Elle me dit

Que je suis belle avec mes taches de rousseur. I can't work out whether she likes me around or whether she thinks I should get a life because twenty five year olds don't hang about with sixty eight year olds. But I want to hang about with her. Today I could have gone out earlier, I could have seen people- but I didn't want to, because she's the most interesting. I come home for lunch because I like talking to her, I go out with her because she's interesting to see things with, I don't know whether she feels like it's too much. I hope not. She mentioned that A seemed to be here all the time and always returned- I hope she doesn't think I'm like that too. I don't want to be cloying.

I think that she might want someone to care for. She worries about A because he doesn't like the food here, because he doesn't want to absorb Paris. And she likes helping people absorb things, maybe too forcefully- she can't accept that there are other ways of doing things. She wants to be the best at the alliance, and she worries. And I worry too. I worry about her coming back at the usual time that she comes back and waking her when I'm loud and clattery and whether she's OK if I hear banging in one of the houses joined to us, and whether she's alright on the tube. Though she always is. I worry because I like her. And she said she worried about me, when I didn't come home until really late one night- she worried. I thought that was lovely.

Today, she rolled my hair into a chignon and said, 'tell me if it hurts' when she put in the open-ended grips. It didn't because she's very gentle. She showed me her powder and brushed it onto my face and smiled. She's so willing to share things, her coat, her shoes... and I don't find it irritating because she's kind and French and a bit of a know it all, but lovely with it. It's odd, not to find this brand of care irritating- but I don't, yet. I don't know whether she thinks of me as a gangling sort of person that needs a helping hand, or a replacement for her daughters, or a living doll that it's interesting to be around, or someone she can mould, or someone she can be kind to. Or all of those things.

She's so brave and so easily hurt. She goes to teach in a place for teens with problems, and a girl had a hard time the other day- and R felt bad about it, I knew, because she mentioned it three times. Partly because she was worried about the girl, and partly because of the language she used. She didn't go into detail, she simply said that it was 'grossier'. And oh, how I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her she was strong and brave, and for that so sensitive... and that I wanted desperately to protect her from these things, even though she's independent and lives and wants to do them. Not protect, I don't want her to stop doing what she likes, I just want to give her a safe place, to comfort her when things aren't what she wants them to be. And she's fun. She runs round museums with me and makes me laugh and wonders at the displays that are like fireworks and says, 'it makes me sad because I know it'll soon be gone'. In France, I feel like people are always saying small things that give away their personalities. She fears things going, and braves it all the same. She told me I could go if I ever found something that suited me more, and I said thanks, and that she could tell me to go if she needed her own space back- because maybe she does need it back sometimes. She doesn't mention her husband. Her children come, sometimes- less often than she'd like. She was sad when her first daughter left home.

We've started to have habits together. At least, they've become habits for me. I go to her room and watch TV, she comments along in French and asks if I understand. She cooks, with my help, and I help her wash up. We go shopping and I take the bags. If one of us eats an apple, we usually offer the other person the other half. The same applies to chocolate and cake, and anything we cook. We sit in the kitchen and eat. We laugh about my habit of eating a ridiculous amount of cake and analyse A's behaviour. She puts my hair in a chignon, when I ask. We drink tea in the evening and usually smoke a cigarette together at least once a day. We don't speak on the tube; we read companiably. I recite poetry, she corrects, I repeat the corrections. When we're especially pleased with each other, we give each other a peck on the cheek. I did this the other day before departing for school, and she said, 'ah, tu es gentille'. I've got a friend that lost her hair, and she'd just spoken about losing her hair once, and how people think it's something else and how the back of her head looks like a pig's skin (it doesn't. But I wouldn't care if it did). We begin to call each other, in the style of Sherlock Holmes, 'ma chere', before each of our names. We do this in a Sherlock-Holmes tone, but I am meaning it differently. And she'll never know. But at least she's got someone who's appreciating her, albeit furtively, and expressing it without romance.

You're so nice and you're so smart...

And an awful lot older than me, even by my standards. I can't quite work out whether I want to hold you because I like you like that or because you try so very hard for everyone and sometimes your back aches, and you want so much to give and to keep things nice and to keep your house perfect and accueillant but without realising that these are sometimes opposites.

You don't notice my haircut, and you are pernickety and worry too much. Though I find that endearing. It's nice to have someone worry about me in ways I'm not used to having people worry about me. I want to hold your hand and kiss the place on your head where you had the tumour taken out. I want to curl around you and hold you tight and stroke your hair and tell you, 'tu es intelligente, tu es gentille, tu es importante'. I don't think you get told that enough, and you should be because you are all of those things. I would also tell you, 'tu es courageuse'. It hurts me when you're hurt, when your son doesn't come to see you for very long, when your daughter leaves early when you've prepared dinner- and you say, 'ah, but this is the way, and it's nice they have their own lives, and one must accept it'. It seems so unfair to me that someone as good as you should have to accept something so painful, and I think it's the reason for your perfect crockery and your neat-as-a-pin household- though you don't mind if I break things, you're careful, careful, careful. Maybe because people aren't always careful with you; so I want to be. I want to be on your side, I want to be kind to you and nice to you and je ne veux pas me moquer de toi, parce que tu m'es importante. Because you are kind to me, you worry about me and you try to teach me. I can see you being inadvertently hurt where no hurt's intended; when I teach French to the Houseguest, for example.

I like having our own language that we both speak. I like having a code with you, and I like having access into your head that he doesn't have, because he doesn't see this other side of your personality, this nuanced, educated side; he just sees someone who hates America and is pedantic, and kind, who wants to feed him. You're those things, but you're also clever and modest and interesting and you come out with the wisest things... I wonder if you tell me because you think I don't understand yet, quite? Or maybe you think I understand all too well. What was it you said today? 'Don't be worried about acting and breaking something; it happens frequently that people don't act and don't ruin anything, but then they never act. You acted with best intentions'. About me feeling foolish after greeting someone. 'Sometimes, the thing that is a person's downfall is also their greatest charm'. Oddly, it's not when you're teaching that you come out with these brilliant gnomic turns of phrase, but when we're sitting in the kitchen and I'm fretting and you're comforting me. Or just when you're thinking about life.

I wish, if MM isn't doing it already, that I could make someone you want love you. You deserve that.
If not, I wish I could make your children spend more time with you. You're fun and interesting and not tiresome at all. You deserve that, too.
And if not, I want to hold you and tell you you're brilliant. You deserve, at the least, that. You don't wear your wedding ring. Tonight I washed up, because you were in a rush; you'd cooked everything, and you came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek and said, 'pour que tu fais la vaisselle'. So sweetly done, and it made me smile. We don't usually do the kiss. I don't mind doing it with you, though. Or B. I'm getting used to it.

You deserve a lot. And all I can do is attempt to keep my space tidy, not make too much noise, write notes to you, observe when you might want to be left alone and learn poetry; half of these things please me anyway.