Spiralling

A short story by Ellen Wallace from a collection, PORTS OF CALL, a work in progress

© 2025 Ellen Wallace

“Nous faisons l’amour tous les jours.” She murmured the words, and it felt as if she were softly stroking my cheek. Downy soft words. I barely caught what she said, and then wondered if I had.

I stared at her in astonishment, and I kept staring at her, unable to take my eyes away. She was serene, as older women should be but rarely are. I had no idea if older people made love, but surely not when they were this old.

A man, much younger, a kind of minder it seemed, glided behind her, took her by the elbow murmuring something in German and she nodded gracefully, allowing herself to be steered away without another look at me. She walked back to the side of the man, now more than a century in the making, who was her husband. She was three-quarters his age, I was a mere forty-one.

I was standing next to one of his paintings, closer than is normally allowed in the museums where his work hangs. It occurred to me that the paint itself had been dry for twice as long as I had yet lived, and he’d been drinking cheap wine with the likes of Picasso and Matisse when he laid on these brush strokes. And he was still making love with his wife? Every day? I felt drunk, that nerve-numbing sensation where time is not measurable.