The Life I was Meant to Live

by Julien Sandrel

Genres: Family Life; Siblings; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

'A charming and heart-warming read that will warm your cockles this winter' Heat Thirty-nine-year-old Romane is a doctor and hypochondriac. Her usually uneventful life changes when one of her patients insists that she saw Romane coming out of a hospital in Marseille, looking very ill. But Romane is perfectly healthy and has never stepped foot in Marseille. So who did her patient see? Romane sets off for the south of France, determined to uncover the mystery of her lookalike. Her investigation leads her to Juliette, a bookseller in Avignon. When the two women meet it soon becomes clear they are twins. But how is it possible that neither of them knew of each other's existence? What secrets have their families been keeping? On their search for the truth the two sisters embark on an astonishing journey filled with both pain and joy... Sandrel's first novel, The Book of Wonders, was a global bestseller. It has been translated into 26 languages and will be adapted for the big screen. His second novel is a deeply moving and inspiring story about the quest for happiness and a second chance at life. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK OF WONDERS ' A sweet and heartfelt read' Heat 'Will make you rethink your priorities in life' Sunday Post 'Heart-warming and tear-jerking' Irish Examiner

Release date: November 12, 2020

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 304

Sample

‘Yes, sir. I’ll make sure it’s done. My best wishes to your good lady wife.’

I put down the phone, amazed at myself. Does anyone else use that expression? It was already out of date last century.

I sound like an old woman, live like an old woman and only talk to old people. I am old. Old and lonely, that sums up my life.

But let’s begin at the beginning.

My name is Romane, I’m thirty-nine and I’m a GP, specializing in hypochondria with paranoid tendencies. It’s a niche specialization, but I apply it to myself alone – my patients can rest easy. More out of habit than choice, I live in Paris where I was born. I don’t travel much, because I’m frightened of almost anything that can take you further than a ten-kilometre radius. Getting into a car is an ordeal. As for a train, a boat or a plane – let’s not go there. I know the statistics: one crash for every twelve million flights, you’re less likely to die in an aeroplane than to win the lottery. Well, I find that terrifying because there may not be many of them, but lottery winners definitely do exist. I also don’t travel much because I’m frightened of spiders, snakes, anything that stings, bites or scratches, malaria, dengue, chikungunya, rabies, avian flu, being kidnapped by a mafia-like organization, having a heart attack a long way from a top-class hospital and dying of dehydration from a simple case of dysentery.

My panic attacks have been getting worse recently. To the point of obsession, some would say (including my psychiatrist). For six months now I’ve had bouts of what’s called hyperventilation. The minute something stresses me, I have this sense of imminent danger and I have to breathe into a small paper bag to get it under control. Picture the scene in the fruit and veg aisle of my local supermarket: a woman sitting next to the courgettes, suffocating because her hand happened to alight on a mouldering piece of fruit, and she thinks she’ll succumb to a hideous bacterial infection within the hour . . . that’s me. I have the pleasure of morphing into a panting little dog several times a day, and Air France sick bags have become my most trusty companions. By an extraordinary twist of fate, my friend Melissa is an airline pilot, and she’s become my official supplier.

Old, lonely, ridiculous and a hypochondriac.

I could add ugly, but to be honest, that’s not true. I get to see a lot of bodies every day, examining them with perfect safety thanks to my latex gloves, and I’m well aware that mine’s not the worst. But I still can’t help the fact that I don’t like my body, so I hide it under bland clothes.

I’m discreet, almost invisible. That’s what people like. People, not men. But then, the only man in my life is my father. I grew up with just him, protected by him, I’ve always followed the path he set out for me, and until six months ago I still lived with him. That’s how much I love my father. It almost chokes me. My therapist says my hyperventilating is just a somatic manifestation of my need for air, to break away from my father. ‘Wouldn’t you say there’s a disturbing connection between your breathing problems and your decision to move away from him?’ he asked pointedly. He’s probably right, particularly as the breathing hasn’t got any better, despite the move. On the brink of turning forty, I decided to learn to live without my father. I cut the ties. My psychiatrist assures me it was a good decision, and it was high time.

It was high time, but it was late coming. Far too late for my father to accept it calmly. I have tried to tell him that normal people with normal lives see their parents three times a year, and call them once or twice a month, so we don’t have to be so extreme, and yes, we can manage the transition from living under the same roof to different roofs, from constant surveillance of my every decision to a weekly phone call, and anyway it’ll spare him long years of hormonal upheavals and assorted mood swings . . . so he should be grateful, shouldn’t he? No, of course not. As far as my father’s concerned, this radical change in our daily lives is both incomprehensible and unacceptable.

For a few months now he’s only talked to me when he absolutely had to. It sometimes feels as if I’m dealing with a sulking sixty-five-year-old child who’s disappointed because he’s lost his favourite toy. His reaction hurt me at first – it was too harsh, too drastic – but then I got used to it. I actually think this temporary distance is what’s needed, it’s doing us both good. It’ll take time for my father to accept the new situation, but he’ll get there. Once he’s over the shock, our relationship will be more normal. More regular. And so will my breathing.

I’ve just realized that I’m talking about this like a lover’s break-up. You’re in really bad shape, girl. This is your father, there’s no break-up, this is a healthy move away. Breathe, Romane. Breathe.

Old, lonely, hypochondriac, pathetic, but I can heal myself. Or at least I’m trying.

*

After ending the call with my patient I allow myself a few minutes to have a glass of water and freshen up my face. It’s a blisteringly hot day and I have the unpleasant impression I’m in a hammam, minus the massage and the Middle Eastern pastries. I’m keeping my little paper bag within reach because the humidity is oppressive. My clothes cling to me, my patients cling to me, my gloves cling to me. On the radio this morning they said it would get to thirty-eight degrees. A record in Paris, even for the 15th of July. I’ve booked some time off at the end of the week and I still don’t know what I’m going to do. Nothing scares me more than ending up on my own – and God knows I’m scared of enough things. But I do have to take this time off: Paris empties significantly at this time of year, so keeping the surgery open doesn’t make any sense. As motivation to get out of this oven of a capital, I keep telling myself that having some rest is bound to bolster my immune system. At least there’s that.

Flippedy flip, it’s hot! Yes, that’s how I talk. In my head I’m saying, Fuck, I can’t fucking take this shit-hole heat, but the idea dissolves before it passes my lips. I’ve bought a fan for the surgery, and one for my bedroom. Last night – thanks to the Bastille Day celebrations – I hardly slept at all. With my windows open, I heard the drink-fuelled altercations of the local soaks, and couldn’t help imagining some individual with unsavoury intentions looming into view at any moment. Even though I live on the fifth floor, so unless Spiderman has an evil twin, the risk of intruders is pretty limited. All the same, I couldn’t relax. I woke dripping with sweat several times. Which means people had better not push me too far today. That’s what I think to myself – like I’d actually clobber anyone who wound me up. As if. The truth is, I’m the same today as every other day: agonizingly polite.

I peel my blouse away from my back one last time and open the door. Madame Lebrun – seventy years old, such black hair it’s getting worrying and such perfect teeth they’re getting suspect – steps into my office.

She’s been a patient a long time and, according to my father, she’s an acquaintance of his: I know he saw her regularly when he worked as a park-keeper at Buttes-Chaumont. At one point I suspected they knew each other much better than they admitted.

Madame Lebrun, normally such a talkative woman, sits down without a word. I’m amazed by her silence. Worried by it.

‘Romane, dear, we need to talk, you and I.’

Madame Lebrun peers at me with her small dark eyes. She’s clutching her handbag on her knee, her face is unreadable. She’s never looked at me like this.

I don’t know this yet, but Madame Lebrun is about to change the course of my life.

In a few minutes’ time, nothing will be the same again. Ever.

Madame Lebrun is always clear, distinct, precise. It’s my personality, you know what I’m like, Romane, dear. I certainly know her well enough to be sure she always means well. Not the sort to spread gossip or freight her words with hidden meaning regardless of the consequences. So when she asks cautiously if everything’s OK, it makes me shudder. My body tenses.

‘Of course everything’s OK. But I’m the doctor around here, I should be asking you. What brings you here?’ I ask, trying to hide my anxiety behind forced jollity. Madame Lebrun takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye.

‘I won’t beat about the bush, Romane, dear. You know how fond I am of you. You know I don’t have any children and . . . and I’ve always thought of you as . . . important.’

Pause. Too long a pause. My paranoid nutcase tendencies nudge me towards thinking the worst. Madame Lebrun is going to give me terrible news; Madame Lebrun is dying. She looks perfectly healthy but I know just how sneaky illness can be.

‘I was in Marseilles last weekend, Romane.’

What can your little trip to Marseilles possibly mean to me? I think, but I obviously don’t say anything.

‘My sister’s broken her hip,’ she continues. ‘I went to visit her. She’s in hospital, the Hôpital Nord.’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m sure everything will sort itself out soon enough. She’s still young, I seem to remember. You mustn’t wor—’

‘My sister isn’t the problem, Romane, she’ll recover. You’re the problem.’

Did she just interrupt me abruptly? That’s not like her at all.

‘I’m not sure I’m following this . . . What problem do you mean?’

‘I saw you, Romane. In Marseilles. I nipped down to buy a magazine in the hospital shop and I saw you come in.’

Flippedy flip, Madame Lebrun’s lost the plot.

‘I was intrigued because your father hadn’t said anything about you going there, but mostly . . .’

‘Mostly what?’

‘Mostly . . . because you were in disguise. You’d put on a red wig and a dress that was a bit too low cut to my mind, but well, it’s the sort of thing people wear these days. So I followed you, without a word. I wanted to know.’

‘What are you talking about, Madame Lebrun? I’ve never been to Marseilles in my life, and I stayed at home last Saturday binge-watching an American TV series. You saw someone who looked like me and you came up with some improbable scenario, that’s all . . . How are you feeling? Are you having headaches at all?’

‘Romane, dear, don’t make fun of me. I may be old but I’m not stupid. I’m very well, thank you, and I’d like to be able to say the same of you . . . I just wanted to remind you that . . . if you need anything, I’m here. I haven’t breathed a word to your father, of course. My lips are sealed.’

She seems to be genuinely upset, worried about me.

‘This is ridiculous. I don’t know what sort of story you’ve whipped up about me but I can assure you I’m absolutely fine. Stop fretting about me, I get plenty of that from my father.’

‘But, Romane, I saw you, for goodness’ sake! At the other end of the country, so no one would know. I followed you, I saw the doctor show you into his office. I saw the serious expression on his face, I saw you coughing. I waited for you and half an hour later you came out with your file under your arm, and you burst into tears. You put sunglasses on to hide the state you were in. You looked dazed but you hurried away. I went over to the doctor’s door and on the door it said . . .’

I don’t understand a word of what Madame Lebrun is saying. I can feel a panic attack coming on, my breathing’s accelerating. She notices, gets to her feet and puts a hand on my shoulder. She hesitates for a moment, then makes up her mind to challenge me.

‘Romane, why did you see the head of pulmonology at the Hôpital Nord?’

*

After that I lost track of the conversation. My mind went into limbo.

Madame Lebrun put so much effort into persuading me that I really was ill that I gave up trying to contradict her. I needed to get her out of my consulting room, and quickly. The heat was catching at my throat. I was suffocating. I needed to breathe into my little bag but I didn’t want to do it in front of her, I didn’t want to encourage her bonkers hypotheses with concrete actions and images. I thanked her and she promised, again, that she wouldn’t say anything to my father, it would be just between the two of us. She reiterated her support and I shovelled her towards the exit.

Once the door was closed, I sat on the floor, and it took a good ten minutes to settle my breathing.

I dealt with the next four consultations in under an hour and cut short the day. I couldn’t concentrate and needed to get home. To think.

Madame Lebrun saw a distressed woman who wasn’t me, because I know perfectly well where I was last Saturday. Flippedy flip, that crazy old woman’s putting the weirdest words in my mouth – it wasn’t me, end of story, I don’t need to add justifications. But Madame Lebrun isn’t crazy, that’s the point. Her conviction has got to me because she seemed to be in full possession of her faculties. One detail of her story gets to me more than all the rest of it: she mentioned a red wig. I’ve had brown hair since my teens, but red is my natural colour. I don’t think Madame Lebrun has ever seen me with red hair. Obviously, I’m not the only redhead on the planet, and of course my father could have mentioned my colouring. It’s a coincidence or a pack of lies, that’s all, Romane.

The way my mind has concentrated on the colour of this Marseilles woman’s hair over the course of the evening has allowed a hypothesis to emerge gradually. And it’s as whacky as it’s exciting. What if she’s a member of my family? That would explain the vague similarity. What if Madame Lebrun’s curiosity was finally giving me an opportunity to meet one of the relatives my father always refuses to talk about, having cut off all ties with them after Mum died?

My mother’s death. The event – I’m convinced of this – that provoked my weaknesses, my fears, my father’s fears, my isolation, my co-dependent relationship with him that’s so hard to escape, my life . . . my absence of life.

My mother died when I’d just turned one.

In the most tragic way – saving me.

I have absolutely no memories of her, or of that winter afternoon. Could there be impressions and sensations imprinted somewhere in the convolutions of my brain? Nothing conscious, anyway. I was so young.

My father has always told me it was a beautiful day. It was the least you could ask, ‘for a goddess’s last day’. It couldn’t fail to be. So I’ve always had an irrational aversion for sunshine on crisp, cold days. Those rays of light are blades that cut right through me and endlessly reflect my mother’s death. And even though my father has always insisted fatalistically that it couldn’t be helped, that ‘it was nobody’s fault, just bad luck’, I’ve always felt responsible. She gave her life for me. If she hadn’t lunged to push the buggy onto the pavement, I would have died. My psychiatrist now sweeps aside this searing guilt with a flick of his hand. After all these years of therapy I need to move on. But I just can’t. When I look at photos of Mum, she’s so smiley, so beautiful, so much better than me, I can’t help feeling her life deserved to go on longer.

My father concentrated all his hopes, all his attention and all his love on me. That’s why it’s so difficult for me to break away completely. We’ve always been a family of two. My father’s turned the page on the past, scrupulously. I’ve never met so much as a great-uncle, not one great-aunt, no one, ever.

And now, out of the blue, Madame Lebrun is offering me a new possibility. A different outlook. It’s probably unfounded, but who knows? I must have some distant cousins, I wasn’t conceived by the Holy Spirit, despite my parents’ names: Mary and Joseph. I’ve always thought that if I’d been a boy, they’d have called me Jesus . . . so that was a narrow escape.

But that’s another story. Let’s get back to what I’ve been obsessing about since Madame Lebrun’s revelation: I want to meet this woman. I need to know. To be sure one way or the other.

I’m lying on my bed but sleep is out of the q. . .