William Trevor - Two Lives

‘It’s best,’ he quietly muttered.

Hopelessly now, she disagreed. More spurts of tears came, but then she calmed. She blew her nose and wiped at her cheeks. Francine thought that with all this guff out of her system she’d accept the inevitable, would realize she’d gone too far and say so. There was a moment for an apology, for a mumbled effort to repair unnecessary damage. But no apology came.

‘You foul bitch,’ his sister snapped, like ice cracking. Then she went.

13

The old man lolled in the ladder-backed chair, Aimée was perched on one of the peacock stools. Looking down from the top of the stairs, I couldn’t hear what he was murmuring but I was aware of her pleasure in his tenderness.

‘I’d love to see England.’ Just for a moment, Aimée’s voice floated to me, and again the old man murmured.

‘The last day.’ Otmar had quietly joined me and was looking down also. Through the mist of my tears he seemed even more sombre than he’d been of late: a face I can only describe as defeated was turned in my direction when he spoke, as though the prospect of the child’s going left him bereft. Our eyes held, and locked, and the dream I’d had about him took vivid form again. For a moment it seemed like a shaft of truth, coming to complete the story of that summer, illuminating everything. I saw the matchsticks broken, some long, some short. I watched the choice being made. ‘Otmar is the chosen one,’ the unhurried voice said, and I must have swayed, for he put his hand out to assist me.

At dinner that evening we were quiet. Aimée’s clothes, all of which had been bought while she was in the hospital, were already packed into the bag Mr Riversmith had brought specially from America, matching the black Mandarina Duck luggage Francine had chosen for him.

The General hardly opened his mouth; nor did Otmar; nor I, come to that. Mr Riversmith must have found it restful. He passed a remark or two and afterwards went off for a stroll on his own. I kept reminding myself that if we’d asked him he would have held forth eloquently about the digestive tracts of his chosen creature: an understanding of the human condition didn’t come into it. For all I knew, he privately considered that people damaged in an outrage were best forgotten, delegated to a rubbish tip, as the broken metal and bloodstained glass had been.

I listened for his return and, when I heard him passing through the hall, I considered going to wish him good-night, but I did not feel entirely up to it. In the kitchen I poured boiling water on to a tea-bag and dropped a slice of lemon into the glass. I fished the tea-bag out immediately, just as the water changed colour. I added a measure of grappa as I always do when I take tea as late as this, for on its own it keeps me awake. I carried the glass on to the terrace. The sky was clear and full of stars. I could hear the whirring of mosquitoes, but the fireflies all had gone. It was as warm as day.

‘Madeleine.’ Otmar’s voice echoed, repeating the girl’s name, nothing more. As I sipped my tea, I heard as well the voice of Miss Alzapiedi telling us about the devil cast out of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter. When evil was made good it was as though the evil had never existed. The greatest wonder of all, Miss Alzapiedi said.

In the kitchen I threw away the remains of my tea. I arranged two glasses and the grappa bottle on a tray. I was wearing an Indian silk dressing-gown, in shades of orange, and slippers that matched it, with gold stitching. I spent a moment in my room, applying a little make-up to my lips and eyes, a little powder, and eau-de-Cologne. I ran a comb through my hair.

When I knocked softly on his door there was no answering murmur. I had hoped he might be awake, thinking about things, but clearly he wasn’t. I pushed open the door and for a moment stood there, framed against the dim light of the corridor, before I moved towards his bedside table. I put the tray down and switched the light on. The notebook and the grey-jacketed volume had not yet been packed. I crossed the room again to close the door.

‘Once I sold shoes, Tom.’ I said that to myself, even though I spoke his name and glazed at his sleeping face. I stood leaning against the door, not immediately wishing to be closer to him or to wake him. I was still aware of the stockinged feet of women, of old shoes cast aside while I knelt and fitted whatever it was the women desired. As hot as ovens, the feet odorously perspired. ‘Swollen from walking, dear. Blown up beyond their size.’ They always bought shoes that were too small. The narrower fit, dear. Easily take the narrower.’ They stared down at the flesh that overlapped the straps and at the little fancy buckles. ‘Yes, I’d say they suit, dear.’

Quietly I moved to where he slept. His mouth was drawn down a little as if in some private despair, but I knew this was not the reason. In sleep his forehead wasn’t wrinkled, his closed eyes were tranquil. The lips’ expression was only a rictus of the night.

‘Mr Riversmith,’ I whispered. ‘Mr Riversmith.’

He stirred, though only slightly, one limb or another changing position beneath the sheet that covered him. I turned away, feeling I should not be too close when he awoke in case he was alarmed. I sat on the room’s single chair, half obscured by shadows in a corner.

Again my thoughts were interrupted by moments from my past. In the dining-room of the public house the clerks roughly called out their orders. In the Café Rose I opened a leathery old volume and was lost in another world: Only reapers, reaping early, in among the bearded barley, hear a song that echoes cheerly… ‘Two shepherd’s pie ’n’ chips. A toad-’n-the-hole. A plaice ’n’ peas.’ You had to repeat the orders so that the clerks could hear; you had to catch their attention, otherwise you’d bring the wrong plateful and then they’d jeer at you, asking you how long you’d been at it. ‘Nice pair of nylons, them.’ Quick as a flash the clerks would get a hand on you. On the S.S. Hamburg I was in love.

‘Oh,’ Mr Riversmith said.

‘It’s all right, Mr Riversmith.’

He pushed himself up, leaning on an elbow. He was looking straight at the grappa bottle. He didn’t quite know what was what. My voice might have belonged to the sleep he’d come from. He didn’t see me in the shadows.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Mr Riversmith.’

I remembered how, time and time again, I had lain there in the heat of Africa, waiting for whichever man had money that day. Afterwards, downstairs, I would make coffee and cook. The men played cards, I smoked and drank a lemonade. People who didn’t exist – not the people of the books I’d found but people of my own – flitted in from somewhere: as I’ve said before, I’d never have written a word if I hadn’t known the hell that was the Café Rose.

‘What time is it?’

‘Three, I think.’

‘Is something –’

‘No, nothing’s wrong.’

I rose, smiling at him, offering further reassurance. I poured some grappa, for him and for myself. I offered him a glass.

‘Look, I don’t think I can drink just now.’

‘Tomorrow you’ll be gone. Take just a sip.’

I returned to the chair in the corner. Tomorrow they’d both be gone.

‘I was fast asleep,’ he said, the way people who’ve been roused do.

‘I wanted to say I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry?’

‘For this morning.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters to me, Mr Riversmith.’

Even now, he wasn’t quite awake yet. In an effort to shake off his drowsiness he closed his eyes tightly and opened them again. He sighed, no doubt in a further effort to combat that lingering sleep.

‘I was almost dreaming myself,’ I confessed, ‘even though no one could be more wide awake.’