Free English Correspondence by Janet Davey Page A

do next.
    â€˜Is it one of your father’s old books? Or have you reverted to French?’
    She considered for a moment. ‘No. I found it in the dining room. The Englishman, who was here, left it behind. He must have been reading it.’
    â€˜You were deep in it. It’s obviously your sort of thing.’
    Sylvie shrugged. ‘I don’t know really. I’ve only just opened it. In the middle.’
    â€˜I thought I’d call the hospital and find out about Maurice. It would be a good thing to do, wouldn’t it?’ he said.
    â€˜If you want to. I wouldn’t.’
    â€˜Why not? Why wouldn’t you?’
    â€˜Seems a bit funny. Nosy. We’ll hear soon enough. Why do we need to know?’
    â€˜It’s courteous, isn’t it, to show an interest? If he’s definitely died we can send flowers.’
    â€˜His wife left her flowers behind yesterday. I put them in a bucket of water and left them by the back door.’
    â€˜What’s that got to do with anything?’
    â€˜Nothing. I just thought I’d mention it. You said flowers and I thought of it.’
    â€˜You didn’t think we could send them, did you? If he’s died.’
    â€˜No, of course not.’
    â€˜I never know with you.’
    â€˜Thanks.’
    â€˜I’m sorry I interrupted you. I won’t call the hospital if it’s such a crass thing to do. You make yourself quite clear you know.’
    Sylvie didn’t say anything. She couldn’t understand this fascination with the boundary, whether Maurice had crossed or re-crossed it. Was this what Paul and the others hoped for themselves? A permeable layer at the end of their lives where they could be dragged to and fro. Maurice couldn’t have looked as he did and come back.
    â€˜I’ll let you get on with your English studies. They demolished the cheese yesterday. You’ll have to put in an early order.’
    â€˜I might send it to him. That might be best.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜The book.’
    â€˜To Maurice?’
    â€˜No, of course not. To the man who left it behind.’
    â€˜You don’t know where to send it.’
    â€˜I can find out.’
    â€˜What was his name?’
    â€˜George Meredith. No, sorry. That’s the name of the writer. I’ll find out. It will be on file.’
    â€˜I wouldn’t go to the trouble. He won’t miss it.’
    â€˜I’ll see. People like their books back.’
    â€˜Please yourself. What’s it about anyway, that you were so fascinated by it?’
    She wondered for a moment whether to read aloud selectively to him.
And she has a thirst for the use of the tongue.
The translation would be difficult to get right.
On his knees in the dew to the morning milkmaid.
That would be morestraightforward once she remembered the word for milkmaid in French. Something stopped her. From time to time, Paul read books that contained precise physiological sex, but he resisted suggestion, particularly, it seemed, if she was doing the suggesting. Not that she’d tried for a while. She looked at the passages in these books without being moved; they were like attempts to describe a piece of music by writing about the movements of the leader’s bowing arm.
    â€˜The bit I was reading was about a bachelor. I don’t know about the rest.’
    â€˜That figures.’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜It’s what he would read about. A lone Englishman. He’s probably a pederast.’
    â€˜Probably.’

8
    SYLVIE WASN’T A strategist. Although reserved she acted on impulse. So that afternoon, when her mother-in-law spoke to her on the telephone and said she had an hour or two free and was about to come over, Sylvie said that Paul was out, she didn’t know where he was, and that she would rather Yvette didn’t, as she needed some time to herself. But, darling, Yvette said, it’s you I want to see too, you know, I like