Aimez-vous Brahms (3 page)

Simon looked at him, then propped his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands.

"You're right, Monsieur: you must forgive me. I think I've had rather a lot to drink. But I discovered this morning that I had done nothing with my life. Nothing."

"Then do us a favour and clear off."

"Let him be," Paule said gently. "He's unhappy. We've all had a little too much to drink some time or other. Besides, he's your . . . Teresa's son."

"He's
what!"
said Roger, with a start. "Well, I'll be . . .!"

He leaned forward. Simon had sunk his head on to his arms.

"Wake up," said Roger. "We'll have a drink together. You can tell us your troubles. I'll go and fetch the drinks: the service is too slow."

Paule was beginning to have fun. The thought of a conversation between Roger and this young will- o'-the-wisp tickled her. Simon had raised his head; he was watching Roger fight his way between the tables.

"There goes a man," he said. "Huh? A real hunk of man? I loathe those beefy, masculine types with their wholesome ideas and their ..."

"People are never that simple," Paule said tartly.

"Do you love him?"

"That's no concern of yours."

A lock of hair hung over his eyes, the candlelight hollowed out his face, he was superb. At the next table, two women surveyed him blissfully.

"Forgive me," said Simon. "Gosh, I've done nothing but apologise all day long. I must be pretty uncouth."

Roger returned with three drinks and growled that it happened to everyone some time or other. Simon drained his glass at a gulp and maintained a discreet silence. He sat beside them and made no move to go. He watched them dance and listened to their talk with such total unresponsiveness that gradually they forgot him. But from time to time Paule
would turn and find him sitting at her side like a well-behaved child and she could not help laughing.

When they rose to leave, he stood up politely and collapsed. They decided to take him home. In Roger's car he slept and his head knocked against Paule's shoulder. He had silken hair, he breathed softly. After a time she put her hand to his forehead to stop it hitting the window, and his head grew heavy against her hand; it hung quite loose. When they reached the Avenue Kléber, Roger got out, walked round the front of the car and opened the door.

"Careful," whispered Paule.

He caught her expression, but said nothing and got Simon out of the car. That night he went up to Paule's flat after driving her back and clutched her to him in his sleep, keeping her awake for hours.

4

A
T
noon next day, as she knelt in the window trying to convince the couturier that as a hat display unit a plaster bust was not quite the last word in originality, Simon arrived. He had been watching her for five minutes, hidden behind a kiosk, with thudding heart. Not knowing any more whether it thudded because he was seeing her or because he was hiding. He had always loved hiding; there were times, too, when he made tortuous use of his left hand, as though the right were clutching a revolver or covered with eczema—this terrified people in shops. It was a case for the psycho-analyst, or so his mother claimed.

As he looked at Paule kneeling in the window, he would have preferred never to have met her; not to be seeing her like this, through the glass. He would not then be faced with the likelihood of a second rebuff. What could he have said the night before? He had behaved like a young fool, got disgustingly drunk, gone on about his moods—the crowning indecency . . . He ducked back behind the kiosk, nearly went off, then shot her a final glance. Immediately he wanted to cross the road, snatch the hat away from her—that cruel hat with its long pins—and at the same time snatch
her
away from her work; from this life which got her out of bed at dawn to come and kneel in a shop window in full view of everyone. Passers-by were stopping and gazing at her with curiosity, some of them—no doubt—desiring her as she knelt there, reaching for the plaster bust. He wanted her very much and crossed the road.

He imagined her sick of being stared at, greeting him as a welcome diversion; but she restricted herself to a terse smile.

"Do you want a hat for somebody?"

He started to mumble something, but the couturier hustled him aside, not without coquetry.

"My dear sir, you are waiting for Paule—it's quite all right by me; but sit down over here and let us finish."

"He isn't waiting for me," Paule said, shifting a candlestick.

"I'd put it on the left if I were you," said Simon. "And a little farther back. It's more evocative."

For a moment she glared at him. He smiled. Already he had switched parts. Now he was the young man calling for his mistress in elegant surroundings. The young man of exquisite taste. And the admiring sodomite couturier had unsuspectingly become, or was about to become, a standing joke between Paule and himself.

"He's right," said the couturier. "It's much more evocative."

"Of what?" said Paule coldly.

They stared at her.

"Of nothing. Nothing at all."

And he began to laugh, all to himself, with so gay a laugh that Paule turned away to dissociate herself from it. The couturier withdrew in annoyance. Simon advanced and, as she backed away from the window to get a better view, she knocked his shoulder. His hand closed on her elbow, supporting her on the dais.

"Look," he said dreamily, "the sun is out."

Through the spattered glass the sunlight welled into them with the sudden, remorseful warmth of autumn. Paule was aglow with it.

"Yes," she said, "the sun is out."

For a moment they stood quite still, she inches higher on the dais, standing with her back to him yet leaning against him. Then she disengaged herself.

"You should go and sleep."

"I'm hungry."

"Then go and eat."

"You wouldn't care to come with me?"

She hesitated. Roger had telephoned that he would probably be late. She had thought of having a sandwich in the bar across the street and doing some shopping. But this sudden call of the sun made the tiling of the cafés and the aisles of the large stores seem repugnant. She had a craving for grass, even now that it was yellowed by the season.

"I've a craving for grass," she said.

"Let's go and find some," he said. "I have my old car here. The country isn't far ..."

She flinched. The country with this unknown, possibly boring youngster . . . Two hours tête-à- tête . . .

". . . Or there's the Bois de Boulogne," he added reassuringly. "If you get bored, you can ring for a taxi."

"You think of everything."

"I may say I felt pretty ashamed when I woke up. I came to apologise."

"That kind of thing happens to everyone," Paule said gently.

She put her coat on. She dressed very well. Simon opened the car door and she took her seat without recalling just when she had said yes to this preposterous lunch. She tore her stocking getting in and gave a small groan of anger.

"I suppose your girl friends wear slacks."

"I don't have any these days."

"No girl friends?"

"No."

"How come?"

"I don't know."

She wanted to make fun of him. His mixture of timidity and daring, of gravity—at times almost ridiculous—and humour amused her. The words "I don't know" had been spoken practically in a whisper and with a great air of mystery. She shook her head.

"Try to remember . . . When did this general ostracism begin?"

"It's largely me, you know. I had a girl: she was nice, but too romantic. She was all that men and women of forty imagine young people to be."

Mentally, she chalked that one up to him.

"How
do
men and women of forty imagine young people?"

"Well. . . She looked sinister; she drove her four horse-power flat out, clenching her teeth; she lit a Gauloise the moment she opened her eyes in the morning . . . and to me she said that love was merely the contact of two skins."

Paule laughed.

"And . . .?"

"She still cried when I left her. I'm not proud of that," he added hurriedly. "It's a thing I loathe."

The Bois smelt of wet grass, gently mildewing wood, autumn roads. He pulled up by a small restaurant and tore round the car to open the door for her. Paule made a great muscular effort to get out gracefully. She felt completely on the loose.

Simon at once ordered a cocktail and Paule eyed him sternly.

"After the night you had, you ought to be drinking water."

"I feel fine. But I need a pick-me-up to stop you from getting too bored."

The restaurant was practically empty, the waiter sullen. Simon was silent and remained so when they had ordered. Paule, however, was far from being bored. She sensed that this was a deliberate silence, that Simon had planned his conversation for this meal. He must be incessantly full of sly notions, like a cat.

"It's much more evocative," he simpered suddenly, mimicking the couturier, and Paule, caught off guard, burst out laughing.

"Are you always such a good mimic?"

"Not bad. Unfortunately we don't have many mutual acquaintances. If I mimic my mother, you'll say I'm contemptible. But here goes: 'You don't think a touch of satin just here, a shade to the right, would give a little more warmth and atmosphere?' "

"You're contemptible, but accurate."

"As for your friend last night, I didn't see him clearly enough. Besides, he must be inimitable."

There was a momentary silence. Paule smiled.

"He is."

"Whereas I'm just a pale copy of any number of spoilt young brats, bundled into the professions thanks to their family and filling their time trying to fill their time. It's a come-down for you: this lunch, I mean."

The aggressiveness of his voice roused Paule.

"Roger was tied up," she said. "Otherwise I shouldn't be here."

"I know," he said, with a note of sadness which disconcerted her.

For the rest of the meal they spoke of their respective jobs. Simon mimicked a complete hearing of a case of
crime passionel.
At one point he got to his feet in full spate and levelled a finger at Paule, who was laughing a good deal.

"As for you, I accuse you of failing in your duty as a human being. In the name of the deceased, I accuse you of letting love go by, of neglecting your duty to be happy, of living on evasion, subterfuge and resignation. You ought to be sentenced to death, you
will
be sentenced to loneliness."

He stopped and drained his glass at a gulp. Paule had not batted an eyelid.

"A stiff sentence," she said with a smile.

"The worst," he said. "I can think of nothing worse, nor more inevitable. It frightens me more than anything else. It frightens everyone. But no one will admit it. There are times when I want to shout it from the roof-tops: 'I'm frightened, I'm frightened —love me!' "

"Me too," she said, as though involuntarily.

In a flash she saw the wall beyond the foot of her bed. With the drawn curtains, the unfashionable picture, the little chest of drawers on the left. The view which daily confronted her, night and morning, which would probably still confront her in ten years' time. When she was even lonelier than she was today. What was Roger playing at? He had no right, nobody could condemn her to get old like this; nobody, not even herself . . .

"I must strike you as even more ridiculous and whimpering than last night," said Simon softly. "Or perhaps you think it's just a boyish trick to get round you?"

He sat facing her, his pale eyes rather bleary, his face so smooth and open that she nearly put her hand to it.

"No, no," she said, "I was thinking ... I was also thinking that you were a bit young for that. And certainly too well loved."

"One can't live alone," he said. "Come on, we'll stretch our legs. It's beautiful out now."

They went out together, he took her arm and they walked for a while, without a word. Autumn welled up in Paule's heart, with great sweetness. The damp, russet leaves, clinging and trampled on, merged slowly on the ground. She felt a kind of fondness for the silent figure holding her arm. For a few minutes this stranger became a companion, someone to walk with, down a deserted avenue, at the year's close. She had always experienced fondness for her male companions, whether she took walks with them or lived with them, a kind of gratitude to them for being taller than she, at once so different and so like. Into her mind came the face of Marc, the husband she had left at the same time as the easy life; the face of another who had greatly loved her. And finally Roger's face, the only face her memory projected live, with changes of expression. Three companions in one woman's lifetime, three good companions. Wasn't that after all considerable?

"Are you feeling sad?" asked Simon.

She turned to him and smiled without answering. They kept walking.

"I should like," said Simon in a strangled voice, "I should like ... I don't know you, but I should like to think you were happy. I—er, I admire you."

She had stopped listening to him. It was late. Roger might have rung to suggest coffee. She would have missed him. He had talked of leaving on Saturday and spending the week-end in the country. Would she be able to get through her work in time? Would he still want to go? Or was this another of those promises which love and night-time wrenched from him, when (as she knew) he no longer envisaged life without her and their love struck him as so self-evident that he no longer struggled? But the moment he left the flat, the moment—outside on the pavement—he inhaled the heady aroma of his independence, she lost him again. She said little during the ride back, thanked Simon for giving her lunch and swore she would be delighted if he rang her one of these days. Simon watched her walk away. He did not move. He felt gauche and very weary.

5

I
T
really was a pleasant surprise. Roger turned to the bedside table and rummaged for a cigarette. The young woman beside him gave a short laugh.