Paris Summer

by Rosemary Friedman

  It was hardly surprising that socially he was much in demand. I was sorry I had not known his father who died when Jordan was fifteen. By all accounts Senator William Flatland, a staunch if misguided Republican, was an equally remarkable man whose marriage to Laetitia was a stable one, if not a union of soul mates. It was not only Lauren – who was desperately looking for a husband – but everyone who knew him who envied me Jordan. Good-natured, considerate and with a happy disposition, he not only seemed the ideal husband, but he was. He denied me nothing, be it for myself or the children, tolerated my idiosyncracies, some of which I knew could be maddening, and cheered me up with his unique sense of humour when I was down.

  Not that I saw all that much of him. In the cut-throat world of finance, banking was a full-time job. Leaving the house at 6 a.m. – business lunches had long given way to working breakfasts – having already swum several laps of the pool, he was rarely back before 9 at night and if necessary spent evenings and weekends hunched over his laptop or on the phone. Of course there were vacations, but even then, a forward planner par excellence, Jordan did not fully unwind. I never knew if it was because he was indispensable or if he was afraid to let go of the lifeline that was his work. Nevertheless, on holiday he was great company, great fun. We skied as a family, he played baseball on the beach with Joey, and he danced, with more enthusiasm than skill, with Michelle.

  Alone at night we would make love – if the earth did not exactly move for either of us, at least it pitched satisfactorily – before he turned over and fell into a well-deserved sleep during the course of which he swore he did not dream. Although our relationship was firmly rooted in affection, friendship, respect for one another and shared values, when it came to mutual interests our paths diverged. Like any significant pace-setter, Jordan was not well-rounded. He was not really interested in the books I read, did not know what it was to be transformed by an idea, and the most he could manage by way of music or ballet was The Nutcracker Suite at Christmas. Although he respected my job, he did not really understand art. Paintings were a commodity – like stocks and bonds – and he regarded the fact that in a thriving market they made fortunes for rich buyers with deeply commercial attitudes as little short of insane. He did read. Usually at night to enable him to wind down. The latest Jack Higgins or Wilbur Smith, turning a few pages only before flinging the paperback on the floor. He was, of course, not uninformed, but his wide knowledge came from the newspapers and financial journals, which he devoured and assimilated, and from late night TV.

  As far as Jordan was concerned, the Rochelle Eléctronique deal was crucial and with a bit of luck its successful conclusion would earn him a much coveted seat on the board of Pilcher Bain. One of the functions of the bank was to assist large companies by finding acquisitions for them. Six months ago, Jordan had been approached by Cavendish Holdings, an American semiconductor manufacturer. The client, whose company last year had made a profit of more than $80 million and whose turnover was rising rapidly, had asked him to find an acquisition which would further their interests in Europe. With the help of various French banks and brokers (Pilcher Bain had first-class contacts), and having produced a shortlist, he had finally come up with Rochelle Eléctronique, a large company which seemed to fulfil the criteria and the appropriation of which he had recommended to the shareholders.

  The preliminaries had already been carried out and a couple of the major institutional investors in Rochelle Eléctronique had been to Boston to inspect Cavendish Holdings, the US end of the operation, when Jordan had discovered that by far the biggest shareholder – owning 20 per cent of the company, both directly and indirectly – was the French Ministry of Defence. He had spent the past three weeks in delicate negotiations with Claude Lafarge, a senior civil servant responsible for industrial affairs, in the course of which he had pointed out that the company’s sales’ margins were improving and its balance sheet was rock solid. All he was waiting for now was for Lafarge to greenlight the proposed merger.

  Having divested myself of my rubber gloves, I followed Jordan into the bedroom with his warm beer and explained about the problems we were having with the fridge. Stripping down to his shorts, he appeared not to hear.

  ‘Guess who took me to lunch at the Crillon today?’

  I shook my head. I was still in refrigerator mode.

  ‘Claude Lafarge!’

  Sitting down at the dressing-table I looked at my face in the mirror, drained and exhausted. I had OD’d on Claude Lafarge for the past three weeks.

  ‘…The MOD has finally agreed the merger!’

  Jordan took his beer into the antiquated bathroom across the hallway leaving the door open.

  ‘“I like it, Monsieur Flatland…”’ He gave a passable imitation of Maurice Chevalier. ‘“En principe we are in business. Before I commit myself ‘ow-ev-aire’ I must discuss with my colleagues. Our people ’ave to go over your people with – ’ow do you say it? – the fine-tooth comb.” It’s what we’ve been waiting for. What have you been up to, honey?’

  ‘Chauffering the kids around…’

  There were ghastly plumbing noises from the bathroom as Jordan turned on the shower.

  ‘…Vetting Michelle’s birthday cake…’ My voice was drowned out by ominous rumblings followed by the rush of water.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Vetting Michelle’s birthday cake…!’ I raised my volume, competing with the hiss of steam. ‘…Entering my trolley for the supermarket Grand Prix, buying underpants for Joey – I don’t know what he does with them, waiting for Michelle’s shoes to be mended – she needs them for tonight, manning her message desk, listening to Lauren being businesswoman of the year – she sends you a big kiss, picking up the dry-cleaning, helping Helga with her English, sweet-talking the repairman into fixing the freezer before we go back to Boston, sanitizing the garbage – the binmen are still out, when I see my waste-disposal I shall probably fling my arms around it, speaking to my mother…’ There was silence from the bathroom. I wondered was Jordan still listening. ‘Robbing a few cashpoints…’ There was no response. I resumed the liturgy. ‘Supervising the César Franck – Joey will not keep his elbow up, taking him swimming, seeing Dr Katz…’

  She had left Joey at the pool with Andy and his mother while she kept her appointment with the doctor. It was Jordan who had insisted that she consult him about her headaches. On her last visit to his clinic, after taking a careful history and examining her, Dr Katz had referred her to the path lab where they had taken some blood. Today she had gone to his office for the results of the tests. Suave and thorough, Dr Katz in his white coat had examined her once more, shone lights into her eyes, looked down her throat, palpated her abdomen and listened to her chest with his stethoscope, before leaving her to get dressed while he made up his notes.

  ‘I have found nothing wrong, Madame Flatland,’ he said finally, picking up the report from the laboratory. ‘Haemoglobin normale, thyroid normale…’

  He stared long and hard at her. She wondered if, after all, he had some bad news to impart. Perhaps he suspected a cerebral haemorrhage or a brain tumour which would entail further investigations.

  ‘It’s like a tight band…’ She indicated the back of her head.

  ‘A little tension, perhaps, in the muscles.’

  ‘I’m pooped out all the time.’

  Nodding sympathetically, Dr Katz picked up his pen and drew his prescription pad towards him.

  ‘This formidable heat, Madame. Everyone suffers. Must you remain in Paris?’

  Nodding, I muttered something about my husband not being able to get away from the bank, but Dr Katz was not listening.

  ‘Women of your age…’

  She felt the band round her head tighten. She was forty-two years old. Was he suggesting that she was menopausal? If he was, there was no sign of it. Men. Doctors. They made you sick. She could cheerfully have strangled him. Murder in the Avenue Wagram.

  Outside in the street where her car was
parked illegally, a traffic warden was waiting for her. She scowled at the woman, chic in her red-trimmed uniform. It was the last straw.

  ‘Did you see Dr Katz?’ Jordan, who hadn’t been listening to a word, came out of the shower with a towel round his waist.

  ‘He prescribed some medication.’

  ‘Did he say what the headaches are due to?’

  ‘He didn’t know,’ I lied, refusing to mention the ‘m’ word.

  By the time we were ready for the evening’s entertainment – I had tied Jordan’s black tie and he had admired my ‘blue’ Givenchy number, which was actually green; Jordan was colour-blind but would not admit it – we were both sweating again profusely but the windows with their crimson damask curtains were wide open and the oscillating fan was going flat out and there was nothing we could do about the suffocating heat. Joey was lying on our mahogany lit bateau engrossed in his Pokemon, the all-consuming fascination which baffled everyone over the age of fifteen.

  Once I made the mistake of asking him to explain to me exactly what it was he was doing for hours on end, oblivious to everything that was going on around him, and what precisely was a Pokemon. Ask silly questions, you get silly answers. Apparently, there are 150 Pokemons, weird monsters with names such as Jigglypuff and Wigglytuff, possessed with bizarre powers. The idea of the game is that they fight each other, sometimes using twigs as swords, the stronger Pokemon overcoming the weaker. When he wasn’t identifying with his other hero, Harry Potter, Joey imagined he was Ash, a streetwise Pokemon trainer, whose mission in life was to collect and subdue all 150 Pokemon monsters, zapping them with his trusty Pokemon ball which drained a Pokemon of his energy.

  While he was engaged in battle with Polywig, Polywhirl and Polywrath, I snapped an emerald bracelet round my wrist and secured my hair on top of my head (where I habitually wore it) with a snazzy comb. When Michelle burst in without knocking, Joey did not look up.

  One moment I had been perfectly satisfied with my appearance – I thought I looked rather elegant in fact, sophisticated and suitably dressed and filling the corporate wife role to perfection – and the next, as Michelle’s image loomed up beside mine in the looking-glass, I wanted to tear the whole lot off and start again. The trend amongst the young was to wear minimal dresses in the flimsiest of material cut on the bias and with spaghetti straps, beneath which Michelle’s perfectly rounded breasts sprouted from her armpits. Apart from the apology of a dress and her crazy mane of plum-coloured hair which stuck up in brilliantined spikes and looked as if it had been cut by Edward Scissorhands, but had actually cost an arm and a leg at Biguine, she was naked: no make-up, no jewellery. She looked edible and, despite the Givenchy, the upswept hair and the emerald bracelet, I wondered why I bothered.

  She pirouetted, swirling her chiffon skirt in its sweet-pea colours and looking anxiously for reassurance.

  ‘Do you think Félix will like it?’

  ‘You look lovely, darling…’

  Joey snorted from the bed without taking his eyes from the Pokemon.

  ‘I second that.’ Jordan put his arm round Michelle. ‘How does it feel to be eighteen?’

  Barring the uncertainties and agonizing lack of self-esteem, I would have given my right arm to be eighteen again; to be faced with nothing more taxing than the luxurious prospect of the years ahead and the seemingly endless vista of time begging to be wasted. Having children is the death of parents. Whoever said it did not lie. Seeing them step into your shoes, usurp your spacesuit, take over the asylum, relegate you to a buried memory, a bleached photograph, a residual mass of DNA, accounts for our ambivalent relationship with them, our hostile dependency which leads to rows and misunderstandings that, having been there ourselves, we understand only too well.

  Jordan was approaching with a narrow, exquisitely wrapped gift box. The French were so serious about such things, so committed. The most modest purchase, pour presenter, in the most isolated village was the cue for assiduous wrapping complete with spiral bow.

  ‘Happy birthday, darling.’ He gave the package to Michelle.

  ‘“Happy birthday, darling.”’ Without raising his eyes from the Pokemon, Joey mimicked Jordan as Michelle took off the ribbon and the paper and opened the Bulgari box.

  The pearls were exquisite. Although I had chosen them (Jordan was too busy), Jordan had insisted on giving them to her, it had to do with his amour propre and the fact that it was his money that had paid for them, as if Michelle did not know.

  ‘I don’t deserve them.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘Shut up, Joey.’

  ‘Who said anything about deserving them?’ Jordan fastened the necklace around the untrammeled skin of Michelle’s throat. She looked virginal although I knew that she was not. With tears in her eyes she hugged us both like an affectionate puppy. At the same moment the roar of a motor-bike accompanied by a staccato signal on the horn came from the street below. Casting us off without more ado, Michelle stuck her head out of the open window.

  ‘J’arrive!’ It was the voice of a fishwife.

  She kissed me briefly.

  ‘See you guys…’ She flung her arms round Jordan, mussing his hair. ‘Gotta go.’

  Minutes later, leaning out of the window, I watched her run out of the building to greet the black-clad motorcyclist who sat astride a Kawasaki 2000. She must have flown down the stairs. They kissed three times, formally, alternating cheeks. Michelle climbed on to the pillion, held on to the young man’s waist and with a roar they were away, weaving amongst the rows of parked cars and leaving behind a trail of vapour and the diminishing cacophony of strident rap.

  Jordan was dictating a message to his PA into his memo machine. ‘Eunice, I want you to find out if there’s been any heavy buying…’ He looked impatiently at his Rolex, before turning to me. ‘Are you ready, honey? I don’t want to be late.’

  chapter four

  The cocktails at the American Embassy restored my equilibrium. Jordan and the current ambassador, whose wife was Swedish, had been at Harvard together. It was mega-hot and mega-crowded but I could see from the appraising glances of the women – no slouches when it came to putting themselves together – and the roving eyes of the men, that the Givenchy was going down well. So much for Dr Katz.

  The French of course were into protocol. My hand was sore from being shaken and my head dizzy from introductions to people whose names I was unable to retain for more than a nanosecond, amongst whom were several senior French bankers who presented us to other bankers of various denominations.

  ‘“Monsieur Jordan Flatland, senior vice-president of Pilcher Bain. Madame Flatland.”’ I allowed the tips of my fingers to be kissed as I looked into a pair of predatory eyes that might once have been enticing but were now milky with cataracts.

  ‘Enchantée.’ I switched on my corporate smile.

  ‘“Monsieur Jordan Flatland, senior vice-president of Pilcher Bain, Madame Flatland…”’

  ‘I knew your father-in-law, my dear. The Porcellian Club…’

  ‘Flatland?’ The accent was from the American deep south. ‘Jordan Flatland? Haven’t I been reading about you in the newspaper?’

  ‘Pilcher Bain,’ Jordan was flattered. ‘Our client Cavendish Holdings is making a bid for Rochelle Eléctronique.’

  Clutching our champagne flutes, we managed to make our way to the familiar faces in the Pilcher Bain corner: Sherman McCurn, Jordan’s corporate manager, and his wife, Nadine. Sherman, a great communicator, was the ideal partner to disseminate Jordan’s strategic wisdom. The two men not only complimented each other in business but played regular squash together, and he and Nadine and Jordan and I had dinner together at one of Boston’s eateries at least once a week. When there were no social engagements or we were too lazy to go out, usually on the weekend, we’d play Scrabble for money or watch a movie over a pizza.

  I greeted the Shermans as all eyes swivelled to a stooped and elderly financier who stood framed in the
doorway looking up with adoration at a vapid-looking blonde, wearing short shiny satin and dangly diamond earrings, who was draped over his arm.

  Nadine’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

  ‘Where did Stanley find her?’

  ‘He opened his wallet and there she was.’ Sherman kissed me on both cheeks as snatches of conversation floated in bubbles around our heads.

  ‘…As I read it they’re looking to develop a diversified portfolio of franchises…’

  ‘…I said it’s not a bit of use you coming over in August. Paris is a morgue…’

  ‘…is it true the Japanese are moving in…?’

  ‘…Cultural Attaché! If you want my opinion he should be in Macy’s selling kitchen appliances…’

  ‘Boston? I just adore Boston. American body and European soul.’

  ‘…“Dad, the Bank of America will lend me a million dollars if you will guarantee it.” “Son,” the father says, “go tell the Bank of America that I will lend you a million dollars if they will guarantee it…”’

  ‘Hi Jordan!’ Eric Boone, Bank of Nova Scotia, edged his way through the heaving crowd towards us, clutching several glasses and inadvertently spilling champagne on to Jordan’s sleeve.

  ‘Excuse me. I’m so sorry…’

  Trying not to show his annoyance – a stain on his clothes was like a stain on his life – Jordan took out his handkerchief and dabbed melodramatically at the damp patch on the tux I had just collected from the dry-cleaner.

  ‘…Any news on the acquisition front?’

  Regaining his composure, Jordan put away the handkerchief and, crossing his fingers, addressed Boone.

  ‘As of today I think we’re in business.’

  ‘The smart money’s on you, Flatland.’

  Jordan’s face lit up with delight as the Canadian banker turned to me. ‘They’ll be making this young man president of the Central Reserve Bank next!’ Chuckling, he moved on with his slopping glasses.