By Rose Cleary.
This is an extract from How to be a French Girl by Rose Cleary (Weatherglass Books, 2023)
Her phone alarm goes off at 06:00 and she wakes immediately. It feels as though all her muscles have been pulled. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she opens her phone. A message appears at the top of the screen – Javier.
I feel terrible for not being awake when you left. So, i’m sorry. Can i make it up to you? Are you free this week? x
She rereads it three times, squidging her tongue into the cavity at the back of her mouth. A sudden and new sensitivity makes her withdraw. She remembers that after work she has arranged to meet Jenny, a friend from college who remained in Southend and did not go to art school like she did. Jenny, who took an essentially militant stand against the institutionalizing and exploitation of young artists, a stand which has remained an undercurrent in their relationship.
For no particular reason, she sends Jenny a vague and non committal message about not being available. Jenny responds immediately, offering to reschedule to Saturday. She closes the conversation and puts her phone face down. Bites a fingernail. Picks up her phone again and opens YouTube. In the thumbnail list of suggested videos there is one entitled The Girl with Half a Face. She selects it. A documentary about a woman with half of her face gone, as though dissolved beneath the skin, half-resembling a skull, one mascaraed eye hanging heavily. There are comparative shots between her school graduation photo and her current appearance. The dull hum of a nasal voiceover threads the images together: the woman lies on a hospital bed, her graduation photo, looming slowly, growing larger on the screen; the woman is in a hospital bed again, being fed through a tube; present day, the woman sitting on her front porch, terrible rictus grin.
The brown water of the estuary slips past. She catches the tail of some small creature as it hides itself beneath shrubbery. The train window begins to fill with grey, yellow, green, blue, grey, grey, more grey. Then Fenchurch Street station.
From behind the reception desk she sees movement outside the office window. Three men. The one wearing a grey suit she recognizes as someone she has taken a dislike to, but she cannot remember why.
The men enter the office and approach the reception desk. Grey Suit says, I’m here with the guys from Op-Us. We have a meeting with Jerry.
She gestures towards the boardroom and Grey Suit says loudly, Great.
The three men walk towards the room. One turns and says thank you over his shoulder.
His indeterminate accent intrigues her. She stares at the back of his head and feels the urge to speak.
Do you. Do you need coffee?
Grey Suit holds a takeaway coffee cup aloft. We’re great, he calls back.
The three men enter the boardroom and close the door. She picks up the phone and dials Jerry’s extension. It rings for one minute. Jerry appears at the top of the stairs and begins clattering down towards her. She puts down the phone and says, They’re in—
Appearing not to hear her, Jerry walks straight into the meeting room opposite the stairs. He sees that the room is empty and turns on his heel.
They’re in the boardroom, she says.
Jerry strides into the boardroom, finding the men inside and saying, Gentlemen, good morning. She watches as Jerry’s short legs do a circuit around the table, greeting the occupants in turn before marching back to the door, which opens. His face appears and he looks at her for the first time that morning. Could you get these guys a coffee?
Don’t worry about it, Grey Suit shouts from inside the room. We’re great.
She sits and stares for two minutes. Eventually she decides to water the artificial plant by the reception desk, hoping that someone will see her doing this and talk to her about it. About how quirky and interesting she is. The water rises above the fake pebble bed, then overflows.
Sitting on a stone bench in a park square, she opens a Tupperware filled with cold pasta, forking it into her mouth with one hand, phone held in the other. No messages.
As she walks back down the road to the office, she sees the two men from Op-Us standing outside, facing in her direction. The two men mirror each other: side by side, smoking cigarettes. One of them is tall, with narrow shoulders, reddish flyaway hair, shuffling and talking distractedly to the other one. The other one is looking at her. She estimates he is five foot nine. Feet planted apart, he is facing her with his whole body. His biceps are visible under a white shirt tightly tucked into his jeans. Wide nose. Big eyes. Dark pupils. Strong brow line. There is something about his face, as though he is about to smile or speak. But instead he brings his cigarette to his mouth. Clips it deftly between his lips. The smoke leaves his nostrils in two steady streams. His eyes still do not leave her. Something about his gaze does not produce in her the usual twist of irritation, the irk. His stare is a fact. When she realizes the man with red hair is also staring at her, the familiar irk of being ogled by strange men returns. She looks away and walks into the office, pretending not to have seen either of them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rose Cleary is an author and writer from Essex. Her writing has been previously published in New Socialist, Twilight Worlds, Hyperallergic and TOMA. She has exhibited her art internationally at galleries including Nahmad Projects and The Vaults in London, and Backlit Gallery in Nottingham. How to be a French Girl is her debut novel.
