William Trevor - The Hill Bachelors

‘And now what else?’ she enquired when les amuse-gueules were finished.

Guy talked about Club 14 because he could think of nothing else. It was odd, it always seemed to him, what was said and what was not; and not just here, not only by the Buissonnets. His mother had never asked a single thing about the island, or even mentioned the Buissonnets except, in his childhood, to say when September was half over that it was time for him to visit them again. Once he had tried to tell her of the acre or two Monsieur Buissonnet and his labourers had reclaimed for cultivation during the year that had passed, how oliviers or vines had been planted where only scrub had grown before, how a few more metres had been marked out for irrigation. His mother had never displayed an interest. ‘Oh, it is because they have no children of their own,’ she’d said when he asked why it was that the Buissonnets invited him. ‘It is so sometimes.’

Not that Guy objected to being invited. He was as fond of the farm and the island as he was of the Buissonnets themselves. He delighted in the dry, parched earth, the crêtes , the unsafe cliffs. Dust coated the vegetation, the giant cacti, the purple or scarlet ipomoea with which the villagers decorated their walls, the leaves of brambles and oleander. It invaded cypresses and heather and the rock roses that Guy had never seen in flower. Only the huge stones and well-washed pebbles of the little bays escaped its grey deposit. Only the eucalyptus trees and the plane trees rose above it.

The accompaniments of the soupe de langoustines came, the waiter unfamiliar, new this season as the waiters often were. He placed the dishes he brought where they might easily be reached by all three diners, then ladled out the soup. He poured more Macon Fuissé.

‘What style!’ Madame Buissonnet whispered when he had passed on to another table, and then, ‘How good you are to take us here again, Guy!’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Oh, but yes, it is, my dear.’

The restaurant of the hotel had views over a valley to a lush growth of trees, unusual on the island. A carpet of grass, broken by oleander beds, formed the valley’s base, far below the level of the restaurant itself. This was shadowy now in the September twilight, the colour drained from its daytime’s splendour. The lengths of blue and white awning that earlier had protected the lunchtime diners from the sun had been rolled in, the sliding glass panels closed against mosquitoes. Thirty tables, a stiff white tablecloth on each, were widely separated in the airy, circular space, a couple of them unoccupied tonight. Monsieur Perdreau, the hotel’s proprietor for as long as Guy and the Buissonnets had been dining in its restaurant, was making his evening tour, pausing at each table to introduce himself or to ensure that everything was in order.

The Buissonnets knew him well, and by now so did Guy. He stayed a while, receiving compliments, bowing his gratitude, giving some details of his season, which had, this year, been particularly good, even if the restaurant was not quite full tonight. The hotel itself was, he explained: it was just that at the moment there were fewer yachts moored at the harbour.

‘You are getting to be my oldest client, Guy,’ he said, shaking hands before he went away.

It was then that Guy noticed that the girl two tables away had been joined by a companion. She was in white, fair-haired, slight; the man was bulky, in a bright blue suit. Guy had noticed the girl earlier and had thought it singular that being on her own she should want to occupy so prominent a table.

‘Splendid!’ Monsieur Buissonnet exclaimed when the waiter returned with the soup tureen.

*

The evening advanced, pleasurably and easily, as in previous Septembers so many others had. The loup de mer was as good as ever; glasses of Margaux accompanied the cheese. Madame Buissonnet’s disappointment that Guy had been unable to report a new relationship in his life was kept in check. She asked about Colette, who for a time had been Guy’s fiancée, and bravely smiled when she heard that Colette had become engaged to André Délespaul. Monsieur Buissonnet talked about the olive harvest, the coldest November he could remember on the island because of the bitter wind, how it had suddenly got up and remained for weeks, a mistral out of season. But none the less the harvest had been a good one.

Vanilla ice-cream came, a mango coulis . The little boules were so elegantly arranged on the green, yellow-rimmed plates that Madame Buissonnet said it was a pity to disturb them. The man in the blue suit had again left his companion on her own. She sat very still, eating nothing now. Coffee was brought to her but she did not pour it out. A cup and saucer were placed for her companion, beside his crumpled napkin.

‘They are a pest sometimes,’ Monsieur Buissonnet said, an observation he now and again made about the tourists who came to the island, ‘even if they bring a bit of life.’

The tourists hired bicycles at the harbour or in the village and rode about the sandy tracks. They came for the day or lodged in one of the small village hotels if not in Monsieur Perdreau’s rather grander one. The only vehicles that were permitted on the island were the farm trucks, the tractors, the delivery vans, and the minibus that delivered and collected guests. Cigarettes were forbidden in wooded areas because of the risk of fire.

‘Oh, we enjoy the tourists,’ Madame Buissonnet commented. ‘Of course we do.’

One by one, the tables were deserted. When the waiter whom Madame Buissonnet considered stylish brought chocolates and coffee, only a few were still occupied — the one at which the girl sat alone, a corner one at which Italian was spoken, a third at which a couple now stood up. The man in the blue suit returned, his progress unsteady and laboured, an apologetic smile thrown about, as if he were unaware that the chairs he circumvented were empty. He sat down noisily and at once stood up again, seeming to seek the attention of a waiter. When one approached he waved him away but, still on his feet, filled his glass and spilt it as he sat down. The girl poured coffee. She did not speak.

‘É oritologo,’ someone said at the Italian table, a woman’s voice carrying across the restaurant. ‘ Scrive libri sugli uccelli.’

The man in the blue suit stood up and again looked around him. He pulled at the knot of his tie, loosening it. He groped beneath it for the buttons of his shirt. His companion stared at the tablecloth. Was she weeping? Guy wondered. Something about her bent head suggested that she might be.

There was a glisten of sweat on the man’s forehead and his cheeks. He raised his glass in the direction of the Italians, smiling at them foolishly. One of them — a man in a suede jacket — bowed stiffly.

The waiters stood back, perfectly discreet. Amused at first by the scene, Madame Buissonnet now glanced away from what was happening. They should be going, she said.

‘Mi dà i brividi,’ one of the Italians exclaimed quite loudly, and they all got up, the women gathering handbags and shawls, one of the men lighting a fresh cigarette.

Watching them go, Guy realized that all evening he had been stealing glances at the girl who shared the drunk man’s table. Especially when she was alone he had kept glancing at her, unable to prevent himself. She was very thin. He had never seen a girl as thin. All the time he had talked about Gérard and Jean-Claude, and André Délespaul and Colette, all the time he had listened to the details of the olive harvest, while he’d shaken Monsieur Perdreau’s hand and laughed at his joke, he had imagined being with her in the little bay where he swam and at Le Nautic or the Café Vert in the village. He had looked for a wedding ring, and there it was.