by Adam Thorpe
Perhaps my father had seen the ghost of the soldier. The soldier had been hit by a bullet in the old orchard and haunted the showroom – with a finger missing. That’s why my father had fainted, hitting his head on the floor. The battle was only about a hundred years ago. It felt not much further back, in fact, than the bad day itself, when I had been playing vingt-et-un with Carole and the client had rung the doorbell. I could tell Jocelyne all this, tell her in a whisper that it was in fact a ghost of a soldier from the war of 1870 that had killed my father. This is the kind of thing that happened in the stories or comic-strips I read.
I was getting quite excited, weaving between the dusty Sunburst models. I could put on a mysterious voice and impress her with what I knew underneath, underneath things on the surface – just as I knew about the Extraordinary Underground World of Paris, about the river flowing through the Opéra and rats as big as dogs in the sewers. I could see her eyes going wide with fear and wonder as she listened, still rustling in her ballet costume. Perhaps she would hold my hand for comfort. Then, when we were older, we would get married and have lots of children and Carole would visit us, smiling happily and playing with her ten nieces and nephews. I was staring out of the plate glass, now. The people at the bus-stop opposite were off to work. They looked tired already, but I wished for a moment that I was one of them and not having to face this evening.
‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy it,’ my mother said, over breakfast, after I’d been to the toilet again. ‘Jocelyne’s thing. We’ll need to leave at about five o’clock. It won’t take an hour to get there. At least they can’t say you’re skipping school because of it. And I think you should stay in bed or on the sofa this morning, reading your school books quietly, dear.’
I nodded as she blinked at me.
‘What time did you get up?’
‘I’m OK,’ I said.
‘What’s the name of it again? I’m sure I’ve heard of it.’
‘Coppélia!’
‘I’ve definitely heard of it,’ she said, frowning.
‘Am I going to go to Papa’s thing as well?’
‘If you keep your head down,’ she smiled. ‘Goodness me, you are spoiled.’
It was always like this the day after a row: I was treated as if I was nine or ten, and they behaved as if they’d had a holiday.
My uncle did look pale, though, when he came down. That was the drink. His voice was hoarse and he didn’t bother to have his coffee reheated to scalding.
‘So, you’re going to see the richies, are you?’
‘The Despierre-Chéronnets, yes.’
‘Going to lick Geneviève’s perfect zinc bottom.’
‘Do you mind, Alain! They’re family.’
‘Do not remind me,’ he said, in a posh accent that was like Jocelyne’s, ‘or I might have the vapours.’
‘She has generals in her pedigree, it’s not just zinc.’
‘Am I supposed to be impressed? If she’d had privates and corporals, I’d be a little bit more impressed, Danielle.’
She jerked her head but didn’t say anything. He gave a cross sigh and sipped at his un-reheated coffee. He slipped away after a cigarette, saying he had paperwork to do in the ‘stockroom’. He almost always called it that, these days; perhaps it was something to do with having so few clients coming to look at the models. It couldn’t be a showroom if it didn’t show things to people. I didn’t mention the dust on the models.
‘The Americans are being such a nuisance,’ my mother sighed, after he’d gone.
‘Why?’
‘Something to do with this franchise business. They’re being very difficult about it. I did say to Alain that he had to be careful with Americans. What with that and the awful insurance people. We live in a very unChristian world, when all’s said and done. Never mind. We must have faith that things will turn out for the best, dear.’
‘I thought the bank were giving us money.’
‘Banks never give money, dear. He’s worked so hard and then those filthy thieves come and look who’s punished.’
She had a bad back and asked me to carry the dirty washing basket to the washing-machine.
‘You ought to learn how to do it,’ she said. ‘In case I’m ill and Eveline isn’t around. You never know.’
‘OK.’
She showed me how to separate colours from whites, wool from cotton. This was a cotton wash. I imagined Jocelyne laughing at me as I pushed the dirty washing through the porthole, the drum oscillating loosely inside. The washing smelt very stale and was all rolled up together. A pair of my uncle’s large black socks gave off a sudden whiff, as did the pyjamas I’d spent my migraine in. I was ashamed to see my own dirty pants, and one of my mother’s had what looked like dark bloodstains on them. Maybe my uncle had in fact stabbed her, I joked with myself.
It felt like a victory over something sinful, though, pouring in the white flakes of Skip and pressing the buttons and turning the switches to the right combination like a mad scientist, my hand vibrating on the top as the machine filled up with water. Wasn’t that what Père Romains had said – that I should cleanse my mind with the detergent of prayer?
‘There you are, you see, dear. It isn’t that difficult, is it, even for a boy?’
I pretended to pretend to cringe – when I was, in fact, cringing. Jocelyne would be rolling about with laughter, by now. I hoped the phone would ring and bring news that the show was cancelled. Or some big event happen that would get in the way – a war, or something. But it didn’t, and I grew more and more nervous, spending even more time in the toilet. Maman had scribbled Raymond in today’s date on our PTT 1968 calendar, which was a funny way of putting it.
I went out into the little yard and kicked a football against the wall, trying to build up my confidence. I managed some amazing footwork and scored some amazing goals. Jocelyne couldn’t do this, I thought. I gave a huge, high kick and the ball nearly broke the little window that the insurance people were fussing about. I wondered if breaking it would have completely ruined our chances.
I got a chair from the kitchen and took it out and placed it under the little window. Standing on the chair on my tiptoes, I could just see into the showroom. It was weird, it didn’t look like the showroom. It seemed as if I was flying above a bigger room. I could see my uncle in the middle, inspecting a vacuum cleaner. The plate-glass window at the other end showed the road as if there was no glass. The glass my side of the little window was already dirty. The lino inside the showroom was shiny, exactly like a swimming-pool because of the way the light fell on it from the other end. Then I realised my uncle had seen me. He was looking at me looking at him. He disappeared out of the side door and I got down off the chair.
He suddenly appeared in the yard. He shouted at me. He asked me what the hell I was up to.
‘Just looking in.’
He shouted at me that I’d nearly given him a heart attack. He was really angry, so I said I was sorry, I didn’t mean it.
He went back in. I’d forgotten he was in the showroom for the morning: it must have made him jump, the noise of the ball on the window. It wasn’t me looking in, I reckoned, it was more the ball hitting the window. Then why did he only come out when he saw me looking in?
In spite of being told off, going outside for the first time in three days made me feel better. Then the bright light from the sky made my eyes ache. I ate hardly anything at lunch, and by five o’clock felt a bit faint. I could have pretended the migraine was back, but it was too late and my mother was too excited by now. I’d been ordered to dress in my smartest clothes – a navy-blue jacket with flat gold buttons, a striped tie on a red shirt, dark long trousers with turn-ups and polished brown shoes. At least the jacket had a big inside pocket for the cut-out page from the library book, folded in four.
‘You look a very handsome young man, dear,’ my mother said. She started to slick down my hair with a wet comb but I snatched it from her.
‘I’m not five, Maman!�
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In fact, I did feel five – and about thirty-five, dressed like that. I certainly didn’t feel like myself. I was glad my uncle had gone out to some factory or other just before lunch, and wasn’t back yet. I felt annoyed with him for losing his temper. Because it was cool and grey for May, I had to wear my herringbone coat on top of the jacket, and I began to sweat in the car.
As soon as we left our road, though, my mother driving slowly in the old Frégate, I started to be filled with a new confidence: my clothes did make me into a young man. My mother had given me scent for my thirteenth birthday and I’d splashed it on my cheeks. By curling my upper lip against my nostrils, I could breathe it in.
‘Don’t keep doing that, dear. You look like an ape. By the way, I might be having a private word with Raymond.’
‘A private what?’
‘Word.’
‘What’s a private word, exactly?’
‘A word, in private. A little private chat.’
‘What about?’
I saw them together, as I said this, talking about Jocelyne and me.
‘Never mind. It’s just that if you see us talking together on our own, please don’t interrupt.’
‘Why should I?’
‘I’m saying it now, that’s all.’
I couldn’t think what she’d be talking privately with Raymond about: I hoped it wasn’t to do with me and Jocelyne. Some family matter, obviously.
Although the knowledge I had stocked up in my head – to impress Jocelyne with – had sort of collapsed, I didn’t care too much: I sat very still and imagined the huge theatre, the crowds, the lights – like I’d seen sometimes on television or in the films in the local cinema. There was one film I’d seen with my mother, set about a hundred years ago, in which the heroine was a singer in the music-hall. The theatre would look like that, I thought – like the one in the film, with lamps burning around the edge of the stage and everybody shouting and laughing in long capes and top hats and furry collars. And in the middle, between the thick red curtains, Jocelyne would be floating on her toes like an angel in white.
My mother had phoned up Jocelyne’s parents to double-check the address, which she had written on a piece of paper and put on top of the dashboard. They lived in the sixth arrondissement and we would go there first at six o’clock and have an aperitif and then walk to where the show was taking place – it started at seven-thirty. Jocelyne would not be at home because she had to go off early to change. I felt relieved, in a way. I sat in the front of the car with a map of Paris on my knees, helping my mother to navigate. The traffic was terrible. She always drove in slippers, and her high heels were in a bag at my feet. She was nervous about meeting the posh cousins in their own home and craned her head even further forward than usual, as if peering through thick fog. She’d put on her black wig and it looked even more like a wig than before.
I was hotter now but couldn’t open the window as it had started to rain. A huge bunch of flowers wrapped up in cellophane on the back seat made the car smell like a jungle. I turned on the ventilating fan without asking permission and the piece of paper with the address flew up into the air. My mother half-tried to grab it and the Frégate’s wheel scraped the kerbstone. We jerked to a stop by a high wall which I realised was our cemetery’s. I told her that I’d memorised the address, anyway, but she still told me off.
‘I wish you wouldn’t fiddle, Gilles. Ask me next time, please.’
I had to get out, to inspect for damage. There was a black streak on the white rim of the wheel – the chrome hub was too deep inside to have been touched. The rain spattered down and the air was cool but full of a fresh leafy smell from the cemetery and the little park around the old Montrouge fort the other side of the road. I undid my coat and got back in and said there was no damage.
We drove off again and arrived at the Porte d’Orléans, cars and trucks and buses coming from every direction. It was hard to see the signs through the wet glass, but we made it onto what was probably the right avenue, although it was too wide to read the name of it on the corners. I repeated the address to myself and wasn’t sure whether it was 52bis or 25bis. I had been sure of it before but by saying the other number I had made myself unsure: the second number seemed more correct the more I repeated it. The piece of paper had fallen somewhere behind but I wasn’t too worried: either I could find it when we came to the road or we could try both numbers.
‘How is your tummy, dear?’
‘Fine, Maman.’
With a sudden flush of panic I realised that I had forgotten the name of the dancer in the photo. I could remember Photo Bibl. de l’Opéra de Paris but not the name. Gipaponito Bazooka – something like that. My confidence crumbled instantly. Unless I got it absolutely right I couldn’t even try to mention her in front of Jocelyne. I felt my inside pocket: the photo from the library book was still there, it hadn’t fallen or jumped out. I could just show her that and hope she’d say the name before I had to tell her. Just saying ‘the girl who played Swanilda and died just after on her seventeenth birthday because of the Germans’ sounded pathetic. Gaponica Bazonika. Gippesina Bozaccito. I swore to myself. Shit. Shit. Shit. I apologised to God and prayed to Ste Thérèse de l’Enfant Jésus to help me.
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world. O clemens, o pia, o dulcis virgo Maria …
Gippesita Bozonchio. Piss shit tit!
‘Are you all right? You’re looking peculiar. If you feel car-sick do say, dear, before it’s too late.’
‘I’m fine, Maman.’
Old grey buildings loomed either side, half-hidden by trees. Through the car’s ventilator came a different smell over the exhaust fumes, a mixture of cafés and perfume shops and posh cars. My mother wondered whether we were on the Boulevard St Michel yet and I said we were. The pavements were crowded with people.
‘That’s all right, then. There’s the Jardin du Luxembourg. Lovely blossom. We haven’t gone wrong. We used to go for romantic walks there.’
‘I know we haven’t gone wrong.’
‘We have to turn left at the top into the Boulevard St Germain,’ she said.
‘I know, Maman.’
‘Lovely flower-beds.’
There was a lot of traffic and I kept straining to see the blue street-names, but we were too far from the buildings and the boulevard’s trees were in the way. There were people running. I looked out, trying to recover my confidence. More people were running and I saw a group of policemen or maybe soldiers in shiny black helmets and long black macs running in the same direction, waving sticks. We were stuck in the traffic, which had stopped. My mother was tutting, saying we’d be late and it was silly of her to have taken the car in rush-hour but she felt that going back at night in the train was dangerous and she was sure Raymond and Geneviève never took the train. It was very noisy: as usual in the centre of Paris there were lots of sirens. Drivers were honking their horns and people were shouting: Bagneux was never as noisy as the centre of Paris. Three of the policemen or soldiers were bent over by a tree, testing some sort of thick bag on the ground with their sticks. A man in a raincoat was filming it with a small camera like my uncle’s. Behind was a sign that said, like a mistake, The Restaurant Chinois and a few people were standing in its doorway, watching. Other people weren’t watching, they were looking in the other direction or waiting to cross the road.
‘Are those ones in black helmets – are they policemen or soldiers?’
‘How do I know, Gilles? Fancy asking me questions now. Really.’
We moved forward and then stopped again.
‘Traffic lights, it must be,’ said my mother.
‘I think they might be making a film,’ I said.
A man in his twenties, in a duffel coat, appeared next to my window, staring forward with his mouth open. He had a plastic bag with a packet of Omo sticking out. The Omo packet was almost too big for the bag so that the plastic was stretched like chewing-gum. All of a sudden a man about the same
age, or maybe a teenager, leapt across in front of us, jumping on our bumper and making the car rock.
‘This is awful,’ said my mother. ‘We really should have taken the train after all. I had no idea it would be as bad as this. Aren’t people rude? Thumping our car like that. That’s the big city for you.’
We started moving and then jerked to a stop so hard I almost slid off the seat. The high removals van just in front was trying to get into the outside lane. The young man with the Omo packet was walking forward and moving quicker than we were. He disappeared. There were very few cars coming the other way, as if most people were going into Paris rather than out of it. This was not what my mother had said several times during the day. In fact, she’d said the opposite.
At least it’s stopped raining,’ said my mother.
The van managed to force its way into the other lane through lots of hooting and we moved up to the old green bus that had been hidden from us by the back of the van. People were squeezed onto the bus’s open platform at the back and they stared down at us as if we were animals in a zoo. I felt very self-conscious and looked out of the side window, opening it enough to see over the glass. A girl in black was running in between the people on the pavement. A shop awning said Souvenirs de Paris. I used to ask Carole if we could buy a souvenir but she would always scoff, saying souvenirs were industrially fabricated somethings to make us forget. There were even more people running, now. People were always in a hurry in Paris. I could see two more black helmets over the roof of the car next to us; they had a white ridge going along the top and down the back, a bit like Roman soldiers. It was quite funny seeing these two helmets bob about without the bodies underneath. A perfume shop had a huge Fête des Mères poster in it and I wondered what I would get for mine, straining to see the date.