Sabine (18 page)

I tiptoed in and sat on the floor for a bit beside the bed, my face, like Sabine's, turned towards the sun. I remember that, and I remember how nice it felt – those bright rays dancing on my skin. At some point I think I may have joined her briefly in sleep. Minutes wasted, minutes stupidly squandered, because sleep is not a place you join anyone, but how was I to know they were so precious?

Around midday I rang Aimée to let her know where I was, and to find out if my father had called, and if so, from where. By the slightly cramped feeling in my stomach as I waited for her answer I realised how closely my present mood of optimism was tied to his arrival. Had she said, No call yet, my hopes would have crashed again. Had she said, From the coast, they would have stayed about level. Had she said, Paris, they would have risen quite a bit. As it was, they rocketed because she said, Yes,
mais oui, mais oui, mais oui, petit lapin,
and to
come back as soon as I could: he had rung from Chartres, where he was resting for a while, having crossed the Channel late yesterday evening and then driven through the night. He would be leaving the moment it was cool enough for him to set out again and should arrive sometime in the afternoon.
Les Anglais
and their horror of driving in the heat! If you asked her, in weather like this, behind the wheel was the best place to be.

Even when driving veils were the fashion, Aimée? Even when you were muffled up like a mummy and the dust flew everywhere? Even when you crashed with poor Lady Whatever-her-name-was and sent her to an early grave? I was tempted to say something like this, just to startle her, but I didn't, of course. My father had taught me virtually nothing, and permitted others to teach me very little, but one thing I did remember him telling me, probably in connection with chess, was: if your opponent underestimates your intelligence the battle is half won.

When your intelligence is zero, though, how can an enemy underestimate it? My father's rule of thumb made no provision for that. I ate
pot au feu
with Ghislaine in the kitchen, then took a bowl up for Sabine but she was still asleep. Deeply, soundly, or so it seemed, snoring a bit but in a light, snuffly way, like a pug-dog. There was no need to worry about an afternoon visit from Roland: Ghislaine had mentioned that his mother had commandeered him for the day. The de Vibreys
were holding some kind of
réception
that evening, she said with a smile (whose significance escaped me, along with so much else), and he wouldn't be round till late. Late was bearable, late was OK; my father would have arrived by that time and he would ensure that no evil befell. I planted a goodbye kiss on the top of Sabine's head and she stopped snuffling and turned over quickly – so quickly I had the impression she was aware of my presence. A fact that, stupidly, pleased me at the time. Then I went downstairs, took leave of Ghislaine, got on my bike again and trundled down the road I had trundled down so many times before, leaving a snatch of Mozart in the forest this time to add to the bayings and sighings and roarings and horn-calls and all the other noises encrypted there.
‘Voi che sapete'.
My father's favourite aria. You who are in the know. Honestly, life can sometimes be so trite you'd think it had been scripted by a hack.

At four o'clock, the great arrival. Aimée, chiefly through the agency of Mme Goujon, I suspect, had somehow in the meantime got her housewifely asparagus bundled up again and fastened with a hasty cordon. The guest bedroom had been made up tidily, with books and flowers on the bedside table, and on the bed, embroidered linen sheets in only the palest shade of off-white.
Inpensable,
she warbled at me as she added the final touches, to send my father to a hotel. With Christopher's
parents it was different, they were flying out together and would be staying the night at the Lion d'Or, but a man alone –
tout seul comme ça
…

So Christopher's mother and father were arriving too. It was the first I had heard of this. A veritable epidemic of anxiety seemed to have broken out among our parents. Well, that accounted for the sudden upswing on the housekeeping front: Aimée was aiming to placate her clientele. The salon was dust-free for a change, or almost, the gilt spots on the screen glinting brightly in the zebra-crossing strips of daylight, the Aubusson carpet exhibiting – although again, only where the tongues of light struck it – hitherto unsuspected traces of green and pink. Tea was set out in the dining room on a lavish scale by Aimée's standards: biscuits, squares of local chocolate, crystallised fruits, sticky little
petits fours
on silver platters that had only faint shadowings of tarnish mixed with polish in the embossments. All the foodstuffs my father most disliked, but it was the thought process that counted, and that had not been stinted. Aimée's hair sported a dash of pink too when you observed it closely: presumably the excitement of a male house-guest had sent her rushing to the henna pot.

Look who's talking: I had made a grudging effort myself, at least to the extent of changing out of my much criticised fisherman's jersey. I had always liked meeting my father when we had been separated for a while, always looked forward to it, even
when I was officially at odds with him. Always looked forward to showing him off to people who didn't know him, catching their little starts of surprise and pleasure: he was so much taller than I, so much thinner and more elegant, it threw them. Those who did know him were fun to watch too – particularly the nuns when he used to come and fetch me from the convent. Nuns are not supposed to be flirty, but his presence set them fluttering like so many cooped-up chickens with a fox in the offing. The Reverend Mother, who in her Irishness shared his enthusiasm for the turf, once even greeted him by his nickname – although from her horror-struck expression afterwards I think it must have shot out by mistake. Not Michael, which would have been daring enough, but Mickey. This, just to show his appeal – how strong it was, and how it winged in on such varied targets, taking effect more or less right across the whole female board. Only my mother seemed to have eluded its range, but at prohibitive cost.

Aimée was
ravie
– that was her word for it, repeated endlessly over the next half-hour as, in the role of hostess, she greeted her guest, bustled him inside, plied him with food, showered him with compliments, showed him to his room and generally made an elaborate French fuss of him. Ravished, transported, enraptured, carried away. My own feeling of happiness was more down to earth: not a carrying away but a carrying towards. The
moment I heard the wheels of the car on the gravel I rushed outside and, hardly waiting for my father to get out of the car, flew into his arms and buried my face in the folds of his beautiful cream silk shirt. A bit hot from the drive, but he smelt so nice, so familiar, so safe. These arms had shielded me before from a host of dangers – intrusive strangers, jealous dogs, stroppy yearlings, once even a furious plover whose nest I had trodden on by mistake – and just as surely they would shield me now.

When Aimée finally left us alone together I plumped myself down on the edge of the bed while he did his unpacking. It was amazing the amount of stuff he'd brought with him: even a dinner jacket, even his smart patent-leather evening shoes. And at his, Off you go then, my poor baba, tell me exactly what the trouble is, I went through the entire chronicle of my woes from start to finish.

He didn't comment except to frown a bit when I described Aimée's Peeping Puss habits during the
soirées,
didn't interrupt, didn't laugh, didn't do anything except go on quietly with his unpacking and let me talk.

When I'd finished, i.e. when the telling and reality intersected one another on the crux of the present moment – So
that's
what we're up against, you see. Three of them, if not four, if not more – he sat down beside me and took me into his arms and rocked me for a while, to and fro in very small excursions. An inch each way, if that.

My poor baba, my poor overwrought baba, what a lot goes through this busy old noddle.

A lot of nonsense is what you mean, I said, half-laughing, half-crying, still keeping my face turned inward, towards his chest.

His arms tightened around me. No, no, I never said that. I'm not going to
dis
believe you, my love. Never, never, never. I can see you're serious, can see you have worked yourself up into a big, big state about this poor sick friend of yours. On the other hand – and the hug grew just a fraction slacker so that I knew some kind of disavowal was coming – I'm not going to
believe
you either, not outright, not straight away, because you wouldn't really respect my judgement much if I did. Isn't that so? Well, isn't it? Be honest, isn't it?

I nodded, but more to please him than out of any conviction. What I would have preferred to see him do was what vampire-slayers did in films: whip out a hawthorn stake from his suitcase and brandish it in the air shouting, ‘Tremble, vile creatures of the night!' But then, on reflection, perhaps not; perhaps a balanced approach was in the end more reassuring.

Good. That's more like my bottle. Now, listen, what I'm going to do is this: I'm going to
act
as if I believe you – all along the line. Right? Anything you want me to do – within reason. I'm not going round sticking wooden stakes into people at the drop of a hat, obviously not, but anything reasonable that
you want me to do to make you feel protected against these fears of yours, real or imaginary, I will do. You want me to sit up all night outside the house of … what's her name again? … Sabine, and make sure no vampires climb up the drainpipe and no bats fly in her window? Fine, I will sit up. With my bat-swatter. You want me to try and persuade her mother to let her come and stay with us in England? No problem, I will do that too. You want me to stay on here with you till you feel safe about travelling? I brought the car for that very purpose. No ties, no tickets, we can leave when you are ready to do so and not before. Is that a bargain?

Yes, I said, and then corrected myself quickly. No, it wasn't, not yet, not until I heard my bargain part. He would do all this for me, and I loved him for it and was deeply, deeply grateful, but what did he want me to do in return?

Nothing, he said, just to be quiet and reasonable and stop letting my imagination run away with me. And not to do anything dotty in public to disgrace him, like panicking or screaming or throwing garlic round the shop or making wild accusations. He had been invited to the party at the de Vibreys' that evening, apparently. Now, the Marquis, vampire or not, was a friend, or at least a close acquaintance – he was in fact more of a friend of Teddy's but it came to much the same thing – and he was also stuffed to the gills with lovely foreign lolly, so the plan was to flog him a share in this colt he and
Teddy had recently bought together. Colts were so expensive to keep in training. Like boys. Much better to have bottles.
Provided
they kept their heads and didn't go to pieces at the sight of a dusty cat and some old newspaper cuttings. So, the bargain was this: I was to come along with him to the party on my best behaviour – yes, right into the vampire stronghold, if that was the way I wanted to put it. The son was bound to be there, so we needn't have any worries on that account, in fact it meant we could keep a closer eye on him – on the lot of them for that matter. And afterwards we would drive to Sabine's, if it would put my mind at rest, and spend the whole night there if necessary, sitting in the car, guarding the place against intruders.

I was almost reassured by this plan but not quite.

What if he comes, though? I said. What if Roland comes to Sabine's when we are there? What will you do to him? How will you stop him, when he's so much stronger? You haven't really been listening carefully to what I said about these creatures, have you? The rice, for example, the grainy material – we could take some of that to throw in his pathway if we get really stuck. Or else we could …

Viola, my love, I have lived a long, long time, much longer than you have. Do you trust your old dad, or don't you? Who took you to see those X-rated films when you were under age and gave you a cigarette to hold so that the girl at the box office would let you in? I did. Who watched while you hid
your eyes in your hands, and told you what was going on? I did. Test me if you don't believe me. Tell me a procedure for tackling vampires that I don't know already. Go on, try me.

I was silent, running through the list of methods in my head. I could remember only four, all of them – except for the rice, which I had already mentioned – extremely well known, even to someone as vague on the subject as my father.

You see? You can't. I'll tell you one though which may make you laugh: they live so bloody long they can be killed by boredom.

If I think of that evening – force myself to think of it, because no way can it float casually into my mind like other thoughts: the barrier is far too thick – I see the forecourt of the Château de Vibrey again, emptier and darker than it was on the day of the hunt, but still quite full, although of cars this time, and still quite bright, even in its nocturnal dress. I see the light of lantern flames licking against the yews, turning the foliage a thick dark bronze that I have only encountered before on ballet shoes, never on leaves.

I see two liveried footmen on either side of the curved stairway that leads to the entrance, looking as if they have stepped from an illustrated fairy tale and are dead ashamed of the fact, each holding another lantern on a pole. I see light of a different metallic hue, yellower, brassier, streaming from the doors and windows and falling in colder, almost moon-coloured, geometrical patterns on the flagstones. As we cross them I see the shine of my father's patent-leather party slippers, hear them
emit a tiny squeak as he walks, and feel the dry warmth of his hand in mine. His hands are never sticky, not even on a torrid night like this one; his nails, though nicotiney, are always clean; he smells of scent and soap and tobacco smoke. The rich, solid, comforting, bourgeois smell of someone who knows how to tame a savage world and harness it to his advantage.