by Mia Farlane
‘I think I can identify with such a fear,’ Anne said, and she gave May a sad little smile of commiseration.
‘You can laugh, Anne, but maintaining a childish desire always to please, expecting all the while to be spoon-fed, there is the true risk; one had better be careful what one takes in, while sitting there, passively swallowing!’ Francine looked at May: ‘Perhaps you could at least tell us what you thought of the reading this evening?’ she asked her.
‘I think I would have to read it once more for myself before I could comment intelligently,’ May replied. She was an idiot, and a dimwit, and she’d fallen in love.
‘Yes,’ Francine was impatient, ‘but what is your overall opinion? Your impression?’
‘I was so pleased to have been able to be there,’ May said – stupidly. She was going to start crying, and she really didn’t want to. ‘The rhythm, as you read, was so… beautiful that I –’
‘Let’s go in here,’ Anne said, and they went into the café; its windows were all steamed up.
Anne led the way to a table.
‘May is doing a thesis on me. Did she tell you that?’ Francine announced, once they were seated.
‘Yes, she told me,’ Anne said. She looked over at May.
‘I’m thinking of deferring, though,’ May said. Francine would hate her now.
‘You’ve made a decision, then?’ Francine turned to Anne. ‘What are you having?’ she asked her.
‘For the moment,’ May continued. ‘I’m going to buy the occasional magazine on university courses, maybe work out which university really appeals to me. I’ll continue taking notes. I haven’t stopped taking notes. I’m just deferring it. That’s all. It’s going to be a slow process… I’ve realized.’
‘You have returned to the preparation phase.’ Francine looked up from the Drinks menu. ‘Well, don’t hang around too long,’ she could now advise.
‘I’ll defend slow people. I’m slow,’ Anne put in.
‘No, but you are awake, you know what you want, and now you’re about to send off a manuscript.’ Francine dismissed Anne’s comment.
‘It’s true. At the age of forty-five. But you’re…’ she turned to May, and considered her, ‘… you’re not yet thirty?’ she guessed.
‘Continue to flatter her, Anne, and she’ll never achieve a thing. She needs shaking up.’
‘I’m just leaving writing the thesis for now,’ May drivelled on – she wished she’d shut up. ‘Perhaps next year,’ she went on anyway, in a convoluted attempt at positive thinking, ‘I’ll go part-time in order to read and do a course or two. There may be some courses that would be interesting and useful.’
Uncommitted, vague, but Francine did not, in any case, take May’s verbal peregrinations seriously. ‘You don’t seem to know what you’re doing. What are you going to drink? Water?’ She closed the subject.
24
Tough Duck
Wandering along the Seine in search of books the following morning, May found a book for just five euros: a first edition of Nouvelles pensées de l’amazone, a rare find. She held it against her heart, letting the book seep into her; she was being enriched and she hadn’t even opened it yet. She realized she stunk, both her tops did. The next hour she spent, unbelievably, instead of opening her treasure, hunting in vain for a simple T-shirt. Most of the shops were shut. The ones she found open were geared towards tourists; glittering Eiffel Towers and gaudy Mona Lisas. She walked past a smiling cardboard figure with a T-shirt stapled to it. Just inside the sparse wooden-floored shop, were piles of T-shirts on a low table. Perhaps she’d find something there. Hopeful, she went in. With nothing, she came out. The women’s were too skimpy, the men’s too big – they all started at ‘M’. She tried and tried on T-shirts (only six in fact). Finally a shop assistant said:
‘So, are you taking this one?’
‘How much is it?’
‘Thirty euros.’
‘Okay, thank you.’ (She wouldn’t take it.)
‘Any of them any good?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘If I had served you, I’d never have let you try one on, you know!’
‘Il fallait me le dire avant,’ May defended herself, pleased to have drawn from her memory files the ideal French phrase for such an occasion.
She was at the wrong end of Paris. She had wanted a five-euro T-shirt from Belleville.
‘You didn’t find anything among all these T-shirts!’
‘No.’
She left under attack from the three shop assistants, who conversed loudly about how she wasn’t at Les Galeries Lafayette. Perhaps this had happened because she had let herself get dehydrated in her single-minded search for a T-shirt. She was guilty of unfolding six tops. A thoughtless, annoying tourist. (A tourist, she was not. She would not wear that label.) She had wasted precious time. That was her worst sin. She told herself she was useless, that Francine would never waste her time hunting for a T-shirt. She rang her:
‘Was it nineteen hours or twenty hours that I was supposed to arrive?’
‘Twenty. Come at nineteen rather. I need to rest.’
Francine had been writing all day.
‘You don’t like duck, I imagine,’ were Francine’s first words.
The moment May had entered Francine’s apartment, she had sensed anger hovering. She had hardly wanted to proceed into the kitchen where Francine had gone quickly ahead in order to turn on the electric elements.
‘Yes, I do. I do like duck.’
‘Good… good. Look, you can help me by cutting up these beans.’ Francine handed May a small knife.
‘Should I cut them like this?’ May cut on an angle half a finger-length, keen to show she could take the initiative.
Francine was standing on the kitchen bench now, reaching for a saucepan.
‘You are doing it. You decide. Really, May, just do it!
May cut.
Her throat hurt. She needed to say something. She should say something. Silence. Silence. Her vocal cords seemed to have sucked themselves together like plastic straws. May wished she had never told Francine about the deferral.
‘So, are you going to talk to me this evening? You have nothing to tell me.’
May searched, like a student in front of an examination paper, with a pain in her stomach. She’d be accused of mutisme before long. She tried to think: I’m reading… That would do. ‘I’m reading La Folie en tête at the moment,’ she said.
‘Mm-hmm.’ Francine wasn’t interested. After all, what was there to say to that? It was a dead-end statement. ‘Yes, and what do you have to say about it?’ Francine asked calmly; she was getting cross; she was in a bad mood. That was clear.
May would have to comment meaningfully on the book now. She couldn’t. ‘I really like Leduc,’ she said.
Francine poured the beans into the pot of boiling water, went into the sitting room and put on some music. She announced the opera singer’s name. ‘This is […].’ A complete blank. Immediately. May heard Francine say the name and forgot it straight away: another missed opportunity to learn.
‘I haven’t brought the letter with me,’ May said; she thought she’d better say so.
‘Which letter?’ Francine was impatient.
‘The one to send to the universities; that I would put in with the information about your work.’
Francine pulled a roasting dish out of the oven, and placed potatoes and a chunk of meat on each plate. Then the beans.
They sat down to eat. Silence. May was in trouble. She thought quickly, desperately. Perhaps she could find something to say about Leduc? What did she like about Leduc? She went through the book so far in her head. A jumble of events. What one thread of thought could she remember? What did she like about it? Francine was licking the cold sore on her bottom lip.
May began her struggle through tough duck. ‘C’est très bon,’ she lied politely, wondering how she was going to cut into the leathery mass, wishing she’d been given a smaller ch
unk. Had Francine cooked it to a rock deliberately, in order to achieve some sort of symbolic message?
‘Who taught you to be so soft? Your mother?’
‘No.’
‘It is not a quality.’
It occurred to May she was going to be in trouble, whatever she did, however she held herself, however well she achieved a self-contained, non-demanding, outwardly focused presence. Her heart tightened now as she sat in front of her duck.
‘Your invisibility. It’s exasperating. “I’m not saying I disagree with you” – Don’t you have any opinions of your own? You bow to me. Do you think it is the behaviour of a woman of thirty-two?’
‘Thirty-one.’
‘To play the obedient little girl, to nod and smile. Do you know how old you are?’ Francine marked a pause. ‘It is the behaviour of an eight-year-old!’ She stopped to sum May up in one look. ‘You don’t invest yourself in this world. That is your problem. Worse than a shadow, you just follow people around, agreeing, agreeing. From there stem the worst atrocities.’
They ate in silence. This could be leading nowhere good. May was definitively in Francine’s bad books; she had displeased her by trying to please her. Several past moments where she might have comfortably disagreed with Francine now aligned themselves, as though stored in a single compartment, entitled: ‘moments where I lacked integrity’.
May continued to attempt to eat the duck, but it was like chewing gum, and refused to get any smaller. No amount of chewing helped.
Francine looked at her. ‘I shall accompany you to the Métro,’ she said.
‘That would be kind.’ Francine was trying to get rid of her. May’s stomach hurt. Francine seemed to be waiting for her to say something. But May could think of nothing safe to say.
‘Are you waiting to be dismissed?’ Francine looked briefly at May, then stood up suddenly. ‘You’ve finished,’ she stated, taking May’s plate, then her own, and putting them on the bench. May started to help clear the table. ‘Leave it. Leave it. I’ll do it later.’ Francine went purposefully to the front door where she began hauling coats off the hook and onto her left arm, looking for a suitable jacket. May got her coat and stood by, student-like; she kept herself completely still, hoping to become invisible.
‘There’s nothing like the oppressed to come across arrogantly. There’s where being oppressed leads you: to this arrogant observation of those around you. It’s very unpleasant, I assure you, very unpleasant.’ Francine pulled on her long leather jacket as she spoke, doing up the buttons; like a snake putting on its skin, May thought.
‘So, what can I do to change it?’
‘You speak; that’s all. You speak.’ She picked up some shoes from under the sofa. May followed her back into the kitchen and sat opposite Francine, who was now slipping on the shoes.
‘Okay, so I will say thank you for dinner… although the meat was a little overcooked.’ May risked saying this. She was feeling a bit tearful.
‘Oh that’s very easy: “the meat was overcooked”; that’s far too easy.’
‘And you seem angry with me; I don’t know why.’
‘You don’t know why? You’re going to have to grow up a little, my dear.’
‘Is it something I said yesterday evening?’ May knew she was being imprecise.
‘A question: that’s a start, but it’s more than that. You say what you think, because people can tell what you’re thinking in any case. One can read it on your face.’
Francine got up, and looked at herself in a mirror hanging behind the kitchen door. The dark green trousers – linen, May noted – were a bit short.
‘What do you think? Do the shoes match the trousers?’
‘Yes, fine.’ May couldn’t say otherwise. ‘But… thank you very much – it’s kind – but I can walk to the Métro on my own.’
It was dark outside. Late. May wished she was back in London already. She passed a telephone box. Jansen would still be out driving. No one to call. She ran across the road, not getting run over, as it happened; not that she was ready to die – which would be selfish – but an accident would be acceptable. That much further to walk, she looked ahead, until she was at the river: too far. The tourist shops were open, some restaurants. She walked on. Finally, the riverbank, naked now – with no bookstalls out – the stretch of large green boxes all latched up. What would she do once she got to the hotel? Her tongue was dry against her palate. Was Francine in love with her? It was what she was starting to think. Or why was she so furious with her?
Back over the bridge. The water was, of course, beautiful; the white-grey bridge, beautiful. She walked through all this beauty, past the fountains at the Hôtel de Ville, and finally got to the Métro. Once below, the bright lights accentuated the heavy feeling under her eyes. There’d be quite a wait at this time of night. Well, she sat down, being there was as good as being anywhere else. What would she do once she got to the hotel? She looked at her watch. Perhaps Jansen would be home soon? The platform was fairly empty. Silent. A few people sitting alone on her side.
The train for the other side arrived, disturbing the silence momentarily, before slithering away.
‘Allô.’
‘Hello, it’s May… I’m sorry, I hope it’s not too late to call. I was just about to go into the hotel, but I thought I should give you a quick call first.’
‘What do you want to say? You have made this call; it’s supposedly in order to tell me something.’
‘Yes…’
‘What do you have to say?’
‘There is something –’
‘Good. Tell me. Take a risk.’
‘I’m sorry,’ May said, ‘that I didn’t tell you before that I was planning on deferring.’
‘So you have not deferred yet: is that what you’re telling me?’
‘Yes, I have; no, I mean, no, I am not now enrolled at university, no. That’s right. I am no longer doing the PhD.’
‘Is that everything?’
‘And just… I find it difficult… that is to say, I think Jansen can find it difficult, I think she’s been finding it difficult when I’m so obsessed with…’
‘Allô?’
‘(Yes, I’m still here) with the PhD…’
‘And?’
‘I’m really always thinking about it and…’
‘No, May. Either you speak –’
‘And sometimes,’ May rushed on, ‘I can be quite obsessed with the PhD, and perhaps because of that, no doubt, I talk to Jansen quite a lot about you, which she doesn’t like very much –’
‘Of course she doesn’t like it; she must feel afraid.’
‘No. Why? Why would she be afraid? No, she isn’t afraid.’
‘That surprises me.’
‘It’s not because of you in particular; it’s that she doesn’t like the subject in general – the PhD, I mean, not the subject. When I say I’ve been thinking a lot about you, it’s all to do with the PhD.’
‘Fine. In which case, speak to Jansen. You are explaining yourself to the wrong person. We are not in a relationship, you and I.’
‘No, of course not. I’ll speak to Jansen. But what do you think? Should I stop teaching? Should I be in Paris, studying, in your opinion? Would that be a good idea?’
‘You have to decide that for yourself – what you really desire – and discuss it with Jansen, surely, since it would affect her. This is your problem, in any case,’ Francine said. ‘Now, I am very tired; so I wish you a good night.’
‘Could I just ask –’
‘Good night.’
‘Whether I could call you later, another –’
Francine had hung up.
25
The Break-In
The hook on the bathroom window was unlatched. May went round the flat, saying, ‘That’s odd, that’s weird.’ Until she realized: the spare key was missing; someone had broken into the flat, and they’d gone out the front door, taking the spare key. May gasped, put the snib on the front door, a
nd then called Jansen, who was somewhere in Wales, looking for her passenger’s house.
‘Maybe they just were just having a very thorough look around – as part one of the burglary process,’ May worried aloud. (Nothing had been taken.)
‘Well, anyway, now they’ve seen we’ve got nothing, they won’t be back,’ Jansen reassured her.
‘What should I do? Should I bother calling the police?’
‘Yes, you have to report it.’
‘Couldn’t you do it when you get back?’
‘May, you can do it. Just call 999.’
‘I can’t do it. I hate ringing people.’
‘I’d like you to call them. I can’t. I’m in Wales. May, I’ve got to go. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, and I need to find out. Call me later, and let me know how you got on. And call a locksmith.’
What was the point in calling the police when nothing had been taken? If it was ‘probably just children from the estate’, as Jansen seemed to think, why bother? May made herself a Tranquillity tea, sat on the bed and finally called the police.
The police said they’d send round a scene-of-crime officer. Half an hour later, there was a knock at the door, and May went to answer it: a trim woman in jeans and what looked like a bullet-proof vest introduced herself. She was carrying a shiny black briefcase. May showed her to the bathroom. The policewoman clicked open her briefcase, and set to work sprinkling powder over the surfaces near the window, then dusting them with a tiny soft brush. The woman went outside after that, and managed to find fingerprints on the outside window ledge; she took a copy on a small square of glass that she then put into her bag. However, the woman turned to May – and to Elizabeth, who had arrived halfway through the print-taking – even if they did manage to match the prints against someone else’s, they wouldn’t be able to make a conviction, she explained, because it was actually not illegal to touch the outside of another person’s property. Elizabeth stood there nodding, fascinated, and asked various questions, as if she were planning on a career in forensics. The policewoman, it turned out, had combined forensic science with drama; in fact, she had an Arts degree (she had changed career). Cool! What college had she been to for that? Elizabeth asked. Saint Martin’s, she’d done sculpting and installation. Elizabeth was also into art, she told the woman as she lit herself a cigarette, and she was thinking of Goldsmiths – inhale, inhale – what was the policewoman’s opinion on that place? No, the policewoman didn’t want a cigarette, thanks. Well – the woman was packing up her briefcase now – she didn’t know much about that place, just that it was supposed to be a bit more theory-based, or so she thought, but at the end of the day, it depended on what you were really looking for, didn’t it? Yeah, it was a matter of taste, that was what Elizabeth thought, too; it was what you were looking for, wasn’t it?