Goodbye, Paris

by Anstey Harris

  “Come under here if you want.”

  She wriggles, pulls the duvet over her.

  I can feel the pillow dip with the weight of her head, but the room is dark and I can barely see her. I choose not to peer closer—this is not a moment that requires scrutiny.

  She curls herself up, a prawn shape with her knees towards me. Her face is close to my ear.

  “Are you OK now?”

  I remember being young. I recall—with startling and sudden clarity—the time when everything was either black or white, when I hadn’t yet learnt about the middle ground and how wide it is.

  “I’ll be OK.”

  She moves her head onto my shoulder, her hair near my face, and I wonder if this is what it’s like to have a child.

  “But really? Really OK?”

  I reach one hand out and hold hers. I squeeze her fingers.

  “You won’t kill yourself, will you?”

  I have to pause before I answer. I have to be sure. “No, I promise. I won’t kill myself.”

  She lets go of my hand and hugs me; I hug her tightly back.

  I realize that this is exactly what it is like to have a child; I am thinking about her instead of me. She needs me even more than I need my self-indulgence. It is a novel experience for me.

  The room is warm and comfortable. I don’t know the time, but it is very dark and I presume it is somewhere in the small hours of the morning. I don’t want to ask Nadia, I don’t want her to look at her phone. I don’t want the outside world to come into this moment.

  In the silences between our conversation, I try not to think of what lies outside this room. I try to forget the devastation that I’ve deliberately caused. When I think of Alan’s violin I feel an actual physical pain in my stomach. It tightens and worsens when I focus on the fact that every bit of this is my fault.

  “Are you sure you’re OK?” Nadia asks me in the dark, and my thoughts collide with the promise I made to her not to kill myself.

  “I will be. I will be.” I wish I believed it.

  “I need you, Grace,” she says, and my broken heart flickers.

  * * *

  When I’m certain Nadia is asleep, I climb carefully out of bed. The bed is pushed up against the wall on the side I am sleeping on and I have to get myself to the foot and drop out that way to avoid waking her. The carpet is soft and thick under my bare feet.

  My legs feel weak and my knees take a few moments to lock into an upright position; I keep one hand on the end of the bed. I feel as if I’ve had the flu and been bedridden for days and yet been looked after, nursed.

  I run through a calculation, trying to work out what day of the week it is, how long I’ve been back from France. I have no idea. I could be a day out either way and I wonder where my phone is. The date will be on the home screen; it will be a first step to coming back to life.

  I wonder if there will be a message from David on the same screen, the first six or seven words visible without opening the message, maybe tantalizing, maybe straightforward. The thought that there might be nothing belongs in the same black hole as the destruction of my shop, and all the beautiful instruments.

  I quietly open the bedroom door. Mr. Williams has obviously prepared for my waking up in the night and there is a lamp on atop a side table on the landing. The lamp has a round china base, like a vase, and a shade with short tassels around the bottom; there is nothing like it in my house, but there was in my mother’s and my grandmother’s. I like the memories it brings.

  The door of the bathroom is open, clearly so that I don’t go into the wrong room. I walk down the hall, into the bathroom, and shut the door behind me. I pull the cord of the light and the room is flooded with a brightness that makes me blink.

  The bathroom is tasteful and very clean. Stark-white fittings are softened by touches of mahogany; the loo seat, the light pull, the laundry box. It is very masculine and surprisingly smart.

  Next to the bath is a full-length mirror and I know I am going to stand in front of it and criticize myself. I don’t want to; even I know that what I see will be shocking and pathetic. But I owe it to the instruments, to Mr. Williams, especially to Alan, to start facing some unpleasant truths.

  I make sure the door is locked, then pull the white T-shirt up over my head and drop it on the floor. The pants I am wearing are my own and I realize that someone must have taken them out of the bag I took to Paris. I turn and face myself in the mirror.

  My arms still look healthy. My muscles are taut and round, sinews run down the outside of my upper arms and in at the elbows. I work hard on my upper-body strength for my playing and for my making. I follow strict exercises in the gym to make my arms as flexible, strong, and responsive as they can be. Their robustness has protected them—a little—from the trauma that the rest of my body has undergone.

  The only way I am going to start to rebuild my life is on a ladder of honesty. This is where I start; this naked vision of me. I accept—for the first time—that I limit what I eat because of David. That isn’t fair; I control my food because of me. The net effect is that he coos and compliments my sleek body, my tiny breasts and my flat stomach, but the decision to do it, to be that thin, is mine. The responsibility is mine.

  My body is a mass of shadows. The bottom of my rib cage sticks out in a xylophone of lines around my chest. My hip bones stand proud of my abdomen, and their marked contours make my belly look even flatter, almost concave. There are tiny bruises on my hips, the last marks that will ever be left on my body by David. The bites and kisses are not the result of punishment; they are a consequence of passion, and of my having so little body fat.

  There are pools of darkness in the recesses of my collarbones and the rude health of my muscular shoulders is out of proportion.

  I have not been kind to this body. And I have not left it the resources to deal with two or three days of starvation or however long it’s been. Suddenly I am overwhelmingly hungry.

  There is a bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. I wrap it around me. It is white and soft and swamps me. I rub my face against its collar. The belt goes around me twice and I wonder whose dressing gown this once was.

  This is a lovely house. It is Victorian and great care has been taken to restore everything just so. The banister is polished and smooth, the carpet on the stairs elegantly fitted, and the oak of the stairs immaculately swept on each side of the runner.

  It is easy to find the kitchen; a light has been left on in here, too. I assume it is an invitation to help myself to a cup of tea. Near the kettle is a tray laden with bits and pieces. There are cheeses in greaseproof paper under a glass cloche and a basket of biscuits and crackers with cellophane stretched over it. There are even two jars of pickles, one light and one dark, with teaspoons balanced on their lids.

  I make a cup of tea and carry it to the table on the tray. There are two side plates and two napkins on the tray; presumably in case Nadia was hungry too. There is a note and a sweet little sketch of a basket. The note says, Homemade bread in basket on side, bread knife on board. Please eat.

  The bread looks gorgeous. I carve a bigger slice than I mean to and paste it with butter from a tiny porcelain dish on my tray. My teeth leave marks in the butter, it is so thick. It is absolutely delicious.

  It beggars belief that someone can be so kind after everything I have done. Mr. Williams trusted me and I have totally betrayed him. My first job tomorrow will be to find the little homemade violin and repair it. I pray that I haven’t done anything to it that can’t be fixed.

  I have mended some terribly badly injured things in the past. I have undone other people’s repairs—sometimes hundreds of years old—that have added to already existing problems. I can fix Alan’s violin but, depending on what I have done, it may take years. I try, screwing my face up tight and putting myself back in the shop inside my head, to remember what happened, but I really can’t.

  I unwrap the cheeses from their paper. The first is French—Époisses
, one of my favorite cheeses—and I cut into it and taste it before I have a chance to associate it with Paris or with David. The other two cheeses complement the Époisses and each other. There is a solid yellow cheddar and a rippled Stilton. This little meal has been put together, chosen, with such incredible kindness. The kindness doesn’t make me cry. The kindness makes me strong.

  “You found your supper?” Mr. Williams closes the kitchen door behind him. “How do you feel?”

  “Awful.” I smile at him, my mouth still full of cheese. I swallow. “And guilty and shallow and pathetic. And grateful.”

  He makes a face, wobbles his head from side to side in an if you say so gesture. We both smile. “It’ll come out in the wash,” he says, “apparently.”

  “David used to say, ‘It’ll be all right in the end and if—’ ”

  Mr. Williams interrupts me, “It’s not all right, then it’s not the end.” He nods his head. “It’s an old one. But a good one.”

  “I will fix Alan’s violin.”

  “I know.” He has made himself a pot of tea and he pours a cup. He adds a tiny dash of milk; un nuage the French call it—“a cloud.” “There is a lot to do. You have months of work just to get the shop up and running. What will you do for money, for an income?”

  I shake my head. I can’t believe he is still thinking about me, still worrying on my behalf. “I’m OK for money. And I could always take out a small mortgage if I run out, I suppose. I don’t have one on either property.” This was part of my maternity-leave plan; not my rebuild my life from the ashes of madness solution.

  “You may need to wait and see it before you decide.”

  I remember that he knows what’s happened in there, while I am only guessing at most of it. I feel a little less optimistic. “I have to keep it from my clients; I’ll be finished if anyone finds out. I mean more so than I am now.”

  Mr. Williams takes a small slice of the blue cheese. “I wondered if perhaps your insurance would cover it all.”

  “I really doubt it. And, do you know, I’d really rather not ask.” I pull the folds of the dressing gown farther around me. “Was this your partner’s robe?”

  He nods. “It was. He made it himself. He was a costumier, dab hand with a sewing machine.”

  “He must have been a big chap.” I gesture at the length of the gown and the doubled belt.

  “I suspect that’s why he made his own, only way to get one to fit. He was six-foot-six.”

  I wonder if Mr. Williams felt safe in Leslie’s arms the way I had in David’s.

  “I understand what you’re going through, I really do. I know how frustrating it all is, the cloak-and-dagger, the subterfuge. You need to know you can trust your partner. You need to know it’s worth it.”

  I look down at my cup and blow the steam away. I don’t want to look at Mr. Williams when he’s this close to my soul, when he is trying to understand my life.

  “I was with a married man for forty years,” he says.

   Chapter Sixteen

  Mr. Williams and I sit for a long while in the kitchen. We are different now; we have lost a barrier.

  “Leslie’s wife knew he was gay when she married him,” Mr. Williams tells me.

  I am still trying to compose myself following his revelation; it is important, I think, that I—of all people—don’t appear shocked. Surprised is more accurate and, when I examine that, my surprise is simply because I thought he was a better person than me.

  I pick crumbs of cheese from the breadboard to focus my gaze and wonder at my arrogance. Of course Mr. Williams is a better person than me; his relationship was under completely different circumstances.

  “It was unusual—in those days—to be that honest. It suited Jean to marry a homosexual; she had no interest in”—he lowers his voice and I am reminded that he is of a different generation than me—“that side of things. And for Leslie, well, one couldn’t just push off with a chap back then.”

  Mr. Williams’s turn of phrase makes me smile a little. I feel privileged to be wearing Leslie’s dressing gown in his absence; I feel like I am part of their lives.

  “We were together for a long time, more than most people, but they are painful rules to live by. How you have to learn to stand in the queue, how you must know your place.”

  He puts one hand over mine. The skin on the back of his hand is drawn and tight; the wrinkles look like translucent bark. His knuckles show through it as four white dots.

  “And at his funeral, it had to be all about Jean. I was just another guest, just another close friend. Jean and I kissed cheeks politely; she loved him too in her way. Alan and his wife stood on either side of me, holding my hands tight. And I kept from shouting out.”

  He squeezes my hand and I smile at him.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll fix Alan’s violin. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

  “It’s wood, my dear girl. It’s lovely and it was clever of Alan to make it and, yes, it was precious for a while. But it’s wood, it’s not flesh and blood.”

  I cannot believe so much compassion can come from one lonely old man. I want to tear out my heart and give it to him. I want to make everything better; turn back time and bring Leslie and him forward, to now, to let them be together. But then what would happen to Jean?

  It dawns on me like daybreak that there are no winners in love affairs, however well-meaning.

  “I’ll mend it. I’ve done a terrible thing and I’ll mend it.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not important. If you want to make it up to me, you’ll mend the Cremona cello. The one with the great big hole through it, the poor thing.” He looks right at me. “You’ll mend it, and you’ll take it to Cremona in time to win. Then I’ll forgive you; when you show me what you’re made of.”

  It’s a lovely thought, so sweet, but pointless. “It can’t win now, Mr. Williams. They wouldn’t accept it. They would know it’s been fixed no matter what I did. That ship has sailed, I’m afraid.”

  “There must be something we can do. We’ll sleep on it.”

  I look out the kitchen window and see that the dawn is just starting to crack over the garden. A line of orange edges the hedge and whispers pink into the sky.

  “I’m sorry; I’ve kept you up all night.”

  “Twice.” He smiles. “But that doesn’t happen often nowadays.” He pats my hand.

  “Mr. Williams?”

  He has turned to put the cheeses and milk in the fridge. He is an old man and it is time he went to bed, but I need to ask him one more thing.

  “Nadia said there was an article? About David?”

  He looks back over his shoulder at me. He is puzzled. “It’s in your magazine. The one you brought back from France.” He points to a magazine lying open on the kitchen counter.

  I am slipping down the rabbit hole. There is a pounding in my chest. I recognize the magazine instantly. I remember the article, the photographs, the white-toothed smile and immaculate hair of David’s wife, the soft-focus picture of his strong, healthy children in the distance; not recognizable but outlined in their vigor. The children are walking towards the camera under an avenue of linden trees. The picture captures the spring in their step, the vitality of their day, the buzz of their conversation. The sky is blue above their heads and there are no clouds.

  On the opposite page to that freshness and health is a picture of the escalator in the Porte de Pantin station. The picture is in color on glossy paper; most of the photograph is of those dull, camouflage colors one finds in Tube stations—gunmetal gray, granite, galvanized rims of posters, grinding dusty teeth of the escalator itself.

  At the bottom of the escalator is me. My skirt is the green of the linden trees in the other picture, vivid and fresh. Towards the top of the escalator, frozen in his giant steps and one knee raised in the race to the top, is David.

  I remember.

  I remember buying the magazine at Gare du Nord.

  I remember realizing—almost stra
ightaway—that I would not read it because this was not my normal journey. I had completed the steps I always take on my way home: a coffee from the stall at the bottom of the stairs, a women’s magazine to improve my French by reading—in baby steps—recipes and fashion pieces.

  I remember putting the magazine in my bag, rolling it up, all the images on the cover facing inwards.

  I remember opening it in my shop. I laid the magazine on the counter. I had a glass of red wine in the other hand. I flicked through the pages mechanically, taking nothing in.

  I remember that I stopped when I saw the picture of Dominique-Marie Martin, utterly recognizable, a face etched by distress onto my memory.

  I remember trying to read the headline La gentillesse commence avec soi-même, selon avocat spécialiste des droits de l’homme on the page opposite my photograph and realizing that I didn’t speak enough French to read an article about me. An article that the whole of the French-speaking world could understand.

  I remember feeling absolutely trapped and, at the same time, utterly naked. And then, with a punch, I remember everything else I did.

  Be sure your sins will find you out.

  * * *

  “Grace, Grace, dear. Please.” Mr. Williams springs to his feet. “You’ve cried enough tears over all this. I thought you’d read this? In the shop.”

  “I can’t read it,” I say, and my words catch on my sobs. “I feel so stupid. I can’t believe she’d humiliate me like this.” I clap my hands over my mouth. Dominique-Marie is surely entitled to humiliate me in any way she sees fit. I have been humiliating her for eight years.

  “I thought it was remarkably generous.” Mr. Williams sounds genuinely surprised.

  My instinct is to pounce, to yell at him for taking her side. I catch my breath and hold back for a moment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even the title. She has a point.”

  “Mr. Williams.” I am spelling things out. My patience is thin. “I can’t read French.”

  “Sorry, dear, sorry. You did say. The piece, the title says ‘Leading human rights lawyer calls for kindness to begin a little nearer home.’ It’s about being sympa, having an understanding, being nice. It’s about women standing up for other women, being kind to one another.”