Adam Gould by Julia O'Faolain

rages was plain from his gentleness with others, while only François got the rough side of his tongue. Maybe this was because Monsieur knew he could rely on him no matter what? In some part of his moithered mind, he surely knew that. It was possible too that he meant the opposite of what he said. He had always been a great one for reversals and practical jokes, as François should know, for
he
had often had to set them up. Nine years François had been with him. He had cooked for him, travelled with him, helped him move house a number of times, organized decorators – Monsieur’s taste was opulent – nursed him with massages and cold showers and fallen in with all his whims. Some of these could be embarrassing. On one occasion, François had been required to deliver a covered basket of live frogs to a society lady and, on another, a container full of jacks-in-the-box. There had been other japes. With Monsieur Guy you had – though not everyone twigged this – to stay on the qui vive. When he flattered the titled ladies who visited his yacht, it was his valet, not they, who saw the irony behind his charm. He could be quite brusque too, and women who tried to breach his privacy got short shrift. Perhaps – it struck François as he stared out at that veiled lady whom he had better head off – in the end he himself had got too close to Monsieur Guy, one of whose fears was of meeting his double? Better think about that.
    First things first though. Who were those two women? And how had they got in? No question but that
they
needed brusque treatment. François started for the stairs.

III
    The to-do at the gate had been due to the director’s absence. Blanche, before taking off for a taste of the salon life he so loved, had told Adam, ‘Now is your chance to make amends.’
    The amends were for an incident just after their staff meeting when Adam, still hot with indignation at fate, life, self, the press and the sleek Dr Meuriot, went to answer the bell at the gate and found himself confronting a reporter from
L’Écho de la semaine
– who offered him money, and whom he knocked down. Ah well. He could hardly knock himself down, could he? Or fate? Or Dr Meuriot?
    He had never done such a thing before and, to his shock, relished the sensation. Till now, as he had been trained to do, he had kept his feelings in a shell. But this now seemed to have cracked, for he had to be pulled off the journalist by the porter who should have answered the bell in the first place and who, on seeing whom he was throttling, apologized. They were by now outside the gate in the rue Berton, where the man seemed to feel that anarchy should be allowed some play.
    ‘
Désolé
, Monsieur Gould. Here. Smash the fellow’s glasses.’ Invitingly, he liberated Adam. ‘Better still,’ he advised, ‘give him a swift kick in the gut! It hurts and doesn’t show.’
    But by then the journalist had fled.
    ‘He,’ said the porter in a satisfied voice, ‘will think twice before coming back to snoop!’
    This spite, so alien to the entente usually prevailing in the
maison de santé
, came from feeling besieged. So did the director’s eagerness to breathe happier air.
    ‘So you’ll hold the fort here, Gould?’ he had cajoled, then, sealing the bargain, flicked Adam’s shoulder with a white glove which released talcum powder in airy puffs. ‘
Zut
! Sorry! Get them to brush that off.’
    Chin-wagging in self-reproof, Blanche stepped into his carriage. Though plump, he was light on his feet and, dressed in tails and topper, was already mentally savouring the pleasures of Princess Mathilde’s soirée where he was resolved, he confided with a friendliness clearly intended to make up for the spilled talc, not to let himself be pumped by Maupassant’s malicious friends. Gossip, he murmured from the carriage window, was causing half our troubles. ‘So:
motus
! Mum’s the word!’ He mimed the act of turning a key in the lock of his own mouth, then