The Greengage Summer Read online

  PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

  The Greengage Summer is true, or partly true: when I was fifteen, my elder sister Jon seventeen going on eighteen, two totally self-involved adolescents, our mother, Mam, driven by despair over us, made an announcement: “We are going,” she said, “to the Battlefields of France” – those words were in capitals – “and perhaps when you see the rows and rows of crosses for those young men who gave their lives for you, it might make you stop and think of your selfishness.”

  Mam had never been to France or anywhere on the Continent. She spoke no French but this was a crusade; her cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes determined. “We have to change trains at Rouen and have two hours to wait so I shall take you to the market place to see where Joan of Arc was burnt” – she had read it all up thoroughly – “St Joan, too, might make you think. And,” she added, “you are not to tell Aunt Mary. She thinks we are going to the seaside.”

  We did not see where Joan of Arc was burnt; all I remember of the time in Rouen were the first French strawberry tarts we ate – Rose our youngest sister in heaven – she and the next sister, Nancy, were with us. We spent the whole two hours in a patisserie opposite the station because Mam could go no further. She had not absolutely deceived Aunt Mary; we had been at the seaside in Varengeville in Normandy for three weeks and there Mam had been bitten on the leg by a horsefly. On the train her leg began to swell with agonizing pain. Jon and I knew enough about fevers to know she had high fever; by the time we arrived in Paris she was helpless.

  I can see us now, the four of us on the platform of the Gare de l’Est, grouped around Mam who sits on our suitcases. “Children you . . . Jon . . . Rumer . . . you must . . .” is all she can say, but though Jon and I were, to our minds, quite old, not children at all, we were oddly inexperienced and tongue-tied into shyness and dismay.

  Mam had asked a clergyman friend for advice and he had told her that Château Thierry, a town on the Marne, had been the American Headquarters in the war. “If you want to see the battlefields there can be no better place,” he had said and recommended a small pension, the Hôtel des Violettes. As with Joan of Arc, we failed to see the battlefields but we did reach Château Thierry.

  Not without a private battle. “Jon, you must get a porter and ask him,” I said.

  “You speak better French. You ask him.”

  “I don’t speak better French.”

  “You do.”

  “Girls,” said Mam feebly, and, “Go on,” commanded Jon.

  I had to beard a horrible and extortionate porter like a bear in a blue blouse and station cap; at first, he could not understand a word I said – which was not surprising – until at last, “Château Thierry,” he shouted; it sounded as if he were swearing and we wondered what was wrong with Château Thierry. Mercifully the train left from the same Gare de l’Est. He shouldered and swung some of our suitcases, we carried the rest, another porter almost carried Mam and, after parting with far too many francs, we found ourselves in a second-class compartment, bumping slowly through a flat countryside.

  It is difficult, with the novel I was to write about those two months in Château Thierry and the film that followed it, to know what I remember as happening, what is transposed in the novel, and what is overlaid by the film; each seems to shimmer through the others. I do not know if we really had to walk from the station, Jon and I one on each side of Mam holding her up, a boy pushing our luggage in a handcart, Nancy and Rose trailing behind as, “Hôtel des Violettes,” we said over and over again.

  “Si,” said the boy, “si,” and nodded ahead to where trees, iron railings, and tall scrolled iron gates showed, behind them, a big house with lights. “Hôtel des Violettes.” We felt a tingle of anticipation.

  In the book and film, the hotel was called the Hôtel des Oeillets-carnations, but, as I write, I smell the “Violettes” smell of warm dust and cool plaster, of jessamine and of box hedges in the sun, of dew on the long grass – the smell fills the garden – and, in the house, it is of Gaston the chef’s cooking; of furniture polish, damp linen, and always a little of drains. There are sounds that seem to belong only to des Violettes: the patter of the poplar-tree leaves along the courtyard walk, a tap running in the kitchen with a clatter of pans and china, mixed with the sound of high French voices, especially of the chamber-maids as they call to one another out of the bedroom windows; the thump of someone washing clothes in the river sounds close and barges puff up-stream; a faint noise comes from the town and near, the plop of a fish; a greengage falls.

  The river was the Marne; and beyond the hotel’s formal garden of gravel paths, statues, small flower beds edged with box, an orchard stretched to a wall in which a blue door opened on to the river bank. The orchard seemed to us immense; there were seven alleys of greengage trees alone; they were ripe and in the dining room, Toinette, the waitress, built them, on dessert plates, into pyramids. “Reines Claudes,” she would say, to teach us their names; always afterward we called this time the greengage summer.

  Madame – I will call her Madame Chenal – was kind; few hotel keepers would have accepted a critically ill foreign woman with four children. The doctor was there that night and she comforted and reassured us, calling in an Englishwoman, a Mrs Martin staying in the hotel who, herself, had a small girl. Mrs Martin coaxed Nancy and Rose to eat supper and put them to bed; meanwhile Jon and I were almost overcome by the hotel.

  The Hôtel des Violettes had been a château; it had elegant rooms, a great hall from which a painted panelled staircase led up to a first and second floor of bedrooms – there were attic bedrooms above with mansard windows. The salon was panelled too, with sofas and chairs in gilt and brocade; the dining room had – what particularly impressed me – blue satin wallpaper. Our bedrooms were large with four-poster beds – it seemed at first that there was only a hard bolster, no pillows; we were surprised when we found them in the vast armoires. The windows had shutters too heavy for us to close; we could see lanterns lit along the drive and, even in that night of distress, we lingered, breathing the warm fragrance and, again, felt the tingle of anticipation.

  Mam had septicaemia, acutely dangerous in the days before penicillin.

  “Are there no relatives we could send for?” asked poor Madame Chenal and before I could open my mouth, “None,” said Jon firmly.

  Poor Mam! How could she have known it would all turn out the opposite of her innocent plan. To begin with, Château Thierry was in the champagne country, a luxury town to which the buyers came for the vintage. It was, too, famous for its liqueur chocolates – Jon was to be given boxes of them. We gorged ourselves, and on the delectable food, especially the ripe fruit in the orchard. Perhaps part of the feeling of being in a dream was because we ate so much; we were, too, out of ourselves from being so suddenly immersed in France.

  There was shock after shock. “Do you know,” asked Nancy who managed to discover everything, “Madame Chenal has a lover. What’s a lover?”

  Jean Pierre, a French Canadian, was big, handsome with heavy-lidded eyes, astonishingly blue, and a mass of wiry dark hair. He smelled of sweat and drink – he was often drunk. Years afterwards, I discovered he was a spy who was trading on Madame’s bounty. He fell in love with Jon, at first furtively. He used to get a ladder and climb up to our window as we undressed for bed. The first time I froze with terror and let out a scream but Jon’s hand came like a clamp on my lips.

  “Be quiet!” and, “You’re not to tell – ever.”

  “Suppose he comes in?”

  “He won’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows that I don’t like him. He keeps on bothering me,” said Jon, “so I asked Toinette what to say and I said it. Salaud,”
said Jon with relish . . .

  “Weren’t you afraid?”

  “No. Why should I be?” She gave a shrug. “Men do what you want them to,” said this new Jon. I was speechless.

  It was not only Jean Pierre. There was Mr Martin, husband of the kind Englishwoman; he was English too, young, slim, with lazy good manners and perfectly dressed.

  They had a four-year-old daughter, Betsy, and to our relief, took charge of Nancy and Rose. Mr Martin, Madame told us, worked in a bank in Paris; he left every morning before we were up and came back late but during weekends he was there and, in his magnificent car, drove us out into the green and gold countryside, its white roads winding between vineyards, where the grapes were heavy. He took us to a restaurant overlooking the river and let us order as we liked. “Comme il est gentil,” said Madame Chenal, but I saw him looking at Jon, not as Jean Pierre looked, avidly, but with a half-unwilling tenderness and this time Jon looked back.

  The weeks passed, the vintage began, and everything, the hotel, the whole town, was filled with bubbling life. I saw men and women drunk; I remember a gutter running with wine from a broken cask and children scooping it up to drink. The young men were rowdy and no longer stared at us but sometimes would not let us pass. I knew enough to know they would not have given even a wolf whistle for me – it was Jon.

  That August she was eighteen and, for her birthday, Mam let her choose herself a dress which is imprinted on my memory as are many of Jon’s dresses. This was strawberry-pink French voile piped with white, and chic – which none of our dresses had been.

  The hotel guests clapped when she came in to dinner wearing it. There were murmurs of “Ravissante” . . . “Charmante” . . . “Adorable” and “Heureuse anniversaire!” – Madame had told them it was her birthday – “Heureuse anniversaire!” they called and raised their glasses. It was the first time I saw Jon blush.

  One of the buyers, Monsieur Bosanquet, sent a bottle of champagne over to our table. Jon and I sipped it reverently. We took the bottle up to Mam who could sit up now and walk a little; as she drank her wan face took on a little colour, her eyes had an echo of her sparkle. “I had forgotten how it tasted. Nectar!” she said and looked at Jon with love and pride, but that was the last night of our dreams.

  Next morning we woke to find the hotel in chaos and full of police, the gates guarded by gendarmes, even the blue door in the orchard. Mr and Mrs Martin and Betsy had gone in the night and a Paris bank had been robbed, “Of millions and millions,” said Toinette. Mr Martin was a well-known international thief; Mrs Martin was not his wife but an accomplice and Betsy was not their child, she was borrowed or hired to add to the illusion of their being an ordinary English family.

  We were interviewed by the police, even Rose. When Mr Martin took us out, where did we go? Did he meet anyone? Did he leave us in the car and go anywhere? Had we heard Mr and Mrs Martin talking? Jon was stiff and as non-committal as if she hated them but I felt like a heroine, shielding Mr Martin and talked willingly until, out of the corner of her mouth, Jon hissed, “Stop, stop.”

  “But I’m only trying to help him. Don’t you mind about Mr Martin?”

  “Mr Martin!” Jon made a sound like “p’fui”.

  It was over. Mam was soon able to travel, though painfully, and took us home.

  There was an unexpected – and touching – sequel. One day of Mr Martin’s last week at the Hôtel des Violettes, as he was leaving for work, the handle of his attaché case had come off – it would have been called a briefcase now – and Jon had lent him hers, a small case but made of crocodile leather from a crocodile Fa had shot. Jon treasured it but it had disappeared with Mr Martin.

  He was not caught but three months later the case came back, posted to Eastbourne from the South of France – he must have taken a considerable risk to send it. When Jon opened the wrapping and saw the case she burst into tears.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 1

  ON AND off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages. Joss and I felt guilty; we were still at the age when we thought being greedy was a childish fault, and this gave our guilt a tinge of hopelessness because, up to then, we had believed that as we grew older our faults would disappear, and none of them did. Hester of course was quite unabashed; Will—though he was called Willmouse then—Willmouse and Vicky were too small to reach any but the lowest branches, but they found fruit fallen in the grass; we were all strictly forbidden to climb the trees.

  The garden at Les Oeillets was divided into three: first the terrace and gravelled garden round the house; then, separated by a low box hedge, the wilderness with its statues and old paths; and, between the wilderness and the river, the orchard with its high walls. In the end wall a blue door led to the river bank.

  The orchard seemed to us immense, and perhaps it was, for there were seven alleys of greengage trees alone; between them, even in that blazing summer, dew lay all day in the long grass. The trees were old, twisted, covered in lichen and moss, but I shall never forget the fruit. In the hotel dining-room Mauricette built it into marvellous pyramids on dessert plates laid with vine leaves. ‘Reines Claudes,’ she would say to teach us its name as she put our particular plate down, but we were too full to eat. In the orchard we had not even to pick fruit—it fell off the trees into our hands.

  The greengages had a pale-blue bloom, especially in the shade, but in the sun the flesh showed amber through the clear-green skin; if it were cracked the juice was doubly warm and sweet. Coming from the streets and small front gardens of Southstone, we had not been let loose in an orchard before; it was no wonder we ate too much.

  “Summer sickness,” said Mademoiselle Zizi.

  “Indigestion,” said Madame Corbet.

  I do not know which it was, but ever afterwards, in our family, we called that the greengage summer.

  “You are the one who should write this,” I told Joss, “it happened chiefly to you”; but Joss shut that out, as she always shuts out things, or shuts them in so that no one can guess.

  “You are the one who likes words,” said Joss. “Besides . . .” and she paused. “It happened as much to you.”

  I did not answer that. I am grown up now—or almost grown up—“and we still can’t get over it!” said Joss.

  “Most people don’t have . . . that . . . in thirty or forty years,” I said in defence.

  “Most people don’t have it at all,” said Joss.

  If I stop what I am doing for a moment, or in any time when I am quiet, in those cracks in the night that have been with me ever since when I cannot sleep and thoughts seep in, I am back; I can smell the Les Oeillets smells of hot dust and cool plaster walls, of jessamine and box leaves in the sun, of dew in the long grass; the smell that filled house and garden of Monsieur Armand’s cooking and the house’s own smell of damp linen, or furniture polish, and always, a little, of drains. I can hear the sounds that seem to belong only to Les Oeillets: the patter of the poplar trees along the courtyard wall, of a tap running in the kitchen mixed with the sound of high French voices, of the thump of Rex’s tail and another thump of someone washing clothes on the river bank; of barges puffing upstream and Mauricette’s toneless singing—she always sang through her nose; of Toinette and Nicole’s quick loud French as they talked to one another out of the upstairs windows; of the faint noise of the town and, near, the plop of a fish or of a greengage falling.

  “But you were glad enough to come back,” said Uncle William.

 
; “We never came back,” said Joss.

  The odd thing was, when that time was over, we, Joss and I, were still sixteen and thirteen, the ages we had been when we arrived on that stifling hot evening at the beginning of August. We were Mother, Joss, I—Cecil—Hester and the Littles, Willmouse and Vicky. It must have been nine o’clock.

  “Why were you so late?” asked Mademoiselle Zizi. “There are plenty of trains in the day.”

  “We were waiting in the Gare de l’Est for Mother to get better.”

  “And she didn’t get better,” said Willmouse.

  “And we had nothing to eat all day,” said Vicky, “but some horrid sausage and bread.”

  “And the oranges we had with us,” said Hester, who was always accurate, “twelve oranges. We ate them in the train.”

  Mademoiselle Zizi shuddered, and I burned to think that now she must know we were the kind of family that ate oranges in trains.

  There had been no taxis at the station, but after a stress that I do not like to remember—the whole day had been like a bad dream—we found a porter who would take our suitcases on a handcart.

  It was beginning to be dusk when our little procession left the station; men were coming back from fishing, women were talking in doorways and in their stiff gardens where gladioli and zinnias seemed to float, oddly coloured in the twilight, behind iron railings. ‘French people don’t have gardens,’ Uncle William was to say, ‘they grow flowers.’ Children were playing in the streets; Willmouse and Vicky stared at them; I think they had thought they were the only children in the world kept up to this late hour.

  All round us was the confusion of the strange town, strange houses, strange streets. The people stared at us too, but we did not feel it. We did not feel anything; our bodies seemed not to belong to us but to be walking apart while we floated, as the flowers did, in the dusk. Perhaps we were too tired to feel.

  The handcart bumped over cobbles that, even though we had not walked on cobbles before, we knew were unmistakably French. Mother gave a small moan each time the porter turned into another street. It seemed a long way, and by the time we came to the hotel gates lamplight was showing in the houses and most of the doors were shut. At Les Oeillets every night after dark the dogs were let loose and the outer gates closed, leaving only a wicket-gate unlocked; the handcart would not go through that and we had to wait—still apart from ourselves—while the porter rang the bell.