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Authors: Helen Humphreys
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adultery.”
“It can?”
“We will not let this affect us. We will go on as before.” He slaps me on the shoulder and I spill some of my wine. “We will speak no more of this. Your affair with my wife will end. You and I will be better friends than ever. I will have words with Adèle.”
Portrait of Madame Victor Hugo by Louis Boulanger
The next morning a package arrives at my house. It is from Adèle. I recognize her handwriting. I slip the string from the parcel, rip open the paper. There is no letter inside, just a folded piece of white lace. For a moment I don’t know what it is, but when I unfold it I can see that it is a veil. Adèle has sent me her wedding veil.
ADELE
HE COMES TO THE HOUSE. We go to the gardens. We meet in the church. We meet at the hotel. I am always running, always late, skirts in hand and breathless.
I lie to Victor. I lie to the children. I lie to myself. He’s just a friend. It is just a friendship that has blossomed out of season. Unexpected, but a gift, and something to treasure, not cut down.
The lies only go so far. Victor is easy to deceive because he does not believe me capable of adultery. I tell my sister my secret, and I use her as my excuse. Victor does not question my new and fervent interest in spending time with Julie, although he does get annoyed if I leave the children too long in his care.
The children accept whatever I tell them. They do not doubt me. They have no cause. I adore them and they know it, and they have little interest in anything beyond this.
No, it is the lies I tell myself that are the trouble. Because, of course, I know that they are lies.
Once, when I was young, I ran after my sister through the woods. The branches snagged my clothing and caught my hair. The hem of my skirts dragged in the mud. I felt both that I was moving as fast as a bird in the sky, and that I was trapped in the forest cage. When I burst out into a clearing, my sister still ahead of me, I threw myself onto the grass with such relief atbeing both stopped and free, and just lay there, face down, until Julie turned back to look for me.
This is how it feels with Charles. My family, my life with Victor, all the demands and expectations of family life feel like those branches tearing at my body, and though I move as quickly as I can, I am always trapped inside them. But Charles – Charles is the secret meadow, fragrant with sweet grass, where I lie for as long as I dare, and when I rise, I am renewed enough to enter my life again.
It is not a friendship. That lie was the first to go.
He keeps me alive. I fear myself without him.
Charles, like Victor, likes talk. He constantly wants to recite poetry, to compare me to a flower or fruit, or a hillside at dusk. I couldn’t care less about the words or the romance. I’ve had enough of fancy language. I don’t want language at all, in fact. I want the slap of bodies in the act of love. I want the salt muscle of a kiss.
Charles likes to talk, but with Charlotte I can have my way. She is not so interested in words. Often she seems bewildered by being Charlotte, and has to concentrate on the business of a woman – holding her skirts, walking with dainty steps – all of which, thankfully, takes away her desire to compare me to a rose bush.
Charlotte yields to me, and the pleasure in this is exquisite, addictive. I have never felt such power and I am greedy for it. The moment she leaves my side, I long for her return.
But I wish that I believed my lies, because I cannot reconcile my desire for my lover with the fact that I have become an adultress.
When Charlotte and I meet in the church, we arrive and depart separately. I always ask her to leave first, and I sit there in the pew until I can no longer hear her tentative footsteps on the stone. Then I get down on my knees and pray for a forgiveness I don’t deserve.
My husband and I were childhood sweethearts. This was back when I believed that the love poems he wrote me
“It can?”
“We will not let this affect us. We will go on as before.” He slaps me on the shoulder and I spill some of my wine. “We will speak no more of this. Your affair with my wife will end. You and I will be better friends than ever. I will have words with Adèle.”
Portrait of Madame Victor Hugo by Louis Boulanger
The next morning a package arrives at my house. It is from Adèle. I recognize her handwriting. I slip the string from the parcel, rip open the paper. There is no letter inside, just a folded piece of white lace. For a moment I don’t know what it is, but when I unfold it I can see that it is a veil. Adèle has sent me her wedding veil.
ADELE
HE COMES TO THE HOUSE. We go to the gardens. We meet in the church. We meet at the hotel. I am always running, always late, skirts in hand and breathless.
I lie to Victor. I lie to the children. I lie to myself. He’s just a friend. It is just a friendship that has blossomed out of season. Unexpected, but a gift, and something to treasure, not cut down.
The lies only go so far. Victor is easy to deceive because he does not believe me capable of adultery. I tell my sister my secret, and I use her as my excuse. Victor does not question my new and fervent interest in spending time with Julie, although he does get annoyed if I leave the children too long in his care.
The children accept whatever I tell them. They do not doubt me. They have no cause. I adore them and they know it, and they have little interest in anything beyond this.
No, it is the lies I tell myself that are the trouble. Because, of course, I know that they are lies.
Once, when I was young, I ran after my sister through the woods. The branches snagged my clothing and caught my hair. The hem of my skirts dragged in the mud. I felt both that I was moving as fast as a bird in the sky, and that I was trapped in the forest cage. When I burst out into a clearing, my sister still ahead of me, I threw myself onto the grass with such relief atbeing both stopped and free, and just lay there, face down, until Julie turned back to look for me.
This is how it feels with Charles. My family, my life with Victor, all the demands and expectations of family life feel like those branches tearing at my body, and though I move as quickly as I can, I am always trapped inside them. But Charles – Charles is the secret meadow, fragrant with sweet grass, where I lie for as long as I dare, and when I rise, I am renewed enough to enter my life again.
It is not a friendship. That lie was the first to go.
He keeps me alive. I fear myself without him.
Charles, like Victor, likes talk. He constantly wants to recite poetry, to compare me to a flower or fruit, or a hillside at dusk. I couldn’t care less about the words or the romance. I’ve had enough of fancy language. I don’t want language at all, in fact. I want the slap of bodies in the act of love. I want the salt muscle of a kiss.
Charles likes to talk, but with Charlotte I can have my way. She is not so interested in words. Often she seems bewildered by being Charlotte, and has to concentrate on the business of a woman – holding her skirts, walking with dainty steps – all of which, thankfully, takes away her desire to compare me to a rose bush.
Charlotte yields to me, and the pleasure in this is exquisite, addictive. I have never felt such power and I am greedy for it. The moment she leaves my side, I long for her return.
But I wish that I believed my lies, because I cannot reconcile my desire for my lover with the fact that I have become an adultress.
When Charlotte and I meet in the church, we arrive and depart separately. I always ask her to leave first, and I sit there in the pew until I can no longer hear her tentative footsteps on the stone. Then I get down on my knees and pray for a forgiveness I don’t deserve.
My husband and I were childhood sweethearts. This was back when I believed that the love poems he wrote me
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