The Train to Paris (7 page)

‘Your martini, sir.' The barman had presented it to me on a tray. He wore a mauve tie that set him apart from his customers.

‘Thank you.'

He stared at me while pretending to clean down his work surface.

‘Is there something else?' I asked.

‘No sir, of course not.' He said this in English. My accent must have been worse than I thought. ‘Only that your friend is very…How do you say?…Forthright?'

‘Forthright. Yes, you could say that.'

‘She used to come here a lot.'

It was my turn to stare.

‘I have served her many times,' he continued. ‘Normally I would not remember, and I am sure that she does not remember me. Always the Campari and soda, though.'

‘Right.' I could see Élodie returning from the bathrooms, with her hair rearranged. I bent in closer across the bar. ‘Should I be worried about her?' I asked in a conspiratorial sort of a whisper.

‘I would not trust her. Be careful, sir.'

She arrived before I could respond. The barman kept watching us out of the corner of his eye. I asked Élodie if we should find a table. We took one by the window and I chose the seat with its back to the bar.

‘Are you all right, Lawrence?' she asked. ‘You've gone pale. Paler than usual, I mean. Did you not tan at all in Madrid?'

‘I never tan. It's an unfortunate constitution.'

‘I do feel sorry for you sometimes. No matter—surely some successful men have been pale.' She was trying to think of an example, and failing. Not that it offended me. I had decided long ago that if my pallor meant that I could not go outside very much, at least I could read a lot. But I was not going to relate any of this to Élodie.

‘When did you come here last?' I asked.

She put her arms in a triangular formation and leant her head against her hands. I could see the hint of her breasts for the first time, protruding from the purple satin dress. I must have been drunk because I thought of Titian's
Venus of Urbino
, except that Élodie was merely teasing me with her breasts, withholding them. I wanted to touch them.

‘A few years ago,' she said. ‘Why do you want to know that?'

‘Just curious. This isn't one of those places where you would go on a whim.'

‘Oh, my whims are never rational. Have we not come here on a whim?'

‘That's true, when you put it like that. But who were you with last time?'

Élodie was bemused. She slanted her brow and shook her head, so that the diamond earrings swayed to and fro.

‘Why are you asking me these impertinent questions?'

‘Surely it's your turn now.'

‘Ha. I see. Because you are so unguarded with your thoughts and feelings, you presumed that I would be the same.'

This was unfair, but I could not have said why. I sampled the martini. It was too bitter, without any of the daiquirí's sweetness. I gave a little hiccup.

‘I'm sorry, Élodie,' I said once I had recovered. ‘I was only wondering. Is there any harm in that?'

‘Maybe not. Ask me again when I've had a few more drinks.'

I could feel the alcohol forming a pool in my stomach. I needed water, but there was none available. The bar might as well have been in the Fourth Circle of Dante's
Inferno
.

‘Am I allowed to ask about your husband?' I said.

‘If you must.'

‘Do you love him?'

‘How do you define love, Lawrence? This will be a laugh, I am sure.'

There were too many ways to define love. Sophie and I had discussed it during our holiday in Madrid, sitting in a café where the couple at the next table were kissing. The memory of this conversation brought with it a tinge of shame. We had both decided that there were too many different types of love to encapsulate one definition. And so we had searched it up in the dictionary on her phone.

‘Devoted affection and union, I guess,' I said, recalling what the dictionary had told us. ‘Is there much more to it than that?'

Élodie's eyes opened wider than usual. I could see the slight blemish in her mascara. I realised that I was playing to her expectations. It was as though I were a circus act, giving her the entertainment that she craved.

‘Now that is completely limp,' she said. ‘Did you steal it from a clergyman?'

‘All right, I have to concede that I don't have my own definition of love. That wasn't my question, though.'

‘You have never been in love, Lawrence, so you wouldn't know. Shall we say that I love him by my own definition of the word? He is a large part of my world. One day you will understand what I mean by that. Sadly it isn't something that can be explained easily.'

‘And yet you're perfectly happy to be unfaithful.'

She snorted, rather an unpleasant noise, and I hoped never to hear it again.

‘Faith? I have never come across a sillier idea. If I devoted the whole of my life to one person, then wouldn't you think that rather a dull life?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘No, Lawrence, you don't
suppose
anything. Either yes or no. Which is it?'

Her eyes flitted around while she spoke. She never lingered. I must have given much more away with my eyes. They were always open and waiting to be caught. I had not thought about it before. It was intimidating to sit across from her, now that our faces were on the same level.

‘I don't know,' I said at last. ‘I can imagine fidelity working for most people.'

‘But not me.'

‘How can you know if you've never tried?'

‘Oh, I have tried.' She said this in a defensive way, as though she had been expecting the question. She previewed everything somehow, like a clairvoyant. ‘Your failures in adulthood might be easy to guess, but rest assured that mine aren't.'

‘That's very reassuring.'

I had been about to say something else, but I held back.

‘We must get some dinner,' she said. ‘Or are you feeling the effects of that revolting bouillabaisse?'

‘Not really.' This was a lie, and she must have seen it. ‘You don't like to stay in one place for long, do you?'

‘Not if I can help it. We miss out on an awful lot if we stay in one place. Who knows what might be going on elsewhere?'

She stood up, and I needed no persuasion to abandon my martini. She drew into the light beneath a chandelier, and I had to marvel at how smooth her skin was from this particular angle. It took on an even more lustrous gold.

‘You look beautiful, by the way,' I said. She smiled at me in her usual mischievous way. As we walked past the barman's field of vision, I tried to avoid him.

7

The decor in the
hotel's restaurant was in keeping with everything else. I was becoming accustomed to the excess. There were three layers of linen on each table. I took issue with the china plates, which were decorated with violent pink roses. The waiter had to ask twice before I gave him my coat.

We sat at an angle next to each other, close to touching. Élodie ordered a bottle of Bordeaux that was not even the most expensive on the menu, and I told her so once the waiter had left.

‘The most expensive wine is not usually the best,' she said. ‘It depends on what you want out of the wine. The waiter would disagree. That is another point, in fact. The waiter does not always know best. I should start writing all this down for you.'

‘I'm sure I can remember,' I said dryly.

She hit me with her napkin in a way that I never could have without somebody noticing.

‘This is all useful. One day you might impress a girl with it.'

I had to wonder what sort of a girl would be impressed by any of this. Did she mean Sophie? The dining room was impressive, but only in the way that Albert Speer's architecture was impressive. It was an enormous construction of nothingness, a fantasy created for those with enough money to pay for its upkeep. Anybody could have been impressed by it, although it would be difficult to love.

The wine arrived with a decanter, and the sommelier used a silver breath-easy and a muslin cloth. He held the decanter up to a candle. It could have been a scientific experiment. The process took too long, and the formality of it was unbearable. The waiter went to pour me a tasting glass, but Élodie interrupted and insisted on trying it herself.

‘I am sorry about that,' she said, once we were alone. She did not sound at all sorry. ‘But I could not have you making a fool of yourself with the wine. You are playing a role now, and we must stick to it.'

‘And what role is that, exactly?'

‘Do use your imagination,' she snapped. ‘I would hate for people to think that you are my son.'

‘Like Ed did.'

‘He didn't really. There is no need to take him seriously. But I think that you could pass for somebody much older, if you made the effort.'

‘So let me taste the wine.'

‘Not until you understand what it means to taste. You are in the real world now.'

I swirled my glass and drank. The wine's bouquet was lifeless and the tannins stuck to the corners of my mouth. It tasted old and faintly rotten. It was anticlimactic to think that this, the first truly expensive wine that I had ever tasted, could be so bland. If this were the real world, then even the real world had to be imaginary on some level.

But I did not pursue this thought; my mind was beginning to numb. I regretted the second cocktail. The room was pulled into a wide angle, and the golden light softened at the edges.

Élodie ordered the degustation menu. I had wanted the à la carte, unaccustomed as I was to the obscure gourmet dishes. But she knew what she was doing. Besides, the French menu was too difficult to decipher.

‘What sort of films were you in?' I asked.

‘Not very good ones,' she said. ‘I was in a couple of those eighties, neo-noir pictures. Bad crime flicks, very Los Angeles. No reason a smart boy like you should have heard of them. They were terrible, really. But they gave me an excuse to go to the right parties, to meet the right people.'

‘And was Ed Selvin involved in them?'

‘No. I never did anything with Ed. We move in different circles.'

‘What sort of circles does he move in?'

‘More highbrow. His last project was some sort of an art-house thing set in Japan. Shinto imagery and gratuitous encounters. I can't claim to have seen it.'

‘So what is he doing here?'

‘That girl. They might just have married. Hence the desire to get away from us.'

I tried to conceal my surprise. He had never introduced her. I had always thought that newlyweds were determined to show one another off.

Élodie grew resentful as she talked about Vanessa, but she quickly changed the subject. The entrées came plated extravagantly, and I tried to stop myself from eating too fast. Élodie turned her nose up at the first mouthful and put her cutlery down.

‘This place isn't what it used to be,' she muttered. ‘It is disturbing to think that haute cuisine might be becoming a tourist attraction. Look at these people. Tourists.'

It was true that some of our fellow diners had played reluctantly to the dress code. I became more satisfied with my navy blue jacket and my white trousers. I decided that they were in fact exceedingly stylish; they suggested success. They set me apart from the tourists. I could pretend that all of this was familiar to me, that I had seen it a hundred times. Was that snobbish? Sophie would have told me so. She would have teased me about these clothes. Or she would have been mortified. The more I thought about it, the less sure I was of what she would think.

‘Isn't that true of Paris, too?' I said. ‘I can't find a good restaurant anywhere in my area.'

‘Give it time. I will show you the best of the best in Paris. It helps if you have some money, of course.'

‘I thought you said that the best wasn't necessarily the most expensive.'

‘Well remembered,' she said briskly, as though I had wound a key in her back. ‘It all depends on whether you want the best food or the most authentic food. Authenticity hardly exists in Paris. But I know of places that have yet to be plundered by the Americans and the Brits, places where they have no English menu.'

‘This isn't bad, of course.'

‘It could be worse. But please don't eat so fast.' I had cleaned my plate, spooning up every last morsel. ‘Christ, this is what having children must be like.'

‘You never wanted children?'

‘No. I would have made a terrible mother. Besides, the day that a woman gives birth is the day that her life as she knew it ends. I've always been happy with it like this.'

I was about to ask her why she was so happy to live out this fantasy, but I stopped myself. I would have to be subtler.

‘Who are your parents, Lawrence?' Élodie asked after the entrées had been cleared. I thought about what to tell her, if anything.

‘They are both lawyers, and they have been doing the same thing for years. But I don't want to talk about them. We don't get on very well.'

‘So you are casting off into Europe on your own. How Byronic of you. Tell me more. What do they think of all this travelling business? They must have other plans for you.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, avoiding her and fiddling with my cutlery in the hope that she would stop interrogating me. ‘Ask me anything else.'

I waited for her to persist, but to my surprise she backed off.

‘All right. But if you do want to talk about it, then I can be an impartial ear.'

‘I don't trust that.'

‘What? My ability to remain impartial?'

‘Well, yes.'

‘That doubt is well-placed, Lawrence.'

Rather than waiting for the sommelier to return, she leant over to pour me another glass of wine. I could see the pale skin on the inside of her arm.

‘Isn't that my job?' I asked.