The Memory of Scent (17 page)

* * *

And so it begins: my indoctrination. Waiting at the appointed spot on Rue Montorguell, I watch as Walrus approaches with a surprisingly light-footed step. He does not stop to exchange banter. He just barks at me to keep up, so I fall in step behind him.

This is my new mission. Last night, after my foolish behaviour with George, I had a strong urge to see him again and to tell him of my fear that I had fatally severed something between us. So after putting mother to bed and despite the heavy rain, I grabbed a shawl and ran through the streets until I was at the building where George lived. Even though it was getting very late, I climbed the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the door. I could hear some shuffling inside and, after a few moments, George’s friend Gaston cracked open the door and, on seeing me standing there dripping, immediately invited me in. I told him I was sorry but needed to have a word with George. That’s when he began to rub his head sheepishly and to look around the room as if he was being asked to conjure George up from behind the curtains.

‘I don’t think he’s in, let me see. No, George isn’t here.’

I stepped back and dropped my head in embarrassment while he tried to apologise for George’s absence, as if somehow it was his fault. The rain seemed heavier as I pulled the shawl over my head and ran home, trying to avoid the puddles on the road. Why wouldn’t he be off with another woman? He is perfectly free to do what he wants and it was improper for me to be turning up at a man’s rooms anyway.
Gaston must now have the wrong idea entirely. I tucked myself tight in beside
Maman
on the bed and longed for simpler times. Which is why today, it is so reassuring to be in the company of someone who takes such an unequivocal delight in what many view as simply a basic sustenance.

‘Have you any idea how fortunate you are to be French when it comes to food? We have the sublime influences of all those masterful chefs who had been attached to the great houses of the
ancien régime
until they fell through the revolution. How blessed are we who were not born into heightened circumstances, that these chefs then needed other work and our restaurants will forever reap the benefits. Do not look to any other country for your gastronomic impressions. The English, for all their arrogance, are only good for scorching perfectly decent joints or boiling chickens. The Germans cannot do sauces, and without them your food is naked, your art unfinished. Now Mademoiselle, a woman at a fine table is a mixed blessing, for even the most beautiful of them will not distract your attention from the pleasures of a good meal. Around a dining table, their scented allure only reinstates itself once coffee is served. This is something every woman, even the most beautiful, needs to understand. She must not allow herself to become tiresome. Look, here you’ll find some of the most reliable oyster vendors in the city but I want to start you off simply.’

He takes my elbow and steers me over to a large man in a striped apron and after speaking quickly to him turns back to me instructing me to close my eyes and open my mouth. The taste is a mixture of sharp and sweet with a quality that I can only compare to something melting.

‘Quail pâté soaked in Malaga wine,’ he informs me.

I flick my tongue over my lower lip. ‘Mmmm, it’s lovely.’

‘Now, across to a soup shop run by a very cranky lady. I think all of her love and passion goes into the soups so by the time the customers turn up, she is spent. I wanted to take you to my favourite butcher near Boulevard Saint-Germain, but the place was nearly burned to the ground recently due to some mob incursion, a riot of sorts. The influence of the Communards still abounds. Just because they were given amnesty a few years ago, today I cannot shop for pork flesh. The world is upside down.’

‘Monsieur, I do not mean to show any disrespect but why do you come into our little café on such regular a basis?’

Walrus stops and smiles.

‘It’s part of my daily constitutional. I need a slight break between meals and your café is a convenient halfway point for two of my regular restaurants. And the waitresses are most pleasant to look at. It all goes towards building up an appreciable appetite.’

We walk on a little and pause in front of a narrow shop with one small window. Walrus lifts the latch and steps down into the small steamy room, its aromas bringing me back to the kitchen of my childhood winters.

‘Here we are. Now what you should know about soup is that it can be very underestimated and misunderstood, like the pretty little sister in the family who is overlooked by her more glamorous older sister. Because soup is so comforting, many mistake that it for something quite pedestrian, whereas it is really the great tease, a portent, the overture, and should be approached with love. Yes, a good soup heightens expectations and that is the desired state to be in while approaching any table.’

He pronounces that we are to go to Les Halles and into the belly of Paris where we will do some promiscuous inhaling
around the stalls. And I have to say that I love this sensation of being buffeted from one stall to the next, engulfed in flavours and smells and sensations. As I follow in the wake of Walrus, I feel he could navigate the market blindfolded, led simply by his nose. He brusquely name-checks the salt cod, carp, mackerel, herring, turbot and sturgeon at the fish stall, as if he were a general ordering them to fall into line. His voice lowers slightly and lilts with a nostalgia one normally reserves for absent friends as he discusses the merits of the various vegetables, for most are out of season. He outlines the peculiarities of cabbages, onions, artichokes, asparagus, showing special reverence for celery which he claims gravely and respectfully, is an aphrodisiac that should be eaten only sparingly by bachelors.

He plunges my hands into a mound of pistachio nuts and then his own, sinking and luxuriating in what he describes as a perfumed wonder to be savoured delicately on the tongue. I am tingling with the assault on my senses and the crispness of the Parisian air. And the spices … everything about spices is exotic: Turmeric, Garam Masala, Cinnamon, Mustard Seeds, Saffron. It makes me think of Marco Polo and grand adventurers stumbling across these wondrous mystical powders.

Through my incense haze, I manage to identify a passing George, between the potatoes and tomatoes. Walrus immediately raises his eyes skyward.

‘This, Mademoiselle, is why women will only ever be good at
cuisine de la ménage
. Domestic cooking is women’s work, because they are far too easily distracted to be great in the kitchen. Only men have the dedication and temperament to elevate it to an art. Go, go! Your young man may blink and miss you.’

I shout out George’s name to get his attention as he seems deep in thought. Or maybe he is ignoring me. But on the second try he turns, and I am relieved to see he is smiling. I weave over to him.

‘I thought I saw you there.’ I feel sure that Gaston would not have mentioned my surprise visit last night, but then what do I know about the pact between men.

‘Fleur, how nice to see you.’ We walk on a little in silence.

‘How is your writing coming along?’

‘I was beginning to lose patience with it. My idea was to chronicle day-to-day lives in the form of a diary. I thought it would be – I’m not sure exactly – a more elevating experience; you know, amusing. But I have upturned a lot of self-inflicted degradation, a dedicated pursuit of scrounging as a compass for living and a whole world of mediocre talent. This Montmartre life is all slightly unhinged and sordid. I’m not sure if I have the patience or curiosity to pursue it to any great degree.’

‘So you have briefly feasted on Montmartre and now you have indigestion?’ I have instinctively decided to employ the culinary allusions that so readily trip off Walrus’s tongue.

‘You see I’ve been trying to gather witticisms, repartee, anecdotes, and all I seem to be recording are meaningless theories and joyless jokes.’

‘George, you are just a literary odd-job man at the moment and these traits you’re trying to find, well, people use them as a bartering tool and as a trade-off. They will bring them the table, if you provide the table. I see it every day at work; if somebody tells an amusing tale or sings a bawdy song, they will have a drink bought for them or a plate of food put before them.’

George smirks a little. ‘Do you believe it is all right to be unscrupulous in the pursuit of your art?’

‘Well I believe that great artists and writers, if they are committed, have an imperative to follow through on what is inside them. They probably have no choice in the matter.
Mon Dieu
, you are grim and distracted.’

‘Would you forgive anything if it led to a great work?’

I fear I would forgive him anything – but say nothing. He shrugs his shoulders. It’s best to part from his company rather than being brought down by his mood.

* * *

Back in
patron
’s kitchen, I continue to surreptitiously tip cognac into the soup. He has wondered aloud at the upturn in its popularity. When he cooks mackerel, I add about half a glass of Champagne and some olive oil to the stock. That dish too, quickly becomes a favoured request, so much so that he has to increase his order for mackerel. I have much to be grateful for in the convivial and unmeasured approach with which drink is served at the café.

But at night under my covers, with the reassuring sound of
Maman
’s laboured breathing rattling through the stillness, it creeps over me like small insects scrambling from my toes to my hairline. It is a sense of unease. I am caught in what seems to be somebody else’s dream, trapped inside a big clear balloon, bouncing along until the lion’s head of the studio door winks and admits me. This time I look closer. He is face down; his dark curls blood-caked. No one else is around. His long, paint-stained fingers are splayed as though to allow one to trace around each one individually, as a child does its own hand. I step over his left boot, which is crooked at an awkward angle and then outside into the rain. And it rains and rains and when I lift my head, my hair is a cloying web encasing my face and Isobel is still blanketed in the gritty sodden earth.

There are times when I forget the reality of my circumstances – like yesterday, when Catherine and I strolled in and out of shops ordering pieces of furniture for her little apartment along with new hats and capes and cashmere wraps. We found some soft butterscotch leather gloves and I insisted on buying four pairs, two pairs each for when the weather becomes cooler. I seem to have the need to buy things, as if I am trying to build a fort around myself. I have convinced myself that people will be distracted by my things, by my finery, and not look any closer.

But then my reality betrays me, as it did when Vincent turned up at Madame Del’s house before I left, and asked for me. Unlike Philippe’s tentative explorations, Vincent put a value on his franc. He had been drinking, but we both knew he was entitled to lay his greasy head on my naked stomach, to plunge first his fingers then his cock into me as he roared his exclamations so loudly that I’m sure even Hélène down
in the kitchen could hear. To then lap up the sweat sparkles from my skin with a surprisingly soft tongue and when the taste of me roused him yet again, to enter and pump me, workmanlike, each pump eliciting a more ecstatic prayer to the Lord above while I merely wondered how Hélène could have missed so obvious a cobweb in the corner of the ceiling.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat thinking about this as I drank some lemonade on my balcony watching the streets below. I cast my eyes across the many, many rooftops, knowing that the closer they huddled towards Montmartre, the less grand they would become. I like the fortitude of these fine strong buildings as they demand to be noticed along the leafy boulevards, unlike those in the poorer areas that seem to apologise for their existence, each one haphazardly insinuating itself on to the next in the manner of drunkards weaving their way home.

I thought of those early days; of the smell of paint thinner and dusty floorboards; of rough crimson-stained fingers as they tore at my clothes, of crushing loneliness and gnawing fear. And I thought of Madame Delphine who advised me to make my trades wisely.

* * *

So here at the Café Anglais, with the blond Baron playing some tunes on the piano, while Catherine watches him with a growing affection, I can quite easily relegate the fact that Vincent seems to have fallen in with our company, claiming some loose alliance with Philippe through their attendance at various functions. Philippe is regaling the table with stories of his time as a doctor in the court of Napoleon III as Vincent slides further into inebriated unpleasantness, clearly looking for a quarrel. Unwittingly, I give him the
opportunity when he catches sight of my evidently rapturous expression as George enters the restaurant and joins our table. His friend and Philippe’s nephew, Gaston, follows along behind him. Philippe gestures towards the waiter.

‘Two more settings, but first two more glasses.’

George whispers close to my ear as he passes behind my chair.

‘In my experience, pretty girls travel in pairs so I brought Gaston along just in case.’

He takes his place further along the table. With studied precision, Philippe tops up each person’s glass from a newly opened bottle of Champagne. I am aware of Vincent redistributing his light frame in his chair, a scowl darkening his face. I feel trapped.

‘Could you please slip more into Mlle Lily’s glass?’ He slurs in a menacing tone. ‘It seems the only chance I’ll have with her is if her senses are deadened.’

Vincent is oblivious to the fiery look that George shoots in his direction. My glance flits immediately to George and I have not even registered Philippe.

‘Seriously though, Mademoiselle,’ I feel hot pinpricks spreading across my chest as Vincent pushes his chair slightly back from the top of the table and slowly crosses his legs, ‘Is it patience that I need more of? Is it Champagne that you need more of? Could it be money?’ He fumbles for his pocket.