Трейси Шевалье - The Virgin Blue

How long does it take to overcome two years of marriage, two more of a relationship? I had never been tempted before; once I'd found Rick I'd considered the search over. I had listened to my friends' stories about their quest for the right man, their disastrous dates, their heartbreaks, and never put myself in their place. It was like watching a travel show about a place you knew you'd never go to, Albania or Finland or Panama. Yet now I seemed to have a plane ticket to Helsinki in my hand.

I reached over and placed my hand on his arm. His skin was warm. I moved my hand up over the crease of his elbow and the ring of cloth where the sleeve was rolled up. When I was halfway along his upper arm and not sure what to do next, he reached over and covered my hand with his, stopping it on the curve of his biceps.

Keeping a firm grip on his arm, I sat up in my seat and brushed the hair from my face. My mouth tasted of olives from the martinis Mathilde had ordered for me earlier in the evening. Jean-Paul's black jacket was draped around my shoulders; it was soft and smelled of cigarettes, leaves and warm skin. I never wore Rick's jackets: he was so much taller and broader than me that his jackets made me look like a box and the sleeves immobilized my arms. Now I felt I was wearing something that had been mine for years.

Earlier, when we were with the others at the bar, Jean-Paul and I had spoken to each other in French the whole evening, and I'd vowed to continue to do so. Now I said, ‘ Nous sommes arrivés chez nous? ’ and immediately regretted it. What I had said was grammatically correct, but the chez nous made it sound like we lived together. As was so often the case with my French, I was only in control of the literal meaning, not the words' connotations.

If Jean-Paul sensed this implication in the grammar, he didn't let on. ‘ Non, le Fina ,’ he said.

‘Thank you for driving,’ I continued in French.

‘It's nothing. You can drive now?’

‘Yes.’ I felt sober all of a sudden, and focused on the pressure of his hand on mine. ‘Jean-Paul,’ I began, wanting to say something, not knowing what else to say.

He didn't respond for a moment. Then he said, ‘You never wear bright colours.’

I cleared my throat. ‘No, I guess not. Not since I was a teenager.’

‘Ah. Goethe said only children and simple people like bright colours.’

‘Is that supposed to be a compliment? I just like natural cloth, that's all. Cotton and wool and especially – what's this called in French?’ I gestured at my sleeve; Jean-Paul took his hand off mine to rub the cloth between his finger and thumb, his other fingers brushing my bare skin.

‘ Le lin . And in English?’

‘Linen. I've always worn linen, especially in the summer. It looks better in natural colours, white and brown and -’ I trailed off. The vocabulary of clothes colours was way beyond my French; what were the words for pumice, caramel, rust, ecru, sepia, ochre?

Jean-Paul let go of my sleeve and rested his hand on the steering wheel. I looked at my own hand adrift on his arm, having overcome so many inhibitions to get there, and felt like weeping. Reluctantly I lifted it off and tucked it under my arm, shrugging Jean-Paul's jacket over my shoulders and turning to face forwards. Why were we sitting here talking about my clothes? I was cold; I wanted to go home.

‘Goethe,’ I snorted, digging my heels into the floor and pushing my back impatiently against the seat.

‘What about Goethe?’

I lapsed into English. ‘You would bring up someone like Goethe right now.’

Jean-Paul flicked the stub of his cigarette outside and rolled up the window. He opened the door, climbed out of the car and shook the stiffness from his legs. I handed him his jacket and climbed into the driver's seat. He slipped on the jacket, then leaned into the car, one hand on the top of the door, the other on the roof. He looked at me, shook his head and sighed, an exasperated hiss through gritted teeth.

‘I do not like to break into a couple,’ he muttered in English. ‘Not even if I can't stop looking at her and she argues with me always and makes me angry and wanting her at both the same time.’ He leaned in and kissed me brusquely on both cheeks. He began to straighten up when my hand, my bold, treacherous hand, darted up, hooked around his neck, and pulled his face down to mine.

It had been years since I'd kissed anyone besides Rick. I'd forgotten how different each person can be. Jean-Paul's lips were soft but firm, giving only an indication of what lay beyond them. His smell was intoxicating; I pulled away from his mouth, rubbed my cheek along the sandpaper of his jaw, buried my nose in the base of his neck and inhaled. He knelt down and pulled my head back, running his fingers through my hair like combs. He smiled at me. ‘You look more French with your red hair, Ella Tournier.’

‘I haven't dyed it, really.’

‘I never say you did.’

‘It was Ri -’ We both stiffened; Jean-Paul stopped his fingers.

‘I'm sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn't mean to -’ I sighed and plunged ahead. ‘You know, I never thought I was unhappy with Rick, but now it feels like something isn't – like we were a jigsaw puzzle with every piece in place, but the puzzle frames the wrong picture.’ My throat began to tighten and I stopped.

Jean-Paul dropped his hands from my hair. ‘Ella, we have a kiss. That does not mean your marriage falls apart.’

‘No, but -’ I stopped. If I had doubts about me and Rick I should be voicing them to Rick.

‘I want to keep seeing you,’ I said. ‘Can I still see you?’

‘At the library, yes. Not at the Fina station.’ He raised my hand and kissed its palm. ‘ Au revoir, Ella Tournier. Bonne nuit .’

‘ Bonne nuit .’

He stood up. I shut the door and watched him walk over to his tin-can car and get in. He started it, beeped the horn lightly and drove away. I was relieved he didn't insist on waiting until I left first. I watched till his tail-lights winked out of sight at the end of the long tree-lined road. Then I let out a long breath, reached to the back seat for the Tournier Bible and sat with it in my lap, staring up the road.

I was shocked at how easy it was to lie to Rick. I had always thought he would know right away if I cheated on him, that I could never hide my guilt, that he knew me too well. But people see what they look for; Rick expected me to be a certain way, so that was how I was to him. When I walked in with the Bible under my arm, having been with Jean-Paul only half an hour before, Rick glanced up from his newspaper, said cheerfully, ‘Hey, babe,’ and it was as if nothing had happened. That was how it felt, at home with Rick clean and golden under the light of the reading lamp, far away from the dark car, the smoke, Jean-Paul's jacket. His face was open and guileless; he hid nothing from me. Yes, I could almost say it hadn't happened. Life could be surprisingly compartmentalized.

This would be so much easier if Rick were a jerk, I thought. But then I'd never have married a jerk. I kissed his forehead. ‘I have something to show you,’ I said.

He threw his newspaper down and sat up. I knelt beside him, pulled the Bible out of the bag and dropped it in his lap.

‘Hey, now. This is something,’ he said, running his hand down the front cover. ‘Where'd you get it? You weren't clear on the phone about where you were going.’

‘The old man who helped me in Le Pont de Montvert, Monsieur Jourdain, found it in the archives. He gave it to me.’

‘It's yours ?’

‘Yeah. Look at the front page. See? My ancestors. That's them.’

Rick glanced down the list, nodded and smiled at me.