by Jayne Tuttle
‘Do that, fuckface,’ I say, and watch him speed off down the hill. A streetsweeper approaches in his yellow and green uniform, swishing water down the drain. Another little piece of information to withhold from Adrien, if I ever see him again.
Café des Deux Moulins
AFTER TEN DAYS I can’t take the suspense anymore and call Adrien. We arrange to meet at the Café des Deux Moulins in the rue Lepic, the cute, cosy brasserie featured in the film Amélie, which has somehow retained its authentic Montmartre charm – so much so that the first time Adrien took me there I didn’t recognise it. How it hadn’t been turned into an amusement park baffled and delighted me.
It starts raining as I ride past the sex shops of Pigalle, which is infuriating because I’ve spent a substantial amount of time on my hair to create a natural, effortless look. By the time I arrive I’m a frizzy, frazzled mess.
The bar is welcoming and warm, and the corner table available, with its rocky legs. I am ten minutes late and he hasn’t arrived. The waiter brings me a glass of saint-émilion that is overfull and spills as soon as he walks away. I mop it with a serviette and lick between my fingers, pulling out a crossword to try to keep my cool, though all I can do is stare at the words.
He appears in front of me, looking equally rain-messy. We kiss on both cheeks, like when we first met, and there is still electricity, but it’s tamed. The corner mirrors reflect us to infinity. He sits opposite me, like we’re having a meeting. He is different. More manly somehow, assured, like he’s about to make a presentation. He orders a beer.
‘How is school?’ he asks.
‘Fine. How’s the play?’
‘Fine.’
The small talk continues. If he still wants me he is doing an excellent job of concealing it. Then in the middle of the banter he tells me he’s decided to move on.
Move on? I hadn’t expected him to reject me. Now I don’t know how to respond. I’m a demolition site.
There’s a long silence, which he breaks by asking, ‘What do you want, Jayne?’
‘I can’t really tell you that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because what I really want is to sniff you.’
He lets the comment sit for a moment.
‘Well, why don’t you?’
I go around to his side of the table. He stays facing forward and I put my nose in his neck, running it up and down the thick pulsating vein that leads up to his ear. I drink him in, sniffing his jaw, his temple, his collarbone. I could eat his brains, I want to suck his mind out through his ear and into me so I can understand him, keep him. He is aroused by my sniffing and moves his hand gently to mine. I kiss his cheek seductively. Then I move politely back to the other side of the table.
‘I have to go,’ he says.
‘Okay.’ My muscles for his abrupt departures are by now well toned. We unchain our bikes and ride down the hill together in the gentle rain. I want to joke, ‘It’s crying,’ but don’t want to break the silence. Perhaps if I’m silent long enough he will stop his bike and ram me up against the wall. We stop outside the Moulin Rouge, where I’m to turn left, he right. Our bikes tip awkwardly as we lean towards each other to kiss goodbye.
The kisses are polite but our cheeks touch long.
We pull our bikes apart and go our separate ways. My heart is leaden as I ride through the rain, which is also heavier now. I don’t need to cry. The sky is crying for me, down my cheeks.
Back at the Récollets, when I reach the landing on the second floor I see a dark figure outside my door, in a puddle.
Adrien.
‘I need a towel,’ he says.
I run into his arms.
We lie in tangled silence the next morning.
‘Why do you think moths singe themselves?’ I ask.
‘They’re drawn to the light.’
‘Yes, but why?’
‘They get confused by the bright lights of the city. They use the moon to orientate themselves. So when there are a thousand moons …’
‘You don’t think they just want to get close to the light because it’s beautiful?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Would you rather live a short, exciting life or a long, unexciting one?’
‘Long and exciting.’
‘My mother died,’ I say without thinking. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t really think … Anyway. She died, not long before I came here.’
He sits up and looks at me. He is not angry, but shocked and curious.
I tell him the whole story, in French. Recounting it in a different language gives it a distance, like I’m telling someone else’s story. But saying the words makes it feel more real. Us too.
Bourgogne
SÉVERINE HAS A house in Bourgogne, which she should never have mentioned because ever since she did, I’ve been pestering Adrien to take me there.
‘You have a house? In the country?’
‘My mother has a house,’ he corrects. She apparently bought it six years ago, did a bit of work on it then forgot about it. He hasn’t seen it since.
I cannot believe that after all the summer heat and spring days, a house with trees around it has just been sitting there. Adrien and Séverine are sheepish when I press them on it.
Finally, one clear spring morning we’re pulling out of her garage.
‘It’s probably run by beavers now,’ says Adrien with a reproachful look at his mother as she changes lanes, cigarette hanging from her mouth.
Over the périphérique we go, through traffic jams, past factories, high-rises, grey monstrosities. Then the sudden onslaught of grass and space. I inhale deep. Near lunchtime Séverine pulls into a tiny supermarket in a village, where a lovely man with a nose shaped like a stingray serves us. We buy mustard and a lettuce and Adrien selects wine. I’m excited about the idea of roast potatoes for lunch and curious about the côte de bœuf Séverine is going to cook on the open fire.
We get back in the car with our bags and boxes and tear through the quaint towns and fields, then down a dirt track. Fields of green and yellow surround a little valley, where the remains of burnt vines dot the landscape. Behind a mansion, backing onto an apple orchard that backs onto a forest, is a small, fenced-off property. I can just make out the roof of a small house.
‘It was a gardener’s cottage,’ says Séverine, grinding the car to a halt.
They call it La Grange. A wire gate with a big padlock has head-high dry grass poking through it. It seems to have completely taken over the place, like in Great Expectations. When Adrien pushes on the gate the grass pushes back. He gives his mother a look. He manages to open the gate wide enough to squeeze through, then disappears into the grass. He returns moments later with a grim-reaper scythe and cuts a track for us to the house. At the doorstep he throws the scythe on the ground, muttering, ‘Disgrace.’
Séverine unlocks the door and goes inside, causing a great gust of dust to plume onto the dirty verandah. Adrien grabs the scythe again and starts hacking at the grass around the house, which I collect and clear out of his way. Silently we continue this for hours, him cutting, me collecting, until there’s a huge pile of grass and sticks near the crumbling old shed, the roof of which has fallen in. His shirt is off and his torso like something from a calendar: Hot Frenchies in Nature. My ankles are covered in cuts and scratches. The sweet scent of hay and honey is in my lungs and I feel so happy I could burst. Adrien catches my eye and smiles. I want to lick the dirt off his body.
The front of the house is now visible: it’s a pretty stone cottage with ten high, ivy-wrapped windows looking out over the garden. Séverine has opened all the windows up and calls from one of them: ‘À table!’
Inside it’s quaint and rustic. The floor is dirt-covered stone. Séverine has thrown a chequered cloth over the table and placed on it the côte de bœuf, two baguettes, a green salad, a big sighing camembert, and a melon for after. A glistening bottle of cider drips a pool onto the cloth.
I am ravenou
s from the physical labour. My mouth drools, my body rejoices. I sit down and have my first taste of côte de bœuf. The beef, grilled on the open fire, is still bloody; it’s been sliced thinly and served with mustard. I savour it with gusto. Dad would fall off his chair.
The sunlight casts a shard across the table, across the delicious meat and vegetables, the mustards and sauces, the glasses of gamay, the old, worn cutlery. A large gilt mirror with rust patches is propped against the far wall and I look in it out of the corner of my eye, trying to catch my real self. The back of Séverine’s head is in view, and Adrien’s serious face, the two of them in discussion. I’m in profile between them, my hair lit white by the sun. That’s me, part of the story. Sort of. That’s me with the big silver knife about to cut the camembert the wrong way; there’s Adrien’s strong hand shooting out to correct me. That’s me, slurping the I Need You, Adrien trying to explain the cute mistranslation to Séverine.
We smoke after eating, flushed from wine and fresh air. Séverine refills our glasses and announces that Adrien’s cousin Valérie gave birth to her second baby yesterday. She looks at me. ‘Will you have babies, Jayne?’
I take a sip of wine. ‘I think so.’
‘I was twenty-five when I had Adrien,’ she says after an awkward silence. ‘Now you are thirty you should get moving.’ She leans in towards me. ‘Maybe I’ll have grandchildren.’
‘Maybe,’ says Adrien, giving her a harsh look.
‘Would you have children here or in Australia?’ presses Séverine, and Adrien sighs.
‘Here, I suppose,’ I say, feeling queasy.
‘But your family,’ she says, looking down at her nails. ‘You will need them. You will miss your mother more than ever when you have a baby.’
My throat closes over. Adrien told Séverine weeks ago about Mum, and since then she has been sweeter and more delicate with me than ever. Now her eyes are cold.
‘It will be hard to have your babies away from your home,’ she continues. ‘You will need your family.’
Adrien rattles his chair. I try to breathe but a guttural sob comes out. I try to suppress it, which only makes it worse.
Séverine leans across the table. ‘Let it go. Let it go.’
I feel angry. Angry at her and angry at myself and angry at everything. Gathering control seems impossible: the more I pull back, the worse the coughing, sobbing sensation. My ugly performance lasts a long time. Adrien clears the table and comes back and puts his hand on my hands.
‘You know,’ says Séverine, once I’ve pulled myself together, ‘my father died while I was pregnant with Adrien. It was terrible, I had this life in my belly and this grief —’
‘I’m sorry,’ I manage to say.
‘It is okay to be sad,’ she says. ‘It’s good to cry. It’s nice for us to have a cry together, don’t you think?’
I nod, though it doesn’t feel nice at all.
The yard slowly reveals itself. There are fruit trees and rose bushes and another, smaller shed down the back. I hear birds, the rushing of leaves in trees, sheep bleating in the distance. In the late afternoon Séverine disappears, and returns later with a handful of apples from the orchard, throwing me one. It’s sweet and juicy.
‘I want to see the orchard,’ I call to Adrien, and he drops his scythe and puts his hands on his hips, turning around to survey our work.
‘Not bad,’ he says.
We follow the neat rows of apple trees towards the forest. Something catches my eye and I grab Adrien’s arm and we slowly crouch. A baby deer is eating from one of the trees, oblivious to us. I’ve never seen one before. I scratch my nose and she looks up, but she’s too young to be afraid. We watch unmoving and then, when it’s safe, we creep towards her. A little closer, a little closer, until we can nearly touch her. She is in a sort of trance, drawn to us. I go to reach my arm out to her and she’s jolted back to reality, bounding off and disappearing into the forest.
‘There are lots of them here,’ Adrien says, and wraps his arm around my waist.
In the forest the last of the sunlight casts dappled shadows. We cross a stream into a mossy den heavy with mist, the sunlight far above us now, in the tops of the tall trees.
‘Je t’aime,’ he says, as we stop to kiss by a rock.
‘I love you too,’ I say, in my language.
That’s Where it Is
AFTER TWO YEARS at his school I’ve realised that Jacques Lecoq would think my question of whether or not a corpse moves is a dumb one and doesn’t warrant answering. It’s a question that somebody who’s living in their head would ask, not somebody consumed by play and art and fun and life. These entire two years have been an answer to this question, the answer being: Just move.
Our final project is to create our own piece of theatre and perform it for the public. We can write, direct or act, or do all three. There are no rules. I spend too long racking my brains for the perfect idea and run out of time. In desperation I pull out some of the writing I’ve already done. I dread using the piece called ‘I’m Sorry, We Still Have Time’, but hear Al say that’s where it is and try not to overthink it. I bring it into the space and start thrashing it out.
I play the mother role, Marie-France plays me, and Meg and Faye and Sarah Israel play the inside of the me character’s mind, as well as other roles, using pieces of costume to indicate the character changes. As the mother, I find myself wearing a scarf and always having my back turned to the audience.
Working with the text is agonising, embarrassing, shameful, but the more we physicalise it, and the more ideas the others bring to it, the less personal it becomes. It becomes a work of its own. Strange doctors are born, performing their own interpretations of oncology, radiology, haematoma, and all the weird drugs. The me character asks the mother character all kinds of banal questions, about the weather, dinner and television, while the chorus asks the true questions she wants to ask, like:
Does it hurt?
Are you scared?
Are you worried?
What are the red wings?
We create a weird opera about the uselessness of it all, with a stupid dance to go with it. There are bread ovens and toxic waste and huge needles. On the day of the performance I play my role with gusto, becoming more and more distant, until all that’s left of the character is the scarf. Death comes and does a silent little jig. The movement of the corpse?
I don’t know. I have no answers. Jacques Lecoq would be proud, I think, even if the piece was a mess. I just did it. I bouged.
The teachers don’t give good or bad marks, say ‘Stop!’ or ‘Okay, merci!’ this time. It’s like a transition to a professional phase. We are no longer considered students; they are critiquing us as theatre-makers. There is no praise, no criticism, which at first feels terrifying, but then I realise how respectful that is. It has been like that the whole time. Never about us, personally, always about the work we are making. We have been treated as artists.
They tell me to keep pushing into the territories of the absurd, the tragic and the comic. And to keep writing.
And just like that, school is over.
I knew it was coming, but, like Mum’s death, I didn’t think it would actually happen. For two years my head has been down, my mission: get to school on time. Get into second year. Get a bien. Oh god, I haven’t thought at all about what I will do now.
Meg, Faye, Étienne, Marie-France and I talk about forming a theatre company. But my visa will end next month, my residency at the Récollets will be over, my scholarship allowance will stop. I somehow have to set up a new life.
Daphné Papps
AFTER SEVERAL MESSAGES, Nadine’s acting agent finally calls me back and says come tomorrow at noon and, whatever I do, don’t forget my paperwork. Before I can say anything else she has hung up.
I forget the paperwork. My bowels pang as I run back up the métro stairs and across the blocked intersection to the Récollets, before sprinting back to the same spot, dialling Daphné’s nu
mber.
‘Well, merde, just get ’ere,’ she barks. ‘You have wasting my time with this phone call.’
I consider not going, but can’t pass up the opportunity. Perhaps she’s nicer in the flesh.
Daphné Papps Management is the ugliest building in the prettiest street in the 9th arrondissement. The shabby door in the back of an old courtyard has DPM printed on it in faded gold. I press a buzzer. A dog yelps inside and the door is ripped open, and a woman with wild grey hair leads me through a series of rooms as she rants in French/English about lateness and lazy actors. Daphné, Nadine told me, while French, lived in England for a long time, which is why she represents zee anglophones.
She rips a chair from under her desk and bangs it in behind my knees, lighting a cigarette. ‘Understand?’
‘Yes,’ I stammer. ‘I really am sorry.’
She is scary-looking, though the distant echoes of great beauty are still there. Beyond the puckered anus mouth painted clumpy red, rotting nicotine-stained teeth and bulging glass eye, her face is perfectly proportioned and her grey hair long and thick. The office is damp, the walls also nicotine-stained, and the dusty desk is littered with filthy ashtrays. A picture of Daphné smiling with Charlotte Rampling is blu-tacked to the side of an old computer, which makes an old-fashioned hum. Charlotte smiles, reminding me of my insignificance. A fan blows stinky air onto the damp dog that comes to slobber on my knee.
‘Bisou,’ says Daphné, her face lighting up. ‘Come here, you beautiful darling of my heart, yes chérie, I love you, come to Mummy, oui, oui.’ And the dog pads over to her to receive a full-blown kiss on the mouth.
Then, like lightning, the bitch face is back on me.
‘So why the ’ell are you in Paris if you are an actor speaking English? You ’ave no brain?’
I tell her how I plan to stay and work as an actor here, in French, English, whatever. How I want to mount a theatre company and make my own solo work too.
