The Connoisseur

Chapter 30 - Après un rêve

Days passed.  The routine of lectures, lab sessions and essay writing began to feel vaguely normal to Sophia once again, not that she found it as engaging as before.  It was as if some certainty about daily life, even the flow of time, had slipped away from her.  Why did morning roll to evening, Tuesday to Wednesday, winter to summer, school to university, university to job, to job, to job, to old age, to death?

It didn’t have to.  She could live with him through perpetual sunsets, spring mornings, or Arabian nights, utterly sundered from the rhythms of the rest of humanity.  The Connoisseur and the Actress; two myths, wandering the ages.

She hadn’t spoken to him since Monaco, more than two weeks ago.  At first she thought it best to give him time, whatever that meant.  The revelation of his past was so clearly a difficult thing for him to promise.  Then she had called him a few times, to no answer.  Maybe he’d finally gone to a time without phone signal, magical or not.

When she went to bed each night, she thought of him.  She imagined him sleeping next to her, pressed closely but gently against her back.  Sometimes, in the half-life between wakefulness and dreams, she was convinced he was there, his kiss only a movement away.

Oh, those perpetual sunsets.

*

“Sometimes I think I should order something different,” said Julie, dipping her flatbread in the hummus.  “But then I walk in the door, and I’m like, ‘screw that, boring tastes too good’!”

“And that’s why I fancy her,” said Christian, playfully nudging his girlfriend.

“Because she’s boring?” said Roz, grinning.

The whole table waited for the response.  Sophia watched Christian squirm.

“Nope,” he said eventually.  “Because she knows what she wants.”

“Phew,” said Adam, “I thought you were going to say it’s because she tastes good.”

Everyone burst out laughing as Adam protested – “Her mouth I mean!  You guys have filthy minds” – but although Sophia laughed too, she stopped well before everyone else.

The final show of Death of a Salesman had ended triumphantly the previous night.  The Easter break was just around the corner and most of the cast and crew had decamped to San Polo’s for a celebratory night out.  Sophia sat at one end of the long table with her close friends.  The food was great, the wine was easily quaffed and the company was as lively as Sophia could remember.  She was having fun – she knew she was – but it felt qualified, as though she could only enjoy herself so much, and had to watch as her friends went further.

Julie and Christian sat opposite her.  She felt strange watching them.  As they had done during the painting session a week or so ago, every sign of their attraction to one another – a lingering look, an eagerness to chat, the supposedly-secret game of footsie under the table – made Sophia think of Alexander.  Back then, though, she had felt jealous; now she felt a strangely happy melancholy.  There was something so genuine in them, affection as well as attraction, that she couldn’t help but feel pleased for them.  Still, it threw her longing for Alexander into sharp relief.

When they had finished eating, Sophia decided to make her apologies and head home, leaving the rest of them to go drinking.  She batted away the storm of protest with claims of tiredness and work to do in the morning.  She was surprised, though, when Julie decided to leave too.  Along with Christian, they headed home.

“Don’t fancy a drink then?” she said to Julie when they left the restaurant.

“I know, I don’t know what’s come over me,” joked her friend.  “You okay with Chris staying the night?”