Chapter 4
Four
On this afternoon when a flotilla of heavy clouds seemed to signal an imminent rainstorm, the Avenue Montaigne was devoid of the usual knots of tourists eagerly taking selfies in front of the discreet display windows of the designer showrooms lining this elegant street.
French or international, so many of the designers who had made their mark on the fashion world were represented here: from Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent and Givenchy, to Prada, Ferragamo and Gucci; from Burberry, Jimmy Choo and Louis Vuitton, to Tiffany, Paco Rabanne, and many more.
Nevertheless, the Avenue Montaigne wears its fame lightly, with a calm beauty.
Audrey had always preferred it to its sister fashionista-magnet, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which had a more nervy feel to it, perhaps because it also housed the élysée Palace, the heavily guarded official residence of the French President.
Audrey’s work as a journalist had many times taken her behind the display windows that tourists dreamed in front of, so she hadn’t come to the Avenue Montaigne for an injection of glamour but rather a desperate need for that calm confidence which the street exuded.
Fleeing the place where she’d seen Alex, she’d taken the Metro here, coming out of the station at the corner of the Avenue des Champs-élysées and heading to a lovely grassy area near the old theatre situated close to the busy roundabout.
With its lush grass and trees, this tiny patch of greenery felt like an unexpected piece of almost-rural peace, despite its close proximity to the ultra-famous street.
More than once, she’d had a takeaway coffee or sandwich there, relaxing between interviews when she was on a job.
Today, she’d just sat there, breathing deeply, trying to order her thoughts and banish the memories from flooding over her, but in the end she realised she couldn’t sit still.
She had to move, to walk. So she’d gone to the Avenue Montaigne, hoping its familiar calm elegance would work its usual charm.
But it hadn’t, and the designers’ windows could have been full of slime-clad aliens in glowing spaceships for all she would have noticed as she walked along, consumed in her thoughts.
It was absurd that seeing Alex should have affected her like this.
Theirs was a story long ended, a wound well and truly scarred over.
She’d long ago got over it, hadn’t she? No, there was no question mark about it, she had got over it!
She hadn’t thought of him for years—at least, she’d trained herself not to think of him—but now her treacherous mind kept pulling up images, not of the past, but of an hour ago, when he had so unexpectedly reappeared, no longer a ghost in a photograph, but a living, breathing reminder that old wounds could reopen without any warning.
She swallowed down on the lump in her throat.
Maybe it had hit her so strongly because, outwardly at least, he’d not looked at all like the successful businessman she knew he’d become, but almost the same as he had twenty years ago, bar one or two extra lines around his eyes and mouth, and a smarter haircut.
But his hair was still thick, with no trace of grey, and his gaze was as direct as ever.
He even dressed not all that differently, even if his casual look now clearly came from more expensive brands than before.
And his voice—oh, his voice! It had not changed one bit.
Remembering him speaking her name outside the Académie, shock sharpening his voice, she gave a little shiver.
When they’d first met, so long ago, it was his voice she had initially been aware of.
She’d been looking in her guidebook, trying to work out where she was going, and had absent-mindedly stepped off what she thought was a quiet road only to be jerked back onto the footpath by someone’s strong grip, and a voice crying out, ‘Attention, Mademoiselle!’ In the next moment, a bus trundled past with its horn blaring, as if indignantly reproaching her foolhardiness.
‘Come on,’ the voice had said to a shaken Audrey, ‘you look like you need to sit down.’ And it was then she’d turned and seen him properly, this young man with an unruly flop of sandy hair from under which a pair of warm brown eyes peered worriedly at her.
She couldn’t explain it, other than maybe her near-miss with the bus had acted like a kind of crazy spell from which she had fallen in love at first sight, just like a heroine in the cheesiest kind of Christmas romance movie.
Le coup de foudre, the French called it, literally a thunderbolt hit, and certainly it had felt like a physical shock, as indeed, she thought now, grimly, maybe it had been, just a product of the shock of nearly being hit by a bus.
She should have thanked him, then run a million miles away from him and that look in his eyes—a look that said, Yes, yes, yes, it’s me, a look that she knew was mirrored in her own eyes.
But instead she’d nodded mutely, let him take her arm and guide her to the outdoor tables of the nearest café where she sat down rather suddenly, aware of her wobbling legs.
He’d gone off to order the sweet milky coffee and pain aux raisins she’d craved, most likely because of the shock—for she never drank coffee with sugar, normally—and when he came back with a table number and a wide smile, she found herself briefly touching his hand and saying in a very small voice, ‘Thank you. You must think I’m such an idiot. ’
In her agitation, she’d spoken English rather than French, and winced, because she’d prided herself on having managed to carry on quite well in French till now, at least well enough for most ordinary interactions.
Not that this encounter was in any way ordinary.
He had not missed a beat, smoothly switching to an English that was way better than her French.
Later she’d learned he’d been sent as a teenager to a posh boarding school in the English countryside, where he’d learned to master the language along with picking up a lifelong hatred of unheated rooms and bullies and an inexplicable taste for room-temperature beer and televised sheepdog trials.
They would lie interlaced with each other in bed and she’d tease him about being more English than the English even if he was, in fact, French—oops, sorry, Belgian, just like Monsieur Poirot—and he’d laugh and say that no one could mistake her for anything other than an Australian, which predictably got her demanding what he meant by that, and he’d tap his nose in a ridiculous parody of secrecy, and then, well, it always ended up in the same way—making sweet, hot, intense love, again and again …
She’d never felt anything like it. She hadn’t even believed it could exist. She’d had boyfriends before, and they had been pleasant enough, but they had been nothing like what she’d experienced with this man she’d met so dramatically, and she was sure, totally sure, it would last forever.
Yes, she was only twenty and he a year older, but they knew their own hearts and minds, didn’t they?
They were adults, not kids. It wasn’t just the fabulous sex, it was the fun, the warmth, the closeness, the openness.
They told each other their dreams—hers of becoming a fashion writer, his of exploring the world—and in their telling, they felt an understanding that went far beyond surface differences. Or so she had thought.
She had a three-month holiday visa but within a week of meeting Alex, she had moved out of the hostel where she was staying and into his flat.
She hadn’t told her parents about it, because she knew what they’d say: too soon, too soon, and what do you really know of him?
Everything, she would have replied, but still, she wanted to wait before she told them and her siblings.
However, she did tell her closest friend, Kristy, and she had been supportive and excited, though later in the wash-up, Kristy confided that she had also been worried that things had progressed too fast, too soon.
A drop of rain fell, then another, then many more, increasing not only in number but pace.
Audrey had hardly noticed the first couple of drops, but now she realised that if she didn’t hurry to find shelter, she’d soon be drenched.
She hadn’t brought an umbrella or raincoat, and her French linen sundress and thin cardigan would hardly be protection.
And the trouble with the Avenue Montaigne was that there were precious few cafés on its elegant stretch.
The rain was falling faster now and though she hurriedly took shelter under a tree, some of the water still came through the leaves, splashing onto her head, plastering her hair against her skull.