them around her so tightly she could feel the warmth of his breath upon her forehead, the softness of his velvet jacket against her cheek. And when she awoke, fresh from his embrace, she remembered, remembered it all: the heady sensation, the hunger for another’s touch, the rise and fall of each wave, and that feeling of complete abandonment, where only the senses were alive, and yet lost at the same time.
Lately, she had begun to enjoy that blurred landscape which often bridges slumber and wakefulness, that place of semi-consciousness. She liked to linger there, in that glow, aware it would come to her with more substance if she remained within it. Hoping they would come to her if she remained within it. For it was then, in that place, she could hear them: cherished voices, whispering and murmuring from another century. Occasionally she heard music—a piano, someone singing—beyond the open window, drifting across the garden, in the next room or upstairs, faint and impossible to place. And once or twice of late she had known with absolute certainty that he was there, standing so close to her she could sense his presence with all of her being. Close enough for her to feel that frisson once more.
When Sylvia, Jack or one of the maids entered the room, she kept her eyes firmly shut, as though in defiance of her own physical decrepitude as much as her circumstances. And perhaps because when she finally opened them nothing ever looked quite as it should. Things were all wrong, she was all wrong, like a sole survivor washed up on a foreign land with the material contents of her life tipped out around her, sad mementos, conspicuous and out of place.
In conscious moments, she revisited her most favorite times, working through them slowly and in detail, backward and forward, forward and backward, savoring each second of a moment again and again. And there was Lucca. No longer a place, but a memory, a time. Sacrosanct. Fortified.
She was careful never to approach unhappy memories, or venture back too far. Once, it had been easy, or easier, to steer clear of those dark places and difficult times. But now, like coming to the end of a road, a place where there is no further way forward, she had no choice, she had to turn and look back upon her path. She saw herself at different stages as different people: the young woman of almost twenty in Rome; the woman of thirty, mistress of a castle in France; the woman of forty, part of the beau monde of Paris; mother of two sons, wife of three men, lover of one: all different people with different lives. And that time before Rome, the place her journey started, obscured from view by those people she had become, had once been.
Numbness had come with old age, but to her bones, not to her heart. And though in public she was careful to keep her emotions in check, to maintain—or try to maintain—a ready smile, a relaxed countenance, in quiet, solitary moments, moments of reflection, and often when least expecting it, she was sometimes plunged under, submerged, left gasping for breath; drowning in a great swell of sorrow and joy and pain and rapture. And it was this, the memory of senses and sensations, that made her weep. She wept for lost children, she wept for lost love; she wept for a life slowly ebbing, and for things still inexplicable to her.
And now, at this great age, she wept for her mother too. Not simply in sorrow at her distant passing, or the loss of her, but in need of her. The child within the aged body and creaking bones, the little girl who had not been allowed to say goodbye, finally wanted to be heard. Mother. The word itself had piercing resonance. For she, too, had been robbed of that particular title.
“Mother . . . mother? Grandmother?”
She opened her eyes.
“You’re in darkness,” he said, lighting the lamp on the table beside her.
“I must have drifted off.”
“You were talking about your mother.”
She blinked, staring at the shape of him,
Lately, she had begun to enjoy that blurred landscape which often bridges slumber and wakefulness, that place of semi-consciousness. She liked to linger there, in that glow, aware it would come to her with more substance if she remained within it. Hoping they would come to her if she remained within it. For it was then, in that place, she could hear them: cherished voices, whispering and murmuring from another century. Occasionally she heard music—a piano, someone singing—beyond the open window, drifting across the garden, in the next room or upstairs, faint and impossible to place. And once or twice of late she had known with absolute certainty that he was there, standing so close to her she could sense his presence with all of her being. Close enough for her to feel that frisson once more.
When Sylvia, Jack or one of the maids entered the room, she kept her eyes firmly shut, as though in defiance of her own physical decrepitude as much as her circumstances. And perhaps because when she finally opened them nothing ever looked quite as it should. Things were all wrong, she was all wrong, like a sole survivor washed up on a foreign land with the material contents of her life tipped out around her, sad mementos, conspicuous and out of place.
In conscious moments, she revisited her most favorite times, working through them slowly and in detail, backward and forward, forward and backward, savoring each second of a moment again and again. And there was Lucca. No longer a place, but a memory, a time. Sacrosanct. Fortified.
She was careful never to approach unhappy memories, or venture back too far. Once, it had been easy, or easier, to steer clear of those dark places and difficult times. But now, like coming to the end of a road, a place where there is no further way forward, she had no choice, she had to turn and look back upon her path. She saw herself at different stages as different people: the young woman of almost twenty in Rome; the woman of thirty, mistress of a castle in France; the woman of forty, part of the beau monde of Paris; mother of two sons, wife of three men, lover of one: all different people with different lives. And that time before Rome, the place her journey started, obscured from view by those people she had become, had once been.
Numbness had come with old age, but to her bones, not to her heart. And though in public she was careful to keep her emotions in check, to maintain—or try to maintain—a ready smile, a relaxed countenance, in quiet, solitary moments, moments of reflection, and often when least expecting it, she was sometimes plunged under, submerged, left gasping for breath; drowning in a great swell of sorrow and joy and pain and rapture. And it was this, the memory of senses and sensations, that made her weep. She wept for lost children, she wept for lost love; she wept for a life slowly ebbing, and for things still inexplicable to her.
And now, at this great age, she wept for her mother too. Not simply in sorrow at her distant passing, or the loss of her, but in need of her. The child within the aged body and creaking bones, the little girl who had not been allowed to say goodbye, finally wanted to be heard. Mother. The word itself had piercing resonance. For she, too, had been robbed of that particular title.
“Mother . . . mother? Grandmother?”
She opened her eyes.
“You’re in darkness,” he said, lighting the lamp on the table beside her.
“I must have drifted off.”
“You were talking about your mother.”
She blinked, staring at the shape of him,
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