Page 35 of Midnight in Paris

In the end, they only made it to the first floor. Enough to see Paris spread out below them, looking almost, at this distance, identical to the Paris all those years ago that had fallen forward from their view like a sea of possibilities. Back when they could have chosen to do anything, both for that holiday and with their lives. They hadn’t realised, at that age, how many doors would shut over the next decade, how each choice they made would seal something else from their future until they were left in a situation they’d created, but would never have chosen outright.

I’m only thirty-four, Sophie reminded herself.There’s still time to do whatever I want.

Except this, she thought. She looked at Tom in profile, his brow furrowed slightly, his skin almost iridescent in the light. Her funny, upbeat, loving man. For many years, her perfect partner. His loss had been the hardest thing she’d ever had to bear.

Then she thought of Will. The way he had of making the rest of the world fall away, of cocooning her in his arms and allowing her to let go of the chatter in her own mind and finally be calm. She hadn’t survived the last decade-and-a-bit unharmed – she’d endured and got through and endured before she’d got to this point. Like a muscle, she’d been broken down, but rebuilt herself – a new version, stronger. Maybe no longer the Sophie that Tom loved. Maybe a Sophie who was brand new.

14

THE THIRD SUMMER – 2013

She’d always imagined that one day Tom might propose to her in Paris.

Although when she’d pictured it, they’d been twenty-five at least, thirty maybe. A few years more into their relationship. But she knew that Tom was planning it on this, their third holiday in Paris, and the fact of it hung over everything they did.

It was farcical almost, she thought.

She knew he had a ring in his pocket.

He knew he had a ring in his pocket.

And she was pretty sure thatheknewsheknew he had a ring in his pocket.

It seemed they were going through the pantomime of it anyway. Both acting as if he didn’t have a ring box at all, but was just especially pleased to see her.

It was her third time in Paris, a year since they’d got back together here. And it had been a good one. His internship had morphed into a managerial position (perhaps thanks in part to his dad having a word in the right ear at the right time) and she’d passed her gruelling NQT year and become a proper teacher.

They’d managed six months of long-distance dating – train and car rides to and from London almost constant – before he’d found a leg up that got him into an office in Cambridge. Then there’d been his flat, the top floor of a Victorian house in a gorgeous central location. She’d done all the relationship commuting after that. Taking a Greyhound bus from the local town which wound around every backroad en route, or convincing her mum to drop her at the station in Ashwell, from which there was a direct link.

She’d stayed over so frequently that she’d started to think of it astheirplace, rather than his. But she’d never admit it; not unless he said something first.

And here they were. The stresses of the classroom left firmly behind her, the office – other than the odd phone call – barely interrupting his thoughts. Back in the city that had becometheircity, on a yearly trip that was starting to become a tradition.

‘We’ll do a proper holiday too,’ he’d told her when he’d suggested the trip. ‘I just thought it would be romantic to go again. An anniversary thing.’

‘It’s not aproperholiday?’

‘No. It’s Paris. Proper holidays have sunshine, beaches, cocktails, that sort of thing,’ he’d said, as if going to Paris were just an appetiser and the Maldives a main meal.

But she’d learned to laugh at his assumption that everyone must have had childhoods like his, that holidays were only holidays if they were ten days long or more, and involved tans and fancy meals and very little else.

‘If you insist,’ she’d joked instead.

In reality, even though he could definitely afford it –theycould, actually, with her salary too – she still felt a little uncomfortable looking at the cost per night of the hotel off the Champs-Élysées he’d chosen, where they were the youngest guests by a country mile and where they earned slightlysuspicious looks, as if they’d just wandered in off the street and were chancing their luck.

She’d seen the proposal coming a few weeks ago, when he’d started trying to subtly find out about her favourite jewels, and she’d caught him going through her jewellery box looking for a ring to size. The day he arrived home late from work with a bulging suit pocket and the fact she later saw an Ernest Jones bag stuffed in the recycling had left her in no doubt about what he was planning to do.

Poor Tom. He’d tried so hard to be subtle, but he clearly didn’t have it in him.

She almost felt sorry for him. Like she should have put him out of his misery by saying: ‘Look, I know you’re going to pop the question. The answer’s yes. Now can we just go to the little place around the corner for a pizza rather than the special restaurant you said you’d booked – I’m not going anywhere where they serve foie gras.’ But she hadn’t. Because while it might relieve him in some ways, it might ruin something he was trying to build up to.

And she was going to say yes. Even though, in her gut, she felt it was far too soon. That she’d have preferred to give it another year or more before breaking out the jewellery. She’d thought about it over the preceding weeks and realised that if she wanted to be with Tom, she really had no option. He’d never recover from the humiliation of a ‘no’, or a ‘not yet’.

Instead, she’d decided to do the delighted squeal – or as near to it as she could bear – that he was probably hoping for. She’d take photographs of her left hand to show her parents and friends later. She’d… well, she’d find a way to tell her parents that wouldn’t lead to them trying to convince her she was too young and making a mistake.

They’d just have to have a long engagement, was all.

Mum and Dad liked Tom; they’d met him several times in recent months. The most recent, at the flat where she’d tried and failed to cook duck à l’orange and ended up buying Chinese. They’d made polite conversation with him, and everything on the surface had seemed completely fine. It was only because she knew them so well that she could read between the lines of their behaviour, and see their occasional glances when Tom mentioned his slightly-righter-than-theirs political views, or talked about investment schemes, or asked them where they liked to holiday each summer and had seemed amazed that they’d visited the same cottage in Cornwall for the past twenty years.

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