The Train to Paris Read online

  ‘We can admire the view from here,’ Élodie said. She led me onto the terrace and leant against the balustrades. ‘For what it is. I don’t like this atmosphere.’

  The afternoon sun had dipped and lit the bay, while the town behind us was bathed in shadow from the surrounding hills. The fishing boats and pleasure yachts stood side-by-side, all shining in the sunlight. Morisot could have painted this harbour, but it would never have been so crystalline. I would gladly have stood there for the rest of the day.

  ‘It’s not so bad, is it?’ I said, gesturing to the bay. ‘Why do we need to go to Biarritz when we have this?’

  ‘Trust me. Biarritz will have you eating your words. There is nothing spectacular about any of this.’

  ‘You would prefer a spectacle?’

  ‘Of course. I would rather be impressed than under-whelmed.’

  I would have said the same before first going to Paris a few weeks earlier. It surprised me that anybody with Élodie’s apparent wisdom and experience might hold this shallow view.

  ‘I hope you prove me wrong,’ I said. I had to stoop to lean on the balustrade; it was designed for a person of her height.

  ‘This simply will not do,’ she said. ‘You must tell me more about the girl. She is smarter than most, I presume.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You met her at university. And you would never even consider a relationship with an uneducated girl. Your parents would not allow it, in the first place.’

  ‘You think you know everything,’ I said. Had she already made up her mind about me?

  ‘That’s because I do. And is she timid? Or does she mask all of her insecurities with a brave public face?’

  ‘You’re not describing yourself there, are you?’

  ‘Oh how funny, Lawrence. Maybe you really are more perceptive than I gave you credit for. But tell me about her, or I will have to tell you.’

  I tried to think of something that I could say about Sophie. What could I tell Élodie? She had long straw hair and a few freckles across her nose, and when we talked about art we could have been sharing some great secret, something that set us apart from everybody else. But it felt as though I could never really know her, even if she knew me.

  I was distracted as a man walked past us with a child on his shoulders. They bobbed up and down the steep street. He walked with purpose and talked in Basque to the little boy. The tongue was alien to me, but it sounded gentle and kind.

  ‘All right,’ I said, once they had walked out of sight. ‘She’s a nice person, and I like her for that reason.’

  ‘Oh dear. It really is worse than I feared.’

  She started to walk down a narrow street that wound its way towards the waterfront. There was an impressive statue, which I did not recognise, on one of the corners. It was a Madonna and Child, and the interaction between the two figures was more intimate than usual. The Madonna held something in her free hand that might have been an apple, but I could neither recognise it nor understand its significance. The walls around this part of the street were made from an earthy sort of stone, which I liked better than the clean whitewashing everywhere else.

  ‘So you like her because she is nice,’ Élodie continued, as though she had been giving the matter careful thought. ‘And what do you want to do? Do you want to marry her?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said, with more feeling than I had intended. ‘People don’t get married young these days.’

  Élodie’s expression was sympathetic, but she did not say anything.

  We walked along the waterfront, where the road was lined with upturned fishing boats. They were all colourful, a relief from the uniform white.

  Seeing the ocean so close made me yearn for a swim, if only to wash away the musty smell that had been clinging to me since Madrid and my last shower. I thought about how it would be to swim with Élodie. I could see her figure cutting through the water, her legs moving in tandem and her arms spreading out gracefully. In my imagination her body became one with the water. I would paddle and splash, but she would swim as though she were dancing.

  We reached the end of the street. The boats were swaying on the bay. Élodie was smirking for some reason. It began to irritate me.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘You just happen to be very amusing. Come, let’s leave this horrid town. There must be a taxi by now.’

  The walk back to the station did not feel as long. And there were two taxis waiting. One was a Renault, the other a Mercedes. Élodie chose the Mercedes.

  ‘I have to ask,’ she said, once we were next to each other in the taxi. ‘Why did you choose to take the train? Was there no despicable low-cost flight from Madrid to Paris?’

  ‘I prefer to take the train. There is something grand about it. And I like being able to see the land.’

  The road wound around a bluff and out of the town, following the seaside. The landscape remained beautiful—green and stately, but also wild—and the ochre rocks on the coastline were arranged in strata. I preferred this untended nature to the Parisian sculptural aesthetic. The parks there were designed pedantically along lines of symmetry, asserting dominance over growth. They made the city more stunted and static than it already was.

  ‘Is she pretty?’ Élodie asked. She must have been staring at me for all of this time.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your girlfriend, or whatever she is.’

  ‘Why are you so obsessed with her?’

  ‘Why are you so protective of her? Surely there is nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘There isn’t. Pretty is the wrong word, though.’

  ‘Why? Do you think I’m pretty?’

  I took Élodie in, from her pointed toe to her almost masculine jaw.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Pretty is the wrong word for you.’

  ‘Good. I ask because I cannot imagine her being preoccupied with her appearance.’

  ‘Aren’t most women?’

  ‘Christ. Clearly you haven’t met many of them. But she is not a radiant beauty, is she?’

  ‘That depends on the definition. You want me to tell you how radiantly beautiful you are, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t need to be told that, least of all from a nervous young art history student.’

  ‘You wouldn’t find it reassuring?’

  ‘Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite, in fact. And the girl has to be pretty. Otherwise you would not be wasting your time.’

  I wished she would stop talking about Sophie. It felt wrong to be talking about her to a stranger—let alone one who criticised her so openly.

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘why do you want to know about her? You’re not jealous, are you?’

  She cast a look of dead seriousness at me. It was and still is a horrific stencil on my mind. The car became quiet. I could feel the blush creeping up my cheeks again and begged it to go away.

  ‘I am afraid to ask,’ she said. ‘But have you any other clothes?’

  ‘Not many.’

  ‘I can see them already. We must find you something in Biarritz, or they will not let us in the hotel.’

  ‘Like what?’

  The distance between us had grown. She curled her body up against the door, and when she turned to survey me it was with reproof. She opened her mouth, showing those sharp teeth, and spent a while judging me in silence.

  ‘The jacket will do,’ she said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘In Paris, at the Galeries Lafayette.’ I said this with a shade of pride, even though I knew that she would not approve. I might as well have told a joke at my own expense.

  ‘On sale, no doubt. But it will do. The rest needs work.’

  ‘The rest?’

  ‘Yes, the rest.’ My suitcase was small. I had packed three changes of clothes, and I had not provided for this disruption, so I was awash with stale sweat. The shirt was accompanied by an old pair of jeans and shoes that were falling apart. Perhaps she ha
d a point.

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘I hardly need to think about it, in your case. White shirt with a subtle pattern, and cufflinks that are neither too showy nor too silly. Too many men wear bad cufflinks. And a thin black tie. Do you have a pair of sunglasses? In fact, no, I don’t want to know. We will buy a pair.’

  I had never worn cufflinks before, and my striped school tie was the only one that I had ever owned.

  ‘How charitable of you,’ I said.

  ‘It is for a good cause. And it is not my charity, remember.’

  ‘Won’t your husband wonder about all these purchases on his credit card?’

  She returned her sunglasses to her nose. ‘Not to worry. I always have a story for these things.’

  The road passed through Saint-Jean-de-Luz, with its postcard-worthy fishing port and little else. This part of the world was once the place to be. The Modernists and the Romantics all described it in detail: the perfect climate and beaches, the rugged beauty of the landscape. It was hard to deny that all of this existed now, but it was preserved and distorted. I thought that whatever spirit I had seen in paintings and read about in books was no longer there.

  ‘I am happy to have met you, Lawrence,’ Élodie said as the taxi passed the town limits, where the traffic was thinning. ‘You are so much more interesting than the bores that I am usually exposed to. And you are handsome, too, under the bad haircut.’

  I had never thought of myself in this way before.

  ‘Not in a normal way,’ she continued with surprising earnestness. ‘But then, nor would I want you to be. You do need work, though. We can fix you yet.’

  ‘For a moment there I thought you might have been complimenting me.’

  ‘No, it was a compliment. You have potential. Most people do not.’

  4

  She kept silent as we drove north along the bay. Soon huts and villas on the seaside were replaced by terraced apartment blocks. The increase in wealth, if not taste, was conspicuous. The cafés had big wicker chairs and opened onto a terrace. There were galleries and clothes shops and pâtisseries with window displays and warm golden lights.

  Élodie waited until we were on the main shopping street before instructing the driver to pull over. He left the meter running.

  ‘This is just the place,’ she said. The pavement was cobbled and lined with a heavy set of trees, all of which were manicured.

  ‘It’s a playground for the rich, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have always liked playgrounds. They are a lot of fun.’

  The street could have been a miniature of the Rue de Rivoli, but without any clochards or cigarette ends clogging the gutters. The café terraces and charcuteries were all there, as were any number of international chain stores with their familiar labels. Élodie bypassed them. Her destination was more discreet, hidden away in an arcade. I imagined that nobody but frequent visitors to Biarritz would know of it.

  She could not find exactly what she wanted, but as I faced myself in the mirror, I saw somebody else. There was something exhilarating about it, though it was frightening too. The tie was a match to her specifications—long, thin and black—while the shirt was a light shade of blue. In the end she did buy a navy blue jacket and white trousers as well, and a pair of reflective sunglasses with a light frame. She said that this jet-set look suited me better—that I could have stepped out of a Fellini film. I tried to believe her. The white trousers were a revelation. I had never owned such an outfit before.

  Ethan would be beside himself with envy or mockery. I thought about him as Élodie leant against the counter to sign her receipt, running her high-heeled shoe up and down her calf. Ethan knew about women. He went out for drinks with them, painting himself as a bohemian wanderer who sought nothing but pleasure. They loved him for it. They shared a bottle of wine and listened, captivated, while he told his stories. Every weekend there was somebody else in his bed. He would tell me of his exploits the next day, and I would feign disapproval when in fact I envied his audacity.

  We had met at school, where we were both oddities for different reasons. Ethan revelled in his own strangeness, while I was too shy to acknowledge mine. But he was genuine. He meant everything he said.

  Since we had started living together, he had taken delight in teasing me, labelling me as the aesthete who read books and visited art galleries all day and went to bed with a cup of tea. But I could take it from him, because it was affectionate, and in turn I could tell him what a poseur he was. It never offended him. On the contrary, he took it as a compliment. He might have been a philanderer, but he had never met a woman like Élodie. How often did anybody meet a woman like Élodie?

  We returned to the taxi a half hour later and drove to the seaside promenade, passing the casino and the first string of hotels. The beachfront was a simple golden slice out of the coastline. It reminded me of an Impressionist painting I had studied, where everything was just the right colour and people walked along the sand in suits and ties. That was a distant time, when society was inscribed with too many rules and conventions to keep track of.

  Now I could not see a single figure on the beach with a shirt on. And there I was in a jacket and tie and white trousers, reinforcing those conventions. The late-season revellers were out in force. They swarmed into the ocean in the shape of a Japanese fan, overwhelming the beach. Élodie was looking out the window, too, but I could tell that she was not thinking the same thoughts.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I don’t know if I can repay you for this.’

  ‘You have to stop thanking me, Lawrence. It does not suit you in those clothes.’

  This was true. I pulled the new sunglasses down to block out the late-afternoon beam hanging over the water.

  The hotel was through a set of gates at the end of the promenade, set in the middle of lawns and topiaries. It was awe-inspiring. The Second Empire decadence of the architecture gave it a Napoleonic stiffness that was out of place with its natural surroundings. It was a microcosm of Paris, complete with a mansard roof and flourishes of decorative detail. I tried to guess what lay behind the pastel red walls and the drawn blinds. It was sure to be an improvement on the floor of the Gare d’Hendaye.

  ‘Well, I can’t say that I’m surprised,’ I said as the taxi deposited us at the entrance. A white-gloved man in uniform took our luggage. ‘You would choose this sort of a hotel, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘This is the Palais, darling. We must live as well as we can.’

  I stood marvelling at it all while Élodie paid the driver and the porters took our luggage in a golden cart. My eyes moved from the luxury sedans and sports vehicles to the window boxes and potted plants, which were meticulously trimmed. All of the colours were accentuated, as though they had been digitally enhanced for a postcard. Everything that was not reflective was reflected in something else.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ Élodie asked as we entered through the revolving door. I was straggling behind her open-armed swagger. ‘A Royal Suite, or an Imperial Suite? It’s either Churchill or Wallis Simpson.’

  ‘A suite? Isn’t that a bit much for one night?’

  ‘More than a bit. We could do a Prestige Room, but it will have to overlook the sea. I can’t stand a view into the courtyard.’ She thought about this. ‘No, it must be a suite. Come.’

  The lobby was a sibling to the courtyard. I tried to walk lightly on the marble tiles, in case I slid on their burnished surface and knocked over a vase or a bust. The tiles, too, reflected a mirror-world. I couldn’t tell which was more real—the chandeliers or their blurred counterparts in the floor.

  I followed Élodie to the reception desk, where the clerk informed her that there were no free rooms.

  ‘Royal Suite it is,’ she said to me. ‘Such a shame. I did always prefer Mrs Simpson’s taste.’ She turned to the clerk and ordered Veuve Clicquot and Aquitaine caviar to be brought up directly. I wanted to grab her by the arm as she handed over her husband’s credit card, but I
restrained myself.

  This was it, I thought: one night, and then I would never have to worry about her again. I could embellish the details when I told Ethan. For once I would be the one with a real exploit to recount.

  ‘This is excessive,’ I said as we walked up the winding staircase.

  ‘Isn’t it, though? Don’t worry. I am not doing it for your sake.’

  ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course I have, you silly boy. I’ve been everywhere. And this is one of the few remaining enclaves of true magic. You will learn to love it, trust me.’

  The details—there were so many of them—leapt out at random. Everything was gilded and chintzy. Paintings, cabinets, mirrors, statues and flowers occupied every spare space. I tried to remind myself that all of this was the habitat of distorted romanticism, even if it was also true magic. But what was true magic? It sounded like a contradiction. Was this the sort of place where the truth and illusion intersected? The luxury that surrounded me was real, but it was also fake.

  The suite was appropriately palatial. I went through its features as though they were part of a grand checklist: the ocean view, the velvety curtains, the flowers threatening to consume each and every surface, and the paintings cluttering the walls.

  Out on the terrace the champagne and caviar were waiting for us on a silver tray, the ice bucket perspiring in the heat. I should have taken the initiative and poured into the two awaiting glasses, but Élodie was already striding out there, shedding her travelling jacket and allowing it to drop onto the sun-drenched tiles. I followed her and took a glass, telling myself to stop staring at her shoulders. She flexed them and their curves were accentuated. Her dress hung off them as though it were an extension of her body.

  ‘What should we drink to?’ I asked, pretending that the line had come to me from a film script. I tried not to let my nerves show, but they slipped through somehow.