Paris Requiem

by Lisa Appignanesi

  James now recalled that Ellie had indeed taken over the nursing of their father in his last illness. Both he and Raf were well away from home by then. It was she who had read to him and played the piano and done the crosswords and sat continuously by his side. It was she who had been with him in those final moments when the cancer had eaten away his breath. Their mother had stood aside, willingly giving over this most arduous of tasks to her daughter. And Ellie had been strong in those six months. Never once had there been any sign or suggestion of her suffering from her unnameable condition. James wondered at this, then remembered that soon after their father’s death, Ellie had gone off for some months for a rest cure. He had never put the sequence together quite in this light and now he said, ‘You took good care of him, Ellie. You were brave.’

  She laughed, a single shrill note. ‘And you were busy with Maisie. Sweet little Maisie. And your work, of course.’

  James let the edge of reprimand pass over him. He had been busy at the time. Too busy. Stepping into his father’s shoes at the firm, acting as executor on a particularly pernicious will which had left a large family terminally at odds. The savagery of their behaviour had dismayed him.

  ‘Did Maisie enjoy Paris?’ Ellie’s query brought him back sharply. He felt Harriet’s eyes on him and looked away.

  ‘Yes, yes, she did.’ He paused in his wheeling and waved an arc from the Concorde to the Tuileries. ‘She particularly liked it here.’

  ‘Sweet Maisie,’ Elinor breathed. ‘You knew her, didn’t you, Harriet? She used to come to Mrs Maple’s gatherings from time to time. Way back.’

  Harriet murmured something vague, then asked. ‘Would you like me to take over for a while, Mr Norton? Now that we’re in the park …’

  ‘No, no. That’s fine.’ He gripped Elinor’s chair harder to balance it against the incline. The fountain at its base was surrounded by children watching their tiny boats weave erratic paths through the fluttering water. They watched with them for a few minutes, saw the wind dip the tiny sails and propel a drunken circuit.

  ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters, Miss Knowles?’

  Before Harriet could respond, Ellie intervened. ‘Harriet is an orphan, Jimmy. Hasn’t had any real family since she was fourteen. Maybe she’s the stronger for it. She writes, you know. Sends home letters from abroad to all kinds of papers. And now I’ve determined that we should become her family.’

  Harriet had averted her eyes. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘The music has started. We should get on.’

  They strolled down the park’s central artery, its white gravel stark in the sun, and turned off into the canopy the rigorously pruned trees provided. The dappled light was a relief to the eyes.

  ‘This is nice, isn’t it, Elinor?’ Harriet murmured.

  ‘And I dare say, it will do me good.’ Ellie cast her a smile. ‘You were right. Harriet is always right, James. That’s what I love about her.’

  Around the covered bandstand, rows of chairs had been set up, all of them now filled. A military band played, the soldiers’ gold braid and buttons glittering along with the trumpets and tubas. A banner announced the ‘117 Infantry’. Their marches were so rousing that James felt Ellie would soon be forced to get up, if only to keep time.

  They listened for a while, then Harriet pointed to a free bench beneath a tree at a little distance. It had the advantage of being in the shade and still permitting them to hear.

  No sooner had they sat down, than a soldier appeared and placed a leaflet in James’s hand. ‘Benefit performance for the League of Patriots at the Saint-Paul Riding School,’ James read. ‘Long Live the Army.’

  ‘Show me that.’ Ellie took the leaflet from his hands and surveyed it quickly. She coughed. ‘You don’t want to hang out with that crowd, Jimmy. Though our darling brother sometimes does. Says it gives him background material.’ Her voice rose. ‘Long boring speeches full of pompous gobbledygook lightly veiling hatred, not to mention fear that certain privileges may disappear.’

  ‘Don’t excite yourself, Ellie. I’m not planning to participate.’

  ‘Where is Raf, by the way?’

  ‘I’m not altogether sure. Working, I think.’ James prevaricated.

  ‘I hope so. At last.’ Ellie gave him one of her sharp looks. ‘The papers this morning were certainly full of material he should be handling. It looks like the government is going to fall. Doesn’t it, Harriet?’

  Harriet nodded and then leapt up. ‘Look, there’s Charlotte and Mrs Elliott.’ She waved. ‘They said they might meet us here. We thought we’d lunch together.’

  James hid his irritation, not quite quickly enough for Harriet gave him an appraising stare.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Jimmy finds too many women at once hard to bear,’ Ellie teased in her old way.

  ‘Not at all. Not at all.’ James flushed as he rose to greet the women and willingly gave up his seat. ‘Why don’t I fetch us all something to drink from the little kiosque we passed.’

  ‘That would be kind, Mr Norton.’ Mrs Elliott was fanning herself with all the grace of an albatross trying to lift itself into flight. ‘I think it’s hotter than Boston, today.’

  ‘It isn’t, Mother.’ Charlotte contradicted. ‘The paper distinctly said 22 degrees which is only 72 Fahrenheit.’

  ‘Let me help you with the drinks.’ Harriet was at his side.

  ‘That would be kind, Miss Knowles.’

  ‘Do call me Harriet. It’s so much simpler.’

  Covertly, he studied her high, clear brow, the snub-nosed profile which spoke of determination and a candid nature. As they took a short cut through the trees, a plan began to form in his mind.

  ‘Tell me Miss … I mean Harriet, how exactly would you assess my sister’s state of health?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘Not wonderful. There’s such a change since I saw her last. I don’t really understand it.’

  ‘No …’ James hesitated.

  ‘And she forgets things. Forgets the book she’s been reading an hour before.’ Harriet’s voice held a glimmer of awe. ‘It’s as if she … well goes into a trance. I don’t know what else to call it.’ She threw him a shadowy glance as if to assess his reaction.

  ‘Really.’ James kept his face neutral. ‘You know, I … I’ve been wondering whether she’s strong enough to make the journey home. I feel she’d be so much better away from all this. I don’t mean you,’ James stumbled over his words. ‘In fact, I was wondering whether you might make the trip with her. She’s altogether different with you. Spirited. And of course, we’d … I’d …’

  ‘Pay for my journey,’ Harriet finished for him bluntly.

  He met her eyes and in that brisk exchange read her wish to refuse compounded by the realisation that she was in no position to do so.

  ‘Yes. You would be doing us a great service. You see, I fear that my brother may decline to leave for some time, because of … because of the death of Olympe Fabre. And his work, of course. And I feel, yes I do feel that he needs my help. But Ellie …’ James thought it through as he spoke. ‘Well, the atmosphere is wrong for her. What do you say?’

  ‘I could ask her,’ Harriet spoke at last. ‘I wouldn’t of course do anything to try and influence her. Elinor is averse to influence.’

  ‘I know,’ James smiled. ‘To my influence, in any event. But you would try … you would accompany her?’

  She nodded once, firmly. ‘I don’t promise anything, though. And I sense that she’ll reject the proposition out of hand. She won’t leave Rafael.’

  ‘But you’ll try.’

  ‘After you’ve taken her to the doctor on Monday. We’ll see what he says. She decidedly wants you with her, by the way.’

  ‘Of course.’

  A companionable silence descended between them. James broke it only on their return from the kiosque. His thoughts had migrated once more to Olympe and he suddenly wanted to have this wonderfully straightforward woman’s view of her. He w
as a little taken aback by the sharpness Harriet put into her response.

  ‘No, I never met Olympe Fabre. She belongs to another side of Elinor’s life. Our paths never crossed. Then, too, I have been away.’

  ‘But Ellie spoke to you about her?’

  ‘Only in passing. She admired her.’

  ‘I see,’ James said, though he didn’t really and the sudden stiff set of Harriet’s face told him there was no point pursuing the matter. Perhaps he had wrongly jumped to conclusions about her relationship with Ellie and assumed a chattering intimacy which didn’t exist. It was possible that Harriet only engaged Ellie’s more intellectual interests. Yes, that must be it. But her next comment threw his conclusion askew.

  ‘I know she was bad for her. Was bad for her from the very beginning.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. And her death has, if anything, been worse. You’ve heard all Elinor’s remarks about suicide. She talks of little else. She, with all her advantages. Yesterday, she made me lose my temper. I should tell you that I rarely lose my temper. I ended up by quoting a rather scurrilous German philosopher at her. Oh yes, I have German, Mr Norton. Has Elinor not told you? For two long years I was governess to a German family. In any case I was rather caustic. I said to her that the thought of suicide is a great consolation. By means of it one can get through many a bad night. She didn’t like that. She didn’t like it one bit. She thought I was making light of her. She rebuked me fiercely. She told me that if one made the thought actual, like this Olympe, one didn’t get through the night. And that was that.’

  Harriet stopped abruptly, her face flushed from the emotion of her long speech and perhaps from the sudden sight of Ellie waving to them.

  As they approached, she breathed an emphatic, ‘At last. I thought you’d run off together.’ She laughed. ‘What have you been telling my brother, Harriet?’ She studied her friend.

  ‘Harriet has been telling me about her years in Germany.’ James answered for her.

  ‘Germany?’ Mrs Elliott sounded aghast. ‘Well, we’ll have no more of that.’ She sipped her lemonade gratefully. ‘And I’ve really had rather enough of this music, too. It makes one hotter. I’ve taken the liberty of booking a table at the Café Voltaire. It comes highly recommended, doesn’t it, Charlotte?’

  Charlotte smoothed her dress awkwardly and nodded.

  ‘Do you know it, Mr Norton?’

  James shook his head.

  ‘It’s on the left bank.’ Ellie’s voice was tremulous.

  ‘Yes, just across the river,’ Mrs Elliott supplied in sudden expertise. She rose with an effort to her feet.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t.’ Ellie’s eyes had grown wide with something like panic. ‘No, no. Not the Voltaire. Take me home, Jim, please.’

  James stared at her. Her face was white. Perspiration had gathered on her brow.

  ‘But we were so looking forward to your company, Miss Norton.’

  Ellie seemed not to have heard.

  ‘Perhaps somewhere closer, somewhere on the way home,’ Harriet soothed. ‘There’s that nice place just by the Palais Royal.’

  ‘You guide us, Harriet.’ James propelled Ellie’s chair into motion and wondered what terrible event had taken place at the Café Voltaire.

  The afternoon provided no opportunity for finding out. They had ended up at a large brasserie just behind the Palais Royal and spent far too long over a lunch in which the conversation was dictated by Mrs Elliott. Ellie had receded into a dream state, all her energies left behind with the Infantry band. Harriet kept casting her worried looks, but was far too polite to cut off a Mrs Elliott in full flow.

  While the fans above them swirled, the woman lectured James on the law, more precisely on its teaching. Her husband, as he was supposed to know but had forgotten, had been an attorney, one whose views it seemed were fundamentally opposed to those of the great Justice Holmes, who had so influenced James’s own ideas. To say that the fundamental principles of the law shaped it less than the everyday matter that went on in the courts was like saying that the ten commandments had grown less important because they were sinned against. Which was pure poppycock.

  Mrs Elliott’s voice rang through the brasserie with all the fervour of an executing judge. James only finally succeeded in changing the subject by addressing Charlotte about her expedition to the Louvre Museum. He longed to escape, but there was no way he could do so, since Ellie had first to be taken home. So he sat there, taxing his resources of patience, letting his mind wander, wondering whether the police might have come up with any new information, when, as if he had been sent by a happy fate, Gilles Touquet, Raf’s journalist friend, came into his field of vision.

  With his quick, loping step, Touquet was making his way to the door.

  James excused himself to the ladies and followed him, tapping him on the shoulder just as he stepped outside.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Norton.’ The man’s face had an unhealthy tinge in the bright sunshine. ‘I saw your brother this morning.’ A conspiratorial look came into his eye. ‘Has he told you?’

  James shook his head. ‘I haven’t met up with him today.’

  Touquet gestured him away from the door and towards the eaves of the building. ‘I have found someone. Well I am on the trail. I spent the last two nights in the brothel where that poor creature worked – the girl in the metro shaft. And I have discovered that she had a regular. A Marcel Caro, not a salubrious sort. A big man.’ He puffed up his chest and flexed his arms in gorilla motion. ‘Apparement, it was through him that the girl was introduced to the brothel.’

  ‘Did any of the women there know Olympe, know her perhaps as Rachel Arnhem?’

  Touquet stared at him hard, stroked his beard for a moment. ‘So you think the way I do. Your brother does not …’

  ‘I know, I know.’ James cut him off. ‘But it’s always worth making some enquiries.’

  ‘Always …’ Touquet winked. ‘And now I must rush off to see an honest policeman. If I do not hurry, he may not be so honest by the time I arrive.’

  On his way back to the ladies, James wondered whether the name Marcel Caro could have any link at all to the Marcel who signed letters to Olympe. It was, he decided, highly unlikely. The style of the letters had been too high, too subtle. But it had reminded him that he wanted, however gently, to quiz Ellie about the names and initials he had found in Olympe’s papers. She claimed after all to have known the woman longer than Raf had.

  But it was Ellie who interrogated him as soon as he had sat down at the table. ‘Who was that odiously louche little bearded man you ran after?’

  Her spirits had distinctly lifted. The food or perhaps the wine had done its work.

  ‘A journalist.’

  ‘You mean a friend of my absent brother’s?’

  James nodded.

  ‘You see what it means to be a woman,’ she addressed the ladies. ‘James has been here for less than a week and he has already seen more of Paris life than I have in nine months.’

  ‘But that is only fitting, my dear,’ Mrs Elliott’s tone took on a chiding, maternal warmth. ‘Our sphere is in the home. We look after our young and educate them. We bring grace and beauty into the world to complement men’s more arduous tasks. We serve. Nature has made us so.’ She cast a glance at Charlotte and then smiled at James. ‘Don’t you agree, Mr Norton?’

  James felt Ellie and Harriet’s eyes on him and chose to do no more than nod briefly.

  ‘So you would say nature has ordained Charlotte or me to serve a man, any man, even if his intelligence, his moral intelligence were a mere smattering of our own?’ Ellie’s voice and face were all innocence, as if she really expected an affirmative answer.

  Mrs Elliott wriggled in her chair. ‘Intellect is not a feminine virtue. When Charlotte reads too much, she simply grows …’ She stopped herself. ‘You shall have to come and visit us in Boston, Mr Norton. My cook’s beef is far superior to this.’

  ‘I dare say James is not th
inking about beef. He’s thinking about what Raf’s friend, the one I have never met, said to him. Will you introduce him to me, James?’

  ‘You exaggerate, Elinor.’ Harriet intervened. ‘You have no desire to meet that man, whom you’ve just called odious. You know that.’

  ‘Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. The point is I haven’t been given the opportunity.’ Ellie’s tone suddenly changed. ‘Is there any news about Olympe?’

  ‘Olympe?’ Mrs Elliott queried.

  To James’s relief the waiter chose that moment to clear their table and another arrived with the dessert trolley. He didn’t want to pursue this conversation. He wanted to hurry back and catch Raf, who must now be at home. Silly of him not to have asked Touquet where Raf was going.

  He glanced at Ellie whose eyes hadn’t left him. They were large and accusing, as if she had once more read his mind and knew that he wanted only to get away. He gave her a wide smile and reminded himself again that he was here for her, not for some woman he had never seen alive.

  ‘Isn’t it nice to be out, Ellie?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s made you look altogether beautiful. And that brooch is wonderful on your blouse. It’s the one Father gave you, isn’t it?’

  Ellie’s lips trembled convulsively. The glass she had been holding fell from her fingers and hit the floor with an explosive clatter, splintering into a hundred pieces. Wine splattered her pale skirt and left a trail of red, dark as blood, against the white tiles.

  A sob shook her. Her eyes filling with tears, she whimpered into the gathered silence like a lost child.

  NINE

  Gleaming carriages crowded the usually quiet street. The buttons and epaulettes of the uniformed coachmen glittered like stars on a clear night. Above, the ranked windows of Madame de Landois’s hôtel particulier were ablaze with the light of chandeliers. As he leapt from his cab, James could see figures milling. Faces were lifted in conversation, glasses brought to lips. He was no more than twenty minutes late. Madame de Landois was evidently a stickler for punctuality.