But I do. I see it all.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I was firm with myself the whole way here; but when he lifts his hand from his lap and reaches for my own, I realise I’m not the only one fighting back tears. We don’t say anything for the longest time. I sit down in the chair opposite him as he squeezes my hand, feeling the warmth of his fingers. Those same fingers that wrote all those letters, that held Emmanuelle’s waist as they danced to their jazz records, are now holding mine.
‘It’s so wonderful to meet you,’ I say at last.
He nods, his dark eyes glistening. ‘Likewise,’ he says.
After I’d seen his photograph in the newspaper, I’d thrown myself at my iPhone. Forget roaming charges, I’d Googled the newspaper and spent several minutes being transferred around different departments. It was the weekend. It was a long shot. Plus my French is still awful. But finally I got the mobile number of the journalist who’d written the piece, who in turn had a contact number for Henry’s hotel in Paris.
It was his niece who had answered, a rather scary middle-aged woman who had travelled from New York with her 95-year-old uncle. She was here to take care of him and under no circumstances was she going to wake him up from his nap. So in a faltering voice, I’d told her about Emmanuelle, the apartment, the letters . . . for a few moments there’d been silence on the phone, and then she said she’d have to speak to her uncle and call me back.
That was an hour ago.
‘I’m so glad you came.’
‘How could I not?’
‘It must have come as quite a shock.’
‘Not at all.’ He shakes his head. ‘I’ve been waiting for a phone call like yours my whole life.’
He’s still holding my hand as if fearful that if he lets go I’ll disappear, taking Emmanuelle with me again. It was a big enough deal for me coming here this evening; I can’t even begin to imagine how it is for Henry.
A waiter appears by the table to take our order.
‘Do you have any AC?’ quips his niece, who’s looking uncomfortably hot, then, seeing that the waiter isn’t amused, she turns to Henry. ‘Do you want anything, Uncle H? Some iced tea, maybe?’
He shakes his head. ‘Just a little time alone.’
She looks unsure, then glances over at me as if to ask if that’s OK. I nod.
‘Well in that case, I’ll just be outside. Where it’s hopefully a little cooler,’ she adds, mopping her brow with a napkin as she gets up.
As she leaves I turn back to Henry. It’s just the two of us and for a brief moment I wonder where to start. I said a little on the phone but there’s still so much to explain. But before I can say anything, he begins to speak:
‘It was never my plan to stay away, I always meant to come back . . .’ It’s as if he’s waited so long to tell his story, he can’t wait another minute. ‘After Manu and I rowed I wrote to her but she never wrote back. I figured that was it, so I left Paris, I couldn’t bear to stay, everything reminded me of her. For a little while I went to Spain, but it was a different time then, Europe was in chaos. I ended up going back to America to try to pick up my life – only to find I had no life as she was my life . . .’
His voice is deep, belying his physical frailty, and he speaks with a soft drawl.
‘When the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, in a strange way I found a reason to live again. I joined up and went to fight. I was sent with my unit to north Africa first, then Italy, but somehow I found my way back to France, only it wasn’t the France I remembered—’ His voice breaks. ‘I landed on the shores of Normandy on the morning of June sixth, 1944. There were thirty men on my boat, only two of us made it onto that beach alive. We lost so many men that day – the sea turned red . . .’
Despite his years, his mind is still sharp and he falls silent, remembering.
‘I managed to make it onto the sand before a shell exploded, blowing me apart. I thought I was dead, but by some miracle I survived and was stretchered out of there. I was taken to a field hospital where the doctors stopped me bleeding to death, but they couldn’t save my legs.’
As he speaks I suddenly realise that his blanket is not to keep him warm, but to conceal where his limbs used to be.
‘Time lost all meaning from then on. I was transported to England, to a military hospital, where I spent the next eighteen months or so having over twenty operations – I don’t remember exactly how many, I was on morphine most of the time, you don’t remember much when you’re on that stuff.’
Despite the pain of his memories, the corners of his mouth turn up into a smile.
‘It sure is one way to try and forget a girl you know, but of course it didn’t work – you have a lot of time to think when you’re lying around in bed all day.’
‘You know, Emmanuelle received a letter from you, saying you were dead,’ I tell him.
He nods.
‘I found out later. In all the chaos they thought I’d been killed. In a way I was glad – I thought it was better that she believed I was dead. I couldn’t let her see me again, not like this. We used to dance together, you know.’
I nod, my mind flashing back to the gramophone.
‘It was a few months after they declared the war was over that I saw her wedding in a magazine.’
I look at him in surprise. ‘You saw the copy of Paris Match? How?’
‘It belonged to one of the nurses; she was French but she’d married an Englishman. She left it by my bedside one day. If ever I’d had thoughts about trying to contact Manu again, they disappeared the moment I saw that photograph—’ He swallows hard. ‘She wasn’t my girl any more.’
He says it so simply, so matter-of-factly, it breaks my heart.
‘Before the war I would have done anything to stop her marrying another man, but the war changed everything.’ He looks down at his hands, and I notice for the first time that he isn’t wearing a wedding ring. ‘Now I was just happy she was alive.’
‘You know she never danced again either.’
I can’t let him think she just moved on, that her marriage was a happy one.
He looks up at me.
‘Her whole life she refused to dance with anyone else,’ I say, and our eyes meet. ‘She was still your girl Henry, she was always your girl.’
My words are bitter-sweet.
‘You know sometimes at night, I dream I am whole again, young again, and we are back in Paris dancing together in her apartment, just like we used to, all those many years ago . . .’ He gazes into the middle distance. ‘Do I sound crazy?’ he asks, turning back to me.
I think of that night in her apartment, hearing the music playing, thinking I heard footsteps. I shake my head. ‘No, not at all.’
He nods, seeming satisfied, then:
‘Is it true what you said, that she kept the apartment all these years?’
‘Yes, just as you had left it.’
There’s a long pause.
‘She never forgot you, Henry.’
His eyes fill with tears but they refuse to fall. I can’t tell if they’re tears of happiness or sadness. Maybe they’re both.
‘I never forgot her either. I never stopped thinking of her. All these years. After I was discharged from hospital I left England and went back to the States. I became a college professor and taught creative writing for over forty years. I never married, never felt the need. You see, I was still lucky in a way. Most people only have one great love, but I had two. Emmanuelle and writing.’
He smiles and I can’t help but smile too, and gently removing my hand from his, I reach into my bag.
‘These were in the apartment.’ I place the bundle of letters in his lap. ‘They belong to you.’
I watch as he slowly turns them over, his face registering. His eyesight might be failing, but he knows immediately what they are.
‘There’s one last letter in there from Emmanuelle, I opened it, I’m sorry, but maybe later someone can read it to you—’ I break off from expla
ining.
Because, of course, there’s something else. I haven’t told him he has a daughter. I didn’t think it was right to come from me. It should come from his family. Which is why earlier I made another phone call.
The sound of the doorbell distracts me and I pause to look across at the doorway. Standing silhouetted in the entrance is a young man in a beanie hat. Jean-Paul.
I turn back to Henry.
‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
40
‘Cadenas?’
The street vendor holds out a piece of card filled with padlocks of all different sizes.
I pause, my eyes sweeping over them.
‘Combien?’ I point at a large brass one.
He tears it from the plastic before telling me the price. No doubt to stop tourists shopping around, I muse, glancing at all the other vendors with their blankets and makeshift stalls, filled with padlocks.
I dig out a few euros and he passes me the small lock and a key, along with a marker pen. Slipping them into my pocket, I climb the steps to the bridge.
It’s evening. Dusk is falling. After I said goodbye to Henry I called Harriet to tell her where I was, then came here to the banks of the Seine. There’s one last thing I need to do.
I remember overhearing the tour guide saying how according to legend you need to be careful where you attach your lock – Pont des Arts is for your committed love, but Pont de l’Archevêché is for your lover. I chose the first bridge.
It’s hard to believe I was here just a few days ago; everything feels so different now. I start to walk across the bridge. The tourists have thinned out, but there are still people milling around: couples taking selfies, vendors plying their wares.
And then there are the locks. Thousands of them, arching across the river like a glittering, metal rainbow. I gaze at them. I think again of the predictions that the bridge could collapse under the weight of all this undying love, of a campaign to prevent people from attaching more locks, to be sensible, to take selfies instead.
But if Paris has taught me anything, it’s that when it comes to love, being sensible doesn’t come into it.
My eyes drift along the railings, looking for a break in this vast ocean of locks, some small space, a tiny part of the bridge to call its own—
Then I see it, a hair’s breadth of a gap.
I crouch down and take out my lock and, with my marker pen, carefully write the two names: Emmanuelle & Henry. I want to put this lock on the bridge for them. Two lovers, together for an eternity. Theirs is a love that has survived through all the tragedy, the miscommunication, the war, the years – and now here, in some tiny corner of Paris they are reunited again. One last, small symbol of a love that has lasted a lifetime.
Carefully I lock it to the railings, then, holding the key in the palm of my hand, I stand up straight again. I look at all these locks, all with their own love story attached, and I think about my own. Like I said, love doesn’t guarantee a happy ending.
Turning away, I lean against the bridge and gaze out across the Seine. The glittering lights of Paris stretch away from me and I think about Jack, about love, about a city that’s taught me so much. It’s right that it ends here.
I throw the key into the river. As it disappears into the inky blackness, it makes no sound.
‘Ruby?’
Behind me, I hear my name. A voice.
It can’t be . . .
Slowly I take my hands off the railings and turn round.
Jack.
The breath catches in the back of my throat. He’s standing just a few feet away from me in jeans and a T-shirt, a backpack slung over his shoulder. His face is ridiculously tanned and his hair is stuck up all over the place. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a week.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say, finally finding my voice.
‘Looking for you. Harriet told me you’d be here.’
‘No, here here. In Paris.’
‘I wanted to wish you a happy birthday.’
Of course. It’s my birthday. With everything that’s happened today I’d totally forgotten.
He smiles, that wide disarming smile of his that crinkles up his eyes and never fails to win me over.
‘Damn you Jack, you can never give me a straight answer.’
But not this time. I feel my eyes welling up. This time he can’t just show up and give me one of his smiles and think that will make everything all right.
He stares at me for a moment, as if not knowing what to say, then takes off his backpack and crouches down.
I watch, wondering what he’s doing.
He unlocks the small, silver padlock that’s securing the zip on his rucksack, then digs out a Sharpie pen from his back pocket and proceeds to write our initials. Standing back up, he holds up the padlock between his finger and thumb, his eyes never leaving my face.
A look passes between us. It’s almost a challenge.
‘I thought you didn’t believe in superstitions?’
‘I believe in you and me.’
My heart turns itself inside out.
He steps towards the side of the bridge and my eyes follow him. Neither of us speaks. Sometimes it’s not about words. I feel my chest tighten as he crouches down, looking for a space for us between all the padlocks . . . Some may say that this new tradition is a cliché, but it seems to me suddenly so absurdly romantic, I half expect the music to swell and the credits to roll. I watch as Jack reaches to put it on the railing, aware that this is a big romantic moment—
‘Holy moly.’
‘What?’ I gasp, looking down at him.
‘It just slipped out of my hands . . .’
‘What do you mean?’
He motions to the wooden floorboards of the bridge. ‘It just fell through the cracks.’
‘You’re kidding.’ I drop to my knees to look at him. ‘If this is one of your jokes—’
‘It’s not, I swear.’ He shakes his head. He looks stricken.
I look at his hands. They’re empty. Then at the gaps in the planks.
‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Shit, I am so sorry, I don’t know how it happened . . .’
We both peer down through the gaps, as if magically expecting the padlock to reappear.
And then suddenly, unexpectedly, I feel a gurgling of laughter rising up inside me and explode into a burst of giggles. It’s just the funniest thing. Jack looks at me in astonishment, his expression one of total shock, then throws back his head and roars with laughter.
There we are on the bridge, on our hands and knees, clutching at each other with tears rolling down our cheeks while all around us kissing couples are looking at us like we’ve gone bonkers. Maybe we have, I don’t know, but it’s like a valve has been released and we can’t stop. We laugh for the longest time, clutching our aching sides, waves of giggles coming at us, over and over, until finally our laughter dies down and, still sitting on the floor, we lean ourselves against the railings.
Neither of us says anything. We just sit there in silence, catching our breath, until eventually Jack speaks.
‘Look, I just travelled halfway across the world because I needed to tell you something.’
He turns to me, his face growing serious, and I feel a flutter of uncertainty.
‘When I said I couldn’t do this, I mean I can’t do this.’
He gestures between us.
‘What are you saying?’ I feel a shiver, despite the warmth of the evening.
‘This . . . this kind of long-distance relationship. I just can’t do it.’
I look at him, not understanding, fearing the worst, but then he leans forward and wraps his arms round me.
‘I’m not doing this any more, we’re not doing this any more.’
Pulling me close, he gently presses his lips against mine and then leans back.
‘I don’t want us to ever be apart again, Ruby.’
Warm inside his embrace, I hear his voice say
ing those words and for the first time in I can’t remember how long, there’s no misunderstanding or confusion. There’s no difference of opinion or miscommunication. No words going unsaid or feelings ignored.
‘Me too,’ I murmur, my face pressed up against his chest, and in that moment it’s as if all the barriers fall away and it’s just the two of us again. Nothing else matters. Just me and Jack.
God, it feels good.
‘I did a lot of thinking as we built those homes for those people—’ He breaks off and I can feel him swallowing hard. ‘I want to build a home – with you.’
He dips his chin to look down at me.
‘Come to America, Ruby.’
So many questions. So many what-ifs and buts and details to know. So many uncertainties. They all race through my mind as I hurtle into the future, throwing themselves at me, demanding answers. But I don’t have any, and I’ve learned I don’t need any. None of that stuff is important.
In my head I hear Henry’s words to Emmanuelle:
Please reply to me, my darling, and when you do, it must be only one word.
I look up at him and my face splits into a smile.
‘Yes.’
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to my editor, Francesca Best, and the rest of the team at Hodder for working their magic and turning a story that lived only in my imagination into a real-life book. And to Adrian Valencia and Sarah Christie for such a gorgeous cover.
As always, thanks to my agent Stephanie Cabot, who forever encourages me as a writer. Thanks also to the rest of the crew at The Gernert Company; Will, Rebecca, Erika and Ellen, for everything you do.
Love From Paris Page 33