by Sarah Long
Halfway down rue Poussin, Laura arrived at the high metal gates of the Villa Montmorency. The gates were open, but an automatic barrier was in place to keep out the cars of the great unwashed, and a uniformed gardien was sitting in the lodge to scrutinise would-be visitors. Laura walked straight past him, but he came running out after her.
‘Can I help you, madame?’
‘I’m going to Mme. Marceau’s house. I believe it’s up there on the right.’
He looked her up and down to satisfy himself that she wasn’t a deranged stalker, then nodded grudgingly and went back to his watchtower.
Walking into the Villa Montmorency, Laura had the impression that she was stepping into a secret garden, a super-rich oasis of provincial tranquillity. The leafy street was lined with large, country-style houses of varied architecture with neatly tended gardens. And it was so quiet, a world away from the teeming traffic of Paris, though the faint sounds of distant cars served to remind you of the city that lay just outside this toy-town cocoon.
She turned right into another road that led to a roundabout where a fountain was planted out with hibernating roses and never-say-die winter pansies. Two gardeners were sweeping up some dead leaves that had had the effrontery to fall on to the carefully maintained pavement. It was a Parisian take on Beverly Hills: there was the same sense of nature carefully prinked and manicured into a pleasure ground for the wealthy.
She came to a magnificent bow-fronted Regency villa, its show-piece first-floor window hung with an extravagant sweep of taupe silk. It was a perverse law of designer tyranny that the richer you were, the less colour you were allowed. Perhaps a few cheerful outbursts on your way up the ladder, but once you reached the pinnacle of wealth and sophistication, you had to hire the kind of designer who made you feel like a vulgar parvenu if you suggested introducing a splash of anything beyond the monochrome. Laura rang the bell labelled ‘S.M. & A.B.’ Oh, the delicious intimacy of those initials.
‘Yes? It’s you, Laura? Come in.’
The door clicked open, revealing a gravel path flanked by a tidy lawn which was embellished by half a dozen life-size statues of ornamental sheep.
Sylvie stood at the front door, a tiny figure with two little dogs snapping round her heels.
‘I see you are admiring my sheep. The sculptor is so talented. He also did some for Mitterand.’
‘Can’t you make them go “baa”, then it would be as good as the real thing. Your transformation into Marie-Antoinette would be complete.’
‘Ah, you English, always the little joke. Come in, je t’en prie.’
Laura stepped into what was indeed a temple to moneyed monochrome, depending heavily on grey slate, dark wood, and neutral furnishings. She looked around in vain for a small personalising touch, and her eye fell upon some teak picture frames containing blurred black and white photographs. It was hard to tell what they represented, but whatever it was seemed to fall into the category of Art, rather than snaps of friends and family.
Sylvie took her coat and led her up the customised walnut staircase and into the drawing room, where Antoine was elegantly draped against a cream sofa which harmonised beautifully with his toast-coloured suit. He looked even more handsome than she remembered, maybe because he was showcased in his own home, the suave seducer of maidens reclining in his lair. He looked unsurprised to see her: his eyes said it all. I knew you’d come, they said, I knew you couldn’t resist me. Which made his affectation of astonishment all the more irritating.
‘My dear, what a pleasant surprise! I’m so flattered that you bothered to track us down!’
As if she had spent days trying to find out where he lived. Had he forgotten that he had given her his card? And a second one to Jean-Laurent for good measure.
‘I said I would, and I always mean what I say,’ she replied briskly.
‘An admirable quality. And tell me, what do you think of our own private paradise?’
‘Very exclusive. It makes me long to be rich.’
Antoine laughed.
‘You are very direct – that’s refreshing in an English-woman. So often you British disguise what you think, afraid of appearing impolite.’
‘Not something you French can be accused of. I’m afraid a lot of English people find it hard to cope with your fondness for saying just what you think.’
‘How dull life would be if we did not express our opinions.’
He turned to his wife, who was watching them from the bay window where her black-clad figure stood out, a tiny silhouette against the backdrop of taupe silk curtains.
‘Sylvie, I believe there is a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Shall we take it up here?’
Sylvie moved past them, and Laura watched her girlish body sashaying towards the stairs, encased in an expensive-looking sheath made up of lycra bands. Probably Hervé Léger – she had seen them hanging up at Bon Marché whilst in search of something more forgiving to the fuller figure.
Now that she was left alone with Antoine, Laura found herself bashful and tongue-tied. Amused by her discomfort, Antoine let the silence hang heavy for a moment. Then he said, ‘You admire my wife, I think.’
‘She certainly has a wonderful figure. I wouldn’t mind getting away with a dress like that at her age. Or at my age, come to that.’
‘Age is not something we discuss in this house,’ he said mischievously. ‘Yes, she is beautiful. There was very little to do on her body, once I had established she had an underactive thyroid. It was just the face where she needed my partner’s expertise. We started with the eyelids, a very simple operation, and then the upper lip – it is so sad for a woman when the lipstick starts to fall into little crevasses. You yourself have not yet encountered that problem, I can see. You have a perfect cupid’s bow.’
Laura blushed foolishly. Once again, she could think of nothing to say. Antoine sat forward and lowered his voice.
‘I am so glad you came to see me. Looking at Sylvie is like looking out of this beautiful window. Everything is perfect, but so dull. I need movement, excitement, life. And I know you feel the same. Why else would you have come?’
The urgency with which he now cut to the quick put her swiftly back on the defensive. He saw straight through her pretence, he knew her real motives, but her reply was an indignant denial.
‘I came to have a drink with you and your wife, as a friend and neighbour, since you both so kindly invited me to. Please don’t embarrass me by talking like this while your wife is out of the room, it makes me feel very uneasy.’
‘You are right, we must postpone this conversation to another occasion. I think you will come for lunch near my cabinet. Maybe on Thursday?’
Was it always this fast? No wonder it took Jacques Chirac only three minutes.
Before Laura could reply, Sylvie returned with the champagne.
‘Welcome to the Villa Montmorency, Laura. What a shame your husband couldn’t join us. Does he travel a lot?’
‘Quite a bit at the moment. He hates it, of course; he’d rather be at home with us. But he has to move the business on, as he puts it.’
‘Move the business on. Yes, that’s about the sum of it,’ said Antoine with a knowing smile. ‘Santé!’
And he raised his glass to Laura with a wink.
‘Can you really be interested in that plump little lapine?’ asked Sylvie as they waved off their visitor.
‘My dear, you should not be so dismissive of women who reproduce. Breeding like a rabbit, as you so charmingly describe it, is the motivational force that drives many women. I find it fascinating that they can choose to surrender everything else to that one banal objective.’
‘I’m not sure that there was much else to surrender in that particular case. If you are not suffocated by her folds of flesh, you certainly will be by the domestic quality of her conversation. And whatever you do, don’t get her pregnant.’
‘It is quite safe, she already has children. You know how careful I am to choose only those who ha
ve passed beyond the baby hunger stage. But there is something fascinating to me about that woman. She says one thing and often means quite the opposite. I think she may prove to be quite a challenge. Now, shall we go for dinner?’
In the heart of the Cotswolds, Jean-Laurent was energetically moving the business on beneath the canopy of the fifteenth-century mahogany four-poster that dominated his feature room. It was well worth the supplement, he thought, not to be in one of those modern boxes next to the health club, and anyway they’d been given a special deal by the Lygon Arms, so the extra cost to the company was negligible.
Flavia rolled on top of him and he fumbled tenderly at the strap of her aubergine Aubade bra (worn, naturally, with matching lace G-string). What a campaign that had been: ‘Lesson No. 9, tease him a little’. Sometimes he thought it would be fun to work in lingerie, forging hard new marketing plans for those flimsy little pieces of satin. It took thirty-two of them, he had once read, to make up a standard bra – would it be the same for an AA cup as a D cup, or would large sizes require more? But then again, soap powder and deodorancy were much bigger, altogether more global, and he was nothing if not global these days. He carefully removed Flavia’s underwear and gave his concentrated attention to a performance worthy of a master of the universe.
‘What do you mean, you’re not sure? You’re obviously gagging for it, or why would you have invited yourself round to see him in the first place?’
Lorinda pushed the speed control of her treadmill up to a brisk 10 km per hour, anticipating an upturn in the tempo of their conversation.
Laura lumbered on at 5.5.
‘I do wish you wouldn’t debase everything. Though actually, that’s exactly what he said, if in a more poetical way. But the point is, I really don’t know what I’m getting into. I only went along out of curiosity – Jean-Laurent said I should see where they lived. It is amazing by the way. So that was all. I didn’t know he was going to come on with a secret lunch date the minute his wife was out of the room.’
‘Oh, come on, it was a fair bet after your last encounter with old Doctor Sex. First he crushes his card, clammy with desire, into your hand under the dining table, next thing he knows you’ve turned up, without your husband, offering yourself like a sheep upon the altar of his lust.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ said Laura, wiping the sweat from her forehead to prevent it dripping unappetisingly on to the control panel of the treadmill. ‘All right, so maybe I do find him attractive. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it. Nothing wrong with a bit of flirting, is there? And it’s quite nice to have a conversation with someone who is not at all interested in children. Or global marketing,’ she added.
‘Or wine,’ said Lorinda, getting into the game, ‘or management handbooks. Or competitive advantage.’
‘All right,’ said Laura. ‘Let’s not go down that route. Anyway, it was nice to see him. And Sylvie, of course. It was her I rang to arrange the visit, and he just happened to be there.’
Lorinda pulled a lascivious face and leered at Laura from her treadmill.
‘Lying in a quiet ferment of desire to pounce on you at the earliest opportunity,’ she said.
‘Not to pounce,’ said Laura. ‘Only to arrange a date for possible future pouncing. This Thursday, to be precise. Except that I’ve decided to cancel. It’s all too complicated.’
Which was why she had left Antoine’s house in the sure knowledge that she would never meet him privately. He had insisted they should have lunch, but there was no point; it would only end in tears. She knew only too well from the experiences of her friends that what started out as something perfectly simple soon became horribly complicated, with irreparable fall-out all round.
But Lorinda was having none of this defeatist talk.
‘Nonsense. Sounds perfectly straightforward to me. I think you should go for it. Nothing to lose.’
It was all right for her to say that, thought Laura, it wasn’t her home life she was laying on the line.
‘Oh no, nothing to lose,’ she said. ‘Only my happy marriage, in which I have invested so heavily. Not to mention the stable, loving home I’ve created for my children.’
‘Now who’s exaggerating?’ said Lorinda, raising her hands in comic disbelief as she pounded on. ‘He’s only invited you to lunch, and I assume he’s paying. You don’t have to take it any further if you don’t want to. Then you can tell me all about it. It will help us through Friday morning’s abdo-fessiers session.’
You don’t understand, thought Laura. You don’t understand at all. If I have lunch with the divine Dr Bouchard, there is no way of knowing where it will lead. I might not be responsible for my actions. There was something about him that made her long to throw out all precepts of reasonable behaviour. She pressed the stop button and stepped off her treadmill, puffing after her fifteen minutes of exertion and shaking her head at her friend.
‘Lorinda, how empty is your sad life that you have to push me into unwanted adventures just so you can hear about them? Tell you what, why don’t you go in my place since you’re so keen on the idea?’
‘I’m happy to say that my marriage is not in crisis,’ retorted Lorinda. ‘I’m quite happy with Arnaud, it’s just his mother I can’t stand.’
‘My marriage isn’t in crisis! What are you on about? That’s my whole point. I love Jean-Laurent and we’re perfectly happy.’
Lorinda slowed down her treadmill to a fast walk, then to a standstill. She wiped the sweat from her face with her towel and turned to face her friend.
‘In that case, Laura, why are we even having this conversation? Anyway, I’m off, there’s a toy promotion in Leclerc today. Spend sixty euros and you get thirty back. I’m getting all my godchildren’s Christmas presents.’
‘But it’s only mid-November.’
‘The early bird catches the worm. Talking of which, I’ll be interested to hear about Doctor Love’s pet worm, once you’ve had a sighting. You mark my words, it’s only a matter of time!’
‘You’re disgusting. See you on Friday then. And Saturday. You are coming to dinner, aren’t you?’
‘Of course. I’m hoping you’ll line someone up for me, so I can join you on the slippery slope to ruin.’
‘Ha ha. Actually, there might be someone, Francine is bringing her brother, recently divorced, grande école – sounds rather eligible.’
‘Can’t wait. Bye then!’
Laura moved on to a cycling machine and pushed the pedals in a desultory way. Maybe Lorinda was right. It was only lunch, after all. Just the once. It was something to do, and perfectly innocent. But in that case, she was going to have to make a big effort to bring down her body-fat ratio before Thursday. She had read that morning that the normal ratio for a woman was 21.4. Even going by her optimistic weight of 68 kg and her height (in low heels) of 1.67 m, her own worked out at 27, which bordered between the ‘slightly overweight’ and ‘obese’ categories as defined by Santé et Fitness magazine.
She looked down at the dial on the machine, which told her she had been cycling for only three and a half minutes. What a bore it was. She looked through the glass wall at the culture physique lesson in progress in the next studio. Really, if that girl in the cropped T-shirt got any closer to the mirror, she’d be having sex with it. The T-shirt had the words Californian Girl printed on it, but that was clearly a lie, as she looked about as cross and French as you can get. And thin, Laura conceded with a sigh, glancing down at the dial of the bike which informed her that she had burned up 27 calories.
Bollocks to this, she thought, it must be time for lunch.
Back at the apartment, Laura turned the key in the lock and stood stock-still in her entrance hall. Like a hunting dog, she pricked her ears and flared her nostrils, sniffing the air for clues. She could always tell whether Asa was in or not, and today she clearly was at home. It wasn’t just the smell of recently fried popcorn or the cosmetic-scented steam from the bathroom that told her, it was som
ething more primitive. Someone was on her patch.
She heard the wardrobe door close as Asa stepped casually from Laura’s bedroom and gave her a bright smile.
‘Hi! I was just putting the laundry away.’
You liar, thought Laura, I know what you were up to. You were trying on my clothes to see what you might wear to your Overeaters Anonymous meeting next time I’m out of town. She really should speak to her about it, but it was hard to know how to start the conversation. Perhaps something caring-sharing like, ‘Asa, we need to talk.’ Too heavy. Better to drop it in casually. ‘By the way, Asa, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t wear my clothes without asking my permission.’ Or just go for pure aggression. ‘Wear your own clothes, you sly, inadequate person.’
Instead, Laura said, ‘Oh, thanks. Do you want some lunch?’
‘No thank you, I’ve had mine. Devon said it was quite OK to have an earlier lunch, provided you don’t eat dinner too late. I’m quite pleased with myself. I managed to eat six Ryvita slices and a tub of cottage cheese with my salad.’
Oh good, thought Laura. Does that mean that I can count on my cauliflower remaining in the vegetable basket until dinner time, rather than being regurgitated down the S-bend? She glanced at the fruit bowl: only two apples left. Clearly the early lunch had been rounded off with a particularly generous bowl of fresh fruit salad.
Asa followed her into the kitchen and poured herself a large glass of mineral water. She threw the empty bottle into the bin.
‘That’s the last bottle, by the way,’ she said, wagging a warning finger at Laura, a particularly annoying gesture that she had picked up from the French.
