Vanishing Point, page 7
part #7 of Birdcage Series
Crillon was silent for a while, and then he said, “You really are quite serious about this?”
“Of course – and chiefly so on your account. I’ll make you a once and for all handsome payment and you can pick a few pictures if that appeals to you – and then off you go. Seem blunt, do I? Well, that’s the honest way. You’re forty-odd and I’m damned near seventy – though I frequently feel far less. We have a gentleman’s agreement – and off you go.”
“What would you say if when you came back you found that I had gone?”
“That that was what you wanted – and good luck to you. You’ve got a bank account in France?”
“In Switzerland.”
Sir Andrew pulled a note book from his pocket, slipped the pencil from its spine and said, “Give me the details. I’ll make a transfer while I’m in London tomorrow.” He grinned. “Tempting you, you see. But I’m sincere. If you don’t chose to go – the money will still be yours. My God, my father used to keep me as skint as a journeyman tinker until I was twenty-one and came into some money of my own. I promise I’ll do it in London tomorrow. You can ring the Swiss bank and check. Of course – I keep your mother’s statement and the birth and death certificates.”
“To destroy?” Crillon was enjoying himself.
“My God, no! They go into the family archives to be unopened for a hundred years. Like to see whichever baronet’s face it is when they’re opened.” He laughed, almost brayed, and went on, “Bit of a shock, eh, for some stuck-up bastard? Another skeleton to be tucked away in the family cupboard. Well, there isn’t a family in the country that doesn’t have them.”
Sir Andrew, his own glass stilt full, pushed the port decanter to Crillon. Outside the wind was rising and a scattering of heavy rain assaulted the window briefly. Crillon filled his glass and then raising it drank, and said, “Maybe, a farewell toast?”
Sir Andrew nodded, drank with him and then said, “There is no problem in life which can’t be settled if there’s money on one side and goodwill on the other.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE WAS TYPING the firm’s final statement of costs for handling the sale of a farm when the telephone rang. She picked it up absently.
“Yes?”
“Miss Littleton, will you take a call from a Mr Crillon?”
She was silent for a while, caught between surprise and pleasure. Then she said, “Yes, I will.” She hung for a second or two in the almost childlike spell of rising excitement, felt her cheeks flush and was glad that she was alone. She had not heard from him since their last meeting and had assumed that he had either gone back to France or had no wish to continue their so brief acquaintance.
He came on the line and said, “Margery?”
“Yes. . . yes, Maurice . . .”
“You don’t mind me calling at your place of work?”
“No . . . no, of course not. But how on earth did you know where —”
His laugh cut her short. “Well, it wasn’t difficult. The yellow pages of the telephone directory. There are not all that number of solicitors in Salisbury. I got you at the third go. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch with you before, but these last few days have been very busy. I will tell you all about it at lunch. That’s why I’m ringing. Since it is your half-day it would give me great pleasure if you would let me take you out. Perhaps to some little place in the country and after we could drive around —” He broke off for a moment or two, and then in a different tone went on, “That is, if you have no other engagement?”
“No, no – I haven’t. But how did you know it was my halfday?”
“Ah, well, yes. Not difficult. My excellent little tourist’s handbook tells all such things about English towns. You will come, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course I will. It’s a lovely surprise.” For a moment or two she wondered if she had sounded too eager, and then decided that if she had she didn’t care. He had been often in her thoughts and she had wondered whether she had done or said something which had turned him from her.
He said, “You have made me very happy.”
For a moment she felt like saying – and you have made me very happy, too – but settled for, “I leave here at half-past twelve.”
“I shall be waiting. À bientôt. . .”
She put the receiver back in place and sat staring unseeingly at the bill of costs in her machine, her thoughts scattered, flighting wildly, and then going back to the moment when sitting on the seat she had been surprised by the sudden and undeniable impulse to speak to him, and then . . . how nice he had been when he came to dinner and how soon it had become clear that he had put no wrong interpretation to her forwardness. So correct – but undeniably liking her, and taking that ghastly little sitting room in his stride. There was something about him, some instinct he had for understanding, sensing the truth but declining to abuse any advantage it might have given him . . . not that she would have minded. It had happened twice before, and each time – except for the briefness of high passion – she had been left, over-eager for the man to be gone and never encouraged again because she had felt like a tart. And then . . . Oh, God – if she had known she would have worn something different! But that only for the sake of her natural vanity. For him she sensed it was unimportant. Just for a while, the memory came back to her of annual holidays with her aunt in Majorca . . . the awful men who looked you over as though you were something in a cattle market. And her aunt – the first time to her intense surprise – who loved it all, and was old enough to know better and too old for conquest, but just loved the atmosphere of sexuality as hungry children racing into a kitchen relished the high, enticing aroma of food cooking.
When she left the office, he was waiting for her – not as many another man would have done right outside the doorway, but a few yards away, discreet and ready to defer greeting should she be with some other member of the staff. As she came up to him, he just touched her hand for a moment and then moved her away to walk the little distance to the car park, talking as though they had known one another for years. At once she was soothed of high throat-tightening excitement and became herself. Magic. How could it happen? As though she had known him for years, and, since she was no fool, she didn’t care a damn that there must have been plenty of other women before her. No past or future. Just this present moment, and then another and another – smoothly riding the crest of Time.
They lunched at a small inn lower down the Avon valley below Salisbury, eating in the garden beside the flag-bordered river, swallows dipping to ring the water with the brief caress of their breasts, swans riding in state, aristocrats and haughty until the odd bread crust was thrown and then scrambling like unruly beggars over the scraps from the king’s high table. And she laughed from pleasure and the wine and his company. Before they left he took the menu and on its back – and not even telling her to sit still, to pose, not even looking at her – he sketched her head and shoulders, the river beyond, and to her the thing was a miracle and – when she said so and how could he do it – he said, “God gifts everyone at birth with something. But most people are too lazy to find out what it is.”
“Everyone with something?”
“Of course. Something – great or small.”
“And what did he give me?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then I tell you. Courage. The real kind.”
She laughed. “Courage! I’m as timid as a mouse!”
He shook his head. “No mouse is timid. It is the only wild animal which has the courage to live with man and make him its provider . . . whether he likes it or not.”
“But I’m not courageous.”
“You are. Sometime soon I will prove it to you. But for now – we shall continue our drive and you can be the guide. I go where you direct – but later we must stop at a place where we can do some shopping for things for dinner.”
She laughed then, enjoying herself, feeling absolutely free with him, warm and relaxed within his magic circle. She said, “I know what you are going to do.”
“Of course you do – but tell me.”
“You’re going to come back with me and cook a meal.”
“Yes-agreed?”
“Of course. Lovely.”
And it was lovely. The loveliest day she had had for years. She took him through the New Forest and then back through Winchester to see the Cathedral and to do his shopping. At her flat he borrowed an apron and cooked. She liked the apron touch. He was neat and precise in everything he did. They started with hors d’oeuvre, black olives and little strips of pimento, and then fillet steak poivre with asparagus tips followed by a piece of brie which was absolutely à point. They drank a bottle of wine with it all and she found herself laughing and chatting without constraint, enjoying herself more than she had for years, and knowing perfectly well what was to follow. And when that came it was as perfect as the whole afternoon and evening had been and there was the slow balm of deep happiness in her as afterwards she lay naked with him in bed. The day had to finish as it had begun and run . . . a wonderful break in the calendar, a trip to paradise and with her no wish to return from it until she had to. And he was as no other man had ever been . . . or was it that she was as she had never been able to be with any other man? Not caring for herself. Abandoning herself so completely to a new tide in her feelings, a tide that bore her on its crest and, finally, left her stranded in the abandonment of a slowly ebbing physical joy that made her feel that she and her body had for the first time become fully acquainted.
They slept and when they awoke they made love again and this time to a different rhythm – like tried lovers, without haste for the wine of their passion had changed, matured miraculously.
As the first sparrows began their chattering and bickering on the guttering outside the partly opened window Maurice said, “You know, I have to go back to France soon. You know, too, that it is not good, not honest, to say we will find means to meet. Life does not go that way.”
“I don’t care – this while it lasts will be enough.”
He laughed quietly. “For me, too – if it were anyone else. But I am greedy. You are as no other woman has been. So I want to keep you as long as I can. I have to go back to Bordeaux in ten days’ time.”
“Then for nine days I shall be happy.”
“We could be happier. I would so much like to show you France. We could pack my car and go together and then, when the days are done, I will put you on a plane somewhere and you can fly back. It would be dishonest of me to say that I will come back, or that one day I would send for you. Life doesn’t allow that. It can be tried, but little by little it begins to die. We are joyful with what we have, but we both know that it can’t last. But there is no reason why by coming with me we should not make it last a little longer. There is still a lot of wine in the bottle to be enjoyed, ma chèrie.”
The truth of his words caused her no upset. She had known from the first moment his hands had taken her naked body that it could not last. . . no matter what she might have wished, had wished. She had too much common-sense to delude herself. But to keep him a little while longer . . . Oh, God, yes that . . . but how?
“Oh, Maurice . . . but I have my work. I can’t just walk out.”
“But you have holidays, no?”
“They come in August. I can’t change them. The office rota is all made out.”
“Oh, pouf! One can always arrange that.”
She laughed then. “Oh, Maurice you’re impossible. Of course I’d love to come. For a handful of days like that with you I’d do anything. But I don’t see what.”
“But it’s simple. You have your aunt alive still, yes?”
“Yes. But she’s in Scotland.”
“Ah, that’s good. A long way away. This morning when you go into the office you say you have had a telegram that she is ill. You have to go to her. Et voilà – you will be free!”
She laughed loudly then, delighted at his calm wickedness, delighted at the prospect of more days with him, delighted at the directness with which he had come to a solution of all difficulties. Then suddenly she broke her merriment. “No, it can’t be done. You see sometimes my aunt – particularly if she’s feeling bored or not well – telephones me at the office for a chat. She might do that – and then where would I be?”
He traced the tip of his forefinger down her nose and let her take it between her teeth gently. The frown went from his face and he smiled. “You say your aunt when she goes abroad with you to Majorca is . . . well, you know how she is. So, no matter her age, she is romantic. She is on your side. Tell her the truth. Phone her and ask her to send a telegram from Scotland for you. Tell her why. You know that women always like to get the better of men. She will enjoy it. No?”
“I don’t know.”
“When I come to take you out to dinner this evening, you will tell me, Yes or No? Oh, come, chèrie – paradise is not a fixed place. It is a lot of little spaces in Time through which we pass now and then.”
She sat up suddenly and bent over and kissed him. Then she got out of bed, slipped on her dressing gown and moved towards the kitchen. Over her shoulder she said, “I will telephone her this morning from here and ask her to do it today.”
“Bien. ‘L’amour rend inventif.’ No?”
“What does that mean?”
“All that we have been talking about, ma chèrie.”
* * * *
Later that morning when he was back at his hotel, having shaved and changed his clothes, a telephone call came for him from Switzerland. An official from his bank informed him of the transfer made to his account by Sir Andrew Starr. The amount involved surprised him by its size. It was far more than he had anticipated . . . in fact, far, far more. But not less, he told himself after a moment or two, than was reasonable considering what he was giving up and the peace of mind which would now be with Sir Andrew and his wife.
He drove up to Avoncourt Abbey and finished the cleaning of a small panel by Osias Beert, a still life of flowers and fruit in a marble bowl with a brilliant red admiral butterfly hovering over one of the bowl’s white tulips. Then he went up to his apartment and began to pack his suitcase. But before he had finished a sudden thought struck him . . . he was going and renouncing all that Avoncourt Abbey stood for, cutting himself off for ever from his real father and mother. Oh . . . he was being paid well, but no matter all that. . . no matter that this going was what he wanted as much as his parents, there was a small quirk of sentiment in him to which there was no denying house-room. And, anyway, he thought – Sir Andrew could not mind. He had once made – putting the money settlement aside – the offer himself of a gift of some paintings. Surely at least he was entitled to some physical memento . . . something to remind him of these brief Avoncourt days?
He walked down the long, oak-wainscoted passage to Sir Andrew’s bedroom and went in and stood in front of Augustus John’s small canvas. It was reasonable as a painting, but not of a nature that really appealed to him. It was too facile . . . bread and butter, or maybe wine and caviar . . . no, perhaps beer and skittles. But nevertheless – it was his father to whom he was drawn far more than to Lady Starr. Had his father been a widower, he had a feeling that neither of them would have let the other go. They would both have relished the upheaval in the Starr world.
Then, remembering the alarm system to which all the gallery paintings were wired, he went back to the cleaning and restoring room and threw the main switch off. Returning to the bedroom he was glad he had for as he lifted the painting down he saw the picture hook slide up an inch on its vertical wall bracket and smiled to himself. When Sir Andrew did something he did it with Army thoroughness. He pulled the picture hook down and heard the slight click as it locked back into place.
Ten minutes later, saying no good-byes, he drove off to Salisbury, the painting safely wrapped and in the bottom of his suitcase. He telephoned the solicitor’s office and spoke to Margery. Her voice was a little breathless, excitement running high in her. She had telephoned her aunt from her flat before leaving that morning, and her aunt had telephoned the office in mid-morning. Everything was arranged.
He said, “That’s wonderful. Come along to the hotel and have some lunch with me. Then we’ll go to your flat and you can pack. We can catch an early evening boat across from Southampton. What did your aunt say?”
“Oh, dear – once she knew, she was all for it and chirping like a canary. I really was surprised.”
He laughed. “Sounds like the kind of aunt all girls should have.”
* * * *
Over lunch at the Ritz with Warboys, Sir Andrew Starr realized that this was not one of their now traditional meetings . . . old friends keeping in touch . . . same school. . . same so many things – Oxford, the Army, same club and the same war – though Warboys had sat at home around the streets to roam while he had gone to be a soldier and a dozen other things besides. Good chap, though, Warboys – even if you didn’t always know what he was up to, except that in some way you were going to be used for the greater glory (or protection) of the three estates. Lanky, like a bean pole with the crop picked and the vines drooping, lank white hair with a touch of silver, jaw like a pike and the pure blue eyes of a child, and hands, frail and long fingered, that had pulled so many strings. Hands now liver-blotched – but still holding the reins though somewhat loosely, death inconceivable except some day for certain an unexpected fanfare of trumpets on high, his ears just picking them up as he collapsed, probably over his fly-tying desk, a part-finished Silver Doctor still in the vice. Getting a little tetchy, too. Never used to fuss so much over his wine, or leave so much to go cold on his plate.
