Soft Limits Page 19

  The sight of him takes my breath away. God, how I’ve missed him. I feel tears prickle my eyes and an almost overwhelming desire to throw myself into his arms. Then details start to bleed into my brain: how tired he looks, his pale and drawn cheeks, eyes red-rimmed and sunken. Surgery shouldn’t do that, should it?

  “Frederic, you...look terrible.”

  He nods and makes a yes, well, what can you do, face. Of course. He’s been told not to talk.

  “Is it the surgery? What happened?”

  He digs his phone out of his jeans pocket and types something into it. A moment later, mine buzzes. Flu. Caught it in the hospital.

  “Oh.” Faced with the mundanity of his malady and the vague goal I had to “face Frederic,” I suddenly don’t know what to say. Maybe he’s perfectly fine about his voice and Sabine was just being dramatic. I mean, she was an actress. But when I look into his eyes I see a haunted look that I’ve never seen there before. He’s heartbroken, and he’s sick.

  Putting my hand on my cabin bag, I take a deep breath and say, “Well, it’s a good thing I’m here. I’m going to look after you until you’re better.”

  I’m fine. Go back to England, you’ve got things to do. He wraps his arms around his body and his teeth start to chatter. It’s not even cold out.

  “You’re not fine. Now move, back inside.” I push him ahead of me and we go upstairs.

  The flat’s not untidy, but it’s got an unkempt, stale feel to it, the cushions lying haphazard on the sofa and dirty dishes in the sink, mostly mugs of half-drunk coffee. The piano is closed and there’s dust on the lid. His sheet music is nowhere to be seen.

  I turn around and see Frederic leaning against the kitchen counter, hunched over and bleary-eyed and looking like he might fall down at any moment. Still, he finds the energy to type, very slowly, Sabine called you, didn’t she? She shouldn’t have. I meant to reply to her texts but I’ve felt like death.

  “Don’t worry about that now. Go to bed.”

  Please, Evie. I don’t deserve this and you know it.

  “It’s not a matter of deserving and not deserving. And I promise I won’t punch you in the face till you’re better, all right?”

  I help him into bed and he’s shaking beneath the covers, his face alarmingly pale. There are empty blister packets of ibuprofen and paracetamol on his nightstand.

  “When was the last time you took any pain relief?”

  He makes a motion with his hand that I take to mean yesterday.

  “Oh, Frederic,” I mutter. The glass next to them is dry and I wonder if he’s so gaunt because he’s becoming dehydrated. I make him drink a glass of water, take another blanket from the closet and lay it over him and then rummage through his en suite. I locate a hot water bottle, and I boil the kettle in the kitchen and fill it, and make a hot drink out of some fresh ginger, lemon and honey I find in the fridge.

  Tucking the bottle under the blankets and the drink into his hands, I say, “I’ll go to the pharmacy and get you some cold and flu meds. Are the spare keys in the kitchen drawer?”

  He nods, and then grabs my wrist and holds on with surprising strength. He looks at me for several long moments. Then he gives a frustrated grimace as if he’s forgotten he can’t speak and his hand falls back onto the covers. I wait, wondering if he’s going to reach for his phone to text me, but he turns his face away, his eyes closing.

  I inhabit a role over the following days in his flat: the blustery, impersonal matron, administering meds and fluids, taking his temperature and changing the sheets. On the second day I get him into the shower, though he comes back after barely a minute, white-faced with exhaustion, limbs trembling. He’s got the towel knotted around his hips and water is beaded on his chest, and I’m struck by how not long ago I saw this sight almost every day, and how I used to lick the wetness playfully from his collarbone. But I force myself back into the matron mentality and help him into a T-shirt and track pants, as he doesn’t seem to own any pajamas.

  Of course he doesn’t. He always slept naked, remember?

  Shut up shut up shut up.

  We go on like this for four days, him sleeping almost round the clock, me looking after him and trying to work on my thesis. His flat feels cold and impersonal without the knowledge that he’ll walk through the front door, green eyes gleaming, and gather me into his arms with a breath-stopping kiss. It’s too quiet with the piano standing silent. This isn’t the Paris that I love.

  I’ve only been able to get soup down him and on the fifth day I head off to the market for more fresh ingredients. It’s the middle of the afternoon and I should be talking to a couple of first-years about the Shelleys and Lord Byron at Lake Geneva, but instead I’m debating the merits of ham hocks versus chicken bones. I opt for the bones, as the flavor of ham hocks might be too assaulting to a queasy belly.

  Then my phone buzzes.

  Why are you doing this. You must hate me.

  My stomach clenches, as it always does when Frederic looks at me or, it seems, texts me, nowadays. I think for a long time what to reply. I’m doing this for him, but I’m doing this for me, as well. I refuse to crumple like I did when Adam cast me aside. I was so afraid of who I was because of him. So ashamed. I’m here because I need to prove to myself that I’m not that frightened person anymore.

  Because I’m not afraid of you. And I’m not afraid of me, either.

  He doesn’t reply, and when I get back to the flat he’s asleep.

  On the seventh day he’s stronger, sitting up in bed and eating toast, and on the eighth I decide it’s time for me to do what I came here to do.

  Going into his room midmorning, I draw a chair up to his bedside and place a stack of books on the floor. “I need to talk to you about three things. Just three, because I know you’re tired, and then I’ll leave you alone.”

  He’s sitting up in bed reading on his phone, but he puts it on the bedside table and turns his attention to me. His cheeks are still thin but there’s some color back in them. If we were still together I’d lovingly shave him so that he looks like himself again, but it’s not my place to do things like that for him anymore.

  I take a deep breath. “First of all, the book. Your book. I’m going to finish it.” I put up my hand when he frowns and leans forward for his phone. “No, I am. I signed a contract, and I’m a professional. There’s only about a quarter of it left to do so I’m just going to write it. What happens with the manuscript is up to you, but perhaps people would like to know how all this happened for you.”

  He’s frowning slightly but he doesn’t move, so I swallow and turn to the next thing. I have to keep going, even though I know it’s going to get harder the longer I keep speaking.

  “The music you were composing? It’s in one of these books. I don’t know which one, but you’ve got time on your hands now. Work it out, and finish that composition.” I haul all the Gothic novels I brought with me onto my lap and show him the spines. They’re my study copies, all well-thumbed. Many have my writing in the margins and most have little plastic index stickers poking out, marking the most significant or beautiful passages. “Some of them you may have read, and some of them...” I trail off and finish in a hoarse whisper, “There’s so much more for you to do, Frederic. Don’t give up, please.”

  I place the books on his nightstand, taking my time, knowing that I’ve come to the most daunting part.

  “All right. The third thing.” I stare at my hands in my lap, wondering where to start. “It breaks my heart that you can no longer sing. I understand some of the things you said to me now, though I didn’t at the time. About your fear that your life, once broken down into parts, is worthless. But you were a whole person before you could sing and you’ll be whole again. It wasn’t your talent that made me fall in love with you. No, don’t,” I say quickly as he reaches for his phon
e. “You don’t need to say anything and I don’t want you to say anything. It’ll actually make this part easier, knowing you can’t talk.”

  He watches me, his mouth tight with emotion.

  I take a few steadying breaths, willing my throat not to thicken. Tears prickle my eyes just the same and I find I’m looking at the ceiling as I speak, willing them not to fall.

  “You hurt me, Frederic. You shoved me out on a precipice and you left me there alone. I always knew it was going to end but I thought you’d be gentler. You pushed me deep into this vulnerable place, and I let you, wanted you to, but I feel like you did it in order to keep me from seeing what you were hiding from me. I’m trying to forgive you. I’m trying very hard. I just wish you’d told—” I stop as the tears are falling and I swipe at my face.

  When I look up he’s staring at me, pain filling his eyes. He reaches for his phone and I stop him again. “No, don’t. Please. That’s all I wanted to say. I’m packed, and I’m going now. There’s more soup in the fridge, and—”

  And on that absurdly mundane note I flee from his room, and out of his life forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  Evie

  “Evie, that tinsel looks terrible. I’m taking it off. No, I am, you’re just no good at this.”

  I roll my eyes and step away from the tree. Mona’s always been the Little Christmas Dictator so I don’t know why I bother. Accepting the glass of mulled wine she shoves at me, I take a sip and admire her deft hands as she works.

  “Well, it’s all right, I suppose,” I concede with a wrinkle of my nose when she’s done. She pokes her tongue out at me, knowing it’s perfect and knowing I think so, too.

  It’s the first Saturday of December, which means we’re all at home to decorate the tree. Therese is writing Christmas cards at the table and Lisbet is hanging every bauble we own on her fingers, one by one.

  November was a difficult month, but as the nights have closed in and the festive season has drawn closer, I’ve been feeling better about things. I think it’s because I faced Frederic and what happened between us, rather than just swallow it down like I did with Adam. I think of him every day and wonder what he’s doing. Whether he took my advice about the novels. He hasn’t sent them back, at least.

  Mostly, I just miss him, though I do that with my mouth closed and my eyes firmly on the future. There’s no point looking back.

  His book, thankfully, is done. It was painful writing the last few chapters, as they covered a lot of the time that I spent with Frederic. I decided to put everything in, even the things I know were meant to be off the record like his almost manic need to be at the studio or sitting at the piano; his worries about being good in the show; his despondency whenever he contemplated his future. I put in the lines about him not knowing what happens next, despite his assertion that it wasn’t going in the book. I put in his anxiety that his life was worth less than the sum of its parts. As I said to him months ago, none of it is carved in stone. He and the editor can take it out again if they like. No skin off my nose.

  The only thing I didn’t put in is that his biographer is desperately, hopelessly in love with him. I obsessively read the final draft, determined to excise any taint of tenderness or passion from between the lines. I’m a professional. I might not have behaved professionally to my subject but I can try to make up for that now.

  Dad tells me it’s going to be published and I’ve had the second of three advance checks. The last will come through on the publication date and meanwhile my bank account is looking very healthy indeed. I haven’t seen the final version of the book yet, though, and I don’t know if I want to.

  I flop down on the sofa next to Lisbet, who asks for a sip of my mulled wine. “Just one,” I say, passing it to her. Looking at my little sister I remember how angry I was the day on the train platform about how we all call her Betty-bun. “Lisbet. Do you mind us calling you silly nicknames?”

  She looks at me in surprise. “Why would I mind?”

  “Well, we’re treating you like a baby, and you’re not.”

  The mulled wine tasted, she passes it back with a grimace that says, Could use some more sugar. “I never really thought about it. I like them.”

  “You tell us if you ever don’t like it, all right?” I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. Pulling it out, I glance at the screen.

  And then stare at it. Frederic d’Estang.

  “I got an email from Frederic,” I say automatically to the room. Mona turns away from the Christmas tree and Therese looks up. Silence stretches, long and tense.

  “Well? What does he say?” Mona asks. She was so smug when I came back from nursing Frederic in Paris, saying she knew it would be cathartic for me. Rubbish. She just enjoys bossing people around and playing devil’s advocate. Though she’s right, it did help. Saying what I needed to say to Frederic helped me more than I thought possible. I didn’t get anything in return, but I find I haven’t needed it.

  Looking at my phone, though, I realize his name still has power over me. A lot of power. I open the email with a shaking finger and see that it doesn’t contain anything but Frederic’s email signature and an audio file labeled Udolpho. My heart thumps a little faster. The Mysteries of Udolpho was one of the Gothic romances I left with him in Paris, a story of sweeping continental landscapes, a forbidding castle, a malevolent villain. Snatches of Frederic’s music play in my head and I feel myself grow excited. Yes, it could fit.

  I explain what it is and Therese holds her hand out for my phone. “Give it here. I’ll plug your phone into stereo so we can all hear it.”

  I hesitate for just a moment, and then hand it over, and the first haunting bars of piano music fill the air. I close my eyes, remembering Frederic sitting at the piano, head bowed, hands roaming over the keys, the sweet sounds filling a hot Parisian night. It’s so vivid I can taste it. I can taste him.

  The music rolls dramatically onward, building and building, characters and settings emerging one by one, and though they’re formed only by notes I recognize them immediately: the heroine, Emily, graceful and brave; the ominous Montoni; the forbidding, lonely castle. It’s good. It’s very good. It could be a film score or the basis of a musical theater production—

  But then the music suddenly cuts out. I hear a crackling, and then a woman say, “Je pense qu’il est temps d’essayer. Là...peux-tu me dire quell que chose, Frederic?”

  Therese, who studied French a lot longer than the rest of us, translates. “She thinks it’s time to try and is asking him to speak. Who’s that, Evie?”

  My mouth feels very dry. “It’s Giselle, Frederic’s voice coach.”

  There are a few seconds of dead air and we hear someone breathing. They clear their throat, and then I hear Frederic, his voice raspy, say, “Evie.”

  Mona and Therese dart looks at me, their eyes wide and wary. I find I’m gripping the arms of my chair.

  “Evie, I’m sorry.” These are his first words since his operation. He’s recorded them for me.

  Giselle sounds uncertain now. “Jeté laisse tranquille.” There’s the sound of footsteps receding.

  “I’ll leave you alone,” translates Therese.

  I’m rooted to my seat, not knowing if I want to laugh or cry. He can speak again. He’s halting and hoarse but it’s unmistakably his beautiful voice. I know he’ll never sing again but he can speak, and I selfishly, desperately, have craved the sound of his voice.

  “I’m sorry and I miss you.” He sighs, exasperated. “I feel stupid talking to a microphone like this. I don’t like being recorded. Not without music behind me and words to follow.” He pauses to clear his throat. “I haven’t been able to speak for weeks so you’d think I have something more profound than this prepared, wouldn’t you?” There’s a long silence, and then another sigh. “Merde, je me sens comme un idiot.” />
  “He feels like a fool,” Therese whispers.

  I got that one, more or less.

  There’s a crackle on the recording, and then we hear, in a slightly clearer voice, “It’s four days later now. I had to stop. Do I sound better?” I hear a hesitant smile in his voice, but then he covers it with a cough. When he speaks again it’s all in a rush. “Evie, chérie, I didn’t think you couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t that. Please don’t think that. It was me. I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to do what I thought I needed to do if you told me to give up, too. But I should have known that you would never have thought less of me because of the truth.”

  Another long silence. Frederic clears his throat. Mona and Therese aren’t looking at me now, and Lisbet on my lap is chewing her lip.

  “I never gave you a chance, and I should have. But encouraging you to be little and inno—”

  “Turn it off!” I leap off the couch and grab for my phone, ripping the auxiliary cable out of the phone jack. Mona and Therese stare at me, startled. I should have known he’d start talking about that stuff. Hugging my phone to my chest like I’m covering an open wound, I run from the room.

  “Are you going to call him?” Therese yells after me.

  Of course I’m not. Nothing has changed.

  “Evie,” Mona says, her voice following me as I thunder up the stairs. “His first word was your name. You can’t say that doesn’t mean anything.”

  I leave the rest of the message unlistened to on my phone for days, wary and painfully curious about it at the same time. Finally I can’t help myself and I listen to it, in private, lying on my bed with earbuds in. I start from the beginning, listening to his playing, seeing the scenes of the familiar book behind my closed eyelids brought to life by his composition. It’s wonderful. I know little about music but it seems to me he has as much natural talent for composing as he once had for singing.

  Then Frederic’s voice envelops me, and thought it’s roughened, it’s deep and comforting as it ever was.