The Paris Connection

by Lorraine Brown

  Si’s phone buzzed. It wasn’t like him to go anywhere without his prized possession, a copper-gold iPhone that was pretty much welded to his hand. After feeling around on the floor with my foot, I found it in the gap between our seats. A message preview sat at the top of the screen and I half glanced at it, assuming it was his sister, who had been messaging him constantly in the run-up to the wedding. I put it on his tray table.

  When I looked up, Si was standing next to me.

  “Got us some drinks,” he said.

  “Great,” I said, smiling at him. That should liven things up.

  He edged past my knees, hurling himself into his seat and picking up his phone.

  “Oh,” he said. “Thought I’d taken this with me.”

  He scanned the screen.

  “You got a message,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  He pressed a key, tutting.

  “Who was it?”

  “Work,” he said, pushing his phone into his pocket.

  “Not Dave, surely?” I said, referring to his nightmare new line manager. He’d made Si’s life a misery since he’d started a couple of months before and was always on his case about something. Either that or he was trying to pin the blame on Si for mistakes he’d made himself.

  “No, thank God, and he’s the last person I want to think about tonight,” said Si, pulling down my table with more force than was strictly necessary. “Here. I got you a wine.”

  I unscrewed the bottle with zeal, pouring fragrant, ruby-red liquid into a flimsy plastic cup. Oh, the glamour of train travel. Si did the same with his sparkling water. I was proud of him for sticking to his self-imposed no-alcohol rule, but given the stresses of the day, I thought he’d have been much better off with a brandy. It felt strange that he didn’t drink anymore, and I was relieved to note that it wasn’t just me who thought so—Ellie and her boyfriend, John, had been baffled by it when they’d come round for my birthday dinner last month, expecting the night to descend into the usual drunken revelry.

  “That’s exactly the kind of sound I like to enter a room to,” Ellie had said, appearing in the doorway at the precise moment I popped the cork on a bottle of Prosecco. She’d edged round the table to pull me in for a hug. “Happy Birthday, Han.”

  I’d hugged her back, squeezing her tightly. “Thank you both for coming.”

  “Here, put this in the fridge,” she’d said with a knowing wink, thrusting a bottle of wine into my hands.

  Si and John had followed her into the kitchen, already deep in conversation about soccer. Apparently, Arsenal were doing well, which seemed to please them both. I’d branded Si a fair-weather soccer fan, as he only showed interest in his team when they were winning. Also, I thought he pretended to like soccer more than he actually did, depending on who he was with. I supposed I couldn’t blame him for that; didn’t we all do it, show relative enthusiasm for something based on how much we wanted to be one of the gang?

  “Right. Drinks,” I said, handing them round. “Oops, sorry, Si,” I said, doubling back, grabbing the orange juice from the fridge and pouring him a flute of it. “Almost forgot you.”

  Ellie looked confused. “Not drinking, Si?”

  Si scooted past me and I smiled up at him instinctively as he pressed his hands into my hips.

  “I’ve given up, actually,” he said casually.

  “What, permanently?” asked John, already downing Prosecco like it was going out of fashion.

  “Think so,” said Si, putting on his apron. “On a bit of a health kick.”

  Ellie gave me a look; I shrugged. I hadn’t mentioned it to her because I knew she’d make a fuss and, also, I wasn’t quite sure how to explain it myself, because it seemed to have come out of nowhere. When we’d first moved in together, I’d loved how we’d chat about our day over a glass of wine in the evenings, one of us setting the table while the other one cooked. It had been something to look forward to when I’d been chained to my desk at work, struggling to stay focused in the afternoons. A chance for us to relax together, for me to shake off the frustrations of the day. Now things felt the tiniest bit more distant. He went straight from work to the gym most nights, and so by the time he’d come home and we’d had dinner, I’d be knackered and ready for bed. On the bright side, though, I was drinking less, too—it wasn’t as much fun on your own, something that became glaringly obvious in Venice. One balmy late afternoon we’d been sitting in the most beautiful cobbled square, and I’d been trying to enjoy an ice-cold glass of peachy white wine while Si spent the entire time tutting over the extortionate price of sparkling water.

  * * *

  • • •

  After an agonizingly slow-moving hour during which the train seemed to have practically come to a halt, I was desperately bored and not remotely tired. It was careering along nicely again now, rocking us rhythmically from side to side. The wine had helped so much that I’d gone to get another.

  “Let’s have some fun,” I said, trailing my fingers across Si’s knee.

  He took one of his earphones out and leaned into me so that the tips of our noses were touching. “And how, exactly, do you propose we do that?”

  We settled on people-watching, with Si providing a brilliant David Attenborough–style commentary about the imagined life story of whichever passenger we had decided to observe.

  “He’s going to visit a Dutch girl he met on holiday in Bali, and although he looks all cocky about it, he’s secretly racked with nerves that she’s going to reject him, like all his exes before her,” said Si.

  “You think?” I asked, dubious about his appraisal of the guy with the swagger and the hipster beard. “He looks very sure of himself.”

  “It’s all a front,” he said convincingly, reaching out to tuck my long hair behind my ears. “And she,” he said, nodding at a nervous-looking woman returning from the buffet car with a mini-bottle of white wine and a plastic cup, “is going to visit the long-lost half sister she connected with on Facebook. She’s terrified in case they hate each other. That’s why she’s drinking. She’ll have another before the end of the night, you’ll see.”

  I laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Si’s phone rang and he fumbled around in his pocket for it. “Hello?”

  It would be Catherine, I bet.

  He mouthed: My sister.

  I knew it. My ears immediately tuned in to her shrill voice reeling off details of the latest minor setback she’d decided to turn into a catastrophe. After years of dating the good-looking but dull friends of friends from Durham University (that was how she’d billed it to me, anyway), she’d met her fiancé, Jasper, on a work trip to Amsterdam. He was ten years older than her, an art curator—a job title I still did not fully understand—and from a wealthy Dutch family who apparently owned properties all over the globe. Perhaps, for the first time in her life, Catherine now felt as insecure as the rest of us. She’d been preparing for her new role with great dexterity, however, and together with her mum, Pauline, had pretty much morphed into Berkhamsted’s equivalent of Pippa and Carole Middleton. They’d thrown themselves into wedding preparations with a frightening intensity, sourcing bespoke invitations from somewhere on Mount Street and ordering personalized marshmallows for the wedding favors, because that’s what Pippa had had, apparently. As for the dress . . . well, I had not been trusted with the details of the dress. I knew it was from some über-expensive New Bond Street boutique, but the actual design of it was shrouded in secrecy and whenever I asked, purely out of politeness, which fabric she’d chosen, or which shade of white, or whether she was wearing a veil, she made a zipping motion across her lips and I was put firmly in my place.

  “Can’t Dad do that?” asked Si wearily, rolling his eyes at me in an attempt at good humor.

  I smiled encouragingly at him, opening my book to distract myself from the sound o
f Catherine’s voice, which was increasing in volume as the conversation went on and she got herself in more and more of a state. Seriously, was this what planning a wedding did to you? Magnified every single neurotic trait you’d ever had?

  “No, I’m sure Hannah won’t mind putting the napkin rings onto the napkins,” said Si.

  I widened my eyes at him, hoping to convey the message that enough was enough, that he had to put his foot down. I’d already been allocated several tasks to ensure the wedding of the year went off perfectly the next day, including compiling the two-hundred-plus place cards (Catherine claimed I was the only person she knew with neat enough handwriting) and tying magenta chiffon around the stems of each bespoke bridesmaid’s bouquet. It would have been much easier all round if she hadn’t fired the hotel’s in-house wedding planner, but when she’d dared to suggest that Catherine’s color scheme would clash with the dining-room décor, there’d been no coming back. Pauline wasn’t exactly the voice of reason, either. Honestly, the way she and Catherine had been banging on, you’d think the ceremony was going to be televised worldwide.

  “Look, Cath,” said Si, massaging the space between his eyebrows, “I’m going to have to go in a minute, all right? We’re on a train here. And, oh look, we’re slowing down and there’s a station coming up. I might have to move some bags around or something.”

  I frowned playfully at him, kicking his ankle gently. We weren’t stopping; the train was picking up speed if anything. I tipped my head out into the aisle, eyeing up what everyone else was doing (sleeping, mainly) and only half listening to Si placating his sister, telling her that everything would go smoothly, that she would look beautiful, that Jasper would be proud of her and that he, Si, was proud of her whatever happened. Even the two guys in front seemed amused; I saw them swiveling their heads to snicker at us through the slit between their seats, baffled, no doubt, by the weird gravelly tone Si reserved exclusively for his sister and which was about an octave lower than his usual speaking voice. When I’d first met Catherine, in the December after Si and I got together, I’d immediately assumed we’d have nothing in common. She was one of those privately educated girls who was pretty and smart and popular and had never really struggled with anything as far as I could tell and therefore had the sort of extreme confidence I could only dream of. But when she wasn’t talking about weddings, it turned out we weren’t as different as I’d thought. We’d bonded over a love of wine and reality TV, and I’d thought we might actually have the beginnings of a proper friendship.

  “I really am going to have to go now, Cath. Okay? See you tomorrow, yeah?” said Si.

  He hung up and looked at me in disbelief. “Is it bad I’m going to be relieved when all this is over?”

  I chose my words carefully. “She has turned into a tiny bit of a control freak.”

  “Turned into? She’s always been one. It’s been heightened by the wedding, that’s all,” he said, throwing himself back in his seat with a frustrated groan.

  “Come on, let’s have a look through your Venice pics,” I said as the train rattled on and someone with an unnecessarily loud voice decided to make a phone call, despite it now being one o’clock in the morning. “That’ll cheer us up.”

  I was too exhausted to read my book and too wired to sleep, stuck instead in some terrible, restless limbo. He handed me his phone.

  “They’re not great, though, Han. Yours will be much better.”

  “They won’t,” I assured him, although I thought they probably would be. I appeared to have finally found something I was quite good at, and rarely left the house without my beloved secondhand Canon AE-1 these days. It had been a Christmas present from Si and was the most thoughtful gift I’d received from anyone, ever.

  I flicked through Si’s camera roll, starting from the shot he’d taken of me when we’d first arrived in Venice. We’d been at the airport, waiting in the queue for the water-bus. For once, I didn’t mind how I looked: relaxed in cut-off denim shorts, flip-flops and a black T-shirt, my hair curlier than usual because of the humidity, a guidebook open in my hand, a huge smile on my face because I was ecstatic to be there, in this place that I’d dreamed of visiting since I was a little girl, when Mum used to show me pictures of all the sights and make up stories about them. Then there was the selfie he’d snapped of us standing outside the Basilica di San Marco, which wasn’t the most well-framed shot because at six feet two Si was ten inches taller than me, so it was practically impossible not to cut off either the top of his head or everything below my nose.

  While I was sending Mum a WhatsApp montage of the photos Si had taken at the Doge’s Palace, his phone vibrated and another message began to slide into view.

  “Let’s see?” he said, whipping it out of my hand and looking at the screen. “Fuck’s sake,” he said, tutting theatrically. “Work again.”

  “At this hour? What could they possibly want now?” I asked.

  Not that it would make much sense if he told me, anyway. I still wasn’t 100 percent sure what he did on a day-to-day basis. I knew it was something to do with selling pharmaceuticals and that he had to travel a lot and stay in Premier Inns and that he did presentations and that he didn’t find public speaking the worst thing in the world.

  “I’m not reading it on principle,” said Si. “I’m on holiday, aren’t I? And it’s the middle of the bloody night.”

  I looked at him, hesitating. “Is everything all right?”

  “ ’Course it is,” he said, laughing hollowly. “You’d finished with the photos, right?”

  “Not really.”

  “You shouldn’t be on the phone—I read about it somewhere. The blue light messes with your sleep pattern,” he said.

  “It’s too noisy to sleep anyway, so what difference would it make?”

  “Why don’t you put your earplugs in?”

  “Left them in Venice,” I said, picturing them on the bedside table at the hotel, my fluorescent-green saviors. I’d have to pick up some more when we got to Amsterdam.

  “Well, I intend to get some rest even if you don’t,” said Si, sliding his phone into his pocket. “Otherwise I’ll be of no use to anyone tomorrow.”

  He angled his body away from me, scrunching up against the window and closing his eyes, each breath becoming deeper and longer. Si was always short with me when he was tired, he admitted it himself. He’d be fine after a few hours’ sleep. I, on the other hand, would most likely have to navigate the wedding with a severe case of sleep deprivation. I imagined getting drunk too quickly at the reception and telling inappropriate jokes before having a wine-fueled argument with somebody. My anxiety took over and doubled the twisting feelings of inadequacy in the pit of my stomach. Pauline would make snippy comments behind my back, I could picture it now: This isn’t her world, Simon. She doesn’t know how to behave at an exclusive event like this. Because Pauline consistently referred to the wedding as “an event,” which I secretly found unbelievably annoying.

  Massaging my jaw with my fingertips, I tried to put myself in the sort of blissful state conducive to sleep, which wasn’t easy when the couple in the seats behind were whispering so loudly that they may as well have used their normal speaking voices, and somebody farther back was frenziedly eating a packet of crisps.

  Si’s phone buzzed again. Seriously, what was going on? It could only be Catherine. I inched my fingers toward Si’s pocket, sliding the phone out as carefully as I could. I was going to put it on silent. He’d only just got to sleep, the last thing he needed was her sending him a slew of frantic messages. There was no point both of us being knackered at the wedding.

  The phone vibrated for a second time as I tapped in his password, which he’d told me ages ago was 1956, the year his mum was born. A message sat at the top of the screen, from an unknown number.

  Are you awake? It’s me, Al.

  I frowned. Presumably it was some
one from his work, although he’d never mentioned an Al, and the only Al I knew of was Alison, one of Catherine’s bridesmaids. She’d organized the hen do, a stupidly expensive weekend in Marbella that I’d tried to get out of because I couldn’t afford it and because I didn’t know anyone other than Catherine. I had gone, of course, mainly because I hadn’t been able to think of a good enough excuse not to. Alison, I remembered, had seemed nice enough until she’d got drunk, argued with a Spanish guy she’d been getting off with all night and threw up in the swimming pool. If it was her, it was possible there was some sort of last-minute crisis. Catherine was probably doing her head in, too.

  I scrolled up. There were other messages from the same number.

  It’s me, can you talk?

  And before that:

  I’m at the wedding. When are you getting here? Urgently need to speak to you.

  It was definitely bridesmaid Alison, then. I put his phone on silent anyway; whatever wedding disasters were occurring, there wasn’t much he could do about it tonight. I tried to slide the phone back into his pocket without disturbing him, but it slipped out of my hand and clattered onto the carpet. I winced, praying I hadn’t broken it. He’d go mad if I had. He stirred, and I looked tentatively across at him. His eyes were half open and he clasped his hands together, stretching them up above his head.

  “Your phone fell out,” I whispered, touching him lightly on the arm.

  He patted his pocket, then ran his hand between our seats.

  “It’s on the floor,” I stage-whispered.

  Somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, he bent down and scooped it up. I noticed he put the phone into his far pocket before turning to lay his head back against the window. It was odd that he hadn’t mentioned the other texts from Alison, but I was sure there was a simple explanation. He knew I was fed up with Catherine’s constant demands, that was all, and probably thought I wouldn’t want to hear it. I’d ask him about it in the morning.