‘Holy shit!’ Everything about this story was taunting me and I still had no idea where it was leading. ‘That sounds like most guys’ idea of a very good time.’
‘Not mine. I said I was going back to the car for my stuff and left in a laundry truck full of Mexicans!’
‘This is making me feel I haven’t lived,’ I said. ‘I’ve never done anything crazy.’
‘Until now.’
‘Until now.’
‘But you’ve lived in two foreign countries. That doesn’t just happen. How is that not living?’
It’s all a matter of definition.
‘Technically the UK isn’t a foreign country, though it certainly felt like it at first. My dad’s from there. He was always obsessed with California. He came to study the trees, but he loved the music too. “California Dreamin’”, “California Girls”, “If you go to San Francisco”. It has that effect on people somehow, especially people who don’t know it.’
‘“Californication”.’
It threw me that he’d picked something that illustrated my point so perfectly before I’d finished making it. ‘Exactly! Hollywood has a lot to answer for. It’s like California is this golden paradise where nothing bad ever happens and that’s just not true—’ A throttling sensation silenced me.
I’ve known this a few times now, the indelible mark places make: not just the landscape and the people, the language and the colours, but the feelings I couldn’t leave behind. Of everything I’d lost. I should have told him about Christopher but that’s always been the hardest thing, even now. I’m working my way up to it.
When I opened my eyes, Jean-Luc’s were level with mine, bereft. Submerged. ‘I know what you mean about California,’ he said. Neither of us knew what the other was talking about but somehow we were entwined, without even touching. ‘There’s only one cure for this mélancolie, as I have recently discovered,’ he said, wiping his face with his T-shirt as he pulled it over his head. It only took a glimpse of chest and armpit for me to start shedding my clothes like they were on fire.
It was an antidote, because there is no cure. Whatever it was, it was bliss.
Chapter Thirty Five
I was sitting at my laptop at home, trying to compose a reply to Emily’s long newsy email that didn’t involve answering the loaded question How are things? Due to the school break, their family vacation in Spain and the fact I either didn’t answer her calls or said I couldn’t talk, that conversation – the one where I admitted to ignoring her advice and jeopardising my marriage – hadn’t happened yet. But it was only a matter of time.
I was distracted by the sound of laughter from the stairwell, getting louder until Vanessa burst in, accompanied by two other girls.
‘It’s the gig tonight,’ she told me. ‘We’re just going to hang out here first.’
‘Of course,’ I said, not that she was asking permission. ‘Hello!’
‘This is my stepmom, Alexandra,’ she told her friends, ‘and this is Morgane and Anaïs.’
I smiled. That was the first time Vanessa had acknowledged me as her stepmother, and not as if I was the evil kind. The two girls were looking around, sizing the place up. ‘That’s nice,’ Morgane said, of the painting over the mantelpiece, as if it was from IKEA. They were both like pretty little dolls, about half the size of Vanessa, who looked about twenty-five next to them: Morgane pale and ethereal with long blonde hair, Anaïs dark-skinned with black ringlets. I remembered Vanessa mentioning her friend whose mother was from Martinique.
‘What time will you be heading out?’
‘Not for a while. We’re meeting the others there. Is there anything to eat? How about some of that mac and cheese?’
Vanessa too had acquired a taste for this – I was starting to wonder if one of the ingredients was addictive. She proceeded to describe it to her friends and they screwed their noses up at the idea of powdered cheese, or it might just have been calories in general. ‘There’s only one box left,’ I called from the kitchen.
‘That’ll do me,’ Vanessa replied, ‘these two aren’t hungry.’
Obviously it fell to me to make it.
‘We should text Hugo now about the spare ticket or he won’t have time to get here,’ said Anaïs.
‘No, don’t do that!’ said Vanessa. ‘I’ve found someone to take it. You’ll never guess who!’
‘Is it him? Is it, really?’
In the kitchen, I stopped stirring.
‘You’re not, you and him, are you?’ said Morgane, lowering her voice.
Vanessa laughed loudly. ‘Yeah, right, in my dreams! And you all thought Boris was out of my league.’
‘Only asking.’ Morgane sounded rather put out.
‘To be fair, she hasn’t seen the photos, remember?’ Anaïs said to Vanessa.
‘Ooh, show me, show me!’
I headed for the furthest corner of the kitchen even though I couldn’t be seen from where I was.
‘Here’s one of Alexandra giving her speech,’ Vanessa began. ‘Come and see!’ I pressed my face into my hands, breathed in deeply and went out into the living room.
‘I like that dress,’ said Morgane. ‘My mom’s got one like it.’
‘You were there for the speeches?’ I said. ‘I thought you arrived later.’
‘I was at the back,’ Vanessa replied. ‘That’s why there are so many heads in the way.’
She was flipping through the images. ‘That’s me and my dad. That’s this really cool thing from the exhibition,’ she said, referring to the torture instrument known as Incineration. ‘And there’s Suzanne, my dad’s assistant.’
‘Whoa, look at her!’
‘And here we are…’
I could so easily have returned to the kitchen but I just stood there, unable to move.
It wasn’t a selfie – one of the post-grads must have taken it. Vanessa looked like she’d just won the lottery. Standing next to her, shoulders almost touching, was Jean-Luc, with the half-smile of someone who doesn’t want their picture taken and doesn’t care how it turns out. A dart of longing made me look away.
Morgane gave an earthy growl quite at odds with her angelic appearance. ‘You weren’t kidding, Vanessa. He is so out of your league.’
I was rescued by the smell of something burning.
Chapter Thirty Six
Philippe had not only decided to leave for Nice without me, he even thought it was his idea. I encouraged him to ask Vanessa to go too. Their long estrangement meant she’d missed out on getting to know his family properly. Her teenage cousins would also be visiting the house that used to belong to Philippe’s parents, now shared between their four children in a harmonious set-up that was far from guaranteed under French inheritance laws. Some would rather demolish a property or burn it to the ground than come to a civilised agreement.
The arrangements were all in place and he was due to leave next Monday. I’d be holding my breath until then, waiting for the moment when I could finally give myself over completely to the way I felt, the way I wanted to feel, and put an end to this bizarre swinging between ecstasy and various forms of guilt and anxiety.
Vanessa had been unexpectedly positive – she was so fed up with the oppressive heat and boredom of Paris that she would have agreed to almost anything. To my relief she didn’t fancy the long drive with Philippe, so I purchased a train ticket before she could change her mind. After the frustrations of city driving, her father liked to put his foot down on the autoroute, his southern character reasserting itself as soon as he hit the road. Having spent my entire adult life in big cities I’d never had a licence. On our trips down south I was a quiet passenger, often secretly scared, allowing Philippe to concentrate on the road. If he and Vanessa got into one of their slanging matches it could be dangerous.
I made vague noises about joining them the week after without committing myself. For all its uses, mobile technology has made a lot of situations harder to manage. The imperative to be in a certain place,
for example, has been removed unless there is some physical element to it, although the need for quality time with one’s lover will not do. My culinary machinations, serving dishes from the South of France such as bouillabaisse and lamb with ratatouille night after night, had successfully eased Philippe into pre-vacation mood. He didn’t question my weak story about the possibility of someone connected to the monastery in Romania passing through Paris and that it would look bad if nobody from Editions Gallici was available.
Philippe probably needed a break from me and I didn’t blame him. Just as the emotional distance had crept in between us, physical contact too had become infrequent and brief, making me realise I had undervalued this side of our relationship. To be technical, we hadn’t had penetrative sex since that dire occasion at the very start of my affair. I had the audacity to feel slighted that Philippe didn’t seem to be missing it despite my resolution not to sleep with two men at the same time. Contrary to the spirit of marriage, I wanted to keep myself for Jean-Luc and him alone.
There was, however, another explanation for Philippe’s dark mood and the apparent decline in his sex drive: I’d found out from snooping at his phone again that he’d been dumped by Nico in the most perfunctory terms: It’s over. I can’t do this anymore. Knowing all about rejection I almost felt sorry for him, especially after everything he’d been through with Brigitte; that is, once I’d got over my irritation at the way this altered everything.
This was a sign, a deadline – as his aventure had ended, so too would mine, inevitably. It was getting too serious. In my mind I drew a line across a map of France, forcing myself to be dispassionate, sensible. My arrival in Nice would mark my return to Philippe and his to me. We’d had our crises and now we had to start communicating again. I hoped that we could pull ourselves together (in every sense) and decide that what we had was worth saving, that Emily was right and we would get through this. Even if I came clean with Philippe he wasn’t in a position to be too tough on me, so long as I didn’t identify my lover. There was always the possibility we’d come out stronger.
My lover. Although it tore at me to think of it – if I could only use one word to describe all of this, it would be torn – Jean-Luc was bound to be leaving Paris soon; he had his whole life ahead, as the saying goes. He was worth more, and wanted more, than I could give him. Something about him just wasn’t cut out for casual.
It should have remained a one-off, but having further compromised myself since, there seemed no point in forgoing the rest of it. It was like being on a diet, when you open a packet of cookies planning to only eat two and then think, Oh, what the hell? The kind of logic people use to play down cheating with an ex. Sure, it was messing with my head but in other ways it was doing me good. I know I’ve talked about turning into someone different but it was never really that; instead, I was becoming who I would have been all along, if I hadn’t been hell-bent on clutching my sorrows so close to me.
Jonathan once called me an emotional cripple. He regretted it instantly. He wasn’t wrong but there are more delicate ways of expressing it.
It wasn’t true any more. Thirty years of numbness was enough for anyone. Jean-Luc made me feel so immensely good that it gave me hope. I was complicated and confused but there was more to me than I’d realised. It wasn’t real happiness because that can never be at another’s expense, but in this tornado of incompatible emotions I was hearing stronger voices than the one telling me that. I had the rest of my life to be good and I promised myself I would be.
But for now, I figured I’d earned some more fun. Excitement. Passion. There was no single word. What difference would a few more days make? For it to burn itself out, first I had to let it blaze.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Still Philippe didn’t seem to register anything out of the ordinary and it made me start to provoke him. I left our wedding photo face down for more than a week after knocking it over accidentally – it probably could have stayed there a year without him noticing, a man who hangs pictures for a living. When I returned it to its rightful position, it grieved me to see our joyful expressions, like we couldn’t believe our luck.
When I told him a friend and I were seeing the new movie from a director I hate, he didn’t pass comment other than to ask if I’d be home late. I suppose I never used to ask where he was – you don’t, if you don’t want to know. Every time I returned from one of my fictitious activities, part of me wished Philippe would be waiting, ready to demand what the hell I was playing at. Or to say, I know where you’ve been. I worked out what you were up to a long time ago. So I wasn’t hoping for much – just for the one I was betraying to save me from myself.
I wish I could stop saying part of me. Is anyone wholly anything?
The next time I saw Jean-Luc he’d had his hair cut. It was very short around the back and sides, longer on top, where it stood up at an angle. Now he was getting the full benefit of those cheekbones and his improbably straight Parisian nose. Whoever had done it had studied his face closely. So expressive – the way he’d brighten on seeing me made my heart falter.
‘You’re staring at me!’ he said. Maybe if you grow up in this city you take good looks for granted.
‘Right!’ I said. ‘Because I bet that never happens. Are you flattered?’
I thumbed his temple as my fingers caressed the back of his head, my pinkie drawn to the newly exposed strip where the hair had been shaven away. He tilted his head to kiss my palm and drew me into the studio. He took a couple of steps backward and, judging it perfectly, he threw himself on the bed, pulling me down on top of him. I kneeled forward into a kiss, my hair falling around our faces.
I sat back on my heels, adjusting myself so I was up against his hard-on, not pressing on it. He traced his hands up and down my thighs, first through, then under my skirt. Knowing what lay ahead, I found the teasing run-up exquisite, just like the moments after. Unless I was in a rush to get away, several times was the norm. I’d never been with a man who could do that, or wanted to. I was transformed by the way he made me feel, stripped of inhibitions. I shook out my hair like a femme fatale, my face lighting up from inside. The buttons of my blouse melted under my fingers – I was wearing one of the bras I got when I first met Philippe, black gauze with tiny polka dots and lacing in the middle, marginally more burlesque than bordello. Back then I was considerably slimmer and it was tight and uncomfortable now, my breasts spilling out the top. Jean-Luc moaned and shifted underneath me, creating some tantalising friction for both of us. ‘God, I want you so bad. You can’t imagine.’
I didn’t have to imagine.
It was only afterward that I registered the noise from downstairs had stopped.
‘The apartment can’t be finished already?’
‘It isn’t. The Romanians stopped working a while ago because they weren’t getting paid. Have you only just realised?’ It used to embarrass me meeting the contractors on the stairs, their heavily accented greetings accompanied by knowing smiles. ‘They don’t even know where the owner’s gone. They left the keys with me!’ Jean-Luc gave me a look. ‘Hey, that could be fun…’
‘No way are we… I get all the fun I need right here,’ I said, lying there with his arms around me. ‘I could stay like this for ever.’
Jean-Luc turned to me, his face inches from mine. The dark rim around his irises always looked more intense after sex. I loved how he could lose himself in it but somehow still find me. ‘Me too. You obsess me,’ he said. Tu m’obsèdes.
A queasy feeling took hold of my stomach. ‘I’m obsessed with you,’ I corrected, hurriedly explaining that’s what an English speaker would say. ‘For some reason you put it the other way round in French.’ It was as if I already had an inkling that something was afoot that I didn’t want to be responsible for. ‘You talk about obsession as if it’s a good thing.’
He laughed. ‘Isn’t it? A French woman would never complain to hear this. They want passion. They want to be desired.’ He sighed. ‘They’r
e not easy to please.’
‘Oh, is that so? I get what you’re saying…’ I’d thought part of my appeal was that I was more grateful than a twenty-year-old but I much preferred the idea that I was relaxed, undemanding, fun to be with. Neither of us cared that I had a few lines on my face and a body with plenty to grab hold of. With him I felt ageless now. I felt beautiful. I felt free.
‘No, it’s good you’re not like that.’ He looked anxious, not realising I was teasing. ‘With us it feels, I don’t know, natural, real. Me and my friends grew up on internet porno. It’s all fake. A lot of girls think that’s what we want – plastic dummies, all the same, going Oh, oh, oh!’ He shook his head. ‘You can feel like a freak for not wanting to fuck anyone up the ass.’
I told him about Suzanne and the man who wanted her to position her flawless, no doubt hairless, body under a glass table while he took a shit on it. When Jean-Luc said he wasn’t surprised, I realised I never asked if she’d gone through with it. ‘But that’s it exactly,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t her he wanted – she was an object, like merchandise. That kind of sex is no different to getting wasted – it doesn’t feel like anything. I’d rather jerk off – it’s less lonely.’
His words were confident, as if he’d really thought about it. But behind them, there was something raking at him. I wanted to comfort him so badly I didn’t stop to think what I was saying.
‘That will change when you meet the right person. You’re intelligent and sensitive. And you hardly need me to tell you the effect you have on women.’
Now he was more miserable than ever. ‘I am terrible with women. I mean, I always was before I met you.’
‘What? You’re kidding, right? I thought you said the opposite… in fact, I know you did. It stuck in my mind, if you must know.’ The girls. All those pretty girls.
He grimaced. ‘Yeah, well getting laid has never been the problem. When they get to know me… Do you think I’m intense?’
Paris Mon Amour Page 16