Chapter 17
I tidy the apartment from top to bottom, change the sheets, dust the shelves, open the windows to let the warm spring breeze in.
I guess it’s a cleanse of sorts, one of those things spiritualists on Instagram warn you to do before you get stuck with another ten years of bad luck.
In my head, the deep clean means that if I make the place look like the home of someone who has their shit together then it might eventually come true.
By the time the buzzer finally goes at three o’clock I have been sitting on the sofa, waiting for an hour and a half. I practically fly down the stairs.
‘Hi.’ I smile as I open the door onto Archie. He looks so wonderfully familiar: his face, tanned, clean shaven, his eyes bright and glistening.
‘Hi.’ He has that smile tattooed onto his face, the knowing one, the one that feels like it’s our little secret, that in that moment we both know why we are here.
‘Hi,’ I say again as he bites his lip, bridges the distance between us.
‘We’ve done that bit already.’ He chuckles and then kisses me, re-writing the last time my lips touched someone else’s, returning me to comfortable territory.
I don’t notice the steps up to my apartment this time, there is a delightful knot in my stomach that distracts me. When we reach my front door, I look back at Archie, lugging his bag behind him.
He screws his face up a little at me, looks down. ‘What?’
‘I just can’t quite believe you’re actually here.’
‘Yeah well, needed a holiday.’ He winks.
He sets his bag by the door and surveys the apartment, hands on his hips, inspecting each and every corner.
‘It’s cute,’ he shrugs. ‘Bigger than I thought it’d be. Could do with a bit of modernisation in places.’ I feel a little surge of protectiveness inch its way up my spine.
‘No it doesn’t! Not everything needs to be white and grey and shiny.’
‘Alright, alright, didn’t mean to touch a nerve.’ He reaches out for my hands; I hold them close to me until he has to physically untangle them, and then we’re standing there palm to palm, looking at each other, that same knowing grin occupying his face.
‘What?’ It’s my turn to look confused.
‘I’ve missed you.’ He reels me in until there’s only a few centimetres between our heads.
The guilt floods in, because I know that he means it and I can’t say it back.
But here he is, just off a flight, without a second thought, all because I asked him to.
I’ve forgotten how handsome he is, how his smile is so entirely infectious, how he drips with security and comfort.
He guides my hands around his neck and I let him mould me into him.
I kiss him again before he can say anything else. He tastes fresh, like he’s got through half a pack of chewing gum in the taxi here. I press my hips to his, start to pull at his shirt but he laughs at me, shaking his head.
‘Not yet.’
‘Oh, come on!’
‘We have all weekend.’ He pulls away from me, his hands held up in the air. ‘We should at least get dinner first.’
‘Why?’ I try again, reach for him, stroke his cheek. He looks like he might fall for it for a moment, reassess his priorities, but he stands firm.
‘What’s got into you?’ He’s laughing but there’s an edge.
‘Nothing. I just missed this,’ I rephrase.
He takes the smallest step back, assesses me. ‘Me or the sex?’
I falter. ‘Am I allowed to say both?’
He swallows hard and then shrugs, his hands squeeze me and then he reanimates.
‘Let me have a shower and then I’ll take you out for dinner, wherever you want. You can show me around and then we can grab some drinks, come back later, and I promise you can do whatever you want with me.’ He winks as he says it and then reaches for his luggage. ‘Which door for the bathroom?’
‘Through that one and then left,’ I point, and when the door closes, I collapse into the sofa slightly deflated.
I pick L’Auberge for dinner, it fits the bill as somewhere that is quintessentially French and also a place I never visited with Ettie.
I appreciate that I’m not cheating, that walking through the place Ettie and I met is no worse than the handful of times I’ve slept with Archie before coming here, but the boundaries are blurring.
We leave half an hour early to amble through the town, picking out the top five things to see in Monpazier, which other than the covered market, church and general quaintness, consist of a pretty fountain and an apparently cursed gargoyle.
When we emerge from the dank nave of the church and back into the quickly fading evening light Archie nudges into me. ‘I can see why you fell in love with the place.’
‘Pretty, isn’t it?’
‘Could be the setting of a Disney film.’ He doesn’t sound particularly pleased with that statement.
‘Yeah, but I mean the charm wears off after a while.’ I play it off.
‘It’s a far cry from Hoxton, that’s for sure.’
‘They each have their appeal.’
‘Maybe you could show me where you lived, before…’ he asks slowly. I feel everything tighten at his request: my shoulders, my stomach, my palms.
‘We’ll be late for dinner.’ I try to placate him, put on my best fake smile and hope that he might get the hint but he shrugs.
‘We have ten minutes, besides I’m sure they’ll hold it.’
I look at him, his soft, wide eyes, the way he hunches over slightly to try to look me squarely in the face. ‘You really want to see it?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
I look at my phone, knowing that it is way past closing, that my chances of running into Florian are as slim as bumping into him at the supermarket, which still feel strangely far too high. ‘Okay.’
We round the corner and come to a stop at the edge of the café.
It looks almost skeletal now, with the chairs and tables all safely packed underneath the arches waiting to be laid out again tomorrow.
The only signs of life are in the warm-yellow lights emanating from the apartment above.
I feel the lump in my throat and swallow it back.
‘So… this is the place?’ He asks as if it’s more than it is.
‘This is the place,’ I repeat and check his face for any signs of disappointment that the most interesting thing about me is a rather bland, dilapidated building in the arse end of nowhere. ‘It’s a bit livelier in the day of course, when the tables are out and there’s… people.’
‘It’s exactly how I imagined it, Avie.’ Then there’s something warm and firm in my hand, and I look down to see Archie’s hand. He gives me a reassuring squeeze. It feels comforting and alien all at once.
Archie doesn’t let go of my hand until we get to the restaurant.
Something has come over us, a strange familiarity that goes beyond the handful of times we have slept together.
I imagine what we look like through other people’s eyes: a couple perhaps?
Two people who are happy and content in each other’s company and I don’t hate it.
I like the feeling of being with someone again, someone who makes it all so bloody easy.
When the waiter comes over with a pad and pen, I go to look at the menu but Archie whisks it away.
‘The Pécharmant and two menu du jour.’ He phrases it so lightly, the same gentle smile on his face, like he hasn’t just ordered on my behalf without even so much as checking that I’m not deathly allergic to something.
Something writhes inside me; I’m angry and I don’t really know why because Ettie used to do this all the time.
‘Did you just order for me?’ I ask when the waiter disappears. Archie’s face doesn’t falter.
‘I thought we’d go all out. My treat.’ He shrugs but when my face doesn’t fall back into submission and I don’t start uttering adoring thanks in his direction, his brow twitches. ‘Do you not like it? You can order something else if you want?’
‘It’s just…’ I start to say how, in that moment, I felt like a kid again, like someone who couldn’t be trusted to make the simplest decision; but I pause.
There are many ways this conversation can go, and only one of them leads to a nice evening with the possibility of some uncomplicated and distracting sex.
‘It’s fine, it sounds lovely.’ I deflate. Drink down a glass of water instead.
‘How are the chapters coming along?’ he asks over our main course, a duck breast smothered in sauce.
‘It’s starting to come together,’ I shrug.
I think of the three pages I managed to write last night; it might make anyone else baulk at my lack of productivity, but it felt like something had switched.
Kissing Florian had cleared the creative block, maybe because I wanted to do anything other than think about him.
‘Getting a bit more used to the place again?’
‘Like riding a bike,’ I say, still chewing a piece of fatty meat. ‘After a while you slip back into the way of things.’
‘And The American, will I run into her?’
‘Unfortunately not, she’s visiting some friends.’
‘That’s a shame.’ He takes a sip of his drink before leaning over the table towards me. ‘Please tell me you at least know her name by now.’
I push some hair behind my ear. ‘Well, not exactly…’
‘Seriously, Ava?’
‘It just hasn’t come up and it feels so stupid now that so much time’s gone on!
’ I raise my hands in defeat. I have mulled over the name that Crispy gave her more than I care to admit.
I wondered if it was short for something – Dorothy maybe – but that didn’t suit her either.
Maybe it was a code that only those over the age of eighty would truly understand.
‘I don’t think she even realises,’ I shrug.
‘I mean it’s not like it matters; we seem to have muddled through just fine without knowing details. ’
He smirks. ‘Oh yeah, silly little details like your best friend’s name.’
‘She’s not my best friend,’ I say defensively.
I go to name someone else, but I come to a rather depressing conclusion – there isn’t anyone.
There are friends, sure. There are people that used to hold that mantle until my life got complicated, but in terms of a figure to whom I would divulge my deepest, darkest secrets – well, there’s her.
And I don’t even know her name. ‘Shit. She’s my best friend. ’ I clasp my head in my hands.
Archie looks rather gleeful at my discovery until he takes a swig of his drink and turns his attention to a rather stubborn hangnail.
‘I’m assuming I’ll get to meet Florian at least.’
‘Oh.’ I recover my hands, chase a stem of asparagus with a fork, thinking of the perfect excuse as to why I will be attempting to keep Archie and Florian as far away from each other as possible.
‘You know, he’s pretty busy at the moment.
I don’t see him that much anyway, always been a case of running into him rather than planning anything.
’ I mean it’s not a complete lie, at least half of my meetings with Florian had been incidental at best.
‘So, no one wants to meet me?’ He puts on an exasperated pout and I roll my eyes at his performance.
‘Rather I’ve put them all off.’
‘Well, there’s only so much time we can spend in the apartment surely?’ he asks, his eyebrow raised into his fringe. I feel the heat returning to my cheeks.
I spear a final cube of potato into my mouth. ‘No comment.’
Archie throws down a chunk of notes and then when I get up from my seat, it’s like he sees me again for the first time. I watch him watch me, curious at what exactly is so worthy of his attention.
‘You know you look good, like really good.’ He shrugs on his jacket.
‘Do I?’ I look down at my very unexciting outfit; I mean yes, I had shaved and washed my hair and put on make-up but I still feel the opposite of attractive.
‘Yeah, I mean you just look different than when you were back home, not that you’re not pretty there, it’s like you suit being here, in this place.’ He fights for clarity, desperate not to turn a compliment into an insult.
‘You make it sound like a bad thing.’
‘No!’ He gabbles, ‘no not at all, I just… God my chat is pretty shit tonight.’ He laughs at himself.
‘Let me try it again.’ He reaches for my hand and I let him take it, threading my fingers with his.
‘You look beautiful, I’m lucky to be here,’ he says sincerely.
I press a kiss into his cheek and we linger in the closeness.
His hands move to my arms and he squeezes gently, a sort of embrace for people who weren’t going to be big on public displays of affection.
And then we walk back, taking the quick way this time, straight back to the apartment.