Perfect Freedom (16 page)

“No, I'd rather tell you now.”

“What are you whispering for?” She joined him in front of the fire, holding the cushions in her arms. He nodded at Robbie's door.

“He mustn't hear.” He looked at her gravely for a moment and then with head averted he told her of Odette's threat of blackmail and of the circumstances on which it was based. He spoke rapidly and it took only a minute to cover the facts, including the part Odette had played in helping them through the difficult period of Robbie's illness.

As Helene grasped the import of his story, a strange hollowness grew in the pit of her stomach. She felt her arms go tense and she wanted to lift her hands and strike out at the head bowed in front of her. The peace she had achieved was shattered in an instant. I don't care, she told herself. Let him sleep with anybody he likes. She saw his mouth moving, with the full upper lip that had once so touched her; she saw his powerful shoulders and arms and imagined them locked around another woman.

“It had no importance as far as you and I were concerned,” he was saying in his hushed voice.

Of course it had no importance. Nothing he does has any importance. That's the meaning of these recent years. It's simply disgust I'm feeling, disgust at his man's body and its trivial needs. She found her fingers clamped into the pillows and she threw them down. He looked up, prepared for an outburst, ready to humble himself in any way. He was astonished to see so little emotion in her face. She looked rather seriously preoccupied, as if he had asked her opinion about some household problem.

“I suppose you should expect this sort of thing if you let yourself get involved with a cheap little creature like that,” she said coldly. She had scarcely dared speak but the words came out quite easily. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing she despised him. Wasn't the fact that she could speak at all proof that she was cured of him? There was no further need of any communication between them. Her life was complete and whole with her child. She was glad they weren't married. It might make things simpler some day. There was no doubt in her mind about where Robbie's loyalties lay.

“It's been rather a blow,” he said. “I didn't think of her as a cheap little thing.” The equanimity with which Helene had listened to him was a letdown and he felt a perverse regret that such a revelation hadn't provoked her to throw things at him.

If only there were a little more money. He would like for them to be able to park Robbie somewhere and go off together, just the two of them, and recapture the old sense of excitement. She had picked up the pillows again and piled them on a chair. She started to turn from him but he caught her hand. “I'm glad to get this out and over with,” he said. “It's good of you not to try to punish me.” He thought she was very beautiful in the flickering firelight as she glanced at him composedly and then looked away.

“Why should I want to punish you?” She was determined to reveal nothing of the crisis she was passing through. She wanted to weep and she wanted to snatch her hand away and she wanted to strike him. Even while she was shaken by these conflicting emotions, she knew that it had nothing to do with now. The deception he was referring to had taken place during the happiest period of her life when she had lived for him and believed in him completely, to the point of denying Robbie the love she owed him. She had been a fool, a wicked fool. She would never trust him about anything again. “If you owe her so much don't you have an obligation to let her have what she wants?” she asked.

“Certainly not. I paid back everything she lent me.” Because Helene was being so sensible he didn't feel he had the right to exact the absolution of an affectionate gesture so he let go of her hand.

“And you're not afraid they're apt to cause you trouble with their legal actions?”

“I don't think they have much of a case. Of course, I've got to find out what lawyers cost. I don't want to get involved in expenses that would make it even more difficult to send Robbie to school.”

She started to take the cover off the bed. “I don't think legal costs are high here,” she said.

“They may realize they haven't got enough to go on. I think they counted on blackmail to force my hand.”

And it didn't work, she thought as she folded the cover briskly. It didn't work because you can't blackmail a man who's willing to tell his wife about his affairs. From now on, she would make the decisions concerning Robbie.

He watched her going through her familiar routine. These were surely the worst moments they had gone through since they'd started living together and she seemed to have taken them in her stride. Perhaps she hadn't yet taken it in. Perhaps there would be a delayed reaction. He squared his shoulders. He was prepared to atone for his transgressions.

Two days later a letter came addressed to Helene. She recognized Odette's handwriting and handed it to Stuart without opening it. He tore it up. Then, with the torn bits of paper in his hand, curiosity stirred in him. What had she written? He held the torn letter thoughtfully, wondering whether she might not have committed some indiscretion that he in his turn might use against her. Then he walked across the room and threw the crumpled paper into the fire. Descending to her level, doing battle with her would become a greater involvement with her than making love had ever been. He had always avoided any real entanglement.

In the next few weeks the attack being prepared by Etienne Dunan unfolded. Papers were served indicating that Ladouceur had instituted suit. In addition, somebody called Marville had taken action to have the sale of the whole Giraudon property declared illegal on the grounds of the old man's insanity. The two procedures were independent of each other and Dunan's name figured in neither.

To Stuart, seeing it all in writing was almost as much of a blow as if a judge had handed down an adverse decision. The unexpected attempt to dispossess him completely made it seem more likely that they might win at least part of their action. Had they prevailed on M. Giraudon to go along with them? He wanted to feel the support of the community and he went immediately to see Antonin.

“
Tenez
. Warm yourself with that.” His neighbor handed him the inevitable glass of cherries. They were alone in the Roquièttas' clean ugly kitchen. The winter rains had started and it was cold and blustery out.

“Have you heard what they're trying to prove about M. Giraudon?” Stuart asked.

“Mmm,” Antonin grunted, looking at the cherries in his glass.

“It's nonsense, of course. Everybody knows the old man was queer but he was quite able to take care of himself.”

“I've heard things that make him sound pretty crazy.” Antonin's sharp seamed face looked stubbornly secretive and Stuart found himself struggling against a sudden distrust.

“Well, the old man himself can prove he's not crazy.”

“But surely you know,” Antonin looked at him directly for the first time. “M. Giraudon is dead. He died over a year ago.” Stuart's heart sank. Maître Barbetin. Now M. Giraudon. Thank God for Boldoni, he thought suddenly. Boldoni was his man. Boldoni had participated in the transaction.

“Well, you knew him,” Stuart persisted. “You can tell them he was sane.”

“Oh, moi, vous savez—”
Antonin had to say no more to make it clear that he didn't consider it his affair. Stuart chose to ignore the remark and hurried on.

“It's good I'm holding out. You know what they want to do? A hotel and villas and God knows what.”

“Yes, things are changing. Still I understand they want to bring water out and electricity. Even the telephone. That would be an improvement. I understand they offered you a good price.”

“I never bothered to ask the price.” Stuart stared at him gloomily. His neighbor wouldn't help him. If he wasn't actively against him now he would be eventually. Community solidarity and self-interest would be too much for him. Only Boldoni was left. He wasn't for “progress.” He would testify to M. Giraudon's sanity. Stuart must look him up right away. He must find a good lawyer.

He finished off his drink and left with a feeling that he would never again be really welcome here. After deluding himself that he belonged, that the faces he saw around him were approving, that his affection for Odette was reciprocated, that Antonin was a loyal friend, what was left? Only Boldoni—and perhaps even he would fail when put to the test.

He had no trouble finding the house on the outskirts of town that Boldoni had retired to. Boldoni greeted him with shaggy cordiality at the glass-paned front door and led him back through a narrow corridor to the kitchen, which was littered with newspapers and magazines. The stove was making a gurgling noise and it was very hot. Boldoni's massive bulk seemed to crowd the room as he moved clumsily to fetch a bottle and glasses.

“You see what I'm reduced to,” he said when he had seated himself, breathing heavily. “It isn't like the old days, eh?”

“It certainly isn't,” Stuart agreed, “and they're just beginning to go to work on me.” He told his story while Boldoni grunted in indignation.

“Well, you should have expected it,” he said when Stuart had finished. “They can't do much without you: They need room to expand. After all, you have the best beach in the region.”

“At least you're still, here. You can tell them I didn't swindle a crazy man.”

“Everybody knows old Giraudon was crazy,” Boldoni exploded, throwing out his arms. “He ate nothing but roots. But he knew what he was doing. He told me his price and he got more from you. He wasn't crazy when it came to money.” He hunched himself over the table studying his glass. Stuart felt considerably cheered.

“That's all I wanted to hear,” he said. “Just don't let anything happen to you until the hearing comes up.”

“Happen to me.” Boldoni grunted. “I sit here all day long. What is there to do? If I go to town all I hear is money, money, money. I hear they have a jazz band at my place and little tables with candles on them. I do nothing but sit here and look at my wife. I'll live forever.” He seemed profoundly depressed at the prospect. Having achieved the purpose of his visit, Stuart encouraged him to talk about himself and stayed longer than he had intended.

Through Boldoni he found a lawyer in Draguignan who had no local interests. The case had given the innkeeper a new interest in life. He admired Stuart's intransigence and Stuart appreciated his support. But it was Stuart who had to pay the lawyer's fees and the cost of his trips to Draguignan and the lawyer's expenses when he came to St. Tropez to search through the records at the town hall in a vain effort to throw some light on the Giraudon-Ladouceur controversy. The case wasn't scheduled to be heard before spring.

Going ahead with his plans for the place, he found himself wondering constantly what he would do if he lost. Boldoni served as a terrible example of a man who had been deprived of his life's work. “I just sit here all day long and look at my wife,” he had said, and Stuart imagined himself saying the same thing in a year's time.

It irritated him even more to realize that all the hotels and villas in the world wouldn't impinge on the charm of the glade where the house was situated because of the ridge that protected it. His decision to fight would have been more generally understandable to others, he felt, if an obvious threat to his privacy had been involved.

Helene awaited developments without knowing whether she wanted Stuart to win or lose. She refused to consider how it might affect him; her only interest was how it would affect Robbie and herself. She was particularly careful that no hint of conflict between her and Stuart should be apparent to the boy. She was determined to maintain her position as the one right, sure, devoted element in his life. As he approached fourteen, she began to speak to the boy about sex and love, of the relations between men and women, not openly but in casual asides about the books he was reading; if there were a villain who mistreated women, she would refer to the ugliness of man's animal nature and conversely to the life of the spirit. She spoke for herself as much as for Robbie, to reinforce the revulsion she felt toward Stuart and the importance she had once allowed him to have for her. She confirmed in Robbie his tendency to close his mind to certain things he had seen and done.

Everything she said fitted in with the memories he didn't allow to surface—that dirty Michel, the horrid little girl from next door. What could they know of the life of the spirit? Everything fitted except for that other memory, too appalling to be thought of at all but which he
had
thought of without being conscious of it, just enough to see his mother as wounded somehow, a sacrifice to—The awfulness of it added to his determination to be always worthy of her ideal, never to sin in that way. It was a bulwark against the guilt of his growing knowledge.

Robbie's interest in painting continued to develop and Stuart denied himself a new coat that winter in order to equip the boy with oils and expensive brushes. Helene encouraged him to think of it as a profession. Painting was just the career she would wish for him. There would be no need for education in distant universities nor the danger of jobs on the other side of the globe.

Whenever the weather was favorable, they took walks after lunch until he found a good spot to set up his canvas and work while she sat knitting nearby.

Robbie's creative ability was, to Stuart, an additional reason for him to pass his formative years with other youths. He had let this school year slip by, had let money slip away in legal expenses, and after his confession he was anxious to please Helene in every possible way, but this fall was the limit no matter how much of a wrench it would be to her to be deprived of the boy's company.

One morning a search for a mislaid tool led him around to Robbie's end of the house where he rarely had occasion to go. He didn't find what he was looking for and started back around the house, glancing at Robbie's window as he did so. Part of the bed was visible and a second glance told Stuart what was taking place in it. He wasn't surprised; it was the most normal thing in the world. What Robbie was holding looked very well developed for his age. Stuart grinned to himself. The boy was going to take after his daddy. Memories crowded in upon him as he was confronted with the fact of Robbie's growing up.