‘Papa, Papa. You have to make a wish. For your birthday. In the stream.’
Paul catches the child in his arms and lifts her up over his head, twirling her round. I notice the grim cast of Nicolas’s features and I walk over to him. ‘I think we could all do with a wish,’ I say and open my bag.
Paul stays my hand, distributes a mass of small coins. ‘Okay, altogether now. Wishes come as soon as you land a coin on the column.’
It isn’t easy. At first all our coins bounce off and fall into the stream beneath. These are wishes one needs skill and patience for. Then Paul and I and Nicolas manage to land one each. I tell Marie-Françoise she can share my wish and we all close our eyes. As I close mine, I think of the other wishes I have made and Beatrice’s presence in them and I know my wishing days have come full circle and this time I can’t wish Beatrice away however much I may want to and that is the name of retribution. Beatrice and Paul together. My just deserts at last. This is my punishment. And my penance. So I wish with as much honesty as I can muster that they will both be happy and I squeeze Marie-Françoise’s hand.
I open my eyes to see Paul looking at me wistfully and I suspect he knows my wish, but I walk ahead with Nicolas. That is why I am here, after all, for the children, and I try to find conversation which might take the boy out of himself. I remember my first walk through this park when I had just landed in Paris all those months ago, and I tell him how Charlotte Corday purchased a knife just there in the Arcade, a knife which which she murdered Marat. I can’t work out whether the names mean anything to him but his eyes light up at the word murder and he asks me whether I’ve seen Reservoir Dogs which his parents won’t let him see and I know that for five minutes at least I’ll have his undivided attention. But then Paul calls to us and interrupts the flow and tells us to look back at the fountain.
There are a gaggle of boys gathered round it. One of them has a stick with a line tied to its end and at the bottom of the line there is what I realise is a magnet with which to fish up coins.
‘Redistributive justice at work,’ Paul laughs. ‘It’s the quickest form I’ve seen yet.’
Yes, I think to myself. That is what is happening now. To Beatrice and to me. And perhaps through Beatrice to Louise Jimenez and to all those women I have wronged. Justice redistributed more equably at last. No running this time. I will pay my dues. And in this new order perhaps I will at last learn, when I least want to, what it means to put my own desires last.
The restaurant is large and airy with globe lamps and white table-cloths and old-fashioned fans whirling slowly round the ceiling. I sit next to Paul but don’t look at him. I face Nicolas and Marie-Françoise and I exert myself into cheerfulness, woo them with stories, am rewarded with giggles from Marie-Françoise and the occasional unwilling smile from Nicolas. He is an inward child, unresponsive and it is something of an uphill struggle, though Marie Françoise manages to get through to him.
At one point, she announces proudly in response to nothing at all, that Nicolas can talk to Fax machines. ‘Show them, Nicolas,’ she prods her brother.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he is rough with her.
‘Oh come on.’
‘I’d love to hear,’ I smile at him.
He shrugs and suddenly a high pitched squeal comes from him, so uncanny in its whining variations that it is as if he has been transformed into a machine. We no longer exist for him. In the rapt look on his face, I recognize Beatrice - Beatrice as a child, unaware of the playground around her.
‘That’s enough, Nicolas,’ Paul mutters. ‘You’ll drive us mad.’ He is hard with the boy I have noticed, too stern, too quick to correct, which makes Nicolas withdraw even further into himself and Paul unhappy, though he doesn’t seem to be aware that he has provoked the reaction.
Marie Françoise claps her hands, gives me a triumphant look. ‘Sometimes Nicolas does it into the phone when it rings. And people think they have the wrong number.’
‘Do you Nicolas?’ Paul is severe.
I laugh, ‘Maybe it’s something I could learn. It could prove useful.’
The boy looks from me to his father. ‘Maria has seen Reservoir Dogs,’ he says in a taunting voice.
‘Maria is Maria and you’re fourteen years old.’
‘And you’re forty today,’ Marie-Françoise is jubilant, points behind us.
A birthday cake appears on the table, a plump candle at its centre.
‘Joyeux anniversaire,’ the girl starts to sing and we join in. ‘Now you’ll have to make another wish,’ she laughs.
‘To Paul,’ I raise my glass, encourage the children to do the same, hold it in the air as he blows out the candle, closes his eyes to wish. I wonder what he is wishing, know, when I feel his fingers warm on my thigh, but the gesture so startles me that the glass slips from my hand, shatters into a thousand pieces on the tile floor. I stare at the fragments, the splash of red wine, as if it were an omen and suddenly I feel my mother’s face above me as she looked on that day when the glass tumbled from her hand onto kitchen tiles. The day I questioned her about my father. It comes to me then with a certainty I never had before that my father left her for another woman.
‘It’s nothing,’ Paul murmurs as I get up to find the women’s room.
Marie-Françoise follows me and tells me a long complicated story about how she once dropped a plate and her mother was very angry and I think that I must get away and be alone and panic when I realise that I can’t even get back to the apartment where my things are and how impossible the whole situation is and how I want to run, but I can’t run, not again. Not this time.
‘I have to leave you now,’ I say with a brittle smile when we get back to the table. ‘I had no idea of the time and I’m already late for friends.’
‘We’ll see you tomorrow. At the big party,’ Marie Françoise smiles at me, a little shy now that I’m leaving.
‘Yes, tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you want some cake?’ Nicolas surprises me by asking.
I shake my head. ‘You have my portion.’
I go, as self-conscious in my going as if I were trapped in Nicolas’ adolescent body.
At the door, Paul catches up to me. ‘I have to see you Maria. Alone. Later. We need to talk.’
I look into his eyes and almost lose myself, surface to see my own pain and panic reflected there. I shake my head. ‘There’s nothing to talk about, Paul.’ I try to keep the quiver our of my voice, make it hard. ‘Told you I was bad news. Let’s just cut our losses and hold on to the memory of our good time. We had London, after all.’
‘No.’
I turn on my heel, walk a few paces and turn back. He is still standing there. I don’t know why but I go back to him for a moment. ‘And be nice to Nicolas,’ I say. ‘He needs you more than I do.’
It only comes to me later that it was a cruel and not a kind thing to say. But by then I am already back in the apartment and I have already left a message for Beatrice on the answering machine, an ebullient, excited message. Or at least I hope so. ‘You’ll never believe this Beatrice. But I saw Marie-Françoise today and your Nicolas. And it turns out that all these months I’ve been working for your husband. Ha ha ha. Isn’t it wonderful? Give me a ring.’
I sit in the gathering darkness and stare out the window. I cannot tear my eyes away from the house opposite. Beatrice lives there I know. Now I have to accustom myself to the idea that Paul lives there too. Why in all this time of periodic peeping have I never caught a glimpse of him? Is it simply that I didn’t expect to see him and one only recognizes the anticipated. No. I remember that night when I glimpsed Beatrice in a man’s arms, up there above me, in the attic room. Dark now, like their apartment. Beatrice and Paul. My stomach turns over.
I have this sudden notion that I should write to Louise Jimenez and tell her what is happening to me. It might make her happy to learn of my misery, to see me being punished at last.
The lights come on in the apartment opposite. I se
e Beatrice’s outline cross the windows. I draw my curtains. But she doesn’t disappear from my mind. I imagine her pressing the button on the answering machine, listening. But I cannot imagine her reaction. I stand in the shower and let the water pour over me for a long time as if it could wash my life clean. I try not to panic. I tell myself Beatrice is still my friend, a better model than ever now that I know whom she has linked herself to. I tell myself that I can be responsible and finish my work for Paul without ever having to see him alone again. We can communicate over the computer. I hardly need to go into the office. He doesn’t need my arguments. He only needs my notes. I tell myself that I will never have to tell Beatrice or Paul that I have lived here, that I will be able to sublet the apartment and find another on the other side of Paris. I tell myself that come October, I will start to train and will become a useful member of society at last. I tell myself all this and believe very little of it and cry.
The crying follows me to bed, moistens my pillow. Its moisture makes me feel very small, very alone, like a child. I suddenly wish my mother were there to stroke my hair, as she used to do when I was ill, until I fell asleep. Paul strokes my hair like that. But Paul is with Beatrice. And my mother is dead.
PART FOUR
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The heavy oak door yields to the click of the code. I push its solid weight and I am through to the other side. There is the surprise of a courtyard here, a green sanctuary with a glossy-leafed magnolia at its centre, yellow roses clambering up trellises on three sides. To my right the board, announcing the names of inhabitants. And there it is, as clear as thick black lettering can make it: Arnault. If Beatrice had invited me in on that first day of our meeting, everything could so easily have been different. I would now be pressing this bell without this spasm of clammy nervousness.
Beatrice rang me this morning, woke me in fact, her voice as serene and unruffled as ever. Her laugh tinkled, unsuspicious, ‘And here I thought I was keeping you to myself. My very own friend. A surprise on his birthday.’
‘He’ll be bored to tears having to see me out of the office. It’ll remind him of work. Perhaps it’s better that I don’t come.’
‘No. You must come. For me. And look your most glamorous. Nothing like what Paul once called my frowsy schoolteachers. I want to show you off.’
I have done as Beatrice asked. I am wearing my favourite summer dress, a close-fitting raw silk with an ivory tinge and an eastern flavour, buttoned to the neck in front, but with a hidden slash down the back. I have piled my hair high and put a comb through it, added some plum colour to my lips and a little to my cheeks. No one, I tell my mirror to tell me, would know that I am not in my prime.
A stranger opens the door to me and it takes me a moment to realise from her black dress that she must be a maid. She shows me through a square hall and hands me a glass of champagne just as we enter a high-ceilinged rectangular room, made wider by the addition of a glazed terrace akin to mine and overlooking the courtyard. The room has an unexpected grandeur: low slung sofas, the gleam of old wood, a few good oils and at the far end, a vast table set with white damask and sparkling silver. People cluster here and there and from one of these groups, Beatrice emerges. She is wearing a ruffled canary yellow frock which doesn’t altogether suit her, but her smile is as bright as her dress.
‘I’m so glad you’ve come. I was beginning to worry.’ She kisses me and I give her an extra hug.
‘I’m sorry I’m late.’
‘It’s worth it. You look wonderful.’
‘And you.’
‘No, don’t say that. It doesn’t quite work.’ She laughs a little breathlessly. ‘But come and meet some people,’ she squeezes my hand and whispers, ‘I hate these do’s.’
I stay close to Beatrice, try to absorb the innocence of her whole-hearted welcome, try not to look round for Paul. I shake hands with dignified strangers and stylish women - a politician, some lawyers, a fast-talking economist, a high-ranking civil servant. I have the sense that I am in the midst of the ENArchy - that group of public administrators trained at ENA who make up the country’s ruling elite. Maître Cournot is here and greets me effusively, presents me to his wife, a slender silver-haired woman who could be his double. It is while I am talking to her that I feel a tug at my arm and look down to see Marie-Françoise.
‘Hello,’ she lifts her cheek for a kiss.
‘Bed in ten minutes, Marie Françoise. No arguments.’ Beatrice murmurs.
‘Can I show Maria my room first?’ the child is slightly plaintive, more timid than she was yesterday.
‘You’ll have to ask her.’
‘I’d like that,’ I say.
‘But you really must say hello to Paul first. There he is.’ She puts her arm through mine. ‘You know he changed my whole seating plan when he found out who you were. And invited another person,’ she grumbles a little, then laughs. ‘That’s the trouble with men like Paul. They always take over. I don’t want him to take you over. From me.’
I squeeze her arm to reassure her, hope she can’t read my face. ‘We go back too far for that, Beatrice.’
She flashes me a happy look.
Paul is standing in the far corner of the room, his back to us. He is intent in conversation with a smaller man, whose face I cannot see.
‘Look who’s arrived,’ Beatrice announces me and he turns round abruptly.
‘Maria, how very nice,’ his voice is correct but I cannot meet his eyes.
‘Maître Arnault.’ I give him my hand and he takes it formally for a moment, only to drop it as if it burned.
‘Paul, remember. Well, well, well…’ I can feel his gaze moving from Beatrice to me and back again. ‘To think that you and Beatrice have known each other since you were Marie-Françoise’s age.’
Beatrice laughs happily and I think that I will not be able to bear this charade a moment longer.
‘But let me introduce you to Monsieur…’
‘Patrick Morin,’ a tall stocky figure with roguish blue eyes and curling smile interposes himself before Paul can finish. ‘I sometimes have the feeling that our gracious hosts contrive to keep me away from their most beautiful guests. Can it be that you’re trying to save me for yourself Beatrice?’
‘Beatrice is much too generous for that,’ Paul answers for her, his voice light, but the face he turns on me has no lightness in it.
I feel a tug at my hand and look down into Marie-Françoise’s expectant face. ‘Will you come now?’ she asks softly.
I nod with a sense of relief. ‘You’ll excuse me. I promised to go and see Marie-Françoise’s room.’
‘Not for too long, I hope.’ Patrick Morin is impish. ‘I want you to bare your soul to me.’
‘I’m afraid I left it at home,’ I reply and turn towards Marie-Françoise, who is pecking Beatrice goodnight.
Paul calls after us, ‘In just a few minutes, I’ll come and tuck you in.’
Marie-Françoise grips my hand fiercely as if she is afraid I will be way-laid again. ‘I’ll show you the whole house if you like,’ she says.
Curiosity takes me over. I am through the windows. I am inside the house I have been spying on as if my salvation inhabited it. But I have only had a partial picture of it I realise, a mistaken perspective, for only one room in the apartment faces the street.
‘This is the petit salon,’ Marie-Françoise does the honours like a proud householder, ‘And where we eat when Papa isn’t here.’
I see what I have glimpsed through the windows: a round table, fleshed out in solid cream marble, behind it a counter top which separates it from a kitchen where a young woman is laying food out on plates; at the other end two plump sofas positioned for television watching with the screen tucked into an invisible corner, bookshelves, a sound system. In short a comfortable family room over which Beatrice presides. Was it a trick of light or deliberate myopia that prevented me from ever recognizing Paul in here?
‘And this is Maman’s dressing room,’ Marie-Françoise opens the next door along the hall to reveal a smaller space complete with a single bed, built in wardrobes. I step over the threshold and breathe in Beatrice’s perfume and a different atmosphere. The wallpaper is pink and white, with a motif of tiny rose-buds; the bed has a white lace-trimmed duvet and heaped matching pillows and the chair at the curved and mirrored dressing table is covered in the same fabric. Something about the room distresses me in a way different from the first. I don’t quite know what it is. The maidenliness of it, perhaps, like a young girl’s dream room in an age before pop stars and vivid colours. Or perhaps it is merely the divergence from my own taste. Purity, I think. Beatrice’s purity, like the tiny pale crucifix which hangs surprisingly over the bed.
Marie-Françoise has grown weary of my looking and pulls open a corner door to reveal a tiled bathroom with a second door which leads to the main bedroom.
‘Show me your room, now,’ I turn away from unwanted thoughts.
‘No, I’m last,’ she says.
‘So you can put off going to sleep,’ I laugh.
She gives me a naughty look. ‘Papa won’t mind. Now this is Nicolas’s room.’ She hesitates for a moment, decides not to knock.
‘Marie-Françoise,’ a voice reprimands her, but it isn’t Nicolas’s voice. It belongs to a tall, straight-backed woman, as elegant as her evident years. ‘You must learn to knock. Your brother is a young man, now. Excusez-moi, mademoiselle,’ she turns to me and stretches out a thin beringed hand, ‘but this little one grows more impossible by the day.’ Her smile, and the way she ruffles Marie-Françoise’s hair lightens her comment and the child’s grin tells me that she isn’t in the least taken aback.
A Good Woman Page 28