by Mia Farlane
‘Allô, Francine. It’s May.’ It was Saturday morning, and she was standing in a telephone booth near to the hotel. ‘I knew you would have left your answering machine on,’ she explained. ‘And it is for that reason that I allowed myself to call you, since, although I didn’t want to disturb you (I know that you work in the mornings), I told myself that you would have put your answering machine on if you were working, so… the weather is incredibly beautiful today, it’s not weather for staying inside, I told myself, so I wondered,’ May got to her point, ‘whether you would like to go out for a walk somewhere. It’s what I am going to do, in any case –’ She was cut off.
If she had thought about it – and she wished, after she got off the phone, that she had thought about it – she would have prepared a succinct message before picking up the phone. Instead, she had gabbled out her thoughts. She went back to the hotel, where she spent the rest of the morning in her sunless room, waiting for Francine to call, listening to the hum of the traffic outside, and nibbling her way through a bag of figs.
At two o’clock, someone knocked on her door; it was the man from reception: ‘There is une dame on the phone for you,’ he said.
‘Une dame’: it would be Jansen or Francine. May followed the man downstairs to reception, ‘Merci,’ and took the receiver.
It was Francine: ‘I have just listened to your message.’ She stopped to laugh.
‘What?’
‘No, I’m laughing. And it does me such good to laugh,’ she said. ‘I could yawn, if you like, but it’s surely better that I laugh. Still, what would you prefer?’ Francine sounded angry.
May didn’t know whether she was meant to reply to the question, or not.
‘You have spent all morning in your hotel room, waiting for my telephone call. Is that right?’
‘No, I’ve been working,’ May defended herself.
‘That’s very good. So much the better.’
‘I’ve just finished “Re-evaluation”,’ May told her.
‘Good. Very good.’
‘Perhaps we could meet in the Jardin du Luxembourg?’
‘Yes, we could,’ Francine replied.
‘Or I could come to your place and we could go there together?’
‘I’ll wait for you at the gardens, near the orchard, in front of the Baudelaire statue. Do you know where that is?’
‘Yes.’
Francine was sprawled on a green wrought-iron chair, her head tilted towards the sun. She opened her eyes as May approached. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t find a chair for you,’ she said. ‘There’s one over there, look.’ She pointed with her chin to one further down the path, and May went over to get it. Francine watched her return with the chair, place it on the gravel path, and sit down. ‘I’m going to sleep a little while,’ she told May. Then she closed her eyes again. She looked faintly amused. As if she had completed an experiment, and she had learned what she had wanted to learn. May sat there, thinking out an improbable conversation. Eventually, she closed her eyes, and began listening to the birds.
May had returned to Paris only a few more times after that – over the Bank Holidays and in her mid-term break – and stayed each time at the same hotel in the nineteenth arrondissement. She got to know the hotel’s uniform rooms: the wardrobes, with the thin doors that creaked when you opened them; the linoleum floors, with their dips and slants; the basins with the plastic tubs below; the varyingly sagging beds; the spindly tables with their flowery-bright yellow or green tablecloths; and the glass ashtrays, advertising ‘Pernod’. She sat at a table every morning, drinking tap water and peeling endless mandarins into ashtrays as she scrawled hopeless notes into an exercise book. At 1 p.m., she visited Francine, who would then explain – over rice and courgettes, or radishes followed by an omelette with bread – the various paragraphs that May had not understood.
Then, fortunately – even though May did like to visit her; it just wasn’t easy, it was never a relaxing experience – at the end of November Francine went to Canada; but two months would pass quickly, she assured May, and if May wrote to her, she would reply. ‘Work on your PhD,’ she said, ‘and we shall see each other again in February.’
4
The Letter
The day after her rat dream May returned from work, with the letter to Francine still in her bag. She opened the door to the bedsit, and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. A second later the hall light, on timer, clicked itself off. This was so symbolically ‘right’, she thought as she stood there in the dark; it was the material representing the abstract (her life), but maybe she was just cold, and tired and hungry. She pressed the hall light back on again, looked in her wallet for a one-pound coin, and quickly topped up the electricity meter. During this time May received a text message from her younger sister Elizabeth in Cambridge:
Will call at 8. Be there, or be square! Ex
May considered ‘being out’; perhaps she could go to the Portuguese café round the corner? While she was considering this, her mobile rang.
‘Are you at home?’ It was Elizabeth.
‘I’ve only just got in. Can you call back in ten minutes?’ At least then she could get herself a coffee.
‘Well, call me when you’re ready.’ Elizabeth didn’t want to pay for the call.
‘No, I’ll be ready in ten minutes, next to the hall phone with my coffee. You can call that phone.’
‘All right. Okay.’ Elizabeth hung up, without saying goodbye.
Her mobile rang again. It was Jansen. ‘May, I’ll probably have to get off the phone soon,’ she said, ‘so I can’t talk –’
‘You’re ringing to say you can’t talk?’ May really needed a hot drink.
‘I’m ringing to let you know I’ve got a pickup in Hertfordshire, which means I won’t get back until ten, ten thirty.’
‘Okay.’ Information received.
‘I’m sorry I’m going to be late.’
‘Hmm.’
‘May, I’ve got to go.’ Her next passenger had arrived. ‘Could you put my pyjamas in the bathroom?’
That was a totally unsatisfying call. May got her coffee, and went to wait on the landing for the phone to ring. While she sat there, the hall light went on and off as various tenants from the other rooms came and went. The guitar-player passed her on his way upstairs where he started ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ for the twenty-seventh time that week; the young Australian woman from the next-door studio hiked by, carrying a large rucksack. She’d have been to the laundrette. ‘Hi,’ she said. May said, ‘Hi.’ That was as far as communication went in this house, and it suited May. ‘Well, call me then!’ she said aloud, after the woman had gone into her studio. ‘If you’re going to.’ The guitar-player moved on to ‘No Woman, No Cry’. May looked at her watch: that was twenty minutes. She got up and went back to the studio, switched on the bedside lamp, found the envelope she had once more forgotten to post, and opened it.
Chère Francine, she read.
Well that was already a problem: Francine wrote ‘ma chère May’. But is that what an older woman does? Is allowed to do?
‘My dear Francine’ – did May (she didn’t think she did), did she have the right to ‘embrace’ Francine, to own her with such an expression?
‘Write to me your thoughts as they unfold,’ Francine had told her in a postcard from Canada; basically, she wanted stream-of-consciousness authenticity:
I wanted to let you know… How are you? Welcome back! (May had started again) I expect you are very busy, as always… Dear Francine, How are you? How was Canada? I’m fine. In two weeks I am on holiday. I won’t be going anywhere… Dear Francine, How are you? I’m very well. The holidays are coming up, which I’m very… How are you? I’ll be interested to hear about your time in Canada. I’m well. The holidays are coming up, which I’m pleased about… Dear Francine, Thank you for the letter (and the postcard). I’m writing to let you know… I’m writing because… I wanted to let you know that I have decided to defe
r the PhD. I now realize that I feel unprepared, and perhaps I’ll always be unprepared… I have decided to defer the PhD, because I have come to realize… Because I feel unready, I have decided, having embarked on background reading, that I… I have come to realize (May had tried again) that, although I have read quite a lot around my PhD topic (not yet quite defined)…
May now looked at her letter. It was draft number five; she had freely written six or seven pages, and then cut the unacceptable, which brought it down to a page. After that, she had shifted paragraphs about, inserted some niceties, and the result was what she had in her hand. She just wanted to check now, once more, that she was happy with the final product, which (literally translated) went:
Dear Francine,
I received your letter, which very much pleased me.
She skimmed past the greetings, read the watered-down confession about deferring her PhD, and then added a PS:
The other night I had a strange dream – blah, blah, blah, the rat dream – What do you think? I don’t know what to make of it.
A lie, of course. Francine was back from Canada, and May had made no progress with the PhD; the rat was Francine, and May was frightened of her. It didn’t take a genius. Also, if May admired Francine (which she did) that was understandable, but if it was anything more than admiration (which perhaps it was), that was worrying – if May could dare to think about it – because Francine was, in fact, a powerful woman. And the only thing that kept May safe was that Francine couldn’t possibly like her. May wished she hadn’t added the dream – and perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned the deferral; she slid the letter back into the envelope and resealed it. If she went out briefly now, to post it, Elizabeth would call while she was out. She put on her coat, and went out anyway.
May got back ten minutes later, still holding the envelope. She had decided against posting it. But she could always use some of what she’d written in the new version. A note was pinned to the door: Call Elizabeth. May sent her sister a text:
Back now. Call if like.
She made herself another coffee, and waited once more on the landing, to the sound of ‘Lady in Red’. Valentine’s Day was coming up, but she and Jansen didn’t buy each other cards or flowers – only sometimes, if it occurred to them. Shortly before they’d got together – May was twenty-three, living in a bedsit near London Bridge and doing her PGCE, and Jansen was still in the army – Jansen had sent her a tiny pewter bear; he was the size of a thumbnail. May kept him in her wallet. And when they moved into their first home, a pokey flat in Islington (central, and on the line to Jansen’s work), May sat him above the fake fireplace, on the mantelpiece next to Jansen’s teddy bear. After that they’d moved to a ground-floor flat in Pimlico (it was closer to work for both of them, plus it had a sunny front room with bay windows); and that was where – May felt sick whenever she thought about it – she had thrown (it was almost a year ago now) the tiny bear out of the window into the back garden. What she’d meant to do was just express her anger, and then she was going to go and find him; but he was the size of a thumbnail, and the garden was overgrown with rose bushes. ‘I’m going to go and look for him,’ May announced, and their argument was put on hold. After a while Jansen came out and helped; it got dark, and they never found him.
Which was why they were now living in a cheap (-ish) bedsit in Stockwell, with most of their books and some of their furniture in storage: Jansen was sorry for having laughed when May had told her about how her lecturer had once said she had a ‘fine mind’; they’d talked about possibilities; and Jansen had suggested they move somewhere cheap so that May could save for the university fees to do a PhD. It had also meant Jansen could finally give up her stressful Human Resources job and –
The phone rang.
‘Hello.’
‘Oh, hi-ee!’ It was a high-pitched girly voice. ‘Is Mandy there? Room ten?’
‘Just a moment.’ May knocked at room ten. ‘Phone for you’, she said, and went back to the studio to get herself some supper: sardines on toast. She sat on the bed, switched off her mobile – eliminating the possibilities for disturbance while she ate – and stared at the envelope; she didn’t have the energy to start another letter that evening. Nor did she at all have the energy for Elizabeth, who probably wanted to sort out some free accommodation in London, because there was going to be a gig, or a wacky exhibition or something. Well, if she wanted to talk, she’d persevere, and eventually get through to the hall phone.
May ripped open the envelope for the last time. It would go into her Francine file.
‘Thank God for that! I’ve got you at last!’ (May looked at her watch. It was nearly ten.) ‘I’ve left you three messages. Then I tried the hall phone again. (It’s engaged all the time, by the way. Did you know that?) Finally someone answers the phone, and I have to wait twenty minutes while they go and get you! Oh well, no problem – you can’t call me back though, can you?’
‘No,’ May said.
Silence. Then, ‘Are you in a bad mood? Is this a bad time to call?’
‘No. I am just not paying for the call. Sorry.’
‘Yeah,’ inhaling of cigarette smoke, ‘sure. Just a moment.’ (…) ‘Right. I’ve just got my ashtray. So how’s Jansen? How are you?’ she went.
‘How are you?’ May asked. ‘What are you calling about?’
‘Nothing much. Just a catch-up.’ (That was unlikely.) ‘And to see if you felt like a visit this weekend.’
‘I’ll be in Paris.’
‘Again! What’s in Paris? Or should I say “who”?’
May didn’t reply.
‘I’m just kidding: joke,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Okay, what about the following weekend?’
‘Jansen’s not working and we’re spending it together.’
‘Right.’
They were silent again. May realized that if she were Jansen, she would be attempting light chat, she’d be asking interested questions about Elizabeth’s night class, her sculpting, she’d be finding out more about the flat. May felt under no such obligation; if Elizabeth was not going to talk, May would respond with a polite muteness.
‘Right. Well, I guess I’ll find somewhere else… Listen, I won’t keep you then.’
May was going to see Francine. That was the first thing she thought after Elizabeth had more or less hung up on her. Paris: Francine. May hadn’t seen her since November, and now she would be there in less than five days, having lunch with her in her apartment. Her arms tingled at the thought. It was four days, in fact, less than four. So, perhaps there was no point in sending the letter; perhaps she could decide on the spot whether to mention the deferral or not, once she was in Paris; and perhaps, also, there was no real need to mention the deferral just yet – when maybe she’d really get started on the PhD… Anyway – she did a happy little jump – la joie! She folded Jansen’s pyjamas, placed them lovingly on the edge of the bath, and went to wait in the dark for her return.
5
Her Head
Francine looked across the kitchen table at her: ‘The English don’t know how to cut hair.’ She dipped a radish into a small bowl of salt. ‘It looks as if they’ve put a bowl on your head and cut around it!’ Francine bit into the radish.
May smiled at this wonderful directness.
‘That is a lot better already, put to one side,’ Francine said, rearranging the fringe. ‘Turn around. Oh yes!’ Throwing her head back, dismayed, to the side, eyebrows lifted. ‘They’ve given you a boy’s cut!’
May let her hair be flicked about this way and that.
‘Next time, you must come to my hairdresser’s. You look like a boy. I do know it’s the fashion among young lesbians, but there are people who don’t suit short hair. Do you wish to look like a boy? Is that what you want?’ Francine of course had short hair – dark brown, just beginning to go grey – she had very short hair; and yes, it suited her. Perfectly.
It was a mistake, May now realized, to have got her hair cut in Englan
d. It was not an elegant cut. She could have been beautiful with an exquisite, refined, sharp-soft, flick-to-the-side look (achieved at a French coiffeur’s) that would have suited her long oval face, and accentuated her cheekbones. Her actual cut – ten pounds at the local hairdresser’s – was, on this occasion, an auburn ‘Joan of Arc’ (a Jean Seberg). She did feel more comfortable with this rough short cut. She would be too seductive otherwise; she flattered herself, not really believing it.
‘How is Jansen?’ Francine took another radish. She had not yet met Jansen, but she always asked after her.
‘Fine,’ May said. ‘She’s still driving for now, says she’s happier doing that. She wonders what she’s doing with her life though, I think – we’re a bit the same in that way.’
‘What do you mean “the same”? You’re doing a PhD, aren’t you? Although, apart from that, you have not the slightest idea of what you want to do, none at all, as far as you tell me.’
May smiled, trying to look pleased. She would tell her about the deferral later. ‘No, but I have to get on and do something with my life. I’m doing the PhD, which is good, even though I’m only doing it part-time, which does slow things down of course. But still…’
May gave her a cheerfully philosophic look. She knew she must irritate someone like Francine, who was preparing two books for publication at the same time; an article she had written was ‘exploding into a book’. Her collection of essays was coming out in less than a month. Her visit to Canada had gone ‘extrêmement bien’. They were inviting her back, all expenses paid.
‘Ah! I have something for you.’ Francine left the kitchen, then returned a few seconds later with an old French paperback, and a copy of yet another article she had written: ‘on Lucie Delarue-Mardrus’. Did May know the writer? She did at least know the name?