Chapter 18
CARLY
There’s nowhere I’ve been that tops the luxury of our Paris hotel, not even the Scotsman train. From the moment we arrived in the ornate red velvet and gold reception, a vase of flowers the size of my fridge in the middle of the central circular banquette, I knew I was spoiled for life.
‘How will we ever return to normal life again?’ asks Mum, Notre-Dame on her lap, as I join her and Elsa by the huge marble fireplace in the library bar, overlooking the leafy courtyard garden.
I snap a photo of the doors that open on to the terrace, and send it to Dad with the message: Why don’t we fix the French windows at the back of the shop and clean the spiral staircase to the garden so customers can read in the garden for a while, or use it for events? It wouldn’t cost much to do.
As I wait for his ellipses to turn into a message, I stare into the garden and spot the man from the Eurostar sitting alone at a table on the terrace.
Dad’s message pings through with a wide-eye emoji. Turning my phone over, I sink into a plush green upholstered chair and turn my attention to Mum and Elsa.
‘Look at all these books,’ Elsa says admiringly, scanning the beautiful leather spines set on dark polished shelves.
‘I could sit here for days,’ I smile.
‘You and me both,’ she says with a wink.
‘Excusez moi,’ says the waiter who’s arrived beside us. ‘Je peux vous amener du chocolat chaud?’
‘Oui, s’il vous pla?t,’ I answer, and Elsa clasps her hands at the sight of perfectly formed Belgian waffles and Chantilly cream on the gold trolley, which feels entirely decadent at four in the afternoon.
‘This reminds me of when I used to take you for hot chocolate after dance lessons,’ Elsa says to us both, having taken Mum when she was little in London, and Jude and me after our weekly ballet lessons in the Dean Village.
We’d sit at a high bar in the Italian ice cream parlour, still in our leotards, dangling our legs while drinking hot chocolate and eating almond cookies.
As Mum and Elsa move on to plans for the evening – Elsa opting to stay in the hotel to read, Mum heading to the Pompidou Centre – I take in my surroundings and fellow travellers, enjoying the decadent hot chocolate.
In the corner of the bar closest to the door, I spot Flynn, sitting with a woman, elegant in a black turtleneck and trousers, her blond hair swept up in a chignon.
‘What have you planned?’ I hear Mum ask.
‘Shakespeare and Company,’ I reply absently, my eyes still on Flynn and the beautiful woman beside him.
I don’t quite pick up Mum’s response, distracted as I am by the arrival of Ginny, who interrupts Flynn and the woman to tell him something.
I spot Flynn’s look of consternation before he stands, fixing the button of his suit jacket. He places his hand on the woman’s arm then kisses her gently on the cheek, before leaving with a purposeful gait.
It feels like a dream as I round the street corner, opposite Notre-Dame, and catch my first sight of the iconic dark green facade of Shakespeare and Company.
‘How excited are you, babe?’ Daisy says, as I link her arm in excitement.
‘I genuinely feel a bit light-headed,’ I reply, having wanted to visit this bookshop since I first saw it in Julie maybe I was making them for me, in the hope that one day I might take over the bookshop and transform it into my very own dream space, a space that could be as magical and beguiling as this one.
‘It’s the writers’ room,’ Nicolas says, entering, pulling me out of my daydream.
‘It’s gorgeous,’ I reply.
‘Everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Henry Miller has been here,’ he says, taking a seat on the bench. ‘It feels as if part of them is absorbed in the fabric of the building, don’t you think?’
‘I know what you mean,’ I reply, turning where I stand, tingles pulsing through my body. I wonder how I can recreate just a tenth of this back home.
He pats the cushion beside him. ‘Why don’t you sit for a while, drink it all in, feel the history in your bones.’
I sit beside him, both of us quiet, absorbing the atmosphere, watching fellow travellers and other customers drift in and out.
‘Beautiful, no?’ he says, turning and gazing deeply into my eyes, his own eyes mesmeric in the soft light. I can’t be certain if he’s referring to the room, or me.
The conversation I had with Mum and Elsa on the train pops into my mind and, wanting to let go, I allow myself to be drawn in, to lean a little closer, wondering if he might be part of the dream too. As I do, a voice says, ‘Nicolas? Nicolas Dubois?’
‘Oui?’ he replies, turning his attention to the enquirer.
‘I’m such a fan of your work,’ the woman gushes, rummaging in her handbag for a notepad and pen. ‘That piece you wrote about the shortlist for the Prix Goncourt in Le Monde was perfection. I read it over and over.’
Recognising that Nicolas is likely to be some time with his fan, I turn my attention beyond the reading room, to a tiny space above the stairs where there are books on one wall, a day bed and typewriter, and a noticeboard – The Mirror of Love – which is covered in customer notes.
‘Are you going to leave a note?’ asks Flynn, appearing beside me, after I’ve read a good few of them.
‘Maybe,’ I reply, not entirely sure what I would write, not sure either how I feel about Flynn’s sudden appearance. I feel suddenly tight, mirroring his guardedness, compared to the lightness of being with Nicolas. ‘What about you, are you tempted?’
He scoffs with a shake of his head, his hair free of the product from earlier, and now wearing a sweater and jeans rather than the three-piece suit from the train.
‘Why not?’ I ask.
‘It’s for the romantics, not someone like me,’ he says, but there’s something in his eyes, a slight disappointment perhaps, that makes me wonder if really, he’d like to.
‘Someone like you?’ I ask, taking a seat on the daybed, curious to know how he sees himself. I catch a trace of his sandalwood cologne.
‘I’m a pragmatist, not a romantic,’ he says, that look again sneaking into his gaze.
‘You think one is exclusive of the other?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know,’ he says, fidgeting with his watch strap.
I watch him for a moment, the image of the elegant woman in the bar springing into my mind.
‘These daybeds are used by writers and artists who stay to write or create while helping out in the bookshop,’ he tells me.
‘I didn’t know that,’ I say, liking that he did, trying not to dwell on who the woman might be.
‘I did it for a week when I was a student.’
‘Get out of here!’ I laugh, feeling my brow knit in confusion.
‘What’s funny about that?’ He smiles wryly, clearly enjoying my surprise.
‘Nothing at all,’ I smile back, wondering if beneath Flynn’s wooden exterior lies a romantic after all.