A Period of Adjustment Read Online Free PDF

expression. I was thinking hard. He looked away, but I’d seen the flick of a triumphant smile on his lips.
    Eugène, standing aside to let us pass through the chenille-curtained door into the little lobby, laughed. Not unkindly, just rather wearily. ‘It is cold in that Pavilion in
winten!
There is no radiator. But maybe you will come back into the house after September? When the regulars have gone back?’
    â€˜Maybe.’ I realized that I had made a commitment with the telephone. Not just to Eugène and Giles, but to myself as well. The idea had just arrived: I had probably thought it all out subconsciously, but never knowingly. Perhaps it was Fate that had decided for me and forced the decision?
    So, Jericho? Well, why not? It was mine for the next three years, rent paid in advance already. I liked it, I was quite adjusted to living there, even though it had only been a matter of three or four weeks since I had known of its existence. I was divorcing my wife (or she was divorcing me rather) amicably, I had handed in my last book to my publisher and corrected the proofs. I could take a year out, relax, consider my life and where to go, and indeed how to go, and start off again. It had to be a renewal of life if one divorced and severed family ties. I’d rather start off again here at Jericho than lumbering about in Parsons Green on my own. Helen had already declared that she would be moving off with her lover, Eric Rhys-Evans, who had a ‘super house’ in Burnham Beeches. I could well imagine it. Indoor swimming-pool, guarded by a pair of snarling potteryleopards, tasselled Knole settee, a Jacuzzi somewhere, scarlet cardinals and jolly monks enjoying a drink all over the walls, and lots of buttoned silk bedheads and gold and glass coffee tables. Well, she liked that sort of kitsch. I liked Jericho.
    At the desk Madame Mazine looked up from whatever she was doing. Eugène threw the key to the Pavilion on to the ledger.
    â€˜Thank you, Madame. We’ll move in there. If it is not inconvenient to you?’
    She shook her head, removed her spectacles, slid them into their case. ‘Pas du tout!’
    Eugène moved behind the desk, reached up and took our bedroom keys from their hooks and handed them over to me. ‘Monsieur Colcott says he will stay until he can get the telephone connected at Jericho, so I have told him it is very
cold
in the Pavilion in the winter!’ He was smiling, but his aunt was not.
    â€˜Nonsense! Things are far easier now than they were. If you have the money, Monsieur Colcott, you will very shortly have a telephone. The poles are already along the road, I think? Pas de problème.’
    I took up the keys and pushed Giles in the direction of the bar. I was desperately in need of something to fortify me. To strengthen resolve. I knew that the instant we were on our own there would be a torrent of questions from Giles. There was a torrent of questions from me myself, come to that. But Giles merely said that it was a bit early to go to the bar. I agreed but went on in.
    Claude was leaning against the till watching a cartoon on the television. There were two people sitting with beers at a table arguing quietly, and a sad looking truck driver, his cap at the back of his head, glass of rouge in one hand, the other thrust into his greasy overall pocket. He was staring at the yellowing map of the area pinned to the wall. It wasalmost quiet, apart from the turned-down volume of the television. A diffused, distant scream of brakes, clang of metal, thud of running feet, but quiet in comparison to the evenings when the men came up from the fields. I ordered a brandy and a glass of Coke for Giles.
    â€˜I just feel I need a strengthener. Okay? I’m not turning into a drunk. I know it’s only half past five or something, but I want it. All right?’
    Giles nodded perfectly contentedly. As far as he was concerned he didn’t care if I did become a