“St. Tropez? No. I thought she’d sold it. She never goes there…”
“Ah, well, she’s had a change of heart then, I expect.” Ghislaine gave him a sidelong glance, as if she knew something, and he did not. Then she shrugged. “You know how Louise is. She’ll probably cancel it anyway.”
She smiled at him; a frank pleasant smile, the smile of an old friend, the easy smile of an independent professional woman who had known Edouard too long, and worked with him too closely to regard him other than as a colleague. She was looking elegant, as she always did, Edouard thought. A narrow black dress that was probably Dior, but which looked like Mainbocher. Ghislaine had found the style that suited her in the late nineteen-thirties; she had had the taste, and the assurance, to stick to it. Fastened on the shoulder was an exquisite brooch: a panther poised to leap, made of gold and onyx.
“Yes, I know you recognize it, Edouard.” She had seen his glance. “One of Vlacek’s last pieces. De Chavigny, of course. And not mine, I hasten to add. I wish it were, but it’s borrowed.”
She patted his arm, glanced over her shoulder, and then back at him, with a meaningful smile that Edouard was quite at a loss to understand.
“If you want to make good your escape,” she said lightly, “now’s your moment, I think. Louise won’t even notice—not now.”
Edouard wished her good night, and turned away. It was only when he turned that he grasped her meaning.
Across the room, Louise had looked up, her face suddenly alight. She was looking, Edouard saw, at the doorway. And in the doorway stood Philippe de Belfort.
De Belfort was smoothing down the sleeve of an already immaculate dinner jacket. Impossible, Edouard thought; then he saw the expression on de Belfort’s face, and he knew that it was not impossible. De Belfort was thirty years younger than Louise—but when had that made any difference to his mother?
He left the room; as he passed de Belfort, the two men exchanged the briefest of greetings.
He had intended to drive straight back to St. Cloud when he left his mother’s house. But the moment he was in the car, he knew he wouldn’t. Instead, he took the opposite direction; he drove, as he had many times before, along the quai, to the place where he had met Hélène.
He drove fast, through the now almost empty streets, the Seine glittering blackly to his left. Near the corner of the Rue St. Julien, he stopped the car; it was past midnight; he walked the rest of the way.
He stood outside the small church where he had first seen her, looking now toward the church, now toward the little park where the children had been playing, now back again toward the quai.
The street was silent, and deserted, the only noise the occasional car passing in the distance. He knew that it was pointless, this compulsion that brought him back here, but he found it comforting all the same. It always calmed him; he could feel the place stilling his mind, so that the noise and the falsehood and the horror of the past hour left him. He felt, almost, at peace. He felt, whenever he was here, and however illogical it might seem, that Hélène was close. Somehow, he could never quite rid himself of the belief that, if he came here, if he stood here, he would—one day—hear footsteps, and look up, and see her.
He stood there for five, perhaps ten minutes. The air was cool and smelled of spring; no cars passed, and for a moment all of Paris was silent.
When the ten minutes had passed, he turned away, reluctantly, and went back to the Aston-Martin. The engine fired, he turned and accelerated away, fast.
It was one o’clock precisely; he was leaving for New York this morning.
“You’re crazy, do you know that? It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. You can’t walk the streets of Paris at this hour.”
Lewis lifted his glass, and emptied it. They were in their suite at the Ritz; tonight, Lewis was drinking brandy.
“I know what time it is. And it doesn’t matter. I won’t be long, Lewis. I just need to go for a walk, that’s all. I won’t sleep. I need some air…”
She had already edged to the door; Lewis might suggest he come with her; he might even insist. But she thought not; two whiskies, one bottle of claret, three brandies: no, he wouldn’t even suggest it, though he might sulk—if he remembered—in the morning.
She looked at Lewis, and thought: I must stop counting the drinks. I have to stop it, it’s like spying on him. Lewis was already reaching for the cognac bottle. He lifted his handsome face, then lifted his glass; an ironic salute. He mis-timed it slightly.
“Have it your own way. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Hélène was already opening the door.
There were still people about, and she did not want to be seen or recognized, so she pulled up the collar of her coat and slipped out of the side entrance.
Once she was in the street, she began to hurry. It was quite a long way, but she wasn’t aware of the distance; Edouard drew her on. Twenty-minutes; when she reached the Pont Notre Dame, she was out of breath from running. She stopped on the bridge, and looked down into the water. Across the Seine, a car’s engine fired, the noise magnified by the expanse of the river, so it sounded very loud, like a roar.
She ran across the bridge, crossed the quai, and turned into the Rue St. Julien. There she stopped abruptly.
She had been certain she would see him: she realized that, only then, when the street was empty. Somehow, madly, the conviction had been there, and when she found she had been wrong, she felt his absence with such sudden intensity that she could have sunk to her knees on the sidewalk, and wept.
She had never come here before. All the times she had had to be in Paris, and she had never come here, where she had most longed to be. Perhaps that was why she had been so madly convinced, she thought: this place was so firmly rooted in her heart, so occupied by Edouard, that she could not believe that when she came there, he would not be there, too, waiting.
She began to walk up the street, toward the church, toward the place where she had been standing. When she reached it, she stood as she had done that August, looking up at the façade of the church, though she hardly saw it.
She had no idea what would have happened if he had been there. She had not thought once beyond that instant, not of what she would say, nor what she would do—nothing. All she had seen in her mind was that one second, when she would look up and see him, and nothing else would matter because he made the night, the day, and her life bright again.
She stood by the church five minutes, perhaps ten. The blind superstition that she would suddenly hear his footsteps would not leave her. When the ten minutes had passed, she turned away reluctantly, and in the quai, picked up a cab.
It’s over. I knew really, she said to herself. She looked at her watch. It was one-thirty; she was promoting her new film; she had three interviews and a photographic session this morning.
Jean-Jacques Belmont-Laon left the private screening room, where he had been watching the new Thaddeus Angelini picture, at seven in the evening. Short Cut, it was called, and it starred this new woman, Hélène Harte, about whom, quite suddenly, everyone seemed to be talking.
Well, he could understand that, he thought—and not just because the film was being tipped to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and Hélène Harte the award for best actress. Oh, not just because of that, he thought, settling himself in the backseat of the taxi which would take him home. The film was good, he could see that, though he had not particularly liked it. And she was good: the editor of his biggest circulation magazine had been itching to run a feature on her for months, and Jean-Jacques would now certainly give him the go-ahead…But it was not just that; those were purely professional considerations, and fairly minor. Lots of actresses became hot overnight, and his magazines duly featured them.
But this woman was special. Very special. She had produced in Jean-Jacques sensations which he was at a loss to explain, though they were physically obvious enough—he still had an erection. On celluloid, too; in a smoky overcrowded scree
ning room filled with other men. That had never happened to him before. Even Monroe, even Bardot—on film they left him cold. Jean-Jacques was quick to respond to women in the flesh—no doubts on that score, he reminded himself with a smile—but at a distance, on film? No, it was the first time, and it was incredibly strong. He felt almost sick with lust; aching to have a woman.
He slipped his hand down between his thighs, and felt his cock throb. That scene where she undressed—not that you could see a goddamn thing—Angelini could learn, he thought, from Vadim. Then; that was when he’d really felt it, and he couldn’t have said why. He wasn’t sure if it was she who did it, or Angelini, with the way he filmed her; but there was something about her face, the eyes, the mouth—she had the most incredible mouth—one minute he’d just been watching yet another movie, and the next the images were ricocheting through his mind like bullets…
Mother of God. They were stuck in a traffic jam. Jean-Jacques began to feel he’d go crazy. Unfortunately he’d just had a bust-up with the latest girl, otherwise he’d have gone straight to her apartment. But he was between women at the moment, not that that would last for long. So Ghislaine would just have to do. If she was there, of course, which she usually wasn’t. Be there, Jean-Jacques thought; just be there.
Ghislaine was in, and Jean-Jacques wasted no time with preliminaries—she was his wife, wasn’t she? And anyway, Ghislaine understood him; she, too, had her little ways, and one of them, which her oversensitive lovers did not understand, and Jean-Jacques did, was that she liked sex devoid of tenderness.
She knew anyway, as soon as she saw his face; and he knew, as soon as he saw the sudden fixity, the answering avidity in hers. She was in the kitchen when Jean-Jacques came in, and he went straight up to her from behind, pressing up against her buttocks—just in case she was in any doubt about the matter.
True, she wasted a bit of time—she started kissing him, for one thing, and trying to pull him in the direction of the bedroom, and that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted to do it right there, in the kitchen, with the door only half closed, and the maid likely to walk in at any moment…
And he didn’t want to fuck her, either. That wasn’t the image burning a hole in his head. No, he wanted her down on her knees, fully dressed; he wanted her sucking him.
He gave Ghislaine a push, so she half-fell; then he reached for his zipper, fumbling in his haste, and pulled it out—so she could take a good look, so she could see just how big he was.
Sucking was not one of Ghislaine’s strong points; she was good enough at it, but he’d known better. Today, however, he didn’t care; just the wetness and openness of her mouth was enough for him. He grabbed her by the hair, and tipped her head back; then he began to thrust and pump, back and forth, back and forth. He shut his eyes, and saw Hélène Harte’s face, Hélène Harte’s mouth; the image was burning; his cock was burning; he felt full of sperm, and it was bursting to get out, into her mouth, into the bitch’s throat…
The word bitch, or possibly the word throat, did it. Jean-Jacques bellowed and shuddered.
It was glorious, just for a second, just for a minute, just until the throbbing and the pumping stopped.
Then he opened his eyes, and felt a profound disgust. A line of copper pans winked; the gas on the stove was still on. And the image had gone: at the very last moment it had slipped away.
He pulled back, and looked at Ghislaine dazedly. The wrong bitch of a woman, the wrong place, the wrong mouth: everything was wrong, somehow.
Ghislaine was still kneeling. She looked up at him, her face white under her makeup, and her eyes murderous.
“Who was it?” she said. “Why don’t you tell me? I’d just like to know who it was you were thinking about…” She stopped.
As if it were an afterthought, she added, “Bastard.”
Jean-Jacques stared at her. He felt confused. The image had been there in his mind; he’d been sure he was going to possess it, and now he knew—he’d lost it.
“Jesus, Ghislaine…” he started to say, reaching down to help her up.
Perhaps something in his wife’s face triggered the memory, he wasn’t sure. But it was at that moment that the memory came back to him, and he knew where he had seen Hélène Harte before.
It was also the moment in which Ghislaine realized once and for all precisely how much she hated him.
Two days later, Ghislaine had lunch with Louise de Chavigny, in Louise’s favorite restaurant, to discuss the redecoration of Louise’s house in St. Tropez.
She had not wanted to join Louise, whom she disliked, and her temper was so bad that she had almost cast caution to the wind and canceled, despite the fact that Louise was a catch, an influential client. In the end, she went, and for the first five minutes she hardly heard a word Louise said—not that she said anything worth listening to. Ghislaine’s mind had not been able to rid itself of the horrible and humiliating image of that scene in the kitchen with Jean-Jacques: herself on her knees, Jean-Jacques tugging at her hair, his mouth half open, his face flushed crimson. It filled her with rage and loathing—all the more intense because it was impossible to speak of it to anyone. She felt as if she could still taste him in her mouth, that disgusting repellent taste, like the smell of fish. When Louise ordered grilled sole, she felt physically sick.
She swallowed some wine, and forced herself to concentrate. She looked at Louise, who was wearing a new necklace, of opals, and a very chic little hat, with a veil. A veil, even a small one, and at her age, Ghislaine thought scornfully. Louise was waving her hands vaguely and fretfully. The house at St. Tropez was so charming. Such a marvelously romantic setting. But she found it now so very dull-looking, so very démodé…The thing was, she wanted Ghislaine to do it, but could it be done quickly enough?
She lifted her still lovely face to Ghislaine, and looked at her with that sweet vague hesitancy she used to mask her iron will.
“It must be ready for May,” she said. She had previously said the end of the summer. “By mid-May. Edouard said he might come down.” She paused and gave a little smile. Ghislaine knew she was not thinking of Edouard when she smiled like that. “And one or two other people, a little later in the summer. A house party. A retreat from Paris. Really, Ghislaine, I find Paris so exhausting these days…”
Philippe de Belfort, Ghislaine thought; she knew it in an instant, and Louise, who knew she knew, and probably wanted her to, looked away with a vague smile.
Ghislaine felt the scorn rise. Really, Louise was incredible. Such vanity. Still to take lovers at her age, and a man virtually the same age as her son. She couldn’t imagine, surely, that de Belfort could care for her? De Belfort was interested in only one thing, his own advancement. She looked at Louise for a moment with an appalled curiosity. Did she still go to bed with them? It was possible, she looked in her early fifties, no more, and with Louise, anything was possible. But on the whole, Ghislaine thought not. What Louise wanted, she suspected—what she had always wanted—was not sex at all, but adoration.
She thought back then to the past, and to Xavier de Chavigny, whom she had met only once or twice, when she was still a young girl. That marvelous man—she had always admired him from afar; when she had still been full of romantic dreams, before she grew up and discovered what most men were like; when she had been young, ah, how she had dreamed of meeting a man like the Baron de Chavigny. And Louise, who had been his wife, whom he had loved madly, everyone said so—she was now reduced to this: to being proud to hint that she had a nothing like Philippe de Belfort as her admirer.
It was then, quite suddenly, when Louise was toying with her food, and describing her house, which was charming, and yet not quite what she wanted, that the fear struck Ghislaine. She looked at Louise, and to her horror saw herself in twenty years’ time. Not as stupid as Louise, perhaps; not as self-deluding; but just as disappointed.
She had her work, of course, which made a difference; Louise had never lifted a finger in her life. Bu
t still, however hard she tried to avoid it, Ghislaine could see a certain horrible resemblance. Louise had been married only once—Ghislaine three times, all unhappily. For the last ten years she’d been trapped with that peasant Jean-Jacques, loathing him, trying not to mind when her friends smirked because they knew—all Paris knew—about the latest model, the latest typist, the latest calendar girl. Jean-Jacques, who liked best to fuck her when he knew she had just come from her lover’s. And the lovers themselves: that procession of unmemorable young men, who invariably failed to give her the most minimal satisfaction…was there one of them who loved her, one of them who would ask her to leave Jean-Jacques, and marry him? No, there was not. They liked the fact that she was married: it made them feel safer.
“The salon faces out over the sea,” Louise was saying with a small discontented pout. “I liked that to begin with, but the light, you know—it reflects, it makes the room so very bright…” Ghislaine hardly heard a word she said. She thought: I’m forty-seven; Louise is sixty-seven. She thought: I could give them up, Jean-Jacques, all the goddamned men. I could concentrate on my work. I could make it on my own. Who needs them—who needs any of them?
Just for a moment she felt courage, she felt confidence: she could see herself doing it. Then the courage deflated like a pricked balloon. She knew it wasn’t true; she knew she didn’t want it; a woman without a man was nothing, a figure of ridicule—like Louise.
No, she needed a man—and at the same second she acknowledged that fact, she knew with a sudden sharp instinct which man. She saw him quite distinctly—the man who so resembled his father, the man who was the embodiment of all her earliest ideals. How could she have been so stupid? How could she have been so lazy? How could she have known, always, that she was attracted to him, and yet have made no move, have done nothing at all? She set down her fork with a sudden little clatter. She blushed, in a way she had not done since she was a girl, slowly and agonizingly, the heat rushing up over her neck and suffusing her face.
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