BED & BREAKFAST

CHAPTER 6 - "Australian women ugh!"

Marie's voice broke through my pissed-offedness. (Could she read minds too?)

"Daniel and I, we met once in Marseille, where he was taking a holiday. It was ahhh... amour at first sight! Both of us married. But not happy, oui? So we found each other on the internet and... voila!" She spread out her arms, showing off their surroundings.

Then she touched his arm, her fingers trailing from elbow to wrist, my eyes following. Intently! His other hand gently cupped hers. Their eyes excluded me and everything else included in this universe of ours. I felt an intruder. An alien? Yet also welcomed- there was no evidence of my presence perceived as an intrusion. Huh?

Most of you know my history. You may have picked up from my more recent writing (or lack of it) a shift in me as well; a tentative yet continuing venturing back into life. A new man. (A new not-so-belonging-to-me man but hey, you appreciate love however it arrives, right?) So, after almost two decades of solitude, I'd poked my head out. Tested the air and... the rest will be added to my memoir someday. Right now, I am however in that precarious phase of having developed deep feelings - including physical attraction here - with someone not only far in distance but also not available for my... partaking. And this, after a stupendously long celibate state of being. I am, therefore, somewhat highly attuned and intensely sensitive to any and all references to 'love' and romance and, yep, lust...

"So you were both married when you met. It must have been difficult?" I had to get some conversation back! At least lead it towards a more 'moral' perspective given my own current circumstances?

"Certainment!" she replied. "Two families becoming three families, it was not easy, at the beginning." And, here is where she blew my mind: "People... you know... they fall in love, they marry or live together. Mais! They forget to live TOGETHER!" (I capitalised the word to show you how much emphasis she placed on it.) "They start not to talk much, then not to touch too much. Then they forget to hug when they greet. Then careers, children and now- she likes this, and he likes that. One day... they are strangers living together. But not TOGETHER!"

Daniel had been silently nodding. Then he spoke: "You can't explain some things, Elise. Why we met when we did, why it was only then, you know, we both saw our empty marriages? Before we met, we wouldn't have believed this existed, or even that it was possible." He too extended his hand, including his surrounds in the movement. It too came to rest on hers. (As did my eyes damn it.)

Whoa. I sat back. No sneaking bites of toast, no sipping the delicious French coffee, (did I mention the delicious French coffee?) no movement at all. I let their words seep in. As happens moments like these- when I hear something I deem profound (yeah, others might call it common sense) my brain trawled history looking for evidence and... blow me if she wasn't right!

Everywhere I sought internally, I saw example after example of this "living together but not living TOGETHER!" My brother's first marriage, both of my own (technically not to be counted since both never made it past the few years mark), my parents, extended family members, friends and friends of friends, of friends... What I was witnessing between this couple was unlike anything I'd observed and stored in my head. I simply held no opposition to her argument.

Rien! (I know this word particularly well, due to my Edith Piaf period which followed my Neil Diamond period.) I tried to image every couple I knew and place them at a scene where I witnessed the last time I saw them kiss, hold hands... even just gaze into eyes from across a room. Nope. Nothing. A comforting arm or two at funerals was all I'd retained from my every encounter with them. Those of my generation- sure I recalled their early romances, their weddings, their honeymoons their- that's where it all bloody stopped! Like some real-life puppeteer stepped in and settled them on couches in front of TVs, each mutely staring at whatever sitcom nonsense (accompanied by canned laughter) was fed them.

And this, before mobile phones, before the internet, before screens became 'besties' and nannies and assistants; easily and speedily delivering everything from a pizza to a late-night peep-show... Clickbait hosts inviting one and all to submerge in limitless sources of amusement and distraction. Memes, affirming all that everyone already knows- thereby negating learning anything new- just the same tired old quotes vamped up for 21st-century mass consumption.

... Damn, I was off again, doing my thing. My worst habit really. Grasping at one sentence, sometimes a single word in a conversation and running with it to destinations unknown in my head and of little relevance to whomever I am conversing with. Damn! I pulled back. Focused on the conversation at hand once more.

"So you are saying love is overtaken by life? By the living imposed on us? That we have no control?"

"No!" She said that very, very loudly. I sat up straighter.

"Life is for fun. Two people together, if they cannot be fun, if they settle, you know, how people think: I am married now, I captured my man, my woman, there is no need for me to try anymore."

"Try?" What was she saying? Love was a journey, not a destination? Was I reading her right?

Daniel took over. "You are familiar with the word 'assume' Elise? People fall into the trap of assuming their relationship is secure. What Marie is saying... they just stop. Whatever they did prior to marriage or these days, living together, they stop doing it. They think there is no need for it anymore. But the minute you stop doing something, it changes everything else. That's what they don't factor in, you know?"

I guess part of me knew. And part of me grudgingly agreed: A change in one direction, effected change everywhere else, sure, I bought that. The other part still rebelled, however, seeking to find something whiffy between them, something not quite right. It had to be there. I needed it to be there!

Was it as simple as this then? Life, and its monotony getting in the way of love? I've talked about complacency being a killer before (my own personal nemesis). 'Tracky dacks' replacing the former lacy lingerie; 'take-outs' taking out the place of once intimate candlelit dinners; the bed- once simply another place for closeness becoming the primary one... Yet still, this was like a revelation to me. A thunderbolt?

Before I could properly feel its full impact, however, Marie had more to add:

"Australian women ugh! I have no real friends here. They are too... how you say... casual but also- merde! How do I explain? Not loose? No caring about how they look for their husbands or how to keep it interesting oui? You understand? Of course, then the husband finds a looser one. Or the wife finds a better lover, one who can make her looser. Bye bye!"

Bye bye? Hang in a minute! Flashes of former partners in crime- partners of partners who were apparently according to Marie "not loose" catapulted into my head. That's why they sought me out then? Was I the "looser one?" Fuck!

It stung, I won't hide it. Brought to question why the recurring pattern in my life. Why I deliberately chose (or was deliberately chosen by?) a certain type of man. Not necessarily the same type- personalities differentiated each one but a commonness also united them?

Then, of course, the writer Elise reared up. The conundrum: Do I live life in order to write about it or do I write as a consequence of that which I live? The former attests to my being in control and instigating, the latter, me out of control and reacting.

Political incorrectness and possibly racial discrimination also flitted into my brain, I am sure of it. I am as much a product of conditioning as the next woman- despite my loud proclamations to the contrary and my believed staunch resistance to said conditioning. Simply, I gasped. Her avid pronouncement and her 'down her French nose'(Okay, racially also discriminatory but- come on, rather fitting?) statement regarding my fellow Aussie females- it too stung. Momentarily. Then it flitted right out again.

Loose? What did she mean loose? (How was I looser?)