Chapter 28
I was waiting outside the restaurant, happily people-watching, when a sleek, black car pulled up to the kerb.
The late-April sunshine glinted off its black paintwork.
After a moment, a uniformed man with at least twenty years on me exited from the driver’s seat and turned sedately to the back door, which he proceeded to open.
From the dark interior, Reine emerged like the queen her name suggested, the chauffeur extending his arm for steadying assistance as she did so.
Her right hand, beringed with diamonds that flashed in the late-winter sun, lay lightly on his arm until she was out of the car.
A few words were exchanged, the man nodded, Reine smiled and he turned back towards the driver’s door.
I took a few steps towards the road and Reine noticed, her hand lifted in a wave as the smile broke on her face. I quickened my pace.
‘Kitty, darling.’ She stopped and kissed both cheeks. ‘How are you? I do hope you haven’t been waiting too long?’
‘No, not at all. I’ve been enjoying watching the world go by anyway.’
‘An excellent pursuit. Gabby is not here yet?’
‘No, she’s running a few minutes late but said she should be here soon.’
‘Ah, bon. Let’s go inside and wait in the warm. Have you been here before?’
‘No. This sort of place was rather out of my budget when I was here as a student! I remember seeing it back then though and watching all the glamorous people come and go. There used to be a café over there,’ I pointed across the street, ‘and I’d sit in there and study and people-watch.
’ The café had gone now, replaced by a vape shop.
‘So much has changed since I was here years ago.’
‘And yet so much is the same.’
‘Exactement!’ I said, laughing.
‘Come on, let’s go and get some lunch. I’m famished.’
Inside, the décor was as opulent as I’d imagined it to be when I’d watched those patrons disappear inside from my position in the slightly shabby café opposite decades ago. But it also felt understated. Expensive but without that air of intimidation some establishments seem to enjoy cultivating.
‘Reine! Kitty!’ Gabby’s voice called across the marble atrium as she rushed in through the door, nodding a wide smile at the doorman as she did so then hurrying over and embracing us both.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late. I was talking to Ashok on a video call and neither of us wanted to hang up.
’ She put a hand to her face. ‘I feel like I am a teenager again.’ She put a hand to her cheek, laughing.
‘From what I’ve heard, it’s mutual.’ Whenever I spoke to Ashok, a good proportion of the conversation was him gushing about Gabby. And I couldn’t have been happier.
‘I hope so,’ my friend returned, a flash of insecurity dulling the sparkle in her eyes for the briefest moment.
‘Definitely!’ I reassured her. ‘Shall we go in?’
I’d chosen to wear one of the skirts I’d got when shopping with Gabby recently and it was amazing how much it had boosted my confidence, walking in here.
I’d thought about what Reine had said at the gallery, about what I wanted from life now.
Most of that was still a bit blurry but something I had decided was that I wanted my love of getting dressed back.
I no longer wanted to pull on just what was comfortable or easy.
I’d always loved making conscious decisions about what I wore.
Somewhere along the line, that had fallen away but I knew now that was step one of finding ‘me’ again.
I’d also been to the place Gabby had recommended for my brows and those too were now looking, if not quite as fabulous as hers due to some ill-advised overplucking years ago, then certainly well on the way.
Today, I’d chosen a midi denim skirt which I’d paired with a white, cashmere boatneck jumper, the slouchiness of which made it sit to the side, shoulder on show.
I’d debated about the wisdom of wearing white to dinner and settled that by resolving to not order anything tomatoey.
After years of wearing leggings and t-shirts – Gabby had had to sit down for a moment after this revelation – I was still a work in progress. But that was the key word: progress.
The off-the-shoulder thing was taking a little getting used to.
Underwear had been another dilemma. I was still far from rediscovering the air of nonchalance I’d had about that aspect of my dress when I was in my twenties so going braless, especially under a white top, wasn’t an option I was prepared for yet.
If at all. Instead, I’d compromised with a thin, silk chemise underneath, the ribbon strap of it showing as the jumper slouched.
Gabby ran her eyes over my outfit. ‘You look fabulous, ma chérie.’
‘Thanks to her,’ I noted to Reine.
‘Pas de tout!’ Gabby waved her hand. ‘I merely went along for the company. All the choices were yours.’
‘I love this outfit,’ Reine said as I sat down beside her in the curved corner banquette. ‘Do shuffle up. My hearing isn’t always what it once was and it’s far easier to gossip about people when your companions are closer.’
She flashed a wicked grin as Gabby and I duly shuffled along the gold velvet.
‘Is this new?’ She touched the soft cashmere.
‘It’s all new, if I’m honest,’ I replied, fiddling with the shoulder again.
‘It will look even better if you stop fussing with it,’ Reine teased and Gabby grinned.
I dropped my hand.
‘Gabby showed me some photos of you all, back in the day, didn’t you?’
Gabby nodded as she ordered us champagne.
‘Oh, crikey.’ I pulled a face.
‘Not at all. The woman in those photos, where is she now?’
I huffed out some air. ‘Buried under a lot of years, motherhood and, I suppose, the mundanities of life. Or perhaps she was just replaced with reality.’
‘We make our own reality, Kitty.’
I wasn’t sure if I agreed with that but I was unwilling to challenge such a new friend. Gabby merely gave me a flick of her eyebrows, waiting to see what I’d say. I stayed silent.
‘You disagree.’ Reine was smiling, her words phrased not as a question, but a statement.
‘It’s not that I disagree as such…’
Reine gave a delicate head tilt, encouraging me to go on.
‘I suppose I’d like to believe that we make our own fate but I’m not sure that I can. When I was here before, I was having the best time with big plans and then I got my heart broken and it all fell to pieces.’
‘Perhaps those weren’t the best plans for you?’
I gave a shrug and what felt like a sad smile. ‘I’d have liked to have been given the chance to decide for myself.’
‘I can understand that. So do you feel your life has been wasted?’
‘No! Not at all. And if things had gone differently, I wouldn’t have Sash.’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose I feel like now that she’s grown, I’m not sure what my role is any more. Especially now I’m divorced.’
‘You don’t have to be “somebody’s something” to have a role, ma chérie!
I do understand, though. When I lost my husband several years ago, there was a time I didn’t know what to do with myself.
We’d always done everything together – because we wanted to, you understand.
But one day, I was lying in bed long past the time we’d normally have been up and about and I just thought, what am I doing?
Why am I wasting the day, my life, like this?
And I thought how upset my darling husband would be to have seen me like that.
And you are decades younger than me! You have all this time now, for yourself!
This is a time for you to have the starring role in your own life!
’ She threw out her arms like a diva and laughed.
‘Bravo!’ Gabby agreed, giving a few small, elegant claps.
‘Oh dear! I’m not so sure I’d pass that particular audition.’ I might be getting my style back but the confidence still had a way to go.
‘Nonsense. What other possible reason could have brought you back to Paris? It is fate!’
‘I thought you said that we make our own fate.’ I looked at her in the same way I used to look at Sash when she was telling a fib. ‘You can’t have it both ways, Reine.’
Her sky-blue eyes danced with joy and amusement.
‘Oh, but when one gets to my age, I can have it any way I want and people are too scared to challenge it in case they upset me.’
I thought of some of the older people I knew from the street we’d lived in and how some had changed over the years, losing the confidence they had once had, and becoming as invisible as I myself had felt.
I compared them with this vivacious woman who refused to be ignored or judged or condescended to.
How I wish she could give lessons to some of the lovely neighbours who were now a paler version of the characters they’d once been when we’d first moved to the road.
We’d been new parents without a clue and several of them had been so kind and helpful, without making us feel like we were failing, or reassuring us that we weren’t and that every parent had the same thoughts and insecurities.
Gabby turned to her clutch bag and slid out her phone, glancing at the screen.
‘Do you mind if I take this? It’s a possible commission for Tomas he’s interested in.’
‘Go, go!’ we both said together, and Gabby placed her phone to her ear as she strode confidently across the restaurant to somewhere more private to continue the call. From our position, we watched the admiring glances cast her way from both men and women as she did so.
‘She’s a wonderful woman. I hope that things with Ashok work out.’
‘She is. I missed her so much. I hadn’t realised quite how much until now, now that she’s back in my life again. As for Ashok, he’s absolutely smitten so…’ I held up my crossed fingers.
‘And he’s worthy of her?’
‘The most worthy man I know.’
‘Bon. Now, where were we?’
‘You telling me to be the star of my own show.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘So how do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Stay like this.’ I waved up and down and saw that she comprehended.
‘Without wanting to be crass, I’m afraid money helps. People are less inclined to ignore the power that can wield, as unfair as that is.’
‘Yes, the same as it ever was. Although it’s hard to tell who has money and who doesn’t these days. Jeans with more holes than denim cost four figures, yet when I was growing up, they wouldn’t even have been seen as good enough for gardening in!’
‘I quite agree. I see some of the magazines and ooh la la. I think perhaps I am a little too old-fashioned.’ There was a flash of that wicked grin again.
‘But then I realise that no. I am not. I just have impeccable taste!’ She chinked her glass against mine.
‘As do you. So now, what are you going to do about using it?’
‘I think it might take a little while. As much as I love it, this new look is still taking some getting used to.’ I held back the urge to fiddle with my neckline again.
‘My style got a bit lost over the years and I felt rather a frump when I got here. In the rut I lived in back in England, I hadn’t noticed. ’
Reine remained silent.
‘The thing I love about Paris,’ I continued, ‘is that everyone makes an effort. That seems to have been lost in many places and I think I got lost along with it. Pull on the sweatshirt and leggings and call it done was the easy option and it soon just became the norm. Even though I’m not really a fan of either!
I always loved choosing my clothes, doing my make-up and hair, even if that meant not doing my make-up and hair.
It was all a conscious choice. Until it wasn’t and what with a new baby—’
‘And a new marriage.’
‘And a new marriage to contend with, I lost the interest and the will. Or perhaps it was the other way around. And then I came back to Paris and met Gabby and you and I… I felt worse than invisible. I felt visible here but for all the wrong reasons.’
‘You are most certainly not invisible, my dear, and for all the right reasons. Clothes may maketh the woman but there has to be a good framework there to start with.’
‘A framework? You mean figure?’
‘No, not at all. Figures change and how sad to pin everything on that. I know women, and men, who have done that. They lived on their looks and looks fade – even ones as fabulous as mine.’ She pulled a shocked face, laughter dancing in her eyes.
‘You can still make the most of what you have and have “tweakments” I believe is the latest phrase.’ She rolled her eyes at the wording.
‘But trying to hold on to what you had when you were twenty…’ She shook her head. ‘It can’t be done. Not well, anyway.’
I couldn’t disagree with her. ‘But if people choose to do that, then that’s their choice.’
‘Absolutement,’ she agreed. ‘But wouldn’t it be wonderful if people, women especially, could be appreciated for themselves, whatever their age?
This is the framework I’m talking about.
Intelligence, a sense of humour, that little je ne sais quoi.
All the things that you, ma chérie, have, how do you say it? In spades.’
Once Gabby had returned, we ordered our main course. I inhaled the smell of the sizzling butter the lemon sole I’d chosen had been sauteed in as it was placed in front of me. A bite of the asparagus was so fresh, it tasted like it was cut moments before.
‘Probably so,’ Reine said in reply when I mentioned it, spearing another on her fork. ‘They have their own kitchen garden here and grow as much as they can. C’est bon, non?’
‘Oh, very bon indeed!’ I chuckled, and Gabby sniggered, then we both stopped as I caught Reine’s puzzled expression.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Not used to drinking at lunchtime.’
And then her face crinkled, and she burst out laughing, her beringed hand at her chest. ‘Oh, Kitty. I have to tell you that coming back to Paris is going to be the best decision you ever made.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Definitely! Don’t you agree?’ she asked, turning to Gabby.
‘That’s what I keep saying,’ my friend said as she nodded to the waiter who had approached in anticipation of a top-up for our glasses.
Reine acknowledged the waiter then took a thoughtful sip.
‘Very bon indeed!’ she repeated and burst out laughing all over again.