‘Loiseau could get it,’ she said desperately, wanting Jean-Paul to agree on this one, very small point.
‘But he won’t,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘He won’t because I’m involved and your ex-husband hates me with a deep and illogical loathing. The trouble is that I can understand why he does. I’m no good for you, Maria. You would probably have managed the whole thing excellently except that Loiseau is jealous of your relationship with me. Perhaps we should cease to see each other for a few months.’
‘I’m sure we should.’
‘But I couldn’t bear it, Maria.’
‘Why the hell not? We don’t love each other. I am only a suitable companion and you have so many other women you’d never even notice my absence.’ She despised herself even before she’d completed the sentence. Jean-Paul detected her motive immediately, of course, and responded.
‘My darling little Maria.’ He touched her leg lightly and sexlessly. ‘You are different from the others. The others are just stupid little tarts that amuse me as decorations. They are not women. You are the only real woman I know. You are the woman I love, Maria.’
‘Monsieur Datt himself,’ said Maria, ‘he could get the film.’ Jean-Paul pulled into the side of the road and double parked.
‘We’ve played this game long enough, Maria,’ he said.
‘What game?’ asked Maria. Behind them a taxi-driver swore bitterly as he realized they were not going to move.
‘The how-much-you-hate-Datt game,’ said Jean-Paul.
‘I do hate him.’
‘He’s your father, Maria.’
‘He’s not my father, that’s just a stupid story that he told you for some purpose of his own.’
‘Then where is your father?’
‘He was killed in 1940 in Bouillon, Belgium, during the fighting with the Germans. He was killed in an air raid.’
‘He would have been about the same age as Datt.’
‘So would a million men,’ said Maria. ‘It’s such a stupid lie that it’s not worth arguing about. Datt hoped I’d swallow that story but now even he no longer speaks of it. It’s a stupid lie.’
Jean-Paul smiled uncertainly. ‘Why?’
‘Oh Jean-Paul. Why. You know how his evil little mind works. I was married to an important man in the Sûreté. Can’t you see how convenient it would be to have me thinking he was my father? A sort of insurance, that’s why.’
Jean-Paul was tired of this argument. ‘Then he’s not your father. But I still think you should co-operate.’
‘Co-operate how?’
‘Tell him a few snippets of information.’
‘Could he get the film if it was really worth while?’
‘I can ask him.’ He smiled. ‘Now you are being sensible, my love,’ he said. Maria nodded as the car moved forward into the traffic. Jean-Paul planted a brief kiss on her forehead. A taxi-driver saw him do it and tooted a small illegal toot on the horn. Jean-Paul kissed Maria’s forehead again a little more ardently. The great Arc de Triomphe loomed over them as they roared around the Étoile like soapsuds round the kitchen sink. A hundred tyres screamed an argument about centrifugal force, then they were into the Grande Armée. The traffic had stopped at the traffic lights. A man danced nimbly between the cars, collecting money and whipping newspapers from window to window like a fan dancer. As the traffic lights changed the cars slid forward. Maria opened her paper; the ink was still wet and it smudged under her thumb. ‘American tourist disappears,’ the headline said. There was a photograph of Hudson, the American hydrogen-research man. The newspaper said he was a frozen foods executive named Parks, which was the story the US Embassy had given out. Neither the face nor either name meant anything to Maria.
‘Anything in the paper?’ asked Jean-Paul. He was fighting a duel with a Mini-Cooper. ‘No,’ said Maria. She rubbed the newsprint on her thumb. ‘There never is at this time of year. The English call it the silly season.’
18
Les Chiens is everything that delights the yeh yeh set. It’s dark, hot, and squirming like a tin of live bait. The music is ear-splitting and the drink remarkably expensive even for Paris. I sat in a corner with Byrd.
‘Not my sort of place at all,’ Byrd said. ‘But in a curious way I like it.’
A girl in gold crochet pyjamas squeezed past our table, leaned over and kissed my ear. ‘Chéri,’ she said. ‘Long time no see,’ and thereby exhausted her entire English vocabulary.
‘Dash me,’ said Byrd. ‘You can see right through it, dash me.’
The girl patted Byrd’s shoulder affectionately and moved on.
‘You do have some remarkable friends,’ said Byrd. He had ceased to criticize me and begun to regard me as a social curiosity well worth observing.
‘A journalist must have contacts,’ I explained.
‘My goodness yes,’ said Byrd.
The music stopped suddenly. Byrd mopped his face with a red silk handkerchief. ‘It’s like a stokehold,’ he said. The club was strangely quiet.
‘Were you an engineer officer?’
‘I did gunnery school when I was on lieutenants’ list. Finished a Commander; might have made Captain if there’d been a little war, Rear-Admiral if there’d been another big one. Didn’t fancy waiting. Twenty-seven years of sea duty is enough. Right through the hostilities and out the other side, more ships than I care to remember.’
‘You must miss it.’
‘Never. Why should I? Running a ship is just like running a small factory; just as exciting at times and just as dull for the most part. Never miss it a bit. Never think about it, to tell you the truth.’
‘Don’t you miss the sea, or the movement, or the weather?’
‘Good grief, laddie, you’ve got a nasty touch of the Joseph Conrads. Ships, especially cruisers, are large metal factories, rather prone to pitch in bad weather. Nothing good about that, old boy – damned inconvenient, that’s the truth of it! The Navy was just a job of work for me, and it suited me fine. Nothing against the Navy mind, not at all, owe it an awful lot, no doubt of it, but it was just a job like any other; no magic to being a sailor.’ There was a plonking sound as someone tapped the amplifier and put on another record. ‘Painting is the only true magic,’ said Byrd. ‘Translating three dimensions into two – or if you are a master, four.’ He nodded suddenly, the loud music started. The clientele, who had been stiff and anxious during the silence, smiled and relaxed, for they no longer faced the strain of conversing together.
On a staircase a wedge of people were embracing and laughing like advertising photos. At the bar a couple of English photographers were talking in cockney and an English writer was explaining James Bond.
A waiter put four glasses full of ice cubes and a half-bottle of Johnnie Walker on the table before us. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.
The waiter turned away without answering. Two Frenchmen at the bar began to argue with the English writer and a bar stool fell over. The noise wasn’t loud enough for anyone to notice. On the dance floor a girl in a shiny plastic suit was swearing at a man who had burned a hole in it with his cigarette. I heard the English writer behind me say, ‘But I have always immensely adored violence. His violence is his humanity. Unless you understand that you understand nothing.’ He