One More River, page 3
His wife to be sure had been German, and about her beginnings had hung a bit of the usual murky National Socialist dirt. Born under a cloud, you might say. She’d had nothing to do with the Tyrant. Nor had she been suppressed. After thirty years of marriage she had left him. Prosaic. Nothing there.
Who had shot at him? Above all, why? It wouldn’t be any English gentleman either. Had he even been shot at—seriously? Yes. It was not his imagination.
One will have to have a word with Pa Peartree about this. There is no sense in pretending it didn’t happen.
“Monsieur Poirier, good morning. Yes, not bad, is it? Bit of mist. Rather dewy. Still, once the sun gets through. That, in fact, I wanted a word. You might have noticed, last night I might have appeared a bit pent. Fact is, somebody took a pop at me with a rifle. I don’t think there’s any way one could write it off as accident.”
Straightfaced, if anything stolid, le père Poirier did admit he had noticed that, well, something seemed to have upset you. Not his place to make any comment. La bourgeoise (one of his names for his wife) had been a bit taken-aback.
Quite so. One will adopt the cool and detached approach. Not in the least a ‘ton rogue’. Not the moment to be cutting, contemptuous, and certainly not arrogant.
“I’m bound to take it seriously. However dotty. No wish to go to the gendarmerie or anything like that. One would want to know more first. Purely factual. Occurred to me, all this dew, might be footprints, whatever, broken bushes, up there by the fence. I wondered whether perhaps you might like to take a look, by daylight.”
Yes indeed. This is a methodical man, meticulous in all he does. A plumb line, a spirit level. Even if driving a post into the ground. That’s the way he goes about it.
“Mind my asking, whereabouts you were? Might find a bullet. And up the hill there, if it ejected normally, might find a cartridge case.” And when he says he’ll have a butchers, he’ll be very thorough indeed. When observed, mounting the field, he had a dog with him, and a gun slung on his shoulder.
“Some coffee?” Merci in French means no.
“Sure thing, Monsieur Charles. Bullet hit the rock, where you were standing. Flattened, nothing to make of that. Only had to work out the trajectory then. Made himself like a nest in the long grass. No proper footprints; smeared like, flattened. Didn’t try to get through the fence; would have been a job if I do say so. Could have cut the wire, acourse, might have thought it alarmed—that might be an idea, wouldn’t be all that hard. Don’t want a chap creeping up on one. That’s not any dotty, that was planned, to waylay you, like. Course, if you don’t want any gendarmes … They’re not likely to find anything more than me, if I do say so. Went away through the wood. Had the dog follow that, but no distance. Rained, since.” Peartree launched into a lengthy description of the sort of technical device he relishes; an alarm based on some concealed tripwire, low voltage electric current, something similar to the light mobile barrier farmers use to pen a few sheep, keep them from straying. But one doesn’t regret taking him into confidence. A careful man, reliable and discreet.
This is psychobabble. I’m aware that I’m still feeling shock, and suffering from it. One difficulty is that I don’t know where to begin. Courage?—I have as much as the next man; it’s been put to the test a few times. Physical courage is only one sort. One thinks of Rabin, urged by his security people to wear a bullet-proof jacket; refusing, saying ‘Ridiculous’. Wasn’t the real courage the telling himself he’d been wrong, after a stubborn lifetime of zapping Arabs? Or De Gaulle, climbing out of the bullet-scarred flat-tyred Citroën saying ‘Lousy shots’; one expects a general to have this kind of courage. But I am not even a Corsican municipal councillor; I don’t go about expecting people to pot at me from the street corner.
Is it even serious? One can imagine somebody anxious to give me a good fright. A warning, a deliberate close-shave. The miss is neater, smarter than the zap; a way of saying ‘We could just as easily have knocked your stupid head off. Reading us loud and clear, are you?’ Or was it some National Front hooligan getting a good giggle out of seeing me skip?
I can make a little list. There could be a dozen—call them groups—who could be tickled by this notion of frightening me with false fire: keep the real fire for when it’s needed.
I am not a journalist. Like any writer I’ve done journalism in my time. Investigative; I have done a few pieces to shed a sharp light on people who prefer to stay in the shade, but as a rule I haven’t tried to compete with the real ones, whose job it is. A few years back in Sarajevo (lot of people insisting we all wore bullet-proof jackets) I did some writing which upset United Nations officers as well as Serbs, keeping my admiration and respect for the men and women, reporters, photographers, taking far greater risks than I ever did: a large number left their skin thereabout. I have contributed to the discomfort of politicians, right here in France. Elsewhere too in Europe. And nowadays very many people think of physical violence first, as an answer to whatever has bitten them.
But this is so vague. No direct link in causality. There are plenty of people around who would get this angry at a dint put in their household gods (the car, in France; touch my car and you injure me deep in my deepest sensitivities). They’ll jump out after some trivial bump and they’ve a gun in their hand … You know then where you stand. And why.
Oddly enough, I think the père Poirier might be on the right lines. Need an alarm system, a tripwire. Not literally but something to draw this oddity on, or is it out? Oddity, it’s how I think of him, could be a her I suppose, but lying up there with a rifle doesn’t seem like a woman’s way of doing things. So let’s call him Oddity.
Something’s beginning to take shape here. What perseverance would be shown? People get mad enough to shoot one, knife one, throw a bomb at one, charge one with a chain saw; half an hour later they’ll have thought better of it. How cool-blooded is this? What planning goes to it?
I’m not going to hang about here wondering when he’ll take another pop at me. People, it’s well enough established, tend to stick to the same method in their madness. One sees it in suicides; if they’ve already tried gunshots they won’t of a sudden think of turning on the gas. Nor do I fancy walking about waiting to be shot at. I’m not a general. I may be average brave, I’m also average cowardly.
So leave. That could be thought quite normal: I do leave and often very suddenly. I’ve work to do here, but it can wait. Go somewhere, take a varied kind of rhythm, sometimes abrupt and as often leisurely. See whether anyone follows.
Where would one go? This seems quite easy too. Draw Oddity, assuming he comes along, into a one-way street, a bag or pocket where I would stand a good chance of recognising, maybe identifying, ideally isolating him. In theory at least, pull him up a blind alley, turn round and walk up to him and ask what the hell do you think you’re playing at. Somewhere small and simple, a village, where a stranger is at once noticed.
Yes but one mustn’t assume he’s a perfect imbecile. There has to be a feint, but there must also be a logical explanation for my own behaviour, which he would accept as probable. The mistake, and the fatal weakness, in the ‘Rogue Male’ story was that this active and intelligent man would go and bury himself in a cave in the wilds of Dorset. Not even noticing that he was putting himself up the blind alley, a stupid rabbit waiting for the ferret. Oddity must assume that I have a purpose in going there; a plainly obvious way out. Eccentric perhaps, but I’m known to be an eccentric man. It has to make sense to him, and to his reading of me.
After puzzling for a hour or two over maps, I think I have an acceptable answer. I’ll go right across France (and quick-quick-slow, to see what accompaniment there might be) into Finisterre.
France is a largish place, by European standards. If one is used to small crowded countries, like Holland or England, it can appear enormous. It can also appear oddly empty, so that one could quite readily believe oneself in some country not on the way to anywhere; Spain say, or Sweden. There are not those disconcerting huge numbers of people which in Germany strike the senses of the voyager, all so busy, so damnably active and apparently intent on going somewhere else. For a country bang in the centre of Western Europe, with frontiers leading to everywhere else, it is strangely static. One could say sleepy, backward. Off the main lines of communication (and even often on them) one wouldn’t be far wrong.
To be sure, there are historic reasons for this. Every road leads to Paris. Betimes one can believe that everyone in France has gone to Paris and stayed there; once there it is all too easy to believe that the rest of France doesn’t exist: notoriously this is the firm conviction of everyone who lives and works there. There is Lille, yes, and Lyon; large, modern, bustling cities which the Parisian (with an effort) can call to mind. Everywhere else, and this includes famous and important historic capitals of large and wealthy regions, is a nowhere. Only the native-born, who have lived their entire life in Toulouse or Bordeaux, could believe themselves somewhere, and then with much effort. There is nowhere in France a Hamburg or a Munich. Did one hear someone mention Marseille? True, they make there a great noise because it’s full (in more or less equal ratio) of Arabs, gangsters, and Corsicans: go there and you will find a provincial backwater.
Discount all this as Parisian vanity and there is still a lot of truth in it. Try out Rennes or Nancy of a Sunday evening, Dijon or Rouen. They have been capital cities in their day.
Mr Charles is used to all this; he has lived in France for many years. These people have a streak of genius, seen in their engineering, and they cling to bygone grandeurs, nostalgia for the Sun King. The widening rupture makes them schizophrenic. No wonder that they eat so many pills to calm them down.
John is seventy, placid about it; that’s not old by today’s measurement. Old enough to have seen a lot, travelled a bit. A cosmopolitan, at home pretty much anywhere, if the climate’s temperate. He’s not easily bothered, by Events. He’s surprised now, by this upheaval, for he hadn’t thought there was anything left to be frightened by.
And now—yes, he feels fear. Enjoying it, too. At this age the heart, the emotions, are familiar companions. Turbulent at times still. Boring, mostly, since this is an age when the arteries begin to fail, or your prostate starts giving trouble. There isn’t much to be excited by. Now he is pleased to find himself excited. A thunderbolt arrives? Let us confront this thunderbolt.
He quite likes his plan, but there are complications. Crossing France, now that’s a bore. Take a plane? If on the way to Los Angeles one hasn’t a lot of choice; here one has plenty. Further, a plane is too rigid, too obvious, too easily traced. Enter the toothpaste tube and get squeezed out at the far end. You get put on the computer, which any busybody can gawk at. No planes.
There are trains though, even today. He has always loved trains. They have the infernal habit of going to Paris and stopping there. And once on a train you are stuck with it. Anybody can walk about observing you. Disguised as a nun your boots will betray you, and there’s luggage to cart about.
Whereas with the car … at least he wouldn’t be wearing a ring in his nose. It leaves a trail, it can be followed, but there’s a freedom of movement, one slides into bypaths, one doubles back, one will be cunning.
Why? What is there to be cunning about? Aren’t you getting paranoid, being buffaloed? Outside the stupid accident, I don’t believe in that, and the deliberate attempt at murder, I’ve trouble with that, too, there’s a big area in between.
Grey area; a plan to frighten him, upset his nerve. Destabilise; piece of ignorant jargon, but bring about a state of worry and tension. What for, what’s the point? It’s a petty world; don’t underestimate small spiteful meanness. Envy, a trivial grievance cherished and magnified. A lot of crime is like this. Small, secretive, disgusting crimes. They don’t get into the paper; people know, but say nothing. The police may know, and have their reasons for preferring not to. A pillow put over Granny’s face; there are no proofs. Doesn’t have to be murder. An old friend, or partner, manoeuvred out of his job. A reputation blackened, a wife seduced, a witness suborned, some children perverted. There are no statistics about this sort of crime, and one can become a victim without even knowing it. I have seen, known, a lot, over the years.
Or a warning? To let something alone, to forget? What?
One thing they all have in common; that if caught they can whine. ‘But I meant no harm; I only wanted to give him a fright.’ And the young—they can be the most frightening of all. An act of extreme violence and for no reason. It is enough that they think it funny.
Travelling, for the most part unhurried, in a mostly north-westerly direction, he could put on carefree airs. This was all on the whole agreeable, the way it ought to be for an elderly gentleman in sound health, no money worries, who has decided to lay care aside, leave any little domestic difficulties behind. ‘Read, and go south for the winter’—Eliot, was it? A damned smug remark, but one could sympathise.
The car is an Audi, not grand but adequate to the needs and circs, of said gent; nothing flashy (asking to be stolen) but no tin can either, the reliable and respectable upper end of the Volkswagen engineering works. A pale colour, to be visible at twilight, but nothing that will show the dirt. Comfortable, efficient, silent. A prudent car, and prudent is what he feels. On the back shelf are a number of maps and guides to fleshpots: one should be comfortable at night, after eating well, and a midday pause should encompass a good walk, with something of interest to look at, and a small meal (but not just hamburger either). It was a day or two before he became disgusted with his horrible smugness.
He felt, by now, pretty sure he was not being followed. When he came upon an autoroute he had driven fast, and turned off it suddenly. He had done abrupt stops and illogical reversals; had plunged into tangles and made wide swerves away from any foreseeable path of pattern: he was confident he would have spotted anyone taking an interest. He had poked for reactions; a clever-little-dick would have been tempted or provoked out of hiding.
To the Peartrees he had said only that he had some business calling him away; they were used to this. Pa had rather relished a few ingenious ideas; all set indeed to phone up Fichet (specialist in locks, safes and the like) for a nice chat about burglar alarms. He had dismissed this; poopoo, some beersodden boy, the type that defaces tombstones. Alarms are poppycock, there’s nothing in the house worth stealing—which was perfectly true. Vandalism would be revolting but one had rather more faith in the dogs than in Fichet: give him a lot of keys he’d mislay them or forget what they were for, and there was truth in that, too.
Now there was a very pleasant country hotel, soft-treading, soft-spoken, a lot of felt underlay to the personnel as well as the carpets, and judging by the menu a good ambitious cook; shellfish, large fish, plenty of seaweed. One was overlooking Quiberon Bay and the brisk walk along the littoral would be undertaken. The tide was out; there were pungent smells but not of drains. There was a magnificent evening cloudscape after the manner of Doré, of piled cumulus and brilliant oblique spears of sunlight. This artist—one would not say just illustrator—had been of much moment in his childhood. Godparents with a belief in solid cultural presents; the massive volumes of Quixote and Paradise Lost. Which was here, surely, and one would certainly expect to see angels—or perhaps Satan, thinking. One could see a long way, and there was nobody there at all. A dinghy or two, moored, empty.
Instead there were birds. Oyster-catchers walked about, curlews cried with mournful notes; that is to say he thought they were curlews but perhaps they were whippoorwills—but as long as they were delightful to the ear … Also a great many ducks, which sat and bobbed about on the water; mallard, teal? Towards sunset would there be flights, migrating, or was it too early, not cold enough yet for geese? A seagull or two, perching on an old post, waiting to be painted and sold as Regional Art to tourists. It was time to stop being lazy, pleased with oneself, cooked—casseroled, smothered in his own juice and fat, served up in an earthenware pot (regional art) to be eaten by himself with relish. Enough of this cannibalistic autosatisfaction.
He didn’t believe that he had been shot at by accident. The drunken teenager would do for the Peartrees but not for him. What was he doing here? This was pointless, as well as paradise lost. Running away is easy. There would come the moment when he had to go back. Why would anyone bother to follow him, here? That would be senseless, hysterical, in a pattern with his own behaviour.
He’d overestimated his own attractions, hadn’t he. Had then gone to enormous trouble to lose anyone who did feel interested enough to …
He looked at the seagull, which looked back at him, the way they do, nasty beasts, with contempt. He was no good to eat, or not yet.
“You are a great fool,” he told himself. It didn’t say, “I quite agree.” Shit, instead; laconic, comes to the same thing.
By midday of the following, having reached the famous blind pocket into which he had designed to draw a pursuer, he was in doubt again. Who’s in the pocket then—him or me? The last hundred kilometres, there seemed to have been a blue car, as though shepherding, from some distance back. Hadn’t there been a blue car at the outset just like that, same make and similar behaviour? Look, it is a common make, and a commonplace colour.
Roscoff is a small village on the seaward edge of Finisterre. It has no peculiarities; the usual granite huddle, a perhaps unusually ugly church, a fishing harbour, convalescent homes doing seawater therapy, full of oldies on crutches because of hip-replacements—and a floating population of Brits, for round the corner there’s a ferry port with a link to Plymouth, heavily loaded with the never-ending local cauliflower. This had been the purpose of his long-winded scheme: it is the deadest of dead ends, leading nowhere save over-the-sea-to-Skye.
