English Correspondence (11 page)

He had ignored her when she walked in. She had sat and waited, then gone up to the counter to order her coffee and carry it back to her table. Now he got himself from his side of the bar to hers. Everything was an effort, but an insouciant effort. He affected a limp. He took away her cup and asked her if she wanted another. He walked across to the door, the cup still in one hand, and shut it properly, so that the draught and the voices outside stopped and the glass had a chance to steam up. This was a man who liked fug. She felt she understood him. It had happened before with men she just came across. No type in particular; the selection was random. They didn't have to say anything. She had a friend, Adrienne, whom she'd known from their schooldays, who used to talk about boys and men smiling at her. She always got them into the conversation, these special smiles. Sylvie didn't think her feeling was the same. She hoped it didn't come from vanity. It seemed not to come from inside at all. It was more as if she were in a wide open space, insanely open, and saw someone
else in it; not anyone special, no one just for her, but there was recognition.

She took out Jerry's letter again. She could sense the man watching her; not critical, or nosy, or sexually interested, even. She felt secure, as if she had two men after her, and she had the luxury of choosing between them. It was restful knowing he was looking. She couldn't remember Paul looking at her in that way, without meaning anything, as if she was a good place to lay his eyes. She hadn't realised when she was young that this was something she wanted. She didn't blame herself. How could she have known in advance?

She had been in a telephone booth in the Gare de l'Est calling her mother. She had promised she would tell her she had arrived in Paris, though it annoyed her to have to; shut up with the smell of old coins and smoke. She was twenty. An old man opened the door and grinned, slowly moving the short distance towards her. The station noises burst in, then the door shut behind him. She gave him a shove, without taking her eyes off his face, and he was out again, still grinning, walking backwards and waving. It was one of those encounters that disorder the lives of girls and women. The worst thing was explaining to Eve why she had stopped in mid sentence and sounded out of breath and distracted when she started talking again. Eve never let anything go by unexplained.

The weekend wasn't memorable. She had sat about in a tiny room with Adrienne, who had complained of dry skin and the moral philosophy teacher and rubbed cream into her knees. They had only gone out once it got dark. They both cheered up, walking along, though they told each other they had no interest in this party they were going to. They had been careful not to dress up; simply unravelled themselves from the knots they were in on the floor and took it in turns to draw swift, accurate black lines round their eyes in front of the mirror. She met Paul at the party. He said he didn't recognise anyone. He might even be in the wrong
place. He'd been told the party was in this block and that the door would be open and he had walked through the first that he saw. Well, you wouldn't expect random people to leave their doors open would you? But the music didn't sound quite right; it was loud enough, but symphonic, a full symphony orchestra. He'd followed the sound into the only room with a light on and there was a man on his own, with a glass of beer in his hand and a small bowl of shrimps on the table. With their shells on, Sylvie asked, or sitting in a pool of pink water. Shells on Paul said. Did he offer you one, Sylvie asked. No, Paul said, he just looked really disappointed. I expect she turned up soon, Sylvie said. Paul laughed and said he was glad she was optimistic. He asked her her name and she told him. He was fed up with meeting depressed girls. They were all depressed where he came from. And none of them bothered about food. He was really glad she was interested in shrimps.

Sylvie made him repeat the name of the place three times through the noise. She was sorry to meet someone local. That wasn't the point of coming to Paris. And in any case he wasn't the type she usually fancied. She edged her way past some immovable boys to get herself a drink. Adrienne, who knew the girls who were giving the party, ignored her; too preoccupied with the special smiles that were flashed at her. Sylvie swallowed a plastic cup full of wine and smoked a cigarette. No one else spoke to her. She would have hung over the balcony but it was already overloaded and six floors up from a courtyard. In the middle of the room, where there might have been dancing, someone was sobbing and at least four people had their arms round her. Sylvie made for the door. Paul intercepted her and asked her if anything was the matter. He called her Sylvie. She said she'd had enough and he followed her down the stairs. She took no notice of him, but she didn't mind his being behind her. When she got to the bottom, she didn't recognise the street or remember how she and Adrienne had got there. She crossed over and started walking. She supposed she'd find her way. Paul caught up and
walked beside her. He asked her one or two questions that didn't lead anywhere. The conversation kept faltering. He seemed less sure of himself than he had done upstairs. And although in one way Sylvie liked him for this, in another she felt more uncomfortable. It left her exposed and she had to deal with the silences. He didn't pretend he knew Paris, but he had a better sense of direction than she had and got her to a bridge that she recognised. They stood on the corner by a flight of stone steps that went down to the river. She wouldn't let him walk her any further. They were facing each other, and he might have looked at her, in the way she later found out she wanted to be looked at, but he didn't. They found out that they had both caught a train from Metz, which was hardly a coincidence as they lived within ten miles of each other. They didn't pretend it was one. She told him about the man in the telephone box. She didn't make it sound worse than it had been. He looked angry with the man as if it had just happened, and protective towards her. She hadn't quite bargained for that, so soon after his uncertainty, but she was relieved to have found something real to talk about.

Her mother had met George in Verdun. She was wearing a scarlet skirt that had got caught on the spike of some low railings by the Episcopal Palace. She had gone down the steps from the park with her cousin, Charlotte, and bought scarlet thread and a needle. The shop assistant had been sniffy that Eve didn't have a needle on her. Extensive mending was still expected in the fifties. Women couldn't assume they were modern and choose to give up on it. The girls climbed back up and found a bench where Eve could sit and stitch the skirt up again. She had made it herself so she knew which colour to ask for in the haberdasher's; it was an exact match. She didn't know how she'd manage without taking it off, but there was plenty of cloth in it and she swivelled it round and turned the torn part wrong side out without showing too much stocking. She took a sliver out of the hem as a patch. George and his friend were taking an afternoon off
from investigating the Great War battlefield to the north of the city. This was serious study after National Service. They picked the girls up, two pretty French girls. Eve was always happy to see herself through the eyes of an appreciative male. It made her seem old fashioned and unintellectual; charming, in a way. The young men waited while Eve finished off her sewing. They stood up and the girls were seated. Then they took them to a café for ices and chicory coffee. George had been the good-looking one and not necessarily English. They, the other pair had had to manage as best they could. Not terribly well, in fact. He, wasn't he called Colin, sweetheart, that pedantic friend of yours, had said that it wouldn't have happened in London, as all the railings had gone for the war effort. The cousin, Charlotte, had taken offence. Eve couldn't blame her, though she wasn't really listening, taken up as she was by George. In Verdun of all places to say such a thing. With all those losses. Which war they'd occurred in was irrelevant. Afterwards they walked by the river. There was so much she wanted to tell him, but of course, although his French was not bad, she had to speak more slowly than usual. This steadied her up, which was a good thing, as she was rather breathless at having met him at all.

When he left, she felt so lonely. It was awful saying goodbye to him. Although Charlotte stayed for another week, and they were good friends, it made no difference. She had never felt lonely in her life until then. He and his friend had had an itinerary that took them to Nancy for an earlier slice of history. He came back again on his way to England, though this wasn't part of the original plan and his friend was annoyed. And, when he left, she had had to say goodbye all over again and then she felt even lonelier, worse than before. She kept the needle with the few centimetres of scarlet thread in it. She tied knots at both ends.

This was the fixed story. It never altered. Eve was sure about love. She didn't mind talking about it, as part of her narration, or asking her daughter if she was convinced she was in it. This
she did insistently in the time between Sylvie saying she and Paul might be marrying and the marriage. She knew better than to call it an engagement. No one called it that any more, her daughter told her.

Sylvie grew up associating love with a kind of certainty and precision that made her uncomfortable. Her mother seemed to her naïve; a product of her time. Those post-war emotions were high definition, edged with euphoria from pulling together. She and George had been young in the war, but they were marked by it. In a way, Sylvie envied her but she couldn't get back there; it seemed like regression. She could have changed endlessly the account of her meeting with Paul. It was hardly worth telling. So what was the difference? That she wasn't interested in the essence of it, or that she was cleverer than her mother, or that her mother had a daughter to tell the story to? Her mother and father had stayed loving each other. Perhaps that was what fixed it.

She told the man behind the bar she had changed her mind. She would have another cup of coffee. He told her to sit down again. He'd bring it to her. The two men drinking beer at the bar both turned round briefly and stared at her, then carried on their conversation.

‘
I DIDN'T THINK
anyone would miss me.'

Paul was waiting in the hall for her. It was a quarter past eleven and well short of lunch-time.

‘
Did
anyone miss me?'

‘Where were you?'

‘Nowhere in particular.'

‘You took the car, so you must have been somewhere.'

Sylvie shook her head. She wondered how long they could talk about places without naming them.

‘Do you really not know where you were, or are you pretending?'

He had started off looking parental; both worried and threatening. This was when she first walked in. She hadn't felt threatened but she had noticed and had to stop herself from flicking her head in a sod-that gesture, re-learned from the proprietor of the café. Jacques, he was called. Her hands relaxed at her sides, more complacent, not needing restraint. Odd how different parts of the body took on different roles.

‘I went into town and sat in a bar, the Bar des Sports,' Sylvie said. ‘It wasn't particularly agreeable. Actually, I wouldn't recommend it. But I was quite happy sitting there. I drank two cups of coffee which I paid for. Then the owner gave me another one and a glass of red wine. And a cigarette. He said he'd stopped doing boiled eggs. He boiled them and threw them away for weeks, before it occurred to him to give up on it. No one missed them. He still had the metal thing. You know, the thing they fit in,
they're quite neat. He asked me what else he might put in it.'

‘I'm sure you were full of bright ideas.'

‘I was, as it happens.'

‘So, what else?'

‘Don't you want to know what they were?'

‘Not especially.'

‘He asked me if I knew the Belgian seaside. He thought it might be my kind of place. He said we should have a day out at le Coq sur Mer. Now I think about it, I'm not sure it has sur Mer on the end. It sort of went with the eggs. It was nice of him wasn't it?'

‘Very.'

A woman in a heavy mac and an efficient weatherproof hat came in through the main entrance.

‘Good morning,' said Sylvie.

‘We're not stopping for lunch,' the woman said. She started to climb the stairs.

‘That's fine,' said Sylvie. ‘We'll look forward to seeing you at dinner.'

A man opened the front door. It had only just shut, slowed down unnaturally by the fire prevention mechanism. He nodded at them both without looking at them. He used the stair rail hand over hand. Sylvie heard a key turning upstairs and a door opening and closing. The man was still only half way up.

‘They won't be stopping for anything else either.'

‘Sylvie,' Paul said, ‘he'll hear you.'

‘No he won't,' said Sylvie.

She thought, once he would have smiled and now he was disapproving, and not because of her carelessness with the clients, but because they themselves were as far from going to bed in the middle of the day as this creaking pair.

‘He won't know what I'm talking about. They must have taken their key out with them,' she said.

‘You weren't here when they left.'

‘They could have hung it up for themselves. Stupid to carry it round. It's so heavy.'

‘Sylvie, I think we need to talk.'

‘Fine.'

‘Here's not the best place. We could go back home but there are things I need to do in the kitchen.' He always called their rooms home.

Sylvie shrugged her shoulders ‘I'd rather get it over with.'

She followed him into the kitchen. It was a good place for an interrogation, she thought; the metal and the echoes and the smooth surfaces. Not unlike the dentist's, but it was cosier at the dentist's and there was always a chance of anaesthetic. The lights were full on overhead, very bright.