She lifts the chemise a little higher still. The tapered top of the bum merges with the small of the back. Then all at once she bares her entire back. There’s a mole upon the shoulder blade Thomas had not noticed before. He watches her flex her shoulders, rolling them like they might be on wheels. She’s completely naked from her heels to her neck, where the fabric of her chemise is all bunched up.
Less than an arm’s length away, she turns round. Her smile is broad and it’s clear that she loves her naked body every bit as much as Thomas does. She inclines her head slightly to the left. She removes her small white cloth cap and tosses it to the floor. With both hands now she takes hold of the rolled-up chemise and pulls it up over her head. She sends it sailing across the room. She pretends to quiver like she’s cold though it’s just for fun. The movement wobbles her breasts and releases her long brown hair to make it dance where it falls down her back and onto her chest.
“Oh my God,” Thomas mutters.
Why has he allowed this dark hour's fantasy to go on so very long? You’d think he was still fifteen and back in his attic room in Vire. He adjusts his breeches and pushes his chair away from the table. The candle gutters with the jarring, but the flame re-finds its wick. The empty room shimmers in an incriminating light, nowhere near as golden as in his imagination. Thomas stands up abruptly, angry at himself. As he springs up the wooden chair he was seated on topples to the floor.
“Thomas!” It’s Gallatin calling up from his bedroom on the floor below.
“Thomas, are you all right?” Hélène’s worried voice comes through the floorboards from her room, also on the floor below.
“The chair. Just the chair,” Thomas yells. “It— it fell over.”
“Oh, all right,” says Hélène. Thomas hears the worry fading from her voice, replaced by bewilderment. “Well, good night then.”
“I’m here if you need help,” says Gallatin.
Thomas rolls his eyes at the idea that he might need help to right a chair. He will not reply.
He picks up the chair and sets it down softly, then sits at the table that serves as his desk. He closes his eyes hard and tight. He needs to send away completely the reverie of the woman undressing and making herself available in his room. Where did that figment come from? He was working on an essay, one comparing London to Paris, when suddenly there she was. Thomas shakes his head.
His thoughts turn to monks and priests living in their lonely rooms. Whatever do they do with their own unruly rising cocks? Is the roughness of their homespun habits enough to keep things down? If not, do they have trusty pieces of silk? Or do they find willing fellow monks or obliging parishioners to satisfy their urges? Some do, of course. Thomas saw the looks and heard the whispers when he was a boy in Vire. And Gallatin, of course, always makes it a point to spread calumnies about every errant priest and brother he hears about, with no worry if true or not.
Thomas is no monk, though this attic room is definitely a cell of sorts. It could not be much barer. Not that much different from the room he had as a child at the top of another chilled house. The major difference, because it’s Gallatin’s place and not his parents’, is that there are no religious images, nor any rosaries or bénétiers anywhere in sight.
Thomas squints to make sense of why his mind – or rather his autonomous loins – would summon a naked woman to his room.
“Oh,” he says softly to himself. “That.”
—
The dessert is very good. A flaky pastry, a rissole, with a delightful pistachio-flavoured cream. Hélène licks her lips after each tiny spoonful goes into her mouth.
“Thomas, I know you sometimes tire of hearing my enthusiasm for Rome and Romans,” says Gallatin, after he has dabbed his lips with his napkin, “but I believe there has never been any sculptor to match what was produced in antiquity. I thought of this today as I went by the rather drab stone statue they have put up to Charles II in Soho Square.”
Hélène sees Thomas bristle. She’s not sure whether it’s due to the taste of pistachios in the rissole or the topic Gallatin has just raised.
“Really, Jean.” Thomas holds out an impatient hand. “The Greeks, for instance.”
“Of course, they were masters, without a doubt. Before the Romans. But since Roman times, we have not seen the like.” Gallatin prepares to dip his spoon again.
“Ridiculous,” Thomas mutters. He puts down his spoon.
“Now, now,” says Hélène. “Thomas, I think you will admit that Jean has studied Roman art and history more than you.”
Thomas stares wide-eyed at Hélène. Slowly, he shifts his gaze to Gallatin. “I am no expert, I admit.” He taps his chest to underline that point. “But, in truth, neither are you.”
Now Hélène sees Gallatin’s eyes go wide. She imagines her own do the same.
“Have you seen what Bernini and Michel-Ange produced?” asks Thomas, his gaze almost fierce. “The recent Italians, why today’s Italians, they’re as good or better than any Roman sculptor you could name.”
“They can’t be named, Thomas.”
“No? Well, if they could, they would be journeymen to Bernini and the rest.”
“You can’t be serious.” Gallatin is folding his napkin. It looks to Hélène like he will not be finishing his dessert.
“Of course I’m serious.” Thomas’s voice is raised.
“Whoa, wait.” Hélène makes eye contact with each man in turn. “You two are arguing about sculptures, nothing more than that. Who cares?”
Thomas shakes his head. He takes a breath. Then there comes an impish smile. It reminds Hélène of Voltaire.
“I think you’re forgetting Paris, Jean. Do you not recall how many delightful bare female buttocks there are in the city parks? Marble bums, I mean.”
“I suppose I do.”
“Well, let’s just leave it at that.” Thomas stands up and pushes the dish containing the rest of his rissole aside. He tosses his napkin onto his seat. “Oh, maybe this. What would you prefer, Jean, an ass made of marble or one made of a woman’s warm flesh?”
Hélène feels her head jerk back. Gallatin’s expression says he’s appalled.
“I have some work to do upstairs,” says Thomas over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
—
Thomas shudders as he recalls the discussion. He saw the disapproving look on Hélène’s face as the argument went on. Too late he sees he should have let the subject drop long before he did. Poor Gallatin, poor Hélène. After all, the bookseller is still their host, however unsatisfying these lodgings. Jean has become Hélène’s employer as well, ever since Thomas suggested he give her a position in his shop, and to Thomas’s surprise, he did. Even though she cannot really read or write. It was either that or— well, who knows what?
He and Hélène have been living under the man’s roof for four long months. Have they overstayed their time? Indeed, they have. Yes, they contribute to the rent and pay their share of the food and coal. But it’s becoming clearer with each passing week and month that it’s time for the two of them to move out, regardless of whether or not Gallatin’s Scottish roommate is ever coming back. There is a natural course to all things, and lodging with a friend is no exception. It’s time to find new quarters.
—
One of the few consolations Thomas has in his London life derives from what he can accomplish through his quill. It has not yet been possible to find any kind of position comparable to the one he left behind in Paris. So far he has two jobs to keep him busy during the days. Uninspired though they are, they keep him from spending the sum he brought with him as a letter of exchange from France. Admittedly, he does not buy a thing, other than food and drink. His fine clothes brought from Paris are beginning to show wear and tear from their constant use.
Three mornings a week he goes to a great house near Soho Square as a French t
utor of an aristocrat’s two ungrateful sons. Then five afternoons Thomas toils in a cloth shop on Thrift Street. Would not his father and mother – if they are still alive – would they not be surprised to learn their son is back to sorting and selling bolts of wool, flannel and cotton, linen, muslin and silk? Maybe “surprised” is not the word. “Delighted” might be closer to the mark. He suspects they yet harbour a grudge and would like to see him down the ladder to stand on the same rung as them. It’s been twelve years since he saw them in Rouen, seventeen since he lived with them in Vire. One of them at least, his father is his choice, is likely dead. He begins to make the sign of the cross but then puts his hand back down. Reason, not religion, he says to himself.
Thomas turns to his manuscript, which he thinks is coming along well enough. It’s a two-city travel memoir, an extended comparison of London and Paris. To challenge himself, he’s writing it in English. He finds it a wonderful way to master what he hears at work and in the streets during the days.
Of course, he still has much more to see of the City of London and of adjacent Westminster. For instance, he has not yet crossed the river to the south side. Nor gone into all the nooks and crannies, as he used to in Paris when he was first there. Some of the seamier corners, for instance, like the Seven Dials, call out for inspection. A comparison of two great cities must include all angles and aspects.
He rereads what at the moment he sees as the opening to his book. He knows that a month from now it will have changed, but one has to start somewhere. Thomas frowns to admit it, but he has to give silent thanks to Gallatin, to whom he has shown the pages twice now. Though a bookseller, not a writer, Jean made the English grammar and vocabulary far better than Thomas was able to on his own in his first draft.
Our focus in these pages is on two river cities, each ultimately connected to the same sea. Yet it is London’s ocean link that is by far the stronger of the two. Ocean-going ships of all sizes and shapes can come right up to London’s docks, at least up to the sea side of the rickety London Bridge. A good wind could blow that structure down. The Thames is a true watery highway out to the sea. The Seine is as well, but Paris lies far inland. Before the great French river arrives at the coast, it meanders quietly along. In contrast, the English river connects London directly to all the ports of that country’s vast empire of commerce and trade. Paris would resemble London only if it was lifted up and placed closer to the coast. Perhaps if it were merged with Nantes or Le Havre.
Thomas nods at what he has so far. It reads fairly well. Better still, it’s true. It will only improve as he revisits it in the nights ahead. And when he shows it or reads it to his English writer friends. Fielding, for one, has said he would be glad to have a look and offer comments.
Thomas shuffles the pages and comes to something he jotted down about public celebrations.
On Lord Mayor’s Day each October, the Thames becomes a spectacle of movement and pageantry. All the livery companies of the city make an effort to be afloat. So too everyone else who has the means to get into a boat. Hundreds of barges and boats make a great procession on the river. It is
Thomas frowns. He cannot yet write much more than that, for he’s not yet seen the watery procession with his own eyes. He’s simply condensing what Hogarth has told him and put it into his own words. He and Hélène arrived a few weeks after last year’s event. He’ll see the procession for himself October next.
Thomas shuffles the pages again and settles on rereading what he has so far about the different nature of Paris and London streets.
The shop signs in the English capital are larger than those in the great French city. Most are ringed in iron and extremely thick. Some shops have no signs at all. Rather, they are models pertaining to the business or trade and are fabricated in wrought iron or carved in wood. A tailor, for instance, might have a pair of giant scissors. Everything hangs far out on iron brackets. The weight is great. From time to time, the brackets give way and the signs or models come crashing down. People, so the author has been told by those who know, are sometimes killed. In this regard, Paris offers safer streets.
Turning to the threats that exist in all cities at night, that dark period that is the mother of all surprises, Paris has a police force as well as lamps. London does not. In the city on the Thames, people of quality have to hire link-boys – urchins who carry lighted torches – to get them about in the dark. And as for police, the English absolutely refuse to arm anyone. They say they value their liberty too much. As a Frenchman, this author does not understand why they prefer risks over the possibility of having a force that might assist them in a time of need. But that is the English way.
Yet, one must not fault the English for their love of sweet liberty. Though their fear of police may be at odds with Reason, it is a land that has broken with the yoke of Rome. They do have an established church, and that church has the ruling monarch at its peak. And that same approach to religion is one that allows thousands of dissenters to have their own meeting houses. London has many churches of these splinter faiths. Why, even the Jews now have their synagogues while the Quakers own the brewing houses.
Going over that last paragraph again, Thomas shakes his head. What a tangent! He’ll copy over his words about religion and use them somewhere else. Such observations do not belong in a section about streets.
Thomas looks at the candle flickering away, then over to the room’s lone window. A flutter of snowflakes is trying to brighten the dark. As it was in Paris, so it is here. March is a month that doesn’t know whether it’s still winter or time for spring.
He looks again at what he has on streets and religion. He has to laugh. He has missed the most obvious of the obvious. He has not said a word anywhere about churches. How well he came to know those houses of worship during his Paris years, though not once for the purpose for which they were built. Wonderful places for rendezvous is what they were. And nothing is more prominent on the London skyline than the countless spires of its churches and the one great dome. It’s a rare street that does not offer a peek at some slender steeple or other. And to think that they were built by people of differing religious beliefs. It makes for an interesting contrast with Paris, where all its churches are of the one faith.
Thomas smiles. He had nearly thought, the one true faith. What is inculcated when one is young gets embedded, does it not?
He might as well begin his tour of London churches from where he lives. If he were to stand and go to the window, he could make out the tall, slender spire of Spitalfields’ own Christ Church. It’s the design of Nicolas Hawksmoor, as Gallatin and Hogarth seem to enjoy pointing out nearly every time he walks by the front portico with them. Apparently, there are five other Hawksmoor churches in London town, or near enough. Thomas cannot see why he should not visit them all and take notes. Hogarth says Hawksmoor is still alive, in his seventies. Why not track him down and get a quote or two? Then after checking Hawksmoor’s churches off the list, Thomas can turn to the even greater Wren. No interviews with him, alas.
Thomas stands up and tucks the pages he has written inside the old book cover he has had since he was a boy. While it used to be home to his youthful verse, the leather cover is now where he keeps whatever essay is his current project. He opens the table drawer and places his work-in-progress inside.
If he can keep writing at this pace, and if Gallatin will continue to contribute improving touches, the book will write itself.
—
“You’re sure?” Hélène hopes her face is not showing too much doubt. Thomas has been at her for weeks about tomorrow’s outing. He swears she’ll be safe.
Thomas sighs. “Yes, I’m sure. You’ll not be the only woman there, I know that. They say it’s the most popular sport in the land.”
“Sadly, he’s right.” Gallatin dips his spoon into the two-fish soup. “Mmm, smells good. Polly has outdone herself.”
“Should we ask
Jean to come along?” Hélène’s spoon comes up with a good-sized chunk of cod. She looks at it while she waits for Thomas’s reply.
“But of course. Gallatin, will you join us in our exploration?” Thomas cracks off a chunk of baguette. His expression suggests he’d be just as happy if his friend said no.
“Merci, mais non merci,” says Gallatin. “I went once, not to Clerkenwell, but over to one on the south side. But it’s the same. It is safe, Hélène, have no fear. Everyone goes, women and children along with all the men. So you two go and see what you think. We can talk about it at tomorrow’s dinner.”
“There, it’s settled.” Thomas puts down his bread and picks up his spoon.
Hélène wonders if Thomas's smile could be called a smirk. Not quite, but halfway there. “Yes, settled it is.” Though Hockley-in-the-Hole still doesn’t sound safe to her. English names are so strange.
—
Thomas sees that for the outing Hélène has decided to wear the one new dress she’s purchased since arriving in London four months ago. Well, new to her. It’s a violet-coloured linen one she purchased at a second-hand shop last week. This will be the first time she’s worn it outside her room.
“It’s very pretty,” says Thomas when he sees her in the downstairs hall. “Almost as pretty as you.”
He leans close to kiss her neck. But Hélène raises a hand and turns him back. Oh right, Gallatin is in the parlour. It’s possible he would see any such kiss or clinch.
“You’re looking very gallant, Monsieur Tyrell,” says Hélène.
“Thank you,” Thomas replies, and wonders what her words and that elusive smile upon her lips might mean today.
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