Work in Progress

by Paul Thomas

  Serge shrugged. ‘So you were in London, so what? I thought we were discussing where I was.’

  ‘Oh, but we are,’ said Patricia. ‘You see, Serge, when I was in London, Max was in Toulouse. And where did Max stay in Toulouse? With you.’

  She’d got under his skin so he didn’t pause to consider the ramifications. ‘That’s right, it was the weekend Max came down. I went to Marseille to see some friends.’

  Patricia’s expression changed like a traffic light. She said to me, ‘So when you said you stayed with Serge and Samantha, you actually stayed with Sam?’

  I looked blank, as if I couldn’t see why we were having this conversation. ‘I stayed with both of them until one of them went to Marseille.’

  ‘You never told me that.’

  ‘What was there to tell?’

  We tend to associate alcoholic shedding of inhibitions with sex, particularly of the fools-rush-in variety that batters our self-esteem the next morning, but it can find other outlets. It can, for instance, loosen tongues and deprive us of that invaluable capacity to think one thing and say another, which enables us to rub along with people we don’t particularly care for in order to keep our jobs or keep the peace or keep the social circle intact. In hindsight, I see an element of that in Samantha’s intervention, which might otherwise have been less direct and her tone less chilly (although a degree of huffiness was understandable seeing she’d behaved impeccably while Serge pimped and I lusted).

  ‘What are you trying to say, Patricia?’ she demanded. ‘That I can’t be trusted?’

  And why else would Patricia have responded with this offhand provocation? ‘Well, since you ask …’

  Samantha’s face froze. ‘Excuse me?’

  Suddenly I was back in my former in-laws’ house on Takapuna beach, waiting for the final intolerable goad to sound the bell on an outbreak of slapstick fisticuffs. Serge was selecting a cigarette with elaborate care, thereby avoiding the risk of eye contact.

  Patricia held Samantha’s frozen stare. Going by the bitter tilt of her mouth, her first instinct was to up the ante but she thought better of it. ‘Forget it,’ she said sullenly, ending the staring match with a toss of her head. ‘Forget I ever raised the subject.’

  ‘The hell you say,’ said Samantha. ‘You can’t come out with that, then just tell me to forget it as if …’

  Serge interrupted quietly. ‘Sam.’

  She turned her head almost in slow motion, her lips a thin white line. Serge didn’t meet her eye. I thought she was going to tell him to go to hell but instead she stood up, picked up some plates and took them out to the kitchen.

  Serge downed his Armagnac. ‘I think it’s time we all went to bed.’

  Patricia’s face was a gathering storm and the darkness in her eyes showed she was still spoiling for a fight. ‘You go to bed,’ she told him. ‘Max and I have some things to talk about. Don’t we, Max? Like you out of the blue wanting to go and live in Toulouse. It’s all starting to make sense.’

  ‘I agree with Serge,’ I said. ‘We should go to bed.’

  I stood up. Patricia pushed back her chair but stayed seated. Wine and high emotion had turned her face a painful shade of red, the colour of inflammation, and I knew that she was going to take this thing all the way, no matter what got lost or broken in the process.

  ‘Just answer me one question, Max, then I’ll go to bed like a good little girl. You’ve got to give me an honest answer, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The question is, why was it that after you’d been in Toulouse, just you and her in that tiny little apartment, why was it that after that I practically had to beg you to fuck me?’

  Serge groaned and put his head in his hands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Samantha appear in the doorway.

  ‘I don’t know, Patricia,’ I said. ‘Maybe I was just off sex; maybe my biorhythms were out of sync. But what I do know is this: nothing happened between me and Samantha. You owe her an apology.’

  Samantha advanced cautiously. ‘Actually, I’d prefer an explanation: you obviously think I’m some kind of slut — I mean, where do you get that from? What’s the basis for it?’

  Patricia got to her feet. She swayed and dropped a hand on the table to steady herself, and the fire in her eyes dwindled, damped down by fatigue. ‘Oh, you’re both so fucking innocent, aren’t you? Pure as the driven snow. Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouths. Well, you don’t fool me for one fucking minute.’

  She stomped past Samantha, who backed off as if she feared a clawing, and we followed her progress through the house via bumps and thuds and slammed doors. Samantha sat down at the table and the three of us exchanged the silent, shaken looks of people who have walked away from a car crash.

  ‘Where does she get off with that shit?’ said Samantha, more confused than indignant. ‘Jesus, what did I ever do to her?’

  Serge leaned back, closing his eyes against the smoke from his cigarette. ‘She’s jealous,’ he said, ‘but at the same time, she feels superior because she’s a writer and you’re — what? My girlfriend. It’s a fact of life, isn’t it, that beautiful women are stupid and shallow? She also senses that Max finds you desirable and blames you as much as she blames him, as women often do. They convince themselves that the man’s just a silly fly who’s been lured into the evil spider’s web.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s just pissed,’ I said. ‘She’s never had a problem with Sam before.’

  ‘Maybe you just didn’t notice, Max,’ he said. ‘Maybe you had other things on your mind.’

  ‘Or maybe someone put the idea in her head,’ said Samantha flatly. ‘What did you two talk about this afternoon?’

  Serge’s wide mouth stretched sardonically. ‘Oh, so it’s my fault now, is it? Nobody had to tell me what was going on so why is it so hard to believe that Patricia could find her own way to the same conclusion?’

  ‘She doesn’t have your sort of mind,’ said Samantha. ‘It just seems like one hell of a coincidence.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Serge calmly. ‘You heard what she said about the sex and Max wanting to come to Toulouse — it’s obviously been ticking away at the back of her mind and tonight the bomb went off.’

  They’d slipped so easily into talking about me as if I wasn’t there that I wondered if they made a habit of it. ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ I told Serge. ‘This afternoon you reckoned she was acting like a woman who could hear wedding bells.’

  ‘But where’s the contradiction, Max? The more one dreams of something, the more one fears anything that might prevent the dream coming true.’

  Assuming Serge was right — and by now I was ready to believe he possessed the rare and dangerous gift of being able to see into the human heart — then all I could promise Patricia was unhappiness. How could I promise anything else, with Samantha standing in the shadows? Patricia was my favourite companion and my best friend but there was an imbalance, to use Serge’s term. Even if Samantha put herself out of reach, sooner or later that part of me that Patricia, for all her qualities and all our compatibility, could not fulfil would seek out another dream lover. I was saddened by my flaws and the trouble and pain they caused, and sadness is deeply wearying. Suddenly I was spent; the journey to the bedroom loomed like a hellish endurance course.

  I hauled myself upright, muttering, ‘You’re probably right, Serge; you seem to have us both sussed. Maybe you should sort out this mess.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said with an elusive smile. ‘Sleep well, my friend.’

  I must have woken up during the night because I remembered hearing a car start. Either side of that bleary hiatus, though, I was shut down, deactivated, brain-dead. When I came back to life the bedroom was stuffy from the sun spearing in through the sloppily drawn curtains. It was after midday. I pulled on some shorts and went to see what was happening but there was no one around. There was just the note on the kitchen bench.

  Patricia had written:

  Max
, I had a long talk with Serge this morning which, among other things, vindicated everything I said last night. You’re an absolute shit and I’ll never forgive you. I’m going back to Paris to move my stuff out of the apartment. That will take a few days so don’t come up before the end of the week — I don’t wish to set eyes on you ever again. When you leave, make sure all the doors and windows are locked and everything is switched off and leave the key with the patron of the bar in the village square.

  I went for a swim, scraped together some breakfast and rang Serge. Samantha answered. Having awoken at six with a raging headache and no stomach for going another round with Patricia, she’d commandeered the 2CV and driven back to Toulouse.

  ‘How did Serge feel about that?’

  ‘You tell me — he was dead to the world when I left.’

  ‘Well, he was alive and kicking later on.’ I passed on the news. ‘What the fuck does he think he’s playing at?’

  ‘God.’

  I asked her to get Serge to give me a ring when he showed up but he still hadn’t when I rang from the station on my way back to Paris. Samantha was stoic, as if reconciled to the fact that it went with the territory.

  Our apartment had been stripped. Either Patricia had worked on the principle that what’s ours is mine or the removalists were members of a Marseille street gang. After some dithering I decided not to go back to London, at least until I’d finished the novel I was working on. The reasons were essentially negative: moving was a pain, the old London crowd had scattered, and being down and out in Paris, the traditional home of the starving writer, was a marginally less forbidding prospect. I didn’t bother putting Toulouse into the equation.

  Serge rang a month or so later. He’d understand, he said, if I was still angry but it was for the best. He knew Patricia inside out — it was then that he told me, in what seemed like unnecessary detail, of their youthful sex education project — and didn’t want to see her get hurt.

  ‘Well, that’s very noble of you, Serge, but it wasn’t your life you were fucking around with.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘As one misses a dear friend?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘She didn’t want to be your friend, Max. She wanted to be your lover and one day your wife.’

  He was right but that didn’t alter the fact that he was a manipulative swine whose real motivation I could only guess at. ‘How can I ever thank you?’

  He laughed. ‘I haven’t finished yet: at 4.30 this afternoon the Toulouse train arrives at Gare du Lyon. Samantha’s on it.’

  ‘Why’s she coming here?’

  ‘To catch a plane back to America.’ He gave me a few seconds to digest this. ‘But I’m sure she’d postpone her flight if she had somewhere to stay and someone to show her the sights. And after what she’s had to put up with here, I imagine she’ll find your apartment the height of luxury.’

  It was so casual I almost missed it. ‘What would you know about my apartment?’

  ‘I stayed there while I was helping Patricia to move out. She was very upset, Max, very emotional. I didn’t think she should be alone.’

  Once again I had to hang up to silence that biting laugh.

  The splendours of my apartment notwithstanding, I seriously doubted that Samantha would be interested in hanging around; once she’d made that momentous decision, she’d just want to be gone. But I went to Gare du Lyon anyway. I wanted one last look, even if it left an ache that lasted for weeks.

  Everything she couldn’t leave behind had fitted into one medium-sized suitcase. I lugged it to the station café, where we eyed each other warily. ‘I’m taking your advice, Max; I’m going home.’

  ‘I doubt my advice had much to do with it.’

  ‘It got me thinking.’

  ‘What clinched it?’

  ‘When Serge told Patricia, “This guy doesn’t love you like you love him and that ain’t going to change,” she listened to him. He told me the same thing but I didn’t listen and I had more reason than her.’ There wasn’t a trace of Californian feel-good in her expression. ‘Damned if I was going to go through life knowing she’s smarter than me.’ She paused. ‘What else did Serge have to say?’

  ‘That I should talk you into sticking around for a while and show you the sights.’

  ‘Stick around where?’

  ‘He recommended my apartment.’

  ‘On what basis?’

  ‘That’s what I wondered. When he went AWOL after that night, do you know where he went?’

  ‘Carcassonne,’ she said, drawing it out. ‘So he said.’

  I shook my head. ‘He was here, holding Patricia’s hand.’

  She nodded as if she should have worked it out for herself. ‘You know the history?’

  ‘Yeah, he slipped that in too. I guess he figured he mightn’t get another chance.’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose I can go home without doing Paris properly,’ she said, glancing around the café as if it was worth committing to memory, ‘and I sure as shit can’t afford even a halfway-decent hotel.’ Her roaming eyes settled on mine. ‘So let’s go take a look at this apartment of yours, Mr Max.’

  six

  It was cold in Paris that winter. Not Chicago cold — the stupefying flash-freeze of the interior — but cold enough. It stung your ears and numbed your toes. It came up through the soles of your shoes and tore through your clothes like shrapnel.

  Serge had over-sold my apartment but Samantha confined herself to observing that I’d taken minimalism about as far as it could go short of eating off the floor. It was true that bare necessity had been my guiding principle when I’d refurnished after Patricia’s loser-takes-all exit, but there was somewhere to sit and somewhere to lay her pretty head. Besides, she only had a few more days of subsisting on this reduced old-world scale. Soon she’d be back in the land of plenty, inspecting duplexes with three toilets and a water-cannon shower with love-seat. I wondered if she’d pine for a bidet.

  We were like cousins meeting for the first time, scratching around for something to talk about despite all we had in common. I opened a bottle of wine and proposed a toast: ‘Life’s rich tapestry.’

  She didn’t join in. ‘Right now that doesn’t do a whole lot for me.’

  ‘Absent friends?’

  ‘Fuck them. Let’s just drink to us — us and those like us.’

  ‘Who would they be?’

  ‘I hate to disappoint you, Max, but there’s plenty more like me where I come from.’

  ‘I thought Americans were brought up to believe they were one of a kind.’

  ‘I was brought up to believe in God,’ she said. ‘I don’t do that either.’

  She slouched on the sofa, long denimed legs crossed at the ankle. Two hours in her company and I still hadn’t seen her smile. Her disengagement made me feel like a cold-calling telemarketer: Good evening, madam, could I take just a little of your valuable time to ask you about your preferences in household cleaning products?

  ‘So,’ I said, floundering, ‘how will you look back on your time in France?’

  ‘Well, you know what they say: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  ‘That bad, eh?’

  She finally smiled but only to signal irony. ‘France might be saving its best till last.’ The smile stretched. Those who insist that Americans don’t get irony should spend more time in their own provinces. ‘Now there’s a challenge for you.’

  It had taken some doing but Serge had made Samantha a woman of the world: wary, mobile, realistic. Like a boxer who’s been knocked out for the first time, she would never again go out there and ad lib it, just react to what was in front of her, confident that her talent and instincts would keep her out of trouble. From now on she’d stay on the move and out of range. It wasn’t about winning any more, it was about not losing. It was about damage limitation.

  When I’d first met her and Serge, there was something almo
st childlike in the purity, the heedless generosity of her love. But, as those who operate at a lower emotional intensity than their lovers often do, Serge had come to see her devotion as a web, sticky with sentimentality. The more of herself she gave, the less he wanted.

  He, on the other hand, was determinedly unromantic and lacked those middle-class values that can be lumped under the heading of integrity. He was amoral, perhaps to the point of being a bad man. Even in her infatuation, Samantha must have seen or sensed that, so did she turn a blind eye or was it, in fact, part of his allure? Back home she would have been trailed by a posse of young men with impeccable teeth and Hollywood looks and scrupulous hygiene. What drew her to Serge was his otherness: the neglected teeth advertising his disdain for conventional notions of attractiveness (would Samantha herself have fared better if her beauty had been less obvious, more a matter of taste, if she’d been what the French call belle-laide — like, for instance, a young Mick Jagger?), the mysterious scars, the casual depravity, perhaps even the gamy, peasant taste of his cock.

  So where did that leave me with my prissy version of otherness — book talk and dull routine and cooked-up dramas — and my daily shower and shampoo? Neither one thing nor the other. But she was different now. Perhaps she was ready for in between.

  She was watching me over the rim of her glass. ‘What’s the matter, Max? You don’t seem too thrilled about it.’

  ‘I’m still getting used to the idea. A few hours ago, seeing Touch of Evil in the original was shaping up as the highlight of my week.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s terrific but we should be able to do better than that, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘Well, shit, if we can’t do better than that, I’m not the girl I think I am.’

  She’d made a conscious decision to warm up. I wasn’t exotic or a little bit dangerous but I wasn’t a Californian beach boy either. And I couldn’t break her heart.