The Only Problem

‘Three weeks. It’s been in the papers, and he wrote —’

‘Nobody tells me anything.’

‘I think it funny Edward hasn’t rung us up to-day. He must have seen the papers,’ Ruth said. ‘Maybe it scared him. A scandal.’

‘Where would you like to go?’ Harvey said.

‘Have you got anyone in Canada I could take Clara to?’

‘I have an aunt and I have an uncle in Toronto. They’re married but they live in separate houses. You could go to either. I’ll ring up.

‘I’ll go to the uncle,’ said Ruth. She started to smile happily, but she was crying at the same time.

‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Harvey said.

‘Yes there is. There’s Effie. There’s Edward.’

‘What about Edward?’

‘He’s a shit. He might have wanted to know if I was all right. He’s been writing all the time I’ve been here, and phoning every day since we got the telephone put in. Up to now.’

Anne-Marie came in with a splendid salad, a tray of cheeses.

‘Shall I help Madame to pack after lunch?’ she said.

‘How did she know I was leaving?’ Ruth said when the maid had gone out.

‘Somebody told her. Everyone knows everything,’ said Harvey, ‘except me.’

Ruth was in the bedroom, packing, and Harvey was pushing the furniture here and there to make a distance between the place where he intended to sit to receive the reporters, and the part of the room reserved for them. Ruth, Harvey thought as he did so, has been crying a lot over the past few weeks, crying and laughing. I noticed, but I didn’t notice. I wonder if she cried under the interrogation, and laughed? Anyway, it isn’t this quite unlooked- for event that’s caused her to cry and laugh, it started earlier. Did she tell the police she was pregnant? Probably. Maybe that’s why they want to get rid of her. Is she really pregnant? Harvey plumped up a few cushions. Yellow chintzes, lots of yellow; at least, the chintzes had a basis of yellow, so that you saw yellow when you came into the room. New chintzes: all right, order new chintzes. Curtains and cushions and cosiness: all right, order them; have them mail my lawyer the bill. You say you need a chateau: all right, have the chateau, my lawyers will fix it. Harvey kicked an armchair. It moved smoothly on its castors into place. Ruth, he thought, is fond of the baby. She adores Clara. Who wouldn’t? But Clara belongs to me, that is, to my wife, Effie. No, Clara belongs to Ruth and depends on Ruth. It’s good-bye, goodbye, to Clara. He looked at his watch. Time to telephone Toronto, it’s about ten in the morning there. The story of playboy Harvey Gotham and his terrorist connections are certainly featured in the Canadian press, on the radio, the television.

Anne-Marie had come in, shiny black short hair, shiny black eyes, clear face. She had a small waist, stout hips. She carried a transistor radio playing rock music softly enough not to justify complaint.

‘Do you know how to get a number on the telephone, long-distance to Toronto?’ Harvey said.

‘Of course,’ said the policewoman.

He thought, as he gave her the number, She doesn’t look like a police official, she looks like a maid. Bedworthy and married. She’s somebody’s wife. Every woman I have to do with is somebody’s wife. Ruth, Job’s wife, and Effie who is still my wife, and who is shooting up the supermarkets. Twelve people hurt and millions of francs’ theft and damage. If the police don’t soon get the gang there will be deaths; housewives, policemen, children murdered. Am I responsible for my wife’s debts? Her wounded, her dead?

Anne-Marie had left the transistor while she went to telephone; the music had been interrupted and the low murmur of an announcement drew Harvey’s attention; he caught the phrases: terrorist organisation … errors of justice …; he turned the volume up. It was a bulletin from FLE issued to a Paris news agency, vindicating its latest activities. The gang was going to liberate Europe from its errors. ‘Errors of society, errors of the system.’ Most of all, liberation from the diabolical institution of the gendarmerie and the brutality of the Brigade Criminelle. It was much the same as every other terrorist announcement Harvey had ever read. ‘The multinationals and the forces of the reactionary imperialist powers …’ It was like an alarm clock that ceases to wake the sleeper who, having heard it morning after morning, simply puts out a hand and switches it off without even opening his eyes.

The bulletin was followed by an announcement that fifty inspectors of the Brigade Criminelle were now investigating FLE’s activities in the Vosges where the terrorists were still believed to be hiding out. End of announcement: on with the music.

‘Your call to Toronto,’ said Anne-Marie.

Ruth was to go to Paris and leave next morning, with Clara, for Canada. A Volvo pulled up at the door. When he had finished his call, Harvey saw two suitcases already packed in the hall. Those people work fast. ‘Not so fast,’ Harvey said to Anne-Marie. ‘The child’s father might not agree to her going to Canada. We must get his permission.

‘We have his permission. Mr Howe will call you to-night. He has agreed with Scotland Yard.’

‘The press will be here any minute,’ said Harvey. ‘They’ll see Madame and the baby driving off.’

‘No, the police have the road cordoned off. Madame and the child will leave by a back door, anyway.’ She went out and gave instructions to the driver of the Volvo, who took off, round to the back of the house. Anne-Marie lifted one of the suitcases and gestured to Harvey to take the other. He followed her, unfamiliar with all the passages of his chateau, through a maze of grey kitchens, dairies and wash-houses as yet unrestored. By a door leading to a vast and sad old plantation which must have once been a kitchen garden, Ruth stood, huddled in her sheepskin coat, crying, cuddling the baby.

‘Is it to be Toronto?’ she said.

‘Oh, yes, you’ll be met. Do you have the money with you?’ Harvey had given her charge of a quantity of cash long before the trouble started.

‘I’ve taken most of it.’