by Liz Byrski
As Richard carried their cases to the car, Zoë was fighting off tears, her face still burning with embarrassment.
‘Don’t be upset,’ Richard said, slinging the cases into the boot. ‘It’s not you, it’s them. Hop in quick, let’s get going.’ And he unlocked the passenger door and Zoë slipped into the front seat.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said as he switched on the engine. ‘I didn’t mean to offend them. But it was so awful, Richard, your mother’s face, when she said, “You mean, you live in a house with a black man?”’
‘Zoë,’ Richard said, turning to her. ‘Stop apologising and let’s just get out of here.’ He slipped the car into first gear and roared off down the lane, swerving wildly onto the verge to avoid a car coming in the opposite direction. ‘I can’t believe it. Sometimes I feel I should walk out of there and never go back. But you can’t, can you? Not when it’s your parents, blood being thicker than water and all that.’
‘I don’t know,’ Zoë said, thinking of home, of awkward, accusing silences laden with tension that hovered around for days before settling like another layer in the brickwork of resentment. ‘Mum and I don’t have arguments.’
Richard reached for her hand and drew it across to rest on his thigh. ‘You are so lucky.’
‘Not really, it just gets stored up; you never know if anything is sorted out. We don’t talk about things like you did. Mum thinks women shouldn’t get involved in politics, that it’s men’s business.’
‘But you do care about all the stuff that’s going on don’t you, Zoë?’ Richard asked.
Zoë glanced across at him, wondering exactly what stuff he meant. ‘Oh yes,’ she lied. ‘Of course I do; of course I care.’
And, as Richard put his foot down, he glanced sideways and smiled. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘From the start, I knew you’d understand.’ And, keeping his eyes on the road, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers.
SIX
Quartier Latin, Paris – May 1968
At twenty, Julia knew she lacked whatever it was that drew men to women – sex appeal, she supposed. She longed for a sense of style, the body that went with it, and the ease and grace that would allow her to flirt the way other girls did. She despaired about her own awkwardness and lack of curves, and the evidence of Anita’s conservative and middle-aged taste that was so obvious in her clothes. She also lacked any idea of what she actually wanted to do, or what she might be good at. After being urged by her mother into a cordon bleu cookery course that she hated, she had then drifted into a token job with a florist friend and then to another with a friend of Ralph’s who had an antiques business. But nothing really interested her and while girls from school were working as secretaries or personal assistants, landing pleasant little jobs in publishing or cooking directors’ lunches, Julia’s boredom and apathy seemed terminal. Even the young men who occasionally showed an interest in her proved boring, and she, in turn, bored them.
‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Ralph Linton had said six months earlier. ‘I’m at my wits’ end with you, Julia. You’re incapable of getting a proper job, and all you do is sit around reading magazines, talking to your friends on the phone and sighing.’
The sighing that so exasperated Ralph was the outward manifestation of Julia’s sense that there was nothing to look forward to, and that included the prospect of being sent into exile as an au pair in Paris.
‘At least you’ll learn to speak French,’ Ralph had said, and in January she was sent on her way.
But, of course, Julia spoke English at every opportunity and the only things that really moved her were her instant dislike of the Le Bon family and of the menial tasks that were part of the average au pair’s day.
In April, when she met Tom, everything had changed. Now, as she took the children to feed the ducks in the Luxembourg Gardens, bought them pastries at the boulangerie, washed their clothes and devised games to occupy them, Julia longed for the moment she could put them to bed and slip out to meet Tom. Initially, with the total self-absorption that comes from first love, she was almost immune to the growing tensions of a city in which thousands of young people were preparing to pit themselves against the most ferocious riot police in Europe. But as brawls broke out and the streets of Paris seethed with anger, she could no longer ignore the tension that was reaching fever pitch.
‘They’re digging up the paving stones,’ she cried one evening as she and Tom skirted a square where protestors were ripping up the cobbles with drills, picks and bare hands.
‘Dessus les pavés . . .’ Tom reminded her.
It was the slogan he had translated for her as they had strolled home together the evening they had met at Hilary’s tea party. Heading for the Metro, they had gone only one block when they saw that the station was blocked by a noisy group carrying placards and arguing with others who were trying to force their way in.
‘It’s the students,’ Tom had said, taking her arm. ‘Another protest.’
‘I don’t really know what they’re on about,’ Julia had said. ‘Vietnam, I suppose.’ The wind whipped between a gap in the buildings and she stamped her feet against the cold. Tom took off his scarf and wound it around her neck.
‘Well, yes, and about not being allowed a voice in the universities,’ he said, pointing to a placard with a silhouette of President de Gaulle, his hand clasped across the mouth of a shorter, younger, man. ‘See that? See what it says – Sois Jeune et Tais Toi – be young and shut up.’
Julia shrugged.
Tom had grasped the corner of a poster that was flapping in the wind, eased it almost whole from the wall, rolled it carefully and tucked it inside his coat. ‘It’s all part of the same thing,’ he said, steering her around the edge of the crowd. ‘A lot of protests all coming together. Look there.’ He pointed to a line of posters plastered roughly along the wall of the station. ‘Dessus les pavés le plage.’
‘Under the . . . um . . . paving?’
‘Paving stones.’
‘Under the paving stones, the beach? But what does it mean?’
He drew her arm through his, laughing. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘How long have you got? Let’s walk on to the next Metro.’
Julia leaned into the warmth of his arm as they walked. Protesting students were of no interest to her except in terms of the inconvenience they created. But in the weeks that followed, she had, with Tom’s help, begun to understand the drama that was unfolding in the city and to feel for the students who were fighting so passionately for their beliefs. Now, watching as a couple of women her own age scraped at the cobbles with filthy, bloodied hands, she hated the fact that her apathy, ignorance and sheer cowardice made her a mere observer. The prospect of actually joining them was too frightening for words but she felt, along with her shame, a longing for the commitment and passion that had brought them to this.
‘We’re watching a revolution,’ Tom said, as the cobbles were piled into barricades. ‘It’s happening everywhere, Germany, America, Mexico; even back home in London. Our world will never be the same again.’
Julia assumed he was exaggerating. Still, his knowledge was seductive and as he kept gathering evidence of what was happening around them, she felt her senses come alive in a way she had never known before.
‘Why?’ she asked as he jotted notes in his leather-bound diary. ‘What will you do with all this stuff? Some of it’s torn and dirty.’
‘But they’re history,’ Tom explained. ‘One day they’ll be valuable; more valuable because they carry the marks and imperfections of the time.’
‘Do you ever feel like joining in?’ she asked. ‘Digging up the cobbles, breaking a few windows? Even just joining a march?’
‘Often,’ he said, steering her away from the action to a quieter street. ‘But I’m a pragmatist, Julia. I’m at a crucial point in my career with the bank and getting involved in the host country’s politics is not on.’ He stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘You probably think I’m a cowa
rd, but everybody faces it some time or other, the choice between heart and head. I’m not proud of it.’
Julia gripped his hands. ‘Of course you can’t get involved,’ she said. ‘I feel just the same, I’d be far too scared. And my parents would go berserk. But Richard, my brother – if he were here, he’d be in the thick of it.’ And, as she said it, she had an unfamiliar desire to see Richard, to tell him what she had seen and how it made her feel.
‘Daddy and I think you should come home, darling,’ Anita told her over the phone a few days later. ‘We’re worried about all the riots. I know we said you must stay for a year but it’s all looking rather dangerous now.’
But Julia was now determined to stay put. ‘It’s fine, Mum,’ she said, ‘I can look after myself. I’ve made some friends like you said.’
To Julia, the revolution on the streets seemed part of her love affair with Tom. It was, she thought, as though her passion for him had opened her heart and mind to an intensity of feeling that she had never known before. At night, in her small room at the back of the Le Bons’ apartment, as she put together the pieces of what Tom had told her and what she herself had witnessed, she realised that she actually cared about it. It showed her something new about herself; that it was possible for her to care about things that did not directly affect her, about what happened to people outside her own circle of family and friends, people she would never meet. Without Tom, she knew, she would have gone home as soon as she got the chance, but it was not only Tom who kept her there now. He had planted a seed in her and she wanted to let it grow; for him, for herself, and for so much more that she still didn’t really understand.
Within weeks, Paris was brought to its knees. The Sorbonne was enclosed by ranks of black-clad flics with riot shields, the nights were filled with the noise of sirens. Flames exploded from the petrol tanks of overturned cars, and smoke hung over the city as the acrid smell of tear-gas wormed its way through ill-fitting windows and doors.
‘De Gaulle will have to call an election now,’ Tom said, as they stood on the steps of Sacre Coeur, gazing at the lights of the city spread beneath them like glittering patchwork. ‘It’s an end and a beginning, and it’s a beginning for us; for you and me, Julia. I love you, and I want you to marry me.’
Julia’s happiness was marred only by a tinge of anxiety at the prospect of introducing him to her parents. As they strolled home, she imagined her mother wincing at Tom’s provincial accent, his less than stylish clothes, and at the opinions that were so similar to Richard’s.
‘Look,’ Tom said, stopping in a quiet square bordered by chestnut trees, ‘a haven for lovers.’ He pointed to a narrow, white-painted hotel, its entrance shaded by a curved blue-and-white striped awning.
Julia blushed in the darkness, looking up at the wrought-iron balconies and tall windows where dim light glowed through the shutters.
‘What would you say if I asked you to sleep with me?’
Julia’s stomach lurched alarmingly. Anita’s vague and euphemistic attempts at sex education had left her woefully ignorant. While other girls threw themselves into the melée of the sexual revolution, she had been far too scared to experiment, and she still had only a hazy idea of what sleeping with someone actually involved. But she had just agreed to marry Tom and this, surely, was the time to find out.
‘I don’t . . .’ she stammered, thankful for the dim light of the street lamps. ‘You see, I . . .’
‘You don’t have to answer now,’ Tom said. ‘We could come here, to this little hotel. I’d look after you, take precautions, you know.’
Julia nodded, although, of course, she didn’t really know.
In the lobby of the Le Bons’ apartment building, the lift clattered to a halt and Tom drew back the wrought-iron concertina gate to usher her in.
‘You’re not upset, are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, touching his cheek, ‘I love you and I don’t need to think about it. Let’s go to the hotel.’
‘If you’re sure,’ he said. ‘Look, I’ve got a really long day tomorrow, but I’ll book a room for Saturday night and I’ll phone you on Saturday morning. We’ll go out for lunch and then to the hotel, with lots of time just to be together.’ The lift gate clanged back into place between them. ‘I love you, Julia.’
As the ageing mechanism cranked into action, their fingers met and separated through the bars of the gate, and she watched him disappear below her as the lift carried her up to the third-floor.
On Saturday morning, in the Le Bons’ black-and-white tiled bathroom that was three times the size of the bathroom at home in Bramble Cottage, Julia lay in the claw-foot bath surrounded by scented bubbles.
‘Next time I have a bath,’ she murmured, stretching her toes out to the brass taps to add more hot water, ‘I will be different. I will be a woman.’
The Le Bons were conveniently away visiting relatives in Mulhouse, so there would be no awkward questions. Resting her head on the curved back of the bath, she contemplated the idea that she might at last have become desirable. Had she somehow acquired that longed-for sex appeal? She considered this question with considerable satisfaction as the water cooled around her
Back in her own room, she searched for something to wear. The pale blue shirtwaist that had been her favourite seemed suddenly dull and girlish; with her page boy bob it made her look like Alice in Wonderland. The white accordion-pleated skirt and navy blouse that Anita said was smart and ladylike was actually boring and elderly-looking. Impatiently, she tossed aside dresses and skirts, desperate for something that expressed her new sense of a desirable self. Eventually, she settled on a full-skirted black-and-white floral dress with a boat-shaped neckline of white pique cotton. It was the best of a bad lot. Shocked to find that it was midday, she quickly finished dressing and pinned up her hair. Surely, Tom should have called by now?
Restlessly she roamed the large, rather imposing apartment, fingering the ornate backs of the dining chairs, the damask upholstery, and the gilt frame on the mirror in the salon. Two, three o’clock, the afternoon crawled slowly on. Julia refreshed her make-up and smoothed the creases from her dress, anxiety building as the minutes ticked away. At four o’clock she called Tom’s apartment, but the man who answered said they hadn’t seen him since he left for work on Friday morning. When she called again at five, no one answered. That evening, she went to the café where they always met and drank hot chocolate alone, watching the other customers eating, reading, smoking, holding hands, kissing and arguing. Then, hurt and lonely, she went back to the Rue de Fleurus and fell into a miserable sleep.
‘It’s most unlike Tom to be unreliable,’ Hilary said at church the following morning. ‘I’m sure there’s some perfectly simple explanation.’ She looked really concerned and Julia, only a few kind words away from tears, struggled to hold them back. ‘Maybe you just misunderstood him.’
But Julia knew this was not her mistake and, as the rest of the day dragged on, she went from worry to hurt then anger and back again. Next morning she called the bank and was told that he was in a meeting, and she left a message with the receptionist in faltering French, asking him to call her. Just before five, when there was still no word, she set out through the maze of small side streets to the bank. It was almost fifteen more minutes before Tom emerged, briefcase in one hand, his shoulders uncharacteristically hunched, a crumpled copy of Le Monde under his arm. He looked tired and worried, and as though he might not have shaved that morning. His surprise at seeing her was evident.
‘I waited for you all weekend, Tom,’ she said when he asked her what she was doing there. ‘Hour after hour, I rang your flat. I looked for you at church and I left messages for you at home and at the bank.’
‘I’m sorry; really, Julia, I’m so sorry,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Look, there’s a bar around the corner, let’s go there. We need to talk.’
The bar was long and narrow, with a bench, upholstered in red leather, running from front to back, and
tables and chairs lined up in front of it. Curls of bluish smoke rose from the corner, where a group of elderly men sat smoking Disque Bleu, their animated conversation vying with music from the jukebox. Tom gestured towards a table in the window and Julia slipped behind it while he went to the bar. The mere thought of alcohol made her queasy.
‘Drink this,’ Tom said, putting two cognacs on the table. ‘It’s very calming.’ He swallowed his in one gulp and signalled the bartender to bring him another.
The cognac burnt a track to Julia’s stomach; she knew that something terrible was going to happen – had already happened. Tom tried to take her hands but she pulled them away, curling her fingers around her glass.
‘When I left work on Friday, Alison was waiting for me,’ he began.
It took Julia a few painful seconds to realise that he was talking about an old girlfriend.
‘What? From Liverpool? But you said it was over ages ago.’
‘It was; look, we split up months before I came to Paris. But in March, she turned up here one weekend. She wanted us to get back together. I didn’t know what I wanted, but she stayed around and . . . look, Julia, this was before you and I met, okay? We . . . that weekend, we slept together and now . . . well, now she’s pregnant.’
Julia stared at him. Her lips felt frozen as though they’d been given a numbing injection.
Tom rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I’m so sorry. If I’d known . . .’
‘So what are we going to do?’
He looked away and then back at her. ‘I’ve promised to marry her. I have to – you do understand, don’t you?’
‘But you’re going to marry me.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I can’t walk away from Alison now.’
‘Do you want to marry her?’
Tom leaned back in his chair, his eyes raw with exhaustion. ‘Given the situation, I don’t want not to, if you know what I mean. I don’t want to let her and the baby down. Alison’s family and mine, they all got together, paid for her ticket, sent her over here to . . .’ He hesitated, looking at her. ‘It’s what they all want. I have to . . .’