Lisette's Paris Notebook

by Catherine Bateson

  I sighed. He was watching me carefully, his face a studied blank. ‘My date didn’t work out.’ I offered the truth and he beamed at me.

  ‘Sub me in?’

  ‘Sub?’

  ‘You know, substitute me. I’m more than happy to be runner-up. It’s not glamorous, but someone has to do it. Feel like an ice-cream?’

  ‘Not Berthillon.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – you used to go there with him. Isn’t it the best ice-cream in Paris? Not that it worries me. I’m English. Our tastebuds are genetically stunted by generations of chip butties, lager and Woodbines. I’ll settle for second-best ice-cream. Or third-rate. Or no ice-cream but a beer.’

  ‘I was just going to walk,’ I said, although the idea of beer with this strangely attractive guy was appealing. Was he only attractive because I was on the rebound? Could you even be on the rebound from something that hadn’t happened?

  ‘Let’s walk, then,’ he said. ‘Do you know, if we walk far enough we can see the dinosaur.’

  ‘The dinosaur?’

  ‘Someone’s building a dinosaur. It’s art.’

  ‘Wow, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Good thing you subbed me in. I’m a wealth of local knowledge.’

  Despite myself, I was cheering up. ‘So you live in Paris?’

  ‘I visit. I’m from England. Formerly of Camden, latterly of ooop North. Hugo Sandiland of Sandiland and Nephew. I’m the nephew. Antiques, bric-a-brac, rare books, you name it, if it’s worth something and it’s old, the Unc and I will attempt to make a quid out of it.’

  ‘Antiques. That’s great. So you’re not a student?’

  ‘Of life and the antique trade, of course. But not of any smaller institution, no. And you?’

  ‘Gap year – well, gap three months. I’m here learning French and studying art – historical stuff, sort of.’ And artists, I thought.

  ‘Art? So we’re in the same game?’

  ‘I’m not really in any game yet!’ We’d fallen into step now and were heading towards the Tuileries. Hugo’s nonstop talking reminded me of Mackenzie and that alone made me feel easy with him. ‘Actually, I came largely because my mother persuaded me to. It was her dream.’

  ‘Which you inherited?’

  ‘I guess. We learn French together. She’s a seamstress.’

  ‘Not just a dressmaker, but a seamstress?’

  ‘Correct. She worked for a while in haute couture, but not in France, of course. In Melbourne. That’s when she started learning French. She might have come to France but she got pregnant to my dad. Then she had me and a business and it was just too hard to travel as a single mother.’ Why was I telling him all this? I stopped.

  ‘Ah,’ Hugo said, ‘so you thought you should step into her dancing shoes because you’d effectively mucked up the original tango?’

  ‘It takes two,’ I said sharply.

  Hugo laughed. ‘Touché!’

  ‘So why are you in Paris?’

  ‘Unc sends me over to do deals. His French is too proper. They rip him off.’

  ‘So you come over here to buy stuff?’

  ‘A little here, a little there.’

  ‘That’s fantastic!’ He seemed far too young to be entrusted with business, but even as I thought that, I wondered if that wasn’t part of the point.

  ‘It’s a living. More or less. Actually rather less in the current economic climate, but we do the best we can.’

  ‘That would explain your shirt,’ I said without thinking. ‘Oh, sorry!’

  ‘My shirt?’

  ‘The frayed cuffs,’ I said apologetically.

  He stuck one of his wrists out. ‘Hmm, I see what you mean. Didn’t notice myself. Unc and I are becoming a tad shambolic, I fear. It’s batching together. Not good for our sartorial ship-shapedness at all. Still, my clients probably haven’t noticed. Not the most sartorially minded themselves. You, on the other hand – well, a seamstress’s daughter.’

  ‘I wasn’t being critical,’ I said.

  ‘Not at all.’ Hugo took my hand in his, as though it were the most natural thing in the world. I should have tugged my hand away but instead I let him tuck it into his elbow. Maybe it was an English thing? ‘I think observant is the word. A necessary quality if you’re studying art history.’ Maybe to distract me from the fact that we were now walking close together, he kept up a high-speed account of his past few days in Paris. It was a bewildering list of names and places completely unfamiliar to me.

  ‘So where are you staying?’ I asked, when he paused for breath.

  ‘Ah, good question, that. First up, I stayed with an old amour of Unc’s but her daughter arrived out of the blue – broken marriage. So now I’m couch surfing for a couple of nights. I was lucky enough to find somewhere in the seventh.’

  ‘Couch surfing? But aren’t you working?’

  ‘I’m buying,’ Hugo said, ‘not selling. Yet. You have to have the money to spend money to make money. What district are you in? Are you in a hostel?’

  I told him about Madame Christophe, French lessons and Fabienne. I told him about Mackenzie and Goldie, but not about Anders.

  ‘There it is,’ he said suddenly. We both stared at the metallic dinosaur. ‘It’s not as big as I thought it would be. Disappointing.’

  ‘I think that calls for a beer. Drown our sorrows?’ I suggested. I discovered I didn’t want to turn back home. I wanted to find out more about Hugo.

  ‘Now you’re talking!’ He found a bar effortlessly. It was a punk bar run by a middle-aged woman with a full-sleeve tattoo. Hugo ordered our drinks and chatted to her in fluent French. He must have told a joke because she laughed a throaty smoker’s laugh and, later, brought out a small plate with salami, cheese and baguette. She said in English, ‘Your boyfriend is a charmer,’ and winked at me. Hugo ducked his head and blushed.

  ‘Do you know her?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We share some of the same music tastes though. It’s a Camden thing.’

  ‘I thought you lived in Ooop North?’

  ‘Good accent,’ Hugo said. ‘I do now, but you can’t take Camden out of the boy.’

  ‘So, where is Ooop North?’

  ‘Yorkshire, lassie. Way ooop North.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was my turn to blush. ‘I thought ooop North was a place.’

  Hugo laughed. It was an unabashed sound. It made me sort of proud to have caused it. ‘It’s a place and more – an attitude, a way of life, a way of talking and so slow it drives anyone from Camden crazy. But I kind of like it there, now. Unc needed me and I’ve always loved old things.’

  ‘Isn’t that strange? I mean, I love old things too. But for a guy?’

  Hugo shrugged. Unlike Anders, his shoulders were thin and where the seam was giving out at the top, I caught sight of his blue-white skin. I looked down at the plate and took a piece of salami. The glimpse of skin had made me feel as though I’d eavesdropped on an intimate conversation. ‘Half the antique dealers I know are men,’ he said. ‘I like things that were precious once to someone else.’ He leant forward to make his point. ‘When we weren’t such consumers, gobbling everything up and then tossing it out, even ordinary things were chosen with care. You didn’t just buy, say, salt and pepper shakers. You thought about them. You imagined them sitting, just so, on your favourite tablecloth. There was meaning there. That’s what I like – feeling the meaning.’

  ‘We still do that,’ I said, ‘Mum and I. We talk about stuff before we buy anything. It can be frustrating because it takes us so long but in the end we get something we really want. I think it’s because we didn’t have much money when I was born. But maybe it’s because we lived with my great-grandmother.’

  ‘With your great-grandmother? Isn’t that strange for an Australian?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said defensively, ‘but my grandmother didn’t want Mum to have me because she wasn’t married. It worked out for Mum and Greatma, though, because Greatma was getting forgetful. Not dementi
a – just forgetful. Also she didn’t drive and she hated Meals on Wheels. She called me her little blessing because Mum moved in with her and looked after us both.’

  ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘No, she died when I was ten. I still miss her sometimes. She had a whole lot of old stuff, antiques and bric-a-brac. Mum kept nearly everything.’

  ‘How wonderful.’ Hugo seemed genuinely interested. ‘What a fabulous childhood that must have been in so many ways. I mean, shame about your grandmother and all, but a great-grandmother – that’s something. You’d have been so spoilt!’

  I knew what he meant. Greatma had never been too busy to read to me, or make me doll’s clothes or play Scrabble. ‘Yeah, maybe, but not in a princess way. When she died Mum lost her voice for about four weeks. The doctor said there was nothing he could do. It was grief. She croaked around the place wearing Greatma’s aprons. We told each other stories about Greatma and cried every night.’ Embarrassingly, my eyes were filling now. I took a big swallow of beer and willed the tears away.

  Hugo reached over and covered my hand with his. ‘It’s hard to lose people,’ he said. ‘Unc says this life is a vale of tears and it’s remarkable that we keep slogging on through the misery. Mind you, he’s an Eeyore.’

  I laughed. ‘Does that make you Tigger?’

  Hugo laughed too, the welcome sound filling the small bar. ‘That’s what he says,’ he admitted. ‘I think of myself more as the wise Owl. He fought in the Falklands.’

  ‘The Falklands?’

  ‘Yeah, we forget it wasn’t really a world war. It was just a British thing – before you and I were born, of course. But it was still a war. Unc came back a lot more pessimistic, Mum says, and a lot quieter. PTSD.’

  ‘PTSD?’

  ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder – most soldiers have it.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, of course.’

  ‘He doesn’t go out much. I’m his runner.’

  I nodded. ‘My mum doesn’t go out much either,’ I said. ‘I mean, she’s not agoraphobic, she’s just self-sufficient. I used to worry about her. I wanted her to meet someone. Ami and I tried to set her up on OkCupid, but she wasn’t impressed.’

  ‘So she hasn’t got a boyfriend?’

  ‘No. I don’t think she’s ever had one – well, not since my father. She has lots of friends, though.’

  ‘If she’s anything like you,’ Hugo said, ‘there would have to be a man somewhere. Sorry, Lise, that’s not really a compliment – it’s just a fact.’

  ‘I look like my dad,’ I said.

  ‘Do you have photos?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘Back at the apartment. Only a few of him.’

  Hugo fished out his phone. If you’d asked me what kind of phone Hugo would have, I’d have guessed something old with a cracked screen, but this was a new smart phone in a leather case, which he flipped open to reveal a proper French metro card, not just the paper tickets I bought by the tens. He must have seen my surprise.

  ‘Chosen with care,’ he reminded me. ‘I’m techno savvy, as any Camden boy should be. Course this phone just might have fallen off the back of a lorry but that’s the perks of the trade, luvvie.’

  He showed me photos of his uncle, an older version of Hugo with the same dimples when he was smiling. I saw the shop they ran with the sign, Sandiland and Nephew, hanging up in ornate ironwork. I saw photos of his uncle’s cat. Then I saw photos of his mum and his sister. ‘Hairdressers, both of them,’ Hugo said, pushing his thick fringe away from his eyes. ‘Mum said I was a crime to hairdressing. Double crown, thick hair. A nightmare. I was banned from the shop in case her customers thought she was responsible.’

  ‘You’re joking.’ The woman in the photo had hairdresser hair, perfectly tinted and styled in a deliberately messy updo. Her lipstick and nail polish matched. It was hard to imagine Hugo as her son.

  ‘Of course I’m joking!’ Hugo said with undisguised affection. ‘Mum’s okay. She looks a bit Stepford wifey but she’s not. What you can’t see in that photo are the two tatts she’s got – Hugo inside her left forearm and Olivia inside the right. So she doesn’t forget who we are when she’s old and demented, we say.’

  ‘She’s got tattoos?’

  ‘It’s a Camden thing,’ Hugo said. ‘You’d love Camden, Lise. You should come across the channel. See somewhere other than Paris while you’re on this side of the world.’

  ‘I’d love to go to London,’ I said. ‘I’d love to travel everywhere but this trip is all about Paris. Mum said you don’t know somewhere properly unless you live there for a while. And I’m taking French lessons.’ As soon as I said that, I thought, oh no: I’d have to go back to French class and Anders would be there. Damn. ‘So what about your dad?’ I asked, not wanting to think about that embarrassment.

  ‘He’s okay. We don’t see a lot of each other these days.’

  ‘But you do see him?’ I pressed.

  ‘Yeah, on special occasions. Don’t you see your dad?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I never knew him. He took off before I was born. Went to Wales, England.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to see where he lived?’

  I thought of the painting hanging in my bedroom. Those mysterious hills wearing hats of low cloud. ‘Not this trip,’ I lied. ‘It was all arranged before I knew where he even lived. This trip isn’t about him at all.’

  ‘Really? But you’re only a hop, skip and a jump away. Just saying.’

  I changed the subject and Hugo let it ride but I knew I’d dwell on what he’d said when I was back at my apartment.

  The sky was just darkening by the time I returned. I’d had one beer too many, I decided, as I tried to focus on the numbers of the security code. It was a good thing that Madame Christophe wasn’t still awake. I negotiated the flights of stairs and flopped on my bed. Hugo had tried to walk me home but I’d put him off. I needed to clear my head.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ Hugo asked.

  ‘It’s Paris,’ I said, ‘it’s not even late and the Marais is a gay district. I’ll be fine, Hugo. Hey, let me ask you one question. Do you know what a bust bodice is?’

  ‘A bust bodice? If this was a trivia game, I’d have to guess that it was a kind of bra?’

  ‘You’re exactly right!’

  ‘There you are – I’m not just a pretty face. Let me give you my number.’

  ‘I need to be alone,’ I said, ‘but you do get a prize for the right answer.’ And I’d kissed him. Just a little kiss but on his mouth. Which was surprisingly soft.

  ‘Whoa!’ he said. ‘That was unexpected. And lovely. But maybe you’ve had too much to drink?’

  ‘Just one beer too many,’ I said, ‘but I meant the kiss. You’re very sweet, Hugo. Very. Just remember that, won’t you?’

  Lying on my bed, I cringed thinking about that moment. The walk – and pretending to be more sober than I felt – had cleared my head. I just hoped Hugo had accepted what I’d said as a real compliment, and not just the kind of drunken, condescending statement a girl makes to a guy she’s subbed in for someone else.

  ‘A time to reap, a time to sew’ – Greatma embroidered those words on a needlework sampler. It’s a misquote from the Bible. I imagine her stitching, pushing her hair from her face the way my mother does. At ten she was making something that would outlast her, something that would be cherished. All the women in my family have sewed. It’s genetic. What else is genetic?

  Mum Skyped me early the next morning, afternoon her time. It felt as though months had passed since we’d spoken. We didn’t talk about my father or the money he’d left me or the fact that she had kept photos of him that she’d never shown me. Instead she told me how the weather was becoming colder and that she had made a cape for one of her clients that looked exactly like Red Riding Hood’s coat. I let her talk. I was slightly hungover. I told her about Hugo, but not about Anders.

  ‘
An antique business?’ Mum was excited. ‘Oh, how wonderful, Lisi. And over in France buying for his uncle!’

  ‘He was very nice,’ I admitted, ‘but not, you know, boyfriend material.’ There was silence, although I could see Mum’s fuzzy frown. I knew what was coming next. ‘Not that I’m looking for a boyfriend. That would be stupid.’

  ‘Difficult,’ Mum agreed. ‘You’ll be home before you know it and then it will be university and a whole new cast of people. No, you need to concentrate on your French and soak up all that culture, Lisi.’

  ‘Have you seen Ami?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mum said, ‘we had dinner together the other night.’

  ‘She’s never on Facebook,’ I said. ‘I keep leaving her messages.’

  ‘She’s been working for her uncle – it’s uni holidays.’

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Some kind of catering thing,’ Mum said vaguely, ‘you know – office morning-tea parties. Apparently he got some green tea cheaply and they’re experimenting with baking with it.’

  ‘Baking?’

  ‘For the catering.’

  That sounded just like Ami’s uncle – and, knowing him, it would turn out to be really popular. It also explained why I hadn’t heard from Ami, other than the briefest of messages like waves from a passing car. Then Mum’s phone rang and we hung up. We’d managed the whole conversation without saying anything narky to each other.

  By the time I got down to breakfast, Madame Christophe had nearly finished eating and my coffee was lukewarm.

  ‘You need to go to the Porte de Vanves,’ she announced. ‘Today.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You will enjoy it and you will find your mother a present from Paris.’

  I had a perverse need to rebel. ‘I could go next week,’ I said, pouring more coffee. ‘I’d be better prepared.’

  She shrugged. ‘You can certainly go next week,’ she said, ‘but you also need to go today. You can take Napoléon. He will help you haggle. Also, he adores flea markets.’

  Napoléon’s world opinions were flexible and opportunistic; however, I loved stepping out, dog in tow. I gave Napoléon a conspiratorial wink while Madame Christophe fussed over his flea-market-suitable collar, which turned out to be a rather smart navy blue number decorated with silver paw prints.