Page 26 of Thirty Days in Paris

‘Blimey!’

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry. I wasn’t out on the town. I was writing. How are you?’

‘Yeah, good. It’s a bit weird. I’ve unpacked all my stuff but it doesn’t feel like home yet.’

‘It’ll take a while, I guess.’ Privately, Juliet didn’t think the flat he’d chosen would ever feel homely. It was too sleek, all shiny surfaces and everything hidden away behind soft-close doors. She yearned for crooked walls and wonky floors.

‘I set up the rower. It arrived yesterday.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s an amazing bit of kit. I’ve just rowed across Lake Zurich. Virtually, obviously.’

‘Wow.’

‘Hang on two secs.’ She heard the whine of his Nutribullet and imagined the green sludge he’d be whizzing up for his breakfast. ‘Sorry. So what are you up to today?’

‘I need to go to the market. Then I’m going to see if I can manoeuvre myself into the bath. It’s about the size of a recycling box.’ She laughed. ‘Classic Paris apartment sanitation facilities.’

‘Great.’ There was a small pause. ‘Well, I just thought I’d make sure you were OK.’

‘I’m all gravy.’

This time, they laughed together. It was one of Nathan’s sayings, which they adopted when they were pretending to be down with the kids. Then they stopped laughing and there was an awkward silence.

‘Ju …’

‘Yes?’ For a moment, she thought he was going to say he missed her.

‘Do you know what the Netflix password is?’

She gave a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure if she’d have been able to return the sentiment. She realised she’d been so busy, she’d barely thought about him.

‘I’ll text it to you.’

‘Thanks. I want to catch up on the new series of Ozark.’

He’d taken their big telly. She didn’t mind. It had been almost seamless, the division of who got what. There was hardly anything they had fought over. That kind of said it all.

‘I’d better get going,’ Juliet said, ‘or the market will be shutting.’

‘Sure. Maybe we could do a Zoom with the kids sometime?’

‘Definitely. If we can get everyone together in the same time zone.’ Was there an edge to her voice? She didn’t mean there to be.

There was a small pause.

‘I think it’s important. For them,’ said Stuart.

‘Of course it is. I’ll be there, whenever you can organise it.’

‘OK. I’ll WhatsApp them on the family group chat.’

She felt a flicker of guilt that she hadn’t been on it much lately. Should she be sending them daily reports of what she’d been up to? Probably not. It was funny how being in another country helped you unpeel yourself. In England, at Persimmon Road, she used to send messages each morning, bright and breezy with a subtext of anxiety, for she needed constant reassurance they were OK. They’d only replied occasionally. She was used to being kept in the loop on a need-to-know basis.

It had taken Paris to blot up that anxiety. To give her something else to think about other than fretting over her children’s whereabouts and well-being. Of course they were OK. She would hear soon enough if they weren’t. That was how it worked, when they left home. She’d written about it, how to sever the umbilical cord and give them their freedom. It had been a million times more difficult than anything that had happened when they were small. Teething and toddler tantrums; SATs and sleepovers – it had all been a breeze in comparison to letting go and allowing them to make their own mistakes. Loss of control was so alien. But you had to do it.

The pay-off was your own freedom. The worry never left you, of course, but the trick was not to worry until there was something to worry about. They’d be doing all sorts of things that would give her sleepless nights if she knew, she was sure.

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