Through the gates of the garden, I catch sight of a small crowd gathered round an illuminated wall. Intrigued, and needing to compose myself, I join them.
In front of me is a large piece of artwork, similar to a chalkboard but on closer inspection made out of hundreds of inky blue tiles. On each tile are thewords,I Love You, written in a different language of the world.
Drained, I sit on one of the little green benches that surround it, and drink in the peace.
After a while, I reach for my phone, instinctively wanting to call Robin, but to say what?That partly due to your reticence,I’ve just met the man I fell head over heels for before I met you.That he wasn’t the bright, passionate man I’d remembered, but bordered on being obsessive and bitter. That when it became clear he was still interested in me, I didn’t tell him that I’m happily married. Why was that? Why did I make up a story instead?
Unable to make the call, I tuck my phone away, staring at theI Love Youwall, and find my thoughts drawn to the phrase, ‘happily married’.
Up until last week I thought I was ‘happily married’, but how can one person in a marriage be happy when they know the other is not? How can one person’s perceived happiness be so rapidly called into question by another’s perceived unhappiness? What is this thing we call happiness?
Sitting quietly, pondering my thoughts, Robin’s proposal tumbles into my mind. He’d asked me four months after we met, my period a month late, a pregnancy test in hand.
‘Marry me,’ he’d said, dropping to one knee, as I sat mutely on the side of my bed, trying to process the result of the test.
‘I was going to ask you anyway,’ he confessed, when I failed to answer straightaway.
‘But where would we live?’ I asked.
‘Here, in Edinburgh. I’ll move up. I can help run the book side of the gallery.’
‘You can’t give up your career for me,’ I said, even though I loved the idea of him being in Edinburgh, filling the space my mother left when she died a month before we met.
‘Watch me,’ he answered. ‘You can write books; I can sell books. Between us we can look after the baby. Maybe in years to come, we can travel, see a bit of the world.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, convinced that he was only asking because of the pregnancy. I wondered if we should wait until after the birth.
‘I’ve never been surer about anything,’ he said. ‘I knew, when you drove me back to the hotel the night we met, that I wanted to marry you. I’ve wanted to ask several times over the last few months but thought you’d think it too soon.’
‘Then, yes,’ I said, trembling slightly, and he’d wrapped himself around me and breathed all his peaceful energy into me, reaffirming the sense of home I felt in him, and always have felt, since the day we first met. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you more,’ he said.
I sit watching the people milling round the wall and think, not for the first time, how much Robin has sacrificed for me over the years: his career in publishing with all its contacts and good and steady salary, his flat in London, his family and friends. Rarely has he grumbled, adamant that raising Carly while developing the bookshop with all its history and prestige,and supporting my writing career, has been a good life, far better than the punishing regime of being director of a mainstream publishing imprint.
It’s only in the last decade, since Carly left university and the book trade has suffered a seismic shift, that Robin has begun to feel despondent, that resentment has crept in, his health beginning to suffer.
But when did resentment tip into entrapment?
What happened to cause the provider of my strength and peace, my sense of home, to decide that love and life was nothing other than a trap?
29.
ELSA
‘This would have pleased my wife immeasurably; from the day we met, she dreamt of visiting the Louvre,’ says Frank, seating himself at a café table under the arched arcade of the museum. He removes his hat and places it on the table, his gaze falling over the courtyard and the glass pyramid, his thoughts a million miles away. It’s too early for the tourists to have gathered or for the café to be busy; we almost have the place to ourselves.
‘When did she pass?’ I ask, hoping I’ve made the right assumption.
‘In 1992,’ Frank answers, coughing away the emotion in his throat, his eyes glazed with sorrow.
The waiter arrives, giving Frank an opportunity to regroup after choosing his breakfast of salmon and eggs, while I opt for croissant and jam.
‘Why did you never make it to Paris with your wife?’ I ask, once the coffee has arrived and Frank has relaxed.
‘We had planned to come for our honeymoon, buton the morning of the wedding I was told I was being posted to Dhofar. The following day I was on a transport plane bound for Oman rather than Paris.’
‘Did you honeymoon when you returned?’
