It was as though a switch had been flipped inside me when I became a mother. I became hyper-conscious of my own mortality from one day to the next. This feeling manifested itself in different ways: I refused to cross the road unless the green man showed, I lost my taste for high-adrenalin fairground rides and I’d fallen prey to vertigo the last time I stepped out on to the windswept viewing deck of the Montparnasse Tower. None of these activities had become any more dangerous overnight, but I’d changed; my appetite for risk was significantly lower. As a mother, I had responsibilities which childless people like Ryan and Eric couldn’t even begin to comprehend. If keeping my daughter safe was my number-one priority, keeping myself out of harm’s way for Lila’s sake came a close second.
‘It’s much safer than Ecstasy in tablet form,’ Eric added, sensing my indecision. ‘Those pills were like Russian roulette: you were as likely to take horse tranquillizer or laxatives as the real thing. But this is the good stuff. It’s really mellow. Honestly, Sally, there’s nothing to worry about…’
I nodded. My resolve was weakening. The last nine months hadn’t been a walk in the park, and it was tempting, the idea of stepping outside of myself for a few hours, seeing my life – my messy, complicated life – bathed in a flattering, soft-focus glow. I felt a tightness in my chest as my body remembered what it felt like to come up, fear and anticipation jostling to gain the upper hand. ‘Okay, I’m in,’ I replied, still half hoping Ryan would back out at the last minute.
But Eric had already emptied the contents of the bag into his glass of champagne. He raised it towards the light, and three pairs of eyes watched intently as the tiny crystal began to dissolve.
It took me the longest time to identify the noise that woke me from my shallow slumber, punctuated with vivid, surreal dreams, late on New Year’s Day. First, I reached on autopilot for my alarm clock and fumbled for the ‘off’ button, to no avail. Next, my hand closed around the mobile phone which lay on my bedside table, but there was no telltale vibration. It was only when the ringing sound had stopped that my brain found a way to interpret what it was hearing and identified the culprit: my landline. Bleary-eyed, I staggered out into the living room, temporarily blinded by the fading afternoon light. I picked up the handset, staring at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, my dilated pupils making it difficult to bring the display into focus.
‘Missed call: Kate,’ I deciphered. ‘Oh shit,’ I groaned to myself. I was in no fit state to have a serious conversation with anyone, but I could hardly ignore Kate. Scrolling through the address book, I selected her number, narrowly missing placing an accidental call to ‘Mum & Dad’, her closest bedfellows on the alphabetical list. ‘Kate?’ I said as soon as she picked up, my voice still thick with sleep. ‘It’s me, Sal. Sorry… I was in bed… I’ve been worried about you. Are you okay?’
‘No. Really not.’ Kate’s voice was brittle, her words clipped. ‘Can I come over, Sal? I need to get out of here and I’ve nowhere else to go…’
‘Of course you can,’ I said quickly, ‘my door is always open. You know that.’
My efforts to spruce myself up in readiness for Kate’s visit were tragi-comic. I began to run a bath, it only clicking ten minutes later, when the hot water had run out, that I’d forgotten to put in the plug. I filled the kettle, returning several times to check on its progress before realizing I hadn’t switched it on. These were textbook come-down symptoms: my brain was like a slab of Emmental, riddled with huge, irregular holes, or a half-finished game of Join the Dots in one of Lila’s activity books. When Kate rang the doorbell, a little over an hour later, I’d managed only to pull on my dressing gown and pour myself a glass of juice.
Kate looked as though she’d been to hell and back. The whites of her eyes were cross-hatched with red, the skin beneath them so dark, so bruised-looking that, for one nauseating instant, I wondered whether Yves had raised his hand to her. ‘I know, I know, I look terrible,’ Kate said, registering my shock. ‘I haven’t had much sleep these past few nights. And let’s face it,’ she added with a hollow approximation of a laugh, ‘it’s years since you’ve seen me without any make-up.’
Kate declined tea, requesting a glass of water instead, saying, quite matter-of-factly, that she felt dehydrated from her weeping marathon. We settled into the sofa and I was struck by how vulnerable she looked, dressed simply in faded jeans and a navy V-necked sweater, her knees supporting her chin, her arms wrapped around her calves. ‘So, why did you cancel the party?’ I decided it was pointless beating about the bush. ‘Did Yves find out?’ Kate closed her eyes for a moment, then gave a tiny nod.
‘In the end he came right out and asked me when we got back from his parents’ place yesterday morning,’ she explained. ‘I think I intended to deny it, but I couldn’t get the words out… I just stood there looking guilty. So, quite rightly, he took my silence as an admission of guilt. I didn’t give him any details, only swore it was over. And he said he wasn’t sure how he felt about me any more.’ Kate’s voice was flat and devoid of emotion, as though she were in a trance or suffering from shock. ‘He’s sleeping in the spare room for now,’ she added. ‘He barely speaks to me, and he leaves the room every time I walk in. I couldn’t face going ahead with the party under those circumstances. Now I’m praying he won’t decide to leave for good…’
As Kate spoke, I was transported back in time to the weeks before I left Nico. Kate didn’t know how lucky she was to have an apartment which afforded her and Yves the luxury of being able to retreat to separate bedrooms. Nico had slept on the sofa every night, but we couldn’t escape one another, not really. I remembered once waging a heroic battle with my bladder because I couldn’t face crossing the living room where Nico lay, blocking my route to the bathroom.
‘What do you think the chances are of him staying?’ I asked her. ‘I mean, I don’t think I have any idea what Yves’ stance on infidelity is. But if he’s anything like Nico, I’d have thought there was some hope? You know, that he’d be able to find a way to take this all in his stride…’
‘Ah, you’d be surprised,’ said Kate, with a wan smile. ‘Nico and Yves may be good friends, but when it comes to certain moral questions, they’re poles apart… When Yves found out what Nico had been up to with Mathilde, he was disgusted with him. Nico came over one night, soon after it happened, and when he started going on about you looking at his MSN and violating his privacy – getting on his high horse and trying to make it sound as though you’d behaved as badly as he had – Yves was having none of it. He’s always taken your side. They’re still friends, but there are certain subjects they don’t broach any more, because Yves made it quite clear how much he disapproved…’
My eyes widened in astonishment upon hearing this unexpected information. First there had been the sympathetic reaction from Nico’s mother, and now this. ‘I knew you’d find that difficult to get your head around,’ Kate said, shaking her head. ‘I’m not blind, you know. I know the two of you never really hit it off. But Yves has an enormous amount of respect for you, Sal. I think he just finds your humour a bit intimidating; your sarcasm, in particular.’
‘I must admit, I never imagined he’d take my side against Nico,’ I said thoughtfully.
‘…Or that you’d find yourself instinctively taking his side against me?’ said Kate, finishing my sentence.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘Kate, it’s so much more complicated than that. It’s true that I never expected I’d empathize with him like this, one day. I know how he must feel, looking at you, imagining some other man touching his wife. But then I find myself wanting him to make the decision I couldn’t make – to stay with you and the boys, regardless – and that’s even stranger. You’ve turned everything I thought I believed inside out…’
Kate looked me in the eye properly for the first time since she’d walked through the door, and I could see from her shocked expression that she’d noticed the abnormal diameter of my pupils. ‘Jesus, Sal,’ she said sharply, ‘w
hat on earth did you get up to last night? You sounded spaced on the phone, but I thought it was a regular hangover…’
Reluctantly, I recounted the second half of my evening with Eric and Ryan, although there wasn’t much to tell. About an hour after I swilled back my share of the champagne, grimacing at the bitter, chemical aftertaste, I’d turned to Ryan and complained that nothing was happening. ‘You say that, Sally,’ he said, grinning more widely than usual, ‘but, believe me, something’s going on. Your irises are missing in action, for a start.’
Perhaps my apprehension had held the drugs at arm’s length up until that point, but no sooner had Ryan spoken than my skin began to tingle. The quality of the light shifted, just a little, and tiny waves of contentment rippled through me. We’d moved inside, to escape the cold and set the experience to music, and I’d spent the rest of the evening welded to the sofa. Eric and Ryan, seated by my side, were talking in low voices, but I didn’t feel the need for speech or interaction. I was self-sufficient, happily locked inside my own skull. I’d forgotten to watch the fireworks at midnight. In fact, I’d spent much of the evening with my head on Ryan’s shoulder and my eyes closed.
‘It doesn’t sound like much fun to me,’ Kate said doubtfully, ‘sitting on a sofa all evening and not talking to a soul… I thought that sort of thing was meant to make people all tactile and affectionate, not completely anti-social?’
‘I think how that stuff affects you kind of depends on the amount, and on the context you’re in at the time,’ I said with a sigh. ‘But it was a mistake, I realize that now. I mean, at my age, I should know better than to cave in to peer pressure. I suppose I’m still feeling my way, you know? Working out, kind of by trial and error, what I can and can’t do compared to my childless single friends… Or rather, what I feel comfortable doing.’
Kate nodded, seemingly satisfied with this explanation. ‘I must say,’ I added, anxious to change the subject, ‘I did get the impression that Eric and Ryan had a lovely time. We caught a taxi home together and, while I pretended to be dozing, they were locked together at the lips for so long that I thought one of them would suffocate. I think the experience really cemented things between them…’
‘Good for Ryan,’ Kate said softly. ‘Yves always spoke highly of Eric. I think Ryan may be on to something pretty special there…’
When Kate left, an hour or so later, I replayed our conversation in my head, digesting everything she’d told me. I groaned out loud when I realized how clumsy I’d been, parading Ryan and Eric’s blossoming romance in front of my best friend when her own relationship appeared to be teetering on the brink of disaster.
She’d been gracious enough to wish Ryan well, but goodness only knew how much she’d been hurting on the inside. I needed to work harder at being there for Kate. That would be my first New Year’s resolution.
16
When I looked out of my bedroom window on my first day back at work after the holidays, our courtyard was covered with a thin dusting of snow. I hurried through to Lila’s room to wake her, and she shrieked with excitement as I drew back her curtains. ‘It looks like the icing sugar we putted on the mince pies,’ she cried, her breath fogging up the window. ‘Will it snow some more later, Mummy? Will I be able to build a snowman?’
The skies were white as we set out for school, half an hour later. The powder had settled on the roofs of the parked cars we passed, on the lids of the green wheelie bins which had spent the night out on the pavements, and even in the grooves of the metal shutters drawn down over the shop windows, although underfoot it had already melted to form a dirty grey sludge. Here and there, frosted Christmas trees lay abandoned by the roadside, looking sorry for themselves. ‘Now, don’t forget that it’s Daddy who’s coming to fetch you tonight,’ I said, as I slung Lila’s overnight bag over the peg outside her classroom door. Nico, who’d been away for a few days over New Year, skiing with friends, wasn’t due back at work for another couple of days and had called me the previous evening – to my astonishment – to ask whether he might take Lila for the night. Could it be, I speculated, that he’d made a resolution to spend more time with his daughter in the New Year? If so, I certainly wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
There was no sign of the tramps who usually camped out on the strip of pavement in front of the railings by the métro that morning. Presumably they’d migrated to a more clement location, taking their bottles of vin de table and tartan-patterned storage bags of belongings with them. Inside the newspaper kiosk, a single electric heater was fighting a losing battle against the cold. ‘Ça caille aujourd’hui, hein?’ remarked the elderly owner, stretching out a gloved hand to take my coins. Once I’d descended into the womb of the métro, however, I was forced to unbutton my heavy coat and loosen my scarf.
Settling into a free seat and opening my newspaper to the classifieds, I found a single New Year’s Transports amoureux entry. ‘31/12, St Germain vers 21h21,’ I read. ‘4 hands in 4 pockets, 2 smiles. Same time and place on Tuesday?’ I smiled at the author’s use of ‘vers’. Noting the exact time and then pairing it with the word ‘around’ struck me as paradoxical, to say the least.
The morning’s lessons were pretty uneventful. For the most part, I stuck to the exercises I’d prepared from my textbooks, the only half-hearted attempt I made at improvization falling catastrophically flat. I asked Rémy, a bland investment banker with tortoiseshell glasses, if he’d made any resolutions for the New Year, curious to discover if he had any vices. ‘I do not believe in make ze personal resolutions,’ he replied, looking at me as though he thought I was barking mad. ‘I ’av already enough targets to meet in ze office.’
When I arrived at the top floor of Rivoire headquarters for Delphine’s lesson, I winced at my first sighting of this year’s designer Christmas tree. Two metres high, it was dressed from top to bottom in brown leather baubles, each bearing the famous monogrammed initials of Rivoire’s most exclusive fashion brand.
‘C’est hideux, n’est-ce pas?’ said Delphine with a grin, noting my horrified expression as she strutted along the corridor and planted the obligatory New Year’s kisses on my cheeks. I didn’t encourage pupils to greet me this way but, at this time of year, all sorts of exceptions had to be made to usual bise etiquette. The first time a French person saw any colleague or acquaintance after the holiday season there was a compulsory exchange of kisses, whether the meeting took place on New Year’s Day itself, or as much as two weeks later. It was a task to which some of my male pupils applied themselves with evident relish, and I was secretly dreading my lesson with Marc de Pourtalès from Human Resources, hoping that, for once, he’d laid off the goat’s cheese at lunch.
‘How was your Christmas?’ I enquired, nudging the conversation into English as Delphine led the way into our habitual meeting room. ‘I’m assuming you managed to take a few days off… Did you take your daughter to stay with family?’
‘I did.’ Delphine smiled warmly. ‘It was good, even if Madame Rivoire was phoning me often… Even on the twenty force, while I was ’aving dinner with my family!’ I raised an eyebrow, but refrained from commenting on what I thought of her employer and corrected her pronunciation of ‘fourth’ instead. Delphine pulled out a chair and slid gracefully into it, her expression coy. ‘I ’ave some news,’ she announced, pausing for dramatic effect. ‘I met a very nice man at ze réveillon party in my parents’ village. A divorced man, who leaves in Paris. I have a meeting with ’im tonight…’
‘That’s fantastic news, Delphine!’ This time I didn’t have the heart to correct her pronunciation, but privately I had my doubts as to whether there was room in Delphine’s life for another man, given how large Rivoire already loomed.
When our lesson came to an end, Delphine excused herself for a moment while I packed away my teaching materials. She returned carrying a small bag bearing the monogram I’d seen on the Christmas-tree decorations. ‘Zees is for you, Sally,’ she said, setting the bag down in front of
me with a flourish. ‘Don’t worry,’ she added, sensing my discomfiture, ‘I expect no gift from you. But at Christmas I send out so many things – ’andbags for the wife of the President, for Catherine Deneuve, a long list of actresses and celebrities. And Monsieur authorizes me to give some small gifts to the people I work with too…’
‘That’s so sweet of you,’ I exclaimed, feeling oddly self-conscious as I peered into the bag. It was the first time a pupil had ever presented me with a gift. I withdrew a white box, tied with a wide gold ribbon. Inside, swaddled in several layers of rustling tissue paper, was a beautiful silk scarf. ‘Oh, Delphine, it’s lovely,’ I gasped, catching sight of the label as I caressed the soft fabric. From the scant knowledge I’d gleaned from thumbing through back issues of Madame Figaro and Elle in doctors’ waiting rooms, I suspected a scarf like this one must retail for at least half my monthly wages.
‘I choose one without ze monogram,’ Delphine explained, smiling widely, pleased with herself. ‘And when I saw ’ow you look at the decorations on our sapin earlier, I knew I ’ad made the good choice…’
Plummeting towards the first floor for my lesson with Marc de Pourtalès, I slipped my hand inside the bag, eased the box open and stroked the scarf covertly with my fingertips. French women seemed to be born with the knowledge of how to knot a scarf casually around their necks or fasten their hair in a loose chignon, almost as though it were programmed into their DNA. But I was no Frenchwoman, and I knew if I was ever to wear it, I’d have to ask Kate – in her capacity as honorary Parisienne – to give me a scarf-tying lesson first. Delphine would be offended if I didn’t show up wearing my gift the next time we met.
That evening, without Lila’s evening routine to attend to, I felt lost. To make matters worse, Nico had told me he planned to take her to see the children’s Christmas-window displays in the department stores on boulevard Haussmann after school, taking advantage of the lull between the school holidays and the January sales. This was something we’d always done together, braving the crowds so that Lila could gaze, wide-eyed, at dancing teddy bears, flying fairies or puppet pigs raiding confectionery stores. Was Albane with them this evening? I wondered. Had she stepped nonchalantly into my shoes? It wasn’t long before I found myself opening my computer and keying in the Rendez-vous address in an attempt to distract myself from such thoughts.
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