Jigsaw (26 page)

It could be said that I had or I had not had a sexual experience before. I didn’t know how to evaluate an incident that took place a year ago. A connection of Alessandro’s, a cousin much removed, was staying with us for a few days at Les Cyprès. He was a handsome fellow, older than 
Alessandro, tall, with curly brown hair and a noble face, and he was one of the dullest and dumbest men I’ve ever met. He could outdo mute Englishmen in talking about the weather, which where he came from did not give much scope. He was stupid and obstinate and single-minded to boot, and much teased by family and friends. They called him Tempo-Bello, because his stock phrase was
Oggi fa tempo
bello
. Today the weather is fine. It was a pity: with his looks he ought to have spouted Il Tasso.

He asked me to go for a walk with him after mass. He was able to assemble that whole sentence. I told him I never went to mass. Then agreed to meet him afterwards at the church. It was an autumn Sunday shortly before my return to England, and already a bit cool on the beaches. We could walk on La Cride, a promontory where one
sometimes
had picnics, then climb down to the sea for a quick swim off the rocks. I knew every inlet. When I arrived at the Place de Sanary I saw Tempo-Bello lounging outside the church. He had, as was the custom of Italian men of his caste, not joined the congregation but loitered at some paces from the door for the duration of the service. (When they hear the sanctus bell, they approach, stand in the doorway, genuflect, cross themselves, presumably say a prayer. After the elevation of the host, they are free to stroll away.) Tempo-Bello and I drove to La Cride and set out for our walk.

Flung over his shoulder was the white and scarlet cloak to which his family was entitled. It was a stylish thing out of a Carpaccio painting or the bull ring. When we came to a fine-branched ilex, he flung it on the ground. La Cride on a Sunday noon is an isolated place. I thought he wanted to rest and smoke, and sat down beside him. There ensued, at once and in complete silence, what I had read about as heavy petting. I was too surprised to be taken aback and almost at once surprised again by entirely unexpected and delicious sensations. When we stood up again – he did hold out his hand to help me – Tempo-Bello picked up his cloak with a swing and resumed our walk as though absolutely nothing had occurred. He was his smug self and entirely composed. I was not, but concealed this, waiting for a lead from him. None came. No word, no smile, no caress. Up to this I could have taken what had 
happened as natural and friendly. His silence made it into something appalling. Shameful, furtive,
wrong
. I became wordless myself. We went back. (I did
not
want to bathe with him from the rocks.) When we got to Les Cyprès I was struck by panic. In a few minutes I would be sitting down to lunch with my mother and Alessandro. What if they suspected, what if they guessed? How would I be able not to give something away? Now I felt fear as well as guilt. I was unable to look at Tempo-Bello; if only he would not come in, find some excuse … He did come in, leaving his cloak in the hall. The teasing started at once: Did we have a nice walk? I turned to hide my face. ‘What did you talk about? What was the subject of conversation?’ ‘He told me
che fa tempo bello
.’ How did I manage to trot out the old joke? How did I manage to sit through the next hour? How did the others not notice my state of acute embarrassment? Embarrassment,
that
was it. That was what remained.

The next day Tempo-Bello again asked me to go for a walk.
Passeggiata
? he said. He’d got it down to one word. Like Walky to a dog. So had I. I turned away with a flat No. The day after he left. In spite of the terror at that Sunday luncheon, I soon got over the incident. It had not, I told myself, invalidated the seductive ethos of the Kislings’:
if one is friends, it’s all right to make love
. Tempo-Bello was
not
a friend and what we did was not making
love
. So that was that. I told nobody; but that was because I didn’t know anyone suitable to tell. It could be seen as a comical story, what with the cloak and the insistence on mass. (Years later I did tell it to someone. To two people in fact. First to Maria Huxley who said, Do tell Aldous, it’s the kind of thing he likes to put in his books. I did, and he was much amused, and I did another volte-face – I was rather annoyed: I thought he lacked feeling and did not see all the points.) When my younger self had reflected on the episode, which was seldom, there remained only, as I said, that residue of embarrassment. There was also the faint memory of those delicious sensations.

Frédéric. What
he
would have said to me I shall never know for we both fell fast asleep. One moment I had felt entirely lucid – rather
pleased:
Now I do know and it is surprising also not surprising at all
. I remember feeling that. (Young persons do not really need diagrams or instructions from parents or school.) If anyone was surprised it was probably Frédéric when he met no resistance. He was very sure of himself – this was evidently not a new experience for him. I did my best not to let him suspect that it was that for me. It didn’t hurt very much, nothing to fuss about; mildly disagreeable all in all. There were
no
delicious sensations. I didn’t like Frédéric any the more or any the less, I distinctly wished it were someone other than he, but did not know who. It must have been at this point that I plummeted into sleep.

Next thing was a knock and someone inside the door. It was
Alessandro
fully dressed with broad daylight shining in from the
un-shuttered
window. He didn’t look at the bed, or more to the point, at Frédéric and me in the bed with the sheet quickly drawn up to our chins. ‘It’s a quarter to seven,’ he said in our direction, ‘get ready and get going.’ He looked awful. Alessandro could look melancholy and fine-drawn, now he just looked wretched. ‘I knocked up a garage, they are mending the tyre now. Meet me there as soon as you can, it’s called Excelsior and it’s almost next door.’

I was still too much in sleep to take in implications, and so I dare say was Frédéric. We did as we were told. In the corridor on our way down he gave me quite an affectionate peck on the cheek. ‘
T’es un
brave type
,’ he said. I was a good sport. He was looking at it as a windfall. Well, so in a way had I.

From the garage we drove off at once. We would stop again at eight o’clock, Alessandro told us, when post offices were open, and send a telegram to your parents, with luck they’ll get it within an hour, they must be sick with worry.

Frédéric came to.
Oh, good God
, he said and began looking awful too. All turned now to poor little Cécile always so cowed by her ferocious mama. (I still had visions of Madame on that beach accusing me of drowning Annette.) Cécile astonished us by firmly saying, ‘We had a burst tyre, it can happen to anyone, they can’t eat us.’ She didn’t look frightened, she looked serenely composed. Then I was struck by a 
new thought. So I could see was Frédéric. Had the disgruntled man at the hotel led
them
too into a cubicle with one bed? It was more than likely. Then …? No, that was not thinkable. Frédéric’s face said, my sister? My thoughts, my mother?

I could not see – awake now – much sense in a telegram preceding us by little more than an hour when they had expected us back the night before. Alessandro and Frédéric though felt the need of such a buffer. We sent it from Cogolin. I remember what it, after some discussion, said:

Car breakdown all well arriving soon
. We had discussed concluding either with
tendresses
from the Panigons or
amitiés
from Alessandro and me, or with both. In the end we just put our four names. That was Frédéric’s idea, in case they thought that
panne
was softening for
accident
and one or more of us were dead.

Getting off the telegram was an achievement, we allowed ourselves to linger at Cogolin for some coffee. Alessandro had a Fernet-Branca at the
zinc
– he had a hangover, poor man. I had not. I felt fine; the party spirit was alive again. I went off to find a
boulangerie
to get croissants; Frédéric went with me. When we got back to the café, Cécile was holding Alessandro’s hand, discreetly disentangling it when she saw us approach. Frédéric turned pale.
What shall we do
? he said to me. We sat down at their table, shared out the croissants, pretending we’d seen nothing. Alessandro was having his second Fernet-Branca. Cécile coaxed him – maternally! – to drink some coffee. She looked radiant.

We stopped once more and that was for a brief swim off a small beach east of Hyères. It would make us feel more presentable, we said. After that we went straight on. Alessandro drove, with Cécile in front; Frédéric and I sat in the back. Well out of sight-line of the driving mirror (
that, too, he had done before
), Frédéric put his arms around me tightly – nothing more – and kept them so as we were speeding along, and there they were again, the delicious sensations. Faintly but recognisably. I gave myself to them. (With little connection with Frédéric.) I also did some thinking: This is
not
a love affair. Perhaps it 
could be said that I’d had an affair with this boy (I put it in the past tense). It is not what I want. He was still holding me and I wanted it to go on: my thoughts were paradoxical, given that situation.

As we got near our destination, the silence in the car was broken.
What shall we say
? was the gist. It was his responsibility, said
Alessandro
. Fat lot of good, said Frédéric who had become agitated. ‘You are both stupid,’ said Cécile, ‘listen to me,’ and again she astonished us. ‘We had this flat tyre – they can see the wheel, the one in the boot …’

‘When did we have this flat tyre?’ Frédéric shouted.

‘After dinner – too late for the post office – so then we
had
to spend the night at an hotel. That’s all.’

‘Too late for a garage?’

‘
Mais oui. Nous avions dîné un peu tard
. How could we have imposed the dinner hour on Sandro’s friends? We’ll apologise of course. They’ll be furious, they like being furious, Papa too, and because they’ve been anxious. They may not be so very furious in front of Alessandro.’ (Mightn’t they? I thought.) ‘It’ll pass. What can they do to us? In eleven months I shall be twenty-one.’

‘We’re not talking about eleven months,
ma fille
, we’re talking about
now
,’ said her brother. Alessandro just groaned.

None of us mentioned the pitfalls in our tale. Each surmised; none asked questions. It was decided that the brother and sister accompanied by Alessandro – naturally, as the outing’s host – were to face the music. I was to be dropped off at Les Cyprès, the assumption being that the less there were to be cross-examined the safer. One less to blush.

As we were driving through Sanary, I saw Oriane Desmirail walking through the square. Instantly I asked Alessandro to stop, to let me out, I’d remembered something I had to get.
Do
stop. I said
Bon courage
to Alessandro as they drove on to whatever awaited them. I forgot to say goodbye to Frédéric. I was off like an arrow.

I caught up with Oriane on the port about to get into her car, the small Citroën. Oh, there you are, she said, Philippe and I have been looking for you.

‘We’ve been to Saint-Tropez.’ 

‘Ah. You’ve been making
la bombe
.’

‘We did rather.’

‘Deserting your friends. We wanted to help you clear up, and we wanted to ask you to dinner last night.’

‘
Oh
,’ I said, ‘if
only
I had known.’

She raised an eyebrow and took this up. ‘If only …?’

‘I would have gone to dinner with you.’

‘Quite right, instead of gadding about with those boring Panigons.’

‘How did you know?’ I said.

‘Somebody saw them in your car. Everyone knows everything in Sanary.’

Not everything, I thought.

‘Saint-Tropez
is
fun, or didn’t you have any? Why would you’ve rather had dinner with us?’

I knew the answer to that. With sudden clarity.

‘Diane,’ I said.

‘Diane who?’

‘Diane chasseresse, Diane the Goddess.’

The eyebrow again. ‘Yes …?’

‘
You
,’ I said.

‘Astride a 4-CV Citroën?
Malheureuse, vous me rendez ridicule
.’

‘Is that a quotation?’ I said.

‘It is.’

‘
You
could never be ridiculous,’ I said.

‘Whereas
you
might?’

‘I wouldn’t mind. I’m only a mortal. May I tell you something?’

‘Would it amuse me?’

‘It well might,’ I said with some grimness.

‘In that case, do tell me.’

I looked at her. Straight. With complete concentration. Then I uttered the three fatal words.

The three fatal words – they are three in French as well as in English though the pronoun is not in the same place – the words every human creature, one hopes – or despairs – uses once, more than once, too 
often, in his or her lifetime. Meaning them, thinking to mean them, not meaning them. I meant them. And when one does that, one is transfigured. Knowledge had descended on me in a span of seconds.

The pronoun I had used was
vous
, a shade less trite than the
t’
. How did Oriane take it? If it is the declarer’s great moment, it is not always the declaree’s. She, poor woman, treated me no better than I deserved, absurd rash young fool. Perhaps a little worse, being Oriane. But then I didn’t know what she was like (that was
one
of the things she pointed out to me). What I had known was that mockery was her strong suit.

‘You’ve chosen an odd time of day for making your dramatic announcement,’ she said, and bade me look about me – housewives who knew us were scurrying around with heaped market baskets looking for their cars. And it wasn’t only the wrong hour, hadn’t I made other mistakes?