William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

She turned and left. Felix watched her go.

♦

Felix stood with Dr Venables among the other guests outside the front of the house. They were waiting for the departure of the bride and groom. On the gravel before the front door stood the large Siddley-Deasey, its motor running and Cyril sitting in the front seat wearing his chauffeur’s peaked cap. Four heavy pigskin cases had been brought out by servants and strapped to the rack at the rear of the car. The gusty wind had cleared the sky of clouds and a warm afternoon sun shone on the bare heads of the guests and thickened the smoke of the post-prandial cigars.

Felix had composed himself after his ‘fit’ in the hall and had re-established a mood of jaundiced cynicism with which to see out the rest of the day. Nothing Gabriel or his ‘wife’ could do now would affect him in the slightest.

The front door opened and the twin objects of his indifference appeared, flanked by the major and Mrs Cobb. There was a burst of cheering and applause from the guests. As they stepped down onto the gravel, Hattie, Dora and Charles ran up with paper bags of rice and confetti. Little Dora, whose aim was erratic, threw in the stiff-armed lobbing way of young children and hurled a handful of rice full in the major’s face.

The major, who had been on the point of addressing a remark to his wife — and who had his mouth half-open for this purpose — found his eyes, nose and mouth suddenly stung and filled with a scatter of rice grains. He staggered back, whirling round in shock, shaking his head, blinking and spitting, but two or three grains had lodged themselves in his throat and a bout of severe barking coughs was found necessary to dislodge them. Felix watched in pitying amusement as his mother energetically thumped the major’s back while he hawked and retched — purple-faced — onto the gravel.

The oblivious crowd, meanwhile, swarmed past them and gathered round the motor car into which Gabriel and Charis had clambered.

Dr Venables offered Felix a handful of confetti from the paper bag he was holding.

“I won’t if you don’t mind,” Felix said.

Dr Venables looked at him quizzically. “Are you sure every-thing’s all right?” he asked.

Felix looked exasperated. “Everyone seems particularly concerned about my health today.”

“Suit yourself,” Dr Venables said, and pointedly tossed a handful of confetti at the car.

Gabriel and Charis sat in the rear seat, smiling radiantly at everyone and shouting their goodbyes. Felix heard his name called.

“Bye, Felix!” Gabriel shouted.

Felix coolly raised a palm in response, struggling to keep the emotions that had suddenly begun to turmoil within him in check. He was happy to back away as a path was cleared to allow the major — dizzy, streaming-eyed, and breathless — to make his farewells. Then the gears were engaged, Cyril tooted the horn and the car slowly pulled away to renewed cheers from the guests, the smiling faces of the happy couple framed together in the small rear window, waving good-bye, until a turn in the drive and a dense clump of rhododendrons eventually obscured the view.

Charis loved Gabriel. Of that fact she was absolutely sure. But there was no doubt that he was behaving most oddly.

They walked now along the crowded promenade at Trouville above the bright and frantic bathing beaches. It was eleven in the morning, they had been married for twenty-four hours and her virginity was still intact.

The journey from Stackpole to Trouville had been a frustrating history of delays. Cyril drove them down to Folkestone smoothly and expertly enough, but for some reason the steamer left the harbour an hour late, thereby ensuring that they missed their train to Paris. In Paris their planned stop for an evening meal had to be cancelled, and they rushed from the Gare du Nord to the Gare St Lazare and only just managed to catch the Amiens — Trouville express. The journey to the Normandy coast took four and a half hours and they arrived at Trouville ⁄ Deauville station at half past midnight. Charis was extremely disappointed. Trouville Casino held a ball every Saturday night and she and Gabriel had counted on attending it, even if only for an hour. Worse was to follow. When they eventually reached the Hotel d’Angleterre it was found that one piece of their luggage was missing.

Charis also noticed, as they approached their destination, a distinct, uncharacteristic increase of tension in Gabriel’s manner. Curiously, this seemed to be relieved by the loss of one of their cases rather than exacerbated. He saw her established in their suite of rooms, wolfed down a sandwich and a glass of milk and went directly back down to the station to see if he could get any sense out of the night porters. “Back soon, darling,” he had said. Charis undressed, put on her night clothes, got into bed and lay patiently waiting for him to return.

She thought it a little peculiar that the missing case should prove so important to him. But Gabriel knew best. When he returned an hour and a half later it was with the case but she was asleep, exhausted by the long day. She woke up as he climbed into bed beside her, her heart suddenly beating faster and a faint sense of panic over what she knew must next take place. But all Gabriel did was to lean over and kiss her affectionately on the cheek.

“Got the case, Carrie old girl. Let’s get some sleep, shall we? Honeymoon starts tomorrow,” was all he said and turned away from her, pulling the sheets over his shoulder. He was asleep within minutes, or so his even breathing seemed to indicate, Charis lay awake for a while longer, savouring-the unfamiliar experience of sharing her bed with a man. She thought vaguely about the morning and her ‘initiation into womanhood’. Aunt Bedelia had solemnly and ambiguously informed her about Gabriel’s nuptial duties. Gabriel was right, she reassured herself again, it was too important an event, too sensitive to risk while they were both tired and a bit irritable.

But in the morning Gabriel was up before her, standing on the balcony outside the bedroom.

“Wake up, Mrs Cobb,” he said with his familiar wide grin when he saw her sitting up in bed. “Far too nice a day for sleepyheads.”

He seemed in a very good mood and did not disturb her when she put on her clothes in the dressing room. She selected a v-necked blouse from the once-missing valise and reflected that, after all, he had been correct to spend half the night searching for it: it would have spoilt things not to have all her clothes with her on her first full day as Mrs Gabriel Cobb.

On their way down to the dining room, on the landing outside their rooms, Gabriel put his arms round her shoulders and gave her a kiss. His good humour was infectious and dispelled any lingering doubts she had about the events — or rather the lack of them — of the preceding night.

During breakfast they laughed and joked about the other guests in the hotel, trying to guess their identities. “A German Hebrew financier,” Gabriel said of one. “A millionaire from Dakota,” Charis suggested. ‘A pork-packer with his front-row tottie’, ‘two boudoir boys’. The Angleterre was, they both agreed, rather a ‘smart’ hotel, even if most of the fashionable crowd went to the Roches Noires across the street.

Later, they sat for a while on the hotel’s terrace. Gabriel read a copy of The Times that was two days old.

“It seems funny,” he said. “To think we weren’t married then.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “It seems as if we’ve been married for ages.”

Charis wasn’t sure what he meant — she hardly felt married at all — but he said it so warmly that it seemed like the deepest compliment. Her eyes prickled with tears for a moment, so intense was her feeling of love for him. Dear, good Gabriel! She lowered her head to flick through the magazine she was holding. She heard Gabriel reading something out to her from The Times . She caught something about ‘Austria’ and ‘Russia’, but she wasn’t really paying attention.