Patrick Parker's Progress (32 page)

Personally Audrey could think of a lot worse and said so. The Queen, in her opinion, wore some lovely frocks. And be blowed to modernity.

There was a fairly hot debate between the two women - certainly very hot on Minette's side. 'You cannot, I will not allow it, she dresses either like a cake or a horse
...'

'Oh, now -' began Audrey.

'And the only elegant members of your Royal Family you send to the devil. You throw away. The Windsors
...'

Judging by the passion in the Frenchwoman's eyes, Audrey decided not to pursue it. So she shrugged. 'Well, I haven't got anything else and I can't go hatless.'

Minette's own hat had gone to be refashioned in Paris but she would not be gainsayed. She eyed the standing Audrey up and down, touched her Ughtly here and there to make her more straight of shoulder, more serpentine at the hip, and then said, 'My God - I see it - you are like your namesake.'

'Who?' said Audrey.

'The Hepburn . . .' said Minette, in a voice of wonder. 'In which case - it is easy - you will wear a little black beret.'

'A beret?' said Audrey horrified. 'But I'll look like a schoolgirl. Or a French onion seller.' She remembered something else, something painfully connected with Patrick. 'Or Picasso.'

But the woman had already hurried away to the rear of her flat, returning with a black beret which she placed on Audrey's head.

'It is a shame about the hair which is not
elfine -
but - oh, my dear -' Minette held her at arm's length and smiled at her - 'the only schoolgirl you could possibly resemble would be a sly one - and you certainly could never look like an onion seller in a million years. And as for Picasso?' She led her to the full-length mirror in the hall. The only connection with him - if he met you now - is that he would want to eat you
...'

It was a very great shock to Audrey - weaned as she had been on sensible cardigans and pleated skirts and nice fresh shirtwaisters for the summer, and then turned by Patrick into some kind of waking vampire - to behold herself transformed into a long, thin, elegant,
dangerous-looking
Frenchwoman. How had this happened? Where were the heavy thighs, the solid calves, the heavy, rounded shoulders that she used to press against Patrick to arouse him? Even her breasts had nearly disappeared. 'Oh
blimey . . .'
she said, in a that's-torn-it voice. For this was what the pain of lost love had produced. She had been whittled away by it and never noticed, whittled away to a
gamine
young woman with eyes too big for the smallness of her face and elbows sharp as gimlets as she rested her hands on her bony hips. She would never be Little Audrey with the statuesque curves ever again. So this is me, she thought. Let's see what this new me can do.

She thanked Madame Minette for the loan of the clothes and promised to bring her back a stick of Brighton rock. Madame Minette pulled a face. 'Non,' she said, just like de Gaulle. 'Non, non, non
...'
The English were really absurd if you thought about it. Seaside rock was, actually, quite horrible. Audrey laughed. Then, with Madame's
'Bonne chance'
in her ears and butterflies in every other part of her, she left the apartment. On the way home she realised that they had not gone over any of the vocabulary she had prepared. And now she was just too elated, too tired.

In her bedroom she pushed the cardboard box and its expensive contents safely under the bed, where she lay, wide awake all night, worrying that the bed would collapse upon it. She was in a twin state of excitement - first for the effect her new self might have on the world, second for the examination. But it was the first which, as the French would say, called up her
passion
...

Somewhere, perhaps, the Goddess of Bluestockings, bored out of her skull with it all, went to sleep. Because Audrey never did sit the examination. Having not slept a wink all night she finally fell asleep about an hour before she was due to get up. Which meant that she was late for everything. Late for the Northern line to take her to Embankment, late for the District line to take her to Victoria. Which put her in a rebellious frame of mind. Why did they make you go to Brighton? What was all the fuss about? Why not just give her the job and try her out? And did she want the stinking old job anyway - all those old biddies in cardigans still talking about the war while they made foreign connections for other people and never wanted to travel themselves.

As she tip-tapped her kitten-heeled way along the platform unable to take anything but the smallest of steps due to the tightness of the skirt - the train whistle blew. So far she had not passed one carriage with a spare seat, except the first-class carriages of course. When the whistle blew again she hopped on and began the slow, pushing, prodding journey back along corridor after corridor of the crowded second class to arrive, eventually, breathless and pink of cheek, at yet more first class. Just as she was about to turn away a guard sprang to attention and slid open a carriage door for her.

'Madam,' he said, and saluted.

In she went.

So that was what happened? She might not be dressed like an over-iced cake or a horse but she knew how to borrow a gesture. She gave a little queenly movement of her hand, and settled herself elegantly into the corner by the window. The guard saluted again, and slid the door shut very smartly. She crossed her legs and gazed, from beneath her jaunty little beret, across to the carriage's only other occupant - a man already busy at his papers, his brown leather briefcase flapped open on the seat next to him and his fountain pen in his hand. He was much absorbed.

He wore a dark suit, and white shirt, a slate-blue silk tie and his thinning hair was dark grey. His shoes were black and very well polished and on one finger he wore a black and gold signet ring with an E. She took all this in and as she stared, he suddenly looked up. He raised an eyebrow. Then he smiled. And there was no doubt about it, it was an appreciative smile.

'Good morning,' he said.

And Audrey, completely taken up with her new role in life, said, 'Bonjour.'

To which he smiled broadly and said,
'Je suis ravi de recontrer une charmante bilingue
...'

She then looked down at her hands and went a very delicate shade of pink as she answered.
'Me
rci, je suis flattie, mais je n
e pense pas parlez assez bien francais pour meriter ce compliment.'

After which there was no stopping them. The fountain pen was laid aside, the briefcase flap was closed, and the
charmante bilingue
and the one who was charmed by her, leaned back in their seats and talked. In French. 'If only Patrick could see me now
...'
she thought.

The man's name was Edwin Bonnard and he was In Business.
Les investissements.
He worked in Paris where he had his own offices but he had many British connections. His mother was English and lived as a semi-invalid in a home near Brighton, his father was French, thought he was Maurice Chevalier, and lived dangerously in Nice, Biarritz, Paris and - occasionally - since it was the home of the family chateau - in Perpignan. Obviously Edwin Bonnard was travelling down to see his mother who liked to lunch at the Metropole but he was also interested in buying an apartment on the seafront to save himself the tedium of staying in an hotel on these visits. He was married with two children, both at the Sorbonne. And the elegant linguist?

The elegant linguist - working on an instinct that told her not to speak about Patrick nor about her mother and father and, still reeling mentally from the use of his easy use of the word
chateau,
not about her humble home either - brought herself back to the realms of reality and explained that she was sitting an examination in French - and why. She felt that to mention the telephone exchange was acceptable. It was, after all, her job - and a very decent one.

He put up his hands in horror at the very idea of the elegant linguist having to do such a thing as sit an examination. He said that her grammar and her pronunciation were impeccable. She explained that unless she passed such an examination she could not further her career on the - she hesitated, aware suddenly that perhaps after all a telephone exchange did not go well with a Chanel suit - business side of things. She managed a little shrug which she felt was quite French and which she hoped embraced the world at large.

The man listened intently, raising an eyebrow here, giving a little sympathetic cluck there, smiling all the time. As they came nearer to their destination he gave a little start as if he had just remembered something, slapped the flat of his palm on his knee, and said, as if he had made up his mind, that he himself was looking for an assistant in his Paris office. Might she consider the position?

The elegant linguist became, frankly, neither. Her mouth was open in quite a large O - and words - English or foreign - would not come. Breathe - she reminded herself - and just about managed it. She distinctly heard her mother's voice saying 'White Slave Trade' but decided that if it
was
such a thing, at least it was exciting. Better than sitting at home and moping and forever thinking of Patrick. She put her chin on her gloved hand, her head on one side, and listened hard.

It seemed, according to Mr Edwin Bonnard, that there was nothing much to being a personal assistant. She would have to make sure his diary was kept up to date, know how to answer the telephone (they both laughed at the absurdity of this and Audrey said, with spirit, that she jolly well ought to) and get him to the places he was required to attend, on time. She would have to buy gifts on the right dates, and send greeting and thanks and all that kind of social thing that women were so good at. Audrey looked at him doubtfully. Then she thought of Patrick. Always when she thought of him the word
reject
floated into her head and made her tap her toes nervously.
Reject, reject.
But she need not be. She could do this job. After all, she had done all those things for Patrick - once. Remembered when it was his mother's birthday, when the film started, when he should return his library books. Not hard at all. She enjoyed being useful. So she said she would think about it, which - they both understood - meant Yes. Then, buoyed up, Audrey asked Mr Edwin Bonnard (Edwin, please) if he was related to the painter, Pierre Bonnard. She did not say that she had heard of him because she had once had a boyfriend who took her to see some of his work. She just let it trip off her tongue as if the question were entirely her own.

Mr Edwin Bonnard raised an impressed eyebrow this time and smiled. He was very distantly related to the painter but, alas, he had only one small pastel by him, a smaller version of the famous
Woman and Dog.
Audrey nodded. She remembered it from Patrick's books and she liked it. But when Edwin started to talk about Bonnard's intimate depictions of the Bourgeois, Audrey nervously changed the subject. Patrick used the word Bourgeois a lot too, and she did not want to think about that side of things. Being Bourgeois was not a good thing. And she had a nasty feeling she still was. Whatever the opposite of it, it seemed to Audrey it was largely to do with taking off your clothes and laughing at people who kept theirs on. The Bonnard pictures Patrick showed her seemed like pictures of her parents and their friends and their ordinary homes. Not the proper kind of subjects for art - not like the Elgin Marbles or Leonardo. Patrick used to say these paintings were like bridges - their strength being as much to do with what was hidden as what was shown. Patrick.

To change the subject she asked Edwin about the apartment he was considering buying and she was thinking how lovely it would be to have somewhere of her own to live. A little bedroom, a little separate room, maybe, to eat and read in, a kitchen, didn't matter how small, and - impossible dream - a bathroom of her own. The sort of place she once dreamed of sharing with Patrick. She imagined the bed, large and lacy, like Lucille Ball's, but it turned into something small and familiar, Patrick's, and she remembered the last time she saw him. It still hurt and she was still his
reject.

Edwin suggested that better than describing the apartment, and since he had about three quarters of an hour before he was due to meet his mother's car, perhaps she would accompany him to see it? And they could talk on the way about Paris? He was entirely serious in his offer. It was clear from the way he looked at her that he knew the truth. If she went with him now she would miss her examination. Her heart thudded. She experienced a very peculiar mixture of feelings - fear, excitement, joy - and something else that felt like surrender. She was weary, suddenly, of her old ways. Weary of living a life that looked like a Bonnard painting. Her mother would sit in her kitchen chair by the fire most evenings, and knit. Then, after tea, Dad and she watched a bit of television. Quite contentedly. But just occasionally Dolly would look up at nothing in particular and smack her lips and say to no one in particular,
‘I
fancy a little bit of something and I don't know what
...'
And that was exactly how Audrey felt. She wanted a bit of something and she didn't know what. Maybe what she wanted was a bit of the White Slave Trade? She nodded, and agreed, she would like to see the apartment very much.