Petite Mort (13 page)

The Marquis had become a person glimpsed, in his dark suit, through half-open doors.

A few months after the accident, he made the trip to Luce’s room.

‘Pack her things,’ he said to the maid, ‘she is going to Paris tomorrow, to live with my sister there. It is all arranged. It is high time she went to a real school.’

There was nothing; no hesitation. The maid stayed in her curtsy position until she could be sure that he was really gone.

IT WAS CHILDISH TO IMAGINE
I could make it better – and I wanted to be anything but childish: so I said, ‘It’s sad.’

Her face was turned away from me, to look out of the window at the green-gold light dappling through the trees; we were almost home. ‘I suppose it is sad,’ she said. ‘I suppose it did happen to me.’

She half-shut her eyes and leant her neck against the back of the seat. The length of her throat was white against the leatherette seats.

The car drove in at the gates and rattled up the gravel drive; Hubert held the door open for us.

She seemed almost to have forgotten I was there; she set off up the stairs and I followed. She walked so fast it was difficult to keep up with her. It was only when we reached the door to her study that she turned and said: ‘I won’t have anything for you this afternoon. You may sit with me and read, or sew, or you may retire, I don’t mind.’

I said quickly: ‘I’ll sit with you.’

She nodded, neither approving nor disapproving, and we went into the salon. She picked up a paperback. There were no letters, so instead I took a copy of
Comoedia
from the side table, and moved shyly to the sofa opposite her; she did not protest, and I sat demurely with the book propped upright on my knees, pretending to read.

My chest felt tight, and my arms and legs too big. But she had said I could join her; I was not intruding, was I? We sat in
silence for ten minutes, and then I stole a glance at her. She had flattened the novel on her lap; her face was turned to the empty grate. As I watched, her features grew pinched. It was like one of those chemical substances I had heard about at Pathé, which hardens on contact with air.

She looked, I realised with a little jolt, her age. In the light from the window, fine strands of silver led down like electric wires from her parting to her chignon.

It was not hard to guess what she was thinking about. So we sat like that, with just the quiet sounds a house will make around us, and all that time she did not move, just went on staring at the place where the fire should have been.

At seven-thirty I left her to go and change for dinner; stood looking at my own reflection, my cheap dress, for a long time, and when I went downstairs at eight, I found both André and Terpsichore already in position.

Precise sounds of crustaceans being broken into; the crack of the spines of the langoustines. André tore off pieces of bread and popped them into his mouth one by one, staring at a spot on the wall.

She will say,
Today we went to Peyssac’s
, I thought – or even,
Do you know, Peyssac is getting up a little film, he says you are involved, and I said, it cannot be true because how would my husband not have told me?
All with a peal of laughter and her fingers pincering the stem of her wine glass. I looked at her, half-expecting because I had thought the words, that she’d say them; but her head was bowed and she ate with her usual elegant movements, not seeming to notice anyone else in the room. André continued to put the food into his mouth apparently without pleasure, and then pushed the plate away, stretched back in his chair, and threw his napkin onto the polished table. It flopped, meeting its own white reflection.

He could say:
I was going to tell you, of course I was
. Or
I thought
we should rest you from Pathé, let the dust about Huguette settle
.

The main course came. Now Terpsichore did reach for the stem of her wine glass, and turn it between forefinger and thumb, making a scraping noise on the surface; André attacked his food with knife and fork, and
scrape, scrape
, went her wine glass on the table, the red liquid swirling and splashing inside.

After dinner, I went to my room to wait for him. It was only half past nine; ages until he would come, so I pushed the windows and the shutters open to look across the park. The lawn had faded to grey. I could smell jasmine and, from somewhere above and to my left, came the ruffling sound of wings being folded for the night.

At times like this the house itself seemed to listen; each joist and timber straining to catch the conversation.

I tilted my head, sure I had heard something – but not from the window side, from nearer the door. My first, erratic thought was: it is her, coming up to my room, she wishes to discuss Peyssac and form a strategy.
She will sit cross-legged on my bed with me, and we’ll talk
– my chest seemed to tighten in anticipation, staring in a panic at the coverlet as if she was already there; and then I realised the sound was not footsteps. I padded over to the door, easing it open. Then tiptoed across the landing and, seeing as it was fully dark and where was the harm, down the stairs to the landing of the second floor.

But here was her perfume suddenly, floating towards me, a little piece of her; and here too, it was possible to understand the sounds, peering over the banister to the ground floor and the living-room door ajar: their voices.

The gulp of her sobbing – André, low and vehement – and then her, repeating the same two words, over and over:
humiliate me
. I stood, shocked by the sound of her crying, staring into the darkness; and then the door opened – and André stood in the light spilling out into the hall. His fingers were curled in on
themselves. After a moment he marched towards the stairs.

I had barely reached my room and jumped into the bed when the door opened and he came straight across to me; in a few seconds I felt the whole weight of him on top of me, straining against the sheets.

His hands were cold and he worked up to his own release quickly.

Afterwards he lay on his back with his arm under my neck, staring at the ceiling.

‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked. ‘Tell her about the film?’

His eyes gleamed savagely.

‘Because it’s your business now?’ he said. ‘Whose side are you on?’

Juliette and Adèle
1967

I am just about to pack up my things, when Adèle leans across the table and says: ‘And the boyfriend? What does he do?’

‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’

She widens her eyes. ‘It’s 1967!’

I say: ‘I don’t have time.’

‘No? But there was someone. Recently.’

‘How did you know?’

‘How could you not have somebody?’

I feel the blush starting. ‘It doesn’t matter, does it?’ I say, shovelling my pens and notepad into my bag.

She watches me, her face alive with interest.

‘And the film?’ she says. ‘You saw
Petite Mort
? Was it illuminating?’

I stand. She looks up at me, the picture of innocence. ‘It was,’ I say. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

Her eyes sparkle. ‘We do keep our cards close to our chest, don’t we,’ she says merrily, to herself, as I leave.

THE NEXT MORNING
, when I go to the study, she is sitting at the writing desk in the window; curved over her correspondence like a child, a strip of her hair loose, hanging over the page.

‘Shit,’ she says, holding up the half-finished letter – ink has smeared a fan across the words – and then, seeing me, ‘I’m writing to Linder and Feuillade, the same letter to both, telling each that I’ve been engaged by the other.’

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you want a thing more, if you’re told you can’t have it?’ She shakes sand from a pot onto the ink stain, and then folds the paper and pours the sand off again. I watch her hands move as she reaches for an envelope, slips the letter in and licks the gummed surface. ‘Peyssac’s finished, anyway. He hasn’t had a new idea since 1905.’

‘What about M. Durand?’

She stares at me. ‘What about him?’

She seals the envelope, turns away to drop the letters onto a tray on the table, then dusts her skirt down, as if searching for what to say next.

Finally she goes to the window, and studies the view, determined, fists on hips. The sky is a flawless blue. ‘Let’s go out,’ she says.

The Allée des Acacias is a long, wide strip of white-dust road running through the Bois de Boulogne. And today it is full of people: some being driven along slowly in automobiles, some
in pony traps, but the majority strolling in twos and threes.

‘Let us out here,’ Terpsichore says at last, rapping on the glass; and the motor cuts, and Hubert hops out and opens the car doors for us.

The other ladies, strolling with husbands and children, notice her: the way she stands, and extends her parasol. And the men, passing by, jog their hands in their pockets and look brazenly at her face.

We begin to walk down the side of the road, following the slow march of the crowd. She doesn’t seem to want to talk; she frowns, as she looks at the people walking past. ‘Young love,’ she says, at last.

I sneak a glance sidelong at her – the straightness of her profile, the way her lower lip is jutting out in thought – and then quickly away.

‘And you?’ she says, her voice very light. ‘Is there a young man waiting for you at home?’

My thoughts turn inescapably to André; I feel my face go hot. ‘No,’ I say.

She’s frowning. ‘Nobody at all?’

I keep my eyes on the hat of the lady walking ahead of us.

She looks away and laughs: quick and bitter, and the silence descends again. After a while she says: ‘You are an enigma, Mlle Roux.’

And it is in that moment that someone close by says: ‘Luce!’

The woman is dressed in grey, with a ruffle at the throat of her blouse: but underneath her skirt I see the toes of riding boots. Her face is long and lean, like a horse’s, brown-grey hair pulled sharply back, but the eyes are twinkling, and the skin of her face is leathery, as if she spends a lot of time outdoors.

Terpsichore is grinning; they lean forward for the
bises
; the woman looks at me over Terpsichore’s shoulder. Then she takes my hand and shakes it, like a man.

Terpsichore says: ‘Mademoiselle Roux, may I present
Madame Vercors, wife of Louis Vercors, former Minister of the Interior.’

‘Aurélie,’ says the woman. ‘Call me Aurélie.’

‘
Enchantée
,’ I say.

‘In the flesh,’ Aurélie says, staring at Terpsichore, ‘an actual sighting. The girls will be
so
jealous.’

Terpsichore smiles. ‘I’m sorry. It’s this business with the studio. I’ve been distracted—’

‘I can see that,’ Aurélie says, and then says to me: ‘We never see her any more.’

When I don’t respond, Aurélie turns her scrutiny back to Terpsichore. ‘In a month it will be forgotten.’

Terpsichore lifts her chin, her throat moving; to my horror, she suddenly looks as if she is going to cry.

Aurélie says: ‘Come on. It doesn’t mean a thing.’

Terpsichore gives her head a little shake.

‘That’s better,’ Aurélie says. ‘Now, ask me what I’ve been doing.’

‘What have you been doing?’

‘Did you know my husband has been corresponding with the anarchists? Oh yes, the actual remnants of the Bonnot gang.
They have some interesting ideas
, he says,
of course I used my personal letterhead, why shouldn’t I?
’

Terpsichore smiles fondly at this someone I don’t know. ‘Oh Louis,’ she says.

Aurélie slaps her gloves on her thigh. ‘I must go, he’s worse than an infant, who knows if the house will still be standing when I get back?’ She narrows her eyes. ‘Anyway, he’s having a little
soirée
. Next weekend. I’ll die of boredom if you don’t come.’

Terpsichore lifts her head and smiles.

Aurélie winks at me, leans in and pecks Terpsichore on the cheek. Then she waves, and turns and walks away. She isn’t like the other women – drifting aimlessly; she has purpose. She disappears into the crowd.

I turn to find Terpsichore watching me.

‘So that was the wife of the Ex-Minister,’ she says.

I make a non-committal sound and she arches an eyebrow and laughs at me: a surprised laugh, as if she has found something out about me.

‘I liked her,’ I say.

She smiles; shakes her head, more at herself than me. ‘Your mouth gives you away every time.’

Luce, ii
.

Luce’s Aunt Berthe sits in the waiting room, seeing the spectre of her past flit across the sunlit wall opposite. She is tense with irritation, holding her gloves and purse taut on her knees, smoothing the fabric into submission. She strains her ears but cannot hear anything but the low murmur of voices from behind the audition room door.

On a chair on the other side of the room, next to the door into the other audition room, a lean woman with a Roman nose sits, watching Berthe, who tosses her head, aware of and disliking the scrutiny. Besides her impertinence, the woman is common-looking and poorly tailored. She looks like she knows all about Berthe, though they have not exchanged a word.

‘Your daughter, in there?’

Berthe shakes her head and looks haughtily away. ‘My niece.’

‘The acting competition?’

‘Yes.’ Berthe suddenly wishes to confide everything,
How ridiculous it is, because this isn’t what our family does, we have tried to dissuade her, but she would not be told. How like her mother she is
. The woman opposite is saying: ‘My daughter wants to dance. It’s better to try the acting, though, because you have a longer career. Ten years is all you get as a ballerina, and she is already fifteen. Have you been to the Conservatoire before?’

Berthe’s nostrils flare. ‘Never,’ she lies. The waiting room looked exactly the same thirty years before; she recognises it all, down to the peeling paint of the ceiling and the little piece of glass missing from the high window.

The door to the dance room opens and Aurélie exits, high-stepping like a pony at dressage. ‘I’ve been accepted,’ she says, and her mother clasps her hands in front of her face. ‘My darling,’ she says, ‘you must work hard, you must strive. I am quite overcome! My daughter, the ballerina!’