Bella... A French Life (21 page)

“Unfortunately, old news keeps on hurting, Colin.”

He nods.

“Quite right. Unlike old shoes, it never becomes comfortable.”

“I think you’re managing alright.”

“And so are you, Bella.”

He leans forward and his eyes are again on mine, searching for something in mine as they did a few minutes earlier. Quickly, as if by impulse, he takes my right hand in both his hands, but as quickly, as if he has scorched his skin, he pulls his hands away. He looks away too; he looks to where Fred and Frascot are standing beside the barbeque. He waves to them when they notice him.

My thoughts in turmoil, I am unable to do or say anything.

“Miss! Come dance!”

Honorine, in a knee-length yellow dress with ruffles around the hem, stands behind Colin. I have no idea how long she has been standing here and what she has overheard or seen.

“Go,” says Colin, looking at me again, his voice hardly above a whisper.

“Will you be coming too?”

“In a moment. Give me a moment.”

Honorine’s dress flaps around her knees as she pulls me into the house, and once in the living room, the plum-coloured polyester rug nowhere in sight, she pulls me against her to waltz with her to the accordion music coming from the turntable. She is leading me anti-clockwise around the room, her left hand on my hip, her right gripping my left elbow. We are waltzing and we are not doing it correctly, but Honorine is left-handed. Disregarding the music’s rhythm she navigates us through gaps between the dancing couples, and I stumble after her. Colin stands in the doorway; he’s trying hard not to laugh at what I am sure must be a spectacle. To make matters worse, I lose my balance, trip and leave one of my shoes standing forlornly on the floor for it to be trampled by dancing feet. The music stops. Benefiting from the lull in the dancing, I hobble to where my shoe is lying and step into it.

“That looked like fun, Bella.”

Colin has appeared beside me.

“It was. Great fun. Honorine and I will be competing in the next ballroom world championships.”

“Wouldn’t want to miss it!”

He is laughing now.

At least, the spectacle my chambermaid and I have just supplied has cheered him.

Our glasses refilled, we look around for a place to sit, but with a sweating, breathless guest recovering on each of the chairs and five of them squeezed onto a three-seat sofa, we have no choice but to sit down on the floor, our legs pulled up and our backs against the wall.

“I love Van Gogh,” says Colin.

He points at the Van Gogh reproduction hanging on the facing wall.

“So do I. When I was a child I had a small reproduction of his
Sunflowers
hanging in my bedroom. It wasn’t a reproduction as such; it was a picture I’d torn from a magazine. But it was precious to me. It was real to me.”

“This may sound weird, but I used to carry a postcard of the
Sunflowers
around with me. I’d bought it on a trip to Paris when I was a student. Cost ten centimes and that included the stamp which had already been stuck on it, but you have no idea what pleasure it gave me looking at that postcard.”

“So you no longer have it?”

“An overzealous customs’ officer at the airport in Moscow confiscated it. Suspected it conveyed some coded message; thought I was a spy. The Cold War thing you know. Do you still have your picture?”

“No, I do not, but in my case it was an overzealous chambermaid who relieved me of it: she broke it. She was cleaning the glass and knocked the picture down and both the frame and the glass were in pieces, so my mother would not allow me to buy another frame to hang the picture back up. She said it was bound to fall down again and I, or the maid, might cut ourselves very badly. I kept the picture though - in a drawer - and it started to turn yellow, as newsprint does, and when I left for high school in Nantes, I left the picture lying on my bed and on my return it was gone. I told myself I will get another. And one day I
will
get another. I have sort of told myself that one day, when I am really happy, I will buy another
Sunflowers
reproduction. A small one. Just for me. To again hang in my bedroom.”

“I have also been meaning to look for another
Sunflowers
postcard. Oh, I have seen many of them, but never have I been in the right frame of mind to buy one. Be really happy. Really content. Maybe, in love.”

“I hope you will be - one day.”

“Ditto.”

He clicks his glass against mine.

-0-

“Would you like to dance, Bella?”

I have been wondering whether I should invite him to dance.

“Would love to. Yes.”

His shirt is damp and beads of perspiration, shiny like tiny diamonds, cling to his hairline. He again smells of mint. I like it. I hope my
First
of Van Cleef & Arpels is as agreeable.

Someone has replaced the accordion music with gentler ballads. A bass guitar pulsates soothingly and the timbre of the sax is mellow as Lionel Richie sings,
Hello! Is it me you’re looking for? I can see it in your eyes … I can see it in your smile …
 

Colin starts to sing: his singing confirms to me he has a good voice.

You’re all I have ever wanted, and my arms are open wide … ‘Cause you know just what to say … And you know just what to do …

“Come …Bella … sing along with me.”

I shake my head.

And I want to tell you so much, I love you … I long to see the sunlight in your hair … and tell you time and time again how much I care … Sometimes I feel my heart will overflow … Hello, I have just got to let you know …

Colin and I are not really dancing. We are just moving slowly to the music. Step right. Step left. Turn. Step left. Step right. Turn. He puts both his hands on my hips, the movement bringing his face close to mine. I lift my arms and join my hands at the back of his neck. In this position our bodies could easily touch, but I keep my arms stretched out to prevent this happening. Colin’s breathing is now coming in brief gasps. I am not fooling myself to believe this is because of the closeness of our bodies. No. It is because the smell of cigarette smoke and sweat is heavy in the room.

The music stops.

We keep on moving, he, keeping his hands on my hips, but I drop mine to a spot between two of the buttons of his shirt.

The music recommences.

It’s now or never ... Come hold me tight ... Kiss me my darling ... Be mine tonight.
Elvis Presley. Baudelaire liked Elvis and with him I once danced this
slow
. It was at a school picnic on the beach, one Friday evening. Overhead, the moon shone in all of its full-moon magnificence and underneath our feet the sand was cool and damp.

Elvis’s voice fades out and Honorine and Martine, giggling, rush over to the player, and after a few seconds of discussion with Paula, the accordion music starts up again. Immediately, the dance floor fills up. The frown on Colin’s face tells me we have done our dancing. We seek out Paula and Fred to thank them for a lovely evening.

-0-

We reach the Mercedes. The wine has made me just woozy enough to warn me I ought not to be driving a car.

“You drive, do you, Colin?”

He nods.

“Do you want me to drive?”

“Could you?” I ask.

“Will you trust me with your life?”

“I’m offering you the wheel because I’m not sure you can trust me with yours.”

I pass him the set of car keys. He unlocks the door on the passenger side and waits until I am seated and I have folded my cardigan around me before he walks around the front of the car to the driver’s side.

“You comfy?” he asks.

He adjusts the seat to his height.

Ours is the only car on the road to Le Presbytère.

Behind us a few of the village’s lights are still switched on and flickering timidly. The mount is dark but two red lights bobbing on the water in the distance signal the presence of a vessel. I had left one of Le Presbytère’s garden lights on and it too flickers, but ahead of us. Colin’s hands are resting lightly on the steering wheel, his fingers fitting into the wheel’s grooves.
A man’s hands
.
Why do I have this fascination with a man’s hands?
He begins to tap out a tune against the wheel with his right hand. It is a tune only he can hear because all I am hearing is the purr of the car’s engine. His left hand is on the wheel. No doubt sensing my eyes on him, he turns his head and looks at me. He smiles. There is something in the smile which signals protection, safety, amity.

“Sleep,” he says. “Put your head back and close your eyes.”

Like an obedient child, I put my head back.

I close my eyes, but sleep escapes me.

-0-

“Home,” says Colin.

Quickly, I open my eyes. I sit up. No, home we are - I am - not yet. Le Presbytère is exactly six-hundred metres away. I know this from walking down to Sainte-Marie-sur-Brecque, a pedometer around one of my ankles. I had an argument with Jean-Louis about my measuring driven distance with a pedometer. “Christ, Bella, a pedometer is for measuring the distance covered in walking, not when you are in a bloody car.”

Must banish him from my mind.

“Another six-hundred metres … four-hundred still to go. It was six-hundred back there when you spoke, but now it is four-hundred … rather three-hundred now,” I say.

“Two-hundred … one-fifty… fifty …,” he counts down.

Ahead of us, Le Presbytère is black.

A poem comes to mind.

Out of the night that covers me… Black as the pit from pole to pole … I thank whatever gods may be … For my unconquerable soul … I am the master of my fate … I am the captain of my soul ….

Who is the poet? I take mental note of having to find out. Perhaps Colin will know. Should I ask him?

“Colin?”

“Yes, Bella?”

Do I ask him?

“You enjoyed the evening?” I ask instead.

“Very much. And you.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I leave the car here?”

He has pulled up beside his motorcycle.

“Yes.”

I put my right hand on the knob to open the door on my side.

“Allow me, Bella.”

He leans over and puts his left hand over my right and pushes down hard. His face is very close to mine.
Mint!
The car door flings open.

“The key,” he says.

Walking to the door I dig into my bag for the set of house keys.

When last did a man unlock a front door for me?

The night sky is decorated with silver stars. A long blast of a ship’s horn wakes birds which have been sitting sleeping in the trees behind us. They flutter their wings and fly over the trees. One emits a short, chipped call.

Colin has a problem inserting the key in the front door’s lock. I pretend I do not notice.

In the small front room I switch on just one light, the lamp on the desk. It throws a warm, calm light like that of a winter sunset across the room.

“I will go to bed,” I say.

He frowns.

“I think I will do some writing. I won’t type, don’t worry.”

I am the master of my fate … I am the captain of my soul ...

“I want to look up something in the library,” I tell him.

“Can I help?”

“Who wrote the poem that starts …
Out of the night that covers me, bl
…?”

“…
black as the pit from pole to pole?”
 

I nod.

“William Ernest Henley.
Invictus
… unconquered.”

“Why was he unconquered?”

“He suffered from tuberculosis as a child and had lost a leg at the age of seventeen because of it.”

“Tuberculosis of the bone.”

“That’s right.”

“I think I will go to bed.”

Now, he is the one who nods.

In the silence of the night our footsteps reverberate off the walls.

“I will say goodnight, Bella.”

We have reached his bedroom door.

“Goodnight, Colin.”

His hand is on the doorknob.

“See you in the morning, Bella.”

It is already morning.

-0-

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hastily, I dress. I have overslept. I fell asleep the moment I slipped under the duvet and my sleep was sound. A sleep with no nightmares. Alas, it was also a sleep without dreams.

The rich aroma of coffee fills the air.

Colin is in the kitchen drinking coffee, the colour of fudge, from one of my bowls. He sits at the work table, tapping the forefinger of his free hand against the wood to the rhythm of a tune only he can hear. Maybe it is one of last night’s songs which are still circling in his head. Yesterday’s
Le Monde
lies open on the work table. He’s been reading about the Iran-Contra Affair. Seeing me, he gets up.

“I helped myself to some coffee. I hope you do not mind.”

“In no way.”

“What’s the norm here, Bella? Does one send a bouquet of flowers to the hostess after a party?”

“You gave Paula that beautiful box of chocolates.”

“If you think it was sufficient.”

“Sufficient.”

“I think I’m going to work all morning. Write. At lunch time I’ll ride down to Frascot’s place for those snails.”

“Good idea.”

“You want me out of the way?”

“Of course not.”

“I do not want to impose on your life, your lifestyle, your way of living. So, if you want me out of the way ...”

“No. No. No. You are not imposing on my life. My lifestyle.”

“Sit down, Bella,” he says.

He points to the work table. He is wearing a grey sweater over the jeans he wore last night. He is clean-shaven as on every morning. This morning the aroma of mint does not cling to him.

I sit down. My head aches. I do really have a hangover.

“I think I may have … have had too many glasses of wine last night.”

“Nonsense.”

He is now holding the bowl in both his hands.

From the bay drifts a long blast. I recognise it as the coastguards’ foghorn. The sky which can be seen through the window and beyond the courtyard is opaque. I push my chair back and I walk over to the window and open it. A cold wind sweeps in and blows a page from
Le Monde
to the floor. Quickly, I close the window.