A Period of Adjustment (2 page)

The bag was light, the things shuffled about. There was no clothing of any description, but the old family photograph from Dieppe which I had given Aronovich only the
day before, and which he had begged for, was there. I took it out. It had been removed from its frame to copy. The copy which he had had done was not there.

‘You asked to copy this. For James? Did you?'

‘I did. I told you. I was just in time … he was very moved to see it, he had always kept it. He asked no questions, he had not the strength anyway. Just held it as close to himself as he could. He kissed it…'

‘A reminder of a time of happiness. The family on the beach at Dieppe; Mama, Papa, our sister Elspeth, James and me. God! So long ago. Where is the copy?'

Aronovich shrugged gently, began to open the door into the corridor. ‘I have it. You do not mind? I would like to keep it if I may? Everything else of his is in the bag you have … Shall we leave now?'

I looked down at the covered body of my younger brother. His nose thrust in a peak through the sheet, there was a vague outline of folded hands. I followed Aronovich into the polished, shadowy corridor.

‘Of course, keep it. Thank you for this stuff … no clothing? Nothing?'

‘Oh. Some bits. A couple of shirts, jeans, underpants. At my flat.'

‘He lived with you?'

‘Towards the end, yes. Before, some friends with a small villa gave him shelter. But when things became too difficult … I took him, until we got him here.'

We had reached the bright, glassy, light hall of the clinic. People in white, a girl behind a high ebony desk, telephones purring, a glass tank of darting tropical fish, flowers. It was almost like an hotel, not a place to which one came to die hideously from a vicious, untreatable disease. There was not the slightest sign down here of the crumbling destruction in the rooms above.

Aronovich pushed wide the glass doors into the sunbleached
gravel courtyard. The air was warm, scented, our feet scattered little stones. The car I rented from the mayor of my village sparked and glittered in the morning light. For a moment we stood together in silence. He sniffed the air, I took a deep breath, expelling the imagined odour of ether or formaldehyde from my nostrils. There was nothing, at that moment, left to say to each other. With his help I had located James, and with his help James had managed to die at the very least in comfort and with some tattered shreds of dignity. He was a good man. Thinking that, I smiled at him, one of those idiotic, embarrassed, very English smiles. Meaning a great deal more than I could at that moment say. Instead he shook his head sadly and murmured, ‘Pneumocystis pneumonia. It sounds so simple.'

‘So that's what AIDS does. God Almighty …'

‘I did warn you.'

‘I know, but you see now that it was essential? I mean, I had to
see
him. Thank you. Inadequate. I'll call you when I have -'

He interrupted me with a brief movement of his hand. ‘Call when you have settled things. I will call you if there are any immediate problems. We will have to move reasonably quickly, you know? A funeral. Cremation? It would be wiser …' He smoothed his hair, fished a key ring from his pocket, smiled, nodded, turned away crossing back to the glass doors of the clinic.

I walked, carrying the battered bag, towards the car, baking in the sun, and heard Giles call out from under the bush in the centre of a raised bed in the courtyard.

‘I'm here! Will! In the shade. The car's too hot. You've been
ages.'
He came scuffling through the gravel. The gently buffeting wind, the fag end of a mistral, ruffled his hair. ‘I left the doors open, to get some air. All right?'

‘Yes, all right. Probably run down the battery. However
…' I slung the hand-grip into the back seats. ‘Come along, get in, let's get home.'

‘Was it all right? In there? Did you see him? Uncle James?'

‘Yes. We were too late, Giles. He was dead. But I saw him, yes. Paid my respects.'

‘I bet it was a terrible shock. But you knew he was ill, so that was good.'

‘Yes. That was good. Now we have to find our way back down to the town.'

I began winding slowly down the hill under a vast canopy of wind-tossing green leaves, shadows freckled and danced over the road. At the side a small milestone, red and white, indicated that Cannes was 4 kilometres ahead, and ahead of that I had some explaining to do. To Florence, to Madame Mazine who ran our hotel, to Helen in Marbella, to Arthur and Dottie who had been waiting for Giles to begin his French lessons. It was already after ten: it would be well after noon by the time we got back to the village. But at least my main job had been accomplished: I'd found James. All that was left to me now was a tidying-up job. No problem.

Except that, along the way, I had suddenly acquired the custody, as far as he was concerned anyway, of my neglected son. I had someone in my life after all.

He gave a great shout of delight suddenly as we rounded a bend: ‘Bamboo! Look at it! A forest, huge, thick as your leg! It's so high … Bamboo! Awesome!'

I'd have to adjust to things now. Like Giles.

The mistral, which had been blowing hard when we left for Cannes earlier in the morning, had now exhausted itself and, apart from an occasional snarling gust, had drifted off to sea leaving a litter of branches, twigs and broken tile all along the way.

Dottie Theobald was tying up the lengths of vine which had fallen and now trailed across her terrace, a fat bunch of raffia in the pocket of her cotton pinafore. She looked up with some surprise, as I pulled into their narrow track leading up to the house, holding on to her straw hat, the little gusts of left-over mistral still puffing and tumbling into the rose bushes. She hurried down towards us, a pair of old secateurs jiggling in her hand.

‘Terribly late! Goodness, I
have
been worried! It's almost lunchtime.' And as Giles scrambled out of the car, she said, ‘Arthur's up at the aviary. If you have the energy, run up and see him.' She turned to me as Giles started up the little hill towards the ornate bird-cages and the vague shape of a man moving about beside them. I began to apologize, but she waved me silent, and started up to the terrace. ‘Don't explain anything. Just so long as all is well. One does get such a fright at sudden changes. Do you know what I mean? Question of age. Unprepared in the midst of one's apparent serenity. Do sit down …'

I told her, as briefly as I could, what had happened since the telephone call from Aronovich at the hotel to alert me to the fact that my brother had been found, was dead, and to where I could find him. Search over. Mission accomplished. She didn't move all the time I was talking, just sat quite still, her pale blue eyes holding mine, wisps of her faded fair hair fluttering lightly under the brim of her hat in the little eddies of air. The sky above was sparkling blue, clean, wiped, infinite. It dazzled to look up into it. Then she put the secateurs on a tiled table before her, took off her hat, and fiddled with the untidy plait of hair coiled about her head.

‘When the boy hadn't arrived by nine-thirty I guessed something was wrong. I called your hotel and they said you'd rushed off to Cannes together. A call at breakfast time? So I guessed you were off on the hunt. I'm most
dreadfully sorry for you. What an appalling shock. Can you say what had happened?'

‘He was in a clinic. A friend called me to say he had died in the night – well, early morning – from … pneumonia. Double pneumonia and pleurisy …' The lie fell sweetly from my lips. Dottie nodded sadly, sighed, put a hand on my knee and said, again, how terrible and how sorry she was.

‘I gather from his mother-in-law that he was dreadfully headstrong, very stubborn.'

‘You mean the daunting Sidonie Prideaux! A tough lady …'

‘Umm, she was in despair of him, often. At bridge she used to be so very cast down … and then when he left his wife, for ever one gathers, to go off as he did … fearful…'

‘I know. It was a dreadful shock to them all. Just going away, into the night -'

‘No, no. I mean to go off in that manner! On a cycle! In nothing but a jacket and trousers, not even a coat! In January, in snow … Madness! No wonder, if you'll pardon me for saying such an apparently callous thing, no wonder he caught pneumonia! I mean, no wonder.'

‘So Giles had missed a morning's lessons. But can I ask you a favour?' She nodded, twisting her plait gently to the top of her head, and sticking in a hairpin. ‘Could you just keep an eye on him here for the afternoon? I have to get over to the village and tell Florence and Madame Prideaux. They'll have discovered that I left. Madame Mazine at the hotel has a hot line to the Prideaux house.'

For the first time Dottie looked lost. ‘Hot line? What's that?' So I had to explain, and she laughed lightly, and said, ‘Of course. Why not stay to luncheon? Just pâté, salad and cheese?' I accepted gratefully: there was no point in returning to the hotel now, and I was desperate for a drink, even if the thought of food was not terribly attractive.

Dottie had got to her feet and was removing her little checked pinafore as Arthur and Giles came down the path towards us, Giles chattering like a magpie, but, alas, not in French. Arthur waved; he looked comfortable, easy, his bony, bronzed legs sticking out of slapping khaki shorts, his laceless boots clattering up the steps to the terrace.

‘Morning!' he called. Dottie said we were staying to lunch and would he get me a drink, I looked as if I needed it. Or would I prefer to wash my hands first? Giles said that
he
would, he knew where to go, and belted off. Arthur motioned me to sit.

‘You've had a bit of a trip. Eh? Giles is starry-eyed about giant bamboo and seeing giraffes by the side of the auto-route. Amazed! I told him there was a wild sort of zoo at Fréjus. I'll get you a drink. Wine? Or a stiff Scotch? Or just water … what you will.'

The good thing about Dottie was that she really did just chuck things on the table. There was no fussing, no dainty teas caper. There were a bundle of forks and knives, a bowl of radish, assorted cheeses capped with fresh fig leaves, a huge bowl of lettuce and endive, a pile of odd plates, a jug of wine and, finally, brought from the cool of the kitchen, a crock of rich-looking pâté and a bowl of cornichons. Lunch was on the table.

‘Sometimes English guests ask for butter with all this, but it really is criminally insane. Think of one's liver! Giles, get the baguettes will you? From the kitchen,
et de la moutarde pour votre Papa. Vous voulez de la moutarde, Monsieur Colcott?'
Giles had gone off, and she was smiling, and so was I, with a large goblet of Frascati handed over by Arthur.

‘A brimming glass. Don't spill a drop. Nectar. I get this in crates from a chap over at Sainte-Brigitte. Deceptively good: like drinking lemonade with the ultimate kick of a Cretan mule. Giles seems quite unruffled by the events of the
morning. Wouldn't it be marvellous to be that age again. He says he's staying on? Correct?' Arthur bit into a radish with strong teeth, raised an eyebrow. ‘Are
you?
Here, I mean.'

‘I'm not absolutely certain yet. A lot to sort out now that the main item in the treasure hunt, so to speak, has been found. Tragically. But, yes, Giles wants to stay on. Here. But more importantly, and a bit worryingly, he wants to stay on with me. Not to return to the UK and, I regret to say it, to his mother.'

Dottie was mixing the salad with a large pair of wooden forks, watching me carefully. ‘To stay with you? I see, well, quite a responsibility of course. Is that something you'll be happy about?'

Giles came back with the bread and the jar of mustard. ‘Take your shoes off, boy! Like I do,' said Arthur. ‘Scuffing the polish!'

‘Yes. It's something I'll be very happy about,' I said. ‘Take a bit of getting used to, but I rather think it might work out. We'll see.'

And then I said no more, before Giles and Arthur started to push knives and forks about, and asked where the plates were, found them, and generally busied the table and we all set to and ate. It was relaxed, warm. I mean the atmosphere, not just the morning, and Dottie said that she had made the pâté a day or two ago and let it stand uncut so that the flavours would all blend deliciously. Her word. And they did. After lunch we three adults sat about comforted by simple food and, in my case anyway, a good deal of the Frascati, which dulled grief and worry. Giles had gone off with some fruit pieces for a perroquet or something up in the aviary, then Dottie was making coffee somewhere in the cool of the house.

Arthur said suddenly, ‘Seems a very relaxed boy. Anyway, with you. Things not quite what they should be at home? I
pry, forgive me. But he
has
mentioned it before. About hoping he could stay with you. Children do rather bash on if they feel one is being sympathetic. I try to keep him on French – he's picking it up quite well—but we tend to have to stick to English when he gets to the business of relationships, you know? His French vocabulary is very limited but he is quite loquacious in English. I do hope you don't mind.'

‘His mother is a splendid person really, it's all rather my fault. I trapped her into marriage when really she was a career woman, if you follow. She had a very good job in the commercial television world. Thought she could give it all up and have a family. Before she was too old. Which, indeed she did. Brilliantly … but I am afraid I didn't really help her much. Immersed in my world I left her to flop about being a mum. She got bored with that in time, some women do … And there is a daughter. I have a daughter. Nice child, Annie, the eldest, but Giles and she don't really enjoy each other.
She
is her mother's child. Giles got slightly left out, and I didn't, I regret to say, notice it all happening, until I got here and he was sent out to me to “sort out”. Sulky, sullen and rude, I was told … Difficult.'