The Train to Paris (23 page)

‘Why don't you tell me what you were like at school? I hate to imagine.'

‘I did well. I was the top of my year, would you believe?'

‘Ha. Is that one of the stories you tell your rich friends, because it sounds so improbable?'

‘No. No, I have never told anyone before.' She took a packet of cigarettes from the bedside table. ‘You should not jump to such hasty conclusions about people, darling. Now it is your turn to surprise me. I am going to say that you went to some hideous private school, where they teach you how to take accounts and how to buy a Volvo. You resisted that, but you did not succeed. They never gave you the accolades that you deserved. And the boys hated you. They did not wish to talk about the same things as you. And you were shy and awkward. Not to mention lonely. You were too anaemic to play any of their boorish games. There, you have my stereotype. Prove me wrong.'

I willed myself not to let any tears show, even as I felt a burning sensation behind my eyes. I might as well have been back there.

‘You don't know what you're talking about,' I said. ‘You know nothing about me. We've known each other for two days.'

‘Darling.' She put an arm around my chest, which I tried to throw off, but she was too strong. I pushed my face further into the pillow. I felt her gaze on me. ‘I'm sorry, Lawrence. This isn't fair. It's a lie, really.'

‘What's a lie?'

‘You're a very rare young man,' she said. ‘You deserve more, but you have to take it. You can't expect it.'

‘Tell me about Marcel,' I said. ‘Did you take him?' Her face was grainy in the dark, like an old film. ‘Or did he take you?'

‘Marcel is not important. He's the easy way out, sheer convenience. And you need to find somebody who matters, Lawrence. Not the easy way out.'

This was true. My tears dried up, and she pressed her naked body to mine, sharing my warmth. She was bound to me. I had wanted her to be bound to me, since the first time that she had left me. But I never imagined the violation that her embrace would bring.

‘You asked me about my parents,' I said.

‘Did I?'

‘In Biarritz. They think that this is something I need to get out of my system. They want me to study law. I can't think of anything worse.'

‘Don't be defined by them. What they want is not what you want. What do they think of the girl?'

‘Sophie? I don't want to talk about her now.'

‘You do. Tell me.'

‘They like her. They expected me to find somebody like her.'

‘It is possible to surprise everyone. Defy their expectations. Do something bold. Then you can start to define yourself.'

I felt her go to sleep against me. It was hard to say exactly how long we spent lying there. She had drunk an awful lot. We both had. I tried to manoeuvre myself into a more comfortable sleeping position without disturbing her. I wanted to feel her body, but it was also suffocating. Sleep was elusive, even as my body wanted it. I preferred to listen to the figure breathing beside me, whoever she was. Perhaps it was all a dream I was about to wake from. And then there was the question of whether or not I wanted to wake up.

24

I woke to the
sound of the street sweepers four floors below, as I always did in Paris. My mouth was parched, and my temporal lobe was throbbing. But I kept my eyes closed, remembering what I could of yesterday. It was a film with several frames missing.

It wouldn't last. I opened my eyes. Élodie was no longer lying beside me. She had upturned the duvet, although the mattress beneath was creased from her body. I closed my eyes again. She had abandoned me, which did seem unoriginal on her part. I had thought that she was incapable of doing the same thing twice. She must have returned to her mad life and I was unlikely to see her again.

I was about to turn on the light and confront my soon-to-be inconsolable self when I saw Élodie sitting in a chair opposite the bed. She was wearing the sequinned dress, even though it was creased and rumpled. She was applying her daily film of make-up—she had been so silent and discreet.

‘Good morning, Lawrence,' she said. Her eyes stayed fixed on the pocket mirror. ‘How did you sleep?'

I had trouble speaking. My throat was corroded from the different forms of alcohol and cigar smoke. I managed to make an affirming noise, and rubbed my neck in an effort to loosen it.

‘Good.' She closed the mirror, careful not to catch her finger, and returned it to her handbag. Her expression was defensive and stony. ‘We did have fun yesterday, did we not?'

‘Well, yes, we did,' I said. ‘Are you leaving already?'

‘I have an appointment. Sorry to make you feel cheap, darling.'

‘Who is the appointment with?'

Ignoring the question, she moved in front of the mirror, where she touched at her hair so that it resumed its wavy structure. It was drier and more brittle than it had been the previous night.

‘It has been nice to see you again, Lawrence,' she said. ‘But I'm afraid that I have to go away now. You won't see me again. You understand, don't you?'

I sat up, alert. She couldn't leave me here, alone and naked in this bed while she sauntered off as she pleased. And while I should have expected this from her, it did nothing to dull the effect.

‘No, I don't understand,' I said. ‘Why do you have to go? What about your husband? What about his house? Are you going to leave that and run away from it?'

‘Of course.'

‘You won't accept responsibility for your bad behaviour?'

‘You have no idea what constitutes bad behaviour.'

‘You are describing yourself there.'

She snorted like a petulant child. Her gaze remained in the mirror, only focussing on herself.

‘I have no interest in it,' she said. ‘He deserves to do his own cleaning up for once.'

‘And where will you run away to?'

‘I will never tell you, because you would probably try to follow me there.' She turned away from the mirror and gave that penetrating stare again, the one that said more than she thought. She was making another clinical assessment of me. ‘You do look good. Much better than when I met you. Why must you resist it so?'

She came to sit on the edge of the bed. I drew myself up further.

‘Why did you insist on spending the day together?' I asked. ‘You already knew that it was going to end like this, and you knew how I felt about you.'

‘It has nothing to do with me. Do you really regret it? You agreed that it was fun.'

‘But you want to have as much destructive fun as you can and leave it for somebody else to clean up.'

‘How very perceptive you are, Lawrence.' There was nothing carefree about the way that she said this. It was almost desperate. ‘I do like you an awful lot. You are loveable, in a perverse way. But we shouldn't have made love last night. It was a bad idea. I hadn't counted on how personally you would take it.'

‘You're right, Élodie,' I said. ‘It would be much more mature to dismiss your passion as a casual mistake. But I'm not that stupid.' I tried to imitate her cold stare. ‘Who do you think you're fooling? Yourself?'

‘Very funny. Can't you see that I simply cannot have you following me? What would you do if I invited you to run away with me? Would you agree to it in a second?'

‘I would, if I knew I could stop you from making such a terrible mistake. But you would never invite me. You hate the thought of having anything constant.'

‘You have nothing to offer me, Lawrence. But Ed does. That is why I need to run away with him, not you. He knows how to take care of me. He does not judge my behaviour so unfairly.'

The thought of Selvin knowing how to take care of anybody was preposterous. He was no more than a despicable cad of Élodie's curious ilk. Perhaps they did belong together.

She stood up. Resolved to follow her, I got out of bed. She eyed my naked body, betraying nothing.

‘Hang on,' I said. ‘Where are you going? This is absolute madness. You're running away with Ed Selvin. Where to? New York? London?'

‘Why would I go to London of all places?'

‘You have a flat there.'

‘In London? No, darling, I don't think so.' I wanted to ask her why she had lied, but she continued. ‘We're going to Panama, if you must know. That damned silly girl, Vanessa, she is trying to hit him with alimony. And I fear that, whatever Marcel has in store for me, it will be worse. Ed has as little of his life left as I do. You have your whole life ahead of you. Go back to it.'

She was preparing to leave. I took my clothes from the floor and put them on as quickly as I could. She picked up the last of her possessions from the side table, as though it were the greatest chore.

‘Don't you dare leave,' I said, pulling the beautiful shirt on in such a hurry that one of the buttons came off. ‘You owe me more than that.'

‘Perhaps I do. Come downstairs with me. I will go as far as the Pont Neuf with you, and then you must go back. Is that clear?'

She left no room for negotiation. I put on my shoes, while Élodie waited impatiently at the door. I followed her out into the hallway, stretching my jacket as I missed the armhole. She drew up a hand and pushed my collar down.

‘It is important to be presentable,' she said. ‘No matter what the occasion. Now, darling, I cannot have you dramatising this. It will not do. You knew that I wasn't going to stay with you forever. You thought that I had gone after I left you in Biarritz.'

‘And why did you leave me there?'

‘Honestly Lawrence, you thought that it was a good idea to give me your number? I am not a floozy you happened to meet, or some constant source of pleasure negotiated on your terms. I wish that I had left you there. But I couldn't go without giving you the time of your life first. You have a better grasp on things now, so you must use it. Don't resist it.'

My headache had worsened. It throbbed like a cancerous growth, pushing against my skull. I felt a convulsing adrenal rush, a cold grip across my chest.

‘But why would you run away with a man like Ed Selvin?' I continued. ‘He won't take care of you. I can tell that from meeting him. I knew that something was wrong with him when I found out that he produces porn. How long have you known about that for?'

‘Such judgement, Lawrence. I have known about that ever since I met him.'

‘And you've acted in them. You were never in any crime flicks in the eighties. You were selling your body to him.'

‘Stop it, Lawrence. Of course I have been in his films. Does that really surprise you? And, more to the point, who are you to judge what either of us does for a living? When you haven't the faintest idea what you want to do.'

At least it felt as though she had told the truth. I was almost relieved by Élodie's revelation, although it changed nothing. We walked down the staircase.

‘Why would you never tell me that?' I said. ‘Why did you have to make it a conspiracy?'

‘Because I knew how you would react. Ed is a good man. You said so yourself. I think he intimidates you because he has a way forward. You are stagnated. I had to show you that it is possible to do something, if only you want it.'

‘He is the last person that I could ever aspire to,' I spat. ‘I don't want to be somebody who spends his whole time belittling others, and walking around town with his latest starlet before he tosses her on the scrapheap.'

‘And you will never be like that. But you will also never stay as you are right now. I hate to think what a horrible trudge to the grave that would be.'

The lobby was quiet. A young man in uniform was putting out the breakfast dishes. The concierge waved a hand, wishing us a pleasant day. Élodie replied in a way that masked whatever thoughts were prevailing in her fortress. I did not smile or say anything.

It had begun to snow again, out on Rue Saint-Sulpice. Élodie was not shivering, and I didn't give her my jacket this time. I imagined that Ed Selvin would be happy to. It was early, and the traffic was seeping in from the suburbs. A lone moped sped down towards the church. I followed Élodie across the road, jogging to keep up with her.

‘Can you at least tell me why you've showered me with these gifts?' I gestured at my new shirt, which was starting to attract the snowflakes.

‘Figure that out for yourself. I thought that it was damned obvious.'

‘You keep telling yourself that.'

‘You have no right to question my decisions when you are so inexperienced. That is your problem. If you would only let others influence you, rather than standing by this determination to be right all the time, then you would learn how to be yourself.'

I did not agree with this, but I realised that to argue the point would only serve to prove her right. Besides this, I sensed that we had only a short time left in each other's company. It was a small point to debate, and yet I could think of no other way to keep her with me. Even now, I needed her help.

‘Maybe that is
my problem
,' I said. ‘But you have an even bigger problem: you can't control yourself. You claim that I don't know what I want, and yet you have no idea. You do whatever you feel like, and then you wonder why people judge you for it. How long have you been seeing Ed Selvin?'

‘That isn't any of your business.'

‘So it was a long time. After he discovered you. You've been sleeping together since Biarritz, and Marcel found out about it, and all of your friends guessed it, so now you've decided to rebel against them because that is all you know.'

I made a grab at her arm as we came to the crossing at the Boulevard Saint-Germain. She tried to pull away, but I held it as tightly as I could. Her skin had turned so white that I could see the veins standing out against it, like strands of blue cotton laid out on porcelain.