‘No matter … Every nation has its share of people who should be marked “Not for Export”.’
After a pause she said suddenly: ‘ My father died in a concentration camp.’
‘Letty, I’d no idea!’
‘Why should you? I do not talk of it.’
‘Perhaps it would help if you did talk of it.’
She did not reply.
‘Was he in the Resistance?’
‘No. But he had an English wife and was known for his English sympathies.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was arrested twice on suspicion, taken to a place in Oslo called Victoria Terrace. The third time he was sent to Oranienburg, near Berlin. Six months after that they told us he is dead, has died – they say of “ pneumonia”.’
‘I’m very, very sorry. You should have said something to me.’
‘Would it have made any difference? It is something I prefer to forget.’
‘Which, of course, you could never do.’
‘No. I have it in my heart.’
When they got up to go she patted his arm and said: ‘Can we walk again? It is so good, this walking.’
When they were outside he said: ‘When did you quit Norway?’
‘In the spring of 1941.’
‘You and your brother and your mother?’
‘My mother and I only. After my father died my brother went into hiding, joined the Resistance.’
‘Was it not difficult for you to leave?’
‘Oh, yes. But we were being – persecuted. It was decided we must leave while we were still free. One night in the spring of ’41 we both stepped out of our flat, closed and locked the door and never saw it again. We took cover in a safe house for a week, then left in the back of a lorry for the Swedish frontier. It took a long time, for we had to lie up every day, and the days were getting longer. We hid in carpenters’ shops, bakeries, caves. Then we had word from my brother that we were to take the train for Trondheim. We were given new papers. That too was a nightmare.’
‘And?’
She shrugged. ‘We got out of the train at a country station. It was dark. We walked in the dark for miles – often through snow. We hid next day. The second night we came to a lake. On the other side was Sweden. The lake was frozen but was beginning to thaw. There was broken ice everywhere. Our guide was an old man. He said we must risk it. There was a half moon and we could see the ice floes, some of them standing up, and black patches between which we were afraid was open water. We stumbled in up to our knees near the shore, but underneath there seemed to be another layer, and we slowly made it across, until we could see the lights of Sweden. Dawn was breaking as we got over. Someone greeted us, two men. They had seen us coming. They helped us – to safety …’
It was a silent walk for the rest of the way home. As a young lawyer Lee had taken a course in psychology, but it was instinct rather than timing that persuaded him to avoid more pressure on her now. He sensed that this vacation was make or break for them. If her feelings were not involved, his were. It had happened uninvited, pretty well against his better judgement. If she cared next to nothing for him it would have been much to be preferred if he had brought Carita, his part-Spanish secretary, who was pretty enough and just divorced and no doubt would have allowed him some discretionary latitude if he had wanted it. But instead it had become this woman and no other.
Tonight he suggested they should take another drink in the Café de la Paix before going upstairs, and she agreed. They sat indoors because a chill wind had risen to spoil the exceptional mildness of the evening. She had allowed him to buy her a fox fur, and she wore this tonight over an off-the-shoulder frock of black velvet. He noticed two Frenchmen eyeing her with interest, as he had seen other glances yesterday. He was not the only man who found her attractive. Her clothes would not set Paris alight; but she had carriage and good looks.
He said something and she laughed at it. She so seldom laughed, and as he had noticed before it was not a particularly musical sound, but he was glad to hear it. The defensive mood was passing.
They sat a long time. Then they collected their keys and went up to bed.
She opened her bedroom door, and he pushed the door open and he went in.
‘Lee …’
He kissed her rather sensuously, as he had kissed no other woman except Ann for a quarter of a century. It pleased him (almost) that he knew how. The fox fur slipped to the floor. He put his hands on her bare shoulders. Some might have thought them bony, but they were warm and fine-skinned, and for some reason inexplicable to science had come to mean more to him then than all the other warm shoulders in the world.
The door, being swayed against, gradually shut, cutting off the light from the corridor; but the bedroom was partly lit by reflections coming through the windows from the café two floors below.
After a little while she gently pushed him away.
He said: ‘Letty, you have come to mean a lot to me.’ He kissed her on the forehead and went out.
V
New comers who arrived at Agadir by the same plane as Lee and Letty had been a little later reaching the Saada because M. Henri Thibault had ordered a hire car to meet them at the airport, and had specified a Citroën DS saloon. Instead he was offered a Renault Four. M. Thibault was an important man. Director of the Banque de Crédit Générale, governor of the St Sulpice Hospital, chairman of the Seine et Oise Charity Schools, possessor of the Légion d’Honneur, he was not tall but impressive in breadth, a man of substance in every sense of the word. His wife, though not of such breadth, was of similar build. They were not used to being cramped together in a small car, which was why they had ordered the Citroën, a car very much like the one he drove in Paris. Even to attempt to get into the small car was an affront to their dignity.
They railed against the man from the hire car agency, who spread his hands in a show of helpless incompetence: the company no longer had a Citroën DS, he said, a former customer had wrecked it by driving off the road into a ravine. At the moment, alas, the only car available was the one they were being offered. In a day or two a Peugeot would become available – not what they wanted, but roomy and almost new. He would go back and tell the office of M. Thibault’s complaint; perhaps something could be done even tomorrow. Today, alas, there was nothing else to offer.
In the meantime the porters had packed their considerable luggage into the boot, with the overflow on the two back seats, and were waiting impatiently for their tips.
Grunting in annoyance the two stout middle-aged people allowed themselves to be edged – or wedged – into the car, the tinny door slammed and presently they drove off down the long, featureless road to the town.
M. Thibaut had been to Agadir twice before on business, so he knew his way to the hotel. His humour was not improved when he reached the Saada to find five similar Renault Fours parked in the drive. They were no doubt hire cars like his own, and it crossed his mind to suspect that the hire company, which was the only one in Agadir, just didn’t have any other make or type to rent. As a man of superior station and achievement he was irritated that there would be no difference between him and other guests.
They climbed out of the car and having been shown to their room, which was on the second floor and the best in the hotel, they decided to go straight down to lunch. Mme Thibault had been in a very nervous, tetchy mood since her daughter’s wedding, and they both felt they deserved a quiet, restful, expensive holiday.
The day was so hot that everyone was using the outside dining-room by the pool. The Thibaults were shown to a table shaded by a big umbrella. M. Thibault, imperialed but not moustached, wore a white suit with white doeskin boots and a black bow tie. He was sweating and irritable and immediately ordered something off the menu that sent the waiters scurrying. Estrella Thibault had once been a very attractive woman and had taken reluctantly to age and fat. Her hair was done in grey-pink curls, and the pink silk dress with its three rows of valuable pearls
was too tight for her high-sitting bosom.
At the next table were an American couple they had seen on the plane; he, much the older, wore a cream linen jacket and dark slacks; she had changed into a flimsy yellow dress that made her look sallow. Beyond them, and eating alone, was a thin, hawk-nosed, nervously active man who chain-smoked through his meal. A small suitcase on the next chair was his only companion.
A few empty tables further on was a dark-eyed beautiful girl in her twenties, in a pale beige sleeveless linen blouse and short beige shorts and red sandals. Sharing the table with her was a good-looking cheerful man of about the same age. He was paying her a great deal of attention, and she was not resenting it.
‘You must tell me again,’ Letty said, fingering the menu. ‘I know potage is soup, but what is potage de Crécy?’
‘Watercress soup.’
‘Ah … And dindon?’
‘Turkey. I’d think the fish would be a better bet here.’
Estrella Thibault said distastefully: ‘Is this the hotel you stayed at before?’
‘It’s the best in Agadir. Of course this is very much a seaside resort.’
‘Perhaps we should have gone to Marrakech. These are – very much – what you might call holiday-makers.’
‘Of course. I brought you here because of the wonderful air. There’s none better in the world.’
‘You sound like your friend, the Governor.’
‘Well … we both need a rest. And M. Bouamrani is giving lunch for us tomorrow. We shall meet such notables as there are.’
‘Few French, I would suppose.’
‘Oh, do not be so sure. Information has been sent ahead as to who I am – who we are.’
Mme Thibault wrinkled her nose. ‘ M. Boum – whatever his name is – is, I suppose, is …’
‘A Moroccan, yes. But of course educated in French ways.’
‘It’s the women so often who let them down. D’you remember the Minister from Senegal who brought his black wife?’
‘Too well. Too well.’
The spécialité was brought and served: jellied eel in Chablis. Thibault complained to the waiter because he suspected they had been fobbed off with a Moroccan white wine. After some expostulations and reassurance the couple decided reluctantly to eat their hors-d’œuvre; and at this moment three middle-aged women came into the restaurant. They were common-looking. However they dressed they would have been common-looking, but their dresses did not help. One was in a violet trouser suit, one in an ebulliently low-cut blouse and shorts of shocking pink and the youngest and best-looking of the three wore a black flowered housecoat over a loose bathing costume.
The waiter was about to show them to a table near the pool, but the eldest and stoutest in the violet trouser suit halted suddenly as they passed the table where the Thibaults were lunching.
‘Tibby!’ she exclaimed. ‘Well, my faith! Regardez! I have not seen you for years. Not since the good old days after the war. What goes? What have you been up to?’
The Frenchman had not risen. He gazed at the speaker, first in alarm, then with extreme hostility.
‘Good day to you, madame,’ he said, and then half rose. ‘Good day!’
The last sentence was dismissive but Laura refused to be dismissed.
‘Let’s see. D’you know Françoise? No, you wouldn’t: she was after your day. Nor Vicky? Françoise, this is M. Thibault, my old friend and buddy. Let’s see, how long is it, Tibby?’
M. Thibault said: ‘ Good day, madame,’ and sat down again and turned to his wife, whom he had made no attempt to introduce.
Laura seemed settled, standing firmly on her thick legs, but Vicky pulled at her arm. ‘Come on, my cabbage, let’s have lunch. I’m starving.’
So they moved on.
Lee’s French, which was serviceable if not fluent, had been able to pick up the interchange. He passed it on in an undertone to Letty. Though they were careful not to look too obviously, it was clear that Mme Thibault and her husband were having words. Thibault’s nostrils were white against his flushed face and little black beard; his wife’s mouth was like a purse from which abuse – or something like it – dripped in muttered monosyllables.
As they sat down four tables away Françoise exploded with laughter. Her full breasts shook inside the low-cut blouse. ‘Dear, dear, Laura, you surely collect ’em! Alors! Who is he? Customer of yours?’
‘Of course. Naturally. That is to be assumed.’ Laura tidied her hair, which was always falling about. ‘Tibby. Years ago. Of course. He was a regular, used to come in once a week, matter of routine, like. What was he? I think a bank manager or something from Crédit Lyonnais. Right little devil he was. Well, well, just imagine meeting him!’
The waiter came to take their order. Laura was feeling peevish, not liking the way M. Thibault had brushed her off. When she was a madame discretion was part of her stock in trade, but she’d been out of Paris for years and now she couldn’t care less. Anyway meeting Tibby like this had been a big surprise. She was on holiday, for God’s sake, and maybe now had enough money not to need to live on men’s appetites ever again, and she was feeling, for God’s sake, lively.
‘Right little devil,’ she said, crumbling and buttering a bread roll. ‘You can’t imagine what his little trick was. Pretending to lose his watch and have six of my girls kneeling down looking under chairs and tables, their bare butts sticking out for him to look at. Then after some minutes he’d choose the one he fancied and take her upstairs … We all knew it was a game, but we all played along and it was harmless enough.’
Vicky giggled, but Françoise laughed out loud.
She said: ‘In the Maison Lapin where I worked for a short while before I came to you, mon chou, there was a man like that only worse, much worse. Mon Dieu! He would hire six girls to lock him in chains, and then they all had to take it in turns to pee on him! Ho! ha! ho!’
‘Please,’ said Vicky, fanning herself. ‘If you will. Let us not have such talk. I wish to retain my appetite!’
‘Merde,’ said Laura, glaring across at M. Thibault, which seemed to close the conversation.
VI
‘Leave it be,’ snapped Thibault. ‘Allow it to be forgotten. She was just a common woman I had to meet in the course of my business and charitable affairs.’
‘Business and charitable affairs!’ snapped his wife. ‘I did not know your charity was extended to trollops like those three. Regard them! What dress! What vulgarity! One comes to Agadir to escape the winter and stays at the best hotel! One does not expect one’s husband to be accosted by the street sweepings of Paris!’
‘Conceive of the fact,’ Thibault said bitterly, ‘ that in the course of a wide commercial and public-spirited involvement in all – all – strata of society, one cannot pick or choose everyone one meets. I certainly cannot be certain but I suppose it was when I was with Crédit Lyonnais – ten or fifteen years ago. A bank, you will perhaps be aware, must be prepared to accept custom, deposits from all conditions of persons and to transact business with and for them. It would be a sorry world if every client who entered the door of a bank was compelled to bring a certificate of moral character! Good God, not all your relations are above reproach. Think of Cousine Adèle! Think of—’
‘Ten years ago,’ said Mme Thibault, ‘a likely story. Even fifteen years ago you were an inspector of banks. An inspector of banks! Not an inspector of whore houses!’
A waiter came to take away their plates, and another to lay fresh places for their second course. After they had gone Mme Thibault said: ‘ Where did you meet her if it was not in a maison de passe?’
‘I cannot in the least remember. I have told you so! I recall her only very vaguely.’
‘She seems to know you well. Tibby indeed!’
‘No doubt when the weather cools,’ said Thibault, ‘you will permit your choler to abate. You are here for a holiday to recuperate from the stresses of the wedding of our youngest daughter, if you remember—’
> ‘Of course I remember! How can you speak Catherine’s name after you admitted friendship with an obvious prostitute—’
‘I admit nothing! And kindly keep your voice down if you do not wish to make us the laughing stock of the hotel …’
The bickering went on for a while, observed among others by Matthew and Nadine, who had decided to share a table for lunch.
‘Do you think they are poules?’ Matthew said, with a nod towards Laura and her friends.
‘Don’t you?’
‘Appearances can deceive but – well, it’s hard to see them as anything else!’
Nadine sipped her wine.
Matthew thought it over, then glanced back at the bickering Thibaults. ‘Hell hath no fury,’ he said, ‘like a woman who has got her husband in a corner … D’you know, I’ve never been in a brothel, either English or French. And it’s not because I don’t like women.’
‘So I observe. But then perhaps you have never had the need …’
‘Need? Oh, I—’
‘I mean because of your looks.’
He half rose to make her a bow. ‘May I quote you?’
‘I mean I do not suppose you have had to run after women, have you? Brothels surely are for men who for one reason or another are deprived. Is that not so? Unattractive men, undiscriminating men, married men who cannot afford a regular mistress, men with kinky tastes, men with uncontrollable appetites, young men who are too timid to develop a proper relationship …’
‘Just men.’
The sky was still heavy, low-lying, dense, the sun hazy, the heat cloying.
He said: ‘Do you have a special boyfriend?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Have you been married?’
‘You tell me you have. But in England it is all so serious. In Paris …’
‘Yes?’
‘When two people live together they are often known as married. When they go through a civil or religious ceremony, they are known as married-married.’