English Correspondence (6 page)

One or two of their own generation patronised them,
peering over their driving wheels, having trouble with the slope of the car park. They missed the fire and the fish, sitting there chewing tough meat in the cold. They were loyal but not stupid. Apart from these old ones, no one went there on purpose. No guide recommended them. Their likeliest clients were unsuspecting people who were already feeling hungry. They drove past and saw the sign from the main road. It was a testing experience, needing an interest in catching rum bits of the past before they disappeared for ever. No one stayed over. The creak and the curvature of the beds were congenital. You could sense it as soon as you walked through the door. Better to press on, or spend the night in the car.

Paul's parents had been delighted with the property. Bereft of the owners, it stood vacant, inviting enquiries. They had walked round exclaiming. Sylvie had felt uncomfortable. If they bought it, it would mark the end of what seemed provisional. She sided with the brother and sister and their makeshift arrangements. She liked the passage upstairs and its big flowered wallpaper, on the doors as well as the walls. There was a seamlessness to it that promised surprises. She didn't share this passion for improvement. She had thought, rather meanly, that her parents-in-law hadn't got that long to go themselves. They wouldn't see it like that. They would grow old, they knew that much, but not dippy; that was the misfortune of an earlier and less competent generation.

Paul's mother, Yvette, intuitive in some ways, had picked up her unease, but mistaken its source. She thought that Sylvie found the building creepy and would be jittery living there. She had telephoned often, while the re-furbishing was going on, wanting details of every last stroke of the paintbrush and, having got hold of the information, relayed it back to Sylvie with encouraging noises. Soon you won't recognise it. You'll forget what it looked like. Everything just as you want it, darling. Sylvie had felt Yvette was willing her to similar transformation. She hadn't been able to tell her that she thought the place was losing something, or that she herself would be losing her youth. She regretted having
to give up their flat and the chance of trying out another one, with a different set of windows, and wondered how she would manage to work in the evenings as well as the days. It seemed enough to be married. She had fallen short, as far as Yvette was concerned, she knew that. Not confiding enough, then or later. She hadn't said what she wanted. She hadn't known.

While her mother was ill, Yvette had been kind to her. She came over to give a hand in the restaurant so that Sylvie was free for the hospital visiting. That was before Maude's time, before they'd built up the business. Yvette wanted Sylvie to talk and for her to talk back to her. She kept saying the wrong thing, but that was hardly her fault, as Sylvie gave her no clues. Sylvie knew that she didn't. Yvette imagined herself in the same situation; then, because she wasn't entirely egotistical, toned down the emotional content, made it emptier, in line with the way she saw Sylvie. It wasn't a good fit. She gave the impression that visiting the dying might feel a bit of a nuisance. An imposition that, if you were realistic, you could see an end to. No more problems with parking or trailing through hospital corridors, smelling that smell. The end was the point of the process. Yvette's own mother had died suddenly at the top of the stairs. She had got to the top and it happened. The family had assumed that, as Mother never usually went upstairs in the daytime, she must have been feeling under the weather and gone up for a lie down. The low-key logic seemed to keep them happy. It was quick and no trouble. The direction pleased them. Half way to heaven. Whenever Yvette talked in this way, Sylvie stared at her, shocked by her liveliness. Yvette was only a year or two younger than her mother and not dissimilar. Eve and Yvette. They looked different. Eve had been beautiful before her illness. But they were somehow the same. Maternal and ebullient. She had felt crushed by both of them.

Sylvie still had a sense of those late summer evenings when she drove back home from the hospital, heavy with the baby, but thinned out mentally. The road was straight and there
were particular places where the landscape opened and she was aware of the sky and the position of the sun. The days were getting shorter, though not in gradation. A suddenly bright one appeared to reverse the direction. It was lucky. It was no good to see it as standard, let alone merited. Lives were like days. There was no point in congratulating yourself on your own health or longevity.

She would draw up in one car; Yvette, who was looking out for her, would pull away in another. Her husband Gilles would be waiting for her, wanting his supper. Sylvie felt she was part of a chain reaction of obligations, as pointless as an ugly piece of knitting. She longed to unravel it, or at least drop a few stitches. She realised too, as she changed back into her tidy clothes, that the exchange was deficient. Yvette was well suited to running the restaurant. She, herself, was a come down. All she had to offer at that time was an odd kind of sympathy, born of witnessing illness. The clients were all potential patients. She treated them with care, believing that she knew what was coming to them.

Her other fault was her failure to appreciate her husband's creativity. She couldn't see it like that, as his mother could. Or, she had to admit it, as Maude could. Maude had a way of going into the kitchen and admiring. She stood and asked lots of questions that had no answers, but flattered the respondent. How did Paul know that rice vinegar and unsmoked bacon were the ideal accompaniment for sea bass, or that the tiny blanched turnips would look so witty round the edge of the plate? She interpreted the clients to him. They were stupid and didn't know what they were eating. He was wasted on them. They were savouring every mouthful, speechless, clearly discerning. She was good at sniffing too. She had more than one kind. Quick, appreciative and launched from the larynx, or slow, with more of the bed than the stove about it.

THEY ARRIVED ALL
at once for Maurice's party. They came in from the car park and gathered in the hallway, struggling out of their damp, dark coats, that at the end of the evening would all look the same. A bright piece of silk, hanging out of a pocket, was good for cloakroom identification, otherwise they would be looking at labels and buttons and stray hairs on the collars. The smells of colognes and face creams blended together and fought with the confit of duck from the kitchen. Sylvie opened a bottle and sniffed the cork. That was better. Maude was burnished, almost refractive; hair, eyes, nails, lips, teeth, dress, stockings, shoes, everything shiny. Only her face was fashionably matt. She attracted attention. The men walking in, at that moment, Maurice's contemporaries, were, in age, her perfect admirers; admirers, not lovers, just the right gap. Loving would have tested them. The younger ones who followed were disturbed by her, glanced at her warily. Felix was used to her.

It took time to settle them down. They had worked out a seating plan in advance, but, even so, there were flutterings, minor disappointments, these more than excitements; perhaps they were past them. Some collapsed like blackbirds taking a sun bath, spread out and patient, some were poised ready to swoop. They all knew each other, to different degrees of intimacy. Nothing startling, though there was bound to be at least one pair with a secret, and others who had forgotten they had been close for a week or so. What really joined them, Sylvie thought, was miscalculation. They had gone into business with room for manoeuvre, clear escape routes.
For a time, these were open, then they glazed over with shatter-proof glass. They lived in a fortress. She could see it in their faces.

Sylvie gave them a few minutes to stop fidgeting and then filled their glasses. It was one of those necessary pauses, like the one between Let us pray and praying. Get over the shuffling before starting. They turned to their neighbours to talk. To the right, to the left, best till last, nothing in it. One or two were left stranded with no one to speak to; they would drink up more quickly. Sylvie stood ready. Felix brought them their dishes. The first course. He did it neatly, without ostentation, avoiding their shoulders and badly timed gestures. Sylvie watched him, watched his hands and his speed. It was she who had taught him. Compared with him, they were babies. The menu planning had deprived them of choices. They ate what they were given. Don't wave your fork, Sweet. That's right, in it goes.

They weren't the only diners and, now there was a lull, Sylvie was able to attend to the others. There was an Englishman, on his own, and a couple, out to mark some exiguous event like a birthday. They had picked the wrong evening, but she didn't want to neglect them.

With the next course came Paul. He shook hands with Maurice and Maurice's wife. They exchanged congratulations with equal enthusiasm: confit of duck and fifty years' graft in the scales together. This was Maude's moment too. She came forward. She knew Maurice slightly and gave him a kiss, told him how young he looked. This was plainly a lie, but he smiled and swallowed it with his next gulp of claret. They had both been drinking quite fast, he and his wife. They were used to the quantity but not to the speed. His wife's fingers, pressed hard on the edge of the table, steadied the upper part of her body, but her head bobbed about. There was fear in her eyes, fear for the future, at home with Maurice. She was pleased that Maude kissed him. For a moment she hoped. Then knowledge of Maurice returned to her, she didn't need to look at him. She was a realistic woman. Had she
looked, she'd have seen his high colour and the tic under his left eye.

Sylvie signalled to Felix to fetch in more water; the slightest movement, no speaking. He understood her. He walked round the table and poured it, cold and clear into their glasses. The candles were warm, melting slowly, one of them dripping. Maurice put his hand in his pocket, felt about. The pieces of paper were missing. There were his car keys. The first words, what were they? Despite tough market conditions, profit before interest – No. He shifted his bum, half stood up, carried on fishing. Sylvie looked on. She knew what was happening, she willed him to find them. She caught his eye, took a deep breath, looked serene. He stopped, patted his jacket. A slight rustle, like bank notes. He sat down, swigged his wine, forgot all about it, forgot all about her. What is it, Maurice, his wife whispered across the table. She was, as always lagging behind. He took no notice; ignored her and turned to his neighbour.

Paul and Maude had gone back to the kitchen to beribbon the pudding. Sylvie went across to the two extra tables. They were tolerant people, the couple and the solitary man. They got on with their dinners without complaining. The noise and the heat from the party were rising. These three were adult. They drew an invisible line round themselves. The couple found plenty to say to each other. It hadn't been an ideal choice for the birthday, but they didn't indulge in apologies or recriminations. Their measured response gave them mutual respect. Sylvie saw this and was glad for them. The Englishman was watchful. He. had his own thoughts but the party impinged on them. He kept an eye out, looked slightly dismayed, though not necessarily for himself. Sylvie wasn't sure what he sensed but she thought she agreed with him.

Felix brought in the pudding. The sight subdued them. He had to dismantle it; it was that sort of pudding. He did it expertly. It collapsed and they fell on it. What remained of discernment and chic was undone.

Sylvie poured the champagne. The establishment had won in the matter of speeches. Nothing was to happen until after the food. Sylvie had been firm and Paul had been pleased with her. Maurice looked bovine. Panic had left him. The moment was near, but not now. He felt easy. The minutes stretched out.

Jacqueline, his secretary, looked round. Sylvie smiled at her and nodded. She supposed it was Jacqueline. Three shapes on the sideboard, two flat, the other a mound. Framed pictures for Maurice: one solemn, a local landscape, one jokey, some sort of cartoon of Maurice, neither accomplished. And flowers. She could smell them from here. It was the lilies that did it.

Christian, who had met Sylvie to make the arrangements, got to his feet. He kept the flat of his hands on the table, didn't stand straight, looked slightly aggressive. He started at the beginning, made it seem very distant, very local, very French. He, of course, hadn't been around at that time. The leaden anachronisms gave way to a list, then tailed off. Surely that hadn't taken fifty years. He mentioned bedrock and roots and foundations. He stopped just short of saying dead weight. The world was now global. He talked of relaxation and travel and well deserved leisure and being together – that meant Maurice's wife. He picked up his glass and proposed Maurice's retirement, long life and happiness. They all did. It didn't sound plausible. They were all fairly raucous, clinking their glasses. Jacqueline remembered Maurice's wife. She nudged Christian and whispered. They started again, the toasts and the clinking. Maurice would speak soon. They carried on talking. He'd speak soon. No one looked at him. A moving occasion. Maybe a handkerchief. They waited. Talk dwindled. No one looked. Only Felix.

Sylvie knew straightaway that the boy had never seen death before, or anything like it. She wanted to comfort him, hold him, send him home to his mother. But she was the wrong side of the table. She needed his help. She asked him quite calmly to get to the telephone. Call an ambulance. Tell them
it's urgent. Tell Paul what's happened. Felix was pale but he trusted her, knew what to do.

The party round the table divided: those near Maurice who shifted away, those at either end who stayed put, exchanging glances and clichés, covertly sipping champagne. It was the only booze on the table and the glasses were nearly full. Everyone who needed it wished it was red, or, at any rate, flat. They drank gingerly. Maurice's wife was confused, hoped her husband would recover without further bother. She clutched her hands together and kept blinking her eyes. He had been trouble before, but not quite like this; never in public. She came round the table to be with him. She didn't know whether to touch him. The occasion, more than the terror, confused her. Her wish, had she had one, was not that this hadn't happened, but that it had happened at home on an ordinary day. So many to choose from. Why did he have to?