by Muriel Zagha
‘That’s great. Because lately, I thought you seemed a bit ... down.’
‘I was. Very down.’
Etienne poured them both coffee and offered Daisy the sugar bowl. She dropped one lump into her cup and stirred.
‘I wish I’d known sooner, you know, about, um ... Do you have any milk?’
‘Ah, no. Sorry.’ He got up suddenly. ‘I’ll go out and get you some.’
My hero, Daisy thought.
‘Please, no, it’s fine,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’m sure every-thing’s still closed. I’ll have it black like a French person. It’ll be an adventure.’
Etienne sat down again. They each had a sip of coffee, then he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m not normally so ... You’ve taken me by surprise, completely. I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘I am here. Really.’
‘No, I don’t believe you,’ he said, his chin resting on his hand. ‘It’s a dream.’
Daisy reached over and gently pinched his arm. They laughed and the tension relaxed a little. Etienne caught Daisy’s hand in his own. Slowly their fingers became entwined.
‘Is this new?’ he said, indicating the heart brooch on her lapel. ‘I haven’t seen it before.’
‘Oh, I’ve had it for years. But for a while it sort of ... went missing. Then I found it again, quite recently.’
Etienne nodded and placed her hand on his own heart. He then brought the palm of her other hand to his lips and kissed it. Daisy was grateful to be sitting down. The room was pitching a little.
‘I think we should go out,’ Etienne said after another pause. ‘For a walk.’ He stood up, still holding her hands. ‘There are many things I need to say to you. All the things I wanted to say in February. And now it’s morning. Look.’
Daisy looked: golden light was peeping out all around the edges of the window blind. She smiled at Etienne. Now they could see each other much better.
‘Let’s walk to the river,’ Etienne said, smiling back.
Outside, the streets were still quiet, and for a while it was almost possible to believe that she and Etienne were alone in the city. They found a little more activity when they emerged onto the riverside. Some bouquinistes were already setting up their stalls. A few fitness enthusiasts jogged past them. Etienne and Daisy walked side by side along the Seine, past Notre-Dame and towards the Pont des Arts. At first they were both silent, then Etienne took her hand in his again and began to describe their first encounter in great detail: how Daisy had looked, what she had said.
‘I wasn’t prepared for you, you know, when you appeared in that pink coat, the one you said was lucky. I wasn’t expecting you to be so beautiful. I thought you’d be more of a –’
‘A fashion freak extraordinaire?’
‘Well, my source was Clothaire. He did say you were pas mal, physiquement, but ... let’s say that he has very rigid ideas about how girls should dress.’
‘Yes. Chacun à son goût.’
‘Exactly. And then, you turned out to be so incredibly interesting, far more of an expert than I’d been led to believe. You were a godsend. And ... by the end of our second meeting I was head over heels in love with you. It’s lucky I recorded all our talks so I could play them back later. Because most of the time I was so distracted by your ... physical presence ... that I couldn’t concentrate at all.’
‘Is that why you were so quiet most of the time?’
‘Yes. By Christmas I knew it was very serious. January was very hard for me. All I could think about was how to tell you, but I knew you had a boyfriend, and you seemed happy. Nor did I want to interrupt your train of thoughts. Our conversations were precious.’
Daisy turned to him, delighted. ‘You were really interested in what I had to say?’
‘Of course,’ he said, surprised. ‘Fashion is more than a passion for you – it’s your philosophy of life. I couldn’t have hoped for a more illuminating source of knowledge.’
They were now on the Quai de Conti. The Pont des Arts was in sight. They climbed the stairs leading up to it, walked to a bench near the middle and sat down.
‘I chose this as a meeting place,’ Etienne said, ‘because the view is beautiful all around, wherever you turn.’
Daisy gazed off into the distance at the tip of the Ile de la Cité – pink houses and a tiny patch of greenery – then turned to him. ‘How long did you wait? On that day?’
‘For a while. Daisy, it really doesn’t matter now.’
‘Oh!’
He must have been there for hours, thinking up all kinds of reasons why she should be late. Any passing girl would have looked like her, but none of them ever was. Daisy could imagine how his mood, exhilarated and hopeful at first, had then gradually descended into the most terrible sense of disappointment and failure. And then he would have gone home on his own. It made her feel cold just to think about it.
‘But you could have called me,’ she said gently. ‘Why didn’t you?’
He frowned. ‘Because you were supposed to be there, or not be there. It was the way I’d set it up in my mind.’
‘And in the letter I didn’t find.’
‘Yes,’ he said, laughing. ‘There was a flaw in my plan. I’ve always been far too inclined to rely on abstract theory.’
‘But afterwards, when we met a couple of days later, couldn’t you tell that I had no idea that anything was going on?’
‘I thought that ignoring it, pretending it had never happened, was your way of –’
‘Of letting you down easy? Are you serious? You must have thought I was a complete cow!’
‘No,’ he said, looking at the river. ‘I accepted everything that came from you.’
‘How could you stand it?’
‘Not very well,’ he said, turning to look at Daisy. ‘But it was worth it in the end.’
Daisy slipped her hand through his arm and put her head on his shoulder. They sat without speaking. Meanwhile she was turning a question over in her mind, about something that still confused her.
‘Etienne? You remember my friend Marie-Laure? You met her once at the Sorbonne.’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, she told me that in order to be a brilliant big-shot intello like you, you had to be completely dedicated to the life of the mind and not care about anything or anybody else. That you had to be like ... a monk or something.’
Etienne stared at her. ‘A monk?’
‘That’s what she said. And that’s also how I felt about you.’ She bit her lip and fell silent.
‘Ah, so you thought I was above carnality,’ Etienne said pensively. ‘Très intéressant.’
Daisy glanced at him sideways, still a little worried. ‘But I mean you’re not, are you? Above it, I mean?’
He held her gaze. ‘Daisy, I would love to throw you down on this bench right now. Surely you realise that.’
‘Oh. OK,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I mean, I do realise it.’
He gently squeezed her arm with his. ‘You want some breakfast? Shall we go back? We’ll get some croissants on the way, if you like.’
‘That would be lovely.’
As they stood up and faced each other, some of the original tension returned. After a couple of heartbeats, Etienne drew Daisy’s face to his and kissed her mouth. It was a tremendous relief to let herself fall against him and to kiss him back extensively. How amazing, Daisy thought as she reluctantly pulled away to get her breath and gazed into his dark eyes, that you could get this close to someone physically and still find him so enigmatic.
There was a brief pause, then: ‘You know what would be terrible?’ Etienne said seriously, tracing the outline of her mouth with his thumb.
‘N-no. What?’ Daisy managed to say.
‘If after all that – the letter you didn’t find, the misunderstanding, your visit this morning – we turned out not to be compatible. Sexually.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she whispered against his shoulder, ‘that would be terrible.’
‘It always comes down to theory and practice, doesn’t it? I don’t know, perhaps we should experiment a little, just to be sure.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘Like this, for example,’ Etienne said, sliding his hands under her coat and proceeding to kiss her throat with slow, tormenting deliberation, and just hard enough for the bridge they stood on to start pitching at a most languorous pace. Daisy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. She could have sworn that the Pont des Arts had come free from its shackles and was now travelling slowly down the Seine, like a raft in the middle of the ocean.
‘So, not a monk, then,’ she murmured after a moment.
‘No, absolutely not,’ he said, the expression on his face a bewitching mixture of shyness and desire. ‘Still interested?’
‘Yes!’ Daisy said, clasping her arms around his neck. ‘And I would say, based on this highly scientific experiment, that we are fairly compatible.’
Through half-closed eyes she watched over his shoulder the approach of two buskers carrying a guitar and a saxophone. Sunburnt and dishevelled, they looked like Australian surfers on a year out. They hesitated for a moment, looking around, then chose a spot opposite the bench where she and Etienne had been sitting. The one with the guitar put down his open case on the floor and arranged a small pile of CDs next to it. The other musician stood looking out at the river, entranced. Daisy could see his point. It was the most perfect springtime morning. Trimmed with green, the waters of the Seine shimmered gloriously in the sun as the first white riverboats of the day slowly made their way under the bridge.
She pulled back a little to look at Etienne’s face and smiled up at him saucily. ‘So tell me, Monsieur, did your off-the-scale intellect ever allow you to think about me sometimes, in your bed at night?’
‘All the time. I didn’t sleep that much, so I did a lot of thinking. And when I did manage to fall asleep, if I was lucky, you would be in my dreams.’
‘Nice dreams?’
‘Oh, very, very nice,’ he said, kissing her hair, ‘once in a while.’
‘I see.’
‘Yes. You don’t mind?’
Daisy shook her head, smiling. She was listening with one ear to the first tentative jazzy strummings of the guitar, the first exploratory arpeggios of the mellow saxophone.
‘But you know, most of the time,’ Etienne went on, stroking her face and looking into her eyes, ‘I had these terrible anxiety dreams, like nightmares. It was always the same: I looked for you everywhere in the streets at night. Half the time I didn’t even know where I was or where I was going. It felt like I would never be able to find you again. Daisy, why are you crying? I hope they’re tears of joy.’
Daisy nodded, unable to speak. The tide had now risen fully, that elusive memory was now bobbing on the surface of her consciousness. What had been on the tip of her tongue was Etienne’s name – that was all! Her dreams, her dreams! That was what they had meant, from the very beginning! Oh my, as Chrissie would no doubt put it. So this was, in fact, it – the real biggie.
‘Etienne, I love you!’ she exclaimed.
‘Oh, you,’ he said, his mouth on hers. ‘Say it again.’
‘Je t’aime.’
‘Je t’aime aussi. You’re trembling.’
‘A little bit. But I’m not cold.’
‘I know. Come here.’
The musicians picked up the pace, and launched into a song Daisy had never heard before. By now the sun was deliciously warm and the gilt dome of the Bibliothèque Mazarine sparkled in a Parisian sky of radiant blue. Etienne pulled Daisy close to him and, slowly, they began to dance.
Ebury Press Fiction Footnotes
An exclusive interview with Muriel Zagha. ...
What was the inspiration for Finding Monsieur Right?
It’s a piece of fiction loosely inspired by my own experience – I have worked both as an academic and as a fashion PR and am, like Isabelle, a French expat in London.
The idea of the Paris-London flat exchange came to me when I was on holiday in France and kept noticing, as ever, how incredibly different people are on either side of the Channel. I just wondered idly what would happen to these two girls once they were transplanted into each other’s world. Then I became pregnant with my son. It was a very happy time and it triggered something: I sat down to write and the whole thing really came to life.
As a French writer writing in English, did you find Daisy harder to write than Isabelle?
No. The writing of the book was powered by the contrast between two temperaments. It was fun to keep switching from one to the other, between Daisy’s enthusiastic ditziness and Isabelle’s (hopefully comical) serious-mindedness.
Obviously, I have inside knowledge of what it’s like to be French, and my educational background is very similar to Isabelle’s. Her circle of Parisian friends was inspired by the very specific sliver of people I knew when I was a student – typically, young people from the haute bourgeoisie who like to intellectualize everything!
When it came to the British side of things, I have probably lived here long enough – almost twenty years – to have become somewhat acclimatised, and in any case the idea was always to go against certain stereotypes, in particular the idea that all French girls are raving sex kittens. Here it’s Daisy who’s the bombshell and Isabelle who’s the repressed, buttoned-up one.
And in a similar vein, are you more like Daisy or Isabelle?
They’re both my girls and I love them equally, but neither of them is based on me. With a biggish cast, you tend to channel yourself into many different characters. I suspect most of what I’m really like is split between Chrissie the hat maker and Legend the uncouth goth – though I personally draw the line at opening beer bottles with my teeth.
Which would you choose if you could only choose one: fashion or academia?
I am becoming increasingly frivolous in middle age, so probably fashion, but only provided I could be as groundbreaking and revered as Savage!
What do you think the most useful phrase an English woman in Paris should know?
Probably a firm ‘Laissez-moi tranquille!’ (Leave me alone!) as French men can be very persistent. French comic writer Pierre Daninos wrote: ‘In the street, French men gaze at women; Englishmen walk past them.’ It’s an entirely different level of exposure for a girl.
And what about as a French woman in England?
‘Hello, I’m French.’ – a good all-round ice-breaker. Beyond that you find yourself up to your neck in an ocean of complexity and perplexity. The English language is wonderfully subtle: something as simple as an ‘Oh, really?’ can mean so many different things.
Do you dream in English or French?
Both, mysteriously, depending on the context. My subconscious is bilingual.
Which book are you reading at the moment?
The Allure of Chanel, by travel writer Paul Morand, a fascinating memoir based of conversations he had with the couturière in the 1940s, which suggests overall that fashion revolutions are not achieved by those blessed with a sweet and accommodating disposition.
Who are your favourite authors?
From heavyweight to featherweight: Proust, Jane Austen and PG Wodehouse. Comedy of manners is my favourite thing.
Which classic have you always meant to read and never got round to it?
Too many to mention, but I’d say Don Quixote, which I’m afraid I always used to refer to confidently in my essays when I was a student.
What are your top five books of all time?
A terrifying question. I’ll go for five favourite books written by women:
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), by Anita Loos – the hilarious diary of the archetypal gold-digging blonde.
The Secret History (1992), by Donna Tartt – in many ways the perfect novel, combining as it does crime and the college story.
La Princesse de Clèves (1678), by Madame de Lafayette – one of the greatest French novels, this is a tale of f
orbidden passion set at the royal court.
To Love and Be Wise (1950), by Josephine Tey – an utterly astonishing thriller set in the English countryside.
Cold Comfort Farm (1932), by Stella Gibbons – a fantastic work of pastiche with a wonderfully bossy heroine and the best-ever scene featuring porridge.
Do you have a favourite time of day to write? A favourite place? What’s your writing process: are you a planner?
I am, to the extent that I do write a detailed scenario and cast list before I start. Then I write chronologically with an idea of where I’m going. What’s wonderful is when things suddenly start to move of their own accord – characters speak their own lines and make decisions that sometimes take me by surprise. The book becomes a real place where I can go, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
I like to write at my own little desk, which I’ve had since I was fourteen, with the sound of London traffic in the background. The question of a favourite time of day is really out of my hands. I have a toddler and practically live in my local park, so I write in fits and starts, whenever I get any time to myself. I do a lot of puzzling out in the park, while running after a small person on a scooter.
Other than writing, what other jobs have you undertaken or considered?
I’m now a freelance journalist writing about design and the arts. Originally, I was a university lecturer in English and American literature. After some years I realized it wasn’t my calling, there was an abrupt change of gears and I went to work as a fashion PR for a while. That was a lot of fun, particularly the catwalk shows, which are a thrilling experience. Before that I’d flirted with the idea of drama school and then decided against it – too scary. I once did a short stint as a receptionist but couldn’t cope with having a phone that kept ringing like mad and making me jump, which I realise is feeble but there you are.
What are you working on at the moment?
It’s the story of an English girl who wins a work placement at a restaurant on the French Riviera. While there, she goes to a party and ends up being kissed by a mystery man while blindfolded. She then goes in search of him in a town that is full of possible contenders. It’s a little like Cinderella, but with a mouth instead of a slipper.