Seasons of Love (11 page)

‘If you want to get better,’ she insisted, ‘really better, we must go somewhere quiet and live very simply. You still get tired easily, Robert. You know you do!’

He hunched one shoulder and turned partly away from her, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.

‘We'll die of boredom if we stay somewhere with no congenial company.’

‘And you'll die of other things, if you don't give your body a chance to recover! Anyway, I refuse to go to Nice! We can't afford it. So if you go there, you go alone.’

In the end, they compromised on a city called Beziers, which a chance acquaintance had praised.

It was an old town in the south-west of France, large enough to offer Helen a chance of finding employment, yet near enough to the Mediterranean to have a mild winter climate.

When they arrived, Robert was not at all impressed. ‘The place is too damned quiet for me. What if it does have a very old cathedral? The place looks ready to fall down to me. Someone ought to knock it down and build a new cathedral.’

But Helen liked Beziers, especially when they found two tiny rooms with a friendly widow in a narrow side street. Madame helped Helen find employment teaching English and soon she had so many private pupils that Robert condescended to teach a few of them as well. He wasn’t good with the younger children, but he was very successful with the teenage girls, and even more so with one or two ladies who had decided to alleviate their luxurious boredom by learning English from
ce cher
monsieur Perriman.

Helen didn’t inquire too closely into his linguistic progress with these ladies and closed her ears to hints of other activities. As long as he left her alone, she didn't care if he bestowed his attentions on others.

He had regained something of his good looks, only now he was slender, with large brilliant eyes, which made him appear a very romantic figure – something she knew he wasn’t. He even obtained a commission posing for an aspiring artist as the young David about to kill Goliath.

He and Helen laughed together over this, but she and Harry never saw any of the money he received for it so it couldn’t have stayed long in Robert’s pocket.

By the end of the winter, Harry had grown several inches and could chatter in both English and French. The widow with whom they lodged had taken a great fancy to him and looked after him willingly most of the time, for he was the same age as Madame’s grandson, whom she only saw once or twice a year. The two of them would do the marketing together, or play long complicated games.

But all the time, Helen felt deep within her that the whole interlude was just a breathing space, a pause before life rushed her on again. She continued to hoard what little she could save and to hide her money very carefully about her person. She would never trust her husband again, however pleasant he seemed. But at least she was feeling well and energetic. And so was Harry.

During the winter, Robert had found ways of gambling again, very small amounts at first, on card games or even dominoes in the local cafe. He enjoyed any game of chance and even a small win would put him in an expansive mood. A fellow needed a bit of fun, he kept telling Helen, else what use was life?

By the end of the winter, he was out more evenings than not, and they had had several nasty little quarrels when he lost the money he had earned by teaching English, instead of giving it to Helen for their living expenses. Madame tut-tutted at this and slipped Harry little titbits, but sometimes Helen was at her wits’ end to find food for herself and her son without dipping into her precious savings.

By May, Robert had made up his mind to move on to Nice, whatever his wife said. The quarrels over this raged for days, and Harry spent a lot of time shivering under the table in the Madame’s kitchen.

In the end, Helen refused to discuss it any more, telling Robert to go to Nice on his own, if it was so important to him, and leave her where she was. She could, she felt, settle down quite happily in Beziers.

But he wouldn’t even consider leaving her. ‘You’re my lucky piece. Without you, I never win for long.’

One day, driven nearly to screaming point, she shouted, ‘You don't honestly believe that! You can’t, surely!’

‘Oh, but I do! That's what makes me a successful gambler. I
know
that I must have you with me.

You
are
my luck!’

‘You're utterly ridiculous!’ And he was
not
a successful gambler, so how he could think she brought him luck, she didn’t know. But she didn’t say that. It would only have made matters worse.

‘And you, madam wife, are being as stubborn as a mule! But I
will
get you to Nice. It's the only place to be!’

A week later, Helen came home to find Madame in tears. ‘
Il a pris mon petit ange!’
she wailed as soon as Helen entered the house.

Helen stopped dead in the hallway, a sinking feeling making her legs seem suddenly too heavy to move. It was a moment before she could even speak. ‘What do you mean? Where's Harry?’

More tears, with the words barely distinguishable.
‘Il est parti
!’

‘Gone! What do you mean “gone”?’

‘Monsieur said you knew all about it, that it had been arranged between you. But I knew it was not so, or you would have told me. I tried to stop him.
Ah, mon petit ange, où es-tu maintenant?’

Helen swallowed hard and asked in a voice which trembled, try as she might to keep calm.

‘Please tell me quickly what happened!’

‘
Eh bien
, your husband, he grow angry, shout at me. And then he take the child away. And the poor little fellow was screaming and kicking.’ Madame collapsed again, sobbing loudly into her apron. ‘
J'ai fait tout mon possible, je vous assure!’

Helen turned and without a word to Madame, ran up to their rooms, dreading what she would find there. No sign of Harry or Robert. One of their two wicker trunks was missing altogether, as were Robert's clothes and some of Harry's. On the floor behind the door she found the toy dog, which Harry took with him everywhere. How would he sleep without Dodo? Where would he be sleeping that night? She picked the limp creature up and pressed it to her breast, but wouldn’t allow the tears to start. Not yet. Now she had to think, to make plans to find her son.

First she looked for a note. Robert must have left one, for he would want her to follow. It was ten minutes before she found the tiny scrap of paper he had used. It had fallen off the mantelpiece into the hearth. She had nearly missed it. Her heart went cold at the thought and her hands were trembling so much that she had to spread it on the table to read it.

Harry and I will be waiting for you in Nice. Inquire at Le Chat Gris, near the Town Hall.

No signature, no reassurances that he would look after the child.

She paced up and down the room, feeling quite sick with rage at him and his selfishness. How dared he take her son from her? How dared he? But she soon admitted to herself that, as usual, Robert had got his own way. She must now wind up their affairs here in Beziers and follow him to Nice. And as soon as possible. He was no fit person to be in charge of a child.

Chapter 7

‘Bad man!’ Harry had said, when his mother found them. ‘Bad man took me away!’ And he continued to infuriate Robert by repeating this catch phrase whenever he was particularly upset by his father's high-handed behaviour.

‘About time you taught that young devil some manners!’ Robert complained. ‘Threw his porridge at me this morning, he did. See if you can get my blue coat clean, will you? I have to go out tonight.’

Not a word about the way he had taken Harry away from her, let alone a greeting or an apology.

‘If you ever take my son away from me again,’ she said, blocking the doorway for a moment and speaking quietly, but with grim determination. ‘I shall leave you for ever - whether you're ill or not!’

She hugged Harry close and he clung to her like a limpet.

Robert snapped his fingers in her face. He was always one for a stupid theatrical gesture, she thought.

‘Been finding out a few things about that, my pet. As his father, I get to keep the boy if you walk out on me, for whatever reason. So don't try anything, or you'll be sorry! Now, have a look at my coat, for heaven's sake, or I'll be late.’

Horror made her blood run as cold as ice water in her veins. She closed her eyes for a moment and bit back further threats. What was the use? Robert had changed, even in a few days. He was not only more confident, he was feverishly intent on his own concerns.

As the days passed, she found out that he’d made friends with a set of ‘good fellows’, who preyed upon the rich visitors to Nice. These new companions seemed to have brought out the worst in him.

He might never have had an acting career. All he thought of now was, as he phrased it, ‘living off my wits’.

The Perrimans spent the whole summer in Nice. As there were a lot of foreigners there, it wasn’t as easy for Helen to obtain employment teaching English. Instead, to Robert's great annoyance, she offered her services as a seamstress.

‘What does it look like,
my
wife taking in sewing?’ he raged. ‘What'll people think?’

‘No one knows us here, so they won't think anything.’

Harry sidled behind his mother and hid his face in her skirt. The time he’d spent alone with his father had upset him very much indeed and he’d hardly left her side since.

‘They know
me
! How can I play the part of a gentleman if you insist on taking in sewing?’

‘You'll manage somehow.’ A gentleman! He was the antithesis of this ideal.

‘And anyway, there's no need!’ He flung a coin at her, catching her on the finger and cutting it.

‘See! I've plenty of money. So you don't
need
to work!’

She picked up the coin and sucked the blood from her finger. ‘I prefer to work. For when your luck turns again.’

‘Damn you, don't talk like that! You'll
make
it turn!’

She shook her head helplessly. You couldn't reason with him on the twin subjects of luck and gambling. She tried to change the conversation to something less fraught with conflict. ‘Shall I look around for some other rooms? These are nice, but they're expensive - and it's not a good place for Harry. It's very noisy.’

‘Certainly not! I like it here. It's very convenient for me. I’m the head of this family, and it’s about time you started doing what I say.’

It was convenient for his gambling, he meant. She found the place very noisy and there was nowhere outside for Harry to play safely. ‘Well, as long as you can pay the rent, we'll stay,’ she said, as quietly as ever. ‘But if you can't, I shall find somewhere else. I can't afford to keep up a place like this.’

‘It's
me
who is paying and I
can
afford it!’

There was just no reasoning with Robert since he'd come to Nice. And it was certainly the longest winning spell she could remember. But she knew, oh, yes, she knew in her bones, that it couldn't possibly last.

Whenever she had time, Helen took Harry for walks or to play on the beach. He was tall and strong for his age and he possessed, like his father she was forced to admit, a great deal of charm. He had his father's wavy hair and bright blue eyes, too, but he also had, she thought, a certain strength of character, young as he was. Anything he started to do, he must finish, and he wept bitterly if he failed. He was devoted to his mother but disliked his father, who rarely did anything but shout at him to keep quiet.

And although for the whole of that summer, Robert’s wits and his luck served him well, he regained none of the weight he had lost and his cheeks were rarely without a hectic flush. He grew tired easily, too. She had no need to worry about him pressing his attentions upon her, because he was always exhausted when he came home. They didn't share a bed, because he often slept badly, sweating a lot and blaming it on ‘this damned heat’.

In the autumn there was a fight and some sort of scandal at one of the cafés which had a back room devoted to gambling. Robert came home looking dishevelled, with a bruise on his cheek and announced abruptly that they were going to winter further south. She'd better pack. He'd got them tickets for the following morning on the early stage coach to Milan.

‘Milan! But - what shall we do there?’

‘I have a position waiting for me if I want it. I’ve been thinking about going for a while now. I’m fed up of Nice and they say Milan is a big city, very modern.

Stunned, she could only stammer, ‘But - neither of us speaks Italian! How shall we manage?’

‘Oh, you'll learn the lingo soon enough. They tell me it's very like French, and look how good you are at speaking that!’

‘But how shall we - ?’

‘How, how, how,’ he mimicked, smiling knowingly. ‘We shall manage as we always do, you fool. By using our wits. Though I've got quite a bit of money saved this time.’

That was news to her. He’d been short of money two days ago.

He gave her a push. ‘Stop worrying and start packing! I’ve got things all worked out.’

Helen looked at her sleeping son and wondered how she could get him away from this uncertain life, where they never stayed more than a few months in one place.

To think that she had once longed to travel! Now she longed for a real home, however modest.

As if he could read her thoughts, Robert came over to stand beside her and stare down at the boy.

‘Don't try anything stupid, my pet! Remember, the law is on my side. Even the clothes you're wearing belong to me legally.’

‘Why can you not let us go? You don't love us. We're only a burden to you! I can support Harry and myself.’ She touched his arm, her eyes pleading with him. ‘Please, let us go, Robert. You'll be happier without us.’

He threw her hand off. ‘I've
told
you why I need you. You're my luck! So I'll put up with the boy.

And if you ever try to get away from me, I'll make sure you don't see him again. I’ll put him somewhere you’ll never be able to find him. A father has very wide powers over his children, you know.’