‘Then it’s a business?’
Donal shrugs, but his eyes sparkle. ‘Could be. Part-time for now, but if I can get a good number of clients, who knows?’
I’m proud of my friend but also sad that I’ve only learned this now. I retreated after Laura, more concerned with my own studio venture. This year will be different, I promise myself. This year my friends come first.
* * *
After dinner the kids are grudgingly coaxed up to bed and Donal and I finally collapse in the living room at 9 p.m. I have no idea how my friends function at their frenetic pace. Their kids rock but, man, they are full-on. Kate seems to thrive on it – a fact confirmed when she appears, fresh-faced and smiling, her arms laden with beer bottles and a large bowl of crisps.
‘Right, lads. Beers.’
Those three words have heralded many an unwise imbibing of alcohol over the years and I know I’ll regret it tomorrow. But I have been looking forward to this for weeks. We grab a bottle each and handfuls of crisps, which turn out to be teddy bear-shaped snacks.
‘We ran out of the usual ones.’ Kate shrugs. ‘Don’t tell Lexie but I raided her packed lunch crisps.’
‘Very rock ’n’ roll,’ I laugh.
‘Robert Plant is a Pom-Bears fan,’ she says. I love the sparkle in her voice when she’s joking. I’ve missed it – and Donal’s hearty guffaw, too. ‘Probably. Dave Grohl too, when he isn’t drumming.’
‘So tell us about your studio, Sam. Is it going to rival Abbey Road?’
I grin at Donal. ‘One day maybe. It’s all set up now and we have bookings for the first four months.’
‘And Chris doesn’t mind you leaving, just when it’s all starting?’
‘He’s glad I’m not under his feet,’ I admit. It’s true: I was always going to be the one who funded things, while Chris was hands-on. ‘Truth is, neither of us expected to find premises as quickly as we did and by then my year out was already arranged.’
‘Like Kate and me,’ Donal says, draining his beer bottle and reaching for another. ‘She’s the brains, I’m the brawn.’
Kate bats him with the back of her hand but the way they snuggle together on the sofa warms my heart. It took long enough to get them together, but they’re inseparable now. Will Phoebe and I be like that?
My phone is on the coffee table where I left it and occasionally notifications illuminate the screen. I’m trying not to look, but each time it happens I wonder if it might be Phoebe. Is she thinking of me? I guess her first night with her hosts will call her attention from her phone more than mine. She mentioned she’s only met one of them before. That makes me glad I know the people I’m staying with.
‘Will you be seeing Niven while you’re on Mull?’ Donal asks.
‘Hope so, as often as I can. Have either of you heard from him lately? I tried calling a couple of times before I left but I couldn’t get hold of him.’
There’s a very definite look that passes between my friends. ‘He’s on some kind of training course for work, I think. He’ll be in touch soon as he’s able. You know Niven.’
I smile back but it makes me wonder what they know about him that I don’t. I know things have been up in the air since his fiancée moved out, but the last I heard he was dating again. Before I can ask any more, Kate pulls out a large bottle of single malt whisky from between the sagging sofa cushions.
‘Time for this baby, I think.’
Donal and I protest, but it’s useless. Kate only has to raise an eyebrow and suggest a girl might beat us in a drinking competition and we’re both in. Years have not taught us wisdom on this. Donal fetches glasses from the sideboard while I clear a space between the empty beer bottles covering the coffee table. It’s like being in our earliest days as friends: the whisky may be more expensive now, but the friendship is as strong as it’s ever been.
We settle into an easy silence as we take our first sip of peaty liquor and I glance at the clock. Midnight already. Will Phoebe be asleep now? Kate’s head is resting on Donal’s shoulder, his eyes closed as he enjoys his dram. I sneak my phone from the coffee table and jump as the screen illuminates.
PHOEBE – 1 MESSAGE
I look up at my friends but they haven’t moved. Heart racing, I open the message.
* * *
Hi ☺ Arrived in Paris and in my new temporary home. Excuse the text but it’s just this once because I miss you. Speak soon and sleep well xx
* * *
That’s why she’s no Laura, I tell myself. Laura would only text if she wanted something, or to have a go at me. Phoebe misses me. So much that she broke her own rule of limited contact less than twenty-four hours into our year apart.
Shielding my mobile from view of my friends, I reply:
* * *
I miss you too. All good here apart from my arms being empty. Sweet dreams, beautiful xx
* * *
Kate raises her head and I pocket my phone before she notices. But I’m humming now. I can’t tell if it’s alcohol or lust… or love…? No, not love, not yet. But if I still feel like this in twelve months’ time I’ll fly faster than the train back to St Pancras and never let her go.
We talk, we laugh, we drink. My phone remains silent. But the thought that she might text again – the unpredictability of it – warms me more than any amount of single malt could.
I’ll text her when I leave here for Mull, I decide. If Phoebe can bend the rules, so can I.
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven, Phoebe
Daylight brings colour into my room, closely followed by a wall of pain crashing against my skull, so an equally delicate Luc suggests we ease as gently as possible into our tour of his favourite bits of Paris with a visit to his beloved local café.
Soon we’re sitting by the window looking out across the street and it seems like the whole of Paris is parading past. Beyond the people with never-ending cigarettes and expertly folded copies of Le Figaro directly beyond the glass – who alone are fascinating enough – old and young pass by, a thousand different lives and stories walking along the street. I can see why writers have found inspiration here. You wouldn’t even need a story idea: sit here for long enough and the city would write it for you.
I glance at Luc – or rather the enormous pair of dark sunglasses he’s currently hiding behind. He picked up a newspaper from the seller on the corner of the street below the apartment but it’s still where he put it when we first sat down, folded under his hand on the polished wood table. ‘How’s the head?’
‘I think it hates me.’ Behind the lenses his eyes crinkle into a smile, quickly followed by a grimace as his hangover protests.
‘Listen, we don’t have to do this today. I’m quite happy to wander around by myself…’
‘No way! You are our guest and I promised you a tour of my neighbourhood. But every great tour of this city should begin with the best coffee. So,’ he spreads his hands wide like a magician at the big reveal, ‘voila!’
I raise my cup to salute him and Luc nods at a passing waiter to order two more. At this rate I’ll be carried around the streets of Paris by caffeine buzz alone. But at least my headache isn’t stabbing quite so ferociously.
Another hour and a half later, helped by the pastries that finally tempted us and yet more coffee, Luc and I emerge squinting in the strengthening sunlight. The chill that whistled round the streets first thing has relented and I can see Parisians shrugging off coats and jackets to brave the walk without them.
The Sacré-Cœur Basilica is only a short walk from the café, so we head there first. It’s set near parks, surrounded by cobbled streets and its white walls, tall towers and elegant domes are dazzling in the mid-morning sun. I’ve seen it in guidebooks and Meg’s told me about it so many times – she loves it more than Notre Dame and reckons it’s one of the most underrated buildings in Paris. But standing here is something else. The sounds of the city are a constant low hum but here birdsong joins the noise as their fleeting shapes
pass between the ancient structures. We don’t venture inside, but I intend to do that on a day when I don’t have anywhere else to be. I plan to reconnoitre Paris landmarks and locations during my first week, and then return to the ones that I like best over the remainder of my stay.
The first time I visited Paris I was at primary school. We stayed in a grim bed and breakfast place in Normandy in November, and were granted one day in Paris, which wasn’t enough time to see much of anything. We spent most of that day stuck on the coach in traffic around the Arc de Triomphe and on the most mind-numbing river cruise up and down the Seine (all the bridges from one side, then all the bridges from the other). My eleven-year-old heart sank as Notre Dame passed like a ghost, frustratingly out of reach. We did climb the Eiffel Tower, though – only to the second level, as it was a windy day, but climbing the steps instead of taking the lift – and standing on the famous tower gazing out across the neat squares of the city was the moment Paris stole my heart.
Despite his poor head Luc is a great guide, pointing out places only a local would know. With it, I’m getting the history of him and Tobi: where he proposed, where they first told the other they loved them, and how they first met in the famous bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, when they both reached for the same copy of Candide byVoltaire.
‘Like Serendipity only with a better taste in books,’ he jokes as we wander into a gorgeous sunlit park. We find a bench and sit.
‘That’s so romantic.’
He laughs. ‘Yeah, it would have been if I hadn’t been so annoyed with him for getting the book before me. I stormed out – the full flounce, you know – and that could have been that. Except that when I stopped by the Seine to catch my breath, I looked down and there was the book beside me. He’d bought it, followed me from the store and was standing there with this great big loon grin on his face.’
Instantly, I think of Sam. ‘I met someone yesterday,’ I say, the words dancing out before I can stop them. I hardly know Luc and I’d said I wouldn’t tell anyone. But in the soothing green of the small park, overlooking a colonnade swathed with flowering blue wisteria and the white dome of Sacré-Cœur rising behind, it feels right. ‘I think he could be someone really special.’
Could I have imagined myself saying this two days ago? Or a year ago? Already I feel so different and I like how the change sits in me.
Luc peers at me over his sunglasses. ‘Tell me more, mademoiselle.’
‘I met him when our trains were delayed.’ I find Sam’s photo on my phone and show Luc. ‘That’s Sam.’
‘Cute. And you left him there?’
I laugh and hope it disguises the dip my heart just took. ‘He was travelling to Scotland. For a year.’
‘Okay.’
The sun sparkles on the crazy silver-glitter laces Osh gave me for my turquoise Converse. Suddenly I’m self-conscious. ‘We’ve promised to meet up in twelve months if we still feel the same.’
He is quiet for a while and I wonder how sensible it was to share something so personal with someone I hardly know. I’m about to stuff a different, safer subject into the gap when Luc turns to face me.
‘Y’know, Phoebe, a year is good. Test the theory. I’m all for spontaneity but you’ve got to give your head chance to catch up with your heart. I mean, I tell the story of T and me like the moment he gave me that book all my dreams came true, but it wasn’t like that at all. The moment was spontaneous; the working out how the hell it was all going to happen took a long time. Over a year, actually.’
‘It did?’
‘Mm-hmm. I was a visitor here when we met, on a three-week vacation. Tobi had never been to Canada. We knew nothing about one another, other than the chemistry and the fact we both wanted to read Voltaire on the same day. We both had careers, owned property, had lives in our countries we couldn’t just pack up and leave. Then there was all the legal stuff – visas, applications. Where we’d live. The boring reality that inevitably follows after your heart’s run away with a notion. I don’t regret a thing, but I wish I’d seen all those frustrating delays as important time for laying foundations. If we’d rushed it, who knows if we’d be together now? The details can derail you, if you’re not prepared.’
We watch the world pass our bench in our tiny patch of Paris. I haven’t looked beyond returning to Sam in a year’s time. It seems far too early to think about that stuff, but when would the right time be? A month from now? Six months? Just before I go home?
I’m nervous about thinking too far ahead but Luc is right about making the most of our time apart to really think things through. I remember his text last night:
* * *
I miss you too.
* * *
That’s what I need to focus on. Everything else is just logistics.
* * *
Luc is decidedly less delicate by 2 p.m. so we venture a little further afield and spend a few hours wandering around tiny art shops, artisan food stores and a farmers’ market he tells me is Tobi’s favourite. We buy bits of cheese, bread and cured meats, enjoying the samples offered by every stallholder.
One stall is covered in tiny watercolour paintings – some no bigger than a postage stamp, some two inches square and some the size of postcards. I choose a beautiful one of a Parisian street with cherry blossom trees and tiny window boxes at every window. It’s the perfect first postcard to send to Sam, who emailed me the address of his friends in Glasgow earlier today.
Luc goes to buy some envelopes for me and coffee for us both. I sit on a bench opposite the market to write my card to Sam. I don’t know when he is going to be leaving his friends’ house and travelling to Mull, so I hope the card will arrive in time.
Dear Sam,
* * *
Surprise! I wasn’t sure how long you would be in Glasgow so I hope this reaches you before you leave for Mull.
I’m writing this by the side of a farmers’ market. Luc has been giving me a personal tour of his favourite Parisian haunts and we’ve just eaten half our bodyweight in free food samples. The sun is shining, it’s warm and it’s about as perfect as days in Paris get. The artist who painted this postcard is called Mme Comtois and she started painting at night after working on the dairy farm she owns with her husband all day. She told us she paints to keep her heart smiling – how lovely is that? I think we should always do things that bring smiles to our hearts.
I miss you. I hope you’re happy. And I can’t wait to see you again.
All my love, Phoebe xxx
* * *
When we return from our day wandering around Montmartre, Luc shows me how to get into the tiny courtyard. There’s a service staircase at the back of the building and a door at the bottom that opens into the small green space. I’m sitting there now, looking up at the square of sky framed by the ivy-covered walls of the building. It feels like a secret space and it’s so quiet. It’s a perfect place to read – maybe even write.
Sitting in the café made me think of the authors I love who chronicled their adventures across Europe. Maybe I can do what Mark Twain and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did: note down what I see, what I experience. My first full day in Paris has been so wonderful I want to remember it all. Maybe one day I can show Sam, too.
When I switch my phone on Sam is smiling at me from the screen. It’s as if he knew I was thinking about him. I resist the urge to squeal as I open his message.
* * *
Hey you. My turn to break the rules. I’m leaving for Mull tomorrow, so here’s the address. Just if you happened to be passing a postcard shop in Paris or anything. Email me yours and I’ll send you a tartan-emblazoned one when I land on Mull (prepare yourself…) By the way, I miss you xx
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve, Sam
Far too many beers.
Not the most profound thought to begin the first proper day of my adventure with, but at least it’s honest. Honesty is something I’ve promised myself for this year, too. No more stuffing the past away, no more p
retending it didn’t happen.
Right now, though, my head wants to leave me.
Nobody’s up when I stumble into Donal and Kate’s kitchen. A painful squint at my phone reveals it isn’t even six yet. Great. Although maybe if I can neck a pint or two of water with some paracetamol I might be able to crash out for a couple more hours. That’s a comforting thought.
I find a glass, fill it to the brim with cold water and am about to begin my cupboard search for painkillers when I remember Phoebe’s message.
Excuse the text but it’s just this once because I miss you.
* * *
I stop fighting the urge to reply and type a message, with my address in Mull. That’s just important information, right? Admin, you could say. So it’s necessary.
‘So, are you going to tell me who she is?’
I jump and a slosh of water escapes my glass, splashing across the tiled floor and my bare feet.
Kate laughs and leans over the sink to tear off a strip of kitchen roll, ducking to mop my feet and the floor like I’m one of her kids. It’s endearing and mortifying at once.
‘Cheers, Ma,’ I say.
‘Oi, seven months younger than you, thank you very much.’ She flicks the paper in the bin and grabs the kettle. ‘You’re busted though, Mr Mullins. I demand all the details.’ She’s annoyingly fresh, considering she matched Donal and me dram for dram last night. ‘Can your poor head stand coffee yet?’
‘I’ll risk it,’ I grin, pulling out a pine chair by the table. Sitting is definitely safer than standing this morning.
The Day We Meet Again Page 6