Guy Renton (32 page)

He planned to be away two weeks, looking in on Daphne and Franklin first, in their villa behind Cannes. He had not seen his brother for thirty months. Franklin had been on a cruise in the Aegean when his father died, and had sensibly if selfishly decided that he could do no good by coming back, and that it would be awkward for Daphne and her daughter to be stranded in mid-Mediterranean on a small Greek island.

The first sight of his brother was something of a shock. Franklin had put on weight. At least a stone. His jowl was heavy; he had lost his greyhound slimness. He had not a paunch, but the line of his body was now straight, not curved. He had no longer that air of
race
that made him once so strikingly good-looking. At the same time he looked very well, with a full dark suntan, in a silk short-sleeved shirt with his initials embroidered on the pocket in a darker blue. The silver grey Mercedes was standing like a gazelle outside the station.

“So Daphne lets you drive her car,” Guy said.

“This isn't hers. This is mine.”

“It looks very like hers.”

“It does: exactly the same model: painted the same colour. Don't you think it's chic? They look so cute parked side by side outside the Carlton. Jump in.”

The villa was six miles away lying to the north of the main Grasse road up a narrow dusty track that mounted between terraced olive groves and vineyards. It was an old reconstructed Provençal cottage that still retained with its thick walls and uneven tiling, a sense of age. From its shaded courtyard you looked across the valley towards the fortified town of Mougins with its cypress trees standing like sentinels along the cemetery. On the far hills you could see the town of Grasse climbing back above its flowered slopes. Daphne was lying out in a long chair, very elegant and lithe in rust-red slacks: her daughter was seated cross-legged on a cushion beside a gramophone with a cluster of records upon the rug. Daphne waved her hand in welcome but did not get up.

“Take Guy right up and get him changed out of those hot things. By the time he's done I'll have the cocktails ready. Be an angel, Julia dear, and get the ice.”

It was the first time Guy had seen Julia; she was dark and slim
like her mother, but she had not that sharp division that her mother had between the lower and upper part of her face. She had a softer and a rounded face; more attractive at a first glance, but possibly less persuasive. She was wearing shorts and a loose-fitting short-sleeved blouse. She might have been eighteen.

The martini that was handed to him on his return was so dry that it made him start. “If all our clients drank them as dry as this we'd make our fortune.”

“Are they so dry? They're five to one: that's the way I used to like them,” Daphne said.

“Still on the wagon then?”

“And look like staying on.”

“Don't you miss it?”

“At first, but I feel so much better.”

“Aren't the rest of us rather boring when we get noisy and gay and flushed and silly?”

She smiled. “You exaggerate that, you know. When you've been drinking your eyes get out of focus, so that you don't only feel differently, but look differently to one another. Actually you don't change much. Let's ask Julia. Darling, if you come into a cocktail party, would you know how many cocktails they'd all had?”

“Heavens, no.”

“And you're quite happy sitting there with your cordial. You don't feel out of things?”

“Why, no.”

“Neither do I. Are you ready for a second, Franklin?”

“In just a minute.”

One was as much as Guy himself could manage, but his brother not only had a second but three-quarters of a glass of what he called ‘the dividend'.

“We drink far too much here,” he said. “You know what we call it, the septic belt. But we sweat it out in the sun, or at any rate the tan conceals it.”

There were two carafes of wine upon the lunch table. White and rosé: Guy chose the rosé, Julia took a half glass that she filled up with Vichy: Daphne as before took nothing; but the carafe of white wine that stood beside Franklin was taken out to be refilled.

As before Daphne ate very little, a salad and a jellied egg; with
a pill before and two pills afterwards; Franklin on the other hand took a second helping of a langouste salad. It was not surprising he had put on weight; he ate too much rich food, drove everywhere, and imagined that sunbathing was exercise. Guy wondered whether Daphne was not unconsciously encouraging him to overeat and overdrink so as to reduce the difference in age between them. He had noticed more than one middle-aged wife who had lost her looks and figure encouraging her husband to relative excess so that he should not be attractive to younger women.

Liqueurs were served with coffee. Guy declined, but Franklin took a brandy.

“Where'd you like to siesta?” Franklin asked. “I usually take mine upstairs.”

“I'll stay down here. I probably shan't sleep.”

He was left with Julia. The moment they were alone she turned to him with an intent quick look. “How do you think Mummy's looking?”

“As elegant as ever.”

“I don't mean that. Is she looking well?”

“As far as I can tell.”

“She does? I'm glad you think so. I've been worrying. She tires so quickly. But then I see her every day. I thought you coming fresh, might see a change.”

“No change to me.”

“That's a relief.”

“Has she complained at all?”

“She wouldn't. She keeps things bottled up. But she seems so lifeless.”

“She was lively enough at lunch.”

“That's a different thing. She's always talkative. But she takes no exercise; never plays golf or tennis.”

“Used she to?”

“Oh yes. Always rushing her guests everywhere: no lazy mornings, no siestas.”

“Did she drink quite a bit at one time?”

“I thought so, but I don't suppose she did; not in terms of the way they drink down here.”

It was said in the most matter of fact way, without any undertone of disapproval. He looked at her thoughtfully. She was a
quiet, serious-minded girl, older than her years; which was not surprising in view of the amount of time that she had spent with grown-up people. She had had a strange upbringing, always being moved from one place to another, never taking root. What effect had it had on her? Had she any sense of allegiance to a country, of belonging to any place, in the way that he belonged to London? Would she ever throw out roots, would her marriage be the complete reversal of her mother's life? Would she, when she married, settle in the country and concentrate upon her house, her husband and her children?

“Why aren't you at school?” he asked.

“Mummy didn't like the Mother Superior at the convent; as I'm going to Geneva in October she thought I might as well have a summer here. She says that everyone ought to have one period in their lives of solid reading: and that somewhere between fourteen and sixteen is the best time for it. She chooses what I read, then we discuss it.”

“What have you been reading lately?”

“The Russian and the French novelists and Gibbon's
Decline and Fall.”

“What poetry?”

“Shakespeare mainly: the tragedies and histories, not the comedies, and the Victorian poets.”

“Which of them is your favourite?”

“You'll laugh when I tell you. Mummy says it's very juvenile, but Ernest Dowson.”

“‘I could have understood you had you waited'?”

“Yes, that's the one, how did you guess?”

Her face flushed, her eyes brightened, her voice grew eager. She looked three years younger. They began to cap quotations. The afternoon passed very quickly.

Franklin joined them on the terrace soon after four. They were going over to Eze for cocktails. “What about a plunge in the tank, then we can get smartened up. The boys in first.”

The tank, a hundred or so yards up the hill, was round and circular: built of concrete, and ten feet across. The water was very cold. “What a tonic that is,” said Franklin as he dried afterwards.

It certainly was. But at the same time it was not exercise. They had taken their plunge naked and Guy had noticed how flabby his brother had become.

He looked very smart, though, forty minutes later when he came down freshly shaved in a cool tussore suit and a primrose-yellow linen tie. “Who's driving with me? I think my brother. Daphne, you take Julia.”

They drove along the shore, past Juan, Antibes and across the Var.

Guy had not been to the South of France now for five years. He had forgotten how exquisite it was; the indented coast, the succession of harbours and of beaches; the simplicity of its fishing ports, the sophistication of its villas and casinos, the medieval fortresses upon the hills; the present mingled with the past; the best of two worlds joined. And then the climate, this constant sunlight: with the breezes from the sea and from the mountains cooling the heavy heat. Franklin had chosen wisely.

At Nice they swung north to the Moyenne Corniche road. Villefranche and Beaulieu lay below them. In front, majestic on its lonely peak, was the bastion of Eze, grey, menacing and weatherworn, with its row of cypresses below the ramparts. It could not have looked very different to the invading Saracens. There was nothing to suggest that an outpost of international society had set its standard here.

It was a small party, only a dozen guests. “Life's much pleasanter here before the season starts,” said Franklin. “People get so busy and so grand in August; they've got time for you at this time of year. And the residents really see each other. Much more intimate.”

The hostess was American, so were the majority of her guests. None of their names conveyed anything to Guy. Their talk was easy, friendly, concerned with day-to-day trivialities. Champagne was served; a buffet table was set with elaborate canapés. There was a good deal of laughter.

The party broke up early. “We thought we'd dine in Cannes, at Robert's,” Franklin said. “We've given Marie the evening off.”

They were not hungry after the cocktail canapés. They had a simple meal—soupe de Poissons, tomates provençal, cheese and a
salad: at least he and Julia and Franklin did. Daphne ordered a cold wing of chicken, of which she ate only three mouthfuls. Abstemious though she might be, she was vivid, vital, talkative, full of interest and inquiries about mutual friends in London.

“We ought to go back oftener,” she said. “We lose touch here.”

Franklin shook his head. “I don't agree. We see more of our real friends than we would in London. They are in such a hurry there; so busy being important; they're much more fun down here. And think of all the new friends we've made, all the people we've met during the last two summers whom we'd never have come across in London. You get to know people better too. There you meet them for odd half-hours; here when people come to lunch they come in time to bathe, then stay on afterwards for a siesta.”

While Franklin settled the account Guy strolled over to the station where the cars were parked. He overheard an English and familiar voice: “Isn't that funny: two identical cars, parked next each other. Such smart cars too. How furious the owners must be feeling. Like a woman when she sees another wearing the same hat.” Where had he heard that voice? Guy asked himself. He hastened his step. Why, of course, Mrs. Urquhart-Smythe, the woman he had met with Franklin in Oporto, who had fallen for that Portuguese. He walked across. “As a matter of fact they're both in the same family. My brother's and his wife's.”

“Really! And to think I know the owner.”

At that point Franklin joined them. Mrs. Urquhart-Smythe gushed over him. “This is too amusing. There was I making a very feminine remark, about those two very remarkable machines, and then your brother tells me that both are yours.”

Franklin laughed. “Aren't they quaint. The chicest thing along this too chic coast.” He paused, a puzzled expression came into his face. “I can't help feeling that we've met before.”

“Of course we have. I'm Mrs. Urquhart-Smythe.”

Franklin shook his head. “No, I'm afraid not. I can't remember having heard that name, but I'm certain that I've seen you somewhere?”

“You certainly have. At a very charming lunch you gave for us.”

He smiled: his most disarming smile. “Did I? You must forgive me. It's this septic belt. Riviera memory. Haven't you read jokes about it? One party after another. I can just keep track of my hosts and hostesses, but as for all the people my friends bring to my house, I must admit I get confused about my guests.”

There was a slight touch of the
grand seigneur
in his voice, but only a very slight one. It was said with such surface graciousness that only Mrs. Urquhart-Smythe could know that she had been insulted. Franklin chuckled as they drove away. “I enjoyed doing that,” he said. “Urquhart-Smythe indeed. I bet the name was Smith.”

The next day Barbara and Norman came to lunch. They were perched in Villefranche and Daphne met their train in Cannes. Barbara was looking radiant; her figure was still trim. “I'm not even having morning-sickness. I'm getting off so lightly that I expect I shall have a terrible time when the young rascal takes the stage.”

She chattered happily and gaily. Norman rarely spoke, he looked more than ever, with his suntan and bare muscled arms, like some shaggy sheepdog. His face wore a perpetual beam. Barbara never left his side; when she wasn't holding his hand, she was squeezing his arm. She needed to be touching him all the time. She talked at him and about him, round and through him, keeping him in the centre of the stage.

“We're so looking forward to your visit,” Barbara said. “There's no room in our studio, at least not for anyone so used to creature comforts. We've booked you in at the hotel, at
demipension,
you can take half your meals with us and we'll have the other half with you. I'll murder you if you don't take a glowing account back to Mother.”