I am half laughing and half crying now, receiving some very concerned looks from people walking past.
‘So, what are you up to?’ she asks. ‘Please tell me you’re not moping about on your own?’
I take a deep breath and try to pull myself together. ‘No, don’t worry. I’m spending the day with a friend, actually.’
‘Oh, that’s nice. Where do you know him from?’
‘Her, actually. She’s an old friend from uni.’
‘Oh. Right.’ There’s a pause on the other end of the line. And then I hear Mum clear her throat stiffly. ‘And have you heard from Daphne today?’
‘Yeah. Well, I got a Christmas card from her yesterday.’
‘Yes, I got one, too.’ There’s another pause, and she adds, ‘She’s such a lovely girl, honestly.’ I can feel the prickle in her voice.
‘I know,’ I say.
‘I hope you do. You bloody should.’
I was never totally honest with Mum about why Daff and I were taking this break. I just told her it was because Daff was going to New York; I didn’t mention anything about my marriage freak-out; it was way too closely intertwined with her and Dad.
For a second, I consider telling her about it now. But then I hear a muffled voice behind her. ‘I’ll be right in,’ she calls to somebody. And then: ‘I’d better go, love. We’re about to do presents.’
I feel a spasm of panic rip through me. If I let her go now, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to speak to her again. But then what can I do? I can’t exactly spend the rest of this evening standing out here chatting to her.
I stare dumbly at the pavement, feeling my throat constrict so tightly that I can’t get any words through it. Luckily, Mum speaks for me. ‘It feels rather odd, not being with you today,’ she says. ‘Not having lunch together, not giving each other our presents in the morning.’
‘I know …’ I swallow the lump in my throat, and then remember the conversation I overheard through the kitchen door. ‘Hey, do you remember that Christmas when I was a kid, and I nicked your Sellotape and stapler and then gave them back to you as a present?’
The line is flooded with her laughter. ‘God, I’d forgotten all about that! What a little cheapskate.’ She breaks off and sniffs. I wonder if she might be crying, too. ‘You know,’ she says quietly, ‘that was actually one of my favourite gifts you’ve ever got me.’
‘I love you, Mum,’ is about all I can manage.
‘Love you too, darling,’ she says. ‘I’ll speak to you soon. Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas.’
I take a deep breath as I blink wetly into the night air. All I can think is: God, I hope I get to see her again. Just one more time.
My phone tells me it’s now 10.47 p.m. There’s just over an hour before all this ends and I find myself somewhere else completely.
Through the window of the bar, I can see Alice flagging our waiter down, signalling for the bill.
Once we’ve paid, we stumble back out, and Alice slips her arm through mine again as we wander tipsily through the near-deserted streets of the 14th arrondissement.
Occasionally we pass someone – usually another tipsy, looped-armed couple – and exchange a friendly Joyeux Noël.
We walk in silence for the most part. Alice is now seemingly all talked out, and I can’t conjure any words either. My brain is just white noise, like a scrambled TV. It feels like I’m on a conveyor belt; aware of where I’m heading, but not sure what will happen when I get there.
I glance down at my watch, its hands still stuck at 11.59. I’m about to check the real time on my phone when Alice stops outside a big blue doorway.
‘Here we are, then.’ She punches in the entrance code and looks me straight in the eye. ‘So … do you want to come up?’
I stand there dumbly, just as I did six years ago, feeling excitement and terror do battle in my stomach.
And then I tell her: ‘Yes.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
On the face of it, Alice’s place is not much different to mine: a low-ceilinged two-bedroom flat halfway up a creaky seven-storey apartment block. Even the floorboards squeak in the same way – though I can’t hear any explosive marital disputes coming from above.
Alice chucks her coat onto the baggy brown sofa and asks if I’m OK with more red wine. I tell her that I am. And as she goes into the kitchen to find a bottle, I take the opportunity to have a proper look around.
She must have been in this place for two years now, but it looks like she’s only just moved in. The walls are bare – no photos or posters – and there are no books or magazines or DVDs in sight. The whole place has a slightly furniture showroom feel to it: everything spotlessly clean but not very … homely.
The only concession to the time of year is a small, undecorated Christmas tree about the size of a toaster, which sits glumly on the windowsill.
I slump down onto the sofa and try to remember what I was feeling at this exact moment last time. Nervous. Excited. Those were definitely the two overriding emotions, with horny probably bagging third place on the podium. Despite that, though, I don’t think I felt particularly guilty at this point.
Daff and I were supposed to be on a break: that was what I kept telling myself. And even though we hadn’t set any rules, or mentioned the idea of seeing other people, she was the one who had initiated the whole thing. Plus, I couldn’t escape the idea that this entire evening felt like fate. I mean: what were the chances of randomly bumping into the girl I’d once had a major thing for? It seemed like it was meant to be.
Or maybe I felt no guilt because at this point I still didn’t think anything would actually happen. From the minute we stepped through the door of the flat, I kept expecting Alice to yawn and sigh and tell me it had been a fun day but she was knackered and maybe I had better go. I think part of me would have been relieved if she had. But she never did.
Instead, she came back from the kitchen, sat down on the sofa, and kissed me. I kissed her back, and then we went through to the bedroom, leaving our wine undrunk behind us.
I don’t know what I was thinking, really. As soon as we kissed, it was like I stopped thinking altogether. My brain took a back seat and – with pathetic predictability – other parts of my body stepped in to take control.
So it wasn’t until afterwards that the guilt came.
It flooded my veins the next morning as I lay frozen in Alice’s bed listening to her snore softly beside me. The sunlight was peeking in through the curtains, and the gravity of what I had done was fifty times more crushing than my hangover. At that moment – miserable, sweating, in the vice-like grip of regret – I don’t think I’ve ever missed Daphne more.
I missed everything about her: the feel of her, her touch, her smell. The way we lay together afterwards, our bodies curled like speech marks. The way we seemed to fit so perfectly.
I feel hot suddenly, and as I shrug off my jacket, the snow globe spills out of the pocket. I stuff it back in, and take a deep breath to try and settle my roiling stomach. I pull out my phone to check the time, but the battery’s dead.
Alice walks back in from the kitchen holding two very large glasses of red wine. She passes me one, and settles down on the sofa next to me.