speak before him,' Florence said. ‘I will always remember your kindness to me with intense gratitude. Thank you.' And as we clambered over piles of yellow cuttings and dead weeds, she called lightly, and in English,
‘My goodness! Giles! You are Father Neptune! So much mud, so wet! What have you caught? Whales is it?'

For a few wretched minutes we admired a glass pickling-jar of water weed and an hysteria of tiny fish. I suggested that he should throw them all back into the stream and he began to argue, so I clipped him swiftly on the head, then Florence turned and started down the path to the gate and her little Renault, at the exact moment that Maurice arrived in his car to collect Clotilde, who had come out untying her apron, waving happily to her papa, and suddenly my bosky garden had become a marketplace. People greeted each other, admired the catch in the pickling-jar, nodded and beamed, and it all broke up, and then there was nothing but a slamming of doors and revving of engines. Clotilde called something about sheets and pillowcases. As she got into her car Florence bowed politely to Maurice, who doffed his cap, and then slammed his daughter into the back of his car. Giles started to whine about keeping his fish for a little longer so that he could look at them properly if he could find a magnifying glass anywhere. And I suddenly realized that everyone was leaving; that Florence was walking firmly out of my life, talking brightly to Maurice, and that any plans, or ideas, I might have entertained for a possible future with her were now lost for ever, were fading rapidly away before my eyes in this brilliant afternoon light. I was being, more or less, abandoned. Left behind up on the beach with a ten-year-old son I hardly knew, and my dead brother's rented house in three hectares of gone-to-seed garden, and unpruned vines and roses. So much for the dreams and aspirations of a moderately successful writer. A lesson learned at last. One doesn't get to live happily ever after. That is simply a comforting invention for children.

Giles was clattering away up on the terrace with a bucket, spilling water everywhere. It seemed to me, stooping to tug up a clump of dumb-nettle, that I had lost out pretty well.
Helen yesterday in Nice, Florence today under the fig trees. The slate was clean. The shadows from the cypress trees fell like pencils across the rough grass up to the little orchard, the vine hung like a green silk curtain, cool and dark. Then cicadas started up in the bark of the olives. It would all be all right. I minded very much about Florence. However …

Water slopped down the terrace steps and Giles swore. I don't know what he said but it was born of furious frustration and damp.

‘What are you doing with that punch bowl? It cost a fortune.'

‘You got it in Sainte-Brigitte, at that stall. You said it was a bargain.'

‘Even so. Why fill it up with fish and weeds?'

‘It's bigger than the pickle jar.'

‘They'll die anyway. Not enough oxygen. Put them back, Giles.'

‘They could be grilse or something.'

‘Then you're in dead trouble. Grilse turn into salmon. Come on, put them back.'

‘Salmon! Wow! Can we get an aquarium then? One day.'

‘When we get back from London. After that. I can't think straight at the moment. And when we get a telephone, and so on. Pour them all back. Has Clotilde done the beds, do you know?'

He began fishing out straggles of weed and watercress. ‘I think so. When I tried to talk to her in French, you know, she just looked funny and went red. She's a bit batty.'

‘That needn't prevent her from making up two beds.'

But she had done her work perfectly. Beds trim, pillows plump. Suitcase, hand luggage neatly stacked in both rooms. In the bathroom wash-bags, once scattered in a hurry, were tidy; toothbrushes in mustard glasses; new towels, one each, on the rail. I was glad to see that my new bed from Futurama looked comfortable and inviting in the newly
whitewashed room. I had carefully set it up on the other side of the room; not where their walnut bed had stood. I would not look up at someone else's ceiling geography. All the cracks, chips and blotches were covered under two coats of fresh paint. It was my ceiling now.

I couldn't see it in the dark. Lying on my back staring into what was in effect the grey light of a half-moon, I could hear above the frogs calling and singing in the stream some distant night bird creaking and croaking down in the little orchard where Florence and I had sat in the long grasses and, more or less, said goodbye. Her agony must be intense. The dreadful uncertainty she was enduring would take all her courage, colonel's daughter or not. And I seemed absolutely unable to help her, even comfort her or take some of the strain, just by being with her and staying close.

But it had been made abundantly clear that I was not needed. I think that hurt rather more deeply than just her quiet rejection of me. Perfectly idiotic at my age to be troubled. I mean, how could I possibly have thought that she might come to me after her marriage, false or not, to my much younger brother? How could I have thought that she would have found it possible to return, with someone else, to the house which had been so filled with joy? And, eventually, pain? Those things are not eradicated by a ‘new love' and it had been made very clear that I was not a ‘new love' and never would be. She had ‘mated' for life. Some birds and animals do that.

Obviously some humans do too if they marry (as I did not) for love and ‘for ever'. Helen and I had married, rather late in our lives, for perfectly simple ‘sex'. Mutual lust. Nothing much else was there. We shared no intellect. No other interests than our bodies and what we could do with, and to, them. When that started to fray away, as inevitably it does and did, then there was not even familiarity or
warmth to hold us. Dislike took the place of desire fairly quickly. All the habits, personal habits, which had been amusing or tolerable in the past suddenly magnified into disaster areas of irritation. We couldn't share anything beyond our bodies.

Poor Giles, now sleeping in the next room, was the final effort to hold on to some idiot thing which is called ‘family values'. It does not exist when Mummy and Daddy have no values to share. ‘Sperm donor,' she had said …

I knew I'd never sleep. I was overtired and too alert. It had been a fraught week. My mind ran like speeded-up film, jumbled, back to front, unsteady, blurred. I'd make no sense of anything. I groped about for the kitchen matches, lit a small stub of candle waxed on to a tin lid. The room flickered into life. Shadows bounced and stretched in the soft draught from the window. I'd have to get a few pictures one day something on the walls. I almost missed my bleeding heart Jesus and the goldfish and kittens in my little room at the hotel; at least they had become familiar.