Graves swore as he climbed. The rule still held, that apparently inalienable rule he had noted after Dikeston's first appearance in his life: the rule that said - you will encounter discomfort. You. Not Pilgrim, not that old bastard Malory, but you, Graves.
If he turned and looked back, the blue Mediterranean glittered with invitation no great distance away. In a quarter of an hour he could be in the water, all this behind him, encompassed by a profound feeling of comfort. Pretty girls to look at, long drinks to sip.
He cursed again, and climbed on.
The square was tiny, barely meriting the name; really it was no more than a place where alleys met. In it there was nothing of what the world understands when the name of Nice is mentioned: there was no sunshine, no palms, no sand, no beauty, no self-indulgent luxury. But then, the richest cities always have places for the poor.
Graves, glancing round him, understood that at once. A few feet above, an ancient olive tree thrust its gnarled trunk from a wall and darker shade lay in an inviting pool beneath it. He stepped into its comfort and lit a cigarette, and he stood very still as sweat ran down his body. Five minutes passed. He saw a tin sign half-fastened to a wall opposite. Byrrh it said. An open doorway stood beside it, the room beyond very dark. He levered his moist body off the wall and took the few paces that were enough to cross the little square. It was cool inside the tiny bar. There was a zinc counter, a sink, a few bottles, and water dripping. The woman was in black and her face was much lined from the sun.
'Une bi ère, madame, s'il vous plaît. '
'Pas de bi ère. '
Anything cold would do.
'Pas de glace. '
In Nice! he thought. No ice, in Nice.
He took a glass of white wine, far from cold, and it was sour on his palate. The woman kept her eyes on him.
He finished the wine in a gulp. 'I am looking for Madame Bronard.'
No answer.
'She lives close by?'
Just the black eyes on him. He tried again. Once. 'She must be very old now, Madame Bronard. You know her, madame?'
-A shake of the head.
He walked out into the heat. A man sat on a rock that jutted from a wall. Graves went over to him. 'I am looking-'
'For Madame Bronard. Oui. I heard.'
'You know her?'
'Oh yes.' The man looked at him with a strange expression. 'But do you?'
'No. But I want to see her.'
The man began to roll a cigarette in thick, stiff fingers. After a moment of concentration he looked up again. 'She is very old.'
'I know.'
'Also hostile to strangers.'
'Nevertheless. . .'
A shrug. A thick finger pointing. There was a doorway at the mouth of the second alley; its door stood open to admit air. 'The house there, m'sieu. Third floor. She's-she's not easy, well, to . . .'
Thank you.' Grave's smile was answered with another shrug.
He found stairs of worn stone, uncarpeted, and began to climb. It was refreshingly cool in the house, and there was a draught of sorts down the stairway. Poor old soul, Graves thought, all these stairs to climb!
The door was old, oaken and blackened. Spidery handwriting on a grubby card said 'Bronard'. He knocked, and something scraped at the far side of the door. An ancient voice said, 'Who knocks?'
He saw that a little grille had moved, and tried to look through it. 'My name is Graves, madame, Jacques Graves.'
'What do you want?' A harsh tone now in the weak voice.
'To talk to you. On business.'
'Business?' Shrill and surprised. 'I have no business.'
'I'm from London.'
Silence. He said it again, slowly. 'Did you hear, madame? I'm from London. From England.'
'Oh, I heard. My pension. It's about my pension?'
'Well, yes.' He heard movements inside, beyond the door; the click of a bolt withdrawn. A full minute passed, then the cracked voice said, 'You can come forward.'
Graves raised the iron lever and stepped inside. There was no hall, no passage. He was at once in the little room, and it was clear this was where she lived. A bed stood against one wall; there was one small table, one chair, a small chipped stone sink.
Madame Bronard sat in a wheelchair on the far side of the room. Behind her were narrow floor-to-ceiling french windows, flung wide, and a tiny iron-railed balcony. She was little more than a silhouette against the shadowed light outside, and moreover was dressed head to foot in black. On her knee was a bag of black canvas which Graves's imagination first told him must be a black cat. Macbeth, he thought: Act One, Scene One. You can find a blasted heath anywhere. She said, 'My pension. You are from the company, hein?'
'From a company, madame.'
'Pffft. The people who pay. With the so foolish name.'
'Condor Planet Mutual. No, madame, I am not.'
'Then who?'
'I must explain. May I sit down?' He took a step towards the solitary chair.
'No.' Her hands moved incessantly, like big trembling white insects on the black bag. She said, 'Three pounds English, you understand? Enough when it began.'
He suddenly understood the bitterness.
'But not for years. I have had half a century of grinding poverty. You hear me, m'sieu from Londres?'
Graves said. 'It was never increased?' and cursed himself for failing to think about how much interest the principal would produce, for not asking Condor Planet Mutual for details.
'Increased? Never! I wrote. I begged. They stopped answering. Just the few scus, every month. Who are you from?'
Graves made his tone emollient. It was a weapon in his armoury: his voice could be made very soothing, and it rarely failed.
'A bank,' he said. 'I may be able to help you.'
'Bank?' she said. The cracked voice had an edge like a saw. 'Which bank?'
'I doubt if you'd know -'
'Which bank, m'sieu?' She was the secret, black and midnight hag incarnate, every inch, and growing more agitated by the instant.
'Hillyard, Cleef,' Graves said gently. 'It's a kind of private -'
She said, 'Zaharoff's - it's Zaharoff's bank?'
Graves smiled. 'Not for a very long time, madame. Sir Basil Zaharoff died in nineteen-thirty-six. I believe your late husband worked for Sir B-'
She said, 'I have been waiting.’ The hands never stopped moving on the bag. 'All these years I have waited. So you, m'sieu, are Zaharoff's man?'
Graves laughed gently. 'Well, no, madame. As I told you, he died long ago.'
'Like my pension,' she said, and cackled.
Something made a shiver run down Graves's back - the cool after the heat, he thought.
'Well, we can try -'
She interrupted again, head shaking. 'It's too late. Fifty years too late. If my man had been dead it would be three times more, but there was no proof that he was dead, hein? So old Zaharoff didn't pay me, hein?’
'I'm sure -'
'So am I, m'sieu. Very sure.' He now saw that the apparently aimless movement of the old hands had achieved something. The bag was open at the neck and her hand was inside. 'But I saved something, m'sieu,' she said, 'as you will see -' and there was an ancient pistol in her hand, a massive, monstrous thing; her hands shook with its weight - 'for Zaharoff. He is dead, so - for his agent.'