The Kiss

by Joan Lingard

  After they had settled the bill, which came to more than they had anticipated, and left the restaurant, the students were in boisterous mood. They sang Je ne regrette rien at the tops of their voices, exaggerating their words and gestures. Alec hoped they were not too drunk. Cormac told him not to worry. ‘They can take it. I bet they can sink a lot more at their own parties. They’re just in high spirits, intoxicated by the scene as much as the wine.’

  Clarinda wanted to go back to the booth where she had bought her necklace; she had seen one that she thought that her mother would like, in jade green.

  ‘You can’t go off on your own,’ objected Alec. They had a rule that no student was allowed to go alone anywhere, even to the small grocer-cum-greengrocer across the street from their hotel. ‘It’s like a maze, this place, you could get lost without trying.’

  Cathy and Sue wanted to buy something that they had also seen earlier and suggested that the three of them go together. Cormac volunteered to accompany them. ‘You go on ahead, Alec,’ he said, ‘and we’ll catch you up. Wait for us at the Métro if we don’t see you before then.’

  Alec led the rest of the students away and it was unfortunate that two of them chose to throw up just seconds after they parted. They deposited the undigested aftermath of their poulet et frites lunch, washed down with vin rouge, over the merchandise of a carpet seller. Half a dozen Afghan rugs had been liberally spattered. Mayhem broke out, with the carpet seller dancing with rage and screaming profanities (at least Alec presumed that was what they were) and neighbouring stall holders coming running to join in and shout, also of course in French, which Alec had little understanding of, except for the word compensation. Compensation pour le nettoyage. For the cleaning, a girl, who was studying for a French Higher, translated for him.

  ‘Run back and get Cormac, quick!’ he instructed one of the boys. Cormac could speak French reasonably well.

  But by then it was too late, for Cormac and his group had vanished down one of the many alleyways and the boy himself almost got lost trying to make his way back. Alec had to try to sort out his own mess. The girl who was doing the French Higher tried to negotiate with the carpet man but she said she couldn’t make out his accent; also, he kept shouting, which didn’t help. The only thing Alec could think to do was to open his wallet and offer a hundred franc note. It was tossed aside. Une insulte! He did get that one, too. Several students scrambled after the note, almost getting themselves kicked on the head by onlookers. A couple of the girls were becoming semi-hysterical, giggling uncontrollably. More screaming and dancing on the spot by the carpet seller ensued until six hundred francs was raised and they were allowed to pass. Until then their way had been solidly blocked at both ends. As Alec led them out of the market towards the Métro he swore that he would never again take a party of students abroad. He reckoned they’d got off relatively lightly with sixty quid, though it did leave them rather short, and of course one of the students would be stupid enough when they got back to tell her mother and the mother would come up to complain to the headmaster. One way and another, their trip to Paris was to achieve notoriety.

  Cormac and the three girls had meanwhile gone on their way looking for the booths that they had seen earlier, which were more difficult to locate than they had anticipated. They made a few false turnings before Cathy and Sue found what they were looking for. Clarinda said she thought hers was just round the corner. Cormac told the other two girls to come and get them as soon as they’d done their shopping.

  Clarinda couldn’t find the booth round the first corner, yet she could have sworn that that was where it had been. They tried the next one and there it was and the necklace that she thought her mother would like. She bought it without any fuss; the transaction couldn’t have taken more than five minutes, after which they returned to the place where they had left Cathy and Sue, but of them there was no sign. They must have taken a wrong turning themselves. Cormac and Clarinda set out to look for them, stopping at one or two booths so that Cormac could ask if anyone had seen two girls, one with short blonde hair, the other reddish-brown and curly, about the same height as the girl he was with, speaking English. No one could recollect girls of that description but there were many people about, so many girls, of all kinds and colours. Who would notice anyone in particular in such a crowd?

  Cormac and Clarinda found themselves back at Chez Louisette.

  ‘Could I have a coffee?’ asked Clarinda. ‘I think I need to sober up.’ She giggled.

  It sounds, Mr Aherne, as if you allowed the pupils to consume rather a large quantity of red wine? And then, after the lunch, how come you were on your own with the girl in question?

  The restaurant had only a few customers since the afternoon was drawing to a close and most of those who wished to lunch had already done so. They sat at a downstairs table and drank black coffee and were serenaded once more with chansons de Paris. Elvis seemed to have knocked off. Cormac was beginning to wish that he could himself but he had two missing students to find.

  You say you got separated from the other two girls, Mr Aherne? Was it not your responsibility to see that that did not happen?

  They didn’t find them for the reason, simple enough, that the girls had managed to link up with the rest of the group and had continued with them to the Métro station where they had waited for ten minutes to see if Cormac and Clarinda would appear. When they did not, Alec decided that they should not wait any longer since the two who had vomited were miserable in their smelly shirts and trainers and two, who had not yet vomited, were feeling that they might.

  It seems odd, Mr Aherne, that the other two girls who had got separated from the main party managed to join up with it again yet, you, who had been at this flea market before and could speak French, failed to do so.

  Cormac and Clarinda searched until the shopkeepers and stall holders were packing up.

  ‘We’d best head back,’ said Cormac, ‘and see if Sue and Cathy have got there before us.’

  When they reached the Métro station they saw no sign either of the two girls or of anyone else from their group. A Romany woman sat on the ground near the entrance nursing a wan-faced baby.

  ‘Que belle!’ She grinned at Clarinda, opening her mouth to display a few broken teeth at the front.

  Clarinda immediately pulled out her purse and thrust some francs into the woman’s hand.

  ‘Was that wise?’ murmured Cormac.

  He had no sooner spoken than they were set upon by a number of other clamouring gypsy women and girls who appeared as if out of nowhere. Cormac tried to flap them aside as he might a posse of buzzing flies but they were persistent, and in the end he and Clarinda had to take to their heels and outrun them. He noticed Clarinda’s bare arms were scratched.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said with a shrug. ‘They’re poor.’

  ‘I know.’

  Suddenly he realised that at this moment he was not so well off himself. He had used the last of his money to settle the lunch bill. ‘Got any cash on you?’

  Clarinda shook her head without engaging his eye. She had given her last franc to the woman.

  What to do now, wondered Cormac, who felt like a drink more than anything else. They had bought carnets of Métro tickets for the group but Alec had those in the red knapsack he carried on his back.

  ‘We’ll just have to walk then, won’t we?’ said Clarinda brightly.

  ‘It’s a long way,’ said Cormac gloomily. ‘We’re right out at the périphérique that runs round the outside rim of Paris.’

  They had no map, either; that was also in Alec’s backpack.

  ‘We wouldn’t need a map, would we?’ Clarinda sounded amazingly bright. At fifteen, not quite sixteen, the thought of walking all those miles through the streets of Paris was probably attractive. An adventure. This was when he began to be aware that he had passed forty some time ago.

  ‘I guess not. If we keep heading south.’

  They set out, down the long Boulevard
Ornano. God, Paris boulevards could be long and straight and grey. Clarinda loped along enthusing about Paris and how her mother had said she would. Mrs Bain had herself come as a girl and fallen madly in love with the city. He felt uncomfortable when Clarinda talked about her mother; it conjured up images of the woman moving in on him with scarlet-tipped nails and a pungent smell of perfume. From Omano they changed to the Boulevard Barbès, equally long and straight. He had been insistent that the pupils should walk as much as possible around the city, Clarinda reminded him when he grumped a little, but this was not what he had had in mind.

  ‘This was not Rodin’s side of Paris at all, was it?’ she said. ‘Or Gwen’s.’

  ‘They preferred the south side on the whole,’ he agreed. ‘The left bank.’

  ‘That is where everything happens, isn’t it? Where the artists live.’

  ‘Not all. Colette lived on the right bank, beside the Palais Royale.’ Clarinda had been telling him that she was reading the Claudine books. ‘So did Cocteau, he was her neighbour,’ he added, but Clarinda had not yet heard of him though he didn’t doubt that she would, given time. And time, after all, was in her favour.

  At the foot of Barbès, they came to a crossroads. He knew, since he had walked it before, that they should take the Boulevard de Magenta, a very long boulevard indeed. This route march was beginning to seem to him quite ridiculous but he couldn’t think what else to do but carry on.

  Was there nothing else you could have done, Mr Aherne? Did it not occur to you that Mr McCaffy and the other pupils might be worrying about you, wondering what had happened to you?

  He could possibly make a reverse charge call to the hotel but, first, he would have to get past the phlegmatic woman on the desk and then, if he did manage to speak to Alec, what could Alec do? Come in a taxi to fetch them? Alec was probably short of cash too.

  Halfway down Magenta, Clarinda had to stop. ‘I think I’ve got a blister.’ He had thought for the last while that she was walking in less sprightly fashion and was even limping a little but he had not thought it wise to comment on it. He knew, from his own daughter, how sensitive young girls were to any remarks that might remotely be considered critical. Clarinda unwound the thongs of her sandal from her ankle and took it off. Her heel looked horribly raw and inflamed.

  ‘You should have said so before,’ he said, touching her heel just above the sore part and shaking his head over it, forgetting that, as a teacher, he was not permitted to lay a finger on a pupil, whatever the circumstance. Her skin felt hot to his touch.

  Are you trying to tell us, Mr Aherne, that you did not lay a finger on this girl?

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any plasters on you?’ said Cormac.

  She shook her head. The plasters were also in Alec’s little red knapsack. Cormac was beginning to feel annoyed that Alec had not waited for them. He had certainly not warmed to Alec McCaffy on this trip. He did not mind that he was ignorant about art, that had nothing to do with it. After all, he himself was not too hot where geography was concerned; he could still confuse the Arctic with the Antarctic, though geography did not seem to be much about that these days. A woman teacher was supposed to have come with him, to be a carer and mentor for the girls, but she had been summoned to hospital for an operation after waiting for nine months so she had not been able to turn down the offer. Alec had been the only teacher free enough of extra commitments to come with him.

  ‘Well, now.’ Cormac frowned at the wounded heel.

  ‘I’ll just have to go barefoot.’

  She couldn’t do that! The pavements were hard and the French didn’t bother if their dogs fouled them, any more than the British did. Actually, less. Dodging dog turds was a daily hazard, they had found, and more than one student had managed to foul their trainers and carry with them a lingering smell of shit for the rest of the day. Clarinda took the sandals off, nevertheless.

  They made it to the end of the boulevard and arrived at the windy Place de la République where they collapsed onto the ground. Clarinda’s feet were grubby already.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she said, drawing up her knees and hugging them.

  He had become aware that he was hungry, as well as thirsty. The sky was losing its colour fast and the street lights had come on when they were halfway down the last boulevard. From here he was not sure what the most direct route would be down to the river and St Germain. He did not want to cross it too far east. When they had rested for a few minutes he got up and asked a passer-by and was directed to the rue du Temple, another long street but not so wide and exposed as the boulevards. He was definitely off boulevards. The air had cooled considerably in the last hour and Clarinda was wearing nothing on the upper part of her body but a skimpy shirt, not even a bra. Well, that was obvious; it wasn’t that he was making an effort to look. He took off his sweatshirt and offered it to her.

  She slipped it on. The shirt was too baggy and the sleeves too long but that only seemed to make her smile. She hugged her arms, wrapped in the overlong sleeves, around her. ‘Thank you, Cormac,’ she said.

  Down the length of the rue du Temple they went, on his part wearily, though she stepped out as lightly as before, if more slowly. He had the feeling she was keeping pace with him in order not to tax him. When they sighted the towers of Notre Dame up ahead he wanted to cheer, instead of which he muttered, ‘Thank God.’ They crossed the river onto the left bank.

  ‘I feel I’ve come home,’ said Clarinda. ‘This is definitely where I shall live when I come to Paris. Perhaps I shall even find a room in the rue du Cherche-Midi. Wouldn’t it be a gas if I got one at number 87? And isn’t it a wonderful name – Cherche-Midi? Seek midday. Or the south. Which is it, Cormac?’

  She was inclined to think he had the answer to everything about Paris, but he didn’t. He had taken the name for what it was, the name of a street, without question. He supposed it could be either; both suggested warmth and sunshine. He had to tell her he did not know.

  From the river it was still a good fifteen minute walk to their hotel. Alec was standing in the foyer, his feet apart, his knees braced, as if ready for some kind of action. He looked relieved at the sight of them, then he saw Clarinda’s bleeding feet.

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’ he demanded.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘The kids are talking, you know,’ said Alec. He had tapped on Cormac’s door and asked if he could come in for a nightcap. They had one together most nights. As well as having a drink they liked to recap on the day’s events and discuss the next day’s programme. Alec wasn’t content unless everything was planned to the last detail. He feared disaster unless it was.

  ‘Talking about what?’ asked Cormac warily.

  Alec was uncomfortable. ‘You and Clarinda.’

  ‘Me and Clarinda?’ Cormac exploded. ‘There’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘You’re always with her. Or she’s always with you.’ Alec corrected himself.

  ‘So she was at my table at lunchtime. Effie McVeigh was at yours. You were talking to her twenty to the dozen.’

  ‘About fault lines.’

  ‘What do you think I was talking to Clarinda about?’

  ‘I’m not suggesting you were talking to her about anything, well, risky.’

  ‘Thank you for your confidence, Alec.’

  ‘Now don’t get annoyed with me. I just thought I should warn you. I’m sure there’s nothing in it—’

  ‘You’re damned right there’s nothing. You don’t think that I—’

  ‘Of course I don’t. You wouldn’t be so daft. Your job would be at stake. It’s just that once talk starts …’ Alec cleared his throat and Cormac poured another splash of whisky into his glass and told him to drink up. ‘Well, then, when you disappeared with her this afternoon—’

  ‘We didn’t disappear. We were looking for Cathy and Sue and you didn’t wait for us. You had the bloody Métro tickets in your stupid backpack.’

  Alec bridled. Cormac realise
d straightaway that he shouldn’t have been so aggressive as to refer to the backpack as stupid since it would appear to be an integral part of Alec’s being. He didn’t feel like apologising, however.

  Alec set his glass down on Cormac’s bedside table and got up. ‘I think you should be careful, Cormac. The girl appears to have the hots for you.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Everybody.’ Alec left the room.

  Mr McCaffy did warn you, didn’t he, Mr Aherne, that it could be dangerous if you were to be seen associating too freely with one of the pupils?

  Cormac finished the whisky. He was not such a fool as to totally ignore McCaffy’s warning, though the man’s use of the phrase ‘the hots’ made him want to slug him on Clarinda’s behalf. Vulgar oaf that he was. He’d always thought there was something of the Uriah Heep in him with his clammy hands. Cormac knew that Clarinda liked being with him but that was because she enjoyed talking to him, was interested in what he had to say, and in the same things that he was. And maybe she was a little bit infatuated with him but kids had had crushes on teachers from time immemorial. Crushes were like bubbles; they blew up quickly and burst at the first sign of discouragement. He resolved to embark on a campaign of discouragement.

  Next day, which was their last day in Paris, they broke into two groups: one, in the charge of Alec, was going back to the Pompidou Centre where they could enjoy the street theatre as well as the art; the other, led by Cormac, was heading out of Paris to Meudon to the Villa des Brillants, the home of Rodin. The pupils had been allowed to choose, and most of them, predictably, had opted for the Pompidou; only a handful wanted to go on another Rodin outing. The handful consisted of Sue and Cathy, and Clarinda. Cormac was not sure why Cathy and Sue wanted to go but was glad that they did for it would not be considered seemly, he was sure, not in Alec’s eyes, for him to go there with Clarinda and no chaperone, nor would he have wished it himself.