Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella Page 6

  When I hesitated she released my arm, took the smallest of steps backwards. ‘Of course, if you have other plans I quite understand.’

  ‘No. It is kind of you to ask. I would relish an excuse to get out of the cold. I … I don’t think I’d noticed how chilled I am until just now.’

  We walked in silence down two narrow streets, turning towards a window lit from within. A Chinese man stepped back from a heavy door to let us in, and she exchanged a quiet word with him. The bar was indeed warm and the windows fugged with steam, a handful of men still drinking. Carriage drivers, mostly, she told me, as she shepherded me towards the back. Laure Le Comte ordered something at the bar and I took a seat at a table at the rear. I peeled my damp cape from my shoulders. The little room was noisy and cheerful; the men had gathered around a card game that was going on in the corner. I could see my face in the mirror that ran along the wall, pale and damp, my hair plastered to my head. Why would he love only me? I wondered, then tried to push away the thought.

  An elderly waiter arrived with a tray, and Laure handed me a small goblet of cognac. Now we were sitting there, I could think of nothing to say to her.

  ‘It’s good we came inside when we did,’ she said, glancing towards the doorway. The rain had started up properly now, running down the pavements in woven rivers, gurgling in the gutters.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Is Monsieur Lefèvre at home?’

  She had used the formal version of his name, even though she had known him longer than I had.

  ‘I have no idea.’ I took a sip of my drink. It slid down my throat like fire. And then suddenly I began to talk. Perhaps it was desperation. Perhaps it was the knowledge that a woman such as Laure had seen so many kinds of bad behaviour that she could not be shocked by anything I had to tell her. Perhaps I simply wanted to see her reaction. I was unsure whether, after all, she, too, was among those women I now had to view as a threat.

  ‘I found myself in an ill temper. I thought it better … to walk.’

  She nodded, and allowed a small smile. Her hair, I noted, was pulled into a neat twist at her collar, more like a schoolteacher than a woman of the night. ‘I have never been married. But I can imagine that it changes one’s life beyond all recognition.’

  ‘It is hard to adjust. I had thought myself well suited to it. Now … I’m not sure I have the right temperament for its challenges.’ Even as I spoke I was surprised at myself. I was not the kind of woman given to confidences. The only person I had ever confided in was my sister, and in her absence, I had only really wanted to talk to Édouard.

  ‘You are finding Édouard … challenging?’

  I saw now that she was older than I had first thought: clever application of rouge and lipstick had given her a bloom of youth. But there was something about her that made you want to keep talking; a suggestion that what you told her would go no further. I wondered absently what she had done that evening, what other secrets she heard each day.

  ‘Yes. No. Not Édouard exactly.’ I could not explain. ‘I don’t know. I’m – sorry. I should not have burdened you with my thoughts.’

  She ordered a second cognac for me. And then she sat and sipped her own, as if considering how much to say. Finally, she leant forwards and spoke softly. ‘It will be no surprise to you, Madame, that I think myself something of an expert in the psyche of the married gentleman.’

  I found myself blushing slightly.

  ‘I know nothing of what brought you here this evening, and I believe nobody outside can speak with any authority on what happens within the confines of a marriage. But I can tell you this: Édouard adores you. I can say so with some confidence, having seen many men, and a few, too, who were on honeymoon.’

  I looked up now, and she raised a wry eyebrow. ‘Yes, on their honeymoons. Before he met you I might confidently have wagered Édouard Lefèvre would never marry. That he would have been perfectly comfortable continuing to lead the life he had. And then he met you. And with no coquettishness, or guile, you won his heart, his head, his very imagination. Do not underestimate what he feels for you, Madame.’

  ‘And the other women. I’m meant to ignore them?’

  ‘Other women?’

  ‘I have been told … Édouard is not the kind of man to give himself over happily to … exclusivity.’

  Laure looked at me steadily. ‘And what poisonous creature told you this?’ My face must have given me away. ‘Whatever seed this counsellor has planted, Madame, it seems to have been expertly done.’

  She took another sip of cognac. ‘I will tell you something, Madame, and I hope you will not take offence because it comes well meant.’ She leant forward, over the table. ‘Yes, I did not believe Édouard was the kind of man who would marry either. But when I saw you both that evening outside the Bar Tripoli, and I saw how he looked at you, his pride in you, the way he placed his hand so tenderly upon your back, the way he looks at you for approval with almost everything he says or does, I knew that you were most perfectly matched. And I saw he was happy. So happy.’

  I sat very still, listening.

  ‘And I will admit that on our meeting I felt shame, a rare emotion for me. Because in the past months, several times when I modelled for Édouard, or even when I saw him, perhaps on his way home from some bar or restaurant, I offered myself to him for free. I have always been terribly fond of him, you see. And on every occasion since he first saw you, he declined with an unusual delicacy, but without hesitation.’

  Outside, the rain had stopped abruptly. A man held his hand out of the doorway, and said something to his friend that made them both laugh.

  Laure’s voice was a low murmur: ‘The greatest risk to your marriage, if I may be so frank, is not your husband. It is that the words of this so-called counsellor turn you into the very thing you – and your husband – dread.’

  Laure finished her drink. She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and stood. She checked her appearance in the mirror, straightened a lock of hair, then glanced at the window. ‘Et voilà – the rain has stopped. I think today might be a fine one. Go home to your husband, Madame. Rejoice in your good fortune. Be the woman he adores.’

  She gave me a brief smile. ‘And in future choose your counsellors most carefully.’

  With a word to the proprietor, she made her way out of the bar into the damp blue light of the early dawn. I sat there, digesting what she had told me, feeling exhaustion finally seep into my bones, along with something else: a deep, deep relief.

  I called the elderly waiter over to pay the bill. He informed me with a shrug that Madame Laure had already settled it, and went back to polishing his glasses.

  The apartment was so quiet when I made my way up the stairs that I guessed Édouard must be asleep. He was a constant source of noise when at home, singing or whistling or playing his gramophone so loudly that the neighbours would thump on the walls in irritation. The sparrows chattered in the ivy that covered our walls, and the distant sound of horses’ hoofs on the cobbles spoke of a slowly waking city, but the little apartment at the top of 21a rue Soufflot was utterly silent.

  I tried not to think about where he might have been, or in what frame of mind. I took off my shoes and hurried up the last of the stairs, my feet muffled on the wooden steps, wanting already to climb into bed beside him and wrap myself around him. I would tell him how sorry I was, how I adored him, how I had been a fool. I would be the woman he had married.

  My mind hummed with my need for him. I opened the apartment door quietly, already imagining him lying in a tangle in our sheets and coverlet, his arm rising sleepily to lift them and allow me in. But when I looked, already peeling my coat from my shoulders, our bed was empty.

  I hesitated, stepped past the sleeping area and into the main studio. I felt oddly nervous suddenly, unsure of my reception. ’Édouard?’ I called.

  There was no answer.

  I walked in. The studio was dimly lit, the candles burning low where I had left them in m
y hurry to quit the apartment, the long window glowing a cold blue with the early-morning light. The chill in the air suggested that the fire had gone out hours ago. At the end of the room, beside the canvases, Édouard stood in his chemise and loose trousers, his back to me, gazing at a canvas.

  I stood in the doorway staring at my husband, at his broad back, his thick dark hair, before he realized I was there. He turned to me and I saw a fleeting wariness in his eyes – what’s coming now? – and the sight of it bruised me.

  I walked towards him, my shoes in my hand. I had imagined hurling myself into his arms all the way back down rue de Babylone. I had thought I would not be able to stop myself. But now, in the still, silent room, something held me back. I stopped a few inches in front of him, my eyes not leaving his, and found myself turning towards the easel.

  The woman in the canvas was hunched forwards, her face mute and furious, her dark red hair tied back loosely at her neck as mine had been the previous evening. Her body spoke of tension, a deeply held unhappiness, her refusal to look directly at the artist a silent rebuke. And a sob rose in my throat.

  ‘It’s … perfect,’ I said, when I could speak.

  He turned to me and I saw he was exhausted, his eyes red with what might have been lack of sleep or something else altogether. And I wanted to wipe the sadness from his face, to take back my words, to make him happy again. ‘Oh, I have been so foolish –’ I began. But he beat me to it, gathering me to him.

  ‘Don’t leave me again, Sophie,’ he said softly into my ear, and his voice was thick with emotion.

  We did not speak. We clutched each other so tightly, as if it were years that we had been separated, not hours.

  His voice, against my skin, was ragged and broken. ‘I had to paint you because I couldn’t bear that you weren’t here and it was the only way I could bring you back.’

  ‘I’m here,’ I murmured. I wound my fingers into his hair, bringing my face to his, breathing the air that he breathed. ‘I won’t leave you again. Ever.’

  ‘I wanted to paint you as you are. But all that would come was this furious, unhappy Sophie. And all I could think was, I am the cause of her unhappiness.’

  I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t you, Édouard. Let us forget this night. Please.’

  He reached out a hand and turned the easel away from me. ‘Then I won’t finish this. I don’t even want you to look at it. Oh, Sophie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry …’

  I kissed him then. I kissed him and I made sure my kiss told him how I adored him from within my very bones, how my life before him had been a grey, colourless thing, and a future without him terrifying and black. I told him in the kiss that I loved him more than I had ever thought I was capable of loving anyone. My husband. My handsome, complicated, brilliant husband. I couldn’t say the words: my feelings were too vast for them.

  ‘Come,’ I said finally, and, my fingers entwined in his, I pulled him by the hand to our bed.

  Some time later, when the street below was alive with the sounds of late morning, and the fruit-sellers had made their rounds, and the smell of coffee floating up through our open window had become unbearably delicious, I peeled myself away from Édouard and out of our bed, the sweat still cooling on my back, the taste of him still on my lips. I walked across the studio, lit the fire, and when I was done I stood and turned the canvas around. I looked at her properly, at the tenderness in his line, at the intimacy of it, the perfect representation of me, of a moment. And then I turned to face him. ‘You must finish it, you know.’

  He propped himself up on one elbow, squinted at me. ‘But – you look so unhappy.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it’s the truth, Édouard. You always show the truth. It’s your great talent.’ I stretched, lifting my arms above my head and lowering them again, enjoying the knowledge that his eyes were on me. I shrugged. ‘And, in truth, I suppose there was always going to be a day when we were out of sorts with each other. A lune de miel cannot last for ever.’

  ‘Yes, it can,’ he said, waiting as I padded across the bare floor back to him. He pulled me into bed and looked at me steadily from across the pillow, a rueful smile upon his face. ‘It can last as long as we wish it. And, as the master of this house, I decree that every day of our marriage must be a honeymoon.’

  ‘I find myself utterly bent to my husband’s will.’ I sighed, nestling into him. ‘We have tried it, and found that being disagreeable and out of sorts didn’t suit us. I, too, must declare the rest of our marriage to be honeymoon only.’

  We lay there in companionable silence, my leg thrown over his, the warm skin of his belly against mine, his arm heavy over my ribs where he held me to him. I wasn’t sure I had ever been so content. I breathed in the scent of my husband, felt the rise and fall of his chest, and finally tiredness began to overtake me. I began to doze off, drifting to somewhere warm and pleasurable, perhaps made more so for where I had been. And then he spoke.

  ‘Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘While we are being so frank – I feel I need to tell you something.’

  I opened one eye.

  ‘And I hope your feelings will not be too injured by it.’

  ‘What is it?’ My voice was a whisper, my heart braced to stop.

  He hesitated for a moment, and took my hand in his. ‘I know you bought it for me as a treat. But I really do not like to eat foie gras. I never have. I was just trying to be agreea–’

  But he did not get to finish his sentence. Because I had already stopped his mouth with my own.

  Chapter Seven

  2002

  ‘I can’t believe you’re ringing me from your honeymoon.’

  ‘Yes, well, David’s downstairs sorting something out in the lobby. I just thought today would be even more perfect if I could squeeze in a two-minute chat.’

  Jasmine puts her hand over the receiver. ‘I’m going to take this in the Ladies so Besley can’t see me. Hang on.’ The sound of a door closing, then hurried footsteps. I could almost see the cramped office above the stationer’s, the heavy traffic crawling its way up Finchley Road, and smell the lead tang of fuel hanging in the sticky summer air. ‘Go on. Tell me everything. In about twenty seconds. Are you walking like John Wayne yet? And are you having the best time ever?’

  I gazed around my hotel room, at the rumpled bed David had just vacated, at the suitcase that I had begun packing half-heartedly on the floor. ‘It’s … been a bit weird. Getting used to actually being married. But I’m really happy.’

  ‘Ugh! I’m so envious. I went on a date with Shaun Jeffries last night. Remember him? Fi’s brother? With the awful nails? I honestly have no idea why I said yes. He droned on and on about himself. I was apparently meant to be impressed by the fact that he had a maisonette in Friern Barnet.’

  ‘It’s a very nice area. Up and coming.’

  ‘And the maisonette itself has a lot of potential.’

  I started to giggle. ‘It’s important to get on the ladder.’

  ‘Especially at our age. You can’t go wrong with bricks and mortar.’

  ‘He’s got a pension. Go on. Tell me he’s got a pension.’

  ‘He has so totally got a pension. And it’s index-linked. And he wore grey shoes and he insisted on splitting the bill and he ordered the cheapest bottle of wine in the restaurant “because it all tastes the same after the first glass”. Oh, Worthing, I wish you were home already. I so badly need a drink. Dating is crap. You have totally done the right thing.’

  I lay back on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling, which was white and as crisply ornate as a wedding cake. ‘What? Even though I’m ridiculously impulsive and my impulses are not to be trusted?’

  ‘Yes! I wish I was more impulsive. I would have married Andrew when he asked me and I’d probably be living in Spain now instead of stuck here in this office wondering whether I can sneak off at twenty to five to get my car tax sorted. Anyway – Oh, God, I’ve got to go. Besley’s just walked into the Ladies.’ Her voice lifts, changes tone. ‘Of cour
se, Mrs Halston. Thank you so much for calling. I’m sure we’ll speak soon.’

  Liv rings off, just as David returns. He is carrying a box of chocolates from Patrick Roger.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Supper. They’re bringing up some champagne to go with it.’

  She cackles with delight, pulls the wrapper off the beautiful pale turquoise box, pops one into her mouth and closes her eyes. ‘Oh, my God, these are amazing. What with these and tomorrow’s posh lunch I’m going to go home the size of a house.’

  ‘I cancelled the lunch.’

  Liv looks up. ‘But I said I –’

  David shrugs. ‘No. You were right. No more work. Some things should be sacred.’

  She pops another chocolate into her mouth, holds the box towards him. ‘Oh, David … I’m starting to think I overreacted.’ The afternoon, with its feverish pitch of emotion, seems so long ago. She feels as if they have been married a lifetime since.

  He pulls his shirt over his head. ‘You didn’t. You had every right to expect my full attention on our honeymoon. I’m sorry. I guess – I guess I’ve got to learn to remember there are two of us now, not just me.’

  And there he is again. The man she had fallen in love with. My husband. She is suddenly almost incandescent with lust.

  He sits down beside her, and she slides over to him while he keeps talking. ‘You want to hear the irony? I rang the Goldsteins from downstairs and I took a deep breath and I explained that I was very sorry but I couldn’t take any more time out this week, as this was actually my honeymoon.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And they were absolutely furious with me.’

  The next chocolate stops halfway to her lips. Her heart sinks. ‘Oh, God – I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yup, properly furious. They asked me what on earth I thought I was doing, leaving my new wife alone to discuss business matters. “This is no bloody way to start a marriage,” I quote.’ He gives her a sideways grin. ‘I always liked the sound of those Goldsteins,’ she says, popping the chocolate into his mouth.