Trick or Treat?

by Ray Connolly

  ‘And we carry on until one of us hits the gong,’ laughed Kathy.

  ‘If we both turn out to be as sterile as Hélène Arbus we could find ourselves having to fuck half of Paris.’

  Kathy grimaced at the prospect, and then brightened cynically: ‘You never know. We might even get to enjoy it after a time.’

  ‘Greater love hath no woman,’ said Ille.

  A telephone call to Arbus’s office was all that was necessary. Like all raunchy men Arbus had been careful to give Kathy the number to his private line, should she ever wish to hold a ‘private conversation’ with him, and the call was made without even his secretary being aware. Ille watched Kathy while she made the call. As planned Kathy was purposely coy when he came on the line: ‘Claude? … Oh hello, it’s Kathy Crawford … how are you? … oh great … yes, she’s fine, too.’ She paused for a moment, winking at Ille as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other: ‘Look, Claude, you remember you once said that I should call you if I was ever, you know, lonely….’ She stopped again, listening hard into the telephone, trying to catch the tempo of his breathing, trying to imagine the expression on his face. Impassively Ille watched her from across the room, enjoying witnessing the conception of their great deception. ‘Yes, well I was feeling a bit … you know. And I was wondering if we could get together sometime…. I mean sometime soon.’ The next pause was laden with enigma: then came the real sucker punch: ‘You know what I mean?’

  Sitting in his mahogany office Arbus absently fondled an ivory statuette of the Virgin Mary which he used as a paper weight. He’d done it, he knew. She was ready for him. It had taken time, but here she was, asking for him. God always rewarded those who took the patience to wait: ‘Perhaps dinner would be possible tonight,’ he suggested cautiously, wondering instantly what excuse he might prepare to offer Hélène should she ask, which, indeed, she rarely did. He was glad that she was a sophisticated wife.

  ‘You couldn’t make lunch?’ Kathy was exerting the pressure. Having decided on their course of action neither Ille nor Kathy could wait to begin the game. The plan called for a large, merry, wine-washed lunch, then back to the apartment.

  In his office Arbus dipped quickly into his appointments book: lunch was already pencilled in for an importer from Zaire, someone who claimed to have the franchise to supply virtually all French-speaking West Africa with religious instructional books. For a second Arbus considered what opportunity might be missed were he not to see him: but then were he not to see Kathy another opportunity, much more attractive in every sense, might also be missed. Mr Lumshasa could wait until another day, he was quite sure: ‘Yes, of course. Lunch would be perfect. You will be alone?’

  Kathy smiled to herself: Arbus must be afraid of another lesson in man-eating from Ille, she thought: ‘Yes. Quite alone.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Arbus, and after quickly exchanging information about the location of their rendezvous, they hung up.

  Arbus’s lunch with Kathy was one of those sexual tournaments so beloved by those who know that bed will inevitably be served shortly after the mints and cognac. On this day Arbus had recovered all the self-composure so obvious on his first meeting with Kathy, while she, caught up in the role that she and Ille had decided she must play, began drawing on experiences and memories half forgotten, yet still instinctive to her. The strategy was for her to play Arbus along, let him make all the running, allow him to make his suggestions, and allow him to seduce her: only the venue for the seduction had already been decided. It had to be the little white room in Ille’s apartment. If Ille were to be able to join in there could be no allowing Arbus to take Kathy off somewhere else. Kathy’s reassuring reasoning to him would be that Ille was out for the afternoon having taken a long lunch with a friend.

  That was partly true. After Kathy’s call to Arbus Ille had arranged to take a long lunch: but not with a particularly close friend. Hélène Arbus was still no more than an acquaintance. When approached by Ille she had expected a three-party lunch, but was not dismayed when told that Kathy wouldn’t be able to be present. She found Ille by far the more compelling of the two girls, and wondered to herself whether she might not learn more of the truth about them with only one partner present. So it had been arranged. While Kathy met Arbus at La Petite Chaise, an intimate place not a stone’s throw from the apartment, Ille was busy entertaining his wife in Le Coup Chou, an expensive and extravagant piece of Parisian history near St Michel. The irony of the situation appealed to both girls. And given enough to drink they would both be in the right spirits for the afternoon’s work.

  ‘When you’re with Ille you are quite a stranger to me, you know.’ Arbus’s after-lunch conversation was pitched at no more than a whisper. Kathy played with a loose strand of her hair, drawing it casually across her cheek in a regular studied rhythm, allowing only a hint in her eyes to flirt with him. ‘Sometimes,’ he went on, his eyes purposely fixed on hers, ‘sometimes I have felt that you are quite a different person from the girl from Los Angeles I met on the aeroplane.’ He paused: ‘But now today I can recognize you again.’

  ‘Ille has been like a teacher for me,’ said Kathy. ‘It’s as though she’s taught me everything I know. Certainly she’s taught me everything I know about Paris and about the French.’

  ‘Everything?’ In his way Arbus was deliberately fishing for compliments, in waters where there was truly none to be found, and none to be deserved. But a metaphorical pat on the back, a little thank you, however insincere or unjustly rewarded, would make the suggestion he was presently to make that much easier to say.

  Kathy was deliberate: ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘everything.’ But then realizing Arbus’s hardly veiled intention, she threw him a lifeline. ‘Perhaps if I’d known you better during the summer … perhaps you might have been able to teach me some things.’

  Arbus smiled: ‘Perhaps if you learn to know me better now it will not be too late.’

  Kathy paused long enough to give him a theatrically extended half smile: ‘Perhaps that’s why I called you….’

  Arbus smiled again: he was well contented: ‘You like older men?’ he asked.

  ‘Sometimes.’ Kathy was being deftly coquettish. ‘It depends on the man.’ Again the twinkle from Kathy. Again the green light for Arbus.

  ‘My wife … Hélène … she was very impressed with you both. You met her for tea, didn’t you? Yes. She was really captivated. She didn’t tell me very much. But I could tell how much she had enjoyed talking to you. I think it’s good that she has friends younger than herself. It keeps her young.’

  The dirty old hypocrite, thought Kathy. The only reason he wants Hélène to have young friends is that he might hopefully get his hands on them on some furtive occasion. ‘Ille did all the talking,’ she said meekly. ‘I just admired your home.’

  ‘Tell me about Ille.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘She seems a very enigmatic person….’

  ‘Yes….’ Kathy suddenly found herself thinking of her friend, and of how they had conspired to split a man and his wife. For a second she rather imagined that perhaps she ought to be showing some contrition, some remorse for the incalculable harm they might possibly be doing to a marriage. But she felt nothing other than the thrill of excitement that was running their conspiracy. It was as though each of them was daring the other to go closer and closer to the edge of a cliff with eyes blindfolded. The excitement and fun lay in the bare-faced audacity of what they planned to do. For Ille the situation was more clear cut than for Kathy. Ille really wanted a baby. But Kathy, just as much as Ille, was now becoming fascinated by the machinations of sexual game playing. There had been no reason for Ille to see Hélène today: but the fact that she was doing so added a new and forbidden drama to each of their roles. While Kathy beguiled Arbus and prepared him for their afternoon together, Ille would be beguiling Hélène with her wit, double entendres and grave charm. And again Kathy became aware of the great arrogance and assur
edness born out of, and fortified by, their friendship, and a pride which bade them use others as pawns in their blinkered and self-centred mode of life. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘Ille is very enigmatic. But she’s never boring.’

  And Arbus, wondering if Kathy were intentionally trying to slight him, momentarily drew his hand back from where it had been resting on hers, until in a suddenly sensuous movement Kathy wriggled her fingers under his wrist and into his palm sending exciting carnal messages racing to his brain and then down between his thighs.

  ‘Shall we go now?’ he said, his body becoming alive with anticipation.

  ‘Come to the apartment,’ Kathy said. ‘It will be quiet there.’

  And without waiting for further encouragement Arbus rose and led Kathy as quickly as possible out of the restaurant and down the road to where she lived.

  Ille, meanwhile, was happily taking on the role of marriage counsellor to Hélène Arbus. For Hélène, Ille represented everything that was safe. She had many friends, rich and fashionable people of Paris, but so few people whom she could actually talk to, and with whom she might discuss her marriage. Ille, she was certain, was the one person with whom her secrets would be safe, and who represented no threat to her relationship with Claude. Ille didn’t like men – she had virtually told her so herself – and with Kathy they made a perfectly contented twosome. Of course Hélène realized that whatever she might tell Ille would no doubt be relayed straight back to Kathy, but since she knew that they shared no other friends and that they moved in completely different social circles her secrets would be safe between the three of them.

  ‘Sometimes recently I have felt that I am approaching a watershed in my life,’ she confided, her eyes darting continually around the darkened restaurant face-spotting. ‘For fifteen years marriage has been for me the only possible way of life, the only way that I could imagine would suit me, but recently, and I think particularly since meeting you and Kathy, I’ve begun to wonder if there might not be another way.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Ille wanted Hélène to commit herself further.

  ‘Well, let me tell you some of my secrets. I know I can confide in you. Perhaps if I had children things might be slightly different, but I don’t and so it is no use my crying about it. My trouble, and probably the trouble with three quarters of the married women I know, is that basically I’m bored. Not so much bored with Claude, you understand, as with the purposelessness of my life. All the time I find myself looking for new interests and new excitements. Now I even find myself looking at younger men, young boys, you know, and wondering if I dare.’

  Ille smiled: ‘But surely you have already dared at some time?’

  Hélène wondered whether she should lie as she had always lied to all her friends. The whole point of her fleeting affairs had been that they had been totally discreet. No one knew of them: of that she was sure. But there was an expression in Ille’s eyes that demanded honesty: ‘Perhaps a couple of times. On holiday. You understand?’ Ille nodded, smiling all the time. Hélène had taken her into her confidence and that was a compliment. Kathy would be interested in all of this. ‘I have never told anyone else. They were sudden and quick affairs, the more tasty, I think, because they were so unexpected and so secret.’ She fidgeted and played with her food uncomfortably. She had not intended to allow this meeting to become a revelation of her sexual past. But Ille had a way of making her answer questions. ‘So, anyway, now I feel that I need some new excitement in my life,’ she carried on. ‘In a couple of years I shall be forty. And then before I turn round I shall be fifty. When I look back over my life I can remember so little that has been real fun. Seeing you and Kathy makes me realize that possibly I have been missing something.’

  ‘You mean you think you might like women?’ Ille came out with it bluntly.

  ‘Oh no. No!’ That hadn’t been what Hélène had meant to say at all. ‘What I was saying was that you both appear to be living such independent lives, quite free of the need to be married and be tied to one man.’

  ‘Instead we are two girls who are tied together. There is not such a great deal of difference.’

  ‘And you are always faithful to each other?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘For how long do you think it will last?’

  ‘How long will you stay with your husband? No one can tell these things. We are happy together. We have no need of anyone outside ourselves. Perhaps when I am your age I shall want someone else … a young girl, or perhaps a young man.’ She had been playing with Hélène, but suddenly she had a mental flash of herself as a middle-aged masculine lesbian, toting round a pretty new young girl friend. As the image grew stronger in her mind she physically shuddered and felt nauseous at the future which might be facing her. Only a baby could save her from that, she was sure. Not even Kathy was enough. There had to be a baby. She had to have a family or her future would be predetermined. She would be as pathetic in her way as Hélène was unless she did something about it.

  ‘You are all right?’ asked Hélène. Ille had gone quite still and pale, seemingly oblivious to her presence.

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry. I think it’s getting late. I must get back,’ said Ille glancing nervously at her watch, and wondering just how far Kathy had progressed with Arbus. The very thought of it made her slightly sick with worry. She stood up to leave, catching Hélène by surprise in her haste.

  ‘One thing, my dear,’ said Hélène as they both made towards the door. ‘I think we should keep our meetings a little secret between ourselves. Of course I expect you to tell Kathy. But it’s nice to have secrets from one’s husband and other friends. Perhaps we could meet again next week?’

  ‘Yes. That would be nice,’ said Ille, now rapidly regaining her composure. What luck that Hélène should not wish Claude to know of their meeting. If Hélène were to begin to talk too much she might just possibly ruin all their plans. Cynically Ille contemplated how the forest of secrecy had now spread to Hélène, binding her in its tangled roots. In whichever direction she looked Ille could see nothing but a tangle of growing relationships, all confused in their motives and depths, and all, she knew in herself, motivated by her own desires, her own needs, and her own wilfulness. She only prayed that the game would be completed without either her or Kathy being hurt. But somewhere inside herself she wondered whether it was possible.

  Leading Arbus back to the apartment Kathy felt very slight emotions of guilt, as though she were sneaking a boy friend into her father’s house, and a married one at that. It was silly of her to feel that way she reasoned with herself, especially since Ille had both engineered and would shortly be an active accomplice to the whole plot, but all the same the look of distaste which passed savagely across Madame Diem’s features as the elevator passed her on the stairs poked an accusing finger into what remained of Kathy’s moralistic underbelly.

  During the short walk from the restaurant neither she nor Arbus had said a word. He had insisted on taking her arm in crossing the narrow street, but once on the pavement again she had shaken it loose, purposely avoiding his eyes. Standing on the landing outside the apartment Arbus looked down the winding staircase as she had done on that first evening at the beginning of summer.

  ‘It is a more splendid place inside than you would imagine from the outside,’ said Arbus. ‘Do you know any of the people in the other apartments?’

  Kathy had to think hard. In all the months she had been living there she had never said more than hello to any other person. ‘I think several of the apartments must be unoccupied,’ she answered, seriously thinking about it for the first time. ‘There are a couple of old ladies on the floor below us, and I think a student lives on the first floor. But it’s very quiet. We never hear anyone. Only the concierge. She’s the only person who seems to have any presence here at all. Sometimes in the summer I would hear music coming from one of the rooms across the courtyard, but I never did know which room it was coming from. And all the windows are usually shu
ttered over.’

  Kathy was by now opening the door into the apartment. Arbus looked inside before stepping in: ‘The whole building has a rather spooky feel to it, don’t you think so?’

  Yes, Kathy had to admit to herself. She was aware of that feeling, and particularly when Ille wasn’t with her. But she didn’t agree. That was something she thought that only she had noticed. And, in her eyes to have admitted to her own silly sensations about the place would have been a betrayal of her friendship.

  Purposely Ille and Kathy had left the shutters pulled before going out for their respective lunch dates. Bright lights were no inducement to romance, they both knew. Entering the living room Kathy moved to turn on a table lamp, draped with a red shawl. She felt uncomfortable. She checked her watch: it was three-fifteen. Ille was returning at four. That gave her just forty-five minutes to get Arbus into the right frame of mind … and the right position in bed.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asked. She knew he wouldn’t want one. He sat down on a couch and smiled at her.

  ‘Come here, Kathy.’

  Turning away from the lamp so that the rosy light fell upon her profile she walked back across the room towards him, and kneeling down at his feet she rested her arms upon his knees, and laid her head on his lap. It was, she knew, a deliberately sensuous move to make, and he wasted no time in appreciating it. With a slight movement of his legs he allowed his thighs to fall slightly apart so that she might move closer to him, and then, still sitting, he leaned forward over her and taking her head in his hands bent over and began to nuzzle his lips around her ears, all the time pulling her body closer towards him so that her breasts pushed into his belly while her hands moved in co-ordination inside the silk lining of his jacket and across the cotton of his shirt. Turning her face up towards him Kathy closed her eyes as he brought his lips against hers, his tongue and breath still tasting of wine. And as they kissed Kathy began to feel a growing and old excitement which increased as she felt his excitement spreading within him. And she realized then that even if her emotions had wanted him to stop, there was no way that her body would allow it. And pulling herself up from the floor she held his hands while he rose to his feet.