We'll Always Have Paris

by Sue Watson

  Chapter Seventeen

  Peter’s invited me to his home in Oxford for the weekend. It’s the first time I’ve been and I’m nervous. This feels like a watershed in our relationship and sitting on the train I think back to that other time, when I first saw the house he lived in, and realised how different we were.

  I’d been going out with Peter for several months and hadn’t been invited to his house or to meet his parents. He’d suffered an afternoon with my mother and a plate of stale Battenberg cake, so the least they could do was return the favour, but nothing. It bothered me, and it crossed my mind they didn’t think I was good enough, but then one day fate stepped in when Peter’s car broke down and his father had to come and tow us back to his house, which is where I met his mother.

  Once we’d arrived at his home I was immediately struck by the difference to mine. The hallway was the size of our front room, high ceilings, huge, ornate mirror and flowers everywhere. I followed Mr Moreton down the hall, and as we passed a doorway I caught a glimpse of a little blonde girl playing the cello.

  ‘That’s enough now, Pamela, time for bed,’ Mr Moreton called as he passed.

  He led me into a back room, which he referred to as ‘the sitting room’, and I followed meekly behind, taking in the art-filled walls, overstuffed sofas and groaning bookcases filled with foreign novels. He told me to take a seat and I was perched on the edge of the sofa when an attractive, older red-haired woman appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Oh . . . ’ she said, and curled her lip when she saw me. I felt like a burglar. She was holding a magazine and looked like she was dressed to go out in a smart tailored dress, backcombed hair and deep coral nails that matched her lips – she oozed old-fashioned glamour.

  ‘This is Peter’s friend,’ Mr Moreton said, nodding towards the sofa. ‘Pretty little thing,’ he muttered rather inappropriately, but at the time it seemed perfectly acceptable.

  ‘Oh, a friend of Peter’s, how charming.’ She smiled, but only with her mouth.

  ‘Stupid boy’s gone to the garage to get petrol, he forgot to put it in again,’ Mr Moreton grumbled. ‘He goes around in a daze, can’t commit to anything for more than five minutes, like a bloody magpie, doesn’t do real life – sees something glitter and he’s off chasing it. National Service, that’s what he needs.’

  I had never really considered Peter as anything but a god. So he forgot to put petrol in the car, but he was charming, intelligent and funny and I rather resented his father’s version of him.

  ‘It’s quite true, my son would forget his head if it wasn’t screwed on . . . How do you know Peter, dear?’ his mother asked, looking into my eyes and trying to establish the nature of our ‘friendship’.

  ‘College.’ She clearly didn’t know my name, so Peter obviously hadn’t mentioned me to her. I smiled inanely, pulling at my short skirt, not something I would have worn if I’d known I was meeting the future in-laws.

  She was now circling the couch, weighing up her prey as she lit a cigarette. She let the smoke out slowly through her nostrils, while flicking the ash in a chunky glass ashtray. ‘Coffee, darling, make some coffee – use the pot, it’s been on the stove for a little while, should be nice and strong.’

  ‘Will do.’ His voice was less grumpy with her, she was definitely in charge.

  ‘So how long have you and Peter been . . . friends?’ she said, joining me on the sofa, tilting her head and taking another huge drag.

  ‘I’ve . . . we’ve known each other since we started at college, last September,’ I said, nodding too eagerly like those dogs people used to put on the back ledge of their cars.

  ‘Oh you’re a student?’ she said, like this was now making sense. What did she think I was? ‘I’m sorry, are you . . . erm, your name is?’

  I told her.

  ‘So, Rosie?’ she said, crossing her legs, warming to her elegant cross-examination. ‘Do your parents approve of your choice?’

  ‘My choice . . . you mean Peter?’

  She looked surprised, shocked even. ‘No. Art . . . how do they feel about you reading art?’

  Fortunately I didn’t have to respond to this as Mr Moreton was walking into the sitting room with a tray and three cups of coffee, a milk jug on the side.

  ‘I suppose you like it black, all the young people drink their coffee black now,’ he said, placing the tray on the table. He could have put arsenic in it for all I cared, I didn’t want their bloody coffee or her patronising talk. I wanted Peter to come back, rescue me and take me home. More pertinently, my skirt was riding up by the second on their leather couch and to reach for the cup was difficult enough without showing Peter’s parents my upper thighs. Where the hell was Peter – how long did it take to put petrol in a car?

  ‘Tony, bring in the biscotti, they’re in the Lavazza tin, darling. Rosie looks like she could do with something sweet. You’re very pale, aren’t you, dear? Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yes . . . thank you, just a little tired.’ I smiled, my lips tight shut waiting for whatever Tony was going to bring in for my consumption from the strange-sounding tin in the kitchen. ‘We always bring biscotti back from Sardinia,’ she said in an aside to me as he appeared next to me, proffering the tin like one of the Three Wise Men.

  Lavazza, biscotti and Sardinia – three words I’d never heard in my life before – she may as well have been speaking another language. She opened the tin with manicured hands and I cautiously leaned in to see what was inside, relieved they were only biscuits. Custard creams they weren’t, but I could see a biscuity resemblance and thanking her I took one from the tin.

  As she prattled on about Sardinia and the scenery I continued to nod and smile, balance my cup and saucer on my knee, try and keep my skirt decent and bite into the biscuit. As my teeth went down onto what I expected to be crumbly I almost broke a tooth, or several! What on earth was this? It was extremely hard and impossible to eat so I just sat clutching it with one hand, hoping at some point to discard it between there and the car. By the time Peter eventually turned up my cup was wobbling in my saucer and the skirt had ridden up my legs. And there, in the art-filled, book-stuffed, middle-class home, I saw myself for the first time as they might see me and I was overwhelmed by the disparity in our worlds. I must have seemed so gauche to them with my short skirt, flat vowels and inane answers and when the three of them launched into a political debate I just gave up trying.

  I see now how immature I was, lacking in confidence, unsure of myself and my feelings. I was both impressed and daunted by these people, who allowed me to glimpse another world of continental holidays and foreign novels. I could observe the differences in our worlds, and naively believed we’d overcome them, that one day I might even be part of this. His mother resented me because of where I was from, the way I spoke and the little working-class mouse I appeared to her to be. I wasn’t like the daughters of her friends with their educated voices and academic ambitions, I was just an unremarkable girl with a talent for drawing and that would never be enough for her son. Eventually, Peter caught the panic in my eyes and suggested he take me home.

  ‘I can’t believe you left me in there,’ I hissed as we walked through the hall. ‘Your parents hadn’t a clue who I was. Why have you never told them about me?’

  ‘I wanted to keep you all to myself,’ he said, plucking a blue hydrangea head from a jug in the doorway and offering it to me. I wafted him away, I wasn’t going to be that easy to convince. I knew it was more likely they’d think I wasn’t good enough for him, and he knew it. I didn’t exist in his real life and I was hurt and angry with him. I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall then, but love is blind.

  I was never invited to Peter’s house a second time, and I never saw his parents again.

  And now, as we pull up outside his Oxfordshire home, I’m reminded all over again of the different worlds we inhabit. His home is just lovely, as I’d imagined, a big old Edwardian place that he reckons he ‘compromised�
� over after his divorce. Looking at it I can only imagine how gorgeous his house with Camille must have been if this is a compromise. The living room is large and airy with big comfy sofas, shelves lined with books and framed photographs covering the walls. The entrails of his camera stuff lie on the coffee table along with sketches, and charcoal and pencils litter every surface. It’s untidy but cosy and I immediately feel at home, remembering the beautiful detritus of art that used to lie around my own bedroom when I was young. Pencils, paper, half-drawn pictures, watercolours, all waiting to be finished or mounted; I threw them away after we parted. I feel sad now that this didn’t figure in my life after all.

  ‘You really should be drawing again,’ Peter says as I hold a piece of charcoal between my thumb and forefinger, remembering its silkiness in my fingers and the skill I once had.

  ‘I think I will . . . soon,’ I say, picking up a camera and looking through the lens. I feel him at the side of me, he’s suddenly a little on edge. ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, taking the camera from my eyes.

  ‘Yes . . . but it’s a very expensive camera, it’s special.’ He smiles apologetically.

  I put it back on the table; I’m not embarrassed, more amused. ‘I suppose that’s one of the joys of living alone without family popping in and rifling through everything. You’re lucky to be able to leave such treasures around and not expect them to be picked up and played with . . . until I arrive, that is.’

  He laughs. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. I’m not sure it’s a good thing having the luxury of solitude – one can become a bit too precious when you’re alone a lot of the time. I make my coffee a certain way, I like to sit in the same chair by the kitchen window to read my newspaper and I eat the same breakfast of muesli every day.’

  ‘That’s hardly a problem,’ I laugh. ‘I think that’s pretty normal.’

  ‘But not for me. So sometimes I shake it up and go wild: I read my newspaper in the sitting room and cast caution to the wind and have toast for breakfast.’

  ‘You crazy bastard,’ I say. ‘What happened to the guy who ran away to Italy and woke up in France?’

  ‘I woke up alone one day, and realised that running away isn’t the answer. But a good breakfast is,’ he laughs.

  I can see he’s changed from that reckless, selfish young man he was, but I wonder if Peter’s life of independence, even selfishness, could ever be shared with another person. I glance at the camera now back in its place and wonder if he’s destined to wake up alone.

  ‘This is my most recent work,’ he’s saying as he shows me drawings and photographs that cover the walls, modern, structural photos juxtaposed with photos of old Salford slums.

  ‘I remember you taking that one,’ I say, looking closely at a black and white photo of kids playing cricket on Nightingale Road one hot August afternoon.

  ‘That was the day we photographed the slum clearances.’

  ‘Yes, not the obvious place for a romantic date – but don’t tell my granddaughter. She’d say, “Nan, you are just so weird.” She’s always saying that,’ I laugh.

  I imagine what Emma would think about us wandering through bleak wastelands of graffiti and rubble, past red-bricked terraces turned black with soot. I realise now we were witnessing the post-war, post-industrial slump of empty warehouses, slum clearances, poverty and broken lives. But Peter had shown me something more than this – he’d revealed the stories in the graffiti, the kids with angel faces in the rubble, the pure, wind-blown beauty of clean washing dancing over cobbles in the sun. Then, as now, he taught me so much and changed my perspective on life.

  ‘It must be fun to have grandchildren around – I always think you never really get old with kids in your life,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, it is. I adore them and when Mike died they missed him, but Katie, the younger one, didn’t quite get that I was upset. About two days after Mike died she called round and said, “It’s a shame, isn’t it, but you’re okay, aren’t you, Nan?” I said yes and she said, “Oh good, are you better enough to make me pancakes then?”’ Mike would have laughed with me about that, but Peter just smiles, like he’s not sure how to react. I don’t suppose he gets the funny little nuances of children.

  ‘I’m sure your grandkids get you back on your feet,’ he says. ‘They aren’t influenced yet by how society thinks we should behave.’

  ‘They are my life, but it’s bittersweet. In the past year we’ve had more birthdays, another Christmas, Emma has a boyfriend – all things that Mike won’t ever see.’

  ‘That must be difficult, but it sounds like you and Mike had a good relationship and he died knowing you were all okay. The girls are grown up and they’re living their own lives now and—’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but it doesn’t really work like that. A forty-year-old is still your child, still your baby, and the older they are the more problems they have. For example, when Mike died Anna had just split with her husband. She was devastated, and it upsets me to think he never knew that she was okay in the end. But of course it isn’t the end, there will be other problems, other stuff. And other wonderful things too,’ I add before he thinks I’m a complete pessimist. ‘We have graduations and weddings and lots of birthdays to look forward to; we love a party – any excuse to celebrate.’ I smile.

  ‘He went too soon. Ironic really, he’s got a whole family who still need him, he had so much more to give, yet he has to be the one who goes. Here’s me with no one depending on me or needing me and I’m still here – what’s that about?’

  ‘Oh don’t say that, Peter. Besides, I’ve given up trying to work out the why-mes and the what-ifs,’ I say. ‘I just cling desperately to your philosophy that life has a way of working things out . . . it’s very . . . Buddhist?’

  ‘Very Peter,’ he laughs. ‘I learned a lot about Eastern philosophy and religion over the years, through my travels. I suppose I have a Buddhist approach to certain things, but as you know, I don’t adhere to one ideology – I just make it up as I go along, like I do with life.’

  ‘Yes, so I’ve gathered. You never even bothered to get divorced until you needed to.’

  ‘No, that’s true. I didn’t get married until I wanted to either. I suppose I just go with the flow. I can’t complain, I’ve had some great times and as you say, we shouldn’t have regrets.’

  It makes me smile now when I think about how he’s grown into himself, he’s fitted his life around him rather than the other way round, which I think most of us do.

  ‘You are the complete opposite of Mike,’ I say. ‘He was organised, always meticulous, and while I was rushing around worrying and being a drama queen he’d deal with the problem in a practical way. I was in tears when Anna called me to say she was leaving her husband, but before I’d put the phone down Mike was in the car to bring them all home to us.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how I’d ever deal with something like that. I wouldn’t have a clue,’ he says, genuinely impressed. ‘I suppose we look at others who have different lives than we do and admire them for their knowledge, their courage, their wisdom?’

  ‘Yes, but you’re just as knowledgeable and wise and courageous – you just show it in different ways,’ I say.

  ‘Ah but a family . . . a child? That’s a mystery to me, and if I’m honest I find that aspect of life a little scary. I’d rather climb a mountain and photograph vast panoramas than change a baby’s nappy.’

  ‘Yes, because you’ve never done it. Trust me, it’s easy – not always pleasant, but easier than that mountain.’

  ‘Well, I never met Mike, but he was obviously a good father and he did know about nappies and children. I feel like I know him. I think I would have liked him. We probably had a lot in common – after all, we’ve both loved the same woman.’

  I hadn’t really thought about it this way, but both these men know things about me no one else does. And though they will never meet, through me they are inexorably linked. I think Mike would have liked Peter too, he would have been fascinated by h
is travels, his photography, and I’m sure they’d have shared an interest in nature and the stars. ‘Let me continue to show you round the stately pile.’ He laughs, but where I come from it might well be a stately pile, it’s huge and beautifully decorated. I wonder if Camille has been here with her magic paintbrush, dusting the walls with Borrowed Light and Elephants’ Breath. I have to smile at my own immaturity and admit I’m still slightly jealous of his ex, even though she’s married to someone else. Damn that woman and her brilliant sense of colour and style!

  He takes my hand and guides me upstairs into a bedroom where the wall is covered in prints from all over the world.

  ‘Wow, you’ve been everywhere – and photographed it,’ I say.

  I’m gazing at sunsets spilling into endless oceans, huge white Italian churches, Gothic German architecture and shanty towns in South Africa . . . so many images of places I could only imagine.

  ‘I wish I’d been there, seen those sights.’ I feel wistful.

  ‘You can. There’s no reason why you can’t get on a plane and go wherever you like.’

  I look at him and smile. ‘Oh, Peter, you’re such a dreamer.’

  ‘You were a dreamer too once, Rosie. Don’t close the book on your life yet – you have to grasp it – be you and do what you want to do. Like she did . . . ’ He passes me a photo of us then, two beautiful young people sitting on the front bonnet of his Morris Minor, a powder-blue cardigan around my shoulders. We are laughing – I can’t remember why. I don’t think we needed a reason to laugh in those days.

  ‘God, we were young, so young – and we both had such big dreams, didn’t we?’ I sigh.

  ‘My mother always called me “Peter the pleasure-seeker”, and I was. Still am, really.’

  ‘Your mother knew you well. There goes Peter, always chasing the light,’ I murmur, almost to myself.

  I have my overnight bag with me. It’s in the hall masquerading as a large handbag. It was Corrine’s idea; as she said, ‘If things don’t work out you don’t look too keen and can leave with your dignity intact.’