by Fiona Gibson
‘Thanks.’ I smile, a little overawed by his gushing compliments. Relax, I instruct myself silently. He’s attracted to you, as you are to him. Giving compliments is just what nice guys do.
‘Well,’ he says as we climb into the cab, ‘I’m really glad you said yes to this. It was very … spontaneous of you.’
I laugh. ‘I’m not in the habit of turning down invitations to Paris, you know.’
‘I’m a lucky man then, especially as you’re in the midst of your dating whirlwind—’
‘Charlie,’ I cut in, ‘it’s not a whirlwind. More like a light breeze. Anyway, that’s pretty much fizzled out now. I’m just looking forward to this.’
He smiles and kisses me tenderly on the lips as the cab pulls out of my road. I glance at him, taking in the intense brown eyes and lovely, flirtatious mouth. Looks like he’s freshly shaved, thank goodness. One minor medical issue is enough to deal with today without a ravaged face. That is, assuming there’ll be some ravaging going on later … I try to picture us in a Parisian hotel room, and my stomach flips with a combination of excitement and sheer nerves.
‘So when were you last in Paris?’ I ask him.
‘Um … just before Christmas.’
‘Another freebie?’
‘Not exactly, no.’ He clears his throat. Ah, a romantic tryst of some kind, perhaps with the Chloé handbag girl. ‘How about you?’
‘It’s seventeen years since I was there.’
‘Ah, you’re long overdue then.’ He smiles, taking my hand and squeezing it.
‘Just a bit.’ I’m long overdue a lot of things, I want to say.
‘What’s your French like?’ he asks.
‘I can just about muddle through as long as everyone sticks to the present tense …’
He grins. ‘Afraid I’m hopeless. I can tell you now, I’m not going to sweep you off your feet with my linguistic skills.’
‘I think I can just about forgive you for that.’ And who cares, when you have plenty of other appealing qualities? I smile, and we fall into an easy silence for a few moments. As the driver turns on to the bypass towards the airport, I’m aware of a kernel of excitement, fizzling and growing in my stomach. I have already decided not to fret about where this thing might lead. I’m going to just go with it, and relish every moment – once I’ve nipped into a chemist for some pile cream, obviously, seeing as Viv swiped the last of mine to shrink her eye-bags. And once that’s been dealt with … who knows? We are speeding towards the airport now, filling each other in on the bits of our lives we had yet to share. The sky is watery blue, the sun high and bright, and it feels as if anything could happen.
*
Four hours later, having dropped our bags at our hotel in a shady avenue in the Latin Quarter, we are installed in an extremely pleasing bistro for lunch. My boys have never been to France – well, Logan has, but he was in my womb at the time – but even they, if asked what a typical Parisian bistro looks like, would describe this one. It has all the essentials: crisp white tablecloths, yellowy wall lamps and not especially friendly waitresses. We order a bottle of Pinot Noir and, within minutes, Charlie has knocked back his first glass. Today, however, I am on a mission to a) Dive into a chemist without alerting Charlie as to what I need to buy, as there was no blasted ointment at Edinburgh airport and, b) Pace Myself With Booze.
‘You’re taking your time with that,’ he says, indicating my glass as I tuck into perhaps the most heavenly steak on earth.
I laugh and take a sip, just to appease him. ‘What’s the rush? We’ve got the whole day ahead, haven’t we?’
‘Oh, come on,’ he teases, ‘you weren’t hanging back like this at the Terrace …’
‘That was different.’
‘How different?’
‘Well …’ I smirk, ‘we’d only just met. I was nervous. I had to bolster myself up with booze—’
‘Yeah, you looked terrified,’ he sniggers. ‘I could tell.’
‘But now I’m more relaxed,’ I go on in a mock-serious tone, spearing a perfectly crisp chip with my fork, ‘and, seeing as I’ve only been to Paris twice in two decades, I want to enjoy it, you know? And not be crashed out in the hotel by teatime, dribbling on to a pillow.’
‘That could be fun.’ He grins mischievously.
‘Anyway,’ I add, ‘this place is lovely, isn’t it? Why isn’t there anywhere like this back home? Even the French deli near my flat isn’t quite the same as a proper Parisian one.’
He smiles warmly and squeezes my hand across the table. ‘It’s all the better for you being here.’
‘So,’ I say, deciding to bite the bullet, ‘who were you here with last time, if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘Oh, that was Becky.’
I nod. Wasn’t the hint-stickers girl called Matilda?
‘Just a fling,’ he goes on, sloshing more wine into his glass, then waggling the bottle and flashing a charming smile in the waitress’s line of vision, to indicate that we’d like another. Blimey, he’s knocking it back fast. ‘Bit tempestuous, to be honest,’ he adds. ‘Wasn’t my happiest experience of this city.’
‘What did she do?’ I ask.
‘Battered my credit card,’ he says with a rueful laugh.
‘No, I mean job-wise.’
He shrugs. ‘Bit of this, bit of that …’ He thanks the waitress as she uncorks the wine. ‘Okay – she was a model back in the day. All eyes and teeth – you know the kind.’
‘Er, yes,’ I say, grabbing the dessert menu and deciding to swerve away from the subject of Charlie’s high maintenance exes. Why am I complicating an otherwise lovely scenario? Here we are, in the kind of restaurant I dream about – buzzing, unpretentious, filled with fabulous smells – yet some chip in my brain is compelling me to quiz him about former girlfriends.
‘Anyway, that’s way in the past,’ he says firmly. ‘I fancy one of those little chocolate sponge things with the melted inside, don’t you?’
‘I’m completely full,’ I say truthfully.
‘Oh, come on, Alice – you’ve gone all moderate on me …’
‘It’s just, I would quite like to be able to move this afternoon,’ I say with a smile.
‘I don’t mind, you know,’ he adds.
‘What, if I can’t move?’
‘No – you being nosy, quizzing me about Becky.’ He leans forward. ‘You can ask me anything. There’s not one thing in the world I won’t tell you.’ He turns to our waitress who seems impervious to his charm. ‘Two of those chocolate melty things, thank you.’
‘But Charlie, I don’t want—’
‘Go on,’ he cuts in, ‘ask me anything.’
I smile, draining my glass. He’s right – I am nosy. Maybe it was no accident that I just so happened to have Viv with me as I investigated the foul smell in Fergus’s room. Perhaps my subconscious had known all along that she’d have a good old pry through his browsing history, and that a murky image would lurk therein.
‘Okay,’ I say, grinning, ‘remember at the Terrace, when you said you’d done all kinds of things for money?’
‘Did I say that?’ He’s all wide-eyed, boyish innocence.
‘Yes, you did.’
He frowns, feigning bafflement.
‘Come on, Charlie,’ I prompt him.
‘Okay, okay,’ he laughs. ‘This was years ago, right? I was about twenty. I was stupid and only agreed to do it because somebody asked me and I didn’t think it through.’
Now, of course, I’m bursting with curiosity. Our chocolate puddings arrive and, all poised and ready for gossip, I plunge in a spoon. ‘Did you sleep with someone for money?’
‘No! God, no. I’ve never done that. That would be …’ He shudders. ‘Tawdry.’
‘So what was it, then?’
Charlie refills our glasses, even though I’m not sure it’s quite the thing to accompany chocolate pudding with a heady red wine. ‘I did a bit of modelling,’ he says.
‘Oh. Is that it?�
� Now I get it. Becky was a model, and perhaps Matilda too. His younger years were mostly spent in impossibly beautiful couple scenarios – like Kate Moss and Johnny Depp, a million light years ago. He certainly has the bone structure for it.
‘Well, it was a very specific sort of modelling,’ he adds.
‘Catalogue?’
‘No,’ he chuckles.
I study his face. ‘Not porn, was it?’
I can tell by his guarded expression that I’m in the right kind of area, and immediately, I know I’m not entirely fine about this; the fact that he’s probably done it with hundreds of women, I mean.
‘It was a one-off thing,’ he says quickly, ‘and it wasn’t a movie, okay? It was for a mag. A kind of fishing mag …’
‘Porno fishing?’ I splutter. ‘Is that a thing?’
‘Guess it was,’ he laughs, ‘or is – I have no idea. All I know is, a friend of a friend was let down by a model and I was broke at the time, and the money was good considering that all I had to do was stand on a riverbank in a green waterproof cape and a deer-stalker-type hat, holding a massive fish – not a halibut, bigger than that – what are those huge things with teeth?’
‘A pike?’
He spoons in some pudding. ‘Yeah, it might’ve been that. Scary-looking bugger.’
‘But …’ I squint across the table at him, ‘I don’t understand why this was such a big deal. Holding a fish, I mean, on a riverbank.’
He grins. ‘Well, I wasn’t wearing any trousers. Or pants.’
‘You mean you were naked apart from the cape?’
‘And the hat,’ he reminds me. ‘Don’t forget the hat.’ By now, I’m convulsing with laughter. Christ, he’s clearly quite bonkers, but charmingly so and maybe I need someone like this in my life – a man who doesn’t care what anyone thinks. I can’t believe I was all torn up inside when that charity shop lady sneered at my bag of soft toys. ‘They didn’t even cordon off that part of the river,’ Charlie goes on, ‘so you’d get the odd person wandering along walking their dog …’
I am now laughing so hard I’ve had to abandon my pudding. ‘Charlie. You were a flasher on a riverbank! That’s so creepy.’
‘Not a flasher,’ he hisses. ‘It was a professional job.’ I’m still in hysterics as we leave the restaurant. I don’t know if laughing so much has, uh, put a strain on something, but my tender bottom ‘issue’ seems to have worsened.
‘You okay?’ Charlie asks, giving me a concerned look as we stop at the street corner.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
He keeps shooting me quizzical looks as we stroll along the bustling street, filled with market stalls bearing fruit. ‘Are your shoes hurting?’
‘No, my shoes are fine.’
He stops and scrutinises my face. ‘Alice, you keep saying you’re fine, but you’re obviously not. What’s the matter? Are you ill or something?’
I grimace. ‘Oh, I wasn’t going to say anything because I didn’t want to put a damper on the day and, to be honest, it’s a little embarrassing … I have a small, er, medical issue,’ I say, wincing.
He blinks at me. ‘You’re actually a man.’
‘Haha – no. No. Jesus.’
He grabs at my hand. ‘I’m kidding. So what’s up? Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘It’s um … something I’ve had on and off since I had Logan …’
‘A kind of lady trouble?’ He raises a brow.
I burst out laughing. ‘I’ve got piles, Charlie, and I need to buy some cream.’
‘Is that all?’ His eyebrows shoot up. ‘Right – let’s get you sorted, then.’ While I have a distinctly sparkly edge afforded by several glasses of wine over lunch, Charlie is clearly tipsy as he takes my hand. His eyes are unfocused, his voice growing louder as he keeps reassuring me that we’ll find just the thing and I’m not to worry at all. Of course, this being France, there are numerous places to buy pharmaceutical supplies; the one we wander into is more medical emporium than plain old chemist. The women at the till are all cool blondes of a certain age in pristine white tunics.
Leaving Charlie loitering by the men’s fragrances, I peruse the shelves. There’s an entire wall of posh skincare which everyone seems to be able to afford here. Perhaps that’s why the women look so radiant and fresh. Despite our exquisite surroundings, I do not feel fresh. I’d like to find the right medication and a public loo where I can bung it on and be done with it.
I sidle over to Charlie. ‘Can’t find anything.’
‘Why don’t you ask at the counter?’
‘Um … I’m not sure how to.’
‘Go on.’ He smiles encouragingly. ‘You said you’re great at French, that you’re a language person …’
‘No I didn’t,’ I exclaim. ‘I said I can just about get by in the present tense.’
‘This is the present tense. It’s, “I need some pile cream,” not, “I needed pile cream yesterday.” How hard can that be?’ God, does he have to talk so loudly? I glance around the shop, cursing myself for caring, yet again, what people might think.
‘Charlie,’ I whisper, ‘I meant I can order an omelette or ask for directions to the post office, okay? Schoolgirl stuff. We never got around to describing embarrassing bum problems.’
He laughs raucously. ‘You should’ve, it would have been a lot more useful …’
‘What’ll I do?’
‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ he says levelly. ‘They look perfectly friendly in here.’
I glance towards the counter, and decide they do not; the women are gliding back and forth with neutral expressions, like incredibly lifelike robots designed to dispense medication more efficiently than any human ever could. I look back at Charlie, wondering if he might possibly be what’s often termed as ‘a bit of a handful’, what with the nudie fisherman stuff, and now this – goading me in front of the haughty pharmacy ladies. In fact, I’ve always favoured an adventurous man over the kind of safe, secure type who has all his pensions in order and takes time to thoroughly prepare a surface before slapping on paint (in the early days with Tom, I actually regarded his fondness for staying up all night drinking, then lying in bed all day sweating and bleating for cups of tea, as a desirable attribute). But I’m no longer nineteen. I’m nearly forty, for God’s sake, and Charlie’s drunk, smirking face is starting to irk a bit.
‘Hang on,’ I mutter, pulling my phone from my pocket.
‘Who are you calling?’ he asks. ‘Arse-busters?’
‘I’m texting Fergus,’ I say huffily, typing, Hi love, got your translator with you? If so could you ask it the French for ointment?
He pings back a reply – pomade – with a smiley emoticon. Hmm.
‘Sounds like a hair product,’ I murmur, making my way to the till. I’m feeling bolder now, determined to show Charlie what I’m made of. But as soon as I’m face to face with one of the assistants, who’s a dead ringer for how I imagine Gwyneth Paltrow will look in her sixties, my glimmer of courage melts away. I clear my throat. ‘Je voudrais du pomade …’
The woman frowns at me.
‘De la pomade,’ I continue, ‘pour ma, uh …’ I glance at a silently hysterical Charlie, then back at mature-Gwynnie with her peachy lips and perfectly arched brows. She is still studying me with mild interest, as if I might possibly produce a live rabbit from my bag. ‘J’ai une probleme,’ I hiss, ‘dans ma …’ I grimace and point to my rear end, aware of Charlie convulsing by the hair conditioners.
The woman frowns and says something that I don’t understand.
‘Er … les piles. J’ai les piles dans ma derrière …’
I’m not sure whether I’m failing to communicate properly, or if the woman knows perfectly well what I need but is feigning ignorance so as to maximise my humiliation. I’m sweating now, my underarms prickling, no doubt staining the pale blue spotty dress I chose so carefully for this trip. A small queue has formed, and the woman beside me is clearing her throat. I look around in desperation, and a
ll I can think of is to snatch two nail polishes from the little wicker basket on the counter – one pink, the other pale mint, which are going to be a fat lot of use in soothing my tender backside. As I hand over ten euros, Charlie appears at my side, having blithely jumped the queue to point at a shelf behind the counter.
‘Preparation-ash, s’il vous plaît,’ he says, his accent perfect.
I blink at him. Preparation-ash? And it dawns on me that he knew all along that the French use exactly the same stuff as we do – Preparation H – and that all the silent sniggering was actually his idea of a bloody joke.
‘C’est tout?’ the woman asks pleasantly, extracting the box from the shelf and ringing it through the till.
‘Oui, merci,’ Charlie says.
Bastard.
‘Here you go,’ he says with a grin as we leave the shop.
I take the paper bag from him. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
He widens his eyes, all innocence. ‘Did what?’
‘Stood there watching while I made a complete fool of myself buying nail polishes!’
‘But I thought you spoke French—’
‘Like I said, I don’t really, and even if I did …’ I tail off, frowning. ‘Oh, never mind.’ We are marching briskly past a row of smart boutiques. ‘It’s just, you knew what to ask for all along.’
‘Well, yeah.’ He grins ruefully, causing my irritation to subside a little.
‘How did you know?’
‘Um, Becky had the same problem …’ Ah, how heartening to discover that I have something in common with one of those all-eyes-and-teeth models. ‘Also,’ he adds, ‘piles actually means batteries in French. So when you said, “J’ai les piles dans ma derrière”, you were actually telling that woman you have batteries up your arse.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I stop abruptly. ‘Is that why she was looking at me that way?’
Charlie smirks, his brown eyes gleaming playfully. ‘Yeah, I’d imagine it was.’
I gawp at him, lost for words for a moment. And for the first time, a rogue thought darts into my mind: What on earth are you doing here, Alice Sweet?