by Mandy Baggot
‘That sounds totes intriguing,’ Debs answered, turning her gaze to him.
The bistro’s warmth was evaporating and instead a cold blanket was trying to shroud him.
‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘No intrigue.’ He had to move this conversation on. ‘Just a slight change of direction.’ He willed moisture into his mouth. ‘And… helping a little with my father’s wedding.’
He could see Didier’s eyes pop out of his skull at that comment but he’d needed anything to avoiding talking about that night.
‘A wedding! How utterly brilliantly fantastic!’ Debs exclaimed. ‘Is it soon?’
‘Christmas Eve,’ he responded, restoring a smile.
‘Are you taking the photos?’
The question came from Ava. Vivienne had asked him several times to take the photos of the special day and several times he hadn’t been able to bring himself to answer.
‘Pa!’ Didier jumped in, ‘Julien does not take photos of weddings. That is a hundred times too ordinary.’ He picked up the little display of fir cones, ivy and holly on the table, holding it in his palm. ‘See this?’ Didier asked, as if waiting for everyone’s full attention. ‘A Noël decoration, no?’
No one responded and Julien had to wonder where his friend was going with this.
‘Come on,’ Didier encouraged. ‘This is just a Christmas ornament, yes?’
Julien watched the women nod their heads.
‘But imagine,’ Didier said, waving his free palm over the arrangement like he was about to perform a magic trick. ‘Imagine it in the wrinkled hand of a war veteran… or on the bridge over the Seine surrounded by love locks, one of which is open to represent lost love… there is the moonlight, the snow cascading down.’ He pulled in a dramatic sigh.
‘That is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,’ Debs breathed, her hand propping up her head as she gazed at Didier.
‘It sounds ridiculous,’ Julien stated. ‘Please, let us get him some food before all that is talking is the vin rouge.’
Didier put the display down, laughing as he picked up a menu.
‘So, you consider yourself an artist really?’ Ava said quietly. ‘Not a photographer.’
He looked to her, green eyes showing less vulnerability now and a lot more interest.
‘I do not draw or paint, but yes... I would consider my photographs as art.’
He watched her absorb the information, fingers moving lightly over the rim of the wine glass.
‘But modelling is art too, no? Every new shoot has a different aim,’ he suggested.
‘I wouldn’t call it art,’ she responded straightaway.
‘Why not?’ he countered. ‘It is performance art. Giving an attitude or pose to the camera to channel a vibe or to show a certain situation.’
‘And if the model’s heart isn’t in it? If she’s being manipulated and forced to project an image she doesn’t agree with?’
Her eyes were flashing with passion now and he wondered just what or who had hurt her so much she now couldn’t separate one thing from another. She then suddenly seemed to cool and picked up the menu as if she hadn’t entered into a debate with him at all. For a second he thought about filling the silence with a food recommendation, but then she looked back to him.
‘In my opinion most art is manufactured. And with photographs it’s even easier because the photographer never has to give anything of themselves.’ She took a breath. ‘I find it can be deceptive and manipulative. You might not airbrush or use Photoshop but using war veterans and love locks or… sick children and puppies… it’s all about trying to provoke a reaction.’ She sniffed. ‘And that’s about making headlines and nothing to do with art.’
He felt like he had been slapped. He looked at her, chest rising and falling, eyes bright and confronting, cheeks rouged, words bitter. Before he could even think about making a reply Debs had spoken.
‘Shall we have coq au vin, Ava?’ She smiled. ‘I know it’s terribly British to have something a little plain but, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a bit of coq?’
13
Ava didn’t do dignified silences or smiling sweetly and saying the right thing. No, she opened her mouth and put her red Converse straight into it. Now, filling her mouth with a delicious chicken dish she knew was probably a day’s calories in one meal, she was feeling a little guilty about her comments to Julien Fitoussi. He hadn’t said a word to her since she had insulted his work and she didn’t blame him. She hadn’t really meant it. Not all of it. He had just pushed the button and she had remembered how she had felt under the lights, a lens trained on her, a photographer telling her nothing she was doing was right and her mother agreeing with him. That wasn’t Julien’s fault.
And here she was with Debs, two strangers from England, interrupting his evening with a friend and declaring his work manipulative. She chanced a glance sideways and immediately caught his eye. It was too late to pretend she hadn’t looked, but she forked a shallot into her mouth and hoped that would signal she was engaged with something other than conversation.
‘So, if you do not model any longer what is it you do now?’ Julien asked.
Ava picked up her serviette and dabbed her mouth with it. ‘I sell flats.’
‘She sells luxury apartments!’ Debs butted in loudly, her cheeks fuchsia from the red wine. ‘She’s so good at it she got a promotion after only two weeks and now it’s all penthouse suites for totes affluent business types.’
Ava nodded. ‘Like she said.’
‘And this satisfies you?’ Julien inquired, observing her.
She didn’t catch herself quickly enough not to hesitate. ‘Yes,’ Ava answered.
She watched Julien nod as he picked up his glass of red wine.
‘She’s brilliant at it,’ Debs said, to Didier more than anyone else. ‘I’ve seen her in action.’ Debs breathed in the aroma of the Bordeaux in her glass. ‘Ava can get someone who, you can just tell, has absolutely no intention whatsoever of buying an apartment, and she presents the information in such a way that in the end they can’t wait to sign on the dotted line.’
Suddenly Ava felt a little uncomfortable, almost sensing what was about to come. ‘It isn’t quite like that, Debs.’
‘No?’ Julien asked, turning his body in his chair, his chest parallel with hers. ‘You would not woo these potential buyers with talk of the lifestyle if they bought one of your apartments?’ he asked, eyes fixed on hers. ‘There was no “imagine sitting on your balcony with a glass of wine, enjoying a little dejeuner with friends” or “regarde, the lights of the London Eye, spectacular... and a panoramic view of the whole of the capital to show off to your colleagues.”’
She didn’t respond, couldn’t. She was watching his tight body language, the way his fingers were curling around his glass.
‘Julien,’ Didier spoke up, ‘you have an apartment just like this.’ He smiled at Debs. ‘Julien has an apartment with a view of the Seine.’
Ava opened her mouth to make comment. To say that sounded nice and so much better than something in Canary Wharf, but then Julien spoke again.
‘You paint a picture for the buyers,’ he told her. ‘You sell them something that is not there. Something fabricated. A dream lifestyle that may or may not come true.’
She swallowed. This was payback for her earlier outburst and annoyingly, he was absolutely right.
‘You invent the wine and the sunsets, you miss out the smog and the property opposite that perhaps overlooks the balcony a little, you tell them what they want to hear,’ he said. ‘You show them fantasy and let them believe it can be theirs.’ He tipped the contents of his wine glass into his mouth and deposited the glass back on the table. ‘It is just like Photoshop but with words.’ He got to his feet.
‘Come, Julien, what are you doing?’ Didier asked as Julien began to pull on his coat.
‘This was a mistake,’ Julien said. ‘I should go.’
Ava looked up at him, hastening to get
his arms into sleeves. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Because the conversation has turned into a debate? I thought the French enjoyed a debate.’
He turned then, his demeanour softening slightly. ‘Is this what it is?’ he asked.
Ava shrugged. ‘I think that would be the most effective resolution.’
‘To call a truce,’ Didier suggested, clapping his hands together. ‘To put aside our differences for the sake of good wine and good times.’
‘I like that idea more than I like coq,’ Debs hiccupped, ‘au vin.’
‘No,’ Ava said. ‘Differences being put aside won’t work.’ She sniffed. ‘That’s like asking France to give the UK maximum points at Eurovision.’
‘We do not do this?’ Didier asked, looking genuinely interested.
Julien was still standing, both arms now in his coat. She could just let him go. He had photographed her and wound her up. But she couldn’t help thinking that just maybe she was the guilty one. Making assumptions. Being too sensitive. Letting Rhoda Rhinestone, Leo and this new information about Gary blight everything. She looked at Debs, goggle-eyed over Didier with a Bordeaux glow on her cheeks. Debs had so much more going on with her life than she had realised and she needed to start being a better best friend, and quickly.
‘Sit down,’ she said, tilting her chin to regard Julien. ‘Please. We can have a healthy debate, can’t we?’ She saw him wavering, caught between doing up the buttons of his coat and taking it off again. She smiled. ‘A debate about why I’m right and you’re wrong, obviously.’
Didier let out a laugh. ‘A challenge, my friend.’
Ava now wanted him to sit down more than she didn’t want to follow a woman around Paris tomorrow. Still he stood, looking as if he were weighing up his options.
‘Please, sit down,’ she tried again. ‘Before your coq gets cold.’ She couldn’t quite believe she’d said that and her cheeks began to flame.
Finally, Julien removed his coat and hung it around the back of his chair, being careful not to dislodge his camera before retaking his seat.
Debs picked up the near-empty wine bottle. ‘Shall we order some more wine?’
‘Yes, absolutement,’ Didier said, waving a hand with a flourish to beckon a waiter.
‘So,’ Julien said, his eyes on Ava again, ‘are you to begin the debate or am I?’
14
Julien watched Ava put a spoonful of tarte Tartin into her mouth and ponder on the question he’d just asked her. Around them the brasserie had started to empty, other patrons leaving for a night of music or the ballet or simply heading home. The earlier storm had ceased and now gentle flakes of snow floated past the window a few tables away, creating the perfect backdrop for the white and gold fluffy Christmas baubles hanging in chain formation against the glass. Next to him Debs and Didier were playing some sort of game that involved the corks of wine bottles being balanced on their noses.
‘I don’t know how old I was when I started modelling,’ Ava admitted. ‘Four, maybe?’
‘Four,’ he said, shaking his head.
She nodded. ‘I think so. But I suppose there’s a chance I might have done baby commercials that I don’t even remember.’
She looked to the window, gazing through the snow flurry as if trying to recall. ‘Although, knowing my mother, I’m sure she would have brought those prints out to embarrass me at dinner parties if I had.’ She could almost hear the comments now. Agnes, look at Ava there, so adorable, her neck like a swan and probably the only time she’s ever been a size zero.
Julien nodded. ‘Now I can see somewhat why you would not want to always be photographed.’
‘But I shouldn’t have been rude.’ She put down her spoon. ‘I just haven’t had a great relationship with photographers.’ Almost on instinct she sucked in her stomach and pulled back her shoulders. Old habits died hard.
‘Because they have made you behave a certain way?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes,’ she replied wistfully. ‘Because that’s their job.’ She sat back in her seat. ‘And to them I was just a clothes horse or a mane of hair for a new, thickening product or someone giving the right expression to advertise sport or... sex.’
He watched her swallow then, as if the word had fallen on her like hard rain.
‘And I was never good enough. They told me that most of the time, too.’ She sighed. ‘It was a lot harder than selling apartments and dream lifestyles to bankers,’ she concluded. ‘But then I never did the modelling for me.’ She shook her head. ‘It was always about my mother.’
He watched her make her hands into fists. Not perhaps the reaction you would expect from a woman who was talking about her mother, although it was one he was familiar with. Lauren had done the very same thing when their mother came up in conversation.
‘She keeps trying to get me to start again – just shift a few pounds, just one trip to the dentist. She can’t accept that I couldn’t cut it then, and I couldn’t cut it now.’
A cork bounced onto the table and Debs shrieked with laughter as Didier frantically tried to claim it back and reset it on his nose. It was enough to jar the conversation and Ava retracted, both physically and emotionally. Julien watched her smile and restore the very British exterior.
‘I’m sure you didn’t expect to have to listen to any of this when you left your apartment overlooking the Seine tonight,’ she said, toying with the napkin on her lap.
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I expected to have to listen to Didier telling me about every conversation he had this week and an update on the Kardashians.’
Ava laughed and he smiled, watching the way her short blonde tendrils almost shivered with the motion.
‘I hear everything you say,’ Didier answered, his face upturned, the cork resting lengthways on the bridge of his nose. ‘I am right here.’
‘I went to a party once and we didn’t balance corks, we balanced After Eights,’ Debs informed, steadying her head as she put another cork between her eyes.
‘After Eights? I do not know what these are,’ Didier answered, shifting in his seat to try and maintain balance. ‘English cigarettes?’
‘No, silly,’ Debs said. ‘They’re chocolates.’
‘So, are you taking the photos for your dad’s wedding?’ Ava asked him. ‘You didn’t say.’
Now he was on the spot. But he could lie. He could just say yes or no, make an excuse.
‘I do not know yet,’ he admitted.
‘Why not?’ Ava asked, without pause.
There was no taking time to get to the point with this woman. He could feel her eyes on him, waiting for his answer.
‘Perhaps it is a little too close to home,’ he suggested. ‘You would think there was a lot less pressure with family but, in truth, there is a lot more.’ He looked to her then. ‘I would want the photographs to be perfect... Without war veterans and love locks.’
Ava smiled. ‘I think that’s a good plan.’
* * *
‘So, tell me, Didier and Julien, where are the hot spots for singles in Paris?’ Debs asked as one foot slipped on the icy pavement and she had to make a grab for a lamppost.
They had left the brasserie and were now at the mercy of the icy night, Ava’s breath visible in the air as she shoved her hands into her pockets and stamped life back into her high-top encased toes. She was tired. A yawn was crawling its way up inside her but she held it in. Debs obviously wasn’t ready to end the evening yet.
‘I know the perfect place!’ Didier announced, a wide grin on his mouth. ‘A club called Showcase!’
‘Let’s go!’ Debs responded, linking arms with him.
‘I will catch up with you later, Didier,’ Julien called to his friend who was already two paces along the street.
‘You’re not coming?’ Ava asked, looking first to Debs and Didier and making sure their skipping off had come to a halt and then back to Julien.
He shook his head. ‘No, Showcase... it is not really my scene.’
‘Is it
awful?’ Ava mouthed, leaning a little closer to him. ‘Bad music and even worse dancing?’
Julien smiled and shook his head. ‘It is fine. If you like nightclubs.’
‘Julien, come on,’ Didier called. ‘Live a little, non? It is only Cinderella who turns into a pumpkin if she is out later than midnight.’
‘I plan to be up early in the morning,’ he said.
‘That is new,’ Didier commented.
Ava watched Julien’s features shift just a little and then he directed a smile at her. ‘If I thought you could maybe put aside your preconceptions about photography I would invite you to join me tomorrow.’
‘Doing what?’ she asked.
‘I am thinking of having another photography exhibition.’
The way he had said the sentence was as if it had taken every ounce of energy in his body. His shoulders hunched a little awkwardly and he was moving on the spot like he couldn’t stand still. He blew out a breath then continued. ‘Nothing is certain. I am just thinking about it... forming an idea at the moment.’ He swallowed. ‘But... I will need photographs.’
‘Ava!’ Debs called. ‘Hurry along will you! I need to ensure appropriate research is done before I start drinking pastis!’
Julien began again. ‘Perhaps it would give me a chance to show you that not all photographers are the same.’
He was looking at her with openness and honesty in those dark, hazelnut-coloured eyes, the snow falling down around his face, his breath a fine mist in the air between them. Was she considering this? Making a date to see a stranger she had only known a few hours, someone who had pressed all the right buttons and reignited her rage against the modelling regime? Was this her idea of opening herself up to possibilities in Paris? Number one on her new wish list? She swallowed.
‘What time?’ she found herself asking.
‘Well, I was going to start early... at sunrise... but we could meet later...’