Chapter 28
28
DAY FOUR
Now
As the sun set on the zoetrope of cornfields, citadels, bridges and rivers out of the train window, Minnie looked at Jesse intently across the table. This time she was travelling backwards, racing at high speed to an unknown destination.
‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going?’
They hadn’t gone for dinner and they hadn’t gone back to Gare du Nord. Instead, Jesse had navigated them to a different train station, gone to a kiosk and bought tickets in French so fast and so fluently, Minnie didn’t pick up a single word.
‘We’re going to run in a field.’
‘What?’
‘Isn’t that what your therapist – what Tony – suggested? Be joyful. Go running with gay abandon through a field?’
Minnie laughed, half in terror, half in awe. Jesse had listened.
‘Fuck Wim Fischer and fuck your ex.’ Jesse said it so bitingly, Minnie could see a flicker of irritation in his jaw. ‘We’re going to run all that shit away.’
‘In a field?’
‘In a field.’
‘This is a long way to go to find a field.’
‘Yeah there aren’t many in Paris.’
Minnie and Jesse looked out of the picture window in comfortable silence as their legs kicked out in front of them, Minnie’s slotted between Jesse’s but not touching, like the opposite sides of a backgammon board.
‘He called me actually,’ Minnie confided after some quiet. ‘JP.’
‘Oh really?’ Jesse’s cheeks flushed. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said, “Congratulations, darlin’, I saw your programme was gonna be on the telly…”’ For an actor, Minnie did a poor impression of an Essex accent. Jesse felt heat run through his face. He wanted to ask what she had said in reply, but didn’t. He didn’t want to talk about JP.
‘Well fuck ’em all. You need space and you need air and you need to run in a field.’
‘Now you’re making me sound like Theresa May.’
‘Trust me, you’re not Theresa May.’
Minnie looked at her watch.
‘Well we’re not going to make our train back to London.’ She laughed. It was the first time Jesse had seen her truly relax since the horror of her audition.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Jesse shrugged with a carefree look.