by Lynn Bushell
‘Were those yours? I don’t know what she did with them.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Renée tilts her head back. ‘I can buy some more. I’ve got a place in Clichy now.’
‘Nice.’ She looks unimpressed.
‘At least I’ve got my own bed.’
Colour floods the girl’s cheeks. So they’re lovers, Renée thinks, and any sympathy she might have had for her evaporates.
‘You’re sharing the apartment, then?’
The girl looks straight at her and gives a brief nod. ‘I stay over two or three nights every week.’
‘Where did she find you?’
‘We’ve been friends for ages.’
You’re not friends, thinks Renée, even if you think you are. It’s hot inside the room. She wishes she could take her coat off.
‘You can’t just walk in like this, you know. It’s not as if you live here any more.’ The girl is bolder now. She’s asking for the keys, thinks Renée. She has taken the precaution of removing Marguerite’s ring and although it would have reinforced her status, she’s reluctant to relinquish the one proof she has that Marguerite might once have loved her. She feels less proprietorial about the keys. Now that she’s been here, Marguerite will have the locks changed anyway.
‘I only came to get the drapes. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t got them.’ Renée tosses her the keys. ‘You can tell Marguerite I shan’t be coming back.’
Pierre is looking at the latest acquisition which she hasn’t yet got around to hanging. It’s an etching of the Colosseum that she picked up in the Marché aux Puces. He takes his glasses out and turns it over in his hands. ‘The Colosseum.’
‘It’s in Rome.’
He smiles. ‘Yes.’
‘I expect you knew that.’ Renée wishes he would be less deferential. He has taken off his shoes so that he doesn’t leave mud on the carpet. Even though he has a key, he always rings the bell. It’s so she’ll feel that the apartment’s hers, not simply one that she’s allowed to live in, but it distances her further from him.
‘I was there once. Many years ago, of course.’
‘I know. You went there with Roussel.’
There is an awkward silence. ‘Did he tell you that?’
‘He said you went as friends, but you stopped being friends while you were there.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘He said he stole a girl from you.’
‘Ridiculous!’ He puts the etching down abruptly and goes over to the window.
‘Don’t be angry, please.’
‘I’m not. I’m irritated by the way Roussel manipulates events.’
‘You’re saying that you were friends afterwards?’
‘We weren’t friends to begin with. We were never friends.’
Her eyes are on his face. ‘There wasn’t any girl, then? Roussel made it up.’
‘The two of us were drawing in the Vatican. A girl asked whether she could see the drawing I had done. She liked it. I’d have given it to her, but Roussel whisked her off before I had a chance. That’s all it was.’
She takes his hand and eases him into an armchair, perching on the carpet by his knees.
‘What did she look like, this girl?’
‘It was thirty years ago; I’ve no idea.’
‘Did she have yellow hair?’
‘Perhaps, yes, I believe she did.’
‘Did she look anything like me?’
‘I don’t know. She was blonde and there aren’t many girls in Rome with blonde hair. That’s all I remember.’
He is tapping with his fingers on his knees. She knows he does remember, that he’s not forgotten his humiliation or the girl who witnessed it, but that if she pursues it she will lose him. The engraving of the Colosseum lies on the low table next to them. ‘It must be wonderful to live with all those ruins round you,’ Renée murmurs.
‘You need only ride round Paris on a trolleybus if all you want to see are ruins.’
‘But it’s different. Other countries are so . . .’
‘What?’
‘Exotic, I suppose.’
‘What other countries have you seen?’
She bunches up her shoulders. ‘I went to Marseilles once on the train.’
He bends his head towards her. ‘Marseilles doesn’t count,’ he whispers. ‘It’s in France.’
‘It’s still exotic. When you’re seven, anything outside your own home is exotic.’
Pierre reaches for a stray strand of her hair and curls it round his fingers. Now he’s smiling. He will be regretting his ill-humour. She could ask for anything she wants now. Pierre gives the curl a playful little tug. ‘You’re right. Rome is exotic. It’s like walking through a dream. The past is all around you; everywhere you look.’
‘The Colosseum’s been there for a long time, then?’
‘The Colosseum is a Roman amphitheatre. It was built two thousand years ago.’
‘And is it like the picture?’
‘Yes, but what you don’t get in the picture is a sense of scale. It’s vast. You feel diminished. No, diminished is the wrong word. You feel overwhelmed.’
‘You never wanted to go back?’ She gazes up at him.
‘I would have done but Marthe doesn’t like to travel. I suppose I could have gone alone.’
She rests her chin against his knee. He goes on curling her hair absently around his finger – curling and uncurling.
‘I would love to travel,’ Renée whispers.
‘Well, perhaps we’ll go together one day.’ Pierre strokes her cheek. ‘“See Rome and die,” they say, but then they say that about most Italian cities.’
‘Why?’
‘They’re saying nothing can live up to the experience.’
She draws her fingernail along the rough grain of his trousers, delicately picking off a dog hair clinging to the fabric just above the knee. She smells the porridgy aroma of the cat he has had sitting on his lap. His body is an archive of the life he lives away from her.
‘I’ll never go to Rome with you.’
‘Why not?’
‘It wouldn’t happen, that’s all.’
He stops stroking her. His hand rests on her head, the thumb still pulsing. She looks up at him. He draws his top lip in under the beard as if he’s suddenly aware that they have strayed a long way from the path that they were on and he’s not certain of the way back.
‘There’s no reason why it shouldn’t.’
Her head drops onto his knee. ‘There are a hundred reasons. For a start, what would you say to Marthe?’
‘I don’t know. I’d have to think about that.’
‘Would you tell her it was me who you were going with?’
‘I wouldn’t want to lie to her. I don’t tell Marthe everything and there are things she keeps from me, but we don’t often lie.’ He clears his throat. She hears that little click behind it. ‘It might take a while to organise, of course.’
She nods. Of course. She gazes round her at the décor of the room. It looked much better, she sees now, when it was empty. Nothing in it seems to fit. She doubts that anything of hers will ever fit in anywhere.
Pierre sighs. ‘Darling, please don’t look so disappointed. We will go, I promise.’
Renée looks into his face. She isn’t certain whether this is just a way of getting through an awkward moment. ‘Even if she doesn’t want you to?’
‘I’ve said we’ll go; we’ll go.’
She goes on staring at him. ‘Will we stay in a hotel?’
‘That’s normally what happens.’ Renée’s frowning. ‘Have you ever stayed in a hotel?’
She shakes her head. ‘I knew a girl once on the perfume counter. She’d been to a hotel with a man.’
‘That’s different. That girl . . .’
‘What?’
‘She wasn’t in the same kind of relationship.’
‘I wouldn’t like to be mistaken for a prostitute,’ says Renée, softly.
‘Oh my dear g
irl,’ Pierre takes her chin between his hands and raises it. ‘You’ll never be mistaken for a prostitute, I promise you.’ He hesitates. He nods towards her hand. ‘I’ve noticed that you still wear Marguerite’s ring sometimes.’
Renée curls her thumb over the ring self-consciously. ‘It’s not because I miss her.’
‘And you seem to wear it on the same hand all the time now.’ Renée colours. Pierre leans forward, putting his hand over hers. ‘I understand. It was insensitive of me not to have thought of it. Of course, you’d want some sign for other people that you’re more than just a mistress.’
‘But I’m not,’ says Renée, hopelessly. ‘That’s all I am. My brother, Marguerite, the man downstairs . . . they all know what I am.’
Pierre sits back. He stares up at the ceiling. ‘I had no idea that I had made your life so difficult. I thought that having the apartment might be a solution; somewhere of your own where you could feel secure and where you’d have your own possessions.’
Renée curls her fist against his knee. ‘It’s not that I don’t like it here. I know I’m lucky.’
‘I ought to have given you a ring myself, not let you make do with a second-hand one, certainly not one that Marguerite had given you. Before we go to Rome, we’ll go and buy a proper one. How’s that? Then nobody we meet will be in any doubt about us. I’ll be able to look after you the way I should.’
‘And after we come back from Rome, we’ll be together?’
‘Yes, we’ll be together.’
Renée’s eyes flick back and forth across his face. ‘You promise you won’t ever leave me?’
Pierre dabs his fingers on her cheek. ‘I’ll never leave you. You’re my . . .’ He looks past her. Renée waits. ‘My own dear girl.’
That night after he’s gone, she wants to rush into the street. She has to tell somebody – Maman, Tonio, the elderly Algerian who runs the all-night café on the corner of the square, the blind accordionist in the rue des Batignolles who knows exactly how much someone throws into his hat by listening to the sound the coin makes as it lands. She wants to hug his dog – that lice-ridden old mongrel with the ribbon round its neck that raises one paw every time a passer-by slows down. She wants to bang on Marguerite’s door and say, ‘See, he loves me.’
But when Pierre doesn’t come the next day, Renée feels a tremor of anxiety. The sun is shining. It’s a lovely day; she could be sitting in the gardens. But she is afraid to go outside in case she misses him. She thinks of the scenario that at this very moment might be playing out in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Not only will all Marthe’s worst fears be confirmed, but she will know that Renée isn’t just a ship that’s passing in the night. She’ll be reminding him how long they’ve been together; she’ll point out that Saint-Germain-en-Laye is where he’s comfortable. It isn’t just where Marthe is; the dachshund and the cats are there, the sun-drenched parlour and the garden overflowing with lobelia, the comforting routine of wholesome meals, a warm bed and the undemanding presence of another human being. And if that is not enough to sway him, Marthe can remind him that she is his muse, and nothing can take that away from her.
The next day, Renée hears the postman. She goes out onto the landing. He is knocking on the door below. The man who lives there only comes back at the weekends, so she offers to take in the package. When the postman hands the parcel over, his eyes catch hers for a second. He knows from the letters that arrive for Pierre about the lease and from the name that’s on the bell, that she’s not married. Maybe he’s assuming that she doesn’t just have one protector but a number of them. Renée takes the parcel and turns back into the room. He won’t be treating her like this when they come back from Rome, she thinks.
The postmark on the envelope is Avignon. The viaduct is pictured on the stamps. The package gives her an excuse to go downstairs on Friday night and have a conversation with the man who lives there. He might ask her in to look at his apartment. She props up the envelope against a vase and looks at it. Today is Wednesday. Friday is two days away. And then she thinks, how sad is that? She’s waiting for a man she doesn’t know, who’s never shown the slightest interest in her; somebody she might not like much even if he did. She’s desperate for company because the only man she cares about is not here.
Death. Why are we never ready for it when it has been waiting for us all our lives? I’m thankful that we’re in the kitchen when the news comes. I sit Pierre down in the chair next to the stove. We don’t speak; there’s no need. When Pierre’s in shock, his body closes down. The first bits to stop working are his eyes and hands, the only things that do work on a normal day. I sit him in the armchair and take off my shawl to drape around his shoulders, tucking it behind his neck the way the barber tucks the towel in at the corners. He once told me that it smelt of me – a combination of soap, earth and something else that comes from having animals around you day in, day out. It’s as if I’ve wrapped my body round him.
I begin to stroke his hands as if they’re creatures that are poorly and need coaxing back to life. His wrists are narrow even though his hands are large. There is a huge vein on the right hand running from the inside of the wrist across the back towards the index finger. I think of the work involved in carrying the messages that travel from his eyes into his brain and out again along the arteries until they reach his fingers.
I’m the one who calls the family to ask about arrangements. It’s not something I like doing. My experience of human beings tells me we are better off without them. If I had to choose between Poucette and Madame Hébert, Madame Hébert wouldn’t stand a dog’s chance.
For the next two days I treat Pierre as if he were an invalid. I bring him beef tea and the newspaper to read. I leave the sketchbook next to him because it’s only when he picks it up that I shall know we’re past the first stage. In his head he will be summoning the necessary energy for what’s to come. In his class you don’t simply dump the body in the ground and shovel earth on top of it; there is a ritual to go through. Once, when he’d been asked to speak at someone else’s wake, I asked him why he felt obliged. ‘You can’t stand by and let your friends go down into the darkness without saying anything,’ he said.
There are some consolations for religion, I thought, even if it only gets you through the funeral, but Pierre wouldn’t lie. Accepting that there was an afterlife in order to make this one bearable would not occur to him. The morning of the funeral, he gets up early and puts on a suit. I brush the shoulders for him. Arnulf’s coming to collect him in the cart and take him to the station. I did offer to go with him, but he said no, he would rather go alone. There’s one thing; for the next three days at least I shall know where he is.
The man in the apartment down below seems less reserved. If anything, he’s slightly more familiar than is comfortable.
He has a small dog, something in between a Corgi and a Pekinese. She wonders what he does with it when he goes off on trips. Perhaps he takes the dog and smuggles it into his hotel, brings it scraps of food secreted from the dining room and walks it after dark around the block. If they had known each other better, Renée might have offered to look after it. An animal would have been company.
It’s been a week now since she spoke to Pierre. She can’t eat; she can’t sleep; she can’t bear being by herself in the apartment, yet she dare not leave it. She begins to wonder whether any of it’s real. She is afraid that if she doesn’t talk to someone, she’ll go mad.
Eventually she takes her coat and goes down to the street. She walks until she reaches the glass-fronted cafés and the bustling restaurants of rue de Furstemberg. She glances in the windows of Les Deux Magots. Inside, the tables are all occupied. Now that the war is over and the lights are back on, Paris never sleeps. There is a mad, sad gaiety about it. She stands for a moment staring in. She could afford to go in and sit down herself and order one of the expensive pastries from the trolley, rather than stand outside on the pavement looking in, but if she went inside she would be sitting at
a table on her own.
She is about to move on when her eye is drawn towards a couple seated in the corner. Renée thinks at first that it’s a father and his daughter, but the way they’re dressed immediately tells her this is not the case. The man is smart but in a slightly coarse way. He’s the kind who boasts about his suits and tilts his hat back on his head – a Jack-the-lad. He isn’t old enough to be the father of the girl he’s with. She’s very thin and has a wasted look about her, but there is a dish with three huge boules of ice cream on the table by her elbow and she’s tucking into them with so much dedication that the man, who has a cup of coffee and a cigarette in front of him, lets out a guffaw.
It’s not possible, thinks Renée, and yet it could not be anybody else but Caro. Caro is alive, and she has found another man to buy her ice cream. She looks up and Renée thinks she’s seen her, but it’s dark out on the pavement. Caro won’t be able to see anything but darkness outside. Inside, all is bright and warm. As long as she is inside, she will be all right. Why would she look beyond it?
Renée feels the rain against her face like tiny shards of glass. She pulls her collar up and walks on. She goes past the Louxor cinema in Barbès and is tempted to go in. It’s one way to get through the evening, but a woman sitting in a cinema alone is just as likely to attract attention as she is out on the streets in darkness. She goes past an alleyway that stinks of beer and urine and is jostled by a prostitute and someone she is trying to coax money from. She turns towards the river and then doubles back into the narrower but less intimidating streets of Montparnasse. She isn’t ready to go back to the apartment. She will walk all night if necessary. She is in an area she knows now and occasionally somebody acknowledges her.
This world, with its shifting population, is the only one still open to her. There is nowhere else that she can go for company and even here there’s only one of all the people that she knew who might still welcome her. She walks along the pavement, past the café where the painters congregate, and sees a crowd of them inside, but there is no one there she recognises. She walks on. She is impervious to everything around her – the incessant noise, the music, the ripe scent of bodies pushing past her. She wants to be sucked into the vortex that is Paris.