The Perfect Happiness(108)
“And Anna?”
“My darling Anna . . . Every time I look into her eyes I see my own death reflected in them. I see her pity and her sorrow. When I look into yours, I see the man I always was. I see myself as you see me. If I had told you the truth, you would have looked at me in the same way that Anna looks at me. I couldn’t bear that.”
“So, it is true.”
“I wish it wasn’t.”
She fought back tears, determined not to let Jack see her cry. “I don’t want you to leave me, Jack. I’ve only just found you.”
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” He smiled, knowing they would usually laugh at such a cliché.
“Better for whom?”
“I’m sorry, Sage.”
“Did you ever think about me?”
“I thought about you all the time. I wanted to tell you.”
“But what? You couldn’t find the words?”
“The only words that matter are that I love you.”
“I’m not sure, Jack. The truth matters if we are to trust each other.” She waited for him to reply. When he didn’t, she turned to look at him. His eyes were closed. “Jack?”
Suddenly, the house was swarming with people: farm-workers, police, ambulance men, and Anna, ashen with terror, bending over her husband as he was carried out on a stretcher. Lucy was crying over her dead dog, being comforted by Anxious, now restored and keen to be of use. The farmworkers’ wives handed around mugs of tea and biscuits. Angelica sat on the sofa in the sitting room with the chief of police, recounting what had happened, while he made his way through a large plateful of shortbread. Now that it was all over, she began to tremble with the aftershock, as cold as if it were the middle of winter in spite of the blanket that had been placed around her to protect her modesty. She suddenly wanted more than anything to call Olivier. She longed for home with a yearning so powerful it overwhelmed her.
Anna left Jack in the capable hands of the ambulance staff and came back to the house. She looked small and frail, but her face remained composed.
“Is he going to be okay?” Angelica asked apprehensively. The chief of police went in search of another biscuit.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but he’s going to live.”
Angelica bit her lip and began to cry. Anna sat beside her and put her arms around her. “But he’s still going to die?” she whispered into Anna’s ear, clinging to her like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood.
“Yes. He’s going to die.”
A vise tightened its grip on her sinking heart. “I didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How long has he got?”
“Not long. A few months. No one knows.”
“I feel such a fool.”
Anna pulled away and looked at Angelica with compassion. “If you’re a fool to love Jack, then so am I.”
“No, you’re a good person, Anna. I’m bad.”
“My dear Angelica, you’ve made him so happy. There’s nothing bad in that, at least, not from my perspective.”
“It doesn’t make you unhappy that I love him?”
“Why would it? There are many different ways to love, and the human heart has an unlimited capacity. If that wasn’t so, you wouldn’t have the space to love both your children, and your husband, and Jack. But you do. You love them all. I don’t begrudge Jack for loving you, either. Even if he wasn’t sick I wouldn’t hold him back. We don’t own each other, Angelica. We just choose to be together while we live this life here on earth. I don’t possess his heart. I have no right to. But since he is dying, he knows he has my blessing to live his last months, weeks, days, hours, as he chooses.”
“You are a truly exceptional woman, Anna.”
“I don’t feel at all exceptional, but I do know that my love for Jack has made me a better human being. It’s a good feeling to know that I love him enough to take pleasure from his happiness.”
“Olivier isn’t anything like as generous spirited as you. If he knew about . . . well, he’d be furious.”
“The greatest measure for good and bad is not a book of laws. They differ from culture to culture. What is bad in one country is considered good in another. No, the best gauge is whether or not you are hurting someone else. Adultery is not a sin in my marriage, but it is in yours because Olivier would be deeply hurt by it. Therefore, it is not right.”
“I should call him.” Angelica felt contrite.
“Yes, you should.”
“I’ll go upstairs and see if those bastards have taken my passport. I hid it in my wash bag with my rings.”