by Ray Connolly
She dressed quickly. And after checking to see that she had her passport and assorted bankers’ identity cards, forms and letter of introduction she took a taxi across the Seine to Rue de Cambon and the Chase Manhattan Paris office. Her father was right: she was expected, and after the usual filling in of forms, and handshakes, and gratuitous smiles that go with people whose wealth has given them distinction, she was quickly back in a taxi and on her way along Boulevard Raspail to Sonia Rykiel.
Once inside the shop she felt less confident: her French was so bad that a second assistant was sent for to serve her, but she quickly spotted the model she wanted, the exact material of Ille’s dress. In the changing room she slipped excitedly into it: only then did she notice that this model had a lower neckline. She’d wanted a dress exactly the same, and calling for the assistant she pointed out that the dress she had seen and admired had a round neck trimmed with lace. Unfortunately, the assistant said, they had none left like that. This indeed was the only model in this particular fabric and style. Kathy couldn’t hide her disappointment, but there was nothing for it but to buy it anyway, and having the assistant pack her own clothes she went off, wearing her new dress, in search of a hat. This time she was lucky. There was a completely identical hat at France Faver. And dashing out she ran happily up the street for her luncheon appointment.
The Restaurant de Rue des Saint-Pères was full and busy and spilling over with lunchtime trade into St Germain by the time Kathy arrived there shortly after one o’clock. Suddenly becoming aware of a welling feeling of self-consciousness as she found herself looking for someone in this foreign city with its different habits and customs she moved through the pavement tables and into the darkened interior. There was no sign of Ille. Perhaps she’s been held up, she imagined to herself, and was just about to go in search of Ille’s antique shop when she noticed a waiter carrying a tray of hors d’œuvres into a back room. On no more than a whim she followed him as like a whippet in a race he sprinted round the corner with his dishes. This was probably the way to the ’phone, anyway, she thought. She had some jetons so perhaps she could telephone Ille at the antique shop and wait for her there. She moved gingerly into the back room of the restaurant.
‘Kathy, my love.’ Kathy turned, startled. Ille was sitting behind a large table flanked by four girls and three young men. Right alongside her was Jacques, the handsome but quiet lover she had met on her first encounter with Ille. He had an arm cast loosely round Ille’s chair, and was smiling up at her in an attitude of subservient devotion. Ille stood up as Kathy froze in the doorway. The waiter and the rest of the assembly turned to look at her. Suddenly Kathy felt herself beginning to flush with embarrassment. She felt overdressed. The flowing gowns which suited Ille’s body and personality so well suddenly became an embarrassment when draped around Kathy. For what seemed like a long moment no one spoke. Almost panicking her mind went into whirlwinds. They think I’m trying to copy Ille, she thought. They must think that. And they’re right. Inside themselves they must all be laughing at me.
Ille broke the silence. For her it had been less than a second in the universe: to Kathy an eternity had passed. ‘You look exquisite,’ she said smiling, and began making a space for her friend next to her at the table. ‘I can see you have been shopping. Come. Sit here.’
Numb with awkwardness and encumbered by her bags Kathy moved forward, and taking off her hat slid into a chair at the table: ‘I thought you weren’t here,’ she heard herself mutter weakly, and then mentally cursed her own insipidness. Ille smiled at her. She was beaming with self-confidence: clearly she was now the queen at the head of her social table. Speaking rapidly in French she introduced Kathy to the gathering, running through the names so quickly that Kathy could only take in that of Jacques, the boy she already knew. One by one the lunchtime guests smiled and said hello, immediately turning to each other to resume their conversation in French. Kathy tried hard to listen and understand, but the speech was too quick, and the jokes too Gallic, too personal to the group, for her to understand. When the table smiled Kathy smiled. When looks of concentration stared at whoever was speaking Kathy looked concentrated.
‘No one else speaks English, Kathy.’ Ille was watching her attempts to take part in the lunch party with some amusement. She looks almost supercilious, thought Kathy. And she hated her for it.
‘I didn’t know anyone else was going to be here,’ she said, trying not to sound wounded, although again the minute she had spoken the words she realized it must have come out like that.
‘These are just a few friends. I met them here by accident, although it is rarely an accident if you meet people here. We very often have lunch together. Don’t look so hurt, my love. You must share me with other people sometimes.’
‘I’m not hurt,’ Kathy lied, instantly flashing back at Ille with more sharpness than the occasion commanded.
For a moment the talk at the table ceased as the raised voice of Kathy brought a new tension to the lunch. Eyes turned towards her. Large brown Midi eyes from two of the girls; heavily made up green eyes from another. Bemused by her own confusion of emotions Kathy looked downwards, away from the inquiring faces and from Ille, and gradually the conversation found its happy level again and Kathy’s outburst was forgotten. Now though, as if angered by the little scene, Ille was joining in more and more, her attention purposely turned away from Kathy towards her other friends, speaking always in French, only pausing every few minutes to smile a look of apparent disdain towards Kathy.
For Kathy the rest of lunch was a nightmare. Although one of the young men, an attractive boy in a pale blue shirt, and a little beard which he tugged at continually, tried to engage her in a private conversation, his total lack of comprehensible English, together with Kathy’s mood, made it impossible and he quickly gave up his polite little struggle. For the first time since she had been in Paris Kathy felt out of her depth.
She was dependent on Ille for her entrée into this society, and now she felt that that dependence was being exploited. Intuitively she realized that Ille was doing no more than playing a game with her, and that no serious injury was intended. But gamesmanship had no place in Kathy’s immediate feelings. And so for the rest of lunch she felt herself an outcast, mute in this verbose, witty yet foreign society, an inarticulate overdressed flunky waiting at the side of Ille, so regal and certain in this situation. And it was with immense relief that at two thirty the meeting broke up and with much kissing of cheeks and shaking of hands Kathy watched Ille’s friends go back about their daily business, each wondering, she was sure, just what the nature of her relationship with Ille must be. She would have liked a moment with Ille to herself before parting, just a second or two of explanation, if any were indeed needed, but with a quick glance at her watch Ille suddenly kissed Kathy warmly on the lips and, jumping up, swirled with great verve out of the restaurant and back to her antique shop.
Why Ille had behaved in that fashion Kathy couldn’t imagine. It was almost as though she were testing her affections, putting her through some tortuous trial to see if she could stand the flame. Now out of her own environment, away from her own home territory, she was discovering a new kind of vulnerability as well as a new kind of love. For fully thirty minutes after the others had left she sat alone sipping coffee as the waiter cleared away the rubble of the meal. At one point she half considered moving her things out of Ille’s apartment and back into a hotel, but it was no more than a moment’s petulance. She could no more leave now than she could have imagined herself in this situation a week earlier. Ille had awakened a yearning and a need inside herself which now required a continual and caring fulfilment. Sadly she finished off her pack of cigarettes and, catching sight of herself in the mirror by the door, pulled a winsome face at the floral girl in country chiffons reflected there. She would go home now and wait for Ille.
Ille’s afternoon was spent in a state of guilt and regret. Her shock at seeing Kathy dressed so out of character, at the way
everyone had noted her décolletage, at the wide-brimmed straw hat which was a replica of the one she often wore herself, had taken her off balance, and, embarrassed by her new American friend before these people who thought they knew her so well, she had flaunted the situation and aggravated things rather than taking a kinder and more understanding way. In her heart she was flattered that Kathy should wish to copy her, should want perhaps to look and behave like her, but to do it so flagrantly before a man who still believed he was her lover was a bad mistake. When Ille had suggested the Restaurant de Rue des Saint-Pères for lunch she realized she must have subconsciously known that there would be an inevitable group of friends and acquaintances there, actors and musicians, models and people who considered themselves artistes in other fields, and that they would also inevitably share a table. That was the way things had always been since she had come to live with her brother in this part of Paris. She wasn’t a notorious person. But she was well known around that part of town as a beautifully sophisticated eccentric, and she had friends who she must certainly run into. But the problem of integrating Kathy into this aspect of her life had never struck her until that moment. She hadn’t expected to feel awkward about her: she hadn’t actually expected to feel anything. But when confronted with a situation which on the surface might have become embarrassing her immediate reaction, as always, had been to protect herself by being strong: playing on her own strengths, while exposing the weakness of her friend. She didn’t know why she behaved in this way: this almost public refusal to acknowledge what she knew her private feelings to be: this wilful act of self-preservation, in which she recognized a totally destructive force which she was unable to control. The possibility that her behaviour might be the result of some feelings of guilt occurred to her, and she was able to admit to it. When confronted by both Jacques and Kathy in front of others the ambiguity she was aware of in herself clashed and made her reactions vehement. Poor Jacques, a pretty boy of a part-time actor, must have been totally confused by the whole charade with which he had been confronted.
And so it was with thoughts such as these, resolutions made and then forgotten, phone calls almost attempted but put off, that Ille spent the rest of her afternoon, as the idle passers-by wandered casually into the shop she managed, walked around and then moved on to the next one; everyone always searching for the bargains that were gone before any of the goods got anywhere near Paris.
And, as she always said, she passed her time with time past.
Kathy was feeding the birds when Ille arrived home. She had spent some hours in the miserable solitude of her little white cell-like room, lying on the bed she had never slept in. And then beginning to despise herself for her self-pity she had wondered if there was not something more useful with which she might occupy her time: she didn’t want Ille to know how she felt inside. The pain had already been made too transparent: now she wanted to appear once again to be in full command of her emotions. The needs of the aviary provided the necessary occupational therapy.
Looking through the barred window from the living room Ille watched silently for a time as Kathy meticulously cleaned out a tub of water with a small scrubbing brush, and pouring the dirty water away into a bucket, refilled it with fresh. Kathy was still wearing her summer chiffon gown, but now it was crumpled from where she had been lying on it, and she was without her hat, her hair hanging loose and fair around her shoulders, picking up the warmth of the evening sun from the skylight above. Ille looked at the slender shape of her body, and the healthy and clean sun-tan of her friend, and almost envied her. She knew that two of the women who had been at lunch liked girls, and she had seen the flicker of interest that Kathy’s body had aroused in them, an interest disguised by their personal jealousies.
The squawk of a parrot by the window prompted Kathy to turn her head and she saw Ille watching her. She smiled, grateful to see her friend, dearly hoping that there need be no explanations of their lunchtime episode. She wanted to forget it.
‘The doves must like you.’ Ille, ashamed of her own behaviour, was making a conciliatory gesture. Kathy recognized it, and walked back into the room, closing the door behind her. ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ said Ille, and feeling the tears of regret burning her eyes she took hold of Kathy, and allowed her head to hide in the arms and shoulder of the other girl. And together they stood there silently, clinging on to each other, safe again in their mutual security.
This was how the nature of their relationship was to be for the next few weeks. For reasons of passion, cussedness or self-hate at the realization of what they were becoming, one would bait or provoke the other into some little show of temper, and then after a difficult few hours of sulking and silences they would resume their friendship, their love only cemented by the moment of disharmony they both wanted to forget. And although Kathy never took the trouble to learn French properly, her growing confidence did enable her to take part more fully in their limited social life. And limited it was as the more they became involved with each other the less Ille saw of her old friends. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a repeat performance of their tiff at lunch, so much as the people she had once known now seemed so much less interesting than her life with Kathy. At first during Kathy’s stay Jacques continued to ’phone fairly regularly asking Ille to dinner, and, when being refused, offering to take out both she and Kathy. But when these overtures were rejected too he gradually came to understand that his brief affair was finished, although Ille never explained the reason to him. Kathy was concerned at times that the nature of their relationship was perhaps too overt, but she was easily reassured by the information that in this area of Paris such a relationship was neither out of the ordinary nor likely to cause much comment, and, Ille would add tartly, she flattered herself if she believed otherwise.
Occasionally Kathy did, however, meet Ille’s old friends in restaurants and bars, giving her an opportunity to gauge the strength of personality of her lover, when placed against that of others. And not surprisingly Ille always outshone everyone, not in anything she actually said, but in her calmness and strength of purpose. If Kathy had been the master of her relationships and social affairs in California, then Ille was more than her equal in Paris.
It wasn’t until the end of her first two weeks’ stay with Ille – a time in which she had played the part of the rich American lady of leisure to some effect – that the strange behaviour of the concierge began to make any kind of sense. She had mentioned on the very day it had happened how she had discovered Madame Diem at the desk in the apartment and her explanation about bringing a present for Ille, but at the time Ille had merely nodded and offered no information.
But the subject finally became clear fifteen days later. Ille had come home with some hash and while Kathy had been rolling a joint she had inquired, more out of curiosity than desire, whether there was much cocaine available in Paris.
‘Cocaine!’ Ille sounded instantly derisory. ‘You Americans always want your highs so quickly. Everything must be instant for you. If it isn’t coke it would be speed. Instant junkies, that’s what you are.’
‘Hold on. For crying out loud….’ Kathy had to protest. ‘I wasn’t asking you to go out and score for me, for Christ’s sake. I just wanted to know. I’m not interested in it. I’ve snorted occasionally, like everyone. You know, socially. But I’m no junkie.’
Ille looked at her contemptuously, taking the joint from her and lighting it. ‘You ever tried putting coke in your pussy and then fucking?’ she said, her goading suddenly becoming wilful. ‘Did you ever do that? It drives you mad, doesn’t it? You become like a wild animal, don’t you?’
Kathy didn’t like Ille’s tone: ‘No. I never did that. I know others who have done it though. Have you?’
Ille laughed: ‘No. I just heard about it. Coke isn’t good for people like me. I need things to calm me down. Soporifics. Things to make me sleep.’
‘Like cups of tea and Valium,’ Kathy threw in wickedly. She didn’t like being th
e object of Ille’s scorn. She would never have guessed that Ille might be so puritanical about dope.
‘Not like Valium – that’s for crazy, nervous people like you. People who are highly strung.’ She stopped and regarded Kathy thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I tell you what. Tonight I will give you a lesson on the finer arts of drug taking. And after that never mention coke to me again.’
Kathy almost wanted to laugh at the seriousness of Ille’s tone. In some ways Ille seemed so old-fashioned.
For her part Ille immediately got busy. From a large table by the window she took a delicately and ornately patterned china tray, and then going to a cupboard produced two bamboo headrests: ‘The tray goes in the middle for the brazier and the headrests should be at each side,’ said Ille setting her equipment out across the floor, and sliding two floor cushions across the room so that they lay to either side of the tray.
Kathy watched Ille with some bewilderment. She hadn’t the foggiest notion what Ille might be planning.
‘Now we need hot charcoals,’ said Ille, going towards the telephone. ‘Madame Diem will, I think, be able to provide.’ And dialling a number she spoke quickly in Chinese. Her ’phone call over she turned back to Kathy, and taking hold of her by the arms she pulled her to her feet. ‘Before we start we must dress for the occasion,’ she said, and still holding on to Kathy’s hand she led her friend through into her bedroom. ‘Last week you wanted to look like me, didn’t you? Tonight you must wear my clothes.’
‘Why?’ Kathy was totally perplexed.
‘Because smoking opium is part of an ancient ritual. It’s very beautiful. So we must look very beautiful. We’ll wear long Eastern clothes. Choose whichever things you want.’
‘Opium?’ Kathy knew no one who had ever smoked opium.
‘Yes. A nice drug for dreamers. People like you and me. We’ll smoke a few pipes together and you’ll have such beautiful dreams you won’t believe.’ She paused. And then laughed: ‘On the other hand it sometimes makes amateurs seasick.’
