The Virgin Blue. Tracy Chevalier

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      ‘Dad, France and Switzerland are two different countries! I probably won’t get anywhere near Switzerland.’

      ‘Sure, kid, but it’s always good to have family nearby.’

      ‘Nearby? Moutier must be 400, 500 miles from where we’ll be.’

      ‘You see? Just a day’s drive. And that’s a lot closer than I’ll be to you.’

      ‘Dad—’

      ‘Just take the address, Ella. Humour me.’

      How could I say no? I wrote down the address and laughed. ‘This is silly. What do I write to him: “Hello, I’m a distant cousin you’ve never heard of before and I’m on the Continent, so let’s meet up”?’

      ‘Why not? Listen, as an opening you could ask him about the family history, where we come from, what our family did. Use some of that time you’ll have on your hands.’

      Dad was driven by the Protestant work ethic, and the prospect of me not having a job made him nervous. He kept making suggestions about useful things I could do. His anxiety fuelled my own: I wasn’t used to having free time – I’d always been busy either training or working long hours. Having time on my hands took some getting used to; I went through a phase of sleeping late and moping around the house before I devised three projects to keep me occupied.

      I started by working on my dormant French, taking lessons twice a week in Toulouse with Madame Sentier, an older woman with bright eyes and a narrow face like a bird. She had a beautiful accent, and the first thing she did was to tackle mine. She hated sloppy pronunciation, and yelled at me when I began saying Oui in that throwaway manner many French have of barely moving their lips and letting the sound come out like a duck quacking. She made me pronounce it precisely, sounding all three letters, whistling the air through my teeth at the end. She was adamant that how I said things was more important than what I said. I tried to argue against her priorities, but I was no match for her.

      ‘If you do not pronounce the words well, no one will understand what you say,’ she declared. ‘Moreover, they will know that you are foreign and will not listen to you. The French are like that.’

      I refrained from pointing out that she was French too. Anyway I liked her, liked her opinions and her firm hand, so I did her mouth exercises, pulling my lips around like they were made of bubblegum.

      She encouraged me to talk as much as possible, wherever I was. ‘If you think of something, say it!’ she cried. ‘No matter what it is, however small, say it. Talk to everyone.’ Sometimes she made me talk non-stop for a set period of time, starting with one minute and working up to five minutes. I found it exhausting and impossible.

      ‘You are thinking a thought in English and then translating it word by word into French,’ Madame Sentier pointed out. ‘Language does not work like that. It has a grand shape. What you must do is to think in French. There should be no English in your head. Think as much as you can in French. If you cannot think in paragraphs, think in sentences, at least in words. Build it up into grand thoughts!’ She gestured, taking in the whole room and all of human intellect.

      She was delighted to find out that I had Swiss relations; it was she who made me sit down and write. ‘They may have been from France originally, you know,’ she said. ‘It would be good for you to find out about your French ancestors. You will feel more connected to this country and its people. Then it will not be so hard to think in French.’

      I shrugged inwardly. Genealogy was one of those middle-aged things I lumped together with all-talk radio stations, knitting and staying in on Saturday nights: I knew I would eventually indulge in all of them, but I was in no hurry about it. My ancestors didn’t have anything to do with my life right now. But to humour Madame Sentier, as part of my homework I pieced together a few sentences asking my cousin about the history of the family. When she’d checked it for grammar and spelling I sent the letter off to Switzerland.

      The French lessons in turn helped me with my second project. ‘What a wonderful profession for a woman!’ Madame Sentier crowed when she heard I was studying to qualify as a midwife in France. ‘What noble work!’ I liked her too much to be annoyed by her romantic notions, so I didn’t mention the suspicion my colleagues and I were treated with by doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, even pregnant women. Nor did I bring up the sleepless nights, the blood, the trauma when something went wrong. Because it was a good job, and I hoped to be able to practise in France once I’d taken the required classes and exams.

      The final project had an uncertain future, but it would certainly keep me busy when the time came. No one would have been surprised by it: I was twenty-eight, Rick and I had been married two years, and the pressure from everyone, ourselves included, was beginning to mount.

      One night when we had lived in Lisle-sur-Tarn just a few weeks we went out to dinner at the one good restaurant in town. We talked idly – about Rick’s work, my day – through the crudités, the pâté, trout from the Tarn and filet mignon. When the waiter brought Rick’s crème brûlée and my tarte au citron I decided this was the moment to speak. I bit into the lemon slice garnish; my mouth puckered.

      ‘Rick,’ I began, setting down my fork.

      ‘Great brûlée,’ he said. ‘Especially the brûléed part. Here, try some.’

      ‘No thanks. Look, I’ve been thinking about things.’

      ‘Ah, is this gonna be serious talk?’

      At that moment a couple entered the restaurant and were seated at the table next to us. The woman’s belly was just visible against her elegant black dress. Five months pregnant, I thought automatically, and carrying it very high.

      I lowered my voice. ‘You know how every now and then we talk about having kids?’

      ‘You want to have kids now?’

      ‘Well, I was thinking about it.’

      ‘OK.’

      ‘OK what?’

      ‘OK let’s do it.’

      ‘Just like that? “Let’s do it”?’

      ‘Why not? We know we want them. Why agonize over it?’

      I felt let down, though I knew Rick too well to be surprised by his attitude. He always made decisions quickly, even big ones, whereas I wanted the decisions to be more complicated.

      ‘I feel—’ I considered how to explain it. ‘It’s kind of like a parachute jump. Remember when we did that last year? You’re up in this tiny plane and you keep thinking, Two minutes till I can’t say no anymore, One minute till I can’t turn back, then, Here I am balancing by the door, but I can still say no. And then you jump and you can’t get back in, no matter how you feel about the experience. That’s how I feel now. I’m standing by the open door of the plane.’

      ‘I just remember that fantastic sensation of falling. And the beautiful view floating down. It was so quiet up there.’

      I sucked at the inside of my cheek, then took a big bite of tart.

      ‘It’s a big decision,’ I said with my mouth full.

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