Change of Heart, page 47
‘I’m sure I would if he was just like me,’ Freddie returned.
‘Seriously,’ Fleur looked at Freddie before continuing. ‘You’d have been soul mates. That’s what we were. We felt we’d always been friends, we felt it without even saying it. It was something we just accepted as being there, in exactly the same way you and I accept that we were meant for each other. I know we were only kids. I mean I was twelve and Harry was fourteen when we met, but straightaway we had this bond. He played jazz piano, I mean really good jazz piano particularly for someone his age, and we used to play together. Most of all he could make me laugh, and I suddenly realized last night that until I met you, since Harry I’ve never really laughed. Not really, you know, not until you ache. First time I saw Harry doing his gibbon act on a tree, I thought I’d die. He used to just hang from these trees in Stoke Park. I know it doesn’t seem particularly funny now, at least not to describe it, but you’d be walking around the park, or other people would and they’d suddenly see this tall thin person hanging by his arms from the branch of some tree. And if you knew Harry, you’d just laugh. Some people are just – just funny, don’t you think? Harry was. He used to do this terrible blind musician act which I would keep telling him wasn’t funny, but it wasn’t any good because he just had to do it and everyone started to die with laughter.’
‘So what happened to him? Did you just grow out of each other?’
‘No,’ Fleur said. ‘He died. He went into hospital to have his tonsils out, he was perfectly all right, and then suddenly he haemorrhaged and it was too late. He died in minutes.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Freddie said slowly. ‘I know. I mean I remember. The childhood friend. The one who died just before your debut concert.’
‘You did do your research, didn’t you?’ Fleur looked round at him.
‘It’s the only study I’ve done which has ever really led me to anything,’ Freddie replied.
A few miles further on the road crossed a river and high hills grew up either side of the car. Fleur hadn’t wanted to talk any more for a while, in fact neither of them had so she had chosen a tape from Freddie’s bag. They listened enthralled to Bergonzi singing I Pagliacci as the countryside became as glorious and grand as the music, the road suddenly dropping down into a tiny village before sidestepping the southern foothills of the Arans, magnificent peaks higher than anything south of Snowdon, and then climbing up and up to about a thousand or more feet prior to plunging down to Dolgellau with the mighty Cader Idris clearly visible ahead of them to the left.
Past the town they headed due north along purely sensational valleys sliced out of the landscape by the mighty Mawddach river and its teeming tributary, the Eden; past forests through which sparkling waterfalls raced until all at once the road emerged from the shade of thousands of trees into a savage landscape of scattered rocks and runty trees backed by the peaks of more great mountains to the left. Then on past a beautiful lake marred only by the sight of a nuclear power station on its shores, and down into the lovely Vale of Ffestiniog. They were heading north-west now, until Freddie found the sign for which he had been watching and turned the car off the long straight main road into a quiet estate of pines and rhododendron bushes, which finally led to an estuary warmed by the glow of the early evening sun.
At the water’s edge stood a pink-washed house set in an exquisite terraced garden.
‘What is this?’ Fleur asked, leaning forward in her seat to take in the magic surroundings. ‘Where are we?’
‘Don’t ask me to pronounce the name of the place, it looks like parallelogram spelt backwards,’ Freddie replied with a boyish grin. ‘The house belongs to a friend of mine. It’s his bolt hole. He is one of the biggest producers of lyrics in the world, but that doesn’t stop him from being hombre.’
‘Really?’
As he swung the car round to park it outside the front door of the house, Freddie glanced at Fleur and saw what he’d hoped he would see in her eyes, a look of slight disappointment at the thought that they might be coming to stay with someone rather than being on their own, or even in a hotel.
‘Lovely. So that’s what we’re going to do, is it?’ she said, for her own part doing her best to hide her concern. ‘We’re going to stay with this friend of yours? Is that the plan?’
‘No,’ Freddie said, swinging open his door. ‘No that isn’t the plan at all, Miss Fisher-Dilke. What we are not going to be doing, is we are going not to be staying with an old buddy of mine, but we are going to be staying at his house.’
Before she could ask further Freddie was round her side of the car and opening her door. Fleur got out and as Freddie went round to the back of the car to fetch their luggage, she stretched and breathed in the beautiful fresh breeze blowing in from the sea.
‘As for you, Miss Fisher-Dilke,’ Freddie continued, leading the way to the front door, ‘you will be doing absolutely nothing at all. I am even going to be cooking for you, Miss Fisher-Dilke. I may be the world’s worst driver but hell, can I cook. Seriously. And what you are going to find out, which is even more to your advantage, is that great cooks besides making great food make great love. So follow me please.’
Fleur smiled happily. If Freddie’s cooking was anything like his kissing, then she was going to be in for the most wonderful time.
The house was cold inside, as all houses which are only occasionally occupied during the year usually are. Freddie automatically checked the radiator but it was cold and already he could see Fleur pulling her clothes around her as she noticed the drop in temperature.
‘I’ll light some fires at once,’ he said. ‘I asked the couple who look after this place to make sure the heating was up full, but it being still summer to them they probably thought another crazy American. But first, here – let’s show you upstairs.’
He took hold of all the bags again and went up the stairs in front of Fleur, with her following on a few steps behind. She hadn’t really thought anything through, not the particulars of what was going to happen once they’d arrived at their destination, only how to run away from home and be with Freddie for these few days. But now she remembered details such as how much she needed to have, if not a room of her own, at least sufficient privacy to be able to take her medications without Freddie seeing.
‘Obviously you’ve been here before, Freddie,’ Fleur said as she followed him upstairs to a bedroom with old Chinese wallpaper, oak furniture, and a four-poster overlooking the estuary.
‘I always bring my women here,’ Freddie replied, switching on an electric fire for her after he’d put down her cases. ‘I bring a string of broads for weekend orgies, and then to stop ’em kissing and telling I give them walk-ons in my shows in true show-business tradition. I got Walter Matthau rather well then, don’t you think?’ Freddie grinned at her before kissing her on the cheek. ‘Actually, I’ve never been here before, Fleur,’ he said, ‘not once. I happen to know the layout because I asked the owner, and also they did a feature on it recently in some magazine or other. Now if there’s any hot water, which I will go and check—’ He disappeared into the bathroom which was next door and came back a moment later wiping his hand dry on a hand towel. ‘There is plenty of hot water so I’ll go and turn the heating up as well, while you take a bath and put your feet up. I’ve got to go down to the kitchen to make sure they got all the shopping I ordered, and by all the shopping I mean all the shopping. Hey – that was good. I got old Walter again there, spot on!’
Freddie disappeared leaving Fleur all alone in the beautiful bedroom, but rather than admire the wonderful view, or run a bath, or collapse on the bed, she went to the door instead and called out after him.
‘Freddie? I’m not going to rest, if you don’t mind.’
‘On the contrary,’ Freddie replied with a smile. ‘I just thought that after such a long journey, and since you were—’
‘That’s the whole point,’ Fleur stopped him. ‘I’ve spent over the last two years just resting, and I’d really rather be with you.’
Freddie came back into her room and took her in his arms, looking straight in her eyes.
‘I want you with me every waking moment,’ he said. ‘And every sleeping one, come to that. But first I must go and check the shopping in case they’ve left anything out.’
‘Of course,’ Fleur demurred. ‘I’ll just have a quick bath and follow you down. A bath will warm me up.’
Once Freddie had gone, she went quickly to her suitcase for her pills, counting up the hours in her head since she’d taken her last quota. She was almost an hour late for this dose and had just begun to feel that odd brightness coming upon her which her father had warned her would come about on the rare occasions when, left to herself, she forgot to take her pills, particularly if she’d had a drink. She had in fact a special watch with a chime she could set to remind her, but had deliberately left it off for this occasion.
After she’d soaked for a quarter of an hour in the bath, the medication took effect and her normal feeling of calm returned. She dried herself slowly and carefully before easing herself into her favourite velvet suit, white silk shirt and a pair of brocade slippers, then she went back downstairs and into the drawing room where Freddie had ht a large log fire.
It was a lovely room, furnished in classic English country house style, elegant but thoroughly comfortable with its fine mixture of antiques and chintz sofas and easy chairs. Someone of great taste had obviously arranged its mixture of carefully faded colours, old pieces, and fine paintings.
‘I thought I heard you,’ Freddie said, reappearing dressed in a striped cook’s apron. ‘How was the bath?’
‘The bath was just what I needed,’ Fleur replied. ‘And this house is simply beautiful. Have you really never been here before?’
‘On my honour,’ Freddie confirmed, struggling with the cork of the bottle of champagne he had with him. ‘In fact if you pick up that magazine—’ He nodded at a glossy journal on top of the pile on the stool in front of the fireplace. ‘You’ll see the article on it in there. I’ve been asked down several times, but never managed to make it, much as I wanted to. I’d always heard it was one of the most romantic houses in the country.’
‘So what did you do?’ Fleur asked, flicking through the magazine until she came to the piece. ‘You mean you just rang and asked if you could borrow it?’
‘Sure,’ Freddie said. ‘I told you, the guy who owns it is a buddy of mine. I did him a favour once, and he said – any time.’ Freddie popped open the champagne cork and grinned at Fleur, holding the bottle up in offer.
‘No, I don’t think I should,’ she said quickly. ‘I mean I love champagne, but it usually gives me a terrible headache.’
‘This is vintage,’ Freddie protested. ‘This won’t give you a headache.’
‘Okay,’ Fleur relented, sensing Freddie’s disappointment. ‘But only half a glass. Really.’
‘Half a glass,’ Freddie groaned, pouring the wine. ‘This is going to be some party on half a glass of champagne.’
‘Don’t worry. You’re all the intoxication I need,’ Fleur replied, taking the half-filled glass from him. ‘Now tell me more about your famous buddy. What did you do for him? Write him a song, or something?’
‘Something,’ Freddie grinned again, boyishly. ‘I wrote him a show, actually. The guy who owns this place among many other places now, put on a show I wrote called Perfect Strangers here. Got him started. Now he produces all my stuff over here.’
As they drank their champagne they sat for a while away from the now brightly burning fire on the window seats, while Freddie told Fleur of how his friend had made his fortune from musicals, before turning the talk round to the colours of the evening and the shape of the distant mountains which could be seen the other side of the broad estuary. In fact they talked of this and that, and everything except what they really wanted to talk about – which was each other. Simply because now they had arrived at their destination neither of them knew quite where to begin.
‘Listen – I have to go and cook, if you’ll excuse me,’ Freddie said when they fell silent for a moment. ‘Would you rather stay here by the fire or—’
‘You know what I’d rather do, Mr Jourdan, I told you,’ Fleur said, getting up and following him out of the drawing room and across the hall into a large and beautifully equipped country kitchen.
‘Now this is just the sort of kitchen I’ve always dreamed about,’ Fleur sighed as she looked round the room. ‘I mean this is a room for serious cooks and serious cooking, which you obviously are and which is what we’re going to have, if you see what I mean.’
‘I’m making us Pissenlit aux lardons which might sound very rude but in fact is a delicious warm spinach and endive salad with bacon,’ Freddie told her as he lifted Fleur up to sit on a high kitchen stool near him, ‘and then a poached beef dish called Boeuf à la Ficelle. They’re two of my mother’s recipes, they are quite fantastic, and we shall wash them down with probably the best Pomerol you have ever drunk.’ He swung the uncorked bottle on the central table round to show Fleur the label and then began preparing the meal, passing a long piece of string through a series of perforated slices of beef before tying them to the ends of a carving fork. That way, he explained, they wouldn’t touch the bottom of the saucepan when the time came. Fleur stared out at the wonderful view from the huge kitchen window as Freddie prattled on. The weather was now perfect with only the faintest breeze coming in off the sea, ruffling the waters of the pinkening estuary as the sun began to set. A fishing smack was setting out for its night’s work, bobbing cheerfully against the stream, followed already by a swirling halo of expectant gulls, while not more than a hundred yards downriver from the house, Fleur suddenly spotted a family of seals basking on the rocks.
‘Isn’t this just the most heavenly place?’ Freddie asked, as he paused for a moment to look out at the view with her. ‘You know, this has to be the place to come and die. And what in hell was that?’ he asked at the sound of breaking glass.
‘Just me knocking over my champagne,’ Fleur whispered, biting her lip and staring at the pool of wine which was making its way across the table remorselessly towards her. She had just been reaching out for her glass when Freddie had spoken and now it lay broken on the floor.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Fleur said, staring down at the damage. ‘I don’t know what I can have been thinking. Or doing. I’m so sorry.’
‘It really doesn’t matter,’ Freddie said, effortlessly lifting her out of the way of the approaching flood. ‘But it would be terrible to get it on that wonderful outfit.’
‘I don’t know what I can have been thinking,’ Fleur repeated quietly. ‘I’m not usually that clumsy.’
‘Come on,’ Freddie said cheerfully. ‘It’s only a glass and not a very good one and there is plenty more champagne.’
He fetched her another glass and refilled it but try as she might Fleur couldn’t get his words out of her head. This has to be the place to come and die. Suppose it was, she wondered, while Freddie returned to his cooking and chatting, suppose it really was? What would happen if she did die here? Would he hate her forever more, or would it break his heart?
She looked at his lovely funny face as he hurried about the kitchen keeping up a running commentary as he put the herbs and peppercorns, the carrots and celery, the potatoes and cabbage, in a saucepan of boiling water before preparing the mustard croquettes. And she wondered if she wasn’t just being purely selfish, grabbing what she considered to be her one true and possibly last chance of happiness with the man she loved – without considering what it might do to him if the worst should happen. But she found she couldn’t answer her question. It had suddenly seemed so easy on the day of her birthday, the morning he had surprised her at the window like some wonderful god risen from the ground below to capture her heart all over again. Just as he had done the morning he’d appeared through the mists at the garden of The Folly. There had been no problem in saying yes to herself then, in persuading herself to go for broke as Freddie would call it, to cry to hell with everything and run off with her lover. Yet now she was here with him, alone in one of the most beautiful places she had ever been and on one of the most lovely evenings, she tried to imagine herself dead in his arms. Not out of self-pity but in order to try and feel somewhere near coming to terms with what that might do to this wonderfully warm and funny man she loved.
‘Freddie,’ she said, as he threw down his spectacles on the table and ran a hand through his long, luxuriant hair.
‘Plates,’ Freddie said. ‘Plates in the oven, croutons, and red wine vinegar.’
‘Freddie, I want to talk to you,’ Fleur began again, but Freddie was in full culinary flight.
‘Not now, angel, not when I’m in the middle of cooking.’
‘I have to. Seriously.’
‘I have to cook. Seriously.’ He looked up at her, mock-cross, dropping his thick straight eyebrows even lower and pouting in traditional French-chef style. ‘My muzzer she always say cook in ze kitchen, eat at ze table and talk in ze bedroom.’
‘You mean we can’t talk over dinner?’ Fleur asked, finding the weight of the problem seeming to lighten as soon as Freddie began to fool around.
‘If you want to talk over dinner, Miss Fisher-Dilke,’ Freddie warned her, ‘then I shall want to sleep when we go to bed. Now. We should be ready in about five minutes, so in the meantime you may entertain me with gossip from the concert halls while I bake the croutons for the pissenlit.’
‘Why’s it called that?’ Fleur wondered. ‘Pissenlit. Doesn’t that mean wet-the-bed?’
‘I guess because in France it’s usually made with dandelions,’ Freddie replied, ‘and isn’t that meant to be the end result when you pick dandelions?’
‘I’m glad you’re using spinach.’
‘I’m using spinach because spinach gives you strength.’
