Petite Anglaise

by Catherine Sanderson

  Tutting in unison at the price tags on the Princesse Tam Tam underwear in Monoprix half an hour later, I felt more relaxed, more carefree than I had in weeks. The feelings of guilt which had dogged me as persistently as my own shadow ever since I’d delivered my news to Mr Frog, had lifted, albeit temporarily. For a few minutes I pretended my life was as uncomplicated as Amy’s; my decisions as free of repercussions as hers.

  When the longed-for day finally came, I raced along the endless, white-tiled corridors of Montparnasse métro station, glancing anxiously at my watch. If I hurried, I might just make the main station in time to catch an earlier train, a prize worth breaking into a sweat for. But even as I wove through the crowds, I couldn’t help thinking about Mr Frog. He must be collecting Tadpole in the park right about now, making small talk with Tata, daunted at the prospect of his first weekend as a single parent, alone. It was impossible to forget that my happiness – this intoxicating feeling of freedom and weightlessness, elation at being able to shrug off my parental responsibilities for a day or two – came at a high price. Balancing my right to happiness against Tadpole’s and Mr Frog’s was like walking a tightrope.

  Pounding up the stairs which delivered me into the pulsing heart of the station, I paused for a moment to take my bearings. I hadn’t been here in years. More familiar to me was Gare de Lyon, where I used to catch the train to visit Mr Frog’s parents. Montparnasse, the gateway to the west, teemed with rucksack-wearing weekenders and commuters with laptops. Snubbing the crowded escalators, I took the stairs two at a time, then navigated around the queues of travellers waiting to retrieve tickets from the yellow SNCF dispensers. A clock suspended from the ceiling high above read 18.45. With some judicious elbowing I thought I should be able to battle my way to the platform just in time. Pausing only to stamp my ticket in a machine mounted on the wall as I passed, I adjusted my rucksack on my shoulders and lunged forward purposefully.

  As the TGV eased itself out of the station, I sat back and closed my eyes, face flushed, still short of breath. I pictured James pacing around his newly cleaned flat, picking out a freshly ironed shirt, uncorking a bottle of wine to let it breathe. He’d been spring-cleaning all day, or so his emails led me to believe, and seemed anxious to impress. If only I could hold that thought, focusing on James and me, our first weekend together; anything to stop me dwelling on those I was leaving behind. It was futile, though: I couldn’t chase away sorry images of Mr Frog. I imagined him wondering what to make Tadpole for dinner; forgetting to clean her teeth before bedtime; collapsing in a limp, defeated heap on the sofa. Rightly or wrongly, I suspected it would be some time before I could take my pleasure without a side order of guilt.

  Three hours later the train began to slow, approaching Rennes station. I peered through the square pane of glass in the door, but saw only my own pale reflection staring, wide-eyed, back at me. Closing my nostrils to the stench of the chemical toilet, I’d changed out of my work clothes and applied make-up, steadying myself against the metallic sink as the train swayed drunkenly from side to side. I wanted to look picture perfect when I stepped off that train and fell into his arms. But now I was so giddy, so light-headed, that I was half afraid I would fall down the steps as soon as the train doors opened, striking my head on the platform before James could spring forward to catch me.

  With a high-pitched shriek of the brakes, the train finally drew to a standstill and, seconds later, the hydraulic mechanism let out a hiss and the door swung aside. Stepping down on to the platform without mishap, I scanned the crowds anxiously for James’s face, my heart thudding violently in my chest. At first glance, Rennes was no different from countless other French railway stations I had seen: neither pretty nor ugly, simply concrete and functional. James was nowhere to be seen, and I began to drift towards the exit, letting the crowds propel me forwards while I fumbled in my pocket for my phone. Suddenly I spied a familiar corduroy jacket. Seconds later, arms closed around me, and a familiar smell of aftershave and warm skin filled my nostrils. My bag dropped to the floor, forgotten.

  ‘Let’s get you home,’ said James urgently when we came up for air. Home, I thought to myself, realizing that the tension of the past three weeks had fallen away the moment we touched, I like the sound of that.

  James’s apartment, although modestly furnished, was indeed spotless. A duplex under the roof of a fairly modern block of flats, its lower floor was open plan, the bedroom separated from the living room only by a thick curtain. The kitchen consisted of a row of white appliances ranged along one wall next to a sink, divided from the main room by a breakfast bar, upon which a vase of fresh flowers stood. A steep staircase – really more of a ladder – led from the other end of the living room to the upper level, which James used as his office. Two single mattresses lay on the floor of this room, under wooden rafters. This was where his girls slept when they stayed with him on alternate weekends. It was about the same size as my apartment in Paris, when all was said and done, only the layout was very different.

  As I reversed down the ladder, I wondered where Tadpole would sleep if I decided to bring her with me one day for a visit. As though he’d read my mind, James opened the door to a tiny room which I had assumed was a cupboard. ‘I’ve been using this for storage,’ he explained, ‘but, actually, the girls used to sleep in here when they were small. I was thinking of borrowing a travel cot of Eve’s. It even has a little window, see, it’s not too claustrophobic.’

  ‘You really have thought of everything, haven’t you?’ I slipped my arms around his waist, inquisitive fingers creeping inside the waistband of his jeans. ‘Although,’ I added, raising one eyebrow, ‘I’m not sure the tour of your bedroom was quite, well, thorough enough. I didn’t get a proper look at that bed of yours…’

  Hours later, we lay tangled in the sheets, our clothes abandoned on the floor, eyes locked, skin touching. James had lit dozens of tea lights and set them on every available surface. They flickered in the draught from the open window, and a cool breeze lapped at our exposed skin. As he moved, I felt as though our edges were blurring; and I clung to him, digging in my fingernails, pulling him deeper, closer, welding us together. I fought the urge to close my eyes, wanting to see his expression, to see my face reflected in his pupils. But when the pleasure broke over me, making me shudder violently, even though my eyes were open, my vision flickered, leaving blanks between every frame.

  ‘Hang on, I just need to find my sunglasses.’ I rummaged inside the cotton bag slung over my shoulder, blinking in the sun’s glare.

  It was Sunday morning – the first time we had ventured out of James’s flat all weekend – and I had that dazed, disorientated feeling you get when you leave a cinema after a matinee performance and emerge, surprised to see daylight outdoors. The world was still out there. People were going about their chores as though this were any normal day: buying bread, going to church in their Sunday best, taking their dogs for a walk. And yet I felt anything but normal. My legs were made of cotton wool; there was a high-pitched ringing in my ears. James and I had spent much of the past thirty-six hours in bed and, for the first time in my life, I could relate to the stories I’d read about celebrity lovers who holed up in hotels for days at a time.

  James held out his hand. ‘Come on, I want to show you something other than the four walls of my flat. We could both do with some fresh air.’

  ‘If you say so…’ I took his proffered hand and squeezed it, tightly, and we set our course for the main shopping streets.

  Rennes reminded me of Rouen, in many ways. A provincial town an hour or so from the coast, it was roughly the same size, and the architecture was very similar. The old town was a maze of narrow streets and paved squares; whole rows of medieval houses with timbered fronts. Letting James guide me, I soon lost my bearings. The shops we passed – Jacadi, Roche Bobois, a boutique selling educational toys made of wood – suggested the inhabitants were pretty well-heeled. We stopped in a crêperie on the rue Saint Georges for a sna
ck and I wolfed down a buckwheat complète filled with mushrooms, ham and cheese and topped with an egg, its yolk still liquid. It was the closest thing to an English breakfast I was likely to find and, after the weekend’s workout, I needed to keep my strength up. My appetite was slowly returning, and I noted I seemed to have got over my initial shyness about eating in front of James.

  ‘I’m really glad I’d never been to Rennes before,’ I remarked as we left the restaurant. ‘It’s healthier to start a new chapter on a clean page, isn’t it?’

  Unlike Paris, where everyone – including me – always seemed to be frowning at their watches, running late for something, in Rennes people strolled, and shops flipped the signs on their doors from ouvert to fermé at lunch-time. The very air I drew into my lungs felt cleaner. Paris had been tainted by everything that had soured there, by the negative emotions which hung over my apartment like menacing clouds, moments before a torrential downpour. For me, this weekend in Rennes was a parenthèse enchantée, a sidestep into an unsullied, idyllic parallel universe.

  ‘So, you like it then?’ asked James, cautiously. Between the lines I could hear his unspoken question. Did I think I might be able to picture myself living in Rennes, with him, one day?

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I replied wholeheartedly. ‘I feel so relaxed. It’s so peaceful. I wish I could stay…’ My lower lip wobbled as I suddenly found myself on the brink of tears. The thought of clambering into the TGV which would propel me back to Paris – to work, to Mr Frog – made my stomach lurch. Must I really close the brackets and go back to all that? Only the thought of seeing Tadpole made returning home bearable. ‘Can we go back to your place for a while?’ I begged. ‘I just want to be held, I want you to distract me until it’s time to leave for the station.’

  ‘You, my dear, are insatiable,’ replied James, raising an eyebrow. I silently thanked him for making light of my apprehension. He had been perfect all weekend, in every way.

  A summer cold crept up on me by stealth as the TGV sped back in the direction of Paris. I sneezed and shivered, nursing a lukewarm paper cup of Lipton yellow with UHT milk, the SNCF’s weak apology for tea. The weekend already seemed like a dream, receding further with every passing kilometre. By the time the train pulled into Montparnasse station, my head throbbed. I’d been seated in the last carriage, and it seemed to take an eternity to walk the full length of the train and leave the platform. Unable to face the prospect of public transport, I took the corridor leading to the underground taxi rank, but when I saw the length of the queue I beat a hasty retreat to the métro.

  Before I turned my key in the lock half an hour later, I hesitated in the doorway for a moment. Tonight, in a bizarre reversal of our usual roles, it was Mr Frog who had given our daughter dinner, bathed her, and read bedtime stories. Tadpole was sleeping, and I was the one arriving home too late for a goodnight kiss. My nose was beginning to drip in earnest and, once inside, I went to grab a tissue from the box in the bathroom. Catching sight of myself in the mirror, I studied my reflection. You’d never guess I’d spent most of the weekend on cloud nine, I thought wryly, looking at my pale face, and my glassy, feverish eyes.

  Mr Frog lay on the sofa, pretty much as I’d pictured him. He was wearing his threadbare velour top, which he must have exhumed from the back of the cupboard, and looked wan and exhausted. ‘So, how did you two get on this weekend?’ I enquired, trying to inject a brightness into my voice which I did not feel. ‘I bet she loved having you to herself.’

  ‘It was good,’ he replied, stifling a yawn, not deigning to tear his eyes away from the TV screen, ‘but really hard too. All that time to fill. She can be so demanding…’ He didn’t ask me about my trip, and I volunteered no information. Taking my rucksack into the bedroom so I could unpack out of sight, I pressed the ‘power’ button on the front of my computer as I went past. Kicking off my shoes, I sat down on the bed and rested my throbbing head in my hands for a moment.

  ‘The good news is, I’ve found a flat across the road,’ Mr Frog added, still speaking to me from the sofa, the partition wall between us. ‘A really nice one. It’s a bit expensive, but never mind.’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘It won’t be free for another month or so, until the beginning of July.’ My face fell, and I was glad Mr Frog couldn’t see me. Another month of limbo? Another month of this uneasy truce? My silence must have spoken volumes, even if my face was hidden. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added. ‘I know you can’t wait to be rid of me. But that’s the best I could do.’

  In the early hours of the morning I awoke to the sound of coughing in the bathroom and an empty space in the bed where Mr Frog should have been. This time, I doubted that work was the culprit. He would be signing the new lease later in the day; the fact of his leaving would suddenly become real. Hearing those sorry noises brought tears of remorse to my eyes. It was easy to trot out glib phrases like ‘We can’t move on until we no longer live under the same roof,’ but I kept losing sight of how hard it was, this thing I was forcing him to do.

  I’d been focusing on practicalities so I didn’t have to think about the horror Mr Frog must feel at the idea of waking up alone in a place where his daughter would only be an occasional visitor. I busied myself making lists instead, or doing inventories in my head. Soon, I would have a bed, but no mattress. Cable TV, but no television set. I was pathetically relieved, with hindsight, that the computer was mine; likewise the stereo and the bookcase. There would soon be gaps, where pieces of furniture had once stood, and the flat would seem too big, at least at first. Which of the two sofas would I sit on, I wondered? Which side of the bed would I favour, when I finally began sleeping alone?

  The only item whose fate we’d failed to agree on was the exercise bike which had long stood unused in a corner of our bedroom. After Tadpole’s birth, I’d twisted Mr Frog’s arm for weeks, begging him to help me find a way to lose the baby fat which clung stubbornly to my hips and stomach, until eventually he caved in. The bike hadn’t seen much use, of course. The ironing pile had taken up residence on its saddle and, when I glanced at it, more often than not it was simply to read the temperature displayed on its console. As for Mr Frog, he’d never used it; not even once.

  Neither of us was especially attached to the bike, but it had become our battleground, the focus of our anger and resentment. A more perfect, textbook example of displacement would be hard to find. It was safer by far to cross swords over the future of an inanimate object than it was to examine the things which were really eating away at us.

  16. Families

  Just as I tiptoed around Mr Frog in the home we still shared, throughout the period of limbo, I skirted around the subject of my new relationship on petite anglaise. While I hinted at my budding romance, I revealed little in the way of detail, for Mr Frog’s sake, and the identity of the man I referred to only as ‘Lover’ still remained a secret.

  But there was something else at play too: rationing the story kept my readers panting for more. The urge to tease them, to draw out the suspense for as long as possible, was irresistible. When finally one day I revealed that I’d met ‘Lover’ in my comments box, the race was on to unmask my suitor. Several commenters – including Jim in Rennes – fell under suspicion over the next few weeks. As the debate raged on, resurfacing every time I dropped another tiny clue into a post, James remained conspicuously silent, occasionally piping up only to deflect suspicion away from himself. Commenters who had been wrongfully accused entered into the spirit of the game and, on more than one occasion, I caught myself smirking, or even laughing out loud as I peeped at my comments while my boss’s back was turned.

  ‘(Heart)breaking news: a visibly shaken, broken-hearted and tearfully bitter Parkin Pig today sadly issued a formal denial of any romance with the mysterious petite anglaise. He was quoted as saying “Chance’d be a fine thing.”’

  ‘Is it me?’ wondered Andre. ‘Was I good?’

  I had no qualms about toying with my readers
in this way, but I did worry that I wasn’t being as sensitive as I ought to Mr Frog’s feelings, when I allowed such comments through. I drew some comfort from the fact that he’d never followed the blog religiously in the past and had given me no reason to believe this was no longer the case. In truth, though, how Mr Frog felt about petite anglaise, or about me, was a mystery he guarded even more closely than I guarded James’s identity.

  Offline, I had another set of worries to deal with, too sensitive to air on my blog. ‘I’m really nervous about this weekend,’ I confessed to James on the telephone a few days before I was next due to visit, while I paced up and down the balcony, trying to tune out the sound of the traffic below. ‘Not about you meeting my daughter. She likes everyone she meets, and you’ll just be “Mummy’s friend” to her, she won’t understand. But with your daughters, it’s different.’

  James’s girls – Amanda and Carrie – were eight and ten years old respectively. Pre-teens: an unknown quantity as far as I was concerned. I wanted to like them. I wanted to be liked by them. If things were to work out between James and me, we needed to get along. Not that I saw myself as some sort of stepmother in waiting. I was a few years younger than the girls’ own mother, and doubted I’d be seen as an authority figure. The ideal situation, I felt, would be to be seen as a friend, a female ally. But what if they didn’t warm to me? What would that mean for James and me?

  ‘You worry too much, honey,’ James reassured me. ‘It’s all going to be fine. Amanda said she was really looking forward to meeting you. They can both see how much happier I’ve been these past few weeks, and they’re thrilled for me. Honestly.’

  ‘Well, if you say so,’ I sighed, ‘but I don’t think I’ll be able to stop feeling nervous until we’ve got this out of the way. You know me – or at least you’re beginning to – I always worry. That’s what I do best.’