Joyous End of Joy
#1: Fantine
"Angeline," she says, hand resting atop the slight swell of her stomach, "Claire, Mireille, Delphine." In the book of names, she's circled the ones she likes. She doesn't need to look at the book, now; she sees the names behind her eyes before she falls asleep, circles of violet ink surrounding them. She sees the soft pink hands of her daughter – she knows the baby's a girl - fingers splayed like the points of a starfish. And blue, blue eyes, that after a few months will – she hopes – turn the same brown as Felix's.
Will she marry him, she wonders. She probably will. It'll be a small wedding, though; just family and a couple of friends. It'll be summer; she'll have pale blue flowers in her fair hair. Her bridesmaids will wear pale blue, too, and Dahlia, who is more sentimental than she lets on, will cry.
She'd mentioned this – not the whole picture, obviously, but bits of it – to Favourite, this morning. They were in the kitchen. Favourite, making hot chocolate, laughed and told Fantine to stop being so "bloody fanciful". Favourite likes to say things like that; things she thinks must make her sound clever. Fantine's heard Zephine and Dahlia talking behind her back, calling her pretentious, but she tries to give the other girl the benefit of doubt. She doesn't know the details, but she gets the impression that Favourite's had a harder time than the rest of them.
It's getting dark outside, the sky turning the same patchy purple as the cheap damson jam they buy from the supermarket at the end of the road. Stretching stiff limbs, Fantine gets up to close her curtains and considers calling Felix.
"Don't smother him," Favourite had said once, and Zephine had nodded fervently over her wineglass, agreeing.
But he's the father of her child. Their child.
Fantine picks up the phone.
#2: Felix Tholomyes
He's in the pub when his phone rings. Brannigan's have a two-for-one offer on lager, and he and the others are taking advantage. When he checks the caller ID, he isn't sure whether to smile or huff out a sigh, so he settles for something in between.
"Just a minute," he says, cutting Matthieu Blacheville off mid-ramble to answer the call. "What's up?"
"Nothing," he can hear the smile in Fantine's voice, "Everything's fine. I just wanted to talk to you for a bit."
He laughs. "No, I meant 'what's up' as in 'how are you', not like, 'what's wrong'," he says, "Were you born in the wrong century, or what?"
Jeremy Listolier guffaws at this. Felix pushes back his irritation and makes a theatrical, put-upon expression.
"Well, I wouldn't mind living in a Jane Austen book, or something," says Fantine, the line making her voice crackly and distant, "The dresses are nice."
"No thanks," says Felix, "You'll leave me for Darcy."
And then, "I'd never leave you," says Fantine, and Felix feels the dull weight of expectation settle in the pit of his stomach.
#3: Fantine
"Let's go away for the weekend," says Favourite over drinks at Matthieu's house, one evening. "We can take your car, Felix, and go somewhere in the countryside, or something."
Fantine, who is drinking lemonade because of the baby, feels the corners of her lips pull up into a smile. It's late May, and the weather's been good for days. The idea of long walks in the sun; of nights spent talking in happy circles, fills her with a sort of warm expectation altogether different from Felix's.
Matthieu, reaching over Favourite's shoulder to grab a drink and planting a light kiss on the side of her neck as he does, gives a soft laugh as he settles back into his seat. "Why not? We could go tomorrow, if we wanted to."
"The day after," says Felix, alcohol and the excitement of an idea flushing his cheeks, "To give us time to plan a surprise for the girls."
This makes Zephine, Dahlia and Favourite clamour for more information. Fantine sits back, winding her fingers through Felix's. She doesn't mind waiting.
#4: Felix
The air is close and muggy, and his shirt sticks to his back. He reaches his arms up over his head and then lets them down again with what he hopes sounds like a contented sigh.
"So, what's the surprise?" Favourite asks him, flipping the pages of a magazine and pretending, unsuccessfully, to be nonchalant.
"You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?" he grins at her, but something that feels suspiciously like guilt twists in his gut. He's not quite so sure, now, that this is such a great idea. But he's going to finish it. The others think it's hilarious, but more than that, he's... he's got to; he can't explain it any further than that. It's a pressing, pulsing need to get away. It's -
He's scared, he realises. Much as he doesn't want to admit it, that's the truth. He's scared of spending the rest of his life in some dead end job with some kid to look after. He's scared that he doesn't love Fantine the way he should; that he doesn't love her enough to marry her. And he knows – they all know – that this is what she wants for the two of them.
He's a coward, and he'll laugh and throw wryly charming jokes around to disguise it, because in all honesty, it's just easier than facing up to the truth.
#5: Fantine
At a restaurant near the edge of a little village, Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine and Favourite wait, quietly restive, for the surprise. Felix and the others, they've noticed – or rather, Zephine noticed, and mentioned to the rest – hadn't had much to drink over dinner. Now they've gone off into the rising dark, and it's been a good twenty minutes since then.
"What d'you think they'll bring us?" asks Zephine, and Dahlia replies, giddy from too many cocktails:
"It'd better be something really special!"
"Something expensive, I bet," Favourite rejoins, arching an eyebrow.
They wait. And they wait. Fantine's eyes are smarting; she's tired. The weight of her daughter is different tonight; pressing.
Dahlia is almost falling asleep at the table when their phones ring, simultaneously; the brief chimes of a message rather than a call. Favourite gets to hers first. She's silent for a moment, her dark eyes going very round. Then she lets out a gust of forced laughter.
"Listen to this," she says, though the others are already reading their own messages, "This is the surprise. Paid for dinner for you but you'll have to pay for a train home cause we've got ourselves a one way ticket to Italy and we're not coming back. Wish us luck! Don't hate us it's been fun."
She shakes her head, laughing again. "It was pretty funny," she says.
"Oh, yeah," Dahlia agrees, and she and Zephine laugh.
Fantine joins in, a fraction too late. Her laugh is brittle and choked and she expects it to fall to the floor and shatter like so much glass.
Beneath her dress, her belly feels like a hard sphere. Even if she'd wanted to – which she doesn't, not really – she couldn't get rid of the baby, now.
There'll be no wedding; no blue flowers in her hair. Her daughter will never know her father, and Fantine will wish she herself never had.
A warm breeze blows in through the window, billowing the curtains. The girls order more drinks. Fantine waits for the night to be over, so that she can go back to her room and let herself cry.