Angel Cake (22 page)

We went by train and ferry. It is one relic of Rob’s student days that he likes to travel everywhere by the cheapest possible method. I would have thought that, after his flu, he might have made some concessions to comfort, but of course he would have hated that. We got to Paris in the early evening on the Thursday, a bit the worse for wear, and booked into our hotel. Rob had chosen somewhere quite near the Gare du Nord, so at least we didn’t need to have that thing about whether to take a taxi or whether we should fight our way there with our bags on the Metro. I had said, ‘Ooh la la!’ when he told me it was near the Gare du Nord and he had got rather annoyed. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, ‘you’re years out of date! Those little hotels have been perfectly OK for years. Anyway, I hope you don’t really imagine I’d take you somewhere like that.’

Our room looked out on to what I thought of as a classic Parisian courtyard; all the other windows thickly cloaked in net-curtains and the occasional troglodytic figure of a bowed woman scurrying through down below. Our bed was terminally lumpy and it squeaked. Rob shouted laughing to me from the bathroom about the plumbing and he came out rubbing his hands gleefully. ‘This is your original dirty weekend, isn’t it?’ he said with relish.

He caught me in his arms in the little asthmatic lift as we were on our way out to dinner. ‘I’m going to give you a really great weekend,’ he promised.

We were too tired to go very far for dinner that first night, and we ended up in a quite ordinary brasserie just two or three streets away from the hotel. Rob made a display of his greater knowledge of France by telling me that a
brasserie
should be cheaper than a restaurant. But I was annoyed that,
as we passed a number of restaurants while walking, he wouldn’t even stop to read their menus.

We had a nondescript meal although, as Rob pointed out more than once, it was very cheap. There was another English couple at the next table, which was disappointing, and it meant we didn’t talk very much, so they shouldn’t hear our English voices and spoil the novelty of our first evening abroad by speaking to us.

Rob virtually fell into bed when we got back and he was asleep before I’d even finished in the grubby bathroom. I couldn’t help feeling a bit peeved. It was hardly his fault, of course, but I knew how he would want to start the next day and I’m not as fond of that in the morning as he is.

But, despite a tricky beginning, the weekend went well, far better, in fact, than I had anticipated. On the Friday morning, Rob bought
Pariscope
and read it over the croissants in the café where we had our breakfast. (Rob said the café would be more authentic and cheaper than room service in the hotel.) He ringed all the films he wanted to see and I ringed the exhibitions. We reached a healthy compromise of not more than one film a day and one exhibition. We would have stuck to it too, if two of the exhibitions hadn’t been in such inaccessible parts of the city and closed on Mondays. But I saw the two I most wanted to see, and I splashed out on the expensive full-colour catalogue of the Rococo exhibition to show to Mr Charles. Most of the films were not too painful and, until our very last day, it was really quite a pleasant break.

On the Monday evening, which was our last night, Rob decided we should have one really splendid dinner and hang the cost. I got dressed up, even though he didn’t, and we went to a restaurant in Montparnasse which Jean and Eddy had recommended to him.

I wasn’t very taken with its appearance – it was run-down and dark – but it was pretty packed and Rob said that was a sure sign that it was good.

Over the meal, he drank a good deal and he took my hand across the tablecloth. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you’ll like this. I think I must be turning into a closet romantic in my old age, but I feel like drinking a toast. Listen!’ He raised his glass
mock-dramatically and his eyebrows went up into their twin peaks of query and derision as he searched for the witty words he wanted. ‘
L
’
amour
,’ he pronounced theatrically. ‘
L
’
amour
!
’

‘Oh, stop it Rob,’ I said quickly. I didn’t want to be teased and anyway his voice sounded too loud to me in the crowded restaurant.

But he was just getting into his stride. ‘
La vie en rose!
’ he declared. ‘
Je
ne regrette rien!
’

‘Stop it Rob!’ I said again. ‘You’re just being silly.’

‘But I thought you liked romantic gestures,’ he teased me. ‘Isn’t that my great failing – I’m too humdrum for you?’

He let go of my wrist and he blew me a joky kiss from the palm of the hand which wasn’t holding his wine-glass. ‘Loosen up for Christ’s sake,’ he joked. ‘We’re in Paris. What else do you want? Moonlight? Roses?’

I went on eating with a reprovingly straight face. Rob shrugged and shook his head. ‘Oh God, I don’t know,’ he sighed, pretending to be despairing. ‘Do I have to go down on bended knee in front of you or something?’

As we were having our dessert – a wedge of runny ripe cheese for Rob and a creamy piece of patisserie for me – a tall underfed-looking African came into the restaurant selling long-stemmed red roses.

Foolishly, I said provocatively to Rob, ‘Go on, here’s your chance. Put your money where your mouth is.’

For a moment, he didn’t even understand what I was talking about.

‘You’re not serious, are you?’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you realize how much one of those roses costs?’

The African worked his way between the tables. With the shrewd instinct of the really needy, he showed signs of heading for our table. Rob became completely sober in an instant. ‘Don’t you dare lead the poor bugger on,’ he said to me. ‘That would be really cruel.’

The African stood over us, hugging his sheaf of roses in one arm, appealingly holding out a single flower with the other.

Rob said firmly, ‘
Non, merci
,’
but the man stood there, still offering his flower, oscillating it over our plates, until Rob’s set expression convinced him there would be no sale.

Rob exploded when he had gone. ‘You see where all your silliness gets you? I’m sure that guy saw you casting sideways glances at his bloody flowers. Now he’s had to be disappointed.’

I lost my temper too. ‘Why on earth couldn’t you just have bought one?’ I raged at him. ‘For once?’

We walked back to our hotel in a sulky silence. The self-righteous sound of Rob’s crêpe-soled shoes treading surely and squidgily along the Parisian pavements irritated me all the way. We still didn’t speak much in our hotel room. In my irritable mood, the plumbing annoyed me more than ever and the lumps in the mattress seemed especially protruding.

‘Don’t I even get a good-night kiss?’ Rob asked wryly as we lay beside each other, not touching.

I didn’t respond for a moment or two but then, relenting, I turned and gave him a chaste peck on one cheek.

‘Oh wow!’ he exclaimed sarcastically. ‘Big deal!’ And, after a little while, he said in the dark, ‘I really don’t understand what’s got into you these days.’

I bought Mrs Q a headscarf on Tuesday morning, before we caught the boat train. It wasn’t silk, but it was similar. I told Rob it was for my mother’s friend Mrs Dickinson, who has served me as an alibi before, but I don’t think he was fooled for a moment.

Our journey back seemed to take forever, sitting in a still faintly hostile state opposite each other. Rob had bought baguettes for sandwiches and I was unreasonably irritated by the way he stuffed them with strong-smelling cheese and pâté and bit into them noisily, showering himself with flakes of crust.

However worthwhile he felt that his weekend had been, he rang all his friends the moment we got back to London, threw himself on to the newspapers and avidly turned on the television news. I waited until he had slipped out for a quick drink with Andy to telephone Mrs Q.

It is too sad; while I have been gadding about abroad, she is threatened by even further immobility. Her bunion has flared up and she’s hobbling around the house. She took so long to come to the telephone, I was already terrified. I asked her if she’d be all right until Sunday, only then I felt so
selfish I said I’d try and pop round one evening after work before then. If only I could take her somewhere for a jaunt one day!

She was wearing an old slipper on her left foot, slit open to give her bunion room to swell, and she limped painfully into the living room ahead of me. I almost hesitated to give her the scarf, in case it rubbed in the fact that she had no nice outing in prospect to wear it. But her sharp eyes had spotted my package as soon as she opened the front door and there was no getting away from it.

‘Beautiful,’ she said, unfolding it and professionally tossing the material to make it shine. ‘Beautiful, Alison!’ And then, absent-mindedly, ‘You shouldn’t have, really.’

She folded it into a triangle, draped it stylishly around her shoulders and struck a pose.

I said, ‘Ooh, it suits you!’

Mrs Q gave a deprecating smile. ‘I’m sure I look a fright, dear. But I used to turn the men’s heads once, you know.’ She took off the scarf and gave it a tender pat. ‘Beautiful,’ she repeated.

I encouraged her. ‘I bet you did.’

I wanted her to talk that day so that I wouldn’t have to tell her about Paris, so that I wouldn’t have to tell her about the seedy hotel and the lumpy bed, about Rob’s infuriating meanness with money and his refusal to buy me so much as one wretched red rose. But that was what she was waiting to hear. She questioned me mercilessly about our trip. I told her about some of the disappointments. I persuaded myself I was only doing it so she shouldn’t feel too wistful. But I didn’t tell her about the crude joke Rob made every night about the horrid bidet, nor my silly unfulfilled wish for a rose. I couldn’t bear to see her look of wise but silent triumph, bunion or no bunion, her unspoken but deafening, ‘I told you so.’ She crooked her little finger as she drank her tea and she patted her scarlet lips with satisfaction. At least, I thought ruefully, I am giving her pleasure, I suppose.

And, on Wednesday morning, Mr Charles had been terribly touched that I should have thought to bring him back the full-colour catalogue.

There was no denying it. She had lived to see another spring, although when she thought about it precious little of the spring found its way through to her in Shepherd’s Bush. She had confounded the lot of them: the pitying faces, the prying eyes, the precious lips, Alison, Pearl, Miss Midgley and Mr Patel. They might think she was on her last legs, poor dear, but she would live to show them yet. It occurred to her, as she settled by the window to watch the mild April evening, which was pinkish and smelt of tar, and eased her bad foot out of her constricting slipper, that things had come to a pretty pass when all that kept her going was spiting other people.

Miss Midgley had descended on her that very afternoon, not ashamed to show her face unannounced after a month-long absence. Alicia had spotted her coming from behind the front-room curtains; you couldn’t mistake that silhouette, could you? She had been tempted to play at being out. Except that she realized that at her age, they didn’t think you were out any more, but dead. To save a hullabulloo, she opened the front door at the third ring and greeted Miss Midgley ungraciously: ‘Oh, it’s you.’

‘That’s right!’ exclaimed Miss Midgley brightly, as though delighted to have her opinion confirmed. ‘And how are we getting on?’

‘I’m doing nicely, and yourself?’ Alicia answered snappishly and didn’t budge. She had tried this technique of keeping Miss Midgley out before, but she knew it didn’t work. Miss Midgley and her bosom simply came nearer and nearer until, unless you didn’t mind risking having an eye put out by one of those boned monstrosities, you simply had to step back, which looked as though you were inviting her in.

When they were seated in the front room, Miss Midgley had dropped her bombshell. ‘Do you know St Luke’s?’ she had asked bluntly, probably thinking this was an infinitely subtle and discreet way of going about her business.

Of course Alicia knew St Luke’s. It stood for all that she dreaded most about these twilight years. It was a tomb-like Victorian old people’s home off the Goldhawk Road. Passing it had given her the creeps even years ago, seeing all those
old biddies sitting inside in rows, staring stonily out at the free people going by outside.

‘No,’ she lied. ‘I can’t say that I do.’

Miss Midgley shifted very slightly on her seat. ‘It’s a residential care centre,’ she said slowly, ‘with very high standards and an excellent reputation. It’s not very far away from here, in fact. Perhaps you know the building?’

‘Ah,’ said Alicia icily. ‘The Home.’

‘We don’t like to call them homes any more,’ Miss Midgley said, bristling. ‘St Luke’s is a residential care centre, and a very fine one.’

Alicia snorted, ‘It looks a dump to me.’ She sat back to see how Miss Midgley would cope with that.

She blushed. ‘I’m sorry you think that, Mrs Queripel,’ she answered in hurt tones. ‘I’m sure you’d feel differently if you saw the inside of it.’ She hesitated. ‘The thing is, a place has come up there and I wondered if you’d be interested?’

‘No,’ Alicia answered, ‘I would
not
.’

She had been dreading that question for so many years, it wasn’t surprising she had her answer pat. But it took Miss Midgley by surprise.

‘No?’ she wavered. ‘No?’

‘No,’ Alicia retorted. ‘How many times do I have to say it?’

Miss Midgley’s face was a treat to behold. Alicia sat back and savoured her discomfort. Unconsciously, she tapped her foot. Miss Midgley’s eye fell on her slipper. ‘Trouble with your feet?’ she asked faintly.

Alicia stopped tapping hastily. She didn’t want to give Miss Midgley any ammunition. ‘Nothing serious,’ she answered airily.

‘We should get you along to the chiropody clinic,’ Miss Midgley declared, brightening visibly.

‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ said Alicia.

‘Well, I do,’ Miss Midgley answered, now quite herself, with her notebook at the ready. ‘It’s up at the hospital every other Wednesday.’