“I don’t know yet,” she continued, as though nothing had happened. “We shall have to ask him ourselves...”
The car didn’t have a tape deck, but it did have a radio. Dominique found a jazz station and turned the volume all the way up, so the music was just about audible above the engine. She beat her hands against the steering wheel.
“In your room,” she yelled, “I saw your cassettes — classical music.”
“Opera,” he corrected.
She wrinkled her nose. “Jazz,” she said. “Jazz is the only music in the world, and Paris is the capital!” She signaled, slipped the gear down into third, and roared out to pass another lorry.
In Paris, she first headed for her office, Barclay remaining in the car while she sprinted to the building and, moments later, sprinted out again. She threw a file onto his lap, slapped his hand away from the radio (he’d been trying to find a classical station), and slammed shut the driver’s-side door. Then she put her turn indicator on and screeched back into the traffic again, horns sounding all around them.
“They had it waiting at reception for me,” she said of the file. “Read it out while I drive.”
So, in his stilted French, he read from the report, thankful for it since it served to take his eyes off the madness all about him. Lunchtime in Paris. He’d been here for weekends before, and even then had marveled at the ability of the local drivers to squeeze five abreast into a three-lane road without scraping up against each other. Meanwhile, as he read, Dominique translated some of the more difficult sentences into English, until at last he’d finished the report on the life and career of the cartoonist Jean-Claude Separt and they were pulling into a narrow street, the buildings tall on either side blocking out the light and a good deal of the city’s noise. There were shops and offices at ground level, dingy-looking things with unwashed windows. But the stories above were apartments, some with small verandas, all with dusty shutters, the paint flaking off, some slats missing or hanging loose. Dominique double-parked the 2CV alongside a venerable-looking low-slung Citroën.
“Come on,” she said.
“Where?”
She motioned upwards. “This is where I live... my home. I have to change my clothes.” She pulled at the material of her jacket. She was smiling. “Coming?”
He nodded. “Sure,” he said. His heart started pumping a little faster. “Sure,” he repeated, getting out of the car.
“Stairs only,” she warned him. “No elevator.”
The place smelled a bit like the London Underground. He couldn’t think why. It was a smell like burnt oil, and lurking beneath it dampness and rot. He got the feeling that if he touched the dark green walls, a residue would come off on his fingers.
He was behind Dominique, carrying her small suitcase. He watched her body as she climbed the winding stairs.
“Next floor,” she said, a little breathlessly.
“Right, okay.” But it wasn’t okay. Her case was heavier than he’d expected. What did she have in there, a couple of submachine guns?
And then they were standing facing one another outside an ornate front door. She smiled, catching her breath. He smiled back, concentrating his eyes on hers, trying not to show how hard he was breathing after the climb. She brought a key out of her bag and opened the door.
He looked into a well-kept if old-fashioned hall. The carpet was faded. So were the furnishings. Was there a radio playing in the distance?
“Mama,” called Dominique. “C’est moi.”
Briskly, she took the case from him and walked up the hall.
“C’est toi, Dominique?” came a wavering voice from behind one of the doors. Barclay still stood in the hall, drinking in this unexpected reality. Dominique waved for him to follow her, then opened a door at the end of the hall.
In the living room sat Madame Herault. But she stood to receive her foreign visitor, and switched off her radio, too. She looked like her daughter, but was between thirty or forty years older. She patted her hair and said something about how Dominique should have warned her. To which Dominique replied that if she had warned her mother, her mother would merely have tired herself out cleaning and making cakes and dressing herself up, when they were only staying for fifteen minutes or so. Then Dominique said she had to go to her room and change. Barclay was made to sit on the huge springy sofa which reminded him unnervingly of the 2CV’s suspension.
“Keep Mama company, will you?” Dominique asked in English. “I won’t be long. Oh, and if she offers you some of her calvados... refuse it.”
And with that she was gone. Madame Herault, still standing, asked him if he would like something to drink? He didn’t, but nodded anyway, since Madame Herault fixing him something to drink was preferable to Madame Herault sitting expecting him to make conversation with her. Then he remembered the warning about the calvados.
“Pastis, s’il vous plaît,” he said.
But a drink was not enough. He would have something to eat, too, wouldn’t he? Barclay shook his head, patting his stomach.
“Complet,” he said, hoping it was the right word.
She persisted, but he persisted, too. Just a drink, a drink would be very good.
“Calvados?” Madame Herault asked.
Barclay shook his head. “Pastis, s’il vous plaît,” he insisted.
So off she went to fetch him a pastis. He released a great intake of air, and smilingly chastised himself for his original thoughts regarding Dominique’s intentions. The room was comfortably old-fashioned, exuding what seemed to him a particularly French sort of genteel shabbiness. The ornaments were too ornate, the furniture too bulky. The dresser was enormous, and should have stood in a château entrance hall rather than a second-floor Parisian apartment. He wondered how they’d got it into the room in the first place. The obvious answer seemed to be: through the large windows. A block-and-tackle job from street level. Yes.
God, he thought, what am I doing here? I should have stayed in the car. She’s been teasing me, hasn’t she? She could have said it was her mother’s place. She could have told me her mother would be home. Instead of which, Dominique had let him think his own thoughts, teasing him. Little vixen.
Madame Herault carried a tray back into the room. Barclay had risen from the sofa and was examining some framed photographs on top of an upright piano. There was one of a man in police uniform.
“Mon mari,” explained Madame Herault. “Il est mort.”
She placed the tray on a footstool. There was a long slim glass containing an inch of pastis and a single ice cube. There was also a jug of water, and a saucer on which sat some plain biscuits. She motioned with the jug and poured until he told her to stop. Then she handed him the glass and picked up the photograph, giving him some long story of which Barclay made out probably most of the relevant facts. Monsieur Herault had been a policeman in Paris, a detective. But a terrorist bomb had blown him up ten years ago. He’d been helping to evacuate shoppers from a department store where a bomb was said to be hidden. But it had gone off sooner than expected...
She gave a rueful smile and picked up another photograph, a beaming schoolgirl.
“Dominique,” she said, quite unnecessarily. Barclay nodded. She looked up at him. “Très belle.” He nodded again. For want of anything else to add, he gulped at the drink. Mother of God, it was strong! He lifted a biscuit to disguise his discomfort. But the biscuit disintegrated in his hand, falling like bits of bomb blast to the floor.