by Claire King
There was a trickle of condensation pooled on the bar by the carafe of water. I ran my fingers through it and closed my eyes, trying to fix the feeling in my mind. The cool water on my fingertip, the slight friction of the varnished bar, the fire against my back, the tannin in my mouth, and Sophie still there at my side, her hand on my arm. The hope she had for love.
37
Afterwards, you told me, everything looked different, although in the early days very little changed. I noticed you talking to yourself more often, speaking out your actions under your breath as you did them as though you had a baby on your hip, showing her the world, telling her its names. ‘I am watering the plants, I am making the tea, I am calling my parents, I am cleaning my boat. This is Candice. She is my boat. Red. Green. Blue.’ In another life you would have made a good father. But as things deteriorated you began to feel more ethereal, more afraid. Your world became sinister and unpredictable. People, who you had always understood easily, were now indecipherable. We knew things about you that you didn’t. All times are different, but perhaps the hardest for you was those middle years. Part of you wanted to touch nothing, to have no consequence, and you began to draw away from people. You began to draw away from me.
Then the nightmares came. Once they started it seemed as though it was almost every night. Once you startled so violently in bed that I had to wake you to calm you. You had been dreaming that Candice had rotted through the hull and you were falling through, down into the water. You couldn’t remember how to swim. The piano sank too, tilting at forty-five degrees, the lid flying open and music spilling out of it. ‘Like a shoal of dark fishes,’ you said, ‘or a drowning man’s last breath.’ I realised then that the thing we were both most scared of was the thing that you needed most: you needed to forget that you were forgetting. Eventually you did.
While you still knew what was happening to you, while you still knew who I was, at the end of every night you used to say goodbye, in case when you woke you had forgotten. ‘Don’t forget,’ you would say, ‘that whatever tomorrow brings, I love you.’ Your words fell into my waiting heart where I kept them safe until the morning, praying that tomorrow would not be the day when I was glad to have had them.
When it came it wasn’t as I expected. On the day it happened you woke as usual, kissed me as usual, took a coffee out on to the towpath and sat barefoot amongst the tree roots to drink it. You seemed more relaxed than you had in a while, and I bathed in the respite. It was a weekend and we spent the day at your parents’ cottage. I suppose it was because we were there that I failed to notice how you were no longer talking to yourself. Your mother felt the peacefulness in you too, and I could see it feeding her hope that you would get better, despite everything we had told her. We had a lovely day. But that night, back home in bed after you had turned out the light, you curled around my back, your arms tight around me as they always were, and all you said was goodnight.
38
My parents’ cottage was weighed down by an unrecognisable stillness. I had walked in to find my father sitting in a wicker chair in the conservatory, like a sickly house plant that had been given water and set in the sun to see if it might effect a recovery. When I greeted him the only response was the rattling breath of the dozing man.
I retreated silently. My father was wearing the wrong clothes, a pressed shirt and a tweed jacket, and the house didn’t smell like Sunday at all. The cooking aromas were sulphurous and sour. I followed my nose through into the kitchen where my mother was stirring a pot.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed as I embraced her. ‘You took me by surprise.’ She wiped her fingers on her apron and reached for my hands to clasp them in her own as she did every time we met, no matter that her hands were half the size. The bruising was so faint now as to be barely noticeable.
I bent to kiss her. ‘There’s a strange air to the cottage today,’ I said. ‘Why is Papa asleep in the conservatory?’
‘He’s tired.’
I look over at the bubbling pot on the stove. ‘And what are you cooking?’
‘Fish stew.’
‘Fish?’ Not one Sunday in my entire life had we eaten fish.
My mother laid the wooden spoon on its ceramic rest and gathered herself. ‘Your father was taken ill this week. We had to take him to hospital. We didn’t want to worry you, because, well, there’s nothing to worry about. But yes, he’s tired now, and low.’
‘The hospital?’ I took a step back towards the kitchen door. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? What’s wrong with him?’ I felt as though I were sinking.
‘He’s OK, it’s just a downside of living so long. We’re falling to bits. Now apparently your father’s diabetic, which should be easy enough to manage but he’s taken it hard. He hasn’t been out to the chapel in three days and only two of those were doctor’s orders.’
‘Perhaps he’s had a shock, decided to take things a bit easier?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Before the snow came he was getting so close to finishing it. You should have seen how excited he was, like a boy. Perhaps he overdid it, I don’t know.’ She looked at me hopefully. ‘I was wondering if you’d have time to help him finish? Maud’s son did offer, but I thought if he’d let anyone help it would be you.’
‘I’d be happy to, but you know how that’s gone in the past.’
‘Just try and talk to him. Maybe it will be different now.’ She paused, then turned back to the stove, slicing lemons in two and squeezing their juice into the stew, straining it through her fingers. As she discarded the pips she said softly, ‘I’m not ready to lose him.’ She rubbed her eye with the back of her hand, seasoning the food with her tears. I stood behind her and put my arms over her shoulders in a hug made awkward by more than our difference in height. ‘Right well, let me get on now,’ she said. ‘Lunch won’t make itself.’ Later my father would push the fish stew around his plate miserably and remark that it was too salty.
Feeling disoriented and seeking an escape from the oppressive silence of downstairs, I retreated up to my room, still lively with ghosts and good memories. Everything was the same there as it had always been and I found a moment’s comfort in the familiar walls that came together at angles slightly off ninety degrees, the particular softness of the mattress, the way the light drifted in from behind the thin, faded curtains. Then I looked again at the window, remembering the conversation with my mother in the garden at Christmas and felt the breath sucked out of my lungs.
I opened the windows, letting cool air blow in across my face, and looked down into the garden below. There was no new growth yet, the plants all a dark winter green, and frosted in the shade of the wall. I held on to the windowsill and pressed my face against the bars, seeing myself as a child reaching for the shutters, picturing the tulips below, remembering the hard line of the windowsill against my hipbones, trying to summon the sensation of falling. I still could not recall the fall, but I could clearly remember my mother’s certainty that it had never happened and felt the truth, sharp as a knife at my throat.
‘Baptiste, why are you letting the cold air in?’ I jumped, startled to suddenly find my mother at my side. ‘Are you OK? You look pale,’ she said, following my gaze down into the lavender beds.
‘I’m fine.’ Was there anything I could hope to salvage of a memory I had replayed so many times, constantly evoked by the scar on my leg? ‘Are you sure we never had tulips there, Maman? They are so clear in my mind.’
‘You and your tulips,’ she laughed. ‘I haven’t a clue where you got that idea from. At least the garden will be coming back to life soon. That’ll cheer us all up.’ It was going to take more than that, I thought. She turned and gave me a measured look. ‘How are you getting on with your friend? Amandine, isn’t it?’
‘I called her,’ I said. I had finally plucked up the courage. ‘I’m going to take her to dinner next week. She’s chosen a restaurant just across from where she lives.’
My mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s love
ly. Your father will be pleased to hear that too. I’ll admit we’ve been worried about you, being single for so long. Especially after what you told me that time in the garden, that you weren’t even sure you wanted someone. I’m so pleased you changed your mind.’
‘It’s early days,’ I said.
‘When women get to that age they don’t mess around with just anyone. They’re choosy. Does she want children?’
‘She has a daughter.’
‘Oh. Well, lovely. How old is she?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, I suppose she must be a teenager. Amandine said she had her when she was young, but I haven’t asked Amandine her age either.’
‘And what’s her name?’
‘I didn’t think to ask.’
‘Baptiste, you need to show an interest! And the father?’ I shook my head. ‘That must have been hard for her. A ready-made family. Well, I can’t wait to meet them.’
I laughed at her enthusiasm. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to be a father just yet.’
‘Oh love,’ my mother said, ‘none of us are ever ready to be parents, we just get on with it.’
Later, as we were eating lunch at the table, my mother exclaimed out of the blue, ‘We had tulips on the wallpaper in the sitting room! I’d completely forgotten about that. Do you remember, Gaspard, how we had to change it when we gave Baptiste the piano? We hadn’t noticed how much it had faded until we saw that big patch of flowers, still bright after all those years.’
‘What are you talking about, Bernadette?’
‘The wallpaper with the tulips.’
The photograph at the foot of the stairs, me on tiptoes on the piano lid, leaning into the box. My mother’s regret. Could it be? I tried to bring back anything but the image in the photograph but had nothing.
My father grunted, his humour spoiled by the fish. ‘We should have just left it. You’ll be bringing the piano back here when we die, won’t you, Baptiste?’
‘Do we have to talk about dying at the table?’ My mother’s expression had grown weary.
‘I know we’ve discussed it before,’ my father went on, ‘but it’s different now. You have a girlfriend, your mother tells me. When you settle down you’ll want a garden for your own children, surely?’
‘Your father’s right,’ my mother said. ‘And you’d have to consider Amandine’s point of view too. Will she want to live on a boat? Wouldn’t she prefer a nice cottage in the countryside?’
I wasn’t sure Amandine would like either, I thought. Then I caught myself. I had been pulled into the practical details of my parents’ fantasy. ‘You’re talking as though I’ve already set a wedding date,’ I said. ‘And we haven’t had our first date yet.’
‘We’re just thinking about your future,’ said my mother. ‘That’s what all parents do when they get to our age. Your children’s future is what counts.’
39
The bannister up to Amandine’s apartment curved up the wide, lazy staircase and was reflected in the warm pink marble of the steps. Light slanted across the tiled corridor from behind the coffee-coloured door, left ajar for me. I knocked anyway. I watched through the slender gap as she approached, her face composed and yet also on edge, two opposing ideas merged into one expression. Her eyes were like lagoons. I held out a hand, which she ignored, stepping close in to kiss me. Not on the mouth, but almost. All I would have had to do was angle my face to catch her lips with mine. Before she pulled back I felt her inhale as though she had been hoping I would. She withdrew a step. ‘Come in.’
Her apartment was warm as spring and smelled of lilies, although there were no flowers in sight, and something else, something that reminded me of home. I struggled to place it, then struggled again to not let it matter that I couldn’t. On an oak bureau in the hall was a framed black and white photograph, half in shadow, half in light: Amandine clutching an infant to her breast. She was standing by a small, perfectly manicured tree in a city park, the rooftops of Paris unmistakable in the background, a weary smile on her face. I wondered who could be behind the camera. A friend, perhaps? I stepped in closer. In monochrome, Amandine looked all wrong. I could not know the colour of her shoes, or of the summer dress that hung loose on her girlish figure. Her eyes could have been any colour at all. I stood for a moment, trying to remember something, until I felt a hand on my arm. ‘Come on, let me show you around.’
It was the kind of apartment that other people would have described as stunning: high-ceilinged and bright, the decor tasteful and coherent. The living room was dominated by a large ornamental fireplace. On the hearth, an African elephant threw back its head to peer up at where the chimney should have been. Before its raised front foot was a shabby oriental rug that looked as though it had been brought back from travels rather than acquired at the Galeries Lafayette. Morocco, I thought. Two expensive-looking armchairs were positioned either side of the fireplace. I wanted to sink into one, pull Amandine down on to my lap and kiss her, but it was too soon to give in to desire. I didn’t want to be presumptuous. We had all evening ahead of us in which to establish if that kind of behaviour was something she’d be amenable to.
The living room was open to the kitchen and between the two, by a large arched window, was a small table, round, polished and perfect. That’s what the smell was: beeswax. I sighed with relief. Diffuse orange streetlight filtered through sheer white curtains, laced with the shadows of the ornate ironwork swirls and curves beyond. Heavy cream curtains were tied back with leaf-green silk rope. It was all so elegant. But there was a certain emptiness to the place, a lack of life, in stark contrast to the shabby warmth of Candice.
The kitchen was just the same. Spotless. I’ve always thought you can tell a lot about people from their kitchens. My galley kitchen, small and spare. My parents’ kitchen, ruled over by my mother, permanently hot and floury. Jordi’s vast range at the bar, his steel boat tossed on the waves, and Sabine’s kitchen on the Yvonnick, messy and stuck about with fading children’s drawings. Then there was Amandine’s kitchen. Empty. Bereft.
That was it. There was no sign of a child. No toys, but then it was likely her daughter was too old for toys. No babysitter either. Perhaps she was old enough to not need one. But no mess at all. None of the adolescent detritus found heaped up on work surfaces and propped against walls in the Yvonnick. It didn’t look at all as though any child could live here. My heart sank with the implication. I had forgotten to ask so many questions. Had I even thought to ask the most important of all?
‘The bathroom’s over there,’ Amandine continued, ‘and those are the bedrooms.’ Two doors, both ajar. She motioned at the first door casually. ‘She’ll be back later if you’d like to say hello. And mine is the one at the back.’ She pushed the dove-grey sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows and caught my eye, held it a little too long. I shivered in the warmth. Amandine grabbed her coat. ‘Shall we go?’
Just across the road at the Restaurant du St Sernin the maître d’ greeted Amandine affectionately as he took our coats. ‘Table for two this evening, Madame Rousseau?’
He led us through towards the back of the half-empty restaurant, weaving through tables dotted about the room. ‘This way, sir.’ The tablecloths were the sunny yellow of the ducks in children’s drawings. Tall white candles stood on every table and there were fresh flowers in the corners of the room. We were seated at a table in a half-corner, the angle cut off by a fireplace with an ornate surround. There was a clock on the mantelpiece, and ivy draping from each edge.
‘These look very fancy,’ I said, offering Amandine the plate of elaborate appetisers. ‘They seem to know you very well here.’
‘I dine here most nights,’ she said. ‘It’s my local, if you like.’
I pictured myself sitting at the bar at Jordi’s place, eating his hearty food and chatting to Sophie, while at the same time a few miles upstream Amandine would be sitting here alone drinking from long-stemmed wine glasses and being called ‘madam’. ‘Madam’ this and ‘si
r’ that. Amandine was in her element and I didn’t fit into this place at all, just as I didn’t fit with her classy apartment. I tugged at the sleeves of the only smart jacket I owned – suitable for weddings, funerals and first dates. The sleeves had never been quite long enough to cover my cuffs correctly. How could I have ever thought I would fit with Amandine Rousseau?
As though reading my mind, Amandine smiled kindly at me. ‘Take your jacket off,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’
I glanced over the menu. The côte de boeuf immediately caught my eye. Served with marrowbones, caramelised onions, sea salt and dauphinois potatoes it made my mouth water just reading the description, but it was only served for two people and the meat alone was 500g. It was not a sophisticated choice.
‘What do you recommend?’ I asked.
‘I usually have one of the salads,’ she said. ‘The one with the scallops is delicious –’ she looked at me shrewdly – ‘but if you wanted the beef, for example …’
‘No, no,’ I said hurriedly. ‘The scallops sounds great, I’ll go for that.’
‘Right.’
After we had ordered, our clichéd first-date conversation faltered at every turn. Amandine seemed tense and expectant but I had no idea what she was expecting. She had been my client for six months and what did I really know about her at all?
The clock on the mantelpiece had an intrusive ‘hick’ that marked the long pauses between us like a metronome, giving a hypnotic rhythm to the silence. Amandine’s expressions came and went, passing through minute variations that would have escaped the notice of someone who wasn’t observing her as intensely as I was. I was searching for clues, watching as her face conducted its tiny battles and wondering if I could just ask. Finally I cracked. ‘What are you thinking about?’
