Free A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker

through it.”
    The older man lifts his glass again, and his throat spasms as he drinks. He, though, leans away from the table and the glasses. He watches, suddenly clear, wondering how it happened. That the old man should be so diminished. That his gaze should have become so narrow. His skin comes out in gooseflesh as old Shem talks on, about the seat of love and where it lies, rather lower than the heart, and the failure of it always in the end, how it leaves him in disgust even to hear talk of it.
    Shem is not what he was; he is not what he achieved. How could he be?
    “Well,” he says eventually, “I had better go.”
    “Eh?” Joyce raises his head. “Yes. I suppose so. So many departures, after all.”
    He reaches into his pocket for coins that he can’t afford to part with. He feels light and empty and one step away from himself, almost elated. This sense of loss, the openness that is offered by it. He has not even been abandoned; he was never held that dear. The world is different and brilliant and empty.
    Joyce drains his drink, and then sets his glass down and nods quietly, agreeing with his own thoughts.
    He counts out his weightless coins.
    “D’you know Larbaud?” Joyce says, out of nowhere.
    He blinks. “Valéry Larbaud, the writer?”
    “Yes, yes.”
    “I know the work,” he says, nonplussed.
    “Get the boy’s attention, would you? We must have another pichet. ”
    “Oh, I’m not, no.”
    “Nonsense, I insist.”

    So he turns in his seat, catches an eye and gestures for more wine, while Joyce talks on.
    “Larbaud’s an old friend of mine; he lives round here. You should go and see him. He might be able to help you out.”
    “Do you think?”
    A nod. “Larbaud is on the side of the angels. And he’s rich. Which is only sensible, if you must be a writer.”
    A hand-me-down coat, a favour done by proxy. He drains his glass, and humiliation rinses through him, and it is cleansing.
    “Yes, good,” Joyce says. “I’m glad I could be of help.”
    —
    Madame Larbaud greets him at the door; she is courteous, with a quietness about her that doesn’t invite conversation. This is welcome.
    The house is dim and cool and lovely. She leads him through the lobby and the scent of lilacs and the sound of trickling water—in Vichy there is always water—and it is as much as he can do to put one foot in front of the other.
    He carries a letter of introduction in his breast pocket, addressed in Joyce’s own hand. It lies there like a plaque over his heart. He doesn’t know what the letter says and he doesn’t want to know. The experience is mortifying enough already.
    Her heels click along the floor; his leathered tread is softer on the tiles.
    “You know, I imagine,” Madame Larbaud says, “about Monsieur Larbaud’s state of health?”
    “I understand that he has not been well.”
    “You know that he cannot speak?”
    He did not. “I’m sorry.”
    She pauses at the door, a hand on the glossy wooden panel, as though she is going to say something more, but then thinks better of it. She pushes the door open.
    The wheelchair is placed in a shaft of light from the French windows; Larbaud is reading, the book flat on his lap, his left hand holding it open. Madame crosses the room to her husband. She touches his hand, lifts the book from his lap and moves round to stand behind him. Larbaud lifts his left hand to the newcomer to be shaken.

    The hand is cold and soft in his; Larbaud’s eyes are heavy-lidded, his face half-fallen.
    “It is kind of you to see me, Monsieur Larbaud.” His hand feels strange with the softness he had gripped. He fumbles in his jacket and produces the letter. His face burns. “This is from our mutual friend, Mr. James Joyce.”
    Larbaud does not smile, is perhaps unable to smile, but his face somehow lightens. The letter is suspended there between them, hanging from his fingertips. The seated man doesn’t move to take it—he can’t, of course. Awkward, he moves