Un-alone, Chapter 22
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��Meow…” Perle was purring louder and louder, which made Lucien gently chuckle.
“Tu aimes te faire pomponner, hm?”
[You like it when you are pampered, hm?]
The fluffy feline was basking in the purr-fection of the care she was receiving. She could not remember the last time she had been placed on anyone’s lap for her fur to be brushed and her head to be scratched so deliciously.
Lucien had bought a pink brush, adequate for her type of fur and was gently brushing it. Perle rolled to offer her belly and it was a first. Lucien gently approached his hand and just put it on her stomach.
“Puis-je?”
[May I?]
“Meow.” She accepted and he gently petted her, to test out the water. It turned out that she did not claw him at all. On the contrary, she gently purred and closed her eyes. Lucien then gently tried to brush her.
The white feline had fitted right in Lucien’s life and vice versa. They sometimes shared their meals together, their naps too. To be fair, Lucien let her nap on his lap more often than he would have liked it to happen. Sometimes, she curled in a ball of fur on his lap as he played the piano and it became virtually impossible for him to go on playing. So he just stopped and petted her, thinking away to help the time pass.
Lucien put the brush away and simply stroked her, long and slow. He was on the sofa, there was a fireplace in front of him and the warmth was perfect. The sight of his fingers disappearing in the long fluff reminded him of other times…
Times when it was another kind of feline’s long hair he had his fingers tangled in.
Lucien sighed and he could not help thinking about Marie again. He was lost in thought for a moment, between the sweetness of the feelings he held for her, and the bitterness of how she had just played with him.
“Perle?”
“Meow?”
“Tu te souviens de Marie?”
[Do you remember Marie?]
He gently asked.
“Meow?”
“Oui, Marie.”
[Yes, Marie.]
Perle rolled to stand on her paws and slithered down to the floor. Lucien watched as she trotted to the hotel suite’s door. She meowed and scratched the door.
“Perle…” Lucien went to her and crouched down. “On ne peut pas aller la voir.”
[We cannot go and see her.]
“Meow?” The white cat asked.
“Parce que… Elle est… Elle n’est plus là.”
[Because… She is… She is not here anymore.]
“Meow?”
Lucien sighed.
“Maman est à Boston et nous sommes à Corpus Christi.”
[Maman is in Boston and we are in Corpus Christi.]
Perle walked in circles before she went to Lucien’s shoes.
“Meow!”
“Non, Perle… Je… Maman est…”
[No, Perle… I… Maman is...]
Lucien could not say it. Such confusion in his heart. He was back to square one, even perhaps square zero. He gritted his teeth and shook his head, lowering it slowly until a cloud brushed him. It was Perle herself. She sat down and looked up at him with her innocent blue eyes.
“Meow…?” She asked.
“Maman Marie, elle… Elle n’est plus de ce monde.”
[Maman Marie, she… She is not in this world anymore.]
Perle tilted her head on the side.
“Elle… Elle est morte.” Lucien whispered, as if that would lessen the pain.
[She… She is dead.]
“Meow.” Perle answered and Lucien gathered up some courage to look her in the eye. She was not surprised one bit.
“Tu le savais?”
[You knew about it?]
Perle walked away and Lucien saw her stop in front of the bedroom door. He took a second to collect himself and went to her. He nodded and she opened the door for both of them. A few moments later, both were in bed, lying on their side, looking each other in the eye.
Perle was purring as Lucien was brushing her fur between his fingers. It was soothing somehow and helped him stay grounded.
“If you knew, why make me say it?” He asked.
Perle remained mute and blinked slowly at her master.
“You know, ma chérie, you remind me of her in a way.” He started. “She had deep blue eyes, a bit lighter than you maybe, but not that much. And she would get anything she wanted from me, absolutely anything, even things that she did not know she wanted… I did my best to always be at least one step ahead of her needs, anticipating everything for her, spoiling her, treating her like the saviour she was in my eyes. Pff…”
“Meow?” Perle asked, opening her eyes before Lucien’s scratches made her roll her eyes and purr.
“What happened? Well, ma jolie, it turns out that she only played with me. She did all of this, wrapped me around her little finger so that she could live off of my money which, I must admit, is the least of my concerns.”
[beautiful]
“Mrow…?” Perle’s purr wrapped around her soft meows.
“Perle, I loved her with a passion…” The feline opened her eyes and looked at Lucien. “I loved her unlike anyone before. It… I am ashamed to say it now, as I realise my mistake but… I trust you not to repeat this?”
“Meow.” Perle answered.
“Merci.” Lucien shifted on the bed to leave a kiss on the cat’s brow.
“Meow…”
“Are you sure you want me to go on? I feel bad enough telling you these things about Maman. You must have loved her as much as me, non?”
“Mrow.”
“Then I shall not burden you further.”
“Meow!” She protested and laced her paws around his wrist, pulling it to herself.
“Fine, fine. But… Perle, you do not seem surprised with what I am telling you, did you know that Maman was doing all this?”
The fluffy feline raised her blue eyes to Lucien and he understood it. Of course Perle knew. She was always around the house, she was always there with Marie, of course! She heard and saw everything that was happening, she heard Marie in her most intimate conversations too!
“Of course, you know.” He concluded and looked at the cat with wide open eyes. “And yet when I mention her, you have no resentment towards her. I presume it is because she did not wrong you in any way, she seemed to only do that with her men.”
“Meow.”
“Hm.” Lucien pondered silently for a moment before Perle’s meow pushed him to think aloud. “Oui, Perle, I loved her. When I lived with her, I would spend as much time as I could with her and Jérémy. Of course, work was always in the way but I knew people and they owed me favours, so I put them to work such that I never got home too late… Ah, you should have seen us, Perle. Marie, Jérémy and I, living like a dream family. We never had arguments, and I felt the most free and most complete of men with them both…”
Lucien could see it all again and it hurt him. It hurt that it had been all but a show, a masquerade, a theatre play precisely orchestrated by her, by Marie.
“I… I genuinely thought that I had found the only woman made for me. The only woman who understood that if I could not uphold my vow of fidelity in the flesh, I upheld it in my heart, that if my occupation was dangerous, she embraced it all with me. It turned out that she only enjoyed me for my wallet.”
“Meow.” Perle answered and Lucien’s open-eyed dream shattered. He landed back on Earth, in that hotel, in a bed way too large and cold for Perle and him.
“Perle?”
“Meow?”
“Did you…” Lucien frowned. “Non, I should not ask this.”
“Meow…” Perle insisted and put her paws on his face, on his cheeks.
“Did you know whether she ever… thought about me, sometimes?”
If Lucien could have seen himself at that instant, he would have smacked that miserable look out with a determined slap. His eyes were watering, his lip ever so slightly twitched and he bit it to make it stop trembling.
“Meow.” Perle answered and stood on her paws. She lay down closer to Lucien’s face and started licking his eyebrows.
“Perle... ? Did she… ever hold any feelings, however small they might be, for me?”
More licking of the Frenchman’s brow and the feline’s silence spoke to him louder than he would have liked. He screwed his eyes shut and burrowed his face in his pillow before letting go of his tears.
“But Perle, if only you knew… If only you knew how important she was to me… If only you knew!” He yelled in his pillow and Perle comforted him as best as she could, with her warm fluff and her gentle bathing licks. His breath was erratic and he caught it as best as he could while smothering his guiltful cries in the hotel’s pillow. “If only she was still alive, I could at least ask her… I could tell her that-that…”
“Meow?” Perle asked.
Lucien raised his head off the pillow. His eyes were red and his eyelashes, wet.
“I don’t even know what I would tell her…” He rolled on his back and wiped his face with his hands. “Knowing what I know now, I don’t even know what I would tell her…” He repeated and sniffled. “Mon Dieu, how pathetic I can be.”
“Meow?” Perle climbed on his chest and rolled herself up in a ball of fur. She looked down at him with her big blue eyes.
“Why, you ask? Well, because here I am crying past her death about something that shall never be resolved. I will never know if she ever felt a shred of anything for me. I thought she did, but she could have faked it all from start to finish and I would be none the wiser.”
“Meow…” Perle rubbed her head against Lucien’s mouth, gently headbutting him. He closed his eyes and let her do it. Without realising it, he ended up with his arms laced around her and reciprocating the headbutts.
“Mmh, merci, mon bébé…”
[Mmh, thank you, my baby...]
She had become his live emotional support teddy bear. He cuddled with her, talked to her as he would to someone who would never judge him for what he did. The price of such incredible company was her silence and inability to speak back to him, give him advice. But Perle was far from just a soft and warm ball of fluff. She understood him in a way and comforted him. Lucien could swear that he could read her thoughts, whatever words her cat lips couldn’t say, deep in her eyes.
There was nothing else he needed but some company, some comfort, someone he could share his tears with. Well, saying that there was nothing else he needed was a bit of a stretch. Perle was a companion he would not trade for the world and he was secretly over the Moon that she liked her life with him enough to not jump back into Jérémy's arms straight away. But of course, what Perle could never offer him is the love of another human being.
A kind word, a gentle touch from a human hand, male or female… A hug, a tight embrace which seals two bodies into one couple, a kiss, like an iron-hot branding, leaving the flavour of unknown lips on his. Ah, a kiss, could Lucien even remember how to do that? Would he be able to touch any other lips ever again?
A woman’s lips? Soft, even plump and why not with a hint of blood red lipstick, just enough to taint the Frenchman’s lips, so that he can see it, on the mirror.
He missed it. He missed sharing proofs of love, touching someone and being touched by someone, the warmth. Marie, Marie, Marie… If it was all a lie, it was a marvelous one, and Lucien smiled, with his eyes closed now. He remembered the tender moments, he remembered the warm ones too, he remembered being there to put baby Jérémy to sleep. He would hold him in his arms and walk around the dark room, only lit by the fluorescent stickers on the ceiling of the baby’s room. Lucien used to sing the same lullaby every night while gently rocking his son. Sometimes, he would spend only a few minutes, sometimes it would take longer, and at the end, as he raised his head from the blond baby sleeping in his arms, he would see Marie standing at the door with a smile on her lips, leaning on the doorframe.
Mon Dieu, where were those times? It almost sounded like a story to him now, almost like something that did not really exist but that he believed because he had repeated it to himself enough times. Yet he was sure of it deep down. Those nights had existed. The warm embrace of his son, his flesh and blood, before he would put him in his little bed. Then came Marie’s embraces, her slim arms slung lazily around the Frenchman’s neck. He would look down at her and feel more powerful than all the kings of the world. He alone had such an exceptional woman, none of those monarchs could ever dream to have a woman half as extraordinary as her...
Lucien gasped and his eyes snapped wide. Ooh, he had almost fallen asleep and felt that strange falling sensation. It pulled him out of bed. A cold sweat.
“Meow, meow…!” Perle was licking his eyebrows.
It immediately grounded the old man. He wiped his face and took a few seconds to turn the night lamp on before he looked at his watch. 9 pm.
“Ah, tu as faim j’imagine?”
[Ah, you are hungry, I presume?]
“Meow.” She agreed and Lucien went out of his bed. He fed the lady cat and the shine of the black varnished piano beckoned him. He took a seat and closed his eyes again.
He saw it all back, fresh, with colours as vibrant as they were all these years ago. Red lipstick, blue dress, matching headband, black stilettos, her perfume, rose water and a hint of jasmin, his son’s scent, innocence, the warmth, the warmth on the inside… Lucien opened wide eager eyes. Now he knew what he would say to her, what words he would use if he could write a letter to her. He drummed his fingers on the keys powerfully and sang loudly, in the mad hope that from that high above, Marie would hear him.
{To the reader: the song is called “Lettre à France”, which means “Letter to France”, and is sung by Michel Polnareff}
“Il était une fois
[Once upon a time]
Toi et moi !
[You and me!]
N'oublie jamais ça !
[Don’t ever forget it!]
Toi et moi !
[You and me!]”
Lucien caught his breath from that last long note that he had pushed out of his lungs. He panted slightly and let his fingers do the talking, much more softly now, before he resumed his singing, much more gently.
“Depuis que je suis loin de toi,
[Since I have been so far from you,]
Je suis comme loin de moi,
[I am all as if I am far away from myself,]
Et je pense à toi tout bas.
[And I think of you, very low in my head.]
Tu es à six heures de moi,
[You are six hours away from me,]
Je suis à des années de toi.
[I am years away from you.]
C'est ça être là-bas.
[That’s what it means to be far away.]
La différence
[The difference]
C'est ce silence parfois au fond de moi.
[It’s this silence sometimes deep inside me.]
Lucien nodded to himself and closed his eyes. Yes, it was the silence and knowing that however hard he would yell, she would not hear him, and would answer him even less. He frowned with his eyes closed, thinking back about how big a lie she made him believe, and how dirty she had done him.
“Tu n'es pas toujours la plus belle,
[You are not always the prettiest,]
Et je te reste infidèle.
[And I remain unfaithful to you.]
Mais qui peut dire l'avenir de nos souvenirs?
[But who can tell what the future of our souvenirs might be?]
Oui, j'ai le mal de toi parfois,
[Yes, I ache for you sometimes,]
Même si je ne le dis pas.
[Even though I don’t say it.]
L'amour c'est fait de ça.”
[That is what love is made of.]
Love was made of that, it was made of pain, of lies, of make-believes, of half-truths, of hidden truths, of no truths at all. Marie had understood it way before Lucien did, because he had only felt true love with her. It was a first time for him; a first and only time.
The Frenchman took a deep breath and released a long, painful sigh.
He had finally put words on it, on what he felt. He felt the pain of the lies, the pain of knowing that what he had felt for her, she had not reciprocated one bit. Ironic, wasn’t it? Him, the womanizer, a man who could make a room full of ladies lose their dresses with a flash of his pearly white teeth and a snap of his fingers. Oui, they would all flow to the floor, drown him in the delicate touch of satin, in the warm drapes of the night. And he would be proud of it, it was a trademark of his, his smile, his devilish smile. He had conquered the unconquerable with it, he did wreak havoc in the hearts, make the seed of doubt and vice spring in the most innocent of souls. Lucien had done all that and more with baffling ease. Yet the one time he did care about his partner, irony had decided to strike. Maybe there was a lesson in it? Perhaps it was a hefty bill to pay after all these broken hearts, these manipulated souls, those crushed hopes. Maybe.
One thing was sure, Lucien was now paying the dearest price of them all, he thought, as he removed his hands from the black and white keys. Having been played like he was was one thing, but being gnawed on the inside by doubts was unbearable. Doubts about what? Who knew what the woman the law knew as Mary Trevor held in her heart. The Marie he had married loved him, but that woman was a lie. She might as well have been an invention, a doll. Who knew what Mary Trevor held in her heart for the young Lucien de Beauregard? Who could have known…?
Lucien stood up and his legs led him to the minibar. His hand went to the bottle of whisky and the other one opened it. He saw it all in front of him as if it wasn’t his head commanding those movements, but a second, foreign person inside his mind. He poured himself a glass and when he closed the bottle again, he saw his reflection on it, the reflection of a miserable man. He had managed to yell his frustration, singing it as crudely as he had been able to, imploring the woman he loved to not forget about them because he, he could not forget…
And yet he was about to give himself away to the bottle. Let the alcohol wash away his anger, let the bitter and stinging liquid hurt him somewhere he could exactly point at with his finger, as opposed to everywhere inside a foggy mist, in his chest.
Lucien took the glass and raised it to his lips.
“MEEEEOW!” Perle screeched from wherever she was and ran to him. She jumped up a stool and then raced to the glass that she slapped away with her fluffy paw. The whisky was sent flying and Lucien managed to catch the glass before it hit the floor and shattered.
“Perle?! Mais qu’est-ce que ça veut dire?!”
[What the hell does this mean?!]
She hissed at the bottle and showed her needle-like teeth. Her ears were pulled back and she growled at the bottle, her hair spiking up everywhere along her fluffy body. She raised her paw and swept it across the counter, sending the bottle to the edge of it before it tipped and fell. Lucien gasped and caught it mid fall.
“Perle!” He shouted at her and she turned to hiss… at him. Lucien’s eyebrows jumped. It was the first time that she was hostile towards him. He released his breath and his shoulders sank. “Pourquoi tu as fait ça?” He asked softly to help her calm down.
[Why did you do this?]
Lucien looked at her, confusion painted on his face. Perle’s tail was waving dangerously behind her and her fluff was still puffed up. Her eyes went from Lucien’s to somewhere else before she started hissing again. Lucien followed her gaze only to realise that she hated the bottle he was holding in his hand.
“C’est la bouteille?” He asked.
[Is it the bottle?]
She hissed again. Delicately, without any sudden movements, Lucien put the bottle away in the minibar and he shut the glass door to it.
“Voilà, elle est loin, elle ne te fera rien.”
[Here, it is far away, it won’t do anything to you.]
Lucien put the glass away and as soon as he did, he was surprised by a hug of fluff. Perle had trotted to him on the counter and rising on her hind legs, she went to give him a sweet headbutt. The Frenchman could feel that she was behaving oddly and made a note to ask Jérémy about it later. For now, he hugged her dearly.
“Perle? Perle, mon bébé? Pourquoi tu as fait ça, ma chérie?”
[Perle? Perle, my baby? Why did you do that, my darling?]
She meowed long and sad, maybe even a bit fearful. Lucien started understanding why the poor lady cat had developed a reflex of hostility towards alcohol. He frowned and carried her in his arms, as he would a baby. He gently rocked her as he walked over to his bedroom.
“Shhh, mon bébé, mon petit bébé, je te présente mes excuses, je ne voulais pas te faire peur. Pardon, mon petit coeur...”
[Shhh, my baby, my little baby, I apologise sincerely, I did not wish to scare you. My apologies, my little sweetheart...]
When he reached the bedroom, he went straight to bed with her and held her close. He could feel her little claws pulling him closer.
“Shhh, je suis là, je suis là, je ne vais nulle part, mon bébé… Maintenant, dis-moi, tu as déjà vu des bouteilles pareilles auparavant, n’est-ce pas?”
[Shhh, I am here, I am here, I am not going anywhere, my baby… Now, tell me, you have already seen similar bottles before, haven’t you?]
Her meow was enough of an answer. Lucien lay on his back and Perle went on his chest, using his mouth and chin as a pillow. The Frenchman gently brushed her fur through his fingers, to bring her some peace, and left a few gentle pecks in her fluff.
“Est-ce que… Maman utilisaient ces bouteilles?”
[Did… Mum use these bottles?]
Perle raised her head and she looked down at Lucien. Her ears were pulled back again and she meowed long and sad.
“Je comprends, mon bébé, je comprends. Je te promets de ne plus jamais y toucher. “
[I understand, my baby, I understand. I promise you that I will not touch it ever again.]
“Meow?” She pleaded with her lagoon blue eyes.
“Promis, juré.”
[I promise and I swear.]
Lucien raised his right hand and took her paw with it. He pulled it on his mouth and kissed her, as he would a lady’s hand, on the back of it, softly.
“Mon bébé?”
[My baby?]
“Meow?” Perle looked at him.
“Tu vas mieux?” He asked, stroking her face. She leaned into his touch to feel more of it. and she purred. He smiled.
[Do you feel better?]
“Me pardonnes-tu?” He asked and she stared at him for a few seconds in silence.
[Do you forgive me?]
Lucien felt guilty of having put such an innocent creature into a fit of intense stress. She stared not so much at him, but to him it felt as though she was staring into him. Her feline eyes pierced through the million veils of lies, of shame, all the way down to Lucien’s bare intentions. And she saw it. He was being sincere.
“Mrow…” She rolled her purr around a meow and buried her head under his chin, rolling into a ball of fur. Lucien chuckled, the sensation tickled him through his stubble. Perle liked to brush herself against it, so she spent a few seconds indulging herself to some scratches. Lucien cuddled her and exhaled happily, a smile on his lips. He closed his eyes and would have fallen asleep if not for the few knocks on the door of his suite.
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