Paris
Paris
IN THE SUMMER OF 1984, AFTER ELLEN HAD WORKED at Marketing Solutions for over a year, Gloria announced that she was retiring from the sandwich bar and Claire took on the role of manager, with a salary hike and an option to take over the rental of the premises if and when she was in a position to do so.
‘You want that?’ Ellen asked.
‘To be my own boss? Yes please. I’m aiming to afford it by the end of the year.’
She was still holding down two jobs, still managing to have a social life, still finding plenty of men to buy her dinner and bring her home with them for the night. Occasionally her date brought a friend along for Ellen, and occasionally the friend asked to see Ellen again, and now and again Ellen also slept in another bed, but nothing lasted, nothing came of any of them.
She and Claire stayed on in the flat, neither having the appetite to move. Some day, they kept saying, and maybe some day would never come, and so what if it didn’t? They’d finally got the landlord to repair the doorbell, and they’d managed, with the help of two of their male neighbours, to bring the couch downstairs and out to a skip. They’d replaced it with a futon and added a big red rug and a coffee table, and the living room was considerably improved.
At the Marketing Solutions Christmas party that year, Tim announced that he and Alf were taking the creative department to Paris for a weekend in January. ‘Call it a late Christmas present,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a good year, and we’d like to say thank you.’
Paris, a city Ellen had dreamed of visiting for years. In celebration she bought a designer wrap dress that she found in the market for twenty pounds. ‘Cost you over six hundred quid new,’ the stallholder told her, and she had no idea if that was true but decided to believe him. She loved the way the dress showed off the right curves and hid the wrong ones.
‘You and Geoff should have a fling in Paris,’ Claire said.
‘Hardly likely, with the rest of the creatives there.’
‘See what you can do – and bring me back a Frenchman.’
Their hotel was small and old. The rooms were not ensuite. The bathrooms, three to a corridor, featured enormous cast-iron baths and toilets with dangling chains to pull for the flush.
Ellen’s window looked out on a narrow cobbled street through which people darted, heels clip-clopping, snatches of French floating up to her. She stuck out her head and caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, and a waft of perfume, and a hint of garlic.
On the first night they went out to dinner, and everyone but Ellen ordered moules . She had chicken, not being a fan of shellfish.
‘You can’t come to Paris and not have mussels,’ Tim said.
‘I can actually. What will we do tomorrow? Who’ll come to the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre?’
‘I will,’ Kit said. It was her first time in Paris too – but in the morning everyone apart from Ellen was hollow-eyed and exhausted after a night of throwing up, and in no position to go anywhere. The mussels, it turned out, hadn’t been such a good idea.
‘Sorry, Ellen,’ Tim said. ‘You’re on your own. We’ll see you this evening,’ so she pulled on her winter coat over her new dress and left the hotel.
It was bitterly cold. She was glad of the fur-lined boots she’d got in a sale. She didn’t fancy doing the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre alone, so she contented herself with wandering about the city for a few hours, dipping in and out of the shops and admiring the smartly dressed Parisians who hurried past.
She hadn’t used a word of French since school, but when she stepped into a café with a black and white tiled floor and marble-topped tables she took a seat by the window and ordered café crème and a pain au chocolat without stumbling. When her order was delivered she cradled her cup, trying to decipher the snatches of conversations within earshot. Maybe next she would go to—
Someone bumped against her chair, causing her to lurch forward and sending an arc of coffee flying from her cup onto her untouched pastry. She swung around, expecting an apology – and was horrified to see a man rushing out, holding the bag she’d slung casually, stupidly, over her chair back.
She sprang to her feet – ‘Stop!’ she cried, causing heads to swing towards her. ‘ Arrêt! ’ she called, and ‘ Voleur! ’, the words coming back without thinking. She clattered her cup onto the table and dashed from the café, heedless of the hubbub and the coat she left in her wake, her only thought to reclaim her bag.
Almost immediately, she heard another set of footsteps pounding behind her – a waiter, chasing her for payment? No: a man raced past her, hopefully also in pursuit of her thief. She flew along in his wake, heart pounding, boots thudding on the path. Her wrap dress flapped open as she ran, sending cold air to her thighs. She ignored it, modesty not a priority.
At an intersection the man darted across the street, the thief still visible some way ahead. Ellen raced blindly after them, hearing a screech of brakes and a volley of horns.
The chase continued for another half block, until a painful stitch forced her to halt and bend double, panting heavily. By the time she could catch her breath, both men had vanished from sight. Maybe the second had been an accomplice, and not someone trying to help her after all.
Struggling not to cry, she tried to recall the bag’s contents. Wallet with traveller’s cheques, some French francs, around the equivalent of a hundred pounds in total. What else? Not her passport, thankfully – they’d surrendered those at the hotel reception last evening.
Her keys to the flat in London. The bits and pieces that every woman kept in her bag: lipstick, comb, pen, tissues. Her book, in case she wanted to read over lunch. The Color Purple , which Kit had lent her last week.
Her perfume. The last of the precious scent that Claudia had given her when she’d left the sandwich bar. Eked out, used only on the most special of occasions, brought along to Paris for its final outing. Kept in her bag so she could refresh when needed. For some reason, the loss of it upset her more than anything else.
The cold was biting through the thin fabric of her dress. She began to walk back the way she’d come. She’d stop at the café and tell them she’d return with cash to pay her bill. She’d have to get a loan from one of her group. She shivered, wrapping arms around herself. Hopefully her coat was still there.
‘Excuse me.’
A voice behind her, not French. She turned to see a man approaching. ‘Sorry,’ he said, out of breath. ‘I couldn’t catch him. Not as fit as I used to be.’
Polished English accent. Navy jacket, dark grey sweater, pale grey trousers. Solidly built. Dark haired, clean-shaven. Definitely not an accomplice.
‘Thank you so much for trying. I really appreciate it.’
‘You’re cold,’ he said, taking off his jacket and placing it on her shoulders. ‘I assume you left a coat in the café.’
‘Oh . . . thank you.’ The warmth of it was wonderful. She hugged it to her. ‘Yes, a coat, unless someone’s stolen that too.’
‘Let’s hope not.’ He put out a hand. ‘Leo Morgan.’
‘Ellen Sheehan.’
They fell into step. ‘Did you have much in the bag?’ he asked.
‘Some cash, keys that can be replaced, nothing much else . . . it’s OK. I’m here with my work colleagues. They’ll help me out.’ But she felt somehow lost, exposed in some way, without the bag swinging from her shoulder.
They reached the café. ‘Let me get you a brandy,’ he said, ‘just to be on the safe side. You’ve had a shock’ – so they sat at the table she’d vacated by the window, and he spoke in what sounded like perfect French to the waiter, and her coat was returned to her.
The brandy was fiery, the first sip making her eyes swim. She was reminded of the last time she’d drunk brandy, the night Claire had come up to Galway and brought some in a flask. She felt its warmth radiating wonderfully through her, sliding into her extremities. ‘This was a good idea,’ she said.
‘They’re not charging for it, or for what you had earlier.’
‘Oh . . . ’ She smiled at the waiter, mouthed merci . ‘That’s nice of them.’
He drank an espresso. The small cup looked like part of a doll’s tea set in his hand. ‘You need to be careful,’ he told her. ‘Paris is beautiful, but it’s also full of opportunist thieves. Tourists are sitting ducks.’
‘I was careless,’ she agreed.
‘Your first time in the city?’
‘Yes. Do you live here?’
‘No – this is a business trip. I live in London.’
‘Me too.’
‘You’re from Ireland.’
‘Yes, the west.’
By the time the brandy was gone she’d told him about Marketing Solutions, and the flat she shared with Claire, and he’d told her that he worked in banking – ‘Very boring, but someone has to do it.’
He was older than her, thirty or so. His eyes were almost black, very little distinction between pupil and iris.
‘How is your French so good?’ she asked.
‘My mother’s French. She lives in Nantes, where I was born. My father was English. Where else have you been besides France?’
‘Nowhere, apart from Ireland and the UK.’
‘Check out Rome when you get a chance; it’s my favourite capital. Throw coins into the Trevi Fountain, and visit the Villa Borghese, and walk through the Forum. You can skip the Colosseum, it’s overrated – and unless you want to stand in a queue for hours and then get rushed through the main event, forget the Sistine Chapel. But watch your bag in Rome too – every capital has its criminals.’
She liked his voice, rich and deep. A good voice for a radio presenter. His programme would be music, a mix of jazz and classical. She liked his hands too. They reminded her of Ben’s, solid fingers with nails that he looked after. He wore a gold signet ring on the little finger of his left. His watch was gold too.
He smiled a lot. Not a wide beam, more a gentle smile that crinkled the skin slightly around those dark eyes. He was a step above the men she’d come into contact with so far in London. He was cool, cosmopolitan, cultured. Probably well-off too, working in banking.
She could see him going to the theatre. She bet he appreciated a good play.
‘You should report the theft to the police,’ he said when they were getting up to leave. ‘The chances of your bag being found are tiny, but a tiny chance is better than none.’
When she agreed, he asked in the café for directions to a gendarmerie , where again he did most of the talking. She was lucky he’d been around. She felt taken care of.
‘Right,’ he said outside the station, ‘I’m going to put you in a taxi and send you back to your hotel.’
She protested, saying she didn’t mind walking, but in truth the experience had drained her, and the day was getting chillier, and she was glad when he insisted. He paid the driver, again ignoring her protestations, and settled her in.
‘It was nice meeting you,’ he said, ‘despite the circumstances.’
‘You too. Thank you for everything. You’ve been so kind.’
‘My pleasure. I’ll keep an eye out for you in London.’
He closed the door and stood on the path as they drove off. No doubt he thought her very na?ve.
Back at the hotel, she found the rest of them sitting with cups of hot tea around a roaring fire in the bar, looking somewhat improved. She told them of the theft, and the man who’d come to her aid – and in bed later she heard again his beautiful accent, and saw again the dark, dark eyes.
She imagined the two of them in Rome, strolling hand in hand through the ancient streets, tossing coins into a fountain, gazing at Michelangelo’s Pietà . They might stop in a doorway to kiss in the moonlight, his hands caressing her body as she tasted the limoncello he’d sipped after their shared pizza . . .
She pulled the bedclothes more tightly around her, smiling at her foolishness. She must really be desperate if she was turning a man she scarcely knew into a lover. Chances were she’d never lay eyes on him again.
That night, despite her calamitous day, or maybe because of it, she slept more deeply and soundly than she’d done in months.