Lisette's Paris Notebook

by Catherine Bateson

  There are two quintessential French items of clothing – sunglasses and a scarf. They are practical and stylish. You can hide unwashed hair in a scarf and tear-red eyes behind dark glasses. If only I’d bought vintage sunglasses.

  I walked down the stairs slowly the next morning. It was my last breakfast with Madame Christophe. I was sad, anxious and a little hungover. I gave her the scented candle I’d bought for her, along with the card I’d made.

  When we said goodbye, she pressed a tissue-wrapped envelope into my hand. ‘One for you and one for your mother. A little piece of Paris.’

  We kissed, not twice, but three times. I hugged Napoléon again. I’d find a new collar for him in England. ‘Buy some food for the train,’ were her last words. ‘You’ll need it – if not for the journey, over there. There will not be good cheese.’

  I wasn’t convinced that was true. But I wasn’t going to argue with Madame Christophe, so I bought the Frenchiest cheese I could – a pyramid of the goat’s cheese I’d bought when I was first here. Now they smiled at me in the cheese shop. I was the Australienne.

  I gave some of my last euros to the beggar with the two gleaming dogs.

  ‘I’m going to London,’ I told him.

  ‘You should stick around Paris and find a Frenchman,’ he said. ‘But you can’t tell a woman anything.’ He raised a toast for me with his half bottle of wine.

  I was early, of course. I half-expected Hugo to walk onto the platform, all his disappointment dissolving at the sight of me. For all I knew he could already be back in Yorkshire. Or he could have changed his plans entirely and be staying on in Paris. Maybe the ‘family friend’ had lent him money and he was buying more for the shop? I closed my eyes and imagined him loping towards me, his duffel bag banging at his side. He’d sweep me up, we’d kiss, just like the lovers in the Doisneau photograph, and our lives would be perfect.

  I bought a French Vogue and a bottle of water at the station with my very last euros and then wished I’d kept enough for a coffee. The Vogue made me feel like a proper international traveller but I couldn’t settle down enough to read it. I went through the customs check. I walked up and down. I sat for a while, holding my phone as though I could summon a text from Hugo through willpower alone. I opened up Madame Christophe’s present. There were two silk scarves. My mother’s was very chic with dark and light roses. Mine was vintage and decorated with line drawings of Paris life. It went perfectly with my new shirt. I draped it around my neck for luck. I flipped through Vogue again but I still couldn’t read a word. I thought I might be sick. I found a toilet and stared at my reflection while my nausea settled. I applied more eyeliner. I brushed my hair. I went back to the seats.

  My phone pinged and my hands shook as I checked it. It was only Mackenzie. Not only, I corrected myself. That wasn’t fair. It was a text from my friend Mackenzie. It was a bunch of kisses and a big hug and a heart. The next ping was Goldie with an almost identical message. After that the phone was silent and even its clock didn’t seem to work. Time was passing too slowly.

  Then it sped through three-quarters of an hour and there was an announcement telling us the train was ready to board. I tried to swallow the fear rising in my throat but it was as impossible as swallowing stones. This was it. I was going by myself.

  I yanked my suitcase along the platform behind some Americans who were each pulling a huge bag. At least I could put mine on the rack without help. Which was a good thing, because there was no one to help me. I wiped the tears away. All the recently applied eyeliner smudged on the back of my hand. A few of the passengers looked at me pityingly. Holiday romance. Broken heart. It happens. I reached my seat and sat down. Babette poked out from my handbag. I took her out and put her on my lap. I didn’t care that I resembled some kind of mad girl. Babette wasn’t a doll. She was an antique. She was all that I had left of Hugo. I smudged away more tears and opened Vogue once more and forced myself to read.

  Ironically the team from French Vogue had gone to London. Of course they had. There were shots of models posed beside a canal, wearing Vivienne. The photographs blurred. I rubbed my eyes. The canal was in Camden. Yeah, that figured. I flipped past the London shoot and started to read an interview with Vivienne instead. I made myself read slowly, thinking about each word and the construction of each sentence. It was strangely like folding clothes.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ His voice. His dimples just showing as he looked down at me.

  My mouth was too dry to speak.

  ‘Does she have a ticket?’ He gestured at Babette.

  I just shook my head. I could feel tears forming in my eyes.

  ‘I thought we’d got rid of ’im,’ Babette whinged.

  ‘I never wanted that,’ I told her, my eyes not leaving Hugo’s face. ‘I love him.’

  The tray table was in the way but I reached up, Hugo bent down and we hugged as though we’d never let go, but of course we had to breathe, so we did let go. Or almost. I kept hold of the edge of his jacket. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t dreaming or imagining it all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hugo said, ‘I shouldn’t have walked away. I was so . . . confused. And then Maude told me you’d rung my phone, which I’d made her hold on to so I didn’t contact you. I didn’t know what else I could say except come with me, please, and you’d made it so clear—’

  ‘Who’s Maude?’ I asked. My voice was muffled in his jacket.

  ‘Unc’s old flame. The one I was staying with.’

  ‘She sounded young.’

  ‘Maude? She’s about – I don’t know? Fifty? It’s hard to tell. She’s well-preserved. Oh Lisette, you’re here.’

  ‘I thought you might be . . . that there might be something between you two.’

  ‘Between us? You’re kidding!’

  ‘It was just that Edouard said something about distinguished clients. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, that’s Edouard. He’s French. I’m English. Hey, I’m chuffed you were jealous!’

  ‘You never called!’

  ‘I was with Max’s brother, in Rouen. He’s a therapist, but he was useless. We got drunk together. You should have been there. They lit up the cathedral with a light show of Impressionist paintings. It was beautiful but I could only think about missing you.’

  ‘I rang Max.’

  ‘I know. She rang her brother.’

  ‘You still didn’t call me.’

  ‘I should have. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to say. I just couldn’t even think by then. I’d been up for about twenty-four hours. I shouldn’t have drunk so much. Lucien told me to just book the ticket. Sort it out later.’

  ‘Some therapist!’

  ‘Actually he’s a teacher. But you know – little kids, hopeless blokes. It’s all the same, right? This morning I looked for a cafe with an English breakfast. Stupid thing to do – I nearly missed the train. I just managed to grab a baguette.’

  ‘I bought cheese,’ I said. ‘It’s in my handbag.’ Had he heard me tell him I loved him? He hadn’t said anything. I swallowed. I couldn’t say it again. I just couldn’t.

  ‘See – we’re perfect together.’ Hugo took my hand.

  He wasn’t going to tell me he loved me? I shook my head. My mouth was dry again. I stared out of the train window.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hugo said. ‘I’ve tried to tell you how sorry I am. I behaved badly. Lisette! Look at me. What have I done? What’s wrong?’

  I couldn’t tell him. There was no way I could say anything. Each second dragged past.

  ‘Okay,’ Hugo said, ‘let me tell you a story. There was once a girl who left a little glass woman on a bench in the Place des Vosges. She had sad eyes. The next time I saw her she told me my clothes needed mending, but not in those exact words. Then I ran into her again and she bargained like an expert. I don’t know when exactly I fell in love with her, but each time I saw her, I was a little more smitten.’ He took my hand and held it against his heart. I slipped my finger through the gap in
his buttons. His skin was warm. ‘I asked her to come home with me and she wouldn’t. I was selfish – but I loved her. I love her.’

  I found my voice. ‘There are rules, you know. If you have a plane ticket you use it. You have to be sensible. If you break them – well, my father did. He broke the rules. I thought he’d broken my mother, except now I know he didn’t. ’

  ‘We’ll be okay,’ Hugo said, settling his arm around me. ‘We won’t break each other, Lise. We’re careful people who know how to live with fragile things.’ He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles.

  This was it, I thought as the train rushed away from Paris. What had Madame Christophe said about the tarot cards she had cut? That it was just life.

  Mysterious, foolish, wonderful life.

  Author’s Note

  This book would never have been written had I not been the recipient of an Australia Council for the Arts three-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, a huge complex of artists’ studios in the Marais. To have three months free to write, wander and live in Paris was extraordinary.

  My love affair with France began when I first read the novels of Colette as a young adolescent. It was Colette who inspired me to take up private French lessons with Madame Campbell-Brown, then a woman in her mid-seventies, who had been a lecturer at the University of Queensland and was ‘une dame formidable’. Once a week I turned up to her home in Spring Hill, Brisbane, clutching my copy of Le Petit Prince and an ancient French grammar book. She despaired because I had not learnt Latin, but we persevered nonetheless.

  Years later I decided to brush up my French language skills and attended the Alliance Française in Melbourne. The French grammar book was far more modern but the lessons catapulted me back to Madame Campbell-Brown’s old Queenslander, the jasmine blooming in two enormous pots beside the front door and the huge map of Paris that took up one wall of her study. I remembered reading novel after novel by Colette, immersed in her sensual world in an almost trance-like state.

  I applied for the residency, still thinking of Colette, and was amazed and delighted, months later, to be standing in the place Colette. I spent a good amount of the time I was in Paris saying, over and over again, ‘Paris! Shakespeare and Company! The Métro!’

  The NYU Writers in Paris program was on, so there were weekly readings by poets and novelists at Shakespeare and Company. I’d walk across the Seine (the Seine!) and hear some wonderful work and then stroll back to my studio apartment fuelled with words.

  I gave many of my own experiences to Lisette. Like her, I saw the haute couture exhibition, bought a camera (a La Sardina) to take black-and-white photographs with and attended the French classes at the Cité. I got lost countless times as I’ve never been good with maps. I went to the flea market at the Porte de Vanves and, yes, was cursed by a woman in the Métro with two cringing dogs. Unfortunately, Madame Christophe is entirely a fictional character, so there was no smudging ritual to lift my curse.

  I can remember the exact moment I thought of Madame Christophe. The night before I had seen a small bookshop up near the rue des Rosiers and tucked in one corner of the window was an advertisement for tarot readings. The next morning, I thought – that’s what I need – a clairvoyant! Enter Madame Christophe with her little dog and sharp wisdom. The novel started to slowly come together.

  My husband joined me in my final two weeks in Paris and together we visited Versailles and Rouen before heading over to the UK. Hugo was created after a trip to a London flea market and his appearance changed the direction of the novel.

  I am so grateful to the Australian Council for the Arts for the opportunity to have three unfettered months’ writing time – and in Paris (Paris!). It was an inspiring and unforgettable summer. I am also grateful to my family who encouraged me to study French again, and who so actively supported my decision to apply for a residency.

  Thanks to Sophie Splatt for her close editing and to Erica Wagner for her unwavering belief in Lisette. Thanks, too, to my daughter, Helen, who years ago asked me to write her a ‘summer’ book.

  About the Author

  First published as a poet, Catherine Bateson has twice won the CBCA Book of the Year for Younger Readers, and been awarded the Queensland Premier’s Award, Younger Readers. She’s written more than a dozen novels for young adults and younger readers, including Star, Magenta McPhee and His Name in Fire.