She broke off only to ask him to close his eyes again — and when she prompted him to open them, she was standing at the foot of the bed naked, mocha and cream skin beneath the soft candlelight. She leant across and started taking off his clothes, planting soft butterfly kisses on his skin — then finally rolled her body on top of his. Her body slithered easily against him, glistening with the scented oil she'd applied, a slow and sensuous movement until he was fully aroused.
Their lovemaking was slow and gentle at first, gradually becoming more urgent. Her eyes were deep and soulful, and he traced their contour, the gentle almond slant at their corner, running the same finger slowly down her cheek and her neck. But there was something else in her eyes beyond the joy and abandon, a faint flicker of ghosts from the past that seemed to be holding her back — that the sudden urgency of her frenzy was as much to exorcize herself of them as to lose herself in joyous oblivion. A race between the two.
And as his own climax came, his head lolling breathlessly to one side, the image of the night lights and the soft tears of ecstasy on her cheeks reminded him again of the hospital. Of her long nightly vigils praying that Christian might live.
Some look in his eye, or perhaps the new tension she felt in his body — made her roll away suddenly. She too stared thoughtfully at the night-lights, one finger at her lips in contemplation. 'I'm sorry,' she murmured.
Later that night back with the Croignons in Christian's old room, the wind rose steadily. Dominic could hear it rustling through the trees and the field at the back of the house. He thought of the day that they were down by the river and the wind was high, the gendarmes placed like markers in the field. Uncomfortable, ghostly reminders; it took him a while to get to sleep.
For the next three weeks, Monique came up with an excuse for each of their regular dinner dates. On the fourth, she phoned and said that she wanted him to come over, but that it should be with them just as good friends, as it was before. 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did that night. I wasn't ready — and it wasn't fair on you. I'd perfectly understand if you didn't want to see me again.'
He came over. It was a lesson that the ghosts from her past would sometimes stand between them; and perhaps if he'd read the signals deeply, he'd have realized that that would always be the case. Part of her heart, her soul, would forever be buried with Christian and Jean-Luc.
It was another three months before they became lovers again. Monique promised that this time she wouldn't leave his bed. But over the coming months, as spring arrived, there would still be times when she felt she just couldn't. She would suddenly be cocooned again in the past, the ghosts and memories ripping her apart — and she would feel that she had nothing to give to the present, to him and Clarisse.
Dominic was always understanding when those times came, would phone her the next day to see if she was better. Her grey moods usually didn't last long, a few days at most.
As the summer arrived, they took to eating outside at night on the back patio. Monique had also found a babysitter nearby and they started to go out more. He took her to see Lawrence of Arabia and they held hands and kissed in the back row like two teenagers. On her birthday, he took her to a new restaurant in Cannes he'd discovered: Pierre T'etre. It was on a narrow lane full of restaurants that meandered gently down to Cannes harbour with small candle-lit tables on each staged terrace. Monique found the atmosphere magical.
It was late summer when he finally proposed. She looked concerned. She reminded him not only that she had a daughter but the scars the past had left on her. Part of her heart might always be dragged back there. Could he live with that?
He said that he could, but deep down he was thinking that she would gradually improve — he had seen marked improvement already in the past months — until finally the ghosts and the pain of her memories faded to insignificance or went completely. And he felt very close to Clarisse; with gifts every few visits and occasional hugs, if he was still some way from becoming a surrogate father, he was at least a favourite uncle.
Monique made him wait two months before she answered; to be sure that any impulsiveness on his part had mellowed. They were married the next February, 1967. Louis was best man and looked comical in a dress suit. The small reception was also held at Louis’, and he had trouble totally escaping from his proprietary role, occasionally barking orders at the waiters. Harrault and Levacher were the only ones present from the gendarmerie.
And Dominic was right, the ghosts from the past did subside — until their first born. A son. Apart from it being an horrific breach birth which could have cost Monique's and the baby's life, Dominic should have read the warnings when she first mentioned during pregnancy that she hoped for a boy.
The second sign that she might see it somehow as a replacement for Christian was when she asked, if it was a boy, if they could call him Yves — Christian's middle name. He began to wish that it was a girl purely to avoid any possible complications. A gain to replace a past loss: a macabre tangle of emotions that could only lead to problems.
But in the end he resigned himself to fate, consoled himself that if it was a boy and somehow managed to bury Monique's reliance on the past — that in an obscure way it might be a godsend.
He didn't know how wrong he would be.
Monique didn't tell him about the dream until two months after the birth. That moments after urging the nurses that she'd like her husband by her side, when she was fully under the anaesthetic and the doctors were fighting to save her life, she'd seen Christian.
In the dream, they were dining at Pierre T'etre. Dominic had taken her there the night she'd announced she was pregnant; perhaps that was what had made the connection, he thought. She saw Christian in the distance as she looked up the street. As she left the table and walked towards Christian, the other people and the tables in the street seemed to fade into the background — only the steps and the candlelight from the tables remained prominent. Guide lights marking the path to the solitary figure of Christian ahead, the harbour a misty silhouette far behind her. She'd seen his face clearly, seen the gentle tears in his clear green eyes. As she came closer, she thought she heard him say, 'It's all right… it's all right' — but it was barely a whisper. And in that moment she had reached out to touch him — though their hands never quite connected. She'd awoken then. A nurse was leaning over and telling her that everything was all right. 'You have a little boy.'
She hadn't mentioned the dream earlier, she explained, because at the time the joy of having Yves had consumed all else.
For the first few years, her absorption with Yves seemed naturaclass="underline" the love and affection of a doting mother to her new-born child. But as the years progressed, he began to notice how fearful and protective she was. It became an obsession: never letting Yves out of her sight, ensuring that there was never an unguarded moment in his life. Dominic railed against it. It wasn't a natural childhood, he argued: Yves was unable to have any freedom, could not play with his friends out of sight of her for any length of time.
Monique promised repeatedly that she would change, but any easing in her protectiveness was minimal. The only thing to help was the birth of Gerome a few years later — though mainly when Gerome was old enough to play with Yves, keep him company. They could partly watch and protect each other.
Her intense protectiveness became a recurring argument through their years together. She was well aware that it was a fault: 'But I could never again go through the trauma of losing a child.' She and Jean-Luc partly blamed themselves for Christian's death. Felt they'd allowed him too much freedom, he'd been let loose to play in the fields or with friends most days. Only natural, Dominic supported; he himself had enjoyed such a childhood in Louviers. She had stifled Yves terribly and now Gerome too was heavily under her protective wing.