Love, Again

The dress rehearsal was set for seven-thirty, which was still daylight. The lighting of the piece had always been a difficulty. The first scenes were by lamplight in the sitting room in Martinique, but the late sun was glowing on the wires of a harp that stood on boards laid over pink dust. The programme said: Martinique. 1882. Evening.

There was a worse difficulty. Three hundred chairs were disposed in the audience space, and these were expected to be part filled by invited guests, mostly from the French side of the production. There could not be the customary audience for a dress rehearsal, the friends of performers and management, for they were not French. Yet all the seats were occupied an hour before the play began, and crowds of onlookers had made their way up from the town and now stood among the trees, waiting. These were French and, too, many tourists, mostly English and American. No one had expected this kind of success for Julie Vairon, except Mary Ford, who could be observed not saying, I told you so! — and yet now that it was happening, nothing could be more plain than that it had to happen. Jean-Pierre kissed Mary's hand, and then her cheeks, many times. They went waltzing around together among the rocks, a victory dance, while Henry and Stephen and Sarah and the cast applauded them. There were no seats left for Sarah and the two Croesuses. Chairs were brought up from the town and fitted in among the trees.

There were discontented murmurs from the crowd. How could the authorities — that is to say, themselves — have been so shortsighted as not to allow for the inevitable interest? Three hundred seats — absurd! Affreux… stupide… une absurdité… lamentable… and so it went on. Then and there a meeting to discuss the popularity of Julie Vairon was arranged for breakfast time tomorrow. Meanwhile the curtain, so to speak, was due to rise. Sitting where she did, next to Henry, Sarah felt his anguish vibrate from him to her. He had confessed he had been sick all night and that was why she had found him sitting by the waterfall. He told her this in a theatrical mutter, a parody of gloom, but his eyes were darkened by the anguish of it all. He attempted a smile, failed, grabbed her hand, and kissed it. His lips left a burning place.

The musicians, who stood with the singers on their little stone platform, began a conventional introduction, for the music was a drawing-room ballad brought to Martinique with the sheet music and the pretty dresses and the fashion magazines on the insistence of Sylvie Vairon, who had made it clear from the beginning, that is to say, from Julie's conception, that if the girl was not going to be legitimate, then at least she must be equipped to get a good husband.

Molly appeared out of the trees. Her white gown left shoulders and neck bare, and her black tresses were braided, coiled, looped, and held with a white frangipani flower. She sat by the harp and played. Or pretended to: the viola made appropriate sounds. She was in fact singing: she had a pretty light voice, just right for a drawing-room young lady. Madame Vairon stepped forward to stand by her daughter, the large black woman magnificent in scarlet velvet. Then a group of young officers — George White and four young men supplied by Jean-Pierre, who did not have to say anything, had only to stand about and react — all dazzling in their uniforms, came forward one by one to bend over Madame Vairon's hand. Paul came last. He straightened, turned, saw Julie — the piece had begun.

Unable to bear it, Henry sprang up and off through the crowd and into the trees. He could be observed — Sarah observed him — striding up and down, and then he whirled about to return to his seat, but he was too late, for it was occupied by Benjamin, who had come back from a quick tour of the region accompanied by Bill's friend Jack Greene.

The sentimental ballad ended, and now the music that accompanied the love scenes between Paul and Julie was without words. Haunting… yes, you could call this music haunting, a word as trite as the love scenes that were being enacted, where not one movement, one phrase, one glance, was new or could be new. Everyone here — there were a good thousand people now, and more were pressing in to watch — had seen similar scenes or taken part in them. It was the music that struck straight to the heart, or the senses. The crowd was silent. They watched Julie as intently as the citizens of Belles Rivieres had watched her a hundred years ago. As for the townspeople rehearsed that morning by Roy, they were unnecessary, for nothing could be more powerful than this silent staring crowd. Then, as the light slowly went, a twenty-foot high projection of Julie the young woman appeared on a screen behind and above her house. It was at first a faint image, for the light had not gone, but it gathered substance, and changed: Julie aged on that screen, until she was the comfortable lady Philippe had wooed, and then she was a small child, her own daughter, or herself. Stephen said into Sarah's ear, 'I'm off. I'll walk. Do me good. I'm going to telephone Elizabeth and tell her what is happening here and ask her what chance there is of a decent run. We have been thinking of three or four days — but just look.' For people still approached through the trees, coming to a dead stop when the music enveloped them. As Stephen left his chair (Sarah thought that he showed all the signs of a man escaping), Henry took it. He put his lips to her ear and said, 'Sarah, Sarah, life's a bitch, Sarah… it's a bitch, I love you.' He said this in time with the music, so he was theatrical and absurd, they both had to laugh. But his lips were tremulous. All the appropriate thoughts clicked through her mind: But this is obviously nonsense, it's all the fault of the theatre, of show business, so don't take any notice. But at the same time she thought, This is Julie's country: anything can happen. Old women can seem like young ones, and a blue-eyed Irish girl with plump freckled shoulders can become a girl as slender and bright and tigerish as a bee, just like the fairy tales. She was shaken, oh yes, but managed to offer Henry, who was leaning as close as he could, a gently amused smile. What a hypocrite.

The scenes in Martinique were coming to an end. The sun had gone, but reflected rays arbitrarily picked out a buckle on Paul's belt, or the handkerchief Madame Vairon was sobbing into, while the golden hair of one of the singers seemed to be on fire. Julie and Paul walked away from weeping Maman into patterns of dusky forest light and shade, appropriately, since the next scene was in the forest, was in fact here. A large window frame stood up behind the actors, to show that the scene was inside the house and not — as it must appear to the literal eye — outside it. And now here was a tiny living room, where there was not only the harp but a lute, a recorder, a viola, while flutes and a clarinet lay on a rack. An easel, on which was a large self-portrait in pastels, and a table where Julie wrote her journals were carried on by the four youths who a moment ago had been officers.

The end with Paul, inevitable and perhaps not the most interesting part of the tale, came quickly, while the singers sang, most hauntingly, words that were all Julie's, if from different years and about two different men, but arranged by Sarah, who, just like Julie, half believed she heard the music of those musicians of nearly a thousand years ago and knew the words they might have sung.

There was an interval, a long one, while Henry talked to the players and the singers. Words and song had been pitched for a crowd of three hundred, not for many hundreds. It must be discussed tomorrow morning whether amplifiers must be used, at the meeting which they knew must take this modest production a step up into something more ambitious. And the first night was tomorrow, with so much to be done.

During this first interval people were humming Julie's songs, and Henry made a foray into the crowd to report success, and again during Act Two, when he could return to say, with satisfaction, that there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Meanwhile on her other side Benjamin sometimes engaged her attention with this or that comment, made in the hope they would not be found inappropriate from this theatre innocent. They weren't. All were to the point, and Henry took note of them. Benjamin was pleased, and, too, that he had a golden finger in this pie.

The second interval was brief, but long enough for the company to work up a fine head of anxiety.

What were they, the audience, going to make of Julie's 'second-period' music, the impersonal music so much a contrast to the sorrowful songs that had gone before? Yet, if unemotional, why did it bring tears to the eyes? Did that mean it acted on some unnamed part of the organism, such as a disembodied heart or liver? And the third act asked so much of an audience: Julie alone, mourning for her child. Julie ostracized. The programme did say this was for the sake of dramatic simplicity, and in fact the little girl had been two years old when she died of 'brain fever' — whatever that was. And then there was the so satisfactory suitor, and the prospect of happiness — rejected, and many sound and sensible citizens must always find this a confirmation that there was something really wrong with the woman.

As the curve of a low hill finally absorbed the last rays, so they were all steeped in a hot twilight, the music ended with the chilly octaves of Julie's death, the chanting of a flute, and the long groaning under-note of the shawm. At once the evening was noisy with cicadas, their din signalling applause, at first sporadic, and then prolonged. The seated people stood up to clap wildly, and while the crowd dispersed they clapped and cheered and shouted.

Some enterprising firm, hearing of the big audience up in the hills that would need transportation, had caused three coaches to stand waiting, which was all that would fit into the space.

There were limousines for the company: Bill got in by Sarah, Benjamin on her other side.

'What a wonderful success,' said Benjamin.

'You must be so pleased,' said Bill, and kissed her cheek with suggestive lips. Furious, she turned and kissed him on the lips, a real kiss, which he took with a smile half shocked, half delighted, while he glanced, embarrassed, at Benjamin, who was staring straight ahead, apparently to listen while the engaging young driver assured them that tout le monde adored Julie, she must be a veritable pin-up, and he couldn't wait to see the show. The habitual bestowers of compliments and flattery slowly acquire a sated, complacent look, as if fed on honeyed larks' tongues.

When the car reached the hotel it was still not eleven. Stephen had left a note for Sarah to say he had spoken to Elizabeth. The news was good. There could be at least two weeks' run at Queen's Gift.

The company settled around the pavement tables, absorbing into itself tourists and townspeople who had been at the theatre and who were demanding autographs with that calm determination to get their rights, that is to say, a piece of the action, or the pie, or the property, which characterizes autograph hunters from one end of the world to the other. The players were restless, full of suspense. For even a successful dress rehearsal is still not a first night, when all the strings go snap, snap.

Molly came from the hotel, later than the others, and found an empty chair near Bill. He at once bent down to kiss her. She did not respond. The moment the kiss was over, Bill lifted his chair over to a place near Sarah's and murmured, 'You look beautiful tonight.'

Sally appeared, looking for a chair. Bill pulled one forward and Sally slid into it, while her eyes searched for Richard Service. Sally still vibrated with all the emotions of having been Julie's mother, and her black skin glistened with heat against the red of her dress. Bill smiled warmly at her and kissed her, but she turned her head so her lips were out of reach. She laughed, an all-tolerant laugh, and directed to Sarah something not far off a wink. Her smile was satirical, regretful. Then she shrewdly examined Molly, who sat suffering, but then she turned away, out of delicacy.

Then she drank off Sarah's glass of citron pressé, said, 'Sorry, my darling, but I had to have that,' and announced, 'And now I must ring my children and get my beauty sleep.' Up she got again. The flood of vitality subsided in her because she was becoming the mother of her real children. As she left, Richard Service arrived, and the two eye-lines made shallow arcs that intersected on an agreement. She departed like a sailing ship in full moonlight.

Roy Strether, Mary Ford, Henry, and Jean-Pierre were all so buoyant with success they could not bear to sit down but stood hovering near the seated ones, and then, as Benjamin arrived, they suggested a trip to the delights of night-time Marseilles. Benjamin's eyes enquired of Sarah's, but she said she too needed to sleep. She reminded them they were meeting at eight — very well, then, nine. She walked firmly away.

She saw Bill move into the chair near Molly. If I were Molly, she thought, I would simply go across to his hotel, open his door, and get into his bed. He would certainly say, I am expecting my girlfriend, oh dear, I am so sorry. Would I then go quietly away? I'm damned if I would.

She sat by the window. She would have liked to go up and talk with Stephen, gently unwinding, as one does with a friend. Yesterday she would have gone.

She went to look in her glass. The ichors that flooded her body created behind the face of Sarah, the face she and everyone knew, a younger face, that shone out, smiling. Her body was alive and vibrant, but also painful. Her breasts burned, and the lower part of her abdomen ached. Her mouth threatened to seek kisses — like a baby's mouth turning and turning to find the nipple.

I'm sick, she said to herself. 'You're sick.' I'm sick with love, and that is all there is to it. How could such a thing have happened? What does Nature think it is up to? (Eyeball to eyeball with Nature, elderly people often accuse it — her? — of ineptitude, of sheer incompetence.) I simply can't wait to go back to my cool elderly self, all passion spent. I suppose I'm not trapped in this hell for ever? I'm going to be really ill if I can't stop this… and she watched her reflection, which was that of a woman in love, and not a dry old woman.

She said, 'Enough of this,' undressed quickly, and got into bed, where she murmured, as at some point she was bound to do, 'Christ that my love were in my arms… '

She did sleep. She woke to ghostly kisses of such sweetness they were like Julie's music, but surprisingly, the sounds that whispered in her head were not the 'troubadour' music, like blues or like fados, but the late music, cool, transparent, a summons to somewhere else. Perhaps the paradise we dream of when in love is the one we were ejected from, where all embraces are innocent.

Again she was up early. She dressed before it was light outside, thinking, Thank God there's that meeting and I'll be working hard all day. And I won't be with Bill; I'll be with Henry.

On the pavement, Stephen sat outside the still-closed cafe. He looked absently at Sarah, for his eyes were clouded with his preoccupation, looked again and said, 'You have been crying.'

'Yes, I have.'

'What can I say? I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.'

Now this was the moment she could put things right. 'Stephen, you are wrong. It's not like that.'

He wanted so much to believe her, but looked grumpy and cross.

'Stephen, this is an absolutely ridiculous situation. Really, I promise you… '

He looked away, because he was so uncomfortable. His face was red. So was hers.

Communal life was rescuing them. While the players still slept, the managerial side were all up, in spite of their having jaunted around the coast so late. Here came Mary Ford, calm and fresh in white. After her came Henry, who at once took a chair near Sarah. He appeared to have staggered from some battlefront. Then Benjamin, impeccable in pale linen. He sat opposite Sarah, studying her from under serious brows. Here was Roy Strether, yawning, and with him Sandy Grears. The proprietor of Les Collines Rouges was opening his doors, and the aromas of coffee began their insinuations.

A sparky urchin in a striped blue and white apron appeared from the other side of the square, holding aloft balanced on one hand, several tiers of cakes and croissants, the other hand poised on his hip, for style. He too wafted delicious smells everywhere. He passed them gracefully, grinning, knowing they all waited for the moment when what he carried would leave the counters of the cafe for their breakfasts.

'Un moment,' reproved the cafe proprietor, though no one had said a word. 'Un petit moment, mesdames, messieurs.' He disappeared inside, with a stern air. Because of Sartre, they knew that he was playing the role of Monsieur le Patron, just as the urchin was playing his role.

Sarah could not prevent a pretty desperate look at Stephen and caught him examining her. Appalling. How could their friendship survive such a muddle of misunderstanding?

It was occurring to them all that everyone necessary for the meeting which would decide Julie Vairon's fate was here. Except for Jean-Pierre.

With the British production there was really one problem — who would be available? Elizabeth had said the last week of August and the first of September would suit her, suit Queen's Gift, because by then the new building would be finished. She had pointed out that Julie could not be expected to be as popular in England as it was in France, but people were still talking about the evening of Julie's music, and that was a good sign. Stephen said, apologetically, that they mustn't think Elizabeth was a wet blanket. 'She has to be cautious, you see. She thinks I get carried away.'

His eyes met Sarah's — on a smile. Her heart lightened.

Roy said, 'Henry, you're the key to everything. If you're not free, we'll forget the whole thing. That means rehearsals through the first three weeks of August and then setting the production at Queen's Gift.'

'I'm doing Salome in Pittsburgh through July — that is, from ten a.m. three days from now. So I can make it.'

Up he jumped, took a stroll through tables beginning to fill up, kicked a carton into a refuse can — a perfect shot, and came back to fling himself down. They all watched him. 'Perpetuum mobile,' said Roy. 'How does he do it? How do you do it, Henry? I have to tell you all that this man was dancing and singing in the rain in Marseilles three hours ago in the water cart sprays. Right, Henry. You're booked for August.'

'But,' said Mary, 'the players. Bill is off to New York the day after this ends here to start rehearsal. Carmen. He won't be available, nor will Molly. She's working the rest of July and all August in Portland. Pocahontas. She's Pocahontas.'

Mary was carefully not looking at Stephen, whose face had crumpled, if only for a moment. He recovered himself and looked at Sarah. The look was not unmixed with irony, so that was something.

'We need a new Julie and a new Paul,' said Roy. He yawned. It was the loud and unabashed yawn of a man who had been up most of the night.

To the people whose hearts were cracking open like eggs, the yawn sounded derisive. Mary Ford began to laugh and could not stop. She put out her hand in apology. Roy took it in a fist and shook it up and down, oblivious but matey.

Mary stopped herself laughing. 'Sorry. Show business. It's show business… anyway, I asked all the cast last night, and the musicians. They are all free.'

'All free except for the two important ones. Never mind; some of the Pauls and Julies we auditioned were very good.' Henry's eyes closed.

Benjamin seemed asleep. Mary's lids dropped. Roy yawned again. When the waiter finally arrived, Sarah ordered coffee and croissants for everyone but in a low voice, as if in a room full of sleeping children.

At this juncture Jean-Pierre arrived, with the air of a man not prepared to be apologetic, just because he was later than others who had no need to be early.

'Everything's just fine,' said Henry lazily to Jean-Pierre.

'I was also up very late,' said Jean-Pierre.

'Well, it doesn't matter; we've got everything sorted out,' said Mary maternally.

'But the meeting was not arranged until nine, I think?'

The coffee arrived. Smells of sunlight, coffee, hot dust, croissants, petrol, vanilla.

'There really isn't much left to decide,' said Roy.

'And may I enquire what has been decided?' said Jean- Pierre.

At the sound of his voice, full of wounded self-esteem, Mary sat herself up, sent Sarah a glance, sent Roy another, and remarked soothingly, 'What delicious coffee.' She smiled at Jean-Pierre, who was after all in love with her. He positively winced, and then shook off unfair, not to say corrupting, pressures.

Mary outlined what had been decided. 'And there you are,' she concluded.

At this Jean-Pierre presented himself as the traditional Frenchman confronted by the ineffable, however it chooses continually to offer itself, in this case as a barbarous lack of respect for proper form. He slightly lifted his chin, let his lower jaw drop, spread his hands, and quivered with sensibility. 'And so,' he announced, having given them all time to get the benefit of his performance, 'all is decided. But without me. Without Belles Rivieres.'

A crisis.

'But of course we haven't decided anything for you. How could we? But since Henry is leaving almost at once and you are losing the two main actors when your two weeks are up, it is obvious you can't prolong your run.'

Jean-Pierre began a spirited speech, in French. It could be seen from Stephen's face and from Sarah's — both of them being, as it is put at school, 'good at' French — that this was a speech to be appreciated as a performance in its own right.

'Now look here, Jean-Pierre old chap,' said Stephen reproachfully, 'any minute now I'll start to believe you actually enjoy meetings.'

At this communication from a past epoch Jean-Pierre only looked puzzled. Benjamin, a man of a thousand committees, signalled to Sarah, and then to Stephen and to Mary, leaning forward and holding them with his commanding look. 'It isn't strictly my business,' he remarked, 'but I do feel the situation would be significantly improved if there was in fact some kind of structured discussion. For instance, surely there must be a decision about finances?'

'Naturally there must be decisions,' said Jean-Pierre, already mollified. 'And if I'd been given a chance to make a statement… it has been decided that we shall have Julie Vairon in Belles Rivieres next year. And very likely every year. Next year we shall have a month's run. Why not two months? It is all a question of the correct publicity.' And he bowed slightly to Mary.

A silence. They were all contemplating a yearly commitment to Julie.

Stephen's head was tilted back, and he was staring at the imperturbable blue of the Mediterranean sky with a stoic look. Sarah was thinking, Over my dead body. That's silly — you'll have forgotten it all by then. You'll probably even be thinking it was funny… well, if you do, it'll be dishonest.

Henry was looking at Sarah as he said, 'I'll be free, I'll guarantee it.' His terrible insecurity made him add, 'I mean, if you want me.'

Everyone laughed at him, and Jean-Pierre said, 'But naturally. I can give you that assurance.'

'And I give you notice,' said Benjamin, 'that I am coming to Oxfordshire for your first night in August. I shall be missing your first night here.'

'Missing the first night,' said Henry to him. A jest, but Benjamin actually said, quickly, 'I'm sorry,' saw it was a joke, went red, but preserved more than ever the look of a man determined not to be undone by seductive and dangerous ways. He said to Jean-Pierre, 'I shall be here next year, I can assure you of that.'

Jean-Pierre understood that this was an important moment, in fact a guarantee of financial support. He got up, leaned across a littered table, put out his hand. Benjamin took it sitting, then stood up, and the two men formally shook hands.

'We can discuss the details in Jean-Pierre's office,' said Benjamin. 'Let's say half an hour.'

'Let's say half an hour,' said Mary.

'I have to catch my plane,' said Benjamin.

'There's plenty of time,' said Sarah.

'There's time, but not plenty,' said Henry.

Here, on cue, the chatter around the tables was blanked out by the screaming roar of three war planes, sinister, black, like some outsize prehistoric hornets out of a science-fiction film, shooting across the sky with the speed which announces, so briefly it is easy to forget they were there at all, that they are from a world of super-technology far from our amateur little lives.

Now the players were appearing, yawning prettily. The circle was enlarged, and enlarged again to include everyone. Bill took a chair beside Sarah and enquired sulkily, 'It is true there will be a run in England?'

'Two weeks,' said Sarah.

'And I can't be there. If only I had known.'

'If only any of us had known.'

'But you will keep in touch, won't you? At least there's two weeks left of this run.' He was speaking to her like a peremptory young lover. Really, they might have spent the night together. Molly watched the two of them, puzzled. As well she might be, thought Sarah. And Stephen too. Because of Bill's closeness to his mother, he felt, as much as he saw, Sarah, but between Molly and Sarah was that gulf only to be filled by experience. Molly did not yet know that always, impalpably, invisibly, through the air rained down ashes that could be seen only when enough had settled — on her, on Stephen, on the older, on the ageing, ashes and dust dimming the colours of skin and hair. Sarah knew that this glossy young animal sitting beside her diminished her, leached colour from her, no matter how he flattered her with his eyes, his smile, enclosing her in streams of sympathy. Sarah saw Molly's serious, thoughtful, honest gaze turn from her to Stephen; the sun was not burnishing him as it did the young ones. He looked bleached, faded.

Sarah said to Bill, knowing her voice was rough, 'I shall be going home in a couple of days.'

'Oh, you can't, you can't do that,' said Bill, really upset. 'You can't leave us.' He might just as well have said 'leave me.'

'Everyone is leaving us,' said Molly. 'Henry… Sarah… ' She hesitated, looking at Stephen. He was again looking into the sky.

'I shall be here,' said Mary. 'And so will Roy. If Sarah is going, then we must be here.'

'I have a month's leave due, remember?' said Sarah.

Here Mary's raised brows remarked direct to Sarah that she couldn't remember Sarah's ever before insisting on due leave.

'No, Sarah,' said Henry. 'Don't forget, I'll have to be over for the new auditions. I can fit it in the second week in July. And you must be there.'

'You mean, no vanishing in July?'

Henry smiled at her, and her heart tripped.

'Such a wild, marvellous, blissful success,' remarked Mary, lazing in her chair in a way that contradicted her briskly efficient linen suit. Uncharacteristically lazed, she put her arms back behind her head, exposing tender patches of damp linen. She had the look of an animal offering vulnerable parts of herself to superior strength. Jean-Pierre sighed; she heard it, blushed, and looked upwards, like Stephen. One by one, they all looked skywards. Quite low down, a single hawk circled. Lower and lower it floated, until some rogue breeze blew it ragged and tilted up a wing. The bird rocked wildly to find balance, steadied, circled once on a thermal, and swerved off to the top of a plane tree, where it sat huffing out its feathers. It looked sulky, offended, and this made them all laugh.

By now the cafe tables were filled with people in some way connected with Julie Vairon.

'We have virtually taken his cafe over, poor Monsieur Denivre,' said Molly.

'Il est désolé,' said Jean-Pierre. 'Guillaume,' he called to the proprietor, who was attending to customers a couple of tables away — Andrew, Sally, Richard, George White. 'Les Anglais ont peur que uous les trouviez trop encombrants.' Guillaume smiled, with exactly the shade of urbane scepticism appropriate. He said, 'Ça y est!'

'Why Anglais?' enquired Molly, exaggerating her American voice. 'I'm not Anglais. Who is Anglais here — apart from the Anglais?'

Here Bill said, in the roughest of Tennessee accents, 'I'm English, mesdames, messieurs, I am English to the last little molecule.'

They laughed, but it was one of the moments, hardly uncommon, when Europeans and Americans occupy different geographical and historical space.

The Americans were thinking, Molly — Boston. At least, that was where she lived now. Benjamin — West Coast, even if his accent could only be Harvard. Henry had been born in New York but lived, when he was at home — seldom — in Los Angeles. Andrew had been born, and lived, in Texas.

But the Europeans were thinking, Molly — Ireland. Benjamin's antecedents could only have come from that culturally fertile region, sometimes Russian, sometimes Polish, the shtetl. Henry — the Mediterranean. Andrew? Scottish, of course.

'Our American cousins,' said Mary to Sarah.

'Our cousins,' said Sarah to Mary.

Les Anglais all laughed, and the Americans laughed out of good feeling. Laughter was breaking out for no good reason, from all around the tables. The company's spirits were being lifted, borne on those currents that carry players and their minders towards the intoxications of the first night. The charm, the enchantment, the delightfulness of- well, of what exactly? — were slowly lifting them, seawater setting fronds of weed afloat, splashing dry rock, sending out invigorating ozone.

They sat on, while Le Patron caused the waiters to bring more coffee, and the square filled with vehicles. Not only this town was crammed; so were all the little towns round about, from where coaches would bring people — were already bringing people, at ten in the morning — to become part of the ambience of Julie, her time, her place.

Soon Henry departed to work out with the technicians the problems with sound, and Sarah, Stephen, Benjamin, Roy, and Mary went off with Jean-Pierre to his office. There finances were discussed, particularly Benjamin's — or rather the Associated and Allied Banks of North California and South Oregon's — commitment to the new plans. Stephen's as well, but as he pointed out, since he was an individual, he had only to say 'yes'. Money was talking. First things first. Money has to talk before actors can.

Then Benjamin flew off to investigate his investment in the Edinburgh Festival. Jean-Pierre insisted they must decide how to get together a much larger committee to discuss next year's production in Belles Rivieres. Sarah, he trusted, would be part of it. So, he hoped, would Mr Ellington-Smith. Regular meetings throughout the year would benefit them all. All this went on until well after two. When they arrived on the pavement for lunch, it was observable that the players and musicians already preferred to be with each other, merging for their test that evening. Henry sat by Sarah. When she thought that this was the last time she would be with him in Belles Rivieres — it would if she had anything to do with it — such a feeling of loss took her over that she had to admit if she were not in love with Bill, then she showed all the signs of loving Henry. It occurred to her that to be with Henry was all sweetness, while being with Bill was to be angry and ashamed. What a pity, if it was her fate to fall in love so inappropriately, that it had not been Henry from the first.

Henry returned from a reconnaissance in the late afternoon to say that crowds were already making their way up to Julie's house and that all the seats had been booked by mid-morning. He reported that several tastefully designed signs with arrows had been nailed to trees, saying in French and in English, 'One may stand in this place.' 'Please respect Nature.' 'Please respect Julie Vairon's Forest.'

By seven the woods all around the house held a couple of thousand people, most of whom could not hope to do more than hear the music. There being no 'backstage', Stephen and Sarah, as authors, Henry, as director, went together to where the players stood waiting among the trees, to wish them luck.

The three sat themselves in chairs right at the back, and this time Henry managed to stay seated through the performance. It was all wonderful! It was extraordinary! It was fantastic! These comments and a hundred others, in various languages, were to be heard all through the intervals, and the applause was unending. And then it was all over, and the company were down outside the cafe again, embracing, affectionate, mad with euphoria, in love and out of it, wild with relief. The brassy little moon, like a clipped coin, stood over the town, and resulting moonlight was satisfactorily moody and equivocal. Les Collines Rouges announced it would stay open as long as anyone was still up, and cars roared triumphantly around the little town. Jean-Pierre could not stop smiling. He had continually to rise and shake hands, or be embraced by prominent citizens of the area, for whom he was embodying all the success of the production. Midnight came and was past. Jean-Pierre said he had to get home to his wife and children. Henry went too, saying he must telephone his wife. He murmured to Sarah that he would be seeing her soon in London, with a look that brought tears to her eyes. Richard left, saying he was tired, looking at Sally but not saying goodnight to her. Soon after, Sally announced that this old woman was going to sleep. Sarah heard Andrew's low laugh, saw that he wanted to share amusement with her, Sarah, and, as she too got up, heard him say, 'Well, how about it, Sarah?' This was so improbable she decided she had not heard it. She announced that this old woman too had to sleep. Groans of protest that the party was ending. Bill leaped up to accompany her to the hotel door, there enfolding her in an embrace and murmuring that he thought of her as a second mother. She went upstairs white hot with love and with anger.

She stood at her window, looking down at the company, and knew that this loss, the desolation of being excluded from happiness, could only refer back to something she had forgotten. Had she too been that child who had stood on the edge of a playground, watching the others? She had forgotten. Fortunately.

And soon all this would have put itself into the past. Julie Vairon would never take shape in this way again, in this setting, with these people. Well, it was not the first time — rather perhaps the hundredth — that she had been part of some play or piece, and it had always been sad to see the end of something that could never happen again. The theatre, in short, was just like life (but in a condensed and brightly illuminated form, forcing one into the comparison), always whirling people and events into improbable associations and then — that's it. The end. Basta! But this event, Julie's, was not anything she had known before. For one thing, she had not been 'in love' — why the inverted commas? She was not going to make it all harmless with quote marks. No, there was something in this particular mix of people — that must be it — and of course the music… So Sarah talked aloud to herself, walking about her room, returning often to the window, where she could see how Stephen sat next to Molly, while Bill — but enough. She went to her mirror several times during the course of this excursion around and about her room, for an inspection that deserved to be called scientific. That a woman's interaction with her mirror is likely to go through some changes during the decades goes without saying but… someone should bottle this, she announced aloud to the empty room, visible over her reflection's shoulder (Woman Gazing Curiously into Her Mirror)… Yes, someone should bottle these substances flooding me now. They probably did bottle them. Probably potions were on sale in beauty shops and chemists: if so, they should have on the label the warning p o I s o N — in brightest red. It is not merely that I feel twenty years younger, I look it…

Meanwhile she wrote:

This was not the letter she slid under Stephen's door on the floor above hers, for she thought, One can't say 'I love you' to an Englishman. Stephen would take to his heels and run. She tore up that letter and wrote:

This was the letter she took upstairs, hoping she would not run into him.

Next morning, very early, she woke to see an envelope sliding under her door.

As she stood reading this, another envelope slid towards her feet from under the door. She cautiously opened the door, but it was too late: the corridor was empty, though she heard the lift descending.

While she was drinking coffee at her window, the porter brought two letters.

At first shock, this letter actually seemed to her insulting. She was about to tear it up, her fingers trembling, in order to deposit the fragments in the wastepaper basket, when… Wait a minute. Hold your horses, Sarah Durham. She carefully reread the letter, noting with satirical appreciation for her inconsistency the following reactions: First, the attack of false morality. Second, irritation, because she simply couldn't attend to it, when she was so beset with emotions. Third, the classic retort to an unwanted declaration of love, faintly patronizing pity: Oh, poor thing: well, never mind, he'll get over it.

Who was it? Because of what she had heard last night but had at once said to herself was impossible — 'How about it, Sarah?' — she had to admit it must be Andrew. To whom she had never given a thought not strictly professional.

She carefully put this letter away, to be read later when not intoxicated. To be accurate, when no longer sick. Bill's letter she did tear up and she dropped the pieces neatly one by one in the basket as if finally ridding herself of something poisonous.

It was now eight in the morning. She chose a sensible dress in dark blue cotton, partly because she thought, I will not be accused of mutton dressed as lamb, partly because a dull dress might sober her. The noise outside was already so loud she sat for a few minutes, eyes closed, thinking of that long-ago youth on his hillside — absolute silence, solace, peace. But suddenly into this restoring dream the three war planes from yesterday inserted themselves, streaking across the antique sky and vibrating the air. The boy lifted his dreaming head and stared but did not believe what he saw. His ears were hurting. Sarah went quietly downstairs. She did not want to have to talk. In a side street was a little cafe she believed was not used by the company. The tables outside Les Collines Rouges were all empty except for Stephen, who sat with his head bent, the picture of a man struck down. He did not see her, and she walked past him to the Rue Daniel Autram. Whoever Daniel Autram was or had been, he did not merit pots of flowers all along his street, though on either side of the cafe door were tubs of marguerites. This cafe had a window on the street and, presumably, something like a window seat, for she saw two young sunburned arms, as emphatically male as those of Michelangelo's young men, lying along the back of it. The forearms rested side by side, hands grasping the elbows of the other. The arms being bare, there was a suggestion of naked bodies. This was as strong a sexual statement as Sarah could remember, out of bed. She was stopped dead there, in the Rue Daniel Autram, as noisy children raced past to a bus waiting for them in the square. I have to go back, go back, breathed Sarah, but she could not move, for the sight had struck her to the heart, as if she had been dealt lies and treachery. (Which was nonsense, because she had not.) Then one young man leaned forward to say something to the other, as the other leaned forward to hear it. Bill and Sandy. This was a Bill Sarah had never seen, nor, she was sure, had any female member of the company. Certainly his first mother had never been allowed a glimpse of this exultantly, triumphantly alive young man, full of a mocking and reckless sexuality. And the charming, winning, affectionate, sympathetic young man they all knew? Well, for one thing, that person had little of the energy she was now looking at: his energy was in bond to caution.

She forced herself to take two steps back, out of the danger of being seen, and walked like a mechanical toy to the table where Stephen still sat. Now he did lift his head, and stared at Sarah from some place a long way off. He reminded himself that he should smile, and did so. Then he remembered there was something else, and said, 'Thanks for your letter, I'm glad you wrote it.' And he was glad, she could see that. 'I did get it wrong, actually.'

She sat by him. There was nobody else on the pavement yet. She signalled for coffee, since Stephen had not thought of it.

'I got another letter this morning,' he said. 'A day for letters.'

'So it would seem.'

He did not hear this, and then he did and came to himself, saying, 'I'm sorry, Sarah. I do know I'm selfish. Actually I think I must be ill. I said that before, didn't I?' 'Yes, you did.'

'The thing is… I'm simply not this kind of person. Do you understand that?' 'Perfectly.'

He produced a letter, written on the paper of l'Hôtel Julie, in a large no-nonsense hand.

Sarah tried not to laugh, but had to. Stephen sat with lowered head, looking across at her, sombre and even sullen. 'I suppose it is funny,' he conceded. Then he did, unexpectedly, sit up and laugh. A real laugh. 'Well, all right,' he said. 'A culture clash.'

'Don't forget they have to divorce and remarry every time they fall in love.'

'Yes, with the Yanks there is always an invisible contract somewhere.' As she shrugged: 'Am I being unfair?' 'Of course you're being unfair.'

'I don't care if I am. But they must go to bed sometimes just for love's sake. Of course, I do keep forgetting, she was writing to the old man, didn't want to hurt his feelings.'

'I believe she might easily have gone with you to Nice… all things being equal.'

'You mean, if she hadn't been in love with that… I wonder? But if she had gone to bed with Bill — or rather if Bill had kindly gone to bed with her' — here she noted an altogether disproportionate spurt of malice in herself, to match his — 'then she would have been hinting about weddings by the morning. Anyway, one has really to be in love to think that kind of thing is worth it. I mean, Nice and all that. So I was a fool to ask. Otherwise it is just a dirty weekend.'

She remembered Andrew's letter and wondered if he was in love. Because to imagine him suffering from lust, that was one thing, and fair enough — but in love, oh no, she wouldn't wish it on anyone. And she didn't want to think about it. Too much of everything: she was drowning in too-muchness.

The coffee arrived. As Stephen lifted his cup, he — and she — noted that his hand shook. No joke, love, she attempted to joke, to herself. He set the cup down again, looking with critical dislike at his hand.

'Believe it or not, a good many women fall for me.'

'Why shouldn't I believe it? Anyway, you don't have to make a final assessment of your attractiveness or lack of it just because one girl turns you down.'

'Yes, and she's only a stand-in after all,' he remarked, in one of his moments of calm throw-away callousness. 'Perhaps she feels that.'

'As you said, that it was as if two different Stephens slid together and one said something the other could never say. Oh, don't worry, I know the condition well.'

'Obviously people fall in love with you. I'm not exactly blind, though I'm sure you think I am.' He hesitated, and his reluctance to go on made him sound grumpy. 'I wanted to say something… If it's the gaucho you're… ' He could not make himself say it. 'I should watch it, if I were you. He's a pretty tough customer.' As she did not reply, not knowing how to, he went on. 'Anyway, it's not my business. And I don't really care. That's what is intolerable. I don't care about anything but myself. Perhaps I will go to a psychiatrist after all. But what can they tell me I don't know already? I know what I'm suffering from — De Cleremont's syndrome. I found it described in an article. It means you are convinced the person is in love with you, even when she is not. The article didn't say anything about being convinced she would be in love with you if she wasn't dead.'

'Never heard of it.' She noted that he had been able to say, apparently easily, that Julie was dead.

'I would say there is a pretty narrow dividing line between sanity and lunacy.'

'A grey area perhaps?'

This exchange had cheered them both up — her dispro- portionately. She was wildly happy. Soon she left him to go to Jean-Pierre's office. She had not been there half an hour before Stephen rang from the hotel to say he was getting on an afternoon flight from Marseilles and he would ring her from home.

She was busy all day. The performance that night drew an even larger crowd. At the end of the first act — that is, the end of Bill being Paul for that evening, he came to sit by her, but she found herself wanting only to get away. She was missing Henry. Bill's attentive sympathy cloyed. She preferred the raw, unscrupulously sexual and vital young man she had glimpsed that morning. In fact she could truthfully say that this winning young man bored her, so things were looking up.

She left farewell notes for Bill and Molly and went to her room. She sat by the window and watched the crowd on the pavement thin. This being the second night, and the tension fast diminishing, people went off to bed early. Soon there was no one down there, and the cafe's doors were locked. It was very hot in her room. Airless. Sultry. A dark night, for that acid little moon was blacked out behind what everyone must be hoping was a rain cloud. She would go down and sit on the pavement, alone. She crept down through the hotel, feeling it to be empty because Stephen was gone, and Henry too. As she was about to pull a chair out from under a table, she heard voices and retreated to sit under the plane tree. She would not be seen in the deep shadow.

A group of young people. American voices. Bill's, Jack's. Some girls. They sat down, complaining that the cafe had shut.

'I just love it, love it… it's… you know… ' A girl's voice.

'Er… er… you know, yah, it's right on.' Bill. This articulate young man's tongue had been struck by paralysis?

'It's just beautiful, know what I mean? It's sort of… mmm, yeah, I mean to say… '

'Sort of… kinda… actually, you know, as I saw it… very… 'Jack.