Honor Thyself (24 page)

“I haven't liked the scripts in the past few years. I don't want to do stupid roles, unless I do something really funny, which I've thought about lately too. I've always wanted to do comedy, and I might one of these days. I don't know how funny I am, but I'd love to give it a try and play with it. At this point, why not? Otherwise, I want to do roles that are meaningful to me and make a difference to the people who see the films. I can't see the point of just keeping my face on screen, so people don't forget who I am. I want to be really careful about what parts I accept. The role has to matter to me, or it's not worth doing. There aren't a lot of parts like that around, particularly at my age. And I didn't want to work for the year my husband was sick. Since then I haven't seen a single script I liked. It's all junk. I never did junk, and I don't want to start now. I don't need to do that. I've been trying to write a book,” she confessed to him with a smile. They had always had interesting conversations, about movies, politics, their work, views about the human condition, and life. He was an extremely cultured, well-read, philosophical person, with master's degrees in literature, psychology, and art and a doctorate in political science. He had many facets and a razor-sharp mind.

“Are you writing a book about your life?” He looked intrigued.

“Yes and no.” She smiled sheepishly. “It's a novel, about a woman coming of age and examining her life after her husband dies. I've had about a dozen false starts on it. I've written several chapters, from different angles, and I always get stuck at the same place. I can't figure out what the purpose of her life is, once he's gone. She's a brilliant neurosurgeon, and she couldn't save him from a brain tumor, in spite of all her knowledge. She's a woman accustomed to power and control, and her failure to alter destiny brings her to a crossroads in her life. It's about acceptance and surrender and understanding herself and what life is really about. She's made some important decisions in her past, which still impact her. She leaves her practice and goes on a journey, trying to find the answers to her own questions, the keys to the doors that she has left locked for most of her life, while she was moving forward. Now she has to go back, before she can go forward again.” She surprised herself with the recalled memories of her book.

“It sounds interesting,” he mused, looking pensive. He understood perfectly that it was about her, and the decisions she had made, and so did she. The choices, and the forks in the road she had taken, and not least of it, the decision she had made about him, to leave France, and the relationship she had seen as a dead end for her.

“I hope so. Maybe even a movie someday, if I ever write it. That's a part I'd like to play!” They both knew she already had. “I like writing the book though. It gives me the narrative voice, which is all-knowing, all-seeing, not just dialogue between characters, and facial expressions on a screen in film. The writer knows everything, or is supposed to, I think. As it so happens, I discovered that I didn't. I couldn't find the answers to my own questions, so I came to Europe to find them, before I go on with the book. I hoped it would open some doors for me, and unblock my writing.”

“And did it?” He looked intrigued, and she smiled ruefully.

“I don't know. It might have. I went to see our old house the day I arrived in Paris, and I had some ideas. I was going back to the hotel to do some writing, and the tunnel happened between the house and the hotel. And it all blew out of my head, along with everything that's ever been in it. It's very strange not knowing who you are, or where you've been, what mattered to you. All the people and places and events you had collected disappear, and you're left standing alone in silence, with no idea what your history is, or who you've been.” It was the ultimate nightmare, and he couldn't imagine it as he looked at her. “It's coming back now, in bits and pieces. But I don't know what I've forgotten. Most of the time, I see pictures and faces and remember feelings, and I'm not sure how they fit into the scheme of things, or the jigsaw puzzle of my life.” She remembered more of him than of anyone else, which seemed odd to her. She remembered more about Matthieu than about her own children, which made her sad. And she remembered almost nothing of Sean, except what she'd been told, and a few high points of their eight years. Even the memory of his death was vague. And she was able to recall Jason least of all, although she knew she loved him in a kind, brotherly way. She had different feelings about Matthieu. Her memories of him made her uncomfortable and brought back the memory of intense joy and pain. Mostly pain.

“I think your memory will come back. Probably fully in the end. You have to be patient. Maybe it will give you greater insights than you would have had otherwise.”

“Maybe.”

The doctors had been encouraging, but they couldn't promise full recovery yet. She was doing better, and moving forward quickly, but there were still times when she came to a dead stop. There were words, places, incidents, and people that had disappeared right out of her head. She didn't know if she would ever find them again, although the therapists were helping her. She was relying on others to share their history with her, and jog her memory, as Matthieu had. And in his case, she was not yet sure if it was a blessing or not. What he had shared so far had made her sad for what they'd lost, even a child. “If my memory doesn't come back,” she said practically, “I'm going to have a hell of a time working in future. It may be all over for me now. An actress who can't remember lines isn't likely to get a lot of work, although I've worked with a lot of those,” she said, and laughed. She had been an amazingly good sport about the loss she had sustained, and was far less depressed than her doctors and family had feared. She still had hope. And so did he. She seemed remarkably alive and alert to him, given what had happened, and the impact to her brain.

“I used to love watching you film your movies. I went to England every weekend, when you were doing the one after
Marie Antoinette.
I can't remember the name now. Steven Archer was in it, and Sir Harland Chadwick.” He tried to jog his memory, and without even trying, Carole blurted out the name of the film.

“
Epiphany.
Christ, what an awful picture that was,” she said, grinning, and then looked stunned that she had remembered the name, and the movie itself. “Wow, where did that come from?”

“It's all in there somewhere,” Matthieu said gently. “You'll find it. You just have to look.”

“I think I'm afraid of what I'll find,” she said honestly. “Maybe it's easier like this. I don't remember the things that hurt me, the people I hated, or who hated me. The events and people I must have wanted to forget… I don't remember the good ones either though,” she said, looking wistful. “I wish I remembered more about my children, particularly Chloe. I think I hurt her with my career. I must have been very selfish when she and Anthony were children. He seems to have forgiven me, or he says there was nothing to forgive, but Chloe is more honest about it. She seems angry, and so hurt. I wish I'd been smarter then and spent more time with them.” With memory had come guilt.

“You did spend time with them. A lot of time. Too much, I thought sometimes,” Matthieu reassured her. “You took them everywhere with you, and with us. Chloe was never out of your sight when you weren't working, and she was on the set with you when you were. You didn't even want to put her in school. She was a very needy little girl. What ever you gave her, she wanted something different, or more. She was a hard child to please.”

“Is that true?” It was interesting seeing it through the lenses of his eyes, since her own were so cloudy, and she wondered if he was right, or biased by the gender and cultural difference between them.

“I thought so. I never spent as much time with my children as you did, and neither did their mother, and she didn't work like you. You were constantly glued to Chloe and worried about her. And Anthony too. I had an easier time with him. He was older, and more accessible for me, because he was a boy. We were great friends when you were here. And in the end, he hated me, as you did. He saw you crying all the time.” He looked guilty and uncomfortable when he said it.

“Did I hate you?” she asked, looking puzzled. What she remembered, or sensed from the memories she had retrieved, was agony not hatred, or perhaps they had been the same. Disappointment, deception, frustration, anger. Hatred seemed such a strong word. She didn't hate him as he sat next to her. And Anthony had been angry when he saw him, like a child who had been bitterly disappointed, or betrayed. In the end, Matthieu had betrayed not only them, but himself.

“I don't know,” he said, thinking about it before he answered. “Perhaps you should have hated me, if you didn't. I let you down terribly. I was wrong. I engaged in commitments to you that I couldn't fulfill. I had no right to make the promises I did to you. I believed them then, but when I've looked back, and I have a lot, I know that I was dreaming. I wanted to make it real, and couldn't. My dream became a nightmare for you. And for me, in the end.” He was trying to be honest with her, and himself. He had wanted to say these things to her for years, and it was a relief to do so, although painful for both of them. “Anthony wouldn't even say goodbye to me when you left. He felt his father had betrayed all of you, and then I added to it. It was a terrible blow for you and your children and for me as well. I think it was the first time in my life when I truly saw myself as a bad man. I was a prisoner of circumstance.” She nodded, absorbing what he had said. She couldn't confirm or deny the truth of what he said, but it made sense. And as she listened, she felt compassion for him, knowing he must have suffered too.

“It must have been a hard time for both of us.”

“It was. And for Arlette. I never thought she loved me, until you came along. Maybe she only discovered it then herself. I'm not sure it was really love. But she felt I had an obligation to her, and I suppose she was right. I've always thought of myself as a man of honor, and I wasn't honorable to any of you then. Or myself. I loved you, and stayed with her. Perhaps it would have been different if I hadn't stayed in the government. My second term changed everything, and your fame. Having a mistress wouldn't have been such a huge shock, others have done it before and since in France, but because it was you, the scandal would have been incredible, for all of us, and it would have destroyed your career, and mine, I think. Arlette benefited from that,” he said honestly.

“And took full advantage of it, as I recall,” Carole said, looking suddenly tense. “She said she was going to call the studio on me, and the press, and then threatened suicide.” The memory of it came back to her in a rush, and Matthieu looked embarrassed.

“These things happen in France. It is much more common for women to threaten suicide here than in the States, especially in matters of the heart.”

“She had you by the ass, and me too,” Carole said bluntly, and he laughed.

“You might say that, although I would say a different part of the anatomy, in my case. But she had me by my children too. I truly thought they'd never speak to me again if I left her. She had my oldest son talk to me, as a spokesman for the family. She was very clever about that. I can't blame her. I was so sure she'd agree to a divorce. We didn't love each other, and hadn't in years by then. I was naïve in believing she would readily agree to let me go. And my naïveté caused me to mislead you.” He said it with an air of sorrow, as Carole met his eyes.

“We were both in a difficult position,” she said generously.

“Yes,” he agreed, “trapped by our love for each other, and held hostage by her, and the Ministry of the Interior, and my duties there.” Carole realized as he said it that he had had choices, hard ones maybe, but choices nonetheless. He had made his, and she had made hers when she left. She remembered fearing that it was too soon to throw in the towel, she had wondered for years if she should have stayed, if things would have ended differently if she had, if she might have won him in the end. She had finally let it go when she met Sean and got married. Until then she had blamed herself for leaving Matthieu too soon, but two and a half years seemed long enough for him to do what he had promised, and she had become convinced he never would. There had always been some excuse, which wasn't believable after a while. He believed them, but Carole no longer could. She had given up. And his gift to her, when they spoke of it since her accident, was to tell her she had been right. Even with her scrambled memory, it was an enormous relief to hear him finally admit that to her. Before, in conversations on the phone the year after she left, he always blamed her for leaving too soon. It wasn't, she knew now. It was right. Even fifteen years later she was grateful to know that, just as she was for the things Jason had told her about their marriage. She was beginning to wonder if, in some odd way, the tunnel bombing had been a gift. All of these people had come to her from her past, and opened their hearts. She would never have known any of this otherwise. It was exactly what she had needed for her book, and her life.

“You should rest,” Matthieu finally said to her, as he saw her eyes grow tired. The police investigation had drained her, and talking about their past was taxing for her too. And then he asked her a question that had haunted him since he had found her again. He had drifted in to see her several times, seemingly casual and politely concerned, but his interest in seeing her was far less offhand than it seemed. And now that she was fully conscious and remembered what they had once meant to each other, he respected the fact that she had a choice. “Would you like me to come and see you again, Carole?” He held his breath as he asked, and she hesitated for a long time. At first seeing him had confused and unnerved her, but now there was something comforting about having him nearby, like a looming guardian angel who protected her with his wide wings and intensely blue eyes, the color of sky.

“Yes, I would,” she said finally, after an interminable pause. “I like talking to you.” She always had. “We don't have to talk about the past anymore.” She knew enough, she wasn't sure she wanted to know more. There was too much pain there, even now. “Maybe we can be friends. I'd like that.” He nodded, still wanting more, but he didn't want to scare her, and knew he might. She was still fragile after everything that had happened to her, and so much time had passed since their affair. It was probably too late, much as he hated to admit it to himself. He had lost the love of his life. But she had come back now, in a different guise. Perhaps, as she said, it would be enough. They could try.