Incidents in the Rue Laugier (11 page)

The grass was so dry that she did not hear his footfalls, and when she saw his feet approaching she lowered her eyes suddenly to the ground. The wooden steps creaked under his weight as he sat down beside her.

‘Here you are,’ he said absently. ‘Aren’t you too hot?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘I like the heat.’

Indeed she felt that the heat had given her some power, so that she did not immediately move away from him.

‘I think you are not having a very good time, Maud.’

‘No,’ she heard herself say. ‘Not very.’

‘I expect you miss your own friends. Your boyfriend. You have a boyfriend?’

‘Of course.’

This was not entirely untrue. The young instructor of her English course was plainly fond and had asked her out several times. When it came to inviting him to the house and introducing him to her mother she had decided that her mother’s enthusiasm would be more than she could endure and had deduced from this that the man had no real fascination for her other than a mild liking and an opportunity to avoid the Sunday visit to the cinema. He would drive her out into the country: they would have lunch: they would kiss in a manner more consistent with friendship than with desire. Sometimes, on the return journey in the car, she would almost regret not having gone to the cinema with her mother. It was the cinema that now came to mind, images of other kisses, other bodies.

‘You seem quite happy here,’ she said with an effort.

‘Oh, I’m not happy all the time.’

He picked a blade of grass and slid it between his lips. Inside the open collar of her blouse he could see her breast rising and falling. He stood up abruptly, but lingered. She waited, bracing herself for disappointment.

He held out a hand. ‘Come on. I want to show you something.’

She took his hand, touching him for the first time. He led the way across the parched lawn, into the cool of the house, up the stairs and along the upper corridor. He took her to a door at the very end which was always kept locked, turned the key and pointed to another, dustier staircase which she had not known existed. It was very dark. When he pushed open a door at the top the sudden glare confused her until her eyes adjusted to the light and she saw that they were under the roof. It was very hot, very silent. She walked to the dormer window and rested her head against the glass. She knew without looking that he stood behind her. Then he turned her round, put his hands on her waist, and laid her down gently on to the bare boards.

‘I have never done this before,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘That’s all right.’

It was over too soon. It was she who reached up to him and encouraged him to start again. When a distant clock chimed four she put out a hand and reached for her clothes. ‘I love you, Tyler,’ she said. He said nothing.

They locked the door at the bottom of the stairs behind them, stood for a moment looking at each other, then parted without a word. When she slipped into the room she shared with her mother she merely noted that her mother was asleep, then stretched out on her bed and fell asleep herself.

That evening, at dinner—stuffed peppers and pancakes—they were all in a better mood. All, it seemed, had slept and were refreshed. Nadine noted that her daughter looked better, had lost that air of haughty composure that occasionally made her look too old for her years, a fact apparently also noted by Harrison, who gazed at Maud with frank admiration. How simple he is, thought Nadine, who appreciated quite another kind of simplicity in men. Tyler was at his most charming, waiting on his hostess with the most delicate attentions, making her laugh, even teasing her. Germaine, her colour high, attempted to tease him back, without, it must be said, a great deal of success. Our generation is no good at this sort of thing, thought Nadine, who was not altogether unhappy to discover this. She is making herself look ridiculous, she thought; then, in an excess of sisterly solidarity, resolved to put a stop to it.

‘Maud must think about leaving,’ she said. ‘She is expected in London next week. When did you tell Jean to meet you, Maud?’

‘Next Monday. It will mean a very early start if I am to catch the train. Or perhaps I should leave here on Sunday and spend the night somewhere in Paris. I could ring up a friend … My friend Julie,’ she explained. ‘Julie is studying in Paris.’

‘But will she be there?’ enquired her mother. ‘I think you said she will be in Corsica until September.’

‘Well, it is nearly September,’ said Maud calmly.

‘I have a better idea,’ said Tyler. ‘Noddy and I must be going too. You have been too kind and we have had a marvellous time. I can’t thank you enough. But we should be moving on. Maud can come with us tomorrow and spend some time at the Vermeulens’. I know they’d be delighted. Armand Vermeulen is a friend of my parents.’

‘I don’t think …’ said Germaine.

‘Nothing to worry about. And then we’ll put her on the train on Monday morning. That way she’ll be taken care of.’

‘What do you think, Nadine?’

‘I think it’s very kind of Tyler, and—what did you say your name was? What did he call you? Noddy?’

‘Edward,’ said Harrison firmly. ‘My name is Edward.’

‘Then that’s settled.’

‘You’re sure, Nadine? After all, it means imposing on these friends of Tyler. Of Tyler’s parents.’

‘I am quite reassured to know that Maud will not be alone in Paris. After all, the times have been so unsettled.’

‘But this is 1971, Madame. You need have no fears on that score.’

She smiled at him. ‘And now I should like to offer an invitation. I should like to take us all out to dinner tomorrow night, to say thank you to Germaine, and to thank her not only for her hospitality but for a most enjoyable holiday. Where do you recommend, Germaine?’

‘Well, they say the Anneau d’Or in Meaux is quite excellent, but really, Nadine, there is no need …’

‘There is no need, but, I’m sure, every wish.’

She smiled triumphantly at her sister, surprised a smile on
Maud’s face, she who never smiled. Harrison—how simple he was, she thought again—smiled as happily as a boy. Tyler did not smile but stood behind his hostess’s chair. When she stood up and turned round to thank him he took her hand and kissed it.

All went to bed quite happy that night.

H
ARRISON DID NOT IMMEDIATELY ENQUIRE HOW TYLER
had prevailed upon the concierge to open all the doors in the flat, which was now revealed as agreeable and even welcoming, in sharp contrast to the archaic bedroom to which he had earlier been consigned. He particularly appreciated the salon, with its yellow walls and carpets, its two navy blue sofas, its glass coffee table, and its
faux-naif
pictures of cows in sunlit pastures on the walls—an interior decorator’s touch, he deduced, and bethought himself fleetingly of the red brick building in which he had so hastily rented a flat. Instantly he decided to move from there, to put down roots, to exert his claim to pale walls and carpets, and to say goodbye for ever to makeshifts, to sharing, to discomfort.

He even looked forward to putting down roots in the rue Laugier now that he had been rescued from loneliness. He reckoned he might stay another two or three weeks, or until
these Vermeulens let it be known, via the concierge, that they were about to return. He was, after all, owed something in the nature of a final holiday before taking up the burden of his adult life. Moreover there was something attractive in the prospect of spending days in the company of Tyler and Maud, three being a more propitious number than two for his immediate purpose, which was to drift in their wake, like a child with his parents, not having to speak or even to listen, but simply to stroll dreamily ten paces behind them, and thus free to enjoy the sights and sounds of Paris without that obligation to be constantly on the alert which destroys pleasure.

‘Which room shall I have?’ he asked, heaving his bag into the salon. It seemed, as always, natural to ask this of Tyler. Maud too, he noted, waited respectfully for him to pronounce.

Tyler ran his fingers through his black hair, which was growing rather long. He had caught the sun at La Gaillarderie and was now brown down to the opening of his shirt which he wore carelessly, as he wore all his clothes, but with an elegance which Harrison knew he could never master. He regretted his tie, his blazer, his lace-up shoes, all relics of an earlier life which should have been left behind long ago. He might ask Tyler to accompany him to the shops or perhaps advise him in some way: no, the idea was instantly repugnant. He would just have to keep a weather eye open for that exact colour of blue Oxford cloth, and that type of cream cotton trouser. In the meantime his blazer and flannels would have to do. Fortunately he had plenty of white shirts, but none so well cut as Tyler’s, which, owing to his dramatic height, would have to have been custom made. This interlude in the flat would provide him with an ideal opportunity to study Tyler for his own purposes, to acquire from him by stealth pointers to successful living, to watch him at leisure and unobserved, while Tyler’s attention was devoted to Maud, poor Maud, who would soon
be eaten up and as easily digested as all the others who had gone before and who would certainly come after. Not that he was out of sympathy with Maud; he thought her very pretty and admirably quiet, but he pitied her for allowing herself to be beguiled by Tyler, particularly since she had already witnessed the tenor of his behaviour from his activities in the summer house.

If he thought of Maud and Tyler making love, as he not infrequently did, certain looks and tiny gestures on her part having been intercepted by him—or was he preternaturally alert?—it was with a kind of woeful excitement which was both pleasurable and dangerous. If he thought more of Tyler than of Maud in this connection, the fact did not strike him as unnatural. He had predicted this affair before it had even happened, simply by virtue of Tyler’s being Tyler; he could not see that Maud had anything to offer him, attractive though he could observe her to be. She was, quite simply, not as glamorous as Tyler; Tyler outshone her, as he was programmed to do, probably for the rest of his life. Thus Tyler’s success held the seeds of Tyler’s downfall, for although he would constantly be loved, admired, appropriated, he would always be frustrated by the sameness of the pattern, and the quest for his true partner, who by the nature of things must be as prestigious as himself, would be unending.

It did not displease Harrison to think along these lines, while waiting for an answer to his question about the rooms. Tyler, however, stood silent, head lowered, contemplating the yellow carpet. Finally, with an air of resolution, he took a crumpled handful of money from his pocket, turned to Harrison, and said, ‘We need supplies. Milk, bread, that sort of thing. Fresh stuff. I noted a shop on the corner. Could you be an angel? Maud and I will sort ourselves out here.’

‘Oh, all right. Have you decided where we are to sleep?’

Tyler smiled. ‘Not yet. Off you go,’ he added gently. Take your time, was the implication. ‘There’s a string bag on the back of the kitchen door. Fruit,’ he added, pushing Harrison into the hall. Maud looked at him silently, her colour rising. He felt a slight distaste for her urgency, thinking it at odds with her superior expression. At the same time he acknowledged a stab of fellow feeling for her obvious lack of self-mastery, of any kind of mastery, for how could someone so transparent subdue a character like Tyler? He had it in him to pity Maud for the imminent breakdown of her entire personality. That haughty air would not serve her for much longer, he thought, unless she were strong enough to resist the temptation to become Tyler’s slave. He felt that he should warn her, should take her on one side, and tell her that as Tyler’s friend he felt it his duty to offer some advice, unacceptable though it might be: her best plan might be to catch the next train to Dijon, or to London—but if she were going to London that meant staying here until next Monday, and it was only Thursday morning …

It also occurred to him that if Tyler turned ruthless, Maud might be in need of his protection. At the same time, he wanted not to be cast as the blameless character who would be called upon to defend a woman’s honour. He would prefer, if given the choice, that odd sensation of being drawn on by them, of literally following them around, of observing their gestures, watching their progress. The idea excited him. He told himself that this did not necessarily constitute a misdemeanour. Indeed it was largely innocent, part of the pattern, now repeating itself, of a contented childhood spent loitering in the wake of the adults, while thinking his own thoughts, amusing himself mildly by imitating their walk, or simply kicking a pebble along, his mind reduced to animal level while others did his thinking for him. Hence the degree of self-absorption
which no doubt accounted for his not very active sex life: he liked women, but had difficulty in divorcing them from their sisterly status. He even liked Maud, or was prepared to like her, although he could not perceive her as a sister. Her heightened colour, now functioning as an automatic signal, alerted him to the fact that she was a sexual being still in the process of discovering the depths of her sexual nature. It was her imperviousness to himself that nettled him. Only the truly inexperienced can afford to neglect their manners in this respect. He felt irritated with Maud on several counts, not the least of which was the nagging thought that at some point someone was going to have to take charge of her, to wrest her from temptation, to put her on some train or other. Only then could he get together with Tyler and discuss more normal matters.