Lovers and Liars (5 page)

This morning, there was a change in the routine. Normally,

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by tacit agreement, Pascal and Helen never met. At the end of an access weekend, Pascal would pull up outside the house. Helen, watching from the picture windows, would rush to the doorway, and hold out her arms. Marianne would run inside, the door would close, and Pascal would drive off.

This morning was to be different, it seemed. Helen was waiting in the driveway, looking thin, elegant and irritable. She kissed Marianne in a perfunctory way, and the child ran inside. Pascal wound down the window of his car.

In English, Helen said: ‘You’re late.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. The traffic was bad.’

She raised her eyebrows in a small arc of reproachful disbelief. ‘Really? Well, it hardly matters. I have nothing else to do except wait around, as I’m sure you know. Could you come in for a moment? I’d like us to talk.’

‘I can’t. I have an appointment in Paris in twenty minutes and I have to catch the flight to London at noon.’

‘When don’t you have a flight to catch?’ She turned away, faint colour rising in her cheeks. ‘Nothing changes, it seems. Well, if you can’t spare me ten minutes of your time, I’ll do it through the lawyers. Slower, and more expensive, of course - but it’s your choice.’

At the word ‘lawyers’, Pascal switched off the engine. He climbed out, slammed the car door, and strode ahead of her into the house. In the kitchen, he picked up the telephone and started dialling. He observed the cafeti&e filled with fresh coffee, the plate of biscuits on the white marble kitchen worktop, the two white cups and saucers, the two plates.

Helen came into the kitchen and closed the door, a tiny smile of triumph on her lips. She frowned when she saw him at the telephone.

‘Who are you calling?’

‘The magazine. I told you, I have an appointment. I’m now going to be late.’

She ignored this. While Pascal completed the call, she filled the two cups with coffee and carried them over to the table by the window. She placed a porcelain jug of milk and a porcelain sugar bowl in the centre of its white, empty expanse.

‘Do sit down/ she said, as Pascal replaced the telephone. ‘Try not to glower. I shall keep this brief.’

Pascal eyed the coffee, the two waiting cups, this evidence of his ex-wife’s assumption that no matter how reluctant, he

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would eventually toe the line. He shrugged and sat down. ‘If you would be brief I’d be grateful.’ His tone was polite. ‘It’s important I catch this flight.’

‘Oh, I’m sure.’ She smiled. ‘It always was. When I look back on our marriage - something I try to do as little as possible, I might add - you know what I find the single most significant fact? You were never there. Whenever I or Marianne might have needed you, where were you? At an airport. In the middle of a war zone. In some flea-bitten hotel in the back of beyond, where the switchboard didn’t work. And if the switchboard did work … ‘ she picked up a biscuit and bit into it delicately, ‘you were never in your room. Odd, that.’

Pascal looked away. Keeping his voice level, he said: ‘That’s all ancient history. We’ve agreed not to go over it again. You knew when you married me—2

‘When I married you I knew nothing at all.’ Her voice became bitter. She composed herself almost at once. ‘However, as you say

- ancient history. So I’ll come to the point. I want us to be civilized about this. You should know, I’ve sold the house.’

There was a silence. Pascal looked at her carefully. His stomach lurched. ‘This houseT

‘Well, of course, this house. It is the only one I have. And I find … I find it doesn’t suit.’

‘Doesn’t suit? You chose it. It cost five million francs. You’ve lived in it less than three years and you find it doesn’t suit?’

‘I have endured this house for three years.’ Her colour had xisen. ‘And you will please keep your voice down. I don’t want Marianne to hear, or the nanny, come to that. I don’t want any more resignations. Marianne needs continuity, and these girls don’t like scenes.’

‘Scenes? Scenes?’ Pascal stood up. ‘Considering the wages I pay her, she could stand the odd scene, I’d think.’

‘That was uncalled for. And uncouth.’ Helen also rose. She had flushed scarlet. ‘I try to talk to you, in a reasonable manner, for five minutes … And this happens … ‘

She was shaking, Pascal saw. He looked at her for a long slow moment. His former wife was virtually unchanged from the day he’d first met her, outside the Unesco offices in Paris, where she worked as a translator. She had loved Paris then, or claimed to. A slender girl, with sleek dark hair, and a nervous intense thin face, she had been wearing a dark coat, a scarlet scarf: he could still see her, standing on the pavement the day he met her. Their affair

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had been brief and fraught. They argued continually. Yet after the marriage, there had been contentment as well as incompatibility, surely? The birth of Marianne, for instance. He said, surprising them both: ‘I loved you once.’

‘Thanks for the past tense.’

She turned away. Pascal looked at her narrow back, at the strain in her shoulders. He had not meant to be cruel. The remark had sprung of its own accord to his lips. Then and now: the woman he had once loved stood three feet in front of him and yet did not exist.

‘I’m sorry.’ He started on a clumsy apology, then stopped. ‘You’re right. It’s better if we keep all this-‘

‘Businesslike?’ She swung around with a scornful look. ‘I do so agree. That was exactly my point. So. I’ve sold the house. Shall we take it from thereT

Pascal stared at her. The announcement had taken him by surprise, and now he sensed that pain was about to be inflicted. His previous remark had probably ensured the pain would be lingering. Helen’s face became set; her gaze slid away from his face.

‘I’ve decided to return to England. Daddy’s promised to help find me a place. Somewhere in Surrey, we thought. Not too far from home. With the slump in the market over there, Daddy thinks we can pick up a bargain. Something really nice. Somewhere with a paddock, so Marianne can have a pony of her own. She’s mad about horses, did she tell you thatT

Pascal stared at his wife. There was perceptible triumph at the back of her eyes. He said, ‘You can’t do that.’

‘Oh, but I can. Daddy’s talked to the lawyers. I’ve talked to the lawyers. We were married in England, Marianne was born in England … ‘

‘You insisted on that .

‘She has dual nationality. I have custody. Daddy’s man says I have virtual carte blanche. I can take her anywhere I like.’

‘You agreeff Pascal could hardly speak. ‘You signed an agreement to bring her up here. You wanted to facilitate access, you said that. To me. To her grandmother-‘

‘Your mother’s dead.’

‘You signed an agreement. You gave me your word-‘ ‘Agreements can be renegotiated. I’m renegotiating now. The lawyers say you can object, but it will be expensive, and you’ll lose in the end. If it goes to a hearing, they’ll bring up the work

you do now - the nature of your work. They’ll point out that you’re never around anyway, whereas I am - day in, day out.’

‘I’m always here/ he burst out. ‘When I’m allowed to see her, I’m here. One evening a week. One weekend in four. In three years I’ve never missed one of those appointments, not one.’

‘In fact,’ she pressed on, her voice riding over the top of his, ‘the lawyers say your access might well be reduced. It would have to take place in England, certainly. Maybe France for a few weeks in the summer, but—

‘Why are you doing thisT The question angered her.

‘Why? Why? Because I hate this country and I always did. I want to be back in my own country. I want to see my parents and friends. I want to work again-‘

‘You can work here. Translators can work anywhere. You always said that.’

‘I want to work there! I want to be with people I know, people I grew up with … ‘

‘I want. I want … ‘ He stepped back from her. ‘That’s all we have to consider, is it? What about Marianne? What about what she wants?’

‘Marianne thinks it’s a lovely idea. A house in the country, ponies … ‘

‘You’ve already discussed it? Jesus Christ.’

‘Yes, -1 have. And if you must know, I asked her not to mention it to you, not just yet, not until we’d had a chance to discuss it-‘ ‘Discuss it? You call this discussing it?’ He could feel the anger

rising in him uncontrollably now, and he could see an answering delight in his wife’s face. She relished her powers of provocation, ‘he had always known that. He moved towards the door. If he “Stayed another five minutes in this terrible room, he knew he might hit Helen - perfect evidence in a court of law. She had never been able to accuse him of violence. Perhaps this, he thought, was her attempt to rectify that.

In the doorway he turned back. He said, ‘I’ll fight you over this. No matter how long it takes. No matter what it costs. I’ll fight you inch by inch.’

‘Your choice.’ She turned away with a shrug.

‘Helen, think. Just think.’ He risked one last appeal, made an awkward gesture of the hand to her.

‘I’m her father. Don’t you want me to see her? Are you trying to exclude meT

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‘Exclude you? Of course not. If you agree to my proposals the access arrangements can remain the same. One evening a week. One weekend a month.’

‘An evening? In England? In Surrey? What am I supposed to do,, travel three hours every week to spend two hours with my daughter, then travel three hours back?’

Helen smiled. With beautiful politeness, she said, ‘But you love air travel, Pascal. You spend half your life on planes. Why not spend a little moreT

In the seventh-floor executive offices at Paris Jour, senior editor Franoise Leduc spread Pascal’s photographs across her conference table. Monochrome prints to the left, colour to the right: a damning tableau. Pascal, whom she had known for many years, whose career she had launched fifteen years before, stood watching her. Franoise, who had in her younger days been painfully in love with him, was puzzled by his manner. He had just presented her with a magazine sensation, a news-stand sell-out, yet he showed little interest. His manner was abstracted and tense.

‘You’re smoking too much, Pascal/ she said, in the mothering tone she had adopted years before as the safest device to defuse the attraction she felt.

‘I know. You’re right.’

He gave a half-shrug and extinguished this, his second cigarette in ten minutes. He moved towards the window, and looked out at a wintry sky.

Franqoise could see the tension in his back. She hesitated. They were good friends and colleagues now, she and Pascal, and Franqoise valued that. It was a triumph she had earned by virtue of iron control. For five, six, seven years - maybe more - she had hidden her feelings for this man absolutely, never betraying them by the least gesture or inflection. No-one had ever suspected, least of all Pascal himself. A handsome man, he was without vanity a rare gift. Perhaps also a little lacking in imagination. Franoise smiled to herself. Pascal, always absorbed, dedicated to his work, had a priestlike quality. If he ever noticed the reaction he provoked in women, he ignored it; but Franqoise suspected he noticed nothing, was curiously blind to his own often dramatic effect.

Her sacrifice had been worth it. Franqoise was a pragmatic woman. At fifty, she valued the long-term benefits of friendship to any short-term gains that might have accrued from an affair. She had hidden her feelings and her reward was Pascal’s trust.

She glanced down at his photographs, then looked back at Pascal, a slight frown of puzzlement on her face. She could still remember vividly the first time she had encountered him, an unknown twentyyear-old photographer, newly returned from his first trip to Beirut, standing here in this same office, talking, gesturing, spilling photographs across her desk. She had seen him as a favour to a mutual friend, and assigned him ten minutes in her packed schedule. The ten minutes had expanded to half an hour; the half-hour, after some last-minute cancellations, had expanded into lunch. When this extraordinary young man finally left her some four hours later, she sat in the restaurant, shaken: this was unprecedented. Why had she done this?

Because his photographs were exceptionally good? That was true, certainly, and she’d run the pictures over six pages the following week - so, yes, there were professional reasons. But there were other reasons too - powerful reasons, and not sexual ones either, for Franqoise was too disciplined a professional for that.

The only explanation she could find at the time was something Ishe had seen in his face: innocence, youth, passion, dedication. An unswerving conviction expressed in a whirl of sentences, confirmed by blazing eyes in a pale intent face, that he was presenting Franqoise with a gift beyond price - not just any photographs but documentation, evidence, truth.

f He had been very young, very naive, very inexperienced and very gifted. The combination cut Franqoise to the quick. As he talked about Beirut, and the violence he had seen there, Franqoise was forced to look at herself. She saw all the compromises, the adjustments she made in the day-to-day course of her work; she tAw the creeping nature of her own professional cynicism. What had she said to her secretary, before Pascal arrived? How boring. It ‘Won’t take five minutes. just some kid with more bomb pictures. Who gives

0 damn? The last thing we need is more sob stuff from Beirut …

Then this young man had burst into her office, waving a banner, ‘Crying out for a crusade, waging some personal war against injustice, lies and deceit. Franqoise had listened and been chastened. She might be the more worldly of the two, but this twentyyear-old made her feel cheap.

Fifteen years ago. Outwardly, Pascal was little changed since then. Tall, narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered, quick of movement, t4egant yet somewhat scruffily dressed. Franqoise smiled: the clothes he wore today were, as usual, good and, as usual, unpressed. She doubted Pascal possessed an iron, or would know

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how to use one. He could no more sew on a button than he could make an omelette or compliment a woman on her dress. He was sublimely impractical, sublimely indifferent to such things - yet put a camera in his hands, and he was transformed at once.