A Week in Paris (10 page)

Kitty explained her circumstances briefly and Thérèse regarded her with a mixture of dismay and compassion. ‘That is indeed very hard for you,’ she said, and Kitty felt a great rush of warmth for her. She would have liked to have asked the other girl how she could bear to have accepted her vocation before her grown-up life had really begun, to have denied herself hope of a husband and children of her own. It was too soon in their acquaintance, though, to ask such a probing question.

In fact, it might upset her, Kitty decided, for when she asked her if she missed her home the girl said a little wistfully, ‘They say I must try not to think of my home much, though we are not a closed order and my family are allowed to visit.’ Her face lit up. ‘My sister and her husband have a baby boy I have never seen. Maybe they will bring him when they next come.’

Now she knew Thérèse a little, Kitty thought her beautiful. Her flattish round face and too-generous mouth were offset by fine dark eyes with thick lashes, and the dimple in one cheek gave her an appealing demeanour. Kitty liked her calm but friendly manner and the luminous quality about her she’d noticed on the first day.

After that morning at the convent, she often rose early to help the young novice with her chores in the first quiet moments of the day. On one occasion, out of a sense of curiosity rather than spiritual duty, she attended the service in the church beforehand, but not knowing Latin and there being no book to follow, she felt merely an observer and did not go again.

Miss Dunne, it appeared, liked to go to Notre Dame. She had a weakness for stained glass, she told Kitty. Kitty tried the American Cathedral near the Arc de Triomphe one Sunday, but there was a christening and finding there to be a great number of people who all appeared to know one another she slipped away quickly afterwards. She didn’t notice the well-built young man with curly fair hair shooting her furtive glances from the other side of the aisle, nor did she have any inkling of his moment of disappointment when he looked in vain for her later.

Eugene Knox didn’t often attend Divine Service because he was either working – he had recently started his internship as a doctor at the American Hospital off Boulevard Victor Hugo – or sleeping in after a late night out, but he’d decided to go that morning as his mother had written to say that a close friend of hers in Paris was having a grandchild christened, and would he attend to represent the family? Being a sunny sort of young man who liked to please his mother if it didn’t put him out too much, he’d gone. The baby admittedly was very sweet and during the service he spotted some friends to speak to afterwards. There was to be a lunch reception in the George V Hotel after the christening so on the whole it wouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice of his time.

Halfway through the prayers when everyone else had their eyes closed, Eugene looked around at the congregation and caught her face in profile. She was sitting on her own, two rows behind, on the other side of the aisle. He knew her at once, but it took him a moment to remember where from. Last time she’d been carrying a suitcase and her face had been pale with tiredness, that straight-off-the-night-train look, but today, with her eyes respectfully closed, a slight frown as though she was concentrating on the prayers, her cheeks were rosy. He noticed again the charming way her hair fell in corkscrew waves on either side of her sturdy face, the dark line of her brows and eyelashes, as though they’d been smudged with charcoal. His hopes were dashed when, after the blessing, he looked round only to see her pick up her handbag and hurry from the building.

His automatic response was to start off after her, but a man’s voice said, ‘Didn’t think I’d see you here, Gene,’ and he turned to find himself shaking hands with a man he knew slightly, Bill Delaney, a young Irish-American journalist and the baby’s godfather. By the time he’d extricated himself and got outside, the girl had all but vanished. No, there she was, some way ahead of him, walking towards the river. He set off after her, though not too quickly as he wasn’t sure how he would explain himself if he caught her up. The necessity of this did not present itself, for when they’d crossed the Seine he kept losing her, then when he eventually reached the Rue St Jacques, it was to see her turn down one of the many side streets near the café. Then a bus blocked his view so that by the time he was able to follow, she’d gone. He turned on his heel with a sigh, and made his way thoughtfully back to the christening party, where he presented the baby with a teddy bear and passed a most enjoyable afternoon. But from time to time he thought of the girl. At least, he thought, since he’d seen her in his neighbourhood twice now, he knew roughly where she lived.

Late September brought cooler weather, and by the first week in October, keen winds were blowing the dead leaves down dusty streets. The nights were starting to draw in, and Kitty chose to return earlier from the Conservatoire each day while the twilit skies above Notre Dame turned soft mauve and grey. She took to practising in the church in the late afternoon. On occasion a passerby might be drawn in to listen and at first this bothered her, but after it happened a couple of times it ceased to worry her and once she’d registered their presence she’d lose herself again in the music.

It was on such an afternoon, about a month after her arrival in Paris, that she sat at the piano in a patch of candlelight amid the encircling gloom. The priest had not yet been in to switch on the lights, but she’d lit the great candles set on wrought-iron stands to either side of the piano and liked to sit in the aura of their hot smoky flames. Stirred by the feeling of mystery and calm, she turned the pages of her book of Beethoven sonatas and found a piece to suit. She knew it well, the beginning she’d learned to play when she was twelve, but only now did she have the technique and the maturity to convey the deep feeling of it. She played with her eyes half-closed, letting the music tell the story.

The screech of wood on stone brought her to a sudden stop. ‘Damn,’ someone said, out in the darkness. ‘Sorry, didn’t see that chair.’ The voice was a man’s, with a lazy transatlantic burr.

‘Who’s there?’ She half-rose, alarmed.

‘Only me, ma’am.’ American, definitely. A tall, bulky figure separated itself from the shadows. He was a young man dressed in a soft brown suit, a little older than her – mid-twenties, perhaps – with clipped fair curls, and a round face with a pleasant grin. ‘Please, don’t stop, I was enjoying that. What was it? I know it from somewhere.’

‘It was Beethoven. His Moonlight Sonata.’ Her fear of him had faded.

‘That’s the one! I’m sure my big sister used to play it back home. Me, I was never any use at the piano. Or any other instrument, come to that. I guess God made some folks to play and others to listen. I’m of the listening variety.’ He stopped, but seeing she still sat, hands resting on her lap, added in a humble tone, ‘It would make me very happy if you continued.’

She said nothing.

‘I’ll go away again if it helps,’ he offered. ‘Should probably never have come in, in the first instance. Only I was passing, on my way home, and I heard beautiful music and since it was a church I figured maybe nobody would worry if I listened in.’

What he did not say was that he had made it his business to pass this way at various times over the previous fortnight, had even attended morning service again at the cathedral, in the desperate hope of seeing her. He didn’t know what had got into him; he’d never been this way before about a girl. And it was the plaintive beauty of her music floating out on the early-evening air that, in the end, had led him to her.

Kitty smiled, beguiled by the easy run of his talk. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘anybody may come in, but I was only playing for myself, I’m afraid – it isn’t a performance. The curé here is kind enough to let me practise. You don’t have to go, but I’m worried I’ll disappoint you if you stay.’

‘Disappoint me? No, I don’t think you would do that!’ the young man said, then, ‘May I?’ before plumping himself down on a chair in the front row and placing his hat on the one next to it. ‘My apologies, I spoiled the mood, didn’t I? But go on, try again. I won’t interrupt. I’ll be silent as a mouse, I promise.’

She laughed. ‘The mice in here can be extremely noisy. They scamper about shamelessly and gnaw the candles, but . . . all right. I’d better start again.’

She turned to the music once more and, true to his word, he was so still that she quickly immersed herself in the sublime languor of the broken chords of the first movement, as sad and ethereal as moonlight, music which built in passion and intensity to a state of rapture, before returning once more to the peaceful chords of the beginning.

The last notes echoed away in the darkness of the church. There was a long silence.

‘Bravo,’ he whispered eventually. ‘That was . . . that was quite something. Beautiful. The Moonlight, I’ll remember that.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, touched by his wonder. ‘Somebody told me Beethoven didn’t give it the name, but after his death a critic said that it reminded him of moonlight falling on the Lake of Lucerne and the name stuck.’

He nodded. ‘I see why he thought that. It reminds me of when I was a child and we stayed one summer in a house by a lake. The night skies were so clear you could sit and count the stars of heaven and never get them all.’ He spoke slowly and the low timbre of his voice was like music to her, so that she could see the scene he painted. ‘My father took me fishing in the moonlight and I trailed my fingers in the water – and you know what? I believed him when he said it was liquid silver.’ He chuckled. There was a faraway look in his eyes and she saw that the memory was a happy one. She liked his face, which was guileless and friendly, and the thought came to her that she’d been denied the chance to do anything at all with her father, and she envied him. Uncle Pepper had not known how to behave with children. He’d always treated her as another adult, with a serious formality.

‘You must think me rude, not to have introduced myself,’ the young man said, standing and putting out his hand. I’m Dr Eugene Knox – Gene to most people.’

‘And I’m Kitty Travers. Are you a medical doctor?’ She found him easy to talk to, did not feel shy with him in the least.

‘They’ve seen fit to let me loose on the unsuspecting sick just recently, yes. I’ve started work at the American Hospital, if you know it.’ Kitty didn’t, so he explained. It had been established by his countrymen as a charitable trust, principally to look after the many Americans who were living in Paris, though it treated people of other nationalities from time to time. ‘And you, you’re English, of course – but what brings you to Paris, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘I’m here to study the piano,’ Kitty told him. ‘You could say that I’m attached to the Conservatoire – that is, I go to classes there, but I’m not properly part of their system. I’m being taught privately by Xavier Deschamps. Have you heard of him? They say he was a famous concert pianist in his day.’

Eugene shook his head, a regretful expression on his face. ‘As I say, I enjoy listening, but I don’t know much about your kind of music. I’m more of a jazz man myself. Duke Ellington’s a favourite. You ever heard him play?’

Now it was her turn to say no. She didn’t even know the name. ‘I haven’t ever heard much jazz.’

‘You haven’t? Then may I respectfully suggest that you haven’t lived, Miss Travers.’ He paused for the slightest of moments, then said, almost casually, ‘Perhaps we can remedy that. I’d be honoured to take you to hear some one evening, if you’d allow it.’

‘Oh, I’m not sure . . .’ she started to say, dismayed, then it came to her, why shouldn’t she? Who would stop her? She was her own person here and she liked this young man, liked him very much and felt him trustworthy. ‘Well, yes, I’d like that, thank you.’ She was surprised at the heady sense of freedom the answer gave her. She was still getting over the fact of him sitting here, a complete stranger, and yet somehow so utterly familiar. It made sense to her that he was a healer for his was a soothing presence. There was something about him that was comfortable, comforting, and she found herself flying to him like a bird to a safe nesting place.

The following Friday, Kitty told Sister Thérèse that she wouldn’t be eating dinner at the convent and asked if it mattered that she’d be back a little late. The young novice’s response was to fetch a spare key, which she slipped into Kitty’s hand with a complicit smile.

That evening found Kitty puzzling between the two long dresses she owned, rejecting the formal black silk she’d brought in the event of concert performances in favour of one in soft apricot organdie she’d had made up in London, sleeveless with a fashionably pleated skirt and a matching jacket. There seemed to be no full-length looking-glass in the convent, so she was forced to position the adjustable face mirror in the bathroom as best she could to view bits of herself from different angles and trust all was well. Her shoulder-length hair with its natural curls needed little more than to be parted in the middle and clipped back with a pair of mother-of-pearl slides. Some russet lipstick and a touch of powder were all it took for a palely glamorous face to reflect back at her, eyes bright with excitement. As a final touch she fastened round her neck the delicate sapphire pendant she’d inherited from her mother and clipped on matching earrings. It struck her that it was her first proper night out in Paris.

At the stroke of eight she slipped out unseen to meet Gene, and found his cab already waiting. He took her first to Harry’s Bar near the Opéra, where she viewed the glamorous clientele, mostly English and American, through a golden haze of champagne. ‘I don’t come here often,’ he whispered. ‘Tonight is a treat for us both.’

In a cosy back-street restaurant nearby, where the walls were hung with scenes of Paris nightlife, they ate
sole meunière
by candlelight. A gypsy violinist came to serenade them, but sensing Kitty’s bashfulness, Gene gave him some coins to go away.

Kitty was touched that Gene seemed to want to know all about her. She told him how she was an orphan and couldn’t imagine what it must be like to be part of a proper family, as he was. She was here, she said, because her uncle wanted so much for her to do well, but she was worried about leaving him alone. ‘What about you?’ she asked Gene, curious. ‘Why did you come so far from home to train in Paris?’