Finding Monsieur Right

by Muriel Zagha

  ‘I was scared of you,’ Isabelle said, kissing every part of his face with slow deliberation. ‘It’s so silly. Why weren’t you scared?’

  ‘I didn’t have time to be scared.’

  They rose together and dropped onto their knees on top of the blanket.

  ‘I blame myself about what happened before,’ Tom said, unbuttoning his shirt at breakneck speed and tearing it off. ‘I rushed you too much the first time and frightened you away.’

  Isabelle pressed herself against his chest. ‘Oh, it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘It was foolish of me. We should have taken it more slowly.’

  ‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ she replied, rapidly unbuckling his belt and unzipping his trousers. ‘I was just confused by what I felt,’ she explained, deftly freeing and caressing him. ‘I realise that now.’

  Tom glanced down briefly at what she was doing. Hearing his sharp intake of breath, Isabelle looked up.

  ‘I’m hurting you?’

  ‘No. Quite the opposite.’ He kissed her hard, his fingers thrust deep in her hair, then said, ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Isabelle, but does this mean that you did not get engaged in Paris?’

  Isabelle grinned at him.

  ‘Quite the opposite.’ She reclined, pulling him down with her.

  As they began again with wondrous ease, Isabelle closed her eyes for a moment. In her mind’s eye she could see an arrow shooting through a blue sky, a lovely image of flight. She felt that she and Tom were both shooting through the air together. They were the arrow, the arrow’s true aim and the graceful arc it traced before hitting, with a satisfying ‘tchuck’, the heart of the target – concentric circles in bright Technicolor red, yellow and blue. As her thighs rose to caress his sides, she opened her eyes and bit his shoulder delightedly. A moment later, dislodged by the rhythmic vibrations arising from their activity, a small object fell off one of the shelves, bounced off Tom’s moving back and rolled onto the floor. He did not notice it at the time and neither did Isabelle.

  Later, as Isabelle leaned on one elbow gazing at Tom, who lay sprawled on his stomach in a most alluring attitude, she noticed the small meteorite on the floor and picked it up. It was something roundish, wrapped in a sheet of thin paper.

  ‘Tom, what is that?’

  He shifted on to his side and peered at the object in her hand. ‘Oh, I thought I’d felt something. It’s an apple that must have fallen off one of the trays. Probably an Egremont Russet. I had a real glut of those in the autumn. A fine variety of apple – nutty. Eat it if you like.’

  Isabelle carefully removed the apple’s paper wrapping. ‘You keep your apples in here?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the trays are for – storing them. The paper is for protection.’

  ‘Oh ... but it’s lovely.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? Give me a bite, will you?’

  Together they demolished the apple, then Isabelle picked up the crumpled sheet, intending to wrap the core in it. There was something printed on the paper and she automatically ran her eyes over the words.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What did you use to wrap your apples?’

  ‘Well, I would normally use newspaper but the recycling van had just been, so Rosie wrapped them in some scrap paper that she found.’

  ‘Scrap paper she found where?’ Isabelle said, suddenly scrambling up. ‘Is there any more of it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s on the trays. I think she used all of it. It was quite a harvest we had.’

  Isabelle, her head buzzing, looked at the trays stacked all around the shed, lined with dozens and dozens of carefully wrapped apples. She smoothed the sheet of paper she was holding and passed it to Tom.

  ‘What do you think this is?’

  He walked naked to the table to retrieve his glasses and perused the piece of paper for a minute.

  ‘Unusual. Some sort of ... poem?’

  ‘A poem,’ Isabelle repeated, her voice shaking. ‘Yes, oh yes! Tom, help me: we need to unwrap all the apples.’

  32 Daisy and Isabelle

  ‘Good grief, petal! Tit cake in Bimbo World! Now that’s what I call going beyond the call of duty!’ Chrissie said with feeling into his mobile phone.

  Meeting Jules’ blank but nevertheless perplexed stare across the kitchen table, he burst out laughing. ‘I’ll explain later, Ju-Ju. Long story.’

  Jules nodded, pushing her glasses to the top of her nose, and went back to her toast. For the next few minutes Chrissie remained uncharacteristically silent, listening intently, then he said, ‘Hold on a minute, sweetface. Ju-Ju?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Do you still have that full-length purple number you bought in Amsterdam?’

  ‘I do as a matter of fact. I haven’t worn it for ages.’

  ‘Well,’ Chrissie said, grinning, ‘the time has come to give it another airing. Because you and I, my dear,’ he sang out dramatically, ‘are stepping out to breathe an atmosphere that simply shrieks with class!’

  ‘Chrissie, what are you going on about?’

  ‘In a nutshell, darling – and you too, darling,’ he said into the phone, ‘I’ve just had the most enthralling brain-wave. Listen to me, Ju-Ju: we shall go to the ball! Aren’t you thrilled?’

  ‘What ball?’

  Chrissie sighed, rolling his eyes. ‘“What ball?” she asks,’ he said into the phone. ‘It’s only this lethally glamorous ball at the Paris Opera House! Black tie and everything! Thousands of guests! Apparently there’ll be a lot of men in full uniform! And then waltzing! The whole thing will wreck you, Jules, simply.’

  ‘Has Daze made friends with the French royals or something?’

  ‘D’you know, I don’t think they have them any more, darling,’ Chrissie said slowly. ‘They chopped their heads off, didn’t they? No, this is some sort of big charidee do ... What’s that, darling?’ he said into the phone. ‘Ah, OK. Daze says that it’s organised by some big, famous military college. Hence the scrummy uniforms.’

  ‘And why are we going?’ Jules asked, impassively munching her toast.

  ‘Because,’ Chrissie said patiently, ‘Daisy was going to go to this ball with Rrraoul – oh God, I’ll never be able to pronounce his name. Those rrrs – just can’t do them to save my life. But anyway the point is, darling, that Rrrr ... – dammit, you know who I mean – is no longer going as Daisy’s escort. I’ll explain that too. And now Daze is all in a bother, wondering whether she should still go, you see. Well, it seems to me, darling,’ he went on, speaking into the phone, ‘that there is a risibly simple solution to your quandary. I’m free as a bird, more’s the pity, and Kazza won’t mind – it’s basically a day trip. So we’ll both come as your escort! Jules and I!’

  As Jules sat pondering this announcement, there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Isabelle came into the kitchen hand in hand with Tom.

  ‘Well, hello,’ Jules said with a slight smile.

  Chrissie gasped audibly and half turned away. ‘Daze, listen,’ he stage-whispered into the phone, ‘I’m going to have to call you back. Something pant-droppingly incred-ible’s just happened, which I have to experience one hundred per cent in the moment. But listen, sort us out for tickets, OK? Speak later. Love you loads!’

  He put his phone down and ran round the table to embrace Tom and Isabelle.

  ‘My darlings, my darlings!’ He air-kissed them both. ‘Isabelle, darling, you look like the cat that got the cream ... And as for you, dear, well ... Now listen to this: Jules and I are going to a fabulous ball at the Paris Opera House with Daisy in a couple of weeks. Isn’t it amazing?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Isabelle said. ‘Actually, we are also going!’

  A few days ago Agathe had called and mentioned the ball in passing, implying that, of course, Isabelle would not be coming, to spare poor Clothaire’s feelings. Somewhat to her own surprise, Isabelle had found herself disagreeing with her friend.

  ‘For one thing,’ she had said
to an astonished Agathe, ‘I have to be in Paris around that time for a meeting with Professeur Sureau. And for another, never mind Clothaire. I love going to the ball. I look forward to it all year and I am going.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather selfish?’ Agathe had asked huffily.

  Of course her dear Agathe was baffled: she did not know about Clothaire’s infidelity or indeed about Marie-Laure’s possible involvement with him. Isabelle always favoured discretion in such matters, and she had not wanted to bring any of it up. Anyway, none of it really mattered now that she and Tom had found each other again.

  ‘I’m bringing Tom as my escort,’ Isabelle went on happily. ‘Then he can meet all of you.’

  Now when she pictured herself at the ball it was in Tom’s arms, and that felt like the most natural thing in the world.

  And so, three weeks later, after whizzing under the Channel on the Eurostar, Isabelle, Tom, Jules and Chrissie all found themselves standing outside the Gare du Nord at noon on a beautiful sunny day.

  ‘We’ll see you tonight at six o’clock for drinks, OK?’ Isabelle said. ‘And then we’ll go on to the opera.’

  ‘Right you are, sweetie,’ Chrissie said from behind enormous aviator sunglasses. ‘Come along, Jules dear. There’s some fiercely important shopping to be done. We’d better hurry tout de suite: we’re meeting Daisy at Anouk’s place in an hour. Now where does one get a taxi around here?’

  ‘Where it says “Taxis”, dummy,’ Jules said tonelessly. ‘You can’t see for toffee in those things, can you? Plus they make you look like something out of The Fly.’

  ‘They do not! They make me look the very height of le fachonne. Isabelle?’

  ‘Très chic,’ Isabelle agreed, laughing.

  While Jules and Chrissie headed for their hotel, she and Tom went to her flat, which Daisy had kindly vacated for the night, going to stay with Anouk. Isabelle reflected, as they rode in a taxi through the sunny streets towards the Rue de la Harpe, that she was really looking forward to meeting Daisy at long last. She had a lot to thank her for.

  Once at the flat, while Tom showered, she opened her suitcase and pulled out her ball gown and the blue folder containing The Splodge, whose pages she and Tom had painstakingly ironed one by one. She hung up the former, shaking out its creases, and laid the latter on her desk in readiness for her meeting with Professeur Sureau on Monday morning. Her supervisor had seen all her chapters to date and wanted to give her some feedback. Little did he suspect that she was bringing him this latest and most dazzling discovery! On hearing that she had at last found The Splodge, Agathe had congratulated her and even come around to the idea of Isabelle bringing Tom to the ball as a fitting way to celebrate.

  Already a new direction for her thesis was shaping up in Isabelle’s mind: something along the lines of ‘Suppressed Sensuous Stirrings: Seeking The Splodge’, perhaps, or how about ‘Thoroughly Modernist Meredith: The Reinvention of Love Poetry’?

  Though quite different from what Isabelle had imagined, The Splodge had turned out to be just as much of a revelation as she had hoped. A long and beautiful poem written in free verse, it told the story of a passionate love affair, and so confessional and enraptured was its tone that it was hard not to conclude that it related to something in Meredith’s private life.

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Tom had said, coming out of his house to join Isabelle in the garden, after getting off the phone with his father. ‘I had to push him, but Dad eventually admitted very grudgingly that Meredith had had some sort of “free love” episode in her late teens with somebody he described as “unsuitable” – an artist. The family was horrified and put a stop to it, and the man married somebody else soon afterwards.’

  ‘Poor Meredith,’ Isabelle murmured, her eyes full of tears. She remembered the poem’s closing lines:

  Walking through forests dark

  Her moon-white gown of silk trailing black ink

  In which she wrote of you

  On the rim of the sky

  And half-unheard the jangling bell

  Calls farewell, farewell

  Farewell

  ‘Yes. I imagine that’s why she never married,’ Tom had said, sitting down next to her on the bench and enfolding her in a warm embrace. ‘Instead she invented a brilliant, plucky character, also unmarried, who got to have all kinds of daring adventures.’

  Isabelle nodded pensively. Meredith had gone on to create some wonderful books, but how she must have mourned her lost love!

  ‘So ...’ Tom had said after a short silence, ‘you have a job lined up in Paris.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she had replied, looking towards the orchard. Then, after another pause, she added: ‘I understand that you have some quite respectable universities here, in England.’

  ‘Quite respectable, yes.’

  ‘Perhaps I could ...’ She had let the sentence trail off and turned to him, smiling.

  Tom had looked into her eyes, then said slowly, ‘It must be rather nice, don’t you think, to be married to the one you love?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything nicer,’ she had replied, lifting her face to his.

  In her Paris flat Isabelle stood stock-still for a moment, smiling at the memory, then she went back into the bedroom and returned to her open suitcase, intending to unpack methodically in her usual way. As she straightened up, holding a pile of neatly folded clothes, she suddenly felt Tom’s arms encircling her waist.

  ‘Come to bed,’ he said, his lips caressing the back of her neck.

  Isabelle dropped the clothes and turned around to face him. He was smiling, his hair and eyelashes still wet from the shower. Her eyes travelled down to the smooth, hard planes of his stomach, his hips and ... Oh, resistance was futile. She sighed and walked into his embrace.

  ‘But I’m not sure that we have time,’ she said, rubbing her face against his chest. ‘Not if you want to see a few sights before tonight.’

  He laughed, his fingertips sliding tantalisingly between the buttons of her shirt, and whispered something in her ear that made her blood beat much faster.

  ‘It’s just that I ... prepared a very interesting itinerary,’ she protested, her voice waxing a little thicker.

  ‘Oh, so have I,’ he replied, holding her wrists behind her back and pulling her closer.

  Next door the phone rang shrilly.

  ‘Merde,’ Isabelle groaned.

  ‘Let it ring,’ Tom said, his hand closing over her breast.

  After a few rings, the answering machine clicked into action and Isabelle jumped to hear Professeur Sureau’s voice: ‘Good afternoon, Mademoiselle. Sureau here. I’m calling to cancel Monday’s meeting. Certain information has come to my attention regarding your research and I need to consider it carefully before we speak again. I will call you back when the situation is clearer. Goodbye.’

  Her heart pounding, Isabelle ran to pick up the receiver. Too late: Sureau had already hung up. She immediately tried his office at the Faculty, but the phone just rang and rang.

  ‘What do you think?’ Anouk asked, smiling. ‘I could see you in it as soon as it came in. It’s so fabulously feminine, but also radical.’

  When Daisy had turned up at her stylish, minimalist flat, Anouk, who had a strong sense of the theatrical, asked her to close her eyes and led her wordlessly into the living room. When Daisy opened them again, she saw that the room was plunged in darkness, apart from the light created by a single industrial spotlight. This threw a star-white glow over the evening gown Anouk had placed on one of the tubular steel dummies from her shop. Daisy gave a small gasp of wonder and slowly walked around the dress, taking in the strapless boned bodice, the half-exposed mini-crinoline, the cascade of fabric that finished in a floor-length train at the back. She reached out to touch it. It was made of organza dyed a heavenly shade of dirty pink and irregularly adorned with silk roses in different, subtly darker pinks.

  ‘It’s by this fantastic young French designer I discovered,’ Anouk said, pleased w
ith Daisy’s reaction. ‘He really has a vision. You know, he didn’t want the silk flowers to look too perfect, so he took them out into the street and trampled them before sewing them on,’ she went on, clasping her hands in rapture. ‘He says what he does is anti-couture couture. Ah, quel talent! This is just a sample, but I have decided to sponsor his collection. I think he will go far.’

  ‘It’s just beautiful,’ Daisy said. ‘May I ...’

  ‘Try it on? Of course, mon petit,’ Anouk said, swiftly taking the dress off the dummy and handing it to Daisy. ‘Go to my room – there is a big mirror there. I will bring you a few pairs of shoes as well.’

  A few minutes later Anouk, who had been helping her into a pair of delicate silver stilettos, straightened up to take in the full effect.

  ‘Ah oui, magnifique,’ she said, hugging Daisy. ‘The belle of the ball.’

  Daisy stood gazing at her reflection, her delight faintly tinged with melancholy.

  ‘And your hair, you wear it up, yes?’ Anouk said. ‘But you leave it a bit messy, a bit rock ’n’ roll. I will do it for you if you like.’ Turning away from Daisy to look for hairpins, she added: ‘You know, mon petit, it’s quite OK to go to a party without a boyfriend. I’m sure that you will have a great time with your London friends.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Daisy said, more brightly than she felt. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have you spoken to Raoul recently?’

  ‘Actually, he did this really sweet thing,’ Daisy went on, a smile spreading on her face. ‘He dropped off this folder full of drawings he’d done of me. Just left it outside my door as a surprise.’

  On opening the folder, which bore the title The Ballad of Daisy K., Daisy had found a series of very pretty 1950s-style pastel cartoons. A stylised evocation of her time in Paris, they showed her sitting outside a café reading a copy of Vogue, walking down the street with a tiny poodle on a leash, coming out of the Dior boutique followed by Raoul (thinly disguised as a bellboy) laden with a teetering pile of beribboned boxes. In the last one she stood on tiptoe on top of the Eiffel Tower, arms outstretched like a ballerina.