The Infinite Air (38 page)

CHAPTER 34

NELLIE HAD TAKEN GOOD CARE OF THEIR MONEY
in Jamaica. They declared it ‘their’ money because, although Jean had earned it, it was Nellie who had invested and made it grow. ‘Thanks to good old Edward Walter’s tips,’ she would say. ‘Ted did have his uses.’ She once said to Noël Coward, at dinner, ‘I started out with horses and did very well. Now it’s the stock market, and it’s as big a flutter as the gallops. Amazing how it works out.’

On the island, Nellie and Jean had bought land here and there. When it came time to divest themselves of the various properties, the money mounted higher. They were ready to spend some of it. It was enough to keep them drifting through Europe for the next seven years.

After they left, Jean wrote often to Mary, always giving their address as Barclay’s Bank.
We’re in Monte Carlo, and guess how much Mother won? No, she wouldn’t tell me, the wicked old thing
. The climate suited them better than that of Jamaica, the air was drier. Provence was all that they dreamed of. They would spend days walking in the mountain villages. At the village of Èze, near Nice, Jean had discovered an artists’ colony and taken painting lessons. She thought her watercolours weren’t too bad, and they would return so she could learn more later on.

Spain delighted them. Jean had long spoken fluent Spanish and found it easy to blend in with the locals. Granada especially appealed to them. They stayed in an old monastery within the palace gardens.
We could have stayed there forever. It’s hard to describe the Moorish palace. The gardens were exquisite. Almond trees were in bloom, with
the snow-covered Sierra Nevadas in the background. Everywhere we went the Spanish people were so kind to us, hospitable and untouched in their manner by tourists.

Every letter was finished with an enquiry about the progress of Mary-Jean. Mary would reply with the details of local fêtes, and how her poppies had won first prize at the garden show. Of the locals, she wrote little, and nothing at all about Ian Fleming. Sometimes she enclosed a photograph of her daughter. They made plans to meet in Paris in the spring of 1954, though somehow they missed each other.

Nellie now fulfilled some ambitions of her own. She had always wanted to go to Italy. ‘Everyone should see Venice once before they die,’ she proclaimed, once she had been there, but really the whole country stole her heart. From Venice, she and Jean drove to Verona, because Nellie wanted to see the presumed home of Juliet Capulet, with its courtyard and stone balcony. And then nothing would do but that she saw Leonardo’s fresco of the Last Supper, so they drove to Milan. They spent some weeks in Florence, where Nellie succeeded in climbing all the stairs to the top of the Duomo. But her ashen face at the end of the ascent frightened Jean.

‘I think we should stay put for a while, Mother,’ she said.

‘Well, as long as it’s warm,’ Nellie replied, ‘I’m sure I can cope. Don’t write me off just yet.’ She had caught her breath, and put her shoulders back after the descent.

FOR A LONG TIME THEY WERE TORN BETWEEN
Provence, Italy and Spain. In the spring they found themselves often at Cap d’Ail. They would be in London and the sky might be grey one morning when they woke. Let’s go to the Riviera, one of them would say, and they would be packed by lunchtime, ready to take the night train to Dover, followed by the morning train to the south.

Churchill took his holidays at Cap d’Ail. One day in 1955 a letter came from his private secretary, inviting Nellie and Jean to cocktails,
and from then on they were often the Churchills’ guests. Sometimes they went together, other times Jean was alone, driving the Austin she kept in France over the winding road to the Churchill villa. When they had eaten, everyone would stand and look along the sea coast, while they marvelled at the lights, the dazzling colour that swept around the bays, then up to the mountains, towards Italy. One evening in late spring they ate a simple entrée of rock melon and ham —
le jambon
, Clementine Churchill murmured, testing her French — a chicken dish to follow, some caramel custard to finish. Jean was sipping a glass of champagne.

‘Now don’t you go drinking too much of that stuff,’ Churchill said, ‘not when you’re going driving around those corners. You know the bloody French, you have to watch them.’ He’d drunk four whiskies before dinner, a bottle of champagne with the meal, and had just begun his second Cointreau. ‘I’m laying off on the drink,’ he said. ‘Doctor’s advice. I’ve given up the brandy.’

‘Very wise, I’m sure, Mr Churchill,’ Jean said.

‘You’re quiet tonight, Jean. In fact, if I may say so, you’re getting like that Greta Garbo. She’s got a place around here. You bump into her at all?’

‘No, I’ve always hoped we might meet, but we never have.’

‘Yes, I can understand that, what is it they call you, the Garbo of the skies? Now she’s what you’d call a recluse, keeps herself to herself.’

‘So they say.’

‘You don’t want to turn into one of those. You need to get out and about. How old are you? Forties, eh? Same age as my daughter, Diana. She’s a bit melancholy in her ways. Are you melancholic, Jean?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ She had met Diana Churchill once, and found her an agreeable companion at dinner, although she sensed a despair never far from the surface. She didn’t want to compare her own state to that of the other woman.

‘Down in the dumps? You get that way sometimes?’

‘I think everyone gets sad when they remember the past.’

‘Anything in particular?’ he persisted. ‘Oh, excuse an old man’s impudence, but I like you, damn it.’

‘Flying was my life, and now it’s gone. That’s all, everything has gone. I tried to get over it in Jamaica. Well, it didn’t seem to work really.’

‘You shouldn’t have stopped flying.’

‘Your government decreed it,’ Jean said.

He paused, his stomach rumbling, while he cleared his brain. ‘Oh yes, that Nazi fellow, of course.’

‘Only he wasn’t, as it turned out.’ She turned the stem of her glass around in her fingers, before placing it on a side table. ‘That’s life, I suppose, always half-full.’

Churchill blew a long stream of cigar smoke towards the window. ‘We couldn’t be too careful in those days.’

‘I think I should be going now, Prime Minister. If you’ll excuse me.’

‘Well, we can talk about it another day,’ he said.

His wife had remained seated at the table while this exchange took place.

She looked anxious. ‘Winston, that’s enough. Jean, you’ll come back and see us again, won’t you?’

‘Oh yes, I expect so, some day,’ Jean said, her voice deliberately vague.

Jean
had
seen Garbo at Cap d’Ail. She had glimpsed, one day, a woman sitting alone at a table in an outdoor cafe, smoking a cigarette, a glass of rosé in her hand, seemingly unguarded. A large hat shaded her face, and she wore dark glasses. But Jean knew. She had studied the angle of the woman’s head, a certain way of turning it, for so many years, that she knew she wasn’t mistaken. Garbo had not worked throughout the war and there had been rumours about where her sympathies lay — unfounded, as it had turned out, just as they had been about Jean. She hadn’t worked since then, and in this, too, Jean saw herself as a kindred spirit. Garbo knew the work that had gone before was its own statement.

Jean hovered, wondering if she might approach the star. Garbo moved uneasily, as if she felt eyes on her, the aura of self-containment about to be undone. Jean understood then, that what she had seen was enough. They were connected, even if the actress did not know it, never would.

Sooner or later she knew that she and Nellie would have to stop moving and find a home. Jean wanted a place that was quiet, somewhere where she didn’t have to make an effort any more.

Nellie was now in her eighties and a decision about a home couldn’t be delayed much longer. It came about quite suddenly. They were in a small fishing village called Los Boliches in the south of Spain. The houses were white on the hillsides and the twin bays as blue as any they had ever seen, even in the Caribbean. Nellie caught a chill, despite the warmth of the sun. A doctor was called, who suggested bed rest for a week or two. She recovered quickly, but their weeks in the village stretched into months, and before they knew it, they had found the perfect villa on a hillside and bought it.

They called it La Paloma. The name was suitably Spanish and, Nellie claimed, it was the song Fred was playing in the room next door while she gave birth to Jean. She spoke of Fred more often, of late, and with a fondness that appeared to overlook their parting. Jean didn’t always respond warmly when Nellie’s memory stretched back into the past.

‘Remember how happy we were in Rotorua? I can still see you climbing that gate and setting off down the street. You were a determined little creature even then. And Fred coming home and lighting his pipe while I prepared the dinner, and all five of us sitting round the table.’

‘I’m happy now,’ Jean said.

‘I know, I know, dear. I was just saying.’

‘How happy we were in Rotorua. Well, perhaps, but I was too young to remember much. Thank goodness we’re in a place where nobody knows us now. That makes me happy. No one can find us.’

They may have believed they were the only people to have
discovered the village, but soon others came. Tourists filled the streets and the villas on the hillsides began to fall into British hands. Jean found herself glancing behind her, as if someone might tap her on the shoulder, say her name. It was time to go again. They sold La Paloma, and all their possessions except for their clothes, and some battered suitcases containing documents and old newspaper clippings, then set forth for a holiday in Morocco.

From there the car was shipped to the Canary Islands. They decided that this was where they might stay, on Tenerife, a place that seemed remote and too difficult of access to attract any but the most dedicated traveller. They liked the wild and varied nature of the landscape, the mountains and the ravines below, and the steady climate. The Island of Eternal Spring — warmth all year round, without excessive heat. The population had dwindled during the Spanish Civil War, as thousands of its inhabitants had fled, and parts of the island seemed virtually uninhabited.

In the village of San Marcos, Jean found rooms for them to stay in while they searched for another perfect home. There was a tiny kitchen, and a toilet outside. The main room was airy and white-walled, furnished with two beds that served as couches during the day, a gate-legged table and two upright chairs standing near the window. Behind the house stood a volcanic mountain, and before them lay the sea, lapping against a shell-shaped beach of black sand.

Nellie would turn ninety in three months’ time. Her movements had become slower. When Jean suggested a walk Nellie would agree, on condition that it be short. If they were to do more travelling, they must keep fit, Jean would remind her mother.

Nellie said to her one day, ‘Darling, I think I’m going downhill a bit.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ Jean cried. ‘You’re just not eating enough.’

Nellie folded her hands in her lap, and didn’t reply.

Jean looked at her mother, her thin frame supporting shoulders that had become slight. She took up her basket and set off for the markets, choosing freshly caught parrot fish, oranges and green beans. When she returned to the room, where Nellie still sat in the
same position, Jean steamed the delicate seafood and the beans, and sliced an orange.

‘Come on,’ she coaxed, ‘eat up, darling.’

To please her, Nellie sat at the table Jean had laid and decorated with a small vase of white daisies. She picked at the food, and murmured, ‘Delicious.’ After a few mouthfuls, she put her fork down. ‘I’m sorry, darling. That’s all I can eat for now.’

She didn’t eat the next day, or the day after. ‘I’m going for the doctor,’ Jean said.

‘I don’t want you to leave me,’ Nellie whispered, ‘not just now.’ She had dressed that morning, with Jean’s help, putting on a grey silk dress and a cardigan, even though it was midsummer.