The Rules of Engagement (4 page)

This was no doubt the reason for my marrying
Digby, without questioning the suitability of the
arrangement. I knew that he was kind, and that I was
more or less prepared to accommodate myself to him:
my culinary skills and my untested propriety
would, I thought, be adequate for whatever else
might be required of me. But when I saw
Betsy again, in that brief exchange at the
wedding, I knew that she held the secret from which
I was apparently disbarred. She had the sort of
smile that went directly to the heart; it revealed
not only her vulnerability, but her
accessibility. I believed, or maybe I
wanted to believe, that she was as untested as I
was, yet I could see that there was a readiness about
her, a propensity to trust, which I did not
possess. A man would like her, as well as love
her; intimacy would be no problem, for she would
appeal to the tenderness, even to the remaining innocence
of her partner. And I knew that she would
instinctively reject the sort of arrangement I
had entered into, in which the lover or husband is a
sort of uncle, hearty and kind and
protective, and the wife a perpetual niece
or ward. Much as I longed to be taken in and
sheltered I could see that the first sight of my
husband caused Betsy's eyes to widen with a
sort of surprise. Pride came to my
rescue once again as I waved her towards one of
our other friends. I did not much care whether she
knew anybody else. I was obscurely
assaulted, for the moment, by some of the regret and pity
she obviously felt, until I summoned a
smile and drank another glass of champagne.
“
Careful, dearest,
”
murmured my husband, but
he pressed my hand. He too had noticed what
I had noticed, and he felt for me. As I
say, he was a man of the utmost
generosity.

And I could see from her untarnished gaze that she
was still the girl who had declaimed Racine's
lines
—”
Que le jour recommence, et
que le jour finisse ar Sans que jamais
Titus puisse voir
Bérénice
”—
and that
she would, in the same exalted spirit, accept all
love's challenges, and remain just as faithful as
if she had committed herself from the moment her eyes
had met those of her lover, whoever he was, and
however unsuitable he might turn out to be. I
could also see that her appeal would be to young men not much
older than herself, that she would not suit a man like
my husband who, at his age, knew what he was
prepared to settle for. Digby would not care
to rely on ecstasy as his principal fare. He
preferred, as I had come to realize, a settled
relationship in a suitable environment. He had
been married before, in his thirties; his wife had
died giving birth to their child, who had also died.
Therefore I was able to concede that he too must be
indulged, protected, never again exposed
to tragedy or loss. He had, as the French
say, assumed, taken it upon himself: he did not
refer to those events except to inform me of them.
During that exchange his expression had hardened, which
warned me that this matter was to remain a secret.
So that for ever after we were doomed to be on our
guard. He trusted me and I wanted to be
worthy of his trust. Whereas the woman that Betsy
was, or was destined to be, would share such a
secret and would be allowed to do so.

When I had learned that she was to be based in
Paris I had given her Mme Lemonnier's
address, knowing that she was just the kind of daughterly
personality to make this bitter old lady
happy. That was another odd thing about Betsy: she
had all the daughterly virtues, although she had
never in any sense been a daughter. This had not
marked her, although it may have left her vulnerable
to whatever affection she was offered. She too may have
longed to be taken in
—
perhaps all women share this
archaic longing. Given the opportunity she would
treasure her position in some sort of hierarchy,
some sort of household. This in no way
derogated from her disposition as a lover; indeed the
one might have enhanced the other. And yet I could
see that she would not be suited to the sort of hierarchy
I should soon be part of: settled,
middle-class, respectable. Her
aspirations would be more poetic, her chosen
co-ordinates more ideal. She would be ready
to embrace a family, but only if every member of
that family was beautiful, rare, exceptional,
enjoying a status far above the ordinary. Whereas
my taciturnity would make me more adaptable, more
realistic, able to call on those reserves I had
perfected while sitting in those
cafés
and
restaurants or wandering about the city, finding some
sort of peace in the indifference of passers-by and the
beauty of the material world. As far as I was
concerned I was being given an opportunity to share
in that world, and throughout that onerous wedding reception I
reminded myself rather forcefully of this fact.
And yet whenever I thought of that room in Paris,
as I sometimes did, puzzling over the fact that it
had given me so little pleasure, I seemed to see
Betsy in it, resolutely happy, as she always
was, and, knowing that her good faith would at some stage
be put at risk, I had an impulse
to protect her, or perhaps to wish on her some of my
own impermeability. I did not, until a much
later stage, question the fact that in my mind's eye
it was Betsy who inhabited the room and not myself.

I was outside, in the lawless streets, while
she, in her quest for a home, had accepted this
setting, embracing what was handed on to her without the
slightest feeling of discontent or incongruity.
She was a romantic, as I was not; she was even a
serial romantic. No discouragement could
deflect her high hopes, even when it had been
demonstrated that these were not appropriate.
I caught up with her again as I was circling the
room to say goodbye to my wellwishers.
“
How
is Mme Lemonnier?
”
I asked her,
attacked by a brief passing nostalgia for
Paris where I had learned my lessons of
self-sufficiency. Suddenly this absurd setting
—
the flowers, the dressed-up guests, my mother's
high-pitched laughter
—
seemed intolerable. I
longed to get out into the air, preferably by myself, and
to take a long walk in the cooling evening.

“
Oh, but I'm not there any more, or shan't be
in a week's time. I'm moving to the rue
Cler.
”

“
Alone?
”

“
No. I've met someone, you see.
Actually I've known him for a couple of months.
A few of us used to get together to talk about the
situation in the universities. There's a
lot of that going on at the moment, now that we're
looking for a way forward.
”

“
And this group, I take it, has a
leader?
”

“
Yes, a former teacher. Well, I
suppose he still is. He's a philosopher, a
communist. Very prestigious, very charismatic.
Roland.
”

“
And is he your friend? The one you're with? In the
rue Cler?
”
This last I hazarded at a
venture. It was hardly my business
to interrogate her, though she was obviously willing
for me to do so.

“
My friend, as you so tactfully put it, is
Daniel. And yes, we are together.
”
Her
smile grew radiant.
“
We might even get
married. I'd like you to meet him.
”

“
Of course. You must bring him to dinner.
We'll be back from Venice on the
twenty-fifth. You'll give me a call?
”

“
I'd love to. I have to come to London
to put the house up for sale, probably next
month. Now that I know I'll be staying in
Paris.
”
The smile seemed destined never
to leave her face.
“
It's only small, the
rue Cler, I mean; really only an attic
with a cabinet de toilette. But when I've
sold the house we can look for something a bit more
substantial.
”

“
You wanted to be an interpreter,
”
I
reminded her.
“
Has that all gone by the board?
What does Daniel do?
”

“
He's still a student. He was very active in
the protests. He's a year younger than I
am.
”

And you are twenty-five, I reflected. My
age. I felt Digby's hand on the small of
my back.
“
Time to move on, I think,
”
he
said. Maybe he feared an exchange of
confidences.

“
Don't forget,
”
I said, as he steered me
away. We had both been dismissed. Girlhood
friendships were no longer to be my lot. When I
got to the door I looked round and waved to her.
She must have been waiting for me to do so, for she
raised her hand at exactly the same moment.
Then I was moved towards the lift that would take us
to our room, and to married life. I gave a thought
to the discrepancy that Paris had brought about in our
respective lives, and briefly
regretted the lack of romance in Digby's
veined hand unlocking the door.

“
I'd love a cup of tea,
”
he said.
“
I can't stand champagne in the middle of the
afternoon.
”
“
I'll order it,
”
I said. That was my first
attempt to make him comfortable, in what was clearly
a relatively uneasy situation. He was
tired, and it showed in his face. He looked
nearly as old as my father, whom I had not
managed to thank for all the fuss. As we drank
our tea the strain we both felt slowly
dissipated. We had baths, changed into simpler
clothes, decided to go out for dinner, and let the rest
of the day take care of itself. We were due to catch
an early plane the following morning, and would
probably appreciate an early night. That was
what Digby said. I envisaged a succession of
early nights, in which nothing very remarkable would take
place. In this I misjudged him, and was
pleasantly surprised.

But when I woke briefly in the night, or rather
in the early morning, what filled my mental
horizon was the image of love in a garret, in
the sort of Paris that had not been disclosed to me,
or rather that I had been incapable of seeing. This
mental Paris was the Paris of those foreign films
that had been the main feature of my solitary
afternoons. It was those images that returned to me now,
with Betsy's face imposed on that of the female
lead. And for the next few minutes, or for as long
as the scene lasted, I was aware of myself, a
spectator, sitting in the audience, while
outside the sun shone down on a Paris I had
never known.