by Paul Thomas
The second photo is more germane to the big picture. Four people sit around a table in a Toulouse restaurant: me, older and hairier than outside the London pub; Patricia, a slim brunette with startling green eyes and a dreamy smile; Serge, a Frenchman in his mid-twenties; and his American girlfriend, Samantha. Serge’s is not a face you’d forget in a hurry — there’s a wide crocodile mouth, a beak of a nose and hooded eyes that gleam with private amusement. You could argue all day over this face: is it ugly or attractive? Does he look like a nice fellow or someone to be avoided? He smokes a Gauloise from his second packet of the day and his partially unbuttoned shirt reveals a flat, hard, hairless chest. Samantha has long blonde hair and honey-coloured skin, and whereas Serge’s features are unruly, hers are quietly flawless, although a contrary view might be that the whole amounts to less than the sum of the parts. If she was giving the camera a golly-gosh smile, she’d look like the sort of girl who appeared in Playboy before Hugh Hefner began to demand a lot more of his playmates.
Patricia had known Serge since they were kids — when her parents acquired their farmhouse they’d leased the attached land to his father. She laughed it off when I asked just how close they’d become, but after we’d broken up Serge revealed that he’d deflowered her and been her summertime lover throughout their teenage years. He had no reason to lie and I had no reason to disbelieve him.
Serge and Samantha’s story wasn’t your usual boy-meets-girl. She was on holiday in Tahiti with her mother. He was doing his national service, cruising the South Pacific measuring radiation levels and keeping an eye out for mutant dolphins. They met in a bar and spent one night together, making low-key love to avoid waking her mother, who was snoring through a six Mai Tai stupor in the next room. The following morning Serge put to sea.
They corresponded for a couple of years before Serge took the plunge. The reunion in San Diego was a mixed success: Samantha was the same All-American dream girl he remembered, but Southern California was a long way from the Haute-Garonne. Language as such wasn’t the problem — he’d learned English in the navy and had a good ear — but it enraged him that Americans made such a big deal of his accent. He’d taken the trouble to learn the fucking language, probably spoke it better than half of them, but still struggled to make himself understood. Once in a restaurant he asked for a bottle of rosé. The waitress talked louder and louder, as if volume was the essence of communication. Finally, a breakthrough: ‘Oh, honey,’ she crooned, ‘you mean blush. We don’t drink too much of that around here.’
When it was just the two of them, it was fine; the rest of the time he felt like an alien. When he broke it to Samantha that he was going home she floored him by declaring she’d go with him.
Samantha was as displaced in Toulouse as Serge had been in San Diego, the difference being that she was prepared to bite the bullet. Love involved sacrifice: true lovers were prepared to follow each other to the ends of the earth. She’d had two years of her friends telling her she was crazy to burn a candle over a one-night stand — with a French guy yet — but they just didn’t get it. So she put up with the thumping foreign language conversation headaches and the patronising shop staff and the Mickey Mouse appliances and the shoebox flat, the sort of place only illegal immigrants lived in back home. She put up with Serge’s friends, who seemed to regard her as a notch on the bedpost of French manhood. She put up with Serge’s reliance on her remittances from her mother and his male chauvinism, which she wouldn’t have stood from an American, and his occasional unexplained disappearances, which stirred up troublesome thoughts and the chronic anti-Americanism he seemed to share with every goddamn one of his countrymen and women. And she did all this without making a martyr of herself. I thought Serge was the luckiest man I knew.
That night in the restaurant would have been the third or fourth time I’d met Serge and Samantha. By then I was sure he didn’t love her and afraid that I did.
But not afraid enough to run away.
I suggested to Patricia that we relocate to Toulouse. Samantha had given me no reason to believe she felt the same way about me or could be persuaded to do so, nor did I have a grand plan for extricating myself from my relationship and her from hers. I just knew that none of it could be achieved from Paris. I put up a case: the weather, the cost of living, the farmhouse, proximity to the Basque coast, the Mediterranean, the Dordogne, Provence, Spain … Everything was in there but the kitchen sink and the truth.
Patricia listened incredulously. ‘I might consider leaving Paris for New York or Rome or even Berlin,’ she said, ‘but Toulouse? That’s like swapping London for Birmingham.’ I tried to point out that, on most counts, Toulouse was more agreeable than Birmingham but she wasn’t interested. As far as she was concerned, leaving the metropolis for the provinces was, well, provincial.
Patricia went back to London for a relative’s funeral and to drum up interest in her collection of what she called short stories. They were certainly short and quite nicely written; they just weren’t stories. I invited myself to stay with Serge and Samantha in their apartment in the old quarter. It was tiny and, despite Samantha’s best efforts, shabby. Her remittance only went so far, especially as Serge didn’t let his lack of income cramp his style. With none of us having a job to go to, we spent a lot of time hanging around the apartment. Samantha was no exhibitionist but she wasn’t shy either, and the scale and layout of their place meant that I saw quite a lot of her out of the corner of my eye. The second night we ran out of wine so I went out for another bottle. When I returned they were in the bedroom and Samantha was in full cry. I wasn’t sure whether she hadn’t heard me come in or couldn’t contain herself or simply didn’t care. Her fiery embarrassment when they emerged eliminated the latter possibility.
The next morning Serge took off in a flurry of evasions. Whether Samantha was distracted by his absence or discomforted by my presence, the result was a gathering awkwardness. I spent the day walking the streets and sitting in cafés, trying to work out what the hell I was doing there. By dusk I’d acknowledged the insanity of the whole enterprise and returned to the apartment with a clear conscience to find Samantha down in the dumps. Serge was in Marseille, visiting friends from his national service days; he wasn’t sure when he’d be back — there was talk of a hunting trip to Corsica. He’d left a number and wanted me to give him a call, presumably to say au revoir.
When Samantha went out to get something for dinner I rang the number. Serge answered as if he’d been waiting by the phone. I asked him what the hell he was doing in Marseille; he asked me what I was doing in Toulouse. When I hesitated, he said, ‘What a strange pair we are, Max, asking questions when we already know the answers.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m sure Sam’s told you why I’m here and I know why you’re in Toulouse — because that’s where Sam is. If she was somewhere else, that’s where you’d be.’
Serge had black eyes — I thought of them as cut-throat — and military training, and while he affected a drop-out nonchalance, the southern French are not unemotional people. I was relieved that he was several hundred kilometres away.
I forced a laugh. ‘Am I hearing things or are you pissed out of your mind?’
‘I didn’t see this in the bottom of a glass, Max.’ He was as laid back as ever; we could have been discussing France’s prospects in the Five Nations. ‘It was right there in front of my eyes.’
I thanked God that I’d abandoned this folly before walking into Serge’s ambush. ‘Listen, Serge, I don’t know what put this idea in your head but if it was something I said or did, then I’m sorry. But you can set your mind at rest: I’m heading back to Paris in the morning …’
‘No, don’t do that.’ Finally, and confusingly, some animation. ‘Think about it, Max: would I be here if I was worried?’
‘You’re telling the story, Serge, and most of it’s going over my head.’
‘Oh, come on, Max, you don’t have to put up this pr
etence. I’m not going to challenge you to a duel.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ It was the first honest thing I’d said.
‘You know, Max, you remind me of Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, except you watch from close range. You’ve observed that Sam and I see our relationship differently. You know there’s an imbalance.’ I said nothing, happy to let him do the talking. ‘Sam wants us to get married; I don’t. When I’m ready, I’ll marry a French woman who understands what it means to be married to a French man. It’s time I explained this to Samantha, don’t you think?’
‘Well,’ I said, still wary of talking myself into trouble, ‘if she believes in a fairytale, then maybe you’d be doing her a favour.’
‘How do you think she’ll react?’
‘She’ll be devastated, Serge — as you know very well — and she’ll try to change your mind.’
‘Exactly. She’ll say, “Let’s just carry on as we are and see how you feel in a year’s time.” She’ll tell herself that this will pass, as if I woke up in a certain mood. But, you know, the possibility of marrying Sam had never occurred to me until she raised it. For me, Samantha has always been an adventure and when the adventurer has had enough excitement, he goes home to his own kind. He doesn’t marry a head-hunter’s daughter.’
‘Nice analogy, Serge. Very romantic.’
‘I didn’t create this situation, Max: Sam did. Marriage, by definition, is the end of adventure.’
‘So it’s bye-bye Samantha, just like that?’
‘You know a nice way to do it?’
‘When are you going to tell her?’
‘I’ve written a letter. When she comes back, tell her to look under the mattress on her side of the bed.’
‘Jesus Christ, Serge, this is going to break her heart.’
‘Perhaps. At least she’ll have a shoulder to cry on.’
‘How fucking convenient. And how long do you expect me to play Florence Nightingale?’
He laughed. ‘Really, Max, you’re very ungrateful and, I must say, somewhat hypocritical. You’ll be Florence Nightingale for as long as it serves your purpose.’
‘You seem to be forgetting something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘She’s madly in love with you.’
Serge laughed again, a hard, ironic sound. ‘Tell me, Max, if you were so sure of that, why did you come to Toulouse? What was the point?’
‘I don’t honestly know,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t thought it through.’
‘You just had to be near her, was that it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Just as well I think for both of us. The field is yours, my friend. I wish you luck.’
‘She loves you, Serge. That’s not going to change overnight.’
‘She’s a woman, Max, and women respond to tenderness, which I’m sure you have plenty of. Give my love to Patricia next time you’re speaking to her.’
He was still laughing when I hung up.
That night I lay curled up on the two-seater sofa listening to Samantha sob, and in the morning she looked through me when I asked if she was all right. She showed no interest when I offered to go out for pastries so I went to a café and wrestled my way through it: Serge was the most cold-blooded bastard I’d ever met and I was fucked if I was going to clean up his mess. I’d advise Samantha to go back to the States; I’d offer to help her pack up and accompany her to Paris; I’d even chip in for the airfare if that was an issue. What I wouldn’t do was hang around in that apartment putting her back together every time she fell apart.
These scenarios unfold in an orderly, logical fashion when you rehearse them in your head, but when I made my suggestion Samantha stared at me as if I was mad. Why on earth would she want to do that? Everything was going to be okay; Serge would be back in a few days and they’d work it out. She had the raw, flayed look of the trauma victim, but once I’d adjusted to that I couldn’t help but refocus on the rest of her — the doll’s face and high breasts and long, immaculate legs. But she was also bright — she had an economics degree from Berkeley — and managed to be perky without coming across as if she was auditioning to host a game show. She could have gone back to a good job and a plush apartment and her pick of any number of presentable, well-heeled men who’d treat her like a princess. Instead here she was in this oppressive flat in a noisy, crumbling building in a town where they spoke a language she couldn’t really get the hang of and the few people she knew looked upon her as either a figure of curiosity or a figure of fun, waiting for a cynical layabout to have his fill of the whores of Marseille. This, I told myself with weary resignation, was the real thing. This was mad love.
I asked, ‘What did the letter say?’
‘That he doesn’t love me in the happily-ever-after sense. That when he does get married, it’ll be to a French girl.’ Her voice got stronger. ‘Just like his daddy did, and his daddy before him. And so forth and so on, all the way back to the cave.’
‘That doesn’t sound like much of a basis for sticking around.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Serge is very French,’ I said. ‘He’s one generation off the land, a peasant at heart. They’re conservative when it comes to that stuff.’
‘I meant the part about not loving me in the happily-ever-after sense.’
‘I’m sorry, Samantha, but yes, I believe that too.’
‘Are you really sorry? Something else he said was that if I wanted love, I wouldn’t have far to look.’ I coped with this treacherous bombshell as best I could, with a red-faced stammer that she gently interrupted. ‘There’s no need to apologise, Max — in fact I’m kind of flattered — but I think you and Patricia have some issues to work through. Go back to Paris.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll get by. I need to get my head straight so a bit of time on my own won’t do me any harm.’
‘I think Patricia and I have had it.’
She nodded. ‘That would seem to follow. Has she got any idea?’ I shook my head miserably. ‘Well, if it works out that way, Max, do it properly. Don’t run away leaving a letter under the mattress.’
After another night of audible heartbreak, Samantha walked me to the station. Frenchmen don’t ogle surreptitiously, even when they’re with their wives or mistresses. They stop and stare; they cross the road for a closer look. I felt like Roger Vadim stepping out with Jane Fonda.
On the platform I told Samantha I wouldn’t be staying in Paris.
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe here.’ Her face was quite still and I couldn’t see her eyes through the sunglasses she wore to conceal the ravages of that flood of tears. ‘How would you feel about that?’
She took a long time to answer. ‘Max, you should do what you want to do. As I said last night, I’m not going anywhere.’
We didn’t say goodbye as if we thought we’d never see each other again. I watched her walk away, me and every other man on the platform.
Patricia came back from London and life went on. I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing. We were on borrowed time but, rather than force the issue, I waited for something to happen. I tried ringing Samantha a couple of times but there was no reply. The third time Serge answered and I hung up without a word.
five
I was in the final, slow-breathing, heavy-headed phase of pre-sleep when Patricia slipped across the border into my side of the bed and began stirring up trouble: ‘Do you realise we haven’t made love since the day after I got back from London?’
Her tone was whimsical rather than accusatory, as if she was passing on some factoid scavenged from the multimedia info-dump. It was the sort of tone in which children alert their peers to the weird shit out there — ‘Did you know that in some parts of the world people eat tarantulas?’ One doesn’t expect much reaction to these titbits, beyond a muted appreciation of their outlandishness.<
br />
‘Is that right?’ I said with moronic laboriousness, hoping to convey that even the most basic exchange was beyond me.
Thirty seconds passed. ‘Uh-huh.’ Another pause. ‘The question is what, if anything, I should make of it.’
Her tone was still casual but I knew now that the casualness was tactical, enabling her to raise a fraught subject while leaving both of us some room for manoeuvre.
I stirred impatiently and tried to make my voice even dozier. ‘What’s that?’
Patricia snuggled up to my back. ‘We used to do it practically every night,’ she said with kittenish nostalgia.
‘Jesus,’ I growled, ‘what’s got into you?’
An ironic chuckle floated over my shoulder. ‘Well, I certainly know what hasn’t.’
And because I knew what was on her mind and didn’t want the discussion to reach the point where I was forced into a drastic lie — the indignant boilover that asserts that the other party can’t trust the evidence of their own senses and takes offence rather than addresses the issue — I rolled on top of her and demanded, with a pantomime leer, ‘If you want a good seeing-to, why don’t you just come out and say so?’
She started to split hairs but I swooped down and smeared her mouth all over her face. When her lips and tongue had been wrestled to a standstill, I squirmed to the bottom of the bed and opened another front.
I devoted the next week to sex, dragging Patricia away from her desk and nudging her awake in the small hours. As she wondered aloud what had happened to the happy medium, my lips locked onto her neck and my fingers flew to her buttons. On the eighth day she told me to go away when I barged in on her like Lord Foulheart cornering the new chambermaid. She hadn’t had much of a say in the matter recently and hadn’t seemed to mind so I carried on regardless until she whacked me on the side of the head with the Shorter Oxford Dictionary shrieking, ‘Get away from me, you fucking sex maniac.’
