The Last Dress from Paris(100)
“You asked me recently why none of this was enough for me, Albert, and I owe you an answer. You are not enough for me. I’m not sure you ever were. But then you never showed me the real you, so perhaps that’s hardly surprising. I’m still not sure who that man is.” She maintains eye contact. He needs to know she means it. She’s not saying it to be unkind. It’s the truth, and she wants him to hear it.
“It’s very easy to be principled when you’re cushioned from the hard realities of life, Alice, as, unlike me, you always have been.” Even now he can’t help but patronize her. “The ones you are about to experience for yourself. You can’t cope without me. You know it.”
Alice feels no threat from his words. They land on her and slide straight off, having lost all their impact. He’s no longer under her skin, like an unreachable itch, scratching away at her.
“Losing Antoine will break my heart, I won’t deny it. But walking away from you will be a relief. There are many things I can live without. But I can’t spend another day in a house so devoid of love. Anything will be better than that.” She reaches for the holdall.
“You’ve made your position clear.” He stands, looking for all the world like he is about to shake her hand and move on with his day, having lost a business deal, not a wife. “You’re on your own. I’ll start divorce proceedings at the first opportunity.” He reaches again for his newspaper. “Perhaps on your way out you’d be kind enough to tell Chef not to bother with dinner.”
Eighteen months of marriage, dissolved in less than eighteen minutes.
* * *
? ? ?
“Oh, Alice, I hoped you’d come. Let me take that. Goodness, you haven’t lugged it up four floors, have you?” Anne takes Alice’s bag and ushers her in through the small faded wooden door of her apartment. Alice smiles as she feels the warmth, from being inside and from Anne’s good heart, wrap itself around her.
“Anne, your job. I’m so, so sorry. I hope he wasn’t too awful to you. I’ll do everything I can to help you find another, you know I will.”
“Don’t worry about any of that. Please, let me take your coat. I’d like you to meet my husband. Sébastien!”
Alice looks up to see a hand extended toward her. “It’s so lovely to meet you, Madame Ainsley.” Sébastien looks shy, not quite meeting Alice’s gaze, but she is relieved to see from the softness of his face, the way he looks to Anne for what to say next, that he is not displeased to see her here. And he could be, given her husband’s treatment of his wife. The invasion of her privacy, the callous sacking she has suffered because of the things Alice has asked her to do.
“Please, call me Alice; I’m not likely to be Madame Ainsley for much longer.” She doesn’t want him to think of her as that woman.
“I know you and Anne have lots to discuss, so I will leave you to it. I have a few things to do before dinner, but perhaps we can talk more then?”
Alice’s eyes flick to the holdall at her feet, suddenly embarrassed by its presence.
“Thank you, Sébastien, that would be lovely.”
* * *
? ? ?
“I have made the spare room up for you, Alice. It’s yours for as long as you would like. I’ve already discussed it with Sébastien, he’s very happy for you to stay too.” Anne leads her down a central corridor toward a small bedroom on the left-hand side. “It’s not much, I’m afraid, but it’s yours. You’ll be comfortable here.”
Alice angles her head into the room, which is furnished basically, with a neat dresser, an armoire, and a single bed that is piled high with folded quilts. Anne has tucked something into the frame of the mirror that sits on the dresser. Alice smiles as she realizes it’s the sketch of the dress Anne promised to keep safe for her. There is a small casement window overlooking the rooftops of the city, no shutters, just a thin curtain that she can see will let in the morning light and a radiator that is rattling out its own tune. A room she could be sad in, if she weren’t so grateful to be here.
“How did you know I would need it?” She thinks of Anne, returning for the last time from the residence and preparing the room, checking the bedding was freshly laundered. The great act of kindness that took when she must be so worried about her own future.
Anne smiles, perhaps trying to convey a lack of judgment on her part. “Everything was escalating so fast, Alice, beyond your control. But I’m not sure I realized, until I saw Albert with my handbag, just how far he was prepared to go. Have you heard from Antoine? Does he know about the baby?”
Alice sits on the edge of the bed, suddenly feeling so deflated, exhausted by the day’s events, unable yet to share details of the fresh rejection by her own mother.
“I believe he does. I’ve heard nothing from him directly; there’s been no response to my letter, no attempt to talk to me when he could have done. For now, I continue to hope, but . . . I fear I’m on my own.”
Anne places Alice’s bag at the end of the bed and takes a seat next to her. “You’re not alone. I’m here and I will help you for as long as you need it. And leaving Albert was the only thing you could do. He was slowly but surely suffocating you. I’ll contact Patrice and arrange for him to have your things sent over. We’ll cancel your immediate appointments and make sure everything is taken care of, I promise. But for tonight, please, enjoy dinner with Sébastien and me. Everything will seem better in the morning.”