Elegance and Innocence (35 page)

I am.

I find the
Hammerklavier
wedged neatly between two gigantic sun cruisers and probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all if the sound of piano music hadn’t caught my attention first. I look down and there it is, all fifty feet of its slender deck, decorated with Christmas lights and tiny British flags: Eddie’s canal boat. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of activity; I check my watch again. Maybe I’m early. There aren’t any doorbells on canal boats, or at least none that I can see, so I call out and after shouting his name at the top of my lungs for several minutes, the piano playing stops and Eddie surfaces on deck. He’s wearing a beautifully tailored navy suit and brilliant pink silk tie.

‘You came! You look absolutely stunning!’ he says.

All I can do is laugh. ‘I know for a fact that I don’t. I don’t know how, but I seem to have misunderstood your invitation. As you can see, I’m dressed for a voyage out on the high seas!’

‘Would that please you?’ He reaches out his hand.

‘I’m not certain, really. I’m a little afraid of the water. And I’m sorry I’m here so early. Maybe I can help you set up for the other guests.’

‘Ah, well. Yes.’ He smiles and looks away. ‘That’s a bit of a point. But why don’t you step inside out of the cold.’ I take his hand, climbing down into the warm hull of the boat.

Inside it’s exactly like a narrow little house. There’s a galley kitchen which leads into a bright, surprisingly generous living room and a door beyond which (I assume) goes through to a bedroom at the front. The living room is charming. Its walls are lined with books and stacks upon stacks of sheet music. Against one wall there’s an upright piano, piled with even more music. The floors are layered with worn Oriental carpets. More of his vast collection of CDs are stacked against the windowsill, massed on top of books, heaped in piles on every conceivable surface. The only clear area to be found in the whole room is a small, round mahogany table. There, elegantly arranged, is a luncheon set for two.

‘Oh!’ I stare at the table in surprise. ‘Is that for me? For us, I mean.’

He smiles shyly. ‘If you’ll stay.’

I can’t quite get my head around what’s happening. ‘So, no one else is coming to your party?’

‘No, Louise. Just you. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘I see.’ I sit down on the arm of the sofa. ‘Just me.’

He nods.

I don’t want to say it, but I feel I have to. I look down at my hands, at the space where my wedding band used to
be. ‘Eddie, you do know how old I am, don’t you? I’m thirty-three. That’s nine years older than you are.’

‘Isn’t that brilliant?’ He smiles.

‘But that’s not all; I’m divorced. I haven’t dated in years. I’m … I’m from Pittsburgh! I’m sorry if I in any way misled you into thinking that I was younger or … I don’t know … different from how I am. You’re an amazing person and I admire you so, so much.’

He stops me there. ‘Are you breaking up with me? We haven’t even gone out yet.’

In the pit of my stomach a hollow, hopeless loneliness begins to grow, a pounding, dull familiar feeling.

‘No, I didn’t mean to sound so arrogant. It’s just that … I’m a little confused as to why you would even want to do a thing like this. I mean, I don’t know who or what you think I am but I’m not … I’m …’ My voice starts to falter. ‘It’s just … I’m … potato.’

He blinks at me. ‘I’m sorry; did you just say you were a potato?’

I nod. I cannot do this; suddenly I’m back in the Twentieth Century Galleries, a bloated, sexless woman in her early thirties, dressed in a shapeless grey dress, staring longingly at a black and white world of unimaginable beauty and glamour. Eddie is more beautiful, more talented, more elegant than all the famous faces combined.

My throat is tight and my eyes stinging, suddenly welling up with tears. ‘Potato, Eddie, potato!’

There are no elegant potatoes.

‘Take it easy, Louise.’ He moves closer. ‘What does that mean … what’s potato?’

I stand up, desperate to leave. ‘Potato means I can’t do this. Potato means … I have to get out of here, that I’m sorry … I’ve got to go …’

He wraps his arms around me. ‘Is this a Pittsburgh thing? Come on, take it easy. There, there,’ he whispers.

He smells of flowers and warmth, just like he did the day we napped in each other’s arms, and everything inside me melts with an overwhelming longing to lose myself, to fall deeper and deeper into his embrace.

But it’s too much.

You’re being foolish, the voice in my head says over and over. This is wrong. And suddenly I’m drowning, from the inside out. I’ve lost sight of the shore and there’s nothing but water on every side. I panic and push him away.

‘I’m sorry, Eddie, really I am.’ I bolt past him and clamber back to the safety of dry land.

He doesn’t follow me.

And it isn’t until I’m sitting in the back of the cab, crying, that I realize I’m still holding the video and the champagne.

Colin and Ria are out when I get home. But a package has arrived for me from the States and is sitting on the dining room table.

It’s a belated Christmas present from my mother. Neatly wrapped in gold paper and tied with a white silk bow. She’s slipped a little card under the ribbon:

Hey Kiddo,

Found this in the loft the other day and thought of you.

Do you remember?

You always did have a style all your own!

You have a lot of courage, Louise. I’ve always been proud of that.

Don’t give up now. The best is yet to come.

Love you. XXX Mom

I unwrap it.

And there, carefully preserved in layers of translucent tissue paper, is the cream-coloured marabou jacket she bought me when I was twelve.

Z
Zips

Zips are the beginning and the end. Every evening begins with a wife pleading for her husband to zip her up, which he does in a frustrated hurry. However, if she is lucky and smart, that same evening will end with him impatient to unzip her again!

‘Eddie! Hello! Eddie!’

It’s dark now and the wind is up, forming the water into choppy black waves that slap against the side of the boat. A light is on inside but there’s no music playing. Perhaps he’s gone out, maybe even with someone else, and I’m too late.

‘Eddie, are you in there?
Eddie!
’

But there’s no reply. It occurs to me that he might even be in there, able to hear me, but just not willing to speak to me. Ever again.

I’ve ruined it.

There’s nothing left for me to do. I turn and make my way back along the pier, head bent against the tremendous wind, struggling to press forward against the invisible hands that force me back. Everywhere moorings are straining, lamps and tackle swinging to and fro as if at any moment they might be whipped away into the night.

A great gust buffets me. Losing my footing, I lurch forward, stumble in the darkness, and fall. I land, abruptly, as if the ground’s shot up and hit me in the face. I scrape my hands as I throw them out to brace myself and my bag explodes as it hits the earth, its contents rolling out in all directions.

Damn! I curse myself for changing my shoes, groping my way like a blind man for the missing spare change, lipstick and keys. Stupid of me to come back in the first place. What kind of idiot runs away from her date and then re-emerges several hours later and expects him to be at home, waiting for her? My hair comes undone, dancing around my head, making it almost impossible to see. Gathering what I can find into my bag, I struggle to my feet and am brushing myself off when a man in a hooded coat walks towards me through the gale.

‘Are you all right? Have you got everything?’ he calls.

I know this voice. We’re standing face to face. ‘No, no I’m not all right,’ I say. ‘Not at all.’

He looks down at his shoes. The wind whips around us like a thousand voices, filling the air with whispers.

‘In fact, I’ve been extremely stupid and made a terrible mistake,’ I continue.

For a long moment, he says nothing.

At last he looks up. His face is sad. ‘I can’t be anything other than what I am, Louise. If this is going to be a problem for you, there’s nothing I can do. It’s up to you. I can’t do or say anything that will make you feel safe.’

‘Oh, Eddie! But I don’t want to feel safe any more! I was wrong! Really, badly wrong!’

I reach out and bury my face into his chest, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight. ‘Please forgive me. Even if you don’t want to go out with me any more … even if you just want to be friends. I’d rather know you and have you be part of my life on any terms than none at all.’

It seems I’m standing there for ages, holding him, before he wraps his arms around me too. We stand there, clinging to each other in the dark.

And then he picks me up and carries me home.

‘There’s to be no more mention of potatoes ever again in our relationship.’ He kisses my shoulder, pulling me closer.

‘No, never.’ I nuzzle my face into his chest.

‘What does it mean, anyway?’

‘Nothing. It’s a code word. A get-out clause. It means it’s time to leave.’ I kiss the back of his hand and his delicate, clever fingers one by one.

He withdraws them and leans back against the headboard, looking at me intently. ‘Parsnip,’ he whispers, softly. ‘Parsnip, Louise Canova.’

I laugh. ‘And what does that mean?’

‘Stay.’ He kisses me softly on the lips. ‘Stay.’

Six months later, I’m unpacking my books, slipping them in beside all Eddie’s CDs, when I happen upon an old friend of mine: a slim, grey volume entitled,
Elegance
.

I sit down on the edge of the sofa and open it. The spine is worn, the cover frayed at the edges. The book collapses open to one of the early pages, which, perhaps fittingly enough, is headed:

Age

There is a saying in France, ‘Elegance is the privilege of age’– and, thank heaven, it is perfectly true. Between childhood, youth, maturity, and old age, there are no particular birthdays on which a woman automatically graduates from one to another. And she generally retains her youth to the same degree that she retains the same interests as young people
.

One should, of course, defend oneself vigorously against the attacks of extra pounds, wrinkles, and double chins, but it is a battle that should be undertaken philosophically, for even the most skilful plastic surgery cannot recapture our youth. It is far better to settle down without vain regrets to a life filled with the rewards of past efforts and the joys that we at last have the means to give to others, instead of sulking like little girls when we are far too old to cast ourselves in such a childish role
.

Elegance can be acquired only at the price of numerous errors that are best remembered with good humour. And in the end, it is in the moments when we forget ourselves entirely that we are at our most beautiful
.

I close the book.

Here’s the perfect home for it, between a biography of Glenn Gould and a copy of the Forty-eight Bach Preludes and Fugues.

I like to think that Madame Dariaux would approve.

Acknowledgements

Several years ago now, I had the good fortune to stumble across an extraordinary book in a second-hand bookshop entitled
Elegance
by Genevieve Antoine Dariaux. Years later, when I decided to write a book myself, it became the guiding inspiration for this novel.

By generous permission of the original author, I have been allowed to use a selection of the original headings and have adapted them to suit my story. (Only the entry B for Beauty remains wholly my own.) However, much of the tone and certainly the most brilliant gems of advice belong entirely to Madame Antoine Dariaux herself.

It is with enormous gratitude that I wish to acknowledge her contribution to this book and to thank her for being both my muse and the touchstone of all that is elegant for these past two and a half years. She is, I can assure you, even more gracious and enchanting in person than her wonderful words of wisdom reveal.

KATHLEEN TESSARO

I
NNOCENCE