But let me tell you this: the shortness of your relationships with women is due to a lack of flexibility in you. You are not able to adapt, change, improve, enjoy new things each day. Your demands are constant and growing narrower. Everyone else must adapt to you, never the other way about.
‘Marriages break up for this same reason – my marriage did and it was at least half my fault: two people become so set in their ways that they become vegetables. The antithesis of this feeling is to be in love. I fell in love with you, Jean-Paul. Being in love is to drink in new ideas, new feelings, smells, tastes, new dances – even the air seems to be different in flavour. That’s why infidelity is such a shock. A wife set in the dull, lifeless pattern of marriage is suddenly liberated by love, and her husband is terrified to see the change take place, for just as I felt ten years younger, so I saw my husband as ten years older.’
Jean-Paul said, ‘And that’s how you now see me?’
‘Exactly. It’s laughable how I once worried that you were younger than me. You’re not younger than me at all. You are an old fogey. Now I no longer love you I can see that. You are an old fogey of twenty-eight and I am a young girl of thiry-two.’
‘You bitch.’
‘My poor little one. Don’t be angry. Think of what I tell you. Open your mind. Open your mind and you will discover what you want so much: how to be eternally a young man.’
Jean-Paul looked at her. He wasn’t as angry as I would have expected. ‘Perhaps I am a shallow and vain fool,’ he said. ‘But when I met you, Maria, I truly loved you. It didn’t last more than a week, but for me it was real. It was the only time in my life that I truly believed myself capable of something worthwhile. You were older than me but I liked that. I wanted you to show me the way out of the stupid labyrinth life I led. You are highly intelligent and you, I thought, could show me the solid good reasons for living. But you failed me, Maria. Like all women you are weak-willed and indecisive. You can be loyal only for a moment to whoever is near to you. You have never made one objective decision in your life. You have never really wanted to be strong and free. You have never done one decisive thing that you truly believed in. You are a puppet, Maria, with many puppeteers, and they quarrel over who shall operate you.’ His final words were sharp and bitter and he stared hard at Datt.
‘Children,’ Datt admonished. ‘Just as we were all getting along so well together.’
Jean-Paul smiled a tight, film-star smile. ‘Turn off your charm,’ he said to Datt. ‘You always patronize me.’
‘If I’ve done something to give offence …’ said Datt. He didn’t finish the sentence but looked around at his guests, raising his eyebrows to show how difficult it was to even imagine such a possibility.
‘You think you can switch me on and off as you please,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘You think you can treat me like a child; well you can’t. Without me you would be in big trouble now. If I had not brought you the information about Loiseau’s raid upon your clinic you would be in prison now.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Datt, ‘and perhaps not.’
‘Oh I know what you want people to believe,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘I know you like people to think you are mixed up with the SDECE and secret departments of the Government, but we know better. I saved you. Twice. Once with Annie, once with Maria.’
‘Maria saved me,’ said Datt, ‘if anyone did.’
‘Your precious daughter,’ said Jean-Paul, ‘is good for only one thing.’ He smiled. ‘And what’s more she hates you. She said you were foul and evil; that’s how much she wanted to save you before I persuaded her to help.’
‘Did you say that about me?’ Datt asked Maria, and even as she was about to reply he held up his hand. ‘No, don’t answer. I have no right to ask you such a question. We all say things in anger that later we regret.’ He smiled at Jean-Paul. ‘Relax, my good friend, and have another glass of wine.’
Datt filled Jean-Paul’s glass but Jean-Paul didn’t pick it up. Datt pointed the neck of the bottle at it. ‘Drink.’ He picked up the glass and held it to Jean-Paul. ‘Drink and say that these black thoughts are not your truly considered opinion of old Datt who has done so much for you.’
Jean-Paul brought the flat of his hand round in an angry sweeping gesture. Perhaps he didn’t like to be told that he owed Datt anything. He sent the full glass flying across the room and swept the bottle out of Datt’s hands. It slid across the table, felling the glasses like ninepins and flooding the cold blond liquid across the linen and cutlery. Datt stood up, awkwardly dabbing at his waistcoat with a table napkin. Jean-Paul stood up too. The only sound was of the wine, still chug-chugging out of the bottle.
‘Salaud!’ said Datt. ‘You attack me in my own home! You casse-pieds! You insult me in front of my guests and assault me when I offer you wine!’ He dabbed at himself and threw the wet napkin across the table as a sign that the meal would not continue. The cutlery jangled mournfully. ‘You will learn,’ said Datt. ‘You will learn here and now.’
Jean-Paul finally understood the hornet’s nest he had aroused in Datt’s brain. His face was set and defiant, but you didn’t have to be an amateur psychologist to know that if he could set the clock back ten minutes he’d rewrite his script.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Jean-Paul said. ‘I have villainous friends just as you do, and my friends and I can destroy you, Datt. I know all about you, the girl Annie Couzins and why she had to be killed. There are a few things you don’t know about that story. There are a few more things that the police would like to know too. Touch me, you fat old swine, and you’ll die as surely as the girl did.’ He looked around at us all. His forehead was moist with exertion and anxiety. He managed a grim smile. ‘Just touch me, just you try …!’
Datt said nothing, nor did any one of us. Jean-Paul gabbled on until his steam ran out. ‘You need me,’ he finally said to Datt, but Datt didn’t need him any more and there was no one in the room who didn’t know it.
‘Robert!’ shouted Datt. I don’t know if Robert was standing in the sideboard or in a crack in the floor, but he certainly came in fast. Robert was the tractor driver who had slapped the one-eared dog. He was as tall and broad as Jean-Paul but there the resemblance ended: Robert was teak against Jean-Paul’s papier-mâché.
Right behind Robert was the woman in the white apron. Now that they were standing side by side you could see a family resemblance: Robert was clearly the woman’s son. He walked forward and stood before Datt like a man waiting to be given a medal. The old woman stood in the doorway with a 12-bore shotgun held steady in her fists. It was a battered old relic, the butt was scorched and stained and there was a patch of rust around the muzzle as though it had been propped in a puddle. It was just the sort of thing that might be kept around the hall of a country house for dealing with rats and rabbits: an ill-finished mass-production job without styling or finish. It wasn’t at all the sort of gun I’d want to be shot with. That’s why I remained very, very still.
Datt nodded towards me, and Robert moved in and brushed me lightly but efficiently. ‘Nothing,’ he said. Robert walked over to Jean-Paul. In Jean-Paul’s suit he found a 6.35 Mauser automatic. He sniffed it and opened it, spilled the bullets out into his hand and passed the gun, magazine and bullets to Datt. Datt handled them as though they were some kind of virus. He reluctantly dropped them into his pocket.
‘Take him away, Robert,’ said Datt. ‘He makes too much noise in here. I can’t bear people shouting.’ Robert nodded and turned upon Jean-Paul. He made a movement
