Harm's Way Page 5

  It was the intensity of my friendship with Beth that made me want to feel involved in this new relationship she was forming. My thoughts were simply a reaction to being marginalised. I wanted to call Beth and hear in her voice that I had betrayed none of my emotions the night before. Perhaps I might even admit how attractive I found Christian, laughingly tell her how lucky she was. Saying the words might erase all this negativity. Then the image of them both breakfasting, enjoying that indecent hunger that the first night brings, blackened out all my reasoning.

  I dived into the nearest métro and made my way to the Musée Rodin in the seventh arrondissement. Rather than go inside (I had already been there twice since my arrival in Paris) I found a bench to sit on in the gardens behind it, and watched a student drawing the limbless copper statue which rose from the middle of the pond on a plinth stained jade-green by years of rain water. But the convulsed, naked figures around it only reinforced the sensation that everyone was revelling in an intimacy from which I was excluded. And no matter how many times I re-ran the evening in my mind, the truth was that when Beth had interrupted my conversation with Christian, ushering us out of the kitchen, for a split second I had hated her.

  When she called by the flat on Sunday night looking pallid and wanton after a weekend spent in and out of bed with Christian, I noticed that her eyes had acquired a glaze nothing could penetrate. We sat, shoulders touching, on my window-box-sized balcony. And while Beth kept her excitement warm by recounting snippets of her conversations with Christian, compliments he had given her (‘He says he likes the birth mark I have on the inside of my thigh; he says it looks like Italy’) and described, with a complete lack of modesty, the sexual epiphany she had experienced, I stared across at the dirty plastictubing of the Centre Pompidou, wondering how on earth they would ever clean it, and how dull women can become when speaking about the objects of their affections.

  That evening something in our friendship was displaced, though only one of us felt it.

  Four

  Summer was in full flow, and Paris was heady with expectation. Beth had kept her honeymoon period with Christian to an impressive minimum. Although the two had more or less vanished for ten days, her gregarious nature soon prevailed. When the four of us began to meet up again in the evenings I had felt as much excitement about our outings as a teenager preparing for a date; I never asked myself why, or whom I wanted to impress more: Beth or Christian.

  I had not exchanged a single private word with him since the night of the party, having put the tensions of that night down to drunken paranoia. I knew no more about Christian than the little Beth had told me, but I did know that she, like all excessively kind women, liked to collect broken men. Christian was no different: his father had left when he was twelve, leaving him to support his mother and a younger half-brother, now a small-time drug dealer living in one of the vast concrete jungles on the outskirts of Paris that the government had built to deal with their immigration problem. Eyes glossy with admiration, Beth had told me that every month, Christian sent his mother over half the salary he earned managing a large, impersonal restaurant in Bastille, subsisting on what remained by living in a tiny ‘chambre de bonne’ in the sixteenth. One night, when walking behind them to a café on boulevard Voltaire, I noticed Christian’s gently tapered fingers, their tips iridescent on the naked small of Beth’s back where her shirt had ridden up. I felt oddly indignant at their apparently genuine attachment to each other after so little time. Unable to understand the sourness of my emotions towards the first friend I had come to love, and increasingly crazed by the nocturnal banging on the wall, I decided to seek out a diversion.

  That Thursday was funk night at the Rex Club. Stephen and I had arranged to join the others there after a brief catch-up of our own. A quick drink beforehand turned into several mojitos so strong they made your eyes water, and by the time we decided to leave, alcohol had stolen two hours from the evening. It was well past eleven. Conscious that my gestures were extravagant and my laughter too loud, I followed the blue strips of lighting lining the staircase into the club. Beth and Christian were standing, self-conscious in their sobriety, by the back wall. Annoyed by the obvious dislocation of our moods, I was pleased to spot Anne-Sophie, a girl from the museum gift shop, dancing with a large group of friends in the middle of the floor. I made my way over to her, and with a nod of recognition, placed myself on the fringe of their circle.

  Opposite me was Vincent, a friend of Anne-Sophie’s I’d met once before and registered as having something attractive about him, if only in the shadowed groove of the line leading from his nose to the central join of his top lip. Taller than most Frenchmen, and less slight-shouldered, he became an instant target. We danced a couple of feet apart – held together by our eyes alone – and when the DJ made a bad choice of record, I pulled back a little, checking an imaginary message on my mobile, and waited for his approach.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ he started in loud but unsure tones.

  ‘No – I was bored and decided at the last minute to pop down,’ I lied pointlessly.

  Behind him a girl with a sticky aubergine bob and too much eye make-up appeared.

  ‘Vincent,’ she shouted, without acknowledging me, ‘viens dancer.’

  ‘In a second,’ he replied into a curved palm as he tried to light a cigarette.

  Scowling, the bob approached and blew out the flame before he was able, then disappeared into the crowd. I laughed.

  ‘Sorry about that. She’s an ex-girlfriend: I guess she felt threatened by you.’

  Making any French girl feel insecure was so flattering as to be worth celebrating, so I let Vincent lead the way to the bar where we downed bitter cocktails from tall glasses. Our conversation was dull, but its subtext, adolescent in its essence, kept me interested. Spotting an opportunity I pulled Vincent over towards where Stephen, Beth and Christian were half-swaying, half-chatting on the dance floor. Vincent moved in behind me, linking his arms loosely around my waist, his breath warm against my bare shoulder. Beth was oblivious, lids semi-closed and arms held high above her head, too intent on keeping moving to notice. And while Stephen interrupted his conversation with Christian long enough to lift an eyebrow suggestively in my direction, a flicker of sobriety crossed Christian’s face as he took in the picture. One tiny glance, if you’re looking for it, will tell you all you need to know: those quiescent eyes were unmistakable.

  A little before five we stumbled into the dark-red shadows and sobering chill of boulevard Poissonnière, where cackling parties dispersed throughout the street. Beth had been desperate to leave for some time, but stood alongside the others, hugging herself as Vincent and I exchanged numbers and a forgettable parting kiss. Left too late in the evening, it had inspired only a kind of enjoyable indifference on my part. As our shared cab sped across a Paris still glittering with timid lights, our ears ringing, a silence descended. Wedged in between Stephen and Christian, his arm protectively around a somnolent Beth leaning her forehead against the window, I suddenly felt that the evening had ended too soon. Christian stared ahead, seriously, but as we neared my flat, where I was to be dropped first, he turned and, so close I could smell the alcohol on his breath, whispered, ‘I didn’t realise you were the kind of English girl who kisses anyone who asks.’

  The taxi had stopped, and Stephen was holding the car door open for me. I might have thought I’d misheard, were it not for the feel of Christian’s cool eyes on my back as I climbed out, without even a polite kiss goodnight.

  Next morning, not wanting to get hold of Beth on the phone, I called Stephen’s mobile and suggested brunch at Le Café Charbon in Oberkampf. We sat on the over-heated terrace discussing the events of the previous night, pausing with closed lids to absorb the sunshine pounding our faces. I felt grateful I hadn’t mentioned Christian’s comment when I saw him and Beth weaving their way through the tables towards us. Pale-faced and smiling, Beth led the way. Christian followed with downcast eye
s.

  ‘Did you ask them to come along?’ I whispered to Stephen, angered by the ubiquitous couple.

  ‘Well, I mentioned we were coming here,’ he replied defensively. ‘Why? Shouldn’t I have?’

  ‘I just thought it would be nice to …’ but before I could invent an explanation, Beth was pulling iron chairs gratingly across the pavement from an adjacent table. She fell sensuously on to one, obliterating our sunlight.

  ‘What a night that was, eh? What kind of state were you in Steve!’ Kicking the leg of his chair teasingly, she scolded him for ignoring a mutual friend of theirs in the club, with whom he’d had a romantic dalliance several weeks ago.

  I stole a sideways glance at Christian. With one brown elbow on the table, he was studying the menu, his eyelashes hard black fans against his cheeks.

  ‘What are you having, darling?’ Beth asked softly in French.

  Both Christian and I looked up.

  ‘Anna.’ Beth smiled at my confusion. ‘You’ll have the “orange-scented” madeleines, won’t you? Just to please me? Oh to have the metabolism of an eighteen-year-old again – and you, Christian?’

  ‘I’m not that hungry. I’ll just have a coffee and a bit of whatever you’re having,’ he answered in French.

  The intimacy of his reply irritated me like an itch beneath the skin. And since when did Beth understand French so well? Complaining of a headache, and ignoring the three surprised upturned faces, I left.

  That afternoon I walked from République to the pont de l’Alma, willing every step to alter my mood. Instead, I felt more alone than during my first two weeks in the city. Even the river, glinting placidly in the sunlight like a young girl unaware of her own attractions, served only to heighten my sense of irritation. I was not an envious person. Nor did I normally covet other people’s happiness. And yet something about Christian had upset the balance of my friendship with Beth, bringing my nerves up like a rash.

  During my lunch hour the next day, I pulled a folded flyer from my pocket and dialled the seven-figure number scribbled in the corner, conscious of my motivations, but prepared to try anything ‘pour me changer les idées’. The pleasure in Vincent’s voice was audible in the first sentence he uttered, and I appreciated his easy phone manner. He suggested booking a table that night at a seafood restaurant in the eighth arrondissement and I agreed. Over a tiered platter of shellfish, a little embarrassed amusement over the plastic bibs and a bottle of Riesling, I was surprised to find myself enjoying Vincent’s company. His features were finer than I’d remembered: a high forehead tumbling into deep-set eyes fringed with donkey-straight lashes. A self-deprecating humour gradually emerged which would have been more attractive were it not for the occasional downtrodden expression betraying various neuroses I had no intention of exploring. Simultaneously I decided two things: that I could never feel anything other than fondness for Vincent and that I would take him home that night.

  The following week took an unexpected form. Vincent and I spent nearly every night together. I was taken aback by his ardour, by the pleasure I derived from him in bed, and found the almost daily gifts of flowers and eighteenth-century novels – love and intellect are symbiotic forces in France – both baffling and amusing. One of the things I have always felt alienates me from most of my sex is the lack of excitement with which I receive flowers. For me the problem lies in the implicit emotional pressure in that seemingly benign gift. If presented to you with a flourish in a restaurant, the gesture is enjoyable for him, but leaves you burdened for the rest of the evening. They betray a kind of desperation in the giver – and remind me of our neighbour back in London, who bought his wife a puppy when he found out she was having an affair.

  The determination of Vincent’s attack bore results of a kind. I began to adopt the language and gestures of passion, without experiencing any of its emotions, marvelling at my lack of feeling, like a child who runs his finger quickly through a flame and is astonished to feel no pain. I learned then something that has been of value ever since: if, during a relationship’s initial stages, one side is too consistently proactive, the other becomes emotionally lazy. Why let yourself feel when someone is doing it for you? I savoured the ease with which I behaved like an object of love, feeling that the role suited me. But there was more to it than that. Beyond the physical satisfaction of this relationship, I experienced a kind of clinical, intellectual pleasure in thinking about love, or rather the lack of it. I had read too much de Beauvoir not to interest myself in its very essence.

  Looking back I think I must have behaved like the perfect lover: one’s gestures are always more measured, with less chance of bungling, when they are false. Just as adults, sitting silently in their cars at the end of an interminable dinner party, must compliment themselves on their pleasantries – remembering the name of their neighbour’s third child, enquiring about a recent job change – I relished pretending to care. The ease with which I could respond to Vincent’s romantic pronouncements shocked me. As I soon discovered, however, life has a habit of throwing up scenarios that are difficult to play out with any semblance of feeling.

  It was just over a week into whatever it was that Vincent and I were doing together. On that febrile Tuesday, the covered sky, a low, insistent ceiling above our heads, crushed the spirits of Parisians desperate for air. After much prompting from me, Vincent had bought tickets for Ionesco’s Bald Prima Donna – Paris’s answer to Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap – which had been playing for forty years at a charming little theatre in the sinuous back streets of the Latin Quarter. I’d skipped up the two flights of stairs to his flat that afternoon feeling almost fond of this man I barely knew, only to find him pale and prostrate on his sofa: a migraine. He might as well have told me he had bowel problems, I could not have found the condition more repugnant. Migraines? Weren’t they the fragile woman’s affectation? I sat down limply by his feet, conscious that I should touch him in some way, looking at my hand lying useless and upturned in my lap, and willing it to somehow give the required sympathetic pat.

  ‘I didn’t realise you got them. How …’ I tried to clear the hostility from my throat, ‘long have you had them for?’

  ‘God, as long as I can remember,’ he winced melodramatically. ‘I used to have these amazing painkillers the doctor prescribed for me but I’m out. You couldn’t run down to the chemist over the road and get me some Migraline, could you? It’s not great, but it’ll help.’

  ‘Of course I could,’ I smiled, relieved to distance myself, if only for five minutes, from the sight of his feverish eyes and the scaled track of dry skin on his bottom lip.

  But an hour and two tablets later Vincent’s headache showed no signs of abating, and I wondered whether he might be thoughtful enough to suggest that I go to the play with Beth instead, so as not to waste the tickets. The vulnerable silence emanating from his huddled figure was getting tiresome. Massaging his temple feebly with my finger, I whispered: ‘Do you want me to leave you alone so that you can get some sleep?’

  He shook his head and gave me a martyr-like smile tinged with tenderness. In my (admittedly limited) experience, relationships had always run up against one, tangible moment of disgust from which there was no return. It could be provoked by a comment or a seemingly harmless gesture, but once it was there, it festered until the faint revulsion, the sheer disrespect, outweighed every other aspect, eventually forcing me to break it off. Occasionally – through boredom or lethargy – a length of time would pass between the moment of realisation and the end of the relationship. I might have felt more optimistic about Vincent, but for a story my mother once told me about a friend with an adopted baby. The woman had invited my mother round to meet her new child, but later, while making them both a cup of tea, had suddenly dissolved into tears. Empty words of comfort and diffident back-stroking from my mother had eased out a confession: in a dry whisper, her friend admitted to feeling nothing for the child. Four months later she had rung my mother to tell her that as she�
��d nursed the baby through a fever, she’d felt love for the first time. But just as vulnerability can be the catalyst for love, where there is no love it simply highlights the lack of it.

  With Vincent, I was worried that the whole episode might have entrenched terminal disgust too soon, and determined to keep it at arm’s length while I still needed him. I did, however, have one thing to thank him for: although he had failed to banish thoughts of Beth and Christian, I felt that he was, at least, endowing me with weapons with which to fight back.

  Over the following weeks, I used Vincent, knowingly and without bad conscience. His presence alleviated my nerviness around Beth and Christian, four being so much more comfortable a number than three, and his docile nature nearly always ensured that he didn’t overplay his part.

  That Friday afternoon was a rare exception. I arrived late outside the only cinema in Paris still showing a Hollywood blockbuster we had all somehow missed. Its obstinate presence in theatres across Paris and its posters in métro stations meant that we had, at first, systematically expunged it from our thoughts. But the film’s PR machine continued to chip away at our defences until one by one we succumbed, finally agreeing to endure the thing together.

  Stephen was already inside, buying popcorn with Beth, and as the cab drew up outside, I could see Vincent’s back, irritating in its familiarity, as he stood chatting to Christian. I had deliberately engineered to be late, but the arrival was not as I had planned it: none of the men – because of Vincent’s stupid positioning – were able to witness my approach.