Sally Read online

  Diana looked at Richard. He sat stiff and forward on the sagging couch and looked decidedly wrong there without Sally. He clasped his hands, his arms on his knees, his hair tousled, his eyes tired. She felt enormous tenderness for him, but she felt singularly ill-equipped to offer him any truly worthwhile advice.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. I’ve tried to talk. She’s incredibly distressed.’

  ‘But,’ panicked Richard, ‘but what has she said? Now? In the past? Think, Diana, help me here.’ Diana thought and could offer only a sympathetic shrug.

  ‘Richard,’ she shook her head and Richard watched her homemade holly berry earrings (were they real?) swing haphazardly in support. ‘Sally kept saying that you shouldn’t have fallen in love with her. That it had spoiled things. Not that I know what “things” mean. She didn’t tell me. I asked, I tried. But actually, I don’t think that even she knows what “things” mean.’

  Richard sat silent and pensive for a while. And then started with another needy ‘but’.

  ‘But, in the past, Diana. In the past?’

  ‘In the past, she’s spoken of you, of you and her, with – well, with passion. With relish. I don’t know, with a sort of greed. To tell you the truth, Richard, I’ve never seen her like this. She’s so, well, sassy! But …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I don’t know. There was also an element of naiveté …’

  ‘Explain? Please?’

  ‘That would be impossible, Richard. It’s just, well, just so Sally, I suppose.’

  ‘But I’m in love with her, with her sassiness and her naiveté. What on earth is so terrible about that?’ Diana shrugged again, feeling hopeless. What indeed was so terrible about someone like Richard falling in love with someone like Sally?

  ‘Richard, Richard, give her time. I’m sure she’ll come round, come to her senses and realize just what she has. What she is jeopardizing.’

  ‘Diana, has she ever told you that she loves me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Implied it?’

  ‘Richard, Sally has never used the “L” word. About anyone.’

  ‘Nor had I.’

  We’ll leave Richard with Diana. He finds in her a tangible if indirect link with Sally, he finds her bohemian boudoir comforting and suddenly preferable to his comparably stark flat and his own, bad company. Diana will talk, she’ll tell him the precious little she knows about the florid proclamations of love and the horrid tales of violence that Sally endured with the Jims and Jamies of her past. Richard will confide in Diana, he will use the ‘L’ word with such conviction and sincerity that she will feel moved to the verge of tears. Richard will compare Sally with the women he has known, and will declare her incomparable. But though Diana will comfort him, and will bolster him with her own belief that he could be the best thing to happen to Sally only Sally doesn’t yet see it, she will also rightly tell Richard that it is Sally who has to come back to him. He must discipline himself to steer clear until then. Because if, or when, she returns, it will be off her own bat. And if she comes back it will be for good and for real. But for now, leave her be. Disappear. It will be difficult, Richard, but it can be done, it must be done. Listen to Diana, heed her advice – she has both your and Sally’s best interests at heart. Do as you’re told. Sally is off to Paris. No, you can’t follow her there.

  So we’ll leave Richard, floundering in his anxiety, desperate in his longing, sorrowful in his thwarted love. We’ll go instead to Sally, we’ll cross a lurching English Channel with her and accompany her through Paris. We’ll watch what she does and we’ll see where she goes; unseen witnesses to her most private world.

  EIGHTEEN

  It could have been England. The weather was so English, rain and a lot of it; the countryside looked like England – a lush landscape divided and organized into patchwork fields. But it wasn’t England. England was over the sea and far away. This was France and you knew it every time the train hurtled past a station or through a village. It was France because the rural architecture said so. It was France because the men and women that the train passed were so, well, rustic. Where does British Rail pass through that affords the passenger a glimpse of a farm-worker in partisan clothes and a battered cloth cap, astride an ancient tractor held together with twine and with time? How many rural stations in Britain are bedecked with ceramic tiles and festooned with flowers?

  The children were quiet; the ferry crossing had been rough, quite a few had been sick and no one escaped feeling peaky. This, combined with the early start and the soothing movement of the train churring along, lulled the class into a dozy, hushed state. Sally sat with two seats to herself. She bagged the window seat while her bags sat grandly next to her. Across the aisle, Madame Pelisou (Head of French, Cleo to the staff) read Paris Match. Every now and then she pushed her glasses back on to her short nose. Everything about her was short: her stature, her hair, her fingers and their neat, square nails, her vowels, and of course her temper. She disliked children who did not try almost as much as she detested English bread. She was old but did not seem elderly, her true age being anywhere from mid-fifties to early seventies. Sally liked her. All the staff liked her. The children dreaded her. Madame Pelisou was one of a dying breed of French teachers who commanded a respect and achieved consistent top grades through a style of teaching that was unashamedly dictatorial, tyrannical and tough. She was most generous at handing out humiliation and punishment. Many a child had left her lessons covered in chalk dust or doused with water (how else would they learn what un seau d’eau was?). Many a child had been reduced to tears. Many a child had a week of break-times confiscated. Many a child had been on the receiving end of a menacing, icy stare and a venomously spat ‘Fool!’ And yet not one child ever failed French and, deep into adulthood, the memory of Madame Pelisou remained vivid. With hindsight she was remembered fondly as a colourful and brilliant teacher. Sally watched her reading, saw her nod and frown and smile and tut. She looked up and caught Sally’s eye and offered her a barley sugar. Merci.

  By the time they reached Paris the rain had stopped and the city welcomed them, glistening grey and marvellously grand. It looked beautiful, enhanced by the post-downpour sunlight filtering between the buildings. A minibus awaited them and they travelled up the Champs Elysée and over the Pont Neuf heading for the Sorbonne where, down a snaking, overcrowded side street they found the pension that was to provide beds and breakfasts for the duration of their stay. For the children, this compared most favourably to their previous school trip under canvas in a waterlogged Welsh field. Now they were in France, in Gay (snigger snigger) Paris. Oh, la la!

  Madame Pelisou suggested that she took the room on the floor where the children were, so Sally had a little room without a view but pretty anyway on the floor below. Diana had been considered for the trip but had requested Florence the following year. Sally thought about this as she unpacked. Uncharitably, she felt relieved that Diana was not in Paris.

  I’m not having anyone telling me I ought to reciprocate Richard’s love, that Richard’s love is good and desirable. I don’t want it and I do not want him either.

  The bed invited one to snuggle down deep and Sally fell asleep, cosy and exhausted, staring distractedly at a corner of the room where the wallpaper was coming away in a perfect furl.

  ‘Marcus, come here now! Venez ici! Rajiv, stop it. Class Five, settle down. Thank you. This is Notre Dame. This is a Gothic cathedral and we’re standing in front of the west portal that dates to the 1220s. Marcus, you are really pushing it. Thank you. This is the main entrance so the sculpture is didactic – there are lessons to be learned by reading the stories depicted by the sculpture. Also, way back then, everything would have been painted in vivid colours. So, before people came to pray they would be confronted by all these tales in the sculpture. Now, why do you think that was so important? Alice?’

  ‘Because most people couldn’t read?’

  ‘Absolutely! Marsha?’

  ‘Also
because they might learn from the scenes and then go inside and pray extra hard and properly.’

  ‘Absolutely. Look up there, that’s the Gallery of Kings. If you look above that, the sculpture depicts the Last Judgment and the Resurrection. Now those are the archivolts and if you look hard, you can see that the scenes up there are of the Damned and the Blessed. Look, there are the blind riders of the Apocalypse, and here are the Damned being shovelled into the mouth of Hell. It’s so fantastic! Now, these are called the socles and in the socles are carved person-if-i-cations of the Virtues and Vices. These were to show the people the ways of life of which God either approved or disapproved. Look (Marcus!), see over here, this man is hitting a Bishop so this is a warning against sins against the Church. But this vice was the worst – it’s a monk running away and deserting the Church altogether. And here are the goodies: Faith over here, and then Hope and over there Charity. So in the olden days, you’d come along to church and you’d see all these terrible sins and above them, sinners being thrown to Hell – as Marsha says, you’d go into the Cathedral and pray pretty hard!’

  The children stood, necks craning, heads back, mesmerized (apart from Marcus who was more interested in the donkey with the straw hat and sun-glasses). Madame Pelisou winked at Miss Lomax.

  Bien, let’s go inside.

  The class stood stock still in hushed reverence. From the impossibly large nave windows, light hung silent in dusty, gossamer walls. From the east end, the rose window burst forth glorious colours and ethereal light. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, children and teachers alike were cast under the Cathedral’s enduring spell. Marcus was held motionless by the stare of the stone-weary face of a saint; Marsha closed her eyes as light from the stained glass blessed her face in a mosaic of colour and warmth; Rajiv looked up and up and up and still did not reach the vaulting; Alice stood against a column and hugged it tight, her outstretched arms covering a mere fraction of its circumference. Sally was thrilled, thrilled to be back in Paris and charmed by the response of the children. It was a job persuading them to leave after a good hour.

  Just wait until they see Sainte Chapelle tomorrow!

  In stark contrast, the Pompidou Centre that afternoon provided endless and irreverent fun for Class Five. They stared and they frowned and they sniggered their way through. Shrieks of ‘Call that Art?’ and ‘I could do that’ and ‘That’s crap!’ assaulted Sally’s ears. She was now genuinely relieved that Diana was not with them.

  She’d have wept.

  ‘I know it’s just one colour blue, Alice, but don’t you feel a sense of space? That the colour describes the space around it? That shape and colour represent movement and space?’ Miss Lomax tried to reason.

  ‘No,’ came a defiant answer.

  ‘But,’ Miss Lomax pressed, ‘why does painting need to represent something? These modern painters believe that painting need represent nothing but itself. The very act of putting colour on canvas justifies its existence.’

  ‘Still think it’s crap,’ fidgeted Alice, who was actually starting to see Miss Lomax’s point, but was too galled to admit it.

  ‘Language!’ warned Miss Lomax.

  ‘Sorry,’ murmured Alice.

  ‘Is there anything here you like?’

  ‘I like Pick Arso.’

  Sally sighed in dismay and went off to buy postcards. She had a headache threatening and expounding the merits of Modernism had not helped. Could Madame Pelisou possibly manage without her for a few hours? Could she cope with all thirty on the bateau mouche?

  Cope? Manage?

  Bien sûr!

  So Sally left them and wandered back to the Left Bank.

  Meandering through the Latin Quarter, charmed by its quaintness, energized by its off-beat vitality, the headache never materialized. Sally felt fine and Sally felt happy. Up the Boulevard St Michel, window-shopping, she turned left on to the Boulevard St Germain. Opposite sat the Musée Cluny; it was tempting but Sally decided not to be victim to Gallery Guilt and boldly strolled past with Catherine’s song from Jules et Jim matching her foot falls as she went.

  Wait! That’s the Café de Flore, that’s where Picasso et al whiled away their hours. And there’s a free table! I’m there, I’m there.

  ‘Café au lait, s’il vous plaît!’

  Sally sits and sips and watches Parisian life bustle by. The day is beautiful, crisp and bright. Her eyes are slightly watery, her nose a little numb. She feels someone staring. She glances to her left and catches the eye of an impeccably suave, quintessentially French and devilishly good-looking man. Feeling reckless, she stares back. He leans with his arm on the bar, a very small, thick glass of Pernod nearby, an unfiltered cigarette resting idly between his fingers. Sally holds his gaze, intensely and unrelenting, until the man gives in and beams a salacious smile of perfect teeth. They talk with their eyebrows. May he join her? He may.

  His name is Jean-Claude and he is a designer. This is his favourite café and usually he likes to sit alone. But he saw an English Rose and his own company was suddenly not enough. Another café? Please? Garçon!

  As he ordered, Sally stared into her empty cup and took stock.

  No one knows where I am! At this very moment, no one knows what I’m doing, that I am here, right here. This is all mine! I can be who I want and I can do as I please!

  Sally felt a stream of warmth and satisfaction trace through her body at this realization.

  He doesn’t know who I am, and nobody I know knows that I am here. I am totally free; to be.

  It felt illicit, it felt wonderful. And now his attention is back with Sally, she must talk and not think.

  Talk? Flirt!

  ‘Your English is excellent!’ Thank you, he studied at Oxford and what is she doing in Paris?

  ‘I’m a teacher, I have a class of thirty children. We are here for another two days.’ Thirty children? But where are they? With much Gallic shrugging, Jean-Claude searches for them under the table and behind Sally’s jacket. She shrieks with laughter, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, but what the hell? She will never see him again and no one will know anyway. They make small talk for a long time and Sally is won over by the way that simple English words and phrases (‘Good Lord, you don’t say?’ par example) are transformed by a throaty French accent which oozes sensuality and Gauloises. Would she like to meet him later, right here, for a decent drink? Ooh, she would, that would be lovely. Only she can’t promise; she may have teacherly duties to attend to. No matter, no matter, he is here most nights. If it is not tonight, maybe it is tomorrow night? Maybe. But Sally must go now, images of Cleo and Marcus have filtered across her mind’s eye. She gathers her things about her and feels Jean-Claude looking openly at her breasts as they jut while she twists her body into her jacket. Again they stare. This time it is Sally who smiles first. See you. Yes, I hope so.

  When Sally reaches the corner she looks back. He is still looking.

  Longing, I do believe.

  He raises his glass, she smiles widely and then sets off with a jaunty little stride and a discernible wiggle.

  Sally has an idea.

  She feels exhilarated, it is such fun mooting it.

  Richard’s loss will be J-C’s gain; Richard’s mistake will be J-C’s triumph.

  Wishing to define it further and in privacy, she walks straight past the turning for the pension and jigs along, head down, smiling distractedly, meandering in her walk and in her mind.

  He won’t fall in love with me. There simply isn’t the time! I’ll strip bare the trimmings and trappings of Jackie Collins.

  Sally is scheming, Sally’s spunk has returned. Sally has an idea, a plan, another project.

  This time it’ll be Erica Jong who’s proud of me. I am going to pursue the Zipless Fuck.

  NINETEEN

  Sally did not make it back to the café that night. Cleo had suggested they take their entourage to Montmartre. Sally was temporarily disappointed, but reasoned that there was always tomorrow.
/>   Mustn’t appear too keen, remember, and he’s there most nights.

  An evening of potential lust was exchanged for a few hours of fun with the class but to her delight, Sally found that she could quite easily mind her charges while summoning up assorted images of wild love-making. Although she could not remember J-C’s face his voice remained vivid and enabled her expertly to conjure up a body that could very well be his. While she walked, while she talked to the children or organized with Cleo, she was confronted by images of a firm and muscle-bound torso, of her own body being fondled dexterously. As she listened to Marcus’s theory on French footballers, she dreamt up various positions for the next night; most of them were decidedly offside. When Alice wanted to hear more about Modernism, Sally could say ‘Art pour l’art’ while undressing Jean-Claude very slowly with her mind’s eye. It was like being in two places at once. It was fabulous.

  But Montmartre was fun too. They were rewarded, after a steep climb, by a floodlit Sacré-Coeur soaring transparent-gold and beautiful. Montmartre was buzzing and Sally’s tales of Toulouse Lautrec and Dance Hall Days put a spring in the step and a sparkle in the eyes of Class Five. Marcus and Rajiv performed a boisterous can-can which won applause all around. Crêpes were scoffed and caricatures sat for. Madame Pelisou was on hand to barter down the exorbitant prices so that the children could purchase the masterpieces.

  ‘Miss Lomax, have yours done. Go on! And you too, Madame Pelisou.’ So they sat for a double portrait. Watching Miss Lomax and Madame Pelisou being fashioned into bulbous-nosed, bug-eyed, buck-toothed caricatures provided the class with much hilarity. The likeness was tenuous but that was hardly the point.

  ‘Look! The Eiffel Tower. Tomorrow we’re going up, up, up! Can’t we go there before the Loo?’

  ‘Blaspheme like that, Marcus, and I’ll have you in the Louvre until closing time and beyond. The plan for tomorrow, Class Five, is to visit Sainte Chapelle and then spend two hours at the Louvre – and not in the café; I want a page of writing or a drawing of something you see there. After that we’ll go up the Eiffel Tower and then on to Forum Les Halles in the afternoon where you can spend your pennies – francs rather. Everybody happy? Good!’ Madame Pelisou regaled the group with an embellished biography of Toulouse Lautrec, complete with dialogue and songs. They were back at the pension before they knew it. Tired but happy, Class Five were unanimously obedient and went straight to bed and to sleep.