Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

Palfy explained the mechanism of his swindles so clearly, in fact, and with such frankness that it was impossible even for a mind as fundamentally honest as Jean’s to feel outraged. He found the looting of collection boxes in church more reprehensible than the bad cheques, promissory notes and worthless bonds. And even there Palfy had justified, in his way, his plundering of priests and the poor.

‘I admire,’ Jean said, ‘your ability to live in such perpetual anxiety.’

‘Anxiety? It is unknown to me. I live well, tell myself stories, dupe fools and enjoy myself without hurting anyone. For example, that cheque I signed at Deauville from the cheque book I found in the Bentley: I wrote the amount on the counterfoil. The owner, who is rolling in it, won’t even notice. When there’s a car involved, I always give it back it good condition with a full tank. As for the instability, it suits me completely. I can’t stay in one place. During my childhood my parents never stayed more than a month in the same place. I acquired a taste for travel. I love travelling. So do you, actually. You’ve got the bug. Don’t deny it.’

‘It’s true, and I don’t know how I’m going to satisfy it. Not like you, anyway. One of these days you’ll fall flat on your face.’

‘One day? Yes, perhaps, and I accept it. It can end well too. Certainties are as dull as ditchwater. Let us live in delicious uncertainties.’

Jean could not wait to introduce Palfy to Joseph Outen. After his visit to Jeanne he met his friend at the Café des Tribunaux and took him to Dieppe Rowing Club, where the Sunday morning team training had just taken place. Joseph emerged from the shower, his hair and beard damp, his face taut from the morning’s exercise.

‘Holy moly,’ he said, ‘I thought rowing had lost you for good, buried alive beneath the pleasures of the flesh and the frying pan. When do you start again?’

‘Tomorrow. Joseph, I’d like you to meet my friend Palfy, Constantin Palfy.’

With a rudeness too deliberate to be natural, Joseph examined the dandy before him from head to toe, in his grey flannel suit, blue shirt and English-style old school tie.

The disdainful scrutiny left Palfy unruffled, and he simply said, ‘What are you training for? Coxed pairs?’

‘Yes. Do you know about rowing?’

‘Sadly I know nothing at all about coxed pairs. I rowed in an eight for Oxford, the last time in 1926.’

Joseph was visibly flustered, Jean embarrassed. It was probably untrue, but you had to know Palfy to guess that he was lying whenever he pretended modesty.

‘And who won?’

‘Cambridge. By a slim margin.’

‘Where are you two having lunch? It’s on me.’

‘No, it’s my shout,’ Palfy said. ‘You choose …’

They drove to an auberge in the Arques valley, where Palfy displayed one of his better qualities: he listened. Joseph began to shed his prejudices. Certainly he had a low opinion of such a well-dressed man; he could only be an imbecile. But Palfy had rowed for Oxford and although Oxford was, to his mind, a breeding ground for crashing snobs, that fabulous university town was also a place where incontrovertible sporting qualities were nurtured. To be more certain of what he was hearing, Joseph tossed out two or three writers’ names, which were received with a blank stare. Palfy confessed his ignorance. Cars were his only interest. Jean was annoyed with Joseph for showing off and making no attempt to hide his amused condescension to his friend, not doubting for an instant that Palfy was of sufficient stature to be worth ten Joseph Outens. He began to wish Palfy would wake up and wrong-foot him. But Palfy continued to play the ingénu who was only too happy to attend to the pearls cast by a real intellectual.

‘And you, Jean, what are you going to do?’ Joseph asked.

‘Look for work.’

‘You’ll be lucky. There’s no work, except in the armaments factories.’

‘Well, there’s no armaments factory at Dieppe and I want to stay near my parents. They’ve aged so quickly.’

‘I know. They’ve been appallingly tricked. That’s what happens when you believe in the so-called goodwill of a paternalistic employer.’

‘Don’t say anything bad about Antoine du Courseau.’

‘Why not? He’s shoved off and left your parents in the soup. His bitch of a wife is worse, I agree.’

‘I’ll sort things out without anyone’s help.’

‘It’s a shame you aren’t able to come to England with me,’ Palfy said. ‘I would have found you something very easily in London. I have a lot of friends there.’

Jean did not react. It was the first time Palfy had mentioned leaving for England: a lie doubtless triggered by the Newhaven packet’s appearance at Dieppe port two hours earlier. ‘What on earth is that old tub?’ he had asked. The answer had made him thoughtful. In the meantime the idea had taken root.

Palfy signed a cheque for more than the bill and pocketed the difference with a rueful smile. They drove back to Dieppe, where Joseph left them at Le Pollet.13 He shook Palfy’s hand and said to Jean, ‘The film club is showing King Vidor’s Hallelujah! at six. Do you want to come? It’s a classic.’

‘I thought you despised the cinema.’

‘Not the classics.’

Joseph had begun his ‘cinema’ period in the wake of his ‘sporting writers’ period and was throwing himself into it with the same passion, trying to create a circle of young cinephiles in a town where Georges Milton and saucy innuendo were rather more popular with public taste than Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo. Jean agreed to meet him after Palfy had left. They parked the car on the Place du Marché.

‘Is it true that you’ve decided to go to England? I thought you were saying it for effect, to impress Joseph.’

‘I said it for effect, and now I’ve decided. What time does the ferry leave?’

‘At five.’

‘Plenty of time to buy a couple of tickets.’

‘I can’t come.’

‘Jean, you disappoint me … but I understand. If you change your mind, here’s my address in London: the Governor Club, 22 Hamilton Street. I drop in there around lunchtime to pick up my post. My post and a glass of something. It’s full of Oxford men.’

‘So is it true you were at Oxford?’

‘Absolutely.’

Palfy lifted his suitcase from the boot and left the keys on the dashboard.

‘Tomorrow you might do something kind: an anonymous phone call to the police to report a stolen car on the Place du Marché. They’ll let the owner know. He’ll be getting anxious.’

‘You are a credit to your profession.’

‘Am I not? Have you got any money? I didn’t make much at the restaurant, and at Newhaven I’ll need to pay for my train ticket in cash.’

‘I’ve got a hundred francs left.’

‘Well, that’ll have to do.’

At least Palfy was not the kind of conman who promises to pay you back. He borrowed without scruples or pretence, and doubtless lent the same way if he happened to be flush. They walked the length of the quayside and found the ticket office. Palfy bought a first-class ticket and asked what time dinner was served and when the first fast train to London was. Jean reflected a little gloomily that he was going to have to walk back to Grangeville on foot, since he no longer had even the two francs necessary for the evening bus.

‘Jean, your film’s at six. We’ve got time for a quick stroll before the boat leaves. This is not an adieu, it’s an au revoir. You’ve been the most delightful companion, and right from the off I liked you, I can’t think why. Possibly because I can be myself. Anyway, you’ve understood that caution demands one doesn’t do the same with everybody. One day I’ll tell you more, and we’ll go for another wonderful spin together. Now I need to be serious: I’ve almost reached the bottom of the barrel, and if I don’t want to end up in jail very soon I need to set up some pretty big ventures. Take note … Only small-timers end up in prison. Never those of us with stature and ambition. For your immediate future I don’t know what to suggest, except that it would be better for you not to hide yourself away at Grangeville. The countryside’s all very pretty, but it doesn’t lead anywhere.’