The Best Australian Stories (39 page)

Of course, she is young, said Cathérine. These days. Women have babies quite late, these days.

Yes, said Sabine. That is true.

They had never been to one another's houses. Cathérine had considered asking Sabine to come to her apartment for lunch but thought it might seem she was fishing for an invitation in return. Which she would be, so she couldn't do it. She sometimes wondered how Sabine lived. It seemed a way of life quite splendid, from odd mentions in the newspaper. Sabine the lady of the manor; she looked the part. And the great man in his library, not to be disturbed.

Sabine did not think of inviting Cathérine, or not. It was not something that could happen. She did not have visitors to the house. The large house, with its warm rooms, full of scents, floor wax and furniture polish, quinces in a bowl, lavender in the linen, hyacinths or lilac or lilies in vases, the spicy smells of stuffed cabbage. She ran it, with its strict net of timetables, its meticulous web of figures in the account book, she inhabited it, enjoyed its comforts, with Jean-Marie or on her own, entertained the designated people in it, but she did not in any sense own it, it did not belong to her, or take note of her in its functioning. She was its chatelaine, and privileged, but she did not have the freedom of it. Sometimes she read about people being given the freedom of a city, symbolised by a large key, frequently gold, and thought she would like such a thing for her own house. Of course it wouldn't happen. Not unless Jean-Marie died, and that was not a thought for the thinking. Nevertheless she took pleasure in its order and its odours, its rich textures and surfaces. She bought things for it and set them in place with a careful eye. She sat in the morning room and looked out at the vegetable garden, the cabbages and lettuces, the beans on trellises and the peas, the fruit trees and raspberry canes and rhubarb beds, and thought of all the blessings she could count.

Cathérine had a garden, but only for looking at. When André had demolished the grand house to build the block of flats they lived in he had left a fragment of its gardens, so there was a view from their first floor of box hedges and gravel walks and lines of pollarded lime trees.

Remember when we were at college, doing our bookkeeping, what good girls we were. And shy. We didn't know at all where we'd end up. Isn't it funny, Cathérine said to Sabine.

It's just as well, isn't it, said Sabine. Otherwise we would not have the courage to live our lives.

And yet, they've turned out well. We're both prosperous, contented.

Oh yes, yes, there's all that. But somehow, being young, all those hopes, ambitions … it's just as well we don't know. The mystery of the future, it's the great blessing.

I think I had more fears, said Cathérine. It seems I feel more relief than you.

Oh relief, yes, but that's it, it's calm, it's not grand …
You have your husband, there's grandness, such ideas ...
Yes.

*

Jean-Marie wore a djellaba when he worked at home in the mornings. He said it allowed the air to circulate around his body, which helped in thinking. In the old days he'd worn nothing under it, possibly still did. She'd had to wear skirts and stockings, not trousers and not tights. He would often seek her out and take his pleasure, from behind, bending her over the back of the sofa, or a table, or his favourite place, the sink in the kitchen. He'd never slept with her, not all night, but had often come to her bed. She wondered if he was a good lover. She had not had that thought at the time, but later, with the girls in the pavilion, the wondering had come. He was enthusiastic, she knew that, very keen, he took great pleasure in the act, but was he a good lover? For a woman, not just himself. She could not tell, not from experience, he was all she knew, and she had sometimes imagined taking lovers and maybe finding out, but had never done so, hadn't worked out how, and thought that probably she wasn't really interested or she would have made it happen. Reading magazines and novels made her suppose that he wasn't, but they might not be right themselves, all sorts of fictions might be perpetrated, and then who knew what he had learned from the pavilion girls. She had heard one of them say, in a holy voice, It is being possessed by the god, and realised she meant Jean-Marie, how distasteful. But maybe it was. Maybe she was living with a god. Then I am an angel, she said to herself. The angel of good housekeeping.

And then, when she thought of famous examples of divine possession and impregnation there was never much sense that the woman enjoyed it. Mary, Danae, Europa, Leda. Fun for the chap, but for the woman? Psychologically demanding, being chosen by the god, and of a dread excitement, but the woman's pleasure not ever mentioned. Not much foreplay in a shower of gold or even a swan for that matter. And as for the Holy Spirit, the girl didn't even know until told about it later. And just the one time in each case and then she was pregnant and that was it, left to get on with it, sorrow and tears mostly, as is ordained for the daughters of Eve. Just the one time: girls always said that of shameful pregnancies: I only did it once. But in this case it was true, for certain.

She did not often admire the pavilion girls. They often seemed coarse and even a bit grubby, or anyway sloppy. But of course it wasn't any of her business. She didn't talk to them much. They said things like, What gorgeous amethysts, or Awesome vegetable garden. You could think of them as puppies, clumsily gambolling about, except that they were so avid. She no longer asked herself whatever could Jean-Marie see in them.

Mimi was a case in point. A small, thin girl, very dark, with an unfortunate complexion and solid hairy legs. She looked fourteen, but Sabine knew she wasn't, since she had finished university and was out in the world, in fact had a good job in the faculty, and anyway Jean-Marie wasn't that foolish. She looked fourteen, that early anguished teen stage, but at the same time ancient, her thin childish air somehow wizened. She is like a fruit that withers before it is ripe, said Sabine to herself. And not coming across as very clean, with a potent body odour and a muddy tint to her skin. Called Mimi, what sort of a name. Probably not a christened name. Inventing herself.

Sabine sometimes thought of saying to her husband: Jean-Marie, what do you think I make of these girls? She imagined his answer: My dear, I do not expect you to make anything of them.

The pavilion girls always disappeared the next morning, back to their other lives. They got their own breakfast, and Sabine did not expect to see them. One afternoon Mimi rang the doorbell. Sabine was slicing a very young and delicate calf's liver, a favourite of Jean-Marie's, for dinner. Mimi needed to talk, she said. Sabine took her into the kitchen. She could not afford the time to sit around in the drawing room making conversation with this girl, and certainly didn't want to. She offered her fruit juice or mineral water.

Mimi talked about the calf's liver, and about the snow peas out of the garden, and the raspberries Sabine was making into a summer pudding, an English dish that her husband had got very fond of when he was in Cambridge. She found herself telling Mimi how to make it, with stale bread and not cooking the berries and not using too much sugar, it should be quite tart, the freshness of the fruit should be everything. The girl seemed distracted. She examined a long skewer-like fork that was lying on the table. What's it for, she asked. For getting the meat out of lobster claws, said Sabine. She waited for her to say why she was there.

When Mimi said, I have to tell you, I am pregnant, in a small voice, Sabine stopped her slicing of day-old bread for the pudding, and sighed. How very careless, she said. She got her cheque book and a card with the name and address of The House in the Pines on it. She wrote a generous cheque, enough for the termination and a considerable sum more.

What's this, asked Mimi.

Sabine sighed again. They'll take care of you. They're very efficient. Safe. Even kind.

Mimi frowned. But it's not nearly time … Oh, she said. Her face went pale under its sad smudge of acne. You mean … an abortion? I couldn't do that.

It's a bit late.

What do you mean?

You're pregnant. There's not a lot of options.

There's the only one. I don't believe in murder.

Sabine looked at her. Do you see yourself as Leda? Or maybe Europa? Danae perhaps?

Pardon? Mimi looked bewildered. Sabine felt herself being malicious. After all, being possessed by the god hadn't been Mimi's expression. She just always lumped the pavilion girls together.

This way, it's neat, simple, clean, no fuss.

Whereas a baby is the opposite of all those things. I know. But a baby is a human being. You know, with Jean-Marie and all, I'm a Catholic, a Catholic intellectual, but essentially a Catholic. I can't kill a child. Intellectually, emotionally, morally … there's nothing would permit me to kill a baby.

It's a foetus.

She's alive. Human.

She?

Or he.

Sabine went on making her summer pudding.

You don't think I planned this, do you? It's the last thing I ever thought of. But I don't see I have any choice.

Jean-Marie cannot be involved. No children, that's the rule, said Sabine, her voice rising and harsh. No children.

I don't expect Jean-Marie to be involved. It is me, my choice. I don't know why I even told you.

Sabine sat down. Yes, why did you tell me? She stared at Mimi. Are you thinking of blackmail? How can we be certain who its father is?

Do you think I have no moral sense at all? What sort of whore do you think I am? Tears ran down Mimi's cheeks. I don't know. I suppose … it's momentous. I had to tell someone.

Your mother? Family?

Mimi shook her head. There's just me. I'll manage. I'm OK, I can. A baby. It's a matter for rejoicing. That's what I think. Unto us a child is born: it should be a matter of joy, always.

She smiled. Her colour had come back, and the acne scars were barely a smudge. Her eyes were wide open and bright, they were full of light. Shining.

Keep the cheque, anyway, said Sabine. You never know. And anyway you can use the money. But don't forget, you cannot trouble Jean-Marie. His life must go smoothly, he can't think otherwise. No complications.

Of course not. I had no intention of worrying him.

Irritating, more like, Sabine thought. She looked at the girl. Woman. She appeared less wizened. Maybe she was about to ripen. To ripen, and split open with Jean-Marie's seed.

It's you I wanted to tell, said Mimi. I thought you should know. I do so admire you, you're so wonderful, about, everything.

Sabine did not know whether she felt jealous of this young woman, or sorry for her, or proud. All three, it seemed. After she had gone she sat at the kitchen table so long that it was too late to get the pudding done and she had to open a jar of quince preserves to have with yoghurt, perfectly delicious but how wasteful to open preserved fruit when it was the high season of all the fleeting summer fruits.

She thought a lot about Mimi and the light in her eyes. One day she went to a funeral in the Val de Grâce of a retired colonel with whom Jean-Marie had corresponded. He did not have time to go so she went in his place, the mark of respect was necessary, he said. Afterwards she walked down the rue Saint-Jacques and stopped in front of Plaisir d'Enfant. All the beautiful tiny garments. She went in and bought a little jacket in cream wool georgette, embroidered with red rosebuds. A boy or a girl could wear it, the sales assistant said. It wasn't as though it was pink, the red was very stylish. All the babies are wearing red, she said, little touches, like the rosebuds. When Jean-Marie came home he asked her how the funeral went, and listened briefly. He'd had a letter from Mimi saying she wasn't coming any more, and was put out. The girls wrote letters to him quite often, all his acolytes did, he encouraged this elegant activity, reminding them how many great thoughts have been preserved in correspondences, but this was unpleasant news. He cast the missive down on the desk. The silly girl, he said, annoyed. These flighty creatures, you can't depend on them. He frowned, and sank his head on his chest, and paced the room. Severance was his role, he did not care for it to be usurped by a silly girl. Sabine looked at the letter when his back was turned and memorised the address. She watched Jean-Marie pull himself together. She wondered if the girl's dismissal had made him afraid he wasn't much of a lover, and was astonished at herself. Dinner was a beefsteak, well-hung and tender, with parsley butter and a salad, followed by a ripe camembert and fruit for dessert, which exacerbated Jean-Marie's bad temper; he liked real desserts. The funeral, she said, I had not time for puddings. Though there was a good bakery opposite the Val de Grâce where she could have bought some tarts. It had crossed her mind to do so, but she hadn't. It is quite disappointing, said Jean-Marie. At the end of a long and difficult day one looks forward to some small delicacy.

*

Sabine walked down the hill and caught the train into Paris as she normally did when she was going to the market at Denfert-Rocherau as befits a thrifty bourgeois housewife, having given her husband his breakfast in bed, his bowl of milk coffee, the sticks of bread and butter, with jam, greengage plum from their own tree, it was a little early for him to be out of bed, though of course he was working, reading some necessary text. But she didn't get out at Denfert-Rocherau, she went on to Palais Royale and caught a taxi to the address she had memorised from Mimi's letter. The building was an ornate early twentieth-century edifice plastered with garlands and swags and ribbons. It was raining, a steady drizzle out of a low pale grey sky. The dead brown leaves of the plane trees hung limp and wet from their branches, or turned into sludge on the ground. Water trickled and tinkled and lay in gleaming puddles. Mimi's apartment was up four steep flights of stairs; she could go straight in the street door, there was no bell or intercom or code to dial. When Mimi opened the door her face was bright pink and damp, her hair spiky with sweat. She looked angrily at Sabine, then put her hand over her mouth and rushed away. Sabine came in and shut the door. The apartment had tall ceilings and panelling painted a pale coffee colour, rather shabby and worn; it was austere, quite bare in fact, but the proportions were lovely and it was clearly someone's chosen place, it belonged to Mimi, it was hers, and that was a powerful thing. It was filled with pale clear rainy light, a firm and demanding light that made no promises but did not dazzle either. Sabine was pierced with a sudden desire for a life inhabiting just such a space.