Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella

have … got to know each other a little better. So I’ve been thinking. It’s not like we had a big wedding, or anything. It’s not like all our friends even know. We can just … . We can just pretend like it didn’t happen. We’re both young.’
    ‘What are you talking about, Liv?’
    She looks at him. ‘David – it all became clear as you walked towards me. You brought your plans with you.’
    The smallest flinch. But she sees it.
    ‘You knew you were going to meet the Goldsteins. You packed your bag of plans and you brought it on your honeymoon.’
    He looks down at his feet. ‘I didn’t know. I hoped.’
    ‘And that’s supposed to make it better?’
    They are silent again. David leans forward, clasping his hands together above his knees. Then he looks sideways at her, his face troubled. ‘I love you, Liv. Don’t you love me any more?’
    ‘Yes. So much. But I can’t … I can’t do this. I can’t be the woman this makes me.’
    He shakes his head. ‘I don’t understand. This is crazy. I was only gone for a couple of hours.’
    ‘It’s not about the couple of hours. This was our honeymoon. It’s a template for how we’re going to be.’
    ‘How is a honeymoon ever a template for a marriage? Most people go and lie on a beach for two weeks, for Christ’s sake. You think that’s how the rest of their lives is going to run?’
    ‘Don’t twist my words! You know what I mean. This is meant to be the one time you –’
    ‘It’s just this building –’
    ‘Oh, this building. This building. This fucking building. There’s always going to be a building, isn’t there?’
    ‘No. This is special. They –’
    ‘They want you to meet them again.’
    He lets out a breath, and his jaw tightens. ‘It’s not a meeting as such,’ he says. ‘It’s lunch. Tomorrow. At one of Paris’s best restaurants. And you’re invited too.’
    She would laugh if she wasn’t so close to tears. When she finally speaks, her voice is oddly calm. ‘I’m sorry, David. I’m not even blaming you for this. It’s my own fault. I was so besotted with you that I couldn’t see beyond it. I couldn’t see that being married to someone who was so consumed by his work would make me …’ Her voice thickens.
    ‘Make you what? I still love
you
, Liv. I don’t understand.’
    She rubs her eyes. ‘I’m not explaining myself very well. Look … come with me. I want to show you something.’
    It’s a short walk back to the Musée d’Orsay. The queue has died down and they move forward in silence for the ten minutes it takes to gain entry. She is acutely conscious of him beside her, of the new awkwardness between them. A little part of her still cannot believe that this is how her honeymoon is ending.
    She summons the lift, confident of where she is headed this time, and David follows. They walk through the rooms of Impressionists on the top floor, dodging the clumps of people who stand and stare. Another school party sits in front of
Déjeuner sur l’herbe
and the same enthusiastic attendant talks them through the scandal of the naked woman. She thinks how ironic it is that she now has her husband here, where she had wanted him this morning, and it is too late. It is all too late.
    And eventually there they are, in front of the little picture.
    She looks at it, and he steps forward.
    ‘“
Wife, out of sorts”
,’ he reads. ‘“By Édouard Lefèvre”.’ He studies it for a moment, then turns to her, waiting for an explanation.
    ‘So … I saw it this morning … this miserable, neglected wife. And it just hit me. That’s not how I want to be. I felt suddenly as if the whole of our marriage was going to be like this – me wanting your attention, and you not being able to give it. And it scared me.’
    ‘Our marriage isn’t going to be like that.’
    ‘I don’t want to be a wife who feels ignored, even on her honeymoon.’
    ‘I wasn’t ignoring you, Liv –’
    ‘But you made me feel unimportant, and on the one occasion I might have reasonably expected you to just enjoy us being together, to just want to be with me.’ Her voice lifts, becomes impassioned. ‘I wanted to stroll around the little bars of Paris and sit down and drink glasses of wine for no reason, my hand in yours. I wanted to hear about who you were before we met, and what you wanted. I wanted to tell you all the things I’d planned for our life together. I wanted to have lots of sex.
Lots
of sex. I didn’t want to walk around