Learning by Heart (19 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.

She had no idea what he meant.

‘It will be different another time,’ he promised.

She waited until his breathing changed and he was asleep, before she disengaged herself from his embrace.

They reached Bergerac on the third day. They sat in the market square under the wide umbrellas of the café and watched the world go by: women with little dogs, their subtle, neat clothes, their wide-brimmed hats sloping at an angle across their faces, the children at their sides in fusty grey shorts and socks, white shirts, and the girls in white dresses.

‘Down from Paris,’ Richard observed. ‘They’ll be on their way home soon, after the summer.’

Cora saw a window open on the far side of the square, and billowing white curtains drawn back to reveal a couch, on which a couple sat. The green doors to the balcony were surrounded by red geraniums; inside, Cora could just see an exotic plant with long grey-green leaves. The woman sat with one arm extended along the back of the couch, and the man was reading a magazine. Idly, the woman looked down into the square, and Cora wondered what she saw.

An English couple sitting at a table in the shade, all dressed up and very polite to each other. She would see Cora stand, and Richard hold back her chair, then take her by the elbow, guiding her between the tables, as a man might guide his mother, full of gentle respect. And all around them the world buzzed: the children kicking their heels, the women gesturing with cigarettes held upright between their fingers, the glare of the market stalls. They moved carefully back to the car while the woman in the window stroked her husband’s neck, and he lowered the magazine, and fanned himself with the open pages.

Cora often saw herself like this, as if she were outside herself and an observer, as they moved ever more southwards and eastwards through France in that first week. To Domme, on the medieval walls looking down at the curving river below; to Sarlat, in the shadowy streets at twilight. The English couple, he so attentive, she so patient, each deferring to the other, gazing into shop windows but never buying, sitting at bars to sip tea, eat almond biscuits, peel the ripe peaches with fruit knives, and to be remarked upon, ‘She so young,’ she imagined them saying, ‘and both so quiet.’

It was almost the end of the first week when they reached the coast at Cannes. They had been travelling for ten hours when they came into the town, and the car was trailing smoke.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ Cora had asked.

Richard had got out, checked the engine and got back into the driving seat, angry. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he told her.

They spent another hour finding a garage, then a further desultory two hours tramping the streets looking for somewhere to stay. They had not booked anywhere. Richard stopped speaking, stopped apologizing, out of desperation. Finally, Cora insisted that they stop at a café in Le Suquet. By some miracle, it had a room to let, and they found themselves there, exhausted, grimy and irritated. There was a lot of noise from the restaurant below and the narrow lane opposite. They could hear the proprietor bullying the kitchen staff, and the waiters calling out the orders.

‘This is not what I wanted,’ Richard said. He lay down on the bed, and put an arm over his face.

‘It will suit us very well,’ Cora said.

‘Cannes is all noise,’ he murmured. ‘They’ve built so much more since I was here. I’ll take you to îles de Lerins tomorrow. It’s just a short boat ride. Or the Old Port. They bring the flowers to the Allée de la Liberté. Hundreds and thousands of them.’

‘But this is quite all right,’ Cora told him. ‘This is a nice part of town, isn’t it, on this hill? I don’t mind it at all. And look,’ she added, trying to cheer him up, ‘we have everything we need right here in the room. There’s even a bath.’ And she showed him where it was hidden in a curtained alcove: tiny, with ornate brass taps, set back in a panelled wall.

‘Is there anything you want?’ she asked him.

‘Only to sleep,’ he said, his voice slurred by fatigue.

She regarded him sympathetically. She had driven for the first two hours, but he had taken the wheel through the heat of the day. He had been determined to get to the coast so that they might spend a few days there before they had to go home. He had complained of a headache for the last few miles.

As she watched him, his arm relaxed and he began to snore. She went to the window, opened the shutters a fraction and gazed down into the crowded street and on to the pavement tables below. She wondered if she ought to go down and ask for a tray of cold drinks.

She turned back into the room, closing the shutters so that only a strip of sunlight lay across the floor where the wood did not quite meet the sill. She took off her shoes, walked back to the bath and looked at it longingly. Then, with a glance at Richard’s prone form, she took off her clothes, and drew the curtains. She put her face flannel into the bath and ran the water slowly on to it, so that it wouldn’t make too much noise. Then she lowered herself, with relish, into the six inches or so of tepid water. The coolness was bliss; she stretched out, lathering herself with the soap that had been provided and rinsing herself from the same slow-running tap.

She looked down at her body in the half-darkness. French women all seemed so slim; she had never been so. She wondered if she should diet; she had seen women just now in little black pencil skirts, and white shirts with the collar turned up, and scarves knotted at the neck. She was probably too heavy to carry that off. She had never thought about it before; perhaps she could be pretty if she styled her hair differently, rather than letting it hang loose. She had never really desperately cared about clothes. Perhaps she should try again, as she had in London. After all, she was Richard’s wife. People might judge him by her. And she lay thinking of what she might buy that would not be too expensive and that he might like.

‘Cora,’ she heard him call.

She sat up abruptly. ‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘In the bath.’

‘Are you?’ he replied. He sounded sleepy, and amused. ‘Was there any hot water?’

‘Not really,’ she told him.

‘Do you think there might be any left for me?’

‘I haven’t used much,’ she said. ‘I should think so.’ And she stood up, pulling out the plug. She dried herself off, and stepped out from between the curtains with the towel wrapped round her. Richard had turned on to his side; his eyes were closed.

‘Shall I run another bath?’ she asked.

There was no reply. She sat on the chair at the side of the bed. Then she stepped out of the towel and into her dressing-gown. She got into bed, under the cool cotton sheet.

When she woke up the sun had left the room. The strip of light on the floor had gone, replaced by a pattern of red, green and yellow, cast up from the lights above the café door, which ran the width of their window. The wood floors, the white curtains, the plain white bed were all decorated with it.

For a moment, she couldn’t think where she was, or what had woken her. Then, she heard the noise again.

She turned to Richard.

He was lying flat on his back, his arms at his side, his head tipped back on the pillow. His mouth was open, and he was making a little keening sound, a long, continuous note, like a child’s cry.

‘Richard,’ she whispered.

He didn’t move. The sound increased; his body stiffened. The noise was eerie, and the more she listened to it, the more eerie it became. Occasionally, he gasped. She put a hand on his arm, and found it cold and clammy.

‘Richard,’ she repeated, louder.

He woke; but that was hardly an accurate description. He was catapulted out of sleep, thrown into consciousness. He sat bolt upright and put out his hands as if he were trying to grasp something out of his reach; sweat sprang out on his face. To Cora’s amazement, he scrambled forward in pursuit of the phantom, his hands moving in a sideways groping motion. ‘They’re here,’ he said.

He was on his feet before she could restrain him, stumbling, crouching. He collided with the chair, let out another cry, and fell to his knees. He sounded as if he were suffocating.

Cora jumped out of bed and ran to him. He caught her arm and wrenched her to the floor. ‘They’re here,’ he whispered.

‘Richard,’ she said, ‘it’s me. You’re safe. It’s Cora. Wake up …’

He gasped, put a hand to his throat, and looked down at himself in confusion.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘it’s a dream.’

He sank back on his heels.

‘What was it?’ she asked.

‘The boy,’ he said. ‘The sea.’

With some trouble, she helped him to his feet. He seemed dazed. ‘What time is it?’ he asked.

‘I think it’s early evening. Seven or so.’

‘Seven,’ he repeated. ‘Seven in the evening.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Cora,’ he said, and put his arms round her. She could feel his heart beating like a drum. He was shaking.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Which boy? Which sea?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘Come and sit down,’ she said.

He stayed where he was, holding her now at arm’s length and staring intently at her, as if he hardly believed that she, too, was not a ghost.

‘I was asleep,’ she said, seeing his glance. She made a move to pull the dressing-gown more tightly round herself.

He stopped her hand.

Below them, in the street, they could hear the buzz of the passing crowds. ‘Hey,’ someone called, ‘come back here.’ Several others laughed.

‘Would you like to go and eat?’ Cora asked tentatively. ‘Are you hungry? It seems that everyone is out.’

Richard didn’t reply. He untied the knot of the dressing-gown belt. She took a half-step backwards.

‘Please,’ he murmured. He took the robe from her shoulders.

She stood there trembling. He had not seen her before – she had not allowed him to. It seemed indecent to parade in front of him, or to lie naked in a bed without covering herself. She put a hand defensively to her breast.

‘You are so lovely,’ he murmured.

He took the robe from her entirely, lifted the hand from her breast, turned it over and kissed her wrist. Moving slowly, he drew her to him along the length of her arm, and when she was within his embrace, he lowered his face to her neck.

‘Lie down with me,’ he said.

He took off his clothes, walked to the bath and ran cool water over his arms and shoulders. As he stood up, she watched the drops run down his back, his pale skin. He was too thin, she thought. She could see every rib, every muscle delineated. With his back to her, she had time to look at him in a way she had not before. He had slim hips, a small waist; his shoulders were knotted and wiry from the building work he had done, his arms more heavily muscular. When he turned back to her, she felt a shock of need: the first slow beat of desire.

As he moved across the room, the muted light moved over him. In the shadows, she thought, they were like two shadows themselves, two barely imprinted shapes – like watercolours, which hinted at forms on paper rather than revealing them in detail. She saw the line of his body, the line of her own, shapes drifting in a dance.

At first he did not lie down next to her: he ran his hands over her, murmuring her name. She stepped out of herself, out of the person she clung to, out of her fears, out of the necessity that she had felt to be correct, to be subdued. She moved out of the dark she had lived in, out of the subterranean, and into the world. She followed where he led, all the small caresses, the softness and then the urgency of his fingers. Sounds became vibrant, then were silenced altogether. The picture she had carried of the clock, the ugly sunburst clock on the wall, vanished on a rapid stream. As if from a great distance she felt Richard’s hands, heard her own voice begging him for something that, when it came, was painted in high colour, married to the gaudy lights spilled on the floor and on the linen of the bed and on their own arms and faces.

She forgot herself and became part of the wave, the hot, humid night rolling down La Croisette, sweeping the palm trees, the casinos, the lazy sea, the sports cars, the bars, the flags, the crowds and voices before it, enveloping them, pressing them into the intense, vibrant indigo blue of the night.

When it was over she clung to him. Loving the sensation of his body pressed to hers. He lifted his face and stroked her hair. She kissed him.

There was nothing else to say.

They already knew every word by heart.

Lapis

When I close my eyes, I see the rail of the boat, painted blue, and the boarding inside, not white, but indigo
.

When I was a child I would go out with my uncle every time I stayed in Palermo. The front of the house faced the sea, and the boat would go out at five o’clock in the morning. He put me where I would not be a nuisance, and the sound of the motors, knocking as they went out of harbour, was loud. There was the smell of diesel and salt, and my uncle would shout to everyone who passed, other fishermen, other sailors, and he would have the radio on. In my mind’s eye, I see the ocean flat blue to the soundtrack of rock music; French, mostly. His grandmother was French, and he had lived with her all his life; he had learned what he knew of women from this exile, this quiet, dark-haired woman from Bearne, on the French and Spanish borders. French rock music and the battering of the waves out of harbour. I was never sick: I was always too excited
.

He had a boy who went with him and taught me to catch sea urchins; there were sea urchins and sardines, anchovies and shrimps. I remember that I told you about that on the first night I saw you. The first time at sea with my uncle, I hated the sight of the catch flailing for its life in the nets. But when my uncle began cooking on the bridge, I forgot it. He would cook the fish with olive oil, salt and pepper. Just that. They tasted like ambrosia
.

I cook fish all the time now. I have only myself to look after, and I am easy to please. I’m not the boy you knew, Cora: you would smile at me. I’ve grown fat, or fatter, at least. I have a good man’s figure, so they say. A man who likes his food you might tell me, laughing
.