She Came to Stay

Translated by Yvonne Moyse

and Roger Senhouse

Copyright

HarperPress

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2006

Previously published in paperback by Flamingo 1984 and by Fontana 1975

This translation first published jointly by Seeker & Warburg

and Lindsay Drummond 1949

First published in France by Editions Gallimard under the title L’Invitée 1943

Copyright © Editions Gallimard 1943

PS section copyright © Louise Tucker 2006, except ‘The Pain of Freedom’ by

Fay Weldon © Fay Weldon 2006

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is available from the British Library

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Dedication

To Olga Kosakievicz

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

PART TWO

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

P.S. Ideas, insights & features …

About the Author

Finding a Voice by Louise Tucker

Life at a Glance

About the Book

The Pain of Freedom by Fay Weldon

Read On

Have You Read?

If You Loved This, You Might Like …

Find Out More

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Françoise raised her eyes. Gerbert’s fingers were flicking about over the keyboard of his typewriter, and he was glaring at his copy of the manuscript; he looked exhausted. Françoise herself was sleepy; but there was something intimate about her own weariness, something cosy. The black rings under Gerbert’s eyes worried her, his face was haggard and tense; he almost looked his full twenty years.

‘Don’t you think we ought to stop?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m all right,’ said Gerbert.

‘Anyway, I’ve only one more scene to revise,’ said Françoise.

She turned over a page. Two o’clock had struck a short time ago. Usually, at this hour, there was not a living soul left in the theatre: tonight there was life in it. The typewriter was clicking, the lamp threw a rosy glow over the papers … ‘And I am here, my heart is beating. Tonight the theatre has a heart and it is beating.’

‘I like working at night,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Gerbert, ‘it’s quiet.’

He yawned. The ashtray was filled with the stub-ends of Virginian cigarettes; two glasses and an empty bottle stood on a small table. Françoise looked at the walls of her little office: the rosy atmosphere was radiant with human warmth and light. Outside was the theatre, deprived of all human life and in darkness, with its deserted corridors circling a great hollow shell. Françoise put down her fountain pen.

‘Wouldn’t you like another drink?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t say no,’ said Gerbert.

‘I’ll go and get another bottle from Pierre’s dressing-room.’

She went out of the office. It was not that she had any particular desire for whisky; it was the dark corridors which were the attraction. When she was not there, the smell of dust, the half-light, and their forlorn solitude did not exist for anyone; they did not exist at all. And now she was there. The red of the carpet gleamed through the darkness like a timid night-light. She exercised that power: her presence snatched things from their unconsciousness; she gave them their colour, their smell. She went down one floor and pushed open the door into the auditorium. It was as if she had been entrusted with a mission: she had to bring to life this forsaken theatre now in semi-darkness. The safety-curtain was down; the walls smelt of fresh paint; the red plush seats were aligned in their rows, motionless but expectant. A moment ago they had been aware of nothing, but now she was there and their arms were outstretched. They were watching the stage hidden behind the safety-curtain: they were calling for Pierre, for the footlights and for an enraptured audience. She would have had to remain there for ever in order to perpetuate this solitude and this expectancy. But she would have had to be elsewhere as well: in the props-room, in the dressing-rooms, in the foyer; she would have had to be everywhere at the same time. She went across the proscenium and stepped up on to the stage. She opened the door to the green-room. She went on down into the yard where old stage sets lay mouldering. She alone evoked the significance of these abandoned places, of these slumbering things. She was there and they belonged to her. The world belonged to her.

She went through the small iron stage-door and out into the middle of the formal garden. The houses all round the square were sleeping. The theatre was sleeping, except for a rosy glow from a single window. She sat down on a bench. The sky was glossy black above the chestnut trees: she might well have been in the heart of some small provincial town. At this moment she did not in the least regret that Pierre was not beside her: there were some joys she could not know when he was with her; all the joys of solitude. They had been lost to her for eight years, and at times she almost felt a pang of regret on their account.

She leaned back against the hard wood of the bench. A quick step echoed on the asphalt of the pavement; a motor lorry rumbled along the avenue. There was nothing but this passing sound, the sky, the quivering foliage of the trees, and the one rose-coloured window in a black façade. There was no Françoise any longer; no one existed any longer, anywhere.

Françoise jumped to her feet. It was strange to become a woman once more, a woman who must hurry because pressing work awaits her, with the present moment but one in her life like all the others. She put her hand on the door-knob, then turned back with a qualm of conscience. This was desertion, an act of treason. The night would once more swallow the small provincial square; the rose-coloured window would gleam in vain; it would no longer shine for anyone. The sweetness of this hour would be lost for ever; so much sweetness lost to ali the earth. She crossed the yard and climbed the green wood steps. She had long since given up this kind of regret. Only her own life was real. She went into Pierre’s dressing-room and took the bottle of whisky from the cupboard. Then she hastened back upstairs to her office.

‘Here you are, this will put new strength into us,’ she said. ‘How do you want it? Neat, or with water?’

‘Neat,’ said Gerbert.

‘D’you think you’ll be able to get home?’

‘Oh, I’m learning to hold my whisky,’ said Gerbert with dignity.

‘You’re learning …,’ said Françoise.

‘When I’m rich and run my own house, I’ll always keep a bottle of Vat 69 in my cupboard,’ said Gerbert.

‘That will be the end of your career,’ said Françoise. She looked at him with a kind of tenderness. He had pulled his pipe out of his pocket and was filling it with great deliberation. It was his first pipe. Every evening, when they had finished their bottle of Beaujolais, he put it on the table and looked at it with childish pride; he smoked it over his glass of cognac or marc. And then they went out into the streets, a little dazed after the day’s work, the wine and the brandy. Gerbert strode along, his lock of black hair over his face and his hands in his pockets. Now that was all over. She would often be seeing him again, but only with Pierre or with all the others, and once more they would be like two strangers.

‘And what about you! You hold your whisky well for a woman,’ said Gerbert, quite impartially. He looked hard at Françoise. ‘But you’ve been overworking today, you ought to get a little sleep. Then I’ll wake you up, if you like.’

‘No. I’d rather finish it off,’ said Françoise.

‘Aren’t you hungry? Wouldn’t you like me to go out and get you some sandwiches?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Françoise. She smiled at him. He had been so considerate, so attentive. Whenever she felt discouraged she had only to look into his laughing eyes to regain her confidence. She would like to have found words in which to thank him.

‘It’s almost a pity that we’ve finished,’ she said. ‘I’ve become so used to working with you.’

‘But it will be even greater fun when we go into production,’ said Gerbert. His eyes glistened; the whisky had given a flush to his cheeks. ‘It’s so good to think that in three days everything will be starting all over again. How I love the opening of the season.’

‘Yes, it will be fun,’ said Françoise. She pulled her papers towards her. He was apparently not at all sorry to see the end of their ten days together; that was only natural. She was not sorry either; surely she had no right to expect Gerbert alone to be sorry.

‘Every time I walk through this dead theatre I get the shivers,’ said Gerbert. ‘It’s dismal. This time I really thought it was going to stay closed the whole year.’

‘We’ve had a narrow escape,’ said Françoise.

‘Let’s hope that this lasts,’ said Gerbert.

‘Oh, it will last,’ said Françoise.

She had never believed in the possibility of war. War was like tuberculosis or a railway accident: something that could never happen to me. Things like that happened only to other people.

‘Are you able to imagine some really terrible misfortune befalling you personally?’

Gerbert screwed up his face: ‘Nothing easier,’ he said.

‘Well, I can’t,’ said Françoise. There was no point in even thinking about it. Dangers from which it was possible to protect oneself had to be envisaged, but war did not come within the compass of man. If one day war did break out, nothing else would matter any more, not even living or dying.

‘But that won’t happen,’ murmured Françoise. She bent over her manuscript; the typewriter was clicking, and the room smelt of Virginian tobacco, ink, and the night. On the other side of the window-panes, the small, secluded square was asleep under the black sky; and, some way away, a train was moving through an empty landscape … And I am there. I am there, but for me this square exists and that moving train … all Paris, and all the world in the rosy shadows of this little office … and in this very instant all the long years of happiness. I am here, at the heart of my life …

‘It’s a pity that we have to sleep,’ said Françoise.

‘It’s even more of a pity we can’t know that we are asleep,’ said Gerbert. ‘The moment we begin to be aware that we are sleeping, we wake up. We gain nothing by it.’

‘But don’t you think it’s marvellous to stay awake while everyone else is asleep?’ Françoise laid down her fountain pen and listened attentively. Not a sound could be heard; the square was in darkness, the theatre in darkness. ‘I’d like to think that the whole world is asleep, that at this moment you and I are the only living souls on earth.’

‘Oh no, that would give me the creeps.’ He tossed back the long lock of black hair that kept falling into his eyes. ‘It’s like when I think about the moon; all those icy mountains and crevasses and nobody about on them. The first person to go up there will have to have a nerve.’

‘I wouldn’t refuse if anyone were to suggest going,’ said Françoise. She looked at Gerbert. Usually, they sat side by side, and she was happy to feel him near her even though they did not speak. Tonight, she felt that she wanted to talk with him. ‘It seems queer to think of what things are like when one isn’t there,’ she said.

‘Yes, it does seem queer,’ said Gerbert.

‘It’s like trying to imagine you’re dead; you can’t quite manage it, you always feel that you are somewhere in a corner, looking on.’

‘It’s maddening to think of all the goings-on one never will see,’ said Gerbert.

‘It used to break my heart to think that I’d never know anything but one small section of the world. Don’t you feel like that?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Gerbert.

Françoise smiled. From time to time, conversation with Gerbert reached a dead-end; but it was difficult to extract a definite opinion from him.

‘I feel calmer now, because I’m convinced that wherever I may go, the rest of the world will move with me. That’s what keeps me from having any regrets.’

‘Regrets for what?’ said Gerbert.

‘Having to live only in my own skin when the world is so vast.’

Gerbert looked at Françoise.

‘Yes, specially since you live such a well-regulated life.’

He was always so discreet; this vague question amounted to a kind of impudence for him. Did he think Françoise’s life too well regulated? Was he passing judgement on it? I wonder what he thinks of me … this office, the theatre, my room, books, papers, work … Such a well-regulated life.

‘I came to the conclusion that I must be resigned to making a choice,’ she said.

‘I don’t like having to make a choice,’ said Gerbert.

‘At first it was hard for me; but now I have no regrets, because I feel that things that don’t exist for me, simply do not exist at all.’

‘How do you mean?’ said Gerbert.

Françoise hesitated. She felt very strongly about this; the corridors, the auditorium, the stage, none of these things had vanished when she had again shut the door on them, but they existed only behind the door, at a distance. At a distance the train was moving through the silent countryside which encompassed, in the depths of the night, the warm life of her little office.

‘It’s like a lunar landscape,’ said Françoise. ‘It’s unreal. It’s nothing but make-believe. Don’t you feel that?’

‘No,’ said Gerbert. ‘I don’t think I do.’

‘And doesn’t it irk you never to be able to see more than one thing at a time?’

Gerbert thought for a moment.

‘What worries me is other people,’ he said. ‘I’ve a horror when someone talks to me about some chap I don’t know, especially when they speak well of him: some chap outside, living in his own sphere, who doesn’t even know that I exist.’

It was rare for him to speak about himself at such length. Was he, too, aware of the touching though transitory intimacy of the last few hours? The two of them were living within this circle of rosy light; for both of them, the same light, the same night. Françoise looked at his fine green eyes beneath their curling lashes, at his expectant mouth – ‘If I had wanted to …’ Perhaps it was still not too late. But what could she want?

‘Yes, it’s insulting,’ she said.

‘As soon as I get to know the chap, I feel better about it,’ said Gerbert.

‘It’s almost impossible to believe that other people are conscious beings, aware of their own inward feelings, as we ourselves are aware of our own,’ said Françoise. ‘To me, it’s terrifying when we grasp that. We get the impression of no longer being anything but a figment of someone else’s mind. But that hardly ever happens, and never completely.’

‘That’s right,’ said Gerbert eagerly, ‘perhaps that’s why I find it so unpleasant to listen to people talking to me about myself, even in a pleasant way. I feel they’re gaining some sort of an advantage over me.’

‘Personally, I don’t care what people think of me,’ said Françoise.

Gerbert began to laugh. ‘Well, it can’t be said that you’ve too much vanity,’ he said.

‘And their thoughts seem to me exactly like their words and their faces: things that are in my own world. It amazes Elisabeth that I’m not ambitious; but that’s precisely why. I don’t want to try to cut out a special place for myself in the world. I feel that I am already in it.’ She smiled at Gerbert. ‘And you’re not ambitious either, are you?’

‘No,’ said Gerbert. ‘Why should I be?’ He thought a moment. ‘All the same, I’d like to be a really good actor some day.’

‘I feel the same; I’d like to write a really good book some day. We like to do our work well; but not for any honour or glory.’

‘No,’ said Gerbert.

A milk-cart rattled by underneath the windows. Soon the night would be growing pale. The train was already beyond Châteauroux and approaching Vierzon. Gerbert yawned and his eyes became red-rimmed like a child’s full of sleep.

‘You ought to get some sleep,’ said Françoise.

Gerbert rubbed his eyes. ‘We’ve got to show this to Labrousse in its final form,’ he said stubbornly. He took hold of the bottle and poured himself out a stiff peg of whisky. ‘Besides, I’m not sleepy. I’m thirsty! ’ He drank and put down his glass. He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps I’m sleepy after all.’

‘Thirsty or sleepy, make up your mind,’ said Françoise gaily.

‘I never really know what I want,’ said Gerbert.

‘Well, look,’ said Françoise, ‘this is what you are going to do. Lie down on the couch and sleep. I’ll finish looking over this last scene. Then you can type it out while I go to meet Pierre at the station.’

‘And you?’ said Gerbert.

‘When I’ve finished I’ll get some sleep too. The couch is wide, you won’t be in my way. Take a cushion and pull the cover over you.’

‘All right,’ said Gerbert.

Françoise stretched herself and took up her fountain pen. A few minutes later she turned round in her chair. Gerbert was lying on his back, his eyes closed, his breath coming in regular intervals from between his lips. He was already asleep.

He was good-looking. She gazed at him for a while, then turned back to her work. Out there, in the moving train, Pierre was also asleep, his head resting against the leather upholstery, his face innocent … He’ll jump out of the train, and draw up his slight frame to its full height; then he’ll run along the platform; he’ll take my arm …

‘There,’ said Françoise. She glanced at the manuscript with satisfaction. ‘Let’s hope he likes this. I think it will please him.’ She pushed back her chair. A rosy mist was suffusing the sky. She took off her shoes and slipped under the cover beside Gerbert. He groaned and his head rolled over on the cushion till it rested on Françoise’s shoulder.

‘Poor Gerbert, he was so sleepy,’ she thought. She pulled up the cover a little, and lay there motionless, her eyes open. She was sleepy, too, but she wanted to stay awake a little longer. She looked at Gerbert’s smooth eyelids, at his lashes as long as a girl’s; he was asleep, relaxed and impersonal. She could feel against her neck the caress of his soft black hair.

‘That’s all I shall ever have of him,’ she thought.

There must be women who had stroked his hair, as sleek as that of a Chinese girl’s; pressed their lips against his childish eyelids; clasped this long, slender body in their arms. Some day he would say to one of them: ‘I love you.’

Françoise felt her heart thumping. There was still time. She could put her cheek against his cheek and speak out loud the words which were coming to her lips.

She shut her eyes. She could not say: ‘I love you.’ She could not think it. She loved Pierre. There was no room in her life for another love.

Yet, there would be joys like these, she thought with slight anguish. His head felt heavy on her shoulder. What was precious was not the pressure of this weight, but Gerbert’s tenderness, his trust, his gay abandon, and the love she bestowed upon him. But Gerbert was sleeping, and the love and tenderness were only dream things. Perhaps, when he held her in his arms, she would still be able to cling to the dream; but how could she let herself dream of a love she did not wish really to live?

She looked at Gerbert. She was free in her words, in her acts. Pierre left her free; but acts and words would be only lies, as the weight of that head on her shoulder was already a lie. Gerbert did not love her; she could not really wish that he might love her.

The sky was turning to pink outside the window. In her heart Françoise was conscious of a sadness, as bitter and rosy as the dawn. And yet she had no regrets: she had not even a right to that melancholy which was beginning to numb her drowsy body. This was renunciation, final, and without recompense.

Chapter Two

From the back of a Moorish café, seated on rough woollen cushions, Xavière and Françoise were watching the Arab dancing girl.

‘I wish I could dance like that,’ said Xavière. A light tremor passed over her shoulders and ran through her body. Françoise smiled at her, and was sorry that their day together was coming to an end. Xavière had been delightful.

‘In the red-light district of Fez, Labrousse and I saw them dance naked,’ said Françoise. ‘But that was a little too much like an anatomical exhibition.’

‘You’ve seen so many things,’ said Xavière with a touch of bitterness.

‘So will you, one day,’ said Françoise.

‘I doubt it,’ said Xavière.

‘You won’t remain in Rouen all your life,’ said Françoise.

‘What else can I do?’ said Xavière sadly. She looked at her fingers with close attention. They were red, peasant’s fingers, in strange contrast to her delicate wrists. ‘I could perhaps try to be a prostitute, but I’m not experienced enough yet.’

‘That’s a hard profession, you know,’ said Françoise with a laugh.

‘I must learn not to be afraid of people,’ said Xavière thoughtfully. She nodded her head. ‘But I’m improving. When a man brushes against me in the street, I no longer let out a scream.’

‘And you go into cafés by yourself. That’s also an improvement,’ said Françoise.

Xavière gave her a shamefaced look. ‘Yes, but I haven’t told you everything. At that little dance-hall where I was last night, a sailor asked me to dance and I refused. I gulped down my calvados and rushed out of the place like a coward.’ She made a wry face. ‘Calvados is terrible stuff.’