Chapter 29
Sash was out with Benoit – again. Since the night of Tomas’s exhibition, I’d barely seen her.
And I’d certainly not seen her as happy in a long while.
He was good for her and it made me happy to see them together.
Between that and the continuing increase in subscribers, something that had begun to speed up with her Paris move and spiked massively with the exclusive content she’d been granted at the exhibition, thanks to Tomas, Sash was living a life she appeared to love and that brought me more joy than anything.
Tomas and Gabby had been away much of the last month with the new exhibition but we’d had video calls from New York, Dubai and various other cities.
Sasha had even been guest of honour again at the London showing when she’d been home to visit Hugh – with Benoit, of course, who’d received paternal approval, despite his connection to Tomas. Quite the achievement!
This morning, I’d decided to have a scrub of the apartment.
With careful financial management, a bit of luck in the sale of the house and some other investments paying off, money, thankfully, hadn’t been too much of a worry but I’d never been the spendthrift type and having recently invested in the best part of a new wardrobe, even with the deals and discounts Gabby had swung for me, it had been an outlay I hadn’t exactly budgeted for.
When I’d told Gabs that I had no intention of hiring a cleaner, she’d been horrified but I remained firm.
It was an area I could save money, and although I wasn’t about to claim that cleaning a loo was my favourite occupation, there was a sense of satisfaction I got when the house was clean and I could sit down with a cup of tea and smell the fresh scent of the essential oils in the cleaner I used, and take pleasure in the shiny, clear surfaces.
Even if it didn’t last for long where my child was involved.
But at least I didn’t have a man using the bathroom!
I’d thought, and at least hoped, that Sash’s tendency to the scattergun approach with her possessions would improve as she got older but it seemed I was wrong.
If anything, she only acquired more stuff.
Unfortunately, both these habits were inherited from her father and he’d not improved in this aspect the whole time I’d known him, so I wasn’t holding out much hope for our daughter.
I was loaded up with yet another armful of her gubbins when the doorbell to the apartment rang. I shuffled the stuff to balance on one arm and opened the door with the other.
‘Bonjour.’ Tomas was standing there looking, as always, impeccable.
I was looking quite the opposite in a pair of well-worn joggers which, when Gabby had held them up in horror during her recent rummage of my wardrobe, had required her to then sit down and call on Sash for a reviving cup of tea.
I’d told her to stop being such a drama queen but was glad to see that my introduction to the ‘cup of tea helps any situation’ habit had survived the years and separation.
Today, those were paired with a faded t-shirt that I’d splashed bleach on years ago while scrubbing the loo (another reason I was glad there was no longer a man in my life – or at least my bathroom!), and had been then relegated to becoming My Cleaning T-Shirt.
My hair, in need of a wash, was shoved up in a clip with an old bandanna, long discarded by Sash, to keep my now slightly overlong fringe from my eyes.
So of course that would be the perfect time for my long-time ex to ring the doorbell.
‘Hi. Oh, I, er, I mean bonjour.’
His smile, initially hesitant, widened.
‘I’m interrupting.’
‘Yes. But that’s OK.’
Oh! That’s new… I pondered, momentarily. Usually, I ended up giving people the impression that I had been doing nothing at all of importance and had, in fact, been waiting in all day in the hope that they might call. Interesting…
‘These are for you.’ Across his arm lay a large, beautifully hand-tied bunch of blousy pink peonies.
‘Would you like to come in?’ I stepped back out of the doorway and Tomas entered.
‘Please. Allow me,’ he said as I made to close the door behind him, still juggling Sasha’s junk.
‘Thanks. Give me a minute to just drop this in my daughter’s bombsite.’
Ooh! Again, no request of ‘can you give me a minute?’ Just telling him. What was happening?
‘Can I help at all?’
‘No.’ I turned, laughing as I did so. ‘You might have broken my heart all those years ago but even I’m not cruel enough to subject you to this disaster zone.’
I carried on my way, not missing the shadow that flicked across his eyes as I joked. Dumping her stuff on the – unmade – bed, I blinkered my eyes to the rest of the mess and closed the door behind me.
‘So, to what do I owe the pleasure?’
‘I wanted to see you.’ He handed me the flowers.
‘These are stunning, Tomas. Peonies are my favourite.’ I held them up, inhaling their heady scent.
‘I know. You always said you liked “proper flowers”, not… what was the phrase? “Namby-pamby” ones.’
Laughter bubbled up. ‘That’s true. I don’t remember saying it but it sounds like me.’
‘I remember.’
And he had. He’d remembered important things like my favourite flower as well as silly, throwaway comments that had long slipped my mind.
‘I’d better get these in some water,’ I said, a convenient excuse to pull myself away from Tomas before I did something I might not regret. Like grab a handful of that expensive shirt fabric and yank him towards me. ‘How was Berlin? Did the exhibition go well?’
‘Yes, thanks. But I missed home.’
I looked up from where I was filling the vase.
‘I missed you.’ His voice was soft.
I’d missed him too. Far more than I’d expected.
Far more than I’d wanted to. But the truth was I’d waited for and enjoyed his calls, just as I’d done all those years ago.
We always had something to talk about. Big things and small.
But in the back of my mind, I always felt the need to remind myself that I wasn’t that girl any more and I couldn’t get sucked into the vortex of Tomas’s love – if that’s what it was – again.
I’d been there before and I never wanted to experience heartache like that again.
‘Lots of sales then?’ I held up my crossed fingers and tapped my head. ‘Touch wood.’
A smile I remembered from a long ago, a different life, shone on Tomas’s face.
‘I wondered if you still did that. I’m glad to see not everything has changed.’
I gave a shrug. Very Gallic! ‘Some things are ingrained a little deeper, I suppose.’
He nodded but remained silent. I waited another moment then picked my cloth back up, squirted the cleaning solution on the island and began polishing.
‘You are busy.’
‘Yes, but I can talk at the same time.’
He nodded again and I wondered where the once confident man I had dated had gone. Perhaps he had been swallowed up entirely by his parents’ expectations and only the shell was left.
‘Are you free for lunch?’
‘Today?’ I asked as I rubbed at a coffee stain.
‘Oui. I mean, yes.’
‘My French is a little rusty but I still remember the basics.’
‘I know. You had such fluency. I am sure it will return quickly the longer you are here.’
‘I hope so.’
‘How… how long are you here?’ he asked, a hesitancy in his voice as he shifted his weight.
‘The lease on this place is six months. After that, we’ll see. I don’t have any plans.’
‘That sounds unlike you.’
I shook my head as I tidied the cleaning supplies back into the basket I’d assigned them.
‘Not really. Not now. Although you’re right that I used to plan everything when I was here before but I’ve found life tends to do its own thing, however many charts and spreadsheets you make.
It took me decades but I’ve decided to just go with the flow now, as they say. See what life brings and all that.’
‘It brought you India, finally. I was glad to hear that.’
‘Thanks. Yes, it was amazing. And India brought me a good friend. So I’m pretty pleased with how it’s going at the moment.’
‘And that, in turn, brought you back to Paris.’
‘It did.’
He stepped towards me. ‘I am “pretty pleased” about that.’
I had no intention of falling for Tomas Bertholle again but God, he was beautiful.
In a different way from how he had been but if anything, it had only made him more handsome.
He’d lost that perfection of youth, replaced instead with smile lines around his eyes that showed paler in his tan when he was serious and a kindness that hadn’t shown as obviously before.
‘Are you?’
Another step. ‘Very. Please let me take you to lunch.’
I made him wait but I saw from those smile lines he could still see straight through me.
‘OK.’
He stepped back as though to open the door.
‘Tomas! I have to change,’ I said, catching his arm.
‘Why?’
‘Did you go blind? Look at me!’
‘You look beautiful.’
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. Then opened it once more but my brain still couldn’t decide on which words to form.
‘Even when you are pretending to be a fish.’
I grabbed a duster from the basket and flicked him with it.
The laugh that followed hurtled me back through the years and twisted itself with the man standing in front of me now.
My mind tumbled images and words and promises together until it was all one big, jumbled mess.
A mess I wasn’t about to even begin thinking about tidying today. If ever.
‘I’m going to change. Take a seat. I won’t be long.’
‘I have heard that one before.’ He grinned as he took a pew on the squashy armchair and picked up the book I’d left there earlier. ‘Is this good?’
‘I’m enjoying it,’ I called out as I disappeared behind the bedroom door.
Five minutes later, I’d had a quick wash, changed, twisted my hair up and applied a quick base and slick of lipstick. Seeing Tomas’s double take when I reappeared in the allotted few minutes I’d promised was a joy.
‘Now who’s pretending to be a fish? Shall we go?’
He hurriedly placed the book back on the coffee table and made quick, long-legged strides across the room in order to beat me to the door, opening it for me.
‘After you.’
‘Merci.’