by Lynn Bushell
‘No, you’re not taking her!’ shrieks Marguerite. She locks her hand around his arm.
‘For God’s sake!’ Pierre turns back. He puts his face up close to Marguerite’s. ‘I’m taking Renée to her mother. She’s expecting her and one way or another I intend to get her there. I’m asking you to stand back.’
Renée wonders whether this show of bravado is for her sake. Marguerite stares at him for a moment and then slams the heel of one hand into Pierre’s shoulder, shoving him away from her towards the edge. There is a scuffle. Pierre grabs the bannister and swings his body in an arc. His left hand lands on Marguerite’s chin. Her head jerks back and there is a sickening crack as it makes contact with the wall behind. She looks at him with mild surprise and then she crumples.
Pierre stands looking down at her. He slides a foot out, tentatively nudging her. Her eyelids flutter. ‘What?’ She looks about her. Her gaze settles on the foot wedged underneath her calf. Her own legs are stuck out in front of her and she regards them, curiously.
Renée has crept over to the door. Pierre turns. Marguerite’s abrupt collapse seems to have robbed him of initiative. He frowns. ‘We need to get you out of here.’
‘We can’t just leave her.’ Renée stares at Marguerite. The scene reminds her of a boxing match she went to, once, where one of the contestants suddenly fell down. The other went on punching at the air until they realised that the first man wasn’t getting up again and then they stood there stupidly, not knowing if the referee should start the count, since theoretically the first man hadn’t been knocked out.
‘She’s dazed, that’s all. It’s better that we go now.’ He bends down to look at Marguerite and straightens up again. He wipes his palms against his jacket. They both know what Marguerite will be like if she comes around.
‘I’ll carry you downstairs.’ He sweeps her up into his arms. As they descend the staircase she looks back over his shoulder. Marguerite remains hunched up against the wall.
Once they are in the car and out of danger, Renée starts to shiver. She’s brought nothing with her in the way of luggage but she can’t go back now. Pierre has wrapped a blanket round her, but it’s not that sort of cold. This is the first time since she moved into the flat with Marguerite that someone’s wanted her enough to fight for her. There is a scent the body gives off when it’s driven by adrenalin and she can smell it on them both.
Pierre looks sideways at her. He puts one hand on her knee. ‘I’m sorry, darling. That must have been ghastly for you.’
Renée turns to look at him. ‘You hit her. You hit Marguerite.’
‘I pushed her. I had no choice.’ Pierre takes her hand. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed to make sure she was all right, but I felt I ought to get you out of there.’
She rests her head against his shoulder. ‘You did that for me,’ she murmurs.
‘It was good of you to bring her, Monsieur.’ Renée’s mother hovers in the doorway. She looks tired, thinks Renée, but she’s brought her best dress out for the occasion. ‘I’ve been wondering how we could get her here. It isn’t far from Paris, but I’m sure the air is better.’
‘I could easily have organised a car for her,’ says Tonio, resentfully. He reaches out to Renée and she lets him carry her inside. His arms are straining underneath the weight of her, but he’s determined not to let it show. ‘I’ll take her upstairs, shall I, Maman?’
‘No, dear, let her sit downstairs. She’ll want to be with us.’
He lays her on the sofa with a rug across her knees. The younger girls are staring at Pierre. He waits for her to introduce them.
‘This is Claire and Alys.’ Claire is standing with her finger in her mouth. She draws back shyly into the protection of her mother’s skirts. ‘Claire’s six and Alys will be eight in two weeks’ time,’ says Renée. ‘Pierre’s an artist.’
‘What’s an artist?’ Alys, who is standing next to Pierre, is staring up into his face.
‘It’s somebody who paints things,’ Pierre says.
‘Pictures?’
‘Yes.’
‘I did a picture. Do you want to see it?’
‘I would love to.’
She goes over to a drawer and comes back with a scribble on a sheet of paper. ‘It’s an angel.’
‘I can see that. Very good.’ There is a snort from Tonio.
‘You’re not like we expected,’ Alys tells him, when her mother has gone off into the kitchen to bring on the lunch.
‘You are quite old though,’ Claire adds, peering at him sideways as if wanting to peek round behind the beard.
The conversation round the dinner table is relaxed and noisy, although Tonio says little. Renée’s mother tries to compensate.
‘You make a living from your painting, do you, Mon-sieur?’
‘These days I sell most of what I do.’
‘And Renée’s in the pictures?’
‘Some of them.’
‘Imagine!’ She’s not certain whether to be pleased or not, but Tonio has made his mind up.
‘She already had a job; what’s wrong with working on the perfume counter?’
‘Mademoiselle Lefèvre had to bring in someone else when I was ill. You’re not allowed more than a fortnight off. I’d had enough of working there, in any case.’
The conversation’s starting to acquire an edge. Pierre stays for an hour after lunch and Alys sits for him so he can do a portrait of her.
‘Alys, it’s just like you!’ Claire says. She looks up at him as if he’s managed to produce a rabbit from a hat.
‘I’ll leave the drawing with you; in return for Alys’s.’
‘Look, Maman,’ Claire says, even more enthusiastic now that they have rights of ownership. When Pierre leaves, Renée sees him following her mother out into the scullery. He presses half a dozen notes into her hand.
Her mother’s flustered. Her hand wanders to her neck. ‘I couldn’t, Monsieur. No, I mean it.’
‘It’s expensive caring for an invalid,’ Pierre insists.
‘It’s far too much.’
‘It’s been a while since Renée had an appetite, but on a good day she can eat her own weight in mille-feuilles.’
‘She always did like cakes.’ Her mother slips the notes into her apron pocket. ‘Thank you, Monsieur. You’ve been very good to her.’
‘Please call me Pierre. You have a charming family, Madame Montchaty. I hope I’ll meet them all again. Perhaps when Renée’s ready to come back to Paris, I can pick her up.’
‘That’s kind. I don’t suppose she’ll want to stay with us for long.’ She herds the girls into the kitchen, leaving Pierre to say goodbye to Renée. He squats down beside her on the sofa.
‘I’m afraid your brother doesn’t like me.’
‘Tonio thinks he’s responsible for us. He thinks you want to take advantage of me.’
‘What do you think?’
‘I know you would never hurt me.’
Pierre hesitates. ‘You can’t go back to that apartment, Renée.’
‘It’s a shame you had to see it. I was hoping that you wouldn’t.’
‘It’s not the apartment I object to so much; it’s the way that Marguerite behaves towards you.’
Renée turns her face into his shoulder. ‘She kept telling me I’d brought it on myself. The way I’d carried on over the past year meant my body couldn’t fight off germs.’
‘For God’s sake, Renée, that’s ridiculous.’
‘It’s what she said.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘You don’t understand the way it is with us. When I began to work for you, it was the first time I’d done something without asking her first. She had been about to throw me out once she knew you and I . . . well, that it wasn’t just a job. She would have, if she hadn’t seen how bad I was. The thing is, she does care about me and I care about her too, but it’s as if she wants to eat me up and when she finds she can’t, she spits me out. As long as I was ill, she h
ad me to herself. I think she wanted it to last as long as possible.’
‘I’d be afraid for you if you went back there, Renée. She’s obsessed. The woman is unhinged.’
‘But all my things are there. I’d have to go back sometime.’
‘We’ll go back together, then, to fetch your things.’
There is a question mark in her expression.
‘You can move into the studio. It’s not ideal, but it at least gets you away from Marguerite. I want you with me, Renée.’
B
When they go back three weeks later so that she can pick up her belongings, Pierre insists they ring the bell first. There’s a long pause. ‘Do you think she could be out?’ The thought occurs to both of them that maybe Pierre hurt Marguerite more than he thought.
‘She’s always there on Sunday afternoons,’ says Renée.
When he rings again, he keeps his finger on the bell.
There is a muffled answer. ‘Yes? Who is it?’
Renée puts her mouth up to the voice-tube. ‘It’s me, Marguerite. Can I come up?’
There is another long pause. Renée gives up waiting for an answer. She takes out her key. Pierre follows her into the hall. She puts a hand up. ‘I’ll go by myself. If you’re there, it’ll only make her angrier.’
‘But darling, I can’t possibly allow you to go up there by yourself. Suppose she’s violent towards you?’
‘You’re the one she blames for taking me away’. It’s not the threat of violence that’s preoccupying Renée. What she needs from Marguerite is a defining gesture, something that gives meaning to the time they’ve spent together. ‘I can’t simply vanish from her life. I have to see her one more time.’
‘I’ll wait down in the hall, then. But you have to promise me you’ll call out if you need me.’
As she climbs the stairs to the apartment, Renée is remembering a film she saw once, where a woman just like her had visited her lover in a hotel room to break off their affair. As she was going down the staircase, he had leant over the bannister and shot her. She had spiralled down into the stairwell and the film had slowed down so that you could see her body turning in the air and floating like a leaf towards the ground. Her lover had called down to her in anguish, ‘Darling girl, forgive me!’ But the look on her face when she landed, with her eyes wide open, was of blissful triumph. There had been a violin sonata playing in the background and a crash of cymbals as she reached the ground.
The flat door’s closed when Renée gets there. As she lets herself in, there’s a faint sound coming from the kitchen. Marguerite is ironing. As she presses the iron down onto the linen, there’s a light thud and the wooden struts under the board give little mousy squeaks. She looks up, fixes Renée for a moment, and then goes on ironing.
‘I’ve come back to say goodbye,’ says Renée. Marguerite holds up a pillowcase and folds it into quarters, brushes off a speck of fluff and runs the iron across it one more time before she lays it on the pile. ‘I’m moving out.’
‘I heard you.’ Marguerite picks up another pillowcase and once again goes through the ritual of folding it in half, then into quarters. Renée watches her. ‘You have somewhere to move to, I presume?’
‘I shall be living in the studio.’
‘You’d sacrifice your independence for a man like that?’
‘It’s not as if I have much independence living here with you.’
‘That’s what relationships are meant to be about. Have you considered what you’ll do when he gets tired of you? I’d give it six months at the most before he’s off back to his wife.’ She turns the iron and spits on it.
‘He never left her.’
‘You’re more stupid than I thought, then.’
Renée clasps her hands behind her back. ‘I wouldn’t be like this if it was you who’d found someone. I would be happy for you.’
‘What’s the point of me pretending to be happy for you, when I know you’re going to be miserable? I know what men are like.’
‘I didn’t want to have to choose between you.’
‘No of course you didn’t. Much more satisfying to have both of us lined up and panting after you.’
‘That’s not the way it was,’ says Renée.
Marguerite gives her a long look and then tosses back her head. ‘You haven’t got a thought for anybody else.’
‘It couldn’t last for ever – you and me, though, could it? It was only until one or other of us found someone.’
‘That’s all it was, eh? What a shame you didn’t say so at the time. I saved your life. You would be dead now if it hadn’t been for me.’
‘I know that and I’m grateful. I’m not saying that it didn’t matter, only that . . .’ she bites her tongue.
‘What?’
‘That we couldn’t ever have been more than friends, so why can’t we be friends now?’
‘We were never just friends.’ Margo fixes her. ‘“Just friends” don’t do what we did. You think all that will just go away now you’ve met someone else? It won’t, because it’s in you, Renée, and you can’t escape that any more than you can suddenly decide you’re not a Catholic any more.’
‘I am a Catholic. I believe in God.’
‘You do? Why don’t you ask Him what he thinks about it?’ Marguerite says, smugly.
Renée puts her suitcase down and looks back up the stairs. The door to the apartment stays shut.
‘Was she very angry?’
‘No, she wasn’t.’
Pierre takes the suitcase. Renée follows him onto the pavement and he offers her an arm to get into the car. He stows the suitcase in the back and climbs in next to her. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing, really.’ She feels vaguely cheated. There had been no pleas for her to stay, no declarations that she’d loved her. All that Marguerite had said was, ‘If you go, you go for ever. Don’t think you can change your mind.’
Pierre is looking at her. ‘You’re not sorry that you’ve left her, are you?’
Renée turns and gazes at him. ‘No, it isn’t that. I thought she loved me, that’s all.’
Once they’re safely locked inside the studio, they fall into each other’s arms. They spend the rest of that day and the next one feverishly making love, with intervals of torpor in between in which they sleep and wake up groping blindly for each other. After three days, Pierre puts Renée’s canvas on the easel. They work through the morning, make love through the afternoon and finally collapse in an exhausted heap from which they wake and work again into the evening. If she goes down to the market to buy food, she sees him watching from the window till she disappears and when she reappears, he’s still there waiting for her to come back along the street. If she had any doubts about his love for her, she has no doubt about it now.
He takes his leave of her on Friday, promising to be back in the studio first thing on Monday morning. Renée listens to his footsteps on the stairs. She hears the street door clang and waits until he steps onto the pavement. That’s my lover, she thinks, watching the dark figure walk away from her into the twilight. We shall be together always.
The sun sinks below the level of the rooftops opposite. When she looks round the room, she feels as if she’s gone into a time warp. Nothing looks familiar any more. There is an untouched look about the chaise longue with the rumpled drapes that testify to a brief, frenzied interlude while Pierre was getting ready to depart, the worktop with its crusted palette and the brushes left to soak in half an inch of turpentine.
She gets up, making her way round the room and touching all the objects in it, repossessing them. She puts a pot of water on the stove to boil and settles down to plan her evening. There is nothing Pierre has said she shouldn’t look at, so she goes round opening drawers, examining the contents. She’s afraid that if she doesn’t occupy herself, her thoughts will keep on creeping back to Marguerite.
She finds a cardboard box stowed underneath the worktop with a camera and a cache of photographs.
There’s one of Pierre standing with a group of friends outside the Beaux-Arts. Several feature women and one woman in particular – a small, slight figure dressed unfashionably who never looks directly at the camera. Is this Marthe? She goes through the pile, occasionally holding one or other photograph up to the light until she comes to one she recognises. Roussel’s arms are draped round Pierre’s shoulders in the photograph. There’s no doubt which of them was better looking. Roussel is exuding confidence and charm. Beside him, Pierre looks reticent, uncomfortably aware that he is being scrutinised. He might have used the camera but he didn’t like the camera being used on him.
There is a separate folder of girls posing in the nude. Pierre had told her that he’d bought the camera in 1906, so these women would be middle aged now. She tries not to wonder whether Pierre slept with any of them. There was nothing after 1910. His interest in the invention had evaporated overnight. She puts the box away. It makes her sad to think of all those lives that have passed on and, in some cases, passed away entirely.
Finally, she’s ready to explore the drawer under the table. She has left this till the last but now she eases it out, guiltily, so that it won’t squeak, and inside she finds a folded square of silk. She knows what this is, but she’s never seen one close up. Working-class boys and the poilus on leave from the trenches used pigs’ bladders or, occasionally, squares of cotton. There are rumours that the flares sent up in no-man’s land had small silk parachutes attached to them to slow down their descent and soldiers on both sides would risk their lives to go out and retrieve them for their girlfriends. Two could be sewn up to make a pair of knickers. Four would make a good-sized blouse.
She’s never come across one used in this capacity. She strokes it reverently. It’s not something Pierre has used with her and Renée wonders what this recklessness, if that is what it is, suggests. Perhaps now that they’re lovers he’s decided to leave Marthe after all. She feels a rush of giddiness, a fluttering inside her which perhaps might be the start of new life. He would have no choice but to leave Marthe then.