Perfect Freedom (3 page)

As they looked at each other, the pleasure they felt in each other's company spread and enclosed them. Helene thought as usual of how distinguished he looked in the midst of this noisy jostling crowd. Even in his rumpled casual clothes, he had great style. He saw the admiration in her eyes and took her hand.

She was grandly beautiful. The fashion of the day didn't suit her. She suggested trailing Edwardian elegance, ropes of pearls, great plumed hats to add shadowed mystery to her enormous dark eyes. She had recently had her hair chopped off and Stuart still regretted it. He thought again of the primitive life he was planning for them and he smiled at the incongruous picture of Helene as a farm woman. He looked around and saw that Robbie wasn't with her.

“Where's our young man?” he asked, taking her arm and turning her toward the car. As he did so he caught sight of a dark, cheerfully pretty girl across the heads of an intervening group and for a moment their eyes met. Stuart lifted his hand in a perfunctory gesture that bore no relationship to the glance they had exchanged.

“Who did you wave to?” Helene asked.

“Oh, uh, Maître Barbetin,” Stuart said as the notary passed ahead of them. Helene saw his scurrying figure and then, turning slightly, she, too, caught sight of the girl. Following the direction of her eyes, Stuart said, “Oh, there's Odette,” feeling like an idiot. Did he think she was blind?

“Don't let's stop,” Helene said. “I left Robbie with that little monster at the inn.”

Stuart shrugged. It was true that Michel, Boldoni's little boy, was not very clean and used foul language, but it was good for Robbie to grow up with all kinds, especially since his difficult birth had made it impossible for him to have any brothers or sisters.

He helped Helene into the car and climbed in beside her and set the enormous thing into motion, all the while telling her about Uncle Ben and Greta Garbo and his brief conversation with the notary.

“We've done everything we can do,” he said as he edged the car around the corner into the narrow main street. “You do think we'll get it, don't you?”

“If you want anything as much as you want this, you usually get it,” Helene said with a little laugh.

“As much as
we
want it,” he corrected.

“Of course,” she said, settling back against the cushions. Of course. Yet all the changes that had taken place in the last few months had left her rather bewildered. The inheritance, Stuart's decision to give up his job, their haphazard arrival in St. Tropez, the weird little man who was ready to practically give away a vast estate, their uncertainty now that he had disappeared—it was a lot to assimilate after the familiar routine of existence in New York. There, their numerous interests, their wide circle of friends combined to give her the illusion of being a normally wedded woman.

It was rather thrilling to be reminded that she wasn't, that they were adventurers, that they were once more embarked on the unknown. Only Robbie provided the drag of domesticity. Already, she had begun to realize that the child who fitted so unobtrusively into their New York life could easily become a source of resentment. As on other occasions, she could have gone with Stuart today if it hadn't been for Robbie. If they were going to isolate themselves, she sometimes wished it could be an isolation shared only with Stuart even though she had always been frightened of becoming obsessively dependent on him. The memory of her husband's mad eyes would always haunt her. Carried to its highest pitch, passion brushed insanity.

The view of the port opening out ahead of her looked as remote from the world she knew as anything she could imagine. It was enclosed on two sides by buildings set well back from the wide quais. They were plastered with a local ochre clay that, in the rays of the setting sun, turned to gold, and they leaned against each other exhaustedly, some of them rising as high as five stories. Painted shutters hung crookedly on their faces, pale blue, pink, orange, faded by the wind and the sea air. Halfway along one quai a sheer wall rose mightily and stopped in a jagged clutter of ruined masonry, the remains of a fortified château. Next to it was a dingy bar, the Café de la Mer. At the end were additional fortifications and a squat medieval tower.

In the port, a dozen or so wide clumsy-looking
tartanes,
the coastal traders, creaked lazily on the still water, their painted hulls glowing deep red, black, dark green in the late sun. Two of them were being loaded with bundles of cork. An ox drew a heavy cart laboriously along the quai. Otherwise the port was quiet. St. Tropez in the autumn of 1930.

Stuart brought the big Rolls to a halt near the Café de la Mer. “Let's get Robbie and go out to the place,” he said. “I want some measurements. I wouldn't mind a swim, either. I'm filthy.”

“That ghastly train,” Helene murmured sympathetically.

“It's sort of fun,” he said.

They penetrated the village on foot through a high, thick, arched portal and mounted a narrow stepped street, across which high pointed arches were flung at irregular intervals. Little groups of old women, bundles of black rags, sat in the street in straight-backed chairs, gossiping, some of them working over long dark coils of fishnet. Children went careening by. Men were scarce. Helene and Stuart nodded occasionally to people they passed. Because they had been living at the inn, they had had little opportunity to know many of the tradespeople but those they'd met had struck them with the agreeable eccentricity of their business methods.

“I don't know the price. I will have to look it up. You can pay next time.” Who could bother to look up a price for the sake of a few centimes?

After a steep climb, they came out at the top of the village in front of Boldoni's inn, which commanded a view of the whole bay and of St. Tropez's orange-tiled roofs.

Robbie must have been watching for them because he came hurtling out of the inn to greet them. He collided with Stuart's legs and hugged him. “You're back, Daddy,” he shouted. He looked up at Stuart adoringly. “Did you buy our house? What's an
emmerdeur
?”

“I'll explain if you really want to know. It's not a pretty word.”

“Is it something you can't say in front of ladies?” Robbie asked hopefully. He was big for his nine years and both Helene and Stuart had contributed to his features. His mouth was his father's, with the slight fullness of the upper lip; his eyes were enormous like Helene's and his hair was dark like hers.

“Most definitely not for ladies,” Stuart said with a wink at the handsome little boy. “Want to come with us? We're going for a ride.”

“Sure. There's nothing to do around here. Michel is an awful boy.” He moved in close against his mother and they started down through the town again. Stuart experienced a twinge of jealousy as he watched the child put his arm around Helene's waist and he promptly mocked himself. Look at me. Pay attention to me. It was downright sordid. He stayed a little behind them on purpose to see if Robbie would turn to include him. When he didn't, he told himself that it served him right for thinking of such a silly little test.

“What
is
an
emmerdeur
, Daddy?” Robbie asked again as they were driving out of town. He looked tiny bobbing about in the extensive reaches of the back seat.

“Well, you know what
merde
means, don't you?” Stuart asked, stealing a glance at Helene. She didn't always approve of his frankness with the boy.

“Yes,” Robbie admitted with a trace of hesitation, the enormity of the word beginning to dawn on him. By the time Stuart had completed his explanation, the child had subsided into self-conscious silence. He wanted to be the good boy they expected him to be, but it wasn't always easy to get it right. They praised him for his sweet nature, his nice instincts, his good manners and truthfulness, and he hoped they were right about these things but he wondered sometimes. They of course were perfect, like God, but he couldn't help noticing that they often took opposite sides, without actually putting it into words. His father enjoyed talking to him about all the interesting naughty things that kept catching his attention; his mother obviously felt that a good boy shouldn't find them interesting.' He did his best to satisfy them both.

They followed the road that led out to the end of the peninsula, passing vineyards, scattered farmhouses, an occasional terrace of olive trees. Eventually they turned off to the left toward a wooded rise. The road grew increasingly difficult, twisting through uncultivated land sparsely broken with pines and high cane. As they reached the top of the rise at the edge of the wood, the road narrowed still more and Stuart stopped the car. They dismounted and continued on foot along the cart track. This was the beginning of the domain that Stuart hoped would soon be his.

The trail descended gently through cork oaks and pines, offering occasional glimpses of the sea. They walked in silence. Under the trees, crumbling retaining walls indicated that this whole tract had once been terraced.

The trail took a final turn and came out into a wide glade just above the sea. Seven thick twisted olive trees had survived the encroaching forest here, and just beyond them was the ruin of the one-room stone house. Below, red rocks jutted into the water, enclosing a short sandy cove.

Stuart stopped and looked toward the house. The day had had a special importance after all; the meeting with his uncle made him feel that the place finally belonged to him. He even hoped for some sign of M. Giraudon's return, but all was silent. He shrugged and put his arm around Helene and hugged her to him.

“I'm going to plunge stark naked into our sea,” he exclaimed. “It shall possess me as utterly as I intend to possess it.” She laughed and pushed him from her. He peeled off his clothes and stood carelessly naked, his body lean and finely muscled. Helene caught her eyes wandering admiringly over him and, remembering Robbie, turned hastily away. She was intensely jealous of his body and the casual way he exposed it made her feel it more acutely; she couldn't help thinking of him in the full splendor of his erect masculinity. If Robbie weren't here, he could easily coax her out of her clothes.

“How about you, infant?” Stuart demanded of the boy. “Coming in with the old man?”

“I'll stay with Mummy,” Robbie said, avoiding looking at his father's nakedness, too. “I've been in dozens of times today.”

“Okay. You can start building the house.” Stuart ran down the rocks and plunged into the water.

He emerged sleek and glistening and quickly clambered up to where his family was waiting for him.

“What a pair of loafers,” he said, panting. “Come on. Get to work.” He splashed them both with his dripping hands and snatched up his clothes and the meter stick he'd brought from the car and ran off down the clearing. Helene and Robbie rose obediently and followed him.

“Why does Daddy go without his clothes?” Robbie inquired.

“He thinks it's healthier—more natural,” Helene said hesitantly.

“What's natural?” he asked.

“Why, darling, you know what natural means. Like nature. After all, we aren't born with clothes on.”

“Why do you wear them then?”

“It's a matter of habit. Perhaps if I live here long enough I'll get used to going without them, too.”

Robbie had never seen a naked woman and recently he had had reason to grow curious. It was obvious that they had much fuller chests than men but a little girl he had seen under circumstances he was not soon to forget had seemed to be made differently from boys in another significant way.

“I've never seen a lady without any clothes,” he said as if disclosing a gap in his education that somebody should do something about. Helene managed a hoot of nervous laughter and rumpled his hair to cover her embarrassment. No, this really wouldn't do. She would have to tackle the question with Stuart once more. Robbie was too young to be subjected to Stuart's “naturalism.” She was relieved to see him putting on his trousers as they approached.

Robbie, quick to sense withdrawal in his parents, wondered what secret was being hidden from him. Were women deformed in some way so that they couldn't take their clothes off? An impulse to talk it over with his father, who was always ready to talk about anything, came and went. After what had happened this summer, he had begun to feel that there were some things he didn't want to know about, for his mother's sake. He hoped they were going to live here. He wouldn't have to go back to school; he had found it awfully easy to get into trouble at school, although he hadn't been caught at anything very bad. Once, here, away from the inn and Michel's influence, he doubted if he'd find anything to do that he need be ashamed of.

“Here, youngster, take hold of the other end of the meter,” Stuart said. “I want to see how big our house is.” Robbie hastened to assist. They measured the foundations of the ruin while Helene watched with fondness touched by envy as she thought that father and son seemed almost the same age. Stuart straightened and calculated the height of the roof. As he did so, he peered in through the one small window. There was a hole in the roof, a litter of filth around a rusted iron cot.

“Now that the money's on the way, I want to get estimates for stones and cement and tiles for the roof,” he explained to Helene. He turned back to Robbie. “We've got to build an addition for you. How big do you want your room?”

“Well, I'm not very big yet but I'm growing,” Robbie said judiciously.

“All right.” Stuart drew lines on the ground with the meter. “There. How's that? Measure it.” He handed the meter to Robbie, who measured with infinite care. Stuart hooked his arm through Helene's and started wandering about with her, talking animatedly of his plans. “We'll have to get that well cleared. And here we could build an outdoor kitchen. Down there.” He led her away from the house past the row of olive trees to the sharp drop down to the cove. “I thought it'd be good to have some sort of shack so when it's really hot we can sleep by the water.”