after glass of water. Nobody wanted cheese. Only Harrison and Maud ate a peach. It was almost with a sense of relief that they rose and moved away from each other.
‘I will ask Marie to make you more lemonade,’ said Germaine, tired now. ‘Remember that the servants are not to be disturbed. They are going out anyway. The cinema, I believe. In this heat! But it is probably cooler in the dark. Come, Nadine. We will leave these young people to their own devices. But perhaps Marie-Paule and Patricia have something planned? Your aunt will not have seen much of you today.’
Harrison and Tyler saw the girls down the drive and across the road to the house inaptly named Le Colombier, where their aunt was lying down in the dark with a headache and desirous not to be disturbed. Harrison yawned, and quickly effaced the yawn with his hand. ‘I think I’ll go in,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel up to much after that lunch. I’ll see you later.’ After they had watched him go back into the house Maud turned resolutely away, determined not to ascertain whether Tyler was following her. She made her way instinctively to the summer house, and sat on the steps, as she had seen Tyler do that morning. After a few minutes she registered the fact that she was entirely alone. She sighed and lifted her face to the sun, tired of the holiday, which was not a holiday, tired of the further politeness that would be demanded of her, and which she would offer, with her usual dignity, to Jean Bell’s parents. It would be all art galleries and ancient buildings in London, she thought, and when Jean Bell returned with her it would be all questions about the date of the tombs in the Dijon museum.
She surrendered herself to the heat of the day, opening thecollar of her blouse a little wider to allow the afternoon sun to reach her skin. The heat met some desire in her for expansion; she wanted to melt, to be absorbed. To be taken over! With this desire came a sorrow that she could not be more active, could not hold, or, it seemed, even attract attention like those girls had done this morning, could not in fact energise or convert the feelings that had so disconcerted her when Tyler had disappeared into the summer house and then reappeared alone, and had sat as she was now sitting, his back view expressing something new, solitariness, as if he were subject to ordinary human feeling, even as she was. But that was the difference between them, the insuperable barrier that would hinder any exchange, for while she was aware of her inadequacies, Tyler appeared to have none. Even the other man, Harrison, whom she had initially thought to be more interested in her, had given way to easier distractions. They were like some primitive species, she thought, like mayflies, or plants that bloomed only once, with the difference that their more evolved condition, their higher animality, enabled them to revive again and again, ready for further play in the humming summer air.
The grass was so dry that she did not hear his footfalls, and when she saw his feet approaching she lowered her eyes suddenly to the ground. The wooden steps creaked under his weight as he sat down beside her.
‘Here you are,’ he said absently. ‘Aren’t you too hot?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I like the heat.’
Indeed she felt that the heat had given her some power, so that she did not immediately move away from him.
‘I think you are not having a very good time, Maud.’
‘No,’ she heard herself say. ‘Not very.’
‘I expect you miss your own friends. Your boyfriend. You have a boyfriend?’
‘Of course.’
This was not entirely untrue. The young instructor of her English course was plainly fond and had asked her out several times. When it came to inviting him to the house and introducing him to her mother she had decided that her mother’s enthusiasm would be more than she could endure and had deduced from this that the man had no real fascination for her other than a mild
‘I will ask Marie to make you more lemonade,’ said Germaine, tired now. ‘Remember that the servants are not to be disturbed. They are going out anyway. The cinema, I believe. In this heat! But it is probably cooler in the dark. Come, Nadine. We will leave these young people to their own devices. But perhaps Marie-Paule and Patricia have something planned? Your aunt will not have seen much of you today.’
Harrison and Tyler saw the girls down the drive and across the road to the house inaptly named Le Colombier, where their aunt was lying down in the dark with a headache and desirous not to be disturbed. Harrison yawned, and quickly effaced the yawn with his hand. ‘I think I’ll go in,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel up to much after that lunch. I’ll see you later.’ After they had watched him go back into the house Maud turned resolutely away, determined not to ascertain whether Tyler was following her. She made her way instinctively to the summer house, and sat on the steps, as she had seen Tyler do that morning. After a few minutes she registered the fact that she was entirely alone. She sighed and lifted her face to the sun, tired of the holiday, which was not a holiday, tired of the further politeness that would be demanded of her, and which she would offer, with her usual dignity, to Jean Bell’s parents. It would be all art galleries and ancient buildings in London, she thought, and when Jean Bell returned with her it would be all questions about the date of the tombs in the Dijon museum.
She surrendered herself to the heat of the day, opening thecollar of her blouse a little wider to allow the afternoon sun to reach her skin. The heat met some desire in her for expansion; she wanted to melt, to be absorbed. To be taken over! With this desire came a sorrow that she could not be more active, could not hold, or, it seemed, even attract attention like those girls had done this morning, could not in fact energise or convert the feelings that had so disconcerted her when Tyler had disappeared into the summer house and then reappeared alone, and had sat as she was now sitting, his back view expressing something new, solitariness, as if he were subject to ordinary human feeling, even as she was. But that was the difference between them, the insuperable barrier that would hinder any exchange, for while she was aware of her inadequacies, Tyler appeared to have none. Even the other man, Harrison, whom she had initially thought to be more interested in her, had given way to easier distractions. They were like some primitive species, she thought, like mayflies, or plants that bloomed only once, with the difference that their more evolved condition, their higher animality, enabled them to revive again and again, ready for further play in the humming summer air.
The grass was so dry that she did not hear his footfalls, and when she saw his feet approaching she lowered her eyes suddenly to the ground. The wooden steps creaked under his weight as he sat down beside her.
‘Here you are,’ he said absently. ‘Aren’t you too hot?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I like the heat.’
Indeed she felt that the heat had given her some power, so that she did not immediately move away from him.
‘I think you are not having a very good time, Maud.’
‘No,’ she heard herself say. ‘Not very.’
‘I expect you miss your own friends. Your boyfriend. You have a boyfriend?’
‘Of course.’
This was not entirely untrue. The young instructor of her English course was plainly fond and had asked her out several times. When it came to inviting him to the house and introducing him to her mother she had decided that her mother’s enthusiasm would be more than she could endure and had deduced from this that the man had no real fascination for her other than a mild
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