All I wanted to do tonight was to make up for what happened on this evening first time around. To change my memory of it from a grim, shameful one to a good one. And I think I’ve done that. But I never planned to end the day like this.
I never imagined that after the long, rumbling Tube journey south, Daff would close her bedroom door and kiss me so passionately, so hungrily. And that I would feel my whole body pulse with excitement because I knew exactly what was going to happen next …
I can’t even remember the last time we had sex back in 2020. And whenever it was, it definitely wasn’t like this. I forgot we could be like this together. I forgot that we fit so perfectly, that I can lose myself so completely in the moment with her.
And now she’s lying fast asleep beside me, and I can feel exhaustion weighing down on me too. There’s no clock on her wall, and my phone is somewhere in the jumble of clothes on the floor, so I have no idea how much longer I have here. But it must be nearly midnight by now.
At any second I’ll find myself somewhere else, on some other date. Maybe I’ll even be back in 2020.
But God, I wish I could stay here. Just for one more day.
I nuzzle further into Daff’s neck, and she murmurs softly. For her, it will be like this night never happened.
But as I lie here next to her, I know that I’ll never forget it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dear Ben,
(That felt quite formal, didn’t it? ‘Dear Ben’. But then this whole writing-a-letter thing is weirdly formal anyway. So what the hell, I’m sticking with it. I’m owning it. DEAR BEN.)
I know we said no messaging and no speaking over these next few months, but we never said anything about no letter-writing. And we definitely didn’t say anything about no Christmas cards. And since this is very obviously a Christmas card (see reindeer picture on front), that means I’m not technically breaking any rules, am I?
So: Merry Christmas! I hope this actually gets to you in time for Christmas Day. As I write, it is December 17th in New York, so SURELY that’s enough time, even if the entire French postal service is on strike. Which – let’s be honest – they probably are.
How is Paris, anyway? Is your French still sub-GCSE level? Have you figured out when to say ‘tu’ and when to say ‘vous’? Everything is OK my end. I am basically a native New Yorker these days – I live solely on pretzels and always shout ‘I’M WALKING HERE!’ every time I step into a road. But no, seriously, it is fun. The work is hard, but it’s really interesting and I’m getting to meet lots of new people. I definitely think it was the right thing to come here.
I really hope you’re OK out there. I hate to think of you all alone on Christmas Day. I hope you’re doing something fun.
I don’t know why I’m writing, really. I suppose it’s just to say that I miss you. A lot, actually. But I still think it’s a good thing that we’re spending this time apart. I keep thinking about what you said after Jamila’s wedding. It really freaked me out, because we’ve been together nearly ten years now and I guess I thought we wanted the same things in the long run.
But maybe we don’t. I know that sounds horrible, but
I stop reading then, and lay the card back down on the table. I’m not sure I need to reread the whole thing. I’m not sure I’m up to it.
Instead, I sip my bitter machine-made coffee and stare out over the rusty iron railing of the tiny eighth-floor balcony.
Opposite me, squatting solemnly under the cold, cloudless blue sky, are the huge white domed towers of the Saint-Sulpice church. The bells inside them are ringing loudly again now, sending clouds of pigeons fluttering out of the trees below.
It was those same bells that exploded around me an hour ago, as I sat up to see that Daff had disappeared, and I was definitely not in Balham any more.
My stomach lurched sickeningly when I realised where I was – when I was – but maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew this might be one of the moments I would revisit. Even though I won’t actually see Daff today – there’s currently about three thousand miles and the Atlantic Ocean between us – what’s about to happen changed everything.
I pick up my coffee cup and lean over the railing, looking down on the square below. From up here on the eighth floor of number 39 Rue Étienne Marcel, the whole of Paris sprawls out in front of me, its spires and chimneys and iron roofs looking postcard-perfect. Down in Place Saint-Sulpice, tourists wrapped in long coats and thick scarves are milling about cheerfully around the edge of the huge three-tiered fountain, or taking selfies in front of the giant Christmas tree behind it.
Four years have flown by in the blink of an eye, and now I’m here: 25 December 2014. A day I’ve spent the past six years trying to forget, sometimes because of burning regret, other times because I feel guilty at how much I enjoyed it.
Last night is still so clear in my head. I just wanted one more day there, in that reality. But no: from the happiest moment I can remember with Daphne in a long, long time, I’ve been dumped here, right into the thick of one of our worst, bleakest, most desperate periods. A period in which – technically – we weren’t even together.
I swallow the last grainy dregs of coffee, and look back down at the card. One sentence jumps straight out at me, making my skin prickle with guilt: I hate to think of you all alone on Christmas Day.
Whatever I was on this day originally, I definitely wasn’t alone.
I pick the card up and step back inside the tiny, freezing apartment. The bare parquet floorboards squeal irritably beneath my feet, and I can hear muffled yells from the married couple upstairs. I wonder what it is about the French language that makes even bickering sound eloquent.
I slump back down onto the iron-framed single bed and stare up at the ceiling. And all I can think is: what the hell am I doing here?
First time around, the answer to that question was pretty straightforward. That stupid argument after Jamila’s wedding.
It happened a few months before today, in August 2014. Daff and I were both a bit pissed, coming back from the reception on the Tube, and she made some innocuous comment about ‘when we get married …’ And without thinking, I blurted out the truth: I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to.
It seems mad now that we’d never had that conversation before. But even though we’d been going out nearly a decade by then, we were still only twenty-eight. We were still so young.
The argument was all my fault, as usual, because I didn’t explain myself properly. I just grunted and shrugged and said I didn’t really see what the point of getting married was. ‘It’s a waste of money … It’s just a piece of paper’ – all that sort of rubbish. Because the real reason felt too stupid and childish to admit: that ever since my dad left, marriage had been clearly marked as A Bad Thing in my head.
I’d lost count of the times I’d come back from school to find Mum sobbing at the kitchen table, or overheard her crying on the phone to her friends at night, and thought to myself: I’m never getting married.
I guess deep down, I was terrified it would flick some invisible switch inside me. That the minute a ring was on my finger, I would turn into a cheat, just like my dad had.