by Freya North
You didn’t want to string Julia along, keep her dangling, then cut the rope and have her fall.
Exactly. When I met Fen, I had already left. So when I met Fen, my slate was already wiped clean.
And yet initially you balked at the idea of going straight from one relationship into another.
That’ll be a testosterone thing – Jake’s notion of The Rebound seemed both healthy and what was expected of me.
So you shagged Judith.
Yes. But in truth, the idea of the sex was far more titillating than the physical reality itself.
‘So I got to shoot my load. I came. Whoosh! Big bloody deal.’
Matthew Holden! Hush! You’re sitting by Highgate Ponds, there are children in earshot!
And then along came Fen. And shagging Judith could well have jeopardized my chances there. So that’s when I thought how contrived it would be to delay the possibility of getting it together with Fen just so I could embark on a conventional rebound and put some space between proper relationships.
You got the girl. And you’ve been very happy.
Really happy.
So why on earth are you contemplating finishing what has only just started?
Has she gone off me?
‘Has she gone off me?’
‘Who?’ asks a small boy in red shorts and red wellington boots and a T-shirt that was probably white this morning but is now speckled and splodged, Jackson Pollock style, with foodstuffs, vegetation and pondlife.
‘Maybe it’s actually been too fast too soon? Right person, wrong time?’ Matt tries to reason with the child. The boy takes a seat beside Matt on the bench. Suddenly Matt wishes he was young enough, small enough, to wear shorts and wellies and swing his legs because his feet were a long way from touching the ground. Oh, to be trouble free, so full of energy.
‘Maybe that’s true,’ says the little boy very seriously though of course he doesn’t understand a word of what Matt is talking about. He’s just picking up on Matt’s tone and contemplation and is trying to make friends in the way he knows best – mirroring.
‘Or do I just feel emasculated by her rejection?’ Matt theorizes.
‘Yes,’ agrees the boy, ‘you probably do. I often am emastilated.’
Matt knows not to laugh. ‘I don’t know,’ Matt says, ‘has it been a little one-sided? It’s not a good idea to start off with an inbalance, is it?’
‘It’s very bad idea,’ the boy comments sagely, ‘isn’t it?’
‘But,’ Matt says, ‘wooing and pursuing her – was that for my own amusement or because I truly wanted Fen? Did I crave light relief and a laugh – in the shadow of my break-up with Julia?’
‘I do that,’ the boy says encouragingly, ‘I do.’
‘If I think about it,’ says Matt, not knowing where or how to start really thinking about it.
‘I have to think about it too,’ says the little boy and he holds his finger to his lips, frowning with the effort of Thinking About It. ‘I have thought about it,’ he tells Matt, ‘and my answer is yes.’
‘I should call it a day?’
‘It is Sunday. My birthday is never on Sunday. It is on Wednesday November the twenty-first.’
‘Is she worth it?’ Matt asks, affectionately ruffling the boy’s hair. ‘I wonder.’
‘Is she indeed!’ the boy exclaims, raising his hands and letting them fall down on his knees. He sighs, as if he is shouldering Matt’s worries plus the weight of the entire world.
‘Who’s leading who a merry dance?’ Matt probes.
‘We do country dancing at playschool – shall I show you?’
The little boy clambers down from the bench and holds out his hand. Matt takes it and stands. The boy darts around, clapping and singing tunelessly. ‘Do a merry dance!’ he shouts gleefully. ‘Do it with me!’
Matt laughs. ‘Actually, I ought to go home now,’ he says. ‘Anyway, I have two left feet.’
The boy looks at Matt with alarm and very slowly drops his gaze to Matt’s feet. Matt ruffles the top of his dirty blond head and says goodbye.
‘Bye,’ says the boy, scampering off to do a commendable long jump into a puddle.
FORTY-THREE
Matt wasn’t much looking forward to Fen’s return. James was, though. Firstly, he was intrigued; genuinely interested to hear of her trip. He was sure she’d have an adventure or two to recount. Secondly, he wanted to gauge her manner. Her brusqueness last week had been so out of character, unattractive too, that hitherto he’d attributed it to PMT or some other hormonal affliction unique to women.
Fen, however, did not return on Monday. Nor did she phone Matt or James to let them know. She stayed in Paris, alone, for a night. She made the decision to do so on the spur of the moment – right beside the Eurostar gates at the top of the escalator in the Gare du Nord.
‘I can’t come home yet,’ she told Pip, ‘I’m not ready.’
Pip regarded her sister. ‘Don’t tell me!’ she jested gently. ‘You’re going off to find Julius Frigging Fetherstone?’
Fen nodded. ‘Now that I’m here, it would be daft not to – there are documents in the Bibliothèque Nationale – it would really benefit the Trust Art Archive.’ She didn’t tell Pip that her desire to find Julius had next to nothing to do with art history – more that she felt confident that Julius would help her decide what to do. She didn’t have to – Pip knew her well enough to know that, though rifling through documents sounded plausible, it wasn’t the only reason for Fen to stay. As the train headed for home, Pip had a very vivid picture of Fen strolling dreamily along the streets of the Latin quarter talking quietly to a long-dead nineteenth-century sculptor. She’d be OK, she’d be in safe hands. The thought made her grin.
I mean, if I can spend half my life as a clown called Martha – with a separate wardrobe, completely different voice and portfolio of facial expressions – my younger sister can certainly have an imaginary friend in Julius Flipping Fetherstone.
And so Fen McCabe went back down to the Métro and headed for the Left Bank. She found a small pension near the Musée Cluny where the owner let her choose between two rooms available. Fen chose the smaller, though it was the same price, because it was like one she’d seen in a hundred black-and-white French films. Curled up on the bed, she left a message on Rodney Beaumont’s voice mail, exaggerating both her tone of enthusiasm and the benefit to the Trust Art Archive. She didn’t even entertain the idea of making any other calls, not least because the telephone rates were exorbitant. It was tea-time. She’d leave the research until the morning. She was anxious to be out, to see where she might find Julius.
Nowhere. He simply wasn’t around. Not even in the tiny street near the Rue de Buci where his studio had been. He wasn’t taking coffee at tea-time in any of the cafés, or Pernod early evening in any of the bars; nor did he join Fen for a buckwheat galette and an earthenware cup of cidre in a cheap, cramped, delicious restaurant populated mainly by art students. He wasn’t passing the time on the pedestrian bridge of Pont des Arts, though plenty of other people were. He wasn’t sitting on any of the benches in the Luxembourg gardens. By now it was getting dark and Fen didn’t want to be sitting by herself in the gardens either. Deflated, she returned to the pension and watched the highlights of that day’s stage of the Tour de France instead. She thought of Cat, amongst new colleagues and friends in the cramped press rooms, with her new boyfriend in some cramped two-star hotel in the evenings. Cat had worn a veritable sparkle on top of her creased clothes. She had shone. Luminous. Energetic. Her sisters were reacquainted with the Cat of old, whom they had not seen for so many months they had all but forgotten about her. How lovely to see her again. Fen and Pip had left the Alps knowing that they were leaving their sister in safe, loving hands.
Fen looked at her own hands. Were they safe and loving? She didn’t want to look too hard. She fell fast asleep with the small table lamp still on.
Fen awoke very early. She swung open the tall, elegant window
s and peered over the intricate railings to the street below. The pavements were being washed. Boulangerie vans were driving recklessly half on the pavement, half on the roads. There were few people around. The sky was an interesting mix of hopeful pale blue fighting for space against bruise-grey clouds and scorches of orange from the sunrise. She was glad she was in Paris, though how fruitful her day would be she had yet to discover. She climbed back into bed and refused to allow herself to think of Matt or James. That’s why she was in Paris – to ask Julius what she should do. There was little point, therefore, in worrying about it before then. She zapped through the television channels and came across the Magic Roundabout in French, where the personalities of the characters seemed entirely different to those so infamous in the English version. She sat in the bath – a classic deep square structure where the water covered her shoulders – and practised her French accent, making it more and more extreme with a strong nasal inflection, until she giggled out loud.
‘Come on, girl, there’s work to be done.’
It was good to be back with the Fetherstone Archive. She hadn’t been there since researching her Master’s dissertation. There were no new documents, nothing really to benefit Trust Art at all, or to justify a day away for Fen and the expense of the hotel. Fen just sat with the pictures and letters spread before her and gave herself a sizeable but silent pat on the back.
You’ve done well, you’ve come far. You worked hard and can feel good about reaping rewards.
She felt acutely the passing of time; able to remember herself vividly as a fresh-faced student, always earnest, on a mission to publicize and canonize Fetherstone. Now, six years later, she was a salaried expert on the sculptor whose reputation was growing thanks to her efforts.
Oh look! Here are duplicates of those photos that I found amongst the Holden collection – of Julius in his studio months before death with the couple and Henry and the small boy and enigmatic woman.
The pictures were identical. It was difficult to tell which were the originals – Paris or London. Fen scrutinized the backs. They didn’t have Henry’s stamp but were inscribed instead in tiny wiry writing in black ink. She couldn’t make out the words at all. Collection Someone-or-other. The librarian couldn’t tell either; he shrugged and made murmuring noises with suitable facial gesticulations, all in a quintessentially Gallic way. Fen asked if he might photocopy them for her. The librarian obliged – he vaguely remembered her from years ago and was amused anyway that someone should have expressed interest in this folder. He checked his books – the Archive had only been requested twice in the six years since Fen was last here.
Julius, Julius, where the bloody hell are you? I’ve come all this way, all this way. Please come!
Fen toyed with the idea of visiting either the Picasso museum or the Pompidou. But she felt sceptical whether she’d find Julius in either place.
I could go to the Musée Rodin – but as Brancusi said when a student of Rodin, ‘Nothing grows under the shadow of a great tree,’ – so I’m unlikely to tune into Julius in that place.
She had over two hours until her train and decided that she wouldn’t mooch or mope, or get gallery guilt, she’d indulge herself with some shopping instead. She headed for the Galeries Lafayette where she tried on many things, procrastinated over all of them but left the store having bought nothing. She went to the station, chose a bar-restaurant nearby and marvelled to herself over the quality of such establishments in comparison to those around the London stations. She ordered a sandwich with cheese and piquant cornichons, also a pression, s’il vous plaît. The combination was perfect, the meal was satisfying.
‘I prefer ham.’
Fen didn’t need to turn – in fact, if she did she’d run the risk of breaking the spell. ‘Do you, Julius.’
‘I do, child. And I would refrain from coffee, dearest – you’ll feel queasy on the train.’
The waiter came and Fen requested a bottle of Evian.
‘I cannot believe that water is bottled and good money paid for it,’ Julius said.
‘I couldn’t find you yesterday,’ Fen said. ‘I looked hard. It upset me.’
‘You should know by now, child, that it is I who comes to you.’
The waiter brought Fen’s water, and a pastry too. He’d been watching her. She seemed so absorbed, so deep in thought, that he presumed some unkindness had befallen her. Mind you, had he known that she was chatting away merrily to an artist dead for almost forty years, he would have given her the pastry anyway, out of pity. Insanity in one so young and so pretty – how cruel!
Fen glanced at the old clock above the bar; she synchronized it with her watch and knew that she needed to pay, to go, to catch her train, to return to England.
‘I have to go, Julius. I have to go home and sort my life out.’ She felt like crying – but the innate knowledge that, in reality, no one was there to wrap a protective arm around her shoulders, kept the tears at bay.
‘Tell me what to do,’ she implored, crossing the road.
‘One is ultimately responsible for the progress and path of one’s own happiness – but one also has a degree of responsibility to safeguard the happiness of others.’
‘Can you love two at the same time? Is it possible? Is it right?’
‘I only ever loved one woman.’
Fen had reached the escalator. She really had to get a move on.
‘Where’s Abandon?’ she asked, now out loud and to the bemusement of an elderly lady who spoke no English. Fen mounted the escalator. ‘Tell me, Julius – it’s a travesty that the world is denied this monumental, seminal, magnificent work.’
She looked around her. The station was full of people. She knew no one. Certainly there was no sculptor with sage beard and the answer to her question. Of course there wasn’t. He died almost half a century ago.
It’s time to go home, Fen. You’re in danger of missing your train. Hurry.
FORTY-FOUR
Matt wasn’t in work the next day. Otter told her that he’d gone for a meeting at the printers about paper quality and charges.
‘I love Matt very much,’ Fen said instead, looking as though she was about to weep.
‘I know you do,’ Otter soothed, ‘of course you do.’
‘I do,’ Fen stressed, as if Otter had argued otherwise.
‘I know you do,’ Otter reiterated, unable to fathom why such a positive declaration should be accompanied by eyes stung red with tears held at bay. ‘Now, girl, I want news of all those bike boys – in glorious technicolor detail.’
‘I have to speak to Matt,’ Fen said, her voice wavering, ‘today. But his phone is off.’
‘He’s in meetings with the printers,’ Otter told her again, wondering whether his arm around her shoulders would blot tears or create a deluge. He gave her a light punch instead. ‘Ed is on a crusade today, dearest, to save Trust Art money – and to save the reputation of Art Matters as a quality read on good paper.’
Fen nodded.
‘He’ll be back tomorrow,’ Otter said. ‘You can talk slushily to him then. For now, though, you have to furnish me with what you saw out on the Tour. Dimensions, Fen! I demand dimensions. How much is just padding? And how much is truly Boy Bulge?’
Fen sits, forlorn, in the Archive. She has the photocopies of the backs of the photos from Paris but the writing is no clearer. She looks at the shelves. The boxes are now in impeccable order. In fact, she has only four years to organize – and they being more recent, that shouldn’t take long at all. Perhaps a month. What then? Will she be out of a job? With whom should she discuss this? Rodney? Judith? What is the etiquette? Should they be approaching her? Should they have done so by now? The fact that they haven’t – is it ominous? Should she reconsider the PhD that her tutors at the Courtauld were so keen for her to undertake? Would the British Academy still grant her the award that they had offered but that she had turned down?
Maybe I should just move back to Derbyshire.
‘I w
ish Matt was here today. I hate this! I hate this!’
But why should everything tick along to your timescale, Fen? Why should you always call the shots when it suits you?
I have to speak to James. But I’d like to speak to Matt first.
Well, you can’t. Unless speaking to James can wait until you’ve seen Matt tomorrow.
It can’t wait.
‘James?’
‘The return of the native!’ James says, happy to hear from her, slightly perturbed that his heartbeat should have picked up so. It is difficult to deduce her tone from her brief opening. ‘How was France?’ he asks. ‘How was your sister?’
‘We found her to be in fine form, high spirits and rather in love,’ Fen tells James.
‘Good,’ he says, pulling Barry’s ears gently and twisting them around his fingers, much to the dog’s delight. Beryl, craving attention, head-butted his thighs.
‘Then I had a day in Paris by myself,’ Fen says, ‘trying to find Julius.’
‘Productive?’ James enquires, pleased that Fen today bears no resemblance at all to the snappish girl of last week. He crooks the phone under his chin so he can dispense physical affection to both dogs at once.
‘Yes,’ Fen says.
She’s gone slightly quiet. Barry, leave Beryl’s tail.
‘Fen?’ James says, encircling his hand around Barry’s snout.
‘Can I come and see you?’ Fen asks. ‘This weekend?’
‘Of course you can,’ James says, ‘we’ll look forward to it.’
‘How are Barry and Beryl?’
‘Very well,’ James says, looking at the two dogs with a mixture of pride and exasperation.
‘I love them,’ Fen says with great certitude. James thinks this is a little exorbitant.
She must be tired from her weekend.
