A Period of Adjustment (18 page)

I felt myself blush suddenly, to my consternation, and sat down quickly amidst the laughter.

Clotilde was what my mother (who, over the years, wrote a slew of very successful Romantic Historical novels under the pen-name of ‘Harriet Rust') would have called a ‘bonny creature, good, wise, kind and loving', and, one imagined (for one had only known her for a short time and at that distantly), she was. She was also sturdy, with a ripe figure, no pretension to beauty, none to ugliness. Merely plain. But the sort of plainness from which goodness and joy fairly radiated. So such a person in Jericho added lustre to the delights which were gradually unfolding there before me, and brought a sense of added stability to my stumbling efforts to rearrange my life.

With Clotilde about, with little drifts of mindless, but contented, singing meandering through the rooms, with the tidiness imposed, the polishing and washing, the arranging of wild flowers in pickle jars, or whatever she could lay hands on, and, perhaps above all, the excellence of her plain but delicious cooking, Jericho gradually started to accept us, its new owners, and the different pattern of life being imposed on it, once again. It seemed gradually to settle down, as I did, with a comfortable complacency, like a cat on a cushion.

And what was even better was that Giles had now overcome his original shyness with me, and Clotilde did the same thing once she realized that she was accepted as a member of the family and clucked and fussed about us rather like a Rhode Island Red, which, from time to time, her eyes beady with inquiry and interest, she vaguely resembled.

We had been back from the London saga only a few days when I noticed, almost in a subliminal way, that Clotilde had used a lipstick, had erased many of her sandy freckles somehow, let fall the severely dragged-back hair and the two plastic combs, and permitted it now to drift, almost tumble, to her shoulders and carried a sprig of honeysuckle or a single little rose behind one ear. I noticed this, as I say, almost subliminally. I was occupied most of the time in either unpacking and sorting the stuff I'd brought over from England and Simla Road, or digging and carting, and cutting away with the scythes. However, these small improvements to her person seemed only to happen
after
she had reached the sanctity of Jericho. She'd leap off her Mobylette, cry ‘Bonjour!' and go into ‘her' kitchen, after that re-emerging (usually after I had dumped Giles on Dottie and Arthur and was unloading the marketing from the Simca) as the ‘made-over' Clotilde. Her ample bosom had now become two rather fine breasts by the simple expedient of a deeper cleavage revealed by the quick removal of a little modesty panel of ‘frill', and an adroitly tied wide ribbon bound high under them. It seemed to me, after a little time, that Clotilde at Jericho and Clotilde at her father's house were similar, but not at all the same. Something was afoot; it amused me to speculate while breaking my back and restoring some muscle to my stomach and arms with the pioche in the potager.

In the late afternoon, when she left, all frivolity had been banished, and all that remained was perhaps the sprig of
honeysuckle, or the little rose, but fixed firmly to her handlebars. We'd lock up the house together, so I was near enough to notice the change, the plastic combs, the wiped-off lipstick, which still left a faint pink stain, the ‘frill' at the cleavage replaced, and then she'd bounce off down past the mossy pillar, and I'd start up the Simca and follow behind her ample body on my way to collect Giles.

This was the usual routine now. Over to Dottie and Arthur at five, perhaps a glass of wine, an exchange of any news, and back to Jericho with my ‘little Frenchman', always slightly bemused to realize how quickly a boy of that age (or child I suppose) could readjust and begin to speak French almost without an accent. Something which, starting far later in my teens, I had found difficult to fully eradicate. And still did.

‘You
do
speak it very well, Will. Giles must take after you. He seems to have an affinity for languages. Useful, you know? I always tried to drum it into my wretched parents. Let their children concentrate on German or French: even if they refused Latin because “
it's a dead language, he'll never need it”.
Oh God! the narrowness! However, Giles seems to have escaped that. Perhaps because of your “ear”? One really should have two languages in life now. Terribly important. Half our Government can't even say “Bonjour”. Appalling, really, when you consider the responsibility they have, sitting about there in Geneva and Bonn or wherever, with a ruddy plug stuck in their ear listening to “instant translation”! Bland, accentless usually, unemotional,
no
nuance,
no
subtlety. How
much
they must miss, the idiots!'

Arthur was off, if I let him, to climb upon his hobby horse. ‘The awfulness of the British Government. The British people, and their “shocking insularity”.' It was really harmless, not at all vicious, but worrying because we had all heard it so often before and could only agree or disagree
and keep him on an even keel so that he didn't lose his temper. Dottie had some excellent, private signals, which she made from time to time signalling a moment for changing the subject instantly and easing her adored husband into calmer waters. She did it now, and sweetly.

‘Will read French history for two years at the Sorbonne, darling. I expect it was ever thus, wasn't it, Will? Or was French used far more in England
after
William, your namesake, invaded? Will, dear, have a tiny slice of tapenade … so good with your wine.' And we drifted away from the ‘wretchedness' and ‘bigotry' of the British Government. At least for a while.

‘Of course,' Arthur said after a sharp look at his wife (aware that he had been deflected), ‘now that Giles has Frederick to yatter away to, it's a great help. They only speak French, as far as I can hear. I don't pry, mind you, but when I do overhear them, up there with the cages and the birds, it's usually French. Odd French, archaic sometimes.'

‘Archaic? Why?'

‘He's from America but from Louisiana. Very old family, very proud, and some of them still use the French they came over with during the Revolution! I think it is an affectation frankly. He speaks perfectly terrible American when he wishes.'

On cue the two boys came running down the path from the aviaries, Giles with his espadrilles wagging in one hand above his head.

‘Arthur! Arthur! The lory are starting to nest. The red one's tearing up huge bits of those branches.'

‘Pushing them into the nest box,' said Frederick. ‘And God! Is the hen ever making one hell of a racket! Listen!'

Frederick did indeed speak perfect American-English, pleasantly, as pleasantly indeed as he looked. Taller than Giles, auburn hair, a slim build, wide mouth, long legs,
well-set eyes. Very like his mother, in fact, who I seemed to recall rather too vividly from our last, and indeed first, meeting a few days before.

Arthur got to his feet, pushed easily into his laceless boots, and stuck his straw hat on his head. ‘You mean the
chattering
lory, I assume? Not just “the
red
one”. Well, I was rather expecting that. I'll go off and see. School finished half an hour ago. Right? What's today's date? I must make a note of it. I mean the lory nesting.'

Dottie walked with us down to the Simca under the big olive and just as we got there the open-top Mercedes, which belonged to the de Terrehautes, turned in off the road. Lulu de Terrehaute was driving, scarlet headscarf, wrap-around glasses. She raised an arm a-glitter with clattering gold bracelets in greeting.

‘Hi, y'all!' she called, took off her eye-shades, and for the first time looked directly at me.

I stood perfectly still as if something inevitable was about to happen. The moment before the earthquake. A flat, singing silence.

Then Frederick yelled, ‘Lookie, lookie! There! On the stone.' Giles cried out, and there was a scuffling of feet and the sound of Dottie calling out to leave it alone, it was only a lizard. Then the slam of the Mercedes door and her feet on the gravel, and she called out to the scuffle, without once taking her eyes from mine, and said, ‘Let it be. You'll wreck the roses!' And slid her eye-shades into the pocket of her white silk trousers.

Dottie called out about the flowerbed, but there was still a modest riot I could hear taking place somewhere to try and find a lizard. I knew now what a horse felt when it wore blinkers. I could see ahead, see Lulu de Terrehaute's eyes, hear the laughter and the scolding and the rumble of stones and Dottie saying, ‘Enough!
Enough!
Go home both of you.' But I could see absolutely nothing else. Whatever
was happening to left or right of me was obliterated by the intensity of the eyes before me.

Dottie's voice somewhere was still light, but now underlined with impatience. ‘Little blighters, they're trampling stuff to
death.'
And then she stopped, took off her straw hat, started to fan herself lightly (I could now just see all this beyond my blinkers), but she was aware of us and said briskly, ‘Lulu, dear, cart the fruit of your loins back to your château, will you? And the same goes for you, Will.' Then she turned away and yelled out to the scrabbling boys. I heard stones fall. ‘Oh! Do
leave
it! Frederick, Giles! What harm has it done to you?'

Lulu said, evenly, quietly, ‘Shall we lunch?'

‘Yes. But I have my son …'

‘So have 1.1 can fix that. No problem.'

Dottie said, somewhere out of sight, ‘Now come on, you little brutes, both of you. Look at the mess you have made.'

Frederick's voice was still high and excited. ‘A lizard! Blue and green, with a yellow belly.'

And Lulu, still looking at me calmly, called over her shoulder, ‘Freddy! Let's get back now,' then broke our look by pulling off the scarlet scarf so that her hair spilled down to her shoulders in a cascade of auburn curls. ‘I have people for cocktails! Can you believe such a term?
Cocktails
for the Bernards, the de Rocquemontforts. Alastair Whistler and his dusky boy lover – do you know them?' I said no, I had only just arrived in the area, and she laughed and turned away and said, ‘Dottie, darling, bring me my child, and the bill for any damage to your divine garden.' And, turning to me again, she asked if I had a telephone number. I couldn't remember for an instant, then did, and saw the lightly mocking smile widen as I wrote it hurriedly down on the back of a receipt from the traiteur in Saint-Basile. She took it and slid it into the same pocket as she had put her eye-shades.

‘Don't lose it. Sorry. It's all I had to write on,' I said.

‘I know. I know. I won't lose it.' She was still smiling, her hand outlined in the silk of her tight white trousers. She waggled her fingers, saw me drop my gaze to them, laughed and said to Dottie, ‘Oh
God!
What a fuss for a crazy old lizard. Come
on,
boys. Henri – you know my chauffeur? -has trodden on a nail, do you
believe?
He was playing around in the yard and trod on this plank. I mean, the man is so thick … Bare feet and treads on a nail! In a plank! So I have to come and find Junior. Can you
imagine?
Walking about with bare feet in the yard of the garage? He could have slipped in sump oil, or something, broken his peasant neck.'

Dottie, brushing down her denim skirt, asked if the nail was rusty, because if it was he'd probably get tetanus unless he'd had a shot. Lulu said she really didn't know or care, but he was in bandages and that it was a good job that
she
could drive. Otherwise where in hell would she be? She directed the last line at me, and then broke the group by pushing Frederick into the car, kissing Dottie, clipping Giles lightly on the ear, never again noticing me until she slid into her seat and started up. Then she looked swiftly and directly across to me, waved, then began to back down the drive.

‘Bye, y'all. Until
tamarra!
Dottie, now lissen, it's got to be
me
at dawn, don't watch out for it. Promise not to peek? I look like the wrath of God naked, at that hour. Goddam Henri!' And as she started to manoeuvre the large car round she called, ‘My eye-shades! Where are my eye-shades?' I told her they were in the pocket of her pants, and she laughed, as if she hadn't known, and said clever old you for noticing, and
wasn't
she crazy, and drove rapidly away.

Dottie and I walked over to my Simca. Dusty, rusty, very proletarian. Giles got in slowly. ‘It was a
huge
lizard. Like a dinosaur really. Hugh knobbly ridges down its back. You really should have seen it.'

Dottie folded her arms, hat hanging in her hand. ‘She's very … vibrant … is that the word? Lulu de Terrehaute … Arthur and I call her the “Shrimping Net”. Rather rude, really.' She laughed lightly, raised a hand in salute. ‘Tomorrow? As usual?'

I called above the running engine, ‘As usual. I hope they haven't
really
mucked up your roses.'

She was smiling, shook her head.

‘Why Shrimping Net?' I said.

‘Oh! Well, not just “shrimps”, you know? You can catch all manner of things with a shrimping net. Quite large prawns, sometimes, plump little crabs, hiding away out of sight. Find a nice quiet little rock pool, poke about? You never know
what
you'll catch. Lulu's very good at it.' She was now smiling broadly, stuck her hat back on her head and with a wave turned up towards the house as I swung with a crunch across the gravel and headed down for Jericho.

Giles sighed heavily, theatrically, stuck his pen in behind his ear. ‘I think it's very silly, all this writing invitations. We've got a telephone now, can't we just telephone everyone?'

‘We could. But it's more polite to write, personal. It's your birthday, the cards are all ready, printed. All you have to do is stick in their names and the time and date. Surely that won't kill you?'