Beyond the Green Hills (26 page)

And what then? A marquee in the courtyard of the château, grape baskets and donkey carts carefully hidden away in the cellars. Flags flying? Oh yes, let’s have flags, she thought, looking round the bare walls with neither statue, nor carving, stained glass, or cross to relieve the bareness.

She gazed up at the preacher, a look of rapt attention on her face. She’d heard it all before, so there was no need to listen. Besides, there was the rest of her life to arrange.

No doubt
she and Christian would live in the château. She hadn’t seen his suite yet, but that would be this afternoon. The château would be reinvigorated. They might even be permitted to remove the draughts. Then there would be the children.

‘We will have beautiful children. You will like that.’

She could almost hear him saying it. This man, sitting by her side, his handsome face in profile, listening attentively to the penalties of sin, both sins of omission and sins of commission. Most likely he was thinking his own thoughts just as she was.

By the time the highly articulate figure threw his arms in the air and blessed the congregation, she was stiff and cold with tension and the effects of the hard wooden seat. They were dismissed into the warmth and sunshine and the sidelong glances of the departing parishioners.

The courtyard of the château was full of activity when Christian swung his sports car up the steep slope between the huge stone pillars that had once supported the portcullis.

‘What’s happening?’ she cried.

‘We’ve decided to begin in the morning,’ he said, getting out of the car, taking her hand and leading her through the throng of people coming and
going. ‘It’s a pity you have to go back tonight, but there’ll be other opportunities.’

They walked up stone steps into the château itself, crossed a huge empty hall, climbed a curving stone staircase. The place felt like a cave quarried out of stone. She could feel the damp chill producing goosepimples on her bare arms. At the end of a long corridor, Christian opened a door into a pleasant sitting room, lit by a large window looking south. Warmed by the sun, the heat was blissful after the dank feel of the empty lower storey and the staircase.

The whole suite was pleasant enough, the view down into the courtyard impressive. He led her through the well-furnished rooms, showed her his bedroom, the kitchen and bathroom.

‘It’s quite possible to be comfortable in a draughty château,’ he said, laughing. ‘But Mother has a point. To use the whole château, one needs to be young and have lots of good ideas. You would enjoy such a challenge, wouldn’t you?’

‘I always enjoy a challenge,’ she said, honestly, as she turned away towards the window.

‘Now I will show you the most splendid view of all,’ he said, holding out his hand to her.

Another corridor, another staircase, much steeper than the last. They paused at a small door set deep into the stonework. A final steep flight and they were standing at the highest point of the château, the figures in the courtyard below them reduced to small dark shapes.

There was little space to spare in this high eyrie.
They stood close together and scanned the landscape laid out all around them. The sky was clear, not a cloud to be seen, but the heat had generated a haze, which made the far horizon shimmer like a picture viewed through the fumes of a Tilley lamp.

The rugged, dissected country ran, ridge upon ridge, towards lower land far away, the sides of the low, eroded hills ribbed with the rich green of vines in full leaf and fruit. Small villages blended into their hillside sites, their building stone the very same rock upon which they stood.

Twisting roads, appearing and disappearing, today empty dusty ribbons, tomorrow filled with the laden carts now being prepared in the courtyard below. On the tops of the hills the bare rock gleamed between areas of sparse vegetation. Here, on the ‘causses’, farming was a matter of scraping a living in the more favoured hollows.

Clare took it all in, fitting together what she could now see with her tour of yesterday and all the local mayor had told her last night at dinner. It had its own harsh beauty, but it was a hard land, unforgiving, enclosed and remote.

‘This is my favourite view,’ he said, proudly.

She waited, becoming more and more anxious by the minute.

‘You would be happy here,’ he said, smiling as he took her hand.

For a moment she felt desolate, locked in a situation she had allowed to happen and from which she could see no easy means of escape. Then it came to her. With a fluency and ease that afterwards
amazed her, she found words – the words she needed.

‘It is a splendid view and quite wonderful countryside,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m so grateful to have seen it. But I could never be happy here,’ she went on, shaking her head. ‘I would never stop longing for the little green hills of my home in Ireland.’

T
he week following her return from Toulouse was one of the most miserable Clare had ever spent. Although she knew she’d done the right thing and was grateful she’d been able to do it in the way she had, she just couldn’t get over the aching sense of loss. Between one week and the next, a bright light had switched itself off, leaving her feeling sad and abandoned.

The facts of the matter didn’t help. She struggled with the sense that some treasured hope had been taken away. The joy that had swelled up in the months gone by had burst like a bubble.

It might have been easier if Robert or Louise were there to welcome her back, but they were both away in Italy. Without Louise to fill it with her vivacity, their room seemed large and empty. She missed Robert too. Often, several days would pass without her seeing him, but she always knew he was there, upstairs, working away at his large desk, surrounded by his paintings.

In odd moments of the day when her mind
was free to wander, walking to the Metro, having lunch in some little place near the bank, shopping for her supper on the way home, she thought about
Christian. Not the Christian she had come to see so clearly in his own habitat, but the lively presence that had swept her up with such enthusiasm after the sad disappointment of her first visit home. There was a contradiction there. An enigma she could not resolve.

‘Nothing to do but grin and bear it, Clare,’ she said to herself on the Friday evening, carrying her supper tray to the low table, as the setting sun cast long fingers of light deep into the room. ‘It happens all the time. People fall in love. They see someone they hope is there. Time proves them wrong and they fall out of love again.’

She sat for a long time in the fading light watching the couples who strolled past. There were always lovers walking by on the quays, hand in hand, arm in arm, stopping to kiss from time to time, just as she and Christian had done in so many parts of the city.

‘Would it have been different if he’d been a Parisian?’

She thought of all the times they’d been together, free to wander through the city, from that very first evening when they walked the cobbled streets from Place Pigalle and climbed the broad, white steps to Sacré-Coeur. For three months, they’d made Paris
their
city, possessing it, as lovers do, enjoying its colour and life, drinking coffee in cafés in unexpected places, stopping to look at a street artist at work, strolling by the river, tramping the galleries of the Louvre, or enjoying the broad avenues of the Bois de Boulogne. If
Christian had been a Parisian
they would still be together, somewhere in the city, watching the light fade in the Tuileries Gardens or heading for a favourite restaurant on the Left Bank.

She laughed at herself. Christian could hardly be a Moreau, of Huguenot descent, heir to one of the largest accumulations of vineyards in France, and be a Parisian. His background and upbringing had certainly contributed to the sort of person he was. Change any of the factors and he would have been different. And if he had been, they would never have met in the first place.

‘Nothing for it, Clare. As the song says: “Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again.”’

She took her tray to the kitchen, set the filter machine going and stared out at the fading summer flowers. A figure moved in the apartment on the other side of the courtyard. She waved and smiled. Paul was doing his washing up. Dear Paul. Could she ever have imagined such a strange young man becoming such a good friend?

She made a note on her kitchen reminder pad: ‘Take brooch to work tomorrow.’

It was Paul who had solved that problem. She had asked him about insurance but he’d suggested a deposit box. He said it didn’t matter how little you had to put in one, given that staff could have one without charge, she might as well. He would arrange it for her.

Her coffee machine made spluttering noises, gurgled and stopped. She filled up her cup and went back into the living room. ‘Mosey Jackson would be
pleased,’ she said aloud, as the golden fingers on the carpet died away.

Suddenly, the evenings were noticeably shorter. September was moving on and the first yellowed leaves, exhausted by warmth and a drying wind, were drifting along the edge of the quay, spilling over into the brown water and floating off to accumulate under the nearest bridge, bright patches on dark water.

Beside her chair she’d collected up a pile of books for learning Italian and a small tape-recorder. She turned towards them.

‘Come on now, Clare. Let’s see how far you can get before Louise comes to help you.’

Robert sent for her as soon as he arrived back from Italy, as she knew he would. She told him the bare facts of what had happened between her and Christian.

‘So you won’t be losing me after all, Robert.’

To her surprise he said very little, though he listened carefully and looked most thoughtful. A few days later, she found a note from him when she got back to the apartment. Notes from Robert always meant the same thing. She smiled as she opened it.

He had the most endearing way of using exactly the same formula whenever he asked her to dine: ‘if she had no more interesting engagement and if she were not already committed to Louise or the St Clairs.’ On this occasion, however, he named the eighth of October, and continued: ‘if she had not already made arrangements for celebrating her
forthcoming birthday.’

‘Good gracious, I’d almost forgotten,’ she exclaimed.

She would be twenty-three on October the eighth, the day on which her parents had married twenty-four years earlier. ‘Our anniversary present,’ she said quietly, remembering her mother’s words.

Robert must have looked up the date in his files. On the other hand, he might have consigned the date to his prodigious memory the day he offered her the job. She never ceased to be amazed at just how much information he had at his fingertips, whether it was when they worked together or when they dined.

When they talked about more personal matters he could remember every detail she’d ever shared with him, referring as easily to her grandfather or Charlie Running, Jessie or the gallery, as he did to the St Clairs.

She took the cap off her fountain pen. Of course she would dine with him. She would look forward to it especially.

A small handful of birthday cards arrived at the apartment in the days immediately before Clare’s birthday, some with notes, some with letters. The most welcome one was from Jessie, a really lovely card of late summer flowers. Clare smiled when she saw that Jessie had started to write a short message inside the card, but went on to fill up the whole back of it, despite the awkwardness of writing on its shiny surface. It wasn’t the first time she’d written,
but it was the first time she’d said anything about herself. It had a warmth about it so sadly missing when she’d been with her back in the spring.

Clare propped the card on the mantelpiece. She was so grateful to have a real message, but something about it really troubled her. Yes, it was more affectionate, more like the loving Jessie she’d known, but it certainly wasn’t the voice of her old friend. This was a Jessie who seemed harassed and anxious. Not anxious about anything specific, just anxious in herself. No trace at all of the girl who had charged into life and emerged triumphant.

She was still pondering over Jessie’s words as she opened Ronnie’s card. She began laughing the moment she pulled it out of its bright yellow envelope. Charlie Running sent a view of Armagh from the Newry Road. Aunt Sarah’s handwriting was terribly shaky but there was nothing shaky about her message of good wishes. And lastly, there was one from June and John Wiley and the girls, signed by all of them in blue biro and decorated with kisses. Inside, June had added a note to say she was so sorry they missed her when she was over. After The Missus died, they’d had a holiday down in Newcastle for a week to have a bit of a rest. She hoped she’d be over again soon. They had the telephone now. Be sure to give her a ring and let her know when she was coming.

To her great surprise, there were more cards waiting for her when she arrived at work on her birthday itself. A brightly coloured Italian one from Louise, with champagne bottles popping and all the Italian superlatives flying around like birds. She laughed and hugged her friend before she went on to open the rest. It seemed as if all her colleagues had found out about her birthday, even Emile’s replacement, the rather formal Monsieur Mauriac, and the formidable Madame Japolsky, who sent a discreet engraving of the bank premises with carriages tastefully arranged beyond the steps. As Louise said wickedly, it stood out from the others rather like Madame’s
nose itself.

‘I’m glad you wore the green dress tonight,’ said
Robert, as the waiter removed their plates and rearranged the table for dessert. ‘Each time you wear it, I wonder if it’s because you come from the Emerald Isle that you look so good in almost any shade of green,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘But you haven’t worn that dress for some time now.’

‘Haven’t I?’

‘No, you haven’t. Not since you despatched a certain exceedingly eligible young man.’

‘Oh.’ She blushed slightly and then laughed. He was quite right. Recently, every time she put out a hand for an evening dress, she’d chosen the blue or the gold, but she hadn’t noticed it herself.

‘I wondered if you’ve worked out why you really rejected him,’ he said, looking at her steadily over his dark-rimmed spectacles.

‘But I told you, Robert.’

‘Yes, you gave me a very sensible account of why you didn’t think marrying him would be a good idea, but you didn’t actually tell me why you rejected him.’

‘Well, the two do go together, don’t they?’

‘Yes, but there is much to be learnt by separating the man from the ménage.’

‘Fair point, Robert.’ She paused and went on more slowly. ‘I’m not sure I can do that.’

‘Have a try.’

‘Well, what I now see is that Christian needed me. Not the me that I am, but the person he thought I could be. Of course, he was quite right. I could have done what he wanted, if I’d put my mind to it. What he wanted was someone presentable, who would
satisfy his parents, entertain his guests and provide him with children, a son, in particular, I should imagine. He couldn’t exactly check out my childbearing potential, but he certainly did check out the rest.’

She paused, sensing there was yet more to say.

‘Once I got to Toulouse and saw what he was doing, everything else fell into place. In all our time together, I realised he’d never wanted to know about
me.
Oh yes, he’d ask me what I thought about this painting or that sculpture, had I seen
Les
Enfants
Terribles,
did I like Baudelaire? He asked lots of questions, but never once did he ask about my home or my family. I don’t think he’d have taken a great interest in Charlie Running or Mosey Jackson,’ she added wryly.

They both laughed.

‘Sometimes I’ve felt angry with Christian for choosing me to fit into his life,’ she went on. ‘More often, I’ve been angry with myself for ignoring all the signs. He was very egocentric and very determined. Perhaps I was flattered. And I shouldn’t have been. I certainly won’t make that mistake again.’

‘You are being hard on yourself, aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes, you are. You are young and attractive. An equally attractive, but not quite so young man comes along, shares many of your interests, enjoys your company. What is more likely than you should fall in love?’

‘But should I not have seen why he was so happy
to fall in love with me?’

‘But how could you? You only had part of the picture. Why do you think I insist we drive round twisty roads and tramp through vineyards? The picture a person presents at the conference table is the picture they choose to present. One needs the broader context and the history to be able to read it accurately. You’ve always grasped that.’

‘Yes, it always made sense to me at work, but I hadn’t thought of applying it to my lovers,’ she said wryly, grinning at him. ‘I should have paid more attention to Christian’s background, shouldn’t I? After all, he never told me anything about himself, and I didn’t ask.’

‘Indeed yes. His background and upbringing taught him to expect to shape his life as he and his family have always shaped it, with their own interests firmly at the centre. Perhaps it’s inevitable if one is very rich. What do you think?’

‘No, I don’t think it’s money in itself. The Richardson family had lost all their money, but The Missus still behaved as if the world revolved around them.’

‘Yes, but that family once had money, political power as well, if I remember correctly. Habits die hard. I’ve known men with hardly a sou in their pockets behaving as if they were still millionaires.’

‘Is it power then, Robert? Is that what makes Christian so convinced he can always have what he wants.’

Robert grinned broadly.

‘I once interviewed a young woman who told me
that she knew that money was power. She got the job.’

They both laughed, as the waiter arrived and Robert turned his attention to the menu’s impressive list of desserts.

‘If I might persuade you to the strawberry gâteau,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘There is a rather special Château Latour Blanche that might be worthy of the occasion. The strawberries will be North African no doubt, but they should be reliable here.’