by Robyn Sisman
It was thrilling to hear Malcolm so sweepingly denounced. (God! How was poor Alicia getting on with him?) Molly was glad she had not boasted to Fabrice about her first-class degree. She could see now that it, too, was worthless in the great scheme of things, even though she had worked very hard to get it. Was that bad?
Fabrice had helped himself to a sea urchin, and was elaborating his theory of the nobility of “real” work: “Take painting, for example . . .” Molly wrestled with a crab claw. She was getting the teensiest bit tired of hearing about art. Could it be true that all jobs were degrading? She squeezed lemon juice onto a chunk of white meat, copying the way Fabrice first stabbed the lemon with his fork. He did everything with such grace. Each time she looked at him—the dark ellipses of his eyelashes, his mobile mouth and white teeth, the triangle of butterscotch skin at his neck—she felt her body leap. They thought the same, really: it just sounded more pretentious in French. Obviously it was preferable to work for a noble goal, like art, than for a boring old paycheck. She herself had chafed at the drudgery at PLB, and even walked out after being called a stupid secretary. But perhaps Fabrice didn’t realize that not everyone was as clever and talented as himself. What if you couldn’t think of a noble goal, and had to just keep going until one occurred to you?
“No, Molly, the only valuation worth having is your own,” Fabrice concluded, wiping butter from his chin. “Money itself is not important; it will follow naturally.”
“I don’t know. At least, I’m sure you’re right. But it sounds too easy.”
“On the contrary, it is much more difficult. To be a servant of art involves much harder, more painful work than that of the real servant who scrubs your floors.”
His words evoked an image in Molly’s mind: her mother’s back, with its trailing plait, bent over seed trays as she moved down the polytunnel to examine the tiny green shoots that were her livelihood—watering, feeding, protecting, worrying, counting and re-counting the potential worth of each plant coaxed into saleable bloom. Molly felt a confusion she could not quite articulate.
“Well, anyway, I’m not an artist. I’m . . .” She hesitated. What was she exactly? Seated between opposing mirrors, she spied her own figure, an insignificant red blob, infinitely repeated in ever-decreasing size. The sensation of snail in her mouth still lingered. If she ate another sea creature she’d be sick. She laid her crushed napkin on the table and stood up. “Excuse me, Fabrice. I’m just going to the . . .” She waved vaguely.
She walked down the length of the restaurant, feeling the assault of blazing lights, clashing trays, overlapping conversations, and the clamor of her own whirling thoughts. In the privacy of the cubicle, she put her elbows on her knees, propped her face in her hands and closed her eyes. Fabrice, Fabrice . . . She wished they could stop talking and go home to bed. She was tired. She’d barely slept since arriving in Paris. No wonder she couldn’t think.
As she was washing her hands she caught sight of her watch: nearly ten o’clock. Alicia must have been with Malcolm for more than two hours now—or dumped him already. Molly decided to text her to make sure she was okay. She got out her phone and switched it on. Oh! There was already a message waiting for her. She hoped she hadn’t missed an emergency rescue call.
But the message wasn’t from Alicia at all. “Molly: Important matter to discuss. Please contact urgently. A Friend.” Molly frowned at the little screen. What did it mean? Who could it be from? She clicked to the end of the message, but the sender’s phone number meant nothing to her. “A Friend”: Molly stared at the words suspiciously. A real friend would give their name. And there was something stilted about the style of the prose; no normal person texted like that. Could it be somebody French? Or someone trying to disguise their identity for some reason? A disgusted expression spread across her features. She bet it was Malcolm, trying to trick her into replying so that he could torture her with some dreary question about the disk or the conference material. Malcolm: the nothing, nul, who had wanted to bring her to Paris so that he could get into her knickers, and was probably at this very moment pawing poor Alicia. Honestly, men!
There was a firm set to her mouth as Molly erased the message, and saw it consigned to the rubbish bin where it belonged. Then she quickly punched in a message for Alicia. “ruok? sos me any time.” After a moment’s thought she added: “At fab dinner with Fab! Prob his place tonite. xxx Molly.” She watched the message insert itself into an envelope and fly off into cyberspace, then dropped her phone back into her bag. The battery was running low, but she’d better leave it on for an hour or two in case Alicia needed her.
She smoothed her hair in the mirror, feeling better. Her brain had begun to function again. (T. S. Eliot had worked in a job, as a publisher. George Orwell had washed dishes. So there!) And it was a wonderful dinner. She missed Fabrice already. She would change the subject, stop him banging on about art, get him to concentrate on her. She’d seen at least three couples kissing in this restaurant: not furtive little pecks across the table but long, intense, eyes-closed embraces, accompanied by such explicit fondlings of flesh that it seemed at any minute they would either go the whole way or burst into flames.
When she returned to the table the seafood platter had disappeared. At her place a round, pinky-brown steak lay dead center on a white plate. Molly stared at a trickle of blood running into the watercress garnish, and realized she was no longer hungry.
“Is it the way you like it?” Fabrice asked solicitously. “I think perhaps it is overcooked. I will order the waiter to bring another one.”
“No, no, Fabrice, it’s fine.” She picked up her knife and fork, and sawed off a slice while he embarked on a detailed account of the time he’d had to send back his magret de canard three times before it was properly cooked. Three times! Such things were insupportable. Eventually she managed to steer the conversation back to herself. “You’re so clever, Fabrice. What do you think I should do?”
“Hein?”
“About finding a job. I mean work. I mean—money, really.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I know it’s not very noble, but I’ve got rent to pay. I can’t go home and sponge off my mother.”
“Oh, one can always get money.” He lit a cigarette.
“How?”
He gave her a knowing look. “The usual ways.”
“What ways?”
“Molly, don’t be naïve. You know what I mean. One can always sell something, borrow a friend’s flat for a few months, cajole one’s papa into paying for dinner.” He nodded at her steak. “One can nick this and that when no one’s looking. We all do such things.”
“I don’t.” But even as she said the words she flushed, remembering the time she had found a twenty-pound note wedged between the cushions of the sofa at home and decided to keep it. She must have been about fourteen, bolshy and self-absorbed. There was a brand of jeans she wanted passionately that her mother selfishly refused to buy her. Everyone else was wearing them. She would die if she didn’t get some too. If challenged, she would say she’d used her dog-walking and babysitting money (spent weeks ago). Already she could see herself swanking down to the bus stop where her friends congregated after school to mess around.
“You haven’t seen a twenty-pound note anywhere, have you, darling?” her mother had asked a couple of evenings later. Molly, looking up from her book and acting the dreamy teenager for all she was worth, gave a bored grunt and shook her head. Accepting her answer, her mother turned back to her paperwork. Molly felt a lick of cold triumph. How easy it was! Anyway, it was only twenty pounds. A grown-up would never miss that.
But her mother did miss it. Molly found her searching for it in the living room, the kitchen, the greenhouse, riffling through the dirty washing to check her pockets. “What could I have done with it?” she wailed. Then, more frantically, “What am I going to do?” Normally her mother tried to shield Molly from money matters, but this time her worry was too great to conceal. It turned out that the note
had been earmarked for some electricity bill that had to be paid in advance, by installment, or they would be cut off. It was the end of a lean month, one of the nursery’s regular customers was late with its payments, and her mother’s overdraft had reached its limit.
Molly had joined in the search, turbulent with guilt, conscious all the time of the note hidden between the pages of her lockable five-year diary. She watched her mother’s face tighten with strain, listened to her castigate herself for her carelessness, even apologize to Molly for not buying her a treat after school. Molly tried to block out the memory of what she’d done, but her skin prickled with self-loathing, her chest burned as if she’d swallowed acid. She no longer wanted the jeans. She wanted her mother to smile again, and to be able to smile back freely. In the end she “found” the note, not quite daring to meet her mother’s eye as she poured out a complicated story of how she had discovered it in the unlikeliest place. The crisis passed. For a few days Molly made an effort to stop grunting and be more helpful, then she forgot all about it. At school there was a new craze for a certain type of clumpy-heeled shoe.
“I did take something once,” she admitted to Fabrice. “It felt awful.”
“Were you caught?”
“No . . .”
To her surprise he was smiling at her—a gentle, caressing smile that seemed to make his whole expression glow with affection. “Ah, la petite Sainte Molly, with her innocent English face.” He reached over and stroked her cheek. “You’re a very clever girl, you know. My father liked you.”
“He couldn’t have. What do you mean? Why am I clever?”
But he closed his lips tight and gave her a mischievous, conspiratorial look, as if holding on to a delicious secret.
“What?” she demanded, half laughing herself as she waited for him to explain the joke.
He drew on his cigarette and blew the smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Haven’t you found it yet?”
“Found what?”
“The thing from the apartment?”
“What thing?”
“I put it in your bag while you were sleeping. There’s a man I know who will give me money for it. It’s perfect! My father cannot accuse me. He saw me himself, walking out of the apartment like this.” Fabrice gestured at his clothes, as if to demonstrate that they concealed nothing.
“My bag?” Molly had already picked it up and was rummaging through it. She couldn’t take in what he was saying.
“In the little pocket. Of course I won’t get the full value, but the money will keep me going for a while.”
Molly pulled open the zip of the inner pocket and peered into its dark, silky depths. Oh, God! “The candle-snuffer,” she breathed.
“Brilliant, isn’t it? He probably won’t notice it’s gone for weeks.”
Molly zipped the pocket shut—quickly, before anyone could see. The restaurant seemed to be spinning round, a carousel of grinning figures with Fabrice’s face at its still center, his eyes warm and complicit.
Molly put the bag back down on the floor then straightened to face him. She took a steadying breath. “No,” she said.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?” She saw the warmth dying in his eyes.
“I can’t let you do this, Fabrice. I’m not blaming you, of course. It’s just that I know it will be a mistake. We’re going to take that . . . thing back to your father, right now. You’ll thank me later, I promise.”
Fabrice shoved away his plate angrily. “What are you talking about? Take it back? Don’t you understand? We got away with it!”
“We have so far, I agree,” said Molly. His anger made her tremble. “But later you’ll regret it. You’ll hate yourself. You won’t be able to paint. I couldn’t bear that.”
“Of course I won’t be able to paint without any money, without any materials! What crazy game are you playing? Do you want a cut, is that it?”
“Fabrice!”
Through a blur of tears she was aware of a looming black bulk. “It is finished?” asked a waiter. “You are taking dessert? Cheese?”
“The bill.” Fabrice glowered.
Molly clasped and unclasped her hands under the table. “I know you’re cross, Fabrice, and I’m sorry. But I’m right. You’ll see. We’ll think of a way of explaining: a mistake . . . a misunderstanding . . . I don’t know. But I’ll be there with you. I’ll stand up for you.” Tentatively she put out a hand to touch his arm.
He shook her off furiously. “What’s the matter with you? I buy you a nice dinner. Now it’s completely ruined.”
“No, it’s not. I loved it.”
“It’s only a little thing I took. Unimportant. It doesn’t even properly belong to my father.”
“No, to your mother,” Molly reminded him.
When the bill came, Fabrice slapped down notes and stalked ahead of her out of the restaurant. Molly had almost to run after him, and smiled extra hard at all the waiters who turned from what they were doing to bow politely. “Merci,” she cried gaily. Yes, everything was delicious. “Bonsoir, bonsoir! ”
Outside, Fabrice stood by his motorbike, fuming. “My father won’t be in. It’s Saturday night.”
“Let’s go past and see. Please.”
She put her arms round him as they rode through the streets, trying to radiate affection and reassurance, but it was like cuddling a refrigerator.
When they reached the house, Molly saw lances of bright light shining at the edges of the curtains in Monsieur Lebrun’s apartment. They got off the bike in silence. Fabrice tapped in the code. The lock clicked open. “Go on, then.” He jerked his head.
Molly realized he still had his helmet on. “Aren’t you coming?”
“No.”
“Fabrice, je t’en prie—I beg you! You can’t let me go alone.”
“It’s your choice.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned to stare sulkily at the river. “Go ahead, betray me. Blacken my reputation.”
“No, it’s the opposite. You don’t want to be a thief, do you?”
He twitched a shoulder. “I thought you liked me.”
“I do like you. You know I do.”
“Then come back with me now.” His eyes were on hers, soft and seductive, as he reached out and pulled her close. “Back to bed,” he whispered.
Molly swayed against him, feeling his breath on her neck. It was only a candle-snuffer: only a silly old candle-snuffer nobody used. She could get back on his bike now and have a whole night with Fabrice, wake up with him to sunshine and love. She could take the stupid thing back tomorrow.
His lips moved against her ear. “Molly . . . my little cocotte. Come on. Come with me now.”
She longed—ached—to give in. But her awareness of the stolen object—in her bag—lodged like a burr under her breastbone. “Couldn’t you wait for me here?”
“No. You must choose. Which is worth more to you, my feelings or your nice clean conscience?”
Her hesitation revealed to them both that she had already chosen. He dropped his hands and started to turn away.
“Wait! When will I see you again? Don’t you want to know what happens? You can’t just—I can’t—” She lowered her head, feeling tears prickle her nose. “I love you, Fabrice.”
There was a silence in which Molly could hear only her own desperate sniffs.
Then she felt his hand on her hair. “Silly girl.” He sighed. “On Sundays I’m usually in the Café Balzac around one o’clock, two o’clock. Near the St. Sulpice church. You can come if you like.” Si tu veux.
“Je veux.” She tried to smile.
His bike roared into life. Molly stood by the big gates, waiting to see if he would turn back. The red cyclops eye of his scooter waned, flickered as he leaned into a corner, then disappeared. He was gone.
18
Knockout. Poetry on legs. Tall, athletic, nice big arse, tight leopardskin minidress held together at one shoulder with a giant gold safety pin, a smile that could light up Wembley Stadium. He
ads swiveled to clock Alicia’s progress as they threaded their way through the tables toward the one he’d reserved, near the stage. Malcolm smirked. If all Australian girls were like this, he was emigrating. Not sure about the tattoo, though.
“What is that?” he asked, using the excuse to lean closer in the hot semi-darkness and stroke Alicia’s upper arm. The design looked like a bulldog in an aggressive bow-legged pose. “Your guard doggy? I hope he doesn’t bite. Grrrrr.” He snapped his teeth playfully in the air. Christ, he was on good form tonight.
Alicia gave a yelp of laughter. “No, that’s my team. Australian Rules football, you know?”
Football, she said. She liked sport! “But it’s not like proper football, is it?”
“Heaps better. There’s a lot more action, and the guys wear these really cute little shorts. I expect you’d look good in a pair, Malcolm.”
“Expect I would.” Malcolm smirked. She was coming on to him, all right.
“So what about you, Malcolm? Have you got any secret tattoos hiding under that groovy suit of yours?”
Of course he hadn’t. His mum would kill him. Anyway, a tattoo would not be appropriate for someone in his position. Malcolm leaned back in his chair and gave her his Jack Nicholson leer. “Tell you what, you can check me over later and find out.”
“Hoo-hoo!” Alicia waggled her eyebrows excitedly.
Malcolm topped up her champagne. He couldn’t believe his luck. She was worth the extortionate price he was paying for them to be here—and the naked girls were still to come! For a reckless moment he had even considered opting for the Crazy Horse “Dîner Spectacle,” but the prices started at eighty quid: no female was worth that. Anyway, she’d had a chance to fill up on free peanuts at the hotel bar, where he’d taken her first for a couple of drinks. (Cunning plan: he’d be able to put the meal on his “entertainment” expenses.)
It can’t be her. That’s what he’d thought the minute Alicia strode into the hotel lobby, where he’d been loitering behind a palm frond as per his arrangement with the bloke on Reception. If she’d been a dog, he was going to do a runner. But she wasn’t a dog—she was a . . . what was she? A leopardess, he decided. A gorgeous, sexy leopardess. A wild creature waiting to be tamed. Down, Figg!