Loving Sylvie

by Elizabeth Smither

  While she had made her toilette in the cramped and grimy bathroom—the piece of green soap had a dark crack like dirty fingernails—a memory of something in Colette had come to her. It was Gigi where the mother returns from singing in the opera chorus and, though exhausted, attends to a minimal toilette before falling into bed. Madeleine saw again the line of books her mother had added to each birthday—only the Claudines and Gigi and the Cat had been read. Out of the blue another title came to her: The Pure and the Impure.

  Back at Le Livre Bleu she washed her hands in the carefully scrubbed basin and brushed and rebraided her hair. Madame Récamier gave her a sharp look and turned aside her head.

  Grandmotherhood was handed to Isobel in the dawn Sylvie was born. She checked her watch and, to make sure the time would always be engraved on her mind, she wrote 3.17:22 in Biro on the back of her hand. Hours later, when she was home again, almost too tired to stand, she wrote it in lipstick on the mirror, and finally into a notebook she carried in her purse. She had read that children wanted this time to be remembered and felt betrayed if it was forgotten. Never had Isobel slept so deeply. When she woke she expected the mattress to be hollowed out or scorched. An amazing light seemed to fill the room, the light her mother, a practising Catholic, had told her was the light of forgiveness. No one in the family had taken Geraldine Foley’s churchgoing seriously, though she was often in a good mood when she came home.

  At the same time as the light filled the room and touched the lipstick scrawl of the night before, Isobel felt the burden of her own helplessness, as if her flesh too had given birth and was now light and soft, triumphant and deprived. The day’s chores awaited—she got up and rubbed at the lipstick with her finger, smearing it.

  But the half-hearted chores could not compete with the tiny child who slept securely swaddled in a plastic crib. Isobel tried to imagine that breathing, rehearsed in the womb and yet so new in the unfamiliar open air. Perhaps the mind did not think yet; it only felt. The eyes gazed at the ceiling or walls, at the whiteness which was the body of a nurse. The first murmurings would enter the ears, the clatter of instruments, or a piece of gauze or cotton wool would approach, dipped in a warm saline liquid.

  Isobel sat with Kit at the breakfast table, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. She felt light-headed and at the same time heavy-limbed.

  ‘What sort of mother will she be?’ she asked him.

  ‘We must hope,’ he said, touching her hand with warm fingers.

  Ben Taverner who had married Sylvie at the kiosk on the lake had seen from the first a sober core in her. He was aware—not fully aware, no man could ever be—of the attention the opposite sex paid to surfaces. On their honeymoon—a word they both derided—Sylvie had insisted on one ritual: before she would go to bed with him they must stand under the stars together and recite ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’. It was her favourite poem from childhood, and saying the words

  ‘Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?’ Said the Piggy ‘I will.’

  brought back all the comfort she had known and more. She started to explain to Ben the wonderful run-on line about the ring and the fast and fervent response of the pig before Ben put his arms around her and tried to draw her inside the room. He forgot about cares and surfaces until the next morning when Sylvie was in the bathroom and he could hear running water and the energetic sound of teeth-brushing. Her hair was damp as if she had towelled it lightly and then run a brush through it. Tendrils dried first and made a floating frame around her face.

  Of course on the surface Sylvie could be exceedingly annoying. Her anger flowed freely; her kindness, in contrast, had to gnaw its way to the surface as if scouts were required. It began in a trickle like one of those tiny streams that rise in a water meadow, curving and twisting from the moment they begin to flow as if some attack is expected and camouflage is necessary. Ben could not foresee, because no one knows the future or how it will be diverted by things invisible, how his patience would be tried and have to fortify itself like someone or something in training: a triathlete or a bulked-up muscle.

  His body was strong, and stronger after the night, though only a small proportion had been devoted to sleep. Now he was fully relaxed, ready to refill with energy. He could feel his heart beating steadily. He thought they could play nurses and doctors—Sylvie could wear her white slip. There was something about nurses’ uniforms and what they wore underneath. But even this, as comforting as ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’, which he was going to memorise, paled beside the reality of a new day.

  They had lived together for six months before he proposed. That was the current mode: the male came to a decision, after a period in which the partner was checked out, and to compensate for the trial period—for it was nothing less, however sugar-coated the terms—something secret was arranged. The beloved, which was now the correct term, was surprised by her suitor dropping to his knees in a public park or a banner attached to a tree. In extreme cases there might be a public announcement at a sports ground or following the final blessing at church. This had happened to one of his friends: the vicar had cleared his throat while the altar boys lined up behind him and raised his hand as if beginning the sign of the cross. In the pew his friend’s fiancée let out a scream. Ben thought there was something ugly about the bargain, like a child being deprived of a reward. What if, on the day the reward was finally earned, a frightful quarrel broke out and it was too late to cancel the musicians or the restaurant booking during which the ring was to be slipped into a champagne flute? He tried to think of something Sylvie would not sneer at, spontaneous enough to be abandoned without causing a ripple if the time was not ripe. She was naturally suspicious; in fact she reminded him of a cat, one of those enigmatic animals whose purpose is to train its owner into suitable routines.

  In the end he settled on a walk by the sea, the ring tucked into his pocket and, for extra security, tied in a square of red silk. He had tied it so tight that when the time came to present it the knot could not be undone and they had both worked on it together and Sylvie had used her teeth. He thought he might take that for an omen. Then they had walked in the shallows, holding hands. The grey-green water was cold and swirled around their ankles; their heels sank in the sand as suction pulled the waves back. It’s all one piece, Ben thought. The harmless little waves into which even the suicidal must wade, pulled by the breaking waves and caps beyond, and then the great moving ocean itself. He pressed his toes in as well and, glad his proposal had worked—he had rehearsed only one sentence: now said, he dismissed it from his mind forever, as if the words would never be required again—gripped Sylvie’s hand until she exclaimed at the pressure.

  Now he was prepared for more and more of Sylvie to be revealed. He had never considered her vain, so the unscrubbed look had not deterred him; in fact he thought he preferred it: her skin slightly buffed as if by wind, nose shiny, cheeks flushed or pale. Why did women prefer opaqueness, he wondered whenever she began dabbing something out of a squat container under her eye sockets as if she was building up to an approved expression stroke by stroke? He had learned there were several possibilities: bare face, boldly revealed to his gaze; the face for going to the dairy for milk or bread which paid attention to the cheekbones in case the swarthy Italian who ran it caused her to blush; lipstick and perfume for her grandmother. If a party was in the offing he knew to withdraw and fuss with his shirts, of which there were only four, or pick up a magazine. On her wedding morning Sylvie had perched on a high stool surrounded by makeup artists wearing pouches and wielding brushes: she had described it to him, but reserved the sense of comfort she felt as the fine powder fell on her skin like scales on a moth’s wing. She had left it on, all this handiwork, and invited him to despoil it. There was makeup on the sheets and pillows, lipstick stains on his face as if something clenched in a fist had been passed, as if they had bitten one another. She assured him that no one would blink at the sheets. Each afternoon when they returned
, the bed was pristinely made up, the top sheet turned down like a freshly addressed envelope. Sylvie seized a pillow and flung it at his head and then, when it came flying back, she replaced it among the others that formed a portcullis against the padded headboard. Ben caught sight of the maid in the corridor, wrestling with a laden cart, and wondered, since he was a cause of her labour, if he should offer to push it. Her skin was dark and her eyes, when she looked up, fathomless. On the second to last morning a chance arose and he helped push it into the service lift.

  On the last morning he went down early to pay the bill, own up to drinking two sauvignon blancs, a Napoleon brandy and a Hennessy from the mini-bar.

  ‘Nothing to nibble?’ the clerk asked.

  ‘Nothing to nibble,’ he replied, and his face was split by a wide grin.

  ‘You know absolutely nothing of this Sylvie,’ Cora Taverner had said. She had looked up the girl’s grandmother’s address in the phone book. One Sunday she took a drive past the house, parked opposite and pretended to be consulting a map taken from the glove box. This enabled her to raise her eyes and scan the house. The upper storey was clearly visible over the box hedge. A wrought-iron gate and a white path dividing a flower bed. At least there was order here. She drove away, slightly restored, until the following week one of her friends produced a potted biography of Sylvie Lehmann.

  Expulsion from two schools or more, promiscuity, an affair with a married man—as the punishing sentences unfurled in Marcia Temple’s unctuous voice, Cora concentrated on controlling her face. She pretended Sylvie was not the girl her son had told her he would marry over her living or dead body—he would prefer her living, at least he conceded her that, but any sabotage on her part would be a waste of breath.

  ‘I’ve always considered heredity important,’ Cora told Marcia, as if her attention was just returning. ‘But how far back should we go? Or can we go?’ She meant how little any of us, or indeed the gossip that issued from a single mouth, counted. Though her heart pained and she longed for Marcia to go, she was pleased that the abstract turn the conversation had taken had won back some ground. A little hope returned, and the thought that if Ben was intractable she had detective work to do, an inventory to fill.

  Back at home, she placed her hands under the cold tap and then held them out to check if they were shaking. It was too soon, and she was too fearful to begin comforting herself with images of Benjamin as a baby. He was two and they were on the window seat together. She had pushed one of the windows open and latched it. A yellow rose was close to the glass, and she reached out a hand to touch the petals. Luckily it was thornless so if he copied her there was no danger. This was her role: identifying danger, second by second, until he lay safely in his cot, soothed by a story about animals who lived in burrows and helped one another. When the story finished, she tucked the covers in and touched her lips to his forehead, pushing the soft baby hair aside. ‘Kiss,’ he would demand, and she would feel her heart lurch and the quick response of control. On the window-seat squab he had advanced towards her, confident her outstretched hand was there for him, and put his arms around her neck. ‘You can marry me, Mummy.’

  She could never raise the memory without embarrassment. How could he be responsible for a gesture in which there was such an imbalance of power? For a moment Cora allowed her mind to return to the past and the embrace of a cherub. Were they really light to carry, those rounded dimpled angel-babies? Benjamin had felt weightless that day. Or had his gesture so claimed her heart he weighed nothing at all?

  Three days after the wedding a large box arrived from Paris. It was slightly water-damaged and crushed in one corner. Isobel put it in the spare room, after inspecting it and removing the stamps for the local kindergarten. With typical extravagance Madeleine had affixed quantities of tape which might account for the delay: the parcel might have attracted the attention of Customs. A sort of certificate was enclosed inside a flap, and on a declaration she could read the contents and values in Madeleine’s handwriting. Antique linens and damask, candlesticks (2), napkin rings, ivory (2), silk pillowcases (2). Isobel imagined Madeleine sorting through the linens in a poky little shop in the Marais, feeling the quality with her fingers, trying to imagine what Sylvie would like. The one time Isobel had frequented such a shop there had been a great deal of discussion. It seemed important not to reveal that the heavy linen she was intent on would be used for curtains. Instead she went through the pretence of having a large bed, and they discussed thread counts and how deep the turn-down should be. For all that, Isobel felt the woman looked at her suspiciously as if her perfidy was showing.

  Sylvie and Ben would not return for a further week—‘a secret,’ Sylvie had said when Isobel had enquired about the destination.

  ‘And if I need to contact you?’ Isobel had pressed, though she was longing for a week to herself as well.

  ‘If anything happens there are the police and the coastguard, helicopters and ambulances …’

  As always her granddaughter said too much. Still Isobel did not let her irritation show. Perhaps ‘coastguard’ meant they were going on water. ‘I’ll call out the guard,’ she said, and the faintly threatening moment resolved into a smile.

  For a moment Isobel wondered if the parcel should be opened—she could use the excuse of damage, the linens might need airing or pressing—then she remembered that opening could be the best part.

  Unknown to Isobel her thoughts of water and coastguards were perspicacious. In a small seaside village Sylvie and Ben were talking to a fisherman. Sylvie, more moral than she sometimes appeared, was thinking of Captains Courageous. The fisherman, in his twenties—there was an older man in the galley, glaring—wore huge rubber gloves and his face was burnt and weathered.

  ‘Do you ever take passengers?’ she called down to him.

  ‘Never women,’ he said, and she pulled a face.

  ‘Then could we buy a fish?’ she asked. She was in a good humour, thinking she must read the book again. Probably it would bore. Her grandfather had given it to her in one of her most difficult years. Little did he know what was in store. She had rejoiced when the rich spoilt boy had succumbed to labour and the sea.

  ‘I’ll give you a fish,’ the young man said. The face had disappeared from the galley. There might be a quarrel later. He handed up a red cod, and Sylvie squeezed his hand and gave him her most extended smile.

  Cora Taverner would have boycotted the wedding had she not been called away at the last minute—she blessed the fates for her delivery—to her daughter Anne’s bedside. An ambulance in the middle of the night, a distraught son-in-law and a small grandchild. Into this chaos she gratefully stepped, consigning the wedding to a lesser sphere. Her son seemed to have no knowledge of what was going on; Sylvie was arranging it all.

  Had Cora been present she might have consoled herself with the appearance of the woman she was spying on standing on a little jetty, clutching a bridal bouquet. Isobel’s face had been pained that day; she had fought and raised it to neutral and then solicitous; she felt Kit’s aching shoulders and splashed jacket more than the sight of the rowboat lumbering through the water. Sylvie’s voice drifted to her as a vibration. She raised her hand to wave, and again when she touched Kit’s shoulder, probably to the very spot that required massage.

  Ben had explained his mother’s absence—her apologies had been fulsome and insincere; a card containing a generous cheque ‘to spend as they wished’ had been forwarded.

  ‘Do you think your mother would cover this fish?’ Sylvie had asked when Ben was fumbling for coins. Should they keep an inventory?

  As for Sylvie’s own mother, years of retelling had produced an accepted story, despite no father’s name appearing on her birth certificate. On this alone Madeleine had proved adamant. For the short time Sylvie lived with her there had been a series of rented houses where Sylvie sometimes had a room of her own. But then letters had come from France, a relationship had resumed or been offered; Madeleine’s longst
anding depression had been recognised, and she had gone. Her agonising over linen in La Maison Ivre would go unacknowledged, though Sylvie would add initialled and lace-edged sheets to an ongoing notion of love.

  But the absence of both mothers on her wedding day had been a relief. The day was perfectly balanced, with Kit straining his muscles at the oars, Isobel on the jetty, the bouquet against her tussah silk, and Ben and James strolling through the lower grounds.

  Isobel had an idea of her granddaughter’s attachment to rooms, or a single room, when the final arrangements were made and Sylvie came to live with her and Kit. Madeleine would return to France for a period of six months, returning to the Lévêque family she had stayed with on her first visit. This too was negotiated; one of the daughters, Céline, had left home and there was a room available. Madeleine’s curious passivity, which remained unchallenged, made her an accommodating guest. She made few demands, joined in dinner parties and visits to the cinema; within a short time she had resumed her role as one of the Lévêques.

  That another family was preferred, that she had in some way failed, was something Isobel did not allow herself to examine. Occasionally she pulled a thread and an insight, fleeting and inconsequential, came with it. Loving letters came eventually, describing the room in the Lévêques’ house in Neuilly. The walls were pale yellow.

  Sylvie possessed the same sense of colour. Almost any room she occupied was plain and uninviting but in the final house she had shared with her mother there was a diamond-shaped window with coloured panes. Her room had been converted from a passage and was just wide enough for a single bed and a dresser. Her clothes hung on a doweling pole Kit had fixed at an angle. When this house too was to be vacated, Sylvie’s grief had been extreme. She was four and the window was her consolation. She stood on a stool and pressed her face against the glass. Kit had found her there one afternoon, sobbing. The stool toppled over as he lifted her, and the wails increased. The head, pressed against his neck, was hard, and her cries, until they died away in a series of stops and restarts, gulps and hiccups, reverberated inside his skull. He thought he knew the cause: stability was required.