Part 15 (1/2)
”I can't. I've had a bath.”
”You always do. It's in your blood. You know it's not like normal blood, it's green.”
”You're silly.” She considered telling him what Jean-Paul had said. But it sounded so arrogant, a.s.suming a young man was flirting with her. She was so much older and she wasn't pretty. She had hands like sandpaper and unruly hair; she didn't wear makeup and fas.h.i.+onable clothes. She was probably as far from Jean-Paul's tastes as it was possible to get. ”I think those girls. .h.i.t it off with Jean-Paul,” she said instead.
”I think Donald hit it off with Samantha,” he replied, chortling at the recollection.
”Mummy was furious. I don't see any harm in enjoying the company of a girl. It makes him feel young. It's not like he's flirting in an embarra.s.sing way.” There was a pause as her mind turned back to Jean-Paul. ”They're in the cottage,” she continued. ”I hope they're having fun.”
”I wouldn't look too closely if I were you. Those girls have definitely been over the guns a few times.”
”Do you think?”
”Oh yes,” he replied knowingly. ”They'll give Jean-Paul a run for his money!” He turned to embrace his wife. ”So, we roll about a bit, do we?” He breathed into her neck and the bristles on his face tickled her skin. She wrapped her arms around him and returned his kiss. He was warm and soft and comfortingly familiar. How could Toddy refer to her husband as an old slipper? If she tired of making love to Phillip she'd be tired of life.
”Mummy,” came a small voice from the doorway. Both parents sprang apart as if scalded. ”I can't sleep.” It was Angus, in his blue airplane pajamas, hugging his toy rabbit. Phillip sighed resignedly, kissed his wife and left the bed to sleep in his dressing room. There wasn't room for the three of them to sleep together comfortably. Ava watched him go with regret, then patted the bed.
”Come on, darling. Mummy will look after you.” Angus crawled beneath the blankets, closed his eyes and fell asleep immediately. Ava lay on her side holding her child's hand, stroking the soft skin with her thumb. Her heart flooded with tenderness before she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
XVI.
The intrepid robin on my windowsill. Morning trips to break the water on the birdbath.
November brought shorter days and cold winds. At night the gales moaned around the house like mischievous ghosts bent on frightening the children into their parents' bed. It hardly rained. The air was dry, the sky cerulean, the light bright and crisp upon the red leaves of the sweet gum trees. Jean-Paul and Ava busied themselves planting the wild garden. As the days moved towards Christmas they grew together like trees, barely aware of their intensifying friends.h.i.+p. They began to antic.i.p.ate each other's actions, to understand without having to explain, and they laughed all the time. Having thought that they had nothing in common, they realized that they had a great deal. Above all, they were both enchanted by the magic of the garden and the secret world of the flora and fauna that inhabited it.
When the children returned from school Ava didn't like to work unless she was doing something that included them. Time with her children was precious. Ava knew they liked to have Jean-Paul around. He took time with them and played games that were always creative and original. They'd watch birds, drawing them in notebooks their mother gave them, writing their habits in their large, childish scrawl. Poppy collected feathers and stuck them onto the pages along with leaves of interest. She would have stuck creatures in there too had her mother not explained that they were living animals to be treated with respect. ”Just because they are small, doesn't mean they don't feel as we do. If you were to look down on us from a great height we would be as small as them, but we feel pain, don't we?” So Poppy carried around a shoe box in which she collected worms and slugs to look at closely before setting them back in the earth.
Jean-Paul helped the children sketch. He taught them how to observe and put down on paper what they saw. Angus, although only six, had a natural talent, taking his sketches back to the house to color in at the kitchen table. Ava framed the best and hung them in her bedroom.
One afternoon in early December they went on an expedition to the woods. The cows had been let out into the field beyond the thyme walk. The children liked to tame them, putting out their hands so the animals could lick their skin with their rough tongues. Ian Fitzherbert had taken the time to explain why they had tongues like that and how they had five stomachs in order to make milk. The children considered all animals their friends, even the hairy spiders that Ava secretly loathed. Every time Archie collected one for his jar, she was tempted to scream, but she knew she'd only teach her children to fear them. So she smiled proudly and told him how clever he was and how deliciously juicy they were with their fat little bodies and swift legs as they scurried about the gla.s.s. She showed them webs, especially after a rainfall when they sparkled with gems, or in winter when the frost made them glitter. She reminded herself that spiders were ugly by no fault of their own. How could she love gardens if she didn't love all who lived in them?
That evening they carried baskets to fill with ”treasure” from the woodland floor. Poppy searched for feathers, many from the pheasants and partridges Ian Fitzherbert reared, but also those of pigeons and smaller birds. The boys preferred more substantial things, like conkers, but they had gathered those in October, polis.h.i.+ng them and tying them to string for their games. Now there wasn't much to collect except mushrooms. Ava wasn't sure which were edible and which were poisonous so she forbade the boys to touch them, encouraging them to find other things like unusual leaves, or spent cartridges from shoots.
As they busied themselves among the trees and bushes, Jean-Paul and Ava walked together up the path that cut through the middle of the wood. They didn't feel the need to talk. They watched the children, praised their efforts when they ran up to show what they had found, but otherwise they walked in the comfortable silence of old friends. The light was mellow as the sun hung low in the western sky, hitting the tops of the trees and turning them golden. It was chilly down there in the shadow, but Ava wore only a T-s.h.i.+rt and her face glowed with warmth. They watched the changing colors of sunset, moved by the melancholy of the dying day. Finally they reached the edge of the wood. Jean-Paul stopped walking.
”There is great beauty in the tragedy of sunset,” he said.
”It's because it's transient,” she replied, gazing across the field. ”You can enjoy it for a moment only and then it is gone, like a rainbow.”
”I suppose it is human nature to want what we cannot have.”
Ava pretended not to notice the significance of his words.
”I love this time of year,” she said brightly, walking on. ”The weather is crisp yet there are still leaves on the trees, turning into wondrous colors. Midwinter makes me sad. Nothing grows, everything is dead.”
”I admire you,” he said suddenly.
Ava laughed. ”Whatever for? I don't think there's much in me to admire.”
”You have a loving family. Your children are happy. Your home has a magical warmth to it. And you, Ava, you have an inner beauty that grows the more I get to know you.”
”Really, Jean-Paul, that's very sweet. I've never thought I have an inner beauty.”
”You do. You have a quality I have never seen before. You are contradictory. You seem very confident and yet I sense that inside you are not as you appear. You are a great storyteller, a good entertainer, and yet you prefer to be alone. You pretend you like spiders but I can see that they frighten you. You are a good woman. For that I admire you the most.”
”Thank you,” she said briskly. ”I'll tell Phillip. He'll be pleased someone admires me.”
”I don't think he would be pleased to know another man is falling in love with his wife.”
Ava was silenced.
”You don't have to answer. I know that you are married and that you love your husband.”
”Then why tell me?” she asked crossly. This declaration would spoil what had been an enjoyable friends.h.i.+p.
”Because one day you might surprise me and tell me that you feel the same way.”
She thrust her hands into her pockets. ”I'm far too old for you,” she said, trying to make light of it, not daring to look at his face. ”You're my employee. You're not allowed to fall in love with your boss.”
”I cannot help myself.”
”You're French, you fall in love with everyone.”
”You are wrong. I have never lost my heart to anyone.”
”Please, Jean-Paul, save your flirting for Lizzie and Samantha. They are more your age and they are free to love you back.”
”Don't you see? I feel nothing for those girls. They are nice enough. But you are wise and creative and original. There is no beauty for me in faces that show nothing but their youth. I enjoy every line on your face, Ava, every expression, because it is always changing. Their faces are blank by comparison. They haven't lived. You are an old soul. You have lived many lives, and so have I. I feel I have been looking for you all my life, Ava. That the hole in my heart is your shape exactly. It keeps me awake at night.”
They walked on, the silence now awkward between them.
”I'm sorry if I have made you sad,” he said at last. ”That was never my intention.”
She looked at him. His face was drawn into a frown and his eyes seemed to have sunk into shadow. She felt a wave of compa.s.sion.
”I'm sorry, too,” she replied, realizing that this wasn't a silly joke. As a friend, he deserved to have his feelings treated with respect. ”I'm sorry that I can't love you back,” she added softly.
”Do you want me to leave?”
”Not if you want to stay.”
”I want to stay. I wish I hadn't said it now. I wish I hadn't destroyed our friends.h.i.+p.”