Everything Love Is

by Claire King

  I felt my stomach turn. I had thought I’d put you behind me and yet only a few days before I had found a parcel from you in my letterbox. Inside was a tiny horse carved out of what looked like driftwood. The note with it had said, It may never tell me who I am, but it will always remind you who you are. I had been both touched and infuriated by the enormity of the gesture. Another reason that getting away from here for a while was appealing more and more. Then we would both have to let go. I took a shaky breath. ‘What about?’ I said.

  ‘He seemed to think you had been seeing him professionally, as a client. I told him you weren’t of course, but why would he even think that?’

  With only the streetlights beyond the curtains lighting the room I could barely see the outline of Sophie’s face, but I could tell by the way she held her breath that no matter how much we had discussed my relationship with Baptiste there was still a fragment of doubt in her mind. Had I withheld a secret from her? The pang of sadness I felt that she would doubt me even in her confusion was offset by the pleasurable reassurance of her continuing need to count on me absolutely.

  ‘I’m sorry, So,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t really my place to tell you this. I’m sorry you had to find out this way before he told you himself. Baptiste has dementia.’

  ‘Baptiste?’ I felt her tense under my touch. ‘No, that can’t be right. He seems completely normal. And he’s too young. Are you sure?’

  I slid my arm around her back. ‘We’re sure.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said softly. ‘Right.’ Sophie sighed, and shifted as though to get up.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, unable to wait any longer, ‘I have to tell you something too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m proud of you, So. I think Paris will be good for you. And if you want me to come with you, I will. If you want help with that baby, I’m here for you.’

  Sophie froze. ‘How do you …’

  ‘I’m not blind.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ She turned her back to me, curled herself up into my embrace. ‘Didier doesn’t want it,’ she whispered.

  I stroked her hair, still tied up with ribbons, still like a child. ‘Do you want it?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Even without Didier?’

  ‘I can do this on my own.’

  ‘You’re going to be great,’ I told her. ‘And you won’t be on your own. We’re all going to be just fine.’

  There is a time now at the end of each day when I am reaching my limits, when I long for your waking hours to be over so finally I can watch you sleep. When that happens I am at my happiest. You are calmed, all the stress fallen from your muscles. Then I lay my face against your shoulder, breathing you in, missing you ferociously and hollow with love.

  I have sat here and looked at that last sentence for a long time. The love you hear of in books and films is seductive and euphoric, not an emotion that hollows you out. It is beautiful and poetic, not brutal and messy. I don’t recognise that kind of love. Either they know something I don’t, or they’re not giving us the full picture. When I told you on the first day I met you that I was looking for love, you didn’t understand. You thought I wanted saving, a happy ending. But what I wanted was to love and be loved the only way I know how.

  If you go into love with your eyes wide open, ready to embrace everything love is and will be, you will never be disappointed. Even when you are watching his hands spread wide over the piano keys, when you can see the ecstasy in his eyes, when the smell of his skin feels like home and you know that this is the person you want to spend your life with, you can’t let it blind you. A life is a long and complicated matter. Later there will be sadness. Later, one way or another, there will be grief. If you embrace the beginning you must also remember love rarely has a neat and satisfactory resolution.

  46

  There is a certain kind of breeze that is neither warm nor cool, so that when you stand in it the only sensation is the weight of the sky shifting across your skin. On the day Amandine came to say goodbye, the breeze that blew in through Candice’s open door was just like that. My spirits were lifted by the long-awaited unfolding in the air. Poppies now lined the banks, buds were cracking open, the morning was thick with birdsong and bees. A new beginning.

  I had done as much as I could, I told myself. I had gone over the things I wanted to say to her again and again. All I could do now was wait, so I sat at the piano, incapable of playing, incapable of finding music that fit this mood. My body was more alive than I could ever remember. My skin burned and prickled, my mouth tasted sour. My stomach clenched and twisted and my heartbeat knocked as though I were hollow. It’s strange how our bodies can make love and fear feel almost the same.

  The previous night, Sophie and I had said our goodbyes. She had turned on the television in the bar to show us that things in Paris were calm, told me not to worry. There were demonstrators on the streets again but it looked peaceful and there seemed to be an unspoken collusion between the protesters and police. The police were baking in their riot gear, all standing back in the shade. The protestors had stripped down to T-shirts, anonymity forgotten as they tied their scarves around their waists and tucked bandanas into their pockets. They were hanging around in disorganised straggles, leaning on their placards. Every now and then the camera would shift to a pavement café where lunchtime customers sat under parasols, watching the marches pass and drinking coffees and cold beers.

  The early warmth of that spring was working its magic on everyone. Winter has such weight: the heavy clothes, the rich, meaty food that lies dark and dense in your stomach, the mass of your own body working against you as you try to carry it without falling on icy streets, and at night the weight of the bedclothes pushing you down deep into your bed as you sleep. With spring all of this is lifted away. People shed winter like a cocoon and emerge hopeful into the air, baring their skin to the light. When I used to think of spring I thought of my mother, the heat of a train, the strikes that kept her from reaching her destination. Then, when I moved to Candice there was a shift. Spring became the first flowers, the balmy air, the fresh juicy colours transforming the markets. Now it is different again. Spring is a piece of seaweed blowing across the sand, a cormorant wheeling above.

  I was waiting for Amandine in the wheelhouse. As she stepped across the gangplank a boat sped past and Candice swayed in its wake. Amandine put her arm out to steady herself, and I caught it. She was wearing perfume that smelled of summer grass, of salt water and of something in my mother’s garden that I couldn’t put my finger on. I wanted to lean in to the scent, but sensing her tension I released her and stepped back. ‘Thank you for coming,’ I said.

  ‘That’s OK. It’s important to leave things on good terms. We owe each other that at least.’ Her eyes were too focused, as though she too had been memorising her lines. All ready to tell me the words I knew were coming.

  ‘Come down,’ I said.

  As she backed downstairs, Amandine paused and lifted her face with a puzzled expression. ‘Candice smells different today,’ she said.

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘There’s an oily smell that catches in your throat,’ she said. ‘Can’t you smell it? Have you been cleaning out the stove?’

  She was right; away from the windows there was a distinct odour of diesel. ‘Oh that, yes. Sorry about the smell. I had some maintenance to do. I’ll go now and check that I closed everything off properly. Would you mind awfully organising the tea, and then we can take it back up into the fresh air?’

  ‘No problem.’

  I only had a few minutes. Back out on the towpath my hands shook as I released the rope from the mooring. I had been fine when I practised these actions, but now it had come to it they seemed momentous.

  In my haste, as I returned downstairs I stumbled on the bottom step, twisting my ankle. Amandine, relaxed and at home in the galley, turned to see me swearing under my breath. She had set the tea to brew and was putting cups on to a tray. ‘Are you reall
y OK with this, Baptiste?’ she said quietly. ‘I’m not here to start a fight, you know. I thought it was a good idea to come when Sophie suggested it but I don’t want to upset you.’

  I straightened up, pushing my shoulders down and took the tray from her. ‘Come back upstairs, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ A flicker of confusion crossed her face. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘quickly. Trust me.’

  In the wheelhouse I put the tray down on the table and went to stand at the helm, motioning for her to join me. As I tried to compose myself I looked down at our bare feet, together side by side, painted in stripes of bright and dull where the sunlight cast shadows over the boards. Next to hers my feet seemed so big, dark and ungainly. Doubt filled me once again. Just say it, I told myself, but the words seemed stuck in my throat.

  ‘Before you show me your secret,’ Amandine said, looking downstream, ‘there’s something I have to get off my chest.’

  I rested my hands lightly on the wheel. ‘Go ahead.’

  As she looked up at me, Amandine’s direct gaze seemed to be scouring my own, searching for my true reaction to what she was about to say. ‘I’m going away, Baptiste. You know Sophie is moving to Paris, right? Well, she’s invited me to join her for a while.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you, I have, even though it didn’t work out. And I am sorry it didn’t. So anyway, I think it will do me good to get away.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘How long are you going for?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. It depends on a lot of things. For now I’ve taken extended leave from the surgery –’ she paused, weighing me up with a frown – ‘but it’s possible I might not come back at all.’

  I nodded, but said nothing. Amandine frowned and went on, ‘I could easily find work there. Cities always need doctors. And they do say Parisians are romantic.’

  She was waiting for a reaction. Shock. Regret. Jealousy. ‘That’s a big change,’ I said.

  ‘You changed me, Baptiste. You were the one who asked me what I wanted. I’m glad you did. I should have asked myself that question a long time ago. And now I know … there’s no going back. I have to move on.’

  ‘We both do,’ I said.

  Amandine had finally lost her sangfroid. She spun her whole body towards me in confrontation, her eyes dark with frustration. ‘You see, this is where you are supposed to tell me that I should stay here. That you want me to stay.’ Her voice grew louder. ‘I want you to want me to stay.’

  ‘Amandine,’ I said. ‘Stay.’

  The word stretched between us like a bridge. She looked defeated, turned away so she didn’t have to look at me. ‘I wasn’t joking,’ she said.

  ‘Neither was I.’

  Down on the canal, a string of garrulous tawny mallards shepherded by an emerald-headed drake swept downstream hugging the bank. We waited for them to pass. The corridor of blue sky still visible through the increasingly verdant plane trees stretched forwards and away, like a promise we could sail right into.

  ‘What was your surprise?’ Amandine said stoically.

  ‘I thought you might like to listen to Candice’s heartbeat,’ I said. Amandine shook her head. She wasn’t in the mood for puzzles. ‘Look. I’ve been thinking about the things you’ve said, thinking more than you can imagine, thinking about why I never move,’ I said. ‘And you’re right. You’ve changed me too. So I’ve made a decision. I’m taking Candice down to the sea.’

  ‘Oh.’ Amandine turned back to face the canal, her chest rising and falling. ‘Such timing. Better late than never, I suppose.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  With a turn of the key, Candice’s engine rumbled into life, just as smoothly as when I had tested it for the final time that morning. Did you know that ninety per cent of what we see is just memories? Rather than constantly registering our environment, we let our brains focus on what has changed and the rest is filled in by what we saw last time we really looked. As the boat hummed beneath our feet I saw Amandine’s equilibrium falter. Things, she realised, were not as they had been before. She took in the missing gangplank, the barely perceptible shifting of Candice on the water.

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘Still no.’

  I turned the wheel slowly and began to navigate out of the moorings and on to the canal. The water became more than scenery and the land became the other place. Even the other boats moored along the towpath, when viewed from that perspective, looked as though I had dreamed them wrong. We passed the Yvonnick and the Rouge-Gorge and the Florence where Etienne and René stood on the deck waving wildly. ‘Au revoir, La Candice!’

  Amandine looked at them in surprise and raised her hand warily. As she lowered it she looked at her watch. ‘Where are we going?’ she said.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ We were passing the other boats I knew well from my runs. It was strange to see them from the canal side. First the green boat with the car parked on the deck. The red boat with the pagoda, complete with wind-chimes and dream-catchers. The boat that must have been full of children, where there was always a line full of flapping laundry strung from the wheelhouse to the prow. The banana yellow boat, painted with red and green swirls, gaudy with flags and bunting. The sad, empty boat that had been for sale for years and always made me wonder what its story was.

  Amandine leaned in to me, allowing me to breathe in her mysterious scent. She rested her hand on mine. ‘Don’t play games with me, Baptiste. I don’t think you know how much it hurts.’

  ‘It’s not a game. It’s an adventure. It can be as big or as small as you want it to be. And if you don’t want it at all, now’s the time to tell me. Once we’re through the lock there’ll be no turning back.’

  ‘If I don’t want what? You’re not making any sense. What time will we be back?’

  The sensation of steering Candice out on to the canal felt like flying, like holding her by the hips and guiding her forward in front of me. After so long moored in the same spot, I had the unshakable impression that I would never tire of this feeling. ‘If you don’t want me. If you don’t want this. If you don’t want to come away with me, right now, today.’

  ‘Baptiste, are you going mad?’ She flushed slightly. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean it like that. But is this really you? I’ve just told you I’m going to Paris.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘No.’ Amandine’s eyes glittered. ‘You can’t just make a decision and get everyone to change their plans around you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I know this must all be a bit of a shock. But I did say it was a surprise.’ I grinned weakly, but Amandine was still floundering. ‘Sophie knows all about it, you can call her. She packed you a suitcase; you’ll find it in the spare bedroom at the end of the corridor. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to show you around yet, but when we stop for lunch I can give you the tour.’

  ‘We’re going to the sea? You’re taking me now? Right now?’

  ‘Picture it,’ I told her. ‘Long, lazy spring days travelling down the canal. We can stop and start wherever we choose, but I thought we could head for the Camargue. They say it’s beautiful at this time of year and not too hot. We can get there in a week or so. You’ll see the wild horses. We can moor up by the coast, taste the sea in the oysters and samphire, and the earth in the wine. We can stay as long as we feel like it and come back when we’re ready. I’m in love with you, Amandine. Come and do this with me. Stay.’

  I will never forget the look in Amandine’s eyes. Finally I could see right into her. ‘Well, if you put it like that,’ she said.

  Keeping one hand on the wheel and my eyes on the horizon, I put the flat of my hand on her back and turned her gently towards me. I pulled her as close as I dared, the smell of her skin now overpowering me. Amandine pressed her hips against me, leaning back slightly. ‘Now,’ she whispered, and I slid my hand through her fine hair and bent towards her until our lips touched. As easily as that, the landscape began to slip past.

  47


  That night we sat out on deck for hours, talking about everything but the weight of expectation between us. The stars in the clear skies were already fading when we finally went to bed.

  Of course, in the stories you told me you never spoke to me about sex with Amandine. While I was still Amandine there was nothing to tell, we were still making the story, and when I became Chouette it was a private matter between you and her. I hope that these memories were amongst the tenacious ones though. I hope they’re there for you so, like me, you can still remember our bliss, still re-live those precious moments when you are left alone with your thoughts.

  I was surprised to find that unlike the rest of Candice your bedroom was cramped, dominated by the bed that filled it. You went through the door first and pulled me down on to the fresh sheets without a word, wrapping yourself around me in a way that was so inevitable I couldn’t imagine how I’d gone so long without it. But that night everything was new and waiting to be discovered. Waiting to be tasted for the first time. We lay there, curled together in the deep-sea light of the first breaths of dawn, complicit in our inaction. We both knew what was going to happen. We were as still as if sleeping, but each acutely aware of the other’s heartbeat, the rise and fall of their breath, the slightest movement, the momentum building silently between us.

  When the moment came, drowsiness had already settled on me like a fog, pulling me deeper into the bed. You brushed my hair back from my face with your thumb. A second later I felt your unshaven kiss press upon the skin you had exposed. I could finally let out my trembling breath. At last we were here.

  I waited a few moments before responding. Your fingertips brushed across my chest and your kiss dropped lower, to my throat. I had never wanted to kiss a man so much in my life. And when my mouth found yours, the release was almost unbearable.

  We kissed, and we kissed again, peeling away the clothes that had become a barrier between our skins, getting closer and closer until our breathing had synchronised and I couldn’t distinguish your desire from my own and the only thing to do was to fit ourselves together. Once we had we barely moved. It was as though we were making something fragile. Perhaps in a way we were. My every nerve was alight. Your hands were on my face and between my shoulder blades, pulling us deeper. I felt you trembling, on the edge, and rose to meet you. Then came the moment when we abandoned ourselves, leaving thought behind, becoming our bodies. And you whispered in my ear, ‘Amandine.’