Chapter 32
Thirty-two
Romy and Mickael had gone back to her flat and were happily sorting through all the photos they’d taken earlier when the door buzzer sounded.
It was Alex. When Romy opened the door to him, she saw at once that something was wrong.
The bright happiness that had been there the night they’d returned from Toulouse had been replaced by a greyness that she’d never seen in his face before.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said, not even coming over the threshold, ‘but I need to ask you a favour. Can you look after my fish for a couple of weeks?’
Romy stared. She’d looked after his fish—a large tank full of beautiful small tropical creatures—a few times when he went on business trips. But never out of the blue and never for more than two or three days. ‘A couple of weeks?’ she echoed. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Somewhere—I don’t know yet,’ he said. ‘I just need to get away.’
Romy stared at him. ‘What’s going on, Alex?’
At that moment, a smiling Mickael appeared behind her, making Alex start. ‘Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know you had company.’
‘It’s okay. This is my friend, Mickael,’ Romy said. ‘Mickael, this is my uncle Alex.’ They shook hands a little awkwardly, then Mickael said, ‘Romy’s told me you own that great bar in the 11th. My friends and I just love it.’
‘Oh, that’s good,’ Alex said, with a distracted attempt at a smile.
Mickael got the hint. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ he said, and went back in.
‘I’ll leave you to it, too.’ Alex turned to go down the stairs, but Romy stopped him. ‘Please, Alex,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s happened. Is it … Audrey?’
Alex looked at her, his eyes full of defeat. ‘It’s really over now. And that’s for the best—for her, anyway. That’s all that matters.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Romy flashed out, anxiety sharpening her voice. ‘That’s total rubbish. You matter too, Alex.’ She’d never heard him speak like this before and it disturbed her. ‘Did she actually tell you she never wanted to see you again?’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, Audrey. Last night …’ and slowly, haltingly, he told her what had happened the night before, the happy evening crashing to an end with James’s unexpected visit. ‘So you see,’ he finished, ‘it’s over.’
‘Rubbish,’ Romy said again, and at that moment, she felt as if she was the older one, the wiser one, the more confident one.
‘She wouldn’t have gone with you to the club, she wouldn’t have wanted you to come back in the taxi with her, if it was over, or talked with you about the past, or any of it, if she didn’t want to keep seeing you.
And what’s more, she would never have wanted to do any of those things if she was actually happy with that guy. Don’t you understand that?’
He stared at her, but didn’t answer.
‘You did the wrong thing last time because you were afraid,’ she said, knowing she sounded stern, but knowing also that what she was saying right now was important.
‘Don’t do that again. Go, Alex. Not away from her, but to her.
Yes, last night it was the right thing to do to step away and give her space.
But now—you can’t run away and tell yourself it’s for the best, when it very likely isn’t.
Give her the opportunity to make a choice.
In person. If she really wants it to be over, she can tell you herself.
And if she doesn’t want it to be over, well … ’
‘I don’t want to complicate things for her, and I can’t bear to just have a furtive affair while she stays with James,’ he said.
‘Oh stop it! You are second-guessing her now, yet you don’t even know what she wants. Or at least you won’t let yourself know.’ She paused. ‘And what about you—do you know what you want?’
He laughed, bitterly. ‘I know that all right.’
‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘what have you got to lose by trying? You lose far more from not trying, because you’ll always regret it if you don’t. Like you did last time. Like you’ve done for the past twenty years, for God’s sake!’
He shook his head, but there was a glint in his eyes. ‘My God, Romy, when did you get to be so fierce?’
‘Since I saw you giving up,’ she replied, and was surprised when he suddenly hugged her tightly and said, ‘I’ll see you later,’ before hurrying down the stairs.
She watched him go, her surprise turning to delight mixed with anxiety and a kind of disbelief.
Had she really done that? Had she really given him the motivation he needed to make that change in his life, or at least try to?
It felt weird, but good. She had never imagined herself to be the kind of person that other people would listen to.
But now she felt a new strength in herself, a new focus, which made her see that in order to be listened to, you had to believe in yourself.
And not just in yourself; in others too.
For to be listened to, you also had to do the listening.
And this afternoon she’d listened to the sadness, the defeat, in Alex’s voice and known that what he needed wasn’t a simple acceptance of ‘it’s over’, but a real challenge to it.
Going back into the flat, she found Mickael sitting at the table, looking through the photos. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Romy, ‘but we’ll wait and see. I—’ She broke off as her phone rang. It was Isabelle. Her eyes widening, Romy listened to Isabelle’s story of how she and Carlos had got the letter. After the call ended Romy turned to Mickael. ‘You’ll never guess.’
‘I’m very bad at guessing,’ said Mickael, smiling. ‘So tell me.’
‘The Fontaine letter—it’s back.’ And she quickly filled him in on what Isabelle had told her.
‘So,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘the thief had a crisis of conscience, eh?’
‘Or rather a fear of being denounced and exposed,’ said Romy, but as she spoke, she had a mental image of Cazenave reverently handling the letter, and the expression on his face as he sniffed it and talked about Joy, which she’d misinterpreted as a reference to the emotion of joy.
But maybe, she thought, I hadn’t been far from the truth.
Whether there had really been a real trace of Elisabeth Fontaine’s perfume on the letter, or that was just Cazenave showing off, the expression on his face had been joy, at having the letter in his hands.
He hadn’t been a thief then, just a man discovering something infinitely precious. A mix of pity and dismay filled her.
‘What a stupid, stupid waste,’ she said.
Mickael nodded sombrely, then picked up the photos again. ‘Shall we continue with the next tracing? Or’—he looked at her with that mischievous smile of his—‘is there something else you’d rather do?’
Romy glanced at him, and what she saw in his face made her draw in an audible breath. ‘I—think—’ she stammered, as he reached for her, ‘that we—’ But his mouth was now on hers, and she had no more words as she returned his kiss.