This is Life

by Dan Rhodes

  She moved on to the next picture. Another Eugène Carrière, another painting of a melancholy baby. He was brilliant, and she decided he was her new favourite artist. The next one, Enfant avec casserole, was more upbeat. This one’s subject, a cheeky child scooping leftovers from an upturned pot, reminded her of Herbert; there was something about the contours of his brow, and the determined expression. The sight of all these children on the wall induced occasional bursts of worry, and from time to time she found herself looking around to see where Herbert had got to, and she had to remind herself that he was busy having fun in the café with Liliane.

  Professor Papavoine had not given Carrière much thought for some years, but ever since his conversation with Le Machine, he had been itching to get back here. The museum had a substantial collection of his works, and he was pleased to become reacquainted with them. He smiled as he thought of the story Le Machine had told him, of how for his second-year project he had planned to paint a picture of a friend of his that would be, in part, a homage to Carrière, but while sitting outside his office he had overheard the other students talking about their own projects and had become intimidated by the verbose way in which they articulated their ideas. He had abandoned his plan, which he had managed to convince himself would be dismissed as derivative and unambitious. He had thought up a new idea on the spot, an idea that came at the same subject matter from a very different angle. This was the idea that had made Professor Papavoine pull a face, and which was currently the talk of Paris.

  The Professor had followed Life’s progress, and had hoped for an opportunity to see how far it had come since it had been proposed to him. Now he had a pass that would get him and a guest in on a day of his choosing, and he thought that the coming evening would be as good a time as any. He was almost giddy with excitement. Liliane had been glad to stand aside and let the guest slot go to Aurélie. That will be a nice surprise for her, he thought.

  He looked over to her, as she stood absorbed in Carrière’s Jeune femme nourrissant son enfant. Her profile was perfect. Making sure she didn’t hear him, he sighed.

  They returned to L’Enfant malade, and stood together before it.

  ‘Professor Papavoine,’ said Aurélie, quietly, ‘you were going to tell me why you gave me your card and told me I could call you day or night.’ He hadn’t returned to the subject, and she felt she ought to know.

  Professor Papavoine looked at her, and Aurélie looked up at him. She tried to read his expression. He wasn’t embarrassed, he wasn’t laughing the question off, and he wasn’t full of pent-up lust that was about to boil over in a hideous confession. ‘You deserve an explanation,’ he said. ‘But first, may I . . .?’

  He took her in his arms.

  Aurélie found herself returning his embrace. She rested her head against his shoulder, and they stood there for what must have been a minute before they parted.

  She tried to work out what had just happened. This was not a romantic pass. If it had been she would have fought him off, she wouldn’t have yielded and felt comforted by it. It was the hug she had been needing ever since her disastrous date with Léandre Martin.

  She looked up at him.

  ‘I had to get that out of my system,’ he said. ‘I’m an old man; you’ll forgive me my sentimentality.’

  She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Liliane and I never had children,’ he said. ‘This wasn’t out of choice. She was pregnant once, but after five months . . .’

  Aurélie reached out to him, and stroked his arm.

  ‘She was a girl. We would have had a daughter, and she would have been around your age by now. Aurélie was even on our list of names, but we called her Simone in the end, after Liliane’s mother. We tried for another . . .’ He felt no need to go on, and paused for a while as he collected himself. ‘And then, when you walked into my office, I felt something I had never felt before. You reminded me so much of Liliane when she was younger, and, well, as I said, I’m getting old and sentimental. I’m so sorry I didn’t make myself clear to you. You must have thought I was just another lecherous old goat, like . . .’ He almost said like Professor Boucher, but stopped himself. He didn’t want to incriminate his colleague. ‘. . . like a stereotypical academic going through a belated midlife crisis.’

  ‘Well, yes. That’s exactly what I thought.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you? But I suppose I just wanted to spend time with you as a father might spend time with his grown daughter. I wanted to take you out to lunch, to hear your news, to laugh with you, to be exasperated by you, to implore you to stop smoking, to disapprove of the men in your life . . .’

  Aurélie laughed. ‘You’re very welcome to do that!’

  ‘It all seems quite idiotic, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I told Liliane about you when I got home, and the first thing she said was that you probably thought I was trying to lure you into an inappropriate romance.’ Now he looked embarrassed. ‘And, as always, she was right.’

  Aurélie smiled. ‘There are pictures in your apartment of Liliane when she was younger. I can see similarities. And you know what? She gives me hope for the future. If I age half as well as she has I’ll be very happy. She’s so beautiful.’

  Professor Papavoine nodded. ‘She is. I’m sorry to have bothered you with all that, Mademoiselle Renard,’ he said, ‘but I thought I owed you a full explanation.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Oh, and please call me Aurélie.’

  ‘And you can call me, er, you can call me . . .’

  ‘I think I’d like to call you Professor Papavoine. It has a ring to it.’ He was still her professor after all, and when all this had blown over and she was back at college it wouldn’t be right for her to go around calling him by his first name.

  He appreciated her tact. ‘Thank you.’

  They embraced once again, and Professor Papavoine closed his eyes. When he opened them, he realised that one of the worst things imaginable had come to pass. Over Aurélie’s shoulder he saw, looking at them through the glass door to the preceding room, Professor Boucher.

  Professor Boucher came through to their room pulling faces, bugging his eyes out and winking, and Professor Papavoine could tell that somewhere under that unruly beard a grey tongue was running up and down his lips.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to Aurélie, bringing their touching moment to an abrupt end. ‘I have to see a man about a . . . misunderstanding.’

  Aurélie turned around and saw Professor Boucher. She watched, amused, as Professor Papavoine darted across the floor and manhandled him into the next room. She liked Professor Boucher. She had been to several of his lectures, and he had always made her laugh.

  ‘Papavoine,’ said Professor Boucher, giving his colleague a playful punch on the shoulder, ‘I like your style! Leaving the old lady in the café while you come up here for a fumble with your compact blonde. And very nice she is too, very . . .’ He went into an array of faces, and made a number of unusual growling noises to illustrate his approval of Professor Papavoine’s supposed choice of conquest. ‘I must say, I’ve had my eye on that one myself. If you hadn’t got in there, I would have made a play for her, but she’s all yours now, you filthy, filthy dog. Speaking of which, my girl’s going to be wondering where I’ve got to. Isn’t this the perfect place to bring them? I’m here most weekends, playing the worldly professor with one little minx or another; if anybody sees us together we tell them we met by coincidence and happened to fall into a conversation about art. What could be more innocent? And then it’s off to a nice little hotel I know just around the corner. Very reasonable hourly rates, Papavoine, if you know the right man to talk to. I could put in a word for you . . .’

  Before Professor Papavoine could explain just how different his reason had been for coming here, Professor Boucher had imprisoned him in a fraternal headlock. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you, Papavoine,’ he said, rubbing his knuckles against Professor Papavoine’s
head. ‘You dirty, dirty ram! You sex fiend!’

  When at last he released him, Professor Boucher pinched Professor Papavoine’s cheeks, wobbled them, and said, ‘Welcome to Wonderland, Papavoine. And ten out of ten for the blonde. What a girl. I love the way one of her ears sticks out a bit more than the other. It really makes you want to . . .’ He made a protracted trilling noise, and for a full minute he went into what looked a bit like a Maori tribal dance. ‘Eh, Papavoine?’ he said, when the dance finally came to an end. ‘Eh?’ And after a quick run through his repertoire of faces and sounds, another fraternal headlock and a brief reprise of the dance, he darted back the way he had come, in search of his latest conquest.

  Professor Papavoine watched him go. Professor Boucher had a beautiful wife at home too, though she was every bit as amorous as he was, and was probably entertaining one of her silent young companions right now. When, still rubbing his head, he got back to Aurélie, Professor Papavoine didn’t know whether to be dismayed or relieved that she seemed to be finding the situation with Professor Boucher hilarious.

  ‘Promise me you will never go near that man,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to Liliane and Herbert before I get us into any more trouble.’

  They walked back the way they had come, and as they did they ran into Professor Boucher and his date, a startlingly pretty and fashionably dressed platinum blonde from the year below Aurélie’s. They recognised one another from the canteen. The platinum blonde gave Aurélie a conspiratorial smile, which she returned. She didn’t want the girl to think she was snooty. And besides, she was up to no good with one of the professors, only in a very different way.

  XXVI

  After her lucrative Saturdays, Sylvie was ready to undertake a less financially rewarding day’s work, and Sundays saw her helping out her upstairs neighbour at les bouquinistes, the book stalls that line the Seine. The day would usually begin with her hauling a box of stock from her neighbour’s home to the stall, and she would sit there for the rest of the day with her flask of coffee, vending an entirely haphazard range of books at various stages of disintegration.

  Her neighbour was getting old, and she was glad to have Sylvie take over as she spent a day indoors. After closing the stall, Sylvie would report back to her apartment and show her the ledger, running through the list of what had been sold, and handing over the takings. There was no way of predicting how much stock would go; sometimes the stall would be as good as stripped by the end of the day, and other times it would be untouched. Sylvie’s neighbour would give her a handful of coins, the weight of which would depend on the general state of the business. It never amounted to a great deal, but Sylvie had grown fond of her neighbour, and had been touched by her readiness to trust her with her livelihood.

  Alongside the battered old books, the stall also sold prints of famous artworks, reproductions of antique maps and vintage dirty postcards. It was these sidelines that really kept the business going, and one of Sylvie’s favourite things was to sell a postcard of her mother.

  In the early eighties, before Sylvie had been born, her mother had posed for a number of photographers. In the picture that had ended up on the postcard she was completely naked apart from a pair of lime green leg warmers, and was holding a baguette at such an angle that it just covered her lower modesty. It was these touches that had helped it find its way on to the tourist stands; it had now attained a kind of retro charm, and it sat quite comfortably alongside the sepia goings-on from the very olden days. She had been amazed to see them among the stock on her first day on the stall, and whenever anyone bought a picture of her mother, she would proudly tell them who she was, and hold it up beside her face so they could see the likeness. Her mother’s hair was big, and she had a lot of make-up on – green eyeshadow and purple lips – but there was no denying where Sylvie’s looks had come from.

  Quite often Aurélie would join her for a few hours on the Sunday, keeping her company and even minding the stall while she took breaks, but today she had texted to say she wasn’t going to make it.

  —How’s that baby you kidnapped? Sylvie had texted back.

  —He’s fine. Am staying with creepy Prof. Long story, but nothing funny going on. Not creepy any more. On way to see Le Machine. Will track you down soon. Much to report.

  It was another cold day, and she sat on her folding chair in her duffel coat and hat as she waited for customers to drift by. So far she had been asked out twice, and each time she had given a firm no. One of the boys had been a hopeless case, wide-eyed and trembling as he asked her if he could treat her to a coffee when she had finished work. When she had declined he had thanked her, apologised and run away. The other one, though, had been something else. He looked like a male model, the kind who would pose in corduroy with a Golden Retriever. He was tall and healthy-looking, with a thick head of hair, and he was wearing really great clothes. He had even chosen to buy a battered copy of her favourite book of all time, Timoléon, chien fidèle.

  ‘I love the ending,’ she had said, as she handed him his change. ‘It’s not easy to read, but it says something that needs to be said. I don’t think I could ever really be friends with anyone who didn’t get this book.’

  ‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it,’ he said, his smile revealing great teeth and dimples. ‘I love the ending too. I’m buying it to depress a friend of mine who’s been a bit too happy lately.’

  Sylvie laughed, and they fell into a conversation about the brilliance of the author, and how underappreciated he was, and she told him she had heard a rumour that the last time he had been translated into French his publisher, Editions Stock, hadn’t even bothered to send him a copy.

  ‘It’s a scandal if it’s true,’ said the handsome man. Sensing his opportunity, he had asked her if she was going to be free at all that week, and she had told him, very firmly, that she wouldn’t be, and that she already had a boyfriend.

  He took this graciously, told her it had been nice to meet her, and went on his way. It was only as she watched him go that she realised she hadn’t been entirely truthful when it had come to her romantic status. She really had felt as if she already had a boyfriend, though. She realised how ridiculous this was, and hoped she wasn’t setting herself up for a broken heart. She replayed their conversation, and she knew that that was all it was – a conversation. She had liked him, he had a pleasant manner and exemplary taste in books, and it was plain to see that he was almost supernaturally handsome, but she hadn’t been attracted to him at all, and she hadn’t been flirting with him. Not once had her devotion to Toshiro wavered. Nobody could compare to Toshiro.

  She sat on her folding chair, and tried to fight the thought that she was being stupid, that it was unlikely that she would ever even meet this man she had fallen for in such a frightening way.

  There was something inevitable about the appearance of Lucien and the Akiyamas, and Sylvie threw herself at them. Monsieur Akiyama seemed at last to be getting used to this, and rather than standing like a baffled statue as Sylvie hugged him, he even smiled a little bit, and tentatively returned her embrace.

  ‘Look at you,’ said Madame Akiyama. ‘A few days in Paris and you’ve become European.’

  Monsieur and Madame Akiyama announced that they were going over the bridge to Notre Dame cathedral, and that they wouldn’t be needing Lucien for a while. He pulled up a folding chair beside Sylvie, and tried to work out what to say to her. She had never known him to be so quiet; normally the banter had flowed between them so naturally. To get conversation going, she found the postcard of her mother. She handed one to him.

  ‘What do you think of her, then?’ she said.

  Lucien looked at the postcard, then looked at Sylvie. Back and forth several times. ‘Your mother?’ At dinner the night before, Sylvie had mentioned her mother’s tendency to take her clothes off.

  Sylvie nodded.

  Lucien looked at the photograph. The hair, make-up, leg warmers and baguette were distracting, but her face
was as pretty as Sylvie’s, and her body was timeless. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he said.

  Sylvie smiled. ‘I’m so proud of her. Sometimes I really miss her,’ she said. ‘It’s funny to think that she was younger than I am now when these were taken. I always seem to sell at least one every week. I’m so glad she lives on in these postcards.’

  ‘She lives on in you as well.’

  This was no place to get emotional, so she changed the subject. ‘Right – some Japanese, please.’

  After learning a few pleasantries, Sylvie called a halt to the lesson. ‘So have you made any progress with the lovely Akiko?’

  Lucien looked at the pavement. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘OK,’ said Sylvie. ‘We need a strategy.’

  Lucien shook his head. ‘We don’t, Sylvie. We don’t need a strategy.’ And he gave her the look she knew so well; the look that told her everything.

  Sylvie felt like crying on his behalf. ‘Lucien, no,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t. What about your Japanese girls? Never mind Akiko. Forget her – go to Japan and find another one. Anyone but me, Lucien, for God’s sake. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said?’

  A customer approached the stall, and picked out a print of an antique map of the city and the postcard of Sylvie’s mother. She was in such a hurry to get back to Lucien that she sold them without mentioning the family connection.

  ‘It turns out the girl for me wasn’t Japanese after all.’

  ‘Lucien,’ she said, ‘you’re being stupid. I’m not the girl for you. I don’t love you, and I never will. Not in that way, anyway.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sylvie,’ he said. ‘I’d better get back to the Akiyamas.’ He stood to leave, and Sylvie stood beside him. She was so fond of him, and he looked so forlorn. She put her arms around him and held him close.

  ‘Lucien,’ she said, ‘soon you’ll realise that we weren’t meant to be together. You’re just having an episode. It’s all going to be OK.’