by Lynn Bushell
‘Isabelle has separated from Roussel.’ Pierre is sitting in the armchair with the paper open on his knees as if that’s where he read about it.
‘I’m surprised the marriage lasted this long.’ I sound churlish, but I have no sympathy for either of them. Édouard’s always said that Roussel married Isabelle for money and she married him because she thought he would be famous, so she’s stupid and he’s greedy. Even if they weren’t, I wouldn’t like them.
Pierre shakes out the pages. ‘Still, you’d think that with the two girls to consider, they’d have come to some arrangement.’ He puts down the paper. ‘This is the arrangement, I suppose.’
The news appears to have depressed him.
‘Did she leave him?’
Pierre nods. ‘There’s been gossip recently. His model disappeared. She was an addict, so she’ll probably be on the streets by now. Or dead. While Isabelle put up with his philandering as long as Roussel was discreet, she wouldn’t want the family name dragged through the mud.’
‘So Roussel is a single man again?’
I see his mouth twitch. ‘He’s an alley cat,’ Pierre says. ‘He’s been lucky not to have been taken into custody. I doubt the girl was more than fifteen.’
‘Who told Isabelle?’
I can’t believe what I see next. When Pierre is having trouble distancing himself from something that he wants to get away from, he creates a barrier by crossing one arm on his stomach. He then rests the elbow of the other arm against the wrist and hides behind the hand. And this is what he’s doing now. When someone’s face is permanently hidden by a beard, you soon learn to interpret gestures.
‘Who knows? I’m surprised she’s left him, that’s all. I’d have thought she’d want to hold the family together.’
So he got it wrong. No wonder he’s depressed.
‘I know the past weeks have been difficult for you,’ he says.
Have we moved on to something else now? Keep up, Marthe.
‘You’ve been very patient,’ Pierre says.
I don’t bother pointing out that I had no choice in the matter. I sit staring doggedly in front of me. I may not be entirely following this conversation, but I’m not about to interrupt.
‘I’m grateful to you,’ he says. ‘I’m not ignorant of what it’s costing you.’
He looks away. Is that it, then? Is this the conversation I’ve been waiting for since they declared the peace? The fate of Germany was argued over and decided months ago. Ours we have yet to haggle over. Pierre folds the paper carefully and puts it on the table.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I say.
‘Do?’ He blinks. ‘Nothing. There is nothing you need do, except . . .’
Except to go on putting up with it, I think. Well, after all, it’s what I’m best at.
‘It’s the opening of the Salon next week, he says.
‘Yes, I know.’ The invitation has been on the mantelpiece for months.
‘I don’t want you to feel obliged to go. I know you don’t like these events.’
He’s right. I may not want to do the things I do, but Pierre knows I will do them anyway. ‘I’ll go,’ I say.
He nods. ‘Good’, he says in a voice that isn’t giving anything away.
The studio is not the sanctuary it was before. Outside, too, there is something in the air – a febrile energy that she finds disconcerting and unsettling, given that the city is officially at peace. At least when they were still at war, the threat was real and you knew which direction it was coming from.
The painting, now in its ornate frame, has been ticketed and propped against the door, awaiting its transferral to the Salon. She had thought she would spend hours looking at it. It was the equivalent of opening a magazine and seeing yourself reproduced there – beautiful, immaculate, cut off from everyday reality.
She wonders why the painting troubles her now that it is no longer on the easel. She is not a work in progress any longer; she is finished. In the painting, she will look like this for ever. In reality she is already older than she was when Pierre signed off on it. This is the Renée that will be immortal. It is what she thought she wanted. But the painting isn’t her; it is instead of her. She turns it to the wall.
B
‘Pierre. Your face!’ There is a cut across his forehead. It slants upwards from the eyebrow to the hairline so his face looks as if he’s just asked a question and is waiting for an answer. Underneath the eye there is a bruise. ‘What’s happened to you?’
‘I was set upon outside the studio.’ He jerks his head as if there’s something stuck inside his skull that he is trying to dislodge. ‘It’s nothing. There’s no need to make a fuss.’
She strokes the lesions on his knuckles. ‘Did they steal from you?’
‘I had my wallet in my inside pocket. The man ran away without it.’
Robbery was not the motive, then. In any case, thinks Renée, why would anybody pick on you? You look as if you haven’t got two sous to rub together.
‘Did you tell the gendarmes?’
‘By the time I got to the gendarmerie the man could have been tucked up in his bed in Lille or Rennes.’
Or Bobigny, she thinks. ‘I’m frightened, Pierre.’
He hangs his coat up on the peg behind the door. ‘Dear, nobody can get in without buzzing first. Make sure the outer door shuts after you when you come in and that you know who’s there before you open it.’
‘But if somebody can’t get in, they only have to wait for someone else to open it.’
Pierre goes over to the sink and fills a glass with water. ‘I don’t know what to suggest, except that it’s not you he’s targeting.’
‘I don’t want him to hurt you either.’ He sits down and Renée kneels in front of him. She cups her palm over his hand.
‘Could Marguerite have told your family you’d moved out of the rue des Peupliers?’ he asks.
‘She didn’t have to,’ Renée says. ‘I wrote to Maman. I knew Marguerite would send back any mail. I didn’t want her finding out like that.’
‘What did they say?’
‘They wrote back that I needn’t bother coming home again.’
‘Your mother said that?’
‘It was Tonio, but Mother let herself be bullied by him.’ Renée sighs.
‘You should have told me, Renée.’
‘You’d have worried.’
‘Well, of course I would. You need your family. I hate to think that you can’t see them any more because of me.’
‘I knew what I was doing.’
‘Have you had no contact with your mother since that day?’
‘She writes to me. She sends the letters poste restante. I thought it better not to let them have the address of the studio.’ But still they knew it, Renée thinks. She runs her finger lightly down the cut above his knuckle. ‘They’re not going to forgive me, Pierre.’ She looks at him. He doesn’t need to ask, ‘For what?’
‘I see.’
‘In their eyes I’ve been damned. There’s no way back. You know what Tonio is like.’ She rests her head against him.
‘But I thought your mother was more sensible.’
‘She’s torn. If she sees me, she’ll upset Tonio and she thinks I’m a bad example to the girls. She’s right.’
‘You couldn’t be a bad example. Alys loves you; both the girls do.’
‘You can love someone and still believe they’ve sinned. They’re not condemning me for loving you. What they’re condemning is me giving in to it.’
‘If anyone should be condemned, it’s me.’
‘Yes, well they disapprove of you as well.’
He takes her hand and turns it over in his lap. She feels the pressure of his fingernail along the lifeline of her palm. ‘It’s my fault this has happened. When I asked you to give up your rooms in Belleville to come here, I didn’t think of it affecting anybody else. It was short-sighted of me. We can’t carry on like this.’
Her eyes flick a
nxiously across his face. ‘It’s what I wanted; to be here with you.’
‘Yes, but you’re not with me, not in the way you want to be.’
‘I’m happy when you’re here.’
‘And when I’m not? You need a proper home, a place that you can call your own, where you can spread your things out and not worry that they might be getting in my way. With Caro gone and now that this has happened, living in the studio is not an option.’
‘But I’ve nowhere else to go,’ she whispers.
He puts up a hand to stall her. ‘I’ve been thinking we might rent a small apartment for you.’
She feels panicky. ‘You mean I wouldn’t come here any more!’
‘Of course you would still come here; you’re my model. But you wouldn’t have to cram yourself into this small space. You’d be living somewhere else, just as you were when you shared rooms with Marguerite, except that you would have them to yourself. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘It’s not because you don’t want us to be together?’
He spreads out her hands and kisses them. ‘You said that you were frightened you’d end up like Caro. I want you to feel secure. You need a home and living here was always going to be temporary.’
She looks around the room. The smallness of it is what Renée likes, but she knows Pierre is maddened by the lack of space and by her need to fill whatever space there is. ‘But won’t it cost a lot?’
‘Dear, that’s what money’s for.’
She feels a vague sense of misgiving. Somehow, being kept in an apartment seems more reprehensible than simply being Pierre’s lover. On the other hand, by giving her a place that’s hers alone, he’s giving her the one thing he has never given anybody else. Not even Marthe.
When he doesn’t mention it again, she wonders whether he regrets his offer. In the run-up to the exhibition, there is no time for discussion. Pierre is rushing back and forth between the studio and Saint-Germain, negotiating with his dealers for the other paintings he’s been working on and itemising pictures due for transfer in a small black notebook. When the couriers arrive to take ‘her’ painting to the Salon she feels as if she is saying goodbye to a friend she’s spent a lot of time with, but has never really got to know. The next day when Pierre tells her that he has a picture to deliver to a client and invites her to accompany him, she is grateful for an opportunity to get out of the studio.
The cab heads north-west out of Montparnasse and soon the crowded streets give way to tree-lined vistas. They are in the 9th arrondissement. The cab turns right onto the Boulevard de Clichy. This is not the most expensive area of Paris, but the shops are still so smart she is amazed that anybody can afford to patronise them. She sees couples wandering arm in arm along the avenue. It’s not like Montparnasse where everyone is in a hurry.
They walk from the Boulevard des Batignolles and turn into rue Clapeyron where Pierre’s client lives. She gazes at the white façades, the wrought iron balconies and windows that reach almost from the ceiling to the floor. There is a porter’s lodge and Pierre speaks to the man inside it. He nods, and they start to climb the stairs.
There is a faint breeze blowing through the stairwell and the air is delicately scented like the gardens in the square below. They reach the third-floor landing and Pierre takes out a key.
‘You’ve got a key.’
‘The man’s not there at present.’ He stands back to let her in. The newness of it is what strikes her first. It smells of fresh paint. The apartment has been simply furnished, but it reeks of class.
‘Your client must be very rich.’
‘He’s comfortably off.’
‘He’s not a painter, then?’
Pierre smiles: ‘Actually, he is.’ He holds the key out. ‘The apartment’s yours.’
The key hangs in the space between them. ‘I don’t understand. You said your client lived here.’
He laughs. ‘You’re the client.’
Renée gapes. ‘You’ve taken this apartment just for me?’
‘Well, naturally I hope you’ll let me visit you, but yes, it’s yours, dear.’
She looks round. ‘It can’t be . . . something this size and in Clichy.’
‘There’s no point in doing things by halves. You won’t be able to move in just yet, but you can plan on seeing in the new year in your own home.’
She’s still staring at him. Pierre waves his hand in front of her. ‘This lovely flat is all for me?’ she whispers.
Pierre adjusts his glasses. ‘All for you.’
She throws her arms around his neck. ‘I’m dreaming,’ she says. ‘Tell me that I’m dreaming.’
Word gets around, of course. The next time Pierre and Renée go down to the café, all eyes are upon them. When Roussel comes in, he glances witheringly at Pierre and then at Renée. She looks boldly back at Roussel, but Pierre sees the flush begin to rise up from her neck. ‘Would you prefer to leave?’
‘No thank you. Why would I prefer to leave?’
‘You seem uncomfortable.’
Roussel is staring at her. Since their conversation, Renée has avoided him. She tells herself she doesn’t owe him anything. A part of her would like to boast that she’s been set up in her own apartment, although something tells her Roussel wouldn’t be impressed.
I choose to wear a full-length dress with leg of mutton sleeves and a constricting ruff around the neck, the evening of the Salon opening. It doesn’t suit me, but I need the high neck and the sleeves to hide the rash. There is nothing I can do about the hands, however. They were beautiful – small, quick, efficient. They spoke for me. Now they’re also covered in brown stains.
There are the usual nods of greeting as we cross the concourse. I see Édouard with the Hessels, Lucy clinging to his arm as if she was the wife and Hessel standing next to them as if he’s no idea what’s going on. Perhaps he isn’t such a fool. Perhaps he’s honoured to be cuckolded by somebody like Édouard.
Pierre loops my arm around his elbow and puts one hand over mine protectively. We do a slow tour of the room. Nobody recognises me in my disguise; they’re looking for the woman in the bath. I’m told that I look smaller in reality. I have a grandeur in the paintings; I fit into that world. Here, I just feel dowdy. There is no one in the room I want to speak to. Pierre greets a Jewish banker and his wife, whose garish friends are crowding round a landscape that’s as loud and vulgar as themselves. The war has done this, Pierre says. People want an art they can escape into.
We wander down the line of paintings till we come to Pierre’s. I stop in front of it. So that’s her. The air freezes round me. It’s the first time we’ve met face to face. Pierre could have picked a better way to introduce us. It’s not only thirty years that separates us.
Pierre glances at me, but my face is empty. Next to her is hung the picture of the sitting room in Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The paint on it is not yet dry. Still, I suppose I should be grateful to be there at all. I shall be leaning on the windowsill for ever now, the garden with its rhododendrons and its riot of lobelia behind me, Poucette on the table, Blanco with her tail curled round a chair leg.
‘Shall we move on?’ Pierre says, but I go on looking at it. I feel clammy underneath my arms and there’s a film of moisture on my top lip that I can’t do anything about. Pierre is hovering beside me. Someone calls his name.
‘There is a man I need to speak to,’ he says. ‘Can I leave you for a moment?’ And he moves off, leaving us together, me and this girl.
‘Marthe?’ It’s Roussel. I turn. He is about to kiss me on the cheek. I tilt my head away. He gives a sly smile. ‘You don’t often come to these events. Now that the war is over, maybe we’ll see more of you.’
I doubt that very much. I’m standing with my back towards the picture and I see his eyes slide past me. There are red veins in his cheeks and shadows underneath his eyes. This isn’t a well man. He drinks too much and eats too little and he looks as if he never gets a good night’s sleep. He bit
es his nails too. If I didn’t bite my own nails I might not have noticed. He looks like a single man who needs a woman to look after him, but if the rumours are correct, he has an army of them. Surely one can sort him out.
He nods towards the pictures. ‘Do you like the paintings Pierre has put into the exhibition?’
‘It’s not up to me to say.’
‘You have as much right as the rest of us to an opinion.’ He is looking at the one of Renée. ‘How he’s caught the light is brilliant, don’t you think?’
It’s not the light I’m interested in. ‘Who is she?’
He looks baffled for a moment, as if he’d not noticed that there is a naked woman in the middle of the canvas who is nothing like me. ‘Ah, you mean the girl. That’s Renée Montchaty.’ He tries to make it sound as if she’s nothing special, but his voice tells me she is, and not just to Pierre.
‘He found her working on a perfume counter. Once the Salon’s over, I expect he’ll let her go. The only thing a girl like that has going for her is her beauty and that doesn’t last long.’
Long enough to do for me, I think. ‘What interests you about her, then?’
He looks as if he’s going to deny it, but then he seems suddenly relieved that I’ve seen through him. ‘I was hoping she might sit for me, but Pierre isn’t keen to share her.’ He takes out a cigarette. ‘My model took off just before the exhibition opened. It’s the reason why the painting I’ve exhibited is . . . well, the way it is. It’s better not to say ‘unfinished’. Hoffstadt’s trying to explain it as a change of style. From now on, I shall have to leave them all in that state.’ He laughs grimly. ‘Isabelle has left me, I expect you heard. I lost my wife and model within two weeks of each other.’
‘Sounds like you were careless,’ I say and then wish I hadn’t. There is something in Roussel that reaches out to women even when he isn’t trying to ingratiate himself. He’s looking for a chance to move away. We’ve probably said more over the last five minutes than we have in all the time I’ve known him.
I look round for Pierre. He’s left the Jewish banker and is standing at the far end of the room with Édouard. I push through the crowd towards them, nodding as I go in case somebody recognises me. As I get closer, Édouard blurts out, ‘For the love of God, man, have you gone completely mad?’
