Loving Sylvie

by Elizabeth Smither

  Xavier had exaggerated the cold and the platform was filling up. Madeleine let the blanket slip from her shoulders and another waiter, noticing, collected it. The trams seemed to increase in number; the stars glowed overhead. A young man, solitary like Madeleine, asked if he could share her table. She smiled and her smile stretched the corners of her mouth wider than usual. He offered her a cigarette, and though it was years since her last Gauloise she accepted.

  To prolong the pleasure of the young man’s company Madeleine ordered a dessert, a slice of apple cake, but when it arrived she realised she could not manage it. Diffidently she moved the plate towards the young man. While he ate, Madeleine looked at a row of terrace houses in the street opposite the station, imagining herself a buyer, choosing the laciest balcony, the most colourful front door. Could she live without Freddy, his endless guidance? She saw now how all-pervasive it was. His wedding, she thought, and a little flare of anger rose: his spontaneity, for he had begun telling the tale that very evening when they had guests to dinner who could not be cancelled.

  The young man pushed the plate back towards her. He stuck out a finger and caught the last of the crumbs.

  ‘Would you like another?’ Madeleine asked. ‘I could shout you …’

  Then she realised it sounded forward and she blushed.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’m on the last week of my allowance.’

  ‘Noodles,’ Madeleine said. ‘Sausages and mince.’ What she had lived on. Crêpes and day-old croissants. With only a little persuasion he accepted a large slice of chocolate cake. For herself, another coffee.

  Probably she wouldn’t sleep. Or would fall asleep just before Freddy came home, padding lightly up the stairs and dropping his clothes on the carpet. The slight creak as the bed adjusted to his weight. How absurd if beds could write their autobiographies, the heavy and the light bodies … Another tram drew up, someone bounded out, followed by a sleeping child in a pushchair.

  The young man stood up, pushing back his chair.

  ‘Thanks for the cake,’ he said.

  ‘My pleasure,’ Madeleine said, remembering to look slightly distracted as if at that very moment she had decided on the second terrace house from the end, the boldest one of all, with its black door and shiny yellow knocker which gleamed in the dark.

  ‘Have a good week,’ she called, thinking of his allowance which would be replenished.

  ‘You too,’ but already he was on the ramp, crossing above the tracks, his hair shining in a street light.

  For one week, though the doctor phoned, the doctor’s nurse—both calls when Kit was in another part of the house and Isobel answered in a voice that was disengaged, almost cheerful—Isobel said nothing. She had chosen this week for herself, foreseeing that, in what was to come and what was still unknown to her, she herself must be ahead because of the comfort she must supply. And in between this strengthening, which felt like the kind of exercise that the body objected to, squeezed into her daily life were the moments she took to mourn. Very short moments, because the pain was intense and raw. Just holding a cup of coffee in her hands as she gazed through the kitchen window, her hands warming and then stinging on the sides of the mug, was more than a comfort: it reminded her of the time when her hands would be cold and the last task done. They would not be holding a coffee mug, she told herself, because her grip might have gone. She might be sucking on a shaving of ice, handed to her by Sylvie, or having her lips moistened by a cotton bud. And these tasks, she foresaw, would be accompanied by an almost angelic solemnity, as if all the tasks in a life were like that, or could have been, if she had been self-aware. She set the coffee mug down on the sink and crumpled some bread for the birds. Someone had told her the bread should be moist so a crumb did not lodge in a beak and cause choking. Still the birds had done without moistened bread for so long she thought they might have adapted or at least knew what to expect. A blackbird landed and its tail lifted. For a moment it seemed to look at her with yellow eyes. Some lines from Keats’s Letters that she had been reading when she met Kit came to her, about the bright purposefulness of creatures as they went about their business, contrasted with the dull-eyed despondency of humans. She had taken the Letters with her to her favourite place in the university grounds, under the canopy of an oak so ancient it wore a plaque naming the date of its planting. If she closed her eyes she could imagine the ceremony: perhaps a woman, though more likely a man, with a bright ceremonial trowel, digging the sapling into its prepared hole. Someone, not the dignitary, would tamp down the earth, moving around the little tree in a circle, so despite wind and rain it felt anchored.

  The blackbird was darting across the grass now, its head cocked when it stopped. It seemed to be listening to some underground music which only heightened attention could discern. And the bold steps, of remarkable unhesitating speed, were part of it too. Boldness and listening. One day she would examine these as they applied to her own life. Of course she would be found wanting, but that was a human concept and there were other measures. The blackbird had reached the edge of the lawn now, where the rose garden began. Suddenly it dived and speared at the earth.

  Madeleine Rice’s departure from Melbourne was as furtive as ever Madame Récamier could have wished. ‘Cunning,’ she had said to Madeleine one winter afternoon, when despite the rather economical lighting she favoured, the shop was dim. They were sitting at the rear, unpacking books, while an eye was kept on the door. The door had a bell attached which gave Madame a few seconds to dart forward, since there was no sale without movement. The boxes contained mainly American titles: the ubiquitous Joyce Carol Oates, some Bellow which had sold out thanks to an interview in The Paris Review, Barthelme, Roth, of course, for whom Madame had a tendresse that was probably unwarranted.

  ‘Have you learnt nothing from literature, not to know that?’ Madame Récamier’s eyes gleamed in the gloom; she reminded Madeleine of a crocodile half-submerged in water. ‘Even your Jane Austen, your Henry James is full of cunning.’

  Madeleine had merely kept a neutral expression. She did not see where cunning fitted into her life. Madame had lived on her wits and now made it a philosophy that the books that surrounded her should validate. They were sipping Lady Grey tea, a blend Madame preferred; coffee was reserved for the mornings.

  Still something of Madame’s advice must have rubbed off on her, for Madeleine had observed, in the weeks before she left, Freddy’s longer and longer absences and something in his manner that resembled the style favoured by some American male writers: cool, all-observing, with personal feelings held back.

  She had confided in Kit. She had phoned him one evening when Isobel was out—Kit did not say where she was. It had always been easier to talk to him than to her mother and, besides, he offered a male perspective. It seemed he had instantly recognised a pattern, even if he did not say what that pattern was. The self-satisfied male who sets up his surroundings with a care few women can emulate, and which is unlikely to be noticed by the women it contains. Such women usually praise their spouse—it was usually a spouse—for possessing exquisite taste, taking an interest in female matters. Kit had not been impressed by Freddy on the occasion they dined together. Madeleine was flattered by her husband’s proprietorial manners, Kit could tell, but he saw them simply as a shrewd economy, the expenditure of very little effort but making sure it counted. He had been tempted to tip his wine glass over the table to get a reaction; then he thought Madeleine would have to wash the napkins.

  An airfare had been sent on the condition Madeleine followed his instructions. She had packed a small suitcase and left it at the florist’s she patronised. Then the following day, a day when Freddy had told her he might be late returning, she had taken a taxi from Fionola Florist to the airport. Kit had promised to meet her when she landed. She requested a window seat and leaned her head against the cabin wall. The man beside her was silent and she was grateful. Only when they were standing in the aisle, readying to disembark, di
d they exchange a smile.

  Her father, standing behind the barrier, had the advantage of height: she sighted him first and his changed face. Her worry that the florist would already have phoned Freddy, who paid the bills, evaporated. She just had time to recall the floor-to-ceiling fridges where peonies and carnations and roses were stored and how the glass door had a sheen of condensation when Kit was at her side.

  The week when Isobel spoke to no one was long past; she could hardly remember it and the false freedom it had offered. It had taken at least a week of excruciating talk for Kit to be reconciled to what he thought was abandonment. He seemed to be going back through their life together, to the vows they had made—wholehearted and overspilling words as they stood with their arms around each other—or the long soul-searchings after Isobel’s one regretted affair.

  Isobel had thought of dressing up to greet Madeleine; then she had decided against it. She was wearing a light merino jersey and a pair of wool jersey slacks under the bedclothes that were neatly pulled up with a wide swathe of top sheet like a sash. The pillows that, on occasion, Kit had flung impatiently on the floor or against which her head rested while they made love on the quilt were neatly arranged in sizes and shapes. A line of books reached as far as her toes; with the bed roll at her back she could change the one she was reading. At present she was skipping through Middlemarch, reading the Dorothea sections—Casaubon had just been discovered dead at the stone table in the garden and Dorothea was free. Later she might reread the great swell of the ending which was like the middle of the ocean.

  The door banged and Kit made sure she heard their approach. Isobel ran her hands through her hair and reached for her hand mirror. Her lip liner was in place, the little lines above her top lip held back. She need not think for how long. In the few seconds it took to climb the stairs Isobel made a signal of her own by knocking a book onto the floor.

  The first thing Madeleine noticed were the circles under her mother’s eyes as if someone had tried a colour there and failed to wipe it off.

  Now Isobel pulled the cover back and invited Madeleine to join her. ‘Take off your shoes,’ she said.

  ‘Your mother likes to imagine it’s a sixteenth-century bed at an inn,’ Kit explained.

  ‘I couldn’t bear the low ceilings,’ Isobel said, when the pillows had been divided and Madeleine was propped up beside her.

  Madeleine had a great longing to cry. She wanted to go back and prepare a dinner party, to act for the rest of her life as if nothing was happening.

  Downstairs, in the kitchen, Kit filled the jug and waited for it to boil. It took less than a minute but he didn’t know how to pass the time. His head drooped and he wondered if he would become one of those stringy old men with a head like a gooseneck lamp. Then he thought it was the shape of a human embryo, the bean-like head, as if even at the commencement of life thought, or something that resembled it, was important.

  ‘Just an hour,’ Isobel said, ‘and then I want you to be with your father. He needs your company.’ More than mine was unspoken.

  The bed was wide and warm; the warmth of her mother’s body seemed to move towards her across the sheets. On the flight Madeleine had prepared her own story, her suspicions of Freddy whose desire was always to arrange life to suit himself. Now her story was being pushed away, she might never tell it. Then she thought her mother was indicating that her father would be the recipient and it would be a distraction for him. The traditional thing was to go for a walk; no matter how heavy hearts were, a walk was considered beneficial.

  After an hour Isobel indicated she would sleep. Before Madeleine left the room she replaced If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller which had fallen on the floor. Then she bent and lightly kissed Isobel’s forehead. There was a sound like a groan and Isobel turned on her side.

  ‘I’m going to leave Freddy,’ Madeleine said to Kit when the walk began. They were in a park created in a gully. Paths followed its sides; there were trees dedicated to prominent citizens. At the bottom of the gully was a lake bordered by rushes; Madeleine thought it might once have been filled by rusted car bodies, stained mattresses. There was something threadbare about the park, despite the flourishing trees, some of which had grown canopies to block the sky.

  After they had walked in a circle Madeleine and Kit sat on a wooden seat. It too had a plaque.

  ‘How long?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘No one can tell. There can be remissions.’

  In front of them were two paths, one that led to the lake. It hardly mattered which one they took. Madeleine would suggest coffee somewhere before going back.

  ‘If we could move from being born to a plaque,’ Kit said, getting up. He looked at her suddenly, remembering her as a young child, a poor sleeper. She had sleepwalked as well. A little figure in a white nightgown with a frill around the neck and hem walking softly down the hall, the eyes open and glazed. His own sleeplessness had begun with her. A sense of danger had woken him so he was alert in seconds. He had known not to touch or make any startling movement. Nonetheless he had been unable to resist extending his hand, the way one approached an animal. He allowed her hand which was held in front of her like a blind man’s stick to touch the tips of his fingers. When she didn’t recoil he softly enfolded the hand in his. She had bequeathed him the sleeplessness, and over the years it had not been without advantages. And then there had been Sylvie.

  ‘What is it to me?’ Cora Taverner had said when Ben gave her the news.

  The Tuesday dinner had been resumed, except now the date was frequently broken. In reality Ben dined with his mother about once a month. Sylvie made no comment; he simply wrote Dinner with M on the whiteboard near the fridge. ‘How was the monster?’ she asked. How was the Minotaur? She had other names up her sleeve. ‘Let’s not speak of it,’ she said in the days when it divided them. ‘I won’t ask what you ate.’ ‘And I won’t tell,’ he replied with a grin. After that his appetite was better, and when he got home he poured himself a stiff whisky and lay back on the sofa. There was always enough food for four: dishes filled with vegetables, lamb chops of which he could manage four. What did she do with the leftovers? He suspected she threw them out on the lawn or they went in the garbage. He had given up trying to turn any of her attitudes, recognising it was futile.

  The heartlessness of her remark stung him and he nearly choked on a piece of lamb. He held his napkin up to his face, feeling his face turn red.

  ‘On your head,’ he said, when he had swallowed some water. ‘These antediluvian attitudes.’

  ‘I admit they are very old,’ his mother said, pushing the water jug towards him for a refill. ‘At least I recognise them.’

  ‘And their source in the swamp,’ he said, holding the napkin in his hand and screwing it into a ball, out of sight, below the table edge.

  ‘Your marriage has made you squeamish,’ his mother went on when the plates had been removed and dessert laid.

  ‘Why shouldn’t you stay a primitive?’ Ben continued. ‘So we can remember you as a force of nature?’

  ‘Whatever pleases you,’ she replied, turning aside her head. ‘Draw from me whatever you want.’

  ‘And if we want nothing?’ he persisted. He couldn’t speak for his sister, of course. They might compare notes one day.

  ‘I expect you imagine my funeral,’ she said. ‘You’ll find it all prepared and paid for. You’ll have nothing to do but attend. That’s if you can be bothered.’

  Her napkin was screwed up now too. He saw her hand, laden with its gross old-fashioned rings, tremble as she rose from the table. The chair with its padded cushion rocked and then righted itself.

  Ben got up, throwing his napkin onto his plate, and followed her into the kitchen. She was standing against the wide door of the double refrigerator, once the pride of the house. Perhaps she had some idea of cooling her cheeks. Her illogic was illustrated even here, he thought, for the outside of the fridge was warm, the cold was inside.

  He took
a deep breath and placed his hand on her back, the way a man would hold a woman at a public dance. A tea dance, in his mother’s case. The absurdity of it had always struck him, or had it been Sylvie who had brought it to his attention? ‘Anyone would think a policeman was watching,’ she had remarked. They were watching a costume drama on TV. Some sloe-eyed film star with his ‘no touch’ hands splayed like a starfish. I mean this woman no harm, officer. And afterwards the hands would be everywhere, pressing, fumbling, squeezing …

  Remembering this he increased the pressure of his hand, so it was practically a caress. His mother turned and hurled herself at him, sobbing, and he was forced to hold her between himself and the fridge for a good two minutes.

  An hour later, when he was driving home, Ben felt like a ghost. His mother had promised she would go straight to bed but in fact she was pouring herself another Drambuie. She had put down the liqueur glass and got a tumbler instead. Then, since there were only two fingers left in the bottom, she poured that as well. The warmth spread through her entire body and soon she would sleep. Ben on the other hand seemed to have lost all his blood; his movements as he drove were automatic; he would not have been surprised if a traffic cop pulled him over and told him his lights were not on. He had promised his mother he would phone the next morning, from the office. Already he was dreading it.

  He sat in the car for a long time before getting out. He saw the light in the room they called the study go out. Sylvie would have been working on her seminar notes—she was teaching a new paper, reading copiously, ‘like sinking through water’, she described it. The door opened suddenly and she was there in her nightdress and dressing gown, her feet in a pair of his socks.