Page 86 of Midnight in Paris

Sophie thought about the kiss. How gentle it had been, how much feeling it had seemed to contain. The spark when their lips touched – a little bit of electricity. They’d pulled apart just seconds later, but something had shifted between them.

‘Sorry,’ Will had said.

‘No,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t be.’

‘Thanks, Sam,’ she said now.

‘What for?’

‘Making sense of it all. You’re wise for a young’un.’

Sam grinned. ‘Old head on young shoulders, that’s me. But seriously, sis, if you think this thing with Will is the real deal, try not to question it too much. You deserve a bit of luck after everything that’s happened.’

Sophie thought about Tom’s conviction that he’d been ‘too lucky’ in the past. If there was a balance to be found, surely the scales tipped in favour of her having a good experience after what she’d been through.

‘Maybe,’ she said, then sat up. ‘Anyway, tell me about you. Been seeing anyone?’

As Sam launched into a colourful anecdote about a restaurant booking and an undercooked steak, Sophie had sat, half listening, smiling at the sister who always seemed to know what to say.

She hoped that, moving forward, she could be the sort of sister to Sam that Sam had been to her. Someone less bogged down in her own struggles and open to the needs of others. Sitting there, Sophie found herself nodding ‘yes’, determined at least to try.

46

THE NINTH SUMMER – 2019

‘This is the life!’ Tom said, leaning back in his chair and tilting his bottle of beer slightly at Sophie. In front of them was the best meal they’d ever eaten on Eurostar – Business Premier tickets had been pricey, but the food was actually delicious, Sophie thought, looking at the pink salmon fillet, smelling the aroma of the white wine sauce and looking at the bubbles dancing up her champagne flute. She hadn’t wanted to accept the tickets, booked by Tom’s parents. Had thought it was all ‘Too Much’, but Tom had persuaded her. ‘I know they’re a bit difficult, but this is their way of showing love.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. They throw money at things rather than have real feelings,’ he’d said. He’d smiled, but there had been an unease about it. ‘We might as well benefit.’

She’d acquiesced, seeing that’s what he really wanted to do. And after everything, surely that was the most important thing. She’d only had about half her champagne – she didn’t want to end up blind drunk and incapable of organising herself at the other end, and wanted to give Tom the chance to kick back after a gruelling year of treatment after treatment after treatment.

Sophie had noticed a change in him since his most recent oncology appointment last month; something had lightened in him as he’d walked away from the hospital. He’d turned to her – still pale, still painfully thin, but suddenly in his eyes she could recogniseherTom, someone who’d been absent during the worst of the chemo, someone he’d tucked away beneath the pain and the indignity of it all.

‘Fuck it,’ he’d said. ‘Let’s go to Paris.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Why not. It’s a tradition and I’m damned if I’m letting cancer get in the way. Especially now there’s no more chemo!’

‘But last year…’ she’d begun, knowing that their trip the year before had been far from ideal – his fear and hers creating a crackling tension between them.

‘I know. It was shit. But it doesn’t mean we can’t kind of… rewrite that. In fact, that’s what I hope to do. Rewrite it all. I want us to have only good memories of being there. And they mostly have been, haven’t they?’

She’d looked at him and nodded. In reality, she’d have much rather gone on a trip somewhere warm, to lie in the sun and rest and let someone else do all the looking after and schedule planning. But she understood where he was coming from. ‘Let’s do it then,’ she’d said.

It had been nice to see him enthusiastic about it too – he’d bought a Paris guidebook (not something he really needed, she’d thought) and had written them an itinerary. ‘We’ll need four days at least,’ he’d told her seriously. ‘To get to everything.’

‘Everything being…?’

He’d looked at her. ‘All the places. The bridge. The Centre Pompidou, La Défense, the Louvre, the Latin Quarter. All of it. All our places.’

‘Sure it won’t be too much?’

He’d flicked a dismissive hand in the air. ‘Stop worrying, woman!’ he’d said jokingly. ‘Can’t a man plan a romantic trip for his wife without interference these days?’

She’d laughed, but hadn’t been able to get the concern out of her tone entirely.