“Niall.” She spelled it for me. “Niall’s a hanger-on, a parasite. This is the only reason he’s in France. The people he was staying with were going on holiday, and the choice was to leave him alone in their house or take him with them. So Niall gets a free holiday on the Riviera, and that’s why I’m going down there to see him. He says he needs me.”
“You don’t sound very keen on the idea.”
“I’m not.” She looked frankly at me. “If you want the truth, I can’t afford it, and I was beginning to enjoy not having Niall around me all the time, when he started calling me from France.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “I shouldn’t say this, but I’m sick of Niall. I’ve known him too long, and I wish he’d leave me alone.”
“Well, ditch him.”
“It’s never as easy as that. Niall’s a clinger. I’ve known him too long, and he knows how to get his own way. I’ve kicked him out more times than I can remember, and yet every time he manages to worm his way back into my life. I’ve given up trying.”
“But what sort of relationship is that?”
“Let’s have another drink. I’ll get these.” She signaled to the waiter as he was passing.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I didn’t want to. What about your girlfriend, the one who’s in Canada? How long have you known her?”
“You’re changing the subject,” I said.
“No, I’m not. How long have you known her? Six years? That’s how long I’ve known Niall. When you’ve been with someone as long as that, he knows you. He knows how to manipulate you, how to hurt you, how to use things against you. Niall’s especially good at that. I can’t get away from him because every time I try he finds something new to blackmail me with.”
“But why don’t you—?” I paused, trying to imagine such a relationship, trying to think of myself in a similar situation. It was completely outside my experience.
“Why don’t I what?”
“I can’t understand why you let it go on.”
The waiter arrived with two more glasses, and removed the old ones. Sue paid him, and he laid out the change on the table, putting the note away in the small leather pouch he carried around his waist.
“I can’t understand it either,” she said. “I’ve never found anyone else, and so I suppose it’s easier just to keep going. It’s my own fault, really.”
I said nothing for a while, leaning back in the seat and pretending to watch the passers-by. She was so unlike the passive self she was depicting. It seemed to be a destructive relationship, the way she described it. I wanted to say to her: I am different, I do not cling, you’ve found someone else now. Leave this man Niall, stay with me. You don’t have to put up with him.
Eventually I said, “Do you know why he wants to see you?”
“Nothing special. He’s probably browned off, wants someone to talk to who will listen.”
“I don’t see why you put up with this. You say you’re broke, and yet you’re traveling across France just so he can talk to you.”
“It’ll be more than talking,” she said. “Anyway, you don’t know him.”
“It seems very irrational to me.”
“Yes. I know it does.”
III
We stayed one more night in Nancy, then took another train to the town of Dijon. The weather had changed for the worse, and as the train moved slowly through the extensive suburbs of the city a heavy rain began to fall. We discussed whether or not to stay, but I was no longer in any hurry to reach the south, and we agreed to stick to the plans we had worked out the previous evening.
Dijon was a crowded, busy city, with some kind of business convention going on, and the first two hotels we called at were full. The third, Hotel Central, had only double rooms available.
“We can share,” Sue said as we retreated from the reception desk to consult. “Ask for a twin-bedded room.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“It’ll be cheaper than two rooms, anyway.”
“We could try somewhere else.”
She said quietly, “I don’t mind sharing.”
Our room was on the top floor, at the end of a long corridor. It was small, but it had a large window with a balcony and a pleasant view across the trees of the square below. The two beds were placed close together, separated by a small table with a telephone. As soon as the porter had left, Sue put down her canvas bag and came across to me. She embraced me tightly, and I put my arms around her. The back of her jacket, and her hair, were wet from the rain.
“We don’t have long together,” she said. “Don’t let’s wait any more.”
We started kissing, she with great passion. It was the first time we had held each other, the first time we had kissed. I had not known what she would feel like, how her skin and lips would taste. I knew her only to talk to, only to look at; now I could feel and hold her, press her against me, and she was different. Soon we were eagerly undressing each other, and then we lay on the nearest bed.
We did not leave the hotel until after dark, driven out by hunger and thirst. We had become physically obsessed with each other, and could hardly stop touching. I held her close to me as we walked along the rain-swept street, thinking only of her and what she now meant to me. So often in the past sex had merely satisfied physical curiosity, but with Sue it had released deeper feelings, greater intimacy, a new appetite for each other.
We found a restaurant, Le Grand Zinc, and nearly passed it by, thinking it must be closed. When we went in we discovered we were the only customers: five waiters, dressed in black waistcoats and trousers, with stiff white aprons that reached to their ankles, stood in a patient row beside the serving door. When we were shown to a window table they moved into action, attentive but discreet. Each had short dark hair plastered to his scalp with shiny dressing, and each had a pencil-thin mustache. Sue and I exchanged glances, suppressing giggles. We had found it did not take much to make us laugh.
Outside, a storm had started: brilliant, pink-hued flashes of lightning, far away, thunderless. The rain continued to sheet down, but traffic was sparse in the street. An old Citroën was parked by the curb, glistening in the rain, the double inverted V on its radiator grille reflecting back the red lamp lights from the restaurant.
Remembering a lesson learned during an earlier visit to Paris, I suggested we have the plat du jour, and in due course the comic-opera waiters served us saucisson en croâte, followed by côtes de porc. It was a memorable meal, garnished with private thoughts and secret signs.
At the end of the meal, sipping brandy, we held hands across the tabletop. The waiters stared away.
“We could go to SaintTropez,” I said. “Have you ever been there?”
“Isn’t it crowded at this time of year?”
“I suppose so. But that’s no reason not to go.”
“It would be expensive. I’m running out of cash.”
“We can live cheaply.”
“I can’t afford to go on eating in places like this,” she said.
“This is a celebration.”
“All right, but did you notice the prices?”
Because of the rain we had not checked the prices before entering, but they were clearly printed on the carte. The prices were in old francs, or seemed to be. I had made a halfhearted attempt to convert them, but had come to the conclusion they were either ridiculously low or outrageously high; the quality of the cooking and service indicated the latter.
“We’re not going to run out of cash,” I said.
“I know what you mean, and it’s not going to work. I can’t sponge off you.”