Lovers and Liars Trilogy (145 page)

Maria Cazarès had
not
died at the St. Étienne hospital; she, Juliette, had spoken to the ambulance people, to the doctor who admitted her, and they had been definite. Cazarès was probably dead by the time poor, frantic, half-senile Mathilde had managed to telephone; she was certainly dead by the time the paramedics entered this apartment, and none of their attempts at resuscitation had met with any success. So she had not died at the St. Étienne with Jean Lazare at her side. Juliette did not know why he made that claim—unless it was something he wished to believe himself.

She had spent the previous night trying to plug gaps, and putting out to the press the story Lazare favored, in the manner and at the time that he chose.

The doctor at the St. Étienne, now rehearsed, had been available for interview. Lazare was skillful, Juliette thought. He understood how to give information to the press so they noticed less what he withheld. And what he was chiefly withholding, of course, was Mathilde—though why he should do so, Juliette could not conceive. This mumbling, half-senile old woman was unlikely to tell any reporter anything useful or scandalous. She was Maria’s devoted maid; they had been taking tea together; Maria had suffered a sudden and massive heart attack—where were the secrets there?

Throughout the day Juliette had fended off only a few reporters; some Frenchmen that morning, a seedy cameraman from some British tabloid, and a rather more intelligent Italian paparazzo that afternoon. The paparazzo had wanted a picture of the room in which Cazarès collapsed; Juliette thought he had not expected to get it via the front door, and had not been greatly dismayed when he failed. After that, nothing—until the English journalist from a respectable paper, a paper Juliette would not have expected to take the least interest in this furor, had turned up.

It had been unpleasant, endless—and a fairly pointless exercise to boot. She listened, hearing a door open—and then realized, to her great relief, that the old woman had finished washing at last and was now shuffling along the corridor to her bed. Juliette heard the creaking of floorboards, then further mutterings: more prayers, she thought, and looked at the clock. This last hour of duty seemed the longest hour of her life.

Tomorrow morning, at ten-thirty, further duties remained to be performed. A limousine was to be sent to collect Madame Duval and bring her to Cazarès; she was then to be settled backstage for the duration of the show. This was tradition. Mathilde Duval had always attended the collections, had done so for twenty years—more. In the past it was she who arrived there with Maria Cazarès, she who stayed by her side throughout, soothing her nerves, talking to her, keeping her calm, tucked away in a little private back room until the moment Maria dreaded arrived, the moment she had to face the audience, the cameras, the applause.

The fact that Maria was dead altered nothing, Lazare said. It would have been Maria’s wish for Mathilde to be present, and present she would be. Juliette shivered again and edged toward the doorway. She could hear the muttered praying continue. Through the open door opposite, she could see into that terrible pink shrine of a room. She turned back to the sitting room, frowning now. Was there something to conceal here? She had assumed she was here purely as a result of Lazare’s almost pathological secrecy concerning Maria. But what if there were a serious reason for his insistence Mathilde be kept away from the press? Was it Mathilde he was worried about—or was it this place itself?

This idea had not occurred to her before. The instant it did, she began to look around her with closer attention. She moved to the mantelpiece and inspected the ugly objects crowded there, then to a table on which were perched more photographs of Maria, all of them fairly recent, she judged. She edged between small rickety tables, toward the far end of the room, which was dominated by a huge, very ugly secretary piled with knickknacks and papers, like every other surface here. There were pens, and bits of string, and scissors and sticks of sealing wax, and bottles of ink. The old woman had spilled some ink, she saw. A little pool of it, now dried, blotched one of the sheets of paper. It looked as if she had been trying to write a letter. Juliette bent over the page: the old woman’s writing was as crabbed as she would have expected; she could read only the opening words:
Mon bien-aimé Christophe. Il faut que je te voie, c’est urgent… Je suis navrée’ tu me manques…

Who was Christophe? she wondered. Some grandchild, perhaps? The rest of the letter, unfinished, was obscured by the spillage of ink, as if the old woman had been writing, knocked over the ink bottle, then abandoned the effort. Poor thing, Juliette thought. She straightened a few items on the desk, feeling guilty for her own curiosity. There was a small pile of tiny boxes, she saw, thrust behind the pile of papers. Their wrappings were scattered beside them, and those wrappings could have come only from Cazarès: she recognized the silver cord, the
gold faille,
the signature white silk scraps.

Perhaps Maria had brought some presents for the old woman yesterday, she thought, and given them to her before they took tea, before she collapsed. How sad. Whatever these three little boxes had contained, they were empty now. Perhaps little pieces of jewelry, some small token of affection. If so, she knew Mathilde would not let them out of her sight.

She crossed the room and looked along the corridor. The muttered prayers had ceased. She tiptoed to the door of the old woman’s room and peeped in. She was lying there, breathing steadily, eyes open and staring into space. She looked as if she were waiting for something, or someone. Juliette crept away. She was just telling herself that she was letting her imagination run away with her, when the doorbell rang, startling her.

She went to the front door, peered through the peephole, hesitated, then felt a sudden rush of elation: that handsome English journalist had come back.

She unbolted the door and opened it at once. This Rowland McGuire, whose card was in her pocket right now, had a half-amused, half-reckless look on his face—an expression Juliette decided she liked. In his arms, spilling out of his arms—and this she liked even more—was one of the most exquisite bouquets she had ever seen in her life.

“For you,” he said. “I was just wondering—when you come off duty—might I buy you a drink?”

He had the most devastating green eyes she had ever seen, and also the most devastating smile.

She hesitated for half a second; it was almost seven anyway. Then she returned the smile.

“I admire persistence,” she said. “And after today a drink would be excellent. I’ll just get my coat.”

From the window of Helen’s penthouse apartment, Pascal had a clear view of the street below. Standing in the darkened room in which Marianne was now sleeping, he watched Rowland McGuire leave the building next door and descend its wide portico steps. He was with a tall, elegant, middle-aged woman. Pascal caught a glimpse of her high-heeled shoes, her pale blond hair; she looked as if she were making some adverse comment on the weather; she drew her long fur coat more tightly around her. McGuire said something to her, at which she smiled; they disappeared, side by side, along the street.

Pascal rested his face against the cold dark glass. Behind him, Marianne’s breathing had become peaceful. The room was quiet, filled with the stuffed toy animals Marianne loved. The book from which he had been reading to her lay beside her bed, next to the tiny night-light in the shape of an owl with folded wings, which Pascal, knowing she feared the dark, had bought for her on one of his trips. From where? London? New York? Madrid? Rome? He had no recollection. He could no more remember this small event than he had been able to concentrate on the words in the story he had been reading aloud. Before he began reading, when he had been standing here at the window, as he was now, he had suddenly realized who they were, the man and the woman opposite, the tall man and the slender woman who kept her face carefully averted from this building as she spoke.

To see them made his heart ice; he had continued to stand there, unable to move. He had watched McGuire leave Gini there, cross the street, and enter the apartment building next door. Just at the second when Pascal had decided to go down, go out, speak to Gini, McGuire had returned. They had walked away, and near the corner Gini had taken his arm. The gesture had been companionable; its easy working familiarity, as if they were not lovers but merely colleagues, cut Pascal to the heart. Here, too, he thought, he had been usurped. Now, turning away from the window, he told himself that it was fortunate he had not taken that plane, fortunate he had seen this, fortunate he had resisted that impulse to go down and speak to her. Gini was obviously continuing her work with McGuire despite a scene that morning that had left him scarcely able to function, to think. He loathed, and also despised, protracted endings. Yes, he had decided to remain in Paris, but everything that needed to be said had already been said—there was no going back.

He looked down at his sleeping child, his heart welling with love for her; he bent and kissed her forehead, then left the room. He returned to Helen’s opulent living room, where she was sitting quietly, reading a book.

“That took a while.” She looked up with a smile, saw his expression, and closed her book. Pascal picked up his overcoat.

“Yes. I read the whole story twice. Then we talked. I think she’s nervous about the dentist tomorrow.”

“Oh, she’ll be fine. It’s only a filling. You’re taking her. That makes it a treat.” Helen rose. Pascal wondered if she would ever lose this knack she had of making the positive negative, of making what might have been a compliment a reproach. Since Helen’s remarriage, their relationship had been easier, but even now she could never resist such sly digs.

“Have a drink.” She had moved to the sideboard. “Come on, Pascal. Ralph won’t be back for an hour at least. You can stand my company for ten minutes, surely? And you look as if you need one.”

“All right. A whiskey—neat. Thanks.”

He began to move around the room in an aimless way as Helen poured the drinks. Helen’s second husband, he thought, had been able to give her everything she had always wanted, all the material things he himself had failed to provide. Looking at the room, with its expensive furniture, wall-to-wall carpeting, predictable paintings, costly upholstery and curtains, it seemed to him both soulless and curiously bogus—like a stage set for some thirties drawing-room comedy. According to Helen, it had been redecorated at her behest, by one of the top interior designers in Paris. Her husband, Ralph, it seemed, had had simpler tastes, but Helen had converted him, of course.

Pascal sat down on a sofa covered in a Bennison floral chintz. He rested his arm on a riot of faded roses and accepted his drink. Helen pushed several little silver dishes toward him, little dishes containing pistachios, black olives. They were arranged on a huge glass coffee table on which rested a vase of lilies and several piles of coffee-table books. Picture books about houses and china and rugs and paintings and furniture—about things you could
buy.
Were the books consulted? Pascal wondered. He could scarcely believe they were read.

Helen was wearing a flattering wine-red woolen dress. Her dark hair was cut in a new style that suited her. Her jewelry was discreet. She was looking well, he thought; she was looking poised, rich, attractive. She looked like the wife of a man of means—which was, he supposed vaguely, how she had always wanted to look.

How could he have been married to her for five years and known her so little, he thought. And the idea of his own mistaken conception of her deepened his depression. Helen liked material things—it was as simple, as basic, as that. Pascal, indifferent to possessions—interested in art, for instance, but perfectly content to travel to a museum or gallery to view it, and with no desire to acquire it himself—had assumed that Helen felt the same way. Surely, when he had first met her, she had been concerned with things other than acquisition? He could remember talking to her about politics, plays, books, films—and being certain at the time that she was as genuinely interested in them as he was himself. But perhaps she had not been. Perhaps he had simply failed to see her, or to understand her from the first. Perhaps the same was also true of Gini. I am a photographer, Pascal thought; it is my job, my life, to
see
—and yet I’ve been blind. He swallowed half the whiskey in one gulp, and, ignoring Helen’s little pout of displeasure, lit a cigarette.

Helen had been watching him closely. “What’s wrong, Pascal? Because something is. You arrived with a face like thunder. I can see the storm clouds right now.” She paused, eyeing him in a meditative way. “You’ve quarreled with Gini—is that it?”

“Just leave it, okay, Helen? I’m tired, and I’m not in the mood for one of your interrogation sessions—all right?”

“As you like.” She shrugged. “It’s perfectly obvious, nonetheless. You should learn to talk to people about your problems, Pascal. It’s not good to bottle things up the way you do.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Who says I have a problem?” He rose, paced the room, and then, with a cold glance in her direction poured himself a second drink.

“When you have a problem,” Helen said in a sweet voice, “you glower, then you pace. Deny it all you like. And in your present mood, I wouldn’t advise another drink.”

“Why not?” He turned to give her a cold stare. “Maybe I feel like getting drunk for once in my life.”

“It’s your funeral. Just don’t get drunk here.” She gave another irritable shrug. “How much longer are you staying in Paris?”

“I’ll stay until Marianne’s birthday next Monday. I’d like to see her on her birthday. If you don’t object.”

“No, Pascal. I don’t object. You can come to her birthday party. I told you. There’s no reason now for any hostility. We can all be friends. Ralph and you, Gini and me. We can be civilized.”

“Sure.” He gave her another cold look. “We can have nice civilized meals together. A little civilized lunch, perhaps?”

“Oh, I see.” She caught the inference at once. “That’s the problem, is it? I’ve sinned. I’ve actually dared to go out and have a normal lunch and a normal conversation with another woman. Oh, sorry, Pascal. My mistake.”