A sparky urchin in a striped blue and white apron appeared from the other side of the square, holding aloft balanced on one hand, several tiers of cakes and croissants, the other hand poised on his hip, for style. He too wafted delicious smells everywhere. He passed them gracefully, grinning, knowing they all waited for the moment when what he carried would leave the counters of the café for their breakfasts.
‘Un moment,’ reproved the café proprietor, though no one had said a word. ‘Un petit moment, mesdames, messieurs.’ He disappeared inside, with a stern air. Because of Sartre, they knew that he was playing the role of Monsieur le Patron, just as the urchin was playing his role.
Sarah could not prevent a pretty desperate look at Stephen and caught him examining her. Appalling. How could their friendship survive such a muddle of misunderstanding?
It was occurring to them all that everyone necessary for the meeting which would decide Julie Vairon’s fate was here. Except for Jean-Pierre.
With the British production there was really one problem—who would be available? Elizabeth had said the last week of August and the first of September would suit her, suit Queen’s Gift, because by then the new building would be finished. She had pointed out that Julie could not be expected to be as popular in England as it was in France, but people were still talking about the evening of Julie’s music, and that was a good sign. Stephen said, apologetically, that they mustn’t think Elizabeth was a wet blanket. ‘She has to be cautious, you see. She thinks I get carried away.’
His eyes met Sarah’s—on a smile. Her heart lightened.
Roy said, ‘Henry, you’re the key to everything. If you’re not free, we’ll forget the whole thing. That means rehearsals through the first three weeks of August and then setting the production at Queen’s Gift.’
‘I’m doing Salome in Pittsburgh through July—that is, from ten A.M. three days from now. So I can make it.’
Up he jumped, took a stroll through tables beginning to fill up, kicked a carton into a refuse can—a perfect shot, and came back to fling himself down. They all watched him. ‘Perpetuum mobile,’ said Roy. ‘How does he do it? How do you do it, Henry? I have to tell you all that this man was dancing and singing in the rain in Marseilles three hours ago in the water cart sprays. Right, Henry. You’re booked for August.’
‘But,’ said Mary, ‘the players. Bill is off to New York the day after this ends here to start rehearsal. Carmen. He won’t be available, nor will Molly. She’s working the rest of July and all August in Portland. Pocahontas. She’s Pocahontas.’
Mary was carefully not looking at Stephen, whose face had crumpled, if only for a moment. He recovered himself and looked at Sarah. The look was not unmixed with irony, so that was something.
‘We need a new Julie and a new Paul,’ said Roy. He yawned. It was the loud and unabashed yawn of a man who had been up most of the night.
To the people whose hearts were cracking open like eggs, the yawn sounded derisive. Mary Ford began to laugh and could not stop. She put out her hand in apology. Roy took it in a fist and shook it up and down, oblivious but matey.
Mary stopped herself laughing. ‘Sorry. Show business. It’s show business…anyway, I asked all the cast last night, and the musicians. They are all free.’
‘All free except for the two important ones. Never mind; some of the Pauls and Julies we auditioned were very good.’ Henry’s eyes closed.
Benjamin seemed asleep. Mary’s lids dropped. Roy yawned again. When the waiter finally arrived, Sarah ordered coffee and croissants for everyone but in a low voice, as if in a room full of sleeping children.
At this juncture Jean-Pierre arrived, with the air of a man not prepared to be apologetic, just because he was later than others who had no need to be early.
‘Everything’s just fine,’ said Henry lazily to Jean-Pierre.
‘I was also up very late,’ said Jean-Pierre.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter; we’ve got everything sorted out,’ said Mary maternally.
‘But the meeting was not arranged until nine, I think?’
The coffee arrived. Smells of sunlight, coffee, hot dust, croissants, petrol, vanilla.
‘There really isn’t much left to decide,’ said Roy.
‘And may I enquire what has been decided?’ said Jean-Pierre.
At the sound of his voice, full of wounded self-esteem, Mary sat herself up, sent Sarah a glance, sent Roy another, and remarked soothingly, ‘What delicious coffee.’ She smiled at Jean-Pierre, who was after all in love with her. He positively winced, and then shook off unfair, not to say corrupting, pressures.
Mary outlined what had been decided. ‘And there you are,’ she concluded.
At this Jean-Pierre presented himself as the traditional Frenchman confronted by the ineffable, however it chooses continually to offer itself, in this case as a barbarous lack of respect for proper form. He slightly lifted his chin, let his lower jaw drop, spread his hands, and quivered with sensibility. ‘And so,’ he announced, having given them all time to get the benefit of his performance, ‘all is decided. But without me. Without Belles Rivières.’
A crisis.
‘But of course we haven’t decided anything for you. How could we? But since Henry is leaving almost at once and you are losing the two main actors when your two weeks are up, it is obvious you can’t prolong your run.’
Jean-Pierre began a spirited speech, in French. It could be seen from Stephen’s face and from Sarah’s—both of them being, as it is put at school, ‘good at’ French—that this was a speech to be appreciated as a performance in its own right.
‘Now look here, Jean-Pierre old chap,’ said Stephen reproachfully, ‘any minute now I’ll start to believe you actually enjoy meetings.’
At this communication from a past epoch Jean-Pierre only looked puzzled. Benjamin, a man of a thousand committees, signalled to Sarah, and then to Stephen and to Mary, leaning forward and holding them with his commanding look. ‘It isn’t strictly my business,’ he remarked, ‘but I do feel the situation would be significantly improved if there was in fact some kind of structured discussion. For instance, surely there must be a decision about finances?’
‘Naturally there must be decisions,’ said Jean-Pierre, already mollified. ‘And if I’d been given a chance to make a statement…it has been decided that we shall have Julie Vairon in Belles Rivières next year. And very likely every year. Next year we shall have a month’s run. Why not two months? It is all a question of the correct publicity.’ And he bowed slightly to Mary.
A silence. They were all contemplating a yearly commitment to Julie.
Stephen’s head was tilted back, and he was staring at the imperturbable blue of the Mediterranean sky with a stoic look. Sarah was thinking, Over my dead body. That’s silly—you’ll have forgotten it all by then. You’ll probably even be thinking it was funny…well, if you do, it’ll be dishonest.
Henry was looking at Sarah as he said, ‘I’ll be free, I’ll guarantee it.’ His terrible insecurity made him add, ‘I mean, if you want me.’
Everyone laughed at him, and Jean-Pierre said, ‘But naturally. I can give you that assurance.’
‘And I give you notice,’ said Benjamin, ‘that I am coming to Oxfordshire for your first night in August. I shall be missing your first night here.’
‘Missing the first night,’ said Henry to him. A jest, but Benjamin actually said, quickly, ‘I’m sorry,’ saw it was a joke, went red, but preserved more than ever the look of a man determined not to be undone by seductive and dangerous ways. He said to Jean-Pierre, ‘I shall be here next year, I can assure you of that.’
Jean-Pierre understood that this was an important moment, in fact a guarantee of financial support. He got up, leaned across a littered table, put out his hand. Benjamin took it sitting, then stood up, and the two men formally shook hands.
‘We can discuss the details in Jean-Pierre’s office,’ said Benjamin. ‘Let’s say half an hour.’
‘Let’s say half an hour,’ said Mary.
‘I have to catch my plane,’ said Benjamin.
‘There’s plenty of time,’ said Sarah.
‘There’s time, but not plenty,’ said Henry.
Here, on cue, the chatter around the tables was blanked out by the screaming roar of three war planes, sinister, black, like some outsize prehistoric hornets out of a science-fiction film, shooting across the sky with the speed which announces, so briefly it is easy to forget they were there at all, that they are from a world of super-technology far from our amateur little lives.
Now the players were appearing, yawning prettily. The circle was enlarged, and enlarged again to include everyone. Bill took a chair beside Sarah and enquired sulkily, ‘It is true there will be a run in England?’
‘Two weeks,’ said Sarah.
‘And I can’t be there. If only I had known.’
‘If only any of us had known.’
‘But you will keep in touch, won’t you? At least there’s two weeks left of this run.’ He was speaking to her like a peremptory young lover. Really, they might have spent the night together. Molly watched the two of them, puzzled. As well she might be, thought Sarah. And Stephen too. Because of Bill’s closeness to his mother, he felt, as much as he saw, Sarah, but between Molly and Sarah was that gulf only to be filled by experience. Molly did not yet know that always, impalpably, invisibly, through the air rained down ashes that could be seen only when enough had settled—on her, on Stephen, on the older, on the ageing, ashes and dust dimming the colours of skin and hair. Sarah knew that this glossy young animal sitting beside her diminished her, leached colour from her, no matter how he flattered her with his eyes, his smile, enclosing her in streams of sympathy. Sarah saw Molly’s serious, thoughtful, honest gaze turn from her to Stephen; the sun was not burnishing him as it did the young ones. He looked bleached, faded.
Sarah said to Bill, knowing her voice was rough, ‘I shall be going home in a couple of days.’
‘Oh, you can’t, you can’t do that,’ said Bill, really upset. ‘You can’t leave us.’ He might just as well have said ‘leave me.’
‘Everyone is leaving us,’ said Molly. ‘Henry…Sarah…’ She hesitated, looking at Stephen. He was again looking into the sky.
‘I shall be here,’ said Mary. ‘And so will Roy. If Sarah is going, then we must be here.’
‘I have a month’s leave due, remember?’ said Sarah.
Here Mary’s raised brows remarked direct to Sarah that she couldn’t remember Sarah’s ever before insisting on due leave.
‘No, Sarah,’ said Henry. ‘Don’t forget, I’ll have to be over for the new auditions. I can fit it in the second week in July. And you must be there.’
‘You mean, no vanishing in July?’
Henry smiled at her, and her heart tripped.
‘Such a wild, marvellous, blissful success,’ remarked Mary, lazing in her chair in a way that contradicted her briskly efficient linen suit. Uncharacteristically lazed, she put her arms back behind her head, exposing tender patches of damp linen. She had the look of an animal offering vulnerable parts of herself to superior strength. Jean-Pierre sighed; she heard it, blushed, and looked upwards, like Stephen. One by one, they all looked skywards. Quite low down, a single hawk circled. Lower and lower it floated, until some rogue breeze blew it ragged and tilted up a wing. The bird rocked wildly to find balance, steadied, circled once on a thermal, and swerved off to the top of a plane tree, where it sat huffing out its feathers. It looked sulky, offended, and this made them all laugh.
By now the café tables were filled with people in some way connected with Julie Vairon.
‘We have virtually taken his café over, poor Monsieur Denivre,’ said Molly.
‘Il est désolé,’ said Jean-Pierre. ‘Guillaume,’ he called to the proprietor, who was attending to customers a couple of tables away—Andrew, Sally, Richard, George White. ‘Les Anglais ont peur que vous les trouviez trop encombrants.’ Guillaume smiled, with exactly the shade of urbane scepticism appropriate. He said, ‘Ça y est!’
‘Why Anglais?’ enquired Molly, exaggerating her American voice. ‘I’m not Anglais. Who is Anglais here—apart from the Anglais?’
Here Bill said, in the roughest of Tennessee accents, ‘I’m English, mesdames, messieurs, I am English to the last little molecule.’
They laughed, but it was one of the moments, hardly uncommon, when Europeans and Americans occupy different geographical and historical space.
The Americans were thinking, Molly—Boston. At least, that was where she lived now. Benjamin—West Coast, even if his accent could only be Harvard. Henry had been born in New York but lived, when he was at home—seldom—in Los Angeles. Andrew had been born, and lived, in Texas.
But the Europeans were thinking, Molly—Ireland. Benjamin’s antecedents could only have come from that culturally fertile region, sometimes Russian, sometimes Polish, the shtetl. Henry—the Mediterranean. Andrew? Scottish, of course.
‘Our American cousins,’ said Mary to Sarah.
‘Our cousins,’ said Sarah to Mary.
Les Anglais all laughed, and the Americans laughed out of good feeling. Laughter was breaking out for no good reason, from all around the tables. The company’s spirits were being lifted, borne on those currents that carry players and their minders towards the intoxications of the first night. The charm, the enchantment, the delightfulness of—well, of what exactly?—were slowly lifting them, seawater setting fronds of weed afloat, splashing dry rock, sending out invigorating ozone.
They sat on, while Le Patron caused the waiters to bring more coffee, and the square filled with vehicles. Not only this town was crammed; so were all the little towns round about, from where coaches would bring people—were already bringing people, at ten in the morning—to become part of the ambience of Julie, her time, her place.
Soon Henry departed to work out with the technicians the problems with sound, and Sarah, Stephen, Benjamin, Roy, and Mary went off with Jean-Pierre to his office. There finances were discussed, particularly Benjamin’s—or rather the Associated and Allied Banks of North California and South Oregon’s—commitment to the new plans. Stephen’s as well, but as he pointed out, since he was an individual, he had only to say ‘yes’. Money was talking. First things first. Money has to talk before actors can.
Then Benjamin flew off to investigate his investment in the Edinburgh Festival. Jean-Pierre insisted they must decide how to get together a much larger committee to discuss next year’s production in Belles Rivières. Sarah, he trusted, would be part of it. So, he hoped, would Mr Ellington-Smith. Regular meetings throughout the year would benefit them all. All this went on until well after two. When they arrived on the pavement for lunch, it was observable that the players and musicians already preferred to be with each other, merging for their test that evening. Henry sat by Sarah. When she thought that this was the last time she would be with him in Belles Rivières—it would if she had anything to do with it—such a feeling of loss took her over that she had to admit if she were not in love with Bill, then she showed all the signs of loving Henry. It occurred to her that to be with Henry was all sweetness, while being with Bill was to be angry and ashamed. What a pity, if it was her fate to fall in love so inappropriately, that it had not been Henry from the first.
Henry returned from a reconnaissance in the late afternoon to say that crowds were already making their way up to Julie’s house and that all the seats had been booked by mid-morning. He reported that several tastefully designed signs with arrows had been nailed to trees, saying in French and in English, ‘One may stand in this place.’ ‘Please respect Nature.’ ‘Please respect Julie Vairon’s Forest.’
By seven the woods all around the house held a couple of thousand people, most of whom could not hope to do more than hear the music. There being no ‘backstage’, Stephen and Sarah, as authors, Henry, as director, went together to where the players stood waiting among the tr
ees, to wish them luck.
The three sat themselves in chairs right at the back, and this time Henry managed to stay seated through the performance. It was all wonderful! It was extraordinary! It was fantastic! These comments and a hundred others, in various languages, were to be heard all through the intervals, and the applause was unending. And then it was all over, and the company were down outside the café again, embracing, affectionate, mad with euphoria, in love and out of it, wild with relief. The brassy little moon, like a clipped coin, stood over the town, and resulting moonlight was satisfactorily moody and equivocal. Les Collines Rouges announced it would stay open as long as anyone was still up, and cars roared triumphantly around the little town. Jean-Pierre could not stop smiling. He had continually to rise and shake hands, or be embraced by prominent citizens of the area, for whom he was embodying all the success of the production. Midnight came and was past. Jean-Pierre said he had to get home to his wife and children. Henry went too, saying he must telephone his wife. He murmured to Sarah that he would be seeing her soon in London, with a look that brought tears to her eyes. Richard left, saying he was tired, looking at Sally but not saying good night to her. Soon after, Sally announced that this old woman was going to sleep. Sarah heard Andrew’s low laugh, saw that he wanted to share amusement with her, Sarah, and, as she too got up, heard him say, ‘Well, how about it, Sarah?’ This was so improbable she decided she had not heard it. She announced that this old woman too had to sleep. Groans of protest that the party was ending. Bill leaped up to accompany her to the hotel door, there enfolding her in an embrace and murmuring that he thought of her as a second mother. She went upstairs white hot with love and with anger.