Sensible Life (7 page)

“They’ve gone to Dinan,” she said. “They’ve taken a flat; they are buying things for it.”

“So you’ve left the hotel. I thought—”

“They have, I haven’t.”

Cosmo couldn’t take this in. “When will they be back?” he asked, remembering his dislike, fearing a confrontation, explanation. What explanation?

“Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Do they leave you on your own often?”

“They like to be together.” Her lips closed with almost adult discretion.

Cosmo said, “Oh.” Then again, “Oh.” After a while he said, “I am on an errand for my father. Secret from my mother. Nobody is to know. He doesn’t want to alarm her so you mustn’t tell a soul. I am to buy a revolver.”

“A pistolet?”

“Yes. He is going to travel up north in his car when I go back to school. Afraid of trouble, he feels he should be armed.”

“I shan’t tell anyone.”

“I only told you because I asked you to come with me and you might be surprised to see me buy a revolver.” Cosmo felt he should regret his impulsive action, but did not. “Father said, ‘Find a gunsmith, there must be one,’ but I haven’t the foggiest. I don’t even know what a gunsmith is in French or how to ask; my French is still pretty basic. I can ask for patisseries and that sort of thing, but I don’t know the word for gunsmith.”

“I do.”

“You do? What is it?”

“Armurier.”

“Oh, thanks. I must write it in my notebook. D’you think you could ask someone?”

“There’s one in a side street round the corner from where your sister and her friend bought hats. Your sister bought a green one, her friend a blue.”

“What an observant little thing you are.” Flora shot Cosmo a glance of amusement. The hats had not noticeably impressed Felix, which had been the object of their purchase; she had observed that also. “You’d better pretend you are eighteen,” she said.

“I’m not half-witted,” said Cosmo crossly.

C
OSMO FELT RELIEF STEPPING
out of the gunsmiths; he had felt rather ridiculous making his purchase. He could hardly believe that the parcel he carried concealed under its wrapping a lethal weapon. The man had asked no questions but casually laid out a choice of revolvers, naming the price of each as he placed it on the counter, turning the price label towards Cosmo.

Cosmo picked the make his father had asked for; there was no need to display his ignorance. All the same, while perfectly polite, the man had angered him. A heavy man, no taller than five and a half feet, large-stomached, heavily jowled, with black eyes which slid over his customer. Coming from behind the counter when there was no apparent need, he twitched at a display of knives in the window, straightening a row that was already straight. Returning, he let his hand rest on Flora. It did not rest long; she moved so that the hand fell to his side. Wrinkling her nose, she removed herself into the street. A word passed. The shopkeeper looked sharply from the closing door to Cosmo, pursed his lips, finished wrapping the parcel, took the money, gave change and wrote a receipt. “Merci, Monsieur.”

Flora waited across the street.

“Let’s find somewhere that sells ice-cream. What did you say to that man?” asked Cosmo, intrigued.

“Maquereau.”

“He didn’t look too pleased. What does it mean?”

Flora grinned. “They have lovely ices in Jules’ café by the harbour,” she said.

Cosmo memorised “maquereau”; he had come out without his notebook and was disinclined to use his pocket dictionary in front of Flora. As they walked, he thought Blanco would have called the gunsmith “priapic”. He was not sure what that meant, either. He said, “How old are you? And I still don’t know your name.”

“Flora Trevelyan. I am ten.”

They threaded their way through the narrow streets to the harbour. Flora indicated a café facing the quay. “Will this do?” They sat.

The patron came out in a rush and gave Flora a smacking kiss on each cheek: “Alors, petite,
ça
va? Tu veux une crème glacee? Fraise? Vanille? Chocolat? Et monsieur? Bonjour, monsieur.” He shook Cosmo’s hand. “Alors, votre choix?”

Cosmo chose chocolate, Flora strawberry.

“Do you come here often?” She was obviously a favoured customer.

“With Madame Tarasova.”

“Oh.”

“Once or twice with Mademoiselle.”

“Oh.”

“Madame Tarasova alters dresses for Jules’ wife; she is getting rather fat.” Flora spread hands outwards from her stomach. “Madame Tarasova lets them out.”

“I see.”

“Jules likes fat ladies.”

“Does Madame Tarasova teach you the piano?”

“Russian, and they are asking her to coach me at maths before I go to school.”

“Where are you at school?”

“Nowhere. I start in the autumn.”

“So you haven’t been yet?”

“No.”

“What school are you going to?”

“Some place they have chosen.”

“How peculiar.”

“Why?” She seemed indifferent.

“It seems peculiar not to know where you are going.”

“They decide. It’s in England. I can’t live with them in India because of the climate.”

Cosmo thought it odd the way she referred to her parents as “they”; he was reminded of Blanco’s name for his cousin, “Thing” or “Chose.” “Mabs and I were taken to see our schools,” he said, “to see whether we thought we’d like them.”

“You are different.”

Feeling different, Cosmo said, “Has Madame T. taught you backgammon?”

“Yes, we play. On wet days when Igor doesn’t want to go out.”

They watched the boats bobbing beside the quay until Jules brought two large ice-creams, placing them down with care.

Flora sat straight on her chair, pointing her toes down so that they reached the ground. She ate her ice with calculated enjoyment.

“I take Jules’ dog out for the day sometimes,” she said.

“The animal I saw you with the first time we met?” Cosmo remembered the idiotic dog, Flora wading, the vast expanse of beach beyond St. Enogat.

“He belongs to the cure of St. Briac.” She acknowledged their first encounter. “Jules’ dog is a mastiff.”

“Really?”

“Very busy people do not have time to exercise their dogs.” She sipped primly at her ice, making it last.

“That’s a wonderful beach,” said Cosmo. “I was bird-watching. I imagine it’s the sort of beach which would be great for sand eels.”

“It is.”

“What does ‘maquereau’ mean?” Cosmo succumbed to curiosity.

“Pimp,” said Flora.

“Do you know what a pimp is?”

“It’s not polite.”

“No.”

“He smelled.” She laid her spoon regretfully in the saucer and sniffed the harbour air. Rope, tar, fish, salt, seaweed, drying nets. She filled her lungs. The shopkeeper had smelled stale. She caught her breath, remembering the foetid smell in her parents’ bedroom when she had evaded her ayah and run in to say good-morning. They had yelled at her to go away and scolded the servants. “I didn’t like it in India,” she said.

Cosmo said, “Would you like another ice?”

“No, thank you. It was delicious.”

“Then I suppose we should be getting back,” he said.

“It’s been absolutely lovely,” she said. “Thank you very much.”

He wondered whether she listened much to people talking. Some of the turns of phrase were reminiscent of his mother.

On the vedette crossing back to Dinard, Cosmo said: “Why don’t we make up a party, ask everybody, have a great bang-up beach party on that beach? An end-of-holidays party? Dig for sand eels, have a bonfire and a fry-up on the dunes. They are delicious with bread and butter. My parents, your parents, the Shovehalfpennies, and all the children. It would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

She said, “Yes,” without enthusiasm.

As they reached the quay he said, “Perhaps Blanco and I could take you on some day at backgammon?”

“Oh, yes!” she said. “Yes.” And her face lit up.

T
HE HOLIDAY, AS HOLIDAYS
do, had begun by stretching pleasurably ahead. But now, like elastic, it snapped short; there were only ten days left.

Cosmo’s idea of a grand picnic party received short shrift when he mooted it. The weather had changed; the wind blew unkindly from the east. It rained, a persistent driving rain which sliced at people’s legs and gargled down the gutters. Queasy children were sick crossing from St. Malo. Families stayed indoors and played snap and racing demon, draughts or chess. They ventured out only to make a dash to the cinema or the casino. The intermingling of the young from the various hotels dwindled.

The three younger Dutch girls, Marie, Dottie and Dolly, left the Marjolaine to return to their husbands in The Hague and Amsterdam; the party at the centre table shrank to ten, and sometimes eight since Felix and Elizabeth, regardless of the elements, were often out quartering the countryside for menhirs. Sometimes they ventured so far that they stayed the night. Elizabeth, it transpired, was writing a thesis. On these evenings Mabs and Tashie did not go to the casino; it was not worth running through the rain if Felix was not there to invite them to dance the foxtrot and the Charleston. Schoolboy partners who offered were rebuffed; they were unpractised, trod on the girls’ feet, ruined their shoes, smelt of perspiration. Yet, persistent little shoppers, they skipped through the puddles by day, darting from hatshop to boutique, hoping in their young optimism to attract the object of their desire by the brilliance of their plumage.

Rosa and Milly settled on a sofa in the lounge with their novels, knitting and growing friendship, and watched, the one with amused tolerance—she was used to the effect her son had on girls—the other with pity. It was painful to see the girls making fools of themselves; it reminded her of her social agonies before Angus, godlike, had snatched her from youthful insecurity, married her and made her happy ever after. Well, almost. It did not make her happy to see Cosmo dragged off to play golf in the wind and the rain by his father. Cosmo detested golf; being forced to play would not make him like it any better. She said as much to Rosa.

“Playing with a pretty girl in any weather, he would like it.” Rosa counted stitches. “One can see he is ready and eager for girls.” She caught Milly’s eye. “Not my lumpen girls, of course. He and his friend watch for girls. It is natural, but their hopes are dashed with each new family’s arrival, poor boys.”

“A pity Tashie is just that much too old for him, and Mabs too old for Hubert. They consider themselves grown-up. I had hoped that these holidays Cosmo might—with some other girl perhaps—” Milly looked round the hotel lounge, sadly lacking in suitable girls. “Cosmo was off on his own into the country bird-watching before the holidays. I had hoped he would practise and improve his French. He carries a notebook with him and looks up the odd word in his dictionary, but that’s about it. I hardly think what he learns is useful; he only bothers when he overhears an argument or people shouting at each other.”

“The first English word I overheard and looked up in the dictionary was obscene,” said Rosa, knitting steadily.

“And not useful?”

“It was useful,” said Rosa, suppressing a smile. “I must concentrate on my knitting or I shall make a mess and have to unpick.”

“I wonder what it was.” Milly let her knitting, golf stockings for Angus, rest in her lap.

“I don’t suppose you know it,” said Rosa, remembering what Jef had said apropos Angus: “After all that he will pick someone innocent.” Thinking of her dead husband, she murmured, “I miss him.”

Milly, not as innocent as Rosa supposed, thought, What she misses is the carnal side and the use in bed of those words one has to look up. She imagined Rosa’s Jef to have been a Dutch version of Angus. She knitted a row of purl thoughtfully.

“There is the redhead called Joyce,” said Rosa. “She is of an appropriate age for your Cosmo and his friend Hubert; she is fourteen.”

“Have you seen her teeth?” exclaimed Milly.

“She is intelligent. Do her teeth rule her out?”

“Definitely,” said Milly.

“Her mother tells me she is to go to one of those American dentists who do marvels. She has beautiful eyes, and a good figure.”

“Cosmo and Hubert do not see beyond the teeth; they say she looks like a horse.”

“Most English girls of the better class resemble horses, as do the German ‘hoch’. It is a racial characteristic.”

“You generalise,” said Milly, laughing. “I do not look like a horse and nor do Mabs and Tashie.”

“When you and those girls are excited, you look like fine Arabs. Flaring nostrils, the toss of the head, the shaken mane.” Rosa smiled down at her knitting; she enjoyed watching Mabs and Tashie tossing their heads at Felix. Elizabeth had remarked that she expected them to whinny. Elizabeth, of cart-horse build, was fortunate that she had a future in the world of intellectuals. “I mean it as a compliment,” she said. “Have you not heard men refer to girls as fillies?”

“God, yes,” said Milly, “it sets my teeth on edge. But Cosmo does not seem to have had luck with any girls, be they like horses or frogs. Soon he will be back at school and be kept too busy to think of girls.”

Rosa sniffed. She did not believe any amount of being kept busy suppressed adolescent lust. Her husband had told her about British public schools; he had first-hand knowledge of what young males got up to when herded together. Was Milly as uninformed as she sounded? What did she imagine those boys did? “Jef was sent to an English school by his father,” she said. “It was hoped he would learn an upper-class accent, but he ran away.”

“I wonder why,” said Milly.

“The only friend he made at that school was Angus,” said Rosa. “Jef was a very pretty boy.” If Angus had not enlightened his wife about the mores of public schools, it was not for her to shatter her complacency.

“Angus says a bit of healthy buggery never hurt anyone,” said Milly, knitting, “and he drags poor Cosmo out in all weathers to the golf course to toughen him up. Cosmo says he swings his driver and thwacks the ball and shouts, ‘And that’s for Baldwin’ and ‘That’s for Joynson-Hicks’ and ‘That’s for the Bolsheviks, curse their guts’. He really is worried about the miners.”