Trick or Treat?

by Ray Connolly

  The rest of the day Kathy spent unpacking. There was a spare bedroom in the apartment; a simple, bare, brilliantly white place overlooking the courtyard and quite out of character with the rest of the rooms, and Kathy set about making it her home. Compared with Ille’s clothes, always elaborate, full and flowing, Kathy’s wardrobe looked sparse, functional and unfeminine, and she resolved to spend less time in jeans in future and more in fashion houses. She wanted to be feminine. She wanted Ille to admire her for her prettiness, just as she admired Ille for her beauty and gracefulness. With men she had often felt the need to dominate a relationship, to be the navigator during the passage of an affair. But with Ille she wanted neither domination nor passivity. It was enough that they were together, although Ille’s outward sophistication and quiet strengths were certain to pace the running of things. As personalities they seemed miles apart, Ille’s gentle and grave sophistication masking an instinctively playful, often wilful and vicious streak; while Kathy, usually outwardly self-confident, now felt herself gauche by comparison. Side by side their different cultures found a peculiar concordance. Something in the brashness and velocity of character of the American girl was out of harmony with the extravagant dissolution that Ille’s secret and private smiles seemed to suggest. To Kathy time and life were a race for enjoyment: Ille’s path was slower, more mysterious, more dreamlike. And when they talked Kathy felt the enormity of the cultural gap dividing them. What she knew had been picked up in a hurry: Ille seemed to have bred into her five hundred years of privilege, scholarship and not a little intemperance.

  To Ille Kathy’s naïveté was fascinating. It was as though she were being given the opportunity to peel the scales from Kathy’s eyes that she might discover the richness of everything around her. Ille had surrounded herself with the ancient and the beautiful. Now Kathy had come, still wet behind the ears in her mind, and she wanted to educate her. At times she would think of the danger of creating Kathy into a mirror image of herself, someone who might talk and think as she did without experiencing the same feelings and restraints. But she realized at once that their differences would keep their personalities for ever separate. Each in her own way would remain the other’s equal: the lifestyle of the one would complement, though never altogether marry with, that of the other. If Ille sometimes appeared to be the teacher, or behaved as the leader, it was only with Kathy’s ever willing acquiescence. Without the student the teacher has no reason for being. Without Kathy’s lust for learning of this new life, Ille’s role as guide would lose its purpose.

  That evening the weather changed and the sticky early summer urban sun gave way to a damp and cold drizzling rain, which before nightfall had washed away the soft pastel shades of Paris and hidden them under a veil of greyness, broken only by the reflections of the city lights on the shining streets. At Ille’s suggestion they went to La Coupole on Boulevard du Montparnasse for dinner, scurrying from the taxi past the empty pavement tables, Ille leading Kathy by the hand. Kathy had expected somewhere small and dark and discreet, but La Coupole was more like a rather grand canteen, busy, bright and noisy. Quite unromantic.

  Arbus was already at the table waiting for them, his arm spread out across the saloon-type-backed double seat in which he was sitting. And Kathy suddenly saw him as something obscene. True, he was handsome, smart, elegant, sophisticated … indeed he had all the attributes that the well-turned-out custom-made adulterer would be expected to possess: but the instant-smile that shone from him the moment he saw the two girls approaching, made him appear, Kathy thought, like a self-satisfied lobster, pink with personal gratification, waiting to get its pincer arm around its prey. She eyed the arm, stretching casually along the seat back, carefully, and was glad when Ille chose to sit closest to him. She was a buffer between the predator and his now reluctant prey.

  Arbus was already thoroughly intrigued by the two girls. Kathy had made no mention of Ille during their flight from Los Angeles, but now they behaved as though they were old, deep and dearest friends. In the little while he had known her he could ascertain a change in the American girl. On the flight she had been not altogether unflirtatious, well aware of her attractions and his interests and intentions, and while not overly obvious, she had not exactly thrown his overtures back in his face. During a long flight it was possible, he knew, to gauge the possibilities of a new affair, and he was sure that by the time they lost each other at Orly the lights were definitely turning towards green. Yet now she seemed nervous in his company, reluctant to accept an involvement. The change in character was bewildering.

  More bewildering still was the mysterious Ille. Extraordinary had been the word with which he had first described her, and indeed the more he saw of her the more emphasized became that opinion. Tonight her confidence and sophistication glowed, making him feel almost at a disadvantage – a stage of being with which he was not particularly familiar.

  Kathy watched Ille with some curiosity as they chatted introductory pleasantries, ordered dinner and condemned the change in the weather. Suddenly Ille seemed animated: almost flirtatious, she thought.

  ‘Tell me, Monsieur Arbus …’ said Ille, carefully opening the shell of an oyster and peering inside, ‘Kathy tells me that you are a publisher of religious books. Are you then a Catholic?’

  ‘Well … yes … but it is a long time since my last confession.’ Arbus was smiling now. ‘And please, Ille, you must learn to call me Claude.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right … Claude. You must surely be a religious man then, Claude?’

  Arbus shrugged in a manner which signified neither agreement nor disagreement.

  ‘Me, too,’ said Ille, mockingly affirming the agnostic shrug.

  ‘I was brought up by Jesuits,’ volunteered Arbus.

  ‘That can be such a privilege, don’t you think?’

  Kathy didn’t have the vaguest idea what Ille was driving at.

  Nor did Arbus: ‘Privilege?’

  ‘But yes. In a day when we are governed and run our lives according to every kind of anti-Christ, it is a privilege, is it not, to have been the chosen few who might know and love God as only Catholics can? If we didn’t know Christ as good Catholics do, then how could we enjoy, love and adore the ways of anti-Christ? Unless you are from the Church, you cannot laugh at the Church with any personal authority. And indeed you must laugh at the Church every time someone buys a bible, do you not?’

  Ille was being deliberately offensive, but the lashings of charm with which she was applying her insults were leaving Arbus quite nonplussed. Kathy merely felt confused and excluded from the conversation. She couldn’t begin to guess at what Ille may be driving, but as the baiting and half-way flirting progressed she began to wonder if Ille were not being deliberately provocative to woo Arbus away from her. For a moment she began to imagine him as a threat, and her distaste for him increased. But if threat there ever was, it was to be shortlived, as Ille played upon Arbus’s placid self-confident temperament just long enough to tempt the worm into his mouth.

  ‘I am a religious man in that I know right from wrong: good from bad. We don’t live in a world of the anti-Christ. All around us I see only things which are good and beautiful,’ said Arbus, half flatteringly, but with more than a hint of the Good Pharisee.

  That was enough for Ille: ‘Is that then why you are trying to make a cuckold of your wife while she is away in Corsica for the summer?’

  ‘Cocu!’ Arbus repeated the word in French with some shock and not a little amusement. Even in French Kathy could understand what he had said.

  ‘Or perhaps she also makes a cuckold of you? Perhaps even with a Corsican bandit?’ Ille’s eyes were wide with fun and excitement. Instinctively the conservative side of Arbus began to take control of his backbone, and he sat up straight and stiff to finish his artichoke, delicately cutting into the heart and eating it slowly while he thought of an answer.

  ‘I did not realize Kathy had talked so much about me to you. You have the advantage over
me, since I know nothing at all about you.’

  ‘So which do you prefer? A woman of mystery like me. Or a good clean-limbed, shaved-under-the-arm deodorant girl from America like Kathy.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Ille.’ Kathy was crippled with embarrassment.

  Arbus smiled at them both. ‘I think I am misunderstood,’ he said. ‘I merely wanted to take two beautiful ladies for dinner. No more and no less. Although thoughts of impropriety may have entered my head, they were never more than wishful, fanciful thinkings. Believe me, both of you, I had no amorous intentions towards either of you.’

  ‘If I were you, Kathy, I’d consider that an insult,’ said Ille, to Arbus’s further embarrassment, but then suddenly sensing that she had driven this conversation far enough she suddenly put down her fork, and linking arms with both Arbus and Kathy said: ‘Enough’s enough. Let’s be friends. I’m sorry. I was only teasing.’

  And so for a while they all laughed and the conversation got on to less sensitive topics, and at the end of the evening Arbus behaved like the true gentleman he liked to think he was, running them home in his car and refusing to come in for a drink. Then kissing each of them firmly on both cheeks he bade them good-night, thanked them for their company and said he hoped that he, and his wife Hélène, due back in Paris shortly, might have the pleasure of their company at one of their house parties in the near future before the holiday season properly set in. And while they buzzed open the electrically controlled doorway to the apartment house he raced away down the street, while Kathy and Ille giggled together at his touching pomposity and kindly arrogance.

  ‘I really think he wanted you, you know,’ said Ille as they climbed the stairs. ‘He’s probably gone off to find a whore for the night.’

  ‘I thought he wanted you,’ said Kathy, wondering what reaction she might get from her friend.

  ‘If he’d played his cards right he might have had two for the price of none, mightn’t he?’ said Ille. And as Kathy pulled a look of distaste Ille winked and, taking hold of her hand, helped her up the stairs.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Goodbye, my love. I’ll see you for lunch. Restaurant de Rue des Saint-Pères on St Germain. One o’clock.’

  Through foggy eyes Kathy made out an outline as Ille leant forward to kiss her firmly on the mouth, and then while she struggled to quickly recover her consciousness she watched from their disarrayed sheets as Ille, always fresh and composed, flowed out of sight through the door. For some time Kathy lay there, hugging Ille’s pillow, breathing in her perfume, missing her presence. Although she now had her own room in the apartment there had been no question of her sleeping alone when they had arrived home last night. This time Ille had not even invited Kathy in, but had gone quickly to her room and merely waited for Kathy to join her, confident that she would. And then, if anything, their love-play had been more passionate, more violent than before, each feeling compelled to explore the other’s body and its cavities with lips and tongue and teeth; each working hard to satisfy her partner; hiding in the smoothness and softness of the other’s thighs; licking foreign, strangely scented skin, tasting the sweet saltiness of the other’s body, tongues darting into each other; mouths gorging that open wound of femininity.

  She heard the front door to the apartment slam and immediately felt a sense of loss. And of loneliness. Turning on to her stomach she slipped her hand down her body and allowed it to caress herself, reconjuring the joys of the night before, recalling her happiness with Ille, all the time hiding her head in the pillow that she might not be forced to face the new day. And as her excitement reached its little peak and ebbed away, so drowsiness filled her and she fell back into the somnolent well of semi-consciousness.

  Suddenly a noise in the living room startled her. She sat up. At first she dismissed it as the sound of the birds disturbing in the aviary. But a sudden rasping noise as a key turned in a lock filled her with alarm. Frightened to move she sat listening. The bureau was being opened she was sure. But it was impossible that there should be burglars in this apartment, she consoled herself. Probably Ille had returned and didn’t wish to awaken her. Climbing out of bed she slipped one of Ille’s deep blue mandarin gowns around her and padded across the thick, deep carpet to the door. A moment’s hesitation bade her pause and peep before barging into the living room. Considering herself almost childish in her nervousness she stopped by the door, and noiselessly pulled it back. Ille was not there. Huddled over the large nineteenth-century fold-back bureau was the Chinese concierge. For a moment Kathy didn’t know whether to be afraid or to be angry. All she felt was confusion. There was something deeply sinister about this woman, and her presence in the apartment was disturbing. Kathy knew that Ille regarded her more as a friend than a concierge, but she didn’t know that she was free to enter the apartment at will and go searching through the desk.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Kathy stepped forward. Visibly the concierge jumped with surprise. She must have been as shocked as Kathy.

  ‘Pardon, mademoiselle,’ she stumbled, quickly pulling the desk top down. ‘Je croyais que vous étiez sortie avec Mlle Ille.’ The shock with which the concierge had obviously received her presence made Kathy feel more secure.

  ‘What were you doing in the bureau?’ asked Kathy in English, pointing at the desk so that the woman might at least understand the gist of what she was saying.

  The concierge looked puzzled. Then she smiled, once more revealing the broken and decaying teeth that Kathy had noticed and been repelled by on their first encounter: ‘Dites à Mademoiselle Ille que j’ai apporté son cadeau,’ she said, and pulling open the bureau again she pointed to a small silver box. ‘Je l’ai apporté pour Mademoiselle Ille,’ she repeated slowly. This time Kathy understood, or thought she did, and nodded. Then, bowing a little, the concierge smiled again and, turning, hurried from the apartment, closing the door with a key of her own as she left, and casting an enigmatic glance towards Kathy as the door closed between them.

  Once alone Kathy looked at the silver box with some curiosity. What it was, or what it contained she couldn’t imagine. She lifted it up carefully and examined it, half believing that she smelt a strange new aroma arising from it. But it didn’t concern her. And putting it down again she resisted the enormous temptation to open it, and re-closing the bureau went into the bathroom to prepare herself for the day. The concierge had given her a shock, and she could feel herself shaking slightly from the startling affair. But resolving to put it behind her she climbed under the shower, having bolted the bathroom door safely first, and proceeded to rinse away all nagging doubts about the activities of Madame Diem.

  She stood for a long time under the burning water. She’d always considered her desire for cleanliness to be excessive and not altogether unconnected with a belief that water provided great therapeutic benefits. A long bath or shower was her way out when she either didn’t know how to cope with things, was bored and wanted to pass time, or was in a state of deep depression. This morning there were decisions to be made: what should she do this first free day in Paris?

  From between the shower curtains she studied the pink and yellow butterflies which fluttered so delicately across the silken folds of the mandarin gown she had borrowed from Ille’s room. Everything Ille wore was rich with the ornate and the exotic. She now hated the plainness of her own clothes. Turning the water from hot to sudden cold she gasped as the invigorating iciness scarred her body, and then jumping out of the tub she turned off the water and shook herself, pulling back her hair from her face and tying it in a knot above her head. Standing on a soft rug she studied her body in a full-length mirror attached to the door. On the back of each thigh were two small bruises, marks she had never before noticed. She examined them curiously, twisting her head and body so that she might see them better. They were perfectly symmetrical; deep finger marks where Ille must have gripped her during their love play of the night before, deep enough to have bruised yet not painful enough for her to have felt anyt
hing at the time. She looked at them fondly. They were like a badge to her, she thought: two small blue emblems which told her she had last night given herself to Ille: two trophies of their tournament. And fastening a bath towel around her sarong-fashion, she picked up the mandarin gown and returned to the bedroom, wondering idly whether Ille too wore such scars of their jousting.

  Ille’s bedroom was yet another extension of her idiosyncratic lifestyle. At the door from the living room all traces of things antique finished, and the room was neat and bright, functional and prettily feminine. Only now that she was alone there did Kathy have the full opportunity to realize this. It was, she thought, almost a fashion magazine’s image of what a rich young woman’s modern bedroom might look like: wicker-work basket chairs, thick white fitted carpet, marble-topped vanity unit stacked with perfumes and colognes in a hundred different bottles, white hessian walls, here an original by Francis Bacon, there a print by Eduard Munch, and everywhere deep white fitted cupboards and drawers crammed with Ille’s gowns and skirts. Sitting on the edge of the bed and drying herself Kathy regarded the racks of clothes enviously. She wanted so much to look like Ille: to be a possessor, too, of that elegant sophistication: to feel at one physically with her lover. She pulled back the sliding door to a wardrobe and looked at the array of colours. Impulsively she pulled out the floral dress that Ille had worn on their day together in the Bois de Boulogne and slipped into it. Searching round she then found the hat with the Michaelmas daisies round the straw rim that she had worn. And going to the mirror she admired herself. A fair-skinned, blue-eyed Ille. Taking the clothes off again she studied the labels: Sonia Rykiel, Rue de Grenelle. She looked at the inside rim of the straw hat: France Faver; again the address was just around the corner.