14 July 1959
Jean was almost certain today was Tuesday. Some of the ladies from Sacred Heart had come round for a chat after mass on Sunday, had sat with Jean on her little sofa and sipped her tea and tried not to stare at her bald head, the dark circles beneath her eyes, her hands thin where they rested atop the soft white blanket draped over her lap. That had been Sunday, and Jean was positive she must have slept twice since then, for the night after the church ladies left Lucien had asked her how she was faring, not being able to go to church, had even offered to speak to Father Morton about coming round so that Jean might take communion, no matter how awkward that conversation would have been. The following night, however, his mouth had been full of speculation about the murdered lad, pierced by a bullet and then run down by a car on a quiet country road. Today must have been Tuesday, but the little clock in her bedroom told her it was nearly two o'clock, and Lucien had not come for their usual appointment. However reckless and sometimes shortsighted he might be, he had never, not once, missed one of her appointments; he was, above all else, a dedicated physician. So then, where on earth was he?
For a time she lay, waiting for him, watching the ticking of the clock, straining to listen to the house beyond her bedroom door, eager for some sound of him. None came, and the hour hand slipped to 2, and Jean's patience began to crumble. Likely it was nothing, likely he'd only been waylaid somewhere out in town, but his absence distressed her; with no answers to be found the questions multiplied in her mind, wondering if something ill had befallen him, wondering if he was well, wondering if there was anything she ought to be doing to help him. She hated this idleness, lying still in her bed while life rushed on all around her, and so she mustered her strength, and rose from her bed. It had been several days since her last treatment, and so though she was weak her mind felt clear enough, and she moved slowly, carefully picking her way from the studio out into the house. Mattie was off on her rounds, and there were no patients scheduled, and stillness hung heavy in the air in a way that made the hairs stand up on the back of Jean's neck.
He's fine, she told herself. He just got distracted, and you'll feel silly later, when you see that nothing was the matter, and you got yourself all worked up for no good reason.
It was no use; logic would not keep her anxiety at bay, and she would not relax until she heard his voice, saw for herself that he was well.
In the kitchen she found the telephone, and rang Danny at the station. For several long seconds her agitation mounted, as he did not answer, but at last a voice came calling down the line.
"Ballarat police," he said.
"Danny, it's Jean. Is Lucien there?"
There was a moment's pause; she shouldn't have called him Lucien. Oh, she was only speaking to Danny, Danny who came round for supper and saw Jean and Lucien talking softly to one another and knew very well how they got on together, but still it seemed a foolish misstep, a breach of courtesy, a familiarity she shouldn't have used while on the phone to the police. Even if it was only Danny.
"I haven't seen the Doc today," Danny confessed. "He might have come round this morning, but I haven't heard anyone say."
"Right." If Lucien wasn't at the station, where on earth was he? He'd promised her that he would be more careful, but she was beginning to suspect his curiosity had got the better of him. It would be unkind to expect him to change his very nature simply because she wanted him to; Jean knew full well who he was, what he was like, and she loved him for it. But the thought that he had got himself into some sort of mischief, that he might be out there somewhere now, hurt and alone because he had acted without thinking, left Jean heartsick and terrified. "Well, if you do see him, please tell him to ring me."
"Of course, Auntie Jean."
The call ended, and Jean was at a loss as to what to do next. She could hardly go out looking for him; she could see through the kitchen window that he had taken the car, and she'd not get far on foot. Even if she could, she had no notion of where to find him, how to even begin such a search. There was nothing she could do, nothing but wait and worry. Jean had waited for a man once before, and that long, terrible waiting had ended in grief. She could not bear the thought of submitting to it once again, and yet she had no choice.
As she was in the kitchen already she fixed herself a cup of tea, and carried it into the sitting room. She would be comfortable in there, she thought, and close enough to hear the telephone if it rang, to hear the front door when it opened. When - if - Lucien returned, she would hear him at once, and then she could let go of this terrible, churning fear. Only the phone did not ring, and the door did not open, and the minutes slipped slowly by. Jean finished her tea in solitude and silence, trying to recall what Lucien had told her about his case, searching through her fractured memories for some indication of where he might have gone, but no revelation came to her. Still the time passed, on and on; she remained where she was, frozen in an armchair, staring out the window, and the lonesomeness and the worry built and built within her until she felt she might well crumble beneath the weight of it all. They had been so close, she thought; she wouldn't have to undergo treatment much longer, and then she would begin to recover, and then she and Lucien could have all the things they'd dreamed about, the warmth of one another, the quiet dances, circling closer and closer to a union she was beginning to suspect might just last forever. Forever was a beautiful thought so long as Lucien was by her side; without him, forever seemed an unbearable prospect. It just wasn't fair, she thought, that she should have one small taste of joy, and then spend all the rest of her days in grief.
Please, she prayed, please, bring him back to me.
Sometime around five the front door opened and Jean's heart leapt into her throat, desperate for relief, but it was Mattie who came walking through it, not Lucien. The girl had not seen or heard from him, either, and her worried eyes echoed the fear in Jean's own heart. Mattie rushed upstairs to change out of her uniform, and then joined Jean in her silent vigil, her presence a comfort, though not so comforting as Lucien's would have been. At six o'clock Jean roused herself, and fetched a bit of supper for the pair of them; they ate in worried silence, tense and uncertain. When Jean rose to gather up the dinner things her steps faltered, and Mattie sent her off to bed with promises that she would see to the washing up, and inform Jean the second there was any news of Lucien. With her legs too weak to hold her and her heart breaking in her chest Jean shuffled back to her bed, curled beneath the blankets, and wept.
Where are you, my Lucien? She wondered. A few hours' absence might be easily explained away, but he had been gone all day, had not called in at the station or at home, had not told anyone where he had gone. From the kitchen she could make out the sound of Mattie speaking, but no voice answered; perhaps the girl was making calls of her own, inquiring after him. Perhaps Jean should have done the same, should have rung for Matthew and demanded that he send out a search party. If Jean had only been well she would have gone out herself, but her body would not sustain her, and her grief and her fear and her tears left her so wrung out that for a time she dozed fitfully, dreams of Lucien dancing her through her mind, insubstantial and unknowable.
It was very, very late when the quiet sound of the front door opening pulled Jean up from her slumber. The doors to the studio had been left open, in the desperate hope that she might hear him come home. She held her breath, listening; there, the sound of the door closing again, there, the shuffle of a coat, there, the sound of another door - Lucien's bedroom, perhaps - there, silence again. If it had been Lucien, she thought that surely he would come to her; he came to her every night, after supper, with a cup of tea and a smile just for her, but as the minutes passed he did not come, and her worries redoubled. Who could have been at the door, if not him? And if it was him, why had he not come to her?
Jean was through with waiting, and so she once more rose from her bed. With her feet as bare as her head, wearing only an old flannel nightgown, she set out from her bedroom, trailing her hand along the wall for support as she went, knees trembling from exhaustion, hands trembling from fear. In the foyer she found the front door locked, and Lucien's hat upon the peg. Just the sight of that hat, that hat that had not been there earlier in the day, that hat that must have been upon his head when he set forth, and had now returned to its rightful place, offered her some measure of relief; wherever he had been, he had come home to her at last. The hat did not answer her questions, however, and Jean was not in the habit of going to sleep without speaking to him first. She would have her answers from him.
Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour that made her bold, or her chagrin at having been kept in the dark for so long. Whatever the reason, her heart began to race, and she did not hesitate, did not even knock before she slipped through his bedroom door.
It had only been a few minutes since he'd come home, and she had expected to find him shuffling about the room, preparing for bed. The light was out, however, and his clothes were piled haphazardly at the foot of the bed, his body already stretched out beneath the blankets. Jean's eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness, but his were already accustomed, and he saw her before she saw him.
"Jean?" he whispered, his voice ragged and full of confusion, as if he couldn't quite bring himself to believe that she were real.
"I'm here," she answered. She had never been so glad to hear her own name in all her life; he was here, home, and alive, and talking to her, and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, thinking how grateful she was to find him well, and yet thinking how dreadful it felt, to know that one man's safety could hold such sway over her own heart. To love another was to risk, every day, the kind of devastation she had prayed she'd never feel again. It was a gamble, to hope that love would be worth the grief; she could only pray that Lucien's love would be worth all the trouble it could bring her. Somehow, she rather thought it might be.
He did not rise, and so Jean made her way slowly over to the empty side of his bed. She meant only to sit down beside him, but he saw her coming and threw back the blankets, revealed the broad expanse of his heavy chest and a pale white bandage over his heart, and so she slid in beside him, stretched herself out, and when his arms reached for her she let him pull her in close. It was the single most improper thing she had done in decades, to let a shirtless man, a man who had kissed her, a man whose heart, whose handsome face, whose strong body occupied so much of her thoughts pull her into his bed, but there was nowhere else she wanted to be, and she loved him too desperately to leave him.
"You frightened me," she whispered, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. Cautiously she reached for him, let her fingertips trail against the bandage, wondering what on earth he'd gotten himself into, wondering just how close she'd come to losing him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered back, and his voice was so broken that she knew that he was being sincere. "I've been a fool, Jean."
"Will you tell me what you've done?"
"Can I tell you in the morning?" She was desperate to know, where he had gone, why, how he had been injured, how dire his circumstances were, but he sounded so lost, so tired, so full of grief, that she could not bring herself to press for more. In the morning he would tell her, and it would make no difference if she found out now, or later. Whatever had happened it was done, and he was home, now, and holding her.
"Of course," she answered, and turned her head, pressed a tender kiss against his skin to let him know that she understood, and that she was not cross with him. Perhaps she would be cross, come morning, when she learned the full extent of his foolishness, but in the moment she was tired, and too full of love for him to leave any room for anger.
"For now I just...I just want to hold you," he confessed, and Jean flung her arm out across his chest, and pulled him in closer, buried her face in the crook of his neck and felt his own lips brush against the crown of her head. She was too weak to leave his bed of her own accord, and did not want to in any case. Beneath her he was warm, and solid, and steady, and she had not known comfort like this for so many years that the thought of giving it up was unbearable to her now.
"I'm here, Lucien," she whispered into the darkness. "You're safe now. You can rest."
A tremor ran through him, a stifled sob, perhaps, but they clung to one another, and there in his bed they found peace, and drifted off to sleep, together.