With Men For Pieces [A Fab Fifties Fling In Paris]

by Sophie Meredith

  She felt a sudden, bleak desolation as she wondered if he indeed intended to come back to her…he had seemed so totally absorbed in that stranger. Maybe she did not deserve him back; maybe she had already lost him before the operation. She shouldn’t have let herself go—her hair was a mess, she knew, but she had been so worried about his dizzy spells, the breathlessness that was getting so bad he had difficulty climbing to their apartment, only five steps, on the rez-de-chaussée (the first floor, sitting directly over the cellars).

  And there was her silly shyness that had always made her dread asking his friends to dinner.

  “Then we can’t accept any more invitations.” He had finally exploded. “For God’s sake, darling. Won’t you believe me when I say your Normandy chicken would knock their eyes out? You’re every bit as good a cook as anyone here.”

  She had put the outburst down to his illness. The deep pains in his side, the crise du coeur, the blinding headaches. Then they had found the specialist at a heart unit, out in the country at Briis-sous-Forge. He had diagnosed the systolic heartbeat as being due to a congenital defect—a faulty valve. But such a purely-mechanical malfunction, he assured them, could be put perfectly right by open heart surgery, leaving Michel fitter than before the onset of his illness. He would arrange it all with Professeur Neveu at Laënnec right away.

  Michel was so cheered by knowing the root of the problem at last, that he sang with joy as they drove back through the richly-tinted autumn woods on the edge of the great forest of Rambouillet. They stopped in a tiny village, a handful of houses, a Mairie, a church and just as Michel’s instincts had warned him—a splendid Restaurant. They had lunched as magnificently as they had ever dined in the centre of Paris, and had been served with the same reverent ritual.

  Sheila remembered the menu exactly. It seemed now to have been their last carefree day together. They had had langoustines in a bed of cracked ice on that cage-affair with the pain de seigle, the butter, the mayonnaise, underneath. Then a faux filet cooked à point. Next, a fantastic salade frisée avec lardons—the crisp, crinkly lettuce dressed at the table with the warm sauce and tossed with crisp bits of bacon. Some Bleu d’Auvergne for Michel, a creamy chèvre for her. A frothy mousse au chocolat for dessert. And Michel had insisted on some very old Armagnac with the coffee. A celebration, he said, of his New Lease of Life.

  Maybe he’s decided now on a New Sort of Life, thought Sheila miserably. With a New Woman to match. Or a woman newly-discovered from his Past.

  Newly-discovered…or had she been there all the time. Those monthly trips to the Paris office whilst they were still living their quiet life in an Essex village. The thought forced its way forward. Could Michel have had a mistress all those years? After all, he was so essentially French—his looks, his tastes, his love-making….

  She relived the joy of feeling her body respond to his gently-instructive hands in their first weeks together. How could she have let him slide away from her?

  Oh, how she had loved him—how she loved him still.

  A hand touched her face, raised her chin gently with an intimately-familiar touch.

  “Darling,” said Michel. “What are you hiding in here for? Here is someone I want you to meet.”

  Now Sheila knew who the well-preserved woman reminded her of. It was her own little Louise when she had worn her hair piled up for a party.

  “My cousin, Gaby-Louise Gaquerelle,” said Michel.

  With unmistakable pride, he presented Sheila.

  “My darling wife who’s had such a lot to put up with recently,” he said. “Come back to the room and hear how my long-lost family found out I was back in France.” He took her arm. “You’ll probably get a story out of it….”

  PART SIX

  Chapter 28

  Of all the times to be summoned to London….

  A strange white glow filtered through the shutters. Mabiche bustled in with my coffee and croissant. She drew back the long white diaphanous curtains and unlatched the persiennes. I shuddered as I saw the large white flakes floating down. The traffic sounds were strangely diffused.

  “What’s it like out there?” I asked. The croissant was delicious. I was only permitted one now on high days and holidays. Mabiche had put me on a strict regime. She had read up on heart ailments and lived in fear of cholesterol, cigarettes and salt.

  “Pretty bad,” she replied, peering over the balcony into the street below. “The cars are down to l’escargot-crawling pace—I’d best ring the airport in case the plane’s cancelled.”

  But an hour later, a frustrated taxi driver, unable to force his Fuego into the habitual manic speed, was painstakingly bearing me along a wierdly-deserted Péripherique. The French are completely demoralised by snow on the roads. They fall to the opposite extreme of speed—or stay at home.

  At long last we were approaching Aerogare 1 and I was soon floating slowly up one of the glass tubes on the conveyor. All this lethargic movement was very bad for my nerves. I sensed crisis ahead and I wanted to get to London, be done with the business and get back to Robert. He had agreed to my collecting him from Bligny the moment his regular tests showed that all was well. But he would not immediately move in with Mabiche, Michel and I. There was one last barrier between us—my accursed money. And I had a feeling that the matter was about to arrange itself.

  My tax consultant had assured me that, this time, my presence was imperative at the Board Meeting and that I had better prepare myself for trouble. Even with my life-long aversion to financial involvement, I had not been able to ignore the crisis on both sides of the Channel. Mittérand and Thatcher, with their opposing policies, had imposed a series of measures which were squeezing the breath out of bread and butter businesses, let alone the luxury trade. Maybe if I’d taken a greater interest before, kept a tighter hold on the reins instead of letting things drift….

  “Hi there! Say—that’s a mighty unusual way to read a mahg-azine.”

  He was tubby but well-tailored. He was sparkling clean but past his first youth. His hat was incredible—straight from the head of J.R. Ewing himself—and when he raised it politely I saw the inevitable crew cut. But his twinkling eyes, his kind smile, made it impossible for me to snub him. I looked at the copy of Cosmopolitan I was clutching. It was upside down. I laughed with him and hoped that my teeth were only half as white and strong as his.

  “Jim Arnold,” he said, holding out a hand laden with gold rings. “Our flight’s been delayed. Did you hear?”

  I shook my head. I’d been sitting in the Departure Lounge in a sort of trance, wondering what revelations lay ahead, what stringent economies may be called for in my two households.

  “Only a half hour,” he assured me.

  Normally a garrulous Yank was anathema to me. But I found myself listening with no pain at the drawl, no offence at the instant “old pals” act. He told me that he was a widower, but at once took out a folder of snapshots of his seven grandchildren so that I felt no need to prepare to freeze off a pass.

  We sat together on the plane and I was glad of his company. I found myself telling him of my business worries, confiding my fears that there was something serious afoot. What was really remarkable was the coincidence that he, too, had an interest in the world of fashion. He said he had “a boutique or two” in Texas, of all places—that he had started in Diboll on Route 59, that he’d been over on a buying trip to Paris.

  At Heathrow, a car was waiting for him and the chauffeur seemed over-obsequious, touching his forelock frantically, bowing and scraping. Not a one-off casual hireling, I decided. Jim insisted I accept a lift. He was very impressed by Carlton House Terrace and it would have been like snatching away a coveted toy from a child not to invite him round for a drink that evening. We arranged he would come at eight and we would go out for dinner afterwards. As I watched his car disappear into the swirling snow, I knew I’d had another of those significant encounters and that I had another friend for life. I didn’t realise that he was
also to be a life-saver.

  I spent a gruelling day. David Moss, a genius with taxes, having begun his career with the “cops” at the Ministry of Inland Revenue and moved over to the “robbers” when he opened his now well-established Private Consultancy, took me to one side before the meeting proper and tried to prime me for the shocks to come. Jane, who kept the London house going during my prolonged absences, had done her best at short notice to warm up the ground floor area, originally a billiard room which Jacques had had made over as a sort of headquarters for the necessary interviews which did not warrant lunch at Claridges or dinner at the Savoy. I had often enough managed to avoid altogether the annual meetings that were held here, even when in residence, finding some excuse or other not to attend. There was something wrong with the central heating and the room had an underlying damp chill about it even though the radiators were wheezing into life. The grim-faced directors with whom I was none too familiar, having to concentrate hard to even remember all their names, stamped their feet and slapped their sides ostentatiously as they waited. I felt hostility from everyone except David. From him, emanated a sort of gloomy pity.

  “I’ve been trying to warn you in my letters over the past months,” he said, as we stood, still huddled in our coats, in the small basement entrance hall that kept this part of the house self-contained. “The rot started with that unfortunate business at the Paris office. We recovered most of the money from the Insurance brokers but….”

  I thought it generous of him to say “we” and not to attempt to lay all the blame on the embezzlement, seeing that it was before his time with me.

  “I think it was more of a morale cruncher than anyone realised,” he went on gently. He knew it was useless quoting figures at me and I was grateful for his patient approach to the explanation. “I don’t say any of your managers have been actually—legally—cheating you. But I’m afraid in several instances, self-interest has reared its ugly head.”

  Silently I cursed Alain. There had been rumours that he had committed suicide during a prison riot at Fleury. Was he haunting me from the grave, poisoning the souls of my once-loyal colleagues?

  It emerged slowly and painfully from the laboriously correct board meeting—the slipping and sliding—the gambles taken too lightly—the less-precarious risks shunned—the series of wrong decisions. If only I hadn’t been so preoccupied the last few months…but no, it went deeper than that. It was surely Fate working against me, punishing me for a lifetime of Taking, of Assuming, of Not Counting the Cost. I grasped eventually the urgency of the situation and realised that what had really sunk us was not having one strong personality at the top. An organisation like ours, with many separate units could never function symbiotically without a single-minded and devoted patronic figurehead.

  The heating seemed to have righted itself by the time Jim re-appeared. I comforted a tearful Jane, assuring her I attached no blame to her for my short-lived discomfort. I was aware however, that this was typical of the way I had always expected my life to be run—depending on people like her without ever giving the proper encouragement. Being too soft was as bad, if not worse, than being too strict.

  “It’ll have to be sold as soon as possible,” I told Jim as he enthused for the nth time over my “typically British” house—“ so near to Bucking-hahm Palace.”

  “My business is in a worse state than I’d realised,” I added by way of explanation.

  “Why—that’s one heck of a shame,” he said. We were standing by the window from which I’d first seen Robert. I looked down on the steps where he’d hopped from one foot to the other after ringing the bell. I suddenly realised that the last barrier had indeed collapsed.

  David had explained how closely all my property was tied into the company. There was just one small apartment in a South Coast resort—a long forgotten legacy from an aunt of my father’s—that I had taken no interest in. That had never been entered in the ledgers, it seemed and might, he suggested, make a convenient bolt-hole if unpleasant publicity threatened.

  I smiled at Jim.

  “Not really,” I said. “Why cling to the past. If I can settle my debts honourably—I’m almost looking forward to—starting from scratch.”

  Jim, too, had had a busy day. He had been inquiring into my affairs. Over dinner at a little Italian place near the Coliseum Theatre, he made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. It included the purchase of the house and the take-over of the Company. Promising myself that this was the last gamble, the final impulsive act of accepting rescue from outside myself—I agreed.

  A Present for James

  by Gabrielle Parker

  The early morning chill penetrated the wooden shutters, the glass doors to the balcony and the long, white Dralon curtains. Icy tendrils of it teased the bare shoulders of the woman reclining on pillows, sipping from a large bowl of coffee.

  It made her long desperately to set down the bowl unfinished and slide down into the cosy warmth of blankets and eiderdown. Another two hours’ sleep was essential—agonisingly necessary. She pushed away the tempting thought. Light was filtering through the cracks in the shutters, enough to show up the stiff whiteness of the wedding invitation standing on the dressing table. Enough to pick out the hideous improbably-large purple and turquoise flowers of the wallpaper. The room was bearable only in the dark, felt rather than seen from the large, soft bed.

  Sighing, she set down the empty bowl on the night table and groped the still-dark area of the counterpane till her hand met and recognised the silk of her robe. Still she put off the moment of switching on the lamp, illuminating the truth of her existence. Before she had time to resign herself to the inevitable, the light was snapped on from a switch by the door. A young man stood, grinning, in the doorway. He was wearing a track-suit, the blue of which exactly matched his sparkling, rather cruel eyes. Flakes of crystallised snow clung to his dark curls. He was holding, incongruously, a smart leather briefcase.

  “I fetched the croissants!” he announced. “They’re still warm but you shan’t have one till you come to table.”

  “What are you doing with my case?” she asked.

  “Come on, lazybones!” he laughed. “You’ll miss your plane if I don’t bully you. I must go now, to my lecture.”

  “Yes, you know how to bully all right,” she said. Then began, “Going to college dressed like…”

  He finished the familiar comment for her.

  “…it would never have done in my day. I know, I know…come, now…you really must get up.”

  For answer, she closed her eyes and let her head loll on the pillows. She heard the exasperated “Ghorgh!” that only the French seem able to enunciate so meaningfully, then the distant slamming of a door.

  Pulling on her robe she went out into the tiny entré to see if he had truly gone. Sometimes he opened and closed the door without leaving the apartment just to tease her—but this time he was not standing there ready to hoot with youthful laughter at her chagrin. She hurried through to the kitchen and struggled with the window catch. Fighting the icy blast of air she leaned out briefly and caught a glimpse of his tall figure striding up the steep hill. He did not look back.

  She hastily closed the window and looked at the small table—more coffee, keeping hot on its electric stand, flaky croissants in a basket. A glance at the clock on the oven unit told her she had no time to indulge. She must shower and dress.

  The decorations in the apartment were really atrocious, she decided as she towelled herself in the minute bathroom where one must stand wedged between bidet and basin to dry oneself. She really ought to pull off the ghastly water-lily paper in here—it was hanging loose in several places already. But was it really worth the effort when….

  Pushing away her second unwelcome thought of the morning, she returned to the bedroom. Two suitcases stood already zipped and buckled: she had just her small travelling bag to pack. She rummaged in drawers for matching sets of lacy undergarments, slid aside the cupboard door to select
a smart dress of apricot wool, pulled out matching Louis-heeled shoes. Then she drew back the curtains, unlatched the doors and pushed back the shutters, letting in the early-morning sounds of a snow-coated Paris. Many fewer cars than normal and their engine noises strangely muffled. Other people’s shutters creaking, squeaking, being concertinaed open. Mothers calling to schoolchildren like miniature Quasimodos with their bulging satchels strapped to their backs.

  Cautiously, she stepped onto the tiny balcony and looked over and down. A taxi nosed its way fearfully over the whitened cobbles. The French were notoriously-slow drivers in such weather conditions, a complete contrast with their normal suicidal style. She debated whether to take the Metro to the airport but decided against it: it was too much hassle with luggage—and there was the currently-increasing risk of being mugged.

  It had begun to snow again—huge flakes the size of old English pennies: she went back inside and did some superficial tidying. She liberally watered her plants in the living room, ferns and vines in huge white pots, the magnificent avocado she had grown from a pip. This room needed no tidying—bright cushions marshalled in soldierly order on the pale green sofas, immaculate cream wool rugs all-but hiding the unappetising shiny yellow linoleum with which the whole apartment was coated. The walls in here were the only ones she had tackled, getting a man in to strip them and then cover the surface with the fashionable hacienda-type crusting of rough plaster. And afterwards been appalled at the size of his bill. She had lived on yoghourt and orange juice for a month to atone for her extravagance but was so pleased with the results of this enforced régime on her figure that she rarely now indulged in meaty diets, hardly ever bought wine.

  She shrugged herself into her dark grey fur coat, three years old but still soft and supple—warm yet light for the fur was man-made, not wrenched from some tender baby seal. She rang for a taxi.

  Outside, on the landing, there was the inevitable routine of securing the triple locks: there was not much of value inside to be burgled—she always carried her few jewels with her—but every neighbour had a tale to tell of the distressing consequences of such invasions of privacy—one felt compelled to take precautions.