Everything Love Is

by Claire King

  His face coloured. ‘Baptiste,’ he said in a low, calm voice, ‘I love your mother more than anything in this world. It’s not as simple as you think. If you have no faith that’s your concern, but don’t ever question the faith of another man if it causes no harm. Your mother understands.’

  ‘Papa …’

  ‘No more now. I’m still your father.’

  I straightened back up. ‘And I’m your son, I should be able to tell you when you’re being stubborn.’ My father braced his hands into the small of his back and exhaled. ‘Papa, I’m worried about you, that’s all. We are all worried about you.’

  He looked up at the sun, high in the sky, and wiped his brow. ‘Well, it is getting a little hot. Shall we go over to the house?’ he said. I smiled.

  My father set about carefully arranging his tools for his return. ‘Could you bring that rock?’ he said. I picked it up and the two of us walked slowly over the soft furrows, through the bent heads of sunflowers and back to the Citroën at the roadside. As I buckled myself in, I caught a glimpse of an old man worrying over his son’s face. ‘There’s something on your mind,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I see. Never mind. Your mother will get it out of you.’

  My parents’ cottage stood by the sizeable pond at the edge of their village. I never went near it. Melancholy willows leaned into the soupy water, trailing their sodden fingers along its surface, where indignant ducks turned sad circles. When I was a boy all the other children used to love going down there, tossing in small stones to scatter the fish, scooping up tadpoles and letting them slither about in soft pink palms before slopping them back into the pond weed. But everything about that place made my muscles tense as though to flee. My parents had thought I was afraid of water for years but it wasn’t the water itself so much as its still, lifeless depths.

  Nothing changes from one generation to the next, and that day too there was a brother and sister at the water’s edge, throwing breadcrumbs on to the motionless surface. My father stuck an arm out of the window to wave at the children as he pulled the car up in front of the cottage, and they waved back, shouting, ‘Bon appétit, Monsieur Molino!’

  The kitchen was roasting but my mother was in her usual place, sitting in her tapestry armchair by the stove under the benevolent watch of a fading Virgin Mary. Her face creased into a bright warm smile as we walked in. She clicked her tongue against her teeth, shaking her head. ‘You two are as skinny as each other. Good job I’ve made plenty of potatoes, roasted nice and crispy in the duck grease.’

  ‘My favourite,’ said my father, moving over to embrace her.

  ‘That sounds delicious, Maman, and very fattening,’ I said.

  ‘It’s almost ready,’ she said, ‘and afterwards, Baptiste, you must come and see how the garden is getting on.’

  For twenty years we had toured her garden after lunch, but every week she still raised the idea as though it were a novelty, as though there were great excitements she simply had to show me. It was true that every week her garden was a little different. New jobs, small successes, tiny tragedies and the treachery of various unwelcome wildlife. My mother’s life revolved between the garden and the kitchen, and her good humour relied on her steady progress in each. The predictable seasons and the unpredictable gluts and blights were her weathervane.

  ‘I’d love to, Maman,’ I said. ‘How are the apples doing?’

  ‘Still coming out of my ears,’ she said, beaming, ‘and so sweet this year. You can take some home with you. I should have made you a tart, I didn’t think.’

  Over lunch, as my mother spooned out extra helpings, my father rapped a yellowing fingernail on the table. ‘Bernadette, have you noticed something different about Baptiste today?’

  Without looking up from tumbling golden potatoes on to my plate, my mother replied, ‘Oh yes, he’s got feelings for somebody.’

  I laughed. ‘I do?’

  ‘The problem with Baptiste,’ she continued, adding an extra slice of duck, ‘is that he spends so much time listening to other people that he no longer listens to himself.’

  ‘That’s because other people are far more interesting,’ I said.

  ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ mumbled my father through a mouthful of green beans.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Nothing. I made the mistake earlier of asking Papa about his health.’

  ‘I’m sitting right here,’ my father said, and placed his knife and fork on his plate by way of punctuation.

  My mother sat back in her chair. ‘Well, do bring her over for lunch, Baptiste,’ she said, ‘when you’ve worked out who it is.’

  Later, kneeling in the garden, my mother put her secateurs down on the grass and removed her gardening gloves.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about her?’ She smiled.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, Maman. The only new people I ever meet are clients, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So it’s a client? Or is something developing between you and someone you already know?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, unless I’m badly mistaken you definitely have that look about you.’ She reached out a finger to touch a lock of hair that fell across my forehead. ‘It’s a pleasure to see,’ she said, ‘and not before time. I’m surprised I’ve lived to see you going grey.’

  There was an undercurrent of longing in her words. We never discussed it, she wasn’t one to pressure others to fulfil her desires, but I know she was disappointed that there had been no grandchildren. All I had given her was another twenty years of fruitless hope. ‘Perhaps love doesn’t come to everyone,’ I said.

  My mother gave a little huff and shook her head. ‘Baptiste, love doesn’t come to anyone.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you think love is like a butterfly that you have to catch, or wait for the chance to settle it on your hand? No. Love is a garden, you have to put your mind to it and you have to grow it.’

  Her metaphor made me smile. ‘Not everyone’s a natural gardener,’ I said. ‘I’ve killed enough pot plants in my time to know that.’

  ‘And now? Your plants are doing well, aren’t they?’

  ‘Because I stick to the ones that survive despite me.’

  ‘We all have to learn. If you keep at it you’ll get there. It might not be the garden you imagined, but eventually everything will work out for the best.’

  ‘Has your life worked out for the best?’ I reached for a handful of earth, crumbling it through my fingers. ‘Ever since I was born Papa has been building the chapel. You hardly see him. Don’t you ever regret—’

  She put her small, strong hand over mine. ‘I don’t regret a single moment,’ she said. ‘Every day I wake up with your father beside me I am thankful for that. The first thing I see is his face, the face that means I’m home.’ She studied my expression. ‘And I wish the same for you. You seem lonely. Don’t you want someone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The whole thing makes so many people miserable. Is it worth risking a perfectly happy life at my age?’

  I’ve seen what it does to people, this inability to be satisfied. People are always chasing something more: a better job, a bigger house, a fatter pay rise, a more exciting lover, the things they crave quickly becoming things they think they need, holding power over them until the minute they hold them in their hands. Then the magic evaporates and it’s on to the next thing.

  ‘Better to appreciate what you have,’ I said, ‘than strive for more, until what used to make you happy is no longer enough. Of all people I thought you would know that.’

  Kneeling there by the flower beds my mother looked at me as though she were seeing me for the first time. She waggled a knuckly finger. ‘Don’t you start your happiness nonsense with me,’ she said. ‘It’s not about if you strive or not. None of us has any choice but to strive. It’s about knowing what you’re striving for and why.’

  I felt suddenly precarious in my mother’s garden, my certa
inty ebbing away. I wanted to be back in the yellow light of Candice, the piano keys under my fingers and the canal on my doorstep, to be reassured that my life was enough, despite what my mother said and despite what Sophie said. I looked back at my mother. ‘I already have a lot to be grateful for.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know,’ she said, ‘and people can live blithely in a valley their whole lives. Whereas those that climb the mountain for a wider view, they’re the ones who take a risk, but they’re the ones most likely to see something spectacular. You were always so curious, I never thought you’d settle for the valley.’

  I was taken aback. ‘But if there’s one thing I learned from you and Papa it’s to find a way to be content with what life gives you. You two have stayed in the valley and you said yourself that it’s enough for you.’

  The soft furrows in her brow deepened. ‘No, Baptiste, we are on the mountain. You just don’t see that yet, and that’s what worries me.’

  13

  At breakfast today you were agitated, pulling small pieces off your croissant and heaping spoonfuls of jam on to each one. You never used to like jam, now we get through pots of the stuff. You used to dip your croissant into your coffee in the morning but you’ve lost your taste for coffee too unless I add an unreasonable amount of sugar to it. With each small bite you cast your eyes around the wheelhouse as though searching for a point of reference. The wheelhouse is crowded with plants sheltering from the cold and your eyes continually flicked back to them. ‘Something about the plants,’ you said under your breath, ‘something about the plants.’ Then you put down your croissant and lay your hands flat on the table, your fingers still sticky with jam.

  ‘When was the last time we saw my parents?’ you said.

  In the seconds that followed I asked myself if I had the courage to be honest or the courage to lie. Then I smiled at you and took the prudent path. ‘We saw them at the cottage,’ I said. ‘It was a lovely day. Your mother made quail, and your father drove out to the library.’

  Your eyes flashed, and your face soured. I put down my own croissant too, suddenly sick with nerves. These half-truths walk dangerous ground, the pretence at an answer that does nothing but buy me time until you have forgotten the question. But what better way is there? You see straight through lies and the truth only hurts you again. Then later, when only the spectre of your pain remains, you are angry at me, knowing that I have hurt you even if you don’t remember how.

  ‘My father never goes to the library,’ you said, your jaw tensing.

  Why had I said the library? ‘Did I say the library?’ I said. ‘No, I meant the—’

  ‘The chapel I suppose.’ You regarded me over the top of your glasses. ‘You mean the chapel.’ I dropped my shoulders, took a breath and watched as your eyes fell on something behind me. ‘What’s that?’ you said.

  I turned to look. It was the notebook. I’d left it at the side of the wheel, the pencil tucked into the last page I wrote. ‘Oh, it’s that memoir I’ve been writing for you,’ I said. ‘The stories you told me.’ Frowning, you rose to your feet, your breakfast forgotten. I joined you by the wheel, looking out over the mooring, where a thin grey mist shrouded the banks and hovered over the green water. I could hear the rasping call of a crow.

  ‘Stories,’ you said. You flicked through pages and pages of my handwriting, looking but not really reading, pausing only on the double pages where small sketches sat alongside the blocks of words until you came to a page where the ink is blotted and blurred (I had thought a fountain pen would be elegant but experience teaches us to be practical). When you came to that page you ran the tip of your finger over the gap where the words should be. The question of what was once there held your attention for a moment, but without it you couldn’t make sense of the surrounding words and you turned the page in frustration. You stopped, finally, at the sketch of a kingfisher. ‘Sophie,’ you said emphatically. ‘Sophie drew that.’

  The way you say it. Sophie. The end of the name soft on your tongue like a whisper. I bit my lip. I thought about the sea, how it pulls all the water on Earth towards it, and how the fresh and salt water meet and mingle in the estuaries. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she did.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I like it.’

  You handed me the notebook back.

  ‘I’ll just go and wipe it,’ I said.

  You followed me down to the galley, licking your fingers, still on edge. Rather than sit you skirted around the room peering out of the windows over the misty canal. ‘Boat,’ I heard you say under your breath. ‘Candice,’ and all the while you kept your back to the piano as though it were a tiger crouched in the corner. You used to play most mornings after breakfast, it used to be the one thing sure to save you. Your hands could guide you to places where your conscious mind can no longer take you. But now more often than not you are afraid to approach it. As though it may not recognise you. As though it might bite. It is suffering the same fate as us all, but that piano is part of who you are and I’m not giving it up without a fight.

  ‘Why don’t you play for a while, Baptiste?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I should call my parents. I can’t remember the last time we spoke.’

  ‘There was a problem with their phone,’ I said. ‘Something wrong with the line.’ We had had to change the number at the cottage months ago after the time you called and Lucas answered. You had both upset each other. Neither of you understood.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ You frowned, your eyes moving but unfocused as though sifting through memories for confirmation that that had happened. Then your face lit up. ‘I’ll call my father’s mobile. Why didn’t I think of that before?’

  I dried my hands, came out to stand by the piano and picked out one of your favourite scores. ‘I love it when you play this one,’ I said.

  You took it from me, your index finger tracing along the first stave, tempted. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Please,’ I insisted, ‘for me. Once you start, everything will fall into place.’ I say these things because it seems right to be encouraging even if I don’t really believe them. Everything is losing its place and neither of us know what will be next. But today at my request you sat at the piano and began to play.

  You used to talk about muscle memory, and perhaps it’s true. Perhaps a body shaped by repetition can hold a memory longer than a mind alone. There’s so much about this that none of us understands. Then again I have seen the exasperated way you look at your door key sometimes when all you need to do is turn it in the lock. No matter how often our hand has described the same movement, touched the familiar curves and edges, in the end we can still forget.

  Your head dropped and your eyes closed as you fell deeper into the music, letting your body judge the distances, trusting your fingers to know precisely where to rest. Waves broke in my chest as I stood mesmerised at your side. I could watch you like that for hours.

  The day I first saw you play was the day I knew I wanted you. When you first sat at the piano you looked as awkward as Alice after biting the ‘Eat Me’ cake, the size of you making the piano seem miniature, almost absurd. Then you set your hands upon it and I saw how they fit perfectly, the effortless span of your fingers across the keys. The music was not a love song, but it may as well have been. You caressed every single note from the piano, whether discordant or harmonious, as though it were the only thing that mattered in that instant, and that was what made the whole so breathtaking.

  When you reached the end of the piece you kept your eyes closed, letting your arms drop by your sides. You were calm again. The crow had fallen silent, and the only noise was the lapping of water upon the boat and the sound of our breath.

  14

  I saw Amandine on Mondays, when she took appointments only rather than a general surgery. Sometimes she could stay for a full hour, sometimes less. ‘I’d get into all sorts of trouble if they knew I was sneaking out of work for a clandestine rendezvous in the middle of the
day,’ she had said once, as though coming to see me were an act of mischief.

  ‘I know many people like to keep these things private,’ I told her, ‘but there’s no need to feel guilty.’

  She laughed at me then. ‘I’m too old to feel guilty about taking something for myself. If I don’t put myself first sometimes, who else is going to do it?’

  ‘While you are here,’ I said, ‘I will.’

  Amandine would inevitably arrive earlier than agreed, while I was still on the piano finding my focus. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ she’d say, ‘do finish.’ But I couldn’t play in her presence, I couldn’t shut her out. Even if she were out of sight I could sense the shape of her in the room, the way she changed the light. Even if I closed my eyes I could smell her perfume. Even now the thought of her makes me feel agitated.

  It had been weeks, and I still hadn’t got the measure of Amandine Rousseau. Something was fundamentally awry. My failure to figure it out had got under my skin so much it was distracting me from my other work. I still remember entire conversations with her, what she wore, how she sat, and yet I couldn’t tell you anything now about a single other client from that time. She was all I thought about. I had started to ask myself if I was being affected by the particular empathy I felt towards her, a feeling that was becoming hard to deny. I would never have committed the professional transgression of striking up a personal relationship, but nevertheless it is possible my judgement was becoming clouded. It was on a wet Monday in the autumn proper that something finally shifted.

  The sound a raindrop makes depends upon where it falls. On Candice a rainstorm was a three-part harmony. Raindrops rapped on her roof, pattered on to the towpath and plopped into the water. In the minutes before Amandine’s arrival I was diverting myself by inventing a melody on the piano to accompany their percussion. The first I heard of her arrival was the clang of the bell. My heart leaped and as I stood to answer the door the bitter taste of nerves was already spreading from my stomach into the muscles of my legs and the back of my throat. I paused for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, willing myself to breathe normally. It’s important to appear calm. But as hard as I tried I was still unsettled when I opened the door.