The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(139)

‘I’ll come up to London.’

She laughed. ‘And stay where?’ She placed her hand on his but he withdrew it. ‘It’s been a lovely affair. We’ve enjoyed each other. All good things come to an end.’ He looked at her with dejected eyes and she realized that she was being flippant. She adjusted her face to reflect his and sighed heavily, the way women do when they don’t know what to say.

‘You have no idea how I feel, Alicia. I love you. I can’t live without you.’ His throat shuddered as he swallowed while the weight of emotion on his chest began to suffocate him. He looked at her with glassy eyes and the corners of his mouth twitched as if he was trying his best not to cry. ‘I thought you were capable of feeling. But now I realize that I was wrong. You don’t feel like other people. You’re too selfish to allow yourself to be touched because you can’t bear to be vulnerable or to suffer pain. But I’ve been touched by you and now I can’t live without you, in spite of your faults.’

Alicia shrugged. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I was going to ask you to marry me,’ he said in a small voice, reflecting on the magnificence of the spring day that had seemed such a perfect setting for his proposal.

‘Well, I’ve answered,’ she said, growing impatient with him. ‘I can’t say I’m sorry any more because there aren’t any other words for sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

She stood up and brushed down her jeans, adjusting the silk Hermès headscarf that one of her suitors had given her.

‘So this is it?’ said Florien, blinking at her in astonishment. ‘This is what I get in return for loving you like I do?’

‘What do you expect?’ she asked, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head with irritation.

‘I don’t know, but not this.’

‘Well, if you don’t know, how am I supposed to? God, Florien, I’ve just finished our affair, what do you want, a medal?’ He reeled back as if she had struck him. ‘I’m going back to London now. Marry Leonora, she’s more your type and, unlike me, she wants to be a gypsy,’ she said, stomping off through the bluebells.

‘I thought we had a future together,’ he protested, following her.

Alicia spun around, her eyes blazing. ‘Look, Florien. I have never loved you, okay? I desired you. I enjoyed you. You’re a good lover. I’ve had many. Don’t think for one moment that while I was in Switzerland or in London I was saving myself for you. No, I took lovers when I felt like it. Lots of them. They all fulfilled me in the same way that you did. The only difference was that I liked you. You were more than a body, Florien. You made me laugh. We had fun together. But that doesn’t mean I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It’s the seventies, for God’s sake.’

Florien watched her stride through the trees until she was out of sight. He stood there with his mouth agape and his eyes bulging. He had never felt so humiliated in his entire life. So used and so discarded. He was too furious to cry so he let himself go like an enraged animal in a cage, kicking the surrounding trees and pounding his hands against the bark. Finally when he was sweating and exhausted he collapsed onto the ground and put his face in his hands and wailed. His whole body felt hollow, as if she had scooped out his insides with a spoon and left only his skin. He hated her with all his strength and yet hate is love’s other face. When he had calmed down he realized that if he had loved her before he was now entirely consumed by her.

Florien retreated into his gloomy world. He no longer smiled and Leonora was once again cast aside. She knew what had happened although neither Alicia nor Florien ever mentioned it. He was so miserable that she found herself hoping they would patch up their differences and get back together, then at least he would be happy and he would notice her again. But the weeks rolled on into months and soon a year had passed and they had seen nothing of Alicia.

The following year when the bluebells once again occupied the woods like a vast blue army Florien began to speak again. He remembered the day Alicia had spurned him as if it were yesterday and the wound was still raw and bleeding. But his misery was damaging his health. He’d grown pale and thin and his glossy black hair had begun to fall out. Then one day he was shaken from his stupor by his own, haggard reflection staring miserably back at him from the mirror. He gazed upon the strange face in horror, scrutinizing his now bearded chin and the haunted look in his eyes. If Alicia were to see him now she wouldn’t recognize him. What’s worse, she would despise him for having let himself go. If he wanted to win her back he would have to shave, scrub up and look as if he was enjoying life without her. No one respected a man who didn’t respect himself.