Chapter 39
39
Dear Kevin,
Thank you for your email. Please do come! I have a lot to talk to you about. So much has happened since I last saw you, but I think it would be better if we spoke in person about everything.
I wanted to let you know that I’ve decided to stay in St Vianne. For a year. Then I can see where Lili and I are, and what we need. But I don’t want you to think we’re abandoning you. You’re my big brother and Lili’s uncle and we will be over to visit all the time (if you can bear it). And of course, you are always welcome to come here for a break – even bring a partner, if you want.
I’ve got a lot of things to process and adjust to. If I’m honest, I don’t think I’m over Mum’s death. Perhaps we never get over things like that. There’s so much I wish I could ask her. But I’m learning to accept that we can never know everything – and it’s helpful to let go of some of those questions and just accept the way things are sometimes .
Anyway, that’s enough philosophy from me! Write back soon with your news.
Love you bro,
Addy xxx
Stretching, Adeline rose from her chair and checked the time. It was eight o’clock. Time to get Lili ready for school and then make her way to the bookshop. It seemed surreal that life was falling into its familiar pattern after so much had happened. But there was something nice, soothing about it too.
Half an hour later, with Lili walking next to her – refusing her hand for the first time – she made her way towards the school in the early morning sunlight. She’d worn a dress; she’d often felt self-conscious doing this in the past, but had decided it was time for a change. Besides, it was due to be thirty degrees later – she’d be grateful for it.
At the edge of the playground, she bent down and gave Lili a little kiss – which was promptly wiped off – and smiled as her daughter disappeared into a crowd of friends. Nothing stayed still for long, and she could already sense the ways in which her daughter had changed since their arrival.
‘ Bonjour ,’ said a voice behind her.
She turned, straightened and came face to face with André. Almost instantly, she felt her cheeks get hot. The last few days had been so fraught that she’d barely had time to think of him. But she felt a surge of happiness at seeing him. ‘Oh. Bonjour !’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘No, I have some free time,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’
‘Sounds perfect.’
Rather than have an intimate conversation surrounded by locals sipping espresso, André suggested they grab a takeaway and sit on one of the benches close to the square.
‘So,’ he said, watching her as she took a sip of coffee.
‘So,’ she replied.
‘You enjoyed your trip?’
‘Oh. Yes. Well, it was quite something.’
‘A good something?’
‘A very good something.’ She took another sip. ‘I’ll tell you all about it, I promise. It’s just… I’ve got a lot to think about.’
‘But you met your mother.’
‘I met my birth mother, yes.’
‘And she was nice.’
‘She was lovely.’
He sipped his coffee and nodded. ‘Do you want me to come around tonight, perhaps?’
She took a breath. It was something she’d been thinking about almost constantly since the train ride home. Whether it was all a little too much. Whether she really knew enough about who she really was to give herself to someone else completely. Whether she could trust this situation she found herself in, where the pieces of her life were suddenly slotting together almost too easily.
‘André,’ she said. ‘You’re lovely. Truly. But I think it might be too soon. I think maybe I have so much going on, that it wouldn’t be fair on you to…’
His features clouded a little. ‘But…’
‘Perhaps in a few months. If you still want to.’
He nodded, not saying anything.
‘Sometimes you just have to stand still a little. So much has happened.’
‘I understand. A little. I think,’ he said with a sigh.
A few minutes later, they walked quietly to the shop and she said goodbye, taking her familiar position behind the counter and trying not to watch his expression as he walked away.
It was hard to settle back into work after seeing him, but eventually the rhythms of her day returned and she lost herself in the process of getting orders in, sorting stock and dealing with a steady stream of customers.
Claude made an appearance, looking smart, and asked if they had any books on gardening. Another woman was looking for English reading books for her young child.
At around ten o’clock, the door opened and a small woman came in. She looked to be about thirty years old, with short brown hair and large green eyes. Despite the fact that she was wearing a bright red coat, what struck Adeline most about her was the worry etched across her face.
She came timidly up to the counter and looked at Adeline. ‘Are you Monique?’ she asked.
‘No. I’m Adeline. Can I help you?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’m just… I suppose I wanted to ask if you can recommend a book. Something that might… well, help me.’
Adeline was about to turn and call Monique; to tell the woman to wait. But something began to stir within her. ‘I um… perhaps,’ she said, studying the woman’s face. Their eyes locked and perhaps she was imagining it, but a title swam into her mind. ‘Just a second.’
She pulled the book off the shelf. It had only come in a couple of weeks ago and she’d read it curiously. Perhaps she was wrong, but it seemed as if the woman might at least connect with it.
She passed it to her. The woman studied the title, read the back and nodded. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘And you know,’ Adeline said, starting to doubt herself as she rang up the total, ‘if it doesn’t work… you can come back. I’ll find something else.’
The woman nodded. ‘That’s kind, thank you.’
Once the door had closed, she thought again of what had happened. Was it instinct? Magic? Was she deluded and imagining things? It was impossible to tell. But perhaps it was better not to question it. Perhaps this too fell into the unknown place between magic and science where so many things stirred that defied explanation.
At lunch, she excused herself and decided to pop home for a sandwich. Ordinarily she’d taken to eating with Monique or going to the cafe, but today she felt exhausted and wanted to take a moment to sit and not have to talk to anyone at all.
She was in the armchair, cup of tea in hand after eating, when she decided to reach for her Dickinson book. She’d read a little, then make her way back to work along the sunlit road, she decided.
Turning the page, she read the words:
If your Nerve, deny you?—
Go above your Nerve.
And smiled at the wisdom in the tiny verse.
Some people would probably think she was brave, moving to France to a place where she knew nobody. But it hadn’t been bravery, really. If anything, it had been fear that had driven her. Fear and shock and grief that had propelled her to this place where she’d thought she might hide from the world and work out what to do next. Instead, her journey had opened up her life.
She had been brave though, she realised. It had taken bravery to contact her mother, to take the trip to Toulouse. She’d had to ‘go above her nerve’ just to get on the train and face such an enormous challenge.
Sometimes reading was a distraction for her, but sometimes it made her focus on herself anew. To see new things in her actions. She wondered whether she’d have got on with Emily Dickinson in real life, with her sharp observations and whip-smart humour. She liked the way that the woman she’d been lived on through her words, that she – Adeline – could bring Emily back to life at any moment. It was bizarre, and she’d never say it out loud, but in some ways this poet had become a friend to her, ever since Monique had thrust the book into her hands.
Slipping it back onto the small table, she straightened up and took her cup to the kitchen. Once it was washed, she set it on the counter, grabbed her bag and began the walk back to work. She thought about André again as she walked. She hadn’t been very brave when it came to him, hadn’t gone ‘above her nerve’. But it was OK. He was giving her space and time, and that was what she needed.
She smiled at a few people, exchanged bonjour s en route. The faces were becoming more familiar now – she knew a few names from the shop, and recognised so many others she’d seen around St Vianne. There was a sense of community and belonging that had been absent in London and right now, that was what she needed. Maybe, one day, she’d start yearning for the pace, the excitement, the purpose of a bigger city. But for now, she was where she needed to be.
Unlocking the door, she changed the sign in the shop window to ‘Open’ and after stowing her bag behind the counter, began slicing the tape on a box of books they’d had delivered this morning. She was going to create a display in the window – the colourful, contemporary covers would really draw people in.
Once she’d removed the books, she flat-packed the box and went to put it in the cupboard, ready to be taken to the recycling.
Only she almost didn’t make it. Her foot came into contact with something hard, thin, which skidded on the wooden floor. She found herself sliding then falling hard onto her bottom.
‘Ow!’ Feeling under her leg she realised that the object she’d stumbled over had been a book. It was open on a page, but even without closing it she recognised its size, its shape, even the slight discolouration of the pages. Only she’d left the book at home, surely, on the table?
She looked at the open page:
To wait an Hour—is long
To wait an Hour—is long?—
If Love be just beyond?—
To wait Eternity—is short?—
If Love reward the end?—
— EMILY DICKINSON
‘For God’s sake, Emily,’ she said, feeling her fear give way to frustration. ‘Do you have to be right about everything?’
How ever had the book got there? Perhaps it had got caught on her bag and tumbled to the floor once she entered the shop? Maybe this was a copy left out by Monique and not her edition at all? But there was no misreading the message in the pages. That she shouldn’t wait for love; that she shouldn’t let the time stretch between her and potential happiness.
A rational person wouldn’t read anything into the poem she’d stumbled over. A rational person would shake their head and file the book back on the shelf. A rational person would know that there was no way a poet from the nineteenth century could be giving her relationship advice here in the 2020s.
Perhaps someone who was more interested in magic, more likely to give implausible, far-fetched explanations for things might say that the book had come to her, on Monique’s or even Emily’s orders. To give her a message.
Well, she didn’t believe that either.
What she did believe in was herself. Her feelings. And her sudden realisation that she was once again getting things wrong. She didn’t need to know everything to find herself in order to move forward. Life would move forward anyway, and opportunities and changes didn’t always wait.
‘Monique – I’m just popping out for a moment!’ she called out, then she ran into the street, suddenly knowing exactly where she was meant to be.