Chantal – Irish Writers' Heaven

Flash fiction

Workshop of Adriaen van der Werff (1659-1722), Two women embracing (allegory of spring?), ca. 1696
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel

Chantal

Wordcount: 609

Helen, Martha, and Chantal were having breakfast in the kitchen of Martha’s flat. The croissants, while nice, were sending crumbs all over the place.

“Bonne,” said Martha, “Chantal is an editor at a publishing company.”

“That sounds like a very interesting job,” said Helen. She was looking at Chantal, but the French woman was concentrating on a pear she had taken from the bowl in the centre of the table, and on what looked like a fashion magazine.

“I’m going down to le kiosque à journaux,” said Martha, rising from her seat. “You two can talk among yourselves while I’m gone.”

Now there was just Helen and Chantal, who had reclined somewhat in her chair. The magazine was on her lap. Her eyes were cast down at it, and Helen couldn’t help but notice that the juice from the pear was glistening on what she had, just this second, realised were rather full lips. A small amount escaped, to trickle down from her mouth to her chin.

She was making no effort to wipe it off, or to otherwise deal with it.

She took another bite of the pear, which created yet more wetness.

Her gaze had come up from the magazine, in what seemed like slow motion. Now she was looking straight at Helen.

Weird, she can’t take her eyes off that tiny rivulet. And those lips.

“How you say…”

Helen realised that these were the first words she’d heard from Chantal this morning.

“Pardonnez-moi.” The Frenchwoman had, at last, run the back of her free hand over her chin. Helen’s absorption in the goings-on around Chantal’s mouth was eased a little. “Votre cousin… She ees very intéressé in the latest news.”

They were holding each other’s eyes.

“There’s no doubt about that, she was always like that, from a young age.”

Was that a smile from Chantal? Might as well give her one in return.

Martha was back with the paper. She was no sooner in than Chantal announced she had to go to work. She went to the bedroom to collect some things, came back to kiss Martha full on the lips, waved a cheery a la prochaine to Helen, and was gone.

Martha was looking at her plate when she said: “Did you know that what they used to call homosexuality, terrible word, has not been illegal here in France since 1791?”

Helen had to think before she answered: “No, I didn’t know that.”

Self-consciously, she was giving a croissant her absolute full attention, holding it up in one hand and picking little pieces off it with the thumb and forefinger of the other.

“Yes,” said Martha, “most people find that hard to believe, seen as it’s still very much illegal in almost all other countries. In some it carries the death sentence. Even today.”

Martha had raised her eyes and was now looking at Helen. She felt she had to say something.

“I’m not used to having croissants for breakfast.”

“That’s what,” Martha made a calculation, one which involved her fingers, “the best part of two-hundred years without any fear that gays or lesbians might be prosecuted here in France. No wonder Oscar Wilde came here when he got out of jail in London. He was sentenced because he was gay. He had to do two years hard labour. He was released in 1897, and came to France on the very day he got out of jail. His time there took a terrible toll on him. It damaged both his mind and his body, so that in France he went into decline. He died here in Paris three years later, in 1900.”