The Night Before

I know Manon is going to leave me the day before she does. My French is still poor and clunky, even after six months in Paris, but I know enough to understand that she is malheureuse and that she has booked un train à Toulouse. Tu me manques. Je reviens à toi and all that. She speaks in hushed tones, even though for all she knows I’m still at work, as if the walls might run to tell me. I stand in the hallway for longer than I should, even after she hangs up. She is crying softly, muffled by the door between us. I move my fingers around on the doorknob, tracing patterns on the tarnished brass. I feel like I have stolen something from her.

When I finally open the door, she looks up at me with red-rimmed eyes and smiles.

Hi, cherie, she says. I kiss her.

She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t really kiss me back either. I tell her how excited I am to meet her friends.

Oh, you shouldn’t be. They’re very boring. She forces a laugh.

There is a knock on the door.All evening people come streaming in and out of our tiny apartment. Manon’s friends from school, home for Christmas. Manon’s friends are exciting; they are overflowing with new stories and old memories and laughter. She doesn’t introduce me to any of them. It’s so stupid, but I’m longing for the comfort of that label, to watch the shapes her mouth makes when she says it. To feel the warm embrace of this is Julie. My girlfriend. Ma copine. Ma meuf.

I try and catch her eye across the open plan shoebox, but she’s looking down and swirling her wine glass, as if she’s looking for answers in that tiny whirlpool. I stand in the kitchen and provide coffees (and later, wine) and my broken French makes it seem like I am hearing them from underwater. They ask me questions and I struggle to piece words and phrases together, like a toddler with a jigsaw puzzle. By the time I am ready the conversation has moved on. Everything is disjointed; my thoughts are slow and locked behind radio static.

Manon glows in the warmth of our Christmas lights, the same way she did in that bar that I met her in in the Latin Quarter. It was sunnier then, and her boots tap tapped on the cobblestones, and when she laughed, she threw her arms wide and nearly spilt her wine all over me.

I collapse into the sofa, letting the shouts and laughter in a language I cannot penetrate turn to a low hum around me. There is nothing I can say to her, in front of all these people, to make her change her mind.

When they are gone, she curls up on our armchair. I look at her, thinking of all the times that evening I’d longed for this moment. If I could just get her alone, just speak to her, I could fix it all. One conversation and she would fall back in love with me. I suddenly become acutely aware I have nothing to say to her at all. What did we used to talk about? In bed, in the mornings, on the phone. What did we say to each other?

Tu me manques, I say at last, excruciatingly aware of the heavy accent weighing down my words. She looks at me quizzically, then bites her lip. Je suis là, non?

She extinguishes her cigarette and goes into the bedroom. I wait a while before I follow her. Her hair is splayed across the pillow, mousy brown and tangled in knots. Beneath her closed eyes, half a smile flickers across her lips. I wonder what she’s dreaming about.

My goodness. This is going to hurt quite a bit. I slide out of bed and tiptoe over to the kitchen, as if any sudden movement will make her shatter or disappear. I can’t sleep. I could, if I wanted to, but if I sleep it will be Sunday and Manon, and her indent in our mattress, will be gone. I whisper the word out loud, savouring its taste in my mouth. Our. I pour myself a coffee, watching the brown liquid stream from the espresso machine with my chin in my hands on the counter. I take the cup, staring intently at the bubbles floating on the murky water. Like tiny islands in the sea. Sitting cross-legged at the end of our bed, I sip the coffee and watch her chest rise and fall. I want to wring this evening dry, to squeeze every moment from it.

If I stay awake, she won’t leave me, not really.

I fall asleep eventually, of course, and in the morning, she is gone and the snow has begun to fall outside.