by Muriel Zagha
While this was going on, Isabelle experienced the oddest feeling of division of her self. Her conscious mind was firmly congratulating her on how well she was handling herself in the company of Tom Quince. It also stated with pedantic satisfaction that the presence of a third person was a wonderful boon, acting as it did as a sort of censoring device that made it impossible even to allude to certain recent events which had taken place, for some of them, on the very table at which they were now seated.
Meanwhile her body was following a very different course. Almost painfully delighted to see Tom again, it would gladly have leapt over the table that stood between them to be more closely reunited with him. Also, being rather feral in outlook, Isabelle’s body did not at all care for Rosie, having instantly categorised her as a first-class tête à claques – an irritating person whose face seemed to invite a good hard slap, or several, come to that.
Somewhere between the two, another, more diffident and tender part of her consciousness was following its own meandering line of questioning, chiefly to do with what might be the exact status of the bra-less barefoot Rosie in Tom’s life.
‘Rosie and I took the same horticulture course a few years ago,’ Tom said, as he stood up to clear their plates.
‘And then we met up again in Florence last year,’ Rosie added for Isabelle’s benefit. ‘Oh, Tommy,’ she said, laughing throatily, ‘we had such a fantastic time there, didn’t we? And as I only live around the corner,’ she went on, her eyes gradually returning to Isabelle, ‘I often pop over to help with the garden. By this stage it almost feels like my own garden too. Because it’s been such a joint project for us, you see.’
‘So, are you also a professional gardener?’ Isabelle asked, still trying not to think of Tom and Rosie having a fantastic time in Florence.
‘At the moment I work in a nursery.’
‘Oh? Looking after babies?’
Rosie laughed a little. ‘No, after trees and plants, actually. Though I am hoping to have babies at some point.’
‘Thank you,’ Isabelle said as Tom handed her an enticing piece of apple pie. ‘Tom, I was wondering ... I would be very interested to see Meredith’s manuscripts. Can you remember where they are?’
‘I think they might be in a box in the attic,’ he said vaguely.
‘Really? Could I go and have a look after lunch?’
‘By all means.’
‘What do you want them for?’ Rosie asked. ‘Is it something else for the Quince Society? I thought Tommy had already made you a gift of that portrait. Surely that’s enough.’
‘No, it’s nothing to do with the Society. It’s for me. I’m trying to get an idea of how Meredith composed her stories, of her creative process. The manuscripts might show corrections, successive versions, comments in the margins, all that sort of thing.’
‘All that sort of thing is way over my head,’ Rosie said, picking up crumbs of pastry with the tip of her finger and licking them off. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to spend all their time poring over dusty old papers. Personally, I much prefer to be out in the fresh air.’
Tom had been looking absent-mindedly in Isabelle’s direction. He turned to his neighbour. ‘In that case, perhaps you could make us all some coffee while I take Isabelle up to the attic. You know where everything is, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but ...’
‘Oh, thank you. You are a good guest.’
Isabelle followed Tom up the stairs to the top floor. Her body remembered very clearly that this was where his bedroom was. Her conscious mind concentrated firmly on the proximity of the manuscripts.
‘It’s through here,’ Tom said, opening a narrow door at the far end of the landing. ‘I’ll go first – hopefully catch some of the cobwebs on my way.’
Isabelle followed up a cramped spiral staircase and emerged after Tom into a vast cluttered attic.
‘Hang on, stay where you are. I know there’s a light switch somewhere.’
The light came on, illuminating an overwhelming jumble of travel cases, dismantled furniture and empty picture frames, as well as innumerable cardboard boxes.
‘Over here, I think, are some of Meredith’s papers at least. I remember helping Dad move them out of her room.’
The boxes Tom was referring to sat on top of a bed, whose sunken mattress was punctured by a few curly metal springs. As Tom opened the first box, Isabelle began to kneel on the mattress to look over his shoulder.
‘Keep off that thing, Isabelle, it’s booby-trapped.’ He pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to her.
‘Oh. These look like ... bills,’ Isabelle said, disappointed.
‘Yes, you’re right. Not without some historical interest if you were writing about the day-to-day running of a 1930s household, but possibly not of great literary value. Shall we try the other box?’
‘Yes, please.’
The other box was full of yellowed newspapers.
‘You know, I think these must be Dad’s,’ Tom said pensively. ‘He’s always hoarded papers, thinking he would get around to reading them later.’
‘Those manuscripts could be anywhere,’ Isabelle said, looking around with some discouragement.
‘Too true. We would need to search the place methodically but I think it would take longer than we’ve got today. Let’s go down.’
Tom switched off the light and headed back towards the stairs, closely followed by Isabelle. As she began her descent, one of her kitten heels got stuck between two floorboards. She tried to yank herself free, but her foot slid out of the trapped shoe and she became airborne, careering downwards behind Tom who, alerted by her cry of terror, turned around just in time to catch her in his arms and cushion the impact of her body by hitting the wall rather hard with his own.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said, sounding a trifle short-winded, as they collapsed on the stairs in a closely conjoined sitting position. Feeling his breath on her mouth, Isabelle wondered in a rush of bewildered longing what it might be like to kiss this man every day of her life – if only such a thing were allowed.
‘Thank you,’ she said coldly, disengaging herself. ‘I’m so sorry. That was really clumsy of me.’
‘Actually, you know,’ Tom said, slowly taking his hands off her shoulders, ‘nobody’s more graceful than you, even when falling down the stairs. If you will allow me to pay you a small and entirely platonic compliment.’
‘I hope I didn’t hurt you too much.’
Tom straightened his spectacles and ran his hand over his chest. ‘No, no, absolutely not. I have far too many ribs anyway – they’re all at your service. It was not unlike dodgems, I suppose, except a lot more fun. And you may remember that something similar happened the first time we met – a collision on the stairs. It’s obviously going to be a recurring pattern in our friendship.’
‘Obviously,’ Isabelle said, smiling a little and rubbing her legs.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Just a bit shaken.’
Tom got up and climbed a few steps to retrieve her shoe. ‘It looks OK to me,’ he said, testing the heel. ‘Shall I put it back on your foot?’
‘Oh no, thank you. I can manage on my own.’
He handed her the shoe and stood back silently while she brushed down her clothes and picked a few cobwebs out of her hair. They made their way down to the landing and Tom closed the door behind them.
‘I don’t know about you, Isabelle, but I could probably do with some coffee now.’
‘Yes, that would be nice.’
‘I’m afraid Rosie’s usually isn’t quite up to Continental standards but at least it’ll be hot.’
In the kitchen they found Rosie curled up on the sofa, sullenly looking through a mail-order seed catalogue. She was now wearing a zipped-up red fleece over her dungarees.
‘That attic must be full of fascinating treasure,’ she said, without looking up. ‘Were you throwing furniture around, by the way? I heard a commotion.�
��
‘Oh, that was just us falling down the stairs.’
Rosie raised her eyes and stared. ‘Tommy, you do look a mess! Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. It’s Isabelle who’s in need of solicitude. She almost lost a shoe, you know. I understand that’s quite traumatic.’
‘Really? But you’re OK, aren’t you?’ Rosie said, coolly looking Isabelle up and down. ‘Apart from ripped tights.’
Tom poured two mugs of coffee, added milk and stirred two lumps of sugar into Isabelle’s.
‘Oh ... Thanks, but I don’t usually have milk or sugar in coffee.’
‘I know, but you’re in shock. No arguments. Drink it.’
Isabelle obeyed and felt instantly better.
‘So the long and short of it is that we have no idea where the manuscripts are.’
‘N-no,’ Isabelle said slowly, sitting down next to Rosie without really noticing her presence.
‘Who cares?’ Rosie said. ‘They’re probably lost anyway. It doesn’t matter that much, surely?’
‘Well, it matters to Isabelle,’ Tom said vaguely, brushing dust out of his floppy hair. ‘And I suppose I do feel some kind of family responsibility too. She was my great-aunt.’
‘Tom? I don’t suppose your father might remember what he did with them?’
‘Oh, he won’t know. And even if he did, he would pretend not to. He hated Meredith being an author and wants no part of it now. I suppose that’s partly why I’ve never read her books.’
‘Tommy, I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation but the light is going. We should get started if you want to do any more in the garden today.’
‘I think I should go home,’ Isabelle said, reaching for her coat.
‘Why don’t you stay and rest for a while? I can run you home later.’
‘No, thank you, I’m perfectly fine now. Thanks for lunch – it was lovely. Nice to meet you, Rosie.’
‘Nice to meet you, too,’ Rosie said, pulling on her wellies with her back to Isabelle.
‘Isabelle,’ Tom said, walking her back to the front door, ‘why don’t you come back tomorrow and start on the attic? Unless you have other plans?’ Seeing her hesitate, he added, ‘It might make a nice change from the British Library.’
‘Well ... I’d love to if you don’t mind,’ Isabelle said gratefully. ‘But wouldn’t I be interfering with your work in the garden with, um, Rosie?’
‘Leave Rosie to me. Just concentrate on finding the manuscripts. It might also be an idea to wear flat shoes tomorrow, unless of course you’re planning even more ambitious acrobatics. In which case I would, of course, be delighted to assist you again.’
20 Daisy
‘You look very well, mon petit,’ Anouk said approvingly when her friend next visited her in her shop. ‘I can see that a little change of climate is doing you good.’
The climatic change in question combined periods of intense shagging with frequent bouts of shopping for underwear, which was fun but also very necessary to keep Daisy provided with a reasonable trousseau. Raoul got through a fair few pairs because he loved to rip them apart when undressing her. Such enthusiasm was very welcome after the Octave debacle. Of course there had never really been any doubt in Daisy’s mind that Raoul was generally disposed to show an interest in sex. The first time he’d taken her into his bedroom, she had been quite prepared to find a mirror on the ceiling. In actual fact there wasn’t one, but the eye-popping Japanese etching of a kimono-clad couple embracing that hung above his bed more than made up for it. As for Raoul’s outspoken appreciation of her person, it could sometimes be a little disconcerting, but overall it was hard not to warm to a man who said, among other things, that her pubic hair was like mink to the touch.
Meanwhile Daisy went on meeting Etienne Deslisses on Mondays for an hour or so of fashion talk. The writer seemed pleased with her contributions, and Daisy really enjoyed her unaccustomed role as initiator into a foreign, esoteric culture. What was perhaps nicest about Etienne was that he never made fun of her. He actually seemed to take her seriously. Not many people had done that, in Daisy’s experience. For example, when meeting him for the third or fourth time, Daisy had said, ‘By the way, Etienne, are you still reading that travel book – what was it ... Club Tropicana?’
Etienne looked at her for a minute, then said, ‘You mean Tropic of Cancer.’
‘Oh, right. Yes.’
‘No, I finished it a while ago. At the moment I’m reading a book about delinquency and repression in the nineteenth century. It’s something I’m reviewing for a periodical. How about you?’
‘Well, I’m reading Vogue,’ Daisy said with a certain amount of embarrassment. ‘But it’s French Vogue!’ she quickly pointed out. ‘So it’s a good way for me to pick up more vocabulary.’
‘Perhaps you could talk me through it today. I have never read Vogue.’
‘Really? Not even Vogue Homme?’
‘No. I didn’t know there was one.’
This was simply unbelievable, Daisy thought, managing somehow to resist the urge to text Chrissie on the spot.
‘Good grief, Etienne! But you must familiarise yourself with Vogue. I started reading it when I was eleven. Think of it as a serious periodical for people who know about fashion. Right. Come and sit next to me. We don’t have a moment to lose.’
Daisy patiently walked Etienne through the entire magazine, explaining how it was put together, why it contained so much advertising and what stylistic impact the fact that one of the editors used to be a certain designer’s muse necessarily had on editorial content.
‘Now let’s move on to the main fashion stories,’ Daisy said.
‘Stories?’ Etienne said, intrigued. ‘But in what way are these stories? There’s no narrative that I can discern. Just pictures of the same model in different outfits.’
‘Ah, but that, you see, is the story. Here, for example, the story is all about underwear as outerwear. That’s quite an old story, which returns from time to time. The whole thing was really invented by Madonna in the early nineties.’ (Here Daisy went into a detailed footnote about the singer’s association with Jean-Paul Gaultier, the revival of the corset and the significance of conical bras for men.) ‘So the person who styled the shoot will have gone looking for pieces that worked within that story, whether they were intentionally designed as outerwear or not. There’s always going to be an element of reinvention with really creative stylists. So you might style a pair of tights as a top, you know, or the model might wear a shoe as a hat. That kind of thing.’
Etienne was listening attentively.
‘Here, on the other hand,’ Daisy went on, moving on to the next series of pictures, ‘where they shot the whole thing in Rome, the story is really ‘la dolce vita’ as a general idea, hence the scooters and café society vibe, but also specifically as in that famous black-and-white film. I haven’t seen it, but I know there’s a scene in it where a blonde girl in a black strapless dress wades into this amazing fountain. They’ve recreated it here, you see, with this Russian model who’s the hottest face of the moment.’
Etienne looked at Daisy while lighting a cigarette. ‘But how can you possibly recognise the allusion if you haven’t seen the film?’
‘I still get the reference because it’s a story that’s been around for quite a while.’
‘But other people might not get the reference at all?’
‘No, but they’ll still get the mood of the clothes. And, of course, the designers’ names also speak to people. For some, that is the story: big brands, nothing else.’
Looking at Etienne’s profile, Daisy thought idly how ironic it was that he should have so little knowledge of the fashion world because as a matter of fact, if he hadn’t chosen to become a brilliant intellectual, blowing everyone’s mind with his insights, he might have made a pretty stunning male model. His skin was flawless and his bone structure was really very good, with a firm jawline and elegant nose. He had the kind of fu
ll mouth that would surely photograph like a dream and also the longest, darkest eyelashes Daisy had ever seen on a man. Impulsively, she half-raised her hand towards his face, then checked herself. What was she doing?
‘So, to sum up,’ she went on instead, ‘the story is the general theme or mood of the shoot – an eveningwear story, a floral story, whatever. But it’s also made up of loads of other visual stuff. References to all kind of things, even private jokes sometimes, that only insanely trendy fashion insiders will get.’
Etienne looked thoroughly absorbed. Daisy could see that, in his relatively contained way, he was showing signs of profound intellectual excitement.
‘Daisy, I’ve understood something. I now see that a fashion story is a text,’ he said seriously. ‘A text determined, of course, by its incredibly rich and complex intertextuality.’
‘Do you really think so, Etienne?’ Daisy said, impressed. ‘And what is inter ... um ... textuality, by the way?’
‘Well, you’ve explained to me that the meaning of each fashion story, or text, often depends on other references, or intertexts, within fashion but also outside of it. The meaning of the text, or story, emerges from the staging and also, hopefully, from the reading of the clothes. The stylist and the reader both participate in it.’
Daisy nodded. ‘That’s right. There are all these layers – some obvious, others really obscure. Every outfit has lots of, er, intertexts. And if you don’t pick up on any of that stuff, then it just looks like you’re wearing lovely pants or whatever.’
‘This is wonderful stuff, Daisy. Excuse me a moment,’ Etienne said, getting up as his mobile phone rang.
Watching him walk out of the café to take the call, Daisy gave a private little whoop of joy. Here she was, sitting outside the Sorbonne, being hailed as an important fashion expert by a real-life Parisian intellectual! If only Etienne weren’t so reserved she would really like to hug him. But that would probably embarrass him. Even after a number of meetings he still greeted her with a polite handshake.
Later, while getting dressed to go out to dinner with Raoul, Daisy thought to herself that things really were picking up in time for the end of the year. The blog was going well, she was managing to keep body and soul together by helping out Anouk in the shop, and she had also acquired a lovely new boyfriend who really appreciated her. Not too bad after only a few months in France.