And What Do You Do?

by Sarah Long

  What else were they supposed to do if not bloom? Wither and die like feeble seedlings? Presumably this fate awaited those who failed to sign up for any of the courses offered by the zealous band of wives.

  Laura had become friendly with one woman there, an American called Sonia who had been distraught, on learning to speak French, to find that her husband was not the glamorous intellectual she had believed him to be. ‘I used to watch him talking with his brothers and thought they were talking about Descartes,’ she wailed. ‘Now I realise it’s only rugby and football. My husband is a bore and I’ve only just found out!’

  Laura and Jean-Laurent drove in silence to the party. Laura tried to think about Antoine, about Friday when she would be alone with him, when she could leave this mess behind and join him in his wonderfully simple take on love and pleasure. But instead her thoughts were clouded by resentment at her husband sitting beside her, his fine, muscular hands gripping the wheel, his strong, beautiful thighs loosely encased in fine grey wool.

  She, that woman, Flavia, must have sat in this very seat watching her lover drive them away to a place of stolen happiness, an intimate restaurant, perhaps, or a bar where he could show her off, or, just back to her place for the evening. Maybe even a whole night if he had managed to come up with some excuse. Easy enough – Laura was never suspicious, it never crossed her mind. It didn’t when you were in a trusting relationship. Flavia might have admired his profile as she glanced across to watch him concentrating, looking up at the lights, waiting for them to change. She might have reached across to lay a small hand on Laura’s husband’s thigh, the thigh of the man who had lied to Laura and loved another.

  Jean-Laurent stared through the windscreen and tried to see a path ahead. Only a week ago, it had all been so simple. He had his wife and his family, his job and his mistress, all hanging together as a cohesive unity formed of separate parts. He had even been congratulating himself on how well it was working out, how he had achieved the perfect balance, handling each element with his own uniquely insightful managerial skills.

  And now Flavia had stepped right out of line. It was clearly a trap, but if she thought she could catch him that way, then she was underestimating the formidable force that was Jean-Laurent de Saint Léger, MBA. She had made a bad error of judgement, and it remained to be seen how the issue would be resolved.

  They arrived at the party and Sonia’s husband opened the door. Laura was intrigued to meet him after hearing Sonia complain about him for the last five years. He didn’t look that boring, she thought, but then Sonia had a tendency to be disappointed by life, and few disappointments can match up to the realisation that you have married someone who is less than you had hoped.

  Sonia came forward to greet them wearing an exotic silk combination that blended well with the harem-style décor that she had incongruously imposed on their modern high-rise apartment overlooking the Seine. They lived in the area close to the Hotel Nikko in the fifteenth arrondissement, favoured by Japanese because it was the one part of Paris with nondescript tower blocks to remind them of Tokyo.

  Laura recognised a couple of women from the school. They were both members of an organisation called AAWE, which stood for the Association of American Wives of Europeans. This had always sounded rather sinister to Laura, with its overtones of racist exclusion. What if you were an Asian or even a European wife of a European, or not even a wife at all – would you be allowed to join? She had never bothered to ask. As far as she could make out, they spent most of their time making giant patchwork quilts and swapping packets of instant cookie mix.

  One of the women made a beeline for her and started to solicit her opinion on the security arrangements for an upcoming school trip to the country. With precise French logic this was known as a classe rousse since it took place in autumn when the leaves were red. When they went in spring, it was called a classe verte.

  ‘I really think we should insist on having a night monitor,’ said the anxious mother. ‘Someone to patrol the dormitories. After all, you never know who might break in.’

  ‘Prowling paedophiles, you mean?’ said Laura. ‘The problem is, how do you know your night monitor won’t turn out to be the worst paedophile of all? All those angelic sleeping children to choose from – it could push anyone with the slightest tendency over the edge.’

  ‘Oh my God, you’re so right, I hadn’t thought of that. In that case I think the only thing we can do is organise a rota of mothers. We’ll take it in turns to go down and spend the night.’

  ‘Count me out,’ said Laura. ‘I’m not ruining a week off from my son by having to drive all that way for a sleepless night.’

  The woman looked bewildered.

  ‘You British,’ she said. ‘I just don’t get it. I suppose it’s that boarding-school system you have.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Laura cheerfully. ‘We’ve all been buggered senseless by the age of ten, so we find it perfectly normal. Oh look, there’s a man in a white coat with a tray of champagne. Do excuse me.’

  Jean-Laurent followed her admiringly towards the refreshments.

  ‘Laura, I am so happy I didn’t marry an American woman. Please remember that.’

  But Laura was not in the mood for his compliments. She was sick of this charade, of the pretence that everything was just fine, that he could smooth-talk his way out of his despicable behaviour.

  ‘Why’s that then?’ she retorted. ‘Is it because they have high moral standards and won’t stand for any hanky-panky on the side?’

  Jean-Laurent decided to play it light.

  ‘Hanky-panky – I love that word.’

  ‘It’s not just the word you love, though, is it Jean-Laurent?’

  Her hurt had hardened into pure anger. It was odd how she could dismiss her own adultery so easily and stand there, a pillar of righteous indignation. She was the wronged party, and he was a low-down cheat and home-wrecker who had forced her to retaliate.

  Jean-Laurent saw the fury in her face and realised that he had been found out. She knew. It was time for him to fall on his knees and beg for forgiveness and she would understand and they would make a fresh start. If only it were that simple. If only it were just a bit of hanky-panky he knew he could make it all right – there would be tears and recriminations, but they would get through it. A week ago it would have been so easy, but now Flavia’s pregnancy had changed everything. It was all getting horribly out of control.

  A cocktail party, however, was not the ideal forum for the bitter slanging match that promised to ensue. Mercifully, they were interrupted by a tap on Laura’s shoulder. She turned round to see her friend Emma, a statuesque English beauty, accompanied by her Napoleonic husband who barely came up to her breasts but who held himself as though he were the ruler of the universe.

  ‘Laura, meet Pierre-Marie. I’m just trying to persuade him that we really don’t need to live in an enormously wide boulevard to maintain our status. I have seen a lovely house for sale but it’s in a narrow one-way street and he won’t consider it.’

  Laura and Jean-Laurent shook hands with the minuscule husband.

  ‘You will understand,’ he said with a smile, ‘that when you live in a grand apartment in a pierre de taille building on avenue Bosquet, you are not in a hurry to rush off to an undistinguished dark alley where the buildings are nothing but crépi.’

  ‘Excuse my ignorance,’ said Laura, relieved to slip back into small talk, ‘but what is pierre de taille and what is crépi?’

  This was a mistake, and she realised too late that she had involuntarily launched him on a monologue that looked set to last all evening in that peculiarly French way. Whereas the English would knock you off the subject within minutes, the French would all join in, taking turns to throw in their own half-hour contribution to the dissertation. No doubt it came from the higher education system where philosophy majors were expected to spend seven hours writing about one tiny point. It seemed that pierre de taille referred to noble blocks of s
tone whereas crépi was a plebeian rough plaster used to cover up inferior masonry.

  ‘And so I have explained to Emma that crépi is out of the question,’ said Pierre-Marie. ‘Avenue Bosquet is an address, rue Erlanger is not an address. People from London do not understand, as London is a very ugly city because there is so little noble stone. Crépi everywhere, which is why I could never live there.’

  ‘Right, that’s sorted that out, then,’ said Emma.

  Laura decided to go for a diversionary tactic.

  ‘Your name is rather intriguing, Pierre-Marie. Terribly transsexual. Did you ever find it confusing during your formative years?’

  Pierre-Marie drew himself up to his full diminutive height.

  ‘Excuse me, madame, but you speak with the ignorance of a foreigner. Pierre-Marie is an unquestionably masculine name, just as Marie-Pierre is an entirely feminine one.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course, Marie-Pierre! I’m afraid that had you gone to English school, you would definitely have been known as Marie-Pierre – you know how we can’t resist nicknames, especially anything that might imply sexual ambivalence.’

  Pierre-Marie judged this remark to be unworthy of a reply and turned to Jean-Laurent, reverting seamlessly to his theme.

  ‘But for real, wonderful pierre de taille, you must go to Bordeaux,’ he enthused. ‘Building after building of beautiful stone. You must know it, Jean Laurent – it is a jewel in our country’s patrimoine.’

  Laura and Emma slipped away, leaving the men to continue the eulogy of aristocratic French architecture.

  ‘God, they go on, don’t they?’ said Emma. ‘Don’t you wonder why you married a Frenchman? But at least yours is tall, doesn’t have so much to prove.’

  ‘I don’t know, you should hear him on wine.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s them gone for the evening, then. I like your hair, by the way. Does the new look mean you’ve taken a lover?’

  Laura was spared the need to reply by the arrival of Sonia, who came rustling up in her silks, waving a book.

  ‘Girls, look, here is something you must read.’

  The book was entitled Women Who Do Too Much. The author was an American woman who evidently did too little, since she had found the time to write it.

  ‘It’s no wonder we are always exhausted,’ said Sonia. ‘It’s all right for men just going off to work and leaving us to cope with everything. Really, you must read it – you realise we are just wearing ourselves out? It’s scandalous.’

  ‘But Sonia, we really don’t do anything, I don’t know what you mean,’ said Emma. ‘None of us does our own housework and the children are at school all day.’

  Sonia looked put out.

  ‘Well I don’t know whose side you’re on. We have all the worry, the organisation . . .’

  ‘Oh come on, Sonia!’ said Laura. ‘You know that’s a load of bollocks. Let’s be honest, now, what exactly are these onerous responsibilities? Getting the kids to school and meeting them, and that’s about all isn’t it? Oh, and fixing up the odd play date. It’s damned cushy compared with the lives of women who work.’

  ‘You mean work outside the home,’ Sonia corrected her.

  ‘Yes, OK, work outside the home. Which we don’t choose to do, so we should count ourselves lucky.’

  ‘But it’s the emotional stress, Laura, surely you must feel that? The burden you carry for the wellbeing of the entire family?’

  ‘That’s a self-inflicted anxiety. Our kids are privileged little things – they want for nothing, so we beat ourselves up trying to dream up problems for them. I tell you, if we went out to work we wouldn’t have the time to feel hard done by.’

  As she spoke, Laura realised with a sudden flash of enlightenment that she had had enough of being on the other side. She didn’t want to spend her life worrying about her husband, fixating on the au pair, doing nice dinners and building her life around her children’s social engagements. She wanted to leave this coterie of spoilt wives with not enough to think about.

  ‘Well, I can see I’m wasting my time here,’ said Sonia. ‘You British, you’re so damned long-suffering.’

  She laughed to show she meant no malice, then headed off to the other side of the room in search of women more prepared to see themselves as victims.

  Emma raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course, I didn’t tell her the very best thing about being free in the day. Which is the chance of a bit of extra-marital.’

  Laura choked on her champagne.

  ‘I hope you haven’t told Pierre-Marie.’

  ‘Oh, he knows. He’s got someone as well. That’s one thing about the French – they’re quite sensible about marriage. No point in frightening the horses just because of a little dalliance here and there.’

  Laura twirled her glass non-commitally.

  ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Emma, ‘You have got someone?’

  ‘No comment,’ said Laura.

  The atmosphere was tense as Laura and Jean-Laurent drove home from the party. Neither of them alluded to Laura’s half-formed accusation, and she concentrated on her driving, staring coldly ahead as Jean-Laurent reached across for her knee.

  ‘Laura,’ he began, ‘there is something I need to tell you.’

  ‘Not now, please. Can’t you see I’m driving.’

  He cowed back in his seat, staring miserably out of the window.

  ‘The thing is, I seem to have got myself into a rather awful situation.’

  ‘That’s really not my problem.’

  ‘How can it not be your problem? We are married, you are my wife, my problem is your problem, isn’t it? I love you, Laura!’

  ‘Jean-Laurent, I don’t want to hear about it. Please, let’s just get home, shall we? It’s too late to be having this conversation.’

  Before going to bed, Laura checked on her sleeping sons, tucking them up under their duvets. A light showed under Asa’s door, and the perfume of aromatic oils overlaid with the lingering smell of fried popcorn suggested that she had spent the evening indulging her twin passions for bingeing and beauty treatments.

  Laura checked the lavatory and saw the telltale flecks underneath the seat. Asa was clearly not making quite the progress she claimed with the Overeaters Anonymous programme.

  She climbed into bed, where Jean-Laurent was already curled up on his side, and picked up her new bedtime reading. It was called Be Your Own Life Coach. In the end she had thought it easier to buy the book than go to the bother of seeing someone. But there was nothing in it that she didn’t already know – just the usual anodyne brew of common sense dressed up in new clothes.

  She dropped the book and turned her mind to her approaching rendezvous with Antoine. For her, it was pure pleasure, a secret world that presented an escape from what had so rapidly become the tangled mess of her home life. She closed her eyes serenely and drifted off to sleep.

  Jean-Laurent, for his part, stared wakefully into the darkness. He had to break with Flavia, that was clear. Baby or no baby, there was no way forward for them now.

  ELEVEN

  Laura lay beside Antoine in the luxuriously appointed bed at the Ritz and stroked his upper arm. His skin was slack, the muscles underneath soft and unused.

  ‘Isn’t it strange,’ she murmured, ‘that my husband has what can only be described as a corps magnifique, and yet I so much prefer yours.’

  ‘It’s normal,’ he replied. ‘We are at the discovery stage. I too have a beautiful wife, but to me your stretch marks and little pot belly are more delicious at this moment than her perfect figure.’

  ‘Pot belly! That’s rather insulting. You’ll be sending me off for liposuction soon.’

  ‘Never. I love you because you are happy with your body. All the women who come to see me are miserable because they see the difference between what they are and what they think they should be.’

  ‘And afterwards, are they happy?’

  He shrugged. ‘For a few months, maybe, then they will come back for somethi
ng else.’ He ran his hand, white and manicured, over her soft belly. ‘But you do not care. For me, that is freedom.’

  ‘And for me, this is freedom. Away from all the rest of the stuff, my cheating husband – you know he is trying to confess to me now, but I won’t let him.’

  ‘You are right. Marriages need secrets. And the joy of marriage is the opportunity it presents for deception. If we were not married, this tryst would lose all its charm. More champagne?’

  He stepped out of bed towards the damask-draped trolley bearing the remains of their lunch and lifted the bottle out of its silver bucket. Laura contemplated his naked body: the imperfect body of a man beyond his prime. He advanced towards the bed with the bottle and topped up the glass standing on her bedside table.

  ‘You know that in this vale of tears we must seize the moments of pleasure that are offered to us.’

  Laura sat up happily, prudishly pulling the sheet up to conceal her breasts.

  ‘You’re quite a philosopher for a medical man,’ she laughed. ‘So how can we multiply our opportunities for happiness? Once a week seems rather miserly.’

  ‘I agree. I wonder, have you ever been to Thailand?’

  ‘Thailand! Well, yes – as a matter of fact I went there years ago with Jean-Laurent. We went trekking near Chang Mai and rode on an elephant. We slept nine to a hut. I was so exhausted I thought I was going to die.’

  ‘That is not what I had in mind. I go once a month to perform operations in a clinic in Bangkok. I always stay at the Sukhothai Hotel. I think you would like it.’

  Laura remembered she had seen the Sukhothai featured in a recent copy of Elle Décoration – bathrooms the size of a studio apartment, all teak and slate with doors leading off to an obscene number of cubicles and giant his-and-hers washbasins.

  ‘You surely can’t expect me to come with you! I’d love to, of course – in fact I can’t think of anything nicer – but I couldn’t possibly get away with it. What on earth would I say to Jean-Laurent?’