Incidents in the Rue Laugier (7 page)

At the end of the second week it had seemed impossible to capture the attention of these girls for any length of time, nor, in truth, did he find them attractive, with their big feet and their noisy voices, certainly not as attractive as David, who emerged from various bedrooms, looking amused and restless, as if ever ready for the next partner. When he realised the extent of his friend’s power over him, Xavier became very
thoughtful, locked his door in the evenings, and resolved to return to France and to obey his mother, who wished him to marry someone suitable as soon as possible, so that he could begin his apprenticeship at the bank with a full panoply of honourable attributes. David, who was intelligent, had sensed this, had not pressed his advantages, and had invited Xavier not to any more louche parties but to his parents’ lavish flat in Chelsea, and then, for two successive weekends, to their house in Worcestershire. In the presence of a wealth he had not suspected, Xavier felt impressed, unsure of himself, but the parents were offhandedly kind and asked him the sort of questions of which his own parents would have approved. At home David’s sexuality disappeared as though it had never been. The absence of any kind of saturnalia, of any female company at all, reassured Xavier, who thought his earlier feelings must have been the effect of drunkenness. He was allowed to play a splendid piano in the Worcestershire drawing-room, and began, cautiously, to feel at ease with himself once more. When he issued his invitation to spend the following summer at La Gaillarderie the invitation was graciously accepted. A year later, it occurred to him that this may not have been such a good idea. His own feelings, now that he had gained some insight into them, were under control, but now there was Maud to be considered. He shrugged his shoulders. Maud was old enough to look after herself. Besides, there might be some antipathy between them, some mutual disapproval. David, he knew, did not take kindly to disapproval, and Maud had a scathing eye. He dismissed the knowledge that her scathing eye, together with her distant gaze and imperious expression, were summoned up to conceal a very real feeling of inadequacy. He had noted the inexpensive blouse and skirt. She was not only untouched, he told himself: she was disastrously unprepared.

Maud, sitting on the terrace with her mother and her aunt, and once more caressing her wide skirts—for they were all now changed for the evening—reflected that if she had risked upsetting her mother she could at this moment be with her friend Julie in the latter’s villa in Corsica. In the end some residual affection, something like pity for that unrelenting mother, had made her drop the subject shortly after she had introduced it. She loved her mother, but tried to distance herself from that same mother’s plans for her: she had been ashamed, on more than one occasion, of her mother’s unforced enthusiasm whenever she invited Julie and Julie’s brother Lucien to tea—and Lucien was not even an acceptable escort, in her mother’s opinion. She was determined to conduct any flirtation that came her way out of her mother’s sight, if that were possible. So far the matter had not arisen, nor had she seriously thought to thwart her mother’s plans for her. Sadly, she realised that those plans were all too obvious, and felt a resentment that brought in its wake that unwanted pity. Only she knew how her mother looked forward to Sunday afternoons at the cinema, knew of her secret admiration for certain highly stylised actresses. Only she knew how much it cost her mother to spend two weeks under the humiliating patronage of her sister, for the pleasure of eating that sister’s excellent food, even if it came with a full complement of unwanted advice. And for the odd excursion by car, if Xavier were not too busy. And, always and above all, for the chance to meet Xavier’s friends, to be in the front row, as it were, when he brought those friends home. In return for these various advantages Nadine played her part, was agreeable and self-effacing, and was pleased to see that Maud’s good manners reflected her own.

It was the witching hour, ‘between dog and wolf’, as Germaine never failed to observe. On the terrace they sat momentarily
silent, becalmed by the beauty of the summer evening. A golden light lay on the park; beyond the spacious lawns the trees of the little wood stood motionless. From the house they could hear the distant voices of the servants, who indeed seemed to talk all the time; it was agreeable for once, thought Maud, to know that they were being taken care of, or rather that her mother was being taken care of. She herself endured these summer visits much as she would have endured an enforced stay in some foreign country, in which, for reasons which were mysterious to her, she was detained against her will. Briefly, and almost tenderly, she thought of Dijon, and its monotonous but acceptable routines, in comparison with which this place was both more challenging and more abrasive. She felt no sense of affinity with her aunt, although she responded in a mild way to Xavier’s courtesies. She was conscious of her lack of status, conscious too of a very real social inflexibility, which frequently mortified her. She could not laugh and joke and flirt, as other girls seemed to be able to do. In a way it suited her to sit silent on the terrace, at this late golden hour, Xavier absent, her mother and her aunt for once not exerting their formidable and conflicting wills.

She acknowledged the beauty of the setting, although she thought beauty an altogether extravagant term, whether it was applied to poetry or scenery or the harmonious features of an attractive face. She told herself that she had not yet encountered beauty, in its purest form. What she meant by that was not quite clear to her; in the meantime she rejected what she thought of as imitations. She was aware of opposing a certain resistance to the world, yet all the time she was secretly prepared for that resistance to be overcome. She longed for a lover, one whom she did not know. She would, she was convinced, recognise that stranger, would appropriate him, away from watchful eyes. But this was her secret, the secret that kept
her own eyes downcast and her fine lips pressed prudishly together. It would be managed eventually: it would have to be managed. For now her silence, as always, would be the best concealment.

Maud watched a solitary leaf fall to the grass, the first no doubt of the coming autumn, although the sky now held the whiteness of a late summer evening. She admired her foot in its narrow ballerina shoe and suppressed a yawn.

‘Tomorrow there will be company for you, Maud,’ said her aunt, who had seen the slight grimace but who was uncharacteristically well disposed at this time of day. ‘The girls will be coming over. You remember Marie-Paule and Patricia, don’t you?’ Maud remembered them, without enthusiasm. ‘They will want to play tennis with Xavier and his friend. Perhaps they will give you a game, Maud. Did you bring a racquet? No? Well, I’m sure Xavier can find a spare one. Or perhaps you would like to go into Meaux with your mother? Xavier might be able to drive you, although you’ll have to take a taxi back. Ah! I think I can hear the car!’ She got to her feet. ‘Yes! It’s Xavier back from the station with his friend. Good. I know dinner has been ready for a few minutes, and Marie gets so put out … Here they are.’

Maud and her mother stood up in honour of the epochal arrival of Xavier’s friend, who now emerged from the car, rose to his full amazing height, and with every appearance of pleasure surveyed the house.

‘Mother,’ said Xavier, ‘may I present my friend, David Tyler?’

‘So good of you to invite me,’ murmured the visitor. ‘I wonder if I might have a quick bath before dinner? I seem to have been travelling for most of the day.’

Mme de Bretteville, who was not used to having her hand kissed by so handsome a stranger, and who was agreeably impressed
by his manners—by his courtliness, in fact—said, in a voice which was only minimally flustered, ‘By all means … Xavier will show you … And if there is anything you want …’

‘So kind. I usually bathe in the evening, if that is all right with you. But of course you must tell me the house rules. I don’t want to be a nuisance.’

When he reappeared they all—Maud, Xavier, Xavier’s mother, Maud’s mother—gazed at him as if he had successfully survived some initiation ceremony. Across the dinner table they inhaled the aroma of Yardley’s lavender soap. The dinner was ruined, but seeing him eat with such good appetite they felt that this did not, for once, matter. Conversation, largely between Mme de Bretteville and the guest, was delicate, muted, almost flirtatious.

‘And have you chosen a profession?’ enquired Mme de Bretteville with a girlish smile.

‘Advertising,’ said the guest, manoeuvring a burnt and adhesive slice of apple fritter to his mouth.

‘Fascinating,’ approved Mme de Bretteville, ardently. ‘And such an enterprising choice.’

‘Not really,’ he said, gazing into her eyes. ‘My father owns an agency.’

Maud, noting that this man was probably very wicked, suppressed a smile. At this stage the honour of her family, of her mother and herself, was uppermost in her mind. She was by no means averse to her aunt being made to look a fool. In herself she registered nothing more portentous than an agreeable lightening of the spirits. This holiday might, with a bit of luck, be a little more entertaining than the others.

F
ROM THE RUE LAUGIER ONE CAN TAKE ONE OF THREE MAIN
walks. One can turn left into the Avenue de Wagram and go due north until one hears the shunting of the trains in the goods yard beyond the rue de Tocqueville. Another, more promising, way leads one through the Place des Ternes, again along the shorter arm of the Avenue de Wagram to the Place de l’Etoile. The third, and most attractive, takes one to the Place des Ternes, then down the rue du Fauborg Saint-Honoré, which leads straight to the Place du Palais Royal and the centre.

By the end of this third day Harrison had taken all these routes, preferring the third, which released him from the oppression of all the commanding avenues and delivered him to a more recognisable Paris, the city he remembered from previous visits and which he flattered himself he knew quite well. But on those previous visits he had not been alone, had been
with his parents, or with Bibi, had taken the Métro with an air of triumph at how easy it all was. Now he felt duty bound to walk, had in fact walked several miles, only to discover that crossing the wide streets was hazardous, even in this month of August, when Paris was supposed to be empty. His head buzzed with noise; he drank too much coffee, just for an excuse to sit down. He would have worried about the amount of money he was spending, had he not been aware of the fact that in the bank, at home—for he supposed that London was now home—was the comfortable sum left to him by Mr Sheed. Nevertheless it pleased him to think of himself as a poor student: indeed, for several reasons he felt a sense of genuine penury which for the moment he did nothing to dismiss. In this place, so large, larger than he remembered it, and so unexpectedly adult, the feeling of penury, of caution, even of suspicion, felt authentic, as if it had been dictated that he should be cut down to size. On more than one occasion the thought had struck him that he was not up to this. In view of his proposal to see the world, in the guise of an amused traveller, his present state of mind was disconcerting. Temporary, of course, but disconcerting nevertheless.

Much of his present dismay had to do with the manner of his arrival. It had been swelteringly hot when he emerged from the Gare du Nord, and his decision to take a bus, worked out well in advance, had disintegrated as soon as he saw the last taxi on the rank preparing to drive off. He had leapt forward and secured it, had bundled his bag on to the rear seat, had squeezed himself in beside it, and had spent the journey to the rue Laugier trying to avoid the hot acrid breath of the driver’s dog, which kept a not too friendly eye on him and panted into his face. As the taxi jolted through the evening crowds he had briefly experienced the spirit of adventure which he had supposed would attend him as a familiar. ‘I have
arrived!’ he told himself, dismissing a faint disappointment that there was no one to greet him. Fumbling with his money, also prepared in advance (but it was not enough), he had glanced up at the imposing grey stone building that was to be his home—for how long? He did not know. He had knocked on the glass door of the concierge’s apartment, and had announced himself. ‘Harrison,’ he had said, aware of thirst, and of his shirt sticking to his back.

‘There is no one of that name here,’ said a small secretive-looking woman. ‘How did you get in? You should have rung the bell.’

‘Someone was coming out,’ he replied.

‘But that was irregular. You should have rung the bell. Whom did you want?’

‘Vermeulen,’ he said.

‘Monsieur and Madame Vermeulen are in Brittany. They are not expected back for another month. Nicole!’ she called to someone in the room behind her, which he could not see, the door being open little more than an inch or two. ‘The soup! I regret, Monsieur,’ she said, making as if to close the door in his face.

‘But I am expected,’ he said. There was a pause. When the pause proved inconclusive he held out a ten franc note, which she took without acknowledgment, unless ‘Your name again?’ was the acknowledgment he had been waiting for.