But Albie had already produced his sketchbook from his bag, because it wasn’t enough to stare at this anonymous woman’s private parts, clearly he was going to have to sketch them, too.
‘Meet you in the gift shop,’ I said, and left him there, madly cross-hatching and shading in.
Then, on our final night in Paris we all went to a Vietnamese restaurant, but I had to leave early because I was injured by my soup.
I have always had a poor record with heavily spiced food, believing, not unreasonably, that if a substance burns my fingers I shouldn’t put it in my stomach. Of course Albie loves fiery food, thinking that it reflects his tempestuous personality or politics or something. As for Connie, her mood had improved a little since the great breakfast-buffet farrago, but she was wearying of bistros. ‘I swear, if I see another duck leg, I shall scream.’ Albie suggested Vietnamese, and wasn’t I meant to be trying new things and leaving my so-called ‘comfort zone’? So at Albie’s suggestion we set off in our wobbly convoy of bicycles to a Vietnamese restaurant in Montparnasse.
‘“Authentiquement épicé”!’ Albie read approvingly in the menu. ‘Which basically means “bloody hot”!’
I ordered some sort of beef soup, specifying ‘pas trop chaud, s’il vous plaît’, but the bowl, when it arrived, was so heavily dosed with small vicious red chillis that I wondered if perhaps it was some sort of practical joke. Perhaps Albie had put them up to it, perhaps the chefs’ faces were pressed to the little round window, chuckling away. Either way I was having to drink a great deal of beer to cool my palate.
‘Too much for you, Dad?’ he grinned.
‘Just a little.’ I ordered one more beer.
‘You see?’ grinned Connie. ‘Anything that isn’t boiled meat in gravy …’
‘That’s not true, Connie, you know it’s not,’ I said, a little snappily perhaps. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s delicious.’
And then it wasn’t delicious anymore. I had been attempting to avoid the chillies by sieving the soup through my teeth, but something must have slipped through, because my mouth was suddenly ablaze. I drained the beer and, in slamming the glass down, flipped the large ceramic spoon from the broth, catapulting a ladleful into my right eye. So heavily dosed with lime juice and chilli was this broth that I was momentarily blinded, scrabbling around the table for a napkin, grabbing one that had been discarded by Albie and was smeared with the chilli sauce from his spare ribs, which I then proceeded to rub into the affected eye and, somehow, the unaffected eye too. If he hadn’t been laughing no doubt Albie would have warned me, but tears were pouring down my face now, and Albie and Connie’s amusement had turned to embarrassment and concern as I stumbled blindly to the bathroom, bumping into several diners, stumbling through a beaded curtain into first the ladies’ — desolé! desolé! — then the gentlemen’s toilets and finally locating the world’s smallest and most impractical handbasin, into which I attempted to squeeze my head, scraping my forehead with the tap and pouring first scalding hot, then cold water into my eye. I stood there, spine twisted, with the water jetting uncomfortably onto my eyeball, then into my mouth which was now mercifully numb, with a chemical throb that recalled the removal of an impacted molar some years ago.
I stayed like this for some time.
Eventually I stood and examined my reflection, my shirt soaked and clinging to my chest, my forehead bleeding, my tongue swollen and lips apparently rouged, my right eye sealed tight. I peeled the lid back, the sclera heavily veined and the colour of tomato soup. Peering at the ceiling, I noted that some sort of scratch, like a hair on a camera lens, had appeared at the edge of my vision, dancing around and out of sight as I attempted to examine it further. A scar. This, I thought, is why we have comfort zones, because they are comfortable. What can possibly be gained by leaving them?
As I returned to the table, Albie and Connie regarded me with the solemn faces that precede bouts of hilarity. When the laughter broke, I attempted to join in, because I wanted to be fun rather than a figure of it. I had prepared a line to this end: ‘You see? This is why we wear protective goggles in the lab,’ I said, though the joke didn’t really land.
‘You look as if you’ve been tied to a chair and beaten,’ said Connie.
‘I’m fine. Fine!’ I said, smiling, smiling as I pushed the bowl away. ‘Here, you have it.’
‘I think the food here is amazing.’
‘Well, I’m pleased,’ I said, ‘but personally I prefer food that doesn’t actually injure you.’
Connie sighed. ‘It hasn’t injured you, Douglas.’
‘It has! It has actually scarred my cornea. From now on every time I look at a plain white surface I’ll see that soup.’ This set them off again, and suddenly I’d had enough. Wasn’t I trying? Wasn’t I doing my best, making an effort? I drained a beer, my third or fourth I think, scraping my chair as I stood to go.
‘Actually, I’m going to walk back to the hotel.’
‘Douglas,’ said Connie, her hand on my arm, ‘don’t be like that.’
‘No, you’ll be far happier by yourselves. Here …’ I was tugging money from my wallet now, belligerently tossing notes on to the table in a way that I’d seen in films. ‘That ought to cover it. Amsterdam train’s at nine fifteen, so early start. Please don’t be late.’
‘Douglas, sit down, wait for us, please—’
‘I need some fresh air. Goodnight. Goodnight. I’ll find my own way home.’
I got lost, of course. The sinister black slab of the Montparnasse Tower was behind, then in front of me, to my left and right, hopping around, and now the back streets had opened out into an avenue, wide and dull and unpopulated, an elegant dual carriageway that would lead me eventually to the Périphérique. I was walking towards a motorway, soaked through with beer, soup, water and sweat, drunk and blinded in one eye, neither loveable nor full of love, full of nothing but irritation and frustration and self-pity, and lost, quite lost, in this idiotic city. City of Light. City of Bloody, Bloody Light.
I had not dared to dwell on the idea, but when we’d set out I had imagined that this trip might in some way repair our relationship, perhaps even lead to a change of heart on Connie’s part. I think I want to leave you, she’d said, and didn’t ‘think’ imply some doubt, the possibility of persuasion? Perhaps the newness of our surroundings would recall when we were new to each other. But it was absurd to think a city could make a difference, absurd to think oil paintings and marble statues and stained glass could make that change. Place had nothing to do with it.
Now I saw the great gilded dome of Les Invalides against the purple sky, the searchlights on the Eiffel Tower swooping as if hunting down a fugitive. The air had taken on that charged quality that precedes a summer storm and I realised I was still some distance from the hotel. They’d be in bed now, quite happily asleep, my family. The family I was about to lose, if I’d not lost them already, and I trudged on down that long, dull deserted avenue, wondering why it was inevitable that my plans should fail.
I turned right at the Musée Rodin. Through a gap in the wall, a sculpture of five men stood in a huddle, wailing and moaning in various attitudes of despair, and this seemed like an apt spot to rest. I settled on the kerb. My phone was ringing — Connie, of course. I considered not answering but I’ve never been able to ignore Connie’s call.