A Period of Adjustment (32 page)

‘Yes, thank you. It was great. Especially the nougat.'

‘I hadn't
heard.
So I just wondered. It would have been infuriating if it had not arrived. Your old ma went to a hell of a lot of trouble to get it to you on the very day! I am glad. Thank you for telling me, sweetie.'

‘We didn't write, Helen, because we didn't know exactly where you were in Milan. You were in Milan at that time? You said you would be?'

She crossed her splendid legs, reached down for the crocodile bag and put it on her knee, found a gold lighter, a packet of Lucky Strike. ‘Yes. Milan! God! That's a noisy city! This is
very
peaceful. So silent up here!' She blew a little flute of smoke into the hot, still morning. ‘Aren't you going to open your packages? All the way from Italy?'

It seemed not to have occurred to her that ‘all the way from Italy' wasn't really that far, about the same as, say, Margate to Brighton; but Giles, squatting on the terrace, murmured pleasantly and ripped off paper and found a glass jar with a ribbon round its neck and a long, slim packet with a Swatch inside. This, at least, he was able to react to, and with an affectionate kiss.

‘It's such a wild thing, isn't it? It's called “Breakdance”. All the colours, and it'll look really jazzy. I bet not many boys you know have a Swatch!'

Giles was just about to blurt the name ‘Freddy' when I cut in swiftly and admired the glass jar.

‘What are these, Helen? Chocolate truffles, right?'

She nodded brightly. ‘Only one shop in Milan makes them, but don't eat too many at once. Just one after dinner, you know. They are frantically rich, seriously delicious and death to Weight-Watchers!' We all made amused noises and Giles fitted his Swatch on to his wrist. ‘So this is home, then? I hadn't really expected it to be so – you know? – utterly
rural.
It's a huge change from London, but I know that you always liked solitude. Well, you've got it here. It's simply
miles
from anywhere, isn't it?'

‘No. Not miles.' I was mixing drinks which Clotilde had organized at the table by the door. ‘It is vodka, still?' I said.

Helen nodded. ‘Vodka. Still. Ice. And lemon. If you have
it?' She snapped her bag shut, set it on the terrace beside her.

‘From the tree next to you.'

She looked vaguely over her shoulder. ‘Amazing. Goodness. Have we tonic too?'

‘And tonic. It's very good to see you. You look terribly well, relaxed, and now
you
are the one who's brown. Very, very becoming. You really do look quite marvellous.'

‘Well, don't go on, William! God! Did I look a freak or something before?' She laughed gaily to show that she was not quite at ease and only joking anyway. And that is how we went through the pre-lunch period. Except that she did come in and look about the house, up to the bedrooms, the studio, exclaimed at the sight of the aquarium and remembered bits of stuff from Simla Road, said how different it all looked in this light. Then we all sat down and Clotilde, beaming, set down a deep glass dish of salade niçoise, the bread, and I uncorked the Domaine d'Ot which had been chilling in a plastic bucket.

‘Voilá!' said Clotilde happily. ‘Bon appétit, Madame.'

Giles thrust his arm towards her. ‘Look what I got, Clotilde,' he said in French. ‘A Swatch. From my mama, from Milan.'

‘Oh là là! So chic! Mon ami will be very jealous. You must show it to him.'

‘All Froggy stuff! My goodness, you really
are
my little Frenchman, aren't you? It hasn't taken
you
long to mug it up. Frankly I can't seem to get my tongue round it, French, I mean. Or Spanish. I mean, Spanish is the
pits
– impossible. I leave it all to Eric, the same with Italian. I just haven't got the hang of languages; your old ma hasn't got the hang of them, Giles. Oh! You know I
loathe
anchovies.'

She forked two offenders on to her side plate. Giles cheerfully took them from her. Lunch progressed. She was gay, animated, glittering, scented. We had all altered radically
since that April morning in Parsons Green when the key to this house had fallen on the mat. But I didn't bother saying that, it was self-evident, and she was talking, easily it would appear, to Giles, who was polite, agreeing, and only gave his utter lack of interest away when he suddenly waved happily across the table and called ‘Bon appétit!' to Mon-Ami walking up from the potager, naked apart from a pair of rather short shorts and a red handkerchief round his throat.

Helen sat back, her glass in her hand. ‘Who is Rambo? Someone you know?'

I explained who Mon-Ami was, and who Clotilde was, and that we now were a household, and did she want a little more? There was only fruit and cheese to follow. She accepted some more wine, said she'd let everything just ‘settle, all that tomato and onion and olives', and then perhaps a teensy-weensy bit of cheese. For bulk.

When Clotilde had cleared away, we went inside and had our coffee served there. It was, Helen said, rather ‘glaring' under the vine, and she didn't want to keep screwing up her eyes against the light. She'd foolishly forgotten her dark glasses. Wrinkles, I knew, were devastating after a certain age. Then looking about, patting the sofa beside her, she asked where Giles had gone to. I said probably down to the kitchen to show Mon-Ami his Swatch, and she smiled thinly. ‘A good idea? Familiarity? A small boy? With the staff? I know things are a bit freer here in the Med. But still, one must keep an eye on it all. Servants get so damned bolshie if they are given an inch out here. I
know.
God! The sods I have to work with sometimes! In Italy! You can't believe …'

‘I think we are all managing pretty well. I like Giles being about in the kitchen, and they like it too. Anyway, the “holiday period” is nearly over now.'

Helen leant forward, stubbed her cigarette in a glass dish
at her side, shook another from the pack, lit it with a sharp flick of her wrist, bracelets and chains clinking and clattering. ‘I wanted to have a little word with you about that. It is about time that we considered the child's future. School. You know?' She drew on her cigarette hard, snorted smoke down her nostrils, an old habit which usually meant intense concentration or anger. ‘I have been thinking it all over very, very carefully. I remember, have no fear, that ugly day at the Negresco in Nice. Remember it well, and don't want to go into that again. But Eric and I do, honestly, feel that it is utterly wrong to deny the child a proper
English
education. We feel that very strongly: I know you don't, I understand your, rather trivial, worries, but we do think he should be able to take advantage of Dr Lang's offer at Eason Lodge If you remember where that is. Do you?'

‘Very well. Burnham Beeches.'

‘Where he will live, at weekends, in a family atmosphere, with his sister and with me.' For a split second she floundered, tapped the cigarette on the rim of the dish. ‘In a close-knit family. That's all. He can't potter about France for the rest of his life like a sort of vagrant. I don't think you realize that children do need security. The security of a family.'

‘And you feel that you can offer him that?'

‘Definitely. I'm his mother, remember? Did it slip your mind?' She was smiling pleasantly, head tilted on one side. Coquettish, you could say.

‘What about this “trivia” which you have said you understand? Has all that “trivia” been tidied away? Your chum isn't curious about my son's genitals any longer?'

She blushed scarlet, either with embarrassment or with rage, difficult to know just at that moment. ‘Don't be so bloody obscene! You are inferring that Eric abused him? Right? Is that the fashionable word? Abused? How dare
you! How dare you suggest anything so vile.' She leant back in her chair. ‘I really do think you have taken leave of your senses. Sun's got to your brain. Chuntering away about -' She shrugged, avoiding words which might trap her. ‘You really have to try and understand, as I've told you before, that I am his mother. I know. Can't understand that basic feeling, can you? Men don't give birth, do they?'

‘No they don't. If you have come here today to try and take the boy away, just forget it. We've agreed all this. More or less amicably. He stays with me.'

‘He'll come to you for the holidays. Easy. So can Annicka. Remember, we agreed? But he gets a proper English education, he has a place at Eason Lodge, a proper family life. He
has
got a sister, after all. We are a unit.'

‘Helen dear, if you are brightly playing Solomon today, drop it. He stays with me, you are not getting him back. Got it?'

She crushed her cigarette in the glass dish. It rattled lightly. ‘Some quite absurd idea that he was, what, spied on? In a bathroom. Something?'

‘Something.'

‘He's just ten. Under age. Hysterical emotionally, they all are at that age. Easily swayed, accept wild suggestions.'

‘He's not a bit emotional, in that manner. He's settled with me, he has friends, feels that he belongs to this place. He loves it. I am, Helen,
trying
to be fair!'

‘So am I. Maureen Cornwall, who suggested Eason Lodge, her boys go there, is a social worker, for her sins. Marvellously supportive, loves helping, she's very bright, and frankly, William, she is a tiny bit uncomfortable about Giles here. All-male society? Running about, as I can see, half-naked. Half-naked gardener – all hugger-mugger, to use a phrase. And well, there
is
the mother and son business, but equally there
is
the father and son thing. Unhealthily close. But if I even whispered my concern to Maureen, well. You
can imagine how difficult it would be? For us all. Take ages. Investigations, so on. Eric and I do rather worry for him, honestly. Not that
I'd
ever
dream
of making a sound. But you do see? The situation?'

I got up, went to the kitchen door, and called for Giles. She flinched, put up a hand to secure the bow in her hair, drew on the cigarette. ‘Oh, don't drag the child in …'

Clotilde shouted, ‘Il arrive … une seconde …'

Helen stabbed out her cigarette. ‘Really, William. Don't make a meal out of everything.'

I sat opposite her. ‘My goodness, Helen, you must want him back very badly? To risk all this in public. That, subtly, I may, as his father, be “too close”. That it? That it might be “unhealthy”. That's the implication, isn't it? Want to drag us all, willy nilly, headlong into misery, harry us all through the courts, through Maureen Cornwall's concerned, meddling hands? The tabloids?'

She shook another cigarette into her hand, dropped the package into her bag, twisted the lighter. A flash of gold in the cool room. ‘I merely want my family. What belongs to me. I have had time to think, and I am not ready just to hand him over to you. How do I know how you will cope? His hair is halfway down his back.'

Giles clambered up the stairs from the kitchen, puffing as if he had been running. ‘I was going up with this to see Mon-Ami at the stream. He's made a place for it.' He opened his palm and offered up the small china frog he'd found in the garden at Simla Road on our last day there.

Helen was perfectly in control. Her voice was measured, warm. Motherly, interested.

‘Giles, what on earth is that? It's got a broken leg.'

‘I found it in the garden. Dad said to keep it. It's my lucky frog.'

‘Giles, a bit of a problem here. Your mother is a bit worried about you, she feels that, after all, you
should
perhaps have an English education, you know? There is a jolly nice school near her new house, Burnham Beeches. She feels that you and Annicka have been apart for a bit too long and you do need to be together again as a family. Understand? It's for your good. She feels that you ought to start, at Eason Lodge, in September. New term. I gather she has arranged it all. The Cornwall boys, Hector and Bob, go there. Remember them?'

He looked at me with despair. Moving only his eyes, he said dully, ‘You promised.'

‘Yup. And I'm about to keep the promise. But you have to help me. Right? It seems the only hope you have. So, tell Mum exactly what you told me, all of it, in the car that day. Remember? Everything.'

He clasped the frog in his fists, lowered his head. ‘Do I have to?'

‘You have to. The bathroom. Right?'

He told his wretched little story, with a bit of prodding from me to remind him of things he would have preferred to forget. When he had finished, head bowed, voice almost a whisper, I said cheerfully, over-noisily, ‘That it? Nothing more?'

Helen blew a furious bayonet of smoke high into the air. ‘I don't want to hear another word. It's nonsense. Hysterical rubbish. You are imagining the whole silly thing.'

The boy's head snapped back. ‘I'm
not,
Mum! I'm
not.
Really, I hate him! The next time he came in and said the water was getting cold, I'd been there too long, and he'd help me to dry myself. He did, Mum. I got out. And he did, and touched me, and I didn't say anything. But I never had a bath while he was there again and that's why you got cross with me. But I never did again.'

Helen, I was glad to see, was white. The cigarette between her fingers just very slightly trembled. The ash fell. ‘You
have a vivid imagination, Giles, take after your father, be a writer. Great.'

I got up and told Giles to go. He got out of his chair, ignored my offered hand and walked to Helen slowly. ‘He did, Mum. He
really
did. I'm sorry.'

Then he turned and went back down to the kitchen.

‘Helen?' I said. ‘Want a cup of tea?'

She laughed dryly. ‘Christ, no. No tea, thank you, the English panacea for everything.'

I called down to Clotilde that we would not require tea, and that Madame would leave as soon as the taxi arrived. When I turned back, Helen had gone out on to the terrace under the vine, the crocodile handbag loose in her hand. She spun her cigarette butt into the air; it fell on to the white pebble path. ‘An edifying little moment. You have him word-perfect, William. Congratulations.'