As I rehearsed this epochal scene my thinking became magical, taking no account of actual circumstances. In my projection of it everything would serve my purpose, which was undefined but not on that account to be ignored. I would arrive in Paris a free man, having left in abeyance a wife to whom I would return by the simple expedient of reinhabiting the body of which I had taken temporary leave. My wife, or rather my erstwhile wife, would, like the dolls in Coppélia, be brought out of her temporary suspension, which would obtain during the period of my absence, by the very fact of my renewed presence. I would arrive in Paris at about six o’clock, having caught a plane at about five. I did not take into account the time difference, since time was also there to serve my purpose. Some faint uneasiness clouded this part of the proceedings but I dismissed it as nugatory; if obliged to I would adjust. I would take a taxi to the hotel, inspect my room, find it more than satisfactory, shower, change my shirt, and order a drink. Sarah, I imagined, would not be with me before nine; as she was staying with the Rigauds I imagined that she would be obliged to eat dinner with them. Whether or not this were true, I had the hour of nine fixed in my mind. This would give me time to take a nostalgic stroll and no doubt eat something myself, very little, since at nine o’clock I would order chicken sandwiches and champagne from room service. Thus everything would be civilised, in sharp contrast to the image I still had of myself peering through the letter-box in Paddington Street. The rest of the evening and the night remained a blank in my mind, but they would be memorable. When I returned to London it would be with a feeling of completion, of triumph, and thus renewed I should be able to shoulder my burdens once again.
My first brush with reality occurred on the plane. I was seated next to a man whose terrible agitation disturbed even the whisky in my glass. I stole a glance at him, unwilling to involve myself in his dilemma, but there was no ignoring the fact that he was either ill or in the grip of a nightmare. He was a man of about my own age, dressed in a cheap raincoat and childish-looking brown shoes: those two items, however, were the only signs of normality about him. His eyes were tightly closed and his fair-skinned face was a dusky red and beaded with sweat. From time to time a low moan escaped him and he clutched his briefcase convulsively, leaving damp handprints on the leather.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked reluctantly.
He opened his eyes and turned his head minimally in my direction, as if fearful of movement.
‘Phobia,’ he gasped.
‘Claustrophobia?’ I enquired sympathetically.
‘Travel. Motion.’
‘You mean you’re frightened of travelling?’
‘Petrified.’
‘But there’s no need. We’ll be landing in ten minutes, and then you’ll be all right.’
‘No. I have to get on the bus.’
‘The bus is as bad as the plane?’
‘Worse. No, not worse. As bad.’
‘Where do you have to get to?’
By way of reply he handed me a card bearing the name of a hotel in the rue d’Assas.
‘What happens there?’
‘They come and collect me.’
Who ‘they’ were I did not seek to ascertain; it was their job to look after him. We were both silent for a short interval, but when the plane gave a preliminary judder he clutched my arm. Unthinkingly, naturally, I gave his hand a pat.
‘You could take a taxi,’ I suggested.
‘I’ll never manage,’ he said, and indeed he looked to be in extremis.
‘Would it help if I took you to the rue d’Assas in a taxi?’
‘Please. Thank you.’
He quietened down slightly after this, introduced himself as Derek Masterton, representative for a soft drinks firm, and moaned again as the plane landed. I had to guide him from his seat, as he seemed barely capable of negotiating the gangway on his own. Standing behind him on the endless escalators I could see his legs trembling, though once in the open air he seemed to recover slightly.
‘Have you always been like this?’ I asked, as we stood in the queue for taxis. I glanced hastily at my watch; it was seven-fifteen.
He told me that he had had a breakdown after the death of his wife the previous year and that it had left him with this monstrous fear which descended on him whenever he had to travel by public transport. He said that when he was back in London—and here a fresh burst of sweat indicated his terror of the return journey—he was going to resign from the soft drinks firm and apply for a grant to study for a degree at the Open University. His dependence on me was growing, along with a shakily renewed confidence. I pushed him rather roughly into a taxi and told the driver to be as quick as he could. The car filled with the smell of Derek Masterton’s sweat as we glided through the dusk. A steady rain was falling, making our progress slower than normal, although it would not have been very fast in any case; the rush-hour looked to be in full swing. My head was filling with urgent calculations: hotel, bath, telephone call to the rue de Rennes. Derek Masterton’s heartfelt thanks reached me in an abstract murmur as I deposited him rather summarily in the rue d’Assas and told the driver to go to the George V. It only then occurred to me that I should have booked a room. This had somehow not seemed necessary in the trance of my imaginings. Only now did I begin to wonder whether the whole adventure would have been better had I not decided to act it out. But I had never before been given to fantasising; life, real life, had been easy for me, and I was known to have a good practical intelligence. I resolved firmly to insist, if necessary, on my right to a room, although there should be no need, surely, to insist. I summoned up my normal state of resolution and was thus almost confident again as I stepped out onto the forecourt of the hotel.
The rain, which had been falling as a steady drizzle, put on a sudden spurt as I dashed for the hotel entrance. I was surprised to see, instead of uniformed flunkeys, a number of stocky men in ill-fitting suits both outside and inside the hotel. They considered me for a moment or two, and then, at an invisible sign from someone deep in the foyer, let me pass. I went up to the desk and demanded a room with bath for two nights, two in case the so far unimaginable happened and I was to be allowed to spend the following day wandering through Paris with Sarah, showing her where I had been so happy in my youth, telling her—at last!—something of my own story, actually having a conversation with her, as I had never managed to do. Somehow it had been necessary to get her out of London in order to do this. This part of the fantasy was again rather hazy and required a good deal of concentration, so that I hardly registered the fact that the receptionist was telling me that no rooms were available. I protested. Two of the stocky men began to approach. ‘Je regrette, Monsieur, l’hôtel est complet.’ Repetition did not dull the impact of these words. I was escorted to the door by two of these men, whom I dimly identified as bodyguards. I stood outside, in the rain, still accompanied, until some kind of signal was given. A long black limousine, with a blue and white flag flying on the bonnet, seethed out into the night. Very slowly I picked up my bag and began to walk. On my watch the time stood at eight o’clock.
In my head a childish voice of encouragement took over. Perhaps the George V had been a mistake. All I had to do was find another hotel, something a little more modest, convey the address to Sarah, and wait for her there. I was less familiar with this part of town, so I walked absent-mindedly, without my usual sense of direction. It was now raining heavily, and I had left my umbrella at home. Besides, umbrellas played no part in this odyssey; the weather was to have been warm, enticing, in this second week of September. It was to have been my favourite season, in my favourite city, to which, of course, I had been bound to return. I should have been young, or younger than I actually was, as young as I remained in my memory. My steps led me into a dark street, in which I could see the blue lamp of a police station. At the very end of what seemed more like a cul-de-sac I saw a trembling neon sign: Hôtel du Balcon. No balcony was visible. The street was momentarily identified by the lights of a passing car as the rue Clément Marot. The neon sign outside the hotel was fitful because it seemed about to expire. This did not strike me at the time as particularly significant. I went in, asked for a room, and was given one with alacrity. It was eight-fifteen.
I threw my bag onto the bed of a medium-sized room, badly lit by numerous bulbs of singularly low wattage. I searched in my pocket for Berthe Rigaud’s address and telephone number, which I immediately dialled. There was no answer. The childish voice in my head told me that the entire family had gone out to dinner; my task now was to take a taxi to the rue de Rennes and to slip a note under Berthe Rigaud’s door. This would in any case be more discreet than telephoning. I was not sure how much Sarah had confided in her friend; there was the matter of Berthe Rigaud’s father’s friend, this man de Leuze, who wanted Sarah to marry him. If he were there Sarah would not want him to know of my presence. I went down and asked the man at the desk for a sheet of paper and an envelope. Wheezing, he bent down, searched for a few precious seconds, and came up again with a crimson face. He appeared to be in the last stages of emphysema. Clearly everyone with whom I was doomed to come into contact was morbidly afflicted. I snatched the paper from his hand, scribbled my message, and ran out to look for a taxi.
After five or six minutes it became clear that there were to be no taxis. I began to walk, or rather to run. I ran down the Avenue Montaigne to the Place de l’Alma, where luckily a couple got out of a taxi to go to dinner at Chez Francis. I flung myself in the back and gave the driver the address. He told me he was on his way home. I refused to move. We sat there, deadlocked, for what seemed a very long time, until I handed over a hundred franc note, at which he silently drove away. Lights glimmered through blurred windows; dimly the shouts of the pleasure-bound reached me. I revised my plans: we should dine Chez Francis, like that couple to whom I was indebted for the taxi. We should have our walk, that very night, romantically, in the rain. For a while this fantasy was even more attractive than the earlier one. The rain on Sarah’s hair would bring out that marvellous feral smell that I craved, had never ceased to crave. In the rue de Rennes I gave the driver another hundred franc note and watched him drive off. The rain had momentarily stopped; the sky was clear enough for me to make out scudding clouds. To my left shone the lights of St-Germain-des-Prés; I had a sudden desire to drink a cup of coffee at the Flore. I took my letter out of my pocket and scribbled on the envelope, ‘I shall expect you at ten.’ Then I pressed the button for the concierge. I had recovered my resolution. ‘Rigaud,’ I said firmly. ‘Deuxième gauche,’ was the reply. As I bounded up the stairs I heard some words floating up behind me. It was not until I was outside the door, on which a brass plate announced ‘Jean-Jacques Rigaud. Notaire,’ that I decoded them as, ‘Mais il n’y a personne.’
There was no answer to my ring, but then I had expected none. I pushed my letter under the door, and then, filled with renewed energy, bounded down again. Outside the heavy street door the air was sweet. I toyed with the idea of a drink at the Rhumerie, for old times’ sake, then, almost regretfully, settled for a coffee at the Flore. I told myself that if so far everything had not gone exactly to plan then at least I had made some quick decisions. My clothes were drying on me, although the shoulders of my raincoat were still damp. I reminded myself that I had still to take a bath and apply unguents. I was lucky with a taxi, and was back in the Hôtel du Balcon at nine-thirty.
Then I settled down to wait. I had managed to buy a paper, though my eyes skimmed over the words without taking them in; I saw something about a visit to Paris from the President of Israel. After taking off my clothes the effort of putting them on again seemed almost too much for me. I had not brought pyjamas; they had no place in my scenario. I sat down on the bed to wait, perfuming the slightly musty air of the room. I fought an impulse to lie down on the bed and sleep—I had not slept the previous night—and although I remained resolutely upright I must have dozed. When I came to it was exceedingly quiet and I was exceedingly hungry. I wondered how Derek Masterton was getting on, perhaps dimly regretted that I was confined in this manner, when I could be out in the beautiful streets, innocently eating and drinking, as if this were an entirely normal interlude, as if I could return to London with a clear conscience. I had bought cigarettes for Sarah, and although I did not smoke I smoked three. When I looked at my watch I saw that it was just after eleven. Then I must have dozed off again, for when I woke up I was lying on the bed, still fully clothed. I got up and brushed my hair. I read the paper again, including the television programmes, although there was no television, and even if there had been I should not have had the patience to watch it. The door to the room next to mine opened and closed, and muffled conversation could be heard, together with the clink of the key dropping onto a hard surface. I cleared my throat ostentatiously, as if to warn this couple to make no further noise. Obediently the conversation stopped. Minutes later there was a groan, as if of exhaustion, and then the sound of bedsprings. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly one o’clock.
I took my key and went downstairs. There was another man behind the desk, no healthier than the first. This one had his collar undone and was reading L’Equipe. I summoned up an insouciant smile.
‘Il n’y a pas eu d’appel pour moi?’
‘Mais non, pensez-vous, à cette heure-ci.’
‘C’est une urgence.’
‘Vous êtes médecin?’
‘Non.’
‘Alors.’ He shrugged and went back to his paper.
I spent the night in that sepulchral hotel sitting on the bed. It seemed like a vigil, and for a time it held reality at bay. The reality, when it came, seemed no more or less hallucinatory than the rest of the episode. There had been a misunderstanding, or perhaps no understanding at all. I had either been taken for a fool, or, more likely had made a fool of myself. The same mischance that had attended all my meetings with Sarah attended me still. After a while it was almost with relief that I knew that Sarah was not coming, that she would never come. My conscience, through no will or intention of my own, was made clear. All I had to do was to expunge the memory of this visit and return to my real life. I could pass it off: there were one or two people in Paris whom I could see, to give myself an alibi. One rather important client, for whom I had successfully completed some business the previous year, had told me to contact him if I were ever in Paris. He lived in Neuilly, kept a flat in London; all I had to do was telephone him, make enquiries as to the outcome of his transaction. Solicitors do not normally chase their clients, but I hoped that he would take my attentions in the right spirit. It was tenuous, but it would have to do. I would not go back to the rue de Rennes; indeed I would never set foot there again. I did not want to see Berthe Rigaud, or Sarah. I told myself that I should never see her again, and that this suited me very well. I did not know how I could face her. She had reduced me once again to confusion. I could only hope that others would not see my confusion stamped permanently on my face.
There was no need now to hurry. I could stay in Paris for at least another day. I could have my nostalgic walk, though I recognised that the time for nostalgia was past. I would telephone Neuilly, perhaps suggest lunch, and spend a few necessary hours recovering. I was a solicitor, the least romantic species on earth. After a decent and no doubt painful interval I would return to my original status, that of respected citizen and married man. My path in life had been traced for me before I had ever known Sarah, and no doubt it suited me well enough. If I had felt the need to turn aside from it, events had proved to me that I was unsuited for adventure. My recent behaviour filled me with a kind of amazement, as if it had been the fugue of a madman. I felt cold, old. I wondered at what time I could reasonably take another bath, so as not to wake the couple next door.
Still dominated by time, I calculated that if I left the hotel at six I could walk for an hour before looking for a café in which to eat breakfast. In my damp raincoat I wandered aimlessly, before returning to the Place de l’Alma and waiting for the day properly to begin. The murmur of traffic grew louder as I sat down and ordered coffee, the panorama of the city coming to life in the wide open space before me. Beyond the bridge lay the Paris I had known and loved, and perhaps should never see again with that life of the heart that had once attended me every morning of my life. I was conscious of a feeling of shame that I had behaved in so uncharacteristic a fashion. I tried to expunge the previous night from my memory, consigning it to that detritus that exists at the back of every mind, so that eventually the process of living in the present will be sufficient to obliterate it, confining it to dreams from which one awakes with relief. I did not think of Sarah at all; she had if anything only confirmed her absence from my life. My task now was to justify my presence in Paris, to legitimise my absence from London. I telephoned Neuilly, but only got an answering machine. I left a message that I would ring later, then, slightly crestfallen, got to my feet and began my day of absence.
With nothing to do, no office to go to, no one to talk to, I was profoundly disoriented. At the same time I recognised that I was not fit to go home, and would not be until I had recovered my normal composure. It had become a beautiful day, mild and sunny, with that poignant autumn sunshine that is so affecting at the decline of the year. The rain of the previous evening had brought out a strong smell of earth and grass, even of damp stone, and I followed it down the Champs-Elysées, beyond the Rond-Point, and as far as the Tuileries, where I sat down. I felt, humbly, that I should stay out of sight, but at the same time I longed for company. I did not desire the company of anyone I knew, but rather the company of small children, who, after school, would spend the afternoon in these stony gardens. Slowly I worked out a programme for the day. I remembered my father’s habitual, ‘What is your programme?’ which made no sense to me as a small boy. Now I saw that it was part of my inheritance, together with work, duty, order. And yet I did not want to go home. The day brightened about me as I sat on my iron chair. At last, with a sigh, I got up and went in search of more coffee.
A further telephone call to Neuilly was equally fruitless. I wandered back up the Champs-Elysées, feeling guilty now that I had no alibi. Both Angela and Sarah were far from my thoughts. I found this entirely natural, yet at the same time I was uneasy with this moral obliquity. So far my life had been regular, although decisions—the decision to marry, to have a love affair—seemed to have been made without my full volition. Now it would be necessary to ask forgiveness, or rather not to appear to ask forgiveness, for a fault which had not quite taken place. I must act out my assurance until such time as it might be returned to me. I thought of our baby, but I was not yet ready for sentiment. My feelings were too ambiguous to permit of much room for anyone else. What I really wanted was to be at Postman’s Cottage, on my own, for a chance to order my thoughts. That this was an impossibility, and presumably would always be an impossibility, added to my paradoxical solitude in this city in which I had always been accompanied.
I had an early lunch, bought some scent for Angela, and returned to the hotel. I realised that my sleepless night had exhausted me, and I had to resist an impulse to lie down and let the rest of the day take care of itself. I was also slightly light-headed with the fear that I should never again be normal, so anomalous did my present situation seem to me. I roused myself and telephoned Brian, thinking of the office with love, as if I were an exile, unable to enter it again.
‘Where are you?’ rasped his voice, breaking in on my reverie.
‘In Paris, of course. Any news?’
‘I’ve been telephoning the George V all morning.’
‘I couldn’t get in. I’m at …’
‘Never mind that. You must get back here as soon as possible.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s Angela. She’s in hospital. I’m afraid something went wrong.’ His voice softened.
‘The baby? Is the baby all right?’
‘The baby didn’t live. Premature, though that wouldn’t necessarily have mattered. The cord was round its neck.’ He sighed. ‘A little girl’
‘Is this true?’ I asked, my mouth dry.
‘Of course it’s true. Angela asked me to take her to the hospital. Apparently she felt unwell and didn’t know what to do. Your mother was away, and that other friend—Jenny, is it?—must have been away as well. She didn’t know where you were.’ There was a significant pause, as if Brian were waiting for my explanation. ‘She rang me at the flat. It was just by chance that I happened to be there and not at the house.’ Dimly I brought Brian’s domestic arrangements into focus. His parents-in-law had provided a small house in St John’s Wood as a wedding present. Brian had retained his bachelor flat, which he intended to let, and no doubt occupy from time to time. Now, however, he spoke with the voice of one observant of the moral law. ‘I’d left a file there,’ his voice went on. ‘I picked it up and was about to leave when the phone rang. Thank God Felicity wasn’t with me. I don’t want her brought into this, Alan.’ His voice was stern again.
‘Angela. Is Angela all right?’
‘She will be, of course. She was pretty frightened, poor girl. Although I don’t know if she took it all in. When I went this morning she was asleep. With a bit of luck you’ll be there when she wakes up. If you leave at once, that is, as I assume you will.’
‘I must ring my mother,’ I said, my mouth dry.
‘Don’t waste time. Get back here. And don’t do this sort of thing again, will you?’ Then, in an altered voice, ‘I’m sorry, Alan.’
When I replaced the receiver there was a terrible silence. I contemplated the scale of my punishment: that it should be visited on Angela was almost too cruel for me to take in. I think perhaps that I did not grasp very much as I sat once more on the bed in that fusty room. Yet in the very few minutes left to me before I should be forced into action I realised that I had it in me to be a father, that to be a father was a natural, and inevitable, part of my real, my normal life. I think I felt more for my baby in that hotel room than I had ever felt it possible to feel. When I thought of the cord round its throat I had to tear at my collar as if I were being strangled. I wept then, but there was no time for weeping. I picked up my bag, went downstairs, paid the bill, and wandered outside in search of a cab. I have no memory of arriving at the airport, of changing my ticket, of sitting in the departure lounge. I had the impression, once again, that my mind was no longer under my control. My thoughts were of my dead daughter, whom I saw quite vividly, as though I had been there when she died. Except that she had not lived in the first place. I understood why people used euphemisms for death. ‘He passed away’, they said. ‘He went peacefully.’ There was no euphemism, however, that would apply to this particular death, a death in limbo. It was only with a last effort of will that I was able to get up and board the aircraft.
Derek Masterton was on the plane, eyes closed, once more in agony. I went and sat next to him. As we gained height and his ordeal began I put out my hand and touched his arm. It was my one good deed, perhaps the one good deed of my entire life.