One Summer in Montmartre

by Teagan Kearney

  Ingrid's eyes filled with laughter and she smiled sweetly at him, "Au revoir, Jean Paul."

  As Anna and Ingrid sat drinking coffee at one of the outdoor restaurants nearby, Anna quizzed her daughter. "And may I ask where did that 'au revoir, Jean Paul' come from?"

  Ingrid smiled with deliberate innocence at her mother. "Yes, you may and he was being friendly. We were chatting while you looked at his paintings. That's it. He probably has a sales patter for tourists like us."

  "Well, I wouldn't have said he was old enough to be so calculating." Anna looked appraisingly at Ingrid. Greg's sky-blue eyes, her own delicate coloring, down to the same summer sprinkle of freckles across a nose that was neither too short nor too long, and the slender figure of an eighteen-year-old who can wear a sackcloth and make it look gorgeous.

  Anyone could tell the two women were mother and daughter. They had the same thick curly hair but Anna kept hers shoulder length so she could wear it loose or up, and Ingrid's insistence on a visit to the hairdresser had temporarily banished the effects of time on her hair. Ingrid's hair was that rare deep copper shade, and almost to her waist. It was hair any pre-Raphaelite artist would have died to have on a model and caused heads to turn wherever she went.

  "Makes me appreciate you're a young woman and not a child anymore." Anna's voice caught in her throat as she looked at Ingrid's bright beautiful face.

  Ingrid affectionately patted her mother's arm. "I'll always be your little girl. You know that don't you?"

  "Yes, of course. But I can't boss you around anymore can I?" And they laughed. "I'd like to take a walk and stretch my legs a bit before going back to the hotel." Anna looked at the crowded street. "What do you think?"

  Ingrid followed Anna's gaze. "Actually, I want to use the internet. I saw a computer in the lobby." Ingrid played with her hands before looking up through her eyelashes

  "The internet? Whatever for?"

  "Mum, don't be dense! I want to talk to Matt."

  "Oh." Anna hid her disappointment. This was supposed to be their time together. But she didn't press the matter. "We're in the home of the Impressionist movement, the stomping ground of many famous artists, not to mention Luc Marteille," she rolled her eyes, "and you're thinking of Matt and the internet. What's wrong with texting?"

  "I need to charge my mobile, and the hotel has Skype."

  "Oh, go on then. You remember where we're staying?"

  "Yes, Mum, and I'll unpack your suitcase if you're not back when I finish." Ingrid was gracious in victory. She gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. "See you soon."

  "I'll wander about for an hour or so. Will that be long enough for you?"

  "Whatever works for you, Mum."

  They were in Paris, and Anna couldn't remember the last time she'd experienced this sensation of lightness and freedom. It was impossible to stay cross with Ingrid for long, and her momentary irritation dissipated as she watched her daughter stride off towards the hotel. Men, and women, turned to look as she passed. Ingrid was striking, even in a sophisticated city like Paris, thought Anna, with a flash of pride.

  She searched for the small map of Montmartre she'd put in her bag. Damn! It wasn't there. She pushed aside her annoyance, determined that nothing was going to spoil her mood today. Looking around she spotted the white half-moon dome of Sacre Coeur rising above the far end of the square. Ah! There's a reference point if ever I saw one, she thought; that must be visible from everywhere in Montmartre. Figuring out how to get back to the hotel will be easy.

  Anna set off in the opposite direction from the hotel, filled with the sense of adventure, a real explorer. Reaching the end of the block, she paused, her attention caught by a frazzled mother arguing with a screaming five-year-old boy in the midst of a full-blown tantrum.

  At that moment the memory hit her.

  The day at the supermarket. Ingrid was teething and intermittently crying—a pained high noise that grated on her nerves and made it impossible to think of anything but how to silence that sound. Nothing she tried‒baby Aspirin, homeopathic tablets‒worked. She ended up carrying her most of the time as holding her close and being patted calmed her enough to stop other women shooting her those 'what kind of mother are you' looks.

  Jeremy, a handsome lively four-year-old, who usually enjoyed fetching items within his reach, kept running off. She'd placed Ingrid in the trolley, paying no attention to her screams, and plonked Jeremy in the second front seat, where he persisted in attempting to grab items and throw them out.

  She wanted to scream and slap him, but did neither. Eventually, with most of the shopping piled as far away from Jeremy as possible, she managed to get through the check-out and unload everything into the boot of the car before giving Jeremy a sharp telling off. He sulked the whole way home and sat with his chin pressed to his chest.

  When she got home, he continued sulking. She tried everything, including bribery, to get him out of the car—until something in her voice told him she was running out of patience. Nonetheless, he delayed retrieving the final X-men figures as long as possible, and was standing by the door clutching them as Anna took her morning frustrations out on the door by slamming it shut.

  At that instant Jeremy spotted one last figure hidden by the side of his seat and stuck his hand into the closing gap. Then he began screaming. A gush of blood spilled dark red splashes onto the garage floor, and she saw the deep slashes in two his fingers.

  What happened afterwards remained a blur. Somehow she'd had the sense to run into the kitchen and grab a towel. Jeremy stood, stiff and traumatized as she bound his hand. Lifting him into the car, she deposited a bawling Ingrid with a neighbor, and drove to the emergency room at the local hospital as if the hounds of hell were yapping at the wheels of the car.

  A surgeon reattached the tops of his fingers without any difficulty. The hospital staff informed her she'd done the right thing to wrap them as she had. A small sop to her increasing guilt.

  Jeremy hadn't said a word the whole time.

  It wasn't until much later, after she carried him up and laid him on his bed, with the painkillers leaving him sleepy, that he spoke. "I'm sorry, Mum."

  She had sat by his bed, holding his good hand till he slept. Afterwards she went to the bathroom and cried. She'd never been so full of remorse. No matter how unwittingly, she had hurt her own child. Could that have been an early warning sign that he and cars would have a fatal relationship? No, that was a ridiculous idea. She remembered the way his child's smile lit up his face. It had broken her heart with love then, and it broke her heart with loss now.

  The memories returned often at first, but as days, weeks and months passed, they resurfaced less often. However, she could still be taken by surprise, as it remained impossible to anticipate what and when something would trigger the past intruding into the present. She looked around, but one woman, frozen for a moment with her mind adrift, hadn't raised any eyebrows on a busy street. Digging a tissue from her bag, she dabbed at her face. Not today. Today everything was new. She left the Place du Tertre, with its perky red café umbrellas reminding her of so many poppies, and headed up Rue Norvins.

  Time opened out, and it was as if she had all the freedom in the world. To think that Luc Marteille had walked these streets, conceivably going to visit Hélène, or after a secret liaison. How had she become a model for him? How long had their affair lasted? It couldn't have been serious as none of the research she'd done mentioned a wisp of any extra-marital flings.

  She looked around considering how different it would have been. Of course, no tourist shops, but surely some of the buildings with their small louvered windows would have been here? The little boulangeries where people bought their bread—although the shelves were empty at this time of day; the patisseries, the cobbled streets. For sure Luc Marteille would have gazed upon some of the same sights.

  Anna delighted in the abandonment of her daily routine. She was falling in love with this city; its otherness, the lure of discovery,
of adventure was irresistible. Sauntering along, she relished the unfamiliar smells, while her attention jumped from one sight to another, registering a detail of architecture here, a splash of color there, before another novelty grabbed her attention.

  She stopped and bought a postcard for Greg. They had a custom between them that whenever one of them was away‒mostly Greg‒they sent the other a postcard. Her third scrapbook was full, and it tickled her that, for a change, it was her turn to send one to him. The acrimony between them, almost unbearable during the last few days, was diminishing with distance.

  Anna meandered on, not sticking to the main road, but intrigued by the smaller streets with their narrow roads and tall buildings leaning towards each other as if exchanging confidences. She remembered Australian Bushmen went walkabout and figured this was as close to it as she was ever going to get as she explored whatever road or turning she fancied.

  An hour or so had passed before she noticed the pale orb of Sacre Coeur was no longer visible above the tops of the houses. The street lights had come on, and the light had taken on that particular clarity heralding the onset of twilight. Anna checked her watch thinking she should head back, or at least phone Ingrid. She rummaged in her handbag, but the phone wasn't there. Damn, and damn; she must have left it with the map.

  She checked the street. Left, then right. Her earlier sense of liberty had gone, and she was struggling not to panic; you'll see the Basilica's dome wherever you are in Montmartre, she reminded herself. It wasn't possible to have walked so far that it was no longer visible. She simply had to keep going, and she would spot it soon, peeping out behind one building or another.

  She walked faster, doing her best to ignore the flood of uncontrolled feelings waiting to drown her. Breathe in, let it go. Breathe out, let it go. It was one thing to focus on your breath sitting in an armchair in your living room, but when you were lost in a strange city and night was creeping in, it was far harder to accomplish. She emerged from the short road she'd taken and there was the iconic landmark looming over the landscape at the end of another small narrow street. Anna didn't understand how she'd gotten so near without noticing it. She could have sworn she was heading in the opposite direction from the church and not towards it.

  Should she continue or try to retrace her steps? She stopped, trying to think logically. The twilight deepened, and for a second no one was in sight. She was alone on a deserted street.

  A group of laughing youths came around the corner.

  As they neared, their loud brash voices and unintelligible words startled her, and suddenly she was frightened. She couldn't think. Darkness rimmed the edge of her vision, and her heart started pounding. She spun on her heel and began walking away from them as fast as she could; she didn't care where she went, she had to get away.

  Anna raced along, her imagination lurching from one awful scenario to another until she'd left them far behind, but the need to keep moving propelled her onwards, well after their voices had faded.

  How had she managed to be so careless as to leave both her phone and the map behind? She was the one in charge of this trip, the one who was expected to know what to do. And look at her. It hadn't taken long for her blithely undertaken walkabout to turn into a disaster. She was tired, and she'd left Ingrid alone. What if her naïve young daughter left the hotel in search of her? Her thoughts rioted, abandoning that calm safe space she'd found so difficult to create. If Greg saw the state she was in, he'd feel justified in saying she shouldn't be trusted out alone.

  Without warning, as if a guardian angel had been looking out for her, she turned a corner and was back in a crowded tourist area. Families with children and couples, arm in arm, strolled along; everything looked normal with people window shopping, laughing and talking as they went about their business. She took a deep breath. Everything was going to be fine. She simply had to find her way back to the hotel. Anna searched her bag for a second time, realizing she'd also forgotten to bring the phrase book. She suspected it was piled neatly on the bedside table together with the other two items.

  At that second, as she was craning her head this way and that, seeking the dome to anchor her in this alien territory, her right foot came down between two uneven cobbles. The next thing she was toppling sideways, a ten-pin bowling ball about to hit the skittles. But it wasn't the ground she hit, it was the startled pedestrian next to her whom she crashed into, and who mercifully broke her fall. They both staggered a step or two before a strong arm pulled her upright, and she was looking into her rescuer's concerned face.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry," she gasped. "Are you all right?"

  "Excusez-moi?"

  Anna couldn't help but note that he was rather good looking, of the older, distinguished variety. She leaned back as the man bent towards her. "I'm sorry," she repeated, feeling both grateful and foolish. "I wasn't looking where I was going."

  "Are you hurt?" he enquired, his eyes full of concern. His English was fluent.

  "No, I'm okay." She brushed at her skirt. "I lost my balance when I twisted my foot on the…" she pointed to the cobblestones.

  "Well, as long as you're not drunk," he said. "Don't you have those in England?"

  Anna couldn't believe her ears. Did he honestly think she was drunk? How rude. "Which way do I take for the Place du Tertre?" She snapped at him, her gratitude disappearing in a huff of resentment. What a comment! She'd get the directions and be gone.

  "Place du Tertre? This way." He pointed off to his left. "You are quite close. I'm heading that way myself."

  To her dismay, instead of completing the directions, he started walking alongside her.

  "I'm François Gibran," he said introducing himself, and making a little bow in her direction. "It's no trouble to accompany you and reassure myself you get there in one piece."

  Anna wondered if he was attempting to make amends for his ill-mannered remark because if that was his intention, he'd failed. He'd given her his name as if he were conferring an honor for which she should be grateful. She ignored the sharp comment she was about to make as the 'please' and 'thank you' politeness her mother had impressed upon her as a necessary quality for success surfaced. "Thank you. I'm Anna Seeger."

  As they walked along, Anna realized it had been a long time since she'd met anyone new. Everyone she dealt with, either family or friend, she'd known for a long time. There were times in life, mostly when you were young, when you were in new situations, had new jobs, were meeting new people, and establishing networks of support. As the years went by, social and emotional needs were met through family, friends and colleagues; and as you aged, you went into reverse until immediate family‒if you were lucky‒and caretakers being the few people with whom you communicated. She wondered when the body was failing and enjoyment of the physical side of things dwindled, would the powerful emotions‒hate, revenge, love‒run as strong.

  "Where in the UK are you from?"

  She glanced at him realizing, by the irritated look he gave her that he was repeating the question. What had he said his name was? She had a moment of paranoia, thoughts of abduction flitted through her mind, but decided that aside from his superciliousness, there was something safe about him and being kidnapped wasn't a likely option.

  "Near Bath, in the West Country," she answered but his attention had shifted as they reached a junction.

  "And are you staying here long?"

  "A few days."

  "Oh, what a pity. Paris is a wonderful city." He clearly thought giving a brief couple of days to Paris indicated that whatever priorities she had, they were radically wrong.

  "Yes, it is" she agreed, unable to think of an observant or witty remark in response.

  They strode along in silence. Her ankle began to throb, but there was no way she was going to ask him to walk more slowly. Anna shot a glance at him and had the impression he was preoccupied with his own thoughts. She was evidently not someone worth the effort of conversation. Yes, a patronizing Frenchman, Anna thought, is essen
tial to round off this exploratory outing.

  She was thankful he'd been there to prevent an accident, but she certainly hadn't requested an escort, and it showed precisely how wrong first impressions could be. The atmosphere between them was decidedly polar in spite of the sweltering heat.

  They turned onto Rue Norvins, and she brightened with relief at recognizing the shop fronts and café with its outdoor seating next to the hotel.

  "I know where I am. You've been very kind. Thank you." She spoke with exaggerated politeness.

  "Good. Are you sure? It is no problem for me to take you further." The frostiness in his tone indicated otherwise.

  "No, I'm fine," she reassured him fervently, glad of the opportunity to be rid of him. They said goodbye and he strode off. She stood watching him disappear into the crowd, his height making him appear like a liner surrounded by smaller tugs.

  Relief at his departure was mixed with the tiniest twinge of regret. A little voice inside her acknowledged if he'd been more polite, but she dismissed such a whimsical thought. What did they mean to each other? Two straws floating down a stream, side by side for a very short time, before the current separated them. There was nothing more to tell.

  She resolved to say nothing to Ingrid about her panic attack, near broken ankle and encounter with a stranger. Besides, there was nothing of importance to relate. As she approached the hotel, her fears melted away, and she admitted they'd been no more than that—fears, not reality. She should remember that next time something happened and not surrender to every suggestion her overactive mind tossed her way.

  The lobby was empty when she entered the hotel. Ingrid would have finished talking with Matt ages ago, but the familiar niggle of worry didn't let up until she opened the door to their room, and saw Ingrid lying on the bed reading; only then did the tightness in her chest ease.