No Telling

by Adam Thorpe

  ‘The one who died tragically young?’

  ‘Yes. Who was the first ever Swanilda. It’s yours.’

  She looked at the photo more closely and then turned it over, reading the words from the story.

  ‘You’ve cut this out of a book, you naughty boy.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘You’ll be arrested for being a lout. Was it your book?’

  ‘Library book.’

  ‘You’ll definitely be arrested. You’re a vandal.’

  She handed the page back to me.

  ‘It’s yours,’ I repeated.

  ‘No thank you. I don’t want to be arrested for handling stolen property.’

  I took it back with a shrug.

  ‘I hate ballet, anyway,’ she said.

  I was staring down at the picture, hiding my disappointment. I was ready to cry, in fact.

  ‘She looks really sick already,’ Jocelyne went on. ‘Black rings under her eyes. They worked them to death from the age of three or four. Ask Papatito. Dirty old men watching them rehearse. At least we don’t have that problem with Terry. He’s homo.’

  I nodded. The eyes stared out at me from the page, out of their black rings. Giuseppina was slightly smiling, as if she knew.

  ‘That might be the make-up,’ I mumbled.

  I folded the page and put it back in my pocket. I didn’t know what to do, now. She had got so excited about Giuseppina Bozzacchi dying in the Siege of Paris and everything, during the lunch, and now it had all gone away. The dolls and girly things and the sharp, sweet smell made me feel even more that I shouldn’t be in this room. I was so disappointed about the photo that I had a lump in my throat.

  ‘You’re not upset, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I snorted, as if the idea was stupid.

  ‘She’s prettier than that cow Armande, anyway. And who cares? Poor thing. Becoming a corpse on your seventeenth birthday. I wonder if she’d tasted the delights of love? I could’ve made Armande a corpse, if I was a bit more disturbed than I already am.’

  She continued to sit there on the bed with her legs stretched out, moving her feet from side to side like windscreen-wipers. I had run out of ideas, like a battery runs out. I pictured the place in the countryside, on the empty road where I’d stopped on my bicycle: the old chair on the verge, the long grass, the clouds overhead. I wanted to go back there. All on my own. Then I thought: how stupid – I’m in Jocelyne’s room, it’s just the two of us, my perfect dream! And I’m wanting to get out. Then afterwards I’ll think of this as being where I want to go back to most of all in the world. She was much prettier without her hair scraped back.

  ‘Anyway, your father was hit on the head,’ I said, suddenly.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘He’s OK, though.’

  ‘Hit on the head?’

  ‘He was watching the protests.’

  She looked shocked. ‘No one ever tells me anything.’

  ‘Only a little cut. Someone threw something. I think they’re about Vietnam or maybe that German—’

  ‘The riots are about everything,’ she scoffed, as if fed up with them already. ‘Capitalism and repression and transistor radios and parents and all that. Everything except Vietnam. Nobody cares about Vietnam. Terry went straight off after the show to join in.’

  She watched her feet again as they windscreen-wiped.

  ‘Was he knocked out?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Just a little cut.’

  ‘Clubbed by a policeman?’

  ‘A paving stone.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She sighed and folded her arms over her bosoms. I had my hands in my jacket pockets, feeling bits of tissues in them and a cork from the posh restaurant. She had a silver amulet on a chain round her neck and now she was fingering it.

  ‘It’s his fault for going there,’ she said. ‘Silly Papatito.’

  ‘I do mime,’ I said, stroking the rug with my foot.

  ‘Mime? Really?’

  ‘Yes. I’m quite good.’

  I was sure I’d told her this in the posh lunch.

  ‘Do some, Marcel Marceau.’

  ‘I only know one. I mean, good enough to show.’

  ‘Do it. I adore mime.’

  I turned my back and cocked my head on one side and hugged myself. Then I started running my hands up and down my body, from my hips to my neck, moving my head around.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  I carried on a bit longer, but her saying that had made me lose the picture of two people kissing. I felt stupid, doing it.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, when I’d stopped and turned round.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  I asked her if she was coming downstairs.

  ‘Was it spiders going up and down a tree?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to come downstairs.’

  ‘Tell me! Tell me! Or I’ll never talk to you again.’

  ‘Snogging.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Two people in a park, snogging.’

  She giggled. I was leaning against the wall again, feeling the wallpaper behind me. There were fleurs-de-lys on it, a bit furry.

  ‘Have you ever snogged someone?’ she asked.

  I shook my head, going red.

  ‘No, it didn’t look like it. They do it all slow, they don’t move their head all over the place and break the other person’s neck, they just stay very still, sinking into the kiss deeper and deeper. Read Anaïs Nin,’ she added, with a giggle.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘You should try it,’ she said, wriggling on the bed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ve gone all red.’

  ‘So what?’

  I bit my lip, trying to think of an excuse to leave. She sighed in a bad-tempered way.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t come to see it. My stupid show.’

  ‘Thank you for inviting me, though. It was good.’

  ‘I didn’t invite you. I mean, I don’t really remember inviting you. I think I was really really sloshed.’

  ‘You phoned me, though.’

  ‘It was Maman who insisted.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because I invited you before, when I was completely sloshed on that awful cheap wine. Maman was brought up with very strict and impeccable manners. Papatito calls them codes.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Your mother said no, thank you. Very firmly. And then just yesterday or the day before – anyway, at the very last minute – she said yes. She phoned up and said, “Oh yes, Gilles adores ballet.” Well, she probably didn’t say that exactly but you know what I mean. Maman wasn’t very pleased because she organises her social life months in advance. She went on and on about it, how annoying it was. You should see her diary.’

  ‘My mother doesn’t really like me being interested in ballet,’ I said. ‘That’s what’s weird.’

  I was trying to sound sensible and mature, but I was all raked up inside.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘This is a really tedious conversation.’

  I was hurt, now, as well as raked up. She seemed even prettier than before, though, now I knew the truth. I tried to think of something interesting to talk about, like my Spitfire balsa-wood plane or Christophe and I smashing windows, but they didn’t seem to fit.

  ‘Could you change the record over?’ she sighed. ‘That’d be just too-too of you.’

  I changed the record over, being careful to hold it only by the sides. The music began, a bit like thunder. I suddenly wanted to leave, knowing I wasn’t welcome. I went over to the door, which I’d left open.

  ‘Anyway, I stuck that Vietnam poster up, the one on the lamp post,’ I said, staring at the doorknob.

  ‘What Vietnam poster?’

  ‘You’ve never noticed? Just on the pavement outside.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll show you if you want.’

  ‘There are posters everywhere. Too many. Ug
ly details blown right up. That’s because the masses can’t choose for themselves—’

  ‘This was a protest one,’ I said. ‘I saw it printed, in fact. Silkscreen printing. Victory to the Vietnam people, everyone against the U.S. bombings. Then we went out at night and stuck them all up, to make people care. I didn’t realise this was your house.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Your mother would never let you. It’s far too exciting.’

  She was looking at me as if interested, though.

  ‘She doesn’t know about it. Come outside and I’ll show you, if you want.’

  ‘Outside? It’s dark.’

  ‘The streetlamp works.’

  ‘There might be protesters throwing things about for the uprising.’

  ‘Not round here. Anyway, it’s probably finished.’

  She snorted and slid off the bed, stretching.

  ‘Come on then, Che Guevara the Second.’

  She led the way downstairs, her mustardy blonde curls bouncing up and down, and we went outside. I showed her the remains of the poster on the thick part of the streetlamp.

  ‘I put it up myself.’

  ‘Vandal,’ she said. ‘Anyway, there’s no proof.’

  ‘I promise you.’

  ‘You’re not in any way that sort,’ she said, peeling off a bit of the poster. It felt nice being outside with her, although it was spitting.

  ‘I went along with my sister.’

  ‘You do spin some yarns,’ she laughed. ‘Your sister’s in a loony bin.’

  ‘Before that. It was two years ago.’

  ‘She was having her baby.’

  ‘She didn’t have a baby,’ I snorted.

  ‘She had an illegitimate one. Maman told me not to mention it in front of your mother.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ I said, with a nasty block in my throat. ‘That was my mother. I mean, my mother didn’t have an illegitimate one.’

  ‘I didn’t say she did. I said your sister—’

  ‘Look, my mother had my brother but he’s got a problem. He’s in a home.’

  ‘Well, settling this question is getting us awfully wet,’ she said, and disappeared back inside. I followed her. I was annoyed with her, now. She hadn’t really gone back inside because of the wet – you could hardly feel it. It was because she was embarrassed.

  ‘I’ll prove it to you one day,’ I said, a few steps behind her on the stairs. My voice was echoey in the entrance hall, with its stone floor and bare walls.

  ‘Prove what?’ she laughed, over her shoulder.

  ‘Everything! The poster, especially. The other’s just a stupid lie.’

  She gave a silly little wave but didn’t reply.

  ‘I swear with my hand on my heart I will. I’ll prove it to you.’

  ‘So? I can prove what I said, too.’

  She still hadn’t looked back, but just carried on past the hall door and up towards her room. She never checked once to see if I was following her.

  23

  I didn’t follow her up the second flight of stairs, in fact. I was too annoyed. Everyone believed the stupid lie! She was just like Christophe and the whole of Bagneux, believing it, getting everything wrong. I hung around in the corridor for a few minutes, calming myself down, then joined my mother and the others in the sitting-room. They had funny expressions on their faces, as if forcing themselves to smile.

  ‘You were a long time, dear,’ my mother said.

  ‘Find Jossi, did you?’ said Jocelyne’s mother, smiling in a silly way.

  I nodded – beginning, against all my efforts, to blush.

  ‘And she’s staying put?’

  ‘I think so.’

  The stereophonic radio was on, chattering excitedly about the protests. Its speakers were white. Someone was going on about a policeman being kicked almost to death on a staircase.

  ‘The usual lies,’ said Raymond.

  ‘It might be true, darling,’ said Jocelyne’s mother. She had a big tinkling glass in her hand. ‘They’ll be very angry, if it is. Give the gallant knight his grenadine. I’m sure the poor boy deserves it.’

  Raymond handed me my grenadine. It was too strong but had big chunks of ice bobbing in it. The glass was heavier than ours at home. My mother didn’t have walnut wine, but a big glass like everyone else’s.

  ‘We’re all drinking Ricard,’ Jocelyne’s mother went on, noticing me looking. ‘Double strength to encourage the others.’

  I nodded, although I didn’t really understand.

  ‘She wasn’t rude to you, was she?’

  I shook my head, swallowing my grenadine. Raymond was staring at me through his pipe smoke. The news was talking about passers-by being clubbed by the police.

  ‘This is strong,’ said my mother. Her eyes were even redder and puffier, exactly as if she’d been crying. Mine itched a bit; perhaps Jocelyne had upset me more than I’d realised.

  Nobody said anything. Hanoi had chosen Paris for a big meeting. Raymond got up and switched it off as Lyndon Johnson was speaking.

  ‘So,’ said Jocelyne’s mother. ‘That’ll be interesting.’

  She sipped her Ricard. Raymond tapped the Paris-Match with his pipe.

  ‘Next week the cover will be something about an actor,’ he said. ‘To distract us from the task in hand. Or heart swaps.’

  ‘Maybe we’ll all be guillotined,’ said Jocelyne’s mother. ‘Even Raymond, for being married to a bourgeois.’

  ‘You are the guerrilla,’ said Raymond slowly, pointing with his pipe at his wife, ‘against the air-conditioned death they want to sell you in the name of the future.’

  ‘Who said that? You? I’m unimpressed.’

  ‘Cortázar.’

  ‘I don’t know about air-conditioned,’ she said, sighing. ‘Centrally-heated, maybe. Although it does get sweltering in August sometimes, I suppose. Awful things about pollution, I’m reading. Car exhausts, apparently.’

  ‘I read an article on that,’ said my mother. ‘In Elle.’

  ‘Scientific American, this was. In English. It’s never the same in translation.’

  ‘Like Hannah Arendt,’ said Raymond.

  ‘Lots of frightening figures,’ Jocelyne’s mother went on. ‘Lead, for instance. We all go round sucking a pencil every time we breathe.’

  ‘You must never read Arendt in French,’ said Raymond, louder, pointing his pipe at my mother.

  My mother turned to me. ‘That was a protest we saw, apparently.’

  ‘I know, Maman.’

  ‘She can stew,’ said Jocelyne’s mother, standing up. ‘We’ll eat and she can stew. I’ll see if it’s ready.’

  ‘Can I do anything, dear?’ my mother asked.

  Jocelyne’s mother didn’t hear. She just said, as she was going out, ‘Life goes on.’ She knocked the telephone table on her way out, and Raymond got up and picked the telephone book off the floor with a grunt. Adults always have to grunt when they bend down, I thought.

  ‘Raymond,’ said my mother, leaning forward, ‘I really didn’t mean to imply …’

  Raymond sat down and waved his hand about, making the pipe smoke shake.

  ‘Don’t apologise. Geneviève always sees the worst in people. Her family has had three generals in it, you know.’

  ‘The worst in people?’

  We sat there, not moving or saying anything. The only thing moving, in fact, was Raymond’s smoke. My mother’s lower lip started trembling.

  ‘I just thought … I didn’t … I just thought …’

  She put down her glass. Her nostrils and eyes were shiny. She took out a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose and wiped her eyes, shuddering a bit. Raymond watched her as if he was watching television, stroking his pipe-stem on his lip. I couldn’t work out why she had started crying. I sipped my grenadine, letting the ice burn my upper lip.

  ‘I just thought,’ my mother repeated, her voice all liquidy. ‘Oh dear oh dear. All so humiliating. You’ve no idea … what it’s like …’


  Jocelyne’s mother had come back in, Raymond turning around on his chair as if to say hello. She took no notice of my mother.

  ‘Five minutes. Priscillia was busy frying the parsley. Perhaps that’s what they do in – oh, wherever she comes from. A tiny country. Don’t they eat dogs? These tiny countries are so irritating. Raymond doesn’t see why we should have countries at all.’ She stroked his hair, as if he was a cat, and he smiled. ‘Now, Gilles,’ she went on, clapping her hands, ‘you’re intelligent. What tiny country in – wherever, Asia it must be – has its principal river with the same name?’

  ‘I can’t think,’ I said.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Maman, blowing her nose. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  Jocelyne’s mother went over to the window and closed the long goldeny curtains. The frilly clock chimed for no reason.

  ‘Gilles very much wanted to come,’ my mother went on – her voice too high. ‘For ages. He got a book out of the library. All about ballet. He was very excited.’

  She was holding my knee.

  ‘I wasn’t that excited,’ I said, jerking my knee away.

  ‘With respect to the show,’ said Jocelyne’s mother, drawing the curtains on the other long window, ‘he might have been a little let down.’

  I shook my head and had started to add words when my mother interrupted.

  ‘In case you were thinking I came along just for the other thing,’ she said. ‘He was very excited. This book out of the library and so on. We were so pleased when we knew it was all to do with Jocelyne, inviting him. Very nice of her to invite him. So relieved.’

  ‘Relieved?’ said Jocelyne’s mother, coming back. She sat on the arm of Raymond’s chair.

  ‘Never mind. I’ll shut up now,’ my mother said. ‘I’ve had my bit.’

  There was a silence for a few moments, as if they were waiting for my mother to say more, even though she said she would shut up. The frilly clock ticked on the marble mantelpiece. The woman with the bright yellow slip stared at me, a bit cross-eyed. The very thin dog pointed its nose.

  ‘Jossi did need a lot of persuading, I’m afraid,’ sighed Jocelyne’s mother. ‘Didn’t she, darling? About the invite. We had something of a screaming match about it.’

  ‘Mutual intimidation,’ murmured Raymond.