Honeymoon in Paris(16)
Author: Jojo Moyes

My mind hummed with my need for him. I opened the apartment door quietly, already imagining him lying in a tangle in our sheets and coverlet, his arm rising sleepily to lift them and allow me in. But when I looked, already peeling my coat from my shoulders, our bed was empty.

I hesitated, stepped past the sleeping area and into the main studio. I felt oddly nervous suddenly, unsure of my reception. ’Édouard?’ I called.

There was no answer.

I walked in. The studio was dimly lit, the candles burning low where I had left them in my hurry to quit the apartment, the long window glowing a cold blue with the early-morning light. The chill in the air suggested that the fire had gone out hours ago. At the end of the room, beside the canvases, Édouard stood in his chemise and loose trousers, his back to me, gazing at a canvas.

I stood in the doorway staring at my husband, at his broad back, his thick dark hair, before he realized I was there. He turned to me and I saw a fleeting wariness in his eyes – what’s coming now? – and the sight of it bruised me.

I walked towards him, my shoes in my hand. I had imagined hurling myself into his arms all the way back down rue de Babylone. I had thought I would not be able to stop myself. But now, in the still, silent room, something held me back. I stopped a few inches in front of him, my eyes not leaving his, and found myself turning towards the easel.

The woman in the canvas was hunched forwards, her face mute and furious, her dark red hair tied back loosely at her neck as mine had been the previous evening. Her body spoke of tension, a deeply held unhappiness, her refusal to look directly at the artist a silent rebuke. And a sob rose in my throat.

‘It’s … perfect,’ I said, when I could speak.

He turned to me and I saw he was exhausted, his eyes red with what might have been lack of sleep or something else altogether. And I wanted to wipe the sadness from his face, to take back my words, to make him happy again. ‘Oh, I have been so foolish –’ I began. But he beat me to it, gathering me to him.

‘Don’t leave me again, Sophie,’ he said softly into my ear, and his voice was thick with emotion.

We did not speak. We clutched each other so tightly, as if it were years that we had been separated, not hours.

His voice, against my skin, was ragged and broken. ‘I had to paint you because I couldn’t bear that you weren’t here and it was the only way I could bring you back.’

‘I’m here,’ I murmured. I wound my fingers into his hair, bringing my face to his, breathing the air that he breathed. ‘I won’t leave you again. Ever.’

‘I wanted to paint you as you are. But all that would come was this furious, unhappy Sophie. And all I could think was, I am the cause of her unhappiness.’

I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t you, Édouard. Let us forget this night. Please.’

He reached out a hand and turned the easel away from me. ‘Then I won’t finish this. I don’t even want you to look at it. Oh, Sophie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry …’

I kissed him then. I kissed him and I made sure my kiss told him how I adored him from within my very bones, how my life before him had been a grey, colourless thing, and a future without him terrifying and black. I told him in the kiss that I loved him more than I had ever thought I was capable of loving anyone. My husband. My handsome, complicated, brilliant husband. I couldn’t say the words: my feelings were too vast for them.

‘Come,’ I said finally, and, my fingers entwined in his, I pulled him by the hand to our bed.

Some time later, when the street below was alive with the sounds of late morning, and the fruit-sellers had made their rounds, and the smell of coffee floating up through our open window had become unbearably delicious, I peeled myself away from Édouard and out of our bed, the sweat still cooling on my back, the taste of him still on my lips. I walked across the studio, lit the fire, and when I was done I stood and turned the canvas around. I looked at her properly, at the tenderness in his line, at the intimacy of it, the perfect representation of me, of a moment. And then I turned to face him. ‘You must finish it, you know.’

He propped himself up on one elbow, squinted at me. ‘But – you look so unhappy.’

‘Perhaps. But it’s the truth, Édouard. You always show the truth. It’s your great talent.’ I stretched, lifting my arms above my head and lowering them again, enjoying the knowledge that his eyes were on me. I shrugged. ‘And, in truth, I suppose there was always going to be a day when we were out of sorts with each other. A lune de miel cannot last for ever.’

‘Yes, it can,’ he said, waiting as I padded across the bare floor back to him. He pulled me into bed and looked at me steadily from across the pillow, a rueful smile upon his face. ‘It can last as long as we wish it. And, as the master of this house, I decree that every day of our marriage must be a honeymoon.’

‘I find myself utterly bent to my husband’s will.’ I sighed, nestling into him. ‘We have tried it, and found that being disagreeable and out of sorts didn’t suit us. I, too, must declare the rest of our marriage to be honeymoon only.’

We lay there in companionable silence, my leg thrown over his, the warm skin of his belly against mine, his arm heavy over my ribs where he held me to him. I wasn’t sure I had ever been so content. I breathed in the scent of my husband, felt the rise and fall of his chest, and finally tiredness began to overtake me. I began to doze off, drifting to somewhere warm and pleasurable, perhaps made more so for where I had been. And then he spoke.

‘Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘While we are being so frank – I feel I need to tell you something.’

I opened one eye.

‘And I hope your feelings will not be too injured by it.’

‘What is it?’ My voice was a whisper, my heart braced to stop.

He hesitated for a moment, and took my hand in his. ‘I know you bought it for me as a treat. But I really do not like to eat foie gras. I never have. I was just trying to be agreea–’

But he did not get to finish his sentence. Because I had already stopped his mouth with my own.

Chapter Seven

2002

‘I can’t believe you’re ringing me from your honeymoon.’

‘Yes, well, David’s downstairs sorting something out in the lobby. I just thought today would be even more perfect if I could squeeze in a two-minute chat.’

Jasmine puts her hand over the receiver. ‘I’m going to take this in the Ladies so Besley can’t see me. Hang on.’ The sound of a door closing, then hurried footsteps. I could almost see the cramped office above the stationer’s, the heavy traffic crawling its way up Finchley Road, and smell the lead tang of fuel hanging in the sticky summer air. ‘Go on. Tell me everything. In about twenty seconds. Are you walking like John Wayne yet? And are you having the best time ever?’