The Widow (4 page)

‘Do you think this Calvados will be real, or just so-called?'
Arthur had sense, or sensibility, or just sociological experience enough to leave her alone.

‘Why bother at all?' gratefully. ‘The local marc is good enough: why go in for folklore?'

‘I don't want to go to bed with you,' he said next time they met, ‘I do of course, very badly, but I want to marry you first.' This went on for a longish time.

He did say that this Harriet Vane lark was very tiresome. She asked who this was, and got Lord Peter Wimsey books by return of post. She replied mildly that she hadn't been saved from hanging and wasn't afraid of being thought grateful.

‘If I didn't think you had better arguments than that… as a prospective mistress, you're about a thousand per cent frustration. None the less; Harriet has excellent arguments and is rather nice.'

‘Mm,' said Arlette. ‘Nineteen-thirties intellectual females … bluestocking. Bobbed hair, shapeless skirts. You got them into bed and instantly they began worrying about the Spanish Civil War. Harriet with children … Incidentally I'm too old for childbearing.'

‘He neither considers himself, nor wishes to be considered, in that agricultural aspect.'

‘I've had enough of children. And teaching paraplegics to swim … A lot are teenagers you know: motorbikes …'

‘Heartbreaking.'

‘A professional doesn't see it that way. I was in a swimsuit and a boy gripped me insolently by the tit. Rather encouraging – both ways.'

‘And what did you do?' asked Arthur a little sourly.

‘Oh, held him under water a while.'

These two years were preposterous, Arthur was to say later. And hideous. Work had been difficult too; scrabbling about, lot of politics to have his grant renewed and Get Published. He'd tried to make things up with an estranged wife, who'd married again, divorced again. Fiendish woman.

‘You must have been out of your mind. And that was my fault?' asked Arlette.

‘My doing entirely, where you're concerned. Responsibility.'

‘That's what it all boils down to, doesn't it? Taking one's responsibilities.'

‘Sociology is largely about people who fail to.'

The woman killed herself in the end. Arthur told her at last, spitting blood and mumbling, looking as if he'd just had all four wisdom teeth pulled.

‘
Not
your responsibility,' said Arlette, very firmly.

They were in the village of Illhausern, thirty kilometres outside Strasbourg, but the food has three stars.

‘You must be filthily rich,' said Arlette. ‘Or is there something special?'

‘Strasbourg is quite a good town, isn't it? You know it fairly well by now.'

‘I've thought of moving, often enough. The food's awful, and they've little sense of humour, poor dears. But where's better?'

‘I've been offered quite a well-paid job here. I'm in two minds.'

‘What stops you taking it?'

‘You do, imbecile.'

‘If that's all there is to it, I'll accept. Or is it the well-paid job that's an inducement?'

‘Stop that. You'll agree?'

‘I'll agree.'

‘Waiter, bring me the wine list please.'

‘Do by all means commit follies,' said Arlette. ‘We have so few left.'

‘How nice to see you looking so happy,' said the owner courteously, bringing a fantastic bottle and a waiter to open it.

‘Tell me all about it, then,' she said, tasting.

‘Oh, the Council moves in mysterious ways you know, and several are sociological. Great deal of nonsense about pecking order. Bureaucrats are horribly touchy about their standing. Mine,' said Arthur happily, ‘will be rather high. Too high, no doubt, for the Krutenau.'

‘My dear boy, there wouldn't be room. And will there be room anywhere, for you and me together with all this standing?'

‘I've thought about this problem,' said Arthur. ‘You don't want to go to cocktail parties.'

‘Nor play bridge wearing a hat. Nor live in a Council-of-Europe flat. That rhymes. Must be the wine.'

‘Stop your nonsense. Get our own flat. You choose it. Used to getting your own way, huh? A Bull, of course.'

‘Indeed I am, alas. What are you?'

‘A Fish.'

‘Oh dear,' said Arlette. ‘The combination is appalling. The very worst there is.'

‘Stop being superstitious and French.'

‘Stop your nonsense, stop being French, how much more of this is there going to be? Pull your pants down woman and put a pillow over your head.'

‘I'm being serious. A couple should be a real couple.'

‘Certainly. Axiom of the new sociology. None of this now, Wife, serve us the apéritif and run to your casserole.'

‘Absolutely. I can cook and wash dishes with anyone. You must have, indeed, a professional area of privacy and activity,' said Arthur.

‘I do have a job.'

‘You're not satisfied with it and neither am I. We should be able to find something better.'

‘Agreed,' meekly. ‘I think I'd like some cheese.'

‘I ask that thought should be spent,' said Arthur austerely.

She had to write a letter.

‘Marie-Line,

I took a look at your house at lunchtime; caught a glimpse
of your parents and of you – you didn't notice me; neither did they. That was – of necessity – very superficial.

‘I haven't had time for much; enough to confirm that legally there's not a lot to be done: the law, and judges, give a great deal of weight to the father of the family. And very little to women in any circumstances. We both want to change that, but stuff about equal rights, employing a woman lawyer, wouldn't do us any good in my opinion. Just put everyone's back further up, and that's not in my view the way to handle things. I don't myself want to do anything behind your parents' back: it puts us in the wrong, and gives them that much more leverage against you. I'd like to go up against them openly, and see whether I can get anywhere by tact. I won't do this, nor approach them indeed in any way, without your consent and approval. I'd like you, if possible, to come and see me again. I'd like too, to meet Michel. Perhaps we could have a drink
Chez Mauricette –
what about it?

Yours

Arlette.'

It might sound rather ponderous and the elderly aunt, but that was too bad. She had no experience in this job – as yet, thought Arlette, as yet – but a few common sense principles applied. One was never to play a part, and especially not with young girls like Marie-Line, all strung up and nervous, and given to dramatics, greatly given themselves to playing parts. Her account of herself and her family circumstances might be accurate – at least the observations of lunchtime didn't seem too contradictory. Nothing too fundamentally improbable about the girl's tale, but it was almost certainly exaggerated, and perhaps wildly so. She had heard nothing from the other side as yet …

Once in a quieter frame of mind, in a climate of confidence, she hoped to find Marie-Line able to speak of her parents with a bit more detachment if not sympathy. They were hardly as bad as all that! Some terrain of entente between the father – or the stepma; she recalled that ‘Cathy's not too bad' – and
the unruly daughter should be findable, if each were ready to give a bit.

So get the girl first to give a bit … You can be a mum-substitute if that's what the child wants. You won't get anywhere by pretending to be all youthful and playing comrade. A drink in
Mauricette
is as far as you go. She'd never been in the place: it was just an ordinary pub, always full of students. You don't have to bring them home to tea! – which they'd hate anyhow.

Have to go to the butcher, and there's a lot more rain in the air – take the car. Get this job over first. Is there anything on the tape?

There was. A message from Albert – come while she was out this morning.

‘Ah, good morning, Madame. Just called to say that the details you enquired about, I'm not in a position yet to give you the information you wanted, the price-structures, yes. So we'll just put off the discussion of that for a day or so, until I'm able to furnish you with the uh, figures. So I'll ring you again, shall I? – yes, Madame, yes, we'll guarantee immediate delivery – of course, of course – au revoir Madame.' Now what the hell? – what was this ass Albert playing at now? Trying again to make himself interesting by playing hard to get, with his act of knowing deep secrets that he could not divulge? Why the pretence? Did he genuinely think there was someone listening to him in the office or tapping his telephone? Well, he was only due at six; there was nothing to rearrange. Not going to worry about him now. A mythomaniac, grunted Arthur, and he was almost certainly right. Go and find somebody else to mystify, Albert.

Don't bother changing – the slightly dishevelled look is all right for
Mauricette
, not to speak of that pig of a butcher. She slapped on a bit of lipstick and whipped out. The phone went as she closed the flat door, the way it always did. She wasn't going to turn back – the recorder would register it.

Chez Mauricette
, a few hundred metres up the Boulevard de la Victoire, past that gloomy dungeon of the Zoology
Institute full of coelacanths and suchlike cattle – forbidding it all did sound – was exactly as she expected, an old-fashioned, small pub, rather pleasant. Crowded in the front, narrowing to a bottleneck between the bar and a big stove that overheated the atmosphere, it broadened out at the back, and, as expected, was full of students. Character was given by a huge number of climbing plants going up a trellis, swinging in baskets, in a brass pot on chains – everywhere there was space. The brasswork and the big old stove gave a comfortable Belgian feel.

And there was Mauricette herself, presiding at the bar, making loud jokes and forcing the accent a good deal: it is thought funny, and creates popularity – a small dark woman with an unnaturally black shiny fringe and harsh lined skin, and a smile full of gold teeth.

‘I only want to leave a line for one of the girls – Marie-Line; big tall blonde girl, perhaps you know her?'

‘Sure, no problem. Not seen her today – they drop in after class as a rule.' Mauricette turned to stick the envelope in the corner of the big mirror. ‘Hey,' facing round again, ‘you're not called Arlette by any chance? Note for you too then, from her I dare say.'

She ripped it open. A big scrawl with a felt pen.

‘Arlette I can't get out and I'm desperate – unless you find a way to help me I see nothing else for it – I'll cut my veins. I'm getting Françoise to post this – you can rely on her –

Marie-Line.'

Oh, curse the silly girl.

‘Sorry, I'll have to ask for the other one back – the date's fallen through.'

‘No problem,' indifferently.

Merde – how to word this? Damn, wasn't a table free? Have to push a few armfuls of tropical foliage out of the way and do it on the corner of the bar.

‘I will have a drink after all – got any jenever?' In this postoffice lark, no harm in letting Mauricette see one was of the right blood!

‘You bet. Straight as she comes?' The tiny tulip glass brimming with the colourless schnapps – there was the smell she had missed. Wrapped lump of sugar on the saucer from Beghin-Say – one might almost be back in Holland! She tore a page from her notebook and scribbled.

‘Marie-Line, for heaven's sake calm down and do nothing that only plays into the hands of whoever thinks you behave irresponsibly –' She got an idea, sipped from the brimming glass; Mauricette was hanging about with curiosity. ‘The girl who left this – it must have been just a short time ago?'

‘Françoise!' in a screech. ‘Here a sec.' This was all getting too public as well as too dramatic …

‘Marie-Line gave you this note for me? – wait, would you like a drink or something, I'd like to sit down a minute, just to know what all this is about.' A small girl with an urchin face and an urchin-cut, behind those enormous silly glasses the girls affected. Big pretty forget-me-not eyes, asparkle with interest and excitement.

‘You're Arlette? She told me about you last night. Got into trouble staying out. I should be going to class really – oh rats, I'll cut it. I'll have a beer, and thanks. Come and sit down then. No, the others are going, class at three but it's only physiology, digestive tube or some crap.' The table was littered with coffee cups but a grubby sort of boy brought the beer and her schnapps and whisked them away.

‘She seems to be in a terrific uproar,' in a chilly voice. The girl calmed down, sipped her beer and became sensible.

‘Well, I live nearby. We're friends too. I'm not at that crappy Gymnase, thank God – the other sucker-machine across here.' Miles too hot here near the stove; she undid her raincoat and took a taste of schnapps, wished she hadn't ordered it.

‘Dropped in after lunch; we generally go that far together on the bike. Seems there was a blow-up at lunch. You know about it, I gather.'

‘She asked my advice on a family problem.'

‘Yes, I know. I found the advert, I suggested it. She phoned
from here. And she went to see you – well, she cut a class. The Brutus – that's that old sneak of an overseer they have there – marked her absent and being more or less in the pay of her father phoned him to say Marie-Line's cut an hour and I thought you should know. Well then, the Pater who's absolutely out of Zola was frothing, and he has her under a sort of curfew: she's not allowed out after supper. She was telling me what you said, and was back late, so two big terrible black marks see, and I guess there was a post-mortem at lunch today. Anyhow I rang for her on my way in, and the old bag of a housekeeper made faces but let me in, and Marie-Line had been crying and wouldn't speak, but she shoved that note in my hand.'