And then out of the blue came a friend request on Facebook. Initially I was going to reject it, but newly divorced, I was persuaded by Lizzy not to. So we started up a casual online acquaintance. I presumed you had got in contact out of curiosity. You never gave me any indication of anything else. Whereas, even knowing it probably wasn’t good for me, I couldn’t resist.
Then , to my surprise, your invitation to a retrospective of your work arrived
I wasn’t going to accept, but Lizzy insisted I should.
‘You have to face your demons if you’re to get back in the dating saddle,’ she said. ‘You need to get Michel out of your system for good.’
So here I am, once more in a café in Montmartre. The rain drips down the fogged-up windows and the café seems overheated and unbearably stuffy. I am jumpy and nervous as hell. What if I don’t recognize you? Or worse, you don’t recognize me? After all, it’s been twenty years.
‘Jacqueline.’ That voice. Still capable of sending shivers up my spine after all this time. And when I look up, the eyes. Dear God, I could drown in those eyes.
‘Thank you for coming,’ you say. ‘I have something I would like to show you, very much.’
In a daze, I follow you down the cobbled streets and into a small unobtrusive gallery, which is full of Michel Sabor paintings.
The first ones I see, I recognise straight away, though I’ve never seen them in real life. There I am, ‘In Paris, With You’, a younger, slimmer, vivacious version of me. If I try very hard, I can remember that girl. I’ve only seen copies before; in the flesh, their depth and beauty takes me by surprise. You have captured the essence of me; of the girl I was, joyously throwing herself into life in a foreign city.
Then there are series of more abstract paintings – ones I’ve dismissed in the past as being unworthy of your talent. But now, now I can see. There is sadness and loss and pain here. And anger too. And confusion. I have felt all those things too, over the years. You have captured my emotions as well as your own.
‘I – I’ve felt this,’ I say, staring. ‘How could you have painted what I felt?’
‘Perhaps I felt it too?’ you say with a smile. ‘But look. This is my latest work, the paintings I am proudest of.’
It’s another series of paintings. Like the earlier ones. Called ‘Girl, Lost’. I stagger back in amazement. They are all of me. You have drawn me over and over again. Drawn me as you imagined me, changing and growing. I am me and not me. I am running from you, I appear at the edge of your consciousness, in your dreams, as you have always appeared in mine. I see myself but not myself.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Oh.’
You turn those blue eyes on me.
‘I was a coward,’ you say, ‘All those years ago. Afraid to reach out and take what I wanted, in case you didn’t want me.’
‘Oh Michel,’ I say, ‘I wanted you.’
‘I was worried you wouldn’t look at me.’
‘You idiot,’ I say, ‘I never stopped looking at you. Didn’t you realise, that last day in the rain?’
‘I thought so,’ you say, ‘but you stopped writing.’
‘I stopped writing?’ I say indignant. ‘You stopped writing. And my letters came back unopened.’
‘But I sent you my new address,’ you reply, puzzled.
‘I never received it,’ I say. ‘I thought you didn’t want me anymore. So I gave up writing. And then I moved too.’
An overwhelming sense of loss overtakes me. All these missing years because of a simple error.
‘I tried to forget about you,’ I say.
‘Me too,’ you say. We both look at your paintings. ‘I didn’t quite succeed.’
‘So what now?’ I am not sure what to do. I feel hesitant, aware this moment might somehow be the start of a new beginning, but I don’t quite know how to make it happen.
My heart is hammering and I look into those beautiful eyes, and I think I have my answer.
You lean forward and kiss me on the lips, as gently as you did that long ago day in the rain.
‘Well,’ you say. ‘I was planning a new series of paintings. I could call it, ‘Girl, Found’. What do you think?’
‘I think,’ I say, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life, in Paris, with you.’
About the Author
Julia Williams has always made up stories in her head, but has only been paid for doing it for the last seven years. One of eight, she grew up in North London and went to Liverpool University where she met her husband. They live with their four children in Surrey.
Website: www.juliawilliamsauthor.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/JCCWilliams
Facebook: www.facebook.com/juliacwilliams
Visit www.sunloungerstories.com to discover more about the authors and their story destinations.
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