Martha in Paris

by Margery Sharp

  It cost Eric quite an effort to mutter that if she didn’t finish dressing she’d catch cold.

  “It doesn’t take long to eat an omelette,” said Martha, “and they go leathery.”—A brief shiver transmitted through her bare feet from bare parquet surprised her nonetheless; transmitted in turn a slight body-shiver apparent even through the towels.

  “There you are!” accused Eric. “I knew you were staying in too long.”

  “Perhaps I did,” admitted Martha uneasily. She was always nervous of catching cold because a really heavy cold was almost the only thing that stopped her working properly.

  “You’ve got to be warmed up somehow,” said Eric worriedly.—By hazard, the door to his bedroom stood ajar. Mrs. Taylor’s careful hands had made his bed before she left; had even turned it down …

  “I’ll be all right as soon as I’ve had something to eat,” said Martha.

  “I tell you what,” said Eric daringly, “get in my bed and I’ll bring it to you. I’m sure Mother wouldn’t want you to catch cold.”

  6

  The omelette was only slightly burnt; and how neat the tray! Eric knew just how to set it; good son that he was, he brought his mother breakfast in bed every Sunday. Such refinements as the matching salt- and pepper-pots (shaped respectively like an owl and a pussy-cat), and the sprig of parsley on the butter, were rather wasted on Martha, but she was no ungrateful beneficiary. It was wonderfully comfortable to eat sitting propped against pillows, and she voluntarily pulled up her feet to make room for Eric, with his own tray, on the bed’s end. She had never liked him so well: never indeed had so closely approximated his ideal image of her, as now sitting passive and grateful receiving his ministrations. Nor had Eric ever felt so fond of Martha; receptiveness and gratitude, in his by no means ungenerous view, being the cardinal womanly virtues.

  Also Martha’s cheeks like rosy apples, and her full throat the tint of apple-blossom, glowed ever more and more richly as she ate.

  The French had a word for it: appetizing.

  “You look awfully nice in there,” said Eric, setting her empty tray on the floor beside his own.—Actually upon it, in a glass of water between the owl and pussycat, the stiff little paper-frilled nosegay Martha’d brought for his mother. Eric’s hand must have shaken slightly; nosegay and glass tipped over together in a small unheeded puddle.

  Martha, burrowing luxuriously under the blankets, said it was nice.

  “I’ve a good mind to come in beside you!” said Eric daringly.

  —Ten seconds later, he was. It took him just the ten seconds to strip. The result was inevitable: Martha lost her virginity not after any gay party, but after a nice hot bath.

  7

  How deep the slumber of satisfied flesh! They were both satisfied. By a rare conjunction, for such a first encounter, masculine potency met and was charged by female ripeness. Martha and Eric both enjoyed themselves quite uncommonly. Then they both slept like logs.

  Chapter Seven

  Martha arrived home with the milk.—It was not to be expected that her absence had gone unremarked; yet by a fortunate chance not until shortly before she reappeared. Madame Dubois and Angèle, overnight, had engaged in one of their most vigorous rows: neither, abandoned to tears of self-pity behind a slammed door, remembered to listen for Martha’s return; and only when no answer came to Angèle’s morning knock was the alarm raised.—The period of anxiety, though thus brief, was nonetheless severe.

  “Where have you been? One has worried to death!” cried Madame Dubois, as Martha came stumping in. “If one had not known you at Mrs. Taylor’s, one would have sought the aid of the police!” (This was a sort of back-play, so to speak, or natural dramatization; Madame Dubois already imagining herself to have worried all night.) “You were at Mrs. Taylor’s?” demanded Madame Dubois.

  “Of course,” said Martha reasonably. “It was Friday.”

  Madame Dubois scrutinized her. Young girls had been known to lie! But Martha’s appearance, as always, reassured. No light of romance hung about her stout, respectable figure; no extra brightness of eye, softness of lip, or flush of cheek, betrayed her. She looked just as usual. Indeed, she felt just as usual; or possibly a trifle more relaxed. But she did recognize some further explanation necessary; and unhesitatingly made the absent Mrs. Taylor an accomplice.

  “Mrs. Taylor asked me to stay the night,” said Martha, “because her back was particularly bad.”

  It worked.

  “That famous back! Are you a masseuse?” cried Madame Dubois—satisfactorily diverted. “Does Mr. Joyce pay his good money for you to attend a malade imaginaire?—As I have long suspected her to be, your Mrs. Taylor?—And without even the grace to telephone one!” scolded Madame Dubois. “See Angèle white as a sheet,” she added accusingly, “through anxiety for her little friend!”

  Though this last was a sheer piece of opportunism, the drama of Martha’s absence and return undoubtedly smoothed the way for a reconciliation between mother and daughter. The morning-after, after one of their emotional bouts—the transition to normality before Angèle could set out for school with the appropriate face of a tranquil and dedicated schoolmistress—was always a little difficult to achieve. Now, over the breakfast-table, they exchanged sympathetic glances without effort. “Take a little more coffee, Maman,” begged Angèle, “after such a night, you must need it!” “You too, my darling!” returned Madame Dubois. “What a night for you also!” Despite this show of unity, however, Angèle did not fail to dart Martha one or two of her most excited, conspiratorial glances. Angèle was still Martha’s confidante—and even at the risk of being late for class still rushed into Martha’s bedroom bursting with devotion and curiosity while Martha re-laced her boots.

  “Did he sit up with his mother too?” whispered Angèle eagerly.

  “Just for a bit,” said Martha. “Your hair’s coming down.”

  “Each of you on either side her pillow? How charming!” breathed Angèle, attempting in her enthusiasm to clasp Martha’s hand—only Martha was engaged in tying a stout knot. (Martha always wore boots in winter; on the same principle that led her to get in Eric’s bed—in case she caught cold.) “What a bond!” sighed Angèle, clasping her own hands instead and letting her side-combs fall unheeded. “A memory for all your lives! And how she will remember and love you for it, when her son at last reveals his desire! If only I had such an opportunity,” mourned Angèle, “to show my affection for a second mother!”

  At least her affection for Martha wasn’t to be baulked. The moment Martha raised her head Angèle planted a kiss of loyalty on her brow. “But not a word, I promise, until the fiançailles!” swore Angèle. She kissed Martha again, more wetly. Martha was feeling so uncommonly relaxed, she let her.

  Otherwise, just the same.

  It would be wrong to say that Martha felt the loss of her virginity no more than she’d have felt the loss of a favourite chalk. Immediately, she felt it less. What she certainly didn’t feel was any sense of guilt.

  In any case, Eric felt enough for two.

  2

  He was waiting that evening outside the studio. Martha, who had stayed late washing brushes, and who in consequence was particularly eager to get home in time for dinner, observed him not only with surprise but with definite annoyance. If she could she would have dodged Eric—as Eric observed.

  “I don’t wonder,” he said humbly.

  “Don’t wonder what?” asked Martha.

  “If you’d rather not see me.” He swallowed. “After last night …”

  Martha glanced towards her ’bus-stop. There was such a mob there already, as the next ’bus churned up she had obviously no chance of boarding it.

  “Of course I don’t want not to see you,” she said bracingly.

  “You weren’t at our seat,” accused Eric.

  “I haven’t been for weeks,” Martha reminded him. “It’s too cold.”—Still his earnest, troubled visage drooped dismally above her own. He di
dn’t look like himself at all; he looked almost dishevelled; as though guilt instead of turning his hair white had grown it a couple of inches. He’d had such a bad shave, Martha thus closely face to face remarked four separate cuts, three still slightly fuzzed with cotton-wool, one beginning to bleed again.—The portfolio under her arm made a barrier between their bodies, but across it she spoke as kindly as her impatience allowed. “Last night wasn’t your fault,” she encouraged, “or at least no more than mine. Anyway, the others do it all the time.”

  The ingratitude of men!—He showed a spark of resentment.

  “If you just wanted to do like all the others—”

  “I didn’t,” Martha assured him. “I was just as surprised as you were.”

  He brightened a little.

  “And you really don’t hate me?”

  “Of course I don’t hate you.—There’s another ’bus coming,” said Martha. “Let’s just forget it.”

  Eric swallowed again.

  “That’s part of the trouble. You’re being wonderfully big, Martha, but I can’t forget it. In fact—and it’s partly what I came to say, besides asking your forgiveness—if Mother’s not back by next Friday, I think you’d better not come round. I—I shouldn’t be able to trust myself.”

  Upon a moment’s reflection, and rather to her surprise, Martha found that she wouldn’t be able to trust herself either. Her healthy body had thoroughly enjoyed the previous night’s experiment, and now that it knew exactly what was going to happen would probably enjoy a repetition even more. In fact, it seemed almost a pity—the first and irrevocable step taken—not to make the most of it …

  “I couldn’t trust myself either,” acknowledged Martha.

  Eric groaned.

  “That’s terrible,” groaned Eric. “And wonderful too,” he added huskily. “I mean, it’s terrible but it’s wonderful as well. It means we’ll be fighting it together. If only we could get married straight away!”

  Martha backed so sharply, the corner of her portfolio jerked up and hit him on the chin. Fortunately no drawings fell out; she tucked it more securely under her arm.

  “Of course we can’t get married,” she said sharply.

  “Not yet,” agreed Eric, “not until I get my step.” But he brightened still further. “Only you know I want to, and now I know you want to too, it makes everything all right. And at least we’ll both be fighting it together!”

  To Martha this repetition was such an obvious non sequitur she temporarily let more serious considerations slide. If everything was all right, why fight what? And indeed something of the same sort seemed to be passing through the mind of Eric.

  “Mother’ll probably be back by Friday anyway,” reflected Eric, after a slight pause. “Unless she has to stay for the funeral. Or if Granddad turns the corner, it might be Wednesday or Thursday.”

  “It’s Saturday now,” reflected Martha.

  “It’s going to be pretty beastly, all by myself in the flat,” meditated Eric.

  A third bus churned up unheeded.

  “Don’t you know anyone else to have?” asked Martha.

  “Even if I did, I wouldn’t want them,” said Eric, “with my mother so worried and my grandfather so ill.”

  If the spirit of Paris might have found this rather an odd way of asking Martha to go to bed with him again, Martha herself understood perfectly. Like her lover, she sprang from a class in which passion is always respectably masked; and indeed yielded to his amorous plea in terms no less oblique.

  “Well, if you’ve got an alarm-clock,” said Martha. “Because I’d have to be home by ten.”

  3

  “Do you mind if I’m out again to-morrow?” asked Martha, back in the rue de Vaugirard. Thick-skinned as she was even Martha had realized that she couldn’t cut a meal practically on table without offending Madame Dubois quite uncommonly—perhaps even to the point of active interferingness. “Just for dinner,” added Martha, “I’ll be back by ten.”

  “So one would hope!” snapped Madame Dubois.—“Your friend Mrs. Taylor again in need of a masseuse?” she enquired ironically. “She should be in a hospital!”

  Martha with complete lack of conscience directed a suborning glance across the table at Angèle.—The latter responded loyally.

  “Have you not said yourself, Maman, Martha is deep in Mrs. Taylor’s debt? Now is her chance to repay.”

  “And for how long is she to repay?” retorted Madame Dubois. “Until the Ides of March?”

  “No; just for a day or two until she does go into hospital,” said Martha resourcefully. “She’s so bad she has to have a thorough examination. She’s just waiting for a bed.”

  There was always something very convincing about Martha’s lies. Her general aspect of respectability promoted belief. If Madame Dubois hesitated, it was not from any doubt as to the facts. She simply felt that Mr. Joyce would hardly approve what must evidently be a distraction from his protégée’s rightful studies. On the other hand, how Martha ate! To so economical a housekeeper, the absence of that splendid appetite from the dinner-table appealed strongly. “After all,” thought Madame Dubois, “Monsieur Joyce left no particular instruction; and if the child (who knows him better than we do) fears his displeasure, she will not tell him.” Thus reasoning, and with the good motive furnished by Angèle, Madame Dubois gave way.

  “Very well, I permit you!” said Madame Dubois crossly. “But if your Mrs. Taylor is too suffering to prepare a meal, do not come to me for tartines, in the middle of the night!”

  Chapter Eight

  Actually Eric fed Martha—on the Sunday, and then the Monday, and then the Tuesday—rather well. In the absence of his mother he explored the Parisian charcuteries; even took such expert advice, this was when Martha acquired her taste for pâté de foie gras. But they always ate rather fast, to get all the sooner into bed.

  As Martha had suspected, it got better and better.—Apart from all else, no illicit amour was ever more comfortably quartered. Martha and Eric had the apartment to themselves, secure in privacy; while the fact that it didn’t in the least resemble a love-nest was a positive advantage. A pink satin bedhead and white bearskin rugs would have put Eric off; whereas in such thoroughly domesticated surroundings he could feel, as he needed to, domestic. “We might be married already!” Eric sometimes paused to exclaim. “Oh Martha, if only you hadn’t to go home!”

  This was the only fly in their ointment, that when the alarm-clock went off they had to get up and dress again, and turn out again into the December night.—Both of them; for Eric was by this time already as it were too husbandly to let Martha return to the rue de Vaugirard alone. He took her back in a taxi, which Martha, with a prudent eye to the Dubois concierge, made stop at the corner. Yet even this taxi-ride became a snug little coda to what had gone before—Martha held tight to Eric’s chest against its Gallic boundings, Eric’s chin jammed down on her knitted tea-cosy hat. Mrs. Taylor had been right to take alarm, that night she walked back with her son from the English chemist’s bridge-party: how strangely was her vision fulfilled! Though Martha was no languorous blonde glinting like a topaz, though she was swathed not in silver fox but in stout navy serge, well was Mrs. Taylor’s fearful vision justified!

  In fact, the brief taxi-ride was a small price to pay, if any price at all, for what had preceded it: a complete and happy intimacy in Eric’s bed.

  2

  It still wasn’t the last intimacy. Once Martha emerged from the bathroom to find him handling her portfolio; and snatched it furiously away.

  “That’s not very friendly,” complained Eric.

  “I don’t like my drawings looked at,” scowled Martha.

  “Don’t they look at ’em in the studio?” retorted Eric reasonably.

  “I let le maître,” admitted Martha, “but that’s different.”

  For once he was stung into a rare plainness of speech.

  “Well, I must say it’s a pretty rum do if you won’t let me look at
your drawings when you’ll let me look at you with no clothes on.”

  “That’s different,” repeated Martha, tying the strings of the portfolio in a double knot.

  Actually Eric was not displeased to have a little lovers’ tiff. He had read about such. But he thought he had perhaps shocked Martha by his plainness, and was already sorry for it; and ended the matter with a tender jest.

  “Sometimes I don’t believe you care for me at all!” chided Eric humorously.

  It was the truth. Every artist being in some degree bisexual, Martha possessed the faculty commonly supposed reserved to males of disassociating pleasure from sentiment. She’d liked originally having the run of the Taylor bathroom; her healthy young body subsequently enjoyed very much intimacy with another healthy young body—particularly between such nice clean sheets as Eric devotedly prepared each night; but for Eric himself Martha’s regard first and last remained unchanged; and it was slight. In physique he was neither handsome enough, nor emaciated enough, to interest her draughtsman’s eye, and his conversation bored her. Only in bed could she accept him as an equal; and after three nights running her body was so satisfied, also she was beginning to feel so sluggish in the mornings, Martha accepted Mrs. Taylor’s return on the Wednesday philosophically enough.

  3

  Once again it was Eric who suffered for them both. His aspect, as he met Martha outside the studio at lunch-time to break the ill news, was almost as wretched as five days earlier. He’d had a better shave and his hair was tidy, but his eyes gazed into hers with such mournful intensity, it seemed as though he felt sexual disappointment as keenly as he did guilt. (Mrs. Taylor had been right again; he couldn’t stand it …)