by Sarah Long
She had had a bit of a downer on the gym ever since she had mentioned on the phone to a friend in England that she had joined.
‘Oh yes,’ he had laughed, ‘it’s something that comes to all housewives at a certain age.’
‘But I am not a housewife,’ she had protested, ‘I’m a professional woman enjoying an extended career break to enhance my quality of life. Cherie Blair goes to the gym, and you wouldn’t laugh at her.’
Laura would never have joined had it not been for her Irish friend Lorinda, who was stretched out on the mat next to her. Lorinda had been Laura’s best friend since they had met at the haltegarderie three years earlier when Laura had just arrived in Paris.
The French didn’t do playgroups for pre-school children – that would sound too much like having fun. Instead they had horrible institutions called haltegarderies run by hard-faced battleaxes who prepared toddlers for the cruelty of adult life by snatching them from their mothers at the hall gates and making them stand in the corner if they cried.
Laura and Lorinda had both arrived on the first day of term and been so horrified by the sound of mass wailing, reminiscent of a Victorian asylum, that they had turned right round and headed for the café terrasse instead, where Pierre-Louis and Victoire played happily amongst the pigeon shit while their mothers exchanged life stories.
Lorinda’s life was governed by two contradictory obsessions. The first was saving money, which was why she had agreed to spend a year living rent-free with her French mother-in-law while she and her husband saved up for a new apartment for their famille nomhreuse. The second obsession was avoiding her mother-in-law, and she had calculated that the opportunities for escape offered by the gym more than justified the hefty membership fee.
‘Look, Laura, provided you go four times a week, it’s fantastic value for money.’
‘And if you go once a fortnight, which is more likely, it’s incredibly expensive.’
But Laura had capitulated, and at Lorinda’s suggestion they met three times a week for abdo-fessiers, culture physique or body sculpt, narcissistic, unsmiling exercises in the worship of physical appearance that was the bane of modern urban life.
In six months she had lost one kilo, or half a kilo depending on how you stood on the scales in the changing rooms. By any standards this was disappointing and Laura worried that her agreeing to go to the gym was yet another example of her becoming reactive instead of proactive. She had reactively agreed to follow her husband to France, she reactively let Asa dictate the terms of her employment, she reactively let the kids watch what they wanted on the TV. She was like a giant jellyfish on the beach, pushed around by the sticks of curious children.
The abdo-fessiers half-hour was mercifully drawing to a close, finishing with Laura’s favourite part which involved sitting with one leg crossed over the other and collapsing, head bowed over the extended leg, for a nice long time. You then had to stand up slowly and unfurl your arms.
Looking in the mirror, Laura was suddenly reminded of a picture from Pierre-Louis’s Babar the Elephant book of Babar doing his exercises with the Old Lady. There were plenty of Old Lady clones in the room, but Laura felt that as a physical type she was rather closer to Babar. The class applauded themselves briefly, like trained monkeys, and obediently put back their instruments of self-flagellation, thick elastic bands and dumb-bells.
‘Thank Christ that’s over, I’m starving,’ said Laura. ‘Lunch? Or have you got to pick up the children?’
‘No, they’re in the cantine today. We get three hundred euros reimbursed from the Mairie on our carte Paris famille.’
‘Not another bloody handout!’
‘Free museum entry, free swimming pool, half-price metro tickets. I keep telling you to have another child. Alexandre saves us eight thousand euros on our tax bill, plus the extra allowance I get for staying at home. And they’re giving us back the family allowance.’
‘Your protest worked, then.’
Lorinda had joined the ranks of hair-banded bourgeois housewives who had gone on a manifestation to protest against the means testing of allocations familiales.
‘I should think so! I paid my taxes for all those years.’
Lorinda had worked as an air hostess for Air France during her year off before teacher training college. But then she had met Arnaud, and the combination of his Gallic charm and the glamour of international travel meant that the teacher training went on the back burner, and here she was twenty years later with four children and the mother-in-law from hell.
‘How about Le Petit Marguery? They do a great value set lunch including half a carafe of wine.’
‘Perfect. I can tell you all about belle-mère’s latest outrages. Do you know, she knocked on the bathroom door last night and told me I was taking too long. Apparently, now I’ve got kids I’m not allowed to spend more than two minutes in the bath.’
The two women made their way down the rue d’Auteuil past the marketplace, which today was occupied only by pigeons and looked far too small ever to accommodate the density of stalls that would be crammed in there tomorrow. They continued past Le Nôtre, the nec plus ultra of cake shops, where a canny beggar was sitting outside the door. You would have to be pretty heartless, thought Laura as she dropped him a coin, not to give him something after spending thirty pounds on a smallish cake for afternoon tea.
They reached Le Petit Marguéry and settled down with pleasure on to the worn red-leather banquettes.
‘I’ll have the travers de porc au miel, with the escargots as entrée,’ said Laura, thinking that the crème brûlée would slip down quite well after all that.
‘And I’ll take the salade frisée au chèvre chaud and the daurade,’ said Lorinda, ‘and I suppose we’d better have a Kir before the Côtes du Rhône.’
‘Well we’ve certainly earned it.’
Meanwhile, in the Café Marly, Jean-Laurent was pleased to find himself installed at a prime table on the covered terrasse which gave a clear view of the glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre. From this vantage point he could look down at the long line of tourists queuing for entry through the barrage of uniformed fonctionnaires checking out bags for bombs and small penknives of the kind recently used by a thief to cut a small masterpiece out of its frame.
For once, the staff were not on strike. While his French education had taught him to respect every citizen’s right to refuse to work, Jean-Laurent had little sympathy for the plight of the ordinary man. He was international business school royalty after all, not some bearded loser in a university faculty who would no doubt be right behind these whingers and their outrageous demands. He honestly couldn’t understand what they were complaining about. All they had to do all day was sit on a chair in front of some paintings and watch the totty go by. He wished his working life was that easy, though of course a museum attendant probably only got a fraction of his own package.
The contrast between the anorak-wearing tourists and the chic but cool customers of the Café Marly was a source of satisfaction to him, and so was the fact that this lunch could be charged to his expense account. It really was convenient to have a mistress who was also a bona fide business associate; it made everything so much simpler.
Flavia had just completed a piece of research for him which had involved housewives lying on the floor to the accompaniment of New Age music to recall their first experiences of washing clothes. Flavia had explained to them that washing wasn’t just a process, it was a ritual, a spiritual conquest of evil that restored order from chaos. ‘I am a woman from another planet,’ she had told them, ‘and I have come to learn about your experiences of washing.’ The women had looked rather baffled, but it was certainly provocative, and, in Jean-Laurent’s opinion, well worth the fat fee.
His face brightened as he saw Flavia walking towards him. She took off her coat to reveal a tight jumper that rode up above her belly button, and the kind of dropped-waist trousers that could be so cruel to those with less than perfect hips.
She kissed him on both cheeks and he breathed in her perfume. Envy by Gucci, entirely appropriate, for which man could not envy him his lunch date?
She sat down opposite him and smiled. Her blonde hair shone as she screwed up her eyes, dazzled by the sun reflecting on the pyramid, and pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her bag. Trust Flavia to think of carrying sunglasses in November, thought Jean-Laurent in admiration. He was overtaken by a wave of happiness. He was about to spend two hours with her, and tomorrow he would see her again. He was truly blessed, he thought, or, as the German expression went, as happy as God in France.
He turned to the waiter.
‘A bottle of Taittinger, please.’
Back in Le Petit Marguéry, the women were on coffee and Lorinda was in full flow.
‘And then she had the cheek to say that I couldn’t possibly have been that long going round the supermarket. So I took out my receipt and my car park ticket and showed her, look, 95 minutes to buy 120 items, that’s 45 seconds per item. You really can’t say that’s bad!’
‘Mad old witch. I don’t know how you put up with her,’ commiserated Laura, glancing at her watch.
‘And then Arnaud was working late last night – who can blame him! – so I had to have dinner with her by myself and she made me prepare this little platter of salad for him to have when he got in, and I was cutting up a tomato and she grabbed the knife off me and said, “No, Lorinda, it must look appetising,” and started arranging it on the plate like she was in a bloody cordon bleu contest. So I said, it’s not worth it, he’ll probably have eaten anyway so he’ll end up throwing it in the bin like he did last night, then she started on her old tune about how the kids’ room was a tip and I should learn to demand order before it was too late.’
‘Never mind,’ said Laura. ‘A few more years in Paris and you’ll become just like her.’
She undid the top button of her trousers. That crème brûlée had been a bit of a mistake.
‘That’s the worst part of it. When I went to spend a week in Ireland with my family, I couldn’t stand the chaos, I was desperate to get back to the discipline of Bonne-Maman’s home. At least you can always find everything.’
She sighed.
‘Anyway, that’s enough about her. I come out to get away from her and spend the whole time talking about her. What about you? How was your dinner last night?’
At last, thought Laura, the chance to talk about her little flirtation. She could tell Lorinda about Antoine and how he had come on to her. She had been saving the story up – she knew Lorinda would love it. After all, it wasn’t often that a respectable mère de famille was subjected to improper advances from someone who was almost famous.
She unwrapped two sugar cubes and stirred them into her coffee, savouring the moment.
‘Well, how about this? I was propositioned by Sylvie Marceau’s husband.’
Lorinda’s eyes widened in delight.
‘Get out of here! The anti-ageing guru? What did he do, grope you under the table?’
‘Don’t be common. He made a very Andrew Marvell point about taking the opportunity for pleasure while one still had the chance. Not that he mentioned Andrew Marvell – I don’t think poetry is his bag. He’s more of a hormone man.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘I was suitably indignant and made it clear that I was in love with my husband.’
‘Which you are.’
‘Of course.’
‘How’s his cellar doing?’
Lorinda was the only friend of Laura’s who didn’t think that Jean-Laurent was a heaven-sent piece of perfection, which was doubtless why Laura liked her so much. But honour obliged her to stick up for her husband before moving on to discuss her admirer.
‘Don’t be mean, Lorinda, lots of French men are interested in wine, even if Arnaud isn’t.’
‘Yes, but he does go on and on, doesn’t he?’
‘I know you’ve never made any secret of the fact that you consider my husband to be a crashing bore.’
‘I never said that. He has got beautiful cheekbones.’
‘The two aren’t mutually exclusive.’
‘So what’s the deal on the horny doc? Is he attractive?’
Was he attractive? Was the Pope Catholic? She feigned cool indifference.
‘Well, he’s older than me. Better preserved than Sylvie, though. Sort of classical. He has a lovely voice.’
‘She really is a freak show, but that’s mostly due to him, isn’t it?’
‘I really don’t know. Strangely enough I didn’t get him to talk me through all the operations he had put his wife through while we were sitting round the table.’
‘So what did you talk about?’
But Laura was not about to share all her secrets, even with her best friend. She thought about his hand on her knee, how disinclined she had been to push it away; his arrogant presumption that her life lacked passion and direction; and that he was the one who could answer her maiden’s prayer.
‘Nothing much.’ She said. ‘He gave me his card.’
‘Which you kept.’
‘So?’
‘So you must be thinking about it.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It just amused me, that’s all.’
‘Exactly. Amusement is what it’s all about. Laura, haven’t you heard about a little French institution known as the cinq à sept?’
‘Yes, I know all about that old cliché, the love affair which takes place between five and seven o’clock, conveniently slotting in between work and dinner. And how would I manage to absent myself at that difficult time, might I ask, with the boys home from school? Even if I was interested, that is, which I am not.’
‘Get that lazy bag Asa to do something for a change. Let her feed the boys, and you can swoop in for the bedtime story fresh from Doctor Sex’s love den.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t be so disgusting. I told you, I’m a faithful wife.’
‘Who happens to keep strange men’s cards tucked about her person just in case . . .’
‘Shall we get the bill? Your turn to pay, I think.’
‘Good job we had the prix fixe in that case.’
On reflection that second bottle of wine was a bad idea, thought Laura as the rear of her Espace clipped the bumper of a Clio in the course of what should have been a perfectly straightforward piece of parking. She looked round guiltily but none of the passers-by in rue du Commerce seemed remotely interested.
That was one great thing about the French – they weren’t precious about their cars the way the British were. She remembered one weekend in Bath when Jean-Laurent had been parking his car in the French style, crashing bumper to bumper, and a horrified crowd of indignant spectators had gathered to watch. Here in Paris, everyone had the odd dent or two; it was tout à fait normal.
She got out of the car and walked quickly up towards the avenue Emile Zola. There was just time to pick up some cheese at the Fromagerie du Pays d’Auge before meeting the boys. She opted for the most expensive of the four Roqueforts on offer, and a rich yellow slab of St Nectaire fermier together with a pale St Marcellin, which the shop assistant selected for her after a great deal of prodding and a detailed discussion about when exactly it was to be eaten.
It was one of the miracles of Paris, thought Laura in a happy fog of Côtes du Rhône, that even in a relatively un-chic quartier like the fifteenth you could find these little shops that put Harrods’ food hall to shame, never mind the bland plastic-wrapped offerings of the average British supermarket.
Her good humour continued as she approached the school gates and the usual crowd of faces – nannies, to whom one did not speak, and other mothers to whom one did, although as a group Laura tended to avoid them. She suspected it was rather like Groucho Marx not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member, and the problem with this club of Committed Mothers was that they were always trying to get you to do things. It seemed churlish to say so, but just because she didn�
��t work it didn’t mean that she was suddenly possessed by a desire to read stories to classes of other people’s children, or to spend her afternoons sorting out the PTA video library. It would be like resigning from the job of company chairman and then volunteering to work as an unpaid filing clerk.
She gave a quick glance round to see if there was anybody she should avoid. There was Ugly Mum, doing herself no favours with a pair of leggings that hugged her droopy bottom, and next to her was PTA Paula, handing out a production schedule for the Christmas show costumes.
In a former life Paula had been a top banker, but her energies were now channelled into developing the human capital of her offspring. While she was entirely credible as a Capable Mother with her short practical haircut, it was hard to imagine how she ever got there, but obviously someone must have once wanted to have sex with her. The sperm could barely have had time to settle before she was leaping up to wipe down surfaces and set the breakfast table.
Further along was Designer Mum, dressed up in a fabulous fur-trimmed green cloak. You wouldn’t guess that she was just a housewife, although arguably her money and style hoisted her up into the category of Idle Rich or Ladies Who Lunch, neither of which Laura felt she could quite aspire to. It was mostly the American women who masterminded all things extra-curricular. The French mothers, who failed to understand the emotional significance of a bake sale, preferred to go out to work, leaving only a handful of pale-faced mères de familles nombreuses to represent them at the school gates. These pious-looking mothers with headbands and sensible coats were usually pushing double buggies containing their latest tax-rebate offspring, and whisking their older children, dressed in smocked dresses and knickerbockers from Cyrillus, off to catechism classes.
The gates opened and the children spilled out on to the narrow pavement. Laura was gratified, as always, to see Pierre-Louis’s eyes light up as he saw her, while Charles-Edouard, more serious, just looked relieved. It was pitiful, really, how much importance she attached to these small moments of pleasure. She held Pierre-Louis’s hand and put her arm round Charles-Edouard’s shoulders as they made their way to the car.
