by Sarah Long
‘Madame de Pompadour preferred amitié to amour physique, so she was glad when her affair with the king dwindled after years into a non-physical relationship,’ explained the guide disapprovingly. ‘She started to put on weight, as this statue shows.’
‘Christ,’ whispered Lorinda, ‘even in the bloody art gallery they still have to go on about how fat women are. What is it with the French?’
‘You’re just jealous,’ murmured Laura. ‘At least, that’s what Jean-Laurent thinks. He says that’s why you didn’t like Flavia.’
‘What? Damned cheek!’ Lorinda’s voice was raised in indignation and several members of the group turned to look at her.
‘Sshh,’ said Laura. ‘Save it for later. Feast your eyes on our artistic heritage.’
‘The reason I don’t like Flavia,’ whispered Lorinda, ‘is that she’s a hard-faced whore who’s after your husband!’
‘Now you’re being melodramatic! Just because you saw them together at the airport.’
‘Laura, believe me, Jean-Laurent squeezed my hand against his bum thinking it was hers.’
‘Sshh! Keep your voice down.’
‘I’m warning you about your husband and that trollop, and all you’re worried about is disturbing a boring spiel on a misogynistic old sod of a sculptor.’
‘Not only misogynistic, he’s horrid to men, too. Look, now she’s showing us his statue of Voltaire. There’s a sad, skinny old man if ever I saw one.’
‘Laura! Listen to me!’
‘All right, let’s go for a coffee afterwards. Now, can we shut up?’
An hour later the ladies of the Louvre kissed each other goodbye, Pigalle vaguely lodged in their consciousness until later that afternoon when he would be displaced by the more pressing demands of small children. Laura and Lorinda made their way along the underground shopping mall that led from the inverted glass pyramid. They sat down at a café on a table next to a party of bored-looking teenagers who seemed committed to smoking their way to recovery from an afternoon of unmitigated culture.
Laura carefully unwrapped her sugar and stirred both halves into her dark espresso.
‘So,’ she said reasonably, ‘you think Flavia’s after Jean-Laurent. I suppose it’s possible. She is the classic golden career girl starting to panic about going home to her empty flat. And he is very attractive, that’s why I married him. But he is also my husband, and I happen to trust him. We are happy together. What kind of marriage would it be if I got twitchy and suspicious every time he introduced me to a good-looking colleague?’
Lorinda sighed in exasperation.
‘Laura, listen to me. When I saw Jean-Laurent at the airport, he obviously thought I was her. I came up from behind and pinched his bum, for a laugh. I thought I would surprise him! Instead of which he just carried on talking on the phone and grabbed hold of my hand and started sort of massaging it against his bum. Then when he turned round and saw it was me, he was devastated! Guilty as hell!’
‘Of course he was shocked! I would be if some mad woman assaulted me while I was trying to make a phone call!’
‘But you wouldn’t start stroking her hand, would you? Come on, Laura, don’t play the ostrich. Think about all those business trips, all those Sunday nights in the office – no one goes to the office on Sundays!’
‘Stop it, Lorinda. This is so cheap, I can’t believe you’re talking this way to me. I just know that Jean-Laurent would never cheat on me – we’ve always been totally honest with each other.’
She picked up the sugar paper from her saucer and began tearing it into tiny strips. What Lorinda was telling her was shocking and unwelcome. But it was not entirely unexpected. She really couldn’t put her hand on her heart and say it had never crossed her mind that Jean-Laurent might be looking elsewhere.
‘So if your relationship with Jean-Laurent is so honest,’ Lorinda said gently, ‘how come you never told him about your little lunch with Antoine?’
Laura blushed.
‘It wasn’t relevant. There was nothing in it, and he might have got the wrong idea. Lorinda, I appreciate your concern, but quite honestly this has nothing to do with you.’
‘Except that I’m your friend and I don’t want you weeping on my shoulder later on saying you feel such a fool, you were the last one to know. He’s French, Laura, and we all know that French men are never averse to a bit of extra-curricular. I should have told you earlier, only I didn’t want to upset you.’
Laura stood up abruptly. ‘I’ve heard enough. My marriage is my concern, not yours. Go and pick on someone else with your dirty, suspicious mind.’
Lorinda watched her go, storming angrily through a crowd of bemused Japanese tourists neatly lined up behind their leader’s fluorescent orange flag.
‘Laura!’ she shouted, ‘Don’t get mad, get even! Think of Doctor Bouchard!’
But Laura was already out of earshot. The teenagers looked across at her from their table. A bit of human drama was worth all the art treasures of the Louvre when it came to arousing their interest.
While Laura was angrily defending her husband in the underbelly of the Louvre, he was just the other side of the Tuileries gardens happily cruising his Porsche down the rue de Rivoli. The radio was tuned to Radio Nostalgie, and he was singing along to an old classic. ‘The only way is up, baaby, for you and me girl,’ he crooned as he skilfully cut up a wide-bottomed Mercedes and veered left round the place de la Concorde.
He was feeling pleased with himself after the morning’s meeting, in which he had successfully demolished the strategy of the advertising agency’s proposed new campaign. He had followed the guiding principle of his hero and mentor, the general von Clausewitz, that you should ‘attack the enemy at the weakest point and outnumber him’.
By lining up seven colleagues to pick holes in the feeble reasoning of two hapless admen, he had pulled off a proper routing, sending them off cowering behind their storyboards. That would mean more work for Flavia to get them back on strategy. She would no doubt find a creative way in which to express her gratitude to him at their next rendezvous.
Not that Flavia was his priority this afternoon. That was for a future occasion. To celebrate the morning’s victory, he had decided to spend the afternoon working at home. He wanted to be there to surprise Laura and the boys when they got in from school. A man’s family life, after all, was the rock on which he built his success.
He turned right on to the quai, drove through the first tunnel and then pulled off the embankment just before the pont d’Alma, where he drew up outside a flower shop. To add the final flourish to his role of Caring Husband, he needed to arrive home with a lavish bouquet, so he jumped out of the Porsche, engine running and warning lights flashing, and hurried in to make his selection. As the assistant carefully arranged the lilies and wrapped them with two sheets of toning tissue paper, he glanced out of the window at the monument of the golden flame, where the usual cluster of tourists were reading the tributes to Diana. Years after the tragedy, the loyal herds still continued to leave flowers and embarrassing poems pasted on to the flame above the tunnel where she died. Most of them believed the statue had been erected in her honour, though of course any educated Parisian could tell you that it was a gift from the Americans that long predated the death of the Princess of Wales.
Jean-Laurent drove off and indulged himself in a fantasy of his own tragic road death, his grieving widow and children standing heads bowed at his graveside, while Flavia loitered at a discreet distance, half hidden by a tree – although he supposed she could legitimately join the main throng since they were colleagues and she had once had dinner at his home.
A business book he had just read suggested writing your own obituary to see if your life was going the way you wanted. He tried it out. ‘He courageously pushed his brands forward, and was a devoted father and husband.’ Perhaps slightly lacking in grandeur. ‘The youngest ever chairman of a multinational company, he was as charismatic in his personal relationships a
s he was in the professional arena.’ That was better. Perhaps he might even father a secret child along the way, like President Mitterand. But right now, he was more intent on consolidating his family life.
He parked his car in the underground car park beneath their apartment building. They rented only one space. Laura agreed that there was no point in paying to park her car since she was out in it so much and, anyway, it was the Porsche that needed protecting. He took the lift to the third floor and opened the front door. His good mood was immediately soured by the sight that greeted him. Asa, that pain-in-the-arse Finn, was standing in the hall admiring herself in the full-length mirror. She was wearing a blue suit of Laura’s that Jean-Laurent recognised from her office days. She spun round guiltily as he came in.
‘I recognise that suit,’ he said. ‘Did Laura pass it on to you?’
Asa shrugged casually.
‘It doesn’t fit her any more. And this style is coming back in. I thought I might get some wear out of it. I can’t afford to buy any new clothes.’
She disappeared huffily to her bedroom. Jean-Laurent watched her go, irritated that this ungrateful intruder should have carte blanche to go prowling round his home. Why on earth didn’t Laura get rid of her and hire an Asian, or a high-cheekboned refugee from the former Yugoslavia?
He moved into the dining room and spread his files over the table, planning to work for an hour until the family came home. His mind drifted back to the obituary. Was it the done thing to mention servants? Perhaps just a discreet line towards the end. ‘He was much respected by the many loyal staff who ran his homes.’ He would only hire good-looking ones and he’d make them all wear black and white. Certainly not electric blue like that horrible suit of Laura’s that had always reminded him of Mrs Thatcher.
Laura angrily crunched her gears as she drove out of the Carrousel du Louvre car park and on to the rue de Rivoli. How dare Lorinda speak to her like that! She really should get a life instead of drumming up malicious ideas and sticking her nose in everywhere. It was pitiful that she had so little to think about – just that mother-in-law that Laura was sick to death of hearing about, to be honest, and her petty little economies.
She rounded the place de la Concorde and headed down towards the pont d’Alma, trying to get the image of Lorinda’s concerned face out of her head. I’m your friend, she had said, I didn’t want to upset you. Then why did you, thought Laura, why couldn’t you keep your suspicions to yourself instead of turning my life upside down with your vile allegations.
She swerved to avoid a silver Porsche, badly parked outside a flower shop, that was forcing the traffic heading over the bridge into a single lane. French drivers were just the pits, egomaniacs with no sense of decency, not like in England where people parked where they were supposed to – or at least they did in her rose-tinted memory. She stopped at the lights and glanced in her rearview mirror at the offending car: its driver had returned, his arms full of flowers, smooth bastard. Oh my God. It was Jean-Laurent.
Where was he going at this time in the afternoon? Oh sweet Jesus, Lorinda was right, he was off to a silk-draped love-nest, a voluptuous garçonnerie, where that skinny cow would be waiting for him. She could see her now, reclining on the crimson sheets, holding out a glass of champagne for her ardent lover. Tears of rage pricked her eyes as she watched him jump into his car and speed off up the avenue George V, while she, good old Laura, true to her dull routine, prepared dutifully to head off for the school gates. On her way across the bridge, she saw a young woman attaching a message to the Statue of Liberty torch, while people in anoraks took photographs. Poor Diana, she thought, her self-pity overflowing into sentimentality – you and me both, betrayed and humiliated in our dream of the perfect marriage.
She parked outside the school and remained in the car trying to compose herself before the children came out. Through the window she could see the mothers locked in small groups, talking and laughing amongst themselves. PTA Paula was looking particularly unattractive in a maroon jogging suit, nodding earnestly to one of the Catholic mafia mums dressed Versailles-style (modern suburban version as opposed to eighteenth-century courtier) in a green padded anorak, her grey hair restrained by a navy blue velvet headband.
Why aren’t their husbands cheating on them? thought Laura. You couldn’t blame them, coming home to that every night. Whereas she, Laura, dynamic retired account director and sophisticated woman around town, who went out of her way to provide her husband with every reason to find her adorable, surely deserved better than to be cast upon the junk heap of unwanted old bags. She waved through the window to Charles-Edouard and Pierre-Louis, who came running happily towards her, blissfully unaware that they were soon to become the innocent victims of a broken marriage, pawns in the cruel game of marital chess.
She drove home in silence. Pierre-Louis, sensing her mood, pulled a drawing out of his satchel and, in the hope of cheering her up, leaned forward to shove it under her nose.
‘Look, Mum. We had to do a drawing of our family.’
‘Not when I’m driving, Pierre-Louis, we might have an accident.’
She waited until she had stopped at the lights and glanced down at the picture.
‘That’s lovely,’ she replied automatically in her usual tone of unqualified admiration. ‘There’s you and Charles-Edouard playing football, and Daddy carrying his briefcase. What am I doing?’ She could make out a stout female figure crouched on the floor over a box.
‘You’re cleaning everyone’s shoes,’ replied Pierre-Louis.
‘So I am. Well, I suppose someone’s got to do it.’
Jean-Laurent was clearly not the only one who saw her as a dumb stooge. Good old Laura, the faithful retainer, her pinny stained with boot polish as she lovingly prepared her family for the outside world from which she had so willingly resigned.
They arrived home, the boys running ahead into the lift while Mrs Danvers staggered behind with the satchels. No doubt her third child, that stroppy post-adolescent Scandinavian, would be lounging around the apartment. Laura should ask her if she had any shoes she needed cleaning – after all, she might as well service the whole damn bunch of them.
But it was Jean-Laurent, not Asa, who opened the door to them.
‘Papa!’ Charles-Edouard jumped into his father’s arms and Pierre-Louis trotted after him, pressing his face into the soft cashmere of Jean-Laurent’s suit.
‘Surprise!’ said Jean-Laurent, looking at her in amusement.
‘You’re here!’ she said, the weight of her misery suddenly lifting from her. ‘I saw you parked by the pont d’Alma. I saw you drive off. I couldn’t think where you would be going.’
‘Home to my lovely family, of course, where else?’
Not to the silken love den then, not to a place of betrayal and iniquity. How could she have had so little faith in him? She kissed him lightly, giddy with relief.
He produced the bunch of lilies from behind his back.
‘Here – for you.’
Of course the flowers were for her. Her mind had been warped by Lorinda’s preposterous ideas. Everything was at it should be.
By the time they were in bed, Laura’s euphoria had given way to a more reasonable level of equanimity, which in turn gave rise to reasonable doubts which she mulled over as she stared up at the dark ceiling while Jean-Laurent’s body rose and fell in the gentle rhythm of untroubled sleep. Why would Lorinda lie to her? She wouldn’t. Perhaps she just misinterpreted the scene at the airport and leapt to wild conclusions. And anyway, Jean-Laurent would never have agreed to Flavia coming to the house if she was anything more than a colleague. The office on Sunday nights? Well, why not, it was the best time – it was calm, with nobody around. There was really nothing wrong with that. She certainly wasn’t going to rock the boat with a direct confrontation based on such flimsy evidence. Keep things as they were, that was best.
But just supposing it was true? She knew, of course, that it wasn’t, but just supposing it wa
s – what then? She leaned towards Jean-Laurent and placed her hand in the small of his warm, sleeping back. It was impossible for her to imagine this body that belonged to her arched in passion over someone else. The idea was preposterous.
And yet, if she was honest, she couldn’t say that their love-making these days was anything like the way it used to be. Uxorious. Friendly. Accomplished and perfectly satisfactory, but with none of that animal, gut-wrenching hunger that now seemed to belong to the past. The kind of hunger that drove men and women beyond the confines of marriage into the arms of someone new. The hunger that had prompted her, she now remembered with a shock, to agree to meet Antoine in what promised to be very compromising circumstances.
The next morning, Jean-Laurent took the children to school as part of his new campaign to be an all-functioning family man. He would be back late, he said – he was having dinner with François. Dinner with François again, Laura had said. Are you sure he doesn’t fancy you? Hey baby, do I look like a pédé’s delight? he had asked, striking up a macho pose. Not really, she had laughed as she waved them off, but now she knew, she had a plan.
It was low, she admitted, it was pretty damned humiliating, but she had to know. There was no point in tormenting herself with guilt over an innocent lunch with an admirer if her husband was up to much worse. She would follow him. She would become her own private eye. And if she discovered that what Lorinda had intimated was true, she might consider her flirtation in a quite different light.
Still wearing her dressing gown, she took a packet of luxury cereal from its hiding place in her underwear drawer and poured herself a large bowlful. She should have time to finish it before Asa emerged from the shower. At the age of thirty-seven, it should surely be possible to leave her food supplies openly in her own kitchen cupboard, but first she would have to get rid of that compulsive overeater who at this very minute was busy ensuring there would be no hot water left for Laura’s bath.