Talking It Over

  When it was time to go Mme Wyatt said, ‘Stuart, I think it’s a bit early.’

  ‘What is?’ I thought she meant I hadn’t stayed long enough.

  ‘To get in touch. Give it time.’

  ‘But they asked me …’

  ‘No, not for them. For you.’

  I thought it over, then bought a map. The nearest airport seemed to be Toulouse, but I didn’t fly to Toulouse. I flew to Montpellier. I could be going somewhere else, you see. I did at first. I drove in the opposite direction. Then I thought, this is stupid, and I looked at the map again.

  I drove through the village twice without stopping. The first time I was nervous and so I was going a bit too fast. Some damn dog ran out and almost went under my wheels; I had to swerve. The second time I went more slowly and saw the hotel.

  I came back after dark and asked for a room. There wasn’t any difficulty. It looks a pleasant enough village, but it’s not exactly a tourist trap.

  I didn’t want them to say, ‘Oh, we have some English people in the village,’ so I told Madame I was Canadian, and just to make sure I checked in under a false name.

  I asked for a room at the front. I stand at the window. I watch.

  Gillian I don’t have premonitions, I’m not psychic. I’m not one of those people who say, ‘I had this feeling in my bones.’ But when I was told, I knew.

  To be honest, I haven’t thought much about Stuart since we moved down here. Sophie occupies most of my time. She changes so fast, she comes into a fresh focus all the time, I need every moment. Then there’s Oliver, and my work as well.

  I’ve only thought of Stuart at bad times. That sounds unfair, but it’s true. For instance the first occasion you realise you can’t, or at any rate you aren’t going to, tell the man you’ve married everything. I had that with Oliver as I had it with Stuart. I don’t mean lying, exactly, I just mean adjusting things, economising a bit with the truth. The second time round it comes as less of a surprise, though it does make you remember the first time.

  I was standing by the fish-van on Wednesday morning. In England everyone would form a queue. Here you just huddle near the van, and people know who’s next, and if you’re next but not in a hurry you just let someone else go first. Suis pas pressée. After you. Mme Rives was next to me and asked me if the English liked trout.

  ‘Of course,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve got an Englishman at the moment. Sont fous, les Anghis.’ She laughed as she said it, to let me know I wasn’t included in the generalisation.

  This particular Englishman had arrived three days ago and stayed in his room all the time. Except for once or twice, late at night, when he’d slipped out. He said he was a Canadian but he had an English passport, and the name on it was different from the one he had given when he arrived.

  When I was told, I knew. I knew.

  ‘Does he have a Canadian name?’ I asked casually.

  ‘What’s a Canadian name? I can’t tell the difference. He’s called “Uges” or something. Is that Canadian?’

  Uges. No, that’s not particularly Canadian. It’s the name of my first husband. I used to be Mme Stuart Uges, except that I never took his name. He thought I did, but I didn’t really. I haven’t taken Oliver’s name either.

  Oliver I’m being good. I am aping the fons et origo of domestic virtue. If we had twins I’d call them Lares and Penates. Do I not phone whenever Toulousain tardiness threatens? Do I not rise nocturnally to trade in the besmirched swaddling of little Sal and make with the cleansing cotton wool? Am I not the proud tender of an incipient vegetable garden, and do not my scarlet runners strain even now to corkscrew their trembling way up my bamboo wigwams?

  The fact is, Gill’s a bit off sex at the moment. Like trying to ease a parking meter into an oyster shell. It happens, it happens. According to the mildewed myth handed down by les blanchisseuses d’antan, it is an established verity that the lactating moglie cannot get pregnant. At last I am now in a position to locate the swerving mercury-ball of truth which gives this myth its specific gravity (excuse the chemistry). The fact of the matter is that the lactating moglie not infrequently declines the impress of the ardent gene-pool she married: niente horizontal jogging. No wonder she doesn’t get pregnant.

  Which is a tad tough when little Sal was her idea in the first place. I was all for trundling along as we were.

  Stuart I told myself I didn’t have a plan but I did. I pretended I was coming to London on the off-chance. That I was flying to Montpellier just for something to do. That I happened to be driving through the village and what a coincidence …

  I came here to confront them. I came here in order to stand in the middle of Trafalgar Square and bellow. I would know what to do when I got here. I would know what to say when I got here. IT WASN’T MY FAULT. LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME. WHY DID YOU DO IT TO ME? Or rather, I wouldn’t confront them, I would confront her. It was her doing. Finally, she was the one who said yes.

  I was going to wait until Oliver had set off for the crappy little school in Toulouse where he teaches. Mme Wyatt made it sound quite nice but I expect she was exaggerating loyally. I bet it’s a dump. I was going to wait until he’d gone and then call on Gillian. I would have found the words, some words.

  But I can’t now. I looked out of the window and saw her. She seemed exactly the same, in a green shirt I remembered too well. She’s had her hair cut short, which gave me a jolt, but there was something that gave me a much bigger jolt. She was holding a baby. Her baby. Their baby. Bloody Oliver’s baby.

  Why didn’t you warn me, Mme Wyatt?

  It’s thrown me. It’s reminded me of the future I never got to have. Of everything that was stolen. I’m not sure I can handle this.

  Do you think they were fucking all the time? You never told me your opinion, did you? I used to think they were, then I calmed down about it and thought they weren’t, now I think they were again. All the time. What a disgusting memory to get stuck with. I can’t even look back on that little stretch of my life and call it happy. They’ve poisoned the only good bit of my past.

  Oliver’s lucky. People like me don’t kill other people. I wouldn’t know how to saw through the brakes of his car. I once got drunk and head-butted him, but it didn’t give me a taste for that sort of thing.

  I wish I could beat Oliver in argument. I wish we could have some debate and I’d prove to him what a shit he’s been and how none of it was my fault and how Gill would have been happy with me. But it wouldn’t work. Oliver would enjoy it too much for a start, and it would all turn out to be about him not me, and how interesting, how complicated he was. And I’d end up saying SHUT UP YOU’RE WRONG FUCK OFF and that wouldn’t be very satisfactory either.

  I comfort myself sometimes with the thought that Oliver is a failure. What’s he done in the last ten years except steal someone’s wife and give up smoking? He’s clever, I’ve never denied that, but not clever enough to see that you have to be more than clever. It’s not sufficient just to know things and be amusing. Oliver’s life strategy has always gone a bit like this: he’s pleased with being himself, and he reckons that if he hangs around long enough someone will come by and give him money just to carry on being himself. Like they do with those performance artists. Except that no-one’s done this yet, and frankly the chances of someone happening on this little village and making him a proposition are pretty slim. So what do we have in the meantime? An expatriate Englishman in his middle thirties, scraping along in provincial France with a wife and baby. They’re out of the London property market now, and believe me, once you’re out you never get back in. (That’s why I bought Gillian’s share of the house. I’ll have somewhere to come back to.) I can see Oliver in years to come, one of those old semi-hippy types who hang around bars bumming drinks off Englishmen and asking if there are still big red buses back in London, and have you finished with your copy of the Daily Telegraph by the way?

  And I’ll tell you something. Gillian isn’t going to stan
d for it. Not year in, year out. Basically, she’s a very practical, efficient person who likes to know what’s happening and hates mess. Oliver is a mess. Perhaps she ought to go out to work and leave him at home with the kids. Except that he’d put the casserole in the pram and cook the baby by mistake. The fact of the matter is, she’s much better suited to me than she is to Oliver.

  Oh shit. Shit. I said I wouldn’t ever think that again. Shit, I … look, give me a moment will you? No, it’s all right. No, just leave me alone. I can tell exactly how long this moment lasts. Exactly how long. I’m practised enough, for God’s sake.

  Aaah. Fffff. Aaah. Fffff. Aah.

  All right.

  OK.

  OK.

  One of the good things about the States is that you can get anything you want at any time of the night or day. Quite a few times I’d be lonely and a bit drunk and I’d order Gill some flowers. International flowers by telephone. You just give them your credit-card number and they do the rest and the good thing is you don’t have time to change your mind.

  ‘Message, sir?’

  ‘No message.’

  ‘Ah-ha, secret surprise?’

  Yes it’s a secret surprise. Except that she’ll know. And maybe she’ll feel guilty. I wouldn’t mind that. It’s the least she could do for me.

  As I say, I’m not in the business of being liked any more.

  Oliver I was out in the garden assisting one or two maladjusted scarlet runners. They grow with the necessary twist in them but they’re as blind as kittens to begin with and set off in the wrong direction. So you take this delicate twirly stem and guide it gently round the cane and feel it take hold. Like watching the infant Sal grip the bamboo of my middle finger.

  Isn’t this the life?

  Gill’s been a bit grouchy the last few days. Post-partural, pre-menstrual, mid-lactatory, hard to tell the difference nowadays. The tiercé of the temperament, and Ollie loses. Ollie fails to entertain once more, Part Fifteen. Perhaps I should hie me to the pharmacie and seek out a febrifuge.

  But you still find me fun, don’t you? Just a little? Go on, admit it. Crack us a smile! Corners up!

  Love and money: that was a mistaken analogy. As if Gill were some publicly listed company and I’d put in an offer for her. Listen, Gill runs the whole goddam market, always has. Women do. Sometimes not in the short term, but always in the long term.

  Gillian He’s in the hotel across the street. He can see our house, our car, our life. When I’m outside in the morning with my broom, sweeping the pavement, I think I can see a shape at one of the hotel windows.

  Now what I probably would have done in the old days is this. I’d have gone across to the hotel, asked for him, and suggested we talk things over in a sensible manner. But I can’t do that. Not after the way I’ve hurt him.

  So I must wait for him. Assuming he knows what it is he wants to do, or wants to say. And he’s been there days now. What if he doesn’t know what he wants?

  If he doesn’t know, then I have to give him something, show him something. What? What can I give him?

  Mme Rives Paul did the trout with almonds, his usual way. The Englishman said he liked it, which is the first comment he has made so far on the hotel, the room, the breakfast, the lunch or the dinner. Then he said something I didn’t understand at first. His French isn’t very good, he has a thick accent, so I asked him to repeat it.

  ‘I eat this once with my wife. In the north. In the north of the France.’

  ‘She is not with you, your wife? She remains in Canada?’

  He did not reply. He just said that he wanted a crème caramel and afterwards coffee.

  Gillian I’ve got an idea. It’s scarcely a plan, not yet. But the main thing about it is that I can’t, I mustn’t tell Oliver. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I can’t trust him to do the right thing unless it’s real. If I ask him to do something, he’ll mess it up, he’ll turn it into a performance and it’s got to be real. The second reason is that I’ve got to do it, arrange it, fix it. It’s something I owe. Do you understand?

  Stuart I stand at the window. I watch and wait. I watch and wait.

  Oliver The courgettes are romping away at the moment. I grow a variety called rond de Nice. I doubt you have them in England, where you prefer those long bonky ones suitable only for seaside postcards. ‘Just admiring your vegetable marrow, Mister Blenkinsop!’ Har bloody har. Rond de Nice are, as their name implies, spherical. Pick them when larger than a golf ball yet smaller than a tennis ball, lightly steam, slice in half, a gout of butter, black pepper, then wallow.

  Last night Gillian started quizzing me about one of the girls at the School. Talk about wide of the mark. Might as well accuse Pelléas of leg-over with Mélisande. (Though I suppose they must have done it, mustn’t they?) Anyway, Gillian just started dog-and-boning it. Did I fancy Mlle Whatsername – Simone? Was I seeing her? Is that why the noble Peugeot had another fainting-fit last week? Eventually, seeking to defuse, I murmured, ‘My dear, she’s not half pretty enough’ – an uncoded allusion, as you will appreciate, to one of Oscar’s ripostes at his trial. Unwise, unwise! For Ollie, as for Oscar, wit merely landed him in the slammer. And by the end of the evening, Reading Gaol would have felt like the George V. What is it with Gill at the moment? Can you tell?

  If there’s one thing that bitches me off, it’s being accused of venery when my palms haven’t even broken sweat.

  Gillian It’s unfair? What’s fair? When did fair have much to do with the way we run our lives? There’s no time to think about that. I just have to get on with it. Arrange things for Stuart. I owe him this.

  Stuart She comes out every morning after Oliver has left and sweeps the pavement. Then she does a bit of the road as well, like the other village women. What do they do it for? To help save on the municipal cleaning bill? Search me. She puts the baby in a high-chair just inside the doorway. I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl and I don’t want to find out either. She puts it in the shade, where it can’t lose sight of her and won’t get dust in its face. Then she sweeps, and from time to time she looks over to the baby and I can see her lips opening as she says something. And she sweeps, then she goes inside again with her baby and her broom.

  I can’t bear it. That used to be my future.

  Gillian It might work. It might be what Stuart needs. And in any case it’s the best I can come up with. It’s horrible to think of him sitting in his room over the road and brooding.

  I started last night, and I’ll go on some more this evening. Tomorrow morning is the time to try it. I know that Stuart watches Oliver drive off – I’ve seen him at the window. And Oliver does get grouchy if he’s had to get up in the night and change Sophie. I normally stay out of his way when it’s been his turn, but not tomorrow.

  With most people, it’s like this: if they’ve done something they shouldn’t, they get angry when they’re accused of it. Guilt expresses itself as outrage. That’s normal, isn’t it? Well, Oliver’s back to front. If you accuse him of doing something he shouldn’t and he has done it, he’s sort of half-amused, he almost congratulates you for finding him out. What really irritates him is to be accused of doing something he hasn’t done. It’s as if he thinks, God, I could have done that after all. As long as I’m being suspected of it, I might as well have done it, or at least tried to. So he’s cross because he’s missed his chance, partly.

  This is why I chose Simone. One of those very serious-minded French girls with a slight frown on their foreheads all the time. The sort of girl who wouldn’t see the point of Oliver. I remember at the vin d’honneur she was pointed out to me because apparently she’d once tried to correct Oliver’s English in class. He wouldn’t have liked that at all.

  So I’ve settled on her. It seems to be working.

  Just out of interest, do you think Oliver’s been faithful to me since we were married? Sorry, that’s neither here nor there.

  There are various problems with what I’m
doing. The first is, if it works, we’ll probably have to leave the village. Well, that can be arranged. The second is, do I tell Oliver afterwards? Or ever? Would he understand what I’ve done, or would he merely distrust me the more? If he knew it was all planned he might never trust me again.

  There’s another risk as well. No, I’m sure I’ll be able to get us back to where we were before. I can manage things, that’s what I’m good at. And after it’s over we’ll be free of Stuart and Stuart will be free of us.

  I don’t think I’m going to sleep much tonight. But I’m not going to let Oliver off his turn changing Sophie.

  I hate doing this, you know. But if I stopped to think more I might hate it so much that it wouldn’t get done.

  Stuart I’m stuck. I’m completely stuck. Paralysed.

  When their lights go out, which is normally between 11.45 and 11.58, I take a walk. But otherwise I stand at the window.

  I watch. I watch, and I think, that used to be my future.

  Gillian I do have this fear. Is that the right word? Perhaps I mean premonition. No, I don’t. I mean fear. And the fear is this: that what I’m showing Stuart turns out to be real.

  Oliver You know what I think? I think they ought to put up road-signs on the Highway of Life. CHUTE DE PIERRES. CHAUSSÉE DEFORMÉE. ROUTE INONDABLE. Yes, that’s the one. ROUTE INONDABLE. DANGER: ROAD LIABLE TO FLOODING. They should put that up at every corner.

  Stuart I go out walking. After Midnight.

  And as the skies turn gloomy

  Nightbirds whisper to me …

  Gillian When I was little, my father used to say, ‘Don’t pull a face, or the wind might change.’ What if the wind changes now?

  Oliver Jesus. Jesus.

  OK, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It won’t happen again. I’m not really like that.

  Christ, on the other mitt I’ve got a bloody good idea to barrel on straight past Toulouse and never come back. Everything they say about women’s true, isn’t it? Sooner or later, it all turns out to be true.