Loving Sylvie Read online

  First published in 2019

  Copyright © Elizabeth Smither, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  Allen & Unwin

  Level 3, 228 Queen Street

  Auckland 1010, New Zealand

  Phone: (64 9) 377 3800

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.co.nz

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065, Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  ISBN 978 1 98854 711 4

  eISBN 978 1 76087 113 0

  Cover artwork and design by Keely O’Shannessy

  Internal design by Cat Taylor

  for Sarah

  CONTENTS

  Part One: Love & Books

  Part Two: Marriage & Fruit

  Part Three: Lovejoy’s Legacy

  Part Four: Leaving

  If nothing is going well, call your grandmother.

  Italian proverb

  Why was the genuine tenderness of a loving grandmother any less satisfying than the tenderness of a mother?

  Philip Roth: Nemesis

  Because death always seemed a mother—

  or a grandmother, someone

  familiar—now I come near

  the time of greying hair, I fear

  the mask more than the skull itself.

  Ruth Fainlight: ‘Divination by Hair’

  On the morning of her wedding Sylvie Lehmann was rowed across a lake. Her grandfather, Kit Lehmann, who pulled at the oars, felt constricted by his lightweight suit that was tight at the shoulders. Old muscles, he chided himself, as a bead of sweat slid under his collar. Then he eased both his stroke and his muscles; there was no need to hurry at a marriage.

  On the little dock stood Isobel, Sylvie’s grandmother, the bridal bouquet self-consciously in her hands like a spring cabbage.

  Sylvie Lehmann had been rehearsing her new name as her grandfather rowed. Sylvie Grace Taverner. It went with the slow dipping of the oars and the drops from the blades falling back into the grey-green water. A black swan was gliding beside the far bank. Trailing Sylvie’s left hand, which hung over the side, was a flotilla of ducks. Had she thought to bring bread her progress might have resembled that of a flower girl, archly turning to scatter rose petals. Still, queens did not condescend to ducks. The boat rocked a little; she could tell her grandfather was tiring. But she knew it was important not to say anything. Instead she caught his eye and winked.

  Isobel was joined on the dock by a small boy who began to ask her catechism-like questions. ‘Why are you standing here?’ ‘Why are you holding those flowers?’ She turned her head to look at him—she had always admired the catechism—and gave her answers in sequence. ‘I’m waiting for my granddaughter. It’s her wedding bouquet.’ ‘Is the boat going to sink?’ came next, and Isobel glanced again at the lake. Kit did seem to be making heavy weather of it and the black swan had got dangerously close. She could see Sylvie leaning forward, saying something.

  In the slatted light of the boatshed, the rowboat had had some water in the bottom, as well as a handful of dried leaves. Kit was infuriated that something had gone wrong with the arrangements, that it wasn’t better prepared. Later it would be revealed they had the wrong boat, number seven instead of number eight, and number eight, freshly painted and swept out, was already hired and out on the lake. The staff member, whom nobody had briefed, pleaded ignorance. Kit, groaning inwardly, had taken up the oars and essayed a few tentative strokes before digging deeper and turning the prow towards the centre of the lake. And Sylvie, exaggerating her gesture to soothe her grandfather, lay languidly back, despite possible damage to her dress. Her mood was heightened by the short time on the lake, the tribute of her grandfather’s rowing; she had watched his chest rise and fall, and had moved his jacket alongside her. She thought nothing in the day would bring her so much satisfaction as her hand dipping below the surface and seeing it foreshortened and pale. The black swan that had threatened to come close had recognised a bolder creature and moved off, averting its black head and baleful red eye.

  Meanwhile, for this part of the planning was on time, Ben Taverner and James Marbeck, the best man, were strolling through the lower reaches of the park. Both wore hired lounge suits with jackets unbuttoned. Ben could feel the air moving under the lining as he gesticulated, and looked down admiringly at his cuffs. They climbed a wide path towards the lake and Ben complained to James that he had been promised a jilting if he so much as gazed at Sylvie in her boat.

  ‘Not like you to avoid a challenge,’ was James’s response. They were passing a giant ficus that could have concealed an elephant. But when Ben caught sight of Sylvie he felt his restraint had been wise. She was peering into a pink scallop-shaped mirror and her grandmother was dabbing at her cheek. Her grandfather was holding the bouquet. He looked as if the day had begun badly and would end that way. Under his arm was a flat box that held the veil.

  They were absorbed in their preparations but then Sylvie turned her head and smiled at Ben. A sweet disorder in the dress, he thought, and the idea pleased him: he had seen so much of Sylvie already. A motion of Sylvie’s hand indicated he should wait. Then, in her veil borrowed from a friend who would shortly divorce and her ball gown from an op-shop, Sylvie, with her retinue of four—the celebrant made five—made her entrance.

  An hour later their little party was seated at a round table in an alcove overlooking the garden. Sylvie’s veil was rolled and back in its box at her grandfather’s feet. She thought being bare-headed might take care of the glances that were sent in her direction. Her grandmother was pulling petals from the peonies, white and pink, that lay on the tablecloth. In the centre was the despoiled cake stand on which only a few samples remained: a tiny custard tart, one curling cucumber and cress sandwich, the crimped crust of a savoury. The fine bone china cups had been filled and refilled to exhaustion. The napkins were crumpled on the plates and there was a ring on the cloth where the ice bucket had sat.

  ‘Are you happy?’ Kit asked Sylvie as his hand fumbled to push a white rosebud through a buttonhole. He should have thought of this when they sat down, but the whole day, from the moment he stepped into the rocking boat, had felt out of his control. Instantly he blamed himself for asking.

  Sylvie to whom the tempo of the day was entirely different, turned to face her grandfather. Intently she held his gaze. He was reminded for a moment of a painter and a sitter, the first compelling look that passed between them.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she said.

  ‘And this was enough? An afternoon tea?’

  ‘Dear Kitcat,’ she said. ‘When will you learn there are things you can’t supply that are free for the taking.’

  When he still looked unconvinced, she moved her head and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He remembered the large cheque he had deposited in her account and guessed it made up for the littleness of everything else.

  ‘A walk?’ said Sylvie, pushing back her chair. ‘To walk off the cake?’

  She walked between Ben and James, Isobel and Kit behind. Ben had his arm about her waist—why did men’s arms and hands have this stringent code of seeming not to touch, of lying open and visible for all to see when … but she didn’t finish the thought because she almost stumbled over a stone and Ben caught her wrist. She felt the pressure of his fingers before his palm resumed its position and lay flat.

  Slowly they descended through
the park. It was man-made, traces of its early planning evident in the deep bowl of the lake, the symmetry of linking paths or the placing of a fountain or a plaque. At the band rotunda Sylvie, Ben and James went one way and Isobel and Kit the other: its octagonal shape suggested a division. If the stage had been full of bandsmen blowing cornets and tubas, they would have been blocked by lines of metal chairs with backs like staves; now they could wade on the lower steps and join up again where the track recommenced.

  The gate was nearby, a square sombre affair with a turnstile, but Sylvie negotiated it with ease and they followed in a line. They waited in a knot while Kit went to bring the car around. The hem of Sylvie’s dress was damp and a few blades of grass clung. Isobel was thinking that it should be a dress for a day only. Now she ran her fingers through her hair and disentangled a small twig. At that instant a flock of Canada geese passed above a stand of pines. Then the car was there and the symbolism—even if none had been desired or even observed—fell off and they were on the mundane streets again.

  ‘Relax,’ Isobel longed to say to Sylvie as they set them down outside the Majestic Hotel, part of the largesse of the cheque, but she knew it was ridiculous and it was herself she was counselling. So often now this seemed the case: an instruction given to herself through an intermediary. Anyone would do and the advice was as suspect as talking to herself. Thinking was more and more appealing, though she seemed to have jettisoned some ability to reason. The park had been almost unbearable. Kit, flushed, in the wrong boat, the sparse ceremony, the ruined table—all these things she would like to sift and arrange in some sort of order, not of chronology or importance, but into a pattern like the strokes of a painting. And she hoped, in the abandoning of fixed patterns, she would find something for herself.

  At the hotel, in the suite Kit had booked—he had brusquely declined ‘The Bridal Suite’, fearing a bed scattered with rose petals and the nudges and winks of the staff—a suite commendably plain, apart from a bottle of champagne that looked as if it had been sweating for hours since the sides of the silver bucket were dry, Sylvie put one hand on Ben’s shoulder, the other about his waist, under the lining of his jacket, and indicated with a nudge that she wanted to dance.

  ‘Wait,’ he said and flung the jacket off onto the quilt.

  ‘Music,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’ll hum.’

  The only tune that came to mind was ‘Beautiful Dreamer’ and she began to sing the words softly as they turned on the grey carpet with the thin red stripe.

  ‘Beautiful dreamer

  Wake unto me.’

  ‘Are you a beautiful dreamer?’ she asked into his chest, and his words of affirmation came back as if they were deep within a sounding box which vibrated before the word was formed.

  ‘What shall we do?’ she asked. She meant, since there had already been a lot of bed—not as comfortable as this one but bed nonetheless—that she wanted something different for the late afternoon.

  ‘A long bath? A walk?’ It was clear which he preferred.

  Outside it had begun to rain, a soft misty rain with amazing powers of dampness. A few hours and everything would be soaked.

  ‘A walk first. And then a bath. I expect there is bubble bath.’ So the jacket went back on and Sylvie’s half-coat which left a swathe of very stained satin showing. There were raised eyebrows at reception and the offer of an umbrella, which Ben accepted. Two streets brought them to the beach and a grey sea with a curious hint of brown. The brown was river mud, Sylvie told herself, pleased that facts remained. She slipped off her shoes and put one in each pocket—she would have liked to throw them in the waves to see if they would float. Ben tried to grab her and drag her under the umbrella but she broke free. She threw her head back in the soft rain until her face was drenched, and her hair, and a tiny pool formed in the small of her back.

  The call Isobel made to the keeper of the boats went smoothly. Her comments were accepted—he intimated all the boats might be painted the following spring, and she wondered if there might be another occasion to hire one. Recalling Kit, she thought it was unlikely. She refused a refund.

  She went to the art gallery, she changed her books, she went for long walks. She walked past the gates of the school Sylvie had attended until she was expelled, and saw again the line of cars with young men behind the wheels. She stopped and stood under the same spreading sycamore where she had witnessed a flash of blue like a kingfisher as her granddaughter glided by inside one of the cars. Frozen to the spot, Isobel had hardly dared breathe. The blue car eased into the traffic, then the motor revved and it was heading over a small bridge.

  Sylvie’s mother, Madeleine Lehmann, was in Paris. A note had arrived with the promise of a wedding gift and a hope that a meeting would take place soon. Isobel knew she could depend on her daughter’s good taste. As a child she had been given a jewellery box and it had replaced more common toys as her greatest treasure. Madeleine was classically good-looking; her expression was both sympathetic and serene. She had a gift of stillness that was very appealing. Over the years a good many jewels had been added to her box.

  When she was fifteen, the same age as ‘Claudine’, Isobel had bought her the Colette novels. They were barely touched, the pale blue, mauve, almond green and melting pink covers stayed glowing in her bookcase, and yet something must have been absorbed. Madeleine had gone on holiday to France with a girlfriend, quarrelled with her, and stayed. At first she had remained with the Lévêque family she was billeted with and later, with their intervention, for they considered her inexperienced and perhaps romantic, a Lévêque cousin. Cautiously she memorised a few streets, a few cafés. Her pale hair and hopeful expression—even when she knew she was lost—often brought someone to the rescue.

  She found a job in an English-language bookshop, Le Livre Bleu, not because she was knowledgeable but because of her resemblance to Grace Kelly. She had seen the card in the window, On recherche une vendeuse, and pushed open the blue-black door. A severe woman, with hair so tightly pulled back from her forehead it seemed to be scalping her, regarded her from behind a desk whose artful clutter Madeleine would learn, when it was her job to dust it, was carefully contrived. In her second week Madeleine placed a shiny red apple there and received a nod of approval. The salary was tiny, risible, but Madeleine was content. When she needed new lodgings, Madame Récamier offered her a room above the shop. She had access to a tiny bathroom and the gas ring on which coffee was made. Cooking was not permitted, but Madeleine could buy a croque-monsieur in a paper bag or stroll along the rue du Dragon taking small bites from a sugary lemon crêpe. The number of young men visiting Le Livre Bleu increased, as Madame Récamier anticipated. Every afternoon she saw to it that Madeleine spent some time rearranging the window, placing the latest Joyce Carol Oates or Philip Roth in a prominent position. Sometimes Madeleine made a spiral staircase of the books or leaned them against one another like dominoes about to topple. In the store room at the rear of the shop were crammed a few authors’ busts, remnants of a set: Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain.

  Howard, an American postgraduate student, took Madeleine to the Louvre to view the Victory of Samothrace. She was impressed by the number of students sketching in each room, the whispered conversations, the soigné appearance of the dark-suited assistants at the desks. Afterwards they sat in the Jardin des Tuileries and Howard told her that the isolated and dramatically placed Victory was once commonplace and could have been ordered from a catalogue.

  ‘You could phone and order one?’ Madeleine asked.

  ‘Well, there wouldn’t have been any phones. Probably despatch a servant to the stonemason.’

  She sat puzzling, enjoying the faint sun. Howard, looking at her sideways, was admiring her profile, thinking she was worth asking out again.

  There was a series of Howards and Jerrys and Scott Jnrs before Madeleine became aware of the interest of an older man, Bertrand Gosselin, who was often in the poetry section, reading Robert Lowell or Randall Jarrell. On
ce she wrapped The Dream Songs by John Berryman for him; on another occasion he waylaid her with a poem about a dead girl who had chased geese. Madeleine had not known what to say, any more than she had known what to say in the Louvre; she waited for a sign, and when none was forthcoming—a poem must stand on its own feet, he would tell her later—she smiled. Soon Bertrand began seeking things for her to read. Madame Récamier did not seem to mind if she sat beside him for a few minutes on an old sunken green sofa while he recited a few lines of E.E. Cummings or Ogden Nash. ‘He is a good buyer,’ she said to Madeleine one afternoon after he had departed carrying a parcel of books, including the latest Joan Didion.

  It was always expected by Isobel and Kit that Madeleine would eventually tire of France and come home. When she did, shortly before her twenty-third birthday, it was discovered she was pregnant. She refused to name the father or answer questions. Already in the second trimester, though hardly showing, she seemed as serene as any of the Madonnas in the Louvre. Only when Sylvie was born, after a prolonged and complicated labour, did her confidence fail her. Isobel saw that Madeleine had not thought ahead, and that this was now to be her role. In a strange way she was grateful: her daughter’s character was so puzzling, she welcomed an occupation as a distraction. Overthinking had always been a problem: turning a subject over and over, looking for a chink of light. Madeleine still spoke of the bookshop in the rue du Dragon and of Madame Récamier whose arthritis had advanced and who now walked with a stick.

  Madeleine was entirely unaware she was considered ‘easy’. One afternoon she had allowed Bertrand Gosselin to undress her in his fusty old apartment where parcels of books from the shop lay unopened on the floor. She lay on his bed, in the hollow formed by his body, and he stroked her from head to foot. She couldn’t hear what he was murmuring. It might have been lines from one of the poems he had shown her—perhaps not the goose girl, though her own head was propped by a pillow bearing the scent of pomade. She felt his dry lips on her forehead, then her breasts which were speckled by the slanting and mote-laden light. Afterwards she got up and used his tiny bathroom with its floral hand basin and damp towel. He offered to walk her back to the shop but she declined. She went carefully down the stone stairs and then to an outdoor café.