by Mavis Cheek
‘I think Mr Bonnard will make a very good boss’ said Audrey. 'And I'm going to Paris whether you like it or not.' She gave a little swivel on her perfectly turned heel, and added, 'Tout de suite.'
3
A Lesson in Poetry
Now Apsu is no longer in her parents' bed. She has a brother who has taken her place. Now she lies in her own cot and has time to investigate the many variations of texture and shape that surround her. Also the way light plays on the bars of the cot and how it is held together. Sometimes she stands with her hands gripping the rail and she bounces up and down on the plastic-covered mattress, watching the bolts jump and. rattle. Her grandmother peels her an apple and keeps the peel whole. She says that little Apsu will see her future husband's initial letter in the shape it is when it falls to the floor. Apsu takes the fallen peel and builds with it, enclosing space, making walls, making bridges. Her grandmother smiles, not knowing what the child thinks about but pleased to see her so happy and absorbed.
At approximately the same time, Audrey, much amused, much excited, took the curtaining from the dreary Wapshott kitchen into the exotic space of Minette's apartment. The sewing machine came out, scissors flashed, fingers flew, fabric took shape. It was like starring in a Let's Do It Here film and she had seen enough of those, and dreamed enough, to be happily absorbed.
Edwin Bonnard telephoned, spoke to her parents, told her the arrangements. He would meet her at the airport. Later he sent her a letter confirming her employment and enclosing her ticket. 'One way,' said Dolly sadly.
Audrey cried a little too, but whether with sadness or excitement she wasn't exactly sure. Here was something of her own at last. She was going to make her own place in the world. And bloody well bugger Patrick.
The dresses were finished. It was a joke, of course, but it was a seductive one. For the cocktail dress, Minette's use of the plum-coloured braid, scooped to follow the lines of Audrey's bosom, was shocking and chic. Audrey laughed when she tried it on. It was a far cry from Patrick's black on black. It was also a far cry from Wapshott parental approval. They did not laugh at all. When Audrey modelled the off-the-shoulder, tight-bodiced, straight-skirted dress of a dress, Mr Wapshott asked where the rest of it was. Her mother shook her head. But when she slipped on the little suit, with its neat jacket and short - well above the knee - skirt, neither parent had even the breath for a quip.
'You can't go out with your legs showing like that’ said Mrs Wapshott. But Audrey did. All the way to the airport, and all the way on the aeroplane to Paris. She felt liberated. And she began to like the way men looked at her. From behind newspapers, from corner seats, they stared. She crossed her legs. Let them, she thought. What harm does it do?
The only drawback was that Patrick was not here to see her Triumph. He, apparently, and according to Florence (who could scarcely be trusted) was having many a Triumph of his own at some wonderful job in the City of London. The news was passed on to Dolly (who nearly broke off speaking terms again when she heard it) and thus passed on to Audrey, who had a little cry. So ... Now she was flying off, leaving London behind, glad to be far away. And it was real. She could see it was real by the dwindling fields and the retreating cliffs of the English seaside. It was a real fairy tale. Certainly that was what the girls at the Exchange said about it. You meet a man on a train and you end up in Paris? That's called dreams come true. Even if what caused it to happen in the first place was not very nice.
Man Trouble - she heard her mother using the term to a neighbour as if it was a disease she, Audrey, had contracted wilfully - well she supposed that was the reason - Man Trouble - it sounded right for the times. The sort of thing the New Young Woman had - Man Trouble. It was a good deal more promising than a Broken Heart. 'Sex and the Single Girl' was a phrase being whispered among the more forward of the girls at the Exchange. Man Trouble sounded as if it went with that. If Edwin ever asked her why she was so happy to leave England, that is what she would tell him. Man Trouble. It sounded cool and it went with the kind of clothes she wore now.
With only the grey English Channel churning away beneath her she breathed a sigh of contentment. Fussy and stuffy old England, she thought. Never again. Begone, Bourgeois Sentiment. Oh, Patrick. Somehow she had to learn to live with the fact that he was still in her head.
Years later, when Edwin and Audrey were in Brussels looking for a new apartment for his business trips, and they viewed a place with similar windows and curtains to the Brighton apartment, she reminded him of that first meeting, on the Brighton Line, and how naive she had been. And he reminded her how he thought, as he looked across at her in that airless little carriage, that she had tumbled out of the sky with her Parisian chic and her English blushes and the very definite air of virginity that hung about her.
'Hmm,' she said, addressing the Brussels curtains. 'The air of virginity didn't last very long . .. How right Minette was to put me in those clothes.' And she wondered, as she said it, Was she?
Audrey never told Edwin that her seduction was, in the event, rather a relief. It followed on very swiftly from the airport meeting and confirmed what Minette had already told her. 'This man is half French,' she said with a shrug. 'He may wish you to work for him, but he will also wish you to sleep with him.' Audrey thought about this. It was probably true. She hoped it was true. In fact, if she thought about it, it would be something of a blow if it were not true ... A view of Man Trouble in the new magazine world was that as one Man went out of the door, another Man came in through the window. She had waited far too long to replace Patrick. No one had come close. Insurance salesmen, electricians, bank clerks - how could she be interested in the likes of them? How to admire them after Patrick? No: Edwin - if he wanted her - would be perfect. Mr Perfect, her Prince, if a little older than in the fairy tales, had come along.
She daydreamed on the plane. First of all he would sleep with her and later he would divorce his wife and marry her. That is what she thought would happen. As they made their way to the hotel restaurant (it was too late to go to her apartment and she would see it in the morning) that first evening, he told her with grave sorrow that his wife did not understand him. To which she nodded consolingly, feeling immensely grown-up to be given such a confidence. Yes, she felt sure, he would divorce his wife eventually. Madame Bonnard she would eventually be. She would seek out Patrick somehow and show the elegant Monsieur Bonnard off. Then wouldn't he be sorry and too, too late...
On that first evening, at dinner, Edwin presented her with a ring set with a large turquoise. 'The joyous colour of sun and sea,' he said. 'And the way you make me feel every time I look at you.' She accepted it, put it on, admired it and was pleased. Which meant that when it was perfectly clear, about halfway through the next course, that Edwin wanted - indeed expected - to spend the night with her, she accepted his proposal. It was definitely a step in the right direction. And the Modern way. Whatever Patrick used to say about the Bourgeoisie and marriage, in the end he had gone and tied the knot with Peggy Boxer. As Was. So why shouldn't she? So much for his avant garde principles. He had changed from being a man with a room and a Bauhaus poster and plain white blinds, to a man with a wife (and no baby, she was pleased to recall) and a house with orange curtains and a neat garden held behind a privet hedge. She knew this because - not long before she left for Paris - she took the bus to the neighbourhood and crept past the house one night, and though it was small, from what she could see through the gaps at the window, it was a definite home. She could even hear music. He played the same for Peggy as he had once done for her. The Reject. She crept away.
Edwin told her many years later that if she had not let him seduce her that night, or at least, if she had not shown signs that she might soon agree, he would have packed her back off to London in a day or two. 'Just as well that I did then,' she said to him crisply. 'For both of us.' But back then it had all been romance. She could still picture the hotel room high up above the Champs-Elys£es and the feeling that she was
in a fairy tale. Patrick and all the pain of him - that disease called Man Trouble - felt as if it rolled off her shoulders once she lay down with Edwin. It was that simple.
With the early spring trees blowing in the breeze and the moonlight falling sharply across the bed, Edwin settled her back on the pillows, rested his head on one hand, played with her body with his free hand so that she could barely concentrate on what he was saying, and told her - very nicely, very softly, but very firmly - that if she expected him to divorce his wife, he would not. But that if she expected him to love and cherish her - he would do so. He was quite matter of fact and she found that she was without embarrassment. It was just as if he was setting out her terms of employment. Which, of course, he was. She saw nothing immoral about it all because she did not believe a word of it. Not really. Not when they were like this. She smiled amenably, obligingly had her first orgasm and thought she was having a fit. "This’ he said, 'is our first priority. Then we learn the rest.'
Waking with Edwin in the morning, the memory of Patrick, the weight of him, was indeed rolled away, like an immense rock being lifted from her shoulders. She kept this to herself. An ancient wisdom ran through her veins, a sudden understanding that honesty, in matters of the bedroom if not the heart, was best left unpursued. When he said he must go and that he would be back soon, she waved him away lightly. Who would have guessed that she had ice in her stomach in case she had not passed the test and he never returned?
But he did return. And she was still asleep. He called it the sleep of youth. They left the hotel and walked. Edwin explained that she would have an apartment nearby, that she would be known as his personal assistant, and that she would have a salary ... Not wages, then? Her mother had specifically asked her to find out what the francs were in pounds, and how the annual sum translated into wages. It would be very grand to say that she was paid monthly and into her own bank account. For this salary she would have to do very little - there would be occasional entertaining and she would keep two diaries for him - the official diary and the other one - but her real job was to keep Edwin happy in her company, in all respects. She must consider the apartment her home and if she wished to change it in any way, she could. He then gestured. They had walked around the block in a large circle and ended up near the hotel. They were standing at the foot of some white steps. He pushed open the double doors, they ascended in a lift, and they arrived at her new home. If what went before seemed a fairy tale, this was the end of the rainbow. What more, what more could she possibly wish for?
Here was the room to sit in, the room to sleep in (though the bed was wide, very wide, knocked Patrick's skinny little thing into the shade), the little kitchen and - considerably bigger than the kitchen -a bathroom. All to herself. It really was like the films. With a shower thing and what he later showed her how to use and to call a bidet. Things like these her mother could only dream of (they still had a gas geyser and the bath enamel had long seen better days). If she had a fleeting sense of loss - a sense of disappointment - a sense that she had thought herself to be so clever to have landed a real job - she brushed it away in the magic of having all this. She said, daring herself, 'Prenez-vous de relations sexuelles?' Just to remind herself how clever she had once been with languages. He laughed. But he also said, afterwards, that he would like it if they could speak English together. She would have plenty of opportunity to speak French with other people. Which subdued her a little.
Gradually, throughout the day, in bed and out of it, Edwin explained the pattern of her future. He would pay the rent, just as he would pay the bills, and he would expect loyalty and sole ownership of her, just as if they were man and wife. She would have some work to do - she would be expected to keep herself looking fashionable and she would be expected to learn about the things that interested him - just as he would (and here his hand became unbearable) just as he would be sure to find out what she liked and provide it for her. It was her duty, like any good wife, to enjoy herself to her fullest capacity. Could she do this? She found that she could.
There would be small parties for his friends and a few formal functions to attend with him. She would learn which occasions were for him and his wife, and which occasions were for him and his mistress. Her. The learning process would take about six months and she would have an old friend of his, Madame Helene, to help her. Helene knew everything. It was the way in France and no one thought any the worse of it. Her role would be well understood. She could ask him anything, anything at all, and he would help her. Then he gave her that reassuring smile of his. He did not expect any of this to begin overnight and there would, of course, be a settling-in period. Just like a job.
'Since we met,' he said, 'I have been very happy thinking about you - the way you are now - and as you will be in a few months' time. You will learn quickly and we will be very happy together.'
She then felt what she could only liken to an earthquake in her body - another kind of fit - which was clearly the Greater Things to Come. It seemed she was quite capable of doing her duty extremely well. Nothing like that had ever happened with Patrick. She also kept that thought to herself. A maturer sense was already weaving around her and she realised that it was not a good idea to mention a past lover to a present one. Patrick was not of interest to Edwin and she hoped that soon, sooner than soon, he would not be of interest to her either.
She did ask him about his wife. 'Doesn't she mind?' she asked. 'My wife will not interfere,' he said. 'It is always discreetly arranged.'
'Always?' she asked. 'I am not the first?
'You will find,' he said, shaking his head, 'that it is sensible not to ask too many questions. The answers will not always suit.' He touched her beneath her eyes, where an unexpected tear had formed. It was not jealousy, nor was it sadness, it was that she no longer felt quite so special. Not quite the fairytale princess any more.
'But as far as I am concerned, if you will stay, and be a good girl, then you will be the last. I make you that promise. I am forty-seven -and I think we will make good harmony and you will see me out.'
Years later, remembering that moment, she wondered how she could possibly have let him say such a thing without popping him one.
Arithmetic was never her strength. Patrick always told her how good and logical figures were, but she never thought so. It did not occur to her, now, to do the sums and wonder what would be left for her when she had Seen Him Out. For heaven's sake - she was in an apartment high up over the city of Paris - looking down on people for a change, and with a man (so what that he was old?) who loved her. Patrick was gone, banished. She silently sent that message across the seas to him. Patrick. And turned her face and her fortune resolutely towards Edwin.
'Do you know Robert Browning's work?' he asked as he dressed.
She did not. She kept silent. He could be anything.
'A poet. Let me quote a favourite piece of his poetry. It's the Duke of Ferrara speaking to the agent of the father of his proposed new bride.' She stretched herself and smiled. A little confusing, but she was sure it would be lovely. He began,
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she was alive ...
He quoted the whole thing without stumbling once, though he paused a long time at the lines.
... She had
A heart... how shall I say? ... too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, 'twas all one ...
After Patrick's pleasure in something called Concrete Poetry - 'where the form, Audrey, begins by being aware of the graphic space as structural agent' - which she found unfathomable stuff, written by people with peculiar names that sounded like illnesses - Arp, Schwitters, Klee, Malevich - and which you never knew if he was stumbling over or not because none of it made any sense... after that she found the lines quoted by Edwin pleasantly straightforward, even if he did read them in the kind of voice that made her shiver.
... Oh, Sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene'er I pa
ssed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands As if alive ...
'Lovely,' she said. 'Sad. And very romantic. He missed her very much, the Duke.'
Edwin gave her a look quite similar to the looks Patrick gave her from time to time - usually followed by the word 'Daft'.
Oh well, she thought, what is wrong with liking things to do with romance and love? What ?
When he had gone she hung the now crumpled chintz suit in the wardrobe, where it swung self-consciously in all that empty space, and she unpacked her bags and hung up the rest of her clothes, which looked even more out of place - except for the cocktail frock. The bathroom with its extraordinary appliances did not welcome her little red plastic washbag, and the cream button-up-the-front nightie looked quite affronted as she put it over the end of the bed. Nevertheless she understood now that she was in Paris, that she was out of her depth, that she just looked wrong, and that this would change if she was - as Edwin had asked her to be - amenable -raisonnable. She had a strong, oh so strong, urge to ring her mother and tell her about it all - but of course she could not. She could tell no one about all - or any - of it. If she rang her mother she would want to know how her first day in her new job had been. Audrey looked down at the rumpled linen and smiled, wryly. She would also start suggesting things like a nice serviceable pleated skirt and a plain, navy jumper and asking her if the rooms were clean and if she was being a good girl.