The Extinction of Snow Read online

  Of course he made the usual English error of saying he was pretty when he meant he was happy: Je suis joli. The truth is that he was both – a pretty, happy toymaker; pretty and happy and hopeless with language. I am sacred, comfot me. I need to do what I came here for. I need focus. J’ai besoin de . . . I have need of so much.

  The hotel is cold. My room is bare and dismal. There are watermarks across the wall. The furniture, a wardrobe and dressing-table, are old and chipped, made of dark wood. The shower and toilet are tucked in a corner close to the head of the bed with an extremely narrow doorway. The carpet beside the bed is mildly damp. The shower drips continuously. There are yellow stains all over the cubicle.

  There is a small safe inside the wardrobe. There were no instructions with it so I had to go back to the reception after I’d checked in and ask for an explanation. Later a man came to my room to take me through it. In fact he wasn’t very sure. It was something of an accident that between us we worked out how to set a combination. I joked that I wasn’t a rich woman, but nevertheless . . . , to which he smiled appreciatively. John always said that making a joke in a foreign language was proof of skill.

  It is my fourth morning here. Today I am going to stop being a tourist. I rang the British Consul yesterday. This morning I have an appointment. We are to discuss the police report. I have scarcely slept, despite a liberal quantity of wine. I am cold and nervous. I view the shower with dread. It is so small it is impossible to avoid touching surfaces, surfaces which are cold and wet. There is a radiator in the room but it is insufficient. The bed is high off the floor and covered in sheets, blankets and covers which are uncomfortably heavy. I hate weight on me when I’m trying to sleep, but it is too cold to have any skin exposed. I need to get on, stop thinking of minor discomfort and inconvenience. Today I have an appointment in a foreign city.

  Chapter Nine

  Over breakfast of black coffee and croissants the tune plays over in my mind, slow and resonant. There is so much beauty in it. Is that the mind playing tricks, creating consolation where in reality there is none? The mind is provocative and protective, only allowing access to those things that shouldn’t destroy it. But in this case beauty and barbarity coincide with each note. There is something about this tune which I can’t work out, but it exists. This tune has become that of a dead boy, my dead boy, a beautiful boy meeting a terrible death. Already I am making up stories, pre-empting the police report. Of course I am. There are stories within stories, and I scurry about inside mine like a rat along miles of sewerage, no longer sure of the purpose of anything, ignorant entirely of whether I am looking for escape or discovery. I have to trust in events.

  This morning I awoke cold, drenched in sweat, my whole body frozen in its own juice. I had been dreaming that I was caught in a vast Gothic hotel resplendent with plush reception and great chandeliered dining room but with a maze of stairways and corridors hidden behind the façade. I was confined to those, escaping something or someone, certain that my crime was on the verge of discovery. The stairs twisted this way and that, spiralling into depths like the stairways of old castles. At each turn there was the possibility of disclosure. And then, coming through one room, dashing from one stairway to another, I was assaulted by a group of children, or maybe they were midgets, or maybe yet again made up fairy tale creatures, part human part monkey. But they kept coming at me, biting, wanting to dismember me, do violence to my body. I fought them off but they kept coming, and I found I had to keep spinning round because they were sneaking behind me, and that made my blood run cold. The thought that they were behind me filled me with dread. So I spun and I fought, and then I realized the only way to escape was to kill them, because if I didn’t kill them they’d simply keep coming until I was in shreds.

  Then, because the dream had summoned them, there were knives. I had one in each hand, but so did they and there was a sequence of cuttings and slashes. At that point I awoke, frozen, helpless, craving, lost in this dingy room.

  I lay there in my own sweat for some time, half-awake, still half-asleep, in transit between two terrible hotels. And then there was a moment of greater lucidity, one where I realized that I might have died at the hands of the assassins, whoever they were, and I began to wonder what my final dream on earth might be. Of course, there are any number of final things, the last word, smile, song, but dreams are beyond one’s control. Besides, dreams in all likelihood will be the last thing of all. Would it be a dream of heaven, dream of hell, dream of a hermit’s cell? And for a moment I felt an intense, heartrending fear. When I finally fully awoke, I felt relieved and pleased to be in my awful room. To wonder about the ultimate dream was not without satisfaction.

  John has terrible dreams. More often than not he won’t talk about them, but it’s obvious he has trouble shaking them off, finding the divide between dream and reality. Sometimes he develops deep black rings around his eyes, despite the fact that he’s slept, such is the force of them. Maybe it is part of the cost of his reasonableness and the comfort he gives. Usually he looks at the world conducting itself around him with ruthless, intellectual vigour, but then sometimes with bafflement. The bafflement is strange, it is so needy and childlike, even childish. His dreams leave him washed out and wasted. They always come to him as detailed stories with fully formed characters, aping thrillers and crime stories, barbaric and pitiless. I don’t know how long he can endure such dreams, surely not a lifetime anyway.

  I can’t help but look at the people around the breakfast room and judge them by whether I think they dream or not. It is an arrogant game, I know. The black waitress who sits on a stool behind a counter and never smiles, talks or makes eye contact, certainly dreams, nice dreams I should think. She only emerges from behind the counter to clear the table when someone departs. She is slow and fatigued in the way she works, as if she cannot really see any point to it. I have tried to thank her but she turns her head away, even though she wasn’t looking at me, as if such intercourse were outlawed. There is a German family, a couple with a boy and a girl. They are loud and shout across the room to each other, asking one or the other to bring this or that, the breakfast things laid out on a table in the corner, croissants, bread and coffee. I assume they don’t dream, or rather don’t remember their dreams, because of course everyone dreams. Even the young English couple must dream. From their accent I assume they’re from the North East. He complains all of the time, moaning about what they did the day before, the dreadful food, the boring museums. She reassures him that today will be better. I must have listened to many of their conversations because I know they are here for five days and their ticket includes a full day in Disney Paris, but that isn’t until the fourth day. Today his overriding complaint is the hotel. They paid a lot of money and the hotel is dreadful. This morning it was colder than ever and the shower was tepid. I should lean across and agree with them, but immediately become defensive. To my mind, suddenly, the hotel is functional and fine.

  The man whom I assume to be the owner sits in a little room adjacent the breakfast room across from the reception and watches television all day. It is loud and intrusive, in the morning a chatty, celebrity news-show. He doesn’t talk either, but his expression is more actively uninterested than that of the waitress. Suddenly I like him, and consider him a quirky, interesting character, mildly eccentric and playful. Of course the couple don’t know I am English. I hide that as if it needs to be kept secret.

  There is also a man on his own. He is well dressed in a suit and tie. He takes his jacket off to eat and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. I take him to be here on business. He looks as if he is used to travelling, comfortable in his surroundings. When he first appeared at breakfast, which was on my second day, the coffee machine with its confusing little plastic packets and slots presented him with no problem at all. He is fair haired, gentle looking but with strong arms, his forearms when he rolls up his sleeves muscular, with a light golden down of hair. He can’t dream, he is too self-assured. Of
course the whole thing is preposterous and I am making the most outrageous judgements. All of their dreams may be lofty and noble and only mine in the gutter.

  I have to get on, put the lives of this grubby little hotel out of my mind and do what I came to do. I sweep all of the crumbs I have made onto a napkin and screw it up. There are no plates with breakfast just napkins. I don’t like to leave any mess. I presume it’s an English thing, a desire to be unnoticed. I push back my chair, which scrapes along the plastic flooring, and move away. I bump straight into the man who has also stood. He is evidently getting more coffee and thankfully the cup he is holding is empty. “I’m sorry,” I say, but then correct myself, saying, “I’m sorry, I mean, pardon, pardonnez moi,” my voice flustered, which is concern about the language skill on offer.

  He smiles warmly, and quietly says: “Sorry is quite all right, though really not needed.”

  “Sorry.”

  He continues to smile and steps towards the coffee machine which is a few feet away from his table. As he inserts his pack of coffee into the slot he turns to me and repeats: “Really not needed.” When I reach the door he calls to me and says he hopes I have a good day.

  I turn back and say: “I don’t suppose I will, but thank you.” I immediately feel I have been too disclosing and rush away. I pass the owner in front of his television. He is laughing out loud which is unusual. He turns to me as I pass and is still laughing. I find it unsettling. That must be how paranoia starts, a chance happening: a word, a piece of laughter, a naked figure in a mirror. Reason hangs on a thread.

  It is cold outside, snow flurries in the air, flakes singular and discernible. The sky is low and grey, dense with cloud. It could snow heavily, though I think it unlikely. I have reached the conclusion that snow is endangered, an experience that my grandchild might not have. But what would I do if it does snow heavily and I am stranded here? I suppose it wouldn’t matter. I am not a real tourist and I have no job I need to return to. I would simply waste money which I don’t care about. My mind is torn between a desire for snow, to know that it is still possible, even if only on foreign soil, and the desire to be warm again. I haven’t felt so cold for such a long time. Is it really as cold as I think or is it just a state of mind? I look around. Everyone else looks cold. It makes them miserable and insular. This is not a Paris I recall. It is ashen and faded, old and in need of rejuvenation. Perhaps Paris is a state of mind.

  It is a short walk to Rue du Faubourg St Honoré and the offices of the British Consul. I have grossly miscalculated and am way before my allotted appointment. I make my way to the Jardin des Tuileries to pass the time. At the gates of the Place de la Concorde are a crowd of women begging. One approaches me with her hands held in supplication, her expression pained, her voice wailing quietly but relentlessly. There is a caravan selling crepes a few feet away. I wonder how they stand this row of misery. Do they just assume it all a sham, a piece of contemporary street theatre? I suppose I do myself, but nevertheless reach into my bag and give more than is sensible – though sensible by what standard, I’m not sure. To my disappointment there is no gratitude, in fact scarcely any acknowledgement. She simply moves on to the next customer, still wailing with grief. I want to say to her that if she is quiet for a moment and listens to the breeze, the snow flecked breeze, she will hear another voice wailing with grief. There are so many layers of reality it is bewildering. Yes my voice is on the breeze, as are the notes of a tune played by piano and violin, like sadness and joy rolled into one, together making something new.

  I don’t go very far into the Jardin. My business isn’t here. Besides it is dreary in this weather, and the damp gravel is marking my shoes, which being delicately woven slippers are entirely unsuitable. I turn back unable to contemplate this place I have only ever known in summer sunlight. I have a very clear memory of sitting here and talking with John, a confessional conversation about my father, an account of a violent man, an account of why London became home. In the summer sunshine he wrapped me up in an enormous hug of new beginnings, confirming me as Louise the artist, the Londoner, freed of a dirty, squalid childhood. This city of holidays and romance haunts me at every corner. Snow and sunshine contend. I am a dancer between the two. I turn and make my way back to the Place de la Concorde. I remember walking here one Sunday morning, the first time we had stayed together in the city, a plush hotel on Boulevard Haussmann, and knowing that everything about life was correct. There was music in my head that morning too, a pop song, scarcely worth remembering now. The same beggar woman accosts me at the gates. I quite angrily tell her that I have already given her a reasonable donation – I call it a donation – but she wails on regardless. I sweep past disgusted by something, something too complex to understand. There were no beggars in my Sunday memory.

  At the corner of Rue de Rivoli I bump into the man from breakfast, though not literally this time.

  He stops me, laughs and says: “I thought it was a bigger city than this.”

  “Yes,” I say, perturbed by the encounter. I am waiting to see someone from the Consulate, whilst dreaming of holidays and hidden things, and I find it difficult to find my voice.

  “Are you shopping?” he asks. I shake my head. “Heading off to the Louvre?”

  “No, no, I’m not.”

  He smiles and shrugs slightly, questioningly. It is commonplace inquisitiveness, not prying. I shouldn’t be so guarded. “I have an appointment, but I’m early. I’m just killing time.”

  He looks at his watch as if trying to calculate whether he has any time to kill too and then invites me for a drink, tea, coffee, whatever. He says he knows a nice tea-room. For some reason I say I don’t know, forcing him to insist. Finally I concede, saying it would be nice. It really would be nice.

  He brings me a cup of Earl Grey tea in a glass cup and puts it in front of me. The café is very contemporary with near abstract, but evidently tropical prints, where the serving staff are all young, loud, seemingly happy and incredibly friendly with the customers. There is English music in the background. “I’m sorry,” he says, as he takes his seat beside me. “I didn’t mean to pry into your business.”

  “It’s really not needed,” I say, trying to smile, but knowing that I probably look awkward, at variance to what I’m saying.

  He laughs and says: “Good, I like that. You have a good memory.”

  “It wasn’t a lifetime ago.”

  “Breakfast?”

  I smile, more casually than before. He picks up nuance, the fact that there is a dialogue going on with the self as well, a rough, cynical dialogue. “Yes, breakfast. I can remember what was said so long ago.”

  “And it’s not needed to pry or to apologize?”

  “Apologize, of course, apologize.”

  He purses his lips, amused and satisfied. “I’m here on business too.”

  “I guessed.”

  “Why, because I’m on my own?”

  “Shirt and tie, confidence.”

  “Confidence?”

  “You know, the language, a foreign city. You look at home.”

  “I get by.”

  “I say that all of the time. Je me debrouille, but I don’t get by nearly as well as I did once.”

  “We’re still talking about the language.”

  “Yes, the language, I mean the language. I don’t speak as well as I once did.”

  “It’s just a matter of practice.”

  “I think there’s more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s too personal to say.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, and holds his hands up in apology, as if he has touched something he really shouldn’t have. I must have seen the gesture innumerable times, but never before with such clarity.

  “It really is not needed,” I say, tired with the joke, but quite taken by his humility.

  “No, I think in that instance it perhaps was needed. I probably shouldn’t say this but you do seem troubled, troubled by something. You
don’t have to say anything, you don’t even have to nod or shake your head, but if I can help in anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, why should you want to help?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that. I don’t know, the English abroad, helping each other, which is arbitrary, I admit. I’m here on business but I do have time on my hands, which I also admit. And maybe I wouldn’t offer if you weren’t so attractive, which I also admit. I also admit to being a fairly decent guy with no reasons in the world.”

  “I’m sorry, no, I really am.”

  “I think we have to stop this,” he says, smiling, yet at the same time with his eyebrows arched, creating a comically aggrieved gesture.

  “Yes, I think you’re right.”

  “So, if I can help, well, just say.”

  I say that he can’t help, in fact that I don’t desire any help, but I go on to tell him that my son is dead, died in France in circumstances that haven’t been explained and that I have an appointment in the Consulate to discuss it. He listens with patience and sympathy, maybe even something beyond sympathy, which I would call compassion. He says: “I really am terribly sorry, which I know we agreed to stop saying, but I am. I can’t imagine what you’re going through. If you’d like someone to come with you, not to be involved but just be with, then just say.”

  “Thank you, that’s kind actually, but no. I’ll manage, manage quite well, thank you. In fact, I’d better be going.” I’m aware that I’ve only drunk half of my tea, but I have to leave, my emotional walls are beginning to erode and I can’t have that, not now, not so close to the appointment.