Loving Sylvie

by Elizabeth Smither

  ‘Is the shop not going well, Cheung?’ she asked.

  ‘Not too well,’ Cheung replied. ‘Not as hoped. Now landlord wants to raise rent. Take back top flat. Make into sewing repair business.’

  ‘When?’ Ben asked. A certain romance had grown up at Meier Olson when it was known he lived above a fruiterer.

  ‘One month. Notice coming soon.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ Sylvie asked. She knew the street was changing. A new nightclub had opened two doors along, lap dancing. Businessmen were seen scuttling inside the doors, usually in camouflaging groups. She thought they should be forced to buy punnets of strawberries and cherry tomatoes.

  But Cheung who was so frugal, so attentive to a customer purchasing only a single apple, had another shop in the suburbs. He would go there.

  Upstairs, Sylvie and Ben ate the Bartlett pears. The skin was firm but the insides soft and yielding.

  ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Where?’

  Ben put his arm around her shoulder and his juice-stained fingers left a stain on her collar.

  ‘No more fruit,’ she said, and her fingers put a stain on the back of his jacket. It would be good to make love without washing their fingers. But in the end they did, standing side by side at the basin, washing their hands and brushing their teeth. Ben had read of someone dipping their lover’s toothbrush in kerosene.

  Sylvie woke in the early hours and thought she heard a sound in the shop. She put on her dressing gown and crept downstairs. Cheung had come early and was sitting on the low stool, his machete beside him and a box of cabbages at his feet. For a moment she thought he had his head in his hands but he got up and bowed as he always did. Then, sensing her pain, he took down a box of fortune cookies and removed the tissue wrapping. He brought two cups of green tea and they sat sipping and reading the messages. They ate the hard little crescents—a message in itself: the moon might shine but life is hard—and read aloud: Your shoes will make you happy today. Land is on the mind of a flying bird.

  When Sylvie crept upstairs again Ben was sound asleep and the two pear cores were gleaming on the kitchen bench.

  Isobel thought she should offer her house, but Kit demurred. She sensed that Cora Taverner intended harm: a house could be a fortress. Then, late one afternoon, Sylvie skipped along the hallway, eyes gleaming, and told her there had been a lawyer’s letter. She scooped Lovejoy up in her arms and he responded hysterically, his whole body wriggling and shivering.

  No relatives had come forward to contest Mr Arlington’s estate after six months. But it seemed he had added a codicil to his will a few weeks before his death. 23 Gramercy Street was to be sold eventually, but the young woman who had walked Lovejoy and stayed on to talk to him some afternoons for as long as an hour could live in the house for a nominal rent for the remainder of Lovejoy’s life. Better still, she should have first option to purchase the house if that was in her power. There had been an interview—the lawyer had a low opinion of old men and their whims—and Sylvie had endeavoured to look serious.

  ‘How old is the animal?’ the lawyer, a Simpson of Simpson, Simpson & Vale, asked, and Sylvie looked at him blankly. Did he mean a vet should look at Lovejoy’s teeth and issue an affidavit?

  ‘Let me think about it, discuss it with my husband,’ she said. It had already been done: they had danced together in the upstairs flat and Cheung had come quickly up the stairs to see if they were in need of assistance.

  ‘No assistance,’ Sylvie called as she whirled around, ‘though a pineapple would be nice.’

  ‘Two slices, straight away,’ said Cheung.

  And then Sylvie had taken the bus to Isobel’s, jumped off at the stop before because she wanted to run. And then she was dancing with Lovejoy, tempted to throw him up in the air and catch him again, the way fathers did with babies. Only now he was precious, so precious.

  Sylvie and Lovejoy ran two blocks before they slowed. Lovejoy did his business behind a bush; she kicked a few leaves and grass clippings over the little mound. In ten years Lovejoy would be a geriatric dog, on as many pills as his master: uppers and downers, mood pills, pills to open bowels. Mr Arlington had drunk a brandy and soda every evening, and one evening—was it the fatal one, when the decision was made?—Sylvie had had one too. Ben had been visiting his mother, receiving another earful of poison, like Claudius from Gertrude. She had used Mr Arlington as a substitute, for in unhappiness any human being will do, and lingered long after she should have left. And if that ironic decision had produced a decision in another, to secure the life and comfort of his little dog, the sole warmth that pressed against him in the night, what did it matter that every decision was ambiguous?

  As she slowed and turned back, Lovejoy and herself both tired now, she thought they had talked about a book but she couldn’t remember its title. It would come back to her when her mind had quietened. She might even remember whole sentences, because it seemed important to go over and over that evening, looking for clues.

  In Melbourne life had settled into a pattern. Some of the over-elaborate furniture remained in storage, awaiting a decision, but it was amazing how the long room could accommodate an armoire or, upstairs, a chiffonier. Dark pieces were complemented by white walls. The palette of colours was small: only in her wardrobe did Madeleine have a free hand. Now she was far from Paris she could see she was a project and would probably remain one. First Madame Récamier had taken her under her wing—the kindest, most anodyne interpretation—and now Freddy. Through a few diplomatic contacts and some in the wine importing business, a small circle was being formed. Madeleine marvelled that she had been blind to this strategy earlier. Her thoughts had all been on ordinary things: a successful lunch, the meaning of a look, the frequency of a phone call. She wondered if he had been bored or impatient. ‘Thank you,’ she would say after each meeting, and now she realised she was thanking him for something that was moving away and could never be confined to its beginning in the doorway of a restaurant and its ending when they parted on the street.

  In Acland Street Madeleine selected a slice of chocolate kugelhopf from the window of the Monarch cake shop. She stood in line while palmiers and continental custard vanillas were put in boxes and slices cut from a Polish baked cheesecake. She ordered a coffee and took it outside to a table on the pavement, close to the road and the passing trams. Freddy would refuse to sit there, at a wobbling table with coffee spills and an overflowing ashtray. Sometimes dogs were tethered to the table legs, winding their leads around until they were pinioned. Madeleine could see her tastes, so long suppressed, were re-emerging. So much of her life had been spent in pleasing others it was a novelty to discover a taste for creaking old trams, exhausted shop assistants, a beggar lurching his way along the street and rattling a tin with a few coins inside. She fished in her purse and brought out a note which she folded to go into the slot. ‘Thanks, beauty,’ he said before he stumbled off, taking his strange dried smell with him. A tram, which she could see in the distance, began to move, but no one—dogs, pedestrians—seemed concerned and kept crossing the street in front of it. Freddy hadn’t exactly forbidden her to waste time in Acland Street or made a comment about her thickening waist.

  Now she got to her feet and set off towards the shop that sold candles and incense, soapstone carvings and cushions with twinkling fragments of mirror. She bought hyacinth soap and a hand towel for the bathroom. At the last moment she picked up a small black elephant. Some people had motifs, lucky charms. She had never thought of any for herself but if she had it might be an elephant.

  At home she placed it on the bookshelf, on one of the highest shelves where it would be unnoticed.

  Freddy phoned to say he would not be home for dinner. She read for an hour—she had a list of Australian authors—and then ran a bath. She used the hyacinth soap, holding it up to her nose from time to time. Then she lay stretched out, suds in her hair, arms by her sides, imagining she was dead. She pictured Freddy standing in the doorway, calling her n
ame as he always did as he came through the house. There would be the tiny sound as his key was set down in the antique dish on the credenza and then his feet on the carpeted stairs. She tried to imagine the expression on his face, the first expression, whether it would be alarm, a rushing grief, or something more like exasperation. Perhaps his eyes would go first to her waist, thickened further by lying down, thanks to today’s kugelhopf. And next her breasts, flat as two rum babas.

  Kit came with Sylvie to her appointment at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. It was clear the bank manager was nonplussed by the sight of them together, side by side in chairs a little lower than his own. The Grand Poobah, Kit thought, secretly pleased at Sylvie’s appearance. Her hair was swept back on one side, and in that space dangled an earring shaped like a leaf. Kit’s presence meant that any comment about the foolishness of Mr Arlington had to be censored. Doting older men were not unknown to the bank. Money might be impartial but there were usually human agencies involved, valencies that attracted or repelled. Sylvie, as if aware of these thoughts, had lightly touched her grandfather’s arm when they were seated. Now they were both looking straight ahead, Sylvie at a painting on the dark-panelled wall.

  No relatives had come forward to claim the property or dispute the will but the search would continue. Nor had the house been bequeathed. The owner had simply thought of the difficulties of young couples in securing accommodation. Sylvie tried to remember if she had mentioned the fruit shop. She might have done on one of the few occasions she had stayed for half an hour after returning Lovejoy. But the conversations had mainly been about dogs. Mr Arlington was amazed at the resilience of animals when they had been mistreated, how completely they seemed to forget.

  ‘Forgive and forget,’ Sylvie had said. How miraculously fur grew back, eyes brightened and tails thumped.

  ‘How old is the dog?’ the manager asked, perhaps hoping it was one of the large breeds with a shorter life span.

  ‘Not old,’ Sylvie replied.

  ‘Sometimes a random kindness can bring about a late change to a will,’ the bank manager was saying. ‘Not that kindness should be disallowed. It seems the changes were made in the last month.’

  ‘Do you want us to see a vet? Get a certificate of health? Or a fortune teller, for a prediction?’ Sylvie was becoming irritable. It was not her fault she had walked Lovejoy, answering an advertisement in the ‘Personal’ column. Something about the wording suggested it had been carefully worked out.

  ‘And if we decide not to move in?’ Sylvie asked. ‘A dog only needs a bowl and a bed.’

  ‘That was clear,’ said the manager. ‘Lovejoy is not to be denied his home. For the term of his natural life.’

  ‘Have you read the book?’ Sylvie asked.

  Now the manager rose, placing his hands flat on the desk. Sylvie and Kit also stood. There were handshakes, some remarks about animals in rest homes, about decisions being made in the future. Kit left the name of his and Isobel’s lawyer. Then they were walking along a passage to an outer door.

  ‘Everything hangs on that little dog,’ Kit said as they joined the stream on the pavement.

  ‘I feel like taking Lovejoy somewhere wild,’ Sylvie said, slipping her arm through his. ‘Somewhere with brambles and farm dogs. A bull in a field. Somewhere he can have a real adventure.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Kit said.

  At first Sylvie and Ben settled edgily into the house. Only Lovejoy seemed delighted as he rushed from room to room, all discipline abandoned. He was house-trained now and accustomed to Sylvie tugging on his leash and commanding him to sit when they were on the street in case she needed to stop and pick up an offering from the grass. This Lovejoy found puzzling: he was virtuously adding to the rich scents that were everywhere. Sylvie watched other dog owners do it: a certain sangfroid was required, as if her thoughts were elsewhere and this quick bending and scooping and sealing of the bag was something that might have been done by a night nurse before she came off duty. The problem now was that Lovejoy must be guarded, as their tenure in the house depended on him.

  ‘Is there an escape clause?’ Ben asked. He was tired of the stuffy furniture and carpets which the trust had had cleaned. Their own pieces, the very few, were stored in Kit’s garage. And Sylvie too, though she didn’t say it, longed for the simplicity of their rooms above Ma’s Best Fruit & Veg where the sills were peeling and the windows jammed. Their parting from Cheung had meant a final enormous fruit salad to which Sylvie had added the last of a bottle of Limoncello. They had eaten it sitting by the window, looking out. When the fruit was gone they poured the liquid into wine glasses and polished it off.

  Sometimes strangers came to the door of Mr Arlington’s house, claiming they had the wrong address. Sylvie thought they were spies. Lovejoy rushed to the door, barking furiously. She hardly dared not answer in case the barking suggested Lovejoy was on his own.

  ‘Let’s give it away,’ Ben suggested one evening when Lovejoy had made a mess on the parquet floor. He had eaten something on their walk and had to be bathed to remove the smell. Now the bath would have to be repeated. That night Lovejoy’s face, restored to innocence, was intensely annoying to Ben.

  They quarrelled in a desultory way and slept on the edges of the bed in the guest room. Mr Arlington’s bedroom door remained closed; Ben had drawn the line at using it. At the foot of their bed Lovejoy snuffled in his basket. Sylvie was dreaming; she turned suddenly and groaned. Ben rubbed his feet on the sheet to warm them, then he moved across into her space. The bridging of night, he thought, though it was nearly dawn.

  It was to this house that Madeleine came after her meeting with Isobel. Freddy did not accompany her. A room at the Hilton and taxis to and from the airport and to take her around; money for shopping, for gifts would be required. Madeleine knew he did not like families or family conferences. At Tullamarine, where he left her with time to spare, Madeleine had wandered from shop to shop and bought nothing. What gift could she bring to a daughter so long ago abandoned? She thought of many small things, as if gifts could broach the subject: a phial of expensive perfume, an exquisite scarf, a silver necklace like a collar. Instead it was liqueur chocolates she held in her hand as she came to the door with the barking dog. Isobel had told her about the strange bequest which was causing concern. Madeleine wondered if the dog could be left while they went out for a meal or if there were restaurants, as there were in Paris, where dogs could be seated and served by waiters with impassive faces.

  The barking increased, the door was opened and a young woman appeared in front of her. Tousled hair, flushed cheeks and a hand holding a leash on which a small dog was jumping. For an unsteady moment Madeleine thought she was back in Le Livre Bleu, summing up a customer as she had been taught. Her foot moved a little on the porch, then she was steady again. A young woman like Marilyn Monroe in Blonde who could lose herself in something large and tragic. But at the moment a young woman whose eyes were raised interrogatively and whose demeanour was impatient. Madeleine’s fingers clutched the chocolates and resisted pushing them forward.

  ‘Let me hold the dog,’ Madeleine said.

  Later she would be glad she said that first, before she identified herself. When she was back in her room at the Hilton, lying on her bed, she could console herself that she had offered to help. The lead had been passed to her, because at that moment the phone had rung and Sylvie had turned on her heel. Madeleine had stood in the doorway and the dog waited beside her. She bent to pat it and the box of chocolates slipped. In a second the dog had seized the corner and torn the cellophane. So Sylvie, coming back along the passage, had found her mother kneeling and blowing on Lovejoy’s nostrils so she could get the chocolates back.

  Getting to her feet, holding the leash in one hand, Madeleine felt she was not only rising from water but that her position had brought her to a new beginning. Sylvie had taken her for a land agent and the chocolates and solicitousness were simply a ploy. At least in dishevelment and discomposur
e they matched.

  ‘Could I have a glass of water?’ Madeleine asked.

  Sylvie disappeared again and now Madeleine stepped inside. She closed the door and the little dog ran.

  ‘Who are you?’ Sylvie asked, turning from the sink with a glass in her hand. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’m your mother,’ Madeleine said. ‘You don’t recognise me?’

  ‘How could I?’ Sylvie said. She held the glass out, and Madeleine took it. ‘The last I heard from you was a parcel.’

  ‘Postcards,’ Madeleine said. ‘There have been postcards.’ Chosen carefully, she wanted to add. Views of the Grands Boulevards. Never tourist traps from the wire stand in the rue de Rennes, turned creakily on its axis until the shopkeeper looked up and asked if she wanted to buy the lot.

  ‘Did you like the linen?’ Madeleine continued.

  Never would Sylvie be able to imagine the hours of searching, the thought that had gone into it. Madeleine had had the sheets put aside for twenty-four hours while she investigated one more shop in the Marais. ‘Bargain,’ Hugo had told her, but she had been too overwhelmed by the provenance and thickness of the linen, the way it felt to her hand when she slipped a finger under the ribbon or stroked a hem. The thought of lying in handstitched and monogrammed sheets made her feel weak. Something from Colette came back: that women and girls sewing had wicked thoughts.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Sylvie said. She meant further in. She led the way to the kitchen and put the glass down again on the bench. Then she went into the bathroom and ran water on her hands and brushed her hair. It was a gesture her mother would have understood: that any scene that was to be played out demanded attention to one’s appearance. Never did she fight with Ben without first sneaking a glance in a mirror, a knife blade—anything would do. Loss might come but appearance was a bottom line. Now she touched up her lips, outlining them as if there were boundaries beyond which her mother could not go, filling them in. She must sit her mother down and examine her face. She suspected her lips had fine lines. There was a perfume in the air, something hopeful. To hell with that.