Libby didn’t sound surprised to hear from me. She said she was busy and couldn’t talk for long, but why didn’t I meet her for dinner? I’d splurged and bought myself prawns at the markets. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast so as to appreciate them more, and I was going to make mayonnaise. It seemed a shame to waste the prawns, but they weren’t going to survive a night on my sooty, not quite freezing window-sill. I put them next to my door so I would remember to take the rubbish out with me when I left.
I took my good black pants down to the shower and hung them just outside the recess where they would be steamed. I tied my hair back with a red ribbon and put on some lipstick of the same colour. I got out my silk shirt. The top button was missing.
I picked through my postcard box of odds and ends. There was a Spanish lottery ticket in there, some Rizla rolling papers, an old fountain pen whose broken nib I had never got around to replacing. And there was an enamel brooch of a garuda. I pinned it to my shirt where the button would have gone.
Caroline had given me the brooch when she got back from Indonesia. That was almost ten years ago, the same night Libby came over for dinner. Caroline fascinated me then. She seemed so confident, so detached, I used to think that by the time I was her age everything would be easy. Now I had almost reached that age but I felt no nearer to it. Caroline would always be twelve years older than me.
It was a cold night. The cold hit me in the pit of the neck where my scarf should have been. Where was that scarf? Probably in London, wrapped around Matthews neck. It was the one thing I should have made sure I kept. It looked much better on me. I had Matthews gloves. They were far too big and I couldn’t feel anything through them. I had to keep taking the right one off to check that the piece of paper with the address of the restaurant was still in my pocket. I crossed the boulevard and walked down rue des Francs Bourgeois. It got dark so quickly now. It was only six-thirty and could have been ten.
Sitting in the sunroom when daylight savings had just ended, the house already dark though dinner was an hour away, we were fighting over the cashews in the mixed nuts, then, when they were gone, the roasted almonds. The harbour turned glaucous with the late sun across it, then darkness came into the water like ink pumped slowly from the bottom. Just for a few minutes the headland glowed, the houses ensnaring the last daylight; the next time I looked up it had faded.
– It wasn’t worth redecorating when the children were younger, Mum was explaining to Libby as they came into the living-room behind us. I don’t suppose you remember the old curtains? That awful khaki. I can’t imagine what I was thinking of. I gave them to St Vincent de Paul. I suppose somebody can still make use of them. These ones are much nicer, don’t you think?
Libby made an appreciative sound.
– Yes. I don’t really like curtains, but I suppose they help break up the space.
Tom pinched his lips and mimed this sentence back to us.
– Smartarse, Caroline hissed.
Caroline was impressed by Libby, by how French she seemed with her tasteful clothes and gracious manners. Tom thought Libby was precious and arrogant for the same reasons. I wasn’t sure what I thought: I admired the same things as Caroline, I was sceptical of the same things as Tom.
Caroline turned on the light. She was wearing a batik dress without a bra. The elasticised bodice was sucked into her sunken chest, exaggerating her tits. I was thankful mine never grew as big as hers. Thin silver bangles clinked up and down her brown arms. She leant forward to refill her glass and I watched the slide of her sandal straps over the long dark toe hairs, wondering if they pulled and hurt. She had hairy legs, hair sprouting from under her arms; it seemed impossible the same was about to happen to me.
Now she probably looked like one of these women in suits hurrying past me. Caroline would pull her hair back off her face, and have it removed altogether from other parts of her body. I felt like her tonight with my hair back: we had always looked more alike than anyone else in the family.
I walked past the fairy-tale beauty of Place des Vosges, past museums and lopsided buildings, amber beneath the street lights. Libby had just left an apartment in this area when she visited us in Sydney. Frightfully expensive, I remember her saying, the whole area’s being done up. The door of a bar opened, releasing a tipsy businessman and the smell of garlic.
I always thought Mum was a good cook, but according to her she wasn’t. The meat was too tough, the vegetables overdone, the salad dressing was tasteless, and she hadn’t the patience to cook good desserts. Mum was a perfectionist. When she had the furniture reupholstered she expected the Midas touch of an interior decorator; when she cooked a special meal it had to be haute cuisine. And she had to be the perfect mother. Of course, she failed.
– Oh, Siobhan. I meant the dark blue napkins.
– Well, I’m sorry.
– Don’t get up now. Libby, I tried to think of something you couldn’t get in Paris, but I suppose you can get just about anything there.
– Oh no, really, I hardly ever eat out.
Libby looked as though she hardly ever ate, out or in. She was tiny. I wondered if she ate more in Paris. You’d be torturing yourself if you didn’t eat here. The Jewish cake shops in the Marais were closing. A log of strudel was taken from a window, a tray of cheesecake went next. Then a hand clutching a soapy cloth swung across the bench, through the poppy seeds and crumbs. I wondered what they did with all the cakes they didn’t sell – the sign in the window read, ‘Cakes made fresh daily! Did they really throw all those cakes out?
– And so I’m afraid it’s just good old roast chook. Mum swept into the dining-room holding it forth.
– Yum! Thomas called in support.
– Yu-um, Nora and I chorused, roast chicken!
But at that moment I felt as contemptuous of my mother as she seemed of herself.
– I’m told you’re going to the College of Law, said Libby to Caroline. No more thoughts of drama school, like your mother?
Caroline smiled ambiguously.
– No, I’ll stick to the law.
– Siobhan takes care of the drama, said Nora.
I made a face at her. Mum told Libby I had a part in the school play. Libby looked at me with interest.
– Just the butler, I said.
I squashed my potato then covered it with butter. Sunken chested, flat breasted and gangly, I never got the female parts in school plays. I wished I were voluptuous, I wished I were womanly. I wished I oozed sex, whatever that meant. I watched a pool of butter form around my potato.
Nora must have had it in for me because she liked the garuda brooch better than the daggy batik shoulder bag Caroline had given her.
– Siobhan’s got one line.
– Two!
– Oh yair? Caroline looked at me enquiringly.
– I say, Quick, sir! Miss Sparks has fallen down the stairs and, I couldn’t say for sure, sir, but I think I saw someone in the garden.
Two lines, full of sibilants. I could feel my face reddening; the memory alone was making me redden. Tom leant towards me.
– Hey, Siobhan, what about ‘she sells sea shells by the—’
I kicked him under the table. He hooted with pain. Dad folded his arms.
– Speaking of the theatre, Thomas, you look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon tonight.
Tom was hunched over a chicken bone, his face hidden by a greasy mat of hair, the cheesecloth shirt that had been given to him only hours before looking like it had been worn for weeks. He sat up and laughed and the hair flopped back, revealing a jaw smudged with bumfluff and pimples. Mum and Libby were reminiscing about London, Caroline was teaching Nora rude words in Indonesian, and I, confident no one would notice, leant on one buttock to let a fart escape. Dad was still staring at Tom.
– You’d better do something about that hair, my boy. I don’t want to be getting another letter from Father Parnell.
Tom looked over at me, his nose wrinkling.
– Pong, I said. You’re such a grot, Tom.
He ignored me.
– Jesus had long hair, he said.
– Oh really, said Dad, and his mouth became a thin straight line.
– Do you think you’ll go back to teaching now you have more time, Joan? Libby asked Mum.
But Mum’s eyes were flicking around the table, in and out of each conversation. They sharpened and settled on Tom.
– Can’t you make an effort, Thomas? You can do what you like when you leave school, you know.
Lycéens were milling around St Paul métro station. They seemed so sophisticated to me. Surely thirteen years in strict school uniforms had retarded us in some way. To think I’d been out of one for only five years, and Tom only ten. One of the high school students I walked past had hair to his collar, thick, the colour of molasses. I wished Tom had succeeded in that rebellion. He came home with it shorn off the next week. His neck was white, he had a white band across the top of his forehead. He looked ridiculous.
He said he’d kept the cut hair and was going to make a voodoo doll of Father Parnell with it. I sharpened my pins too, but that doll never appeared.
All those crewcuts and cold morning showers my brothers had to endure, I suffered them vicariously. I suffered them too. I made sure of that. Just like the lightwell back at Hôtel des Etrangers, the slag heap accumulating, I stored it all up, I kept the archives of injustice. I was the repository, the last in line, the illogical conclusion; I hung on to everything that was handed down and I carried it with me everywhere.
I stopped on the Pont Neuf and looked down the Seine. The matt quality of the water, thick and mucky, was so good for reflection. The lights of the bridge and the lights along the quais lanced across it, and a new moon made a white path to where I stood. Then a bâteau-mouche appeared beneath me; it carved through the water, churning up the colours.
Artery of Paris. It was overwhelming to think of all the rubbish that had passed into this river, gone down with the currents out to sea. Maybe I ought to sort out the rubbish I’d been collecting – recyclable waste, toxic waste, compost, biodegradables. That piece of paper in my pocket would belong in the last category. I checked the address of the restaurant once more, then dropped it off the bridge. It disappeared before I saw it hit the water. The wake from the bâteau-mouche spread down the river and I walked across the bridge to the Left Bank.
Expatriates
I made my way through the crowded restaurant to Libby’s table. She watched me approach blankly and said something to her companions. Then she looked up at me again.
– It is Siobhan. You look so much like your mother!
Her mouth was smiling while she examined me. She looked the same – the same neat small pony-tail; another low-cut, thin-waisted long dress. If she’d looked French in Australia, she looked Australian in France. The freckled chest, the sunspots on the backs of her hands.
We touched cheeks, then Libby motioned to the man opposite her. He was big. When he stood to greet me the table came halfway up his thighs.
– This is Grover Hiscock, Siobhan Elliott. Grover’s mother went to drama school with your mother in London, Siobhan.
Grover was a bull-necked Canadian in his mid-thirties. He had hot blue eyes under a prominent forehead. Two eyebrows clambered along it and collided in the dent above his nose.
– Hallo. Nice to meet you.
– You too.
– And this is Margaret Nettleton. I met Siobhan’s mother when I first started working in television, Margaret.
Margaret wore a huge scarf patterned with mauve and pink flowers. The pink matched the skin on her neck and the mauve matched her glossy eyeshadow. The frame of her glasses, large and square, sat on a thick nose, thickly powdered. Like curious neighbours peeping over a fence, her eyebrows rose.
– And does your mother produce as well, Siobhan?
– Just children.
I bit my smile. It hurt. Margaret cleared her throat. I looked at the kir that was placed before me. Suddenly I was a daughter again: naughty, confined, and utterly defenceless. Seated next to Libby with my back to the street, I had the feeling something was going on behind me that I should know about.
– Margaret’s a Sydneysider too, Libby said to me.
– Seventeen years ago I escaped, said Margaret, and I’ve been in exile ever since.
A waiter handed the wine list to Grover. I watched him, wondering why I wanted to. Grover hadn’t shaved that morning, or the one before. Margaret took the wine list from him, saying she knew which wine would be just right, and Grover resumed his journey through the plate of olives and chillies. One by one, he ate them all. He leant his dark chewing jaw on his hand and stared out the window. His eyes moved from side to side, following the footpath traffic. Margaret ordered the wine then rubbed her hands together in front of her face.
– And what do you do, Siobhan? she said brightly.
I mumbled something about teaching English, sort of au pairing.
– Oh! An au pair girl! You poor thing. I’m so glad I managed to avoid that when I first came to Paris. I’m surprised they let you out tonight. I thought they’d have you on all fours scrubbing the kitchen floor.
– They’re probably a bit more lenient these days, Margaret, Libby said quietly.
– I don’t live with them. I’m not really an au pair, I just work with the kid in the evening. Anyway, it’s the only work I can do here without papers.
– Siobhan did arts/law at Sydney University, said Libby helpfully.
– Oh yes, I was there back in the olden days, said Margaret.
– I didn’t really, I said, I failed. I dropped out after a year.
I twirled my empty glass, wishing for the others to empty as well so we could get into the wine, waiting now in the middle of the table. I’d eaten one croissant today and the kir had made itself at home very quickly. It was welcome.
– Why don’t you do a course here, Siobhan? Libby suggested.
– I don’t want to.
She looked away and ran her hands through her hair.
– That’s a shame.
– Why is it a shame?
– It’s always useful to have some sort of qualification.
I had no answer to that. I filled our glasses: Grover’s, then mine, then Libby’s and lastly Margaret’s. Margaret was asking Grover what he’d been doing in Paris.
– Well, I was at Les Halles today, and—
Margaret slumped back in her chair as though she had been hit.
– Oh god, what on earth would you want to go there for? These places are designed for people like us to avoid.
I glared at her. Who did she think people like us were?
– And what’s the child like, that you teach? Libby asked me.
– Obnoxious. But I like him.
– Well, that’s what counts.
– I feel a bit sorry for him because he’s an only child and his parents are pretty awful. I can’t blame him for wanting to rebel, you know what I mean?
Oh dear, I was talking to a parent. My unequivocal justification for Laurent’s misbehaviour now seemed so one-sided. Parents were oppressors, I took this for granted. My discomfort increased when I remembered Libby had just one child, a teenage boy. My big-family arrogance! I waited, hoping she would say something sensible. Her fingers stroked the stem of her glass. She gazed at the lights moving in her wine, nodding faintly. She was listening to me. On I rushed.
– It’s just this real pressure on him to get good marks, all the time. They never talk about anything else. It’s all a bit … cold.
– I think I know the school he goes to. It’s very competitive. The system’s different here, you know, Siobhan. Libby looked at me intensely. French children have to work much harder than Australian children. The work really is quite difficult.
– I’ve just started teaching another girl, the same age, and her parents aren’t as bad.
I heard my voice – clipped, hesitant
, tinged with an unidentifiable accent. It occurred to me I was imitating Libby. I repeated phrases in my head in an effort to reclaim my English speaking voice. Margaret’s was a booming English accent. I wondered what life in Paris had to do with English accents. She was harping on at Grover, Don’t go there, you must go here.
It was a long time since I’d vented my spleen, and my spleen felt full to bursting. Margaret Nettleton was nettling me. She made me feel reckless and mean. Maybe it was her hairstyle. The way it veered off her forehead in an arrested grey curve had been reminding me of a certain person all evening, but the person had been misplaced in my memory. I blamed Margaret for the fruitless, agitated search that my subconscience had been conducting since it first set eyes on her. I said I often went to Les Halles, changing on the métro; coming here tonight, for instance.
– Where did you say you live?
– I didn’t. Bréguet Sabin.
– Quoi?
– It’s near Bastille.
– Oh. Bréguet Sabin.
Margaret pronounced it much better than I had. For a second I wished she could see me with the Durebex, rattling on in French. Then the perceived misfortune of my job came back to me and I wished she could see what I could say fluently in any language, the up-yours sign I was making at her under the table.
– Surely you’d walk, she said. We are in Paris, you know.
– How could I forget?
– Of course, all Australians think it’s normal to have a car.
– I can’t even drive, I lied. And lied again, Anyway, I was up at Barbès this afternoon. I didn’t have time to walk all the way back down here.
I hadn’t been up to Barbès for weeks. I should lie more often, I thought, watching Margaret’s eyes do one more desperate roll before coming to rest on her menu. A spelling mistake there made her caw with laughter.
– Shall we order? said Libby.
I couldn’t decide. I had a private rule to eat in restaurants what I couldn’t cook myself. I couldn’t cook anything on this menu, except the plate of olives and chillies, and Grover had eaten them. The waiter waited patiently, pen poised.
– Siobhan? Margaret prompted.
Au Pair Page 9