by Ray Connolly
‘No, of course I’m not,’ Kathy would insist. ‘I want a baby as much as you do. I’ll race you….’ And she would joke about it, perplexed as to the situation in which she found herself, and always convinced that she would in fact lose the race, if winner there had to be.
If Kathy was confused as to her own motives, Ille’s behaviour might have been considered by an outsider to have been bordering on the schizophrenic. Ever since Kathy had known her, Ille’s moods and actions had been governed by caprice and impulse and the more heavily they both became involved in the Arbus affair, the more difficult it became for Kathy to discern the true motivations behind the actions of Ille. It was almost as though Ille had a built-in desire to self-destruct everything that she knew and loved, thought Kathy. And watching her sometimes she would wonder how much Ille was drifting in and out of reality. It was true Ille was terrified of ending up a bull-dyke; it was also true that she actually physically thought she wanted a baby. All that seemed rational. But what was irrational was the way she enjoyed the game of playing along Hélène Arbus, taking an almost sadistic delight in charming the wife, while secretly humiliating the husband. And when the mood took her Arbus was indeed humiliated, although puffed in his pride he weathered insults, which might have crippled a less pompous person, with a smiling assuredness.
To Ille, Claude and Hélène Arbus were the ultimate in human toys: a rich bourgeois couple, too confident, too bored and too easily manipulated for anyone with her capabilities. It wasn’t that she despised them: on the contrary she found herself almost fond of Hélène, but having rejected their values she amused herself in the knowledge that each considered her to be a tame eccentric; someone each could play with. ‘Arbus thinks he has the pair of us like glove puppets on separate hands,’ she told Kathy once. ‘But it is they who are the puppets, stringed marionettes, their eyes blindfolded from each other, and it is you and I who are holding those strings, my love,’ she would add. And amused by the image of herself as a puppeteer she would laugh out loud. ‘Hélène Arbus likes us because we are her idea of radical chic,’ she would say. ‘She imagines that she will play with us, take us up like pet objects for the autumn, and then drop us in the spring when she discovers that lesbians and bi-sexuals are no longer fashionable. Do you not think she is playing with fire, my love?’
But it would be at moments like this that a slight shudder would creep down the spine of Kathy: there was something spiteful about Ille’s attitude, a strange malevolence, a contemptuousness, and an arrogance which bred and fed on a winning game of brinkmanship. It was a side to Ille’s character that had once been hidden under a veil of enigma, but which now increasingly showed itself. And on the afternoons when Arbus was not coming to the apartment Ille would sit with Kathy in La Coupole, watching the people of Montparnasse, recounting the stories of her lunches with Hélène, which had now become almost a formula, and planning new tricks.
One day towards the end of October Hélène turned up unexpectedly at the restaurant. Since Ille had taken it upon herself to seek out Hélène’s friendship for herself alone she felt not a little annoyed that Hélène should be intruding her presence into her relationship with Kathy, and immediately jealous of having to share Kathy’s company with another woman.
In her excitement for the moment Hélène was blind to the looks of hostility that she was attracting: ‘I thought I’d find you here,’ she said, sitting down uninvited and immediately resting a hand on each girl’s shoulders in a bold display of camaraderie.
‘You’ve come to spy on two lesbians?’ said Ille bitingly.
Purposely ignoring the snub Hélène turned to Kathy: ‘I want you to arrange a party for me. At my house.’
Kathy was perplexed: ‘What kind of party?’
‘A … how do you say it? … a Hallowe’en party. An American-style party. It will be a surprise for Claude. He likes surprises. We will invite everyone. You must organize it, because we don’t celebrate Hallowe’en in France. Now, tell me you’ll do it.’ And putting on her most beseeching expression Hélène took hold of Kathy’s hand.
‘Oh. I couldn’t do that. I’ve never organized a party before.’ The idea didn’t appeal to Kathy one bit, and she turned her eyes away towards Ille in search of support. She realized too late that she wasn’t likely to find any there.
‘On the contrary, Kathy. I think you would organize a party very well. I shall help you. We will give Claude a splendid surprise,’ said Ille, and laughed a low gurgling noise, adding as an afterthought: ‘Tell me. On what day is Hallowe’en?’
Kathy didn’t speak to Ille on the way back to the apartment. After making plans to meet at the home of the Arbuses on the following Thursday afternoon Hélène left the girls and proceeded on her fashionable way, leaving a heavy cloud of anger hanging over them. Madame Diem was noiselessly cleaning out the aviary as they arrived home again, taking care of the few remaining parrots. All the birds other than the parrots had flown away when Kathy had opened the windows. And with them had gone Ille’s interest. Now it was left to Madame Diem to take care of the birds which remained. Disturbed by the presence of the girls the little Chinese lady smiled subserviently to Ille, and ignoring Kathy, as she virtually always did, she withdrew silently from the room.
‘Why in God’s name did you agree to that mad idea about a party?’ Kathy was almost speechless with anger. She couldn’t understand Ille’s fixation on playing games with Hélène.
‘Why not? I thought you would enjoy a party. Claude likes surprises. We know that, too, don’t we?’
‘It’s total madness. God knows what he’ll say when he finds out. He might tell his wife everything. And then where will we be?’
‘You mean, where will you be? You’re the one who needs the orgasms he gives you. You’re the one who can’t wait to get him inside you.’
‘For God’s sake. The whole thing was your idea. Remember? We’re doing it for you. So that you can have a baby?’
‘Only me?’ Ille was staring at Kathy coldly.
‘Well … for us. So that we … one of us, for God’s sake, can have a baby. And anyway don’t give me any of that crap about only me liking what Arbus has been giving us. You never say no when it comes to your turn, you just can’t wait to get in there rooting at him and sucking and God knows what else.’
Ille was surprised by the outburst, but she wasn’t prepared to be thwarted in any area of her grand design which had become her life game.
‘I think, between us, we shall organize a very nice American party for Monsieur and Madame Arbus,’ she said, closing the subject finally and abruptly.
Claude Arbus was disappointed. It was October 31st, and like every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in recent weeks he had been looking forward to spending the afternoon in bed with Kathy and Ille. But then a message had come from Kathy through his secretary Nathalie telling him that the arrangement for that afternoon had been postponed, owing to another commitment, and she hoped that would be all right. He was surprised that Kathy had telephoned Nathalie at all since he had always insisted that they only contact each other on his private line, but Nathalie had shown no sign of guessing how he had been recently spending his afternoons. And even if she did know something or had spotted the way he purposely smartened himself up for his thrice-weekly rendezvous, she would never have commented. She had been with him too long for that: and had seen him get in and out of affairs too frequently to care about his private life. Anyway he knew she didn’t have too much time for Hélène, regarding her as a fluttery, nervous ornament whose contribution to the business was nil, but whose out-take in the way of luxurious living was extremely high. Nathalie didn’t have much time for people who didn’t have time for work, and Arbus, despite his faults, was not a work-shy man.
He would have liked to have spoken to Kathy himself, and to have discovered the reason for the abrupt change of plans, but when he tried to call the apartment there was no one there. For a moment he pondered the gruesome thought that t
he sinister Madame Diem had sneaked in and massacred the pair of them while they slept, but a ’phone call from his head printer in Limoges put such a thought out of his head, and he spent the rest of the day on the telephone planning his publication lists for spring and summer. And it came as rather a nice surprise when later in the afternoon Hélène telephoned and reminded him that he had promised to be home early that evening. He couldn’t remember promising any such thing, but it would be nice to be able to go home after a good day’s work, without feeling any twinges of guilt around his soul, and have a nice quiet night in with Hélène. She was, he considered soberly to himself, a wonderful wife. And it was nice to know that she still cared enough for him to have gone to the trouble of cooking a special dinner. It was almost romantic.
‘Trick-or-treat?’ The shrill voice echoed round Arbus’s pitch-black hallway. He pulled back, suddenly startled; then cautiously pushing his front door further open he found himself gaping into the grinning skull of a hollowed-out pumpkin face, candlelight garishly illuminating its grotesque features. Instinctively he pushed his head away from the swinging effigy, and tried to peer into the hall. Everything was black. And silent. And then again came the voice, high and piercing: ‘Trick-or-treat?’
‘Who is it?’ he inquired, almost timidly. He was shocked, and half-afraid. Clearly some kind of practical joke was being played on him, but he didn’t know what it was, and no more did he like it. The voice was distinctly American, but it was well disguised. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked again.
From the black gloom of the hall he heard a low mocking laughter. That voice he recognized. But surely it was not possible. It was inconceivable that Ille should be playing games on him in his own house. And if Ille were there then Kathy must be with her. He listened hard again, afraid to venture forward. Where was Hélène? The glowing pumpkin blinded his eyes.
‘Trick-or-treat?’ The high-pitched hissing voice was repeating its demands.
‘Kathy?’ he asked. And waited. Again the low gurgling from the voice he recognized as Ille’s.
And then came another voice: this time slower, comprehensible and unmistakable: ‘Trick-or-treat, my dear?’ Hélène was also back there somewhere in the dark, but there was nothing sinister or mocking about her voice. She sounded comforting.
‘What is this, Hélène?’ Arbus began to move forward through the blackness, his hand feeling for the light switch. He found it and pressed. Nothing happened. Someone had turned off the electricity supply. Inside he could feel the beginnings of panic beginning to build. He couldn’t imagine what was going on, or why Hélène should be playing practical jokes on him aided by Kathy and Ille: To be confronted in the darkness by the three women with whom he was currently making love unnerved him. Obviously Hélène could know nothing of his affairs with Kathy and Ille. The whole situation was fraught with danger. Whatever he did he had to keep calm. He must joke his way out of trouble, he thought. But for the first time since he had met Kathy and Ille he began to have forebodings of ill things to come.
But now Hélène was talking again: ‘It’s Hallowe’en, Claude. Did you not remember? You must choose. Either give us a treat or we’ll play a trick on you.’
Just like Hélène, he thought, to find herself playing games with crazy girls half her age. If he said trick God only knew what the two might have planned for him: he decided to take the safest way out: ‘Then it must be treat,’ he said, struggling to keep as cool as possible. Instantly a couple of lanterns at the end of the hall began to flicker into life and he began to make out the forms of both Kathy and Ille walking towards him through the darkness, the lights of the lamps shining on their faces. He forced himself to smile as the lamps approached him. None of the women must be allowed to see how alarmed he felt: ‘What kind of treat would you like me to give you?’ he asked, as the two faces moved closer to his, both sets of eyes wide and smiling.
Ille answered first. Moving close to his body she pressed against him, and holding up her lamp over their heads like mistletoe she murmured into his ear: ‘Just a kiss, Claude. Just one little fatherly kiss each.’
As she leant against him he caught a wild, almost manic look in her eyes. There was something frighteningly sinister about this girl, he thought, sensing the extent of her malice for the first time. Somewhere in the background he knew Hélène would be watching unsuspecting, and he felt angry at the blatant deceit he was being forced to practise. Turning to Kathy he thought he noticed a new doubt in her eyes that he had never seen before, nor had expected to see after all her weird hissing a moment ago. She looked slightly frightened and vulnerable, as though her heart were not properly in the game: ‘And what about you, Kathy? What will your treat be?’
Kathy looked up into his eyes, half-apologetically, he thought: ‘The same, Claude. Just a kiss,’ she said quite flatly.
Looking at her he smiled inwardly. She would not give him away: ‘Then the treat is on me,’ he laughed. And bending over kissed Kathy chastely on both cheeks. Against his body Ille awaited her turn, her presence pushing provocatively into him. He turned back towards her: ‘And now the second of my two treats,’ he said. ‘I must be the most fortunate man in Paris tonight.’ And he tried to skip his lips hurriedly across the French girl’s cheeks. But Ille was too quick for him. And, as he moved towards her, her arms went out to him brazenly pulling him close, trapping his lips fully and sensuously against hers. Alarmed at what Hélène’s reaction might be he pulled himself quickly away, still joking: ‘Nice. Very nice indeed. Two tasty kisses.’
‘Two Judas kisses,’ murmured Ille almost audibly, instantly turning away.
From the shadows of the living room Hélène moved towards him: ‘Hello, darling. We thought we would give you a little party. You’re the first of the guests. All kinds of people are coming. We thought it would be a good idea if we kept it secret from you, so that it would be more fun. I hope we didn’t alarm you. You sounded quite frightened when you first came in.’
‘We’re having a party here?’ Arbus had begun to take off his coat, but he stopped in surprise. That was the last thing he wanted.
‘Yes. A surprise Hallowe’en party. Kathy is showing us how it’s done in America. We’ve been busy all day preparing. There are games, and goodies and all kinds of things. It will be all very mysterious and ghostly with hobgoblins and black cats and gingerbread men. Come inside and we’ll light some more lanterns and I’ll get you a drink.’
Arbus felt the situation slipping further from his control. No wonder the rendezvous with the girls for that afternoon had been cancelled. They had been too busy helping his wife plan his mortification. Yet clearly she couldn’t know anything. How those two bitches must be laughing at me now, he thought. Angry with them and furious with himself he fought determinedly not to reveal anything by his attitude. And following Hélène into the living room he glanced coldly at Ille, now leaning against the front door, drinking slowly from a large glass of red wine. With his eyes now accustomed to the gloom he could see that she was dressed in a long purple dress. She caught his eyes and smirked. Kathy, in a plain white smock, looked awkwardly away as his eyes fell on her. Tonight she was very beautiful. In the living room Hélène was calling to him that she had a drink ready, and throwing his coat on to a hall chair he made his way uncertainly through the darkness of his own home.
Hélène was standing by the window. Outside in the courtyard he could see a barbecue and braziers. The enclave in the fig grove was dimly lit by another shining swinging lantern, but the thickness of the branches and parasitic ivy growths around it made it too dense to see inside. ‘You sounded really quite alarmed at first, you know, Claude,’ chided Hélène passing him his usual cognac. ‘I was afraid for a moment that we had made a mistake and that you weren’t in a party spirit. I hope you’re going to cheer up when some of the other guests arrive.’
‘I was confused by the darkness. It was impossible to see, and because of your ’phone call I was expecting only you to be here. Yo
u all planned it so well, that I was almost a little afraid I think.’
‘But you want to have a party?’
‘Of course,’ he lied. ‘It’s a marvellous idea. Who’s coming?’
‘Oh, the oddest people we know. I thought that a Hallowe’en party should only be for our eccentric friends. Just wait and see,’ said Hélène teasingly, and before Arbus could press her for more details she moved away to answer the door bell as her guests began to arrive. And peering out across the courtyard he again heard in that sing-song way that she spoke English: ‘Trick-or-treat?’ as another unsuspecting person was led into the darkness.
Those two little bastards, thought Arbus, and finishing his cognac moved to the cocktail counter to refill his glass, to the sound of much giggling and murmuring from the hall.
Hélène had in no way exaggerated the eccentricity or the variety of the people she had invited to her party. All evening long Arbus hung about near the bar refilling his glass as the most extraordinary array of people in Paris quickly began to fill his home: this was Hélène’s night for the odd-balls, he could understand that, but he wanted no part of it. While his home filled with witches, wizards, English earls in Marquis de Sade boots, models in macs and masks, twittering Norwegian twins who did everything in unison, junkie actors whose faces had fallen below the beauty of their cheekbones, ladies well known for their sense of dress, and others for their sense of undress, homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals and even the odd heterosexuals, Arbus allowed himself to become slowly drunk, cautiously remaining aloof from the spirit of the night. Tomorrow may be All Saints’ Day but tonight his home had become a playground for the oddities of Paris, who were ducking their heads in bowls of water after red apples, blindfolding each other and then chasing imaginary prizes across the room, and-all gobbling up the feast of cookies, barbecued steak, jacket potatoes and roasted chestnuts that his wife and her two friends had prepared in the courtyard. It was cold outside, but to compensate for the inclemency of the autumnal weather the three women had built a log fire inside a wrought-iron incinerator, and before long the assembled witches and bitches of the Left Bank were dancing around it. It was indeed a peculiar party, at which his wife, as ever, played the perfect hostess, while from time to time he would spot Ille coaxing and tempting some unsuspecting individual into making a fool of himself out of the many games that she and Kathy had devised between them. It would seem that both Hélène and Ille were having a splendid evening, but Kathy was more distant, more thoughtful than he had seen her in some time. It was, he half-imagined as he tried to interpret her expression, as though she wanted him to forgive her for bringing all this on to his head, but she steered well clear of him all evening, staying outside with a thick shawl around her shoulders, standing a little apart from the gaiety of the courtyard, while he kept his stance by the windows that he might drink and observe the commotion being caused. It was a heady night for everyone, and for Hélène it was pure success: for years she had wondered how she might integrate and become convivial with that richly Bohemian strata of Parisian society from which her position and, more importantly, that of her husband had always excluded her, and tonight she had found one way. Although she knew virtually everyone there by name or reputation it had been Ille who had given her the incentive to make the invitations. And it had been Ille who had arranged for the lady belly dancer who ended her act by eating fire, who had telephoned the family of clowns, and again indeed it was Ille who struck up an instant friendship with the dwarf in their company. When Hélène was with Ille she could move into and conquer new social territories, and leave further behind the bourgeois constraints which were imposed upon her by her life with Arbus.