The Four Women

By Michelle Keill

'Go inside, Alexandre is expecting you...'

It is the height of summer in Paris when Grace, a young British writer, and her artist boyfriend move to the French capital. Grace is captivated by the glamour of the city and yearns to be part of chic Parisian society. Before she knows it, Grace is befriended by four enigmatic women who represent everything she longs to be. But Grace can't recall where she met these women, when they entered her life, or how they seem to know so much about her.

The four women insist she seek out Alexandre Martel. He is a French tutor par excellence, and could not only teach her the language, but his influence could also open the door to the exclusive Parisian elite she so admires - although, the women warn her, Alexandre's methods are not for the faint-hearted.

Her instincts warn her not to get involved, but Grace soon becomes embroiled in Alexandre's world. He is a brilliant, unsettling teacher. But for his lessons there will be a price to pay...

The Four Women brings a cold shiver to a hot Paris summer in a dark, supernatural fairy tale about the choices we make, the lies we tell, and the inescapable force of destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Keill
• Release date: Jun 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781999728519

Book preview

1

The women exist in every frame of my memory. Even when they are not active players in the scene, when it is just Mats and me, somehow they are there in the background: a cluster of clouds above us as we lie in the park; a flock of pigeons pecking at the pavement as we walk past. As I sit here now, reliving every detail of that time, I cannot recall when and how I first met them. There was no defining moment, no buoy to mark what had gone before and what was to come. The four women had been with us since we arrived, lying dormant like a virus, waiting for the right moment to strike. Perhaps it was simply bad luck that we were the ones they chose. Or, perhaps, it could only ever have been us.

2

When we got to the café, which we thought of as ours, although neither of us had ever owned anything before, the women were already there, sitting in the shade at our usual table. They had been watching for us, and as I saw them they each lifted a hand at the same moment and waved.

My heart sank at the sight of them.

I shuffled in front of Mats to obstruct their view of him, but all I had done was delay the inevitable: Mats had spotted them at first glance.

He returned their wave. ‘Your friends are here,’ he said.

I turned to acknowledge them, nodding as though I had only just realised they were there. They knew better. They knew everything.

Mats put his hand on my waist. It was a casual gesture – we were always touching each other back then – but the feel of his hand fortified me.

‘Do you want to go and say hello?’ he said.

The women were still watching us, covering their mouths with their hands as they whispered. What I wanted, I understood with unnerving certainty, was for us both to leave and have nothing to do with them. But my reaction felt extreme and unwarranted. The women had been welcoming and helpful towards us since we’d arrived in Paris. There was no logical reason to be wary of them.

And yet, I was.

I considered suggesting that we go somewhere else, try somewhere new, but this routine – our routine – was important to him, and I could not bear to be the one to break it. I have come to realise now that it would not have made a difference anyway: wherever we went, whatever new places we found and frequented, the women would have followed us.

‘You won’t be long …’ I said, more a plea than a request.

Mats forked his fingers into mine. ‘Not a second longer than I have to be,’ he said.

His gaze drifted and focussed on something behind me. I knew without turning to see that it was the women. He waved at them again. ‘Your friends are crazy. Verrückt.’

‘Verrückt,’ I repeated.

Mats nodded. ‘Very good.’ It pleased him when I tried, although we were both aware the word would not remain lodged in my mind for long.

I put his hand to my cheek, closing my eyes at the feel of his palm. I pressed his fingertips to my lips and kissed each one, admiring the speckles of paint on his skin that he could never scrub away completely. As Mats turned to enter the café I pulled him back. Even though the women were observing everything, enjoying the spectacle, I kissed him on the mouth as if we were the only people on the street, in the city, as if no eyes were upon us. Without knowing it, I had begun to say goodbye.

3

There were four women, but their number always seemed greater. Like the spokes on a wheel, they blurred with motion. Who could say for sure how many of them – or what – they really were.

Their names, although I can’t recall when and how I learned them, were Ludivine, Marion, Véronique, and Eléonore. They stood as I approached the table, and beckoned me. I glanced behind for Mats, but he was already inside.

‘Come, come,’ Eléonore said. Her fingers curled around my arm like talons.

‘Yes, hurry,’ Véronique said.

The other two put a hand on my shoulders and flashed a benevolent smile as they pushed me down into the chair opposite them. There they sat, the four of them squeezed around our favourite table, even though all the others outside were free. Eléonore put her hand over mine.

‘Ça va, ma chère fille? Comment va la vie? Tu es heureuse? Dis-nous tout, notre très chère fille.’

I stared at her blankly, just as she had known I would.

They allowed a sufficient amount of silence to pass for me to absorb the shame of my own inadequacy. Then the women exchanged glances and shook their heads. Ludivine and Marion rolled their eyes.

Véronique clicked her tongue and wagged a finger at me.

There was a sneer on Marion’s face. ‘You must try harder,’ she said.

They all knew that I couldn’t.

Finally, Véronique repeated Eléonore’s questions in English. As she spoke she took a napkin from the table and shook it out, placing it on her lap.

‘I am fine,’ I said. I squirmed and tucked my hair behind my ears. ‘Things are great.’

Eléonore gave me a long, disparaging look. Her disapproval was mirrored by the others.

‘You have already forgotten the words we taught you last time we met?’ she said.

The last time had been in the Jardin du Luxembourg. It was an airless, oppressive day, and the temperature in the apartment had become uncomfortable. I’d been unable to write a single word, and had spent all morning sitting by the window, alternating my gaze between the bustle on the street below and Mats, who was in his spot in the corner, adding a stroke here and there to the canvas he was working on. He stepped back to appraise it and wiped his brow. He turned his head and saw me watching him, my arms folded when my fingers should have been on the keys of my laptop.

He put his brush down. ‘Let’s go out,’ he’d said.

I had not been thinking of the women as we lay in a quiet corner of the park. For once, they were far from my mind, and all that existed in that capsule of time was the two of us. I had unbuttoned Mats’s shirt so I could rest my cheek against his skin and trace circles around his navel with my forefinger. He lay still beneath me, one arm tucked behind his head, the other clutching the newspaper he’d bought at the kiosk, now folded into a neat square. He liked to read the news from home every now and then, to keep a candle burning there, whereas I’d snuffed out the flame of home as soon as I’d left. Home, for me, was wherever Mats was. That was the simplicity and the fragility of our life back then: an eggshell on a crowded pavement, in constant danger of being crushed.

My eyes were closed when the women appeared, so I could not tell from which direction they had come. I did not even hear them approach. I opened my eyes and there they were, as though they had been all along.

They stood side-by-side, and I noted that each of them was exactly the same height. Ludivine, who was on the right, wore Capri pants and flip-flops. Next to her was Eléonore, who despite the heat was in a trouser suit that seemed, even to my inexpert eye, expensive. Her black court shoes matched it perfectly, and I marvelled at how she had managed this. Véronique was in jeans and a loose shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She wore tennis shoes; one of the laces was undone. Marion bookended the group on the left in a yellow shift dress and ballet flats, an ice cream cone in her hand.

‘Grace!’ Véronique made it sound as though she was surprised to see me. ‘How lovely to run into you.’ She glanced at Mats. ‘And it is always a pleasure to see you.’

They ran their eyes over him without shame. My presence did not impede or inhibit their enjoyment of him. In fact, it might have even encouraged it.

I pulled his shirt closed. ‘Hi,’ I said

Mats squinted at the glare of the sun as he sat up. ‘Hello.’

‘Guten Tag,’ Ludivine said. Her eyes shone with mischief.

Marion took a long lick of her ice cream as she watched Mats buttoning his shirt.

‘How nice to see you two lovebirds basking in the sun,’ Eléonore said.

‘I have heard that lovebirds perish when one of them dies,’ Ludivine said. She prodded the grass with her toe and I saw that her nails were painted a striking shade of blue.

‘It need not involve death,’ Véronique said. ‘Even just the pain of being separated can kill them.’

‘I do not like birds,’ Marion said. She looked at Mats as she sucked melted ice cream from her fingers. ‘Of any kind.’

‘Because you loathe beauty,’ Eléonore said. ‘So …’ She clapped her hands together as she turned to us. ‘What have we interrupted here? How are you spending your day?’

Mats rubbed the back of his head, bemused but not disconcerted by their intrusion. ‘We were just taking a break,’ he said. ‘A rest.’

‘And we were just about to leave,’ I said. ‘Weren’t we?’

I caught the fleeting surprise on Mats’s face. The women did too. They missed nothing.

‘Yes,’ he replied, after a pause that was a fraction too long. ‘We have to get back.’ He stood, offering his hand to pull me up.

‘Dommage,’ Ludivine said, running her eyes over him.

‘Do not leave on our account,’ Véronique said. ‘We were just passing.’

Marion stifled a laugh. ‘Just passing?’

Eléonore ignored her. ‘Tell me, Matthias,’ she said. ‘I have always wanted to know …’

She began to speak to him in rapid German. Mats, who had grown unaccustomed to hearing the language after so many months, tilted his head so his ear was closer to her mouth.

He ran his hand over his chin, unsure how to answer whatever Eléonore’s question was. ‘I suppose I …’

Eléonore held up a hand and shook her head. ‘Auf Deutsch, bitte.’

Mats shifted his weight on to his other foot. I could see the discomfort on his face and nodded to let him know it was okay. The others scrutinised my reaction as Mats answered Eléonore. His response prompted more questions, and the longer their conversation went on the more excluded I felt. I strained to catch a familiar word or phrase, but recognised only my name. Whatever was said caused Marion and Ludivine to smirk and whisper to each other.

‘You really must learn a language, Grace,’ Eléonore said. ‘If not German, then French.’

Véronique took my hand. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You must learn French. Try this – je dois apprendre le français.’

I had recited the words as we walked back to the apartment. Mats repeated them with me, although he had already picked up enough of the language to get by and would probably, I guessed, be fluent by the time we moved on. But by nightfall, with Mats asleep beside me, his body curled around mine, when I tried to recall the sentence it was gone, lost in the place in my mind where all the words floated around, forgotten.

That morning at the café, I willed the words to return so I could prove the women wrong. I cast my mind back to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I could remember everything else, all the small details, but those words were gone.

‘She has forgotten,’ Ludivine said. She sat back in her chair and folded her arms.

Marion examined her fingernails. ‘She will never learn. Never.’

Ludivine let out a long, languorous yawn. The men on the adjacent table stared as she stretched out her limbs and arched her back. Véronique tutted in disapproval when Ludivine’s top rode up, exposing an inch of her flat, pale stomach. She tugged it down and the two of them began to bicker until Marion nudged them.

She relaxed into her seat, as though she were about to watch a film or a play. ‘Prepare yourselves,’ Marion said. ‘Here he comes.’

Even though it was what they wanted, I could not help but turn and look. Part of the thrill for them was seeing me squirm while they leered at him, picking over him like vultures. And when he looked up, when our eyes met, the ache inside my chest intensified, so that for a few seconds the breath would not come.

He came towards the table, a tray balanced on his fingertips. The barista always filled the mug right to the brim, and Mats frowned with the effort of keeping it from spilling.

The women ogled him without shame.

‘My God …’ Marion said. ‘He is perfect.’

‘He is luscious,’ Ludivine said. She threw her hands up in defeat, as if it were too much.

‘He is …’ Véronique studied him as she searched for the right adjective. ‘He is divine.’

Eléonore remained silent. When she finally spoke, her voice was almost a whisper. ‘He is beautiful.’

Oblivious, Mats set the tray down on the table and placed the mug in front of me.

‘Just how you like it,’ he said.

I did not need to look up to know the women were following his every movement. I heard Ludivine give an exaggerated sigh as Mats licked a drop of hot chocolate from his thumb. He positioned the plate with the croissant beside it and stepped back, his hands on his hips. Normally I would have pounced upon it by then – we ate so little in those days that when food presented itself I was always ravenous – but my stomach rolled at the sight of it.

Mats caught my expression. ‘Is it all right?’

Marion reached across and tore the end from the croissant. She stuffed it into her mouth. ‘It is fine,’ she said, spraying crumbs across the table. ‘One croissant is as good as another.’

‘Ha,’ Ludivine said. ‘Next you will be saying that one man is as good as another.’ She gazed up at Mats. ‘And we know that is not true, yes?’

Mats ran his hand across his brow, aware he was missing something but too polite to ask what it was. ‘I’m sorry – I should have asked if you would like anything ...’

Marion broke off another piece of the croissant and dunked it into my hot chocolate. I knew that for the first time since Mats and I had begun this ritual, I would not eat or drink anything he had brought me.

Ludivine clasped her hands together and placed them on the table. ‘That depends,’ she said. She tilted her head at him, the perfect coquette. ‘Are you on the menu?’

‘I would eat him whole,’ Marion said, and whispered something in French to her.

Véronique rolled her eyes as the two began to laugh. Mats was confused. I was not. I didn’t understand the words, but their intent was easy to translate.

Eléonore banged her hand on the table. ‘Ladies, please …’

The laughter stopped. Ludivine picked at the varnish on her nails. Marion shrugged and snatched what remained of the croissant.

Eléonore gave him a smile, her lips pinched tight.

‘We have already eaten, Matthias.’ She always used his full name, although I had never told her what it was, and never called him by anything other than ‘Mats’.

‘But thank you,’ she added. ‘And do not feel the need to stay because of us – we do not want to keep you from your work, do we?’

The other three made varying noises of assent. Véronique piled her hair into a bun and stabbed bobby pins into it.

‘You must have so much to do,’ Véronique said. ‘We can keep Grace entertained for a little while, I am sure.’ She lowered her hands from her head and beamed at him. I noticed she was still holding a pin between her thumb and forefinger. It pointed at me.

‘That is what friends do,’ she said. ‘Is it not?’

Mats’s expression conveyed that it was my decision. He would stay if I wanted him to, if I needed him to. But I wanted him to be back at the apartment, doing what he did best. I wanted him away from them.

My chair scraped back against the pavement as I stood. ‘You should go,’ I said.

He turned his body towards mine and rested his hands on my waist. ‘What will you do?’ he said.

‘I’ll stay here for a while, I suppose. Then I might go and visit Saint-Sulpice.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

Prior to that moment, I’d had no urge to look around the church – it was simply the first place that came into my head. But I nodded anyway; I could go there and kill an hour or so before finding another café to settle into for the rest of the day.

‘That’s a marvellous idea,’ Véronique said.

‘Yes,’ Eléonore said. ‘You must go to Saint-Sulpice.’ But her smile suggested she was well aware that until then my plan had been to wander the streets without purpose and pass the time until