The Reinvention of Love

pretend?” I say. “Move over.” I slide down beside her on the narrow bed and she rolls into my arms. “There would be stars above us. Bright stars. Close your eyes and tell me when you see them.”
    Dédé squirms in my arms. “I see them! I see them!”
    “And the cart would be bumpy over the cobblestones.” I gently rock her in my arms, back and forth, back and forth. “The night air might be chill, but you would be tucked up so warm in your bed.” I tighten my arms around her. “You would be so safe and warm.” I continue to rock my daughter, closing my eyes as well, imagining the sharp stars above us, and the dank smell of the river; the yellow lick of lamplight on the bridges.
    Dédé’s breath opens into sleep, but I stay with her on the bed, keep her in my arms. She is so light and small, more like a bird than a child. My little one. My treasure.
    I am a selfish woman to want more than my children. It should be enough to care for them, to love them like this. For every other woman it would be enough. Why isn’t it enough for me?
    I open my jewellery box and shove its contents into a carpet bag. I put the letters from Charles in there as well, and some of the gifts my children have given me – drawings, a swan feather, dried flowers. I take the pencil portraits I have made of the children, and some of the first poems that Victor wrote to me, when we were newly in love.
    I will send for my dresses. I will send for my cloaks. I will send for the carpets and tapestries that belonged to my family. I will send for the few sticks of furniture that are my own. I will send for my books and paintings.
    Downstairs Victor packs for the family. I can hear him crashing things into the packing crates. Upstairs I take only what I can’t bear to be parted from tonight, for I have made up my mind that I will leave after Victor has gone to bed. I will carry Dédé from her slumber and we will walk the short distance to Charles’s house. She has fallen asleep on the story of moving, and she will wake to find that it is true, although it will not be the move she had imagined. Still, I will make sure that there are flowers and apples and cats for her in her new life.
    I will send for her bed.
    I don’t hear the door, but I do hear the voices. Victor’s booming voice, and then the fainter, more feminine voice of Charles. I stiffen, and my breath comes fast and shallow. I can’t hear what they’re saying, so I drop the carpet bag on my bed and creep from my bedroom into the hallway. I move slowly down the corridor, my feet finding the boards that don’t creak, until I am standing near the top of the stairs. From this spot I can hear everything perfectly.
    At first I think that they are talking about the play, because this is what they often talk about, Victor is always enlisting Charles to give an opinion on his writing. But I realize quite quickly that they are not discussing literature. No, Charles is telling Victor that he and I are having an affair.
    My legs buckle. I lean against the wall. I can’t believe he is doing this. Why is he doing this?
    The voices float up to me, as though Charles and Victor are in a play and I am sitting in the balcony, having paid handsomely for a ticket to this theatre.
    Charles is boasting. Victor is scornful. Charles offers proof. Victor is confused and bewildered. Charles is penitent. Victor is outraged. Charles tries to take back what he has said. Victor won’t let him.
    It has all the heightened emotion of any good drama, all the elements of a drama that Victor might have written himself.

    I remember the first time I met Charles. He came to visit Victor and me on rue de Vaugirard, when we lived above a joiner’s shop. Victor had invited him round, was ecstatic about his visit because Charles had given Victor’s poems a wonderful review in the
Globe
. Victor felt that he’d found a champion in the press, someone to review his work favourably and advance his reputation. He practically threw himself down the stairs when he heard the knock at the apartment door.
    I don’t remember what we ate, or the time of year, or whether I was pregnant yet with my first child. I don’t remember where we sat, whether there was a fire, if there was rain at the window, what I was wearing, how much wine we drank. It is strange how the details can fall away and yet the feelings remain.
    I had two feelings that night. The first was one of relief. If Victor had a friend that he could