The Last Dress from Paris(99)
“Then for goodness’ sake, go! What better offer could you possibly expect from him?” She’s incredulous, entirely missing the point.
“You’re not listening. I don’t want to be with him. I’m in love with Antoine.” Nothing is going to change the fact, no matter the level of her mother’s outrage.
“And who is this Antoine? Where is he? What does he have to say about it all?”
“I haven’t been able to speak to him.” Her mother has taken her onto much less sure ground.
“But he knows you are pregnant with his child?” She hears her mother close a door. Perhaps her father is at home too.
“I think so, yes.”
“Alice, do not leave Paris. Stay and do whatever it takes to salvage your marriage and forget that this Antoine ever existed. There is no better advice I can give you.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I can’t stay married to Albert?”
“No, I’m not.”
“He’s horrible, Mother. He’s mean and threatening and doesn’t love me at all.”
“And do you think my years of marriage have all been picture-postcard rosy? This is the world in which we live, Alice. Accept it. You can’t change it. And you can’t stay here, if that’s what you’re thinking. Your father will never hear of it. And neither will I.”
Alice opens her mouth to appeal, to plead for her mother’s understanding, but is cut off.
“It is your husband’s job to support you, not ours. How on earth do you intend to cope financially if you leave Albert? How will you support a baby? Where will you live? Have you thought any of this through properly?”
“I was hoping you might . . . help me, Mother. At least let me stay there for a while until I have made some other plans.” Now the tears are coming, spurred on by the knowledge that at her lowest possible moment, when she needs her help the most, her mother is unwilling.
“Absolutely not. There is nothing to stop you from staying in Paris, in my opinion.” Neither of them says a thing while her mother silently seethes, completely unmoved by Alice’s tears.
“Do not come here, Alice, I mean it. It’s the worst thing you could do. Your father will never recover from the disappointment.”
Alice thinks about the man she once called Daddy. A bright afternoon, a couple of years ago when she walked into the same sitting room her mother stands in now, interrupting a meeting between her father and Albert. They both rose from the sofa. She remembers the firm handshake, like they’d just completed the long negotiations of a complicated business deal. Then a shared smirk that felt at her expense. The following day Albert proposed. Her father wasn’t immune to Albert’s charms, either—but did he have any hint of the deep sadness he was committing his daughter to?
“It’s Christmas Eve, Mum.” She’s not sure why she bothers to point this out; it’s hardly likely to make any difference.
“Even more reason to pull yourself together. When you have spoken to Albert and ironed all this out, call me back and reassure me that I didn’t completely fail as a mother.”
Then the line goes dead.
* * *
? ? ?
“I’ve asked Chef to prepare something special for dinner tonight. Let’s call it a little celebration, shall we? I’ve taken the afternoon off. I thought we’d eat around seven, if that suits you?”
Alice stands in the doorway of the drawing room where Albert is sitting, newspaper open, resting on the roundness of his belly. She places the small holdall at her feet and stares at him, waiting for him to fully register her. This isn’t going to be loud and aggressive. It’s going to be sad, for her at least. Maybe there will be a moment many years from now when he might look back and wonder how it came to this.
His eyes fall to the holdall.
“Ah. It seems you have other plans.”
“I’m leaving, Albert. I’m leaving you.” She waits for a reaction, to prove that she actually said it.
He closes the newspaper, placing it beside him, crosses his legs, and folds his hands into his lap.
“Really? And how long do you think it will be until you are back?”
She’s not going to give him time to intimidate her. She’s not looking for a confrontation, even to get anything off her chest. She just knows she needs to leave, and despite everything, there is still a vein of decency within her that makes her stand here and tell him that, face-to-face.
“I’m not coming back. Ever.” She watches the statement settle on him, the faintest twitch of his eyebrows the only unreadable response. And remarkably, there is still a small space in her heart for forgiveness. Is this entirely his fault? She married the wrong man. Could it be that he is the right man for someone? Another woman out there who might enjoy having every decision made for her, to know she only had to wake every morning to respond to someone else’s needs, that she could be relieved of the necessity for ambition, opinion, and romance. Are there women who can live like that? Was his crime—where this all began—that he mistook her for one? Maybe he feels every bit as duped as she does.
He snorts. “Is that right?” He’s smiling, but she knows his blood will be warming, his heart starting to thump a little harder. She senses the nastiness bubbling just beneath his clean-shaven, moisturized skin.