The Art of Regret

by Mary Fleming

  “Mother said you were very happy. But it doesn’t change what happened. What I did, which was inexcusable.” I fixed my eyes on the coffee dregs; I couldn’t look at him. “For whatever it’s worth, which I know isn’t much, there isn’t a day goes by where I don’t regret it.”

  “Have you heard from Maman recently?” he asked very softly, turning the spoon, looking into his own glass.

  “No.” I shrugged. “I thought she’d probably given up on me too.”

  “Did you think of phoning her?” he asked edgily. “Do you ever think sometimes you have to make the effort? That someone might need you?”

  “I’m an albatross around the entire family’s neck.”

  “Come on, Trevor. Stop with the martyr business. You’re no more a victim than anyone else.” He paused, collecting himself. “Look, I’m not here to refight old battles.” He was now concentrating hard on that spoon and smashed lemon slice. “She’s ill.”

  “Ill with what?”

  He kept at that lemon, shaking his head slightly, as the words just wouldn’t come out. “What else?”

  “Cancer?”

  He nodded.

  “What kind?”

  “Ovarian. They’ll be operating on her early next week.”

  “So quickly? Since when have you known?”

  “Only since last week. You know how she is. She wouldn’t admit she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t go to the doctor. BP had been begging her for weeks, and she finally relented.”

  I shook my head, speechless.

  “It doesn’t look good,” said Edward.

  “It might just be an aggravation if I phone.”

  “What are you talking about?” He let go of the spoon abruptly and it clattered against the glass. Looking straight at me, hazel eye to hazel eye, more serious than I had ever seen him, he added quietly: “You’re still her son. How could you not call?”

  We parted on the sidewalk outside the café, right hands shaking, left grabbing the other’s arms, closing a circle, a physical reconciliation of sorts.

  “I’ll call,” I said.

  He nodded and turned on the heels of his tasseled black loafers. His step was so light, so quick, his feet hardly had time to touch the ground. With his head leaning forward, even from the back it looked as if he were already thinking about the afternoon’s meetings and phone calls. And for the first time I actually admired my brother’s energy and intensity. His hurry. He was no student of literature, but he heard and heeded the wingèd chariot hurrying near nevertheless. Veering to the right, Edward cut across the street, timing his passage between two moving cars perfectly, and I lost sight of him.

  It had rained hard while we were sitting inside, but by the time I reached the Champs-Elysées, the sun was out. The reflection off the wet pavement was blinding, and with my eyes half closed, I walked on the very edge of the sidewalk, oblivious to the hordes of shoppers on one side and the heavy traffic on the other. Edward’s announcement had hit me like a board across the head. For better or for worse, wasn’t she, like me, a survivor? It was my father and sister who had not made it. Not us. How could she be dying? She was only seventy. Mixed in with the shock at her illness was a strangling fear that she would in fact not want to see me again. That my presence would, no matter what Edward said, only increase her pain and suffering by reminding her of all the pain and suffering I had inflicted upon her and everyone else in the family.

  Just as I reached the gardens of the Champs-Elysées, it started to rain again. Pour. The long stretch of chestnut trees, their leaves just beginning to unfold like little umbrellas, offered no protection. Water dripped down my neck, into my eyes. The wind blew and the rain came down at a vicious slant, but I kept walking. As I crossed the pont de la Concorde, the rain was needling the Seine, rendering water, land, and sky an opaque grey. The only relief was the red brake lights that dimmed and brightened in the creeping, dense traffic.

  Too much had been turned upside down in the course of one short coffee. On top of news about Mother, my brother had practically thanked me for my treachery. What was I supposed to do with that?

  By the time I got back to the shop, water squelched in my shoes, dripping from my cold body as from one of those melting glaciers. The familiar smell of rubber and grease, and the steady presence of Piotr and Cassie’s excessive joy at my return enveloped me like a deep-seated armchair next to a crackling fire. I plopped down on a stool and stroked Cassie’s velvet ears.

  “What?” asked Piotr, turning from the repair stand. “You are white.”

  “I just saw my brother for the first time in five years. And my mother has cancer.”

  Not knowing what to say, he stood there with his large, dirty hands hanging by his sides like buckets. Finally, he turned to lift the bicycle he’d been working on off the stand: “You should go home.”

  I had been thinking about sitting on the stool in the kitchen with Lisette while she made dinner. By home I thought he meant the rue de Verneuil.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I should.”

  Three days after my drink with Edward, during which time I had thought about Mother constantly without being able to summon the courage to phone, I was down on the quayside with my camera trying to capture the sun lighting up the water and the underbelly of the pont de la Concorde. Between showers that spring, there were many complicated skies and dramatic shadows; I’d been taking a lot of photos. Footsteps pattered behind me and stopped. Cassie wagged her tail. I pulled the camera away from my face and saw Béa Fairbank, red-cheeked and out of breath.

  “Hello,” I said. “Every time I see you you’re on the run.”

  “Every time I see you, you’re taking photos,” she said with that chortle of hers. “I’m beginning to wonder if this bicycle shop of yours really exists. If it isn’t just a front.”

  “Oh, the shop is real. I promise.”

  “I hope so. It looks like I’m going to be in Paris a lot the next year, at least. I’m thinking of getting a bicycle. Do you have anything secondhand? I haven’t got much to spend.”

  “Sure,” I said, trying to remember if indeed we did have any used bicycles at the moment. They didn’t stay around long these days. “What are you doing up here? I thought I heard Curt say you lived in the 13ème.”

  “Yes,” she said vaguely. “But now I’m staying with a friend near Les Invalides,” she said. “Until I can move up to Montmartre. The studio came through, but I can’t move in until next month.” Today her eyes were a blue-green reflection of the water. “Could I stop by your shop sometime to see what you have? Maybe tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Around midday?”

  “Let me write down the address,” I said.

  She tucked the paper into the pocket of her green zip-up sweatshirt and took off again. When she rounded a small bend, she turned to wave, a smile on her face. Béa actually looked as if she were enjoying herself. Most people I saw running—everyone except the firemen who ran around and around the Tuileries, chatting effortlessly—looked miserable. I always wondered why they put themselves through such added daily torture. But here was Béa Fairbank, as if running were her natural element in the same way it was for Cassie, who looked longingly after her, tail still swaying.

  The next day I waited for her, putting off lunch. “Midday” ended up being close to two. By that time I was grumpy from hunger, plus I was doing inventory on accessories, finicky work that I hated, plus it was about to rain yet again and the air was charged with particles. Had I phoned my mother, though she hung over my thoughts like the new wheels that dangled over my head from the ceiling in the shop? Of course not.

  Then the rain began to fall in a solid, inconsolable white sheet. It was coming down so hard, the chimes were barely audible. I looked up at Piotr’s “What can I do you?” Finally Béa, soaked.

  “Not exactly good bicycle-buying weather,” I said, trying to sound cheery.

  “Forgot my umbrella, if you can believe it.
Sorry I’m a little late.” She smelled of spring when I kissed her wet cheek.

  “The bicycle’s outside, under the tarp.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “No. No I haven’t.” Water ran down her face. “But . . .” and she lifted the edge of a sodden sweater.

  “The only towels we have are covered with paw marks or grease. But I do have a dry shirt. And probably a sweater.”

  “Are you sure?” she said.

  “Of course.” I walked to the back of the shop and handed my dry clothes over to her. “You can change here.”

  “Much better,” she said, coming around the corner, her lightbrown hair brushed flat back, making her broad forehead and strong nose more prominent. Her fair skin had a pink tint, which contrasted with the yellow-green bruise that was still visible from her fall. My shirt and sweater came way down her skinny legs.

  We headed to the Relais huddled under one crooked umbrella. It felt comfortable walking arm to arm, protected from the rain by the flimsy umbrella. It crossed my mind that I could now have women as arm-to-arm friends. And maybe Béa, safely attached to Curt, would be a perfect start.

  “It’s like the Day of Judgment,” she said, at a gust of rain and wind that almost blew the umbrella inside out.

  “Somebody up there isn’t happy, that’s for sure,” I said.

  We sat at my usual table, over in the corner, by the window. Alain rushed over with a jug of Glühwein. His family was from Alsace, and often in bad weather, he spiced warmed wine with clover and cinnamon and orange peels. We both ordered, at Alain’s insistence, the quiche lorraine and salad.

  “This is a nice spot,” Béa said, when Alain had left.

  “It’s okay. Just an old-fashioned café.”

  “Cheers,” she said, holding up her glass in my direction, then taking a sip. “Delicious.”

  “Cheers.” I held up my glass. “So you’re settling in Paris for a while?”

  “As long as this studio lasts. At least a year. And I’m really happy. This morning I got a call. I can actually move in beginning next week.”

  “What about Curt? Can two painters share the same studio?”

  “No. Not me anyway. He’s actually in the States right now,” she said, looking hard at some speck on the table. Then looking up at me with a smile: “So you enjoy selling bicycles?”

  “You’ve been talking to Viviane.”

  She smiled. “You just don’t seem the shopkeeper type to me.”

  “Or to Viviane. Or to Cédric.”

  “Just because there’s a consensus doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy,” she said, picking up her knife and fork, pausing over the plate that had just arrived. “In fact, I was surprised this morning to see you taking pictures of a bridge. The photos that Cédric and Viviane have of yours are all scenes of things falling apart. Tortured trees and crumbling walls, that kind of thing.” She cut a piece of quiche and popped it in her mouth.

  “It’s the dog,” I said.

  “The dog?”

  “Since I’ve started walking her in the morning, I get the early light and I find it irresistible. On the stone. The water.”

  “Now that I think about it, you were taking pictures of flowers in the forest too, that day we walked at Hautebranche. So you’re slipping?”

  “I hope not. I worry. It’s so easy to take a pretty picture.”

  “From what I’ve seen, I think your photos are good.” I shrugged. To my silence she added in her low voice, with a gently mocking smile: “But you’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Not really.” I shrugged again.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “Art talk can get pretentious very quickly.” She pushed more salad and quiche onto the fork with the help of her knife and looked out the window while she chewed.

  So we talked about Cédric and Viviane. Over coffee, we lamented the melting world—she got even more agitated on the subject than I did. But I found her very easy to talk to; it was a nice lunch. This women-as-friends thing was off to a good start.

  Back in front of Mélo-Vélo, the rain had stopped, but the green tarp over the bicycles was sagging with puddles of rain. It looked like a cadaver, old bones sticking through lifeless skin.

  “Stand back,” I said. Untying the rope around it, I grabbed two corners and flicked it like a tablecloth. Water went flying. “This is the only used bike we have, I’m afraid.” I pointed, then fished a key out of my pocket and unyoked the pack. After a struggle I extricated an old Dutch bicycle, with its heavy frame, its back-pedal brake, and clunky back wheel. “Not exactly the latest in design and performance, but it’s sturdy. It won’t let you down.”

  “Just what I’m looking for,” said Béa, taking the handlebars from me. “But how much is it?”

  “I’ll have to ask Piotr. In the meantime, give it a try.”

  “You remember,” Piotr said as he unloaded a box of rear lights and hung them on the hook. “We get that bike for free when we sell the guy a new one. He say we do him a favor.”

  “So technically, I could just give it to her.” I was thinking about Cassie knocking her over, how I owed her something.

  “Technically, you do what you want. But I spend most yesterday morning fixing the bike. Half hour to get off that back wheel. No less than seven hundred francs,” he called to me as I went back outside. Béa had just made a narrow, wobbly turn back toward the shop, but she straightened out before braking to a halt in front of me.

  “Seems great,” she said, putting one small foot to the ground.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t you take it for a few days, until you move into the studio, and see what you really think of it. The hill up to Montmartre is pretty steep. You may decide it’s not enough for you.”

  “I’m quite sure I can handle the hill,” she said. “It’s the price I’m worried about.”

  “Five hundred,” I said. “We got it on an exchange.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Just give me a call after you’ve moved in.”

  “And your clothes?”

  “Keep them. I mean, until you’ve decided on the bike.”

  That night I dreamed about Béa Fairbank on a bicycle. It was a glorious spring day in the country, kind of Hautebranche but not really. In the middle of a green field there was a cleared area, a circle. Béa was riding around this circle, wobbling as if she were in trouble. I was in the house, standing at a window in an upstairs bedroom. I wanted to go and help her but was unable to, though the reasons for my immobility were not clear. As I watched her wobble, then straighten out, she suddenly looked up at me with one of her laughs, and all my worry melted. She didn’t need my help after all; she was only trying to show me how easy it was to ride a bicycle, to reassure me. I sat down in a chair and leaned my chin on the window sill, content just to watch her go round and round on a spring day. When I woke up, all the warmth and green of the dream, of Béa’s laugh, were still with me, and they stayed with me throughout the morning.

  At midday I went to the bank, still the branch near the rue du Bac. As I was waiting for a teller to free up, I got a glimpse of Monsieur Petitdemange passing from one office cubicle to another. These days he was sporting the aggressive sideburns that were now in fashion. They unfortunately did not mask the fact that the locks he had fixed to his head like sculpted marble on a Greek statue had defied his efforts at immortality. He was losing his hair.

  The bank, of course, was minutes from the rue de Verneuil, and as I walked out of it that day in April, I could feel my mother’s presence in these streets as if she were right at my side. Before I could put it off yet again, I picked up the phone the minute I got back to Mélo-Vélo. With each ring, panic rose. After the fifth I was about to hang up, when I heard an irascible “Allo.”

  It had not occurred to me that Lisette might answer. She viewed phones as a nuisance, an interruption from the more vital occupations of the day
, such as polishing the silver or scrubbing the bathtub.

  “Allo,” she said, even more irritably.

  “It’s Trevor,” I finally got out, in not much more than a whisper. Silence, except for a heavy, wheezy intake of air. “Lisette?”

  “Five years and four months.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “How could you do such a thing to me? Keep silent and away for so many years? Have you forgotten all our afternoons in the kitchen? Have you forgotten all the food I cooked for you? Have you no feelings for me at all? Or for any of us? Especially with your dear maman . . .” I heard the heave of her plump bosom and knew that the tears would be welling up, that the neat white handkerchief would be pulled from her apron pocket, the way it was when she’d been chopping onions.

  “That’s why I’m calling. Is Maman there?”

  “I’m here,” said a ghost voice. She must have picked up the phone at the same time as Lisette and decided to stay silent, to let the words of reproach fall from Lisette’s frank lips. Then again, her voice sounded so tired, maybe she had just been summoning the energy to speak.

  “Mother,” I paused. Lisette honked pointedly into her hankie, then let the phone clatter back to its receiver. “I . . . You . . . Edward told me. But I didn’t know if it might not be better, if you wouldn’t prefer, not to hear from me. If I might be less trouble that way.” I felt like a little boy again, a very little boy, who had come home late from the neighbor’s, with torn trousers and a filthy face.

  “Please,” she said in a tone that sounded like both a plea and a dismissal of my stumbling excuses. “I’m relieved you’ve phoned. That you got me.” She cleared her throat. “I’m off early this evening,” she added, as if about to depart on an ocean cruise instead of to the hospital.

  “Maybe I could come around. Maybe later this afternoon?”

  “Yes.” She sounded so diminished already. “About four thirty would be perfect.”

  I had two hours. Piotr was still at lunch, and I paced the place like a caged animal. I looked at what was left to repair but was too agitated for tinkering. I paced some more, while Cassie wagged her tail and looked at me, head cocked. Piotr thankfully returned early, and I could leave. I needed to walk, to get out of this confined space. I took Cassie’s soft ears in my hands and let her nuzzle my ear. Sensing that I was about to leave her, she gave me that look that said I was heartless and cruel. I agreed with her completely.