Incidents in the Rue Laugier Read online

  When the telephone rang he nearly screamed. He must have been asleep, ambushed by one of those brief but steep descents which take the mind by surprise. He stumbled into the hall and picked up the receiver with a hand made nervous by surprise.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice sounded higher than usual.

  ‘Noddy. Comment ça va?’

  ‘Tyler! Where are you?’

  ‘I’m staying in a rather agreeable house, not too far from Paris.’

  There was a pause. There were many pauses in Tyler’s telephone conversations, which served to disconcert the recipient. Harrison wondered if he had been too enthusiastic, whether he should have been nonchalant, and debonair, as debonair as Tyler. ‘Quel bon vent?’ he should have said. But this was impossible: Tyler’s qualities were a matter of caste. To emulate them would merely expose one to ridicule.

  ‘You play tennis, don’t you?’

  To this apparent non sequitur he replied that he did, but that he had not played for ages.

  ‘The thing is’ (and here Tyler’s voice mysteriously deepened) ‘that tennis is being played here, at this house I’m staying in, and the girls are rather short of partners. In a word, you’re invited for the weekend: they can lend you a racquet.’

  ‘What girls?’

  ‘Oh just girls.’ There was another pause. Voices could be heard in the background.

  ‘How do I get there? Tyler? Are you still there?’

  ‘You take the afternoon train to Meaux. I’ll meet you there. Goodbye.’

  ‘Tyler! Are you sure? I mean, I don’t know these people. Who are they?’

  ‘Bring a tie,’ said Tyler, and the receiver was replaced, at Tyler’s end.

  Whatever went on in that place was evidently destined to remain opaque. But he was generally if diffusely keyed up by the prospect of going away, of seeing Tyler, of seeing anyone, although this invitation seemed to be Tyler’s own. He did not even know the names of the people whose house this was. Yet he would go, since Tyler seemed to have the matter in hand. The house appeared to be in his gift, just as this flat was. It was impossible not to accept.

  The following morning he retrieved his shirts from the laundry on the corner, packed his bag (surely there was no need to come back to this room?) and made his way to the station long before he needed to. It was stupefyingly hot. He had not reckoned on the French getting ready for their mid-August holiday, and found himself jostled and bumped on the station and was obliged to surrender his seat on the train to an elderly woman carrying nothing more than a string bag. When he emerged at Meaux the silence seemed almost palpable. He would have liked to linger on the station forecourt, so precious did this hot country silence seem to him after the dimness of the rue Laugier. Indeed, he was obliged to wait for some thirty minutes, during which no one met him. He wondered whether the whole thing had been a hoax, one of Tyler’s jokes, whether he would not be obliged to go back to Paris on the next train, and was about to give up, heavy hearted and disappointed once again, when a car drew up in a spurt of dust, and Tyler emerged, long legs preceding him, blue shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal brown arms. He was accompanied by a girl of medium height, with dark blonde hair, a fine bosom, and a closed secretive face.

  ‘There you are,’ said Tyler. ‘This is Maud, by the way. She speaks excellent English.’

  The ensuing silence, as they travelled back in the car to whatever house was apparently—by Tyler’s decree—ready to receive him, might have made him nervous had he not been lulled by the heat, by the fixity of the sun, by the sheer relief of being in a car instead of on his feet, and by the undemanding presence of the girl, the back of whose brown neck he was obliged, out of a sort of courtesy, to contemplate. He assumed that she was the daughter of the house, wondered what social duties were expected of him. He thought it odd that she paid him no attention, for if she were indeed his hostess he might have been grateful for certain overtures. But on the whole he found the silence acceptable: clearly Tyler was in charge. Once again, as was usual in Tyler’s company, he gave himself to the pleasure of being taken over, of being directed by a will superior to his own. In Tyler’s company it was natural to contemplate Tyler’s destiny, as if assisting at some pageant, in which the hero, recognisable by his physical splendour, performs some symbolic act of valour. To his knowledge Tyler had never performed such an act. Nevertheless, his contemporaries at Cambridge, particularly an envious chorus of women, discussed him as if he were indeed that hero, or perhaps as if they needed him to be. His intellect had not been outstanding, yet he was capable of random shafts of brilliance. It was his ease that they loved and envied; he himself was not immune to its spell. The girl, he noted, sat carefully not touching him. Tyler himself did not put out a hand to touch her. But then he had no need to. Harrison, with a certain grim amusement, had watched Tyler in action, or rather in inaction, before.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Tyler pleasantly, drawing up outside what seemed to be a rather imposing house. A tall man, the sun glinting on his glasses, came down the steps to greet them. ‘Xavier de Bretteville,’ he said. They shook hands.

  ‘My mother will be delighted,’ said Xavier. ‘Dinner is at eight. Maud, I believe you are wanted.’

  Harrison followed them inside, grateful for the coolness of the black and white tiled hall.

  ‘Xavier is your brother?’ he asked of the girl.

  ‘My cousin,’ she answered. Those were the first words he heard her speak, and, it seemed, the last, as she disappeared silently up the stairs. The organisation of this visit, he could see, was fated to remain mysterious. He turned to meet Tyler’s lazy smile.

  ‘You’ll have your work cut out,’ said Tyler, with exactly that mixture of menace and comprehension that he had come to expect.

  SIX

  TYLER WAS LOOKED UPON WITH FAVOUR AT LA GAILLARDERIE, particularly by the servants, to whom he offered gratuities as well as his laundry. With the exception of Xavier they addressed him as Tyler, as if they were all at school. He was treated with the respect accorded to a head prefect, but beneath that respect lurked thoughts of plunder, theirs, and, they hoped his. He had only to appear in his white shirt and shorts (dazzling, thanks to the ministrations of Mme Besson, who came in every weekday to perform whatever tasks were allotted to her by Charles), his handsome head slightly tilted, for them all to feel invigorated, on their mettle, and also on their best behaviour, ready to be charming, but also to submit to his wishes, for Tyler was adept at organising the day’s entertainments.

  Soon Marie-Paule and Patricia were arriving earlier and earlier with their tennis racquets, and were sometimes obliged to spend an hour talking to Maud, while Tyler, Edward and Xavier went to Meaux in the car to buy the delicacies which Mme de Bretteville, in an excess of extravagance, decided that she needed for the evening meal, or simply lingered in the woods before returning to the girls, with their short skirts, their enthusiasm, and their all too transparent designs.

  Even in these peregrinations Tyler took the lead, Xavier and Edward accompanying him loyally but in a subordinate manner, as if they had taken an oath of suzerainty, and were ready to follow him on his exploits and to carry back, like minstrels, the account of his prowess. In this, Xavier at least was wholehearted, gratified by the mere presence of his friend and the galvanising effect he seemed to have had on the entire household. Edward privately—but only privately—admitted to the occasional twinge of jealousy. Seeing Tyler’s long lean body relaxing on the lawn it occurred to him to wonder whether perhaps, in middle age, that figure might not undergo the depredations common to middle-aged men, might not put on weight, become less lithe, perhaps look a little ridiculous in its pursuit of every woman in sight? Unfortunately there was as yet no sign of such a fall from grace. They were all in love with Tyler, it seemed, as much for what he represented—youth, health, beauty—as for what he was. They conferred on him the function of master of the revels. As each golden day succeeded the last they imagined that they saw in him the spiri
t of summer incarnate.

  For it was, they agreed, an exceptional summer. Every morning the brilliant light poured in through open doors and windows; the lightest of dews evaporated from grass fast fading from green to yellow; the trees, weighted with heavy foliage, stood motionless, poised for a sign, which never came, that it was time to shed their leaves. They were all aware that they were living through a period of enchantment, so that ordinary occupations had no purchase on their minds. Even Germaine and Nadine spent mornings seated on the terrace, talking more intimately than they had ever talked before, but in fact drawn by the spectacle of the young people, to whom this summer seemed to belong.

  They did not begrudge them their leisure, this interval of extended play. They followed with almost loving eyes their lightning dashes across the lawn, noting despite themselves that weightlessness that would be lost with the passing of the years, feeling in themselves an unsought-for stolidity which detracted from the honourable positions they had created for themselves, their assured status as wives or widows, their complacency as mothers. Nevertheless they felt that they had done well, had performed their allotted tasks as best they could, had no need to bluff or to dissemble, could meet the world more or less on equal terms, above all had no further need to compete. Yet perhaps because of the light, the great sun, some edge of regret came back to them, together with the sound of balls hitting racquets in the far distance, so that they turned to each other in something like consolation. Convention had brought them together; the image of their vanished youth made them, for a brief moment, intimate.

  ‘You never thought of marrying again?’ queried Germaine.

  ‘I may have thought of it. No man ever did.’

  ‘Were you unhappy?’

  ‘I regretted much. I loved Pierre-Yves, but he was only with me for six years. After that I was left alone, although I was a young woman. But I had a child, you see, and so I was expected to behave like a nun. And I did.’

  She compressed her lips, thinking back with bitterness on those years and on her poor compensations, her afternoons in the municipal gardens reading the obituaries in the Figaro, her visits to the Lux cinema where she would succumb with longing to the sight of glamorous women no younger than herself, that painfully gained and so precious half-hour in bed when Maud was visiting her friend in London.

  ‘A woman’s life is very short,’ said Germaine. ‘At least it is if you were brought up as we were brought up, with no mother, the house badly run, no relatives to speak of. It was natural that we should have married the first man who came near us. And then we were trapped.’

  ‘Aren’t you happy with your life?’

  ‘Father bundled me off, you know. Robert was almost a stranger. And now I hardly ever see him. When he’s not on a tour of duty he’s in Paris. I don’t ask what he does there. It was the house I loved, to be honest with you. I wanted to make it my house. Now that it is I find it more restful when Robert is away. But that’s what I mean—we gave up.’

  ‘Or were given up,’ said Nadine sombrely.

  ‘Look at those girls, Marie-Paule and Patricia. They are charming, but they are certainly not intelligent. Yet they know exactly what they want. They want fun, they want a good time. They don’t want to settle down—why should they?’

  ‘They want men.’

  ‘Oh, they want men all right. Why not?’

  ‘Do you think they …?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  There was a brief silence while they digested the implications of this remark.

  ‘Perhaps they are right,’ said Nadine. ‘Yet they are very blatant about it. Don’t they want to get married?’

  ‘My dear Nadine, there’s nothing to stop a girl like that getting married if she wants to. And often a marriage of that kind is very successful; the girl is experienced, and she has more partners to choose from. You’re thinking of Maud, I know.’ She shot a glance at her sister, wondering how far she might go. ‘Maud is very beautifully brought up, and very charming. But so quiet, Nadine, almost prim. This morning I had to urge her to go out and join the others. I think she was prepared to spend the morning sitting indoors with a book.’

  ‘She is a little frightened by those girls, I think.’

  ‘Not by the boys?’

  ‘Frankly, she finds the girls too loud, too forward. It is not pleasant for her to watch them flirting.’

  ‘Then she should flirt a little herself.’

  ‘Maud does not know how to flirt. And if she did she would be too proud to flirt in public. She has deep feelings, I believe. And she is easily hurt. There is a lot of her father in her.’

  ‘Not …’

  ‘No, thank God. Not that.’

  ‘Yet you want her to marry?’

  Nadine sighed. ‘I long for her to marry. If I knew that she were settled I could settle myself. My life, such as it is, would be easier. I love her, and she loves me, but we are no good for each other. We make each other lonely. I don’t want her to stay with me. I’m not a good influence.’

  ‘How strange that you should say that. I think my heart will break when Xavier marries. Yet marry he must, of course, and he will. He will make some girl very happy.’

  ‘Yes. He is a gentle boy, too gentle for those girls you have saddled him with.’

  ‘I thought they would bring him out, relax him.’

  ‘You thought wrongly. They inhibit him. Xavier and Maud are quite alike in certain respects.’

  ‘You are not thinking …?’

  ‘No, no.’ She sighed. ‘Xavier will be all right. His English friends will make a man of him. He is fascinated by them, particularly by Tyler. Both those girls are. I only wish that Maud were having a better time. Marie-Paule and Patricia are not very kind to her.’

  ‘Girls like that are not kind to other girls.’

  ‘You take it all very lightly. Maud deserves better. Perhaps she will be happier when she gets to England; she is going to stay with her friend Jean Bell next week. Jean Bell, frankly, is a better class of girl than those two. And Maud is nothing if not refined.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Germaine drily. She had a faint suspicion that her hospitality was being abused by the uncensored nature of these remarks. In the brief silence that followed, something of the sisters’ old antagonism revived. Each judged it prudent to gaze abstractedly over the park to the wood which shielded the tennis court from their direct gaze. The sound of the game, and of the accompanying voices, had been in abeyance for some time before they became aware of the pause, or the interval, which in its turn gave rise to a certain tension.

  ‘They will be very warm,’ murmured Nadine.

  ‘I will bring out the lemonade. They should be coming back soon. The girls are staying for lunch. Do persuade Maud to join in more, even if you think this is all a waste of time for her.’ She was now combative. ‘She could talk to Harrison. He seems quite pleasant.’

  ‘She prefers Tyler. And Xavier, of course.’

  ‘Tyler would not look at a girl like Maud. Tyler is a scoundrel,’ she said appreciatively. ‘I doubt if he would be interested in someone who makes so little effort.’

  ‘And of course Maud would not look at Tyler.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘He is, as you say, a scoundrel. Maud has more sense.’

  Maud, at that moment trailing dispiritedly across the lawn, did not look sensible. The rare moment of dismay was so profound that it had stripped her face of its normal expression of impervious calm, although she was careful to rearrange her features before approaching her mother and her aunt. At least the morning’s humiliations were behind her, the humiliations she had come to expect since the arrival of the two Englishmen and their effect on Marie-Paule and Patricia. She had only to note their heightened colour, to become aware of their increased heat, to know that she would have to endure their shrieking excitement, to be followed by the portentous silence which ensued when they retired to the summer house, with Tyler, supposedly to
smoke a cigarette, while Xavier and Edward played a desultory and embarrassed game of tennis and she bent her face studiously to her book (Jane Eyre) and attempted to summarise plot, characters, and style, as she had been taught to do.

  The misery of these mornings was all but unendurable. Worst of all was her ignorance of quite what went on in the summer house. She had only to see the tennis racquets thrown down on to the grass, as if at a prearranged signal, to imagine scenes of lubricity which brought a colour to her normally matte cheeks. She longed to know exactly what went on; she longed to be included. But, more than to be included, she longed for exclusivity. In her mind she eliminated Marie-Paule and Patricia, for they were her intimate enemies. She did not distinguish between them, although Marie-Paule was marginally the more gentle of the two. To Maud they were grossly obscenely physical, with the abundant rippling hair they tossed back from their necks and foreheads, the beading of perspiration on their upper lips, and their insistent odour of scent and sweat. Yet she found that their very grossness bred a kind of excitement. She imagined them ready for anything, like prostitutes, and allied in some terrible camaraderie in their desire to please Tyler. So naked was their intention that it had the grandeur of fearlessness, and this was very occasionally enough to tempt the other man, Harrison, to join them, while Xavier gallantly kept her company and asked her about her book. At such times she was tempted to get up and run into the shelter of the wood to hide her burning face.

  She envied them, and yet how she despised them. They made her feel awkward, but they made her feel superior. ‘Good book, Maud?’ Patricia would ask, emerging from the summer house, and, picking up her racquet and striding away, she would not wait for an answer. Above all they made her feel lonely. In her fierce remoteness she sensed rather than observed Xavier’s kindness, and the Englishman Harrison’s humble curiosity. But most of all she was aware of Tyler and of what he was doing in the summer house. Or rather what was being done to him, for she imagined him being set upon, being tormented by those two Amazons, who, in their dreadful way, seemed unmoved by gratitude or love, but simply energised by victory. Tyler, when he emerged, would sit ruminatively on the steps of the summer house, sucking the stem of a blade of grass, equally unmoved. Did she detect, or did she simply want to detect, a very slight moodiness in his attitude, the head bent, the arms clasped round the knees, the expression absent? Could she have thought up anything to say at such moments she would have approached him. But nothing appropriate ever came to mind, and so the moments passed.