Night Without Stars (6 page)

After a bit he came back from the window and said: “ You have a pleasant flat here, monsieur.”

“Pleasant enough.”

“Nice is empty now. The summer season has not yet begun.”

“I hope it will be a good one.”

“On the contrary. The world is still very much upset. We have all suffered much from the war.”

“Of course,” I said sympathetically. “ Comrades in arms, and all that.”

I could tell he was eyeing me.

He said “You're blind, aren't you, M. Gordon. You disguise it well.”

“I get along.”

“Yes,” he said, “Alix told me. Women are sympathetic creatures.”

“I know. The surest way to their hearts is through a hard-luck story.”

“Ah? You've found it so. A psychologist once told me that a woman is never happy unless she has something or someone to mother.”

“There's a profound truth hidden in that.”

He was ill at ease; I could hear him rubbing the shaved skin of his cheek.

“Of course,” he said, “ in a woman there are the two interests. There is the pity for a lame dog. And there is the love for a whole man. Unfortunately there are some who might confuse the two. That could lead to trouble all round.”

“Only trouble surely,” I said, “for the lame dog?”

He thought that one out. “ Yes. Trouble for the lame dog if you prefer it.”

“But supposing the lame dog has nothing to lose and is willing to risk it?”

“Everyone has something to lose, monsieur. Even if it is only his self-respect”

It was a good reply. I offered him a cigarette, which he refused, and then lit one myself.

I said: “ The parable's so thin that the bones stick through. Can't we do without it?”

He napped the table with something—his gloves, I think.

“Yes, we can. Alix belongs to me, M. Gordon. I have come to tell you to keep your hands off my property.”

“That's rather a big claim, isn't it? What's your title: absolute, qualified or possessory?”

“It will soon be absolute, since you choose those terms.”

“Does Alix know?”

“Naturally”

“I congratulate you.”

“Thank you.”

He waited and scraped his chin again. “And now …”

“Now?”

“I should like your promise to keep out of my affairs.”

“I don't understand. What have you to fear from a—lame dog?”

“Nothing. But I find your interference offensive.”

“I could say the same about your visit this morning.”

“I am sorry to be discourteous. But you have brought it on yourself.”

I drew at the cigarette but didn't get much fun out of it. Half the enjoyment goes when you can't see the smoke.

“Of course Alix knows you've come to see me?”

He hesitated. “ Of course.”

“She approves?”

“Well … naturally she is still sorry for you.”

“Well,” I said, “you've made the situation quite clear, as you see it. Probably that's just as well. It saves misunderstanding.”

“I should like some assurance from you, monsieur.”

“I think you're a very lucky man.”

“That may be. But it doesn't alter the fact that—”

“It doesn't alter the fact that that's all the assurance you'll get. I think you're a very lucky man. Now good morning.”

He didn't like leaving on that but I wasn't having any further luck with him. After he'd gone I lit another cigarette rather miserably and shoved the unfinished letter in a drawer. I didn't feel like doing any more at it just then.

A couple of days later I had the long-promised meal with John Chapel. As it happened his wife was indoors with a sore throat, so we ate by ourselves.

It seemed to me that John, with his special consular knowledge, might be the right person to advise on the currency business—also he might know something of Grognard. John was the sort of man who never lived in a town a week without knowing the right place to eat, the safest place to have your shirts laundered, the man to go to if you wanted seats for something that was all booked up, where to find the finest local wines and, probably, the best-dressed cabaret show.

Marriage, I thought, had toned him down. Or perhaps it was just that I hadn't met him since he was twenty-one.

After we'd talked over, rather unfruitfully, the flight from the pound I said:

“There was another thing I wanted to see you about Johnny. D'you by any chance know a man called Pierre Grognard?”

“Grognard?” he said. “It's not a common name. Is that the fellow who's in the catering business?”

“It could be.…”

“The bloke I'm thinking of has three restaurants: one here, one in Monte Carlo, one somewhere else.”

“What sort of age?”

“Oh, about thirty-five; very good-looking if you like the type. A bit on the plump side, or soon will be.”

“That's the man. D'you know anything about him?”

“Precious little. I've seen him sometimes at the Casino playing Boule. A mug's game, Boule, old boy. The odds aren't worth taking.”

“You say he runs a restaurant?”

“Well, I imagine he's beyond that now. He
owns
them, supervises. Very select sort of places.” John chewed reflectively. “The one in Nice is in the Rue Diano Marina. Beautiful food at fantastic prices. Soft lights, sweet music. The only people who can afford to go there are the war profiteers. I shouldn't think he's very popular.”

“Why not?”

“Well, are the new rich anywhere? Certainly not in France. His restaurants were open all through the occupation, of course, and I've heard someone say that they were mostly full of German officers.”

“Is that sort of thing remembered?”

He filled my glass and then his own. “ Good Lord, yes. And will be for years.”

“Have you ever seen Grognard with a girl?”

“What sort?” His voice showed a connoisseur's interest.

“On the slim side, rather tall, light brown colouring—poise but no show, quick on the uptake—oval face, pretty.”

“Uh-huh? I did see him with a young woman about a month ago. She was quite a looker. It might fit. Remember thinking she can't be as young and innocent as she looks if she's with Grognard.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“You ever heard of anyone called Delaisse?”

“No.…” He waited. “What's all this leading up to, Giles?” “I wish I knew.”

Next day was Monday, and Monday was Alix's day off. We'd arranged to hire a small cutter and spend the afternoon fishing, and I wasn't going to be put off by Grognard's visit. There'd been clouds over the mountains all morning but about noon it cleared and we left the harbour in bright sun.

There were all sorts of things I found I could still do with Alix's help, and sailing was one of them. In fact it only needed an occasional word from her to set me right. Sometimes she seemed to see for both of us, and quite often I could anticipate what she was going to say. It was queer the way it had grown up between us in so short a time.

Once we got out I'd intended telling her about Pierre, but I just hadn't the heart to begin it.

Perhaps I was flattering myself, but it seemed to me that she'd changed as well in these few weeks. She'd got younger and more light-hearted, and the flashes of angry cynicism were rarer. I tried to see her in my mind sitting there in the bows, the breeze blowing her hair back from her face. She was wearing a silk frock that slithered when she moved; and she was carrying a big leather handbag with a strap over one shoulder and a zip fastener.

About two the clouds came over again and it began to rain. We were off Cap Ferrat and it meant tacking back all the way, so Alix suggested we should run into Villefranche. We could make use of the freshening wind, and we could get shelter there until the rain cleared.

As we came in, and I followed Alix's directions, I thought of the Villefranche I had seen when I was a kid, and how it had looked so old and so Moorish and so inscrutable. I remembered the cafés and the little shops along the quay set out to attract the sailors when their ships came in; and behind the quay the old town brooding up the hill with its slit alleys and its tunnels, its broken flights and its secretive gateways, which all looked as if they'd grown into the hillside and stood a thousand years. I remembered being in the town once after dark when the few lonely lamps were lit and black shadows stood in the long cobbled streets and cheap music tinkled through the café curtains.

We got in safely enough and ran for shelter. But Alix's frock was soaking so after waiting a bit to see if the rain would ease she suggested we should go up to her friends and get coats and perhaps a change of clothing.

She said a bit doubtfully: “ They are my husband's relatives and friends, you'll understand.”

“There's no need for me to go along. I can stay here while you nip up.”

“No,” she said.“ I would like you to come.”

I followed her along the quay and then up a rising street that ran under an archway and broke into steps. We turned and climbed a few more steps, then over a narrow bridge and along a street which ran parallel with the quay.

“This is the Rue St. Agel. On the corner is the Café Gambetta, where we are going.”

It was the quiet part of the afternoon, but there were four men playing cards in a corner of the café as we went in, and a boy of some sort was in charge behind the bar.

The four men stopped playing. I could tell because the cards no longer moved, and the boy came forward, greeting Alix with a reservation in his voice that was no doubt due to me. Where was Mère Roget? asked Alix. Resting said the boy, it would be worth his life to disturb her till four. She had come with her friend for shelter and dry clothes, said Alix; was Gaston in the kitchen? Yes, Gaston was in the kitchen, and we went through some bead curtains into a sort of inner dining-room and from there into the kitchen.

Gaston, a middle-aged man with a wooden leg, was rattling pans about, but spoke to Alix warmly enough. He seemed a bit uncertain what to make of me, yet I was pretty sure from his manner that he'd already heard of me. The warmth of the kitchen was welcome after the rain. Alix left me there for a few minutes while she went upstairs, and when she came down I could tell that she'd changed her frock. She also brought me a coat of some alpaca material and made me change.

“It is Armand's,” she said. “My brother-in-law. It will be a little short but it will do.”

We went back into the dining-room and Gaston brought us coffee.

“Let's drink it out here,” she said, and we moved out on to an open veranda with the rain drumming on the roof. There was a good deal of space all round us, and I didn't need to be told that we overlooked the bay.

I said: “I don't think you can expect your husband's family to take to me like an old friend, Alix.”

“Oh, that's all right I'm rather glad you are going to meet them.”

“Do they know about Grognard too?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

I said: “ I ought to tell you. I've been going to all day. Pierre came to see me last Friday.”

She was startled. “ Pierre? Where? At your flat?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to warn me against the dangers of trespass.”

“Trespass?”

“Poaching and trespass on his property. The property being you.”

“Oh.…” She picked up her bag and unzipped it, rustled about inside: “How silly of him. How childish.… He has no right to interfere.”

“That's what I thought.” But I should have been happier if she'd sounded more decided.

“What did he say?”

I told her what had gone on.

“And you didn't—ask him about my husband?”

“No.”

“You're very trusting Giles.”

“Not specially so. But I trust you. Why shouldn't I?”

“I have to tell you,” she said, “ that Jacques, my husband, is dead.”

The rain was stopping now; the spots overhead were intermittent, but it was still gushing off the gutter.

I said: “I half guessed that. Or that you'd separated. Of course I wasn't sure.”

She said in a flat unemotional voice: “He was in the Resistance, Giles. He was one of the leaders although he was only twenty-three. He was a journalist; it helped him to get about. Even during the occupation they were allowed some freedom of movement if they pretended to be—not unfriendly. He volunteered for active sabotage work. He was a man without fear—full of high spirits, reckless. Just being with him was an adventure. I met him in February three years ago, and we were married in the April. Six weeks afterwards he was arrested. In May they hanged him in the public square in Nice. They left his body hanging there for a week.…”

I said after a bit: “ I'm so very sorry. I'd no idea.”

“They left his body hanging there for a week. Every day I used to pray, dear God, may they have cut him down—but he was still there. I used to tell myself it wasn't the Jacques I knew and loved, that Jacques had gone, was far away. But it didn't work. He was still
there
… moving when the wind blew, changing colour …” She put up her hands to her face with a sort of defensive movement, but decked it. “ You understand then why people have to be buried—before your image of them is destroyed.”

I didn't say anything. Now that the rain had stopped you could hear the stir of the sea down below.

“I still dream about it,” she said. “I wake up sweating all over. That's funny, isn't it? …”

I said: “ You were very much in love with him.”

“Yes. I was very much in love with him.”

Neither of us said anything then for a long time. There was a canary somewhere chirping in a cage.