‘Where would we go?’ I asked quietly.
He told me Henri wanted him to look into opening a gallery in Nice, said they’d been considering it for a while, which was odd because I would have expected Philippe to mention that. He missed the south.
I wasn’t fooled in the slightest. This had to be the last thing on Henri’s mind as his son lay comatose in the hospital. The very thought of my presence in the city was more than they could endure; that I understood. Henri simply wanted me gone and could only achieve that by pushing both of us away. He probably felt for his dearest friend, who had done nothing out of the ordinary.
Philippe went out without any effort to persuade me. It was late enough to call my mother in California. I told her what he’d said about Nice. ‘It would do you good to be back by the water,’ she said, her distant voice somehow underlining our new coexistence in a delicate ecosystem. ‘You’ve always loved the ocean.’
It wasn’t true at all but that didn’t matter right now; I was touched that she was trying to remind me who I was, or more precisely, who I was before this happened. We had only recently come to an understanding and her wish to align herself with me in any way was something I could scarcely comprehend. ‘What’s going to happen about the baby?’ She could hardly bear to ask. I couldn’t answer, but one thing – the only thing – I knew was that I could no more still that heartbeat than my own.
When Philippe returned, I couldn’t contain it any longer. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say about Nice. There are other ways I can leave Paris. Don’t feel you have to stand by me. Nobody will blame you if you don’t. I wouldn’t blame you.’
He hesitated, and I willed myself to be strong enough to hear it. To bear it.
‘I want us to go back to how we were,’ he said. ‘But that’s never going to happen, is it? I have to live with knowing you would have chosen Jean-Luc over me – I’ve never made you feel the way he did. But you’re going to need someone.’
‘I’m going to need you, Philippe, if you think we still have something. I’ll carry on loving you because I never stopped. I would do it even if you gave up on us completely.’
‘Never,’ he said, with a smile, and for the first time in a long time, our fingers touched. It was the kind of kiss that doesn’t stop there. I nodded at the question in his eyes before he reached for a different body to the one he knew, still the same at heart.
Chapter Sixty Three
I saw Jean-Luc one last time.
Philippe was standing at an angle to me when he said it, no preamble, nothing to warn me. ‘Henri says you can go to the hospital this afternoon, if you want.’
I thought I must have misheard but Philippe told me Geneviève had a doctor’s appointment at four o’clock. I couldn’t imagine what it had cost him to ask this extraordinary favour or Henri to grant it without his wife’s knowledge. For Philippe’s sake, I knew, not for mine. ‘I don’t have the right.’
Philippe was not about to debate that point with me. ‘It may be the only opportunity you get,’ he said. ‘But if you do go you’ll need to be prepared.’ His jaw flinched and I knew without doubt that he had been there, perhaps often. Them, us, four people milling around in different districts of hell. Philippe knew there was no reply to wait for. ‘I’ll go with you. You won’t have very long.’
The staff recognised him and took no notice of me, a nurse leaving the private room as we entered. ‘The doctors’ rounds are at five,’ Philippe said. ‘I’ll be back to fetch you in twenty minutes.’
The first glimpse of Jean-Luc had me seizing Philippe’s hand, begging him not to leave. ‘It’s still him,’ he said, breaking up. ‘Talk to him. Tell him how you feel.’
I sat down by the bed. ‘Jean-Luc, it’s me, Alexandra,’ I said. ‘There’s so much I wish you’d told me, things I would have asked if I wasn’t so scared of talking. But I’m going to try and hold onto the good times and how happy we made each other. Every time I look at the ocean I will think of you. Somehow we always found our way back to the sea, though I never once saw you there. But I always loved the way you talked about it – it sounded like poetry, but I couldn’t say so in case you clammed up.
‘One time you explained the zones of the ocean to me. The one I remember is the abyssal zone, bottomless, which accounts for three-quarters of the ocean floor and where there is perpetual darkness, no light at all. And that’s how it feels to be without you.’
I had to stop. Without the smile and laugh and the spark in his eyes – or even the shadow – this wasn’t Jean-Luc. It was shocking to see his hair growing back and a day’s stubble on his face. This body that was once so full of life, that had loved me with no limits, didn’t know that he was gone. But I knew he was never coming back.
His skin was bluish, his forehead clammy when I bent to kiss him. But his hand was warmer than I expected. Underneath the gown I could see his muscles were already wasting away. And then I remembered who had made my presence in this room possible, and that time was running out. I told Jean-Luc that Philippe forgave us. He hadn’t told me so, but I don’t see how else he could have found it in himself. Sometimes I feel I didn’t know him at all before last summer.
I told Jean-Luc the baby was doing fine and that we were going to be okay. I said what I should have had the courage to say the night he came to the apartment. I’d never actually told him, but he knew. He’d said so.
And then I said goodbye.
After and Before
The rest you know. We moved to Nice, just as everyone thought best, and for a while I couldn’t even see the point of blue sky. Jean-Luc once told me he couldn’t imagine the rest of his life before he and I met. And I couldn’t imagine mine afterward, not until I found you and began to make my way back from the depths. When I started to take walks by the sea, strangers would smile at me, the woman with the ballooning silhouette that spoke of the future, not the past.
Four months later in Paris, Philippe attended the funeral of Jean-Luc Malavoine, twenty-four years old: son of his dearest friend, my lover, father of a child my husband would raise as his own. That day I watched the gulls swoop across the sky to the lilac mountains on the far side of the bay, mesmerised by the light on the waves like scattered chunks of glass. In the midst of such immense sorrow, there could still be beauty.
My mom and Emily were with me when Léa was born soon after, tearing at my body, reluctant to leave me. When the Malavoines arrived, their granddaughter was the only one not crying. Jean-Luc was right about Henri and Philippe. The torn threads that once bound us all would gradually darn together in the colours of a new life and another we would always remember: viridian with bronze filaments, often known as teal.
My mom has done much to console Geneviève where I can do so little. She refused to let the door slam shut when we couldn’t talk. There were always others around when Geneviève came: Henri, Philippe, Vanessa, who dotes on her ‘sister’ and plans to move here next year. The first time Geneviève and I found ourselves alone we went for a walk along the promenade. ‘I see both of you in her,’ she said, as we watched Léa shaking a toy, laughing. ‘And then he doesn’t seem so far away.’
On my way home from our session last time, an old lady had a fall on the bus, close to me. We got off at the same stop and I walked her safely back to her apartment, hardly going out of my way. She was dressed in widow’s black and I wanted so badly to ask how many years she had mourned him, if there was ever an end to it. I didn’t, because there isn’t, and I know that now. As I went to leave, she said something I’ll never forget, something for which I have never been more grateful. ‘You are a good person.’
If she knew me she may not have said it. But I’m better than I was. I think we all are.
We’ll live.
Author’s note
Readers who know Paris may notice that I have taken the occasional liberty for the sake of the story. The bell-ringing schedule at Saint-Sulpice in summer 2014 is one example.
Acknowled
gements
I am grateful to so many people for their support on my well-documented road to publication that this is quite a challenge. However, it’s not difficult to know where to start with the thanks. My husband JC has supported me in every possible way, taught me a great deal about perseverance and never doubted I would get there. Our sons Rowan and Stefan made me laugh every day and kept me in touch with the real world, albeit one where school letters often went unread and dinner was rarely served at a reasonable hour.
By sharing her love of books, languages and France with me when I was growing up, my mum Mary influenced and enriched my life beyond measure. My dad Bob, long gone and much missed, gave me unconditional love and was the first good man I knew.
My brilliant and lovely agent Diana Beaumont has shown unwavering loyalty and belief in me and my writing, forever raising the bar just when I thought I’d got there, until the time I did. A successful creative partnership is a precious thing.
From far away in Minnesota, wonderful friend and critique partner Kristin Celms has been a constant source of wisdom and guardian of sanity. She also inspired the first ever Alexandra Tour of Paris, huge fun even in 40 degree heat.
Seven years ago my book group friends Delyth, Joanna, Ellika, Judith, Claire and Janet encouraged me to stop talking about writing and do it and have been with me every step of the way.
Thanks to Christina Dunhill and writer friends from City Lit – Clare Brailsford, Vijayadipa, Lindsay Gould, Chloe Cookson – I enjoyed it from Day One.
Merci mille fois to a French team which includes some of my oldest and closest friends: Armelle and Sebastien Haëntjens, Niels Haëntjens, Gaëlle de Quelen, Wallis and Lisa Sauvée, Nadine Chadier, Roselyne and Jean-Marie Morello. A special mention to Jean Guellec for his hospitality, Paris expertise and some of the best nights out and worst mornings-after ever!
A brief but unforgettable stay with Linda LaMarr and Bill Guevarra in Crescent City, California, inspired Alexandra’s west coast origins. There’s nothing like toasting marshmallows around a fire pit to the sound of the Pacific Ocean.
I could not have reached this point without the supremely generous friends I made on a writing-related trip to Brooklyn in 2011, who along with everything else have given me the perfect excuse to keep going back: Donna Zaengle, Clyde and Irene Turner, Nancy Rosenthal.
Thanks to poet Isabel Rogers and psychologist Voula Grand for specialist input on the first draft, Van Demal for proofreading the submission draft and Heulwen Reading for expert medical advice.
Over the past few years editors Debi Alper and Gillian Stern have provided invaluable guidance on and off the page.
This novel seems to make people – even British people – want to discuss the kind of things we don’t often talk about (but maybe we should). I am grateful to those who, without being asked, confided deeply private experiences which have indirectly added to the story so many ways.
There are countless individuals I would have liked to mention by name: friends from every stage of my life from childhood to the many writers and book people I have met in recent years, those who read and support the Literary Sofa blog, and my Twitter followers. I hope you will take this as a personal thank you, especially those who have invested time in reading my work and sharing your thoughts.
Thank you to Henna Silvennoinen at Audible for enabling Alexandra’s voice to be heard.
My final heartfelt thanks go to Iain Millar and everyone at Canelo for your passionate belief in Paris Mon Amour and insightful finessing of the manuscript. Your vision of publishing is great for readers and writers and I am proud and lucky to be part of it.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © 2016 by Isabel Costello
The moral right of Isabel Costello to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781910859353
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover photography © Anna Thomas (iamannathomas.com). Cover design by Dan Mogford.
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