Caroline Mancunian Lass replied almost immediately. Her mother was staying, so she had a ready-made babysitter on-hand. She suggested we head to rue Montorgueil, the neighbourhood she’d lived in before she had children, to have a drink and a bite to eat. I received other invitations too: on Sunday I would have lunch with Joanne, the reader who had found James’s dating profile all those months before. Begging had paid dividends.
Rue Montorgueil had become rather chic in recent years, trading on its proximity to the fashion boutiques of nearby Etienne Marcel. The pedestrianized street was still lined with speciality food shops selling ripe cheeses, aesthetically pleasing stacks of fresh fruit and vegetables or fragrant mounds of coffee beans, their display tables spilling out on to the cobbles and helping to preserve some of the former market atmosphere. But the street had also been infiltrated by a handful of trendy restaurants and, on the way from the métro, I was disconcerted to see a shiny new Starbucks on the corner of rue Réaumur.
We met in a bar I’d never been in before, a former haunt of Caroline’s called La Grappe d’Orgueil, which owed its charm to still having one foot firmly in the last century. Everything was curved, in art nouveau style, from the edges of the mirrors, to the zinc bar and even the doors leading through to the toilets. Couples and small groups of friends sipped aperitifs in wooden booths upholstered with dark-green leather, while the older generation propped up the bar. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Caroline was already sipping a kir when I arrived. She’d managed to snag a tiny booth below a glass display case full of antique crystal glasses.
We lingered far longer than we’d intended over our drinks and peanuts, then wandered up the street to Il Tre, one of the more modern places I’d passed, with walls painted black and red and sleek tubular spotlights hanging from the ceiling. ‘There’s nothing like an over-attentive Italian waiter when you’re in need of a pick-me-up,’ Caroline said with a smile as we waited by the bar to be seated. ‘That’s why I chose this place. These guys can do wonders for your self-esteem, single or not…’
‘You know that time we went out for dinner with Louise to the Indian place?’ I asked Caroline once we were seated, hastily moving my napkin off the table as the waiter, a rather handsome Italian, appeared with two steaming platefuls of spaghetti with clams. ‘Well, I’ve often wondered what you two really thought of James, that night…’
‘I thought he was really nice,’ said Caroline slowly. ‘Very down to earth, very besotted with you. Young-looking. Louise was less convinced though… Partly because I think she’d imagined him differently – you know, devilishly handsome and athletic, whereas he was nice-looking, but nothing out of the ordinary – but more because she didn’t think that you’d be happy burying yourself in a provincial town like Rennes.’ I pondered this for a moment.
‘I must say, I am finding it harder to picture myself in Rennes now that it’s all over,’ I admitted. ‘Paris has charmed me all over again. It’s such a cliché, but there’s something irresistible about springtime in Paris, isn’t there? And I know I shouldn’t really think this, let alone say it out loud, but I’m enjoying being a part-time mum more, now that I’m single. Having whole weekends to myself so I can recharge my batteries, indulge myself with a lie-in or two. It’s such a luxury…’
‘Stop, you’re making me jealous!’ Caroline protested, picking up the wine and, if I wasn’t very much mistaken, pouring twice as much into my glass as she did into her own. ‘I’ll be getting up to two toddlers in the morning, and they’ll show no mercy, hangover or no hangover. I don’t even remember when I last had a lie-in.’ We touched our glasses together in a silent toast, although to what, I wasn’t sure. ‘I’ve never been separated from my girls,’ she confided, ‘not even for a weekend. I don’t know if I can imagine what it would be like.’
I picked up my cutlery and made an attempt to swirl the slippery spaghetti around my fork. I’d chosen the dish out of nostalgia; it had been Mr Frog’s favourite when we visited Sicily, years ago, for our first ever holiday. What I’d since forgotten was how difficult it was to eat gracefully.
‘Spending time apart wasn’t something I thought I’d be comfortable with in the beginning,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘The first time she went to stay with her grandparents she was only one, and we had no choice really. Tata was away, and I had no holiday allowance left. I was apprehensive beforehand, and I think there were tears, but as the days went by I enjoyed the break, almost in spite of myself. We went out for dinner, to the cinema… It was almost as though we’d rewound to a time before we were parents.’ I paused for a moment, frowning. ‘Do I sound horribly selfish?’
‘No, not at all,’ said Caroline emphatically. ‘I think it’s important to claim some of yourself back once you’ve got used to being a mum. It sounds healthy to me, you shouldn’t feel guilty. Don’t you go paying too much attention to the negative comments some people write on the blog. I reckon any mother who claims she wouldn’t jump at the chance of some time off is lying to herself.’
As we sipped our coffee, our meal over, my phone vibrated energetically in the pocket of my coat, which hung over the back of my chair. It was a text message from Elisabeth-Coquette. She was at a housewarming party – did I fancy joining her? I leafed through the miniature Plan de Paris I carried in my handbag at all times. ‘It’s only a ten-minute walk away,’ I said to Caroline, a smile slowly spreading across my face. ‘How about it? Shall we go?’
We made it to the party just before midnight, tipsy and rather sheepish at arriving empty-handed. We’d banked – rather foolishly – on finding a corner shop selling wine en route, but once we’d left the bustle of Montorgueil behind and headed north towards the party we found ourselves in a wasteland of apartment buildings and garment workshops and had to concede that our plan had been fatally flawed. If the hostess – a friend of Elisabeth’s and fellow blogger whom I knew only as Maîtresse – thought us rude, she certainly hid it well. A slender blonde with an endearing air of vulnerability, Lauren welcomed us warmly and immediately put us at our ease.
‘Come on in,’ she said cheerily, swaying in her little black dress and knee-high boots. ‘It’s really exciting to meet you, petite, let me get you a drink and introduce you to everyone…’
‘Oh, call me Catherine,’ I said hurriedly. Between bloggers I didn’t mind so much if the name petite stuck but, in mixed company, meeting new people, I had definite misgivings about being introduced as petite anglaise first and Catherine second.
I gazed around Lauren’s apartment with the shrewd eyes of an apartment hunter, noting the marble fireplaces in every room, the intricate mouldings on the ceilings and the varnished oak floor. The twenty or so guests were mostly sitting or standing in sedate clusters in the living room, but I felt more comfortable chatting to my host and her French boyfriend in the narrow corridor leading to the kitchen. After a tumbler of vinegary wine – the sort of vintage people always seem to bring to parties but never actually drink themselves – caused the room to spin, I quietly switched to mineral water, leaning my back against the wall for support. Standing a few metres away, Caroline was deep in conversation with Elisabeth, whose blog she’d been following for as long as mine.
I didn’t see the stranger approach until he was at my elbow. Wearing my long hair loose had its pros and cons: it provided a perfect veil behind which to hide, but it also reduced my peripheral vision to a disconcerting minimum.
‘Hi, I don’t think we’ve been introduced? I’m Toby.’ To my surprise, the voice belonged to an attractive guy I hadn’t noticed when I’d arrived, about my age at a guess, with ink-black hair and dark eyes to match. His features were boyishly handsome, his clothes casual, but I sensed they had been chosen with care.
‘I’m Catherine,’ I said cautiously. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘And how do you know Lauren, Catherine?’ I tried to place his accent. Life abroad or education had smoothed the rough edges, but I thought I detected a flattening of the v
owels I recognized; a hint of Yorkshire underneath.
‘Oh, I’m friends with Elisabeth, the redhead over there.’ I gestured in her direction. ‘This is the first time I’ve met Maîtresse actually. I mean Lauren.’ I flushed at the unintentional slip.
Lauren had evidently been listening in. ‘Catherine-happens to be the most famous blogger I’ve ever met,’ she chimed in. ‘She has, like, thousands of readers.’ I was blushing deeply now, simultaneously flattered and embarrassed. What if Toby thought my pastime was odd? What if he thought I was some sort of exhibitionist?
‘Fame on the internet is a very relative thing,’ I mumbled, wishing now that I did have wine in my tumbler instead of water, anxious to change the subject. ‘So, what brings you to Paris, Toby? And how did you meet Lauren?’
Toby, it transpired, was an actor turned academic, which explained a lot about his bearing, a certain theatrical resonance to his voice and his ability to slip effortlessly into character when he launched into an anecdote. There was a touch of camp in some of his gestures, and it did briefly cross my mind that he might be gay but, if I wasn’t misreading the signals, Toby seemed to be interested in me, and this even after I’d managed to ease the fact that I was a single mother into the conversation.
As the night wore on and the guests thinned, we ended up sitting side by side on the sofa in the next room, reminiscing about our schooldays. I had been right about the Yorkshire connection. Somehow we ended up discussing a field trip to Whitby, a coastal town an hour’s drive from where my parents lived which our junior schools, his in Leeds, mine in York, had visited when we were nine years old.
‘We had these wire coat-hangers, bent into squares, and at regular intervals along the beach we had to put them on the ground and write down everything we found inside them, for our seashore project,’ I said, the memories flowing freely, surprising me with their detail.
Toby laughed a short, barking laugh. ‘Yes, we had those too. And inside every one the answer was seaweed, more seaweed, and – if you were really lucky – a coke can or a used condom.’ I wasn’t sure that my nine-year-old self would have been able to identify a condom, but I grinned all the same.
When Caroline materialized by my side and tapped me on the shoulder, I turned to face her, feeling suddenly guilty that I’d allowed Toby to monopolize my attention. ‘I’m going to head home now,’ she said apologetically. ‘Got to get up early with my girls in the morning. No weekend off for me…’ I rose and followed her through to where our coats were stacked on Lauren’s bed, wondering what to do. I knew I should offer to leave with her, so that we could share a taxi. But sensing my indecision, Caroline was quick to reassure me there was no need. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said with a wink. ‘You look like you’re enjoying yourself. You can’t leave now…’
‘Toby does seem nice,’ I said hesitantly, fishing for some sort of blessing.
‘Yes. He does. And very interested.’ She turned to go. ‘Now you have fun, and don’t forget to get in touch tomorrow and tell me all about it.’
Not long afterwards the party fizzled out completely and Elisabeth, Toby and I made our way to Place de Clichy in search of taxis. Elisabeth was headed south of the river, back to the Left Bank, but Toby was going east, as was I. ‘Might as well share a cab then?’ he said as a taxi pulled up alongside us, its sign illuminated.
‘I suppose that would make sense,’ I replied, as casually as I could manage. We bundled Elisabeth into the first taxi so that she wouldn’t have to wait alone and, as it pulled away, she waved at me through the window with a knowing smile.
‘Où allons nous?’ growled the driver of the second taxi as we slid into the back seat, barely audible over the sound of his radio, which was tuned into a radio station playing North African music.
‘Place Sainte Marthe,’ Toby replied. His accent, in French, was as convincing as my own. Much better than James’s, I thought to myself, uncharitably.
‘Et ensuite, à l’avenue Simon Bolivar,’ I added pointedly. I didn’t want it to look as though I presumed anything about how this night would end.
As we turned off the boulevard de la Villette in the direction of Place Sainte Marthe, Toby fumbled in his coat pocket for his wallet. ‘This is me…’ he said, leaning across to give more precise instructions to the taxi driver. I wondered what would come next. A kiss on the cheek? An exchange of phone numbers? Or just a ‘Well, I had a good time, see you around sometime…’ I was woefully out of practice at this sort of thing. James and I hadn’t met in a particularly conventional way, so a whole decade had passed since the last time I’d had to play all the games single people play.
‘Do you fancy getting one last drink somewhere?’ he said, suddenly, as the taxi drew to a standstill. I was flattered, gleeful on the inside, but knew at once that I wouldn’t accept his invitation. It was 4 a.m. The bars which usually spewed tables across the square had retreated behind wooden shutters, their lights extinguished. I was wobbly on my feet, I’d drunk too much already but, above all, it was too soon.
‘I think I’m going to call it a night,’ I replied. ‘But we could meet up some other time, when you’re back in Paris.’ From what I’d been able to piece together, Toby led a nomadic life, involving lots of Eurostar journeys, with one foot in London, the other in Paris.
‘Okay, well, let me give you my card…’ He dug once more in his wallet. My hand closed around the white rectangle as he leaned in and planted an awkward kiss on my cheek, then jumped out of the car and disappeared into a nearby building. I gave the driver my address and let myself fall back on the fake-leather upholstery, drowsy but rather pleased with myself.
That might be the last I ever see of Toby, I thought to myself as the taxi began to climb the rue de Belleville and the language of the signs above the shops changed from Mandarin back into French. I was prepared to take the risk. A one-night stand – which was surely where ‘one last drink’ would have led us – was the last thing I needed right now.
But meeting Toby – and having the opportunity to turn him down – had given me a welcome dose of confidence. An attractive man had flirted with me. And when I’d told him I was a mother, he hadn’t so much as flinched.
32. Chéri(e)
‘It’s kind of small, but perfectly formed,’ I explained to Mr Frog as we made our way briskly to my early morning rendezvous, Tadpole skipping along between us. ‘I’m thinking of putting in an offer, but I’d really like to see what you think of it first.’
The search for a new place to live was starting to bear fruit. Was it a case of ‘extreme retail therapy’, as one of my commenters had suggested? It was only just over a month since James had left. But however reckless or impulsive my apartment-hunting spree might look to other people, I didn’t feel like I was rushing into anything. Hadn’t I been visiting flats in Paris for years, dreaming about owning property with Mr Frog long before James came on the scene? If anything, I was simply picking up where I’d left off, a year earlier. The only difference was that Mr Frog was no longer part of the equation.
Going it alone made matters almost frighteningly simple. There was no need for compromise, or protracted arguments about whether the apartment was right for our family. No agonizing over whether now was the right time to take out a loan. With hindsight, I knew those discussions had been nothing but wispy smokescreens. Bickering about price, layout or location had been safer than focusing on the thorny issue of why Mr Frog and I found ourselves increasingly reluctant to take the plunge hand in hand. Now the decision was mine, and mine alone. I was seeking Mr Frog’s opinion, as a friend, but I didn’t need his blessing.
‘How many places did you say you’d visited?’ enquired Mr Frog. Nearing the pedestrian crossing, we grabbed Tadpole’s hands in unison.
‘Five, including this one. On top of the dozens we visited before…’ I could feel myself bristling, sensitive to the implied criticism that I was being over-hasty. ‘But this one really does stand out. I don’t see any poi
nt in dithering. I’ll only end up regretting it if someone else snatches it from under my nose…’ I glanced at the traffic lights – stubbornly lodged on green – then down at Tadpole, who was frowning up at my nostrils, baffled by my figure of speech.
‘Oh, by the way,’ added Mr Frog, lowering his voice so that Tadpole wouldn’t hear him above the roar of passing traffic. ‘She told me at the weekend you’d been crying. Said you were feeling sad because James doesn’t visit any more.’
‘Oh gosh, did she really?’ We’d had that talk weeks ago. Did she really remember it as clearly as if it had happened only yesterday? I was dismayed at the idea that I might have caused Tadpole, or Mr Frog, needless worry. ‘You know how vague her notion of time is,’ I said finally, in as casual a tone as I could muster. ‘Yesterday can mean anything from five minutes to four months ago. I haven’t cried in weeks, honestly. I’m surprised she even remembers I said that.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Mr Frog as we marched Tadpole across the road and swung her over the stream of water gushing alongside the opposite gutter, carrying the debris the street-cleaners had swept off the pavement to some murky underground destination, a manoeuvre which always made her giggle. ‘But she had me worried. You do seem a lot better, but then she had me wondering if you weren’t just putting on a brave face.’
‘I can see I’ll have to be careful what I say!’ I retorted, only half joking. Tadpole might be an unreliable witness, but she was a witness nonetheless. I’d have to bear in mind, as her language skills improved, that anything I said or did might now be reported back to Daddy.
The girl from the estate agent’s was waiting for us in front of the entrance to the building, listening to a message on her mobile phone. She looked at least ten years my junior, and reminded me of Maryline, with her sleek dark hair and perfectly calibrated make-up. ‘I’ve brought a friend along for a second opinion,’ I explained as we drew to a halt as one, our hands still joined. Anyone could see that Mr Frog and Tadpole were related, that he wasn’t just any friend, but I was still struggling to find a combination of words which summed up our current relationship to my satisfaction. ‘My ex-boyfriend’ left Tadpole out of the equation, making light of the ties which would bind us for life; ‘my daughter’s father’ felt too impersonal, as though he’d never been my anything.
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