Night Without Stars (34 page)

I stared at him, thinking over the sequence. The lorry driver had come across, was staring at me.

“It was no mistake,” Charles said. “All this is a little bluff between himself and Deffand.”

Delaisse said slowly, angrily: “ No. That can't be true.”

I said to Charles: “Delaisse may have believed I talked. You never did.”

“Oh? … Very positive.”

I said to Delaisse: “Think it over for yourself. Bénat had his own reasons for wanting to be rid of me. He made use of you to do it.”

“… What does he mean, Charles?”

“My dear Armand, if you care to believe this fellow …”

“No, of course I do not. But …”

I said: “ In a leader it's always the first sign of a moral rot, isn't it—the betrayal, the degeneration.…”

Alix hadn't moved. They would be waiting for me outside.

“Why didn't you tell Deffand about it, then?” Charles said.

I saw it all clearly again for a second. “I think it hurts you more to be under an obligation to me.”

He stared. “ ‘To accept a benefit is to sell one's liberty.' Isn't that what the old Roman said?”

“It may be.”

“You think I feel the same?”

“I'm sure of it, yes.”

He blew out an amused breath. “Well, thank you for being absurd. I accept the benefit gladly, since I might certainly lose my liberty the other way.”

“Well, it's really exchanging one liberty for another, isn't it?”

“I'm intensely practical, my dear man. We'll argue out the principles another time.”

At any price I wanted to say something to get at him. I said: “D'you remember that evening at the Wintertons' remarking that to you—and to some other people—there was only one God, Charles Bénat, world without end, Amen?”

“Did I? Very intelligent of me.”

“Wasn't it. But what happens when Charles Bénat starts lying not only to his followers but to himself? Isn't that a sin against the Holy Ghost?”

It did seem to hit him somewhere. “ I don't think I follow.”

“Oh, well, it doesn't matter.”

“No, wait.”

I looked down at his hand till he took it off my arm. We stared at each other. Armand Delaisse was listening—so was the driver. A twist of annoyance went across Bénat's face.

I said: “Trouble with setting up as a tin god is that you've
got
to live up to your own standards—whatever they happen to be. Other mortals can fall short of them—not you. It's the one condition. Otherwise it all makes nonsense.”

“D'you think I care what the devil you say or do?”

“Yes. Over this.”

“Well, you're wrong. Run after Deffand. Tell him what you please.”

“Deffand's not important. I've no intention of telling him anything at all.”

“No doubt you'll whisper it all in his ear on the way home.”

“I used to think you a man without illusions. It was a point of pride.”

“I've no illusions about you, Gordon.”

“No.… Only about yourself—since you've already persuaded yourself into thinking you can accept your liberty from me.”

“I don't accept my liberty from anyone!” he said savagely.

“What rot! You accept it from Delaisse, this other man and people like them, who do the work and take the risks.… You accept it from all sorts of simple, decent people who play up because to them you're still Bénat of the Resistance, still a name to conjure with. They don't realise yet that it's changed—should be Bénat the Racketeer.”

“Simple and decent.… Nobody's simple these days, and very few decent. They trust me because I let them have luxuries they couldn't get otherwise, and bring a little colour and romance into their silly drab lives.”

“Yes … the little tin god again. So you take favours as your right. But it's not the same from me. I'm the atheist, the disbeliever. In future you'll only exist by my good-will, and I know you're sham. We both know it at this moment. If you can't draw me into the illusion you can't go on believing in yourself.”

I hardly knew what I was saying, but he stared at me as if his interest was caught in spite of himself.

“As if Christ had been cut down by the Roman soldiers who realised he was
really
going to die, eh? …”

“I'm not going that far.”

“No .… Neither am I.” He smiled, his lip judicial, contracted. “You've paid me the compliment of setting the stakes too high.…”

“It's you who set the stakes,” I said. “I was afraid they were rather out of your class.”

Just for the moment then, under his smile, he gave me a look that wasn't easy to take. He was going to say something more, but there was a cough in the passage.

“M. Deffand is waiting,” said the plain-clothes policeman.

We hadn't much to say on the way down. Deffand took a justifiably poor view of my silence, and I was feeling ill again. He did suggest that one of his men should look at my scrapes and scratches, but I wouldn't let him. He didn't ask a single question about my car. When he let me off at the hotel he said:

“Au 'Voir, M. Gordon. Take my advice.”

“Don't worry. I'll not get in your light again.”

When I got up to my bedroom I was sick, and every now and then I'd have a fit of shivering through the night. I'd doze off and wake up with a start thinking I'd gone blind and have to switch on the bedside light to make it all right. But I didn't dream of the climb once. When morning came the shivering had worn off, and after some breakfast I felt a lot better. I went round to a doctor with the reminiscent name of Foch and he told me I'd had slight concussion and ought to take it easy for a day or two. Otherwise there was nothing wrong. Then I called in at the garage and reported about the car.

There was a fuss, as I'd expected. Three men with strained faces and talkative hands argued it out with me. Had I informed the police? How could it have happened? I put the blame on my eyesight and told them I wanted as little fuss as possible. Fortunately there was quite a bit of money to my credit at the bank. When I left I took my passport to the station and booked a seat on the evening train for Paris.

I was getting out—cutting my losses and quitting. It hadn't really started yet, the ache about Alix. I'd been too shaken up for the ordinary feelings to begin. I knew I'd done the only possible thing. She'd made no move towards me last evening at all. After the first exclamations of horror she'd neither moved nor spoken. It was hopeless to attempt to break the tie.

But I was going to feel pretty bad about it later on.

I didn't go near either the Wintertons or John to say goodbye. If I saw John I should quarrel with him for saying anything to Deffand. If I saw the Wintertons they'd overwhelm me with kindness. It was a bit rude, but I'd have to write to them. This last day in Nice was better alone. The train left at six. It had been hopeless to try for a sleeper. With luck I might get one side of a first-class carriage.

Anyway, it didn't seem to matter much. Nothing mattered any more. I'd been following a private mirage of my own, and the end was the desert one might have expected.

I thought I'd have a sleep in the afternoon, so went back to the hotel and lay on the bed and smoked.

After a bit I dreamed what I hadn't dreamed the night before. I dreamed I was on the cliff again, among all the rubble, with the fissure I'd got stuck in just below me. But when I looked down Alix was caught in it and holding out her arms. She said: “ Don't let me go, Giles.” And I said: “ You're tied to Charles, not me. You're his sister, the same clan, the same blood, the same breath. You'll never be free.” And she said: “ Don't let me go, Giles. You promised. Don't let me go.” Then I left her there and got round the lump without difficulty and climbed to the top of the cliff. Then I woke in a great sweat to find the pain had started all right now.

I went out and walked round the town. It was a sultry day and busy in spite of the heat, and everyone was wearing the gay clothes of the season. I walked along the front for a bit and then up into the town. I thought: perhaps if I'd made an effort, perhaps if I'd gone across to her and argued with her again. Less than two days ago everything was all right—or it seemed so—it might have
been
so if I'd never let her go back. That's the way you chucked your life away. If you'd handled things rightly we might have been leaving together to-night. There'd have been trouble later perhaps, but at least we should have had our chance. In England, a thousand miles away, the old links …

Well, it was too late now. I was off on my own. The chance had gone. It was for the best. I tried to think myself into the mood of yesterday, to picture Charles and Alix up in their villa sympathising with each other over the police raid, discussing ways of preventing another, perhaps arguing over my part in it, she wishing to be grateful, he hating the sound of my name, Grutli at their feet waiting for the tit-bits. A united family.

To-day I couldn't begin to think what had come over me last night. It had all seemed clear as anything, a sort of drunkard's clarity. I wasn't sorry I'd not turned him over to the police, but I couldn't follow the arguments I'd used on him, convinced then that I was wounding him in his tenderest spot, his intellectual self-esteem. They seemed as much nonsense to me to-day as perhaps they had to him last night. No doubt he would make a good bit of fun out of them when Alix had forgiven him for the attempt on my life.

I walked up the Avenue de la Victoire, and something made me turn in at the familiar café and sit down at the usual table. Sentiment. I ordered white wine and sat gloomily sipping it. I didn't know how long I sat there, but when I looked at my watch it was five. There was only just time to pick up my things at the hotel and get to the station. I hadn't the energy or the inclination to move. But if I didn't go to-day it was all to do again to-morrow. I was still suffering from shock, was stiff and bruised, and could do with a day or two in bed. Should I stay? That was the coward's way. Better to make the clean sweep as intended.

Alix sat down at the table.

She said: “I've been watching you for nearly an hour.”
She was as pale as a sheet. I remember she was wearing grey,

and that made her look thin and young.
I said: “ Where were you?”
“Over in that corner. I was there when you came in.”
At the sight of her something had turned over inside me. I wanted

to say, oh, darling, I … And then it all froze again.
I said: “ What do you want?”
“I've been watching you, trying to come over and speak to you

all this time. I hadn't the courage.”

“Courage again?”

She said: “Listen. Can I talk to you a few minutes?”

Something made me say: “I'll miss my train.”

Her eyes went very dark. “ Very well, Giles. I've no right—to keep you.”

I said: “ Hell.… There are a million trains.”

She put her hand on the table, spread out her fingers in that way she had. “Let me, please, say what I have to say—and then you can go. After you'd left last night I came down following you; but I couldn't go to your hotel—couldn't face you—I think you hate me now. I—stayed out all night—walked a lot. This morning I saw you go out to the doctor's. Since then I've been walking again …”

I stared at her. “ I don't hate you. Only I know now it's no use.”

“What's no use?”

“Expecting you to break away from Charles. It's too strong for me.”

Her lips curved down painfully. “I broke last night.”

After a long time I said: “Why?”

“Because I'm an idealist, a romantic—what were all those things you said? Because I expect too much of all the people I love. Fidelity from my husband, loyalty from my brother, friendship from my friends.…”

“Dear God,” I said, with a dreadful feeling of humiliation; “ and what did you expect from me?”

She didn't answer, but sat there looking at her hands. “Yesterday morning—they told me about the raid on the Café des Fourmis; Charles said it was you. I didn't believe it. Only in the afternoon when you didn't come—and Deffand came instead.… When at last you came, and I realised what Charles had done, I saw then that you must hate me for ever having any connection …”

I stared at her. “It wasn't
that
at all.” I wanted to explain the things I was only just realising about my own feelings yesterday. Since I came back to Nice there'd been one idea in my head, one thought—
her
; it had gripped like a vise on everything; all the rest shoved aside. On Wednesday night her sudden giving in had left a vacuum and the vacuum had filled up with all the doubts there'd never been room for before. If you argue with someone for a long time, and then he suddenly gives way, it's common enough to feel for a minute, well, am I
certain
I'm right after all? It's the human reaction you can't get away from; the very vehemence of your own argument tells against you. That was what had happened to me. All these thoughts early yesterday morning.… And my feelings after the attempt on my life. I wanted to explain this to her now, but I didn't seem able to find the words. It was a new experience for me.

The waiter came across, but I waved him away. I saw her shoes were covered in dust.

“Did you come down in your car?”

“No. I—left it there—phoned for a taxi. It—was his car, bought with his money.…”

“You've been out all night?”

“Yes. Oh, it doesn't matter. I felt I had to see you this once. Then I hadn't the heart. Then when you came in here.… I'm sorry if you've missed your train.”

I said: “ Yesterday, over the phone, Charles said you were unstable, contradictory from day to day.”