by Claire King
The noise must have stopped, but I hadn’t noticed. Everything was flowing out of me, just embers cooling slowly to grey. Then your hand was hard on my shoulder. I gasped, my heart racing as I turned my face to yours. The years look well on you, but the beard that you have abandoned to its own wild devices leeches the light from your face. In the shadows your eyes were dark and determined and in your other hand you brandished the little driftwood frame, our smiling faces against the twin blues of the sky and the water just beyond.
I forced myself to look at the photo, trying to pretend that face I knew so well was a stranger, but tears were springing to my eyes and I wriggled out from your grasp, which though still gentle was strong and insistent. ‘I think I’ll just draw the curtains,’ I said. You let me go.
When I had composed myself again and turned back to you, you were sitting on the piano stool, but facing into the room, your eyes flickering between my own and those in the photograph. I lowered my gaze. The droplets of water that had pooled on the windowsill were now soaking the hem of the curtains.
‘I can still picture her face, you know,’ you said. ‘I still remember all the important things.’
42
Etienne and I were sitting out on the deck in shorts under the hot blue skies, soaking up the light. The rainclouds were finally exhausted. The towpath and the banks were steaming, a white haze rising off the saturated earth. I was suffering the kind of nagging, empty hunger brought on by insomnia and too much of Etienne’s ferocious coffee.
‘You look atrocious,’ he said.
I didn’t know how long I had trodden the towpath after I rushed out of Jordi’s or how far I had walked in the rain. I only knew I felt as though I’d spent the entire night on my feet. Foxes had slipped into the trees before me like otters into water. I had disturbed a barn owl perched on a low branch with a mouse in its talons and later a gravid hare had loped across the path, turning her wise, unworried face towards me as she went. In their company the night had come to seem just like day and I had walked on and on, further and further from home, trying to clear my head, searching for answers. If Amandine had never been a client then all her frustrations with me became clear. But how could a misunderstanding like that have gone on so long, and why had she never mentioned Sophie? I strained to remember as much as I could about the day we met, the particular yellow of the September light and the first fall of leaves on the deck. Only one winter had passed since that day yet it seemed a lifetime ago. I had heard her arrival, hesitant footsteps on the towpath. I had greeted her at the door as I did all my clients and said the things I always say to try and put them at ease. I had noticed her shoes, as green as a springtime coat, and she had chosen the Louis XV. We had discussed Candice, always a good talking point to break the silence, just easy chitchat while I made coffee. ‘So,’ Amandine had said, ‘I can see why you’re so fond of her. You’re kindred spirits.’ I had taken my eyes off hers just for a moment. I hadn’t been concentrating. Fooled by the small talk, I had missed it. ‘So.’ She hadn’t been talking about Candice at all. I steadied myself against the nearest tree, pressing my forehead against the rough, wet bark, dazed and disoriented. Where did it all start? What was the last true thing I remembered? The dementia reached its tendrils further and further into my past.
Back on Candice I towelled off and dragged myself to my lonely bed, but sleep wouldn’t come. My mind, ironically, wouldn’t rest. On the contrary, the cacophony in my head was louder than ever, half-formed thoughts and unanswerable questions swimming in the dark spaces behind my closed eyes. I tossed and turned and tried tricks to relax and clear my mind, all to no avail. I padded along the dark hallway and played the piano until my head nodded so low it was barely above the keys. I wrote in my notepad as I would for a client, searching for clues and hidden truths, fooling my mind into believing it was resolved once it was down in ink on the paper and then returned to bed, where I lay wide awake once more.
I knew it was a lost cause when the birdsong began before daybreak. Perhaps I would sleep later. I washed and dressed and paced the room, suffused with nervous energy. I made a 4 a.m. breakfast and took it up on deck to watch the sun rise. It was there I finally understood that the past could be the past, and that now I knew its secrets a fresh revelation had presented itself: I had another chance to make things right with Amandine Rousseau.
That was six hours ago, but we were still far from a reasonable hour for lunch so I was sucking the salt from sunflower seeds and cracking them in my teeth. Etienne smoked a cigarette, leaning back, squinting out beyond the boat’s edge and letting the smoke glide from between barely parted lips. He had arrived early yet was distinctly more taciturn than usual.
‘Want to tell me about it?’ I said.
‘Can’t a man finish his cigarette in peace?’
We both gazed out at the blank canvas of water, ostensibly sitting in silence but each with his own internal pandemonium. Mine was so loud that it wasn’t until they were right alongside Candice that I registered a passing boat of cheerful weekenders. Like seeing the first martins back over the water, pleasure boats were a sure sign of spring. We smiled and called out our hellos before letting the outer silence settle over us once more.
‘That’s the back of winter broken anyway,’ Etienne said eventually.
I nodded, stretching out my legs. ‘Yep.’
‘Well,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette, ‘since we’ve got the weather out of the way I’ll go first, shall I? I’m splitting up with René.’
A dull resignation washed over me. I should have been more shocked than I was, but what reason did I have to expect anything to escape the sinkhole that was swallowing my life? There are times when inconceivable news can nevertheless seem inevitable. I looked up at the trees, bursting with optimism and renewal, bright green buds and blossom. My life had fallen out of step with the seasons.
It took a solitary gull calling out a reproach as it swooped down over the water to bring me back to my senses. What had come over me? This was about Etienne, not about me. I turned to face him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be.’ Etienne reached for a handful of sunflower seeds. ‘I’m relieved. It’s been on the cards for some time. It feels good to have finally made a decision.’
I saw Etienne at least once a week and I hadn’t seen this coming at all. What kind of a friend had I been lately? ‘And René?’
‘He took it hard at first but he’s coming round to it. He knows it’s the right thing for both of us, but he’s worried how the family will take it, especially the younger ones, the nieces and nephews.’
‘I have to say I’m surprised. I thought you were the perfect couple.’
‘No such thing.’ Etienne popped a sunflower seed in his mouth, crunching it whole.
‘Is there someone else?’
‘No.’
‘Then why?’
Etienne sighed. ‘Baptiste, what did I tell you about love when you asked? That it changes. René and I have grown together and our affection for each other will always be a part of our lives, but it doesn’t fill us up any longer. We want different things now. We’ll be better facing the world as friends than staying tied to each other just for the sake of it. We’re making space for something more while we still have the chance. Life is too short for stasis.’
But stasis was what many people spent their lives looking for, I thought. ‘And what about the Florence? Who will keep the boat?’
‘We’ll sell her. Split the money, buy apartments.’
My heart sank. Etienne looked at my face and laughed. ‘You know, it’s just a house to us. We’re not obsessed like you are with Candice.’
‘It’s not the boat really,’ I said, ‘it just seems like everything is breaking apart right now. Everyone is leaving.’
‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ he said. ‘I’m not moving to China.’
Etienne closed his eyes, his face raised to the sun and scratched idly at the stubble on his throat
. He insisted that we’d stay in touch, you know. How could we not? Neighbours always say that when they move away, but even with the best intentions in the world a few miles can put a disproportionate distance between friends. You’re never ‘just passing’ any more. Everything has to be arranged. Life slips into the cracks and before you know it you’ve not seen each other in months. Years. It’s a shame Amandine never had a chance to meet Etienne. She would have liked him.
The scent of the daffodils from the pots along the edge of the deck came in waves. The gull had wheeled around and was flying back towards us. I tracked its low path over the canal, the sun hitting it in just such a way that it cast both a shadow and a reflection on the water. Three birds, all existing in their own way, sharing a single heartbeat. As it approached Candice the bird banked sharply and soared away, the tricks of the light vanishing with it.
‘I’m sorry.’ Etienne spoke without opening his eyes. ‘I should have said something to you sooner, I know. I’ve just been hoping that something would work out between you and this client of yours. I didn’t want to scare you off romance any more than you already are.’
‘Very considerate of you,’ I said, ‘and in fact on that note I have something to tell you too. I need your help.’
‘Oh?’ He opened his eyes and looked over at me, the light bright on his face.
I didn’t really know where to start. ‘What would you like first, the bad news or the dilemma?’
Etienne balanced a flimsy cigarette paper and his pouch of sweet-smelling tobacco on his knees and started to roll. ‘Bad news first.’
My head swam. How many times was I going to have to hand out this unwelcome information? Would I find ways to cushion the blow for people, to mitigate their discomfort? How was Etienne going to take it? ‘Well,’ I said, ‘against my better judgement I took your advice and asked Amandine out on a date.’
Etienne wet the edge of his cigarette paper. ‘Fantastic! How did it go?’
I laughed. ‘Oh, I completely screwed it up.’
‘And that’s the bad news?’
‘No.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s a long story. But the important thing is that I’ve finally admitted to myself that I’m in love with her. And it turns out she’s in love with me. I don’t know how, but we fit. We belong together.’
‘And that’s the bad news?’
‘Obviously not.’
‘So what’s the bad news?’
‘Last night I discovered that she was never actually my client at all.’
‘What? How?’
‘Sophie told me.’
‘Sophie from the bar? What would she know about it?’
‘Amandine’s her mother.’
Etienne blew air through his teeth then stopped short, looking as though something had just clicked into place for him. ‘Hang on, the one she was talking about setting you up with last summer?’ Another stone dropped in my belly, the ripples shuddering through me. Was it going to feel like this every time now, the jolt of every false reality? ‘So why would you have ever thought she was a client if she wasn’t? What did Sophie say exactly?’
‘I didn’t give her the chance to say much at all. I had to get out of there. The thing is it all makes sense. And that is the bad news.’
‘What?’ Etienne looked confused.
‘I have dementia.’
Etienne froze, the match in his hand burning dangerously close to his fingers. ‘You? But you’re …’
‘Too young, yes I know.’
‘So how?’
‘It happens.’
‘But you don’t seem …’
‘I am.’ Etienne lit his cigarette, both of us temporarily transfixed by the lick of the flames and the first bright glow of the paper before it settled. ‘I’m fine at the moment, just a few symptoms that you’d hardly notice – well, except for wandering off into the middle of a riot – but it’s only going to get worse.’
‘But over years, right?’
‘It could be, or it could take just a few months, the doctor says there’s no real way of knowing. So it might not be long before I’ve forgotten Amandine even exists.’
Etienne rubbed his brow. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Is there anything we can do?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe just point me in the direction of Candice if you see me wandering about on the towpath looking lost. That is, while you’re still around.’ I smiled weakly at him, but we both knew it wasn’t funny.
‘Cheap shot.’
‘Sorry.’ I watched Etienne wrestling between sympathy and pragmatism, trying to weigh up what would work best.
‘Let’s not waste time dwelling on it,’ I said. ‘I still need your help with the dilemma.’
He relaxed and inhaled. ‘OK, let’s go.’
‘The question is, what do I do about Amandine?’ Her name made nausea swim in my gut. Bubbles popping in my chest.
‘You’re in love with each other. Where’s the predicament?’
‘Imagine if it were René who were ill, would you still leave?’
He thought for a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course I’d owe it to him to stay. I couldn’t leave him alone to cope with an illness like that. Although … I don’t know. Even when he just has a touch of flu I get terribly impatient. I don’t have the best bedside manner.’
‘And what if it were the other way round, if it were you? If René were staying not because he wanted to, but because he felt he owed it to you, would you let him stay?’
‘No, of course not. I want him to be happy. How can I imagine my lover, my best friend becoming my nurse? It’s humiliating.’
‘Exactly. So there’s the dilemma. In both scenarios you are considering what’s best for the other person. The one you love. And I am considering what’s best for Amandine.’
Etienne leaned forward impatiently. ‘Have you talked to her about it? What did she say?’
‘We haven’t gone into great detail, but she’s made it clear she still wants me, despite whatever love we have coming with an expiry date.’
‘It always does.’
I could see what he was trying to do, of course. Etienne cared for me, he wanted what was best for me, but if he was going to help me he had to see things plainly for what they were. ‘Fine, but this illness is going to make me unlovable. I’m going to be hard work. Eventually even people I’ve known for much longer than Amandine will drop away.’
‘We won’t. Not the people who really care for you.’
I could see it in his eyes though. It had been there since the moment I told him. He knew it was true. He had already become a little afraid of me himself, of the shifting weights of give and take, of the new implications of our friendship. ‘They will, and I wouldn’t want them to stick around, hurting themselves on my broken edges.’
‘We’ll still love you, Baptiste. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone.’ Etienne stood. ‘Have you got any wine?’
‘Wine?’
‘Yes, wine. We need wine. You’re still allowed wine, right?’
‘No one has told me otherwise. Are we drowning our sorrows?’
‘What kind of talk is that? You’re in love, we’re going to celebrate. You’re lucky I’m not calling all the neighbours over. And then we are going to sort everything out. Wait there.’
Etienne came back out into the sunshine with the half-full bottle of red left over from my heart-to-heart with Amandine, and poured two glasses. ‘Here’s to the rest of your life,’ he said firmly. I looked him in the eye and met his glass with my own. It was too early to drink, but what the hell. The wine was tannic on my tongue, its warmth spreading fast in my legs, my shoulders, my heart. ‘So, what’s the plan?’ he said.
‘I have two plans,’ I said. ‘Plan A and Plan B. And both of them start with Sophie persuading Amandine to move up to Paris with her.’
‘Sophie’s going to Paris?’
‘She’s got a job on the trains so she can strike.’
Etienne raised an eyebrow. ‘I see. And both your plans to seduce Amandine start with her going to Paris and you staying here? I can see why you’ve asked for my help on this.’
‘Wait,’ I said, lifting a hand at a passing pair of joggers and waiting for the crunch of their footsteps to recede. ‘Let me explain.’
I had not got far into outlining the first option when Etienne frowned and lifted a halting finger. ‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Plan A is shit. You need to follow your own advice more. What’s Plan B?’
It was hot on the deck, the wine was going to my head and I was swimming in adrenaline and insomnia. I took another pinch of sunflower seeds and explained the alternative. Etienne’s smile grew broader as he listened.
When I had finished he raised his glass with a flourish. ‘I’m proud of you,’ he said. ‘Here’s to plan B.’
43
When I walked through the door you were standing in a thin shaft of sunlight at the wheel, like a lizard trying to get heat into your blood. You stayed there, watching me silently as I came in and put my bag down on the table. The boat was cold. You had let the fire go out, and outside on the deck your plants huddled miserably together, the geranium leaves already starting to sag, leaves fallen from the lemon tree. You must have taken them all out that morning before you went to bed.
It’s true that we’d had some beautiful bright days. I had been sure that any time now the crocuses would flower up along the banks. I had been watching them hopefully all week, the bright shoots, the swelling buds. But there was nothing yet. It wasn’t time. I looked out at the sad little garden on the deck. ‘They’re struggling,’ I said. ‘I think the weather has turned again. Perhaps winter is going to drag on a while longer. Should we bring them in?’
You looked at them confused and then, as though vindicated: ‘You see? I can’t even take care of a few little plants. I’m not fit to take care of anyone. That’s what she would have become if she’d stayed. I would have withered her.’