The Train to Paris (24 page)

‘Let me go,' she said.

‘Not until you tell me the truth. Are you in love with Ed?'

‘You have no idea what love is. You read about it in books, for God's sake. I bet your definition comes from the dictionary, doesn't it? I don't need to be in love with somebody for them to be the most important person in my life.'

‘So that's what Ed is? I can tell you right now that he isn't in love with you.'

‘Oh, and I suppose that you are because we have known each other for all of two days. For your information, I have been seeing Ed periodically for the last ten years, but we have never made love. He is my escape. You are not. Now let me go.'

‘No. That isn't true. You've told me things that you would never tell anybody else. I know who you are, and he doesn't.'

‘You need to grow up, Lawrence. You already have a little, but you need to go further. Now please, do let's enjoy ourselves while we still can.'

I released my grip. Her glistening red lips trembled.

‘So you have made your mind up,' I said.

‘Yes.'

‘And you wouldn't even consider staying with me?'

‘No, darling, I wouldn't. Now may I borrow that jacket? It really is damned freezing.'

I placed the jacket over her shoulders. It suited her. She made it her own.

We continued down the Rue de Buci in silence. The cafés and the boulangerie were opening, and the first customers were beginning to line up. Some of them looked at us with curiosity: I without my coat and shivering, she in her rumpled evening dress and shoes that should have caused her to trip in the snow. Somehow she kept her balance. She did not need my support. I breathed in the artificial scent of pastry, and realised that I was as hungry as a
clochard
. I had eaten nothing since lunch the previous day. Everything had been put on indefinite hold since then.

‘Tell me something funny, Lawrence,' she said as we reached the corner of the Rue Dauphine. The Pont Neuf was visible at the end of the street. ‘Please. I need to hear something funny.'

‘I'm not funny. You know that. I can never measure up to your standards.'

‘No. But you can try.'

‘I guess going to Panama is funny. You won't have to pretend that it's summer anymore.'

This brought a smile to her lips. She was feeling around for my hand. I considered not giving it to her, but she held it firmly. At any other time I would have felt the energy and affection surging between us. Instead everything was contradictory. She led me down the street in silence, as the snow continued to fall. It was lighter now than it had been. The tranquillity was only disturbed by the passing traffic and the faint sound of construction work a few blocks over.

‘You can't deny that we achieved what we set out to,' she said. ‘We did have an awful lot of fun. Isn't that enough?'

‘Maybe it is. I wouldn't change anything, even if I wanted to.'

‘Even my apparent selfishness?'

‘Least of all that.'

Her pink cheeks rose up. ‘So you really have learnt something. Unless you are trying to placate me.'

‘You know me better than that, don't you?'

‘I know everything about you. That is why I trust you. It is a shame that you have never trusted me.'

This was undeniable. I could not imagine anybody trusting Élodie Lavelle. Perhaps that was the real difference between Ed Selvin and me. We continued to walk in silence until we reached the end of the street. Some of the tourists were already out, taking photographs of the snow from the bridge and messaging them to their friends.

‘All right, Élodie,' I said. I tried to control my voice, even as it faltered. ‘I should let you get on your way, wherever you end up. Somehow I don't think it will be Panama.'

‘No. But it will be somewhere.'

We stayed with each other on the street corner for what felt like a much shorter time than I knew it to be. I tried to memorise her every detail. But I also knew that I could never preserve Élodie. She embraced me and teetered on her high heels so that she could reach over my shoulder. I ran my hands over her back, imagining the moles and the scar under the jacket.

‘I have to do this, Lawrence,' she whispered. ‘You know me. I can never stay in one place. And nor can you. You have to keep going.'

I thought that she might have been crying. Her voice cracked. But when she drew back her eyes were as crystal and dry as they had ever been.

She patted me on the shoulder. ‘Chin up, darling. You can have fun without me. And, if all else fails, rest assured that you are the only person who ever understood me.'

I was going to tell her the same thing, but I couldn't speak. She was about to take the jacket off, but I shook my head and held a hand up. It was hers now. She smiled and turned to cross the road. Her shoes glided over the cigarette ends and broken glass collected in the gutter. I remained on the street corner and felt my feet go numb. She was about to look back, but she caught herself and sailed across to the other side of the bridge. I waved nonetheless, and told myself that she had seen it. I kept watching until she had disappeared into the crowd of tourists beyond the haze of snowfall.

The numbness spread from my feet to my whole body. Shivering, I walked up the street to a world that had become much smaller. I tried not to think of all the things that I might have said to keep her from making that terrible mistake. But then, I supposed that she had made it a long time ago. Whatever it was. Perhaps I had made the same mistake. For some reason this thought struck me as funny. It was the greatest joke. I laughed to myself all the way to Saint-Sulpice.

25

‘Hello?'

‘Lawrence. We need to talk.'

‘Hi Sophie. How are you? I tried to call yesterday, but you weren't picking up.'

‘I know. I'm sorry, but I couldn't talk to you yesterday. Are you doing anything?'

‘Not much. What's the matter?'

‘Let's be honest—you know as well as I do that this isn't working. I haven't seen you for months. I can't even remember you that well. It's like you're a stranger now. And you don't know when you're coming home.'

‘I told you—I'll finish university here, and then I might do some more travel, and I will be home before the end of the year.'

‘Yeah. I don't want to wait around for someone who obviously doesn't want to come back.'

‘So, what should I do?'

‘There is nothing you can do. Lawrence, I'm really sorry, but you missed your chance. I've met someone else.'

‘What?'

‘You might know him. He went to your school, and now he's interning at a law firm. Don't be upset. I want us to stay friends. But we were never much more than that, were we?'

‘I thought you were waiting for me to come home.'

‘I was. There's only so much waiting I can do. I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I like you, but we're not right for each other.'

‘We're not.'

‘You agree? How long have you thought that?'

‘It doesn't matter. I'm glad you said it, because I never could have.'

‘All right, then. Is there anything else you want to talk about?'

‘Not unless you want to. I should go out and make the most of Paris while I'm still here.'

‘You should. I'm sorry, Lawrence. This isn't how I wanted it to end. Call me if you need to talk more.'

We said a polite and hurried goodbye. She was keen to get off the phone. I had gone weak, and I collapsed onto the sofa after I had put the receiver down. It was both an outrage and a relief. I had considered the possibility that she might have found somebody else, but I had dismissed it. At least I no longer had to tell her about Élodie. I had gone through every way that I could break the news to her, and I had written several drafts of a letter to her in which I confessed everything. But I had been unable to find the right words. This was not how it was supposed to be. I should have admitted it all to her—not the other way around.

It was the first warm day in March, and I had opened the windows to let the sunshine in. The apartment was as clean as it had ever been. The carpets were vacuumed, and the remaining dust was floating around, caught in the afternoon light. I could have gone to sleep on the sofa, and I buried my face in the cushions, but I remained awake, listening to the car horns and the sound of high heels on the pavement.

I was jolted back to life when a key turned in the door. Ethan came in. He had a shopping bag, producing from it a packet of cigarillos and a bottle of Scotch whisky.

‘As you were, professor,' he said as I got up from the sofa. Readings and notes were strewn across the floor around me. ‘Drinks are on me this evening. What have you been doing? You look terrible. Not working too hard, I hope.'

‘I'm not doing too great. Sophie just called. She's seeing someone else.'

‘Oh man, that's rough. So I got here at just the right time?'

He poured two large glasses of the whisky and pulled up a rattan chair so that we were facing each other.

‘What happened? Is it anyone I know?'

‘Apparently it's someone I know. From school.'

‘Ouch.'

‘But I don't care. As long as she's happy.'

‘So what if she isn't? I wouldn't worry about it. There are other girls in the world, and most of them are on this side of it. Trust me, I know.'

‘Sure, Casanova, if you say so.'

‘Come out for a drink tonight. Who knows? You might meet a French bombshell who blows your brains out. What's so funny?'

I was unable to restrain myself. I had to tell Ethan about Élodie.

‘I've already had a bombshell moment,' I said. ‘A few months ago.'

‘What?'

‘In Biarritz, and then here.'

‘Whoa. Are you joking? You went to Biarritz with a girl? What, did she pop your cherry?'

‘She did. It's the truth.'

‘I don't believe it. Wow, professor, you kept that well hidden. Who is she?'

‘See, that's the trouble. I don't know. But it feels as though I've known her forever.'

I went on to explain it all, from the meeting in Hendaye to the hotel in Biarritz to the day in December. My confession lasted long enough for the sky to go dark outside. I left nothing out. It was difficult to tell Ethan about our final morning together. I was still there on the bridge, in that impressionist canvas with the falling snow.

‘That's incredible,' he said once I had finished. ‘Why didn't you tell me earlier?'

‘It's embarrassing.'

‘Are you kidding? It's a hell of a story. How old did you say she was?'

‘Around forty. She's not the type to let that kind of thing slip.'

‘A married woman. And a porn star. This is great. If it wasn't you telling me I'd be certain this is just some fantasy. Do you love her?'

‘I don't know. Maybe I do. But I'm never going to see her again. And even if I did, we could never be lovers. Now I don't know what to do without her or Sophie.'

‘For Christ's sake, Lawrence. You need to stop putting people in boxes. Think about it. You're free to meet anyone you want now. Marguerite was telling me how hot she thinks you are. Come on, finish that whisky, and then we're having bottles of wine at the place around the corner. I'll get the others to come along. Tell them you need cheering up.'

The next morning, I woke to see an empty whisky glass on my bedside table. The residue sat in a ring around the bottom, and I could smell its sickly perfume. It had been a long night with much drinking and talking and jesting. Ethan had insisted that I was in need of a good time, and his friends had asked me about Sophie and expressed their sympathy, and we had raised a toast to her. Ethan was asleep in the next room. Rather than wasting another day, I decided to go for a walk through the Marais, to see the other side of the city.

I felt the sun on my skin between intervals of cloud, and the faint breeze in my hair. The cherry blossoms were starting to emerge on the Île de la Cité, and the flower market was busy. I stopped to buy a bouquet of white tulips. They would sit well on my writing desk.

I crossed the Pont de l'Arcole to the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville. The tourists were out with their cameras, some of them poring over maps on the café terrace, and the street performers were making the most of the good weather. A living sculpture stood in the middle of the square, and children laughed as they dropped a coin in his box and he danced for them. I could breathe the fresh air, and I could stand up straight and take it all in. This was freedom. This was the Paris of my imagination.

Élodie was there on the corner. It was no illusion this time—I could have recognised her from any distance. Her hair was done more modestly than I remembered. She wore a black woollen coat, which did not become her at all. Gone was the glinting jewellery, although the ring that had so intrigued me was still there in the form of a white mark around her finger. Her skin was cracked, which made the blemishes more conspicuous. She turned in my direction, and I saw that she was not wearing the same film of make-up, either. She was not a porn actress. She was not the trophy wife of a businessman, nor the lover of a seedy American. She was herself. Her natural, unembellished self. Her eyes contained the spark, clearer than it had been. She pretended not to have seen me. But she had.

Without thinking, I started to walk towards her. She must have noticed because within a second she had disappeared around the corner. I ran up to the end of the street, but she could have gone anywhere. I wanted to see her again. But she wasn't walking down the stairs to the métro, nor was she climbing into the taxi on the curb. I stood on the corner of the Rue du Temple, watching for my Élodie.

But she was not my Élodie. Now I could let her go. The clouds had burnt off, and those old buildings were cast into shadows by the raw sunshine. They could have been painted by Renoir or Daumier in this light, and it wouldn't have mattered.