'There's plenty of time,' said Sarah.
'There's time, but not plenty,' said Henry.
Here, on cue, the chatter around the tables was blanked out by the screaming roar of three war planes, sinister, black, like some outsize prehistoric hornets out of a science-fiction film, shooting across the sky with the speed which announces, so briefly it is easy to forget they were there at all, that they are from a world of super-technology far from our amateur little lives.
Now the players were appearing, yawning prettily. The circle was enlarged, and enlarged again to include everyone. Bill took a chair beside Sarah and enquired sulkily, 'It is true there will be a run in England?'
'Two weeks,' said Sarah.
'And I can't be there. If only I had known.'
'If only any of us had known.'
'But you will keep in touch, won't you? At least there's two weeks left of this run.' He was speaking to her like a peremptory young lover. Really, they might have spent the night together. Molly watched the two of them, puzzled. As well she might be, thought Sarah. And Stephen too. Because of Bill's closeness to his mother, he felt, as much as he saw, Sarah, but between Molly and Sarah was that gulf only to be filled by experience. Molly did not yet know that always, impalpably, invisibly, through the air rained down ashes that could be seen only when enough had settled — on her, on Stephen, on the older, on the ageing, ashes and dust dimming the colours of skin and hair. Sarah knew that this glossy young animal sitting beside her diminished her, leached colour from her, no matter how he flattered her with his eyes, his smile, enclosing her in streams of sympathy. Sarah saw Molly's serious, thoughtful, honest gaze turn from her to Stephen; the sun was not burnishing him as it did the young ones. He looked bleached, faded.
Sarah said to Bill, knowing her voice was rough, 'I shall be going home in a couple of days.'
'Oh, you can't, you can't do that,' said Bill, really upset. 'You can't leave us.' He might just as well have said 'leave me.'
'Everyone is leaving us,' said Molly. 'Henry… Sarah… ' She hesitated, looking at Stephen. He was again looking into the sky.
'I shall be here,' said Mary. 'And so will Roy. If Sarah is going, then we must be here.'
'I have a month's leave due, remember?' said Sarah.
Here Mary's raised brows remarked direct to Sarah that she couldn't remember Sarah's ever before insisting on due leave.
'No, Sarah,' said Henry. 'Don't forget, I'll have to be over for the new auditions. I can fit it in the second week in July. And you must be there.'
'You mean, no vanishing in July?'
Henry smiled at her, and her heart tripped.
'Such a wild, marvellous, blissful success,' remarked Mary, lazing in her chair in a way that contradicted her briskly efficient linen suit. Uncharacteristically lazed, she put her arms back behind her head, exposing tender patches of damp linen. She had the look of an animal offering vulnerable parts of herself to superior strength. Jean-Pierre sighed; she heard it, blushed, and looked upwards, like Stephen. One by one, they all looked skywards. Quite low down, a single hawk circled. Lower and lower it floated, until some rogue breeze blew it ragged and tilted up a wing. The bird rocked wildly to find balance, steadied, circled once on a thermal, and swerved off to the top of a plane tree, where it sat huffing out its feathers. It looked sulky, offended, and this made them all laugh.
By now the cafe tables were filled with people in some way connected with Julie Vairon.
'We have virtually taken his cafe over, poor Monsieur Denivre,' said Molly.
'Il est désolé,' said Jean-Pierre. 'Guillaume,' he called to the proprietor, who was attending to customers a couple of tables away — Andrew, Sally, Richard, George White. 'Les Anglais ont peur que uous les trouviez trop encombrants.' Guillaume smiled, with exactly the shade of urbane scepticism appropriate. He said, 'Ça y est!'
'Why Anglais?' enquired Molly, exaggerating her American voice. 'I'm not Anglais. Who is Anglais here — apart from the Anglais?'
Here Bill said, in the roughest of Tennessee accents, 'I'm English, mesdames, messieurs, I am English to the last little molecule.'
They laughed, but it was one of the moments, hardly uncommon, when Europeans and Americans occupy different geographical and historical space.
The Americans were thinking, Molly — Boston. At least, that was where she lived now. Benjamin — West Coast, even if his accent could only be Harvard. Henry had been born in New York but lived, when he was at home — seldom — in Los Angeles. Andrew had been born, and lived, in Texas.
But the Europeans were thinking, Molly — Ireland. Benjamin's antecedents could only have come from that culturally fertile region, sometimes Russian, sometimes Polish, the shtetl. Henry — the Mediterranean. Andrew? Scottish, of course.
'Our American cousins,' said Mary to Sarah.
'Our cousins,' said Sarah to Mary.
Les Anglais all laughed, and the Americans laughed out of good feeling. Laughter was breaking out for no good reason, from all around the tables. The company's spirits were being lifted, borne on those currents that carry players and their minders towards the intoxications of the first night. The charm, the enchantment, the delightfulness of- well, of what exactly? — were slowly lifting them, seawater setting fronds of weed afloat, splashing dry rock, sending out invigorating ozone.
They sat on, while Le Patron caused the waiters to bring more coffee, and the square filled with vehicles. Not only this town was crammed; so were all the little towns round about, from where coaches would bring people — were already bringing people, at ten in the morning — to become part of the ambience of Julie, her time, her place.
Soon Henry departed to work out with the technicians the problems with sound, and Sarah, Stephen, Benjamin, Roy, and Mary went off with Jean-Pierre to his office. There finances were discussed, particularly Benjamin's — or rather the Associated and Allied Banks of North California and South Oregon's — commitment to the new plans. Stephen's as well, but as he pointed out, since he was an individual, he had only to say 'yes'. Money was talking. First things first. Money has to talk before actors can.
Then Benjamin flew off to investigate his investment in the Edinburgh Festival. Jean-Pierre insisted they must decide how to get together a much larger committee to discuss next year's production in Belles Rivieres. Sarah, he trusted, would be part of it. So, he hoped, would Mr Ellington-Smith. Regular meetings throughout the year would benefit them all. All this went on until well after two. When they arrived on the pavement for lunch, it was observable that the players and musicians already preferred to be with each other, merging for their test that evening. Henry sat by Sarah. When she thought that this was the last time she would be with him in Belles Rivieres — it would if she had anything to do with it — such a feeling of loss took her over that she had to admit if she were not in love with Bill, then she showed all the signs of loving Henry. It occurred to her that to be with Henry was all sweetness, while being with Bill was to be angry and ashamed. What a pity, if it was her fate to fall in love so inappropriately, that it had not been Henry from the first.
Henry returned from a reconnaissance in the late afternoon to say that crowds were already making their way up to Julie's house and that all the seats had been booked by mid-morning. He reported that several tastefully designed signs with arrows had been nailed to trees, saying in French and in English, 'One may stand in this place.' 'Please respect Nature.' 'Please respect Julie Vairon's Forest.'
By seven the woods all around the house held a couple of thousand people, most of whom could not hope to do more than hear the music. There being no 'backstage', Stephen and Sarah, as authors, Henry, as director, went together to where the players stood waiting among the trees, to wish them luck.