‘Won’t be long now,’ Jordan raised his glass, Blanc de Blancs to cool the day in which there was no cloud.
Raising my own glass I saw Félix’s face imposed on Jordan’s as he smiled:
‘To Filene’s Basement.’
Filene’s Basement. Married Esperanto. Filene’s Basement in Boston tagged each sale item with the date of arrival and a marked-down price which was mercilessly reduced, week by week, until any goods which remained were donated to charity. Filene’s Basement, where the ladies of Boston moved in human waves through the tables of close-out articles from other stores. It was a family joke and whenever I had a new jacket or a pair of pants or had bought something extravagant for Michelle and shirked confessing the price to Jordan, we’d tell him we had bought it in Filene’s Basement.
‘Like old times,’ Jordan leaned forward to kiss me across the table.
‘Like old times.’
His eyes lingered on my face.
‘You should always wear your hair that way.’
I had appropriated one of Michelle’s Alice Bands and, at Félix’s insistence, now wore my hair loose.
‘Paris agrees with you.’
‘You think so?’
‘You could be eighteen.’
Terrified lest he read something in my face, I said:
‘It’s the Blanc de Blancs…’ and pointed to the bottle we had emptied between us.
‘It’s the truth…’ Jordan put his napkin on the table. ‘They say the desserts are out of this world.’
We climbed up the gentle incline of the bank, the three-inch heels of my sandals piercing the earth. All around us happy couples were intent on conversation, family parties laughing and making a great deal of noise.
Madame la Patronne, sharp eyes everywhere, stamped from a familiar French mould soon to fall into desuetude, took Jordan under her wing.
‘Mousse au chocolat, mousse aux framboises…’
‘Did you make them?’
Seduced by his charm and shaking her head coquettishly, Madame smiled at Jordan revealing her gold teeth.
‘…Îles Flottantes, Bavarois Vanille, fraises Chantilly, Tarte Tatin…’
He cut short the litany.
‘Give me some of that apple pie.’
There was no dithering for Jordan, no hovering, no second glance. He stood with his plate, poised by the door, while I made up my mind.
‘You know darling,’ he said when I had put my spoon down on the mousse au chocolat. ‘When this deal is all done and dusted, I think we should have a farewell dinner at the apartment. Lafarge, Sherman, Powers, Farell, the whole team…’
He saw my look of horror.
‘I want you to hire the best caterer in Paris. Why don’t you have a word with Nadine?’
chapter thirteen
In the event we didn’t finish lunch until 4.30 and by the time we reached the Boulevard Courcelles it was too late for Jordan to do anything useful at the bank. There was no way I could go to the rue Dauphine. I did not even dare telephone Félix. Determined to devote himself to me, and to take his mind off his forthcoming meeting with the Viscomte de Loisy, Jordan proposed a game of Scrabble. Going along with his suggestion, but with my mind elsewhere, I scored a lousy one hundred and fifty points to his four hundred before he got busy with his memo-recorder leaving me to fix something to eat. After we’d had supper, although neither of us was very hungry, Jordan, who had been growing increasingly amorous – a state of affairs which I had done my best to ignore – wanted to make love. Pleading a headache, the heat and the effects of the Blanc de Blancs we had drunk at lunch, I suggested, as tactfully as I could, a deferment to another time. When he had got over his disappointment, and was trying to put a brave face on what he had clearly intended as a grand finale to a perfect day, he took me in his arms.
‘Are you sure you’re okay, darling? Your mother was worried about you.’
‘I’m fine.’ I wondered what Félix was doing.
‘Why don’t you go down to the villa? It would do you good.’
I was brushing my hair in front of the mirror and did not reply. On the dressing-table, crowded in their silver frames, were the family photos, our lares and pénates marking the happy high points in our lives. Jordan and me laughing ecstatically, our arms around each other on our honeymoon; Michelle when she was one day old; the Flatland family on horseback (we had spent our summer vacation on a ranch); all of us, complete with dog and the hamster Joey was holding up to the camera, in our backyard.
In the looking-glass, I could see Jordan who was carrying out his bedtime ritual, meticulously placing his watch, his mobile phones, his memo-recorder and his electronic organizer in absolute symmetry on the Boulle commode. I was aware that this quest for perfection inherited directly from his mother, led him to be a leader in his field, but occasionally, when, in the time it takes most people to blink, he insisted on putting things away before I had finished with them, or checking, straightening, and rearranging anything he found ‘positionally wrong’, it drove me to distraction. Lauren said I didn’t know when I was well off. That living with a man who was obsessionally tidy was a great deal better than sharing with a slob who never cleaned up after himself and created a one-man rubbish tip around him each time he sat on the sofa. Knowing how Lauren felt about Jordan, she would, of course, say that.
Next morning, when Jordan, clearly apprehensive about his deal, had left for his meeting with Lafarge and the mysterious Viscomte de Loisy, I telephoned Félix. Getting no reply, I guessed that he had gone out for his petit déjeuner and set out for the rue Dauphine.
I loved Paris, any city, in the early morning when its face was being washed and it was making animated preparations for what the new day would bring. In the rue de Buci, the gutters were running with water, the pavements in front of the shops were being swept and the shutters raised. Too early for tourists, the indigent population strolled with their croissants and their newspapers, their dogs and their baguettes, dodging the coursing rivulets and negotiating their way among the crates of fresh flowers, among the café tables which, with their bowls of sugar cubes and demi-tasses, overflowed on to the sidewalk. I looked for Félix in Paul’s, where two dusty young chefs rolled dough in the plate-glass window and the waitress knew him and usually had his grand café and his demi-flûte ready. She nodded in recognition then shook her head. He was not in the Tabac, with its window display of fluorescent rulers, pencil-cases and highlighters ready for the return to school, nor was he in the Traiteur with its daily offerings of Jambon Maison, Riz à la Tomate and Artichauts Cuits scrawled illegibly on its blackboard.
Making my way to the rue Dauphine past the ethnic goods emporium which sold scarves and beaded bags of orange and burnt sienna, I punched the code on his door and climbed the steep stairs to the fourth floor.
‘Félix… It’s me.’
The painting of Olympe on the easel had given way to two figures, tentatively outlined, on a bench beneath a lilac tree, and I recognized the gravelled garden of the Musée de la Vie Romantique. There were clothes everywhere; Félix’s black shirt, his shoes. The door to his bedroom was open and he lay spreadeagled on his low mattress deep in innocent sleep. I was creeping towards his comatose form, thinking to surprise him, when I noticed two empty wine glasses on the floor beside the rumpled bed, and in the ashtray the remains of two joints.
Not wanting to think what I was thinking, I returned to the studio. On the table were a pair of ox-blood earrings, a spent book of matches from a club much favoured by the jeunesse dorée, two plates, and the remains of what looked like a hastily eaten supper.
It was no more than I deserved for dismissing the fact that I was the result of a wager, the object of a young man’s fantasy, for making myself a middle-aged fool. I stared out of the open window at the terracotta view that had once thrilled me, transported me to forbidden pastures, quickened my racing heart. The mother in me pulled down the blind on the rising sun lest it damage the painting. I w
ondered should I leave a note.
‘Judith.’
His voice stopped me in the tracks I was making for the door. I did not reply.
‘Judith…’ He sounded frightened. ‘Wait! I can explain.’
No explanation was necessary. Halfway across the room, I could not have moved had I wanted to. I was already drowning. Already a lost soul.
When I did not turn up the previous evening as promised, Félix had been unable to work, unable to concentrate. Desperate for company he had called Olympe. An exchange of confidences – Olympe had a new man in her life – had led to a get-together with Alexandre and Nicolas, with Laurent and Natasha, with Kiki and Juliette…’
‘Like old times…’ Echoing Jordan I interrupted the explanation which came from the bedroom and with which Félix attempted to delay me.
‘I haven’t been clubbing since I met you.’
Did he think I did not belong in the youthful milieux they frequented? Was he ashamed of me in front of his friends?
He came to stand beside me, naked and dazed with sleep. I picked up the earrings from the table and placed them in his outstretched hand.
‘Olympe?’ I recognized them from his painting of her.
He made no attempt to deny it. ‘Forgive me. It won’t happen again. I was angry. I was not myself.’
Aristotle was wrong when he declared man to be a rational animal, and Pascal right when he assigned much of our behaviour to the antics of the human heart. While I was clearly directed by the activity of my brain which was giving me a clear message, I was the victim of my instinct, of my self-serving desires and, fully aware of the chance I was taking, I did nothing, could do nothing, to minimize the risk.
I did not even listen to the ongoing saga of how it had come about that Olympe had spent the night, and paid little attention to the ardent protestations with which Félix lured me into the same bed where the passion and the exultation he aroused in me proved shamingly undiminished.
By way of compensation for his betrayal, he insisted on taking me to the Eiffel Tower. Disgorged from the packed elevator we stood among the sightseers with their binoculars, circumventing the windy platform like a couple of kids out of school. Holding on to my windswept hair and my wrap-over skirt which was rapidly becoming unwrapped, I followed Félix’s extended finger as he pointed out the sights:
‘Bois de Boulogne…La Défense…’
I didn’t know why I had agreed to climb the tower with him. I was scared of heights.
‘…Bois de Vincennes, Orly…’
‘Félix, let’s go.’
Buffeted by the gale, afraid to look down, to look in front of me, I hid my face in my hands. It couldn’t have been for more than a moment, but when I raised my head Félix had gone.
‘Félix…!’
Swaying, I hung on to the railings, surrounded by a press of strangers, too weak to move on my own.
‘Félix! Félix!’
Among the miscellany of faces not a single one was familiar, there was no one who could help me, no one whom I knew. I thought I was going to faint, that I would fall over the side into nothingness, although I knew that was impossible and that the first thing I must do was to move out of the savagery of the wind. I fought my way to the sanctuary of the gift shop where Félix, oblivious to my panic attack, was calmly making a purchase, and threw myself into his surprised arms.
‘That wasn’t funny,’ I said, when I had calmed down.
Stroking my hair reassuringly and holding me close, he looked into my eyes.
‘This isn’t funny.’
I knew what he meant.
Elbowing our way through the crowds into the next available car – I was not going to stay on the platform one moment longer than was necessary – we stood shored up by the press of bodies amidst the Babel of tongues, watching the ground below approach.
‘I’m afraid.’ The remark was intended for Félix’s ears alone.
A German with a camera smiled understandingly.
‘Is better you don’t look, Madame.’
He wasn’t to know that my apprehension did not relate to the stomach-churning descent. I buried my face in Félix’s shoulder and he held me close.
When Jordan came home I did not need to ask him how his meeting with the Viscomte de Loisy had gone; it was written on his face. It was not until we had finished dinner that the full story came out. It took me some time to piece it together.
The Viscomte de Loisy had inadvisedly kept Jordan waiting in Claude Lafarge’s office at the Ministry of Defence (something which Jordan never did). He had turned out to be an extremely arrogant senior civil servant who told Jordan that he had only recently been informed of the proposed aquisition of Rochelle Eléctronique by Cavendish Holdings. The French Foreign Office, whom he represented, was extremely worried in case the American owners of Cavendish Holdings might, at some future date, involve Rochelle Eléctronique in transactions with countries which were hostile to France. To prevent this, they insisted upon retaining the right of veto. This meant, in effect, that although France was in favour of economic expansion and investment by foreign companies, the Foreign Office was not prepared to endanger her standing within the international community.
‘I have never heard such bullshit.’ Jordan was beside himself. ‘What the bastard proposes is that the only way he will allow the Rochelle deal to go ahead as Lafarge has agreed, is if the government retains the golden share.’
‘Golden share?’
I was doing my best to understand.
‘A share in Rochelle Eléctronique which would enable any decisions and any resolutions passed by the company to be blocked.’
‘By whom?’
‘By enough new directors – appointed by them of course – to overrule the existing board.’
‘I’m not with you.’
‘OK. Cavendish Holdings will be the new owners of Rochelle Eléctronique and the shareholders will be paid a very good price, as agreed, for what they are selling. The French Government, however, will retain the power to refuse to allow them to engage in any transaction which it considers a threat to its security.’
‘What was your response?’
‘I got extremely angry.’
I had rarely seen Jordan angry.
‘I pointed out that this would devalue the equity of Rochelle by at least 20 per cent – several hundred million dollars – and that under no circumstances could I proceed with the deal were such a condition to be imposed…’
I felt extremely sorry for Jordan who, together with Sherman and many other people both in Paris and Boston, had been working so hard and for so long.
‘To bring this up at the last moment, just when contracts are about to be signed, is absolutely outrageous, not to mention immoral! I insisted that the condition be immediately withdrawn.’
By the unfamiliar set of Jordan’s face, tense and unapproachable, I guessed that his suggestion had not been well received.
‘The Viscomte is “not prepared to take a chance”. He made out that he had not been informed of the predicament until recently, which I very much doubt, and that the position of the French Government is just as he outlined it and is not negotiable.’
Storming out of the meeting, Jordan had gone back to Offenbach Frères where he had discussed the situation with his colleagues. The general feeling seemed to be that although the Viscomte had played an extremely dirty trick on Jordan, pressure might still be brought to bear and the French Government persuaded to change their minds.
‘To spring something like that on us at the last minute… They’re a bunch of shits.’ Jordan punched in a number on his telephone. ‘George? I know you’re in Hyannis Port. I know you’re on vacation. It is urgent. I’m not concerned about the market right now and I’m even less concerned about your putting. That’s the problem. We haven’t signed. We’ve run into a major obstacle. OK. OK. Call me back.’
Jordan swapped his phone for his memo-machine.
‘“Memo to
George Grabfield and Nicholas Alrich – Fitch, Lane, Alrich and Newmark, New York…” Sorry about this darling, but I may have to go back to Boston.’
An idea was already taking shape in my head.
‘The situation is serious. It has to be sorted out.’
I put my arms around him, comforting him.
‘I guess I’m going to be extremely busy for the next couple of weeks. I’m glad we had our day out.’
chapter fourteen
The villa that Lauren had rented for us was in Cap d’Antibes. Low built, with its feet in the water and with only two bedrooms – one of which Michelle and Joey had to share – it was furnished, down to the last designer hand-towel and teacup, entirely in blue and white. So far, since we had been in Paris, we had managed to visit it only once.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ Lauren said, when I told her my plan.
I did not reply. Although the idea had been mine, the catalyst had been Félix. Sunning ourselves outside the Deux Magots, imbued with the aura of de Beauvoir and Sartre, he had, with mock-seriousness, produced a package from his pocket.
‘I want you to have this.’
I opened it with trepidation. It was a plastic snowstorm. When I shook it, slow white flakes settled over the Eiffel Tower.
Félix took hold of my wrist.
‘Come away with me Judith.’
I smiled, deprecatingly, as to a child who had made a ridiculous suggestion.
‘I want to spend the night – the nights – with you.’
The words had reverberated in my head, reaching a crescendo when Jordan had suggested that while he was pulling the chestnuts of his deal out of the conflagration created by the Viscomte de Loisy, I should go down to the villa. The following day, as he packed his bag for Boston, I told him, trying to sound casual, that I thought his idea a good one. I did not mention that I did not plan to go to the villa by myself.
Paris Summer Page 11