“There was that French doctor this afternoon,” said Mrs. Biesel. “You could have said something to him.”
“No, she couldn’t,” said Lapwing. “She was sound asleep.”
“You would be obliged to go a long way from here to hear proper French,” said Mr. Chadwick. “Perhaps as far as Lyons. Every second person in Rivebelle is from Sicily.”
Lapwing leaned into the conversation, as if drawn by the weight of his own head. “Edie doesn’t have to hear proper French,” he said. “She can read it. She’s been reading a French classic all summer—‘Forever Amber.’”
I glanced at Lily. It was the only time that evening I was able to catch her eye. Yes, I know, he’s humiliating her, she signaled back.
“There are the Spann-Monticules,” said Mr. Chadwick to Edie. “They have French blood, and they can chatter away in French, when they want to. They never come down here except at Easter. The villa is shut the rest of the year. Sometimes they let the mayor use it for garden parties. Hugo Spann-Monticule’s great-great-grandmother was the daugh-ter of Arnaud Monticule, who was said to have sacked the Bologna library for Napoleon. Monticule kept a number of priceless treasures for himself, and decided he would be safer in England. He married a Miss Spann. The Spanns had important wool interests, and the family have continued to prosper. Some of the Bologna loot is still in their hands. Lately, because of Labour, they have started smuggling some things back into France.”
“Museum pieces belong in museums, where people can see them,” said Lapwing.
“They shouldn’t be kept in an empty house,” said the Admiral.
Lapwing was so unused to having anyone agree with him that he looked offended. “I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the collection,” he said. “They might let one person in. I don’t mean a whole crowd.”
“The day France goes Communist they’ll be sorry they ever brought anything here,” said Mrs. Biesel.
“France will never go Communist,” said her husband. “Stalin doesn’t want it. A Communist France would be too independent for the Kremlin. The last thing Stalin wants is another Tito on his hands.”
I was surprised to hear four sentences from the Admiral. As a rule he drank quietly and said very little, like Fergus Bray. He gave me the impression that he did not care where he lived or what might happen next. He still drove a car, and seemed to have great strength in his remaining arm, but a number of things had to be done for him. He had sounded just now as if he knew what he was talking about. I remembered the rumor that he was here for an underground purpose, but it was hard to see what it might be, in this seedy border resort. According to Lily, his wife had wanted to live abroad for a while. So perhaps it really was as simple as that.
“You’re right,” Mrs. Biesel said. “Even French Communists must know what the Russians did in Berlin.”
“Liberated the Berliners, you mean?” said Lapwing, getting pink in the face.
“Our neighbors are all French,” said Edie, speaking to Mr. Chadwick across David and the empty chair. “They aren’t Sicilians. I’ve never met a Sicilian. I’m not even sure where they come from. I was really thinking of a different kind of French person — someone Harry might want to talk to. He gets bored sometimes. There’s nobody around here on his level. Those Spanns you mentioned — couldn’t we meet them? I think Harry might enjoy them.”
“They never meet anyone,” said Mr. Chadwick. “Although if you stay until next Easter you might see them driving to church. They drive to St. George’s on Easter Sunday.”
“We don’t go to church, except to look at the art,” said Edie. “I just gradually gave it up. Harry started life as a Baptist. Can you believe it? He was fully immersed, with a new suit on.”
“In France, it’s best to mix either with peasants or the very top level,” said Mrs. Biesel. “Nothing in between.” Her expression suggested that she had been offered and had turned down a wide variety of native French.
I sat between Fergus Bray and the Admiral. Edie, across the table, was midway between Fergus and me, so that we formed a triangle, unlikely and ill-assorted. To mention Fergus Bray now sounds like a cheap form of name-dropping. His work has somehow been preserved from decay. There always seems to be something, somewhere, about to go into production. But in those days he was no one in particular, and he was there. He had been silent since the start of the concert and had taken his place at table without a word, and was now working through a bottle of white wine intended for at least three of us. He began to slide down in his chair, stretching his legs. I saw that he was trying to capture Edie’s attention, perhaps her foot. She looked across sharply, first at me. When his eyes were level with hers, he said, “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with that shrimp?”
I think no one but me could hear. Lapwing, on the far side of Fergus, was calling some new argument to the Biesels; Mr. Chadwick was busy with a waiter; and David was lost in his private climate of drizzle and mist.
“What shrimp?” said Edie. “You mean Harry?”
“If I say ‘the rest of your life,’ I must mean your husband.”
“We’re not really married,” Edie said. “I’m his common-law wife, but only in places where they recognize common law. Like, I can have ‘Lapwing’ in my passport, but I couldn’t be a Lapwing in Quebec. That’s because in Quebec they just have civil law. I’m still married to Morrie Ringer there. Legally, I mean. You’ve never heard of him? You’re a Canadian, and you’ve never heard of Morrie Ringer? The radio personality? ‘The Ringer Singalong’? That’s his most famous program. They even pick it up in Cleveland. Well, he can’t live with me, can’t forget me, won’t divorce me. Anyway, the three of us put together haven’t got enough money for a real divorce. You can’t get a divorce in Quebec. You have to do some complicated, expensive thing. When you break up one marriage and set up another, it takes money. It’s expensive to live by the rules — I don’t care what you say.” So far, he had said scarcely anything, and not about that. “In a way, it’s as if I was Morrie’s girl and Harry’s wife. Morrie could never stand having meals in the house. We ate out. I lived for about two years on smoked meat and pickles. With Harry, I’ve been more the wife type. It’s all twisted around.”
“That’s not what you’re like,” said Fergus.
“Twisted around?”
“Wife type. I’ve been married. I never could stand them. Wife types.” He made a scooping movement with his hand and spread his palm flat.
In the falsetto men assume when they try to imitate a woman’s voice, he addressed a miniature captive husband:
“From now on, you’ve got to work for me, and no more girlfriends.”
“Some women are like that,” said Edie. “I’m not.”
“Does the shrimp work for you?”
“We don’t think that way. He works for himself. In a sense, for me. He wants me to have my own intellectual life. I’ve been studying. I’ve studied a few things.” She looked past him, like a cat.
“What few things?”
“Well…I learned a few things about the Cistercians. There was a book in a room Harry and I rented in London. Someone left it behind. So, I know a few things.”
“Just keep those few things to yourself, whatever they may be. Was your father one?”
“A monk? You must be a Catholic, or you wouldn’t make that sort of a joke. My father — I hardly know what to think about him. He won’t have anything to do with me. Morrie was Jewish, and my father didn’t like that. Then I left Morrie for a sort of Baptist Communist. That was even worse. He used to invite Morrie for Christmas dinner, but he won’t have Harry in the house. I can’t help what my father feels. You can’t live on someone else’s idea of what’s right.”