Judd, Alan - The Devil's Own Work by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER 5

Chantal and I moved to Antibes some months after the birth of our first daughter. I got a job in the lyc�e and she was able to work part-time teaching French to foreigners. In the first flush of parental enthusiasm we both felt that London was no place to bring up children. They should live in small towns with easy access to countryside or sea - as should adults, ideally. Also, climate is very important. If it is right it makes everything else better but if it is wrong nothing else will really do and the daily condition of life is struggle.

In fact, the summers in Antibes are too hot for my taste but they suited Chantal. With help from her father, we got an apartment in the same block as her parents. This meant that her sister, Catherine, now a tall and lissom young woman, was available for baby-sitting. So life was pleasant; indeed, being away from London and that dreadful school was like permanent holiday. Work was no longer onerous and stressful but something one just did, like shaving or making coffee. I could walk to the lyc�e every day along by the harbour.

Some time after the birth of our second daughter, Edward and Eudoxie moved to Villefranche. They reoccupied Tyrrel’s house which I assumed was left to Eudoxie though I did read something in the papers about a will that was disputed by one or two of his former wives; but the wife or wives died and whatever fuss there was fizzled out. Eudoxie had it.

I was delighted, of course, though I did not see as much of Edward as I had thought I would. It is a commonplace that children so weaken friendships that many parents cease to be social beings at all. Meetings and conversations become rather desperate occasions, an exchange of notes and a hurried scramble to run up some semblance of the old self. Chantal and I were more fortunate, not only because we had her family on hand but because she was well-organized and efficient, almost Teutonic. She appreciated that time and space have to be created and that neither occurs if you wait for them, so she made sure that there was always some time in the week for doing what she wanted. I was the more willing to help with this because she understood that I needed the same. Perhaps because neither of us felt ourselves to be a natural parent, whatever that is, we saw to it that things worked.

I saw Edward about once a month. I would get the train or drive to Villefranche, though sometimes he would have reason to be in Antibes and we would meet at M. Englert’s. Only once or twice did he come to our flat; the presence of children, even signs of their existence such as toys or the push-chair in the hall, discomforted him. As often with people who have an ambition in life, the whole business of families was irrelevant.

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