Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘ Je ne sais pais, ’ replied Mme Pitt. ‘I have never in my life jumped over a ditch. But I know what you mean. Talking will often make things happen. But I do not think it will make heart attacks. Shall we agree something? Shall we say that if your papa falls ill, we will send a telegram, and you will come home immediately? I shall speak to my son, and he will not resist, je te jure .’

Rosie nodded. ‘Even so, it takes two weeks to get back from Ceylon.’

Mme Pitt reached down into her bag and brought out a book, wrapped in blue-grey tissue that matched her dress. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘for you. Un petit cadeau .’

Rosie took the book and clutched it to her chest. She stood up and faced the old lady, kissing her on each cheek. ‘I know I haven’t been the kind of wife that Daniel deserves.’

‘Hush, hush!’ said Mme Pitt, waving her hand dismissively. ‘I love you. It’s enough. One forgives if one loves. And now I know what has been going on in your heart, ma chère . And, Rosie, I know I am asking for what is not possible. It is my duty to my son to ask for what is not possible, tu comprends? Il faut que tu m’excuses .’

Rosie stood up and began to go, but then she turned and confessed, ‘I just want to say that I’ve been telling myself the same things as you have. For ages. All you’ve done is make me hear them out loud. I know you’re right. Daniel … how could I ever forget him vaulting over the wall?’ Rosie bit her lip, clutched her parcel to her chest, and looked at her mother-in-law. ‘The thing is, I’ve always loved him, without really knowing it. And now I have to make a new start. But leaving Daddy … it’ll be the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do. I just don’t know how I’ll manage to do it.’

‘ Chérie , I’m so happy to hear you say this. But there’s been so much damage. How will you mend it?’

‘I think he still loves me. It mightn’t be too late.’

Rosie went straight upstairs to her room and unwrapped her present. It was a book about Ceylon, and was mainly pictorial. Rosie looked at its religious monuments. There was a photograph of an elephant at the Temple of the Tooth, very smartly caparisoned. There were photographs of mountains curtained with mist, of water buffalo wallowing in paddy fields, of the elegant bungalows of the planters, of smiling tea-pickers who were plainly gleeful that anyone might want to take a picture of them. She read the opening lines, in which it said that Ceylon was originally known as Serendip, and that Muslims believed it was where Adam and Eve had reconvened after having been expelled from Paradise. She closed it and laid it on the bed, planning to read through all the text later.

She picked up the Bible by her bedside, intending to look for the passage about husbands and wives in the afterlife, but instead came across St Paul talking about celibacy and marriage. ‘Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.’

Further down she found the solution to something that had troubled her for many months, which was the issue of Daniel’s frank unbelief. ‘If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy.’

Excitedly, she leafed through the pages until she found the passage for which she had originally been looking.

She knelt by the side of her bed and tried to talk to Ash, but had no sense of a response apart from a growing feeling of optimism and serenity. There had been catharsis in talking to Mme Pitt. Sometimes one discovers what one really thinks because of having to say it aloud. Now that she had talked openly about her father’s health, the problem seemed to have got smaller. She found herself looking forward to Daniel’s return, and went to the window, just in time to see him come into the driveway in a cloud of aromatic blue smoke, and park next to the AC.

She watched him fiddling with the levers, and then ran downstairs and out into the drive to greet him, almost being beaten to it by Esther, who was desperate to introduce him to her new French bear.

‘Gracious me,’ said Daniel, ‘what a welcome! Shompi, what a lovely bear! Is Gran’mère here yet?’

Esther seemed to spring vertically in the air, landing neatly in the crook of his arm and puckering up her lips to kiss him on the mouth. Rosie put her arms around his neck and laid her face next to his. ‘My darling,’ said Daniel, astonished by her unwonted display of affection, ‘how nice it is to be back.’

OTTILIE WAS THE quietest of the sisters, and on that account the most mysterious. She had the gift of serenity, and was capable of sitting quite still for an hour with her hands folded in her lap, which is to say that she had a rich interior life. She had survived her time as a VAD in Brighton without apparently having become too traumatised. It had instead given her an intense interest in the subcontinent. If she did not suffer nightmares, she did, however, retain very vivid memories of the heartbreaking suffering that she had witnessed, and of the utter exhaustion that had once been her normality. In the peaceful aftermath of such an implacable welter of death she had become someone who was surprised to be yet alive, her amazement constituting a kind of deep and placid pleasure.

Ottilie was fortunate in possessing a tranquil faith in her own destiny, knowing that something good and satisfying was going to happen, but without having any idea what it might be. It was simply a case of waiting, with patient curiosity. Her mission in this life was simply to make sure that those she loved were as happy as it was possible to be, and to go to as many lectures and talks as possible, in the hope that one day she would meet somebody at one of them who would sweep her off her feet and console her for the absence of Archie.

She had witnessed Christabel’s unconventional attachment to Gaskell mostly with anxiety on the former’s part. Like almost all her contemporaries, she had no clear idea of what such a relationship involved, either emotionally or physically, and so was protected from being shocked by it. She assumed quite naturally that Christabel would eventually meet the right man, marry him, and have children, and that Gaskell would be a dear friend to both. Fortunately, she liked Gaskell immensely, and found her inexhaustibly fascinating.

Sophie and Fairhead had so obviously and irrevocably created each other’s paradise that she had no worry for them at all, other than to be niggled by the thought that every paradise carries within it its own tragedy, when it inevitably comes to an end. What on earth would Sophie and Fairhead do if something happened to the other? She had recently written a letter to them, ostensibly to congratulate Fairhead upon being appointed chaplain in a hospital, but really for the sake of the envoi: ‘My dears, be extra sure to enjoy every single minute, won’t you?’

Of her mother, Ottilie thought very little. She was increasingly eccentric and difficult, but her father was adept at jollying her along, putting his foot down when neccessary, and repairing any damage behind the scenes. Of his mistresses, who were the principle reason why he was able to continue to live with his wife, she knew and suspected absolutely nothing. His dizziness and occasional chest pain she mainly ascribed to his cigar smoking, and so was not as troubled as Rosie about the state of his heart.