Watch a Novel Grow - Chapter 2

“Look at that one there,” Bronwyn said.

“Don’t point,” Juliette hissed. “He’ll see, and then he’ll come over to find out what you’re on about…”

“He won’t!”

“He’s looking.”

“Ohmigod!”

Bronwyn whipped round and grabbed her suitcase.

“We’re going to be late!”

“We’ve got plenty of time…” And then, deliberately teasing Bronwyn, “He’s coming across.”

“No!”

“Just tell him you think he’s cute.”

“I do not think he’s cute!”

“Or attractive in a non-cute way.”

“Juliette!”

“I think he’s going to check in on our flight. Perhaps he’ll end up sitting next to you.”

“Juliette, if you’re kidding me, I’ll never forgive you!”

“Oh. He’s moving on. He’s going to the Virgin Atlantic check in.”

Bronwyn turned. Her eyes slid over the crowds moving past them.

“Where is he?”

“There.”

They watched the boy – well, he was closer to thirty than boyhood – saunter down the main concourse and angle in towards the Virgin Atlantic check-in counters.

“He wasn’t really heading in our direction, was he?” asked Bronwyn.

“Not really, no.”

“You pig!”

“Really, Bronwyn, if you are interested in men, then you should welcome their attention.”

“I would welcome it – but it’s never going to happen, so I don’t really have to worry about it, do I?”

Bronwyn said this carelessly, with a little self-deprecating shrug.

“That’s nonsense. You’re an attractive woman and any man with half a brain would make a bee-line for you!”

“You’re a sweet friend, Juliette, and I’ve always loved you dearly – but I have to tell you, you’re a lousy liar.”

“I’m not lying.”

“I’m as plain as a pikestaff, Julie, and you know it. Plus I’m fat as a pig…”

“Nothing that a month in a gym wouldn’t cure!”

“I weigh seventy three kilos.”

Juliette was astonished.  “Seventy three?” she said, trying to keep the surprise from her voice. “You don’t weigh seventy three!”

“I do,” Bronwyn said miserably. “I weighed myself this morning. And I’m about to spend ten days in the gastronomic capital of the world! Can you imagine what I’ll be when we get home!”

The emigration official looked suspiciously at Bronwyn’s passport photograph, then up at Bronwyn, then back at the picture.

“I weighed fifty five when I had that picture taken,” she whispered to Juliette. “No wonder she doesn’t recognize me!”

The stamp came down with a smart bureaucratic thump and Juliette and Bronwyn were through in duty-free.

***

The Hotel des Chevaliers was on the Rue du Turenne, just around the corner from the Place des Vosges. Juliette and Bronwyn were sharing a room.

“A double bed?” asked Bronwyn doubtfully.

“Oh, come on, it’s a proper double – there’s more than enough room for three!”

“I know this is Paris, and I know you’re adventurous, Julie – but a threesome is a leap too far even for me.”

“Ha ha.”

Bronwyn stuck a tongue out at Juliette. “I’m going to get undressed, shower, and then hit the sack,” said Bronwyn. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Actually, Juliette had slept like a baby, curled foetus-like in 41C, and she was now ready for her first plunge into Paris.

“I’ll see you later,” she said. “I think I’ll take a stroll round the Place.”

***

The linden trees in the Place des Vosges were in full leaf, throwing heavy shadows onto the gravel paths and children’s sandpits beneath them.

Juliette walked slowly round the square. She was delighted simply to be in Paris at all. But to be strolling round what must be one of the world’s most beautiful public places, well, now, that was sheer heaven. She peered into the copse of plane trees that dominated the centre of the square. Almost hidden from view she spotted a statue of a rather cheerful looking man on a skittish horse. Henri IV, she read. She wished she knew more French history. Henri IV… a memory struggled to rise to the surface… He was the le bon roi Henri… And wasn’t he also renowned for his womanizing? All men, she thought with a flicker of irritation, were the same. And then really irritated with herself.  She was in Paris! She was free not to think about men and their annoying habits!

She walked on. Her eye fell on an attractive young woman in executive black talking earnestly to an older man on a park bench. She was referring passionately to details on a roll of architectural drawings that she’d half unscrolled on her lap. He was nodding thoughtfully.

Beyond that, a group of children was at play in a large sandpit while their nannies gossiped among themselves in, could it be Russian, Juliette wondered… And to one side, hardly visible in the shadows, a woman photographer unobtrusively taking shots of the children. She was, Juliette realized, almost certainly a professional, working easily and fluidly, aiming, focusing and shooting in a series of fluent moves that betrayed her vocation immediately.

Juliette watched for a moment, then passed on to the sunlight, her thoughts now turning to her own lack of any vocation. At school, she’d never had a firm idea of what she might be as an adult. She’d vaguely thought of teaching, but the less vague her thoughts became the more terrifying the prospect seemed. She went through a brief religious phase. She thought later that it had everything to do with the ethereally beautiful Sister Thomas, a nun who taught them biology and maths, and who’d impressed the adolescent Juliette with her commitment to an entirely higher good than the twenty seven girls in St Dominic’s Grade 9 class.

Juliette wondered whether, if she’d ever carried through her dream of committing herself to a life of cloistered contemplation, what sort of nun she’d have made. Dreadful, she was sure. Unable to keep even the most minor of resolutions, let alone to the strait and narrow. She’d have flouted the rules of the monastry, defied the will of the Mother Superior, and escaped from her cell with stubborn recklessness.

But still. The fact was, the idea of a vocation was truly seductive. The trouble with her, Juliette felt, was that she felt drawn to no path, religious or otherwise. She envied Bronwyn, who waxed passionate about books and libraries, authors and publishers, and who could and did quote you the top five books on the New York Times Bestseller List with very little prompting. She, Juliette, had flitted about her particular garden of delights, sipping at this possibility and that, committing herself none. Now, at 24, she stood on the threshold of… on the threshold of what, exactly? Another year dallying with yet another non-job?

She supposed she’d deserved Rob since he represented another half-examined choice: he was somebody who’d never been good for the long run – actually, not even a 400 metre run, come to think of it – but who’d offered her a false sense of security. It was only when she’d seen what an emotional parasite he was that she’d realized how much that security cost her.

“Oops,” she said, “I’m sorry… Um. Pardon!”

She’d been so lost in this sorry weighing of her past that she’d tripped over the feet of a dumpy French matron perched on a bench on the gravel pathway and who now glared at her and rattled off a string of Gallic expletives that she was sure would have been highly embarrassing if she’d been able to follow them. Fortunately, her schoolgirl French simply wasn’t up to the task so, smiling brilliantly at her victim, and offering another “Pardon, madame,” Juliette completed her turn about the Place, and hurried back to the hotel.

***

For the next several days, Juliette and Bronwyn did Paris.

They began with the Musee D’Orsay.

“My, God, just look at that!” Bronwyn whispered to Juliette.

“What? The Renoir? It’s beautiful!”

“No, not the Renoir – that guy looking at the Renoir. He’s gorgeous!”

They did the Canal St Martin, catching a boat at the Parc la Villette and cruising down under the Place de la Bastille to the Seine.

“It’s so creepy in here,” Bronwyn said as their bateaux slid into the jade underworld beneath the streets of the Marais. “Don’t touch me like that!”

“I didn’t touch you,” said Juliette.

“Then who did? Ohmigod, it must have been him!” She indicated a tousle-haired Frenchman with an insouciant expression leaning against the railings a metre or two away. Catching Bronwyn’s eye, he winked. Bronwyn whirled away.

“Did you see that, Julie!”

They did Père Lachaise.

“Excusez moi, pouvez-vous nous disons comment aller… au… sepulchre d’Jim Morrison?” Juliette haltingly asked a laconic attendant.

“C’est simple – suivez tous les gens,” he said, pointing.

But on the way to see Jim’s last resting place, they happened upon a tomb that rang a bell for Juliette.

“Hang on a mo, Bron. This is… Abelard and Heloise’s tomb. Look. Remember, the hopeless lovers in the twelfth century?”

“He had his goolies chopped off, didn’t he?”

“Bronwyn – that is not very romantic.”

“It must’ve hurt, too.”

“Anyway, they say if you leave a letter in the tomb, you’ll find true love.”

“What sort of letter?”

“I have no idea.”

Bronwyn regarded the elaborate mausoleum critically for a moment.

“So this is, what, a dating tomb for lovelorn singles?”

They did Sainte Chapelle.

And for once Bronwyn was speechless.

And they did the Pompidou.

“Now why should that make me feel so… so excited?” asked Juliette. “I mean, all it is is a blue blob… Well, not quite a blob, more a… a splurge or a, I don’t know, a smear! With character and soul and rhythm and, and, and mojo!”

“I don’t know,” said Bronwyn. “It looks more like a bleh to me. A blue bleh.”

“You know Klein covered nude women in paint and then got them to rub themselves on his canvases.”

Juliette spun round on her heel. Behind her stood Jonathan Nesbit.

“No!”

“Oh, yes. No one ever really knew whether he was taking the piss or not – but actually his paintings are so wonderful it doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Juliette?” said Bronwyn, drawing closer to her.

“I mean,” said Juliette, “You’re in Paris!”

“And so are you. No surprises there,” he said.

“Juliette,” said Bronwyn, with a touch of asperity.

“Oh. I’m sorry. This is my friend Bronwyn. Bronwyn, this is the man I was robbed with. So to speak. Jonathan Nesbit. In the French Embassy.”

“How do you do,” said Jonathan gravely. “I’m so pleased you like Klein. He’s one of my favourites. He painted this in 1960. You wouldn’t think so from the vividness of the blue, would you?”

“It’s quite astonishing,” Juliette said. “It feels as if it was painted the day before yesterday.”

“Using nude women as paintbrushes?” said Bronwyn. “I think it’s pretentious,” said Bronwyn. “I think a lot of the art here is pretentious.”

“Sometimes Bronwyn likes to tease,” Juliette said, elbowing her friend sharply.

“Well, it’s true,” said Bronwyn. “There’s an aeroplane made of sticks or something hanging in a hall along the way. It’s totally not artistic.”

“Cai Guo-Qiang. He’s actually quite famous.”

“Oh, sure, for obscure twiggy aeroplanes that no one can make head or tail of,” said Bronwyn. Juliette was aware that Bronwyn had taken instantly against Jonathan. She wondered why.

“Actually, no. He was the guy who designed the fireworks display at the Beijing Olympics.”

“No!” said Juliette.

“Oh, yes. Multi-talented. But that’s enough about art. Would you ladies care to join me for a snack on the roof?”

“On the roof?” asked Bronwyn, stupidly.

“Restaurant Georges,” said Jonathan. “On the sixth floor. It’s really very nice. But actually,” he glanced at his wrist-watch, “it’s not exactly snack time, is it? Lunch would be entirely more appropriate.” He grinned. “What do you say?”

“We couldn’t, really,” said Juliette.

“I can’t see why not,” he responded. “It’s my last afternoon in Paris, and presumably you don’t have a hectic work schedule yourselves, so… Is it a deal?”

“I can’t,” said Bronwyn abruptly, surprising Juliette.

“Why not?” she asked. “If it suits Jonathan, it could be fun.”

“I’ve got to get back to the hotel. My hair needs washing.” And to Jonathan, with a face that almost visibly darkened with hostility, she said: “Thanks but sorry.”

And she turned on her heel and marched off towards the escalators.

“Bronwyn, please don’t go,” Juliette cried, bewildered by her friend’s attitude.

“I’m sorry,” said Jonathan, “I seem to have stirred up a hornets’ nest.”

“I don’t know what’s got into her,” Bronwyn said, “really I don’t.”

***

Jonathan turned out not to be fluent in French.

“Actually, I don’t speak a word of it,” he confided, as he handed the menu to Juliette. “Although I am fluent in champagne, as it happens.” And to the waiter: “We’ll have a bottle of the Krug, thank you.”

“I’m not sure that I can manage half a bottle,” Juliette said.

“Of course you can! It’s Paris! It’s spring! You’re young!”

“I don’t usually drink during the day.”

“Make this the exception. To celebrate our survival.”

“Our survival?”

“Well, I’m not sure how often you’ve been held up by three gun-totin’ gangsters, but I can assure you that most people would consider themselves lucky to emerge unscathed.”

“It’s strange,” Juliette said. “I’ve hardly thought about what happened that day. Do you think that’s odd?”

“Distinctly odd,” Jonathan said cheerfully. “But odd is good – especially in someone as eccentric as we’re hoping Charlize is going to be.”

For a moment the reference threw her. But then she remembered.

“Seriously, Jonathan, I don’t think I could act my way out of a wet paper bag.”

“Nonsense.”

“No, I’ve thought about it. Of course, I was very flattered. Especially because I just love The Parks myself, and to think of meeting all the actors and… But it’s impossible. I was telling Bronwyn, the last time I appeared on a stage was…”

“Bronwyn’s a negative person, Juliette,” he said, quietly, just as the sommelier arrived with the bottle of champagne. Jonathan held the back of his hand to the bottle for a moment, then nodded.

“I beg your pardon, Jonathan,” she said, after their bottles were charged and the sommelier had drifted away, “but I don’t think that’s fair at all. You don’t know Bronwyn at all!”

“Perhaps not. Of course, I could be wrong, but I would have thought she’s the sort of level-headed person who would always give you sound advice…”

“Exactly!”

“… whether or not you’d asked for it. She’s probably the safest friend you’ve got, am I right?”

“Safe?”

“Reliable. Someone you can always count on. Somebody who’d sacrifice her own needs to help you satisfy yours…”

“How did you know…?” Jonathan had got Bronwyn completely. She was astonished.

“But the problem with the Bronwyns of this world is that in steering you away from hazard…”

“Which is a good thing, right?”

“… they’re also apt to steer you away from adventure. And my final psychological insight of the day is that you, Juliette, are up for adventure at the drop of a hat.”

He raised his glass in an oddly formal gesture.

“To adventure,” he said. And, feeling as though something momentous had just occurred – although what it was she couldn’t say – Juliette raised hers.

“To adventure,” she said.

“Now. What are you going to order for us?”

***

Bronwyn was lying on her side of the double bed, a damp face-cloth over her eyes.

“What’s the matter, Bron?” Juliette asked, as she closed the door behind her.

“Headache,” said Bronwyn.

“Oh, you poor thing. Have you taken anything?”

“Aspirin,” Bronwyn said. “Didn’t work. What’s the time?”

“Sorry. I’m really sorry. Time just seemed to… fly by. What can I say?”

“He’s too old for you, Julie,” said Bronwyn.

“He’s thirty seven!”

“And you’re twenty four. He’s almost old enough to be your…”

“… Much old brother, that’s all. Thirteen years isn’t forever. And besides, a discussion of our respective ages and whether he’s too old for me or I’m too young for him is simply premature.”

“And he’s too smarmy.”

“Smarmy? He’s not smarmy! He’s… sophisticated. And urbane. And knowledgeable…”

“I bet he knows his champagnes backwards.”

“Actually, he said a funny thing…”

“Funny peculiar or…”

“… Oh, definitely funny ha-ha. He said, I should order the food, because I can speak a little French. He would order the wine because all he could speak was champagne.”

“Ha ha,” said Bronwyn, deadpan.

“Bronwyn, you’re not giving him a chance!”

“You burnt your fingers on Rob, now you’re willing to throw yourself away on an old fart who tells you ever so smarmily that he can speak champagne. Juliette, you are incorrigible.”

“And you’re jealous!”

“I am not! I just don’t like him. I have a… a feeling about him. And the feeling says, beware, beware, beware!”

And then Juliette’s phone pinged the arrival of a text message. For a moment she felt her heart stir. He’d be on his way to Charles de Gaul now. Could it be…?

But it wasn’t.

“Who is it?” asked Bronwyn.

Juliette made a face.

“Not, I take it, Jonathan ‘I Speak Champagne’ Nesbit?”

“Rob. He hopes I’m having a good time. Weather’s terrible at home, he says.”

“Bloody nerve.”

“Trying to make me feel sorry for him. Poor boy stuck in the rain. And you know what the most awful thing about it is? It works! I do feel sorry for him. Stupid pathetic jerk.”

“Good.”

“Good? What’s good about it?”

“He’s taken your mind off Mr Dodgy.”

“Rob always manages to make me feel guilty. Mr Dodgy, I’ll have you know, Bronwyn, makes me feel good. You tell me which is better.”

***

Juliette scanned her e-mails briefly. One hundred and sixty seven of them had poured into her postbox during her absence. She clicked through them rapidly, eliminating the merely odious – no fewer than seven promising her a vastly enlarged penis – reading the completely outrageous, which included four Nigerian 419 scam letters. One purported to come from the not-very-remorseful son of the blood-thirsty former president of Liberia, Mr Charles Taylor, promising her a share of his illegally-got cache of gold and diamonds. They were at least worth a giggle, before she consigned them, too, to the Recycle Bin.

And then, lying in ambush for her at the head of the queue was an e-mail from Ms Libby de Vries, casting director of The Parks, inviting her to an audition at Broadcast House on Tuesday the twenty third of June. She would be trying for the part of Charlize Fallon.

“I attach a scene with which you should familiarize yourself. The other character in the scene is Charlize’s love interest, Tyler Makepeace. You’ll be expected to work through the scene without referring too obviously to the text,” said Ms Libby de Vries.

Charlize Fallon! She must be the daughter of Clayton and Marissa Fallon. She couldn’t ever remember anyone referring to her. But Tyler Makepeace, that was a character she knew well.  He was the intense son and heir of Veronica and Vernon Makepeace. Handsome and passionate. And he was to be her love-interest!

Juliette felt quite faint. 

As she printed the scene, she wondered, guiltily, how she was going to tell Bronwyn.