Perfect Freedom (14 page)

Stuart got used to shopkeepers greeting him on his trips into town with, “Did you see Chevalier? He was here yesterday.” Or: “You should have seen the Prince of Wales. He was so drunk he had to be carried back to his yacht. He was with an American lady.”

They heard that people had started buying up abandoned houses in the town and remodeling them, with plumbing and roof gardens, but it was slow to affect the appearance of the place.

It was the summer following Robbie's thirteenth birthday that forced Stuart's attention on the changes. He was struck by the bustle he encountered everywhere, the cars and people coming and going, scaffolding being erected on housefronts, trucks making deliveries in front of shops and cafés, yachts gliding into the harbor. More than once a shopkeeper murmured to him, “For you, monsieur, the price is still so-and-so.” Two events pinpointed the shape of things to come. The first he learned about one day when he dropped in for a drink with Boldoni.

“Here's to you and here's to the end of Boldoni's,” the big man said solemnly, lifting his glass. It was midafternoon and they sat alone under the trellis at one of the long scarred tables.

“I won't drink to that,” Stuart said with a smile.

“You might as well, for Boldoni's is finished. I've decided to sell. What do you expect? These people don't want to eat. They want to drink and dance on empty stomachs. They behave like pigs. When people are well fed they are happy and cheerful, if sometimes a bit rough.”

Boldoni's eyes wandered to the legend painted on the wall. In his mind, Stuart saw the tables crowded with laughing, shouting fishermen and their women, the soft air washed by moonlight, and he heard the gay tinkle of the mechanical piano. He found Boldoni's news unaccountably saddening. Was money taking charge even here? Thank God, it couldn't touch him. He was protected by his vast domain. He sighed and finished his drink and told Boldoni how sorry he was.

During an equally casual encounter with Odette, she told him she was going to get married to a man called Etienne Dunan, the proprietor of one of the new cafés on the port, La Bouillabaisse. Their desultory affair had trailed off some time earlier, not because of the canceled debt, which he would have hated, but because she was beginning to meet men who could offer her a future. He withdrew discreetly. Now, he bombarded her with the intimate questions the past gave him the right to ask. She looked proud and flustered and Stuart was glad that her life was taking such a satisfactory turn, for Dunan was apparently a brilliant catch, young and on the way up. She deserved it. It made what was happening to the town less deplorable. Such good fortune could never have befallen her a few years back.

He and Helene went to the wedding. Etienne Dunan turned out to be a muscular young man with ordinary good looks but a controlled vitality that somehow suggested danger. Stuart felt that he wouldn't be a pleasant man to cross.

He thought a lot that summer about Robbie's schooling. It wasn't Robbie's education Stuart was concerned about, but his complete lack of contact with other children. If he had had any brothers or sisters the problem would have been less acute. Stuart couldn't help indulging in fancies about that other child, though he knew they were absurd. Reason told him that if he had really left Marguerite pregnant a speedy marriage would have been arranged and the child placed beyond any claims he might have made. He didn't take his imaginings seriously but he couldn't suppress them altogether when he thought about Robbie's solitude.

He wasn't displeased with the way the boy was turning out but thirteen was a difficult age and it was time for the toughening process that could come only from being thrown with his contemporaries. He had heard that the French-English school at Cannes was excellent but also expensive. He now had over forty acres of vines under cultivation and in a couple of years there would be no problem, but that was too long to wait. He decided that if that autumn's vintage turned out well he would enter the boy after Christmas, for the second term. The conspiracy was about to unfold, however, that was drastically to affect this decision and a number of others for several years to come.

His first intimation of it came from Antonin one sunny autumn afternoon. They had been hunting together, though it had turned out more like a stroll since they had shot only a few small birds.

“Have you heard they've found an heir to the Ladouceur place?” Antonin asked. The question was posed too casually for it not to seem significant.

“Is that so?” Stuart asked. “The place's been abandoned for twenty years or so, hasn't it?”

“Since the war. Fifi Ladouceur was killed and the widow died giving birth to their first child. The child was born dead.”

“And now an heir has turned up?”

“A cousin, I think. For a long time there was a dispute between the Giraudons and the Ladouceurs about part of your property.”

Stuart thought of Maître Barbetin's warnings and he felt resistance stiffening in him. “The Ladouceurs have no claim whatsoever. I went into it thoroughly. That is, Maître Barbetin did.”

“So much the better, if you're satisfied,” Antonin said. They emerged from the wood at the side of Stuart's vineyard. Antonin stopped and gestured. “Here's the place.” He might have planned the conversation to coincide with their arrival at this spot.

“Yes, I know,” Stuart said. “Something to do with the beach there and the strip that goes up by the onions.”

“You can't see it so well since you've been planting more vines.” The farmer moved forward, pointing out imaginary boundaries. “The Giraudons never had vines between here and the ridge there. Here. You can see. From the beach across to here and then on all the way over to that clump of cypresses—the far ones in line with the lighthouse. It cut the Giraudon place in half. At one time, the Ladouceurs tried to stop the Giraudons from crossing it to go from one part of their property to the other. Of course they couldn't. It's a nuisance, though, the way land is divided up sometimes.”

“How many times must I tell you?” Stuart insisted. “There's nothing whatever to support any claim of the Ladouceurs.”

“Yes, of course, that's what you believe.” If Stuart hadn't such confidence in his neighbor, he would have suspected in his tone a trace of satisfaction at the prospect of trouble. But could this new Ladouceur heir make trouble? Of course not. Anybody who had waited twenty years to claim an inheritance wouldn't involve himself in an ancient undocumented feud.

At lunch, Helene noticed a break in Stuart's usual good temper. He seemed preoccupied and spoke sharply to Robbie several times. He had made a mental note to drop in on Maître Barbetin one day soon, just to reassure himself. Not that there was the faintest possibility … The next time he went to town, he stayed away from the notary's office. Inquiries seemed like an admission of some uncertainty about his position.

A few days later, he received a note from Odette. He read it with his other mail at lunchtime and put it down where Helene could see it. “Funny,” he said. “There's a note from Odette asking me to come see her.”

Helene was working around the stove and paused to peer over his shoulder at the letter. “From Odette? How grand she's becoming. Could she be having trouble with her husband already?”

“I wonder. I better go in this afternoon. She says it's important.”

He found Odette installed behind the cash desk of her empty bar, knitting. She greeted him cheerfully but her old spontaneity was smoothed over with professional cordiality. The way she rolled up her knitting, let herself down from her tall chair, and set about putting glasses and a bottle on a tray struck him as well ordered, possessive, every gesture somehow suggesting the careful handling of small sums of money.

“You got my letter? It's nice of you to come so quickly. I perhaps should have suggested coming to you but it's difficult without a car. Etienne hopes to get one next year.” As she carried the tray down around the end of the bar, Stuart thought he detected the slight broadening of her body that he had expected. The decor was nautical and he had to stoop under a fishnet to join her.

“It's warmer back here away from the door,” she said as she started to pour them drinks. Stuart took the chair opposite her and tried to fix her in his mind as the simple girl he had been so fond of.

“How is everything?” he asked with a smile.

“Oh, everything's wonderful. The season was a bigger success than ever.” Her old manner suddenly shone through.

“I'm glad for you,” he said. “You deserve it.”

“Tu es gentil, chéri.”
She blushed and clapped her hand to her mouth and giggled. “Oh, dear. I must remember not to call you that. I don't think Etienne would like it.”

Stuart laughed at her slip and began to feel more at home. “Tell me all about it,” he said. “Do you know this is the first time you've ever asked to see me?”

“I know, but this is important.” She hesitated an instant and then went on, “I suppose you've heard about the Ladouceur place?” A pang of alarm made Stuart shift in his chair.

“The Ladouceur place? What about it?”

“We've heard they're going to try to get back part of the Giraudon place that belongs to them.” She paused to let this sink in and then with the pleasure of revealing an unsuspected silver lining, “Of course, I've told Etienne all about your place. I remembered there was this question about the Ladouceur claim when you bought. Well, Etienne has some friends who will buy the disputed area from you. Think of the money you'd make. If they go to court, it might drag on for years.”

“Cheerful prospect,” Stuart said. Well, he couldn't say Maître Barbetin hadn't warned him. But four years ago it had seemed to make so little difference whether there were a hundred acres more or less. Now it was his living, and four years of hope and effort. What if the land were worth millions? He didn't want money. “What do these friends of yours want with it anyway?” he asked.

“They want to build a luxury hotel on the beach, for one thing,” Odette said, “and villas. The thing that's holding St. Tropez back as a resort is the lack of good beaches and land for building. Everything belongs to farmers who are too stupid to take advantage of their opportunities.”

“I'm afraid I'm with the stupid farmers. St. Tropez has changed enough as it is.” That settled it. He must see the notary immediately. It distressed him to hear Odette talking like a real-estate developer.

“But think of the progress that's been made,” she said. “Everybody benefits. Do you remember what it was like when we first came here? There wasn't a shop where you could buy anything less than ten years old.”

And you didn't have any money to buy anything anyway, he thought. And it was fun. “Yes, well, I'm very happy for everybody,” he said wearily. “And it's nice of you and Etienne to think of me. But I'm just not interested in selling. Let the Ladouceurs do what they will.”

“You're making a mistake,” she said with sudden sharpness. He didn't like her tone as she went on, “I think you will change your mind. But don't wait too long. These friends of Etienne are naturally anxious to act as quickly as possible.”

“Naturally,” he agreed sardonically. And then because it seemed wrong to hold her responsible for some scheme cooked up by her husband, and because he didn't want misunderstanding to cloud the real gratitude he felt toward her, he put his hand on the table so that the tips of his fingers just touched her arm. “Don't get mixed up in this,” he said, “and don't
you
change too much.”

Her eyes softened for a moment and then she looked down hastily. His fingers exerted a slight caressing pressure on her arm and her body tightened as if she were making an effort to control herself. You've learned your lesson, she was telling herself. It was all over but she could still teach him that she counted for something.

“You don't understand,” she said in a strained voice. She seemed on the verge of saying more but managed only, “I'm trying to—” She broke off.

“Sure,” he said. He gave her arm a final little caress and withdrew his hand. She watched it close around his glass. “Don't let's think about it any more. Here's to you. I must go. I'm a workingman.”

He stopped after he had passed through the cluster of tables in the deserted playground of the port and looked around him, sorting out his thoughts. The clear October air was fresh off the sea. Hard blue wavelets slapped smartly against the hulls of three yachts with stripped spars laid up for the winter. Stuart looked vacantly at the empty tables set out on both sides of him. L'Ancre, La Tante Claude, La Bouillabaisse. Brightly painted signs proclaimed their identity. A pile of building bricks and a cement-mixing machine lay in front of an arched doorway.

Another café in preparation? The more the merrier. And hotels and villas until you wouldn't be able to tell the place from Monte Carlo. That was what Etienne and his friends were after. Well, so much the worse for St. Tropez. Stuart was dependent on the town for marketing but otherwise his life was tied to the land, which didn't change. He would see that it didn't change.

What was Etienne up to? Why handle it through Odette? He pulled his sweater down over his trousers and started off toward Maître Barbetin's office.

He reached it by instinct, like a horse going home, so it was rather a shock after he had entered the door to be confronted by a young woman behind a modern desk in an unrecognizably redecorated anteroom. For a second he thought he must have made a mistake and was on the point of leaving when he recognized the chandelier hanging over the young woman's head.

“Maître Barbetin?” Stuart said to the girl, who was looking up at him questioningly. At this, her mouth dropped open and she took a quick breath.