Au Pair

by Fiona McGregor

  I sat at the window with my sandwich and my journal, waiting for words. Behind the rooftops the sky was now a flat chilly blue. The Sunday painter on the top floor opposite had begun on a third window. All down the slate roof he dripped white paint. I thought jealously of how big his apartment must be. A clochard picked through garbage in the impasse below. It was impasse des Trois Soeurs, I noticed for the first time.

  I had two sisters, together we were three. I might have had three, there might have been seven children. I am a superstitious person. I am a firm believer in symbols, though I don’t always recognise their meaning. Six is meant to be an evil number, and seven a lucky one. On a bad day I say there are six children in our family. On a good one I say my mother had seven children.

  I had to get away, I was away, I could not get away.

  Hours had passed. I would take my chances and try my mother at home.

  She answered almost straightaway. I felt a twinge of regret that it was me paying for the call this time.

  – Dad was so rude to me, I said dolefully.

  Mum told me Dad had broken his arm. The left. She said he was in pain. Old bones don’t heal so easily. She said he couldn’t work and that was why he was feeling so irritable.

  There was a pause. I wondered why he hadn’t told me. I wondered if I’d asked him how he was.

  – That’s terrible, I said.

  My mother’s voice became lofty and sharp.

  – Yes indeed, I do think you could give him the benefit of the doubt, Siobhan. You’re so hard sometimes.

  – He is.

  – Well, don’t be so sensitive.

  – You are!

  My mother and I listened to our silences. A sigh wafted through hers – a sigh of pain, it sounded like to me. My father was not the only one in pain. Already there was a queue waiting for the phone. A man in checked trousers, probably an American tourist, blew on his hands, not taking his eyes off me. Two girls wondered loudly why I was taking so long if I wasn’t even talking. I was waiting for my mother to.

  This distance was not just geographical. Why, as more time passed, did we only become more strange to one another? I wished I knew what to say apart from the cursory requests for addresses and money. I wished she could find the words to tell me more than what was written in her French impressionists address book, to ask me more than what the weather was like and how work was going.

  All day in my hotel room I had conversations with myself, and I acted out the parts of others. I did not copy reality. Reality was cold, reality was lifeless. I understood what had attracted my mother to the theatre.

  But she hadn’t learnt her lines this time.

  She said she had to go. I could hear the kettle whistling. I motioned to the people waiting that I would soon be finished. Mum reminded me to ring her friend Libby.

  – Every little contact helps, Siobhan.

  I still had a handful of coins when we rang off. I went to a pay toilet across the road. I put one franc in the slot, the door slid open. I stepped inside and the door slid shut. I was used to pay toilets but retained an irrepressible fear that one day I would be trapped in one. The light came on, muzak trickled out of a box overhead, and I sat on the toilet.

  I looked at the line of digits that would reach Nora in Mexico City. I went back to the phone box and waited my turn in the cold slushy street. What an orgy of international calls. Each left me a little dissatisfied, wanting more. The rapid pips of connection echoed my heartbeat. At the other end the phone was dropped, and then I heard Nora’s sleepy voice.

  – Oh, she groaned, you woke me up. I went to a tequila party last night.

  Suddenly the letter I would be posting tomorrow seemed sad and nasty. I blurted the conversation with Dad. It sounded hysterical. For response I got a gale of laughter, husky with sleep and cigarettes. Nora thought it was the other sort of hysterical.

  – Purgatory! He’s like someone from another planet.

  Pleading for her to stop laughing, I couldn’t help laughing myself. She said I must be premenstrual.

  – It’s not hormones, Nora! Don’t trivialise it.

  – Listen, you’ll feel better when you find somewhere to live.

  – I feel like I’m never going to.

  – Find a boy and move in with—

  I hadn’t noticed the light flashing; the line went dead. I hung up the phone and tried to invent the rest of the conversation. Where would I find this boy? Could Nora have told me? I walked back to the hotel, adrenalin pumping, hearing her laughter. She had the right idea, she sounded so free. The windows of the boulevard cafés gleamed, people were coming out for a taste of good weather. Shutters were being opened on the sagging façades of the old artisan workshops I passed, and the last wisps of cloud were shrinking back towards Belleville. I passed Impasse des Trois Soeurs and went into the hotel.

  The patronne came to the doorway, a beauty spot of chocolate mousse on her smiling top lip.

  – Il fait beau?

  – Oui, il y a du soleil.

  Etrangers

  We were walking by the Canal St Martin. The temperature had been at a steady zero for days now, and the sluice gates were growing beards of ice. Chantale was wearing a red felt hiking hat that she had shaped into something resembling a Stetson. The hat was a gift from an American friend called Bruno.

  I wanted to meet Bruno; Chantale mentioned him often, as though I had. I got the feeling they’d been lovers, but Chantale never let on. Other names were mentioned too – an English girl called Gillian, a Scottish boy called Tom. But I never met any of Chantale’s friends and the names changed every few months as the friends, never from Paris, left and new ones arrived. When I first knew her, I’d assumed Chantale’s social life to be as busy and varied as the places her friends were from; I’d attached to her the same sort of excitement the word Paris contains for an outsider. It held many other things for me now as well, and in the same way, since I’d been back, it had become clear to me that Chantale was as much a loner as I was. An outsider in her hometown. It gave me a vague sense of displacement, repositioning in Paris my Parisian friend.

  There was a lot she chose to keep from me. I knew Chantale had a sister, but the sister was never mentioned. Her parents were only referred to in terms of the past; she saw them maybe twice a year.

  Chantale changed jobs as often as she did friends, and I was told about the changes only after they had occurred. Just back from taking juvenile delinquents on a skiing trip, she was running a news-stand at Gare de l’Est. If there were such a thing as an armchair itinerant, Chantale was it.

  The closer we got to Stalingrad, the shabbier the streets we passed through. It was Monday – the markets and shops were closed. Plane trees stretched before us, bare and pale and dead-looking to my subtropical eyes.

  Over the other side of the canal a man and a woman stopped to let their dogs greet one another head to tail.

  – Qu’est-ce qu’elle est mignonne!

  – Qu’est-ce qu’il est beau, le vôtre!

  Otherwise, the street was empty.

  – In Paris in winter, said Chantale, nobody goes out unless they have to. Nobody does anything. Everything’s put on ice, so to speak.

  – Not me, I said, I’m going to get moving this winter.

  – Where to?

  – I mean, I’m staying in Paris, but I’m going to make things happen, you know?

  Maybe they already were. I’d started giving English lessons to Rosa, the daughter of Chantale’s cousin. Rosa was a flautist, and the English lessons were conducted in her father’s study, a tiny room wooded with flutes and oboes and other instruments, ancient and modern, used and unusable. They were racked along every wall and fringed the edges of the ceiling. We worked over the gentle soundtrack of their breathing and tinkling. Was it Rosa’s musical ear that lent her a facility for pronunciation? Was it her knowledge of the grammar of music – all the chords and scales – that gave her an aptitude for English grammar? She was
the same age as Laurent and she made herself hot chocolate when she got home from school. She changed her clothes by herself, she did her homework willingly, and she did it well.

  – Rosa’s a relief to teach after that brat Laurent, I said to Chantale.

  – She has her mother’s nature, Chantale nodded. I adore Kenza.

  Over the other side of the canal the skyline dropped and rose haphazardly. Some buildings remained, small, old, sooty. Vacant lots yawned, cranes grew from hills of rubble. A housing commission block was taking shape and was partly painted in a cool blue like the winter sky.

  So much variety, all this devastation and reconstruction, seemed commonplace to me. Chantale hated it.

  – Paris was never like this when I was a child.

  Her hands spiralled from her pockets.

  – Look at it now: filthy! Falling apart! They pull down old buildings only to put up new ones even uglier.

  – It’s better than the sixteenth, I said. That’s too intact, too nice.

  – I just mean Paris the way it used to be. Old Paris is not all rich. But this … Merde, I’ve trodden in dog shit!

  – Your right foot, it’s good luck, Chantale.

  She scraped her shoe angrily across a tree grid.

  – It’s the left foot, Sophie.

  – Laurent told me the other day it was the right.

  – He would. Rich kid.

  – Maybe it’s different for his generation. Maybe the rules have changed.

  – Oh, who cares. Same shit, different rules.

  We reached Stalingrad. The overground métro screeched to a halt above us. The Place was busy. Half the Arab shops were open. Cheap suitcases tumbled down to the footpath, chained one to the next, from the barnlike thrift shops. We bought hot chestnuts from a vendor near the station entrance. Three Arabs stood nearby, watching us eat. One of them began to beckon us, then the other two joined in. We ignored them.

  Chantale, a hasty eater, burnt her fingers, then her tongue. She panted and frowned and waved her hands in the air. I groaned inwardly, sensing her temper. One of the Arabs approached. We moved and he followed.

  He said he knew where Chantale could put her tongue to make it feel better. He said it in the vous form – plural as opposed to polite – to include me in the offer.

  Chantale turned on him.

  – Mais foutez-nous la paix!

  His face clouded over. He returned to his friends. They formed a semicircle and began to walk towards us. I took Chantale’s elbow.

  – Let’s go to a café, Chantale.

  The men were hissing.

  – Putes, putes, putes …

  Chantale threw her chestnuts into the gutter.

  – Merde alors! I’ve had it! Y’en a marre des Arabes en France!

  She ran across the boulevard and I ran after her. I caught up to her and grabbed her arm.

  – Let go of me! I’m not going in that café, it’s Tunisian. I hate them, I hate Arabs. Look at the floor, black with grime. We’d probably get a disease from their coffee cups. They’re filthy!

  – I’m sick of your racism, I said.

  – My racism? And the way they treat white women?

  – They’re not all like that. Kenza’s Algerian.

  – I don’t give a shit! I hate Arabs. If that’s racist, I’m it, and I don’t give a shit!

  – You make me sick, Chantale.

  I was sick of using the same words too. It was so frustrating, getting angry in a foreign language. Chantale folded her arms contemptuously.

  – Of course I do, Sophie, she said. You! You think you’re so pure.

  We looked at one another in shock.

  Then Chantale looked down at her feet. She shuffled them uncomfortably.

  – Bon, she said, I’m not going to stand around in the cold.

  We crossed back over the boulevard. The three Arabs had gone.

  – I’ll come as far as Père Lachaise, I said.

  We didn’t talk for the entire métro ride. We got off together at Père Lachaise and went to Bar Piaf for a vin chaud.

  Une Honte

  I arrived at rue de Babylone on a Monday evening to find the small entrance crowded with Nadenne, Laurent and Mme Durebex. Laurent had been brought home by Mme Laplanche. Her high pretty laugh trickled down from the landing as she talked on the telephone. Mme Durebex had Laurent’s exercise book open at his French dictation. Nought out of ten.

  – SER-PEN-TIN! We’ve been doing that word for a week, Laurent! What is wrong with you? AR-BRE! How do you spell that, Laurent? How do you spell that? Nadenne, GO and wash the leeks as I’ve shown you. Mon dieu, Laurent, c’est une honte une honte une HONTE! Tu n’as pas honte, Laurent? Hein?

  Nadenne trudged upstairs. He turned on the landing and flashed his teeth at me. Laurent joined in our smile over his mother’s shoulder, which quivered in the struggle with her son’s shoelaces. She pulled off the shoes then turned to face me. My ears ringing, feeling sick at the smell of her breath, I adopted a po-face as Mme Durebex descended to remedial French for me.

  – Listen, Shona, he has to know these words by heart. Only the words for the dictation. Do you understand? Nadenne!

  Up the stairs she went, Une honte une honte une veritable honte! Laurent and I went to work in his bedroom. From this day on my job increased to French and maths tutor as well. I kept just one step ahead.

  Laurent sprawled on the ink-dotted bed and spelt the words from the dictation through a pair of paper scissors. From his mouth, between the blades opening and closing, came the letters of each word in perfect formation. The front door opened and we lapsed into a fearful silence.

  I wished Laurent in his chair, sitting up straight, looking at me with humble devotion. I willed the paper scissors back into the pencil case. I sought in vain the reason Laurent had spelt every word in the dictation with unerring imperfection.

  M. Durebex stuck his head in the door and smiled at me.

  – Bonsoir.

  Taken aback, I returned the greeting.

  He stood there nodding, as though he were pleased with me. Then he put his head further around the doorframe to see Laurent on the bed, legs splayed in the yellow track pants, sucking the scissors.

  – He works like that, does he? M. Durebex chuckled.

  When the evening’s lesson was over Mme Durebex called me upstairs. The tone of her voice made me think I was in trouble. The deadline for my decision about the Alps had passed over a week ago.

  I could hear Mme Laplanche giggling in the lounge.

  – Victor, I demand you give me a Scotch.

  – Ah non. That’s no drink for a lady.

  – I don’t give a damn. I need it. And not too much ice.

  Before she had a chance to say anything, I told Mme Durebex I would come to the Alps. I confessed my visa needed to be renewed, and I was only eligible for three-month tourist visas.

  – There might be problems, I said nervously.

  – Ça va, she nodded, one eye on the vegetables Nadenne was chopping, finger to the corner of her mouth.

  It should have been obvious to me by now that the Durebex preferred their staff to be illegal. What Mme Durebex had really called me up for was to tell me the Laplanches were looking for another jeune fille.

  – Clau-dine! she trilled.

  Mme Laplanche came into the kitchen. She rattled her drink and cooed at me.

  – I want someone like you, Shona chérie. Do you know of anyone?

  I stood there twisting my hands.

  – Someone from your country, she prompted, qui parle bien l’anglais.

  – I suppose I could put an ad up at the Australian embassy.

  Mme Laplanche and Mme Durebex frowned at one another.

  – Australian? Is that good for English?

  – Well, I’m Australian.

  Mme Laplanche’s face went blank and she took a sip of her Scotch. Mme Durebex picked up the phone on the landing. She dialled a number and waited for some time
before she spoke.

  – Mimi, écoute, tu sais ma jeune fille? She has some problems with her visa. Usually she goes home to her family in Ireland every three months, but we need her with us in the Alps this Christmas. No, we don’t pay her – she doesn’t actually work for us – we just give her food and board. Donc, tu vois le problème? Alors chérie, I wondered if you could do us a little favour …

  She repeated the story several times, each time adding a more improbable embellishment. I flushed for her, seeing a flicker of laughter cross Mme Laplanche’s face, and for myself, anticipating my interview with Mimi at the Embassade de Genève.

  Mme Durebex came back into the kitchen beaming.

  – Voilà.

  She took a large gulp from Mme Laplanche’s drink.

  – Mireille!

  – Oh arrête! Ça y est, Shona. Now, I want an eight in Laurent’s dictation tomorrow, at the very least, okay? I’m counting on you, Shona.

  Laurent was a sweet and happy child when I picked him up from school the next day. He bumped into a man going down into the métro and apologised. He told me he’d gotten nine in his dictation. This pleased me: just as I thought, Laurent was a smart boy, and I was teaching him well.

  But he wanted to tell his mother he got nought again.

  – So don’t tell her I get a neuf.

  – Why do you want to deceive your mother like that, Laurent?

  – Pour une farce, he grinned.

  We got into the métro.

  – It’s mean, Laurent.

  Laurent extracted a glob from his nose and raised his hand so I could inspect it before he smeared it on the doorhandle. A businesswoman glared at me. Laurent narrowed his eyes at his reflection in the door. The bright platform of our station drew across his face.

  – I like to do it, he said.

  – Do you really like it when your mother screams at you?

  – Euh … no. No, I don’t like.

  – You say, I don’t like it. She’ll scream at me too, and I don’t like it, that’s for sure.

  – What does it mean, scream?

  Waste