The Point (40 page)

So, what went wrong?

Surely the point is, the devil. He never keeps his bargains, he always cheats. You never get what he promises.

And you think Flora is trying to turn stones into bread?

Clovis is silent.

And what about Oscar?

I was thinking about Faustian temptations. The portal … believing there was some way of entering … everything would open out, everything would be clear … and instead it’s the end, the finish, the cutting off. Like a solid portcullis coming down, and him crushed by it. The devil at his cheating ways.

Do you believe in the devil?

I think he’s a good story, that makes sense of a whole lot of things. He doesn’t have to be a literal creature with horns and goat’s feet and a long pointy tail.

It was my namesake who called him Lucifer, son of the morning, the brightest angel in heaven before he fell. And the most beloved.

His sin was pride, too, wasn’t it? Wanting to supplant God.

They walk in silence for a moment. Jerome breaks it. The World, the Flesh and the Devil … So where does that leave me?

Clovis shrugs. It’s not really my business …

The World, says Jerome. What about the Word?

Isn’t the Word God? In the beginning …

Jesus, Clovis, I thought I was leaving all this behind with the Franciscans.

Really?

I suppose not.

They turn back along the lake. The late afternoon light is hazy and yellow, long shadows fall across the ground. A number of the staff from The Point have come out on to its terrace and are sprawled on the ground, the cooks in their check trousers and white jackets, the waiters in black trousers. Flora feeds them, though strictly speaking given her hours she doesn’t have to, but she thinks they should eat the restaurant’s food, develop a critical familiarity with it, so she says, and that is important, but she’s kind too. Most of them are lazily smoking, their heads tipped back to the sun. The smoke drifts in the still air. The windows are opaque, the building lightless.

The world is always with us, says Clovis.

Why do young people in the cooking business smoke so much, asks Jerome. You’d think it would ruin their palates.

There’s something rather archaic about it, isn’t there. The smoke drifting, the languid gestures … it’s another era, when smoking was a glamorous act.

Maybe for them it still is.

The young taking no notice again.

When they get close to The Point Jerome says, Hang on, and goes in, coming out some minutes later with an opened bottle of red wine and two glasses. Here’s that drink, he says.

They sit in the ferry pavilion, where no ferry ever stops. Across the slope of grass, partly hidden by bushes, are Gwyneth and Joe, their heads close together, talking.

There, says Clovis, there’s an innocent person.

Gwyneth? Untempted?

Not untempted. And fallen, in certain ways. But not in the way of those terrible temptations. They’re all intellectual, aren’t they, they’re all about usurping the role of God. Whereas Gwyneth does her bit to get by in a world that has been viciously cruel to her. She sells her body, but not her soul.

Is this what you do with yourself? The big questions?

I don’t have any books, you see. Clovis smiles apologetically.

I have to get by with what’s in my brain. It’s pretty basic.

Or, maybe you should say, archetypal.

Jerome gets up to go before the bottle is finished. Keep it, he says. Keep the glasses.

Kate and Martin have left the group on the terrace and are walking along the lake, having a passionate conversation, not an argument, not at all, they may not be entirely in agreement but they are very pleased with themselves. They do not see Clovis until they are almost upon him. Hello, they say, and turn back, still talking volubly. We’ll have … and what about … and we must … oh no, not … he imagines they are planning their own restaurant, that they will have, one day.

The sun is setting, there are bands of orange and pink light over the hills, striped with shreds of indigo cloud. The lake at his feet is pale grey and very quiet, curled like a cat sleeping with one eye open.

Wine, says Gwyneth.

Good grief, says Clovis. It’s like Piccadilly Circus round here.

Have some. There’s another glass, which you can wash if you are fussy.

I’ve never been to the circus, says Gwyneth. Those trapeze artists, flying through the air, I’d love to see them. I mean you get them in films, but it’s not the real thing. Not like in the flesh. Do they ever fall? They do in films, but in real life?

He doesn’t tell her that Piccadilly Circus is a place, just a big roundabout with a great many cars. He recites:

They fly through the air with the greatest of ease,
Those daring young men on the flying trapeze.

What’s that?

Dunno. Just some of the baggage in my head.

Joe’s doing Laurel’s job.

Yeah?

I saw him, last night. Through the windows. And he told me about it today. He likes it.

I suppose it’s better than washing dishes.

It’s his ambition, he says.

You’re still looking through the windows?

Yeah, all the time. Now I’ve been inside and had a look. I watch what’s going on. Maybe I’ll be a waitress one day.

Gwyneth is wearing a dark-red ribbed jumper, close fitting, with a high neck. Clovis admires it, tells her it makes her look pretty. She smiles. He wonders where it came from. He tells himself it is none of his business. But he knows he’s started worrying about Gwyneth. She seems happier these days, he seems to be more upset by the rape than she is, she appears to regard it rather pragmatically, like an occupational hazard. And she’s somehow less scatty in her head.

Jerome dined quite early that night. He was eating his main course, a roasted saddle of rabbit, tender and almost creamy, with a puree of potato and celeriac and some sort of primitive young asparagus, tied into bundles with threads of prosciutto, when Anabel and Nigel came into the restaurant. He heard her booming voice say, Come to try some of m’vegetables, and turned to see Joe bowing in his courtly manner and gesturing to be followed to the table reserved. But Anabel had seen Jerome.

Well, I’ll be buggered, she said, there’s Jerome. And eating my sparrowgrass, what’s more. How are you, my dear? That sparrowgrass is good stuff, hey?

Anabel was wearing a splendid purple garment, a species of caftan, with floating chiffon panels in different shades of the purple colour. Its neck was cut quite low so her extraordinary creamy flesh and the swell of her abundant breasts were offered for admiration, and she wore jewellery consisting of enormous chunks of milky amber set in intricate loops and lumps of silver. Her black hair hung in long curls. She looked magnificent, barbaric, hieratic. Jerome hadn’t talked to her since acrimoniously she left him – no, his was the acrimony, she had gone with he thought a vulgar stupid misprising of what love was, but also with a careless sort of taking-and-leaving indifferent good humour that had enraged him. Growing vegetables clearly suited her. He could see she was happy, in herself and with herself, in ways that she had never been with him. She wasn’t an earth mother, she was an earth goddess.

Can we sit with you a minute and have a drink. Anabel’s same old questions-that-weren’t. You haven’t met Nigel, have you. This is Jerome, that I used to be married to. I’m looking forward to this, they reckon Flora’s food is fucking amazing. You had it before?

He was trying to work out a way of telling her about Flora – calling her my partner didn’t seem right – when she came out of the kitchen and kissed them chastely on the cheeks and put her arm in Jerome’s. He’s never not here, she said, looking up at him fondly, and he kissed her fuzzy sweet-scented head. Ah, like that is it, said Anabel, and heaved across a chair to sit down at Jerome’s table. We won’t stay, just have a drink, she told Joe, who was hovering. Champagne, said Jerome to Joe.

I hear about you from time to time, she said to Jerome. If our business gets any grander we might have to come and see you. Not if I have my way though. I mean, you don’t want to get too grand, stay the right size and do it yourself is my motto. Big enough is big enough.

You married, she asked him. No? We are. No kids but. Baby vegies. That’s enough for us. She took Nigel’s hand and kissed his mouth. He gazed adoringly at her.

Jerome was glad when they moved to their own table. There was a turbulence in the air about them. Anabel had done all the talking, he hadn’t needed to say anything, just as well, he was in a turmoil of his own. Anabel, whom he’d done his best to forget, Anabel who’d broken his heart … maybe this gorgeous woman will exorcise her cruel young self for good and all, in ways that his attempts at forgetting her never had. Instead he could remember her as she was now, barbaric, splendid, comical. Anabel, comical. She didn’t seem to recollect the him she’d so despised.

When he’d finished eating Jerome stayed in the restaurant, sitting in one of the elegant thirties chairs in the bar, drinking red wine and waiting for Flora to finish. Anabel kissed him goodbye when she left, on his mouth, with friendly energy, inviting him to come to Pialligo and look at the vegies, they weren’t open to the public but they’d let him in.

Get Flora to bring you, said Nigel, his arm proudly buried in Anabel’s flowing purple silks, giving him a stare which Jerome decided was a mixture of pitying and cat that’s got the cream.

Thank you, he said, sure that he wouldn’t.

Flora came out, the rather wan tired but triumphant waif she always was at the end of a night’s work, who made his heart tremble and his arms ache to hold her, bringing her glass of white wine, sitting, since all the customers had gone, sideways on his lap with her arms around his neck, he could feel her firm round bottom pressing on his thighs, and him stiffening against her, so that Flora looked into his eyes and smiled secretly at him.

I didn’t know that you knew Anabel, she said.

Jerome took a deep breath.

They’re a funny pair, said Flora, she’s so bossy and loud and full of energy – you should see her windsurfing – and he’s so sort of mild. His role seems to be to adore. Be bedazzled and besotted. Funny marriage. But I suppose all marriages are.

Very funny. Flora … let me tell you …

So Jerome told her that once he had been married to Anabel. My first marriage, you know, my marriage, he said, it was to her.

Flora frowned. Anabel, she said. She pushed herself up off his lap and paced across the room. Anabel? She laughed. My god. She looked across at Jerome. I wouldn’t have thought she’d be your type.

I suppose that’s why I’m not still married to her.

Flora drank her glass of wine, poured more in. Jerome said, You knew I had been married. What did you imagine?

Not Anabel, said Flora.

He felt a small shift in their relationship, as though something had suddenly changed. For a moment he was angry, he thought, this is part of my life and I am not ashamed of it. He ought to be able to remember Anabel’s beauty and the pleasure they took in one another, the choice he had made to marry her, without this wondering repetition of her name. For a moment he thought, Flora can make me suffer, but do I ever hurt her? He wondered if he’d like her to feel some of the misery she caused him. But he wanted her to be happy.

Shall we go home, he said.

In a moment. Flora looked at him. Where’s home?

37

Flora was in a panic about the Slow Food dinner which was only a fortnight away. The panic was like a sickness that made her gasp and need to take deep breaths. She had decided pretty much what to serve, when she looked at the menu and imagined the food it was quite superb. But not perfect: there was something missing. It needed something, she couldn’t tell what. Some small masterpiece to pull it all together.

She’d stayed back after everybody had gone from the restaurant. Jerome hadn’t wanted her to, he said she was tired and she’d make her missing link much more deftly if she had a good night’s sleep. He called her Morgan le Fay again which she thought he’d given up and she lost her temper and said things. He’d been quite mild and she’d got enraged.

Your words, she shouted, you’re all words. They’re like silk scarves in gaudy colours all knotted together. You the magician you pull them out of your sleeve oh so pretty but what do they mean? Fragments, strings, scraps, just words. Pretty technicolour words. All a trick.

Look at you, he said. Just words, you say! Gaudy silk scarves! What a metaphor. Who’s a pot calling a kettle black? None of that round here, of course, we’re all polished copper. Jerome made the mistake of laughing at this joke.

They were in the kitchen. She hefted one of the great copper pots and looked like throwing it at him, but he stayed her arm. Would she have thrown it? She went back to shouting at him. Words stand for. They mean. Yours don’t.

I don’t think that’s true …

Examine yourself. You’re so full of yourself! See how you are.

Me, full of myself! When you’re the most full of herself uptight stuffed with crap proud woman I’ve ever had the misfortune to set eyes on. He was still holding her arm with the copper pot, although the pot itself was resting on the bench. He pinched and shook her skinny muscles. Just think for once, with something else but this mad obsession of yours. You’re so distorted by it, it twists your view of everything.