Au Pair

by Fiona McGregor

  – Um. I don’t know …

  She ordered for me, and tapped my hand.

  – Trust me. You’ll love it.

  Libby spoke so quietly I got a crick in my neck from all the craning to listen. She asked me about my accommodation. I told her about Hôtel des Etrangers.

  – I know a little place in the sixteenth, she said. It’s very quiet, the proprietors are very kind. I’ve been sending my friends there for years. It’s only about two hundred francs a night.

  – That’s more than twice as much as I’m paying now, I sighed. There’s no way I can afford that.

  I moved back as my couscous was placed before me. Libby studied me abstrusely. I averted my eyes. How could she possibly think I’d have that sort of money? How could she make me feel totally exposed, and at the same time totally misunderstood? My resentment quivered, unsure of itself, in her direction.

  I concentrated on extracting the meat from my sauce. Margaret was complaining to Grover that the wrong kind of olives had been used in her tagine. In Morocco you would get the little hard green ones, but the ones in the dish before her were just plain black. I stole glances at Grover, whose face stayed close to his plate. He nodded at the things Margaret said. His fork travelled steadily from the plate to his mouth and back again. A forgotten part staggered down to his left temple and the hair fell away from it in thick clumps. His lips were shiny with oil. He glanced over at me and smiled. I felt the hot threat of a blush around my collar. As it ascended, I put my glass down.

  – Ooh, I’m all red from the wine.

  Margaret pointed at the midden of beef on the side of my plate.

  – But that’s the best part!

  – I’m a vegetarian.

  – Oh god, I don’t know why you bother. You’re not one of those animal liberationists, are you?

  – That’d be a big job in this city. No thanks.

  – Well, why then? Why don’t you eat meat?

  – No reason. I don’t really know, I just don’t. Except for fish.

  I wished I couldn’t smell her chicken tagine. She cut a piece and held it forth like an insult. That was what was making my mouth water, because the food I was eating didn’t seem to be what my mouth really wanted. I suddenly found the person with the same hairstyle – that boozy ex-prime minister of Australia. I felt a lot better.

  – Really! In Paris of all places. I can’t imagine what you do when you eat out. Just think, Un steak-frites, s’il vous plait, sans steak.

  I hunched over my dinner.

  – I don’t eat out.

  Margaret’s mouth went down at the corners.

  – Oh, that’s a bit triste, isn’t it?

  – It’s just practical. When you haven’t got much money.

  – No money? Do you starve?

  – I do have money. I don’t know, I’m just trying to make it last.

  – Ah dear, another bohemian, young and poor in Paris, as we all once were.

  – How romantic.

  – Well, what are you doing here then, my dear? What are you doing here? What do you do? What do you want to do with your life? No question irritated me more. I only knew what I didn’t want to do. I figured it was a process of crossing things off the list. The prisoner in her cell, crossing off the days.

  I chewed, trying to think of something to say to Margaret. The only things that came to mind were insults in an accent as plummy as hers, the accent I myself had been using for the last five minutes.

  Where was my voice? Was it really this prim, this sharp? Had I been teaching too much, too conscious of the right way to say things? What was the right way anyway?

  Margaret’s head wagged from side to side.

  – I don’t know this, I don’t know that.

  There was a tense silence. A rose seller appeared and inserted his wares into it. Margaret shooed him off.

  – Non merci, je suis allergique.

  A fantasy that Grover would buy me one crept into the back of my mind. I chased it away. I comforted myself with how little Libby ate. The mound on her plate made mine look insignificant.

  Grover put a spoonful of harissa on the side of his plate and took up his cutlery. He had black hairs on the first and second joints of each finger. He inhaled deeply and regarded his huge second helping. Deftly, Margaret scooped the harissa back off his plate. With her other hand she pressed the ladle into the stew, allowing it to fill with stock. She flicked the harissa into the ladle and stirred vigorously till it dissolved, then she poured the stock over Grover’s plate. Bemused, he sat back and let her do it.

  – There you are, my boy, she said, I hope your head doesn’t explode. That’s rather a lot of harissa you helped yourself to, though who am I to say?

  Harrrr-issa. The ‘r’ lingered at the back of her throat like something that needed to be spat out. My teeth ground on a clove. Sweet astringency filled my mouth and I screwed up my face, thinking of pain and Matthew’s bush remedies. I glanced at Grover. He rewarded me with a wink, and I urged the blush downwards. It obeyed, but down there it just got hotter. Libby asked after my family. I shrugged indifferently, I said I didn’t really know how they were. She asked after my mother. She told the table, Six children, and she works, and produces the most wonderful meals in a flash.

  – Seven children, I corrected. One died.

  Everybody looked at me with reverence.

  – How tragic, said Margaret.

  – Not really. She didn’t make it past a few months. Anyhow, six is more than enough, I reckon.

  I drained my glass in an effort to elude the stony look Libby was giving me. Pain, shame, mischief and couscous fought in my stomach.

  – I think it’s a great achievement, said Libby. Achievement. As though we were products that had turned out rather well. I said, trying for that even, ambivalent tone of hers, Yes. I couldn’t do it, that’s for sure.

  Margaret’s eyes were looking beadily over the spectacles from Libby to me and back again.

  – And you used to work with her, Libby?

  – Oh, Libby waved a hand, she just did some voice-overs when I was first producing advertisements. That was a long time ago.

  I didn’t like to see my mother explained away with a mere wave of the hand. I returned Libby’s steely glance. She drew patterns in her couscous.

  – Your family must miss you, Siobhan.

  I excused myself and walked out to the toilets. I sat on the toilet seat, unable to piss, my belly full of wine-soaked couscous. I wished Grover weren’t so boring. Did that urge to go and straddle him and undo his fly increase throughout the dinner in spite of his boringness or because of it? I sat there and closed my eyes, imagining how his bristle would tickle as he kissed my breasts. Oh dear, my incurable attraction to bearish, boring men.

  Wine and lust and anger rushed around inside me.

  The air-conditioner outside the window moaned into action. The sound it made, combined with the smell of frying garlic, provoked a sudden memory of Kree Townsend and I had to move around on the seat. Kree was not bearish, or boring. Kree was smooth-chested, small and lithe. He was my anthropology tutor and my first good fuck. Kree gave me good marks, though I never did any work. I gave Kree marks across his lower back which got him into trouble with his wife. We had a hot grope one night, standing under the air-conditioner in the toilets of a Chinatown restaurant.

  I had to put the seat up and my pants down and remember this properly. I was wet. I spat on my fingers and got wetter, drawing circles on my clitoris. I thought about Kree and his big uncircumcised dick, about Grover coming in here to have my legs wrapped around him; I thought about how cold my thighs were getting and what a wanker that Margaret woman was. Oh god, it was taking me ages. At least I had my female excuses of periods and powdering my nose. I put those people out of my mind and focussed on my own anatomy. I wondered briefly if I should change my tampon. I thought about it, and about putting other things up there. I felt hot twinges beginning and my head thickening, and
I listened to the throb of the air-conditioner gain momentum as my fingers worked.

  When I got back to the table it had been cleared and relaid with mint tea and pastries. Libby was telling Margaret about Grover’s work in computer graphics.

  – He’s making quite a name for himself, aren’t you, Grover?

  Margaret wore an expression of perplexed boredom.

  – Well, I won’t be much use to you, Grover. Margaret folded her arms. I’m the only translator left without a computer.

  – One of the primitives, eh? I said.

  This remark came out in a broad Australian accent, the kind of accent that seemed the most contrary in Margaret’s company. It was the red wine that was speaking now. My hand went to my glass for diversion and in my haste I knocked it over. Luckily it was empty. I noticed with alarm that the bottles were too. I told myself I was drunk enough already. I propped my chin on my hands and took solace from the smell of toilet bliss that lingered there.

  – Grover works in film too, said Libby.

  – Of course, said Margaret, most Australian films simply don’t work.

  Nobody said anything. Margaret cleaned the outline of her mouth with the napkin corner.

  She began to talk about the film industry. The air grew cluttered with illustrious names attached to dirty deeds. I couldn’t repeat them even if I could remember them. A couple of the names were great friends of hers. The rest owed her money. A rich and successful TV personality still owed her lord knows how much from about twenty years ago.

  She looked around the table. Grover was busy with the Turkish delight, powdering his chin with icing sugar. I picked at my baklava. Libby said suddenly, Well why don’t you go and get it from him, Margaret?

  Margaret patted her belly and declared in French that she had eaten far too much. She added she’d never seen anyone eat the way Grover did.

  I resisted an impulse to prod Grover under the table. I wished he had one to prod me.

  – We should get the bill, said Libby.

  I walked to the métro with Libby, stooping to share her umbrella. Libby was so petite, so calm, she walked as though her path had been marked out for her. I felt like an oaf lumbering alongside her. I felt like Grover.

  – Margaret has a good heart, you know, she mused.

  I said nothing, hoping this would express indifference.

  – I think she likes you, Siobhan.

  Taken aback, I apologised for my rudeness. I blamed it on the wine.

  Libby nodded and folded her umbrella. We went down the steps into the métro.

  A beggar with his head in his hands, a gypsy woman with two sickly children and the usual sign, ‘Sans Toit’. Further along, another beggar, stumps for arms and one leg, sitting in a puddle of his own urine. Misery, misery, it was all I saw. I thought of my hotel room, the bed, the little heater, how cosy it seemed. Then I remembered the bag of prawns. I’d forgotten to take them out. My hotel room would be a bubble of putrid air when I got back there tonight.

  Libby took off her cape as we waited for the métro. She shook the rain from it and stared at her shoes. Then she looked at me pensively.

  – I might be able to help you, Siobhan.

  Achievement

  I got the apartment.

  One room on the third floor. A small kitchen leading off it, and a closet-sized bathroom leading off that. A postcard of the Côte d’Azur with a giant cactus in the foreground was stuck above the kitchen table. There was a blue enamel coffee pot on the sink, and in the rack above it were some plates and bowls.

  The room was bright with sunlight, the parquet floor shone. There was a table and two chairs, a mattress, even a clothes rack. I marvelled at all the comfort in such a small space. The French really knew how to live.

  I skated across the polished floor to the long windows, fenced by wrought iron painted black. The iron curled around to something vaguely resembling a snake’s head in the middle and reminded me of the little balcony on Nora’s old house in Glebe. I placed the flat of my hand against the window and felt each undulation in the glass. I traced the edges of the oval handle, so worn each coat of paint was visible, telling the years like the bole of a tree trunk. The walls, nicotine yellow, were pitted by nails here and there. Pale squares marked where pictures had once hung.

  The street, on the hill of Montmartre, fell steeply to the left. The buildings were small, peeling and leaning, like my own. I could get anything in the shops along this street. There was an African voodoo shop with a vast range of magic oils and elixirs, an antique store, a Thai restaurant, a large office where people gazed at word processors, a denture showroom where men in white coats could be seen bent over moulds of teeth, picking and carving; and, at the end, where stairs dropped to the next street down, a patisserie whose specialty was tarte tatin.

  Through my window I could see a Basque flag flying from the balcony opposite. Further along, an alsatian stood on his hind legs, resting his paws on the iron railing and sniffing the street.

  The apartment belonged to friends of Libby’s from Strasbourg. They had bought it for their daughter, who was studying in the States this year. There was no bond, no lease, and the rent was cheaper than Hôtel des Etrangers. The telephone was already connected.

  I rang Chantale. She said she would be over as soon as possible with a bottle of champagne and my mail. I sat by the window with the telephone in my lap. I picked it up again and rang Libby.

  – I’m going to take it!

  Libby sounded cautious. She said she thought they hadn’t decided yet.

  – But Libby, I got the key from Yvonne last night.

  – Very well.

  There was a cool silence. A woman in a red skirt hurried across the street, leeks bristling from her shopping basket. I picked at the grime on the old telephone. I told Libby how grateful I was.

  – Are you sure you’re going to stay, Siobhan? she said. You won’t suddenly leave, will you? You musn’t muck Yvonne around, you know.

  – Yes, of course. We discussed all of that last night. She told me—

  – Good. Libby cut me off softly.

  She went on to remind me of how difficult things were in this city. There were plenty of other people Yvonne could give the apartment to. I didn’t like her reminding me. I was sick of reminding myself. Anyway, the apartment had been empty for months. I watched a skein of cloud drift up the sky. It was going to cover the sun. I bit my nails and listened to Libby. I felt like a child who had just won a race, only to be told the others had been disqualified.

  – Now listen, Siobhan, I’m terribly busy till the end of the year, and I’m afraid I won’t have time to see you till January.

  – I’m going away anyway.

  – Perhaps you could ring at the end of the month. January, that is.

  I unpacked my things. There wasn’t much; it didn’t take long. I walked around my apartment. That didn’t take long either. I stood in the middle of the room rubbing the ends of my hair together. Now I was here, now I had what I’d been busting my guts for, I didn’t know what to do.

  I sat by the window feeling the pimple on my lip. I heard my mother saying, Leave it alone. You’ll get a scar. The scar was forming, and I couldn’t leave it alone. Scabs are irresistible.

  My same old restlessness, my same old inertia. I was a doer with paralysed hands. I was a dreamer who’d lost her imagination. I was a fighter with no opponent.

  By my watch it was about nine o’clock in the morning in Sydney. I rang my mother reverse charges.

  She said she was pleased for me but she sounded cautious, just like Libby. Why the caution? Where was the danger? Was it in me? I wished! While Libby had worried I wouldn’t stay, my mother worried I would. She hated me asking for more money; no matter what, she always hated it. The skid marks of cloud were moving higher. A line thickened over the rooftops. It was as though someone were pouring dense grey smoke into my piece of sky. Slowly, it filled with cloud.

  – I worry about you
coming home penniless, Siobhan.

  – Why? What difference does it make?

  – Well, I suppose it depends on what you achieve, doesn’t it? she said icily.

  I felt my hackles rise.

  – Not really. Why?

  I held the phone in the crook of my shoulder to get at an itchy bite. I might as well have put the phone down altogether because no voice was coming out of it. Bed bugs had moved into my room at Hôtel des Etrangers shortly before I moved out. At the time, I didn’t realise I was under attack. Now the red spots were showing. I wished I hadn’t bitten my nails – I couldn’t scratch.

  This silence was exasperating me. I exasperated it back.

  – What would I be achieving in Sydney anyway?

  I got a sigh for response. I pictured Mum standing by the corkboard, cat-scratched, searching amongst all the old messages there for something to say. She could only think that I should go back to study and she no longer saw the use in suggesting it.

  But there was always the possibility she might, and I remembered the university fees I’d wasted, all those reference books bought but not read, and my hackles stood stiffly at forty-five degree angles.

  – What does anyone achieve anywhere? I’m not just going to sit at home looking at my bank balance. I’m only twenty-one.

  There was a sharp intake of breath.

  – Really, Siobhan! I don’t want to spend my money talking about this with you now.

  – What? You’re spending your money talking about the way I should be spending mine.

  – Nonsense. You spend it how you like. I don’t have to agree with you, do I?

  – When else can we talk about it? Long distance calls aren’t going to get any cheaper, are they?

  – Oh really, Siobhan, I can’t be bothered with these silly … rhetorical questions.

  Now that the cloud had come over, my reflection was developing in the window. I screwed up my face and postured about. It must have been overcast in Sydney too, for there were no bird calls in the background. Just click, buzz, burr, and a faint suspiration. Mum sighing; Mum was always sighing.

  Or was it sobbing? I gripped the phone. I didn’t want to make her cry. I did, but I didn’t want to hear it.