She stretched out her hand to him. ‘Hi.’
Stephen reflected, as they walked through the wet cobbled streets of the Marais that he had always ended up bringing home strays - cats, dogs, the misfits in the classroom. And now this girl. Guilt, he guessed. They hadn’t located the gene for that yet, his recklessly reductionist and irresponsible fellows. There had been a few at the conference. Sometimes he was ashamed to find himself tarred with the same brush. He could almost hear the bowdlerised media version of it already. Gene located for disposition to guilt. Treatment soon available.
‘It’s just in here.’ He punched out his code and led her into the dim courtyard. ‘Top floor, I’m afraid, and no lift.’
She giggled suddenly. ‘I’ve only ever met two English people before. At College.’
She was sweet, Stephen thought. Sweet and innocent and very young, like Simone’s granddaughter. Sometimes, now, he missed having students. A sign of age, he suspected, as he watched the girl rush up the stairs ahead of him while he trailed wearily behind. Ariane leapt into his mind. He would ring Natalya again. Despite the hour.
‘The phone’s just over there.’ Stephen led the girl into the one big room. ‘It’s six hours earlier on the East Coast. You dial 19-1 and then your area code and number.’
‘Thanks. This is really very nice of you.’ She handed him her coat, displayed long jean clad legs he didn’t like to look at, perched on the telephone stool.
‘I’ll make you some non-bitter coffee.’
‘Great.’
He stooped to light the fire, then went off into the kitchen and automatically checked the freezer again.
When he came back, balancing two cups and a plateful of slightly stale madeleines, she was staring up at the nude on the wall with a mixture of nervousness and disapproval.
‘There was no one at home. My mother doesn’t usually get back till seven. I left this number on the answering machine. Is that okay? I can let myself out if you want to go to bed.’
‘That’s alright. I still need to get a few things done.’
‘Where’s your washroom.’
Stephen pointed her through the bedroom, then hastily dialled Natalya’s number. Still no one there, despite the lateness of the hour. He could try tomorrow morning. Could Natalya be with Ariane, he asked himself. Maybe Simone was right. Maybe Anya, too, had been right about the pregnancy. He hadn’t liked that. It had made him think miserably of Tessa.
In any event, he was probably fretting for no reason. Refusing to recognize Ariane simply wanted nothing more to do with him. He ought to go to bed and lick his wounds quietly.
‘It’s nice here, spare.’ The girl had come back. Her boots and socks were off and she stretched out on the floor, her toes by the fire. They were very pink. ‘Do you live here all the time?’
‘No. It belongs to an Italian friend. I use it when I’m in town. Look, maybe you should try ringing someone else. Your father at his office? Or a friend? Your mother might be late tonight.’
‘My father’s in California. We don’t speak to him. And my mother will be home alright. She’s got a new boyfriend. Whole lot younger. She needs to go home and spend a few hours prettying herself up for him. That’s why I’ve been sent here.’ She tossed her head angrily, her eyes flaring.
Stephen was at a loss. He looked at her in silence, watched her toes wriggling towards the flame.
‘So that’s not your picture?’ She gestured at the nude.
‘No. But I quite like it.’
‘I don’t. It’s degrading. It humiliates women.’ She got up, strode past him, brushing his legs, pointed at the picture, arms flying. ‘Do you think the model wanted to pose like that? Do you think any woman would like to be seen like that, all fat thighs and pink, exhibited flesh. Circumstances forced her. Some man.’
Stephen felt his penis lurch absurdly. He tried to still himself.
With an abrupt movement, she sat down opposite him, crossed her long legs and looked at him boldly. ‘You want to fuck me, don’t you?’
Stephen swallowed hard, coughed. ‘Is it that obvious?’ he mumbled.
‘Well, I don’t. Do it with men I mean. I prefer women.’
A smile tugged at his lips. Sitting there barefoot in her jeans and floppy jumper, her small, pert nose twitching, she looked very young for such a big preference.
‘That’s alright. You’re quite safe with me. I’m not always sure I like women that much either.’
She gazed at him with something like surprise.
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
His throat made an odd sound which could have been a laugh. ‘Almost old enough to be your father.’
‘And you’re still not sure about whether you like women?’
‘There are a great many things I’m not sure about. Most things, in fact.’ He looked at the serious set of the features in that heart-shaped face. ‘Whereas you seem to have quite decided views.’
‘Yes.’
The phone rang and without waiting, she leapt up to answer it.
After a moment, Stephen left her. He went into the bathroom and saw her boots standing there. Not like Ariane’s boots. More solid. Somehow innocent. Gayly patterned socks hung from the radiator. Again his erection strained. He was decidedly in a bizarre state, Stephen reflected, and tried not to pay attention.
When he went back to her, she was sitting listlessly on the telephone stool.
‘I guess I’d better go. That was the boyfriend. They’re going to wire money to American Express tomorrow. I have to have a code word. ‘Serendipity’. Cause I haven’t got a passport.’ Her voice faltered. ‘Look I… could I just bed down here for the night. I’m kinda tired. And like I’m not sure the hostel will let me in this late.’
‘I guess so,’ Stephen hesitated. ‘But there’s only the one bed and…’
‘That’s okay. It’s huge. I saw it. And you say you’re not too sure about women. Anyhow, I won’t get undressed.’ She beamed a smile at him and marched into the bedroom.
With a shrug, Stephen sat in the armchair and waited. He glanced at his watch. Over fifteen minutes of silence had passed. She must have fallen asleep by now he decided. And he needed to get some rest too. He tiptoed into the bedroom, took off only his trousers and slipped into the far corner of the bed. He felt absurdly like a student, forced by penury and circumstance into strange sleeping arrangements.
Streetlights glowed faintly through the thin curtains. In their muted beam, he could see the outlines of her face, a downy, rounded arm poised above the bedclothes.
‘Hi.’ She turned towards him. ‘Shall we have a little cuddle. I won’t shout. Promise.’
Stephen leaned on his elbow, gazed down at her in surprise. ‘Look Cary. I may seem old to you, but it happens that these days I’m not altogether extinct. And if you throw yourself on strange men’s beds, you may find yourself in something of a pickle.’
She stroked his cheek lightly. ‘I want to see if you really don’t like women.’
‘I never said quite that. It was you who said you didn’t like men.’
‘Well, I don’t. Not usually.’ She sat up and he noticed that she had taken off her sweater. ‘But you’re nice. I think I like you. And you look better without your glasses. Like an out-of-shape Harrison Ford.’
‘Thanks.’
She was still for a moment. ‘You can touch me if you want. Tell me what turns you on.’
‘That’s a secret.’ Stephen stopped her straying fingers and grunted with too much pleasure. He brought her hand to his lips.
‘Does that mean you want me to shut up or tell you mine?’ When he didn’t answer, she went on. ‘I bet you really do prefer men. Or think of a man when you’re with a woman. Is that it? That’s almost the same thing.’
Stephen shuttered his ears. He didn’t like talking about sex. But the girl was oddly prescient in her way. When he had first made love to Tessa, he had found himself imagining he was Jan with her. That had somehow made it doubly ex
citing. Jan was good with women. And Stephen, as Jan, had been good enough with Tessa too. Did that need the label of homosexual? He didn’t think so. It was more complicated than that. And simpler. Fantasies were not the same thing as the real. And in any case, fantasies were private. That’s what made them exciting. Simone knew that. Wise Simone who made him aware of the world beyond the laboratory.
He had had dinner with her once when she had just come back from the States and was complaining about all the clamour about sex: exhortations, prescriptions, preaching, psychobabble. He could still hear the humour in her voice.
‘Sex may have started this century as a religion, but some of us were secularists even then and really didn’t need to hear the message all the time.’ She had sighed, a little ruefully. ‘Anyhow if it’s going to be a religion, it should be as personal as a religion. I don’t really mind what people’s orientation or faith is, how often or not they go to church, whether they prefer to pray with men or women, I just get tired of hearing about it non-stop, so that it shapes everything. What about pronouncing a moratorium? A ten year silence, so that sex can become personal again, a language of intimacy, of flirtation, of imagination, hidden in the pages of books or between sheets? What do you say, Stephen?’ She had laughed in the way that she liked to when she said something startling.
The girl was staring into his eyes, caressing him with more curiosity than passion. It stirred him nonetheless and he was about to clasp her closer to himself when she pulled away abruptly.
‘You’re not positive, are you?’
He shook his head. ‘Not that unlucky.’
She relaxed for a moment, then bolted up again, held his eyes. ‘And you won’t put it inside me?’
‘Not unless you want me to… Look, perhaps we should just go to sleep.’ He rolled over on his stomach. ‘Forget about all this. I have to get up early.’
‘Okay. If that’s what you want. I’m tired too.’ She sounded hurt, but she snuggled up against him, then got up before he had a chance to touch her. He peeked out from between his arms and saw that she was taking off her jeans. She flung them towards a chair and stood there for a moment all small high breasts in some clinging garment and long legs and copper hair. She seemed to be debating whether to take any more clothes off and evidently decided against it, for she lay down next to him as she was.
‘G’night,’ she said softly.
‘Goodnight.’
After a moment, her hand came towards him, fingers found his chest.
‘You have soft skin,’ she whispered. He turned towards her and she started to lick him, little lapping movements like a cat but with a more delicate tongue. She took his hand and placed it on her breast. He rubbed gently, firm taut flesh as muscular as a boy’s, encased in some elastic fabric arching against him.
‘There,’ she moved his hand lower and pressed her mound against him. He heard the gasp of her breath in his ear and then in the hurried tumble of things he stopped noticing, only remembered that at some point in the play of bodies and tongues and limbs, her leg had brushed against him and he had come tumultuously somewhere amidst the bedclothes.
Afterwards, he held her and she said in a small polite voice. ‘Thank-you, That was very nice of you. And I was only a teeny bit scared. Once… It’s not really very scary, is it? Not like this.’ She put her hand on his limp penis.
He found himself laughing. ‘Probably scarier for me. You never know whether it’s going to work.’
She laughed too. Then she said, ‘Have you ever thought you might be part woman?’
He cleared his throat. ‘There’s only one wobbly little leg of a chromosome between us.’
‘And a whole lot of culture,’ she said as if she knew.
‘Yes, a whole lot of that.’
In the morning, when he dropped her off at he youth hostel, he felt decidedly odd. He gave her enough money to get through the week.’
‘I’ll pay you back,’ she said to him from the midst of her bulky coat.
‘Only if you think it’s necessary,’ he smiled at her. ‘Enjoy Paris. But be careful, won’t you.’
The words had a strangely paternal sound and he found himself flushing. He kissed her lightly on the cheek, watched her make her way with long strides up the stairs.
At their top, she met another jeaned woman, with blonde hair and a black leather jacket. Simone’s grandaughter. She had told him Antoinette worked here. Both girls were suddenly waving at him. Stephen waved back and to hide his confusion made a great show of digging out his flight ticket and directing the driver to the airport.
To remind himself that he was after all a serious person and not an embarrassed adolescent, Stephen tapped his bag and felt for the presence of the precious igloos.
-7-
__________
After Stephen had left, Simone leaned back into her chair and gazed at the intricate pattern in the Persian carpet at her feet. Scrolls and arabesques and entrelacs chasing each other across a pale rose ground. Recurring. Merging. Like so many figures in her life.
She closed her eyes, reimagining the progress of the pattern, her fingers tapping out a repetitive rhythm on the heavy fabric of her chair. Abruptly they stopped. Those threats had come into her mind again on the curve of an arabesque, their ugliness veiled by the casually seductive voice which had uttered them. With a swift movement, Simone dislodged the plump marmalade cat who had settled himself on her lap. He gave her a haughty look of disgruntled surprise.
‘Yes, Peluche,’ Simone’s laugh had a grim undertow. ‘You are right. I am a fool. An old fool. The worst kind. And a coward as well. I fear I may have done something very bad.’
With sudden resolve, she went to the telephone, searched through a thick address book and punched out a number. In a steely voice, she uttered a few sentences in Russian, waited for a moment, then scribbled a note and put down the receiver.
Wearily she made her way up the curving staircase to the first floor and opened the door to the library. Once, it had been her favourite room. Four large rectangular windows looked out on the splendid rump of the Notre Dame. While she sat at the central table and wrote her articles or speeches, she could take sustenance from the way in which heavy, unyielding stone had defied its own nature to rise and curve in an airy grace.
But now, neither the view nor the book-lined walls comforted her. She made for the far corner of the room, beyond the leather chesterfield and the old escritoire. With surprising ease, she slid back two seemingly solid panels of books. After a moment’s reflection, she pulled out a large leather-bound tome, placed it on the central table and went back to fetch two similar volumes. She rifled through pages of tiny script which resolved itself into no recognizable language. Some thirty minutes of intense concentration passed before a smile creased her lips. She made some notes on a pad, replaced the volumes and slid the book-lined panel back into place.
A moment later, she was arguing into the telephone, her voice vehement and persuasive by turn. Just before she hung up, she switched from Russian to English. ‘Never mind about all that. Just find her and follow her. Don’t let her out of your sight.’
In the oval mirror on the landing, she stopped to scowl at herself. She noted the spray of wrinkles round her mouth, the vein at her temple, the transparency of skin round bone. As if age were a paring away, a revelation of depths better hidden.
She twisted her lips into a mockery of a smile. Time was such a consummate artist. She couldn’t compete with the range of his palette, the ingenious dabs and scratches. It was better not to study his work too closely, lest one despair.
She had decided that over the years in any case and made it into something of a general philosophy. In most instances it was better not to look too closely. Better to believe in the best, the mask, the face put on to meet other faces. If you thought the best of them, people sometimes lived up to it. Were seduced into good. That usually worked better than flagellation. The whip only resulted in more whipping or fester
ing wounds which eventually polluted the atmosphere for everyone.
The trouble was the whip was sometimes necessary. She would have to use it now. On herself as well. She had left too many things undone. And now, one last act of courage was necessary.
She undressed with quick efficiency then stretched out on a bed that had grown too big. Yes, it was time. It was almost too late. She hadn’t foreseen this particular damage.
Restlessly, she got up again and looked at the door at the other side of the room. It beckoned to her as seductively as a siren. Why not? Her nights had grown so long and so wakeful. A little trip in her time machine would shore her up for what needed to be done. She smiled to herself. Time machines might come in all shapes and sizes, Simone thought, grand streamlined crafts with supersonic gadgetry, intricate watches moulded to the curve of a wrist, the redolent pages of a favourite book. For her, her wardrobe served the purpose.
It was a closet, as capacious as a middle-sized room, filled with shelves and racks several layers deep between which one could stroll at one’s leisure. At its uppermost level hatboxes were stacked and dated; at its nethermost, shoes. In between were the dresses and gowns, sweaters and blouses and suits and coats and scarfs which had clothed a lifetime. It wasn’t that Simone didn’t give things away. Every season she sorted and sifted and gave and donated. And every season, she kept back one or two or three items from which she couldn’t bear to be parted because of a fineness of line or texture or because they evoked a particular moment.
As a result, she now thought of her wardrobe as a vast archaeological site replete with splinters and shards, worn coins and half obliterated runes - a forgotten civilisation whose traces only she could decipher.
Of late she had taken to browsing through the furthest recesses of the site, burrowing into forgotten boxes, lifting sheets of cotton to reveal the gossamer silks, the slippery satins or tufted wools of memory.
She had fingered the ivory softness of her wedding gown and thought of the moment when she had said ‘yes’ to Michel in front of a mayor, proud in his tricolour sash, and promised herself in that word no longer to think of the past and to embrace the present. She had followed the dress home to this very house, decked in flowers. Had felt herself tremble as the maid helped her undo its myriad clasps and buttons. Had sniffed the hint of cologne on Michel’s face as he moved to kiss her on that first night, his lips more serious than the droll light in his eyes, as if he wanted her to acknowledge that the whimsy of pageantry and parties aside, there was something abiding between them.
The Things We Do For Love Page 11
