French Kissing

by Catherine Sanderson

  ‘I did want to ask how you think la petite puce is coping with all the changes, Sally,’ Catherine confirmed in a low voice. ‘I’ve asked Nicolas a few times, but he never says a great deal to me…’ She twisted her thick gold wedding band as she spoke and, for the first time, I noticed her once-elegant hands were showing signs of the onset of arthritis, the joints beginning to stand out like knots on a tree trunk.

  Taking my cue from Catherine, I decided to avoid using Lila’s name, to minimize the chances of her listening in on our conversation. ‘When we first moved in here, she cried for her papa every night at bedtime,’ I admitted. ‘And for a while I was at my wits’ end.’ For weeks, I’d remained by Lila’s bed until the sobbing subsided and her breathing became slow and regular, silently cursing Nico as tears slid down my own cheeks. The mornings were no better: Lila would come padding into my room at daybreak, making hopefully for Nico’s side of the bed, her face crumpling when she saw that Papa had failed to materialize in the night. ‘But things have improved a lot since the rentrée,’ I continued, anxious to show Catherine that we’d turned the corner. ‘She’s used to the new routine, and she looks forward to the weekends where she has her papa to herself…’

  ‘I had a conversation with Sophie the other day.’ Catherine was still fiddling with her wedding band, not quite able to look me in the eye. ‘About that distasteful business with his secretary, and about that young girl he’s seeing now… I’m so disappointed, frankly. I always thought that, one day, Nicolas would phone to tell me he’d proposed to you, or to announce there was another baby on the way. The whole thing in March came as such a shock. Everything seems to have disintegrated so quickly…’

  ‘To be fair, Catherine,’ I said evenly, ‘I didn’t see any of this “distasteful business” – as you call it – coming either… Not until the evidence was staring me in the face.’

  ‘Philippe had a mistress once – or once that I know of,’ Catherine said suddenly, almost causing me to capsize my cup and saucer in shock. Nico had never alluded to anything like this, and I was willing to bet he’d been kept in the dark. ‘My generation,’ Catherine continued with a sad smile, ‘was brought up to turn a blind eye to that kind of thing. We were supposed to accept it as part and parcel of married life, and simply carry on…’

  ‘I could never have done that, Catherine,’ I interjected, convinced I knew where the conversation was leading. If Catherine and Sophie were singing from the same song sheet, a plea to reconsider my decision would follow. ‘It’s not as if this was one isolated occurrence. I don’t know whether it’s a generation thing, or because I’m English, but I couldn’t have carried on. Knowing what I knew, I couldn’t trust him any more…’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t implying you should have done as I did,’ Catherine insisted, ‘only that I know things have changed. I didn’t feel I had any other choice back then: I’d never worked, and I couldn’t conceive of living on my own. I never even confronted Philippe with what I knew, but it took me years to trust him again; years to stop looking over my shoulder. Even if I’m happy enough now, I’m not sure I’d wish that life on anyone.’

  Reeling from the shock of Catherine’s admission, I fell silent for a moment. I needed time to digest everything she had said. It was so unexpected, that this proud, private woman, so attached to keeping up appearances, had decided to show me her Achilles heel. She’d never let me glimpse the merest hint of vulnerability behind her cashmere armour in the past, and taking me into her confidence now wasn’t a decision she could have taken lightly – not least because it meant discarding the blind loyalty she’d always shown towards her children, and Nico in particular.

  ‘This Albane girl, have you met her?’ Catherine continued, before our emotionally charged silence could become too deafening.

  An image of the tortoiseshell barrette I’d seen on Nico’s hall table swam to the forefront of my mind, but I shook my head. ‘I’ve heard about her, and heard her voice on the phone…’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I could still put Nicolas across my knee and give him a good fessée,’ Catherine said, clenching her fist in her lap. It was the word ‘fessée’ that wrenched Lila’s attention away from Strawberry Shortcake and brought my surreal discussion with Catherine to a premature end. Lila turned to face us, eyes wide, as though to proclaim her innocence.

  ‘Who’s getting a fessée? Not me, Mamie? I haven’t done any bêtises!’

  ‘Nobody’s getting spanked, Lila,’ I reassured her, scooping her into my arms for a forceful hug and shooting Catherine an amused look over my shoulder. ‘Now, why don’t you go and fetch me your coat and shoes. It’s time for you to go on your holidays.’

  Before she left, Catherine pressed an envelope into my hand. ‘Philippe and I missed your birthday in July,’ she said by way of explanation, ‘but I wanted you to have something. Don’t go buying things for Lila, mind. Promise me you’ll treat yourself instead. Buy yourself something frivole…’

  Alone in my living room but for the lingering scent of Chanel No. 5, I tore open the envelope. My trembling hand withdrew four crisp fifty-euro notes.

  10

  A couple of days later, I was performing my habitual balancing act between two métro carriages on the ligne 1, this time on my way to Rivoire headquarters to take Delphine Andrieu up on her lunch offer, when the day’s Transports amoureux almost caused me to laugh out loud.

  ‘À Delphine, charmante «passante» du TGV Paris–Marseille le samedi 24/10,’ it read. ‘Pardonnez ma maladresse. Faites-moi signe sur mon portable. J’aimerais vous revoir.’

  I was intrigued. ‘Maladresse’ could be rendered into English in several different ways, but none were positive. The author could be apologizing for clumsiness in the most literal sense, having trampled on her foot or dropped his holdall on her head when removing it from the overhead racks. My preferred translation was ‘tactlessness’: in conversation with her he’d committed a terrible gaffe, causing offence. Had he made an indecent proposal? Would the Delphine in question now read his apology, decide to forgive him and call the number provided, or would their paths never cross again?

  ‘I don’t suppose you happened to take a TGV to Marseille last Saturday?’ I asked Delphine as she led me towards our usual meeting room, twenty minutes later, addressing her in French to show that we were off-duty until our lesson officially began, after lunch. Stepping inside, I noted that the table had been enveloped in a crisp white tablecloth and set with polished silverware. Two gilt-edged plates covered with gleaming silver domes stood ready on the sideboard. At Rivoire headquarters, nothing was done by halves.

  ‘I wish I had,’ Delphine replied, in French, with a mildly puzzled frown, ‘but no, I was working from home that day. Not even weekends are sacred in this job.’ She caught sight of my newspaper, which I’d laid on the table to one side of my plate, still open on the classifieds page. ‘Ah, les Transports amoureux! I used to read Libé all the time before I worked here, but Monsieur can’t stand the sight of it. He’s got shares in Le Figaro, you know. So unless any of the other papers prints a character assassination of one of his rivals, they’re all newspaper non grata around here…’

  Her boss might be out of town, but Delphine looked as chic as ever, dressed in a fitted skirt and jacket, gossamerthin tights and high heels. As she ferried the covered plates from the sideboard to the table, one by one, I noticed the huge Technicolor bruise on her right shin, visible through her tights. ‘I did that this morning,’ she said, intercepting my stare and giving her calf a quick rub before taking a seat opposite mine. ‘Monsieur called me from his private jet. I ran into his office to read his share prices off the Reuters screen on his desk – he hates waiting, and you never know when that aeroplane phone will cut out – and I slammed into the corner of his coffee table. I’ve done it a thousand times. I keep spare pairs of tights in my desk drawer as a precaution…’

  ‘What would he have done if you’d kept him waiting too long?’ I asked, genuinely cur
ious. ‘Would he hang up on you?’ Delphine nodded. Once again I thought to myself that I wouldn’t do her job for all the money in the world. My four-year-old Lila sounded more reasonable than Monsieur Rivoire.

  Delphine lifted the silver dome off her plate, and I followed her lead, unveiling a beautifully presented fillet of sea bass, baked in its skin, the scales golden and crispy. The fish was perched atop a mound of fragrant saffron rice and garnished with cooked cherry tomatoes. I picked up the cutlery – a fish knife and fork, naturally – and laid my napkin across my lap. Nico’s mother would be in her element in such refined surroundings, but I felt ill at ease. The tomatoes, in particular, looked treacherous, and I prayed I wouldn’t manage to squirt juice across the pristine tablecloth when I tried to skewer them with my fork.

  Not only would I have to mind my manners, but I was under strict orders to watch my words too. When I’d called Kate to let her know I’d be meeting Delphine for lunch instead of honouring our usual fortnightly arrangement, she’d been audibly lukewarm. ‘Let her do most of the talking,’ she’d advised. ‘Rivoire’s definitely one client I can’t afford to rub up the wrong way.’

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ I’d promised. ‘And I’ll treat you to a full post mortem tonight.’ I was looking forward to the coming evening. It was Lila’s third night away, and when Ryan had invited Kate, Anna and me for a housewarming dinner in his new apartment, I’d been delighted to be able to accept on the spur of the moment, without recourse to a babysitter, for once.

  Delphine seemed quite happy to lead the conversation. She was far more talkative than usual, on account of being permitted to speak in her native tongue. She started by quizzing me about Lila – how old she was, where she went to school, whether she looked like me – then asked if I minded explaining how I came to be separated from her father. In between mouthfuls of my lunch – which was delicious but disappointingly tepid – I served up a condensed and rather sanitized version of the events I’d recounted to Anna. ‘I found out my partner had been having an affair,’ I explained, rejecting the urge to shovel up my rice with the fish knife and transferring it to the back of my fork instead, ‘and I didn’t feel able to turn a blind eye to what he’d done, or to forgive him. So I decided to leave…’

  ‘Did you know the other woman?’ Delphine set down her knife and fork and dabbed the corner of her mouth delicately with her napkin, her eyes never leaving mine.

  ‘I knew of her, but we’d never met,’ I replied, shaking my head.

  ‘It’s ten times worse when you do,’ Delphine confided, her voice bitter. ‘My ex cheated on me with one of my oldest friends. So I ended up losing them both.’

  ‘Nico’s affair was with his secretary,’ I clarified, regretting my words as soon as they’d escaped from my mouth. The last thing I wanted was for Delphine to think I was implying that all secretaries set out to seduce their bosses. The only way to dig myself out of the hole, I decided, was to elaborate. ‘When I found out, it had been going on for some time,’ I added, with a sigh. ‘Mathilde was older than me; in her early forties. It’s ironic really: I’d always thought she had such an innocent-sounding name. I had this mental image of her as a vieille fille, you know, a prim little spinster in high-necked blouses, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.’ I grimaced. ‘She turned out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing… Or rather a wolf in Aubade lingerie.’

  ‘If I had a hundred euros for every time one of the senior executives has propositioned me,’ Delphine said sardonically, ‘then I’d be a very rich woman.’ She noted my shocked expression with evident amusement. ‘It goes with the territory,’ she said, candidly. ‘I’m a single mother, and I work such ridiculous hours that I have little or no hope of meeting a man of my own. So I’m seen as fair game for a bit of extra-marital fun… But more importantly’ – she paused for dramatic effect – ‘I’m Rivoire’s assistant. Landing me as a mistress would be considered hitting the jackpot, around here. But it would be less about sex than about les confidences sur l’oreiller, if you see what I mean. Either way, being someone’s “other woman” doesn’t interest me.’

  There was a lot more to Delphine than initially met the eye but, nonetheless, fielding indecent proposals from men who wanted to pump her for pillow talk about her boss couldn’t be much fun. ‘So, do you ever find the time to meet men outside of work?’ I asked her, curious to see whether Delphine had any sort of love life. ‘Have you ever tried a dating site, say, like Rendez-vous?’

  ‘I signed up once, a couple of years ago,’ Delphine admitted, ‘without using a photo. And I saw so many married men I recognized on there that it made me think twice.’

  ‘I joined recently,’ I confessed, ‘but I do have reservations about it, and so far I’ve only been on one very bad date…’

  ‘I’m sure it is possible to meet decent men that way, if you filter very carefully,’ Delphine replied, her doubtful expression contradicting her words somewhat, ‘but Rivoire made me sign something last year to say I wouldn’t join any networking sites at all. He’s paranoid about security. Always worried about people getting to him via me…’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit extreme, policing your personal life?’ I said, incensed on her behalf. ‘I mean, isn’t it hard enough for single mums to meet people as it is?’

  ‘You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Sally,’ Delphine said with a knowing smile. ‘I knew when I took this job that I was selling my soul to Rivoire, and I went into it with my eyes wide open. He wanted me because I’m a single mother. I’ve got no husband to complain when I stay late, or hit the roof when I have to take work calls in the middle of the night. Rivoire pays well, and I’m saving like a squirrel. But I don’t intend to remain at his beck and call for ever. Financial security is all very well, but I’m fed up with my daughter seeing more of her babysitters than she does of me.’

  By the time I’d polished off the raspberry sabayon and coffee that one of Delphine’s minions carried in soon afterwards on an intricately engraved silver tray, my pupil had succeeded in overturning every preconceived idea I’d held about her since we’d first met. This was no damsel in distress, imprisoned in her ivory tower, I realized. She was a level-headed, ambitious career woman who had managed to turn her personal circumstances into something which gave her an edge over her rivals.

  I’d never want to emulate Delphine, but I was in no doubt that she deserved my grudging respect.

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve moved to rue des Mauvais Garçons, bad boy,’ I remarked as I settled on to Ryan’s leather sofa, a gin and tonic in my hand, causing Anna, seated to my right, to snigger. It was almost eight, but Kate hadn’t arrived yet. She’d phoned to let us know she’d been held up with work and would join us later, which was annoying, because I itched to fill her in on my lunch with Delphine.

  ‘I looked at a place on rue des Vertus, but it just wasn’t me,’ Ryan retorted, popping a plate of savoury petits fours on the table with a flourish and taking a seat in the armchair opposite. ‘Now, ladies, I’m afraid these are only nibbles I got at my local Picard and defrosted,’ he said apologetically. ‘I didn’t have time to don my apron and start baking in your honour, much as I’d have loved to…’

  Ryan’s new place was very cosy and had a similar layout to my own, except that he had only one, much larger, bedroom. Anna and I had been treated to a guided tour, causing his skittish tortoiseshell cat, Clyde, to flee from room to room, finally taking refuge underneath Ryan’s double bed.

  ‘So, how are things with Eric?’ I enquired, darting a mischievous look at Anna, as Ryan adopted his usual coy expression. ‘Are we allowed to refer to him as your boyfriend? Or would that be a little premature?’

  ‘Ladies, I wish I knew,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The thing is, he travels a lot with his job, and he’s going to be overseeing some project in Eastern Europe for a while. So it looks like we’ll have to put everything on hold… I suppose the real test will be whether I can behave myself in the
meantime.’

  When the conversation turned to my lunch with Delphine, neither Ryan nor Anna seemed surprised by what I told them and I began to wonder aloud whether I wasn’t embarrassingly naïve. ‘What I’d like to know,’ Ryan mused, ‘is whether sleeping with Rivoire is part of Delphine’s package. It often is, you know. I mean, not contractually, so to speak, more by tacit understanding.’ I shuddered. I’d passed Rivoire in the corridor only once, but I’d seen his photograph in Libération often enough. He was well preserved for a sixty-year-old, but his face had a pinched, ruthless look, and he wasn’t my cup of tea.

  ‘Have either of you guys ever had pupils come on to you at work?’ Anna’s question didn’t sound neutral and, when I turned to look at her, her gaze fled mine. ‘It’s just that I had a bit of a situation the other day in one of those basement meeting rooms at the insurance company at La Défense,’ she continued, telltale spots of red appearing on her cheeks. ‘And I couldn’t stop thinking about how anything could happen down there. The door was closed, there are no windows…’

  ‘What kind of a situation?’ I said, setting down my drink on the glass coffee table more violently than I’d intended. ‘Did someone try to paw you?’

  ‘Oh. Nothing serious,’ said Anna, flustered now and possibly wishing she’d never spoken up. ‘It was all verbal, nothing physical. I was following a lesson plan from that financial English book, the one about liquid metaphors – you know, cash flows, being awash with funds, that sort of thing – and the guy I was teaching made some pretty gross double entendres about bodily fluids…’