A Period of Adjustment (29 page)

‘I'd have been solitary otherwise, just unpacking all that junk up in the studio.'

Dottie sipped her drink. ‘Delicious. Clever girl, Clotilde. She'll help you with that. And her friend, he looks strong and capable …'

‘I need all their strength for tomorrow. Madame Prideaux, Florence
and
Thomas all come to tea. I've had to remember the ginger snaps.'

Madame Prideaux's rather battered Renault swung to a halt
by the front gate. As with most women drivers that I know, it was accurately driven, strongly, decisively, and parked a good metre and a half from where she had intended to stop. Doors opened, with a great flurry of activity, old papers, an empty juice tin, plastic bags fell to the ground, Clotilde and Céleste embracing, Giles hopping about, Thomas, held in a sort of leather harness, screaming joyfully and flailing his arms about. Madame Prideaux descended slowly from her driving-seat pulling down her corset, smiling, the brown ribbon sagging round her piled hair.

‘Here we all are! Safe. You see? I can still drive. If I take
enormous
care. Are we late?'

No one was late – a little early as a matter of fact – and we all bundled up the path through the potager, Thomas waving and beaming, his large head wobbling, his mouth sputtering with little bubbles of pleasure.

‘I think he remembers me!' said Giles. ‘I know he's only three but I really think …' Hopping along beside the straining child he said, ‘Thomas! I am your cousin! Do you remember? Want to see my aquarium?'

Céleste, smiling in spite of being wrenched about by the struggling child in his leather reins, said she didn't think he'd remember and, anyway, what would he make of an aquarium? We got to the terrace and Clotilde's neatly laid table, a white sheet slung over its battered tin top, cups set about, wasps already dancing round a jar of Tiptree's strawberry I'd brought from London. Clotilde said she'd get the tea, and Céleste seated herself and started to undo the reins. ‘I have to use this sometimes. To restrain him. He is so energetic, and it doesn't really trouble him, round his chest… Ouf!'

Madame Prideaux sat on a tin chair, rearranged the ribbon in her hair, tucked in the velvet bow at the nape of her neck. ‘
Florence
is late. She's in Sainte-Brigitte. With
Monsieur Jouvet the vet. This is her
second
visit to him. Perhaps he is considering her for the position.'

‘I hope so. Does she like animals?'

Madame Prideaux looked at me flatly. ‘Not as a child. I don't recall. No white mice or rabbits and nothing here.' She looked vaguely round the terrace and the land beyond. ‘Nothing here. But she is extremely patient with her
own
little animal, there. Patient beyond a saint. And, anyway, she needs the salary. Apparently. I can't imagine exactly why, she spent so much when they were in Marseilles. I didn't know Marseilles was so much more expensive than here. But …' She shrugged, and pulled her skirt about her firmly. ‘But it is. I did not wear my tweeds today! You recall? The last time we had tea with you, the first time indeed, I was most unsuitably dressed, I remember. But that was May, this is mid-July. We shall be having an English tea again, I hope?'

Giles was standing beside Thomas now released from his reins. ‘Come for a walk with me? Like last time?' He put out his hand, Thomas looked at it, looked at Céleste, who told him to accept, then the child cautiously allowed Giles to take his hand. Together they walked, carefully, slowly, towards the steps. ‘I think he
does
remember me.'

Céleste was close behind, waiting for a fall.

Madame Prideaux, bolt upright in expectation, slowly relaxed, hand to her head. She sat back slowly. ‘I really
do
apologize for the state of my car. You noticed? So dirty. But you see, with all that I have to do, running errands, there is no time, and the garage charge is absurd. No time! One day I'll clean it all out. Throw everything away, papers, beach towels, plastic bags … one day.'

‘And get the dent in the mudguard bashed out?'

She turned and looked at me sharply. Eyes hard as jet. ‘One day. That too.' She brushed her brow, smoothing away an abhorrent image.

The three figures at the steps were starting to make the descent slowly. Thomas suddenly screamed out with joy.

‘Otherwise,' I said, ‘the rust will really take hold and you'll have to have the whole thing replaced. Or just paint it? For the time being?'

She nodded, watching Giles support his cousin down to the white pebble path. ‘Paint it. Of course. Protection.
Protection
is so important,' and smiling lightly at me, ‘in an
inclement
climate? You would agree?'

Clotilde arrived with the teapot, plates of cake and biscuits, hot water, set it all down with a scatter of
Voilàs
and
Bon appétits,
darting shy, swift smiles at Madame Prideaux.

I called down to Giles that it was ‘sur la table', Céleste turned and waved acknowledgement, and at that instant Thomas appeared to fall, sprawling into the pebbles.

Madame Prideaux was instantly on her feet, Clotilde hurried to the steps, but Giles turned back to us and yelled out in triumph. ‘He
does
remember me! He
doesl
He's found another shell. This time, he's giving it to me. Remember? I found him one last time! He remembers!'

He eased our tensions. Clotilde went back to the kitchen. Thomas was crowing with apparent pleasure; Giles laughing; Céleste calmly turning everyone around for tea with murmured admonishments.

‘The money is becoming rather desperate frankly. Your brother, of course, settled the rent for this place for three years. Impeccable. But …' She shrugged as I handed her a cup of tea. ‘But we seem to spend it rather quickly. Everything is so expensive. Can I have lemon?' I put the slice of lemon in her cup, she reached for a biscuit. ‘Here they all come. Thomas,' she called. ‘Come quickly! Lovely English biscuits for you.'

Giles, who had now apparently appointed himself guardian, carried the clumsy child in his arms and sat down with him, offered a biscuit. ‘Ginger snaps? I know you don't
know what I am saying really, but I expect you will when you put this in your mouth … there! You see? Do you remember?'

Thomas screamed again, his face creased with delight, lunging joyously, his eyes slitted with pleasure, then he pushed the biscuit into his mouth and sat quite still suddenly, sucking noisily.

‘You have a magic touch, Gilles. I think, as I said before, he must realize that you are his cousin. That's very nice,' said Madame Prideaux. I told Céleste to help herself and went into the Long Room to get myself a can of beer. James, I knew very well, had paid his rent three years in advance before he had ‘gone into the night', but the trip to Marseilles, apart from fares and all the rest of it, must have cost dearly. Or, at any rate, enough to make life difficult. It was only consoling that Madame Prideaux didn't apparently realize exactly why Florence had gone there. I hoped that she never would, and as I opened the beer she was suddenly there, at the door, a silent, heavy figure, her shadow thrown hard across the tiled floor.

‘You know that I am curious! So where is this “Arcadie anglaise”? This “paradise” that Clotilde has spoken of. Show me?'

I waved the can about the room, softly lit now through the shade of the vine and the half-shut louvres. ‘Here is Arcadia! All my bits and pieces from England; pictures, the sofa, everything you see.'

She looked quietly around the room, her teacup in her hand. ‘I see. I see what Clotilde means. Felicitations. It is quite changed, it is all
very
different. You brought this furniture from England? From your house?'

‘Monsieur Simone and his sons – you know them, the log merchants? – they helped to unload and move it in. To surprise you and Florence. Do you approve, Madame?'

She nodded, set her cup down on a small table by the
window. ‘It is very “cosy”, très anglais. You appear to have settled down at Jericho.'

‘I have. I am staying.'

‘For three years? I agreed to the three years which your brother leased.'

‘I meant longer. I mean for good. For ever.'

She looked at me mildly. Brushed her hands against her long linen skirt. ‘For ever! Pray, Monsieur Colcott, how could that possibly be? For ever is longer than you have paid me for.'

‘If I paid you for
ever?
Would you consider?'

She tilted her head slightly, as if listening for a distant sound. ‘Do I quite understand what you are trying to say to me? Can you be more precise perhaps?'

‘Paying you “for ever” means that I wish to buy Jericho, and its land, from you. I want to live here permanently. To be here for the rest of my life. I want Giles to have it too. To live here. That is as precise as I can get, for the moment. Will it suffice?'

She looked about, found the arm of a chair, sat, perched uncomfortably, on it. ‘Go on,' she said, and started carefully to adjust her hair ribbon, a certain sign to me that she was considering things. What things I couldn't as yet tell, but she was silently thinking away. So I took courage.

‘You tell me that you have never lived here? That you dislike it? That it has sad memories for you? That your father only gave it to you as part of your dowry. So, if you have no regard for it, if Florence, as she says, never wants to be here again, if you are in need of money, if Thomas is to be secured, and Florence with him,
if
you have to afford Céleste and Annette, cars and petrol, if you have so many demands, then won't you let me try to be of assistance to you? This house has, I know, seen one Caldicott here and it was not, in the bitter end, an entirely happy arrangement.
Can't I try to erase some of that sadness? At least try to? If you firmly decide
not
to sell it to me, then I would ask you to extend the lease, for my lifetime. That is all.'

Madame Prideaux was motionless. There came a burst of laughter from the terrace and Giles's voice. ‘Céleste?
Please?
Let him come up to my father's studio to see my aquarium. It's not far for him.'

‘Your
studio now, hein?' said Madame Prideaux quietly. ‘You
are
taking hold of the house, is that it? You really mean this nonsense?'

‘Not nonsense. Not to me. Something simply for your consideration, that's all.' She moved her head, either in acceptance of a modest reprimand or, perhaps, as an acceptance of the suggestion? Impossible to tell, and she was not about to make any commitment just yet. I pushed on gently. ‘You have time, of course, I do not press you. I would not dream of doing that. Three years? My lease is for three years. After that I would be grateful to know if you would think favourably of my suggestion. My offer. Understand, Madame, I do not, and will not, press you.'

Sitting uneasily on the arm of her chair she waved an impatient hand about in little flutters, as if brushing aside some tiresome bee. ‘
You
may not “press”, as you say, you may not. But my bank very well may. I find that as I grow older the banks grow less lenient. They will pressure me very severely. They will “press”. That I must consider seriously. It is beginning now. I have a modest inheritance plus Jericho, from my papa. But …'

Giles suddenly barged into the room. ‘Céleste says it's too far to go up all the stairs. So we can't see the aquarium. So we'll go to look at the new pond instead. It's not so far, and it's all flat, and he'd like it. He really would. All right?'

I had set aside my can of beer and was standing. ‘All right. If Céleste is with you? Someone? Mon-Ami can go.'

Giles had ducked back on to the terrace. ‘We can go!' he shouted. ‘We can go. Céleste is coming. Come along, Thomas.'

Madame Prideaux looked up at me, smiling. ‘You are making so many changes already. Tiens!'

I thrust my hands into my pockets. ‘I didn't bother to ask your permission. Not permanent. You might be interested to know that I have a watch, a gold Piaget of some value, which belonged to James. I managed to get hold of it. Florence refuses to touch it… look at it…'

‘She does? But if it is valuable?'

‘It is worth something. Not enough to solve any problems which you may have at present, but it could be useful pocket money for you. For Thomas.'

She was fanning herself gently with one hand. ‘For Thomas, you say? And what will it provide, this pocket money, for Thomas, pray? A new head? New limbs?'

‘I was thinking of practical things. Clothing, dentists, general bits and pieces … A toy of some kind? An animal? A pet?'

She was smiling pityingly, but pleasantly. ‘A
toy? An animal?
A pet for a “pet”? Boff! Monsieur, you fail to understand. Thomas would not be capable of appreciating your kindness to him. No. No, no … I shall accept this watch, not for Thomas, but for Florence. She may have a new job, you see. With Jouvet. She will need a new dress, something pretty. She has one “good” one, she wore it at your supper party. I can get her to accept something. Something pretty, simple, useful.'

‘As you wish. You know best.'

‘I do. And Céleste, Céleste needs a little financial encouragement … It will be most useful. Yes. Thank you, Monsieur Colcott. I am interested.'

‘How shall we proceed? I ask your advice, Madame. You have an idea?'

She nodded, rose majestically, again pulled at her corset. ‘You could sell it, perhaps?' She was tugging at her skirt.

‘I could. I'll try. And put the cheque into your bank? Would that be acceptable?'

‘Greatly,' she said dryly. ‘Beggars, Monsieur Colcott, cannot be choosers, they say. It is true. I lost pride a long time ago. And I am fast losing my wits.'

‘Hardly a beggar, Madame, hardly. You own this house, you own your own, I assume. But if it makes any difference, and it won't be a fortune understand, I will sell it on your behalf for Thomas, and Florence need never know. Agreed?'