Джеймс Хилтон - Time And Time Again

‘Not really BIG—’ Charles was murmuring, but Gerald, with his mouth full of chocolate ice-cream, was already expressing some kind of inarticulate enthusiasm.

‘You see he WOULD, Mr. Anderson… Gerry, make sure you remind him when the time comes… SEVENTEEN, Mr. Anderson—remember that.’

Charles, basking in the thought that Mrs. Fuessli must like him at least enough to make fun of him, felt indulgent—a little puzzled by, but also warm to his hosts. ‘All right. Seventeen it shall be. Gerald, you and I have a date.’ He laughed, and hoped the Americanism did not come from him too solemnly.

Hence, in part, the letter Charles wrote to Gerald in Switzerland eleven years later. Of course he had taken the boy out to dinner countless times already, and for that matter Michelet’s had gone (victim of a V2 during the last year of the war); yet the memory of that conversation at Parson’s Corner had impressed on Charles an obligation which he assumed all the more gladly because he could call to mind Mrs. Fuessli’s pretty face.

Whatever else about him was in doubt, there could be none about his genuine affection for his son. It was not only his deepest emotion, it was his most difficult, and he was a man who found many of his emotions difficult. Actually, the seventeenth-birthday dinner soon became far more than a pleasure to be looked forward to; it grew to be a symbol in his mind of something he hoped would eventually flourish—an adult, man-to-man friendship between father and son. During the decade that followed his visit to Parson’s Corner Charles had seen Gerald rather infrequently, even after the boy’s return from America, for then had come the school years, with holidays often spent at the home of school friends, since it was usually impossible to fit them in with Charles’s periods of leave. But most of all, he was a shy man with children, and had no knack of dealing with them; he was afraid he bored them, and his unwillingness to do so made him tend to keep out of their way. All of which, in Gerald’s case, was surely only temporary. Charles had pinned his faith on some change taking place quite suddenly some day—some liquefaction of his emotions, and of Gerald’s, as miraculous as that of the blood of St. Januarius.

And now, in Paris, as he endured long sultry hours at the Conference, his thoughts often wandered to Switzerland, where Gerald was enjoying a walking tour with some friends of his own age, accompanied by a young schoolmaster who presumably had the knack that Charles lacked. Charles envied that schoolmaster, though he would not have changed places with him for the world.

Another man whom Charles would not have changed places with was his opposite number on the other side of the Conference table—a fellow named Palan. Palan’s own chief was monolithic and taciturn; unlike Sir Malcolm Bingay he left most of the talking to his subordinate. Perhaps the monolith spoke neither French nor English—Charles could not decide. Nor could he decide whether he himself would like to measure himself in debate against this fellow Palan or not; at times he was glad that Sir Malcolm bore the brunt, but at other times he had a curious desire to justify himself in Palan’s eyes—to prove that he, too, though only second-in-command, was just as capable of performing a virtuoso job. Or WAS he just as capable? He kept studying Palan and wondering. Palan had, indeed, begun to fascinate Charles from the opening day of the Conference. He was plump and swarthy, careless of manners, certainly not the kind of person that an old-style diplomat could ever have felt at home with across any kind of table. Nor did Charles, yet he envied the man’s animal vitality and impassioned voice that could carry so easily across a room (Charles knew from experience that his own gentler and more pleasing tenor was far less pervasive); he hated Palan’s deplorable French accent, yet marvelled at his complete lack of embarrassment in exhibiting it—a lack that almost amounted to a skill. Charles had also watched with mixed emotions Palan’s habit of loosening his collar when his neck began to sweat, and the way he proudly observed the contents of his handkerchief whenever he noisily blew his nose. ‘Vox et praeterea nihil,’ muttered Charles to Sir Malcolm on one such occasion, hoping his superior would see the little joke. But Sir Malcolm was either not a Latinist or else in a bad humour; he did not even smile.

The trouble was that so far Palan seemed to have scored rather heavily. Even in his bad French he had drawn laughs from the other delegates at the expense of Sir Malcolm, and Sir Malcolm had found it possible to keep his temper in public only by losing it a little in private. Charles had had to endure this too. There were times when he would have been relieved to learn, on rejoining the Conference for another session, that Palan had been run over by a taxi during the interval. And yet… in a way he could not exactly analyse he felt a quality in Palan that made him picture himself victorious, but also magnanimous, over such a foe… He imagined himself saying, at some reception after a draft agreement had been signed on all the terms that Palan’s side had at first violently opposed: ‘I trust, M’sieur Palan, there are no hard feelings between us. For myself, and speaking also on behalf of Sir Malcolm Bingay, who is unfortunately confined to his bed by a severe attack of arthritis—I can assure you, etc. etc…’ It would sound good in his own perfect French.

Unfortunately nothing of all this seemed likely, except perhaps Sir Malcolm’s arthritis, which did indeed get worse as the Conference proceeded.

Once, in the street outside the building in which the Conference was being held, a little girl of nine or ten presented Palan with a bunch of flowers. Palan picked up the child in his arms and kissed her. A few bystanders smiled. Charles, who had been a witness from a distance, turned away as shyly as if the incident had involved himself. Again he envied Palan.

How refreshing, amidst these encounters and experiences, to think of Gerald’s arrival and the birthday dinner. As soon as he had received the answering wire Charles went to the Cheval Noir, a small restaurant near the Champs Elysées, which was a favourite of his—not one of those famous institutions like Prunier’s or Voisin’s, meccas for tourists, but the sort of place he would have been disappointed to hear spoken of by any Englishman or American, and that he himself was careful never to recommend. At the Cheval Noir he talked to Henri. Of course the dinner was not to be planned in detail—it was part of Charles’s anticipated pleasure that he would discuss such important matters with Gerald and (using all the tact of which he was capable) let the boy seem to be making his own decisions. But there could be no harm in considering possibilities. Only a simple dinner —soup, fish, then flesh or fowl of the kind that Henri knew how to cook as well as any man in Europe. No cocktails beforehand, but perhaps a glass of Vino de Pasto—no champagne (unless Gerald seemed disappointed by its absence), but a Chablis and then one of those honest Burgundies—say a Chambertin… And crępes Suzette to follow, as a sporting concession to a youthful palate—Charles himself was not fond of them (just dressed-up pancakes, after all), but they did offer a spectacle in the festive mood. Then brandy—just a plain good one —and finally, if Gerald wanted to take a small chance or to show off, a very mild and thin cigar, even if he put it down after a few whiffs… And during all this they would be talking, their minds released by the warmth and the wine and by the emerging phenomenon of their mutual discovery; they would talk till near midnight—father and son, aware of a new relationship… they would gossip, exchange adult confidences, perhaps even a few slightly risqué stories… And then last of all, if the intimacy had proceeded so far, and if Gerald felt that the evening was still young, they might take a taxi to the Place Pigalle for another kind of initiation. Charles believed that a trial crop of wild oats should be sown under experienced sponsorship—nothing extreme, of course—just a visit to one of those rather absurd places where it could do a young man no harm to get his first sight of a row of nude women cavorting so closely that one could see all their imperfections.