Licence to Crenellate Chapter 12

La Parisienne

I can see that maybe as much as two thirds of this will be cut in a good edit. But I have to write the whole story, see the whole story detail by detail in my head, so that the moments that remain after the edit are supported by a truth the reader may not be able to see but can feel. A novel needs to read as though everything in it actually happened and the time between related incidents was filled with the movement of every second of every day. Of course if novels were published relating every second of every day a) one would never get to the end of them and b) the point of the story might get totally lost in the trip to the hair dresser and the choice between the Vache Qui Rit from the supermarket and the good Reblochon from the rue Cler. But for the moment the hair dresser and the cheese choices remain.

The intense selfishness of youth I realise, looking back at the person I was then. So afraid of failure, so determined, I took advantage of any and all who came my way. I didn’t ask myself why Michele would help me, and I accepted the hoops she put herself through in order that I could get a carte de sejour. Her husband seemed serious and all business. He was a distant, much-educated American called Arthur Swinson the third and he was living in Paris running the European arm of his family business which was steel but he was a lawyer by trade. He was in his early thirties and I think Michele was as in awe of him as I was. She worked hard to be the wife she thought she ought to be and I did what I could to help, though in retrospect I think I got more out of the arrangement: a room to live in, no electricity or water bills, by the time I’d done a couple of nights babysitting a week barely any rent to pay, supper when I babysat from her fridge. Immaculate six year old Caroline disliked me because I meant her mother could leave them more evenings. Edouard was young enough that so long as I let him snuggle on my knee with the feculent teddy he’d fall asleep soon enough. Caroline would play me ruthlessly. I feared she would tell her mother terrible things that I had given them for supper and I’d lose my room. Other than a letter from Michele to say I lived there, which I had needed to get my carte de sejour and to change my Post Office bank account away from the address of the employment agency, I had no contract for the room. The idea was that I would pay 3,500FF (about £350) a month for it, but every time I babysat then 200FF would be taken off the bill. This way I got to pay the rent at the end of the month rather than the beginning. If I babysat maybe ten times a month then I’d only owe Michele 1,000FF. Which meant I could afford to get my hair cut and improve the contents of my wardrobe.

I remember the cold metal feel of the scissors on my neck.