enough to be sat up and encouraged to burp back the air she
might have swallowed. The book described an upward rubbing motion with the
ledge of his hand, where her ribs met her spine, to bring forth the excess gas.
On this occasion, she graced him with a belch that sounded like the crack of a
boy’s cap gun: one that would have earned the applause of a bar of hardened
drinkers. Chris laughed:
“Now then,” he said, nestling her close. “Tell me about your mum. Did she talk
much about me?”
Amélie was asleep.
It was their sixth feed.
Chapter Seven
Amélie’s had been a ground
floor flat on a wide street in Paddington.
French doors opened onto a
terrace where you could drink coffee or a glass of wine without knowing,
exactly, which part of the world you might be in: unlike the aspect from
Chris’s flat, that screamed ‘London’ at you from every angle.
There was a solitary birch tree
that thrived despite the shady and seemingly inhospitable conditions in the
garden – although thriving was a strange truth for this particular tree,
as it leaned arthritically to the left, as if it were desperate for a lie down
that it would never quite achieve; and was clad in bark that - although in a
permanent state of peeling - never gave full disclosure to the new, fresher
complexion beneath.
Chris had an affinity for this
tree: it became a silent companion during wakeful nights when Amélie was a
world away, endormi; and was an independent witness from the natural world to the joys and
creeping uncertainties of a human story. He sometimes put his drink down and
stripped off a few pieces of the tree’s skin, where it appeared to be
especially curly and dry, in the naïve hope that it might bring it some relief.
Amélie witnessed this from her
seat in the sun, her slender brown legs stretched out onto the rusty, wrought
iron table that also served as a bird feeder.
“It’s the nature of the tree to
shed its bark like that, that is all,” she said, uncritically.
The focal point of her flat was
a large, disused white fireplace that drew her and her visitors to it –
in the absence of drawing up flames – to deposit their keys or mail on
the mantelpiece; or to kick off their shoes into the hearth. Amélie kept a
sansevieria plant in place of a grate: whose sharp, tongue-like leaves gave the
illusion of green flames rising from a red pot. It was a subtle fantasy. The
walls were white, too – a little flaky in parts – although the deep
skirting boards were brought to life, intermittently, by Amélie’s paintings and
sketches that were propped up against them.
She had a real talent for
drawing people. When he first saw the room, Chris said:
“You either go to an art class,
or you know a lot of people who are prepared to strip for you.”
“I go to a group,” Amélie
replied. “We have a sitter. And I draw from memory. I have done it for as long
as I can remember. My mother said my sister and I were born with crayons in our
fists.”
Chris grew to enjoy her
innocent exaggerations; particularly when they evoked the child she had been
who, it seemed, could be both stubborn and sweet in equal measure.
“Did you study art at college?”
“No. My father did not consider
it a real subject.
My college course had to prepare me for the world of business, law; which was his world.”
At this, her brown eyes – brimming with hidden meaning - stared towards a
distant place. They were reclining on her bed: she was wearing a cotton sheet
that bound the contours of her petite frame, as though she, herself, had
covered up in the aftermath of a sitting. Her hair was twisted into a loose
knot.
“My sister Angélique and I went
to an art class every Saturday morning. We had bowls of chocolat chaud and were taken round to
Miss Latour’s apartment a few streets away from where we lived in Montmartre.
It was very elegant with black painted railings outside.”
“It puts me in mind of The Aristocats !”
“Yes, I
might have swallowed. The book described an upward rubbing motion with the
ledge of his hand, where her ribs met her spine, to bring forth the excess gas.
On this occasion, she graced him with a belch that sounded like the crack of a
boy’s cap gun: one that would have earned the applause of a bar of hardened
drinkers. Chris laughed:
“Now then,” he said, nestling her close. “Tell me about your mum. Did she talk
much about me?”
Amélie was asleep.
It was their sixth feed.
Chapter Seven
Amélie’s had been a ground
floor flat on a wide street in Paddington.
French doors opened onto a
terrace where you could drink coffee or a glass of wine without knowing,
exactly, which part of the world you might be in: unlike the aspect from
Chris’s flat, that screamed ‘London’ at you from every angle.
There was a solitary birch tree
that thrived despite the shady and seemingly inhospitable conditions in the
garden – although thriving was a strange truth for this particular tree,
as it leaned arthritically to the left, as if it were desperate for a lie down
that it would never quite achieve; and was clad in bark that - although in a
permanent state of peeling - never gave full disclosure to the new, fresher
complexion beneath.
Chris had an affinity for this
tree: it became a silent companion during wakeful nights when Amélie was a
world away, endormi; and was an independent witness from the natural world to the joys and
creeping uncertainties of a human story. He sometimes put his drink down and
stripped off a few pieces of the tree’s skin, where it appeared to be
especially curly and dry, in the naïve hope that it might bring it some relief.
Amélie witnessed this from her
seat in the sun, her slender brown legs stretched out onto the rusty, wrought
iron table that also served as a bird feeder.
“It’s the nature of the tree to
shed its bark like that, that is all,” she said, uncritically.
The focal point of her flat was
a large, disused white fireplace that drew her and her visitors to it –
in the absence of drawing up flames – to deposit their keys or mail on
the mantelpiece; or to kick off their shoes into the hearth. Amélie kept a
sansevieria plant in place of a grate: whose sharp, tongue-like leaves gave the
illusion of green flames rising from a red pot. It was a subtle fantasy. The
walls were white, too – a little flaky in parts – although the deep
skirting boards were brought to life, intermittently, by Amélie’s paintings and
sketches that were propped up against them.
She had a real talent for
drawing people. When he first saw the room, Chris said:
“You either go to an art class,
or you know a lot of people who are prepared to strip for you.”
“I go to a group,” Amélie
replied. “We have a sitter. And I draw from memory. I have done it for as long
as I can remember. My mother said my sister and I were born with crayons in our
fists.”
Chris grew to enjoy her
innocent exaggerations; particularly when they evoked the child she had been
who, it seemed, could be both stubborn and sweet in equal measure.
“Did you study art at college?”
“No. My father did not consider
it a real subject.
My college course had to prepare me for the world of business, law; which was his world.”
At this, her brown eyes – brimming with hidden meaning - stared towards a
distant place. They were reclining on her bed: she was wearing a cotton sheet
that bound the contours of her petite frame, as though she, herself, had
covered up in the aftermath of a sitting. Her hair was twisted into a loose
knot.
“My sister Angélique and I went
to an art class every Saturday morning. We had bowls of chocolat chaud and were taken round to
Miss Latour’s apartment a few streets away from where we lived in Montmartre.
It was very elegant with black painted railings outside.”
“It puts me in mind of The Aristocats !”
“Yes, I
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