Chapter Five
As she fell asleep that night, Olivia knew she would remember this night forever, and she drifted off dreaming of the shimmering lagoon and palazzos and gondolas.
But as she fell into a deeper sleep, her brain began to betray her, leading her away from the present and into her past, taking a dark turn as it dived into her memories of being a shy twenty-one-year-old graduate heading to Paris for the summer before getting what her parents called ‘a proper job’.
She’d arrived at the hostel ready to see as much of the art she had studied over the past three years as she could.
She planned to go on to Amsterdam, Berlin, Florence and finally Venice with the money she had saved working behind the bar in the student union.
After that, she would start applying for jobs.
Paris was hot and sticky, the hostel was grubby and her French wasn’t nearly as good as she’d thought it was.
But once she got into the cool of the galleries, she forgot her discomfort.
She wandered from the Musée d’Orsay to the Rodin to the Picasso museum in the Marais, absorbing every last detail.
And there, at the Orangerie, she saw him for the first time, holding court with a group of spellbound tourists.
He was elegant, raffish, wearing a blue linen shirt over wide cream trousers, his hand constantly running through a mane of treacle hair.
She lingered near his group, straining to hear what he was saying, longing to glean some inside knowledge about Monet and Giverny beyond the audio guide provided by the gallery.
She watched his expansive gestures as he waved his hands around the curved walls.
‘So here we have Monet’s last word – Les Nymphéas. Remember he is as blind as a bat, almost, by the time he comes to paint this, so he is painting from memory . . .’
As he carried on, Olivia was mesmerised.
He was quite a bit older than her – probably in his mid-thirties – but that didn’t put her off.
She often felt she didn’t fit in with her own age group.
She’d found the endless drinking and banter and escapades at university exhausting, and had worried that she was uptight and a bit of a swot compared to the other girls, who had all been much more rebellious and confident than her. She’d felt boring in comparison.
She’d never found anyone who made her feel comfortable.
She’d had a few flings, which had been sweet but unsatisfying.
This man intrigued her, though, and she felt a strong pull inside her as she watched and listened to him.
This was the kind of man she wanted. Someone who knew things she didn’t, who could introduce her to an exciting new world, who would make her think.
But he wouldn’t be interested in a girl like her, naive and unsophisticated.
She imagined him with a chic Parisian woman on his arm, impossibly thin and dressed all in black.
The antithesis of her. Olivia felt self-conscious, aware that her denim dress was a little tight around the middle and her arms and legs were pale; that her sneakers were battered, and her rucksack was a million miles from a designer handbag.
She drifted away from the group and began to work her way around the gallery, immersing herself in the glory of the paintings, letting the colours wash over her.
‘A penny for them.’ A voice next to her made her jump out of her skin. She turned and saw the guide she’d been listening to earlier looking at her. His eyes were intense, searching, and she felt her cheeks go warm under his scrutiny.
‘I was wondering if perhaps a painting doesn’t have to mean anything. That it can just be beautiful. That it can just be what it is.’
‘Well, yes. But that would put me out of a job.’
She laughed at that. ‘Me too, probably. Not that I have a job yet.’
‘Are you an art student?’ He looked her up and down, and again she felt self-conscious.
‘Is it so obvious?’ Her rucksack was a dead giveaway.
He grinned. ‘An educated guess.’
‘I’ve just graduated. I’m doing a not-so-grand tour of Europe before I join the real world.’
‘Oh, you must never do that. The whole point of art is not to be in the real world.’
She laughed. ‘I liked what you were saying earlier. About Monet.’
‘Were you eavesdropping?’ He raised his eyebrows, but he was smiling. ‘I don’t remember you paying to join the tour?’
She bit her lip, but she was smiling too. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t help overhearing.’
He shook his head in mock disapproval. ‘Well, you’ll have to buy me a drink to make up for it.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ she said.
Was this flirting? She’d never flirted properly with a man before. Boys her own age made her feel awkward and confused, but for some reason with him the badinage was coming naturally to her. Throughout the conversation their eyes had been locked on each other.
‘Eight o’clock,’ he said. ‘Or thereabouts. Chez Prune.’
‘Where’s that?’
He gave her a quizzical look. ‘Everybody knows Chez Prune. You’ll find it.’
And then he was gone. She realised she didn’t even know his name.
That evening, after much agonising, she decided on a white linen shirt, jeans and suede boots. With freshly washed hair, lashings of mascara and a slosh of the Miss Dior she’d been given for her birthday, she didn’t look the epitome of Parisian chic, but she looked . . . nice.
With a bit of detective work she discovered that Chez Prune was up in the 10th arrondissement, so she got the Métro up to République and walked until she reached the canal.
The wide pavements were lined with billowing chestnut trees throwing their shade on to the cool, still water.
Music spilled from the bars and cafés – reggae and drum ’n’ bass and salsa – and there was graffiti splattered on the buildings and across the iron bridges. It was young and edgy and exciting.
Chez Prune was a large bistro on a corner, with deep-maroon awnings – the tables and chairs outside already full, the pavement packed with people spilling out on to the street, some of them sitting on the edge of the canal or on the iron footbridge, drinking wine or pastis and smoking as the heat began to leave the day.
Nobody took any notice of her as she searched the crowd.
She could see no sign of him even though it was gone eight, but he had said ‘thereabouts’.
She wasn’t sure whether to go and get herself a drink or to wait.
She lit a cigarette to occupy herself, which would hopefully give her an air of insouciance, but her heart was pattering and she felt an urgent thrumming deep down inside.
Nerves and anticipation and the promise of his attention.
She had liked his eyes on her, the way he had seemed to approve of what he saw, as if he was looking at a particularly pleasing masterpiece.
By half eight, she had decided he wasn’t coming, and hated the crushing sense of disappointment.
She must have imagined the frisson between them at the gallery.
She caught sight of her reflection in the café window and felt dowdy and cumbersome next to all the gamine French girls in their leather miniskirts and skinny scarves; their dark-red lips and their bedhead hair.
And then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and there he was, his smile reaching deep inside her. He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and although this was the normal Parisian greeting, it turned her inside out.
‘I’ll get us a bottle,’ he said. ‘Wait here.’ And she watched him thread his way through the throng, greeting people as he went, clapping them on the shoulder or touching cheeks as they had just done, and she realised this was his territory.
He could, she presumed, choose from any of the girls, but he had chosen her. For now.
She had to find a way to hold his interest. Would he tire of her quickly – a middle-class girl from a small market town in Berkshire who had seen nothing of the world, who had spent three years at a university less than an hour away from where she had gone to school?
They had art, she reminded herself. There was nothing she didn’t know about that.
She had studied harder than any of her contemporaries.
She thought she could discuss anything: Byzantine, Romanticism, Abstract Expressionism, she had opinions on them all.
And she reminded herself she had got a first. She would be able to hold her own.
But he didn’t want to talk about art. He wanted to talk about anything but.
‘I talk about art all day,’ he explained, and she understood. ‘Tell me,’ he said, circling his fingers around her wrist, caressing the soft skin on the inside with his thumb until she thought she would melt. ‘Tell me about you. Who is Olivia?’
‘Oh, gosh, no one really, much,’ she stammered, then laughed to cover her awkwardness. ‘I want to see as many paintings as I can before I start applying to auction houses. I want to be an auctioneer.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Unusual for a girl.’
‘There are female auctioneers,’ she assured him. ‘They just don’t get represented in the media. It’s always the posh old stuffed shirts you see in films and television programmes. And women are in the minority. But that’s all the more reason to become one.’
‘Well, good for you,’ he said. ‘I can see you up there on the rostrum with your gavel, keeping order.’
Was there a tiny hint of mockery in his tone?
She couldn’t be sure. Was she deluded, thinking she could make her way in a world that was traditionally dominated by men?
She took another gulp of the red wine he had bought, and by the time she had finished her glass and he had topped it up, her doubts melted away.
That night, she followed him through a maze of cobbled streets to his apartment.
It was exotic and mysterious, with tapestry sofas and carved wood tables, stuffed with books and paintings and ornaments and plants and lamps.
The air smelled of cinnamon and cardamom and something more heady that she thought might be illegal.