I had begun to recognize the gleam in my aunts eyes. She had had it in Brighton, when she recounted the history of the dogs church, and in Paris when she told me of the affair with Monsieur Dambreuse, and in the Orient Express when she described Mr. Viscontis escape She was deeply absorbed in her story. I am sure my father the admirer of Walter Scott would not have told the story of the Curlews nearly so dramatically; there would have been less dialogue and more description.
William, my aunt went on, came in from the bathroom and climbed into the enormous double bed which Melany had chosen herself at Maples. In his anxiety, William had not taken a book with him. He wanted the crisis to arrive. I wont be long, dear, Melany said, busy with Ponds cold cream, which she preferred to any newer brand for the sake of her old-world complexion.
Was it a bad bill? William asked.
Bill?
The one you dropped.
Oh that. I havent opened it yet.
Youll lose it again if youre not careful.
That would be a good thing to do, wouldnt it, with a bill? Melany said good-humouredly, but the words belied her nature she never kept a tradesman waiting and never allowed one to extend her credit beyond a month. Now she wiped her fingers on the Kleenex and opened the yellow envelope. The first words she read, unevenly typed, were Your husband, madam
No, she said, not bad. Just tiresome. And she read the letter carefully to the end it was signed A neighbour and well-wisher. Then she tore it in little pieces and dropped them in her waste-paper basket.
You shouldnt destroy a bill, William said.
A few shillings at the newspaper shop. I paid it this morning. She looked at William and said, What a good husband youve always been, William. She came to the bed and kissed him and William could detect her intention. How tired a party makes me, he said, excusing himself weakly, with a faint yawn.
Of course, dear, Melany said, lying down beside him without any complaint. Happy dreams, and then she noticed all those dabs of cotton wool. Oh you poor dear, she said, youve cut yourself. Let your Melany make them clean, and then and there she busied herself, for ten minutes at least, washing the wounds in chemists alcohol and fixing bits of Elastoplast, as though nothing important had happened. How funny you look now, she said, quite gay and carefree, and William told your father there was no longer any hint of danger in the kiss she planted on the end of his nose. Dear funny William. I could forgive you anything. It was then William gave up all hope she was a perfect wife, uncrackably perfect, and your father used to say that the word forgive tolled on in Williams ears like the bell at Newgate[185] signalling an execution.
So he never escaped? I asked.
He died many years later in Melanys arms, Aunt Augusta said, and we finished our apple tart in silence.
Chapter 18
Next morning, which was just as grey as the last had been, Aunt Augusta and I climbed the long hill towards the cemetery. A shop advertised DEUIL EN 24 HEURES[186], and a wild boar, hung outside a butchers shop, dripped blood, and a notice pinned on the muzzle read RETENEZ VOS MORCEAUX POUR JEUDI[187], but Thursday meant nothing to me, and not very much to Aunt Augusta. The feast of the Little Flower, she said, looking the date up in her missal, which she had brought with her because it was a suitable occasion, but a boar seems hardly suitable. Also apparently the feast of Saint Thomas of Hereford, who died in exile in Orvieto, but I doubt if even the English have heard of him.
Outside the gates of the Ville Haute there was a plaque commemorating the death of a Hero of the Resistance.
The dead of an army, my aunt said, become automatically heroes like the dead of the Church become martyrs. I wonder about this man Saint Thomas. I would have thought he was very lucky to die in Orvieto rather than in Hereford. A small civilized place even today with a far, far better climate and an excellent restaurant in the Via Garibaldi.
Are you really a Roman Catholic? I asked my aunt with interest. She replied promptly and seriously, Yes, my dear, only I just dont believe in all the things they believe in.
To find my fathers grave in the enormous grey cemetery would have been like finding an individual house without a street number in Camden Town. The noise of trains came up from below the hill and the smoke of coal fires from the high town blew across the maze of graves. A man from a little square house, which was like a tomb itself, offered to conduct us. I had brought a wreath of flowers, though my aunt thought my gesture a little exaggerated. They will be very conspicuous, she said. The French believe in remembering the dead once a year on the Feast of All Souls. It is tidy and convenient like Communion at Easter, and it is true that I saw few flowers, even immortelles[188], among the angels, the cherubs, the bust of a bald man like a lycee professor, and the huge tomb, which apparently contained La Famille Flageollet. An English inscription on one monument caught my eye: In loving memory of my devoted son Edward Rhodes Robinson who died in Bombay where he is buried, but there was nothing English about his pyramid. Surely my father would have preferred an English graveyard of lichened stones with worn-out inscriptions and tags of pious verse to these shiny-black made-to-last slabs which no Boulogne weather could ever erode, all with the same headlines, like copies of the same newspaper: À la memoire, Ici repose le corps[189] Except for a small elderly woman in black who stood with bowed head at the end of a long aisle like the solitary visitor in a provincial museum, there seemed no one but ourselves in the whole heartless place.