-Sophie-
“Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Je veux dire ton nom toute la nuit, toute ma vie.” That’s what Alan said to me last night; that he wanted to say my name all night, all his life. I smile again now to myself as I replay it, stroking Alain’s hair as he lies next to me in the bed of my apartment. Classic pepper and salt, his hair is, like the perfect blend of seasoning from his kitchen. The early morning sun is streaming in through the shutters. If I lift my head I can look out over Canal Saint-Martin. It is all perfect.
Even more perfect because nobody knows we are here. OK, some people know. The post office knows. The école knows. And Alain’s son knows. But nobody who matters. Nobody who could threaten to disrupt this way of life.
Alain’s eyes open slowly. I watch as they find their focus: me. Immediately there are extra crinkles around them as he begins to smile.
“Sophie,” he says. “Ma chérie.”
He reaches up to kiss me. Not a deep kiss – a morning kiss. But after our lips move apart, we stay close together, noses rubbing, like two loved-up twenty-somethings. Not two people pushing sixty. Still – that’s Paris for you. Then he is separating himself from the covers, feet on the floor.
“Alors, ce matin, c’est le petit-déjeuner ‘Alain’ au lit.”
I try to protest, tell him not to bother, that I don’t need breakfast in bed. I even get as far as putting my own feet on the floor. But he insists, nudging me gently back.
“Il faut que tu voies mon trait de génie,” he says.
I joke back that I’ve already seen his stroke of genius – felt it, rather, last night. He tuts at me lovingly and leaves the room.
Sweet that he thinks of himself as a genius. I’m so glad he’s not. That sounds horrible. But I’ve done genius. Loved, lived and mourned genius. Now, I’m happy with a moderately talented human being who takes pride in his passions. I don’t need to be in awe any more. That doesn’t make a marriage. It makes a silent hell filled with noise. Mealtimes with no conversation, every other time a noisy dialogue between two hands, neither of them mine. After a while, however much awe there is, it’s not enough. You snap.
I wonder what they’d think, if they could see me, the ones who matter. The ones who could shatter this, like one of Alain’s decorative sugar figurines. They’d think that I’d somehow betrayed everyone – Max, Guillaume, myself. But they thought that anyway. Apart from Miriam. Little, loyal Miriam. I must have been a flash of excitement in that drab life. I hadn’t even realised until it was time to go. Every morning, she’d said hello to me, every day waved goodbye. Came to all the school concerts, when I conducted. Even got me to autograph the flimsy little programme that the kids designed. And that day, when I went to the school to collect my things, she opened doors and carried boxes. While everyone else stood around and stared. And whispered. There was little Miriam scurrying along beside me. And what did she say when I left, got into that taxi? “I understand, Sophie. Good luck.” There were tears in her eyes, and I even felt them prick in mine as the taxi moved away. It felt like a true friendship, lost and yet utterly fulfilled. That’s why I’d written to her. I felt I had to. To show it had affected me, that show of affection, at such a time. I didn’t send the letter from my local post office though – I’m not stupid. You couldn’t trace me to the area round Opéra. And Miriam won’t have shown that to anyone, not my biggest fan Miriam. No, she’ll have kept that letter safe, as her secret, all these years. And always will. I’m sure of it. No one else knows I’m here. Not even Gillian and John. The debt of gratitude I owe them is too great to be repaid by a letter. Even though they might have guessed I came back to France, they don’t know where.
And now he is back again, Alain, my génial not-quite-genius. He’s looking a little nervous, but proud too. Like he’s brought me something really quite special on that tray he’s carrying. And he’s even put a cloche serving dish over the food. Must have brought that with him – I don’t have one. Fancy moving in your cloche before you’ve even moved in your toothbrush, I want to say. But he is looking at me all earnestly, so I don’t.
Instead I sit up in bed, and let him put the tray down on my lap. Then he sits down next to me on the bed. With a slight bow of the head, he whips off the cloche and says “Madame, je vous en prie!”
So I look at the plate to see what delight he is asking me to eat.
And I see that he’s not asking me to eat at all.
On the plate is something much more sparkly than his finest sugar-coated pancakes.
It is a ring. He wants to marry me. He wants to cement this new existence.
“Oui! Oui, oui, oui!” I cry as I kiss him, deeply this time, and put the ring on my finger. My second life. My second husband. He doesn’t need to know there was a first. Or how he died.