A Heart Bent Out of Shape (26 page)

‘Not before?’

‘I’ve a ton of work I need to catch up on. Papers to grade. With you around, it’s fair to say I’ve let things slide . . .’

‘But, I mean . . . nothing’s changed, has it? We’re still . . .’

‘Still what, Hadley?’

‘Whatever we were before.’

‘Before what?’

‘I don’t know. Look, I had a great time. I really did.’

‘So did I.’

‘No one’s ever done anything for me like that, Joel. It was magical. Thank you. Thank you so much.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said. He drummed his fingers on the wheel. ‘Thanks to you, too. That was . . . a grand New Year, Hadley. Better than I ever imagined it would be.’ His voice was stretched, and it cracked at the end.

‘I loved it too,’ she said.

She leant in for a better kiss and he obliged. Just.

As he drove away she was left with the feeling that she’d handed him something and he hadn’t quite taken it.

thirty

Even from a distance Hadley could hear
that the kitchen
at Les Ormes was buzzing. As she opened the door and the faces of Jenny, Chase, Bruno and Loretta turned to meet her, she immediately knew that Luca had told them. It was in the strength of their gaze, as though they were looking for the one thing in her that they’d neglected to spot themselves. They turned on their smiles, and Hadley wilted in the doorway. Her hand stayed on the handle, her next step unsure.

‘Here she is,’ said Jenny, ‘at last!’

‘We thought you’d run away to the mountains and were never coming back,’ said Loretta.

‘Make any resolutions?’ asked Bruno. ‘We’re just discussing ours but they’re all really boring. I bet yours are much more exciting.’

Only Chase spoke plainly. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Luca just left. He told us you ran into each other, and he told us who you were with. He’s just pissed because he can’t have you and he doesn’t want anyone else to either. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Oh, Hadley, how could you? Your tutor? Isn’t he all wrinkly?’ said Jenny, sticking her tongue out, with an exaggerated shiver.

‘I’d say it was sexy,’ said Loretta, ‘if it wasn’t for Luca. He really likes you, Hadley. He thinks you led him on.’

‘Well, Happy New Year, everyone,’ said Hadley, ‘it’s just great to be back. And I didn’t even come close to leading Luca on.’ She went to the sink and ran the tap. She filled a glass with water, then threw it away again. ‘And you all know that, by the way.’

‘We don’t know anything,’ said Jenny, ‘you don’t tell us anything.’

‘But you see why I couldn’t,’ said Hadley, ‘don’t you?’

‘If Kristina had been here, would you have told her?’

Hadley stared at her. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, I wouldn’t. Because, if Kristina was here, I doubt I’d be with Joel at all.’

‘Joel,’ said Jenny, ‘is that his name?
Joel
. It even sounds old.’

‘Why do you say that, Hadley?’ said Bruno.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.

‘Hadley, you’re always so secretive,’ chipped Jenny.

‘And you’re so nosy,’ said Loretta, planting a kiss on Bruno’s forehead.

As the others giggled together, Hadley let herself on to the balcony. She climbed on to the wall and sat with her legs dangling, wishing Lausanne would swallow her up. Or perhaps Joel was right: everything would be simpler if they stayed in the mountains. Chase followed her out.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘They just love to gossip. They don’t mean anything by it. Did you have a nice Christmas?’

‘Jenny’s so offended,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why. And I did, thanks. It was good to be home.’

‘She likes to think she knows what’s going on round here, that’s all.’

‘And you? Do you like to think you know what’s going on?’

‘I couldn’t care about most things,’ said Chase. ‘Certainly, no offence, your love life. Though I’m glad you’ve got one, of course.’

‘Thanks, I guess,’ said Hadley.

Jenny rapped on the window. ‘Chase,’ she called, ‘it’s freezing out there, come back in.’

He rolled his shoulders. ‘Summoned,’ he said.

‘You don’t have to go, you know,’ said Hadley. ‘What about your Christmas? How was America?’

He took a cigarette from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. ‘America was exactly as I left it. I might stay and smoke this,’ he said.

‘Chase!’ called Jenny, through the glass.

‘How did you enjoy skiing? You had great weather for it, I saw the reports.’

‘It was beautiful,’ said Hadley.

‘Bluebird and pow, that’s what they call it, means blue skies, fresh powder. So he’s a skier, this guy of yours?’

‘He is,’ she said, ‘and he taught me how to do it too. I wasn’t bad by the end.’

‘Very cool. Hey, there’s a new girl, by the way,’ he said. ‘In Kristina’s room. I noticed as I went past. Her name’s on the door.’

‘There’s a new name on the door?’

‘Helena Freemantle. She was in the kitchen earlier when Luca was here. It wasn’t going to stay empty forever, Hadley, but are you okay?’

‘Of course,’ she said. She tore at a loose nail, and worked hard not to meet Chase’s eye.
Helena Freemantle
. A new set of letters, a new slip of paper, slid neatly into the space where the old one had been.

She escaped the kitchen by saying that she had an essay to finish. Once in her room, Hadley breathed a sigh of relief, but almost straight away there was a knock at the door.

‘Oh, what now?’ she snapped, unintentionally saying it aloud. She opened the door with her face already set to contrition.

‘Sorry to interrupt you, I just wanted to come and say hello.’

Helena was as tall as a flagpole and had flame-red hair tied in a thick plait. Her face was blasted with freckles, not the polite scattering that Kristina had but an eye-popping amount. Her teeth were huge and perfect and she smiled easily.

‘I’m your new neighbour,’ she said. ‘Helena Freemantle. Or just Hels, plenty of people call me Hels.’

‘Hi, Helena. And sorry, I didn’t know it’d be you at the door. I’m just trying to lie low, that’s all.’

‘Do you want a cup of tea? I’ve got a kettle in my room. Saves me having to go all the way to the kitchen every time.’

‘That’s wise.’

‘Not that I’m anti-social but, you know, sometimes you just want a quiet cup of tea without having to go into everything all of the time. I was there when that guy Luca came around, getting them all whipped up.’

‘I don’t really want to talk about all that.’

‘They weren’t being cruel. They were just surprised. Nosy. Excitable. Whatever. Well, Luca wasn’t exactly excitable but you know what I mean.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘And, you know, I was just about to finish up an essay, so, I haven’t really time to stop for tea. But . . .’

‘You were friends with her, weren’t you? The poor girl who had my room before me?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘I’m sorry I’m not her,’ Helena said.

‘Not your fault,’ said Hadley, and she couldn’t help smiling back. ‘But, thanks anyway.’

‘Go on, one cup of tea,’ Helena said. ‘Please. Honestly, I was sitting in the kitchen listening to them all go on and on about you and I just thought to myself, she sounds so much more interesting than you lot.’

‘I’m not,’ said Hadley, ‘not really. Just because I’ve slept with my professor doesn’t make me interesting.’

‘Come on, Hadley, let’s have a cup of tea together. I don’t know who this professor is. I don’t know anyone here yet. I’m safe territory. I’m . . . Switzerland.’

Hadley laughed and acquiesced, letting her door click behind her as she followed Helena into her room. Inside, it didn’t feel like it had ever been Kristina’s. Helena gabbled away easily and Hadley sat back and listened. She was from the north of England, from a tiny town near the Scottish border. She’d had glandular fever and had missed the start of the year. She had been worried she couldn’t come at all, so she took her eventual arrival in Lausanne to be a gift from the gods. As Helena put the kettle on to boil for a cup of tea, Hadley was surprised to find that she wanted to tell her about Joel – not the moment when he first kissed her, nor how he took her into the white world of the mountains – but the slip of paper from the door; how before
Helena Freemantle
there had been
Kristina Hartmann,
and he had kept her name. But it was too soon for that. Those kinds of confidences, if that was what they were, couldn’t be so loosely scattered.

‘Oh,’ Helena said, jumping up, ‘that reminds me. I found something you might want. It was under the bed, the cleaners must have missed it. I kicked my slipper under there and when I scrabbled about to get it I found this. Here.’

She handed Hadley a book. It was Hemingway’s
A Moveable Feast
. Traces of dust clung to its edges, but otherwise it was shiny and new, its spine un-cracked.

‘They said you were studying American Literature. When they were talking about your . . . sorry, they
were
gossiping . . . your professor. Anyway, you’ve probably read it. But I thought, you know, if it belonged to Kristina, maybe you’d want it.’

With the tip of her finger Hadley wiped the dust from the cover. It was the book that Kristina wouldn’t let her buy for her because she said she had it already, and she had loved that about her, the thought that she wanted to understand why Hadley liked Hemingway so much. It was also the book that Joel Wilson had taken from her hand in the English bookstore, grinning ruefully, as he said, ‘I used to give that book to all the girls I ever dated,’ and she had loved that about him too, the idea of a young Joel, wanting to be with a girl who liked the same things as him.

‘I had a quick flick and there’s a cool bookmark in there,’ said Helena.

Hadley drew out the card. There was nothing written on it. She turned it over and saw a scene that she recognised. Rising mountains, spinning parasols, crystal lake waters, all painted in flat and colourful hues. It was just like the picture that graced the wall of Joel Wilson’s office, a welcome gift from the department, he had told her then.
The Swiss Riviera
, immaculate and beautiful, a vintage traveller’s dream.

‘I know those pictures are sort of ubiquitous,’ said Helena, ‘there were loads of them at the airport. But it is lovely, isn’t it? And to think we live here, in that perfect world. Oh, sorry, that’s insensitive. I know it’s not perfect, not really. But it seems it, doesn’t it? To an outsider like me, anyway.’

Hadley looked up at her. She kept her voice as level as she could. ‘Can I keep it?’ she asked.

‘Of course you can, I thought you’d want it. It was lucky that the cleaners missed it. I’m sure they’d have thrown it away otherwise.’

Hadley slipped the card back inside the book. She clapped it shut.

‘Thank you, Helena. Thank you so much.’

After that she went back to her own room, refusing a second cup of tea, a shortbread biscuit. She professed that she was fine; not pale at all, no problem, none.

Hadley got ready for bed with mechanical movements; back and forth with a toothbrush, the flicking of a comb through her hair. Her phone rang and she eyed it uncertainly before picking it up.

‘Hadley, I’m sorry,’ said Joel’s voice.

‘What for?’ she said, carefully.

‘In the car. I went on and on. A dog with a bone.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ she said.

‘Listen, here’s a plan for next weekend. Have you ever been to Locarno? I hear it’s . . .’

‘Joel, wait. What did you mean, in the mountains, when you said that you were afraid of hurting me?’

‘Did I say that?’

‘You know you did.’

Hadley could hear music in the background, the low rumble of jazz.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘I was afraid that you think I’m perfect, when I’m not.’

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ said Hadley, ‘and I’m not as stupid as all that.’

‘It’s not stupid, it’s lovely,’ he said. ‘Hadley . . .’

‘Yes?’

Silence.

‘
Yes?
’ she urged.

‘I do love you, you know.’

It was a strange way of saying it for the first time. It came across as more of an afterthought, or an affirmation; a reminder of all previously uttered
I love yous
, when, actually, there had been none. Not as they’d rolled together, or kissed together, or whispered with hot breath. Not as they’d careered down slippery slopes, walked in the never-black alpine nights, fallen into sunken beds. Not one single
I love you,
and that had never mattered. Not before, anyway. Her hand went to her mouth. She shut her eyes.

‘Hadley?’ he said. ‘Are you still there?’

‘I thought I’d know what to say,’ she said, ‘but I don’t.’

thirty-one

She didn’t sleep. In the bathroom she
peered at herself
in
the mirror, and the doubt that burgeoned inside her seemed to cloud her face. Reflected in the glass she appeared pale, her eyes as flat as buttons. She showered, staying under the hot blast of the water until steam clouded her tiny bathroom, and afterwards she sprayed perfume and painted her lips scarlet. She donned her thin mackintosh, and trod quietly past her slumbering neighbours’ doors, out into the stiff cold of the morning.

Lausanne seemed all elegance. The paving stones were frosted and the first breaths of sunlight reflected the pastel shades of the shutters. Neatly dressed office workers walked snappily, woollen scarves knotted at their necks, leather-soled shoes tip-tapping. Hadley weaved between them, cutting into the back streets, until eventually she arrived at the Hôtel
Le Nouveau Monde.

Inside, Hugo’s usual table was empty. She sat down just beside it, her back as straight as a fence post, her hands knotted on the cloth. A waiter came from nowhere, and bent down to her, solicitously. He’d served them the last time they were there and she remembered his liquorice-black hair, his sideways smile.

‘
Mademoiselle
, if you’re looking for Monsieur Bézier, he isn’t here. But he telephoned with a message for you last week.’

‘Oh,’ Hadley said. ‘A message? What kind of a message?’

‘Only to say that if you came to the café we were to tell you that he is staying at the Résidence
Le Printemps, on the Rue des Roses.’

‘Why would he want me to know that?’ she said.

‘It is a convalescence home,
mademoiselle
.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘Monsieur Bézier is a very private man. He wanted only that we pass on the message, if you were to come, which you have.
Merci, mademoiselle
. Can I bring you something?
Un renversé
, perhaps?’

Hadley hesitated. ‘Um, I don’t know . . . perhaps not. Perhaps . . . Well, I only came to see Hugo. Rue des Roses, did you say? Is that near here?’

‘Just three streets away,
mademoiselle
. Turn right at the Maritime Restaurant, and then it’s the second on the left.’

She stood up, her chair screeching in the quiet of the dining room.

‘
Mademoiselle
, one moment. I must give you the message. He wanted me to tell you this:
He’s been thinking about the story, and the plot has taken an unexpected turn
.’

‘The story? What story?’

‘Monsieur Bézier is a writer of novels, I believe,
mademoiselle
.’

He bowed and retreated.

Printemps
meant spring, and there was a fitting freshness to the convalescence home on Rue des Roses. The entrance was gated, a subtle gold plaque set in stone proclaiming its identity, and a short sweep of gravel drive led to the columned doorway. Its countenance was that of a discreet but luxurious hotel. Beneath every window lay carefully tended rose beds, blooming even in mid-winter.

Hadley hesitated at the entrance. She took off her beret and ran her hands through her hair. A nurse in a pistachio-coloured uniform came down the steps towards her, and despite her clumpy shoes she was the picture of elegance. Hadley mustered her best French.

‘Monsieur Bézier?’ the nurse smiled. ‘Please, come with me. He will be delighted to see you,
Mademoiselle
Dunn,’ she said.

Hugo was sitting in a chair by the window, wrapped in a tartan dressing gown. He had a silk scarf tied loosely at his neck and his hair was perfectly combed, but his face was set in tones of grey, and there was a prickle of stubble at his jawline. Hadley felt a surge of affection for him. She hurried over, her footsteps breaking the quiet of the room.

‘I knew there was a reason to hold on,’ he said, as she took his hand.

‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’ve never much cared for Christmas, so I thought I would miss it this year. I had a perfectly timed heart attack on the twenty-third and spent the festive period in the hospital, presided over by a rather stern band of nurses. I checked myself in here for a little holiday. It’s a pleasant sort of place.’

‘Oh my God, a heart attack?’ said Hadley. ‘But you’re okay?’

‘Right as rain,’ he said. ‘You know, I’ve always liked that expression of yours, so very stoical, somehow. But that’s all very dull, so enough of me. What of you, Hadley, are you well? Is it a happy new year?’

‘I’m fine. Hugo, I went to the Hôtel
Le Nouveau Monde and they gave me the message. But what if I hadn’t gone? I wouldn’t have known. You should have sent a note to me at Les Ormes.’

‘That was precisely the point,’ he said. His dressing gown was belted and he curled the end of the cord around his fingertip. This small action, in one usually so composed, was unsettling. ‘I didn’t want any kind of a pity visit,’ he went on. ‘I only wanted you to come if you were seeking me out anyway. I was somewhat frosty with you the last time we met and I’ve berated myself for it ever since.’

‘So you left it to chance?’

‘Not chance exactly,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

Hadley saw the tip of his finger turn quite white. He unwound the cord and dropped it in his lap. Hadley glanced away.

‘So, what is this place?’ she said eventually.

‘It’s a very expensive hotel for the infirm. They do excellent smoked salmon for breakfast, of which I’m served the tiniest strip, with an absolute absence of scrambled egg; considering what I pay to be here I hold that to be a significant crime.’

Hadley eyed Hugo’s battered slippers and the cane propped at the side of his chair. He noticed her looking and flapped his hands with unusual animation.

‘I’m horribly underdressed,’ he said, a little theatrically. ‘If I had known you were coming this very minute, I would have prepared quite differently. What a sight I must look, what a frail old thing.’

‘But you’re recovering all right? You’re going to be okay?’

‘I am,’ said Hugo. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so pampered. And it was a minor attack, I’m told – as you can see, I am quite unharmed. No damage that’s obvious to your young eyes, anyway.’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer that I left you to rest?’

‘Rest!’ he harrumphed. ‘I’ve had nothing but rest. The days run on, you know, punctuated by small, unsatisfying meals and passages of sleep. The odd exchange with another guest, or patient, or client, or whatever we’re supposed to call ourselves. I was quite turning to dust. And then . . .’

‘And then?’

‘Lately, I’ve been bothered, Hadley.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘is it . . . are you in pain?’

‘I haven’t been bothered in such a long time,’ said Hugo. ‘Not since I wrote my last book, all of seventeen years ago. When I was writing I spent my life in a state of perfect agitation, my mind pulling in every direction. That was my way. I didn’t realise how much I missed it, until I felt it again.’

‘You’re writing again?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I wondered about your message, “
the plot has taken an unexpected turn
”.’

‘Ah, yes, I hoped that would bring you here.’

‘What do you mean? And what are you bothered by?’

‘An idea for a story.’

‘But, Hugo, that’s great, it’s something to focus on. That’s brilliant.’

‘No, it’s not. Not really. It’s a cruel idea. I feel enormously guilty even imagining it. But I told myself that if you didn’t object, if you allowed me this . . . liberty, then you might be giving an old man a most tremendous gift.’

‘I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?’

He took her hand. He smiled, but only just.

‘You like happy endings, don’t you? Love conquers all. And in life I want you to have all the happiest endings possible. But in the story . . . Let me begin at the beginning, Hadley. I’ve been too much apart from the things that matter, for too long. Every single one of my days has been shaped by routine, down to the very smallest detail. When I was writing, my days were upside down and back to front. I would begin work at three o’clock in the morning, because an idea seized me and I couldn’t sleep. Or I’d simply work all the way through the night and sleep the whole day. A story would take me by the throat and refuse to let me go. All my days were filled with life and death and sex. My nights too. What else? Beauty. Evil. Generosity. Pettiness. I lived every emotion and wrote every possible character, all of my beginnings, all of my endings. Henri Jérôme published eighteen novels. People wanted to read what he had to write. And then, one day, I just stopped. No reason. No deep psychological blow. No lost love, searing disappointment, or any of the things that people try and use to explain away the miserable romance of a writer who doesn’t write. I simply felt, Hadley, that I had said all the things that I’d ever wanted to say.’

‘But that’s amazing, Hugo, not many people get to say that,’ she began, but he hadn’t finished. He spoke on, his hands jumping with agitation.

‘And now, without the writing, comes . . . nothing. Empty days, blank and staring as the unwritten page. Without words, I’ve filled them with watching others. I no longer make up lives, instead I sit on the sidelines and simply watch. Impotently, but quite contentedly, don’t mistake me. Did you know I live only a two-minute stroll from the Hôtel Le Nouveau Monde? I’ve a cavernous apartment, with one of the finest lake views in Lausanne, and yet I choose the hotel for my coffee, for my cognac. There’s a sense of order there, that all is right in the world. One day is very much like the other, you could almost believe that time has stopped turning. I’ve grown to like that, the feeling of everything slowing down, almost to a stop. And then, you walked in. You ignored all of those fools at the bar, and allowed me to talk to you instead. After that evening, for the first time in, well, a very long time, I thought about writing again.’

He shook his head, with a mild sense of wonder. Only the ripple at his jaw betrayed the depth of his emotion.

‘You’re my story, Hadley, or rather, my story is yours. Everything I’ve been turning over, the things that have been keeping me awake, it’s all yours. Kristina. Jacques. Your professor. And you. Especially you.’

Hadley stared at him. She didn’t know where he was going, but it felt like somewhere they had never been before. She folded her hands in her lap and dug with her nails, a sharp little track, marking her palm.

‘When I was writing,’ he said, ‘I used to dream my plots. I would go to sleep thinking on a problem and in the depths of the night all would be revealed to me. I’d keep a notebook by my bed so I could jot it down the moment that I woke. If I left it any longer, past waking, coffee, breakfast, it would all slip away again, so as soon as I opened my eyes I’d scribble it all down. Some of my finest ideas came to me while sleeping.’

Hugo sat back in his chair as an attendant in the same pistachio-coloured uniform brought them a carafe of iced water and a pot of jasmine tea. She set it down with painstaking exactitude, and Hugo waited until the last cup was laid, and the teapot perfectly positioned. Hadley kept her eyes on him.

‘Go on,’ she said.

Hugo felt in the pocket of his dressing gown and took out a notebook. It was black and bent at the corner, as thick as a hotel bible. He held it with both hands.

‘Of course a lot of dreams are nonsense. Crazed ramblings. And God knows I’ve been on some fantastic drugs recently, but . . .’

He shifted in his seat and his foot nudged the tip of his cane so that it fell to the floor with a clatter. Neither reached for it. He opened the notebook and folded the cover back on itself, cracking its spine.

‘So you must forgive me,’ he said, ‘you must not think me . . . vindictive. I know in the past you’ve considered me something of a jealous old fool, and quite rightly too. But, Hadley, I had the most wonderful idea for a story . . . so wonderful, in fact, that I’m afraid it’s not fiction at all. I fear, irrationally but no less resolutely, that it’s very much the truth.’

He handed her the notebook. She clapped it shut again, and the sound reverberated down the halls.

‘I don’t know if I want to read it,’ she said, ‘not after that build-up. You’re scaring me, Hugo.’

‘I’m not scaring you.’

‘You’ve barely told me anything about your life, and suddenly I get everything, in one great rush. I’m touched, I am, but . . .’

‘Just read it, Hadley. Please.’

She looked down at the book. She opened it and flipped through the pages. Each was packed with a dense scrawl, the marks of a streaking ink pen, scribbles and crossing-outs.

‘Your handwriting’s impossible,’ she said, ‘and anyway, it’s all in French.’ She went to hand it back to him then stopped. There were two names she recognised.

‘What’s this?’

Hugo leant forward and tapped the page. ‘It says,
Joel est Jacques
.’

‘I know what it says, but what does it mean?’ Her voice was ice-cold, sharp edged.

‘Joel is Jacques,’ he said.

‘For God’s sake, Hugo, my French isn’t that bad.’

‘Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?’

‘What can I say? It’s a fantasy. You said so yourself.’

‘I said that it began as one. But I believe it now. I believe it to be the truth. And from the expression on your face, Hadley, I think perhaps you do too.’

Hadley tossed the notebook back to him and he caught it in his lap, his fingers curling around it protectively.

‘Oh, you do? And what makes you so sure? Because how can you, shut up in here, dare to pretend to know something like that?’

Hugo watched her, sitting quite still as her questions whistled past.

‘I mean, it’s crazy, Hugo. It’s lunacy. You’ve never even met “my professor”, as you always insist on calling him in that disdainful voice of yours. You don’t even know what he’s like. You haven’t got the slightest idea.’

‘I haven’t met him, you’re quite right.’

‘And you didn’t know Kristina either. So she’s a liar too, is she? Everything she told me, she made it all up? It’s a ridiculous idea.’