‘Yes, it’s properly maintained, it’s furnished. It’s got everything you need, electricity, water and so forth.’
‘Why did you kit it out?’
Juliette bit her lip.
‘Just in case, Marc, just in case. I may not be on my own for ever. You never know. And since my brother lives with me, a little place where one can be on one’s own if necessary… Does that seem silly? Are you laughing?’
‘Not at all,’ said Marc. ‘Have you got anyone in mind for it at the moment?’
‘No, you know I haven’t,’ said Juliette with a shrug. ‘So what is it you want?’
‘I’d like you to offer it to someone else. Tactfully. If you don’t mind. For a small rent.’
‘To you, or Mathias? Or Lucien? The old policeman? Aren’t you getting on with each other?’
‘No, no, it’s not that, we’re fine. It’s Alexandra. She says she can’t go on staying with us. She says she and her son are in our way, that she can’t settle in and I think, most of all, she wants a bit of peace and quiet. She’s started looking for places in the small ads, so I thought…’
‘You don’t want her to go too far away, is that it?’
Marc fiddled with his glass. ‘Mathias says we ought to keep an eye on her. Just until this business has been sorted out. If she could use your cabin, she could be on her own with her son, and at the same time she’d be quite close.’
‘That’s what I mean, close to you.’
‘No, Juliette, you’re wrong. Mathias really thinks it would be best if she’s not left alone.’
‘Well, it’s all the same to me,’ Juliette cut him off briskly. ‘I don’t mind at all if she moves in with the child. If it’s to help you, yes, that’s fine. Anyway she’s Sophia’s niece. It’s the least I could do.’
‘You’re very kind, Juliette.’
Marc kissed her on the forehead.
‘But she doesn’t know?’ asked Juliette.
‘No, of course not.’
‘So how do you know she’ll want to stay near you? Have you thought of that? How are you going to get her to accept?’
Marc looked gloomy. ‘Can I leave it to you? Don’t say it was my idea. You’ll find some good reason.’
‘You’re asking me to do your dirty work?’
‘I’m counting on you. Don’t let her go away somewhere else.’
Marc went back to the table where Lucien and Alexandra were stirring their coffee.
‘He kept on asking where I went last night,’ Alexandra was saying. ‘What’s the point of trying to explain to him that I didn’t even take in the names of the villages. He didn’t believe me, and I don’t care.’
‘Was your father’s father German too?’ Lucien interrupted.
‘Yes, but what has that got to do with anything?’
‘Was he in the Great War? Did he leave any papers or letters or anything?’
‘Lucien, for God’s sake, can’t you control yourself?’ asked Marc. ‘If you must talk, can’t you find some other subject? Try and you’ll see, you might find something else to talk about.’
‘OK,’ said Lucien. ‘Are you going driving again tonight?’ he asked after a pause.
‘No,’ said Alexandra smiling. ‘Leguennec confiscated my car this morning. Pity, because the wind is getting up. I love the wind. It would be a nice night for driving.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Lucien. ‘Driving round for no reason and going nowhere. Frankly I don’t see the point. Could you keep going all night like that?’
‘All night, I don’t know. I’ve only been doing it for eleven months every now and then. Up to now, I’ve always given up at about three in the morning.’
‘Given up?’
‘Yes. So I come back. Then a week later I start again, I think it’s going to help. But it doesn’t.’
Alexandra shrugged, and pushed her hair back behind her ears. Marc would have liked to do it for her.
XXI
GOODNESS KNOWS HOW JULIETTE MANAGED IT, BUT THE FOLLOWING day, Alexandra moved into the garden house. Marc and Mathias helped to carry her luggage. With the help of this distraction, Alexandra relaxed a bit. Marc, who was knowledgeable about that kind of thing and could easily spot the signs, had been watching the shadows of some secret sorrow reflected in her face. He was glad to see them fade, even if he knew that the respite might only be temporary. During the respite, Alexandra proposed that they say ‘tu’ to each other and that they call her Lex.
Lucien, rolling up his floor rug, to take it back upstairs, muttered that the line-up of forces on the battleground was getting more and more complex. The Western Front had tragically lost one of its major players, leaving only a doubtful husband behind, while the Eastern Front, already reinforced by Mathias in
‘Has the Great War really turned your brain?’ Marc asked, ‘or are you carrying on like this because you’re sorry Alexandra is leaving?’
‘I’m not carrying on, as you put it,’ said Lucien. ‘I’m rolling up my rug and I’m commenting on the present state of affairs. Lex-she said to call her Lex-wanted to get out of here, and yet she’s staying very nearby. Very near her Uncle Pierre, very near the epicentre of the drama. What’s she after? Unless that is,’ he said, straightening up, with the rug under his arm, ‘the whole Operation Eastern Base was dreamed up by you.’
‘Why would I do that?’ said Marc, defensively.
‘To keep an eye on her or to keep her within reach, take your pick. Personally I’d opt for the second. Anyway, congratulations. It seems to have worked.’
‘Lucien, you are really getting on my nerves.’
‘Why? You want her, that’s perfectly obvious. Well, look out, you’re going to get hurt again. You’re forgetting that we’re still up shit creek, and when that’s the case, you might slip. You have to go slowly, step by step. Certainly not go haring ahead like a madman. Not that I disapprove of a poor guy in the trenches having a bit of a distraction. Not at all. But Lex is too pretty, she’s too touching, and she’s too intelligent to be written off as a mere distraction. You’re not just going to have a bit of fun, you’re running the risk of being in love. That way madness lies, Marc, madness.’
‘What do you mean madness, you no-brain soldier?’
‘Because, you no-brain worshipper of courtly love, you suspect, just as I do, that Lex and her little boy have been chucked out or abandoned. Or something like that. So like an idiot knight on a white horse, you imagine that there’s a vacant place in her affections and that you can move in. Big mistake, let me tell you.’
‘Look, idiot of the trenches, I know more about empty hearts than you do. And I can tell you that the emptiness takes up much more space than when it’s occupied.’
‘You show remarkable lucidity for someone who stays behind the front line,’ said Lucien. ‘You’re not entirely stupid, Marc.’
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Not at all. I’ve done a bit of snooping.’
‘I’m not installing Alexandra in the garden house next door because I want to pounce on her. Even if she does attract me. And who wouldn’t be attracted?’
‘Mathias for one,’ said Lucien, raising his finger in the air. ‘Mathias is attracted by the beautiful and brave Juliette.’
‘And you?’
‘As I told you, I move slowly and I observe. That’s all. For the moment.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Maybe you’re right. It’s true that I’m not totally without feelings, or the urge to help. For instance, I suggested to Alexandra that she could keep my rug for the cabin if she wanted to. Answer: she couldn’t care less.’
