But Axter was already pouring a drink into their tiny glasses without waiting for an answer: a liquor glinting a dark red that matched Harold Howard’s sweater.
“To Guy!” Axter said gravely.
“To Guy!” Odile repeated, laughing.
“To good old Guy!” Harold said.
They drank.
“Guy was the oldest in our group at Dartmouth and Cambridge,” Axter said.
Harold looked at Odile and Louis with an engaging smile.
“And what do you do?”
“Not much,” Louis said.
“They’re still too young to have done anything bad in life,” Axter said.
Odile laughed. “Or anything good.”
Axter and Howard, in an almost perfectly synchronized gesture, had taken their pipes out of their pockets. Axter stuffed his pipe while Harold didn’t take his eyes off Odile and Louis.
“Yes, that’s true,” Axter said dreamily. “You’re both still children…”
The lamps cast a harsh light on Odile and Louis, and they moved very close to each other on the sofa. Axter and Harold watched them. Two motionless butterflies, pinned to a piece of cloth, observed by amateur butterfly collectors.
Meanwhile, Harold and Axter had put their pipes in their mouths. The women’s whispers from the other end of the lounge were barely audible. Maybe the men were taking advantage of their wives’ distance to relax and get comfortable, feel the way they had felt back in their rooms at Trinity College. Axter had unbuttoned the collar of his shirt and draped his calves over one of the arms of the chair. Harold Howard was still leaning his legs on the windowsill, and his tan wool socks, too large for him, slipped slowly down to his ankles.
“You should really see something of England… If you want, Michael and I can take you on a drive,” Harold said. “Don’t you think so, Michael? We could take you to Cambridge, for instance.”
“I’d be glad to. But I think they’re going back to France.”
Yes, they were leaving the day after tomorrow. Louis was seized with a feeling of helplessness. What were they going to do in Paris? He felt the need to confide in these Englishmen, even ask their advice. No one had ever once given him and Odile advice. They were alone in the world.
“Really? You have to leave?” Harold said. And he emptied his pipe by nervously knocking it against the heel of his shoe. “Why do you have to go?”
Louis was struck by his childish disappointment, but also by the concern and affection visible in Harold Howard’s face. They were in strange contrast with his colossal build, the rough tweed, the velvet corduroy, the acrid smell of pipe that enveloped him.
•
Axter took them to Southampton in the bus he had used to fetch them. The three of them, sitting in the back of the empty bus, did not speak. Axter pensively smoked his pipe. The weather was overcast and gloomy.
The bus parked on the departure pier in front of the customs hangar. Axter was carrying their bags, which he himself presented to the customs officer. Just when they were leaving to board the Normania, he caught Louis by the shoulder.
“Still, you should be careful with Roland. Don’t let yourself get caught up. He’s a charming man, but also a… a…” He tried to find the right word. “A kind of adventurer.”
They leaned against the railing and waited for their ship to leave. Axter, standing on the running board of the bus, pipe in his mouth, waved goodbye at them wildly with both arms.
•
Bejardy and Nicole Haas were waiting for them at Le Havre, at the exit from customs. It was almost eight o’clock and getting dark.
“Did you have a good trip?” Bejardy asked in a dull voice.
Nicole Haas smiled at them, without saying anything. They sat in the backseat of Bejardy’s car, with Bejardy at the wheel, Nicole Haas next to him.
He drove fast and seemed nervous. He and Nicole Haas had not exchanged a single word, as though they had just had a fight. Bejardy had turned on the radio, and every so often he turned up the volume more.
“So, Roland, have you decided yet?” Nicole Haas asked.
“I don’t know, Coco. Maybe the hotel in Verneuil? What do you think?”
She didn’t answer. Bejardy turned back to look at Odile and Louis.
“You must be tired from the trip. It doesn’t make sense to drive another three hours. We can spend the night at a hotel… Unless you’d rather go straight back to Paris?”
Without answering, Louis took Odile’s hand and squeezed it. They both felt that there was nothing to say. Anyway, Bejardy had already turned up the radio again.
•
They had dinner. Nicole Haas hadn’t wanted to eat in the large empty dining room at the inn, and Bejardy had chosen a table near the bar.
She was visibly giving Bejardy the cold shoulder, but she was very friendly to Odile and Louis.
“And Axter? How is he doing?” Bejardy asked.
“What do you think of Axter?” Nicole Haas asked at once, as though she wanted them to answer her question and not Bejardy’s.
“He’s nice,” Louis said. “When you met him, you were running a restaurant on a boat, in Neuilly?”
“Ah. So he told you about that?” Bejardy said, looking embarrassed.
“You owned a boat, Roland?” Nicole Haas said ironically. “You? A boat?”
“No. We set up a restaurant on a boat, with Brossier,” Bejardy said. “By Bois de Boulogne.”
“And what about the boat?”
“It belonged to the Touring Club de France,” Bejardy said, getting exasperated.
“I would have loved to see you on that boat. Did you wear a captain’s hat?”
And Nicole lit a cigarette with the same nonchalant gesture as that first time in Paris, with the same Zippo lighter that had so surprised Louis.
“Axter is a real Englishman,” she said. “Did you see his wife too?”
“Yes.”
“She seems more like his mother, don’t you think?”
“And yet they’re the same age,” Bejardy said dryly.
“I don’t think so. There must be as big an age difference between them as between you and me.”
Bejardy shrugged. He was having trouble keeping his temper. Odile looked back and forth between Bejardy and Nicole, interested in what was happening.
“Doesn’t he seem much older than me?” Nicole asked Odile, indicating Bejardy.
Odile didn’t know what to say. Louis lowered his head.
“No, I don’t think so,” Odile said timidly.
“She’s polite at least,” Nicole said. “And well brought up.”
“Much better brought up than you, Coco,” Bejardy said.
His face was calm and relaxed again and he had taken Nicole’s hand. Underneath it all, Louis thought, Bejardy liked it that Nicole treated him so badly in front of other people. Was it just one of their little games?
“I have never met anyone with a character as bad as Coco’s,” Bejardy said, stroking her hand.
Louis looked at the Zippo lighter that Nicole had put on the table. He picked it up, lit it, and contemplated the black smoke that the flame gave off.
“When I was in boarding school, I dreamed of having a lighter like this.”
“Really?” Nicole said. “You can have it.”
She smiled at him and her smile was so sweet, so understanding, that Louis had the feeling their faces could have come closer and closer at that moment, their lips could touch.
“Yes, please. The lighter is yours.”
•
Two rooms had been reserved for the night in an annex to the inn, on the other side of the garden. Just as they left the bar, Bejardy took Louis’s arm and held him back.
“I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for me. We’ll discuss it in Paris. You know your commission is waiting for you there, Louis.”