Page 5 of Midnight in Paris

When she arrived at the station that first time, nervous and excited, clutching their tickets, the last thing she thought Tom would do was laugh at her. But as soon as their eyes locked, she could see that he was amused by something.

‘What?’ she said, once she was in earshot. She tried to smile, but actually it was a bit insulting, considering how much thought she’d given to her outfit and hair. She’d taken at least half an hour trying to tame her shoulder-length mane into what a magazine had called ‘beachy curls’, and had been relatively happy with the result. She’d spent ages on the kind of make-up designed to look like you weren’t wearing any make-up, and when she’d glanced in the mirror before leaving, had felt about as satisfied as she ever would be about her appearance.

And he was laughing.

‘Nothing,’ he said, tilting his head affectionately. ‘Just wondered how many outfits a girl needs for two nights away.’ He nodded at her wheeled suitcase.

Ah, so it was the suitcase. She felt relieved, then embarrassed. ‘I didn’t know what we’d be doing,’ she said, only to have him laugh again.

‘Oh, I think I’ve got a few ideas,’ he said, drawing her to him. Then it didn’t matter suddenly whether he was laughing at her, teasing her. Because something about his touch made everything else seem irrelevant.

‘It’s notthatbig,’ she added as she pulled away, only to have him cock an eyebrow.

‘Excuse me?’ he said with mock hurt.

She slapped him lightly on the arm. ‘Tom! The suitcase!’

On the train, she settled into the seat and looked out of the window, conscious of not wanting to seem too excited to be going to a place she’d always dreamt of but so far never made it to. Tom had been to Paris about eight times, he’d told her. Mostly with family. She hadn’t liked to push him on the ‘mostly.’ Probably with other girls too, then. She’d rather not know.

But he was so blasé about it, she was a little embarrassed at her own excitement and tried to keep it under wraps.

Two months together and he was still a bit of a mystery to her – this boy with his posh accent and strange intellectual friends. They’d first met when she’d drunkenly crashed the after-party for some sort of am-dram production by Cambridge students. She’d been wearing a black dress, short. Her friend Libby had been in hotpants. They’d been en route home from Ballare – their favourite nightclub – slightly worse for wear from cheap vodka and erratic dancing, when they’d seen that one of the heavy wooden doors leading into the old stone building had been left slightly ajar, revealing a sliver of light within.

‘Come on!’ Libby had said, grabbing onto her arm as they’d half walked, half stumbled through the gap and into the stone-tiled corridor inside. ‘Let’s see how the other half live.’

While essentially studying in the same city, there had always seemed to be a divide between ‘town and gown’ – the students of Cambridge University, and her more ordinary ex-polytechnic. Students travelled in packs, easily distinguishable somehow bytheir attire, their conduct, often their accents. Few managed to bridge the strange social divide between the two institutions, and on the rare occasions Sophie had found herself chatting to Cambridge students in a bar or club, she’d always felt a sense of detachment on their part, as if they had no real interest in getting to know her.

Of course, she reasoned, it could just be that she was shy, that she looked for the negative, for reasons not to connect with people when things seemed different.

That night, she’d had no such inhibitions; alcohol-soaked and high from a night of dancing, her legs aching and the back of her shoe rubbing painfully against her foot, she’d clung to Libby as they’d giggled up the corridor and followed the sound of laughter to a small room, in which they’d discovered a group of people decked out in what appeared to be fancy dress.

‘I like your outfit,’ Libby had said to a man close to the door who’d haughtily looked down at her as if insulted, despite donning a strange flouncy shirt, a leather waistcoat, and sporting what looked to be a narrow tail on the back of his trousers.

‘Who are you?’ he’d asked them, top lip curling. ‘This is a private event, you know?’

‘Don’t be a dick, Michael,’ another voice had said; a tall man with an easy smile had appeared, wearing some sort of weird cream tunic and what appeared to be glitter on his cheeks. ‘Is that any way to greet our guests?’

‘Yeah, come on, Michael, the more the merrier, right?’ someone else had said.

Michael had snorted. ‘They’re wasted. And it’s after midnight.’

‘Don’t mind our friend Michael.’ The first man had somehow managed to wrap an arm around both their backs at once, and guide them towards a table covered with scattered beer bottlesand what looked like a dubious bowl of punch. ‘He’s had a rough night.’

Libby had laughed and enquired, ‘Why’s he got a tail?’ and had been treated to a single raised eyebrow.

‘He’s Puck!’

‘And you are…?’

‘Demetrius,’ he’d bowed deeply. ‘At your service.’

‘No, you nob. Your real name.’

‘Oh! Tom.’

‘Well, Tom, you might like to know that your tunic’s tucked in your underpants at the back.’

Tom had appeared unfazed, pulling the material down into place. ‘Hazard of the job,’ he’d joked.

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