The Girl Behind The Fan (Hidden Women) (19 page)

It was more than I could have hoped for. Like Elaine, Arlette greeted me as though I were family. She clucked as I told her about Remi.

‘What use is such a cowardly heart to any woman?’ she sighed.

‘But he’s my true love!’

‘He’s just a man.’

Within an hour I was back in her household. I was back in my
chambre de bonne
, small but warm and comforting and entirely my own for as long as I needed it. I even looked forward to the arrival of my mistress’s guests. I felt I had come home.

For the next six months, I worked hard to show Arlette how much I appreciated her renewed trust in me. It soon felt as though I had never been away. The only difference now was that I no longer rolled back the carpet in my little room to watch Arlette and her lovers through the hole in the floor. I could not bear the feelings or the memories it aroused in me to see Arlette in the throes of love. Thank goodness she had broken with the poet. I did not want to hear anything of Remi Sauvageon.

‘Not even that he’s dying of syphilis?’ asked Elaine. She had a dark sense of humour.

‘Especially not that,’ I confirmed.

I just wanted to forget I had ever met him and live out the rest of my days in a sort of cloistered existence: cooking, cleaning and repairing clothes. I would never allow love to touch me again.

But I was not to remain Arlette’s maid for very long. About seven months after I had moved back to her house, she had a visit from an old friend. Clemence Babineaux was one of the wealthiest kept women in Paris. She’d had more lovers than there were days in the year and had amassed a finer collection of jewels than a tsarina. At that moment, she was the mistress of a Prussian count, a Reichsgraf, who had bought her a château and a diamond that was said to be the second largest in the world.

Arlette was in awe of Clemence Babineaux. She hung on the older woman’s every word, looking to her for the best advice in fashion, art and etiquette.

‘Hard to believe that Clemence was born in a Marseilles slum,’ Elaine whispered to me.

It wasn’t so hard to believe that Clemence was born in a slum when you watched her closely. She may have looked as elegant and delicate as any high-born lady, but beneath her delicacy was the shrewdness that could turn three sous into an empire. Like Arlette’s mother, Clemence had seen how beauty could be turned into riches with just a little effort. Clemence was about to work that alchemy on me.

When I went into the salon to serve Arlette and her esteemed friend some tea, Clemence tipped her head on one side and regarded me with interest.

‘And who is this?’ she asked.

‘Oh, this is my beloved Augustine,’ said Arlette. ‘She’s an orphan from Brittany. I found her in the Bois de Boulogne.’

‘What? Living there?’

I explained the actual circumstances, to Clemence’s great amusement.

‘Well, you’re wasted as a housemaid. Arlette, you must bring this girl to the Opéra. I can think of a great many people who would like to make her acquaintance.’ Then Clemence leaned in close to Arlette and whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. In response, Arlette looked at me and smiled broadly.

‘Yes. Yes!’ she said. ‘You are exactly right. And Augustine loves music. We will see you at the Opéra on Thursday.’

Chapter 26

So I went back to Paris. My hopes for my trip to Venice had come to nothing but I still had a job to do. Greg Simon was anxious to see some of my work. He told me that a handful of very hot young Hollywood stars were interested in the roles of Augustine and Remi and he wanted to give their agents something to look at. In fact, Greg emailed later, it was urgent. I was beginning to understand how the Hollywood system worked. Greg explained that the sooner we had some stars ‘attached’ to the project, the easier it would be to raise more funds.

I duly promised him that I would distil Augustine and Remi’s great love story into 2,000 words by the following weekend. That would be much easier to do in Paris, a city that had no associations with Marco. I could put him to the back of my mind and simply get on with my work.

Or so I hoped, but no matter how hard I tried not to think about him, Marco kept creeping back into the corners of my mind. It didn’t help that I was reading about Augustine’s own efforts to put Remi out of her own thoughts. I knew exactly how she felt when she wrote about those horrible hours in the middle of the night, when you wake up alone and know that your lover is lost to you for ever. Worse still, you can’t stop going over and over the last time you were in contact, wondering what you did, what you said, to make them run. It doesn’t even help when your friends tell you – as Bea did – that you’re not the one to blame.

I wasn’t the one who was hiding in a secret room and watching through a peephole. Despite acting like a nut over Marco, my behaviour was still within the realms of normal. I clung to that idea.

Soon I had been in the apartment for three days straight, not venturing outside the front door at all, just reading and writing and editing for hours on end. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t just that I was running out of provisions and was living on biscuits. I was in Paris, a city that people crossed oceans to visit, having saved for years to be able to afford the trip. What’s more, I was there all expenses paid, staying in a beautiful apartment in one of the chicest parts of town. It was rude not to take advantage of the opportunity that lay before me. Besides, I told myself, taking a walk around the city might rejuvenate my creative spirit and help me get those 2,000 words finished in time.

Closing my laptop for the first time in seventy-two hours, I set out.

It was a beautiful day. Warm and bright. Not a cloud in the sky. The streets were crowded with tourists enjoying the sunshine. I hadn’t been walking for long when I started to feel so hot that I had to unwind the scarf that had been the chic touch I hoped would mark me out from the daytrippers. I wrapped it round the handle of my bag.

I decided to head for the Rue de Seine, where Augustine and Remi had their little love-nest that ill-fated winter. I wasn’t sure the building where they had lived would still exist, but I hoped at least to be able to soak up some of the atmosphere. I crossed the wooden Pont des Arts, with its criss-cross metal fences weighed down by thousands of love locks. A group of teenagers had set up camp in the middle and were singing along to a Nirvana song written long before they were born. Meanwhile, an artist sketched passing tourists for a couple of euros, just as Remi Sauvageon had sketched the clients in his local café.

Playing a game with myself, I decided that any lock that drew my eye would have a special message for me. I spotted a red one, heart-shaped and professionally engraved. The couple who attached this lock to the bridge must have planned their visit. I walked across and lifted it so that I could read the engraving.

sarah and steve
, it said.

I dropped the lock as though it were red hot. Really? Sarah and Steve? If that was a message from the other side, it must have been from a malevolent spirit. Steve, Steven, my wicked ex. I looked at the locks to either side of the heart-shaped one for a more useful sign.
paula and ryan
.
angie and dev
.
leyla and steve
. I smiled at that one. Steve was a very common name. It was just a coincidence. And then I found a lock left by
sarah and clare
, which confirmed that my superstitious game was nonsense.

I carried on across the bridge and ducked through the archway at the side of the Bibliothèque Mazarine. Rue de Seine wriggled up from there. Here on the Left Bank it was very different from my part of town, with its carefully planned streets, courtesy of Haussmann’s grand vision. This part of Paris was like a set for
La Bohème
. I found myself constantly having to jump into the road. The narrow pavements were too small even for a single Parisian dowager and her miniature handbag dog – her
sac-a-main chien
. The shops, which once must have been the bakers and grocers Augustine wrote of in her memoir, were now chichi galleries and expensive restaurants. I chose one for lunch. It was called ‘Fish’ and it occupied the space where once had been a real fishmonger. I sat down at the bar and was just reading the menu when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Slowly, I turned round.

‘Of all the gin joints . . .’

I couldn’t believe it. The evil spirit of the bridge must have been on to something after all. Steven Jones, the man who had occupied my thoughts almost constantly until I met Marco Donato, was standing right next to me, large as life and twice as ugly. Though of course he wasn’t in the least bit ugly – and he knew it. He was wearing a blue linen shirt that flattered his tanned skin and brought out the colour of his eyes. He was wearing his hair a little longer than usual and it suited him horribly well. He held out his hands in a ‘look at you!’ gesture that made me feel light-headed and weak.

‘Sarah, what are you doing here?’

‘What are
you
doing here?’ I countered.

‘I’m working at the Sorbonne. I sent you an email, remember? You didn’t reply. Did you get it?’

‘I got it but . . . I didn’t know what to say.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘But thanks for writing it.’

‘No need to say more. Mind if I sit next to you?’ He started to pull out a stool. ‘Oh, God. How stupid of me. You’re here on a romantic weekend, right? And you’re waiting for your fiancé to arrive?’

‘No romantic weekend. No fiancé,’ I admitted.

‘Then . . .?’

‘I’m working here too.’

‘On your thesis?’

‘Research for a film.’

Steven looked interested. ‘You’ll have to tell me more.’ He sat down. ‘But why did you come to Paris without telling me? You knew how to find me.’

‘I guess I forgot you were here.’

‘
Forgot
?’

It did sound as though I was making a point. I felt a little embarrassed.

‘Well, I’ve found you now.’ He gave me a playful nudge. ‘What are you drinking? Assuming you don’t mind shooting the breeze with your old boyfriend for a little while.’ My heart was still throwing itself against my ribcage. I wasn’t sure if I minded or not. I decided to tell him I didn’t mind at all.

This time last year, Steven and I had been together but on the point of collapse. We had been a couple for seven years, but in the final eighteen months of our relationship we had drifted apart so that we were living like flatmates rather than lovers. Ironically, it was my attempt to change all that with a dramatic shift in our sex life that eventually caused us to fall apart for good. I hadn’t seen him since the morning after that heady night and now we were exchanging small talk at a restaurant bar in Paris.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asked me now.

I told Steven about the flat that came free with my new research job.

‘Sounds great. Nice neighbourhood.’

‘Seems like it. It’s quiet and safe.’

‘On the surface. You know one of Paris’s most famous sex clubs is just around the corner.’

Once upon a time, Steven would have been able to throw that into the conversation and neither one of us would have flinched, but things were different between us now. Thinking about another sex club, back in London, we both looked deep into our glasses. I wondered if our memories were similarly fraught.

‘Not that I’ve been there,’ Steven added.

But apart from that moment, it was surprisingly easy to talk to Steven again. One of the things I had enjoyed most about our long relationship was the banter we’d always shared. Conversation flowed like wine. It flowed even better when there was wine, as there was that day in Fish. I had always found Steven interesting and amusing. I hoped he’d felt the same way about me. He certainly seemed to be interested that afternoon. Two hours passed in the blink of an eye. All the other customers ate up and left. The barman dried glasses and feigned disinterest in our chat.

‘Listen, I’ve had a really nice time talking to you today. I know you didn’t intend to see me here in Paris.
Forgot!
’ He made a face to indicate that he didn’t believe that for a second. ‘But perhaps we could get together again? I can show you some of my favourite places – though you managed to find my very favourite place on your own.’ He indicated the bar we were sitting in. ‘Let me give you my French number.’

He picked up my phone and tapped in his digits. He commented on my screensaver. It was a photograph of the Grand Canal. The Palazzo Donato could be seen in the distance, though I hadn’t known that at the time I took the picture.

‘Venice,’ said Steven. ‘Always so beautiful. You haven’t really told me how you got on out there.’

I wasn’t about to go into it then.

‘I had a nice time,’ I assured him. ‘Got lots of work done.’

‘Perhaps I could read your thesis,’ he said then. ‘You know I’d like to.’

‘And I’d quite like for you to read it,’ I said. Truthfully. Before we were estranged, before we were lovers, Steven had been my teacher. That was how we met. I still respected his academic opinion.