In the end there’s only a movie?
My life is only just beginning.
REALITY DREAMING BY LINDSAY SMITH 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 97
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Edwina uncrosses her legs, knocks the table, spills her coffee. Jack reaches for a paper napkin, knocks the table, the coffee spills again.
Edwina looks at the Eiffel Tower, poking up from behind an apartment block.
- He stayed in America. He never came to Paris.
She pushes black plastic-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose.
- It was hard at first, being apart. In the end we got used to it. We got used to the distance.
She sips the cold coffee.
- He defined me, if you like. From a distance. But I went back to America. I was with him when he died.
She turns to Jack.
- You’re the only one I can talk to.
The breeze snatches a paper napkin and it dances across the table. (Edwina makes an offhand grab for it.)
- The family shut me out. For the family, I never existed.
A bus pulls into the kerb a few feet from the terrace. A dozen people are staring out the bus windows.
- They wouldn’t let me go to the funeral.
The bus door opens and shuts. The bus pulls out.
- He defined me. Not that he ever said how he wanted me to be. Not like that, it wasn’t like that.
She takes a breath.
- The reality is because he was, I was too. I’m not explaining it very well.
Edwina shifts uncomfortably on the metal chair.
- I’ve no idea who I was to him. Maybe someone quite different to who I imagined I was.
She places a hand on Jack’s arm.
- Even now I don’t know, you know it don’t you.
She laughs, then suddenly serious.
- Was it simply a performance?
She draws back.
- With you, Jack, it’s different, I know.
She rummages in her handbag. She looks up, stares blankly at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
- Did I call you Hubert?
She finds a tissue and blows her nose.
- All those long years together and we never got married. But then I never wanted to get married. His brother took the estate, every penny.
Outside the cinema Edwina asks did that really happen? Jack shrugs. Edwina stares at the movie poster. Dreyfus stands stiff-backed on the Champ de Mars flanked by lines of troops as the adjutant strips him of military insignia, breaks Dreyfus’s sword over his knee.
- Was it a joke?
They pause at the statue of Dreyfus at the metro entrance, a cartoon character holding a broken sword. A pigeon lands on Dreyfus’s head.
- Memories are the same as dreams. Can you tell the difference? Edwina asks. In the end there’s only a movie?
Jack takes Edwina’s arm. After a moment she gently pulls away.
- I’m not yours. Will the metro take us back?
Two men rush past. One man with tousled hair and a crumpled shirt, talking loudly, hands held wide.
- My life is only just beginning.