The Swimming Pool Season Read Free Page B

fear that life led without the comfort of these is oddly futile.
    â€œHow are you, Harve?”
    Larry has walked past dusty leaning suits of armour in the impressive hall and found his friend in the bureau, staring at his legs.
    â€œOh, Larry. Good. Good of you. So bloody boring all this. Imagine the war-wounded. What do they do? Restricted motion kills. It’s killing me.”
    â€œYes. Or the man chained to his desk.”
    â€œThe man chained to his desk! That’s good. Yes. What does he do? Dies. Have a drink, Larry. Sherry or something? A little morning cassis?”
    Hervé waves feebly at a mighty oak cupboard where these drinks are kept. Larry has had no breakfast. He feels hollow and slightly unsteady. He imagines Miriam poaching her solitary egg, making a small pot of coffee, taking these into the sunshine.
    â€œWell, a cassis . . .”
    â€œYes. Me too. I like cassis in the morning. Gets the stomach nice and warm. You pour them.”
    Sunshine comes in the flat squares the colour of amontillado on the polished floor. Larry sits a few inches from Hervé’s woolly toes and they sip gently at the strong blackcurrant. Hervé says, “Did I tell you, I’ve sent for Agnès?”
    â€œAgnès?”
    â€œMy niece. The elder one. Didn’t get her place at the music school. All upset and mopey. So I told her mother, send her to me. She can play that old Bechstein and help me about. She’s a sensible girl, not one of those young frights. She’ll like these woods and this autumn air.”
    â€œI’m glad, Harve. You need someone . . .”
    â€œYes. Another three weeks in this armour. My heart’s not used to an invalid life. My blood pressure’s up, I can tell without taking it. That’s Agnès in that photograph. The one on the right.”
    Hervé points to a picture on the mantelpiece of two windswept girls with their arms round each other’s shoulders, smiling in what seems to be a Welsh or Scottish landscape, craggy and cold. They wear warm patterned jerseys; their hair is the colour of weak tea; they are clearly sisters. Larry is surprised by how English these fresh faces look. They could be English princesses on holiday at Balmoral.
    â€œThey look like princesses,” Larry remarks. Hervé smiles and sips his drink.
    â€œAgnès was about seventeen then and little Dani fifteen or sixteen. Their mother is English. They speak the two languages very well.”
    Larry looks at the photograph. Pale light on the smooth skin. No blemish anywhere. Better these radiant daughters than poor old Thomas going grey at twenty-seven with a pocked and crazy face the colour of a blanket. “Oh, I would have liked a daughter,” Larry says.
    â€œYou have just the boy, Larry, haven’t you?”
    â€œYes. Thomas. We don’t see much of him.”
    â€œIf I remember, he has some antiques business.”
    â€œAntiques? No. Wish it was. Modern. Marxist furniture, he calls it.”
    â€œCheap stuff?”
    â€œNo. There’s the irony. Not cheap. Sick jokes for millionaires.”
    â€œOh yes?”
    â€œOne’s a lamp. It’s a giant naked bulb on a flex with a great piece of plaster attached to it. So it looks as if your ceiling’s falling down. Don’t ask me to explain the logic. Don’t ask me why anyone would want that, but they do, it seems.”
    â€œWell. Very odd. Comfort of course has always been regarded as bourgeois. As corrupting even. Perhaps your son believes the rich might buy broken ceilings as a kind of absolution.”
    â€œBeats me, Harve. Miriam pretends to understand what he’s doing, but she doesn’t really. She’s as baffled as I am.”
    â€œSad for her. Most sad. How is Miriam?”
    â€œWorking hard. Got this exhibition coming up, did I tell you? A gallery in Oxford.”
    â€œI admire those watercolours. Would she bring a few