The French Lesson

by Robyn Elliot

  He paid the taxi driver, tipped him, and emerged into the chill, gray air, turning his back from Guillaume's home, watching as the taxi disappeared to the right at the junction. Stef plunged his hands into his pockets, bit absently on his lower lip, not wanting to walk up to the russet, shiny door, fish out his key, turn the lock, and enter into the maelstrom that was, and always was going to be, Stef’s own doing.

  Instead, he chose to stand on the pavement a while longer, staring vacantly across the road. He was aware that his mother might be looking out of the window, shaking her head, wondering when he was going to step inside Guillaume and Annelise’s cozy hallway, and finally take responsibility for his life. But Stef’s awareness was more focused on the mess he had left behind at Danny’s. The muted owning up, the half-hearted attempt at the truth, which Danny had instantly seen through. Posh little shit, Stef thought, a twitch of affection and longing at the corner of his mouth. Danny had more barrister in him than he realized, all that inner knowing, and between the lines reading, and pinpointing, right there, oh right bloody there, the heart of Stef’s problem.

  Secrets. They never had been conducive to happy ever afters, not ever, not now. And the saddest thing? As the rain grew heavier, turning sleety against Stef’s face, he knew that he had broken Danny’s heart with two words. Cowardly, shabby little words, the French not blunting their intent.

  C’est finis...

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Guillaume emerged into the hallway to greet his brother. He had been intending to scowl at his younger sibling, hiss in his ear that this was all his own fault, and on and on. Yet Guillaume couldn't. He stopped up short, seeing the place his brother was in.

  “Stephane,” he heard himself saying, and it meant a dozen different things, but essentially the same thing – I love you, Stef.

  Stef didn’t make a move to take his jacket off. His wavy hair was wet at the ends, his face clean shaven, smooth. Guillaume had to do a kind of double take. His brother’s beard, gone, giving Stef a slightly gaunt, authoritative kind of look.

  And it had been a simple, but powerfully adoring gesture. On their third whole day together, Stef had been watching Danny across the kitchen table. Danny had been idly munching on croissant (Stef had got him hooked), his eyes lowered, glancing at the front page of the paper Stef had brought back for him. Stef had noticed the redness around Danny’s chin and cheeks. Danny had such delicate, pale skin, and Stef had spent hour upon hour admiring and worshipping that skin.

  Without another word, Stef had got up, pressed a kiss on Danny’s brow, and had gone upstairs, showered, and then had proceeded to shave off his pride and joy...the beard he’d grown whilst a student at uni in Paris, and had stuck with, because he knew how sexy it looked on him. No way, no way on earth would Stef part with his beloved facial hair, that had got him into plenty of beds over the years. Only, now, Danny was kind of silently suffering. He’d not said anything to Stef, but he felt as if his face had been rubbed raw - injuries gained in the line of sexual duty, if you will. Stef had returned to the kitchen, enjoying Danny’s look of amazement. “I love you,” Stef had said, and he’d kissed the tears threatening to spill from Danny's eyes. He’d just held Danny then, no sex, no making out, just holding onto the love he’d found.

  That had been found, and Stef had been running scared ever since from it. Danny had drawn him in like a magnet, as if all it took for Stef, all it really took, to fall in love with Danny had been that morning when Danny had looked at him, strained, exhausted and anxious from living a life he didn’t want, inviting Stef in, letting down the barriers, bit by bit.

  Which is more than I did, Stef understood, because if Danny can be a Princess (and he so can be), that doesn’t compare to what I am... a fucking coward.

  Oh, and the king of shits, the absolute mahatma of merde.

  Guillaume came to his brother, and put his arms around him. Instead of resisting, Stef leaned against him, taking deep breaths. He needed his brother, his big brother.

  “Where’s Danny?” Guillaume asked, pulling back slightly, to observe Stef. He saw the strain there instantly. Red rimmed eyes, the pallor Stef always had when upset. “And where’s the beard?” he asked, winking.

  Stef extricated himself from Guillaume's embrace. “I shaved it off,” he explained, deliberately obtuse.

  Guillaume gave Stef a snarky little smile. “Oh, I see, baby brother. So? Where’s Danny?”

  “Is Antoine still here?” Stef avoided, already knowing the answer. He would have known in an instant if his ex-had still been in the building, all that Brazilian passion infused with French drama and panache.

  Guillaume played along with him. Stef looked haunted enough, without Guillaume telling him off for his witless, shitty behavior over the last few months.

  “He’s gone back to their hotel…now the damage has been done.”

  “Their hotel?” Stef asked, brows raised in enquiry.

  Annelise and Elisabeth came out of the kitchen, the aroma of freshly ground coffee following them.

  “He’s brought Mathieu with him,” Elisabeth answered for Guillaume, as she opened her arms and Stef veritably fell against her in relief. That’s when he lost it. All the pent up anxiety and fears and pain and misery and now, added to that soup of despair, heartbreak.

  Guillaume and Annelise made themselves scarce, going into the living room, whilst Elisabeth guided Stef into the kitchen, closing the door behind them.

  Her son, her beautiful, self-assured, arrogant, headstrong son, Stephane, wonderful, charming Stef, sobbed in his mother’s arms, just like he had over twenty years ago after Guillaume had broken his nose with a cricket bat. Only, Guillaume, full of testosterone and brute strength at fourteen, had been getting his own back; seeing as Stef had been telling Guillaume's new girlfriend that his brother had syphilis and only had three months left to live, and was sowing as many infected wild oats as Guillaume could before he succumbed. Brotherly love, in all its rich and diagnostic forms.

  Elisabeth couldn’t comfort Stef, although being his adoring mother, she tried. He buried his face against her breast, sobbing wet, gut wrenching tears onto her soft linen blouse (always stylish, even when casual), his body wracked with emotion that, once allowed vent, was like the heralding of the floodgates opening. “Ssh,” she soothed, stroking Stef’s hair, “ssh, my beautiful boy, ssh, my darling boy…”

  Gradually, the fury of Stef’s emotions abated, leaving him drained, shuddering with little eruptions of pain and humiliation. He’d never live this down, bawling like a baby over…over…

  Danny. Stef raised his head, looked at his mother through swollen eyes. She brushed the hair from his brow, and held his face between her elegant, slender hands.

  “I can’t take this,” he muttered, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth, his lips stiffened and sore, “I just want to…” Stef struggled for meaning.

  “Run away?” Elisabeth asked, but without a hint of reproach.

  He shrugged, went to the sink, turned on the faucet and splashed his face with cold water, shivering at the sensation.

  “I need to see Antoine...and kill the bastard.”

  Elisabeth poured them coffee. The aroma was rich, even calming, to Stef’s racing senses. He drank some, half wishing it was a bottle of vodka, his favored anesthesia.

  “Madeleine and Alys have separated…did you know that, Stephane?”

  For a moment, Stef teetered on an outright lie. He glanced at his mother, and he remembered in time that she knew him. Inside and out. “That has nothing to do with Antoine, he’s just getting a little bit of gossipy revenge to feed his inadequacies.”

  The words seemed to hang like a miasma in the air, forming into the accusing, pointing finger of hypocrisy, right back at Stef.

  “You shouldn’t flatter yourself, Stephane; he seems very settled with Mathieu, and Mathieu’s business brings him to London, no more.”

  Stef made an annoyed sound, slamming the cup onto the m
arble worktop. Elisabeth smiled obliquely. Yes, this was her darling son. “You’re on his side?” Stef snapped, aware it sounded childish and ridiculous, but he’d gone way beyond giving a shit what his family thought of his behavior, not after what he was really facing; losing Danny. “You think he came over here with his impotent but ever so wealthy boyfriend, and made a nice and cozy social call on you? What is between Madeleine and me has nothing to do with him, and he had no damned right coming here and talking about my life and my business!”

  “So it is true then,” Elisabeth sat down, folded her arms, shaking her head.

  “I’m not responsible for Madeleine’s love life, Maman,” Stef countered defensively.

  “You’re not, Stephane, but you are responsible for the decision you made with both her and Alys, nevertheless. Indeed, you pressed it. Or did it all seem an exciting prospect...until reality set in, and the responsibility with it.”

  Stef swallowed hard, took a last swig of coffee, came and sat down with a heavy sigh. “I’m scared,” he murmured, barely audible, but Elisabeth leaned forward, and held Stef’s chin gently between her fingers.

  “I know, and it is perfectly natural that you feel so...it’s a huge change in your life, darling. We just want to be able to help you and support you. All of you. How can we, when you keep running from these things, and ignoring something that I know is tugging your heart, Stephane. I know it is, I truly do, because I can see the pain in you, and you need to free yourself from it, my beautiful boy.”

  Silence, for a few moments, as Stef’s mind wandered to the scene when he left Danny’s. Telling a stricken Danny that he had to go, that he didn’t know if he was coming back, that with Antoine everything was up in the air regarding feelings and emotions, and the future. Because, Stef had not only stuck the knife in... he’d given it a few twists, while he was at it. In the moment, in the binding, sweat drenching panic that Stef suddenly felt, cornered and threatened as he imagined he was, he thought – wait for it – it was kinder just to use Antoine’s appearance as an excuse with Danny. To play on those fears that Danny obsessed over. To lie when Danny asked him if he still had feelings for Antoine. To lie and keep on lying.

  “I... think...so, yes, I’m confused, you know? But yes, Danny, that’s what’s been between us, you see. This secret? No, oh no, it wasn’t in your mind, after all. Clever boy. I just didn’t want to hurt or upset you, seeing as Antoine was a big part of my life for so long…”

  “Upset me?” Danny had stood in front of a rapidly diminishing Stef, knowing full well Stef was lying to him. He knew it because, well…because this was love, right? Fuck, if it hadn’t been, Danny realized there was nothing else he could ever trust or believe in again. “Upset, Stef? You’ve just pulled my fucking heart out, and stamped on it! Does that sound like I’m upset, Stef? Does it? I don’t believe for a minute you want this guy, I... I just don’t!” he'd spat, slightly hysterical.

  “You don’t want to believe it, Danny,” Stef had said, in his most patronizing voice, fighting the urge to just grab Danny and hold onto him for grim life. “But whether you like it or not, that’s how it is…”

  That’s how it is. And that’s how it was.

  He felt so proud of Danny. Standing there, refusing to cry, refusing to beg, letting his world collapse around him as Stef got ready to go. Danny had followed him down the hallway, Stef opening the front door.

  “Stephane.”

  Stef had paused, his fingers gripping onto the latch, and he'd made himself turn to look at the most beautiful man in his world. He looked at Danny, and wanted to tell him that his heart, too, was shattering inside of him, every single heartbeat feeling like a shard of glass against his rib cage.

  Danny swallowed down his pride, and cleared his throat, standing tall, proud in his pale, dignified way.

  “Please don’t leave me, Stef,” he'd whispered, and those words cost him just about everything. Every shred of pride and hope, destroying the slow healing that had been taking place within him, inspired by Stef’s love. They'd cost him all of the strength he had inside. And it was a great strength.

  Stef had gazed at him, then turned away, realizing Danny would see the adoration there.

  Better to be brusque. Better to be brutal.

  “C’est finis,” Stef said, taking a brief comfort in his own language, clipped, curt, without a tone of emotion in his voice. He'd slammed the door, leaving Danny standing there, waiting in vain for a truth that never came.

  Right now, Stef’s reverie was broken by Elisabeth’s hand over his, stroking his knuckles in little, soothing swirls.

  “I have to go back to France, face Madeleine, try and make amends for my gutlessness.” His voice was strained, weary.

  “Yes, Stephane.”

  He looked at his mother, beautiful gray eyes regarding each other. “I can’t have it all, Maman.”

  “I think you should let Danny make his own mind up, don’t you?”

  She watched the shutters rise again, as Stef carefully pulled his hand away. “No. Not like this, not this fait-accompli put on him; he’s slowly getting his own life together here, and I will not put all the pressure on him to make things work between us. Because that’s what it would be, Maman. It would be Danny having to make all the big changes, not me…I won’t ask that of him.”

  “Well, I see your reasoning…but only up to a very limited point, Stephane.”

  He maintained Elisabeth’s knowing gaze. “He’d be appalled by my behavior. He’s got standards, you see, and principles. I can’t bear the idea of him looking at me with something worse than plain old disappointment. I can just about live with his hating me for my behavior.”

  “He doesn’t hate you, that’s a self-indulgent thing to say, Stephane.”

  Stephane tried to get up, but Elisabeth gestured imperiously, and he sat back down, obedient as he had been when a very small child. “Now you will listen to me, my son; first of all, yes, you have dishonored Danny. By pretending that you could offer him a life together without telling him everything...and also by retreating into the rather unreliable comfort of believing that just because you have behaved rather disgracefully, then he must hate you. What I know of Danny, and what I know I like, I like very much, immediately tells me that he could never hate you. Yes, be disappointed in you, Stephane, and hurt, and saddened, and all those things doubtless he is feeling now, but you’ve not given him any chance to understand what is going on, or placed enough trust in him to allow him to be angry or disappointed for a while, then let him love and support you.”

  Elisabeth paused, and watched Stef gradually shrink in the chair. She continued, because these things had needed saying for too, too long. “You lied to him about Cedric, I presume.”

  Stef’s eyes flickered over his mother’s face, then he nodded.

  “Your career doesn’t have to be over, Stephane; there are plenty avenues for you to consider in teaching. But no, you had to leave in a blaze of glory, and without a job you arrive at your brother’s door, expecting him to pick up some of the pieces for you. As soon as I saw Danny and you together, I knew this would lead to trouble. Sometimes, I just wanted to scream at you to talk to Danny, and let him make his own mind up. Despite all your protestations, Stephane, of undying love for Danny and all your weeping, you’re really weeping for yourself.”

  At that, Stef scowled at her. “That is bloody unfair, Maman! I love Danny, but I will not put him in a position where he has to turn his own life upside down for me!”

  “Oh, you stubborn, foolish boy! You’ve already turned his life upside down!” Elisabeth retorted, though she was far calmer than her son, “but what you have really done, is protect yourself. You don’t want Danny to see you vulnerable, or needful of care and support; you don’t want Danny to see you in any other way except this facade you put out to the world, of the bold, charming Stef, who never takes life seriously and is always the one to rescue the weak…weaker than him, that is! Now, you’ve made a mistake,
Stephane, in underestimating Danny because you would rather walk away from him, without a reasonable explanation, than let him see you differently. By that, I mean let him see you taking responsibility for your own life!”

  “Not true!” Stef gritted his teeth at her, but he didn’t have the fight in him to challenge what he already knew to be just that - the unabridged truth. He’d finally run out of options, and the only thing left was going back to France, and apologizing to Madeleine. He felt a pang of terror vibrate through his nerve endings, making sweat stand on his brow, his naked upper lip. What if she punished him? In the worst way possible? The very worst way…

  The kitchen door opened, and Guillaume walked in.

  “Maman is right, Stef,” and seated himself at his own kitchen table, opposite his brother.

  “You’ve been listening?” Stef thundered, his mouth twisted in defensive anger.

  “Of course I have!” Guillaume asserted, shaking his head in exasperation that his brother could think otherwise. Didn’t they know anything about each other over the years?

  “My life is not some bloody soap opera for you to gawp at!” he snapped, making Guillaume sit back in his chair and blow out his cheeks in feigned shock.

  “Your life was, is and always will be a bloody soap opera!”

  “Enough!” Elisabeth spoke. Her voice wasn’t raised, but icy, cut with maternal authority of the very French kind. She might have been English, yet she was in everything that mattered, more French than all of her family. “Guillaume, you could do with growing up somewhat, also. You pass comment on your brother, when you need to look to your own kitchen…er, as it were,” she finished, slightly awkwardly.

  The brothers glanced at each other across the table, and despite his pain, Stef returned the faint smile that Guillaume gave him. They had a certain camaraderie when faced with Marshal Petain in full Maman mode.

  Stef placed his hands, palms downward, on the table, in a gesture of decision.

  “Guillaume, can I use your phone?”

  “Well, you have been since you’ve been here,” he remarked, half-serious.