We ended the call and I retraced my steps, back along the canal in the direction of the Lux, looking for a street called something beginning with H, which should lead to the B&B we’d booked. There was music coming from somewhere, a live band, and it got louder and quieter and louder and quieter as the door to the venue opened and closed. I spotted the street I was looking for over on the other side of the canal, a quaint, curving cobbled lane lined with bikes propped in racks and with a cozy little restaurant on the corner that had candles flickering in the window. I swallowed hard. I’d been high on adrenaline, buoyed by being in Paris, and meeting Léo and the shock of finding out what Si had been up to. But now it was just me again, alone in the world. I waited for the familiar empty, thudding feeling I’d had a million times before, but it didn’t come. Perhaps it hadn’t quite sunk in.
Running my hand across the railings, I’d just started out across the bridge when I heard somebody calling my name.
“Hannah!”
I turned round. For a second I let myself imagine it could be Léo, but how could it, when he wouldn’t know how to find me?
I squinted into the half-light. At first I couldn’t see him, there was just a shadow, but then he came into view with his perfect face and his leather jacket, the jeans that were slung too low on his hips. That smile.
“It is you,” he said, panting.
I laughed. “Are you all right there?”
“No,” he said, clutching his chest with a grin.
“Did you run all the way here, or something?”
He nodded. “I only have a few minutes before the concert starts,” he said, trying to catch his breath.
“Short on time, eh? The story of our lives,” I said.
A group of girls tottered past, off their heads, singing loudly. They were eating some sort of kebab, scooping up handfuls of meat from oily paper bags clutched in their hands.
“How did you know where I was?” I asked.
“I heard what you said when you got into the taxi, so I went to the Lux. I could not see you among the wedding party, so I asked the doorman at the hotel. He thought you might have gone in this direction.”
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I came to see whether you are all right,” he said, leaning his back against the railings, crossing one foot over the other. “That you have not tripped over the bride’s dress and twisted your other ankle.”
I smiled. “You know, I don’t think I deserve the clumsy rep.”
Léo looked down at the ground, then back at me. “What happened with your boyfriend? Why are you not at the wedding?”
I pulled his hoodie tighter around my body. “I was right, he’d been lying to me.”
“You knew that, non?”
“Sort of, I suppose. But it wasn’t what I thought it was. He wasn’t having an affair,” I said.
“No?”
“He got fired from his job and then covered it up by pretending to go to work every day when he had no actual job to go to.”
“He is an idiot,” said Léo, tutting. “I knew that, without ever meeting him.”
A nearby door opened, flooding the cobbles with white light, sending jazz music blasting out into the night.
“Don’t you need to go?” I asked.
He glanced at his watch. “Yes.”
“They’re going to love your song, by the way,” I said.
He shrugged. “I hope so.”
“You’re not going to make me do the whole sad goodbye thing all over again, are you?”
“Ah, yes. I did not think of that,” he said.
“So now that you’ve found me . . .”
“Now that I have found you, I am not sure how to say what I want to say.”
“It’s not like you to be lost for words,” I said, leaning on the railings next to him, our hip bones knocking together.
“I wanted to see you, again, okay?”
I bit my lip. “I thought you were a pro at walking away from things.”
“I am. Very good at it, usually,” he added. “But when I got to my meeting and I was talking about my work, you kept coming in and out of my mind. It was very strange. I kept thinking about how when I saw you at Gare du Nord—non, before that, on the train—I thought you were very beautiful. And interesting and smart and funny. Which I suppose explains why I was such an arsehole to you.”
I laughed. “You certainly did an excellent job of pretending you couldn’t stand me,” I said.
“Why do you think I came back to Gare du Nord? Why I persuaded you to let me take you to the police station?”
“You told me already. Because you can’t stand feeling guilty.”
“Yes, that is true. But that rule applies only if I care what that person thinks of me,” he said.
“Which must mean . . .”
“That I care what you think of me.”
We turned to watch a tiny motorboat chug underneath us, leaving a trail of froth behind it.
“What will you do tonight?” he asked. “Where will you stay?”
“I’ve booked a hotel,” I said. “Not far from here.”
He nodded.
“You’re being very serious,” I said, looking warily across at him.
“I thought I would not see you again, that is all,” he said, looking earnest. “And now that you are here in front of me, I feel I must say all the things I wanted to say to you all day but was not brave enough to.”
I reached out and tucked his hair behind his ear. “I thought flying was the only thing you were scared of.”
I was suddenly very aware of the sounds around me. Léo’s soft, rapid breathing. The click-clack of someone’s heels as they passed over the bridge. The water below us lapping against the quay. The cold, wet metal of the railings seeping through the fabric of my skirt.
“You know, there is much more of Paris to show you,” he said.
“Is that an invitation?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“You don’t seem sure,” I said, teasing him.
He took my hands in his, linking our fingers together. “I am sure, Hannah. I would like you to come to Paris again,” he said. “To see me.”
“Will you buy me another Mont Blanc?”
“Naturally,” he said, stroking my wrists with his thumbs.
“I should probably let things settle down first. Make a proper break from Si.”
He nodded. “Absolutely.”
I pulled him closer to me, resting his hands on my hips, noticing how the heat of his hands burned through to my skin. I was painfully aware of the rise and fall of my chest, of the way the tips of our noses almost brushed together.
“I have wanted to kiss you all day, you know,” he said.
I curled my arms around him, linking them around his neck. “Well, you hid it very well.”
He laughed. “I will wait for you, then,” he said. “Until you are ready. And then you will come to Paris and we will eat Monts Blancs again.”
I smiled. “It’s a date.”
“So. Let us see . . . you have your course, non?”
“Yes,” I said, meaning it. I was going to write the statement for my application on the plane home, and get my images processed as soon as I got back.
He slid his phone out of his pocket, flicking his thumb across the screen. “And you will be finished by . . . Christmas?”
I shook my head. “End of February.”
“Then we will meet at the Gare du Nord on the . . . un moment . . . February 29 next year. A little more than seven months from now. Oui?”
I laughed, confused. “Are you serious?”
“Of course. I will be waiting for you there, at twelve noon, at the end of Platform 19, where we had our second conversation.”
“C
onversation or argument?”
“Definitely a conversation.”
I looked doubtful. “What if you change your mind? It’s a long way to come to get stood up.”
“I promise you I will be there,” he said, raking his hands through my hair. “I already know that I will not change my mind. But I want you to be sure, Hannah. And if we still think about each other after seven months, we will know that we have something special, yes?”
“Are we allowed any contact at all?” I asked, not sure what the rules were.
He thought about it. “I think you should have a clean break. Focus on your course, work everything out with your boyfriend. If we text and call, it becomes more complicated, non?”
I had to admit, I quite liked the idea of some time to myself. I didn’t want to go rushing from one relationship headlong into another.
“Platform 19, you say?”
“You will be there?” he asked.
“As long as you don’t try to break my neck this time.”
“Noted. I will leave my bag at home.”
I cupped his cheek in my hand. “February 29 it is, then.”
We looked at each other for what felt like ages and then he was gone, striding off down the street, his keys jangling in his back pocket. “See you in seven months, Hannah!” he called over his shoulder.
I stood very still, watching him, pulling at the hem of his hoodie, my heart racing, trying to tell myself that he must have meant what he’d said. He never said things he didn’t mean, he’d told me that himself. I watched him until he reached a bend in the road and disappeared out of sight.
Paris, seven months later
I pressed my cheek against the window of the train, watching the bleaker, emptier outskirts of Paris transform into the more built-up center of the city. The train was already beginning to slow and the usual announcements were made, first in English, then in French. I checked my phone: 11:50. I’d booked the train without thinking it through: What if we’d been delayed? It was as though I’d left it up to fate: Would I get there in time or wouldn’t I?
As we pulled into the station, I caught a glimpse of the domes of the Sacré-Coeur. It looked incongruous there, next to the more modern buildings surrounding it, a beautiful piece of history, all white and gleaming and serene like an over-the-top wedding cake. Several times over the past seven months, I’d imagined Léo sitting on the steps in the early-morning light, looking at his beloved Paris spread out in front of him, writing lyrics, or tweaking a melody for a song. And I always wondered, afterward, whether he’d had the same thoughts about me: about where I might be, or what might be going well and what might not be. Whether I’d applied for my photography course and whether I’d finished it. I’d been tempted to call him, lots of times. I wished I had now, because then at least I’d have known whether he still felt the same way about me.
The train came to a complete stop, hissing off steam. I felt actually, physically sick. Because there was a chance that I was going to come full circle, that this was going to be another disastrous trip to Paris, like my first. I’d spent one day with Léo. We hadn’t spoken for over half a year; the odds of him turning up weren’t great. Everything had changed for me, so I could only assume that it had been the same for him. He could have met somebody. He could have forgotten about me completely. It was impossible to know, and there was only one way to find out.
All around me there was the usual flurry of activity. People shot out of their seats and I watched them scrabbling their things together, clambering to be first off the train. Perhaps I’d just stay on board, unnoticed, until the train filled up again and we turned back to London.
The doors pinged open. The aisle full of eager passengers began to empty out. My throat felt tight; I swallowed hard to loosen it. I stood up and pulled my coat and my carry-on out of the luggage rack, light-headed now as well as nauseated.
I stepped off the train. There were only a few of us straggling behind the crowd, a woman trying desperately to strap a toddler into a buggy and a businessman on a phone call, his briefcase swinging wildly in his hand. We’d come in on Platform 4. That would buy me some time to gather my thoughts. According to the departures and arrivals screen above my head, it was 11:54. Six minutes to go.
I began to walk very slowly along the concourse, feeling as though I was dragging my suitcase through mud. I badly regretted bringing it now, but the plans we’d made were so vague that I hadn’t known what to do. In hindsight, it would have looked much cooler to have come with only my shoulder bag, to have given the impression I was just breezing through Paris for the day, and that I might, might pop along to Platform 19 on the off chance he’d be there. At least I’d booked a hotel—there was no way I could presume I’d be staying at his. And my return journey was locked in for the following evening. Even if he was there, even if it was as lovely as the first time, I wasn’t going to moon around waiting for him to dictate how long I should stay. I’d bought myself a ticket for an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, too, just in case. So that if he didn’t come, I could somehow convince myself that the trip hadn’t been for nothing.
I stopped, my breath catching in my throat, fumbling around in my pocket for my phone. It was 11:58. There was no way I could be early. I killed some time waiting underneath one of the lampposts that were dotted about; I’d seen them last time, sprouting randomly out of the concourse. Passengers weaved past me, kids or suitcases in their hands, headphones on, phones clamped to their ear. Everyone looked relaxed, everyone knew where they were going and why. Nobody looked as nervous as I felt, although perhaps they were just hiding it well. I swiped at my phone again, bringing the screen to life with a shaking thumb: 12:00. I took several deep, abdominal breaths and I touched my hair, smoothing down the curls. I’d worn it like I’d had it before, half up, half down, in case he only recognized me that way, although my hair was a few inches longer than it had been.
I made my way to the platform, slowly at first and then more quickly, because now that it was time, I sort of wanted to get it over with. If he wasn’t there, I’d put a brave face on it and I’d move on, just as I’d been doing my whole life. If he was? Well, then, I didn’t know. My ankle boots clip-clopped on the marble flooring as I walked along. My skirt flipped against my thighs. I had a white camisole on, like I’d had before, but this time I wore a chunky knitted cardigan on top of it, my winter coat slung over my arm.
I arrived at Platform 19, placing my hand on my chest, as if that was going to stop the hammering. I stood very still for a bit, but it was too quiet and I could hear my pulse beating in my eardrums, so I turned full circle, very slowly, as casually as I could, my eyes flicking left and right. Where would he be, if he was here? Where would he stand? I did one full rotation and couldn’t see him. I crossed my arms, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“Hannah?”
I was looking down the platform at the time, out at the end of the glass canopy, the way I had been when I’d missed the Amsterdam train and had been staring at it in disbelief. I turned my head, scared to look. What if my mind had been playing tricks on me? What if I’d imagined his voice, because that was what I’d wanted to hear?
“Hey,” he said, smiling at me.
It was him. His hair was shorter than it had been before. He had jeans on and his leather jacket and a gray scarf and looked a little unsure of himself.
“Hi,” I said.
I felt breathless, as though I could only speak in short bursts.
“You are upright, at least,” he said.
I smiled, gripping the handle of my suitcase. “Yep. No accidents yet.”
“You look beautiful, Hannah,” he said.
I nodded, my eyes fixed to the floor. “You too.”
He took a step closer to me. “Did you believe I would be here?”
I lifted my head. “I wouldn’t have come all this way otherwise
, would I?”
“You have found your confidence, I see.” He reached out to touch my hair. “It is longer,” he said.
“You cut yours.”
An announcement blared over the loudspeaker. We both jumped and then laughed, self-conscious.
“I’ve missed you,” I said, which felt strange to say, but I’d decided that if he was there, I was going to be completely honest about my feelings for him. Was going to share every single thought in my head.
“I think about you all of the time,” he said.
I cupped his head in my hands, tugging at him to come closer.
“Oh, right. I can kiss you now, can I?” he said, teasing me.
I pretended to think about it, and then instead I kissed him. Gently at first, enjoying this moment that I’d daydreamed about every single day since I’d seen him last. Then his thumb was running across my cheek and his hands were in my hair and I dropped the handle of my suitcase and it clattered to the floor and I didn’t care who could see us. I pressed myself into him.
“I am so happy to see you, Hannah,” he said, kissing my neck, then my lips again.
I laughed softly. “We have so much to tell each other.”
“I want to hear everything,” he whispered in my ear, running his fingers up and down my spine.
“Where shall we start?”
“Your course!” he said, pulling back, full of the energy I remembered. “What is happening with your course?”
“I finished it,” I told him, proud of myself for once. “I did it and I loved every second. I work in a gallery now, too. I’m surrounded by photography all day every day, so, as you can imagine, I’m in my absolute element.”
He laughed. “I knew you could do it, Hannah.”
“And what about you?” I asked excitedly. “Your music?”
He looked embarrassed, suddenly, his fringe too short to cover his eyes now, even when he tried to hide behind it. “The track was a hit. Number one in five countries.”
The Paris Connection Page 26