Читать книгу Hector Finds Time - Francois Lelord - Страница 13

HECTOR and Clara … well, it was a long story, even though they were both still quite young. We’ll try to explain it to you, but, as with all love affairs, it’s not always easy to understand, even for those involved.

Clara and Hector first met at a big conference for psychiatrists organised by a big company which made medicines and which Clara worked too hard for. Hector had gone up to ask Clara some serious questions about the medicines. Clara had answered him seriously. Then, just after that, Hector had made her laugh; then after that he’d phoned her; then some time after that they’d realised that they were both in love.

And now Clara and Hector were living together.

Clara and Hector sometimes thought about getting married and having a baby, but they hardly ever thought about it at the same time. Sometimes, Hector went off travelling, and when he’d been away, it must be confessed, he’d got up to mischief. And for a while he hadn’t really been too sure what he wanted. For her part, Clara had wondered if Hector and she would ever get married. And at times she hadn’t really been too sure any more what she wanted either.

But, at this point in their story, Clara and Hector were living together and were starting (once again) to think about getting married and having a baby.

Will they get there eventually? You’ll have to keep reading to the end of this book to find out!

One day, Hector talked to Clara about what he’d noticed: that almost nobody was happy with time. And he also told her about this feeling he had, from some of the comments his patients had made, that he wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more.

So Clara said to him, ‘Oh, you men! You’re always a bit slow!’

And she explained to Hector that, for women, the feeling of not exactly being young any more came much earlier than for men.

‘How do women notice?’ asked Hector.

‘The competition appears,’ said Clara.

At first, Hector didn’t understand what Clara meant, which just goes to show that psychiatrists aren’t always that clever after all.

Clara went on: ‘And we women are much more aware of the years going by. For a long time, when you’re young, you think your life will really get going a bit later, and then one day you realise that this “later” has already been and gone. Usually, this is the point when you begin to see little wrinkles appearing on your face that other people don’t notice. Sometimes, I tell myself that if I keep thinking “later”, one day I’ll realise it’s “too late”. To have a baby, for example.’

And Clara looked at Hector, and Hector looked at Clara.

All of this showed that, even though Clara seemed to be quite an optimistic girl, there were still times when she thought quite deeply about things. Of course, Hector already knew that, and it was one of the reasons he loved Clara.

Once again, Hector told himself that, even if no one talks about the passage of time, everyone thinks about it.

Apart from babies, perhaps. But, then again, who knows?