Recovery and the Return of Ethan Hart (35 page)

We had both brought evening clothes. Me, I'd done remarkably well at a secondhand store just around the corner from where we lived, while Johnny, being about the same build as my father, had borrowed one of Dad's suits and shirts. As with most men, dinner jackets became us. We turned up at the nightclub feeling debonair and elegant and British. We had each drunk a couple of Pernods back at the hotel.

I'd reserved us a table by telephone from London. In return for the airfare, I had determined to give Johnny a really memorable New Year's Eve. My having planned it so far in advance, moreover, had provided a further incentive to work hard at my French. I'd set myself a four-month goal and as well as the evening classes had attended conversation circles, bought records and spent an average of three hours a night on study. It had paid off. When it came to our break I could speak the language with competence, which boosted my morale hugely. Whether Ginette was there or not we were going to have a good time.

But she was there—although, incredibly, for the first moment I didn't even recognize her. I saw this young woman in a strawberry-coloured dress and for the fraction of a second was prepared to be deflected by a stranger. The impact tonight was as strong, every bit as stunning, as it had been fifty years ago.

“My God!” I said.

Johnny followed the direction of my gaze.

I told him, recklessly: “That's the girl I'm going to marry.”

“Oh, right. Not bad. For myself, I've lined up Audrey Hepburn.”

“Just look at her! Isn't she everything you ever dreamt of?”

“I suppose you haven't noticed that big blond fellow next to her? From her present expression I'd say he might be everything
she
ever dreamt of.”

“Only because he's just made her laugh at something. In any case,” I smiled, “irrelevant. How do I get to talk to her?”

“Don't they have a Gentleman's Excuse-Me, then, in France? Or what about a nice Paul Jones?”

“No, you don't understand. I'm being serious.”

“Then why not simply go across and ask her to dance? You're looking sufficiently fetching. Once on the floor you can tell her of your marriage plans.”

“Good idea,” I said. I stood up.

“Great Scott! Can it really be the lad's not bluffing?” He pushed my wineglass towards me. “Dutch courage.”

“I don't need it.” But halfway across the floor I decided that I did. I returned to Johnny.

“Her parents are also at the table. I didn't see that.”

“But why does that affect things? Besides, they could be his. And at least it will provide him with people to chat with, while you're proposing to his girlfriend. Or maybe his fiancée.”

Yet my knowledge of the outcome was no longer enough, suddenly, to furnish the requisite bravado. The eventual outcome, I reminded myself. Perhaps, after all, I
would
have to wait until she joined Air France at the start of her projected year in London.

I sat down again.

“Funk!” he said.

I took a sip of wine, several sips of wine. “Hold on. I've got to work this out.”

I crossed my arms and stared down at my pumps. If in the long run I was going to marry her, I had nothing to lose in the short run by possibly making a fool of myself. Five years from now, in London, either she wouldn't recognize me or if she did we would laugh about the incident—by then it might even have acquired an aura of romance. By the same token, although I had nothing to lose, I clearly had much to gain: at the very least, several years' worth of consummated love—and companionship—and support—and freedom from impatience; but more than that, the possibility of other lives, the lives of our children, who, if I failed to act, then lost their chance for ever. So. It was my unknown children I heard crying out to me; and saw reflected in the glossy surface of my new pumps.

And, in that case, when would there ever be a better moment than this one? For if I waited in the Boulevard Beaumarchais tomorrow—and she came out of the block of flats alone—and if I caught her up and said, “Excuse me but didn't I see you at the Enfants du Paradis last night…on the strength of which may I invite you to a cup of coffee?”—in short, if everything went as swimmingly as I could possibly have hoped for, there would still be the problem of what to say to Johnny. I could hardly acquaint him with the truth. And I wasn't prepared to lie, not even in a fairly trivial way: “Such a coincidence, you're never going to believe this!”—while a refusal to tell him anything at all might have set a severe strain upon our friendship and certainly blighted a thoroughly happy New Year.

So it had to be tonight.

“Well, this is it!” I said. Up on my feet again.

“Really? You're fantastic! If you do carry it through I'll never cease to speak of you with solemn, awestruck reverence.”

“Will you apply to university?”

“What?”

The words had come to me unbidden. They seemed like a message of confirmation. This was the path which I was meant to follow.

I repeated my question.

“Hey! You've got a hope! What? In exchange for your making sheep's eyes at some dolly bird you fancy?”

“Yet supposing I get her to dance with me? How about that?”

“You really think I can be bought so cheap?”

“No, but I'll let you off needing to speak of me with solemn, awestruck reverence. Don't forget it's a lifelong commitment that you've taken on.”

“Nah! I'll just never mention you again.”

“Oh, come on, Johnny. Be a sport. I could be losing my nerve; bribe me in some way! Say at least you'll think about your ‘A' levels if I do get her to dance.”

I was so much in earnest that almost unknowingly I'd resumed my seat. Maybe he did perceive this as a second wavering of my courage.

“Tell you what,” he compromised. “If you get her not just to dance with you but also to marry you I'll go for my ‘A' levels, apply to university
and
speak of you with solemn, awestruck reverence.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Even if she turns me down tonight I can redeem that pledge on the day she eventually marries me?”

He contemplated my outstretched hand for a moment. “Oh, why not? I've decided to be big about this.”

We shook on it.

It immediately occurred to me that Zack would speak of the Grand National syndrome, tell me good intentions didn't alter things. On the other hand, his advice on how to explain away his overcoat had also been dishonest. (In fact, I'd told my parents the exact truth: that I'd given my mack away but that somebody I'd met on the train had considered I looked cold and so replaced it.) Whilst bearing this in mind I silently passed on to Zack what Mr Dallas had always told us in relation to English grammar. When
at last
we knew the rules, he'd said—supposing that far-off day should ever arrive, he'd said—we might then, very occasionally and if we absolutely had to, he'd said—be permitted to break them.

And suddenly I wondered. Could that have been the reason, or at least a part of the reason, why Zack had given me his overcoat? Along with such an evidently unnecessary lie? As mute endorsement of Teddy's grudging dispensation?

Or was I rationalizing?

In any case, I grinned. “All's fair in love and war!” I said. And naturally Johnny thought my defiance was directed either towards him or towards the French contingent sitting across the room. All four of them.

It was now half-past-ten. One of the cabaret spots began. From my own point of view this at first seemed like bad timing, since it gave my nerves more of a chance to exasperate my bladder. And although it was performed with talent—a lengthy (far
too
lengthy!) apache dance—I couldn't find it enthralling. But at least it supplied an opportunity to pray. I felt there was a lot riding on what might happen in the very near future.

The performers were applauded and bowed their way out of the spotlight. Ginette came onto the dance floor with her blond boyfriend; there was no denying his attractiveness and—stupidly—I felt jealous. Johnny didn't help.

“You know, it isn't going to be that easy. She looks quite cosy in his arms.” After the quick violence of the apache dance the band had started up again with something smoochy.

“Stop it!” I said.

He looked at me in some surprise.

“I mean…,” I amended, sheepishly.

“You mean…
stop
it?”

I managed to smile. “That just about conveys it.”

The waltz came to an end. Ginette's parents had also been on the floor, and now there was a change of partners between the two couples. The music continued slow.

“Wish me luck.”

Then I walked over and tapped Monsieur Tavernier on the shoulder. “Would you permit me, sir, to dance with your daughter? I do have a special reason.” Obviously I spoke in French. The couple came to a standstill.

“And what is your special reason?” asked my former (future) father-in-law: so familiar in his discreet smell of expensive cigars and cologne, his compact dynamism, his five-o'clock shadow and his small humorous eyes. I had always got on well with him.

“Next April,” I said, impressively, “it will be the fifty-sixth anniversary of the Entente Cordiale—the fifty-sixth, monsieur!”

“My word! I really didn't know! Next April, you say?”

I looked at Ginette and gave a grin. My nerves had settled, I felt immediately at home. “She's also the prettiest woman in the room but what has that to do with anything?”

Ginette lowered her eyes, demurely. And deceptively. “You have an unfair advantage, monsieur: your being alone in a strange country on New Year's Eve. I should be very hardhearted to refuse. Don't you say so, Papa?”

“I suppose I do, my child. And another thing I would point out. There will be practically nothing left of this dance if we continue to deliberate.”

Saying which, he gave me a nod and turned away. The orchestra was playing ‘Volare'. Ginette had always made of me a fairly graceful dancer. (My mother might now have been surprised.) For a moment I simply enjoyed the sensation of having her once again in my arms and of rediscovering her favourite perfume, Shalimar. But it was potent stuff—the feel of her, I mean, rather than merely the scent. I began to get a hard-on.

I said, a bit abruptly: “My name is Ethan Hart.”

She laughed. There seemed no reason for this unless she'd guessed at the cause of my abruptness and of my swiftly loosened hold.

“And mine is Geneviève Tavernier.”

Ginette was her second name. I had always called her that because it was less of a mouthful than Geneviève and she didn't like abbreviations. Besides, its anglicized pronunciation inevitably reminded people of that veteran car out of the British film comedy. “Ethan, I am not an old crock,” she had pouted, “and I will not be named after one!” I decided on the instant that this time I would call her Geneviève, with the French pronunciation and with no attempt at shortening. It would mark a little difference, another pleasingly unsuspected departure from the past. A further symbol that could have meant nothing to anybody except me.

“You speak French very well, monsieur.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle. But something tells me you speak English every bit as well. And probably better.”

She looked surprised. “No—no—I keep meaning to make a proper study of it. But I don't suppose I've spoken more than a dozen words since the
bac
. My mother is quite fluent, though. Maybe I should fix you up with her?”

“You're very kind. Yet I ought to say that although I let you think I was alone tonight it isn't quite true. I'm with a friend. But my friend is a man and it might attract attention if I were to dance with him. So to that extent you were certainly right to take pity on me.”

“I think I took pity on you because you were English and away from home.” She laughed. “Or possibly because you were English, period. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that was a mean and silly joke—but I suddenly thought of you boiling all your meat and then eating jam on it! I am so sorry to make fun of you.”

“But that is not true!” I said. “It is a lie! It is a—it is a—” I couldn't find the word for myth. “Like King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table,” I explained. “What do you call that sort of story in French?”

“
Légende
.”

“Yes, like a legend, a kind of legend, but… Oh, very well. What you've accused us of is a lie and a legend.”

She laughed again. “The Legend of the Boiled Meat and Black Cherry Jam! It has not quite the same ring of romance to it. I mean, not to a French person. No doubt the English could get to feel properly romantic over it.”

Then, unhappily, the dance ended.

“Please. Another one. I haven't asked you yet to marry me.”

But all the dancers were now beginning to leave the floor. I turned towards the bandleader and asked him pleadingly for just one more—
tout de suite
!—clasping my hands to him rather like Nesbitt had once done to Hawk-Genn; but though he smiled he shook his head and shrugged as if his musicians were to blame. “Typically French!” I said to Ginette—to Geneviève. “So practical. So unpoetic. Thinking of nothing but the next Gauloise.”

“But even if you're right,” she answered, reasonably, “my boyfriend might not like it: your asking me to marry you.”

“Dog in the…something,” I said.

We had another spot of bother over that, a little more understandably. (
Il fait l'empêcheur de tourner en rond
as opposed to the word for myth—which happened to be
mythe
.) “You see,” I explained, “your boyfriend is never going to ask you to marry him. Take my word for it.”

“But he already has,” she said. “Several times.”