The Widow (23 page)

‘Well of course. I do it myself, I understand perfectly. Bloody good luck, I say – you couldn't do better.'

Lightning tour, down a glassed passage, into a hothouse, out and into another. Some coolish, dry, others hot and humid. Close stifling smells of greenery. Quantities of turf mould and special soils, piles of little pots. Three or four earnest bearded young men doing the little, careful, handcraft chores with minute seedlings that were bathed in special light and heat, cosseted with automatic sprinklers, potioned with magic mixtures, flipped inside six weeks into sweet little bushes thick with flowers, all forced with skilful artifice. Frightful disappointment waiting. Three weeks later the darling thing blew its mind, languished and died. Well so what? You went back and bought another. They weren't dear. Cheaper than cut flowers.

‘Fascinating,' she said, meaning it. ‘Mail order, almost.'

‘Not quite, because they're so fragile. But we deliver with the truck, all over. Germany, Switzerland, anywhere you like. Damn complicated. That was what Albert was so good at. We'll have to be getting a computer, ha.'

‘How are you managing?' asked Arlette sympathetically.

‘Ah, my wife used to do it,' said Mr Taglang. ‘She laid off a few years ago – to have a family, you know. Got the main threads in her head still. Full-time job, though.' He seemed to enjoy talking to her.

Why not? People liked her, showed her confidence. Not just that she was a good listener. She was a happy person, said Arthur, and it showed. And a good person, he added. People feel this goodness. They feel they can rely upon you.

Pooh, good. What's that? Good as gold, people say. Gold will buy a lot? Won't lose its value? Is nice to work with? Ductile, a good conductor? Heavy, nice to touch and agreeable to wear? Warm, and solid? A golden mediocrity, that's me.

You have innocence, said Arthur.

I'm ready to believe good of people. I hope I don't lose that. Why always believe the worst, of everyone? Why always show suspicion and mistrust?

Mr Taglang was a nice person. People who are genuine enthusiasts always are. A man sunk in his work, loving it. These plants are more to him than a means of making money. The way he speaks of them: you can tell at once.

‘What are these?'

‘Camellias. They're resting. Mustn't bring them on too soon. Lovely things,' caressing the foliage. ‘See them in bloom – come back in January. You see, that's when people need them most; in February when things are gloomiest. And these the azaleas. Ponticas and japonicas.'

‘I never can tell the difference.'

‘One is deciduous – look, just coming into leaf.'

‘Most places this month are obsessed by those horrible chrysanthemums.'

‘Yes of course, to put on graves for All Saints. Being marketed now – the work is finished. No, they're not horrible. I don't touch them though. One can't do everything. Some people do bulbous plants, lilies say. Roses, carnations. There's room for everybody.'

‘The little lemons are sweet.'

‘One of my main interests. Slow, and difficult. I'm working with some success on accelerating them, and on miniaturization. A full size orange tree is too much for people mostly. You can have a little mandarin though, fifty centimetres high in full fruit. Do the same with lemons – even grapefruit. Why not?'

And make lots of money doing so. Why not? Nothing wrong with that.

‘All this glass – must be expensive. Big investment. Risk Capital.'

‘Yes indeed,' seeming pleased. ‘Costs a fortune. Got to take the risk though.'

‘Bank take a pretty favourable view?'

‘M'yes.' Perhaps it was the one question too many, too nosy. Or he didn't like to think of the mortgage the bank had on him.

‘I'd love to buy one of those.'

‘Not those though. Too immature. Die if you took it out now. Find you a natural one if you like. Won't bloom for you till spring though. Too long to wait?'

‘No, I enjoy the waiting and the wondering.'

‘Most people are too impatient. Want it all now.' They had come back to the outside of the office. ‘This lot's been outdoors all summer. Ready to move in, now.' A dark brown woman, wearing a becoming shade of pink, could be seen through the glass, telling the girl off by the gestures made. A camellia in bloom. Pretty. That would be the wife.

‘How about this? Quite a pretty shape.'

‘Lovely,' feeling for her purse.

‘Twenty francs. Ach – you were a friend of poor old Albert's. Make you a present.'

‘That's really kind. You'll miss him.'

‘Yes indeed. The technical side – they're tricky you know, like animals, they need constant care and attention – just about swallows me. My wife looks after the packing and shipping. All that indispensable voyaging about, Albert used to do all that. I'll just get you a piece of paper for that.'

The woman was standing, looking at Arlette with curiosity. Couldn't see much of her through the glass. Another man was standing too, farther back; she couldn't make out the features. Taglang crossed, carrying green tissue, a sheet of florists' wrapping paper, stopped for a few words. Came out with the pot wrapped.

‘You are kind,' gratefully.

‘'S nothing. Bring it to the car for you.'

‘Wouldn't have thought there'd be so much voyaging.' Just to be saying something.

‘Christ, yes. Holland, England. Stuff doesn't come up with the rations. And the other way, the distribution. Frontier taxes and so on. This yours? Pretty. I like these Lancias.'

‘But you prefer a Jaguar,' laughing.

‘No no,' laughing, ‘that's my wife's. English taste! Mine's the Porsche. You know what they say; that's not a car, it's a way of life.'

‘And that gorgeous thing – a Ferrari is it?'

‘Maserati. Belongs to a friend. Associate,' abruptly. ‘That's okay lying. Don't stand it up. Branches are fragile; let it fall and you'll spoil the shape. Okay? Glad to have met you.'

‘It was fascinating. And I'll come in January. For a camellia.'

‘You do that. Bye, now.'

Arlette drove back into town, thoughtful.

The student of Greek lived across the river from the lycée and the Rohan palace. On the quay itself is a row of picturesque ‘Alsacien' houses that feature on picture postcards, have been elaborately restored, and are becoming snobbish, like the Marais of Paris. But behind is the Sainte-Madeleine quarter, stretching over to the Krutenau and the horrible ‘Suisse' streets, dank, lightless and cheerless. The church is nothing to boast of and neither is the primary school, and neither is the commercial college where girls troop to become office staff.

Lying in the middle of all this is a little rectangle with trees; the Place des Orphelins. The houses are shabby, the trees few and dispirited, the parked cars almost welded together. The inhabitants have won, though, a notable victory. They have forced the municipality to declare it a no-parking area, and have already won a bit of terrain, roped it off, and have a good plan for more trees, a bit of grass, a bit of peace, a few benches
where the old can sit quietly. Everyone is hoping, and Arthur Davidson one of the most hopeful, that the idea will spread. So many little squares like this. The idea of recovering tiny markets, artisanal workshops with outdoor show-spaces, the old pavement life under plane trees (and with orange trees?) could easily be twee and selfconscious. But one hopes. If the islands could spread and link – ah, this could still be a lovely town. Violence, fed and nourished by that hideous invention the automobile – ah …

Arlette found a shop, tiny, dark and smelly, where you can buy little cards of press-studs or hook-and-eyes, buttons, zips, bias binding or bra elastic. There was a tiny, dark, smelly little woman who looked on her with suspicion, spoke Alsacien, admitted without enthusiasm to speaking French. It is in these quarters that one realizes that Strasbourg is not French, any more than it is German. What did either country ever do for us, beyond a vague idea of making money somewhere from the deal, and acquiring a nonsensical prestige from pushing the frontier farther? Yet the cross-fertilization from both countries is exactly what makes the place interesting. There are those who would like to turn Alsace into yet another horrible little nation-state.

Michel lived upstairs: in fact the old biddy was his auntie.

These minute crooked houses, looking as though a poke would set them tumbling, built for dwarfs, are not very habitable. Nobody knew better than Arlette who had spent, by preference, years in the hideous Rue de Zurich. No heating, no sanitation, and you knock your head all the time. The younger generation – so incredibly tall – solves this problem with ingenuity. It takes up Japanese attitudes on the floor, throws out that clutter of tables and chairs that people born before the war need in order to be comfortable. Bed? – nonsense, a mattress will do. There is no space left on the floor? Hang it up like a birdcage. Michel had screwed things in the ceiling beams, secured planks with cords, slept up there airy among the geraniums.

Often there is no furniture at all, and they lie on the deck
quite happy, a dictionary on one side and the record-player on the other. Michel, a thoughtful hammerer and tinkerer at bits of wood, made his own furniture. Who wants to buy any? Hideous, wretchedly thrown together, and fearfully expensive. Arlette was offered the only chair there was, a canvas one on an aluminium frame which served as spare bed, if anybody needed one.

He was the usual basket-ball-player's size, with Joan of Arc hair, a silky black moustache he had never bothered shaving, fierce eyebrows like Monsieur Pompidou's, aluminium glasses and candid gentle eyes. A very soft voice, an engaging casual hospitality.

The walls were full of pictures. A few of the expected ones, Toulouse-Lautrec posters, Cretan dolls, lovely broken columns not-quite-Doric and not-quite-Ionic, enough of both to be interesting, fifteenth century Persian miniatures, and so on. Much too that was less expected, Gothic, primitive – Flemish, very suitable to this architecture. He looked like a Clouet portrait himself, when the glasses were off, in a high-necked, long-sleeved black blouse with silver embroidery. Face very male, and yet feminine too as often at this age, and altogether a bit like Mary Queen of Scots with a moustache. He was sorry he hadn't any cigarettes: would she like a bottle of beer?

Here at least Arlette did not feel handicapped by her lack of experience. She had had two sons, on the whole successfully. Even the closed one, the difficult one, who never uttered, of whom his father complained that no contact was possible at all (since whatever you said he was never listening) and who treated you with negligent affection as though you were a lovable but mentally deficient dog, had never been the anxiety to her he'd been to everyone else. A man was always so defensive and selfconscious. They loathed that, and put on the bored look. That particular one used, when spoken to about anything serious, to let his jaw hang and his eyes go glassy, so that Pa, a monument of patience in all his professional dealings, became intensely irritable.

One had to avoid heavy-handed tact. Nothing but the truth will do, and that as plain and short as possible. Anything that smells of cant, humbug, hypocrisy or an ulterior motive, and you lose them. Michel took some convincing. Was she the cops or the social worker or the Ministry of Education? No? Then something governmental, departmental, municipal? Neither? Then, if he might ask without seeming rude, what the hell was she? The family! Because really, sorry you know, but he didn't want to get involved. Oh, she was just in it for the money? That was all right; didn't see anything wrong with that. But if they were paying her then she was kind of ambassador from the family, right?

‘No, she came to me herself. The family wasn't pleased at all: in fact they were hostile. Once convinced that I wasn't trying to twist their arm, then they showed themselves anxious to help. Without her knowing about it. I'm not in a easy position: I don't want to do anything behind her back and I mustn't abuse her confidence. I come to you because you probably know her best.'

Michel, crosslegged on the floor, looked at her, and thought her over, shared a bottle of beer into two mustard glasses, and embarked on a sketch of Marie-Line.

‘Une Paumée'; a duck with a malformation of the wing. An emotional one, safety valve jammed, brimming all the time and threatening to blow its boiler. A nice girl, a pretty girl, a warmhearted girl, and with a conspicuous talent for doing the wrong thing. He had liked her a lot: he still did. She'd some very good qualities. Didn't want to sound a prig, but she was a very entangling person and she slopped over. Vulnerable. Cramped and who'd blame her, with that goddam family. She'll be all right, if people let her alone a bit. They won't, and she goes on tumbling into disastrous situations, and getting a black eye, and one's got to build up her confidence. Not knock it down. People pick her up, and then drop her because she's a bloody bore, and that's all wrong. You might think me selfish, or coldblooded, and I don't care if you do, but I didn't want an emotional relationship with her because she's a mess,
on my account, and on hers because she's not able to handle it and she only gets wounded.

She's pretty, and she's highly attractive, and I did once go to bed with her, and that was wrong and highly foolish, and I tried to make it up to her, and I hope she feels she can rely on me. She drinks and becomes reckless. Dope of some sort, wouldn't be surprised. They're always experimenting with some rubbish. Not from me she never got any, I don't see any use in it and it's certainly bad for her. Reckless enough as it is.

This other Michel? An art student? I've heard of him. She's talked about him. Doesn't interest me, don't much like what I hear. Didn't welcome interference from me so I wasn't about to attempt any. That wouldn't do any good. Don't know where he lives; try the Beaux Arts.