‘I’m completely serious. What’s the big deal? You know my parents are not here.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Are you joking now? They’re in Normandy all week!’
What an idiot I was – of course they were still in Honfleur. I should have told Jean-Luc to shut up for a minute – I couldn’t hear myself think with his voice at my ear, murmuring at me in French how he longed for me, how he missed me, what he wanted to do to me. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer – not that I had any real intention of saying it.
‘Okay!’ I snapped. ‘I’ll be right there.’
This was far too urgent to waste time taking Line 10, laying my Navigo card on the reader to open the gates, having to change lines at La Motte-Piquet – Grenelle. I ran to the nearest taxi stand and as a cab drew up, like a true Parisian, I barged in front of another person to take it. As we turned into the rue Saint-Dominique I tried to marshal my thoughts but it was useless.
I needed to end the affair but I was wet with anticipation of another outstanding fuck. And I was on my way to the last place on earth I would actually consider sleeping with him. My inability to control myself was making me fear for my own mental state as well as his. The balance of my mind was disturbed. A phrase normally used in defence. But when it came to Jean-Luc, I had no defences.
Chapter Fifty
Memory has many components: places, sounds, smells. The texture of something at the fingertips; a flow of emotion, painful either because it always was or because that particular joy is no longer possible. The things I most wish to hold onto are sometimes hazy to recall. Not so the unwanted memories. They are everywhere.
The last time I was at Geneviève and Henri’s apartment was to deliver the bouquet just after my mother’s intervention; it was her doing to convert Philippe’s infidelity from an unpleasant suspicion to the catalyst for me to outdo him by a factor not quantifiable on the same scale.
Geneviève’s keypad code hadn’t changed in the five years we’d known one another. Giving it to me was a minor act of faith but even this troubled me. As I approached the building I smelled lilies that weren’t there, reminding me of a time I was still worthy of anyone’s trust or good opinion.
Jean-Luc answered the door barefoot, wearing cargo shorts he’d just pulled on, I guessed, from the misaligned buttons and the fact he clearly wasn’t wearing anything underneath. He greeted me with the same radiant smile as the day I’d decided I couldn’t make one afternoon with him last the rest of my life.
Not much had changed. Despite the good weather in Paris a combination of his nocturnal hours and those he spent in bed with me meant that his tan had faded since LA. I still did a double take at the new haircut, currently adorably mussed up from sleep. Behind horn-rimmed glasses I hadn’t seen him in before, his eyes looked bigger than ever. I’d lost my head and more besides over this young man who was convinced I could fulfil his every need. His tongue hunted for a gap in my teeth but I turned my head away. ‘I’m very uncomfortable being in your parents’ apartment.’
‘Oh, come on, Alexandra. Don’t make me wait any longer. If we lock the door like this,’ he drew the safety bolts that could only be operated from the inside, ‘you can be sure nobody will disturb us.’
He saw that this didn’t reassure me at all. Prising his hands off my body, I went into the living room and over to that awe-inspiring view, which, depending on my mood, either made me feel I belonged in this city or that I absolutely didn’t. Today I could only think on a smaller scale. Paris wouldn’t raise an eyebrow at my amorous indiscretions. Philippe would be appalled. Geneviève would fucking kill me.
Jean-Luc pulled at my arm, saying, ‘Come with me. You said you’d be able to relax this week, remember?’
How could I ever have believed it?
He led me to into his childhood bedroom, which I had never seen, at the far end of the hallway. Like all the rooms in the apartment it was generously proportioned, the bed a double. I tried to filter out the guitar on a stand, Explosions in the Sky posters, games consoles which even I could tell had become obsolete in the few short years since he’d left home. At the end of a row of books, Le Petit Prince had fallen flat on the shelf.
‘Let’s get comfortable,’ he said, patting the bed. ‘My God, it’s such a huge turn-on getting to do it here.’ He grinned. ‘All those times I dreamed of having a gorgeous woman in my bed when I was growing up…’
I waved my hands in protest. ‘Stop right there!’ I said. ‘Let’s be very clear – you didn’t know me then. I don’t want to think about you being a kid.’ He shrugged. ‘Which kind of brings me to what I wanted to tell you. Your mother suspects something between us, even if she doesn’t know for certain. She said something in Honfleur the night before you showed up.’ It was cowardly, but I was grateful to Geneviève for giving me an excuse and glad that I’d kept it in reserve until I really needed it – as a get-out.
Jean-Luc gave a derisive snort. ‘Make up your mind! One minute I’m a proper grown-up and the next you think my mother cares who I’m fucking?’
I felt faint with shame. ‘You really don’t get it. Do you seriously think she wouldn’t care, if she knew it was me? And so would your father and Philippe. I’d be surprised if anyone was okay with this situation. You may not like the idea of boundaries laid down by society and all that, but they exist, and what we’ve been doing crosses a line. You were right that we’re just two people, but we’re not any two people. Your father is Philippe’s best friend. You’re not the one who’s ever going to get the blame for this, Jean-Luc, I am. Things could get extremely ugly. Unless I show up in Nice by Sunday, Philippe’s going to smell a rat…’
Jean-Luc frowned. ‘It means get suspicious,’ I explained. ‘Start to suspect something’s not right.’
‘I know what it means,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand the thought of you being with him.’
‘He’s my husband,’ I said, as gently as I could.
Jean-Luc strode over to the window. ‘Does he want you like I do?’ I tried to interrupt but he wouldn’t let me. ‘Do you fantasise about me when you’re doing it with him?’
My head dropped into my hands and my feet drummed on the floor. The only possible escape was total honesty. The kind that was yet another violation of marital intimacy. I looked up at Jean-Luc.
‘What Philippe and I have is very different. And if you must know, he and I haven’t been doing it as such.’ Admitting Philippe and I hadn’t been having sex was as excruciating as if we’d been caught doing it in public. ‘Our marriage hit a bad patch this summer. Just before you and I hooked up I found out Philippe was having an affair and I took it badly. I hate to say it, but I doubt you and I would have happened otherwise.’
He shook his head, a look of pure disgust spreading over his face. ‘So sleeping with me was a way to get back at him and my mother?’
Confused, I laughed.
‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Philippe wasn’t having an affair with Geneviève! It was some Italian woman called Nico. What on earth gave you that idea?’
‘Oh, I didn’t think they actually were. Can you imagine my mother confessing that to the priest on a Friday? But if you haven’t worked out how she feels about Philippe, you must be blind. I’ve never seen her look at my dad that way.’
The taste of vomit filled my throat. I clamped a hand over my mouth so tightly that I had to swallow to keep breathing. ‘How long have you thought this?’
‘I don’t know, probably ten years. An only child spends a lot of time watching adults, overhearing their conversations. I know she made a deal with her cousin so Philippe got that nice apartment after his divorce. And it was her idea for Dad and Philippe to go into business together. She put up the money for the gallery.’
To create an obligation. To keep him from drifting away.
‘And when Philippe and I got married—’
‘—she had a new way to keep him close. You.’
&nb
sp; All this time I had participated in a charade of friendship with her thinking it was for the sake of a friendship between two men. As if they needed any help from us.
‘Do you think your father knows?’
‘Oh, he knows. I’m not sure Philippe does though. But in a way that makes no difference. My dad trusts Philippe above anybody – that’s probably what makes it bearable. He’s his closest friend. Nothing will ever change that.’
A lot of things made sense that never had. I’d been right about Geneviève all along. She didn’t like me. Her frostiness wasn’t upper-class reserve, it was envy. No wonder she only showed any genuine interest in me when something was wrong. She liked to see me suffer.
Jean-Luc put his arms around me. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew.’
I drew away. ‘So it’s a coincidence then, that of all the women in Paris you chose to make a move on me? If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s how much you love to piss your mother off.’
Voicing my theory, I realised it would only have its full effect if Geneviève found out. He didn’t care if she knew about us or not.
Now it was the hurt in his eyes that was magnified. ‘Why can’t you believe it’s you I want? I told you, I’ve never felt this way about anyone.’
I got up and started wandering aimlessly around the room. ‘I’m sorry, that was a horrible thing to say. I’m really worried about you – getting dragged into this was the last thing you needed on top of everything else. I’m not trying to tell you how you feel but this can’t be good for you, no matter what you say. You should be with someone your own age, who’s free to love you the way I’m not.’
‘Are you saying you love me?’
I took a deep breath. Neither confirm nor deny. He could read me so much better than I could read him.
‘What you just told me changes nothing as far and you and I are concerned.’ I was lying, of course – the need to end it had never felt more urgent. ‘I care about you very much, but it was wrong of me to get involved in the first place. My judgement was clouded. I don’t suppose either one of us was expecting things to get so intense. There are so many reasons I’m not right for you, more than you know. Whichever way you look at it, this has no future.’
He was staring at me in complete stillness, as if he’d stopped breathing.
By now I could barely get the words out, my mouth speaking out against my heart. ‘This really hurts now, for both of us, but hopefully one day we’ll look back on it as something beautiful that had to come to an end.’
Jean-Luc let out an inhuman roar of anguish, more like a large animal that’s sustained a fatal wound, and delivered a series of random kicks to whatever objects were nearest, the side of the desk and my bag, which shot along the polished floor, the contents pushing the flap open to fly everywhere.
‘Please, don’t!’ I said. ‘You’re frightening me.’ I watched in horror as he swung his arm back to punch a fist-size hole in the plasterboard wall. When he pulled his hand out, blood was streaming down the valleys between his knuckles. In London I once saw a brutal fight in the street but I’d never witnessed self-inflicted violence, right in front of me where there was no option to look away.
I grabbed him by both wrists so he couldn’t throw another punch. The hand must have hurt like hell but I’m not sure he even felt it. I led him to the bathroom to wash the blood off and searched the cabinet for a first aid kit. There were some bandages in amongst the arsenal of prescription medicines common to French homes: for indigestion, erectile dysfunction… In case of depression… In case of anxiety.
Jean-Luc seemed to snatch a pack of pills at random, and pressed one directly into his mouth through the foil, shovelling water into his mouth with his good hand. He kept wincing as I tried to patch up the other one. We had to keep starting over. Tears sting like sea water.
Chapter Fifty One
Hours evaporated between me leaving the Malavoines’ apartment and arriving home. Too shaken to walk and unable to face the crowds on the Metro in my dishevelled state, I went to sit in the Champ de Mars.
After a while I saw a woman walking in my direction: alone, around my age, not dissimilar in appearance, both of us with long dark hair. She was wearing a deep green fifties style dress with a wide black belt that I would happily have worn. The way she was sauntering along, the tilt of her face to the sun with the hint of a smile, everything about her seemed to say, Isn’t this wonderful? When she passed me it was all I could do not to grab her and demand to swap lives before she disappeared at the corner near the restaurant where I’d eaten lunch with Emily. I realise now what a mistake it is to think of anyone else’s life as ordered and harmonious and contented just because it looks that way. If it really is, that’s called luck.
Surveying the scene again like a visitor sad that it was their last day, I took in the Eiffel Tower and the group of noisy Germans with their maps and cameras and I had a premonition that I’d blown it for Paris. Right here was where it all began for me but my time was coming to an end. I’d tried to play this city at its own game and lost.
Back in the empty apartment, I couldn’t process the afternoon’s events or reframe our relationship with the Malavoines whilst in my usual surroundings. Geneviève had sat here drinking rosé only last week. There had been that awkward silence between her and Philippe when I left the room – did she not trust herself to look at him, to talk to him with nobody else around? I think it was safe to say that Philippe had never picked up on her feelings, still less reciprocated them.
He’d texted to say he’d arrived safely in Nice and would call later but I deliberately left my phone downstairs when I went up to the attic. I was seriously considering packing a bag and leaving Paris immediately, but where would I go? The options were: to Philippe, to Emily in England or to my mother in California and none of those was the answer. An atoll where I would have no contact with other human beings would be perfect. I’d have to sacrifice love and companionship but with it, the risk of pain and betrayal and deception, to me and by me. There would be no more sex – and I’d miss it in a way I never would have thought possible – but no more being screwed over.
When I first heard the noise, I thought it must be crows on the roof. But as it got louder, there was only one person it could be. I’d completely forgotten about her. It was my stepdaughter and all I wanted was to be left in peace.
‘Thought you might be here,’ she said, invading the maid’s room just like any other without a by-your-leave. She glanced around, nodding with approval. ‘It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? But I like it.’ She sank down next to me against the wall, the baseboards digging into our backs. ‘So,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong? You look terrible.’
Since I couldn’t begin to answer that, I asked how she knew where to find me.
‘I’ve been up here myself a few times.’ She made a toking gesture and pointed to the mansard window. ‘What you said about not disrespecting your home and all.’
I managed a feeble smile.
She reached in her pocket. ‘You left the door to the courtyard open and when I saw your house keys in the kitchen,’ she twirled them from a finger, ‘I thought you might want to know you’d locked yourself out.’
Vanessa wasn’t expecting the hug I gave her. She laughed, looking pleased. ‘What’s brought this on? Going to miss me now you’re finally getting rid of me?’
‘Yes, Vanessa, I’ll miss you. We’ve had our moments but you’re a good girl. I feel sorry for you landing on us – you couldn’t have picked a worse time. I’m sorry if I made you feel any of it was your fault – it wasn’t. There’s been a lot of difficult stuff going on.’
‘Don’t worry, I knew it wasn’t just me. I’m used to all this shit – first my parents, then my mom and her boyfriends.’
God, what must she make of it all? I’d spent my teenage years without adults to study at close quarters. But I trusted Vanessa not to see any of us as role models. She had more sense
. ‘It’s Dad making you unhappy, isn’t it?’ Evidently I was too pitiful to play any active part in my misery. ‘All men are bastards, if you ask me.’
‘Men are not all bastards,’ I said. ‘Believe me, women can be just as bad.’
‘They’re the only ones interested in me. I met someone at the weekend. He said he was going to call but I know he won’t. I really liked him. He said I was beautiful.’ She couldn’t stop a pair of tears escaping.
‘Oh, sweetheart, of course you are! It’s only Monday. Give him a chance.’
‘He knows I’m going to Nice tomorrow. Why would he wait if he wanted to see me again? Aargh! What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep doing this?’
‘You slept with him?’
She nodded, then said, ‘Not exactly. He wanted to but I wouldn’t because he didn’t have a capote.’
‘Well, that was a smart decision. Once you’re on vacation, you’ll probably forget all about him. Your cousins have been going there for years, they have friends in the town. You’ll meet a lot of people and you know how persuasive men can be. Just remember it’s not all about what they want. Look after yourself, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said, but her smile was quick to fade. And then it was the kid in her looking at me. ‘I wish you were coming to Nice with us,’ she said. ‘What if the Darrousiers hate me? The only one I can remember is my grandma and she’s dead. She died when I was twelve and guess when I found out?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Yesterday. Dad says he told my mom but she didn’t think it was important enough to pass it on.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘But your dad’s from a lovely family and of course they’re not going to hate you. You’re one of them. You are a Darrousier.’
‘But you’re not.’
Paris Mon Amour Page 22
