‘It’s extremely kind of you to invite us,’ Longueville told Geneviève, ‘but I’m afraid we have other plans.’
His wife Marina came over to me. ‘What a wonderful party!’ she said. ‘I have known Bernard Ioanescu for twenty years.’ She weighted her words, as if I didn’t get the warning message from her penetrating gaze. ‘He is a great art historian and the book is splendid. But it’s not good for anyone to always get what they want.’ That extraordinary laugh again. Did she think I was sleeping with Bernard? She certainly didn’t need to worry about that.
Was she? There was nothing I could say with both my husband and hers within earshot, although they were lost in a lively discussion. ‘We must go, chéri,’ she told him. Longueville looked at his watch. ‘We’ll sort this out tomorrow, Philippe. But consider it a deal.’
‘What deal? What’s he talking about?’ Geneviève demanded, as if she had some automatic right to know. A person of her standing should know that if you bring people together you have no control over what subsequently happens between them.
‘Get the red dots, Suzanne,’ Philippe said. ‘We just sold Fuck your Jesus!’
There was a titter from those nearby, who gathered around to examine the wall hanging. I took advantage of the distraction to check out Jean-Luc, who had gravitated toward the youngest people in the room, some doctoral students of Bernard’s from the Sorbonne who seemed to have adopted Vanessa. It hadn’t occurred to me that she and Jean-Luc might even remember each other from long ago – at the very least they knew of each other. As I watched, Jean-Luc turned away from her and stared at me from across the room as if we were alone together. That he could be reckless was about the only thing I knew about him – apart from the obvious – but if he kept this up someone would notice. People have antennae for that; I realised from seeing Dédé and Suzanne together and from my embarrassing exchange with Marina de Longueville that I was developing one of my own, where previously I had been oblivious to others’ sexual peccadilloes. Maybe it was something you could only gain by joining in.
Finding herself excluded from the crude banter, Geneviève collared her son and guided him in my direction. ‘You two haven’t had a chance to meet properly,’ she said.
Chapter Twenty Two
There was no escaping it this time. As Jean-Luc stepped forward to kiss me on both cheeks, I stood with my hands pinned to my sides. The smell of him reminded me of the first time we touched, making the tiny hairs stand up on my arms and all across my shoulders.
‘Alexandra had to get this magnificent book biked to me in the end,’ Geneviève said to Jean-Luc and then, to me: ‘He offered to fetch a copy from your office on Friday—’
My brain whirred in panic until I concluded she wouldn’t be reacquainting us if she knew we’d seen each other since the restaurant. The pattern of her Hermès scarf was searing itself into my retinas, my eyeballs aching from the effort of not staring at Jean-Luc. Not that it helped. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, pressing my legs tight together, trying not to think what I was thinking. Not to feel so disgracefully carnal.
‘I’m sorry to have put you to the trouble,’ he said, lightly. ‘I bumped into some old friends in the Marais and we went for a drink. By the time I left them it was too late.’
Okay, this was good. We’d be safe enough with small talk. ‘So, you’re back in Paris for a while?’
‘That’s right. I’ve missed it.’
‘We are planning to make the most of him,’ Geneviève said. ‘Visits home have been low on the list of priorities.’ What was so unusual about that? If the subject had come up between her and my mother – a possibility I did not discount – they would have agreed on this wholeheartedly. ‘Can you believe he claims to be exhausted after California? From what I gather, he spent most of it diving.’
The meaning of the look he exchanged with his mother was indecipherable but its animosity took me aback. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, weary now. No wonder he liked to steer clear of Maman if she treated him like a teenager.
‘Still, diving!’ I said. ‘I’ve always wanted to try it.’ I’d probably have said the same if he’d talked about jumping off a cliff. My post-speech glass of wine was almost empty and I was finally starting to relax. If they were going to bicker amongst themselves it was less likely that I would put my foot in it.
And it wasn’t me who did.
‘Your father and I met Alexandra’s mother when she was over from California,’ Geneviève said. ‘She was with us the night you arrived home.’
‘Does she still live in the place you grew up?’ Jean-Luc asked me.
It was a general enough question that could have come from anyone, but something about the way he asked strongly suggested prior knowledge. Geneviève picked up on this immediately, looking from one of us to the other. Jean-Luc hadn’t even been introduced to my mother and had supposedly never so much as had a conversation with me. At least he hadn’t mentioned the red lighthouse at Battery Point.
‘Yes, actually,’ I replied. ‘A small town at the very opposite end of California to where you were.’ I proceeded to explain my origins in excessive detail because naturally he did not already know this. Over-elaborating is a classic liars’ mistake and I wasn’t even lying. Then again, there are so many kinds of lies. Barefaced. White. Transparent. Lies of omission. Deliberately giving a false impression.
By now, for some unaccountable reason, Jean-Luc was holding forth on North Pacific currents and weather systems, all of it more technical than I could easily follow but still I listened, entranced. I was used to the physical presence of the ocean, its representation in art and literature, not to thinking of it as something that could be explained. He sounded odd, like an automaton or the disembodied voice on the severe weather warnings that cut in on American radio stations. I almost started giggling when I realised what he was playing at. And sure enough, his mother, unfamiliar with the area and the science, was soon bored into submission and went to find Henri.
To avoid being seen alone with Jean-Luc, I excused myself, saying there were a few people I needed to say hello to before everyone started to drift off. The next time I looked around the room, he was gone.
* * *
The last few stragglers were upending their glasses, still deep in conversation. I sent Philippe and the others ahead to claim the table Geneviève had booked at a nearby Italian restaurant, without asking any of us if we wanted to eat dinner with them. My mumbled excuses for remaining behind went unquestioned because in a small company like ours everyone had to pitch in. As I placed some dirty glasses by the sink, Lisette followed me in with a few more.
‘Are you still here?’ I said. ‘Go home, seriously. Suzanne can deal with this in the morning. Get a cab, you look exhausted.’
She gave me a little smile and patted her waistline. ‘You guessed, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, I guessed. Congratulations,’ I said. ‘That’s wonderful news!’
From the kitchen I heard the last guests call their thanks and goodbyes into the empty, echoing space. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, craving a moment alone in order to face the second half of the evening. Before long I looked up to see Jean-Luc standing there. ‘You came back,’ I said, pointlessly.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘They’ve all gone. I locked the door.’
As he came toward me I extended my arm like a traffic cop. I couldn’t handle him coming any closer.
Now that’s a lie.
‘What made you come here tonight?’ I said. ‘In front of my husband and your parents. Surely you must realise—’
He touched my face as if he hadn’t heard me, like the first time, threading his fingers through my hair. I didn’t notice him breach the boundary I had set until it was too late. We were kissing deeply, a klaxon sounding in the back of my head that my body couldn’t seem to hear. It’s not easy, the moral high ground, especially if you’ve discovered you prefer the underside. He backed me up to the counter
, pressing himself hard against my hip, and from behind came the muffled shattering of wine glasses in their thick plastic crates. I pushed him away. The more I tried to talk myself out of it, the more I wanted him.
So I’d have to try talking him out of it.
‘I can’t explain what happened on Friday,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what got into me.’
He burst out laughing and I heated up so violently my face must have matched the colour of my lipstick. His juvenile humour should have brought me to my senses; and it did in a way, just not the right way. I was trying to give him the brush-off; instead it felt like foreplay.
‘You haven’t been thinking about me?’ he said. ‘Because I haven’t been able to think about anything but you since that night in the restaurant, and then Friday… It’s driving me out of my mind.’
‘Of course I’ve been thinking about it.’ I deliberately said it instead of you but it sounded more loaded, not less, as if I thought about sex constantly the way men are supposed to. ‘All I mean is that it shouldn’t have happened. I’m not blaming you. You’re young and you were trying your luck. It was up to me to say no.’
‘You regret it?’ he said, with a look of dismay that dismantled me.
There was no simple answer to that. ‘Listen, for what it was, it was fantastic.’ It didn’t seem fair to let him think he’d put in an unsatisfactory performance.
‘So what was it?’
My mind filled with explanations which would sound sad and desperate. I couldn’t tell him he’d caught me at a vulnerable point where lots of things in my life were up in the air. I couldn’t tell him – and probably didn’t need to – that he’d caught me like a bitch in heat. Ashamed as I was, I secretly liked this new, disinhibited version of myself. I admired her ability to let loose. ‘It was just sex, Jean-Luc. A crazy, spontaneous one-off. These things happen.’
I was trying to be delicate to spare his feelings but my woman of the world act wouldn’t fool anyone. I’ve never liked one night stands. My biggest problem was that I couldn’t bring myself to say that the encounter had meant nothing to me. Maybe he would have dropped it if I had.
‘I’ve slept with a lot of girls,’ he said, apparently unfamiliar with the concept of too much information. I noted ‘girls’ and wondered what it meant that I was not one. And then I had my answer. ‘But I’ve never felt a… connection like I did with you.’ It thrilled me that he had to search for the word to describe it. He looked at me, suddenly unsure of himself, and I felt an overwhelming surge of emotion wrapped in sensation. ‘Are you saying it’s always like that?’ he asked.
I shook my head. Just as there are various echelons of lying, so it is with betrayal. And although we did no more than hold each other this time, it was the greater betrayal by far.
Chapter Twenty Three
The others were in high spirits when I finally joined them on the terrace of the Italian place near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, slipping into the vacant seat opposite Henri.
‘Here, Alexandra, we saved you some.’ Philippe fished the bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket next to the table and poured me a large glass, managing to drip just as much water over the tablecloth. ‘Another!’ he called out to the waiter. I wasn’t hungry but ordered the plate of antipasti, which was some of the best in the neighbourhood. It suited me fine that they were drunk, except for Geneviève, who is naturally the must not lose control type. Mercifully she was on my side of the table at the other end, so not only could I not talk to her, I couldn’t see her very well either. None of this was happenstance, of that I was certain.
This should have been such a great night for me, for all of us. We had never held a launch which generated this kind of buzz, for the title I would least have expected and just when we needed it most. Bernard and Alain were beside themselves with excitement. Philippe was still brimming with delight over the sale of Fuck your Jesus to Pierre de Longueville and was in his element rubbing Henri’s nose in it. Henri had advised him against representing Nasim Asradi, thinking it a big risk, but now offered congratulations, slapping him on the back like a giant bear, saying, ‘You were right not to listen to me this time, but don’t make a habit of it!’ Their close friendship seemed a rare thing between men; there was nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. I felt tremendous affection toward Henri for the part he played in Philippe’s life, seeing him through some hard times before I was there to take care of him. It touched me to see them together, their dark heads greying now, to hear their Niçois twang. They laughed at the same things. It was only their choice of wives that set them apart – I could only speculate about other women but it wasn’t hard to imagine Henri resorting to the occasional indiscretion. The Malavoines had been married for ever so maybe it was different for Geneviève, but I didn’t feel my marriage of five years could compete with our husbands’ friendship. Philippe had known her a long time too and she could be very short with him sometimes, or lump him and Henri together as if they were the same person.
‘If you must keep referring to that monstrosity at the gallery, could you at least leave out the deplorable name?’ she said, mortified by stares from a family of Spaniards at the next table, although the teenage son was finding it very funny. Philippe’s apology sounded more humouring than sincere to me but she accepted it. Following the Longuevilles’ strategic getaway and the display of tension between her and Jean-Luc, Geneviève had to be as keen as I was for the evening to end.
After dinner we set off in opposite directions, Philippe and I heading toward Saint-Sulpice in near silence, first through streets of crowded and noisy bars and restaurants then deserted ones lined with designer stores. We liked to pause and admire window displays which caught our eye – they always looked more dramatic in the dark. When one of us stopped, the other did too. In one window of the Annick Goutal perfume store a huge fork of lightning with a dozen tributaries advertised a new fragrance. Philippe did nothing to hide his preference for the image on the other side of the door, of a topless young woman with her arms draped sensuously across her body. She was slim and small-breasted, hipbones jutting out above low-cut jeans. She was nothing like me.
Did she remind him of Nico? The questions that had been boiling away in my head were no longer just mine to ask. Unless I confessed to my infidelity, what right did I have to demand who Philippe’s lover was, what it was like when he touched her, whether his feelings went beyond lust? If we could have this unspeakable conversation, there was a chance our marriage could survive what we were doing to it. If it didn’t, we could find ourselves back where we used to be, but older, more disillusioned than ever, maybe deciding our lives weren’t meant to be shared with anyone. I’d just told Jean-Luc I couldn’t do it again. You can only use the moment of folly excuse once. How would Philippe feel if he found out I’d been with another man? I couldn’t stand the idea that he would be okay with it.
I was pretty sure he wouldn’t, and if he found out who that man was he wouldn’t believe me capable of such unscrupulous behaviour. He was forever teasing me for my Anglo-Saxon rule-keeping and fair play, the way I’d rather ask for change than leave a stingy tip and scold him for parking where it wasn’t allowed. He wouldn’t be so amused to find I’d done a U-turn on something that mattered.
When we got home he wanted to make love, his good humour unaffected by my inability to share it. God forbid that he was suggesting sex in an attempt to rescue my mood. Blocking out the imprint of Jean-Luc against me in the kitchen, first I resisted Philippe’s attempts to pull me on top of him, then the light pressure of his hand on the top of my head. The thought of that made me gag. His ardour noticeably diminished by now, I performed – I can think of no other word – a blind hand job, delaying looking at him until the final moment. My speed increased with the urgency of his breathing but it seemed to be taking for ever and was making my fingers and my elbow ache. I looked just in time to see him open his eyes with a startled expression like he didn’t know what was coming. My hand escape
d just in time but some got on my nightdress. I got up from the bed and peeled it off like I’d been sprayed with battery acid.
I did not sleep; how could I have when a few miles away, someone lay awake thinking of me? Someone who said he could think of nothing and no one else. Jean-Luc had laid his head on my shoulder when I told him it was just a little crush and it would pass. Now I was lying and patronising. The truth is, I was cheating on them both.
Chapter Twenty Four
The next morning I lost my footing in the Jardin du Luxembourg as I took a curve on the west side too fast. My leg slid out from under me and I crashed down, breaking the skin on my left calf and embedding the dust and germs of a hot summer into my flesh. There were fewer runners than normal. The sky was grey and overcast, typical of the days when Paris seems to say, It’s not all la vie est belle, my friend, make no mistake about it.
At the sound of rapid strides slowing to a halt I turned to see none other than Mr Coffee/Quickie crouching down to enquire after my welfare. ‘Aïe! Are you okay?’
My leg was an ugly sight. The gravel which hadn’t broken the skin had left a bumpy pattern around the weeping mess in the middle. I made a face and tried to get up but it stung like hell and my ankle was throbbing. In the end I did need the man’s help to stand. Ignoring protestations that I would be fine, he walked me very slowly back to the gates where our previous exchange had taken place. He told me his name was Daniel and I reluctantly told him mine.
‘What you need now, Alexandra, is something to take your mind off it…’ There it was again, that flirty gleam-in-the-eye tone that suggested we’d both be missing out if we didn’t follow our outdoor exertions with some more behind closed doors. Maybe he thought I would do it to be polite.
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