Perfect Freedom, page 14
When he arrived unexpectedly one morning Helene directed him to the vegetable gardens where Stuart was working. Stuart looked up as he approached. Godet introduced himself. He was a big expansive man with a humorous air who reminded Stuart of an American Southerner. He looked around him, nodding at the long stretch of beach and the gentle rise of cultivated land behind it.
“D’une beauté extraordinaire,” he announced with orotund authority. He came quickly to the point. He wanted Stuart to let him handle the sale of a large part of the property in return for his cooperation in the legal battle, which he seemed to know about, hinting that he could provide decisive evidence. The prospect of acquiring an ally was agreeable but it was still the same old story—sell or get out. His affable manner didn’t carry him to the point of revealing the nature of his evidence. Stuart reiterated his determination to hold on to everything he had.
As Godet fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, Stuart saw that among several books he was carrying there was the gaudily covered one about St. Tropez that he had seen in the bookshop a few days earlier. It was a black mark against the newcomer. Port of dreams, indeed.
He accompanied the real-estate agent back to his car without considering that Bernard Godet might hold the key to his future. He paused to tell Helene about the interview and its outcome.
“Do you think that was wise?” she asked.
“Wise? What do you mean, wise? What else should I do?” As he spoke he was aware of the wonderful freedom Robbie’s absence offered him and he snapped the last question at her, deliberately inviting an argument. They could say what they really meant at last. They could clear the air. He was ready for a fight, if only for the sake of the ultimate reconciliation, of re-establishing the old warm contact. She only looked at him with a faint smile.
“Oh, nothing, I suppose,” she said. “I’m sure you’re quite right. I just asked.”
Finally, the day of the hearing in Draguignan was upon him. An early rising with a tight knot in his stomach. The questions: Have I done everything I could have done? Should I have made some concession to that real-estate agent? A silent drive with Boldoni. The crowded, stale-smelling courtroom. The waiting …
“You mustn’t expect too much,” the lawyer friend of Boldoni barked at him. “The others may have some evidence we don’t know about. I can only hope that the judge will accept the fact that you bought and developed the land in good faith. That should establish your rights.”
“I should hope so,” Stuart exclaimed indignantly.
He kept looking around him at the press of litigants without being able to find one kindly or generous face. He wanted to dissociate himself from them. They were a single intent, fretful, covetous mass. More waiting. The sound of feet shuffling. A sudden incoherent outburst of an angry lawyer. A surge forward carried Stuart before a gray man seated at a raised desk who never lifted his eyes from the papers in front of him.
Everybody was suddenly talking at once. He caught a glimpse of the handsome features of Etienne Dunan twisted in a grimace and he heard Boldoni’s voice above the others. Before Stuart knew what was happening, his lawyer was explaining to him that at least there would be no more talk of M. Giraudon’s insanity: the Marville case had been dismissed.
Stuart nodded and tried to concentrate on the next step. He wished they’d all stop talking so that he could grasp the mechanics of the thing. The gray man behind the desk was devoting all his attention to his papers. When he asked a question, it seemed to have no bearing on the case as Stuart knew it and, as far as he could see, nobody answered. After a minute, the man behind the desk gathered up the papers, put them aside, and picked up another bundle. Stuart’s lawyer turned with a shrug, spreading his arms wide and letting them slap down to his sides.
“This is what I was afraid of,” he sighed. “I warned you to compromise.”
“What do you mean?” Stuart demanded. “When are we going to be heard?”
“But, my dear sir, it’s over, settled. The Ladouceur claim has been recognized.”
“Salauds,” Boldini rumbled behind Stuart, as he was being carried away from the desk in the advancing tide of litigants. Settled? How could it be settled? How could a man’s whole life be settled without his being given a hearing?
“But you’re not going to let them get away with it,” he gasped at his squat swarthy lawyer.
“Come. There’s nothing to be done. The dossiers are there. There was nothing I could say.”
“It’s all very well for you to say there’s nothing to be done. I’m not satisfied. You’ve got to appeal.”
“How can I?” the lawyer demanded.
“You’ve got to. They’ll be having me up on that damn felony charge next.”
“I told you that was a foolish thing to do. I can’t appeal without fresh evidence.”
“Tell them you have fresh evidence,” Stuart ordered. “Tell them anything. Stall for time.”
“And where will I get this evidence?” the lawyer pleaded.
Where, indeed? There was only one answer. Stuart had no reason to place much confidence in it but it was the only hope. And—yes, by God, he’d accept any terms. If he were going to lose, he might as well be paid for it. Money. Lots of it. He could drive a hard bargain along with the rest of them, or go down fighting. This was a moment of immense decision. He needed time to think. There wasn’t a minute to lose.
“I’ll get your evidence,” he said curtly. “I don’t know what it’ll be worth but it’ll be something. Start an appeal.” He turned to Boldoni, who was staring at the crowd. “Come on. We’ve got to find that man called Godet.”
ROBBIE
Not moderating his pace or shifting his course as he moved through the press of cars and people along the port, Stuart emanated the air of authority that a crowd will instinctively make way for. When he encountered local people, he turned and nodded coldly. He was too envied to be liked. Summer tourists noted his striking figure. The simplicity of his shirt and slacks suggested a man traveling without baggage; it was in striking contrast to the attire generally worn on the port.
The British favored multi-colored blazers and brilliant silk scarves; the French, the Americans, the Italians had adopted outlandish variations of local attire—fishermen’s jerseys in silk, gilded sandals, stocking caps with tassels. The women for the most part wore shorts, exposing as much of themselves as was considered decent, but a few still clung to outmoded beach pajamas.
It was obviously going to be the biggest season ever. Every year it was the biggest season ever and now, thanks to Stuart, the lid was definitely off. The quai was an unbroken field of gay beach umbrellas sprouting from iron-topped tables. Yachts glittering with brass and chromium had finally crowded the easygoing commercial shipping from the harbor. Drawn up in front of them, a fleet of luxurious automobiles from every corner of the earth stood waiting to convey the late-luncheon crowd to the sun-scorched beach.
As he approaced La Bouillabaisse, Stuart let himself be drawn into the milling throng. He knew that Odette would probably be greeting her customers at this hour and it still made him uncomfortable to stalk past her without speaking, even though the ultimate triumph had been his. He hid himself in the crowd and let it carry him past the danger point. Once his pace was slowed, it was unbearably hot. Smiling faces seemed to press close to his. One was that of a famous woman novelist, another an American film star. A car pushed its way through the throng, followed by a bear on a bicycle. Stuart supposed it was a man dressed up as a bear but it might really be a bear. One learned to accept anything on the quai at St. Tropez.
He disentangled himself from the crowd and turned up toward the center of town. As soon as he was in the shade of the harrow street, he stopped and unbuttoned his shirt down to the waist. He squinted up at the cloudless sky. It was going to be the best year for grapes he had ever seen. He had to remind himself that it didn’t matter to him anymore.
He looked over his shoulder, craning his neck to see the clock in the church tower. Already five minutes late. Well, they would wait. He looked back at the port. The crowd was thinning. Groups were piling into cars; the procession to the beach had started. In another hour, the quai would be deserted until the cocktail hour. In this brief interval, one could almost believe that nothing had changed. You’re getting old, he told himself. Approaching forty, a man should still be looking forward, not back. His eye followed the soaring thrust of a mast and then dropped to the sleek gleaming hull of a yacht on whose stern several youths were lolling. That would be the British admiral’s boat. Very handsome, and yet none of these impeccable craft had the charm of the clumsy old tartanes. You’re an enemy of progress, my boy, he told himself.
He ran his hand over his chest and wiped the sweat off on the side of his trousers. His hand felt rough against the fabric and he looked at it, pushing the calluses with a forefinger. All that he had to show for his productive labor. It had taken him seven years to acquire them and they were already softening up. He hitched up his trousers and rested his hands on his hips. He knew he must look odd standing here in the street. What am I waiting for? he wondered. Everything is settled. The others are waiting. I know what the port looks like by heart. Yet he felt that it should look different today. It should look bigger or more crowded or, if possible, richer. Richer … That word prodded him into movement and he went on into the town to collect a fortune.
He was glad he had planned it just this way. From the moment he had reached his decision a year and a half ago in that stinking courtroom, he had been following a schedule that went out of effect as of today.
Godet and his damn book. If Stuart hadn’t been so determined to deny the existence of all that the book represented, he would have looked into it himself and saved himself a great deal of heartache. The author of St. Tropez: Port of Dreams had told a tale of a brief period when the countryside had been threatened by pirates and of the warning lights communicating with the lighthouse. The Plain of the Saracens had been an essential link between the lighthouse and the town and it had been bought by a nineteenth-century Giraudon who had been instrumental in setting up a defense.
It was this public-spirited Giraudon who had created all the confusion by not taking over the land for farming but making a loan of it to the community. He hadn’t even bothered to make sure that his purchase was properly registered. It was a good enough story but it turned out that the author had it on hearsay from his grandfather. Once Godet had told him what they had to look for, it had taken six months to assemble documentary proof from fragmentary evidence in old records and to have it recognized in court. It had taken another year to sell off the land.
He had moved slowly, forcing up the price by skillful maneuvering and allowing the money to accumulate until the last of the almost three hundred acres he had agreed with Godet to part with had been sold. He didn’t want the money in dribbles. The sum he had realized was greater than he had dreamed of—not millions, as he had been accustomed to measure riches in New York, but very nearly one million after Godet had taken his share. It had turned out that an acre was now worth more than the purchase price of the whole property.
He supposed that receiving so much money all at once must carry with it its own imperatives. He didn’t know what kind of a life he wanted to lead as a rich man and he was waiting for the money itself to give him a clue. He was determined not to be submerged by it. He was not so foolish as to think that money would make no difference but he had seen nothing in the lives of the rich that offered the satisfaction he had found in his vineyard. He must learn what he could from it, alone, as if he were the first rich man on earth.
Robbie opened one eye as Stuart climbed down the rocks to the cove where the boy was stretched out almost naked, sunning himself. “Did you get the loot?” he called lazily. He had shot up in the last two years and was now as tall as his father with the beginning of a fine physique, although there was still a coltishness in his big-jointed limbs.
Stuart squatted beside him. “Yes, it’s in the bank. Where’s madame?”
“She’s taking a siesta, I think. She went up about an hour ago. It must be almost time for tea.” Robbie had acquired a wordly manner but underlying it was an undecided quality, tenebrous and provocative. It showed in his movements, in the way he rolled over now onto one elbow and studied the nail of his index finger. Everything he did seemed to sketch a loose eccentric line.
Stuart had a deep respect for the boy’s talent, which had developed enormously in these last years. He had enjoyed planning with him the new house they were finally going to build and he had admired the taste and imagination that this project had revealed in the boy. Even so, he was never sure that he was really getting through to him. He might have put this down to an inadequacy in himself but the fact that Robbie had made no real friends at school suggested there was more to it than that. His scholastic record was admirable, he was apparently well liked, but he remained aloof from his fellows, aloof and a trifle melancholy.
“You know,” Stuart suggested tentatively, “I think it’s about time we had a taste of our own creation. I think we should have a real bang-up touristy night on the town. Cocktails, dinner, nightclubs, everything. Find out what the summer folk see in it.”
“That’d be wonderful.” Robbie laughed abruptly and inexplicably. The laughter ended as suddenly as it had begun. “It’s funny. The kids at school know more about St. Tropez than I do.”
“That’s what comes of being one of the underprivileged. Now we’re definitely nouveaux riches. Do you have an elegant shirt you can lend me for the occasion? I’m afraid mine are all rather threadbare.”
“I guess so. But what’ll we do about Mum? Her clothes look like something the cat dragged in.”
“Do they? I’m afraid I hadn’t noticed. She must have something put away for best.”
“I’ll go see what she’s doing.” Robbie stood up in one lithe movement and sand showered from him. He looked at Stuart sideways, his dark hair falling over his forehead. His eyes were beautiful like Helene’s, but with a hard, penetrating look that revealed nothing. “You did mean tonight?” he asked.
“Oh yes, definitely tonight. Tell your mother it’s to be a thoroughly trashy evening.”
Robbie threw his head back with more laughter and went leaping off up the rocks. Stuart watched him reflectively until he was gone. He lay back on the warm sand and looked up at the sky. White puffs of clouds passed above him, giving him the uncomfortable sensation of feeling the earth turning, and he closed his eyes.
Robbie’s laughter echoed in his ears, a reward. The boy needed to get out more, have fun, find his place in the world. Well, the money was there. A fuller life for Robbie. The new house. Some new clothes for himself and Helene. A new car or two so that they could get about a bit less sedately than in the Rolls. That was as far as he could see now. This was clearly a beginning, a starting all over again; it was also a farewell.
Farewell to the land and its creatures. Farewell to Antonin and the others and to the jolly vintage parties and shared toil. His riches and the grand new house would finally sever whatever link still existed between them. There would be no more Odettes. Farewell to her, too, to the sweet animal warmth she had offered at the beginning. Farewell to the world in which shopkeepers didn’t want to be paid and Boldoni fed you like a king just for the fun of it. Farewell to all of it.
And Helene? he thought, wondering. Perhaps their farewell had taken place a long time ago. When his work had kept him in the fields for long hours he could tell himself that any withdrawal he felt in her was the result of his having so little energy left to devote to her. There had been the bad year after Robbie’s illness when she had seemed to recoil from any physical intimacy. He had worked his way through that but he hadn’t been able to recapture the old passion. When the appeal was pending and he had little will to work on land whose ownership lay in the balance, he had learned that whatever had happened between them had happened, that whatever had been lost was lost. He had counted on the past to bridge the gap of the years, but the past had given him no insight into the placid agreeable remote woman who looked out at him from Helene’s once burning eyes.
He had learned that you can’t start over again with people. The past is there and sometimes it’s a barrier. No matter what people say, you can’t always build on it. He loved her, she loved him, but he knew they had missed something along the way. Perhaps it was only time taking its inexorable toll. Was he ready for a mistress? He wondered why he felt so little inclination to stray. He hoped that Odette had cured him of thinking that lighthearted liaisons could do no harm. He sat up suddenly and wiped the sand off his hands, squinting against the light on the sea.
Why? he thought. Why am I living? Given life, it was easy enough to fill it one way or another. But why had be been placed on earth? If one didn’t see oneself as a function of some divine plan, what was the meaning, what was the purpose? He thought of how simple everything had seemed at the beginning when he believed that all he had to do was take his clothes off and get into the sun. This view seemed hopelessly inadequate now. People were fighting all over the place. Was that what you needed to give you a sense of purpose? Not even the Abyssinians seemed to expect anybody in his right mind to help them once the important powers had failed to take any concerted action, but should he volunteer to join the Loyalists in Spain? He had given it serious thought during the last year when he wasn’t thinking about money. Somebody was going to have to stop Hitler and Mussolini from bullying the world, but the right moment always seemed to slip past. His generation had already lived through a war and he couldn’t see that it had accomplished much. He doubted if there would be another one in his time simply because the people who devoted their lives to thinking about money, like his father, hadn’t figured out how to make it pay. There was too much danger that the Reds might walk off with all the stakes. He should probably be grateful for the opportunity to find some answers in himself.
