Paris in the Fifties by Wendy Freebourne Alice Sheldon-Drake sat up in bed. She was in her seventieth year. “This coffee tastes like mud, Theo” she said. “Did you use the chicory blend?”        “We’re out of the French, Alice”, replied Theo. “It’s instant until we get paid.”        “Oh, bring me a gin,” said Alice. “I need something to get me out of bed.”        Alice needed French coffee to remind her of Paris and gin to dull the memory. That was the cycle of her life – remembering and killing the pain of remembering.        Of course, Theo Walters reminded her when he had found her being ejected, drunk, from a pub in Brighton some years previously. She lived there in the crumbling Victorian “villa” she had inherited from her family. She liked to think it was a chateau and she was the aging chatelaine.        Theo hadn’t seen her since she was in her twenties. “I remember how beautiful you were, Alice,” he told her as he tried to sober her up that night. “That mane of auburn hair tumbling over the creamy skin of your shoulders.”        “You were the toast of Paris in the fifties, Alice,” he said as he wiped her tears. “We artists used to queue up to paint you then.”        Alice cheered up. She liked to reminisce, but had had little chance for years.        Nowadays, the Alice who was once discreetly, sometimes not so discreetly, draped in silk, lounging on a chez lounge, draped her sagging body across a threadbare sofa and sipped gin and tonics, while Theo dusted, vacuumed, shopped and cooked. Alice, still watching her figure, ate little.        “Ah, remember the Rive Gauche, Montmartre,” Theo would say, “those parties on the Avenue Foch.” Alice liked him to entertain her this way. Living in the past was exciting.        “And how they loved your poetry in the cafés,” Alice reminded Theo.        “And Norman Mailer bought one of my paintings,” Theo remembered, “the only one I ever sold.”        “Behan said you should write fiction,” Alice said.        “I did,” replied Theo, “but that came to nothing in the end.”        Theo had been working as a barman when Alice met him in Brighton, a skill he had learned in Paris, together with the art of the limp handshake. When the climate became more accepting in Britain in the sixties, like Alice, he returned, declared his preferences and had lived with a long term partner, who had died after years together. Eventually, Alice arose from her bed. By the time she had taken a long bath, avoiding too much contact with mirrors, which depressed her, it was mid day. As today was special, being pension day, when she and Theo would use their bus passes to ride into town, have a little lunch in a bistro they knew and then trawl the charity shops, she dressed carefully. Other days she would spend in one of her silk peignoirs, now threadbare, some mended by Theo in clumsy stitchery.        Alice chose an ankle length, fuchsia dress with a white floral design, nylon, not silk. Bright colours brought back the gaiety of her youth, kept aging at bay. Around the waist of her mauve cardigan, zipped to the neck, she tied a long, fuchsia chiffon scarf. She arranged her thinning hair, dyed pale brown, into a bouffant bun, hiding the scanty knot with another fuchsia scarf, tied into a bow and fastened with a diamante clip. From her earlobes, she hung mauve plastic hoop earrings.        Alice fished in her sock drawer, but reserves were low in there. She had to make do with one mauve and one yellow sock, which she wore with plastic flip flops. A touch of powder and pink lipstick applied to her mouth and cheeks completed her outfit.        “Not quite Paris, darling,” said Theo, “but a good replica.”        Theo did not compete in colours. But Alice secretly envied his slicked back locks, curling two inches below his ears, albeit greying now.        They splashed out on half a carafe of house wine with their lunch.        “You could still get your novels published, Theo,” Alice said, picking at her Croque Monsieur.        “It’s too late now, dear,” Theo told her, remembering the pile of rejection letters he had left behind him in Paris so long ago, together with his poetry, paintings and the remnants of his love life.        After lunch they wandered through The Lanes, then on to the auction rooms.        “Look, Theo,” she said, “there’s an auction at three-thirty. Let’s go in and see. There might be some clothes.”        They inspected the lots. Alice found some beads and baubles, but no clothes. Theo, who was ahead of her, suddenly stopped and called, “Alice, look! I don’t believe this.” He had turned pale.        “What?” She caught up with him.        “Alice,” he said, “my paintings!”        There were six paintings laid out on the table, oil on canvas. Each portrayed Alice in different poses, some reclining, some standing. In one she trailed a silken stole.        “Like Isadora Duncan,” Alice said. “Oh, Theo, I wonder who they belong to.”        “They’re mine.” The owner of the voice was standing behind them. “I saw you come in,” he said.        Alice blushed the colour of her dress. “Dmitri,” she whispered, her voice failing her.        “Alice,” said her former lover. “You haven’t changed a bit.” He, too, was much older, white haired, but he still had those intense, dark eyes she remembered. “You’re just as beautiful as ever.” She was glowing.        Alice, who had been stooped for the past ten years, attempted to straighten her shoulders. “But how did you get the paintings?” she asked, when she had recovered her composure.        Theo shuffled his feet and avoided Alice’s eyes.        “Theo left them with me,” Dmitri said, “after you left me.” He continued, “Theo moved in. Actually,” he added, “we had already been seeing each other.”        “That’s all water under the Pont Neuf now,” said Theo, attempting humour.        “Is it hell!” said Alice. “You two timed me, Dmitri.”        “That’s rich, considering you ran off to America with that foreign correspondent,” Dmitri said.        “That was Paris in the fifties,” laughed Alice, “and a roundabout route back to Brighton. Modelling was over for me, anyway”        Alice went on laughing. She had not let herself laugh for many years. Colour returned to her cheeks. She felt happy. “Oh, Dmitri, oh, Theo, I do love you both,” she said. “I’m so pleased you both returned to me. And the paintings . . .” she added.        “I hate to part with them,” Dmitri told her, “but these are hard times. My family fortune ran out long ago. Although a cousin I didn’t know I had has left me a decaying chateau in the Dordogne,” he added with a laugh.        “I doubt the paintings will fetch anything,” Theo said, “but let them go.”        “I don’t need them,” Alice said. “I have my memories.”        “I’d be proud if someone bought them,” said Theo. “And we would be proud for you,” Dmitri and Alice said at the same time.        It was time for the auction. They stayed for the bidding. The paintings fetched a tidy sum, certainly enough for Dmitri to treat Alice and Theo to a bottle of champagne to toast their reunion.        “But why did you come to Brighton, Dmitri?” Alice asked.        “To find you, of course, mon petite fleur” he said, in his Russian accent. Alice and Theo never did discover if this was true, but being reunited with Dmitri, who joined them on their jaunts from time to time, was enough. They were happy with that – and with dreams of restoring the chateau, when they could afford the fare to go there. 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