Elodie cursed as the nagging doubts resurfaced. She banged the steering wheel in her fury. Was she being worn down into making one final attempt at reconciliation with other members of the family, and Jean in particular, or should she give him up as a lost cause?
The latter seemed to be the only sensible option, after many failed attempts; his feckless and faithless behaviour more than she could bear. To start afresh, and with someone else, seemed the only option and a means to protect herself from any emotional fallout that always followed their arguments. The last one, that had caused their split, had seen them hurling insults at each other and she had given voice to her deep sense of betrayal by his infidelity and casual dismissal of her reaction. She had been there once too often, with him, and wondered if any man was worth so much trouble.
She was in a foul mood, alone, and drove the little Peugeot hatchback to its limits; felt the thrumming of the cobbled city street, through its suspension, as she neared the intersection and before the turn that would take her out of the city and into the rushing frenzy of traffic that was the highway and beyond. It was more of a raceway and was taking her away from the gallery and her workplace; the studious management of restoring treasured works of art and their frames; the loving attention to classic pieces of furniture or the making good of irreplaceable wall hangings that had survived 'two intrusions by the Boche', as one client had told her, unashamedly. Her opinions were not the least bit dulled by her country's capitulation to those in Brussels, and their ultimate masters.
'Merde! I've done it again! Merde!' she screamed banging her hands on the wheel and letting rip, her beaded necklaces swinging with every movement that she made, her matching bracelets sliding over smooth arms. It was a white-knuckle ride, more out of anger than desiring the speed that she now pushed her runabout to meet.
'Merde! The meddling bitch...that mother of mine! I've given in...again!'
Her grip on the wheel, her furtive and angry glances all around her and at the traffic, were now a sure sign that her emotions had taken a hold. Music! She would distract herself with that.
Her fingers stabbed at the radio control button but to no effect. It resolutely refuses to spring into life. She fumbles for the window handle and winds it down a turn or two and soon feels the whipping wind of the slipstream tug at her hair; her purposefully frizzy long blonde hair with the first signs of grey, its frizziness lending it, and her open, still unlined, face, a more youthful and somewhat rebellious look.
Her mood and emotions are frayed, but she did not think of herself as overly rebellious. If she really was she'd have said 'no' to any idea of taking this journey and meeting Jean on supposedly 'neutral' territory'.
The engine responds to her stamp on the accelerator. It's a nice, accommodating and only too functional little hatchback with its maroon bodywork still in perfect condition and, for once, spotlessly clean.
She felt her rings and bracelets press into her skin. An engagement ring is not one of them and never has been. How was she, really, to agree to marry such a dishonest and unfaithful man in spite of his protestations of regret for what he had again done? His behaviour continued to fit an only too predictable pattern. Just how many times did she have to hear Jean say sorry? What was missing was the simple truth. What a wonder, and a lie, also, if she were to hear him say: 'I'm sorry...for fucking about with someone else, again...Elodie, cherie'
It would be just one more among so many others.
'Merde!' She shakes out her arms to have the bracelets slide back down over her wrists. The car's engine is at full throttle. 'That mother...that woman always gets her way! Almost always! No...always!'
It's as if she likes to have Jean around her; the thrill of seeing two former lovers argue; what may happen between them when they make up.
She presses on, her mind in turmoil. She weaves through the traffic and ignoring yells of rage or the hoot of car horns, along with the yells of sudden anger of pedestrians who have to jump out of her way. They are soon left behind.
A good day will soon become a only too aggravating day. But she had the presence of mind to wash and to change; to put on a summery camisole dress that she had chosen not what her mother had suggested she wear for the occasion. Its blue cotton fabric is patterned with flowers that slowly thinned as they reached her waist and were all but gone at her breasts. The weather justifies the flattering fit, the sultry warmth at odds with her raging mood. She's enervated but for all the wrong reasons.
Her eyes dart this way and that as she negotiates the traffic and people going about their late afternoon business. She pays heed at all intersections as she seeks to speed through them and intent on getting the first moments of a rendezvous out of the way, as soon as decently possible. She's just aware of the changing lights and seeks to speed through them whenever she can. She's a danger; right on the edge, but she doesn't care.
She needs to be taken out of this mood and as soon as she can reasonably make it happen. But how, after the words exchanged in her call? They suggested that she stayed the weekend in the converted farmhouse, with its surrounding orchards, that is the family's country place. Damn the woman for her crushing honesty.
'You're rich, still attractive but you're single...'
She had loved hearing that as if it was news to her. 'Still beautiful...and you're still single.' She may as well have gone on to say, 'and alone.' As if she needed reminding! She an effing forty-one-year-old woman; straight and with her practised ways with men, Jean the last one, But that had been some barren months back and no one had taken his place...not that she had tried.
Oh, she knew it only too well, that there had been a break from the effing part of her mother's unwanted reminders. Why stop there? Why not gone step further and tell her that, 'you'll probably die alone, Elodie, my dear daughter.'
Well, she hadn't done so badly in her life in spite of sleeping alone just lately.
And now, she was clearing away the city limits and would soon be out of it, away from the gallery and the restoration workshop she had bought when it was on its last legs, and she had turned it around. That was where her arts degree had come in real handy; education and craft skills that left that Jean man trailing in her wake, and that slipping her a length had not made up for. He contributed nothing to the business and pursued his own interests and ways of making money.
Ha! She'd soon heard what else he did.
No man had helped her get the business going and then to have seen it thrive. She'd learnt the sharper, grittier ways of getting on. In doing that, men were but a distraction; someone to share the empty hours with and her bed. It turned out that she could only really trust herself; to stay loyal until that flame had flickered and Jean had finally snuffed it out with his latest affair; a fleshy teen fuck by what she had heard from another trusted confidante...a female friend.
What she had made of her work-life mattered a whole lot more, now, than the company of a man. That wasn't to say she didn't miss the slip and slide; the sight and sound of sharing it with a man or doing it for him.
Just to think of it made her press fingers between her legs for a moment; to press and touch herself.
'Concentrate!'
Brake lights flare ahead of her and she soon speeds around them, the car responsive to her foot on the accelerator, the engine note rising but not out of stress. She's travelled through her days and life like this; rushes of energy and passion, then slower and more considerate times. They were days of emotions idling to almost nothing when something, like a red light now, finally makes her stop. She has a moment to reflect, to glance around at a car that draws up beside her and at youngsters out for a good time; the dull unmelodious beat of some rap tune thumping into the early evening air and through the car's windows; the bright-eyed glances of pretty young things and the lustful eyes of their mates. One of them offers her an appraising glance and a soft, knowing smile, before his friend jerks the car away in a roar of the engine and puff of exhaust fumes.
