Page 38 of Thirty Days in Paris

‘For thirty years?’ he said. His voice was deeper than she remembered. The voice of a man, not a boy. The side of his mouth lifted a centimetre and she knew it wouldn’t take much to turn it into a smile.

Around them, the browsers carried on their business, but they might as well not have been there. Unspoken questions looped backwards and forwards between them, like a current along an invisible telephone line. She tucked her hair behind her ears, suddenly nervous, as he looked her up and down more closely, taking in her neck, her collarbone, her décolleté. Eventually, his face broke into a full smile.

‘Hello, Juliet,’ he said.

She remembered the way he said her name, caressing the J and lingering over the t, almost giving it an extra syllable.

‘Olivier.’ She could only manage a whisper.

All she wanted was for him to stand up, come around from behind the desk and take her in his arms. But that was for movies, not for the middle of the afternoon in a busy shop.

Then, to her surprise, he did stand up, beckoning to her to follow. ‘Come with me.’

He headed to a shelf marked ‘Classiques’. He ran his finger along it until he found what he wanted, pulled it out and held it out to her. A brand-new copy of Le Grand Meaulnes.

She reached into her bag for her purse, but he frowned.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It is a present. To say thank you for bringing the other one back.’

‘I’m sorry I kept it for so long.’

‘I thought I would never see it again.’

Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth; she couldn’t speak. Should she walk away now? Save them both from awkwardness? What on earth had she been thinking? That bottle of rosé had a lot to answer for, making her imagine some sort of passionate reunion as he pushed her up against a bookshelf and kissed her.

‘Or you.’

She started as he spoke. ‘What?’

‘I thought I would never see you again.’

She put her hand on her throat, feeling the words stuck inside.

‘It’s the first time I’ve been back, to Paris,’ she managed eventually. ‘Since I left. And I wanted to return the book. I know how much it meant to you.’

He nodded. Was he angry? Or just … not particularly interested? Glad to have his book back but eager to get shot of her, eager to avoid any embarrassment? What was he thinking?

‘When I was young, I would dream of this,’ he was saying. ‘You appearing out of the blue. Eventually, I gave up dreaming …’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She was still trying to figure it out, whose fault it had been, how culpable she was, what she could have done differently. That was why she was writing her story. She was getting closer to the moment everything had gone wrong. She was hoping it would give her clarity. Perspective.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We can’t talk here. Let’s go somewhere. Do you have time? Give me a moment to tell my staff.’

Five minutes later, they were making their way along the canal, the atmosphere changing as it began to dress slowly for night. The street lamps were coming on, reflected in the water, and the windows started to glow amber and tortoiseshell. As they walked, Olivier chatted about the area, how much he loved its spirit and energy, how it had regenerated itself into something vibrant and exciting, but she knew it was just a distraction technique, that the moment of reckoning was getting nearer, that she would, at some point, have to come clean.

But the more she thought about what had happened, the less she wanted to reveal the truth.

20

The Ingénue

The following Saturday, I walked with Corinne and the children to the Rue Montorgueil to buy food for the weekend. It was a market street in the next arrondissement filled with butchers and bakers and florists and fishmongers. Everyone had their own favourite vendors and their own routine, queuing patiently with their baskets and trolleys between the stacks of wooden boxes piled on the cobbles. I read the signs: pains et olives, coiffeur, vin – anything and everything you could possibly want was here.

Corinne was in a good mood. She made a point of telling me the words for all the things she was buying, and then made me have a go. She was encouraging, and I found myself warming to her. When she was relaxed, she had a generous spirit, and she was funny, because she was so rude about people and what they were wearing. She would nudge me in the ribs and point in disbelief.

‘Oh, la vache – les chaussures!’ she would say, pointing to a towering pair of peep-toed platforms on a woman of a certain age. ‘Jamais avec une jupe si courte.’

And I would laugh along. Fancy wearing shoes like that with such a short skirt!

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