‘You’re leaving?’
But Miss Waverly didn’t bother to answer.
Instead she poured herself another drink, went into the bathroom and shut the door.
‘What in the Lord’s name did you do to your hair?’ asked Sis in horror, down in the laundry room.
Eva pulled her cap further down on her head. ‘I didn’t do it. Miss Waverley did.’
‘Oh my goodness!’ Sis grabbed Eva by the shoulders and turned her round. ‘She cut it all off!’ She ran her fingers through the blunt edge at the back of Eva’s neck. ‘It’s gone!’
‘I know. But it will be easier to keep clean,’ she added, trying to sound reasonable. Suddenly Sis’s grip felt like cement on her shoulder. She moved away.
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Sis said grimly, handing her another pile of wet linen. ‘That woman’s trouble.’
‘No, she isn’t. She’s just being nice.’ Eva took the sheets, feeding them in between the heavy rollers of the laundry press. ‘Besides, you think everyone’s trouble.’
‘I know all I need to know. And I’m right. What do you do with her anyway?’
‘Nothing.’ Eva concentrated on forcing the sheets through rather than on Sis’s face. ‘I help her get dressed, iron clothes.’
‘Why did you let her cut your hair?’
‘I look older. That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘But why do you want to look older? That’s what I want to know.’
A taut silence stretched out between them. Sis yanked the pressed sheets out of the other end.
‘She lies about with no clothes on,’ Sis said after a while, unable to leave the subject alone. ‘Everyone knows she does it.’
Eva rolled her eyes. ‘She’s sunbathing. In the privacy of her own room.’
‘There’s nothing private about a balcony in the middle of New York City.’
‘It’s all the rage, among fashionable people.’
‘If you want to look like a farmhand. Fashionable my eye! She has a reputation, you know.’
‘She’s good to me.’
‘Who do you think pays her bills?’
Eva tried to take the high ground. ‘Not everything in this world is black or white, Sis.’
‘Sure it is.’ Sis eyed her harshly. ‘The sooner you figure that out, the easier life goes for you. Good, bad, right, wrong. You wanna live in the grey area, you’re gonna find out you don’t know your ass from your elbow.’ She lifted another pile of sheets. ‘And mark my words, grey turns to black pretty damn fast.’
Paris, Spring, 1955
Grace had luncheon on her own, sitting at an outdoor table in a café in the sun. Turning over in her mind what Monsieur Androski had told her, she thought about perfume and its connection to memory.
Monsieur Tissot had teased her about her sensitivity to taste and smell and he wasn’t the only one. Part of her seemed to have always known what Monsieur Androski had clarified; that certain smells were the custodians of memory. And once they were unleashed, their effect was instant aneous, like switching on a light – flooding the senses far too quickly and completely. They had the power to transport and overwhelm. For that reason, one needed to be wary of them.
There were blocks of time in her memory that simply didn’t exist. In fact, she had very little recollection of anything before the age of eight. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been unusual except that Grace’s memory in everything else was exceptional.
It was as if she were inwardly holding her breath, afraid to inhale life fully.
Around her the tables were filling with people, tourists planning their next stop over a coffee, businessmen meeting for luncheon, well-heeled women taking a break from their sprees, leaning in to gossip with one another, shopping bags piled at their feet.
It was such a simple yet satisfying pleasure to dine out of doors in the sunshine. Taking a sip of her citron pressé, Grace relished the refreshing contrast of sweet syrup and lemon juice. And she found herself thinking of Monsieur Tissot’s philosophy: come to your senses.
Yield to them.
Had she ever entirely yielded to anything? The word implied a suppleness of spirit; an inherently optimistic predisposition she’d never fully entertained.
After luncheon, Grace began to walk, aimlessly at first, with only the vaguest sense of direction. She had no agenda. But Paris was much easier to navigate than she had imagined. London had sprung up wildly, everything thrown on top of everything else. But Paris had been designed. Here, historical landmarks appeared graciously; evenly spaced for maximum aesthetic impact. One had only to follow from one to another to reach any destination, including the Left Bank.