Perhaps my father came here the night before he died, I considered aloud. Ever since I had picked Rob Roy from the shelf I had thought frequently of my father, and remembering the photograph and the expression of the young girl, I believed that my aunt must have loved him too in her way. But if I were looking for sentimental memories I had come to the wrong character a man dead was a man dead, so far as my aunt was concerned.
Order the wine, Henry, she said. You know you have a morbid streak. This whole expedition is a sign of it and the urn which you so carefully preserve. If your father had been buried at Highgate I would never have come with you. I dont believe in pilgrimages to graves unless they serve another purpose.
What other purpose does this serve? I asked rather snappily.
I have never before been to Boulogne, Aunt Augusta said. I am always ready to visit a new place.
Like Uncle Jo, I said, you want to prolong life.
Certainly I do, my aunt replied, because I enjoy t.
And how many rooms have you occupied so far?
A great many, my aunt said cheerfully, but I dont think I have yet reached the lavatory floor.
I got to go home. One of the men at the bar spoke in piercing English. He was a little tight[182] and when he stooped to pat his dog he missed it completely.
One more for the ferry, his companion said. From the phrase I took it that he belonged to British Railways.
The bloody Maid of Kent. My wife was a maid of Kent once.
But no longer, billyo, no longer.
No longer. Thas why I have to be home at twenty-one fucking hours.
Shes jealous, billyo.
Shes hungry.
Ive never loved a weak man, my aunt said. Your father wasnt weak he was lazy. Nothing in his opinion was really worth a fight. He wouldnt have fought for Cleopatra herself but he would have found a way round. Unlike Antony[183]. It astonishes me that he ever came as far as Boulogne.
Perhaps it was on business.
He would have sent his partner. Now his partner his name was William Curlew was a weak man if ever there was one. He envied your father his little adventures he found it hard enough to satisfy one woman. It weighed on his mind terribly, for his wife was really without fault. She was sweet, efficient, good-tempered the fact that she was a little demanding might have been taken by another man as a virtue. Your father, who was a much more imaginative man than people usually thought or your mother realized, suggested a plan to him, for, as William had pointed out, one cant leave a perfect woman one has to be left. He was to write his wife anonymous letters accusing himself of infidelity. The letters would serve a fourfold purpose. They would protect his vanity, offer a reasonable explanation of his flagging attentions, crack his wifes perfection, and might even lead eventually to divorce with his honour as a man saved (for he was determined to deny nothing). Your father composed the first letter himself; William typed it badly on his own typewriter, and put it in the kind of yellow envelope he used for bills (that was a mistake). The letter read: Your husband, madam, is a shameful liar and an ignoble lecher. Ask him how he spends his evenings when you are at the Womens Institute, and how he gets through all the money he spends. What you save on the housekeeping enriches another womans placket. Your father liked obsolete words that was the influence of Walter Scott.
There was to be a party at the Curlews the evening the letter arrived. Mrs. Curlew was very busy plumping cushions; she took the yellow envelope for a bill, and so she put it down on a table without looking at it. You can imagine poor Williams anxiety. I knew him well in those days, indeed your parents and I were both present at the party. Your father hoped to be in at the death, but when the time came to go, and your father couldnt linger any longer, even on the excuse of talking a little business, the letter still remained unopened. He had to learn the details of what happened later from William.
Melany that was her silly name and it sounded even sillier when attached to Curlew was tidying up the glasses when William found the yellow envelope under an occasional table. Is this yours, dear? he asked and she said it was only a bill.
Even a bill has to be opened, William said and handed her the envelope. Then he went upstairs to shave. She never insisted on his shaving before dinner, but very early in their marriage she had indicated unmistakably that she preferred him at night with a smooth cheek her skin was very delicate. (Foreigners always said that her complexion was typically English.) The bathroom door was open and William saw her put the yellow envelope down on the dressing-table still sealed. He nicked himself in three places[184] under the strain of waiting and had to stick on little dabs of cotton wool to stop the bleeding.
The man trailed past our table with the dog. Come on, you bugger, he said, hauling dispiritedly on the lead.
Back to the maid of Kent, his friend teased him from the bar.
I had begun to recognize the gleam in my aunts eyes. She had had it in Brighton, when she recounted the history of the dogs church, and in Paris when she told me of the affair with Monsieur Dambreuse, and in the Orient Express when she described Mr. Viscontis escape She was deeply absorbed in her story. I am sure my father the admirer of Walter Scott would not have told the story of the Curlews nearly so dramatically; there would have been less dialogue and more description.
William, my aunt went on, came in from the bathroom and climbed into the enormous double bed which Melany had chosen herself at Maples. In his anxiety, William had not taken a book with him. He wanted the crisis to arrive. I wont be long, dear, Melany said, busy with Ponds cold cream, which she preferred to any newer brand for the sake of her old-world complexion.
Was it a bad bill? William asked.
Bill?
The one you dropped.
Oh that. I havent opened it yet.
Youll lose it again if youre not careful.
That would be a good thing to do, wouldnt it, with a bill? Melany said good-humouredly, but the words belied her nature she never kept a tradesman waiting and never allowed one to extend her credit beyond a month. Now she wiped her fingers on the Kleenex and opened the yellow envelope. The first words she read, unevenly typed, were Your husband, madam
No, she said, not bad. Just tiresome. And she read the letter carefully to the end it was signed A neighbour and well-wisher. Then she tore it in little pieces and dropped them in her waste-paper basket.
You shouldnt destroy a bill, William said.
A few shillings at the newspaper shop. I paid it this morning. She looked at William and said, What a good husband youve always been, William. She came to the bed and kissed him and William could detect her intention. How tired a party makes me, he said, excusing himself weakly, with a faint yawn.
Of course, dear, Melany said, lying down beside him without any complaint. Happy dreams, and then she noticed all those dabs of cotton wool. Oh you poor dear, she said, youve cut yourself. Let your Melany make them clean, and then and there she busied herself, for ten minutes at least, washing the wounds in chemists alcohol and fixing bits of Elastoplast, as though nothing important had happened. How funny you look now, she said, quite gay and carefree, and William told your father there was no longer any hint of danger in the kiss she planted on the end of his nose. Dear funny William. I could forgive you anything. It was then William gave up all hope she was a perfect wife, uncrackably perfect, and your father used to say that the word forgive tolled on in Williams ears like the bell at Newgate[185] signalling an execution.
So he never escaped? I asked.
He died many years later in Melanys arms, Aunt Augusta said, and we finished our apple tart in silence.
Chapter 18
Next morning, which was just as grey as the last had been, Aunt Augusta and I climbed the long hill towards the cemetery. A shop advertised DEUIL EN 24 HEURES[186], and a wild boar, hung outside a butchers shop, dripped blood, and a notice pinned on the muzzle read RETENEZ VOS MORCEAUX POUR JEUDI[187], but Thursday meant nothing to me, and not very much to Aunt Augusta. The feast of the Little Flower, she said, looking the date up in her missal, which she had brought with her because it was a suitable occasion, but a boar seems hardly suitable. Also apparently the feast of Saint Thomas of Hereford, who died in exile in Orvieto, but I doubt if even the English have heard of him.
Outside the gates of the Ville Haute there was a plaque commemorating the death of a Hero of the Resistance.
The dead of an army, my aunt said, become automatically heroes like the dead of the Church become martyrs. I wonder about this man Saint Thomas. I would have thought he was very lucky to die in Orvieto rather than in Hereford. A small civilized place even today with a far, far better climate and an excellent restaurant in the Via Garibaldi.
Are you really a Roman Catholic? I asked my aunt with interest. She replied promptly and seriously, Yes, my dear, only I just dont believe in all the things they believe in.
To find my fathers grave in the enormous grey cemetery would have been like finding an individual house without a street number in Camden Town. The noise of trains came up from below the hill and the smoke of coal fires from the high town blew across the maze of graves. A man from a little square house, which was like a tomb itself, offered to conduct us. I had brought a wreath of flowers, though my aunt thought my gesture a little exaggerated. They will be very conspicuous, she said. The French believe in remembering the dead once a year on the Feast of All Souls. It is tidy and convenient like Communion at Easter, and it is true that I saw few flowers, even immortelles[188], among the angels, the cherubs, the bust of a bald man like a lycee professor, and the huge tomb, which apparently contained La Famille Flageollet. An English inscription on one monument caught my eye: In loving memory of my devoted son Edward Rhodes Robinson who died in Bombay where he is buried, but there was nothing English about his pyramid. Surely my father would have preferred an English graveyard of lichened stones with worn-out inscriptions and tags of pious verse to these shiny-black made-to-last slabs which no Boulogne weather could ever erode, all with the same headlines, like copies of the same newspaper: À la memoire, Ici repose le corps[189] Except for a small elderly woman in black who stood with bowed head at the end of a long aisle like the solitary visitor in a provincial museum, there seemed no one but ourselves in the whole heartless place.