The Kiss (12 page)

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.

‘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 realised 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.

When he came down in the lift he found the three girls waiting for him in the foyer. Clarinda, who spoke passable French, was talking to the receptionist. She turned triumphantly to Cormac.

‘I’ve found out what Cherche-Midi means! Seek the South! Madame says there’s an astronomer’s sign on the wall of number nineteen. That’s how the street gets its name.’

She had to see it, of course – she was good at getting her way, he had come to realise, through sheer determination – and so they progressed down the rue du Cherche-Midi and stopped outside number nineteen. There was the sign. Clarinda stood gazing at it and Cormac was able to hazard a guess at what was playing in her mind. Gwen is standing here.
She is looking at the sign and thinking of the warmth of the Midi. She is on her way home to her little room at number eighty
-seven
where she will await the arrival of Rodin. She will hear his heavy step on the stair, his broad knuckles on the door, and her heart will flutter
…

‘Let’s push on,’ said Cormac, ‘or we’ll never get there.’

He managed to manoeuvre himself between Sue and Cathy, which meant that Clarinda had to walk on the outside, by the kerb. Whenever they had to break ranks to allow other people to pass he saw to it that they reformed as before. Their journey out to Meudon was not going to be straightforward, like the ride to Clignancourt. They were on their way to the Métro at Sèvres-Babylone. Clarinda was disappointed.

‘Are we not going to take the train from Montparnasse?’ she asked. ‘That was how Rodin usually went home. And Gwen would see him to the station. Don’t you want to go the way Rodin went?’

‘Not particularly,’ said Cormac. ‘And this is just as quick. Probably quicker. It’s a longer walk to Montparnasse.’

Clarinda should not object to a shorter walk. Her feet must be in a mess after yesterday’s boulevard hike though she was not complaining. She never did, whereas the rest of them were always moaning about something, about having sore feet, being tired, hungry, thirsty, too hot, or too cold. They would stop every twenty minutes
if allowed to take on cargo. Packets of crisps, cans of coke, chocolate bars, anything that could be put in the mouth. It was a wonder some of them didn’t carry dummies with them. And then of course there were those who disappeared for a few minutes every so often and came back reeking of cigarette smoke. ‘You must think I was born yesterday,’ he told them.

Today, Clarinda was wearing trainers and they all carried anoraks since rain was forecast. At Sèvres-Babylone they took the Métro line 12 to the terminus of Mairie d’Issy. He contrived to sit beside Cathy, which left Clarinda to sit with Sue behind them. If he wasn’t careful they would be saying he was after Cathy! He could hear Clarinda telling Sue about Gwen John waiting for Rodin in the evening when he’d finished work at the studio.

‘She was a kind of stalker, then?’ said Cathy.

‘I wouldn’t call her that.’

‘Yes, but to hang about waiting for him to throw her a few crumbs. Give us a break! Wouldn’t catch me doing that for any guy—’

‘She had been his mistress, don’t forget.’

‘Big deal. Then he dumped her, didn’t he? Got what he wanted from her and said bye-bye, baby.’

‘It was that ghastly American woman who was married to a French duke that messed it all up for
her. She vamped him to bits and poor Gwen was left standing.’

‘More fool her.’

‘But she adored him.’

Cormac asked Cathy what she was going to do when she left school and set up a conversation for the two of them. She thought she might like to work for one of the building societies, which didn’t seem to offer much scope for discussion though he struggled to engage in one.
Do you find the idea of mortgages interesting?
He could hardly ask her that though perhaps he should, for she might. He was always interested in other people’s interests. ‘What draws you to that especially?’ he asked.

‘My dad works for the Woolwich,’ she said.

‘Gets me what you see in her,’ Sue was saying to Clarinda. ‘She sounds like a real drip.’

‘I don’t say I necessarily
admire
the way she carried on with Rodin. She did go over the top at times—’

‘I’ll say. Some of those letters, about her body yearning for his touch and wanting to put her lips against his neck, stuff like that. Could you imagine writing those things to a guy, especially one that doesn’t want you?’

Clarinda murmured something, but whether she was agreeing or disagreeing it would have been difficult to say.

Sue went on, ‘And then there was that bit about her setting light to her hair down
there
. I mean to say! And wanting to cut herself! She must have been bananas.’

‘Only when she was desperate—’

‘Is the Woolwich a good place to work?’ asked Cormac but Cathy did not answer; she was too intent on listening to the conversation going on behind them. He wondered why Clarinda had been reading out bits of the diary to the girls when they would obviously not be sympathetic. She would have a hard job trying to convert them.

‘But I do admire her work,’ Clarinda was continuing. ‘And, as a person, she intrigues me. That she could be so absolute. There is something about going to the edge—’

‘Right, girls!’ said Cormac, springing up.

They had reached the end of the line. They disembarked to find that the promised rain had arrived and was sheeting down. Cathy and Sue peered out into it, looking as if they would cut and run given the slightest encouragement.

‘Anoraks on, hoods up!’ said Cormac. They now had to catch a bus to Hôpital Percy. After a fifteen minute wait at the stance, during which time Cathy and Sue groused about wet feet, a bus came, and a short ride took them to their destination.

The Villa des Brillants was situated on a hill behind
the military hospital looking down over the valley. The house was not brilliant, he had warned them, so that they would not be disappointed.

‘It’s kind of ugly,’ said Cathy, as they approached it up a long drive. ‘With that sticky-up grey slate roof and those wee dormer windows poking out. And I don’t like red and white brick.’

‘It’s called the North Oxford style,’ said Clarinda, before Cormac could respond. She had read it in a book, of course, one of the ones he had lent her. He was beginning to wonder if she knew them off by heart. ‘It was the garden that Rodin liked so much. He loved sitting on a bench with his two dogs when it was getting dark, and watching the lights come on in Paris down below. Didn’t he, Cormac?’

‘I believe he did.’

‘That’s why he thought it worth the effort to walk to the station at Montparnasse every night and make the journey out here. It would be wonderful to work out here. Wouldn’t it, Cormac?’ Clarinda’s eyes had that shiny look again.

‘I guess it would,’ he said. When he had first come he had had the same thought, had imagined himself working in the pavilion where many of Rodin’s rough casts were on display.

‘Once, when Rodin was away,’ said Clarinda, ‘Gwen
brought her cat and camped in the bushes and sketched the house. Rose Beuret, that’s the old peasant woman he lived with, came out into the garden and pottered about with the two dogs but she didn’t see Gwen. Lucky the dogs didn’t smell the cat! Gwen wasn’t jealous of Rose, though. She felt that Rose kept Rodin’s other women away.’ Clarinda laughed. ‘But can’t you just imagine it – Gwen crouching in the bushes there trying to keep her cat quiet!’

‘What was she doing bringing her cat with her?’ asked Sue.

‘She adored her cats. She liked to paint them. On the way home in the tram the cat shot out the door when it stopped at St Cloud and Gwen nearly went off her head. She leapt off the tram herself but there was no sign of Tiger – that was the cat’s name. She spent nine days living rough on a piece of waste ground near the river looking for him. But she did find him in the end.’

‘I think she was off her head anyway,’ said Cathy.

‘She was an artist,’ said Clarinda, going ahead.

‘Are all artists potty?’ asked Cathy.

‘Most of them are fairly neurotic,’ said Cormac. ‘They possibly have to be in order to persevere.’ Though as he said this he wondered if Rodin could be called neurotic. He’d been obsessed by his work.
But was that the same thing? He’d always had an image of the sculptor as a man securely earthed, with a strong centre and a deep religious but not fanatical faith.

They paid their entrance money and went into the house. It was quite modest, having only three bedrooms upstairs, which they were not permitted to see, and on the ground floor, a dining room, a small salon and Rodin’s
atelier,
all of which were open for inspection.

The interior, however, was light, with its long windows and attractive avocado-green and cream decor. The dining room was the part of the house they found most
sympathique.
They lingered there, imagining Rodin seated at the table, served by the elderly peasant woman. Even Cathy liked the room.

‘It must have been peaceful for him to come back to after the hurly-burly of Paris,’ said Cormac. ‘Here, he could relax. Rose appears to have been undemanding.’ He was thinking that perhaps all artists could do with a Rose but would not have dared say so. He would have been torn limb from limb by Cathy and Sue, metaphorically speaking, of course.

‘The women in Paris that mobbed him seemed to have been demanding enough.’ Cathy shook her head. ‘I still don’t understand how he managed to pull them all so easily. I mean, I know he was a genius
but he was no looker. And he was
old
. Same age as my granda.’

‘One night,’ said Clarinda, in the voice of a storyteller, ‘Gwen followed him home.’

‘Not for the first time, I bet,’ interrupted Cathy.

‘She crept up the garden to that window there and looked in on him and Rose and watched them at their meal.’

‘She was lucky she wasn’t arrested,’ said Cathy.

‘You could go on that Mastermind, Clarinda,’ said Sue, ‘and answer questions on Gwen John.’

Clarinda had not heard. She had gone to stand in the doorway of Rodin’s
atelier
with a rapt look on her face.

The sun emerged as they came out of the house. They went next to the pavilion in the garden, which had been erected after Rodin’s death. On entering it, Clarinda gasped. The long building was filled with white plaster casts of his sculptures and terracotta models, the whole lit by golden sunshine.