Chapter 12 #2
“You’re a romantic,” he says in a tone of revelation. He doesn’t sound pleased.
I hasten into speech. “Or I have an overactive imagination. I like going past the entrances to the courtyards and trying to see what’s going on inside. If the windows were lower, I’d totally be looking into them.”
“Ah. Just incurably nosy, then,” he says sadly, laughing when I elbow him.
“I am nosy. I’ll never know the answers, but it’s fun to speculate.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“No need.” An older lady walks by us carrying a large straw tote bag and holding the lead of a small white dog. “Who do you think she is? And where is she going?”
“I don’t know her, so I can’t answer you.”
“No, the point is that you make up your answer.”
“What a pointless exercise. Still, I’m used to such games after being subjected to your frequent conversations about absolutely nothing.”
I nudge him, and he smiles. “What?” he says. “You go first.”
I look after her. “I think she’s having a torrid affair with a man who owns a bag shop.
Her husband has left for the day, and she’s meeting her lover for breakfast. The only trouble is that she has to take her dog today, and he hates the other man.
There is a high likelihood that he will bite his ankle out of solidarity with the husband. ”
“You got all that out of a straw bag and a poodle?”
“It’s a talent. Your turn.”
His legs are longer than mine, and he adjusts his stride so I can keep up. “Must I really do this? That board meeting I’m missing is looking very attractive at the moment.”
When I pout at him, he taps my lip, tracing it with his fingertip.
“Okay, I’ll do it to avoid the lip quiver.
” He looks back at the woman. “She’s a serial killer.
She murdered her husband and chopped his body up into pieces, which are in that bag.
She’s off for the day to dispose of him in all the bins of Paris.
Good luck to her. Paris waste collectors are invariably on strike. ”
I stare at him. “You are truly disturbing.”
“Thank you,” he says gravely.
“Would you put bits of me in a bag?”
“Everything except your jawbone. There isn’t a bag in the world big enough for that.”
I snort and then note a man wearing overalls and a trilby walking past. “Him next. It’s your turn to go first.”
As Mac guides me through the neighbourhood, our guessing game keeps us amused and grows increasingly wild with each new person.
“You seem very at home here,” I observe as we cross a small square. A playful wind snaps at our clothes and rustles the branches of the cherry trees. They lost their blossoms in last night’s storm, and now the delicate petals lie on the ground like a pink carpet for us to walk on.
“I should be. I lived here from the age of ten and went to university here.”
I stop walking.
He gives me a curious glance. “What’s the matter? Has your battery run down? Please allow me to savour this peace for what will be an all-too-brief second.”
“Y-You lived here?” I stammer in my haste to get the questions out. “Oh my god, does that make you French? Where did you live? Where did you go when you left Paris? Which university did you go to?”
“Damnation,” he says sadly. “Your mouth is still working.”
I give him a ferocious scowl.
He chuckles. “Let me see if I can remember your many questions. Yes, I lived in the city. I have dual nationality because my father was French and my mother English. I can naturally therefore speak fluent French. And I did go to university here.”
“And you ended up selling houses?”
He chuckles. “I’m not an estate agent. I own a very large international company that buys and rents out properties all over the world, including the very nice one in London you’re currently living in.”
I hide my wince at the word “currently.” I can’t imagine being anywhere other than with him. “So how did you end up doing that?”
He looks suddenly wary. “Ah, that’s far too long and boring a story.
Suffice to say, my parents died when I was young, and I went to live with my godfather, who was French and also my father’s best friend.
He came from a very wealthy family, and his business had been family-owned for over a hundred years.
He died when I was twenty and left it all to me. ”
I think back to the house in Shepperton. Why didn’t he live with his grandparents? I have so many questions, but his voice has a very final tone, indicating he’s shared enough.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say.
He steers me around a couple who are standing in the middle of the pavement talking and laughing. “For what?” he asks in a surprised voice.
“That your dad died.” I lick my lips. “My mum died, so I sort of know how it feels.”
“I didn’t know that. Is that the lady in the photograph?”
“What photograph?” Realisation dawns that he must have seen the photo in the lounge back at the flat. “Oh yes. Sorry about that.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Well, because I’m pretty sure that personal photographs aren’t allowed, according to Julian.”
“Well, he does seem to be the expert on what’s allowed and what isn’t.”
“He’s an expert in most subjects, according to him.”
He chuckles, and silence falls again. I look around with interest as we step onto what looks like a very posh shopping street.
Huge shop windows displaying expensive goods line both sides of the street, and designer names abound. Even the pavements are gleaming and shiny, as though they would never dare be dirty.
Expensive cars pass us, disgorging well-to-do customers. I shake my head at the store employees standing guard at the shops’ doors, scrutinizing people and acting like bouncers deciding whether to let a drunk stag party into a club for a late drink.
“You don’t get those at my local Intu.”
He pauses on the pavement. “Am I rushing you? Would you like to go in?”
“In that shop?”
He nods.
“God, no .”
“Why that tone of astonishment?”
I gesture down at myself. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“How on earth would you manage that?”
“Well, I never bought any new clothes like you told me to.”
He pulls me to the side of the street out of the way of pedestrians. “You’re usually incomprehensible, but you’re taking it to Olympic levels today. What are you talking about?”
I scuff the toe of my worn Converse on the shiny pavement. “You’re embarrassed by my clothes. You wanted me to dress better.”
He gapes at me, and he looks so surprised that I snort with laughter.
“What are you laughing at?” he asks.
“Sorry, sorry.” I begin to laugh in earnest. “It’s just that you seem so surprised.”
“That’s because I am.” He hesitates, and when he speaks again, his voice is curiously formal. “I only intend to say this once, so please pay attention.” I try out an attentive expression, and he grimaces. “Now you just look constipated.”
I roll my eyes. “What are you going to say?”
“That you could never embarrass me,” he says simply.
“Really?”
He nods. “You’re a vibrant, warm, funny and clever young man whose personality shines through. You don’t attract people to you because you dress well. You attract them because you’re you—honest and forthright and… and brave. I actually admire you.”
“You do ?”
“And you have an extraordinary talent of sounding exactly like a parrot. You could take that act on the stage.” I thump him gently, and he laughs before sobering. “We could all take lessons from you, Wes.”
“That is quite the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” I pause. “It doesn’t have a lot of competition from your other statements, though.”
His eyebrow rises. “Oh yes?”
I nod. “Especially when you consider that last month you told me I was a moron because I melted plastic in the oven.”
He laughs. “And I stand by that statement.” He gestures at the door.
“Would you like to go in? I will treat you to something nice.” He holds up a hand as I open my mouth to protest. “And not because you dress poorly, or I’m embarrassed, or any of the other cretinous reasons you’ve no doubt conjured up in your tiny brain. ”
“And he’s back ,” I say to the street, laughing. “No, I don’t want to go shopping, thank you. I like what we’ve been doing.”
“This is Paris, though. Are you sure you’d rather walk along the streets than shop at Chanel?”
I look at the security guard who’s observing us curiously. “I am very sure,” I say with certainty.
He’s silent for a while as we start to walk again, and I shoot him a nervous look.
Did I offend him when I wouldn’t let him buy me anything?
I open my mouth to say something, but he shoots me a look.
His face is cool once more, with no sign of what he was thinking, but I’m equally sure that he’s suppressing something.
“There’s a party at Jack’s next month,” he says.
This is so far from what I thought he’d say that I gape at him for a few seconds. “Where we met?”
“ Met ? You sound as if we’re conducting the romance of the century.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, what would you have me say instead? Oh, the club where you bought me for sex.”
We’ve stopped at the curb, and a couple next to us gives us shocked glances before moving away quickly.
He sighs. “Thank you so much for that.”
“You’re welcome. So, a party?”
“Yes, it’s the anniversary of it opening.” He studies me for a few seconds, his eyes a sharp blue, his mouth a firm line. “I would like you to go with me.”
Instinctively, I want to say no. It would be like reinforcing the walls between us when I’ve been hoping they were beginning to slip. I swallow. “Okay,” I finally say, and I can’t help the slight note of worry in my voice. Worry and hurt.