Chicken Skin – Chapter XVIII

Christine had finally decided that she would broach point-blank the issue she had to face.

She would talk to Antoine, would demand that he leave his wife, and come and live with her. She would bring the scene that Antoine wanted to avoid at all costs about. She would exhaust last the subject he rejected by means of evasive and deliberately vague answers.

He was lying to her. He was claiming that nothing had changed in his life, but Christine was distinctly feeling that there was something different, something that threatened her.

She would assert the feelings she had for him, her presence by his side in the moments of worry or of distress, as in the moments of anger. Hadn’t she always supported him in the face of adversity or of difficulties? Hadn’t she waited patiently? Hadn’t she accepted without complaining to be sacrificed when he lacked of time?

Christine was waiting for Antoine, her spirit full of her coming speech, her head filled with the words she had looked for, clarified, weighed, chosen and finally repeated. She knew exactly what she would tell him. And, that night, precisely that night, he would choose her, he would realize, he would become aware of her love for him and of her devotion. He wouldn’t hesitate. He wouldn’t be able to hesitate.

When Antoine went into the living-room, smiling, unaware of the words that were going round, ready to pounce, in Christine’s mind, she got to kiss him just as she usually did. The outside calmness of Christine was painstakingly hiding the boiling of her soul.

She invited Antoine to sit down: she wanted to talk to him. She felt that he suddenly got on his toes.

Antoine sat down though, probably sensing that he wouldn’t be able to find any loop-hole. He didn’t feel at ease.

He waited silently that Christine speak first.

She breathed deeply before she began.

First she asked Antoine how were his wife and his son. Then, after he had answered, she held on the question of knowing what was the current state of his relationship with Judith.

Antoine was aware that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the conversation that was foreshadowing, that he would have to answer. He would have to tell the truth to Christine and he was afraid of her reaction. Would she be able to accept to hear him tell her about the reality that he had managed to conceal till then? Wasn’t she going to reject him, to leave him?

He ended up explaining to her that Judith had finally decided to get milder, to become more pleasant, more bearable. He omitted all that aspect of the subject that regarded the intimate relations that had started again with his wife. He confusedly felt that Christine was convinced that she had the exclusivity of this part of his life.

He added that he thought that his wife had quite simply been scared that he end up taking a mistress and deciding to leave her.

Christine seized the opportunity: didn’t Antoine have the intention to leave his wife?

There was no way. He didn’t want to wreck a marriage that had given its fruits. He had a home and a son, in one word a family that he didn’t want to hurt, nor to abandon. He couldn’t envisage doing it even less so given that his relations with his wife were just getting better and that it precisely made him more happy.

Christine alluded to the arguments, not that distant yet, of the couple. All that, Antoine had told her. He told her to what degree his wife could be cruel and unfair. She had thought that he would finally leave her.

Antoine didn’t ever even think about it. He had wanted a normal life, fairly busy. He had looked for what his wife had finally refused to give him. That was all.

Christine kept quiet for a while, shaken by the truthfulness of Antoine’s answer. She realized that she wouldn’t get anything from him that evening, that he wouldn’t head to the direction she had wanted him to take with her. She didn’t want either to leave him or to provoke anything irreversible.

Antoine, seeing her distress, got closer to her. He sat by her side on the couch. He put his arm around Christine’s shoulders, and, pulling her against him, he asked her what was happening to her.

 Christine didn’t know. She was feeling worried, vulnerable. She was frightened that he finally leave her for his wife and that he go back to her.

Antoine found her silly. He didn’t understand how she came to imagine that he be able to get to such an extreme. He had never thought deserting her. She was his oasis of calm, his refuge. And, that, he didn’t want to lose.

Christine finally let herself go against Antoine. She returned his embrace, relieved.

The conversation hadn’t taken the twist she had wanted. She had thought she was stronger than that, that she would be able to decree, to order, to demand. In the end, she had just begged a few caresses. She caught herself contenting herself with some reassuring words and the absolute certainty he just gave her that he wouldn’t desert her; he didn’t even think of it. She had become, month after month, too important for him, for him to seriously think to live without her.

At bottom, she had to let time work it out in her place. It was surely by her side. Little by little, she would make him grow more attached to her, she would become irreplaceable, more important than everybody, than his wife, than his son. She would become more vital than the air he breathed.

And she would give him this son he was talking about, he was wanting.

And, one day, he would realize that he also had a home where she was, a sweeter, a sounder, a more loving family.

Then he would leave Judith and Arthur for her, Christine, and for their child.

In reality, imperceptibly, Christine had just taken an even greater part in Antoine’s double life.

Without knowing it, she was entering deeper in the underground world, the muffled and secret world, of the mistresses, of the ones who are always here, but who are also always concealed.

She didn’t become aware that she had just mortgaged what should have been the most beautiful years of her life.