One Christmas in Paris

by Mandy Baggot

  She quickly got to her feet, heading for anywhere with a little breathing space.

  39

  Ava couldn’t go back. She was going to stay here, hands almost freezing to the metal railings, staring at the Eiffel Tower until it got too dark to see. Then and only then might the embarrassment start to lift. Getting emotional over a single rose and two strangers kissing in Paris. What was she thinking?!

  ‘You left your coffee,’ Julien said.

  ‘Give it to the woman with the rose. If she went bat-shit crazy over a flower, who knows what she’ll do over a coffee.’

  She sensed him stand alongside her, then watched him put his hands to the railing, his index finger rubbing at the layer of snow on the upper rail.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said softly.

  She closed her eyes. She was done for. Now he was offering sympathy. She opened her eyes again. ‘What for?’

  ‘For not realising that perhaps you do not want to think of love at this time.’

  She turned slightly, offering him a glance. ‘I have a friend writing about the singles scene in Paris whilst hunting down a woman she thinks is sleeping with her step-dad. Like that theme song from Four Weddings and a Funeral, love is... all around... whether I like it or not.’

  ‘I was insensitive.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Monsieur Fitoussi. I’m a big girl.’ She let out a sigh. If that was the case, if watching the scene play out in front of her hadn’t affected her, why had she run away and started hugging a fence?

  ‘I was lucky,’ Julien said, turning around and leaning his body against the railings and holding her coffee cup out to her.

  She took it and it immediately warmed her fingers. ‘What?’

  ‘It does not always work that way,’ he said. ‘With the woman and the rose.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. Sometimes I could sit for days and not find any one giving me the emotion I want to capture.’

  ‘You’re just saying that to be nice.’ She sniffed. ‘You said it yourself. Paris is full of lovers. A whole city obsessed with love.’

  ‘A city that needs all the love it can get right now,’ he added.

  He was right.

  ‘New beginnings, Madonna, like we talked about last night.’

  New beginnings. Change. If she just found the courage to tell her mother ‘no’ once and for all she could finally be in control of her own destiny. She could change things in her life.

  ‘I want to buy a love lock,’ Ava stated, looking up at him, wide-eyed.

  ‘What?’ he asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

  ‘I want to change things. I want to make a new beginning.’

  She looked around the snow-spotted area around the base of the Eiffel Tower – the band still playing Christmas tunes, the stallholders holding flashing hats with models of the Tour Eiffel on them, the silver-painted human statue dressed like something from a Dickens’ novel. ‘Where do they sell them?’

  ‘Ava...’

  ‘Do you know? Do they have them on the merchandise stalls? I bet they do.’ She deposited her cup in the nearest bin and began to walk towards a stall. Suddenly she was stopped, strong fingers gripping the sleeve of her coat.

  ‘Ava, love isn’t just about having another person in your life,’ Julien stated. ‘The man in England... he...’

  ‘Oh,’ Ava said. ‘It’s nothing to do with Leo.’

  ‘No?’

  She looked up at him, taking in the dark hair spiking out underneath the hat she had bought for him and those beautiful eyes. ‘Have you ever been in love, Monsieur Fitoussi?’

  She watched his expression cloud over in perfect time to the darkening of the Paris sky above then. She waited for his response.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Once.’

  She spoke quickly, feeling the need to stifle the churning feeling in her stomach. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘And then everything.’

  She watched a whole collection of emotions appear in his eyes, cover the firm jawline and drop down into the full lips. In her coat pocket her hand ached to come out into the cold and trace the contours of his face. She scrunched her hand up around the paper inside. Her wish list. Talk of dogs and plastic surgery and getting drunk. She held the torn paper between her fingers.

  And then Julien smiled. ‘Perhaps I should have bought more roses.’

  ‘Or a love lock,’ Ava suggested. ‘Come on, Monsieur Fitoussi,’ she said, threading her arm through his. ‘Who says that love locks have to be for couples? What do you have in your pocket I can use to scratch my name with?’

  * * *

  They had climbed over six hundred steps and joined the winter crowds in the double-decker lifts, windows steaming up as they headed skywards, until they had reached the very top of the Tour Eiffel. Now, standing a few paces behind her, Julien watched Ava taking in this scene, his camera at work.

  She had hurried over to the balustrade without concern for the nine hundred and five foot drop below her, as if she was determined to be at the front. She put her hands to her hat and removed it, slipping the wool covering into the pocket of her coat then putting her hands to the metalwork in front of her. The blonde spikes were immediately buffeted by the harsh, freezing air and he watched her straighten her arms, bracing herself against the force but remaining stoic. He snapped a couple more photos then joined her, gazing out over the city, the visibility stretching almost fifty miles.

  ‘Like at the Sacré-Coeur it makes everything else seem that little bit less significant,’ Ava said, breathing in deeply.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Up here you can see everything much more clearly.’

  ‘I thought you said most of the French hated the Eiffel Tower,’ she reminded.

  ‘I said nothing about the view,’ he answered.

  She sighed. ‘Up here I feel as though I’m bigger than anything else but also—’

  ‘Smaller than everything else,’ he interrupted.

  She turned to him. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.’

  ‘And then you remember that, despite the vastness of this city’ – he spread his arms out to indicate the size of what they could see – ‘this is just one city... just one place.’

  ‘But at night Tim Peake could see us from space,’ Ava reminded.

  ‘Not us,’ Julien stated. ‘Just... the light.’

  There was that feeling again, squeezing his insides as Ava’s green eyes looked up at him, her cheeks and the end of her nose a little pink, that bright hair meant as a statement only succeeding in her making her appear more vulnerable.

  ‘Do you wish you’d bought a lock?’ she asked, grinning as she pulled out the golden padlock she’d purchased.

  ‘You do know, Madonna, the place to lock yourself to is the Pont de L’Archevêché.’

  Ava flapped a hand. ‘That’s where everyone puts their lock,’ she dismissed. ‘I want to be different and’ – she looked around – there isn’t many up here... maybe thirty or so.’

  ‘You know why this is?’ Julien asked.

  ‘Because lovers are too lazy to climb the steps or put up with that slower-than-snail-butter ride in the lift?’

  He smiled. ‘No. I am afraid to say that periodically the authorities cut them off.’

  Ava clamped her hands to her chest. ‘What?!’ She was wide-eyed. ‘The city of love destroys the hopes and dreams of hundreds of tourists?!’

  ‘In reality it is vandalism.’

  ‘Speaks the man who photographed them.’

  ‘Just because I take photographs of something does not mean I support it.’

  He watched Ava scowl, her fingers curled around the lock in her hand. ‘So you’re really saying you don’t believe in true love either.’

  ‘That is not what I am saying at all.’

  ‘So you’re saying you don’t believe in the power of the love lock.’

  ‘The power of the love lock, Madonna? Really?’

  ‘It’s a st
atement, isn’t it? It’s someone saying, “This is how I feel right now, here in this place.”’

  ‘Usually with another person,’ Julien stated.

  ‘Ah ha,’ Ava said. ‘But it doesn’t have to be with another person.’ She held her hand out. ‘Give me the little baby camera screwdriver you said you had.’

  * * *

  Snowflakes were settling on her hand as she waited, watching Julien dip his fingers into the pocket of his coat and take out an almost microscopic tool. He placed it in her palm and she closed her fingers over it, moving it around until it was in her grip and ready to use like a pen.

  ‘What are you going to write?’ Julien asked.

  ‘Now you’re interested,’ Ava said, pressing the padlock to her thigh and bending over, the tool in her other hand, attempting to etch into the metal.

  ‘Have you done this before?’ he inquired.

  ‘Etched? No, because I’m not from the fifteenth century.’ This was hard work. It was a good job her name was only three letters long or they might be up here long enough for the astronauts to wave at them.

  ‘I mean a love lock,’ Julien said.

  She looked up then and shook her head. ‘No.’ She was about to drop her head and resume, then she spoke again. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Non,’ he answered.

  ‘Because you think they’re a little bit like graffiti?’ she questioned.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Because locking yourself to something or someone... it’s like...’

  ‘Marriage?’ Ava asked with a grin.

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s like... trying to get the world to stay the same. Trying to control Fate.’

  ‘Wow,’ Ava said. ‘You really do think deeply about everything.’ She started to carve out a ‘V’. ‘I think most people who lock their initials onto a bridge are just trying to make a gesture of love... or reassurance... a statement of togetherness. It doesn’t matter if all of them stay together for the rest of their lives, the important thing is, at the time, they believed they could.’

  Had she just said that? Had she really spoken up for love? She couldn’t bring herself to look at Julien. He was probably grinning, knowing she had shone a shaft of light down onto the ‘true love’ camp.

  ‘You are writing your name,’ Julien said.

  ‘Yes. Just my name and, if my fingers don’t go numb, I was going to scratch the date on the back. Because my love lock is all about me and no one else.’ She took a breath. ‘I did a drawing this morning.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes, without even really realising it. Debs was eating eggs Benedict and I was thinking about Goa and there I was, scratching out a rather impressive evil caricature of my mother.’

  ‘And how did that make you feel?’ Julien asked.

  ‘Like I could probably get a job with Marvel if I wanted.’

  He smiled. ‘New beginnings, Madonna. The possibility of possibilities.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes... so this love lock... this is about me, believing in myself,’ she stated, scratching the last leg of the final ‘A’. ‘This is about me, sending a message. Not to anyone else. Just to myself.’ She drew in a long breath, her eyes going from the padlock in her hands to the view down below, the white speckled greenery of the open space in front of the tower, the hundreds of roof tops, the cars and people far below all looking no bigger than the snowflakes rushing through the sky towards them. ‘This is about me loving me. Standing here, independently, not on a plane to Goa to please my mother, not doing a boring job or being cheated on.’ She raised her head to meet his eyes then. ‘Just being here in Paris, maybe single, but with everything out there within my reach.’ The sigh that left her made a high-pitched noise of delight and she felt a thrill run through her. ‘That’s why I’m doing it. Just for me.’ She smiled. ‘To celebrate me.’

  She meant it. A new start was needed and whether Julien thought the idea was silly or not, attaching her lock at the top of the Eiffel Tower was going to be life-affirming. She hooked the metal catch through the wire of the barrier and clasped it on with a definite clunk.

  ‘There,’ she said, pulling at the lock to ensure it was fixed. ‘It doesn’t matter if it stays here for a week or for a hundred years... I’ll remember the moment I fixed it on.’ She smiled. ‘You think I’m being selfish, don’t you?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, Madonna.’

  ‘Well, maybe I am, a bit.’ She sighed. ‘But I think this time I have to be a little bit selfish.’ She looked out over the city. ‘I’ve spent my whole life doing things for other people and not doing things for me. It’s time I took control of my life.’

  Julien smiled. ‘I do not think that is selfishness, Madonna. I think that is just waking up.’ He put his hand into the pocket of his coat. ‘And that is a good thing.’ He drew out another padlock.

  She gasped. ‘You did buy one!’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe? I can see it, Julien.’ She held out the screwdriver to him.

  ‘I do not know why I am doing this,’ he admitted. ‘Because in reality it is pointless.’

  ‘But you believe in the magic of photography and true love. Why can’t you invest a little in this?’

  ‘I am, Madonna,’ he said, scratching out his name. ‘Only so your poor love lock is not hanging all alone for decades, stray cats and master etchers looking at it in sympathy.’

  She punched him on the arm. ‘Don’t you put a pity padlock next to mine,’ she warned.

  ‘There,’ he said, blowing the small shavings of metal from his lock and admiring the word.

  Ava looked at his name, perfectly formed, not a large scrawly mess like hers. ‘You’ve done this before!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look how neat it is!’ she exclaimed. ‘You etch... in secret... when you’re not taking photographs.’

  He laughed. ‘I promise you I do not.’ He smiled. ‘May I lock myself next to you?’

  ‘On one condition,’ she answered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When I go back to England, you have to come up here at least once a week and make sure the locks are still here.’

  He shook his head. ‘You are serious?’

  ‘Yes! I know I said it didn’t matter how long they survived up here but I don’t want to think about a burly council worker with bolt cutters breaking apart my celebration of me.’

  ‘You are crazy,’ Julien stated.

  ‘Promise,’ Ava said. ‘If we were stood in England, halfway up the Blackpool Tower, then I would do it.’

  ‘I thought you said you live in London.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Blackpool is not close to London. I know this.’

  ‘Promise me,’ Ava said again.

  ‘Very well,’ Julien said. ‘I promise.’

  ‘OK,’ Ava said, satisfied. ‘You can loop it through next to mine.’

  She watched him push the silver metal of the catch through the fence and then secure the lock in place right next to hers. She sighed and looked at their locks, the backdrop of a wintry Paris behind them. ‘I wonder what people will think when they stand here taking their selfies. Do you think they will look at our locks and think about who we are?’

  ‘Not if they are from the conseil with tools to remove them.’

  ‘Stop it!’ she said, laughing.

  ‘What would you like people to think, Madonna?’ Julien asked her.

  Ava rested her elbows on the barrier and gazed out over the city. ‘I want people to think, Ava and Julien stood here once and they loved this place.’ She took in another breath. ‘And they’ll be imagining me looking like Anne Hathaway and they will imagine you looking like... who is the most famous Frenchman? Still David Ginola?’

  ‘Seriously?’ He raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Who do you want to be?’ she asked. ‘I know... one of Daft Punk.’

  ‘For one moment I was thinking you might say Jean-Michel Jarre.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

/>   Julien laughed, shaking his head.

  ‘Eric Cantona!’ Ava countered.

  ‘Do you only know footballers?’

  ‘You can blame my dad for that.’

  ‘So, what if I am Jean-Paul Gaultier,’ he suggested. ‘The designer of that conical stage outfit, Madonna.’

  Ava laughed. ‘Very funny.’

  A sharp wind came out of nowhere and Ava made a grab for her hat, the strength of the wind blowing her off-kilter. Julien reached out to steady her, his hand connecting with hers.

  ‘You are OK?’ he asked.

  She nodded, tingles spreading up her arm as his fingers remained intertwined with hers. She should let him go. She wasn’t looking for anything romantic here. She was voting for the Single Party. She wanted a T-shirt that said Young, Free and Not Yours. Men were all the same. She had oodles of proof. Didn’t she?

  But then her fingers tightened around his and she let his much bigger hand envelop hers. Daring to look up, she met the dark hair spiking out from under his hat and those gorgeous eyes looking back at her. Julien wasn’t Leo. He was a man standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower with her, a man who listened to her opinions, shared his but never told her what she felt was wrong. Never judged.

  Her heart was pummelling her chest wall, the wind whipping around her cheeks, her hand still in Julien’s, flakes of snow hitting her exposed skin. She swallowed, still looking into his eyes, unmoving and then... she saw him inch forward, just one inch, barely noticeable unless you were fixed on noticing like her. It was just enough to tip the balance.

  Ava closed the gap between them quickly, before she could think about what she was doing, and raised herself up on tip-toes, pausing just before she made any connection. She held herself there, eye to eye with him, the heat from his breath warming her cheeks, the rise and fall of his chest only inches away from her own. Time seemed to stop and she was almost ready to drop down and retreat until...

  He claimed her mouth with his, almost gathering her up in his embrace, his hands on her face, his beautiful lips pressed against hers. He tasted of snow and cinnamon coffee and a hot sweetness she couldn’t immediately define. With closed eyes she tried to savour every second as his tongue sent shockwaves of longing through her, right down to her Converse. She held on, her hands pulling his hat away from his head, her fingers weaving through his thick dark hair. Right now she wanted to stay here in this perfect moment forever.