by Lynn Bushell
‘Pierre’s the only man I want.’
‘Why? Why do you want him? You’re sure it isn’t just because he’s someone else’s?’
‘It’s not my fault that I fell in love with him.’
‘This isn’t Rudolf Valentino, Renée. It’s a middle-aged man with a weak chin and a body that’s begun to let him down. There’s only one thing that he’s really passionate about and it’s not us. He wants a quiet life so he can get on with his work.’
‘I wouldn’t interfere with that.’
‘You have, though. He had half a dozen sketches with him when he came back, so he can’t have done much while he was away. Pierre can’t live without his work.’
‘I understand that!’ she insists. ‘I only wanted him to reassure me that he loved me.’
‘That’s a lot to ask a man like Pierre. He hasn’t said it once to me. You have to take what you can get.’
‘Please. Please just tell him that I’m sorry. If we were together all the time, I wouldn’t be like that. I’d be the sort of wife he wanted me to be. Please.’
‘You say you can’t bear to be alone, but have you thought that if you married him you would be on your own again in twenty years’ time?’
‘I can’t look that far ahead.’
‘You should. I’m telling you it’s hard to have to start again then. Find somebody of your own age, Renée, some young man who’ll love you properly. Put this behind you.’
‘I can’t. Don’t you see, I can’t.’
‘I spoke to Renée Montchaty this morning,’ I say as I’m dishing up the evening meal. ‘I met her in the market.’ His eyes rest on me a moment, then he lowers them. I feel this conversation ought to be with both of us, so I hold out as long as possible before I give up waiting for him to respond. ‘She’s in a bad way.’
He looks like a rat trapped in a corner by a crowd of men with bricks.
‘You ought to see her, Pierre.’ He shakes his head. ‘She says she’s sorry,’ I say. After all, I did agree to pass the message on. ‘She understands why things went wrong between you out in Rome.’
‘It wasn’t her fault.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it was.’ If I’d met Pierre now and was her age, I might well have ended up by battering him with my fists as well. ‘She’s no more than a child and you’re a grown man. You have some responsibility towards her.’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’
‘You can’t run away from it. You have to talk to her.’
‘Please, Marthe,’ he says. ‘Please don’t do this to me. God, I wish that it had never happened.’
‘I think all of us would say “Amen” to that, but still it has.’ I’d like to bang their heads together and I sense that this might come as a relief for both of them. ‘Imagine if you had a daughter her age and she’d gone off with a man of fifty. Think how you’d react.’ Perhaps it’s not a good idea to hammer home his guilt. It’s guilt that’s paralysing him. That’s why he doesn’t want to see her. He’s afraid that it’ll break his heart. ‘Dear God,’ I mutter, losing patience suddenly. ‘What made you do it?’
‘I was flattered, I suppose. I never thought she would be interested in me.’
‘She came after you, then?’ I need something to restore the balance in his favour. At the moment Renée’s winning hands down.
‘No,’ he sighs, ‘it wasn’t like that. Neither of us really thought about it.’
‘More fool you.’
‘She seemed so innocent. She made me feel . . .’ He stops. Perhaps he’s seen me clenching my fists underneath the table.
‘But you surely didn’t have to say you’d marry her.’
‘I don’t know what came over me. It was the one way I could make her happy. I thought it would reassure her and that our relationship would settle down to something more like yours and mine.’
I catch his eye and hold it for a moment.
‘Unforgivable,’ he says. ‘I did it out of cowardice.’
No wonder she’s in such a state, I think.
‘I don’t know how to put it right. There’s nothing we can do for one another. Can’t you say that to her, Marthe?’
‘If you think I’m running to and fro with messages between the two of you . . .’
‘I don’t mean that. Of course not. But if you could see her once more . . . make her understand it’s hopeless.’
‘Why would she believe me? After all we’re rivals. It’s not likely I would hand you to her on a plate.’
‘But you’re the one she came to.’
‘Out of desperation, yes. Because she couldn’t get at you.’
‘I’m not sure I could answer for myself if we met up again. It might end with me marrying her after all and think what a disaster that would be.’
‘You would get used to it, I dare say.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. Nor would you.’
There’s no one in her street when I turn into it, but I can see that it’s a genteel area, the sort of place men favour when it comes to setting up their mistresses. It’s so much grander than the first apartment Pierre and I shared. Ours was two rooms with a wash-hand basin and a stove. There is a pleasant view onto the gardens at the back and inside there are three rooms and a kitchen. Through an open door, I see the bathroom. What I’d give for one like that. The rooms are in a starfish pattern and she goes into the first one. There are throws and cushions on the sofa and a vase of lilies on the table. Renée might have let herself go, but she’s kept the flat nice, hoping no doubt that Pierre will come back into it. Her shoulders sag as she sits down. She must have hoped he would be with me, or perhaps that he would come without me.
‘Would you like some tea?’
I would, but from the way she says it I can tell she isn’t anxious to get up and get me some, so I refuse. ‘Pierre asked me to speak to you,’ I say. ‘He thought it would be easier.’
She gives a tight smile. ‘Easier for him.’
‘I dare say.’
‘Men are such cowards,’ she says, tossing back her head and in the gesture I see what she must have looked like when he saw her first. If she can keep her anger, she may yet survive. ‘All right, then,’ she says. ‘Tell me.’
I know how humiliating this must be for her, so I try not to overdo it. She might have a bathroom to herself that’s twice the size of mine, but all I feel for her is pity.
‘Pierre is sorry for the pain he caused. He knows it’s his fault. There was nothing different that you could have done.’ She is about to interrupt me, but I raise a hand to silence her. ‘All I can do is tell you what he said.’ Her mouth sinks back into a pout. ‘He knows a man of his age had no right to take up with a girl as young as you. You don’t know what it’s like yet to be middle-aged, but when you are you’ll realise how unusual it is to have somebody notice you. It came as a surprise that anyone would want him for himself.’
‘You did,’ she says.
‘He’s taken that for granted.’
‘Don’t you mind?’
‘I’ve taken him for granted too. You do that when you’ve lived with someone for as long as we have.’
‘That’s not how it would have been with us.’
‘You don’t know. You’re not old enough to know what happens when you live with somebody a long time.’
‘You keep telling me how young I am, as if the young don’t feel things just as much.’
‘The young feel things a lot more. That’s the trouble. In the end you were too energetic for him . . . that’s the way it looks to me, at any rate.’
She is about to tell me it’s not any of my business until she remembers I’m her only link with him. ‘It wasn’t just sex. We did love each other.’
‘That’s not what I meant by energetic.’ Surely I don’t have to keep on labouring the point. ‘Pierre is not strong. He can’t give his energy to lots of things. He’d have neglected you the same way he’s neglected me. You saw that in him and it frightened you. You realised you would have t
o share him, not with me but with his work, the one thing he would not have given up for you.’
‘I didn’t want . . .’
‘Don’t. Let me finish. What you want is not important any more. I’m telling you the way things are. They can’t be otherwise. No matter who you were, no matter how hard you tried not to mind, the end would still have been the same.’
She’s started weeping, but it’s not the shrill, demented kind now. It’s the sort you heard at funerals throughout the war. When you’ve lost two or three sons, or a shell has landed on your house and wiped out half your family, you’re too tired to curse fate or shake your fist at God. However much I want to comfort her, I’m still the enemy. There’s no point in me saying everyone has felt the way she’s feeling now, that in a year’s time she will have recovered, while Pierre and I are stuck for ever. It’s too late for us.
‘He’s written you a letter,’ I say. I don’t hand it to her. I’m afraid of what might be communicated if our fingers touch across the envelope. I don’t know what he’s said; if he’s agreed to let her go on living here. It’s one way he can make himself feel better. Still, I can’t help feeling that it would be best if she were to go somewhere else. I leave the letter on the sofa arm. ‘Don’t grieve too long,’ I say. ‘It isn’t worth it.’
After leaving the apartment, I walk by the river. I feel shabby; there’s no other word for it. I’m angry that Pierre could drag us into this. The more I see of Renée, the more anxious I become for her. I wonder if I shouldn’t simply let her have him. I would grieve without him, but I’d manage. I shall never feel as vulnerable again.
He’s pacing up and down when I get back. I put the kettle on.
‘How is she?’
‘What do you think? She’s distraught. She looks as if she hasn’t slept for weeks. She’s skinny as a rake and she’s been crying.’
Pierre sits at the table, burying his forehead in his hands.
‘Oh, buck up, can’t you?’ I say. ‘I can’t stand the two of you behaving like a wet weekend. If you can’t help each other, don’t inflict your misery on me.’
‘I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I’m tired of hearing that you didn’t mean to hurt her. Be a man, face up to it; you have.’
‘I’ve said that she can stay in the apartment if she wants to. She should have a roof over her head at least.’
‘She should be with her family. I can’t imagine what they’re thinking of. She’s not fit to be left alone. She must have friends.’
‘She didn’t keep in touch with them once she and I . . .’
‘Perhaps she’ll find another artist. There are plenty of them.’ I resist the urge to wonder if he couldn’t fix her up with one of them. I know that this is how it often works, though once a girl is known to have caused trouble, they tend to be wary. Even Roussel might think twice and he’s not fussy normally.
Pierre puts both hands round his cup to drink it. He’s relieved but he’s ashamed of his relief. He looks at me and looks away again. ‘We can’t go on like this,’ he says. ‘Whatever happens now, we can’t go back to things the way they were.’
That’s true, I think, but there’s a panic-stricken moment when I wonder if he’s contemplating leaving both of us.
‘Perhaps it’s time we married.’
‘Married!’ My mouth sags.
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You would feel more secure if we were married.’
What he means is that he would feel more secure. At least then he would not be tempted to propose to anybody else.
‘We live together all this time and you make two proposals to two different women in the space of six months.’ He looks sheepish. He may be in doubt about his motives, but he knows that I’m not. Up till now, I’ve been a background presence. One thing to come out of all this is that I shall never be ignored again. He might have taken me for granted in the past, but I’m the paste that’s holding him together. If he’d only asked me earlier, before his life began to fall apart. If we’d been married, maybe it would not have happened, or perhaps it would have happened anyway. It hasn’t stopped Roussel from running after women. I’m surprised that he had time to father Annette and her sister, having spent so many nights in other women’s beds.
Pierre is looking at me anxiously. Perhaps he’s thinking I’ll refuse out of perversity. If we get married, I shall have to sign the register. He’ll know my name is not de Méligny and that I wasn’t eighteen when he met me. He’ll have something to forgive too, so perhaps that makes us equal.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ll marry you.’
Pierre and I are married three weeks later at the Mairie in the arrondissement where we had our first home. The only witnesses are Édouard and a lady borrowed from the wedding party next in line. Our families haven’t been informed. I wear a light grey satin dress with imitation flowers round the neckline. Pierre tells me I look radiant and I believe him. It takes very little effort for a woman to be beautiful as long as someone tells her that she is.
Édouard provides a small reception for us at a neighbouring hotel where we drink champagne. There has been no word from Renée since I saw her. I suppose at some point we shall need to find out if she’s still in the apartment. Without wanting to be harsh, Pierre cannot continue to afford a flat for someone who no longer models for him. I’m allowed to have a voice in these things now that I’m a married woman. After so long I thought being married would be neither here nor there, but I feel like a queen in waiting who’s transformed the moment that the crown is put onto her head. I have authority. Of course I know that in the studio Pierre will carry on the way he always has, but even there I can at least determine who goes in and out.
‘So, you’re a married woman,’ Édouard teases, twinkling at me from behind that massive beard. ‘If you’d been anybody else’s but Pierre’s, I would have made a play for you myself. Too late now.’
It’s the sort of joke he’d only make in company. I know the kind of women Édouard is attracted to and I’ve been grateful not to be one. Now I’m spoken for, of course, I might be more at risk. He wraps his arms around me in a bear hug and I feel his wet lips through the bristles of his beard.
A horse-drawn carriage comes to take us to the station. Pierre’s friend, Manguin, is allowing us to use his house in Antibes for a fortnight. Once we’re settled on the train, enveloped in the warmth and comfort of a first-class carriage, I feel pleasantly relaxed. I’m not sure how much notice Pierre took when I signed my name as ‘Boursin’, not ‘de Méligny’ and had to list my date of birth. He hesitated for a second before signing his name, but then he looked up at me and smiled.
I felt that Renée should be told about the marriage, but Pierre fears doing anything that brings her back into our lives. I dare say if she reads the papers she will see us listed under ‘Marriages’, or maybe one of Pierre’s friends will tell her.
It will soon be dark. She never liked the twilight. It was like a slow goodbye, a gradual withdrawal – light, heat, colour. Is this what the body’s like when it begins to die – it takes a while to notice? Lately, she’s got used to sitting in the darkness. It stayed light in Rome till ten o’clock.
If it had not been Pierre’s name in the paper, she would probably have missed it, though she always casts her eye along the lists of marriages and deaths. It’s human nature. When you see a name you recognise, you’re drawn to it. So Marthe lied about her name. It comforts her a bit to know that Marthe wasn’t all she said she was; all that Pierre said she was. How can you know someone for quarter of a century and think they’re someone else? It’s possible; she sees that now. She and Pierre were closest in the first twelve months they were together. It was then that they began to drift apart. A decade on, they would have lost sight of each other altogether.
A young couple with a small child pass under the window. Suddenly the child looks up. She gives a little wave. There is a second when the child’s eyes are locked into hers and Renée knows
that forty, fifty years from now, she will remember looking up out of her stroller that day, straight into the face of a dark angel. With the light behind her, that is how she must look.
Sometimes, in the evenings, she sits with a cushion underneath her head and reads a magazine. She won’t do that tonight. Tonight, she’ll think about Pierre and Marthe on their wedding day. She shuts the windows. Inside, there is still a legacy of warmth. She needs to make sure everything is tidy. You should always leave things as you found them, Maman used to say. She wouldn’t have included people in that. The whole point of other people is the marks they leave on you.
She’s not the person she was when Pierre first met her. She will never laugh again. She’ll never go to dances, cry her eyes out over sad films, make out that she knows who Tintoretto and Giotto are, insist she doesn’t take her clothes off for just anybody, eat three mille-feuilles in a sitting, fall in love. These things are lost to her and what they’ve given her instead is this dull weight inside her chest that feels a bit like hunger. Eating won’t get rid of it. There’s only one thing she can do to make it better.
She lines up her shoes inside the closet and arranges the frocks tidily on separate hangars. She hopes Tonio allows the girls to choose what they would like. Last night she went to Saint-Pierre. She lit a candle for her father and went down onto her knees to say a prayer for him. She prayed for Maman and the girls and at the end she meant to say a prayer for herself. But by the time she got there, she was tired of praying, tired of saying sorry. She just said it like that. ‘Sorry.’ Then she got up off her knees and went out. It could have been anything that she was saying sorry for. Still, God’s supposed to know; you shouldn’t have to tell him. She thought she’d feel better afterwards, but she felt just the same. Perhaps that’s what it means to be cast out; you don’t have anybody to fall back on, even God.
She’s not sure what to do about the magazines. They are the sort that Gabi would adore, the pages still smooth, no moustaches drawn onto the faces. She liked to come back to them when she’d forgotten how the stories ended or which actor recently divorced to marry someone else. It’s odd that if you’re rich and famous you can sin and no one bothers. Even God forgives you. No one in these pages has been cast out.