Chapter 20
ELSA
I put the phone down to Aleks with a heavy heart and lift my margarita to my lips, the fine glass and cool liquid momentarily distracting me from my concerns about Bill’s welfare.
Aleks had called only to reassure me that everything was fine, that Bill was in good spirits and coping well with the change.
But, in the background, Bill called out and I heard in his voice that he was tense, unsure, needing the comfort of the one person on earth who knows him inside and out, his wife.
‘Un autre?’ asks the barman, attired in a white shirt and black waistcoat, a traditional long white apron tied round his waist.
‘Oui, s’il vous pla?t,’ I answer, wishing Bill were here, happy and healthy, propping up the bar with me the way we used to do, when we’d stay up all night nursing a bottle of wine, and talk for hours about galleries we’d visited and those we wanted to go to next.
‘Not drowning your sorrows, I hope,’ says Marleen, finding me perched on the mahogany stool.
‘Partially,’ I half-laugh as she joins me, placing her plain clutch bag on the bar.
I explain about Bill, how worried I am about him being without me.
‘It’s hard,’ she says, receiving a sparkling water. ‘But Bill is in good and familiar hands. Try not to cling to your worries, either those that you have now or for the future.’
‘I wish I knew how,’ I say, reaching again for my drink.
‘It’s not easy to hear, but when we let go of desire, be that for Bill to be well or for him not to die, life does feel lighter. It’s much simpler to allow life to unfold on its own, rather than cling to how we want it to be.’
‘Deep down I know you’re right – no good comes from worrying, as they say – I just wish I knew how to apply it.’
‘How about you take your mind off things by coming out with me? I’m giving a talk at a temple this evening; it would be lovely to have your company.’
‘That’s kind of you, but I think I’ll stay put,’ I reply, not having quite enough energy to face life. ‘I could use some “me time”, as Carly calls it.’
‘Of course, self-compassion is key,’ she says, reaching into her bag and taking out a copy of her book. ‘A little reading, if you fancy.’
I’ve been sitting at the bar on my own for a half-hour or so, reading Marleen’s book, when a man in his fifties asks if he might sit on the stool that she vacated.
‘Certainly,’ I reply, admiring his ability to sit on the stool without having to climb on to it. ‘Long legs must be a wonderful thing.’
‘Guess I take them for granted,’ he says, requesting a glass of whisky from the barman.
I watch him as he waits, his strong jaw and cheekbones telling me that once upon a time he was conventionally good-looking.
Now his receding hairline and wire-frame glasses have left him more distinguished than handsome.
‘What brings you to Paris?’ I ask, detecting a British accent.
‘Time with my son.’
‘How wonderful,’ I reply, the words catching slightly. Even though Bill and I let go of wishing we had a child of our own many years ago, Fran and Carly as near to a child and grandchild as could be, occasionally I’m struck by a dull pain, hidden deep within me.
He stares into his glass of whisky. I twiddle with the stem of mine. ‘I wasn’t fortunate enough to become a parent.’
He casts me a sideways glance, no doubt trying to get the measure of this woman in her seventies, dressed in loose linen, propping up a chic Parisian hotel bar.
‘Parenting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ he mutters, returning his gaze to his glass.
I sit quietly, allowing him to be, wanting to ask so many questions but aware that any enquiries will more than likely be rebuffed. Eventually he turns to me, his reddish-brown eyes distant and dim, and says, ‘I never thought it would be like this.’
‘Parenting?’ I ask.
‘Life.’
I inhale slowly, quietly, wondering what has brought him to this place. ‘How did you imagine it?’
He takes a moment, runs a nail down the grooves of his tumbler, eventually returning his gaze towards mine. ‘Freer.’
I cast him a quizzical look.
‘It’s like a dead end: work, family, home,’ he continues. ‘The only escape comes from this.’ He lifts his glass and shakes it.
I listen to the ice cracking.
‘Who’s at home?’
‘My wife and son,’ he sighs, shaking his head.
‘Tell me something about her,’ I say, beckoning the barman for two glasses of water.
He shrugs. ‘What’s to say. She’s rarely satisfied with anything I do. When I’m away she wants me home, when I’m home she wants me away.’
‘Are you away frequently?’
He nods. ‘For work.’
‘Has it always been that way?’ I ask and, enjoying the analysis, I’m reminded that in my early forties, Fran’s mother, Nancy, had encouraged me to train as a counsellor when it became clear that Bill and I were not destined to have a child of our own.
The change at the time had felt like too much of a jump, from bohemian art school to the responsibility of psychotherapy training, and there was the matter of the gallery to run and income to be made, Bill’s work having always been more commercially viable than my own.
But over the years I’ve wondered occasionally if my decision not to retrain was the right one, if I hadn’t missed a great opportunity to work in either talking or art therapy.
‘Since I was old enough to get away.’
‘From what?’
‘From my mother.’ He pauses. ‘She needed too much.’
I allow his comment to disperse, sensing it’s not something he wants to linger on.
‘How did you meet your wife?’ I ask, hoping to turn his attention to better times.
‘Travelling in Thailand. We met at a beach party a mutual friend had put on.’
‘Sounds magical,’ I say.
‘Maybe,’ he replies. ‘Or maybe I was running from something else and she made that go away, for a while.’
‘Such as?’
At this he falls quiet, and I reason it’s too difficult, that the scars are too great to delve deeper.
‘She was the one thing I was certain of,’ he whispers into his glass.
‘Your wife?’
He shakes his head. ‘A girl. Here, in Paris.’ He turns to me, a sadness filling his eyes, and I urge him with mine to go on.
‘I wanted her to be my whole life.’
‘You lost her?’
He scoffs at the memory.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, reaching out and touching his arm.
He thinks quietly for a time then breathes a deep sigh of resignation. ‘I married my wife instead, and then we adopted our son.’
A thought occurs to me which I mull over before voicing.
‘Perhaps rather than running all these years you’ve actually been searching,’ I suggest. ‘Searching for something to plug the gap that both your mother and the girl left behind. Perhaps your wife senses that. Perhaps she, and your son, feel rejected in the same way you do.’
‘What are you reading?’ he asks, nodding at my book on the bar, none too subtly telling me he wants to move on.
‘It’s about freeing ourselves of fear, by finding compassion,’ I answer, opening to the pages I’ve bookmarked.
‘Sacré Coeur,’ he says, scrutinising for a time the small, gold-trimmed bookmark, which I collected after it dropped from Fran’s book in the library bar this afternoon.
‘Do you know it?’
He pauses, his eyes hazy, I imagine from a memory passing through. ‘It’s where I first kissed the girl.’
I say nothing for a moment, allowing him to revisit the memory.
‘I’ve never been back.’
‘It might be helpful to return, confront past heartaches head on,’ I suggest, and he throws back the last of his whisky. ‘We all have a habit of letting memories and emotions grow legs. You may find, when you revisit them, that things aren’t as bad as you’ve believed them to be.’
He doesn’t reply and yet I can tell he is considering the idea.
‘You may find acceptance there, and an ability to let go,’ I say, Marleen’s advice ringing in my ears. ‘After that, who knows how the future might look.’
I can’t be sure when the man leaves if he has any intention of going to Sacré Coeur or not, but as he departs, the distant memory I have of Fran mentioning a kiss at Sacré Coeur springs to the forefront of my mind.
It’s a one in a million chance, but frantically I dig in my handbag for my phone and type out the briefest of messages:
Stop what you’re doing and go to Sacré Coeur. I’ll explain later. E x