‘I thought you two would get on,’ said Kate with a wide smile once Anna had left. ‘I think I missed my vocation. Forget the language school, I should have set up a dating agency…’
‘Effectivement,’ said Yves, who was listening in. ‘Who needs Rendez-vous with you around, darling?’ He turned on his heel and disappeared into the living room.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Kate said hastily, seeing the colour slowly draining from my face, ‘and, before you ask, I didn’t tell him anything about our discussion the other day.’ She frowned for a moment, then shrugged. ‘It must have been a coincidence. There’s no way he actually knows…’
‘Maybe it’s time for another drink,’ I suggested, trying to banish from my mind the image of Yves and Nico with their heads bent over my dating profile, sniggering unkindly. Kate had a point. Online dating didn’t strike me as Nico’s cup of tea, and Yves had no business whatsoever visiting a site like Rendez-vous. She’d mentioned matchmaking, and Yves had named the best-known dating site in France, that was all. There was no reason to be paranoid.
‘You deserve a refill, after Tessa-sitting for me for all that time.’ Kate linked her arm through mine. ‘Come on, Sal! The night is young, and I have another case of Veuve Cliquot on ice in the bathtub…’
I rose at one on Sunday, showered and pulled on jeans, a simple, long-sleeved Lycra top and flat ballerina pumps. Hurrying out for my lunch ‘date’ with Anna, I was filled with optimism. After going out last night, seeing Ryan again and meeting Anna, a possible kindred spirit, it felt as though my social life was on the mend. If only I could begin making plans to meet a few Rendez-vous dates too. But there wasn’t much danger of that at the moment: my inbox remained stubbornly empty.
Crossing the courtyard, where the only sound was a bird chirping in the bushes, I pressed the door-release button and then stepped out into the hubbub of the street. I might occasionally bemoan the grubbiness of my neighbourhood but, on most days, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Kate could keep her chic apartment in the bourgeois dix-septième, her park where every blade of grass seemed to stand to attention, her local shops so pristine they reminded me of Main Street at Disneyland Paris. I’d often joked that if I lived at Kate’s I’d feel obliged to don my Sunday best and full make-up just to fetch a baguette from the boulangerie. In Belleville, on the other hand, there was no need for keeping up appearances. I could slouch along the street in my oldest jeans, my hair uncombed, and blend happily into the cosmopolitan crowds.
As I neared the bottom of the hill, where the pavement was cluttered with unlicensed Chinese-food stalls, I had to adjust my pace to navigate around the slow-moving Sunday shoppers. The Chinese community was out in force with their wheelie carts, housewives fingering the fruit and vegetables laid out on trestle tables in front of the supermarket, most of which I’d struggle to name in either English or French. Next I passed the Chinese bakery – the ‘princess-cake shop’ as Lila called it – with its window display of distinctly un-French-looking cakes: sponge sandwiches frosted with white icing and decorated with hundreds and thousands, or twee piped flowers in pastel shades.
Crossing rue Dénoyez, where a group of graffiti artists were hard at work on a huge wall mural, my eyes flickered over the outdoor tables in front of Aux Folies. The bar was one of the few bastions of Frenchness remaining on this stretch of rue de Belleville, although, in truth, the owners were Algerian. The former Folies Belleville cabaret next door, where Piaf once sang, was now an ED discount supermarket, staffed by the slowest checkout staff in the world, and not a trace of its former glory remained. On the terrasse of the Folies, an assortment of grungy-looking twenty- and thirtysomethings were drinking espressos and pulling needily on their cigarettes.
When I’d first moved into the neighbourhood with Nico, we’d remarked upon how the Chinese shunned the Folies, their menfolk patronizing a Chinese-owned Café-Tabac a few doors up instead, congregating indoors to play Rapido Lotto. Similarly, the Tunisian Jewish population favoured the couscous restaurants along the boulevard de Belleville, and the Camerounais and Sénégalais hung around in groups in rue des Couronnes or fried corn cobs in upturned oil drums in rue Bisson. Ethnically diverse the area might be, but the only place where the different populations converged was in the neighbourhood’s schools, such as Lila’s maternelle.
Quickening my pace, mindful that it was almost two o’clock, I crossed over the boulevard, past Le Président, the largest and flashiest of the Chinese restaurants, and continued my downhill trek along rue du Faubourg du Temple, passing an endless stream of bargain clothes shops and snack bars. There was nothing picturesque about this stretch of road, and my mind wandered as I strode along. What were Lila and her father doing now? Were they in the park, my daughter pedalling furiously on her bicycle while Nico trailed, hands in pockets, some distance behind? Or was she parked in front of the TV watching cartoons while he sat in his favourite leather armchair, laptop on his knee, reviewing documents from work?
One of the hardest things about moving out had been adjusting to spending alternate weekends without Lila. However much I might have craved the occasional day off to indulge in a lie-in or a shopping trip when Nico and I were still together, the pendulum had suddenly swung too far the other way. It was hard to feel elated about my new-found ‘freedom’. I hadn’t asked for it, it had been thrust upon me, and forty-eight hours without my daughter felt like an eternity, at first. Kate was forever urging me to take myself off to the cinema, to visit new exhibitions in the city’s museums, or to indulge myself in the grands magasins but, over the past few months, I’d fallen into the habit of sleeping late instead in a bid to shorten my childless Saturdays and Sundays. More often than not, I stayed at home, spending hour upon mind-numbing hour in front of the television in my pyjamas, longing for Sunday evening to arrive, when Lila would be returned to me. Pulling on clothes and facing the world had seemed to require levels of strength, motivation and enthusiasm I simply hadn’t possessed. But having a sense of purpose today – a place to go, a new friend to meet – I felt as though I was turning a corner. My toast the previous night – to new beginnings – echoed in my ears.
At the next junction, the Canal Saint Martin was visible to my right but disappeared under the middle of the road to my left, continuing its course towards Bastille inside a hidden underground tunnel. I faced down a car at the pedestrian crossing, forcing the driver to stop when he manifestly had no intention of doing so, then followed the pavement running parallel to the opposite side of the canal. A crowd had gathered on a bridge to watch the hypnotic sight of the water level dropping to allow a barge to navigate the lock. Beyond it, the waterway widened, no longer hemmed in by fences, and the cobbled towpath was punctuated with park benches. It was a popular spot for a stroll or a picnic, and the Parisians were out in force today, soaking up the last few rays of the Indian summer.
As I took the zebra crossing which delivered me directly on to Chez Prune’s terrasse, I scanned the outdoor tables clustered on either side of the front door. My hunch was that on such a fine day Anna would have elected to sit outside and, sure enough, I soon spotted a woman with her head bent over the Herald Tribune, a giveaway electric-blue coat flung over the crimson wicker chair by her side. My shadow fell over her newspaper as I approached, and Anna looked up and smiled.
‘Hey, you made it!’ she said, hastily transferring her coat to the back of her own chair and motioning for me to sit. She was fresh-faced this afternoon, her hair pulled back with a black Alice band, but she still wore mascara and two bold strokes of black eyeliner. ‘I wished I could have stayed longer last night,’ she added. ‘My guests were so beat after walking around Paris all day that they only stayed out for a nightcap. I was tempted to come back afterward, but I didn’t have the energy to hop on another métro…’
‘Well, if it makes you feel any better, you didn’t miss an awful lot,’ I reassured her. ‘The party pretty much wound down after you left…’
I tried and failed to catch the waiter’s eye as he rocketed by, ferrying a full tray of soiled cups and glasses back indoors. ‘I mean, it’s always fun to spend time with Ryan,’ I added. ‘And Kate’s my oldest friend in Paris. But she was busy playing hostess and smooching her VIP clients all night and, as you saw, Ryan had set his sights on that banker.’
I made a mental note to text Ryan later and ask if his night had been a success. Once upon a time, he and I were very close, meeting up at least once a week for dinner or drinks. Ryan’s flamboyant side was all for show, really, and when you got to know him better, he could be a great listener and a very perceptive, caring friend. I’d often regretted the fact that we’d drifted apart after Lila was born and was determined, now, to do everything in my power to make him a regular fixture in my life once more.
The waiter ground to a halt in front of our table, ready to acknowledge our presence. ‘Were you planning on eating?’ I asked Anna, eyeing the menu dubiously. ‘Because although you mentioned brunch, I think maybe I’ll just get a café crème. All that champagne last night… I don’t know if I could stomach a meal.’
As we waited for our coffees to arrive, we talked about our favourite spots in the neighbourhood and swapped stories about our respective Tailor-Made pupils. Occasionally Anna would seize on my English turns of phrase. ‘You English are so quaint with your “shan’t”s and your “daren’t”s,’ she said. ‘Talk about two countries divided by a common language.’
‘I could say the same about all your bizarre “gotten”s and “someplace else”s,’ I retorted, pouring the contents of a paper tube of white sugar into the cup the waiter placed in front of me and stirring vigorously. I hesitated for a moment. It hadn’t seemed polite to dive straight in and ask my new friend about why she’d left her husband, not without some sort of cue. But with the way things had clicked into place between us from the start, Anna already felt less like a new acquaintance than an old friend. Curiosity was getting the better of me, and I found I could hold fire no longer. ‘So…’ I began tentatively, ‘I was wondering how you came to leave Tom. I think perhaps you were about to tell me last night, just before I got kidnapped by Kate…’
‘Okay,’ said Anna, wiping milky bubbles from her top lip with the back of her forefinger, ‘I tell you what, I’ll show you my scars if you’ll show me yours.’ She paused for a moment, staring into the distance with unfocused eyes as though she were gathering her strength, and I began to wish I’d held my tongue for a little while longer. Our banter had been fun, and now I’d spoilt the mood, transposing our afternoon into a minor key.
‘It happened two months ago,’ she said slowly. ‘I was home alone, reading through an English essay for a French friend of mine, to help pass the time. I’d been going insane, you know, with nothing to do but explore Paris on my own or go to French lessons while Tom was out at work. I even found myself playing the Stepford Wife – which is so not like me – preparing elaborate dinners for when Tom got home, shuffling our furniture around the apartment to try out new configurations, that kind of thing… Anyway, it was this gorgeous hot July day, and I got stir crazy and decided to take a break to buy groceries from my favourite street market in rue Cler, near the UNESCO building where Tom worked.’ Anna took another sip of her coffee and set her cup carefully down on its saucer. Her movements were controlled and deliberate, but I could sense her inner turmoil nonetheless, like molten lava bubbling unseen beneath the surface crust. ‘I was buying organic apples when I saw them,’ she continued, a tremor in her voice. ‘Tom and Annik, a Dutch woman I’d seen at one of his work functions. They were strolling along, hand in hand, and his head was bent close to hers so that he could whisper something into her ear. I shadowed them for a while, keeping a safe distance like a detective in a movie, until they stopped at a café for lunch. They were so wrapped up in one another that neither of them noticed me standing across the street, staring. I knew from the way he was looking at her – the way he couldn’t keep his hands off her shoulder, her forearm – that he’d fallen for this woman. And that they were already intimate…’
Anna had confronted Tom that very evening and all was as she’d suspected. She described Tom’s reaction so well that I could picture the scene unfolding. He’d gone sickly pale when she told him what she’d seen, and had made no attempt to deny anything, heading straight over to the drinks cabinet to pour himself a large glass of Bourbon. When he spoke he’d sounded distraught and sincerely sorry. Mortified that Anna had wound up finding out, he hated himself for not having come clean sooner, although he assured her that, for what it was worth, his affair hadn’t been going on long. He swore blind that he’d been waiting in vain for the ‘right moment’, nearly choking on the meals she prepared for him, wrestling with the guilt of having uprooted Anna’s life so she could follow him to Paris, only to leave her high and dry a few months down the line. He kept repeating, ‘I hadn’t planned for this,’ over and over, as though somehow the fact that none of it had been intentional absolved him from any responsibility.
What Tom hadn’t been, Anna noted wryly, was filled with remorse. She’d been replaced in his affections, and there seemed to be no question in his mind of him giving up this other woman or trying to save their marriage. Anaesthetized by shock, or perhaps resigned to the fact that any protests would be futile in the face of what was ostensibly a fait accompli, Anna hadn’t screamed or shouted. She’d left the room instead, packed a suitcase and walked out of the front door, never to return.
When I asked Anna if she’d considered taking flight, in the most literal sense, by hailing a taxi to the airport and returning home to the States there and then, she pursed her lips and shook her head. ‘At first I stayed on a friend’s sofa, because the idea of going back, with my tail between my legs, and admitting to everyone who’d come to our wedding party that it had all been for nothing was too awful,’ she confessed. ‘I wasn’t ready to face anyone.’ But then a couple of opportunities had fallen into her lap in rapid succession. A friend of a friend who was leaving the city convinced his landlord to let her take on the lease to his studio apartment near République; the same day she’d happened upon the Tailor-Made website and made contact with Kate. ‘It felt like a sign,’ she said, shrugging her shoulders as though to indicate that superstition was not ordinarily her thing. ‘And, you know, even if my first year in Paris wasn’t all that, this city kind of has a way of sneaking its way under your skin, doesn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it,’ I said. I knew that feeling only too well. ‘You’re looking at someone who came here for three months and ended up staying ten years.’
5
By the time we’d drained the dregs of our coffee, the sun had taken refuge behind a sprawling mass of white cloud, and I began to shiver, wishing I’d thought to bring a jacket. Anna seemed to have told as much of her story as she was able, for today. I’d made sympathetic noises in all the right places, but I’d said little. If there was one thing I’d learned from my own break-up with Nico, it was that meaningless platitudes and mixed metaphors about fishes in the sea and relationships running out of steam afforded more comfort to the speaker – who felt the need to fill uncomfortable silences – than they did to their target audience.
‘Do you fancy a walk along the canal?’ I fumbled in my jeans pocket for some coins to scatter on the table. ‘I’ve still got another couple of hours before I have to think about getting back to pick up Lila, but I’m getting a bit chilly sitting still…’
‘So long as you’re happy walking and talking,’ Anna concurred, gathering up her coat and newspaper, ‘because I’m going to hold you to your side of the bargain, now, Sally. Fair’s fair.’
Setting our course north, in the direction of La Villette, we joined the hordes on the cobbled towpath, walking at a leisurely pace. Clusters of people were gathered here and there with the remains of their lunch, seated on the benches or the raised concrete kerb which divided the pavement from the canal, their feet dangling nonc
halantly over the khaki-green water. The opposite bank was busier still, on account of a bar owner with an eye for an opportunity who’d had the brainwave of serving takeaway beer in plastic glasses. The sun had been good for business today: empty beakers littered the cobbles, and a few even bobbed on the surface of the water.
Before I launched into my story, I back-pedalled a few years to set the scene. ‘Nico and I were never that interested in getting married,’ I began. ‘We always thought having a child together was the biggest commitment of all. We met ten years ago, in a bar near Bastille. The same bar where I first met Kate, in fact, while we were both working there as waitresses, the summer after I graduated. I hadn’t planned to stay in France, but meeting Nico changed all that… We moved in together at the end of that summer and I took a TEFL diploma and got a job with Berlitz. Lila came along six years later, and when I left Nico, back in March, she was almost four.’
‘What were your career plans before that?’ Anna asked. ‘I mean, what did you have to give up in order to stay?’
‘I wanted to teach history to teenagers,’ I explained, ‘so it wasn’t such a huge leap to reconcile myself to teaching English as a foreign language instead. How about you? I don’t think you told me what you did before, back in the States?’
‘I worked in a friend’s bookstore mostly,’ Anna said, with a dismissive gesture of her hand. ‘I majored in American Literature and I started a PhD, but it kind of ended up falling by the wayside. So following Tom didn’t mean turning my back on a glittering career.’
French Kissing Page 5