Neither was quite sure how much, or what, all this meant to the other. Neither dared ask.
Roland had learned to see himself, theoretically, as a crossing-place for a number of systems, all loosely connected. He had been trained to see his idea of his "self as an illusion, to be replaced by a discontinuous machinery and electrical message-network of various desires, ideological beliefs and responses, language-forms and hormones and pheromones. Mostly he liked this. He had no desire for any strenuous Romantic self-assertion. Nor did he desire to know who Maud essentially was. But he wondered, much of the time, what their mute pleasure in each other might lead to, anything or nothing, would it just go, as it had just come, or would it change, could it change?
He thought of the Princess on her glass hill, of Maud's faintly contemptuous look at their first meeting. In the real world-that was, for one should not privilege one world above another, in the social world to which they must both return from these white nights and sunny days-there was little real connection between them. Maud was a beautiful woman such as he had no claim to possess. She had a secure job and an international reputation. Moreover, in some dark and outdated English social system of class, which he did not believe in, but felt obscurely working and gripping him, Maud was County, and he was urban lower-middle-class, in some places more, in some places less acceptable than Maud, but in almost all incompatible. All that was the plot of a Romance. He was in a Romance, a vulgar and a high Romance simultaneously; a Romance was one of the systems that controlled him, as the expectations of Romance control almost everyone in the Western world, for better or worse, at some point or another.
He supposed the Romance must give way to social realism, even if the aesthetic temper of the time was against it.
In any case, since Blackadder and Leonora and Cropper had come, it had changed from Quest, a good romantic form, into Chase and Race, two other equally valid ones.
During his stay he had become addicted to a pale, chilled, slightly sweet pudding called Iles Flottantes, which consisted of a white island of foam floating in a creamy yellow pool of vanilla custard, haunted by the ghost, no more, of sweetness. As he and Maud packed hurriedly, and turned the car towards the Channel, he thought how much he would regret this, how the taste would fade and diminish in his memory.
Blackadder saw the Mercedes when he and Leonora came back to the hotel in the evening. He was feeling strained. Ariane had indeed given Leonora a photocopy of Sabine's journal, which he had attempted to translate for her, with a fair degree of success. He had been pulled along, initially, by the sheer force of her presence, and her insistence that Roland and Maud had snuck off together to steal a scholarly march on both of them. He had suggested, when they were possessed of the journal, that they should come home and order a good translation and pursue their investigations. Leonora, who had asked Ariane a lot of questions about Roland and Maud, was concerned that they were "on to something" and should be tracked across Finistère. If the weather had been bad Blackadder might yet have insisted on returning to his burrow, the tools of his trade, his typewriter, his telephone. But the temptress sun shone, and he ate a couple of good meals and said that now he was here, he would come to look at Kernemet and its surroundings.
Leonora drove. Her driving had panache and swoop, but was not comfortable. He sat beside her, wondering how he had got talked into all this. Her perfume filled the car, which was a hired Renault. It was a perfume of musk and sandalwood and something sharp that affected Blackadder in contradictory ways. He believed he found it suffocating. Underneath he sensed something else, a promise of darkness, thickness, flesh. He looked down once or twice at Leonora's naked expanse of shoulders and bound breasts. Her skin, close up, had very fine wrinkles all over its dark gold, wrinkles not of old age but of a mixture of earlier softening and sun-toughening. He found these moving.
"I don't understand Maud," Leonora was saying. "I can't figure out why she dashed off without a word to me, since that letter was mine after all, if property comes into it, which between friends I didn't think it did, and we were friends, we'd pooled our ideas and written joint papers, all those things. Perhaps your Roland Michell is some kind of macho boss-man. It doesn't figure."
"He's not. He's not forceful. It's his major failing."
"It must be love."
"That doesn't explain Ariane Le Minier."
"It sure doesn't. What a turn-up. Not only a lesbian but a Fallen Woman and Unmarried Mother. Every archetype. I guess this is the hotel. Where they seemed to be staying. Maybe they're back now."
She began to turn into the hotel car park, only to find her way blocked by the Mercedes, which appeared to be backing awkwardly across the gateposts.
"Fuck off," said Leonora. "Fuck off, arsehole."
"Oh dear," said Blackadder. "That's Cropper."
"Well, he'll have to fuck off. He's obstructing the gateway," said Leonora magisterially, honking several times with great vigour. The Mercedes went backwards and forwards, part of a series of precise adjustments designed to insert it into a parking-space that would just, but barely, contain it. Leonora rolled down the window and cried out, "Listen, you bastard. I don't have all night. I'll be through in a second. Just hold off, can you?" The Mercedes advanced and retreated. Leonora advanced into the gateway. The Mercedes pulled across it. "For Chrissake, clear the entrance, you prick," shouted Leonora. The Mercedes retreated a little, slanting itself further. Leonora put her foot firmly on the accelerator. Blackadder heard a reverberating clang and felt a jar along his spine. Leonora swore again and put the Renault into reverse. There was a sound and a sensation of tearing metal. The bumpers were locked and the two cars, like two bulls with crumpled horns, locked together. Leonora continued to reverse. Blackadder said nervously, "No, stop." The sound of the Mercedes' angry purr ceased abruptly. The dark window rolled down and Cropper put out his head. He said, "Arrêtez s'il vous plaît. Nous nous abîmons. Veuillez croire que je n'ai jamais rencontré de pires façons sur les routes françaises. Une telle manque de politesse-"
Leonora swung open her door and shot out a naked leg. "We speak good American," she said. "You arrogant pig. I remember you from Lincoln. You nearly killed me in Lincoln.”
“Hello, Mort," said Blackadder. "Ah," said Cropper. "James. You have damaged my car.”
“I damaged it," said Leonora. "Owing to your bad manners and lack of signals.”
“This is Professor Stern, Mortimer," said Blackadder. "From
Tallahassee. The editor of Christabel LaMotte.”
“In search of Bailey and Michell.”
“Exactly.”
“They've checked out. Three hours back. No one knows what they did here. Or where they went."
Blackadder said, "If you put your back to your bumper, Mortimer, and I sit on ours, we might disengage them by joggling and swaying."
"It will never be the same," said Cropper. "Are you staying here?" said Leonora. "We could discuss it over a drink. I don't know what the insurance on this car hire runs to."
It was not a pleasant dinner. Cropper was more put out than Blackadder had seen him, by the damage to his car, or by the flight of Roland and Maud, or by the presence of Leonora. He ordered lavishly, a huge platter of fruits de mer to start with, a mound of shells and whiskers and stony carapaces, surrounded by seaweed on a metal pedestal, followed by a huge boiled sea-spider or araignée, a hot angry scarlet, crusted with bumps and armoured crestings, waving a multiplication of feelers. He was provided with an armoury of implements for this feast, like a mediaeval torture chamber, pincers and grippers, prods and corkscrew skewers.