A Period of Adjustment (7 page)

‘Well, William, listen. Eric has to go into Monte Carlo today. Business. What about today? Lunch with me? So that we can talk things over alone. It really has been weeks …'

‘Not terribly keen on coming to Valbonne, Helen. Can't we find somewhere -'

Her voice was over-willing, too hasty. False apology. ‘Oh I didn't mean
here,
William! No. Eric can drop me off somewhere. What about Nice? Can you make Nice? I mean, I don't know how far away you are. He'll be back this evening, when we have to have a dinner at the Negresco for the American team. Lunch? Make lunch? Meet me in the Negresco bar half-twelve? All right by you?'

‘I'm not far away. You seem pretty busy, so I'll come to the Negresco.'

‘Super! Terrific! Explain to Giles, will you? That this is “grown-up time”. I'll be in London in a couple of weeks anyway; we can all be together then. You'll be there too, won't you? Now that your “mission” is over and you've discovered where your little ewe lamb got to, you'll be coming home?'

‘For a time. To pack up the house with you. Then I'll come back here.'

There was a slight singing on the line. A silence. When she spoke again her voice seemed to echo slightly. As if she was talking very quietly through a tin funnel.

‘Back there? To
live?
You can't mean it! Anyway, let's do all the talking when we meet. Give Giles my love. Is he better?'

‘Better?'

‘Well, sulking, sullen, rude. He's been really awful.'

‘Much the same. I can't imagine why, can you?' Lying was easy, suddenly.

‘No. Hell. Never mind. I'll sort him out eventually. It's the growing-up stage, and you've never been brilliant with the children. Never mind, never mind. So! Half-twelve, the Negresco? I might take you to a super restaurant we know. It's in walking distance. L'Auralia. It's seriously expensive and wildly smart. You'll need a tie.'

‘I have one.'

‘Lovely, lovely. Twelve-thirty then.' And she hung up.

I stood for a second, the receiver in my hand, leant against the quilted parrots, heard the beep beep beep of the disconnected line and replaced my receiver. She was amazingly dated in her vocabulary and priorities. In her life-style too. Presumably she had found the one she wanted with Rhys-Evans? Revived it? It would make my news easier for her to take, I hoped.

Giles, in the dining-room, was feeding the wretched little dog with bits of croissant.

‘Its name's Dollie. It's very funny, Will. Look.'

‘Don't feed the thing at the table.' I sat down to my now cold coffee.

‘The ladies over there don't mind.'

I turned and the ladies and I smiled at each other. They nodded and sipped.

‘Send the bloody thing back, Giles. Get rid of it. That was your mother.'

‘Oh. And? Is she all right? She in wherever it is? Valbonne or whatever?'

‘Yes. I'm going over to Nice. To lunch with her. There is a lot to talk about.'

‘To Nice? Not Valbonne? Am I coming?'

‘No. No, you're not. She said to tell you that it was “grown-up time”. I gather you are supposed to know what that means. It would be pretty boring for you anyway. We're going to a “seriously expensive” restaurant.'

‘Well, I'd quite like that.'

‘You're not coming. You're going over to the Theobalds'. Come along.'

‘But
they
wouldn't mind. Dottie and Arthur? They wouldn't mind a
bit.
After all, I would be going to see my own mother, wouldn't I? Unless, he's going to be there too? Eric'

‘No. He's not. Come along, I've got to drop a note off to Florence. I thought I might lunch with her. Be seeing her. She'll be waiting to know about your uncle's final – well, where he's gone.'

With little grace, he got up and we left the dining-room just a little ahead of Monsieur Forbin, who had collected his sandwiches, the bottle of Evian and his
Michelin Green Guide.
I held the door for him, and he pushed through without a glance, dropped the packet of sandwiches, and got hit in the back by the swing of the dining-room door. Giles retrieved the packet and handed it to him. He nodded sharply, tucked the Evian under his arm, strode off in his boots and flapping shorts.

‘Jolly rude, some people. I could have just kicked his rotten old packet all down the hall. Like a football. Couldn't I?'

‘You could have. And I'd have clubbed you to death.'

He laughed and clapped his hands and we went into the lobby where I wrote a card to Florence, telling her that I had to go to Nice on family business and that James had been cast to the sea-wind, that I'd contact her that evening - could she dine this evening at the hotel? – and to leave me a message. Madame Mazine said that someone would take it over to No. II rue Émile Zola right away, and would I be in for lunch?

We drove over to the Theobalds' through the fresh green Provençal summer in silence: Giles because, I presumed, he was cast down by not being invited to a ‘seriously expensive'
restaurant or, rather more plausibly, frankly, because he had not been invited to see his mother again after almost half a month.

The sun was already high, sparkling and winking on the bonnet of the car, the fields yellow with sheets of pale narcissus tazetta, the tiny little dwarf ones, which seemed to smother the land at this time of year. There were small flocks of grazing sheep, elderly sheep dogs lying in the shade, aged shepherds sitting with their sticks, a woman in a red dress walking slowly up a track to a house, two small children loitering and pushing each other just behind her. It was a calm, serene, still summer morning. There was time enough here, and no apparent anxiety. Peace, ease, security.

How then, and when, to tell Giles sitting silent on my right, that his world was shortly to be thrown into turmoil? That his parents were about to divorce? That I would now be returning to England in order to sell up what he had always considered to be his lifetime, and pack it into boxes and storage? That he and his sister Annie were to be ‘shared' between Helen and me, and that he would have to countenance a new ‘uncle' who would, this time, not merely intrude into his bathroom but the rest of his life? At least, as far as I knew.

But it seemed to me wiser, kinder, and altogether essential that I should tell him all this before I went to seal his fate. He ought to know so that, at least, he would not be taken by cruel surprise when the inevitable ‘grown-up time' had to be shared by him.

In some odd way, as if he almost knew my slightly anguished dilemma, he suddenly said, ‘Will, would you mind stopping? I want to have a pee.'

I was so relieved to be given the excuse to halt the car and talk to him that I almost immediately pulled into a small space just along the lane under a tall cypress and a tilted calvary.

‘You didn't say anything rotten! Wow! I was
sure
you'd say, “Why didn't you go before we left the hotel?” But you didn't.' He got out of the car. I waited for him to return.

Tell him straight out. That's what I must do. He was far too intelligent a child for me to evade the facts with euphemisms.

He pulled the Simca door open, shaking a hand with exaggerated pain. ‘Ouch! Ouch! It's so hot already. The handle is red hot! And do you know? I think I peed right on top of a fat old toad, I think it was a toad, it sort of lumbered slowly into some nettles. It could have been, don't you think? Or maybe a hedgehog?'

‘Giles. Now that we have stopped, and we're in the shade, I have to have one of those father-and-son talks. And I'm not going to find it easy, so don't interrupt.'

‘About Dottie and Arthur? My French isn't good enough?' He shut his door hard.

‘I said don't interrupt. Right? No. It's not about Dottie and Arthur. It's about your mother and me. I'll come right out with it, you have to know soon anyway. Mum and I are separating. We are getting divorced. Okay?'

He looked out of the car window, away from me, avoiding my, I assume, anxious face. He rubbed a finger along the edge of the wound-down window and said, ‘I know. I knew ages ago.'

‘Ages
ago? How?'

‘Annie. Annie told me. “They're going to be divorced.” She said that ages ago. Before you came to this place. To France.'

‘I see. Well, that saves me a certain amount of trouble. If you know, then, you do. How did she know?'

‘She said Mum told her. They talk together, you know. They like each other. Secrets. I know they do. I don't mind.'

I sat back, slightly more relaxed, into my seat, stuck my
elbow out of the open window, picked at a fingernail. ‘Has it made you very unhappy? You haven't shown any signs.'

He suddenly turned and faced me. ‘Well,
you
didn't say. So I didn't know if you knew. You see I didn't know if you knew about … about Mr McKenna, Mr Price, and Eric. But I did tell you about them. When I arrived. I didn't know if you would mind.' He looked helplessly away, stared out of the windscreen. ‘
Will
it be Eric Rhys-Evans? Do you think it'll be him and Mum? Do you?'

‘I honestly don't know. I say “honestly” because it's true. I don't know. You know more about that than I do. You said his hair spills all over the pillows when he undoes his pig-tail. Right? And that he comes to stay at the house. Takes the key from the bathroom door. You said all that? Correct?'

He nodded very slowly. Put a hand over his mouth, looked away again.

‘Well, it looks to me as if Mum quite likes him, doesn't it? More than the other, umm, “uncles” as you called them. And she's been on this trip with him to Spain, and joined his production team, or whatever, and if he stays at the house a bit more than the others I reckon that, yes, I reckon perhaps it
will
be Eric. I think he makes her happy. Does the things she likes to do. She got a bit fed up with the washing-up, the shopping, cooking, looking after us all … all those things. Being a mum. You know?'

He nodded slowly. A slight movement. Hand still to his mouth, fingertips white.

‘Does Annie like Eric? Do you know?'

He nodded again. Took his hand down. Placed it, clenched, in his lap, head lowered, and spoke so quietly that I could almost not hear him and was afraid to ask him to speak up. I leant closer to him. He twisted his fist in his other hand.

‘She likes him. He brings her things. Lipstick. Once lipstick. And some scent. Mum said she was too young and he said a young lady is never too young for scent. He calls her Annie-Pannie. I don't know why. And he makes her laugh too.'

‘Well, today I'm going to see your mother and we'll decide what to do about the house in Simla Road. We'll sell that, and your mother is going to move down to Eric Whatsisname's house at Burnham Beeches, she says. Did you know that? Annie tell you that?'

He shook his head rapidly, but did not speak.

‘So, soon I'll go back to London, we'll clear the house, sell it, and I'll probably come back to live here. At Jericho. At least for a time. That is the rough idea anyway. Mum and I
want
a divorce. It's not because of “uncles” or that sort of thing. We decided to separate a long time ago. It's all quite friendly. We'll all settle down again. It'll be a bit of a jolt just at first, but I'm certain it'll be the best thing. Mum and I don't want to be together any more. It happens. People grow out of each other. We'll both talk it all over very carefully. Schools for you two. How to share you. Holidays and so on. We are thinking of what's best for you. Eric is jolly rich, very successful and I am sure you'll all get on pretty well after a time … it'll just be a bit difficult at the start. It's a question of getting used to each other, that's all.'

Suddenly, frighteningly, he gave a great cry, his arms reached out blindly to me, his face creased with grief, and howling, sobbing, he hurled himself on me, thrusting frantic arms round my neck. ‘No! No! No!' he yelled. ‘No!' His body hooped with rage, fists beating wildly, legs flailing, kicking, then he crushed his wet face tightly against my throat, hands scrabbling, clutching my shoulders, pummelling my back. His whole body bucked with fury or panic, and then, quite suddenly, he collapsed into my arms. Sagging
against me like an empty sack, sobbing hopelessly, his strength ebbed away as suddenly as it had arrived.

For a moment he lay in my arms jerking in little spasms, whining like a wounded dog. There was no time now for theology, for parent counselling, for sophisticated reason. This was a devastating display of grief which had taken me utterly by surprise and it demanded instant smothering. Unquestioning love and strength.

I gathered him in my arms and crushed him tightly to me. He sought breath in sudden gulps, but I held him firmly until all violence had quite abated, the sobbing eased, giving way to anguished hiccoughs and, finally, his energy drained away and he lay still. I relaxed my grip, but still held him.

I was shattered that my (I had thought) fairly reasonable approach to a difficult problem should have provoked such a fearful outburst. Clearly all kinds of distresses had been building up behind an almost casual façade. I now understood that he had built his trust on me and that, unintentionally, I had kicked away the key brick holding up the scaffolding. I had never held anyone in such desperate distress before. I had never held my son before. This crushed creature cradled in my arms, eyes closed, nose running with snot and tears, lips wet, sagging open like a split fruit, was mine. I was now wholly responsible. I had betrayed his trust and must now regain it. I knew that whatever might happen to us, together or apart, that our lives would now be indelibly coloured by this moment of real grief played out in the shade of a giant cypress and a tilting calvary. In some strange way it was a Calvary for us both.

Slowly I released my hold on him, slowly he eased himself away, slid untidily back into his seat, head against the leather, eyes still shut, lay still.