by Anita Heiss
‘I’m pleased on both fronts,’ she said, turning. ‘Oh, are you coming for a drink at Matilda’s tonight?’
‘Where is it?’ I’d never heard of Matilda’s and I had fairly strict rules about not visiting Australian bars overseas.
‘It’s the embassy social club bar. It’s only open to embassy and IEA staff, and our friends.’
‘Sounds très deadly,’ I said.
‘I’ll come get you about sixish.’
At 6.15 pm we headed down to the makeshift bar where staff, their family and friends were already mingling. Diesel played in the background and there was an end-of-week buzz of relief in the air.
‘This is great!’ I whispered to Judith. ‘Is it every Friday?’
‘Every second Friday,’ she said, as we weaved through the crowd towards the bar, ‘and it’s staffed by volunteer social club members. There’s usually music, or a special theme, sometimes there’s karaoke or trivia nights.’
‘What’s tonight?’ I said, before realising everyone was wearing a hat.
‘Hat night.’ She passed me a fire warden’s helmet from the table of hats.
I laughed as I put it on my head. ‘You have no idea how apt this choice of headwear is for me. I collect firey calendars.’
‘So do I,’ she said, high-fiving me. ‘But don’t tell anyone here. I have them sent in brown-paper wrapping to a friend’s place in the 15th and pick them up from there. Can’t hang them at work, but it’s one of my small pleasures from home.’
‘Ah, but tidda, it’s all in the name of fundraising, isn’t it?’ Those like Judith and I always found ways to legitimise our calendar fetish.
‘Of course, or fun-raising, as my friend calls it.’
I liked Judith. She had done incredibly well to get where she was at the embassy, and was super-intelligent. I respected her ability to be professional but also to be able to enjoy herself, but I daresay that was a skill she honed in Paris.
‘Can you order me a calendar when you next order yours, please?’ I smiled but was completely serious.
‘Consider it done.’
As I looked around the room at all the staff I was still to meet – some in beanies, others in baseball caps, one in a top hat – I couldn’t believe this was where I now worked.
‘So, why do they do this so often?’
‘It’s just a good opportunity to meet staff in a casual atmosphere,’ Judith said. ‘You can be my wing-woman tonight, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, spotting Jake across the room.
He waved me over, and I was glad to see him. I wanted to thank him for one of the best working weeks of my life.
‘Just going to say hello to first sec,’ I said, heading in his direction. ‘I’ll catch up with you.’
‘Okay, I’ll be around.’ She winked at me as I walked off. I felt bad leaving her, but she knew everyone anyway, and wing-woman or not, I’m sure she didn’t want to have to entertain me all night.
Jake shook hands with a man wearing a similar navy suit to his and walked towards me. He was wearing an Australian cricket cap.
‘How’s the first week been?’ he asked, toasting my glass of Australian wine.
‘Challenging, interesting, inspiring!’ I answered in all honesty, but the first drink had immediately made me woozy and I hoped it didn’t affect my speech.
The Australian wine hit me much harder than the local stuff did. I rarely ever got drunk in Paris. Wine was for appreciation when dining here and not quaffing like we used to do on our girls’ nights out. And the champagne was the good stuff, so you never got a hangover, regardless of how much you drank. Either way, Paris was already being a good detox for me, although on this occasion I was well on my way to getting legless if I kept up my current pace.
Jake and I made small talk about my first week at work and I told him about how I’d moved on the strategy. It was good to debrief with him, and he seemed happy with the progress I’d made so far. We chatted for about twenty minutes, never straying from work-related topics.
Soon enough, dernières boissons were called, and the booze was being put away. People started moving quickly out of the building. I really wanted to sit somewhere quiet and eat something, and could easily have gone home.
‘Come to Au Dernier Métro,’ Judith said, ‘it’s where we always go after Matilda’s.’
Judith was like the embassy’s Canelle in terms of organising people and social events. Perhaps that’s why I got on with them both so well. In many ways they were like me when I was back home.
‘Where?’ My ears were ringing from the music and I was slightly disoriented.
‘Au Dernier Métro, it’s a bar on boulevard de Grenelle at Métro Dupleix. It opens late, it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg for a drink, and we usually go there because the diplomats and their families live in the apartments above the bar here, and noise can be a problem. That’s why last drinks were called just now.’
‘Fair enough.’ I was finding the noise a bit of a problem myself.
‘Just come for a drink,’ Judith said, slightly flushed. I loved her energy.
I was starting to feel really out of it. ‘I don’t think I can drink any more. I’ve got things I need to do tomorrow.’
‘Come for the best steak then. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.’
Judith had me by the arm and led me out of the building. Jake and eight others were in tow also. The thought of a steak inspired me along, as did the opportunity to hang with my new embassy friends.
We walked into Au Dernier Métro and it was bustling with a whole array of characters: locals, tourists, and Australian embassy staff. The space was vibrant, cultured, busy and I imagined it was the classic French bar. The music in the bar mirrored what was being played across Paris: René la Taupe, the singing animated groundhog made famous by a ringtone music video that everyone was downloading.
‘The best steaks this side of Wagga,’ Judith said, as she made her way to a table up the back of the bar near the kitchen. ‘That’s the only other place I’ve tasted steak this good.’
‘Really?’ I screamed over the noise.
‘I always have the pavé of venison with béarnaise sauce, always.’
The waiters and waitresses were in red sports shirts and spoke in French too fast for me to translate over the noise, but Judith was onto it.
‘There’s ten of us and only room for six at the table,’ she said and two fellas I didn’t know immediately squeezed their way back to the bar.
‘I’m not coping with the noise, I might head somewhere else for dinner and come back,’ Jake said.
I was hating the loud conversation and René still singing ‘Mignon, Mignon’. I was immediately tempted when Jake said, ‘Do you want to join me?’
But I was recalling the night we met, the fact that I knew he was married and he was still my boss. And I knew that Paris could turn anyone from being decent and faithful to dirty and flirty. Then someone pushed hard into my back as more partygoers arrived and I had to get out of there.
‘Yes, thanks.’
We slipped out and no-one even noticed let alone cared that we were gone.
Jake took me to Café Procope in the 6th arrondissement.
‘This is the oldest café in Paris,’ he said as we were seated.
‘Monsieur, I believe it may be the oldest café in the world,’ the waiter politely corrected Jake.
‘I have heard that too,’ Jake agreed, knowing the importance of not getting your waiter offside.
I had French onion soup for an entrée, which was nothing like what I’d ever had back home in Moree, where it usually came out of a foil pack that you added boiling water to. Rather, the real deal had a lid of cheese across the top which made it sufficient for a whole meal. I didn’t need the beef burgundy pie that followed, but was glad to have had it. I knew, like the bread I could never eat back in Australia, a standard pie would never touch my lips again either.
All the while I appreciated t
he food and the extraordinary surroundings, I felt Jake staring at me. I didn’t want to acknowledge to myself or to anyone else that there was chemistry, but it was there. And so was he. And so was I. I knew he was married but there was no ring to be seen. Maybe you really are a sleazebag, I thought to myself.
I broke the awkward silence. ‘So, how did you end up here all the way from Deniliquin?’
Jake counted the steps of his career trajectory on his fingers. ‘I did International Relations at UNSW, went straight to DFAT as a cadet, got my first posting to Vietnam, went back to Canberra briefly, was seconded to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in Sydney for two years and when this post came up I was headhunted for it. And that’s how I got here, in a nutshell.’
With a level of restrained pride on his face, I could see that he was trying to impress me.
‘Wow, how do you leave your family for so long?’ I noticed the absence of any mention of wife and kids.
With a hint of I-don’t-miss-people-machismo, he said, ‘My family are scattered around Australia doing all kinds of things and so we hardly see each other anyway. I don’t have kids so it wasn’t that hard to make the choice.’
‘No partner?’ I was prying I knew, but there had to be more to his story than he was letting on. ‘Sorry, that’s personal.’
‘No, it’s fine. Most of the staff here have families so it’s a fair question.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘I had a partner for a long time. I married my high school sweetheart in Deni when I was twenty, she was eighteen, but she never wanted to leave the Riverina, so married life was hard. I had to leave to study and then to work. The constant commute was hard but worth it.’
I could almost feel my eyes pop out of my head. ‘Wow.’
‘What? You think I’m selfish?’
‘No, not at all. I was actually wondering what might keep someone in Deni as opposed to going to Paris.’
Jake got immediately defensive. ‘Deni’s great, it’s my home. Some days I’d kill for Saturday morning brekky at The Crossing Café, or just to listen to Paul Dix on 2QN, the local radio station. God, I miss community radio and country music too. Mostly I miss the red river gums I used to lie under to read the paper on weekends. I had peace in Deni, it’s something you can never really have in Paris because there’s so much going on all the time.’
It was like Jake was in a world of his own thinking back to his life in New South Wales.
‘And there was no work there for you?’
‘There hasn’t been, but if the CEO job comes up at the Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre then I’ll throw my hat in the ring. It would be the perfect opportunity to work with the local mob again, but until then I’m here.’
‘Here’s not that bad, eh?’ I turned my palms to the ceiling as if to say, look at the gift the universe has placed in our hands.
‘The truth, Libby, is that I’m here doing all this to pay tribute to my folks. They had nothing.’ Jake was still justifying himself to me. ‘They worked hard to put me through Catholic school. I was smart, I wanted to go to uni. I wanted to make some social change, make a mark in the world, make something of my life. The life that they had given me through their own sacrifice.’
‘And your wife?’
‘I wanted her by my side, but she didn’t want the big city. She came to Vietnam but only lasted a couple of months. And there were no opportunities for me in Australia,’ he said sadly. ‘She wanted to be a yoga instructor in Deni and I supported her desire for that – emotionally and financially – and we tried to make it work. But it didn’t.’
‘Wanting your own business is admirable,’ I said. I wasn’t impressed with the easy way in which he seemed to have written his wife off.
‘Of course, it’s admirable. But it wasn’t feasible. I bankrolled it for years, sent her to Byron, Melbourne and even India to train and network. I bought every video and book possible and endorsed her going to as many mind, body and spirit festivals so she could find her chakras,’ he said with a tone of sarcasm. ‘And you know what she did with all that training, and reading and festival-ing?’
I was almost too frightened to ask. ‘She set up her own yoga studio?’ I said with trepidation.
‘I wish. She did a few pathetic stretches with her friends each morning in our living room and then they spent the day drinking coffee and eating sticky-date pudding. It pissed me off.’ He sighed deeply.
I was sure it wasn’t as straightforward as he claimed but who was I to protest, I hated yoga.
‘Look, I didn’t care if she ate cake all day, it’s just,’ he paused, ‘there was always something missing.’
I couldn’t wait to hear what was missing, I felt like I was sitting through the rural Australian version of The Bold and the Beautiful.
‘What?’
‘She liked yoga but she wasn’t passionate about it, or business. She didn’t do anything to grow it. She didn’t learn about how to market it or do any business courses. She didn’t get what being in a business meant.
‘I realise now that her view of the whole thing was symbolic of how she viewed our relationship. How she viewed me. She didn’t get me either. Or what I stood for in the cause. She wasn’t passionate about anything. Just happy to go along, exist, rather than love properly and live properly.’
I couldn’t believe how harsh Jake was about his ex’s lack of business skills. And he must be really superficial to leave a woman who preferred sticky-date pudding to doing bookwork – even I, with no sweet-tooth, could relate to that. Our conversation was heavy for a work-related dinner, but I chose not to say anything about it.
‘And so you left your wife and came to Paris?’ I was still hardly impressed with his behaviour.
Jake looked shocked at my question. ‘No, I didn’t leave, she left. She had an affair with a frigger who came to Deni for the ute muster.’
‘A what at the what?’
‘A bloke at the ute muster. You haven’t heard of the muster?’
I shook my head.
‘Deni’s the “ute capital of the world”,’ he made air quotes, ‘and every year about twenty-five thousand-plus friggers come from around the world for a parade and festival. I never went, Suzanne always did. Now I know why.’
I had visions of his ex trying to show ute drivers how to do the downward-facing dog pose at the muster. I felt sorry for Jake, I felt the raw pain of being cheated on myself and the humiliation of it and the remaining question of ‘why?’.
Jake went on as if he needed the chance to explain himself. ‘I tried to get her back, but we both knew there was no point. She basically said she never loved me the way she loved him.
‘A week later, the post to Paris was offered and there was no reason for me not to take it. The universe had spoken and provided both a practical and emotional escape for me. So here I am.’
‘Here you are, but you talking about her now doesn’t sound like you’re completely over her.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m over her. I’ve just never talked to anyone about it. Men don’t. Well, not the men I know anyway, and I only have one real mate here in Paris. At my level, junior staff don’t make friends with you and I’m also on the road a lot so the social life is contained to nights like tonight.
‘And trust me, even this dinner is a rare thing. Since I’ve arrived I’ve been completely immersed in my work and my days include extraordinarily long hours. It was the easiest way to move on.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry, I’m raving.’
I felt the need to comfort him. ‘No, don’t apologise. I have five brothers, and I’m sure they would never sit down and talk like that, even though they probably should.’ I imagined my poor mother having to sit through and deal with all the emotional fallout that my brothers brought with them for Sunday dinner.
‘It’s a bloke thing.’
I don’t know why I asked but I did. ‘Do you still love her?’
Jake looked up from his wineglass momentarily, then spoke. ‘I thought I would never s
top loving her. I thought I could never love anyone else. I felt like I was in the same place emotionally for a long time, and then I just turned a corner and found the capacity to move on, to even love again one day. It’s only natural. Does that make sense?’
‘Not really.’
He looked disappointed.
‘I don’t think it’s only natural to love again if you’ve been shattered. Or if it is, it’s only natural for some, but not me.’
He looked at me oddly. ‘How can that be?’
‘What?’
‘That love’s not possible for you?’ He sounded confused.
‘Track record, I guess, and the universe making me jump hurdles all the time. I’m over it.’
‘You’re single then?’ Jake said, more as a confirmation than a question.
‘Yes, I wouldn’t be in Paris if I was married up – whitefella or Blackfella way.’
Jake winced slightly then said, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t been snapped up.’
‘Apparently it’s the sixty-million-dollar question.’ I could hear the sarcasm in my voice, and the girls back home nagging me about love, romance and the One.
‘Can I be honest with you?’ Jake leant forwards over the table.
I smiled. ‘Haven’t you been honest all along?’
‘Yes,’ he laughed. ‘Of course. It’s just that …’ He paused, took a sip of his wine and went on. ‘I’ve had too much to drink now and really shouldn’t be saying this,’ he took another sip of wine, ‘but when I saw you at Nomad’s, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, I even told you as much on the night.’
I thought back to the comment that seemed sleazy at the time. Jake continued, looking directly into my eyes.
‘You had a presence that made me nervous. And clearly stupid as I sent that text to you the next morning.’
I was embarrassed, not only because Jake was flattering me and I didn’t know how to cope with it, but because I could also feel my attraction to him. It wasn’t just physical – he seemed like an honest man who was a go-getter professionally. He’d left Deni – like I’d left Moree – to do the things our parents had wanted for us.