We settle into an easy silence as we take our first sip of peaty liquor and I glance at the clock. Midnight already. Will Phoebe be asleep now? Kate’s head is resting on Donal’s shoulder, his eyes closed as he enjoys his dram. I sneak my phone from the coffee table and jump as the screen illuminates.
PHOEBE – 1 MESSAGE
I look up at my friends but they haven’t moved. Heart racing, I open the message.
* * *
Hi ☺ Arrived in Paris and in my new temporary home. Excuse the text but it’s just this once because I miss you. Speak soon and sleep well xx
* * *
That’s why she’s no Laura, I tell myself. Laura would only text if she wanted something, or to have a go at me. Phoebe misses me. So much that she broke her own rule of limited contact less than twenty-four hours into our year apart.
Shielding my mobile from view of my friends, I reply:
* * *
I miss you too. All good here apart from my arms being empty. Sweet dreams, beautiful xx
* * *
Kate raises her head and I pocket my phone before she notices. But I’m humming now. I can’t tell if it’s alcohol or lust… or love…? No, not love, not yet. But if I still feel like this in twelve months’ time I’ll fly faster than the train back to St Pancras and never let her go.
We talk, we laugh, we drink. My phone remains silent. But the thought that she might text again – the unpredictability of it – warms me more than any amount of single malt could.
I’ll text her when I leave here for Mull, I decide. If Phoebe can bend the rules, so can I.
Chapter Eleven
Phoebe
Daylight brings colour into my room, closely followed by a wall of pain crashing against my skull, so an equally delicate Luc suggests we ease as gently as possible into our tour of his favourite bits of Paris with a visit to his beloved local café.
Soon we’re sitting by the window looking out across the street and it seems like the whole of Paris is parading past. Beyond the people with never-ending cigarettes and expertly folded copies of Le Figaro directly beyond the glass – who alone are fascinating enough – old and young pass by, a thousand different lives and stories walking along the street. I can see why writers have found inspiration here. You wouldn’t even need a story idea: sit here for long enough and the city would write it for you.
I glance at Luc – or rather the enormous pair of dark sunglasses he’s currently hiding behind. He picked up a newspaper from the seller on the corner of the street below the apartment but it’s still where he put it when we first sat down, folded under his hand on the polished wood table. ‘How’s the head?’
‘I think it hates me.’ Behind the lenses his eyes crinkle into a smile, quickly followed by a grimace as his hangover protests.
‘Listen, we don’t have to do this today. I’m quite happy to wander around by myself…’
‘No way! You are our guest and I promised you a tour of my neighbourhood. But every great tour of this city should begin with the best coffee. So,’ he spreads his hands wide like a magician at the big reveal, ‘voila!’
I raise my cup to salute him and Luc nods at a passing waiter to order two more. At this rate I’ll be carried around the streets of Paris by caffeine buzz alone. But at least my headache isn’t stabbing quite so ferociously.
Another hour and a half later, helped by the pastries that finally tempted us and yet more coffee, Luc and I emerge squinting in the strengthening sunlight. The chill that whistled round the streets first thing has relented and I can see Parisians shrugging off coats and jackets to brave the walk without them.
The Sacré-Cœur Basilica is only a short walk from the café, so we head there first. It’s set near parks, surrounded by cobbled streets and its white walls, tall towers and elegant domes are dazzling in the mid-morning sun. I’ve seen it in guidebooks and Meg’s told me about it so many times – she loves it more than Notre Dame and reckons it’s one of the most underrated buildings in Paris. But standing here is something else. The sounds of the city are a constant low hum but here birdsong joins the noise as their fleeting shapes pass between the ancient structures. We don’t venture inside, but I intend to do that on a day when I don’t have anywhere else to be. I plan to reconnoitre Paris landmarks and locations during my first week, and then return to the ones that I like best over the remainder of my stay.
The first time I visited Paris I was at primary school. We stayed in a grim bed and breakfast place in Normandy in November, and were granted one day in Paris, which wasn’t enough time to see much of anything. We spent most of that day stuck on the coach in traffic around the Arc de Triomphe and on the most mind-numbing river cruise up and down the Seine (all the bridges from one side, then all the bridges from the other). My eleven-year-old heart sank as Notre Dame passed like a ghost, frustratingly out of reach. We did climb the Eiffel Tower, though – only to the second level, as it was a windy day, but climbing the steps instead of taking the lift – and standing on the famous tower gazing out across the neat squares of the city was the moment Paris stole my heart.
Despite his poor head Luc is a great guide, pointing out places only a local would know. With it, I’m getting the history of him and Tobi: where he proposed, where they first told the other they loved them, and how they first met in the famous bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, when they both reached for the same copy of Candide byVoltaire.
‘Like Serendipity only with a better taste in books,’ he jokes as we wander into a gorgeous sunlit park. We find a bench and sit.
‘That’s so romantic.’
He laughs. ‘Yeah, it would have been if I hadn’t been so annoyed with him for getting the book before me. I stormed out – the full flounce, you know – and that could have been that. Except that when I stopped by the Seine to catch my breath, I looked down and there was the book beside me. He’d bought it, followed me from the store and was standing there with this great big loon grin on his face.’
Instantly, I think of Sam. ‘I met someone yesterday,’ I say, the words dancing out before I can stop them. I hardly know Luc and I’d said I wouldn’t tell anyone. But in the soothing green of the small park, overlooking a colonnade swathed with flowering blue wisteria and the white dome of Sacré-Cœur rising behind, it feels right. ‘I think he could be someone really special.’
Could I have imagined myself saying this two days ago? Or a year ago? Already I feel so different and I like how the change sits in me.
Luc peers at me over his sunglasses. ‘Tell me more, mademoiselle.’
‘I met him when our trains were delayed.’ I find Sam’s photo on my phone and show Luc. ‘That’s Sam.’
‘Cute. And you left him there?’
I laugh and hope it disguises the dip my heart just took. ‘He was travelling to Scotland. For a year.’
‘Okay.’
The sun sparkles on the crazy silver-glitter laces Osh gave me for my turquoise Converse. Suddenly I’m self-conscious. ‘We’ve promised to meet up in twelve months if we still feel the same.’