by Claire King
Is that what happens to those who love the sick, I wondered. The carers who have to stare disease in the face and pick up its pieces, do they become withered? How could anyone be expected to flourish when providing such tragic ministrations? I looked at the squat, bushy tub of rosemary, standing defiantly bright and sturdy amongst its suffering neighbours. ‘I suppose it depends on the plant,’ I said. ‘Some are pretty robust no matter what kind of a gardener you are.’
‘By the time you find out if they are or not it’s too late. If a plant dies you learn from it. You can replace it and try again the following year. You can’t treat people like plants.’ You inched into the melting sliver of warm light. ‘How could I ask her to take the risk? You don’t do that to someone you love.’
People do, though, all the time. None of us know how long love will last, how long life will last, which of us will suffer illness and which of us remain healthy. Who will be the carer and who the patient. We all hope there will be someone there to take care of us. We build families and societies around ourselves so that we will not be left alone. Most of us fall in love when we are young and healthy and can’t imagine half the things life will show us. We are playing a blind hand. It is only much later we find out what love really is and by that time, hypothetically, it’s already too late to fold.
But that’s not how it was for you. I tried to look at it from your perspective. If you had let Amandine love you then the choice would have been hers: stay with you for better or for worse, knowing that the worst was already guaranteed and that soon she would pay for a few years of love with the weight of your care. Or else she could stay only until you became a burden, then leave you behind and face her guilt. That’s not a choice I would offer someone I loved either. I see why you pushed her away. You loved her. You didn’t want her to face a decision with no right answer.
And so Amandine’s story splits from yours. Once you have made the decision for her she is gone, and you are alone once more. You will never allow yourself to love again. And Amandine, when she has got over the separation, will go back to life as it was before she met you. Perhaps she has found someone else. Even if you speculate about these things, you never mention it. You have never offered an explanation as to where she went.
I shivered. Beyond your slim ray of sunlight it was freezing up there. I moved closer, reaching out a hand to touch you and then, sensing your unease, withdrew it again. You were raw just then, your reticence to let anyone love you exposed, your fear of hurting anyone who would try right up on the surface. I had to tread softly. I don’t know how you reconcile feeling that way with sharing your bed with me. I suppose you have told yourself that what we have isn’t love. Or perhaps you don’t think about it at all. We never talk about what there is between us, and I try to hide it when it hurts. It does hurt, of course it does, but I’ve learned that the pain won’t destroy me. Life didn’t give this pain to me, I chose it, and it’s better than the alternative.
‘You simply can’t treat people like plants,’ you said again.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, I’ll bring them in while it’s still light. And I think I’ll light us a fire. It feels like there’ll be a frost tonight.’
44
‘Can we sit outside?’ Sophie asked, planting a kiss on each cheek. ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’
‘Later,’ I said. She put her hands on her hips with a petulant scowl. ‘Thanks for coming, Sophie.’ I put my arm around her shoulder. ‘At least come and have a proper look around Candice while I make some tea. I wasn’t in any state to be a good host last time.’ I needed to get her inside the boat, it was my one chance to see her in my home before she left, to leave an impression of her passing that would echo in her absence. Jordi’s place resounded with her of course, but I couldn’t see myself spending as much time at the bar when she was gone. It just wouldn’t be the same without her.
She shrugged me off and sauntered in through the sun-strung wheelhouse, slipping off her rainbow-striped espadrilles and backing down the steps. Would that be the image of her that would linger when she was gone?
I was doing this more and more lately, trying to force a memory to be made. Trying to pick my favourites as though I were going on a journey and could only take a small bag of them. In the past I had paid little attention to the souvenirs chosen for me: the memory of bats flitting into my bedroom, the shape of my father in a field of sunflowers, my mother crouched in her garden pulling out the weeds, the strange snapshot of a small group of strangers seeking shelter from an explosion, the rainbow line-up of syrups along a high shelf of a bar – liquorice, almond and peach, mint, grenadine, violet and lemon. Even in that one small room on Candice there were so many ghosts of people I would never see again. I could see a pinched-faced man standing with his back to the towpath, staring across the room and out into the water as he did for the first few minutes of every session; one woman sunk deep into the couch like a cat; the grey eyes of a tall, sad man who sat in the Voltaire chair one day and wept for an hour, his tears disappearing into the turquoise and green velvet as though into an ocean.
I was learning too that certain echoes grow louder in the face of loss. You don’t notice them when they are still reflections of the present, only when things are sliding into past tense. The slide had begun for me. It felt inexorable. Even the path I walked to the bar now resonated with the footsteps of ghosts: the Baptiste who was happy, the one who was well, the one who had never fallen in love. Etienne, who would soon be gone too, had transformed into a ghost of himself even as he was still sitting there in the flesh. The nicotine stain on the ball of his thumb, the bite of the coffee he made, these were the things he would leave me with. At least for now. And then there was Amandine. Everything sang of her. The place she had stood on the towpath when I kissed her, the corner of the wheelhouse where she always left her shoes, the violin with her fingerprints on it. She occupied so many of the spaces in my mind, but I didn’t trust any of it to last.
‘Have a seat,’ I said to Sophie as I sliced lemon for the tea. I can still smell the sharpness of the fruit and feel the hairs lifting on my arms as I watched her look around the room and settle upon the Louis XV. ‘No,’ I said, a little abruptly, ‘not that one.’ I couldn’t let her overwrite that memory. She threw me a surprised look, then drew out the piano stool, pulling her legs underneath her so she perched upon it cross-legged like a child. She tilted her head to one side, wisps of dark hair falling over her face. ‘Is this OK?’
‘Yes, sorry, it’s just that, that particular chair is …’
‘Is?’
‘Special.’
Sophie looked at me, weighing up whether to tease me, and decided against. ‘OK,’ she said simply. ‘Now are you going to stop staring at me and sit down?’
‘Sorry.’ The teapot and cups rattled on the tray. ‘It’s just that I …’ I faltered, and tried to grin it off, but Sophie wasn’t having it.
‘What is it?’
How to explain the tightening in my chest and the sudden sensation that I had swallowed a bag of pebbles? ‘It’s you,’ I said, although that wasn’t strictly true, it was the way I saw Amandine in her. ‘Well, no, it’s your mother. It’s the madness of what I’m about to do.’
‘I can’t wait to hear all about it. I have to say I’m here despite rather than because of your cryptic phone call.’
‘Amandine doesn’t know you’re here?’
‘Of course not. So what’s the plan?’
‘Hold on a minute.’ I needed to regain my composure.
Sophie pursed her lips and glanced around the cabin. ‘Is this where you do your, you know, therapy thing?’
I weighed her up. Why was she not curious about what I had said in the bar? It could mean only one thing. ‘Your mother told you about my dementia, right?’
She nodded. ‘After I got home. I was worried about you, you looked so shocked. I couldn’t understand what was going on. I did try to call you later but there was no answer.’
‘
Probably forgot to charge my phone,’ I said.
She looked at me hesitantly, then burst out laughing. I smiled back at her and poured the tea, but as I did the spout of the teapot jolted against the lip of my cup, tipping it over. Tea pooled on the wooden lid of the chest, shimmying in several directions, undecided which way to flow. Was this something too? Was I becoming more clumsy or was I just noticing it more? Sophie jumped to her feet and grabbed a teacloth from the galley. I held my hand out for it and she handed it over with an uncertain expression. ‘I’m sorry, Baptiste.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ The hot tea soaked up through the cloth on to my fingers.
‘I mean about Mum. I wasn’t a great matchmaker, was I?’
‘Was it your first attempt?’
‘I suppose it was.’
‘You can tell.’ I grinned at her, a meagre revenge.
‘Hey! Someone needed to take you two in hand. And I was right, you’re perfect for each other.’
There was a pause. I looked at Sophie. She looked at me. Beyond the open window a pair of mallards were involved in some kind of dispute. A mistle thrush called from a branch overhead. In my hand, my teacup rattled against its saucer until I put it shakily back down on the chest.
Sophie shook her head, sudden tears welling in her eyes. She rubbed them angrily with her knuckles and took a deep breath. ‘Shit.’
Don’t let it be this, I thought. Not the sadness. I hadn’t expected her to cry. I looked away as she gathered herself together.
‘Are you OK?’
Sophie frowned. ‘I’m feeling a little seasick,’ she said, looking longingly out at the sunlit canal. ‘Can we go outside now?’
‘Let’s just finish our tea,’ I said, blowing air across the top of my cup, ‘and I’ll answer your question about the plan, if you’re still willing to help me?’
Sophie scooped the half-slice of lemon from her tea and sucked at the pulp. ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’
I took a deep breath, laden with the scents of spring blowing in through the open window. Etienne had worried that I would lose my nerve at this point. He told me that if I didn’t think I had the courage to do this, he would do it for me. ‘First I just need to check one thing,’ I said. ‘As far as you know, is your mother still in love with me?’
Sophie rolled her eyes. ‘Just how easy do you think it is to fall in and out of love? Don’t you know her at all? You’re the first man she’s loved in years.’
‘But I let her down. Do you think she would ever consider giving me another chance?’
‘I honestly don’t know. She might take some convincing.’
‘Then here’s what you have to do,’ I said. ‘First, you have to persuade her to take some time off work and go to Paris with you. Tell her a month away will do her good. And then after that, who knows, maybe she’ll like it. Maybe she’ll want to stay.’
Sophie looked exasperated. ‘In Paris?’ she said with incredulity. She folded her hands over her stomach. ‘For someone who wants to make her happy it’s about the worst idea I’ve ever heard, although, funnily enough, it’s something she’s already considering. But I can’t see how you think that’s going to help anything.’
Amandine was already thinking of going to Paris? My heart leaped. ‘Sophie, trust me. Before you say anything else, hear me out.’
She shifted, stretching her legs out from under her, sliding the soles of her feet along the varnished boards. ‘Go on then,’ she said.
After I had explained it all, Sophie sat silent for a while, resting her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. Anxiety pulled me to my feet, but when she finally looked back up at me her dark eyes glittered. ‘I don’t know if this is what’s best for her,’ she said, ‘but it’s worth a try.’
‘I’d never do anything to hurt her,’ I said. ‘I just want her to see her options.’
‘Yes.’ Sophie swallowed the last of her tea. ‘Well, I’ll have no trouble persuading her. She’s so frustrated with you right now that she’ll jump at the chance of getting away for a while. And neither of us has been to Paris for so long. There’s so much we can do together when I’m not working. We can visit the museums and galleries, she can help me set up our new apartment, maybe even visit my grandparents.’ She smiled wryly.
‘And you’ll insist she comes to see me one last time before you go? Saturday?’
‘Yes, Baptiste.’
‘And you’ll bring me what I asked for?’
‘And anything else I think of.’
Gratitude swelled within me. ‘I’ll miss you, Sophie,’ I said. ‘I know you have to go to Paris, it’s the right decision for you. Come back and visit some time though, won’t you?’
Sophie stood and put her arms around me, resting her head against my chest. ‘I’ll miss you too. Probably. And I think you’re making the right decision too.’ She poked me in the ribs. ‘Now can we please go out on deck and enjoy the weather a little?’
This was how I would remember her, I thought: standing in the middle of the room, tiny within my arms, the sun streaming through the windows, her head against my heart. I bit my lip, and held my breath like a long shutter release.
45
When Sophie came to me that night after you fled from the bar I was already in bed. She lay down alongside me. ‘Are you asleep?’
The truth was I never slept until I heard her key in the lock, listened for her moving around in the apartment, the rhythm of her feet on the parquet, the bathroom extractor fan whirring for a couple of minutes while she brushed her teeth, the soft click of her bedroom door.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m just thinking.’
‘I have to ask you something,’ Sophie whispered.
I rolled over to face her. ‘What is it, So?’ I had been wondering when she was going to say something. Waiting so I could be there for her, in whatever way she needed me.
She propped her head up on an elbow and looked at me anxiously. ‘Did having me make you unhappy, Mum?’
Out of nowhere, tears stung my eyes. How could I possibly explain to Sophie how it had been for me, now of all times? There is a reason why those who extol the ecstasies of motherhood never give us the full picture: there’s no way to adequately describe either the overwhelming despair and exhaustion, or the joy so profound it taps into a well of strength you never knew you had. And how could I ever admit to my child that there was a time I didn’t love her?
When the love did come – because I made it come – it swallowed me whole, consuming me to the point that I was sure there was no room left in my heart. They say your heart stretches to fit, but it doesn’t always. I couldn’t even find the will to care for the house plants that my parents had given me a year earlier when they moved me into my first apartment. They all died. I had run out of capacity to care for anything but her. She asked me for kittens and puppies when she was growing up but the thought of something else to love and care for was overwhelming and I always said no.
I left Paris with Sophie as soon as I could. If I was going to be raising her alone then I would be alone in a city where nobody knew me. I took the train, buckling under the weight of a single suitcase, a crying, struggling child in a flimsy pushchair and the irritated glances from the other passengers. Once in Toulouse I worked in the daytime while Sophie, now a toddler, was at nursery, and I studied after I had put her to bed. At the end of every day I crawled into my own bed, too tired even to cry about how hard it was. I was young though, and I told myself that things could only get better for us. We were going to do just fine.
One morning, not that long after we had arrived in the city, I was driving to work after dropping Sophie off at the nursery. The low winter sun was behind me, reflecting in my rear-view mirror, so I was driving slowly, but that was fine, I was in no hurry, I had the radio on and the window cracked open to let the cold city air blow through. Sophie had been in such a good mood that morning. She had come into my bed before it was even light, sunny and chatty, and we had cuddl
ed while she told me about her dreams and what she wanted for breakfast. It was always bread and chocolate. I could never stop her drawing on the walls of the rented apartment, so I had bought a white oilcloth for the breakfast table and she was allowed to draw on that while we ate. As I drove I was thinking about the picture she had done of me that morning, a round head/body combination with a big lipstick smile and my arms and legs stuck out at jaunty angles, when a van came haring around the corner ahead and, dazzled by sun, veered over on to my side of the road and hit my car head on.
The bones were crushed in both my feet but I didn’t have the option of wearing casts for two months and using a wheelchair. The hospital were very accommodating; they put the most badly broken foot in a cast and I had crutches. I had no choice but to walk on the other foot, on the broken bones. Every step I took hurt. Of course I couldn’t carry Sophie to bed, but that first night she had been too young to understand. She didn’t want to walk to bed when I had always carried her down the corridor, wrapped in a blanket, already singing a lullaby. And why should she? She screamed and tantrummed and cried her eyes out and nothing I could say would console her. I went to bed resentful and angry, soaked in her tears and plenty of my own for good measure. I couldn’t sleep for the pain. It could have been her, I told myself as I prayed for oblivion to take me. She could have been in the car. She might not have survived. After that everything came back into perspective. It didn’t make it any easier, I’ve never felt so lonely, but we all walk on broken bones when we have to.
‘No, Sophie, you have never made me unhappy,’ I said, truthfully. ‘I am thankful for you every day. What brought this on?’
‘It must have been hard for you though,’ she insisted, ‘raising me on your own?’
I rested my hand gently on her hip, willing her to open up. ‘You can tell me anything, So,’ I said. ‘I’m here for you.’
Sophie shifted her weight slightly on the bed. She hesitated. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘and don’t be angry, Baptiste was in the bar tonight and he said the strangest thing.’
