Free Yesterday's Weather by Anne Enright

pack.
    ‘ Sláinte .’
    ‘Cheers.’
    It doesn’t matter to my husband, this social self; he doesn’t care that I am Irish in an old-fashioned way, with a new lick of French. My Agnès B cardigan, and my vaguely hick Hermès scarf: these are certainly not the things that make me beautiful to him. Sometimes I would like to be understood by him, in a venal sort of way, but mostly I am content. I do not know why my husband chose to love me, but I know that, for both of us, it is a great romance.
    ‘Good to see you.’
    ‘So good to see you!’
    ‘So how are you?’ says Shay. ‘What gives?’
    It is lovely to see Shay. We went to the same college in Dublin, but I know him mostly from working together in London. We had this great expat thing going for a while, drinking huge amounts on Friday evenings – probably to stop us ending up in bed together. Not that it worked every time. It all feels like another life now, but there he is, just as big as himself.
    ‘Oh, you know, nothing much.’
    What can I say? My husband is sixty-three. He has no job. He is from Saigon. I know exactly what he is thinking when I look into his eyes. He never repeats himself. He told me once what he had witnessed – he told me over the course of one long night, in my old apartment in the Marais, and even now I think of that night as you might think of a dream.
    He has a young mouth. I could say that.
    My husband’s mouth is tight and soft as an opening bud. He is careful in his sexual pleasures. He likes to look at me as I walk around the room. His touch is always specific, and chosen, and light. When he makes love to me, there is very little hesitation. And though we do not make love as much as we used to, it is always ‘successful’ as these things go.
    This is what I would like to tell Shay, because I feel accused – of course I do – of making some deal with desire; some compromise. But my life took an unexpected turn and now I think unexpected thoughts. I think, for example, that many couples are happy in bed – strange, mismatched couples that you see on the metro; ugly ones too. What a great secret! And I wonder if sexual unease – this modern malaise – I wonder if this is not the big lie. I would say that it is the big capitalist lie, but these words make my husband close his eyes, and fail to open them for a long time.
    The man with his eyes closed is called Le Quang Hoa.
    There are marks on his body. Sometimes he flinches away from things – dogs, of course, and sudden shadows, but also things that I cannot understand: the sound of ice in his glass of water will cause him to flicker, and, for the smallest moment, shut down. I am alert to these signs. I do not look forthem, or fear them, but I do recognise them, and I get up and take the glass out of his hand. That is all. He does not need me to do this. He lived alone in Paris for many years, before he met me.
    But I take the glass away and I set it down. I wonder what that clinking sound does to his head. And when we make love, I am rarely inventive: I do not exult, or cause pain. I do not take the ice out of the bedside glass, for example, and run it down his spine.
    This is what happens when love intersects with history. This is the distance you keep. Or it is the distance the Vietnamese keep. Or old men. Or it is the way my husband and I think about distance and tenderness – it is just the way we are. Who knows? We will have no children. We are very happy. Or, no. We are not happy, exactly. But we love each other very much, and this charges our lives with shape and light.
    For the last few years we have lived off the rue Mouffetard. Every morning, when I go to work, my husband walks around to the municipal pool with his towel rolled under his arm. I think of him in the modern, blue water, swimming without a splash. He is like the old ladies you see on the French coast, who paddle out in their sunglasses and hairdos, and paddle back again, gossiping, like so many