A Desperate Fortune

  “Noah says that it goes very fast.”

  “It does,” he said, and smiled. “You’ll need a helmet.”

  I had only ever ridden on a motorcycle once, behind the brother of a school friend. He had taken me quite slowly up the street where we’d all lived and round and back again. I’d thought it so exciting at the time, but it was nothing like the feel of being on a busy road in winter in the middle of a stream of cars all driving on the wrong side. It was not that I felt unprotected—Luc had found a helmet for me and an extra leather jacket he’d insisted I wear over mine for safety, and he had loaned me gloves that were too large but very warm, and I was pressed so close behind him on the seat he blocked the wind. Not being used to this, I hadn’t known where to put my hands, but Luc had solved that problem for me, taking my arms and wrapping them around his middle. “Hold on tight,” he’d said, and so I did.

  It was a thrilling feeling. The Ducati had a power that chased up my legs and made me feel a part of it; a part of Luc as well, as we were forced to move as one, to lean in unison at every change of lane and every turn. The road dived into tunnels and I loved that even better, loved the feeling of enclosure with the ceiling dark above us like the sky at night and little rows of lights like stars to either side that flashed by in a calming rhythm, drawing us along. I almost hated coming up again to sunlight, but my disappointment vanished when I saw the Arc de Triomphe dead ahead of us—that huge iconic stone arch in the middle of its always-busy roundabout, a massive circle of confusion ringed by trees and buildings, old and modern intermingled, though in honesty I only saw a blur of branches, pale walls, and the high gray mansard roofs that were so wonderfully Parisian.

  Here the street turned into cobblestone and made the ride more perilous, and I held on to Luc more tightly as he slowed and wove between the whirlpool lanes of cars, passed round the shadow of the looming heavy arch, and neatly zipped off onto the broad Avenue des Champs-Élysées. This, with its expensive shops, was one of Jacqui’s meccas, but while I’d been here before I’d never been here at this time of winter, so I was surprised to see the row of wooden vendors’ stalls with open fronts and peaked roofs, like small white-painted chalets strung in a line along the pavement, with signs proclaiming it the “Paris Village de Noël”—the Christmas Village. There was more to read on those signs but I only registered the “Artisans et Arts” part before we had turned again and my attention was distracted by the Eiffel Tower on our right and by the sunlight catching the gold statues on the columns of the bridge as we crossed over to the Left Bank of the river Seine.

  The parking gods of Paris smiled kindly on us, leaving us one space for the Ducati in the row of motorcycles parked beside the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, a lovely ancient church of pale stone with a soaring tower that allowed it still to hold its own in that great boulevard of buildings that rose six and seven stories high. The pointed tower with its belfry rose above them all.

  I wasn’t sure if this was the church Mary Dundas had written about in her diary, the one where she’d gone to hear Mass, but I wasn’t inclined to run the gauntlet of the group of tourists milling round the entrance to go in. There were too many people on the pavement for my liking, too, all pressing past and chattering, weaving through a cluster of more Christmas Village vendors’ stalls at this side of the church.

  Seen up close, the stalls showed their simple design—like white boxes with peaked roofs and flaps at the front and sides that had been lifted and propped open to reveal whatever wares lay inside on display—but they’d all been made festive with fairy lights strung round and warm lights within and green garland with tinsel roped up and down over the peaks of the roofs in a glittering line. Some stalls offered jewelry and some offered food or warm wine or embroidered white linens. One had a display of fur hats in a rainbow of colors, and one had been stacked full of glass jars of honey of different varieties, claiming that it would add years to your life and more life to those years. But the stall that attracted my eye was the one with the strings of pashminas and bright woven scarves. There was one scarf draped over a hanger, a beautiful fringed scarf of cornflower blue shot with silver that made me slow my steps and feel my pocket for my wallet, but apparently of all the things I’d thought to bring, my wallet wasn’t one of them.

  I found the pen, the notebook, my small booklet of Sudoku puzzles, and the mobile—took them out to make quite certain there was nothing else in either pocket—and had put them back and was preparing to move on when Luc strolled over, chivalrously carrying both motorcycle helmets by their chin straps, one slung over his left elbow and the other in his left hand. He asked, “Which is it you want? The blue one?”

  “That’s all right, I have a lot of scarves. It isn’t necessary.”

  “When did it become a crime to want what wasn’t necessary?”

  I was left to try to form an argument to that while Luc stepped up to greet the woman in the stall. He’d pointed out the scarf to her and paid for it and had it wrapped and handed me the parcel by the time I could reply, “I only meant that I’d survive without it.”

  With a shrug he said, “Surviving life is not the same as living and enjoying it.”

  I couldn’t really argue that, and anyway it was too late—he’d moved into position as he’d done before, a half step to my side and just a little bit in front of me, and with his easy stride began to clear a path for us along the pavement through the crowd. I followed him and frowned a little, realizing the only thing to do was tell him thank you. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll pay you back the money.”

  “You will not,” he told me. “That’s a gift.”

  “But you don’t have to give me gifts.”

  “I do. It’s New Year’s, it’s tradition.”

  “But—”

  We’d reached the curb now and Luc stopped and turned to look down at me, smiling his perfect symmetrical smile. “Are you always this difficult?”

  I thought about that a moment and answered him honestly. “Yes.”

  His smile briefly turned to a grin, but he seemed to be trying to hide that by looking instead at the cars passing by on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. When he looked back at me he only had a faint curve to his mouth. “Give it here, then.”

  He held out his hand for the paper-wrapped parcel and I passed it over, not really wanting to have him return it but realizing that was the logical consequence of all my arguing.

  “Thank you. Now take this.” He handed me my helmet, leaving both his hands free while he opened the parcel and drew out the length of blue shimmering silk. Taking hold of it firmly he reached to arrange it around my neck, tucking the ends through to make a loose knot. “There,” he said, folding the paper into a small square that he tucked deep in one of his pockets, “you’ve worn it, it can’t be returned, and I won’t take your money. You’ll just have to keep it.” He reclaimed my helmet, and held it as effortlessly as before in his left hand. “Now, where are we going?”

  The scarf felt soft against my neck—as soft as the worn lining of the borrowed leather jacket that I still had on because I liked the feel of it layered over my own thinner coat. The sleeves were long enough that I could draw my hands back up inside them when the wind blew cold. I did that now, and looked around to get my bearings, trying to remember what I’d seen on the computer maps.

  “Well,” I said, “there was some sort of Fair that was held here in Mary’s time. She mentions it in her diary, seeing all the people coming and going from it, although I don’t know if she ever went to it herself. But just in case, I ought to have a look. According to the maps it’s a big market now, just over there I think.” I nodded left. “So I’d like to walk that way, and then Mary’s street should be just beyond that.”

  We crossed over. It was hard to miss the market. It stood grandly at the end of a short side street—a great covered building with banner ads draping the walls with their pale co
lonnades and a two-tiered tile roof and Marché Saint-Germain spelled out in large letters over the arches around the main entrance. The old Fair, I thought, must have been as imposing in its day. It, too, from the pictures I’d seen on the Internet, had been housed under one roof in a large building that dominated the space, drawing crowds.

  “Do you want to go in?” Luc asked.

  “No.” Busy places like that were my private idea of hell, but I didn’t elaborate. “I only wanted to see it.”

  He stood there and looked at the building too. “Is it important to see things in person, for what you are doing?”

  “For me it is, yes.” With a slight frown, I tried to explain. “When I’m working through what Mary wrote in her diary, she talks all the time about where she is and where she’s going, but I can’t construct places in my mind when I’m just reading about them in words. If I go to a place, I can follow those words,” I said, “let them direct me, and then I find it easier to form a mental image. Otherwise I get confused.”

  Which probably, I thought, was far more information than he either needed or had asked for. I fell silent, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

  “There are maps,” Luc said. “And these days on the Internet you can get down to street level, real photographs, and navigate around.”

  I didn’t tell him that I found most maps too crowded and confusing, and that even with the online ones he’d mentioned I still couldn’t get the details I was after. All I told him was, “It’s not the same.”

  I drew my mobile out to take some pictures and he waited in his undemanding way and let me take the lead. We strolled down the length of the front of the market and down its far side to the little street running behind it—the rue des Quatre Vents, meaning the street of the four winds—and that, in its turn, led us right to the old street where Mary had lived, here in Paris. It wasn’t a long street—the old rue du Coeur Volant was just a single block long, and so narrow in places there scarcely seemed space for a single car to squeeze between the old buildings.

  The buildings made a solid line—I counted seven stories with the ground floor and the garret in the buildings on my left, and those that faced them weren’t much lower. Some were old but all were painted white or freshly plastered, with a scattering of restaurants and small businesses providing bits of upscale color, burgundy or blue or black, and of the cars parked in a tight line further up the narrow street the foremost was a Jaguar. Not the rough street that it had been, then, in Mary’s day.

  But still, the older buildings had an inward lean towards the top that made them look Dickensian, and it was not too difficult to stand here and imagine Mary at one of the windows on a winter afternoon like this one, watching the dark windows of the houses that stood opposite…

  I fear the man across the street is watching us.

  The wind crept cold along my neck. I shivered, and Luc, patient at my shoulder, broke the spell by asking if I was too cold.

  I nearly told him no, but it occurred to me he might have asked because he might be starting to feel cold himself, so I gave a safe answer. “I’m nearly done,” I told him. I tried to be quick with my photos, then turned to him. “There, we can go now.”

  “Go where?”

  “Well, I’m finished. I really just needed to see Mary’s street.”

  Luc was smiling again. “But we only just got here. I tell you what, let’s go get something to eat. There’s a good restaurant just round the corner. You’ll love it, I promise.”

  I was hungry, but I hadn’t brought my wallet and it didn’t feel right asking him to pay. I’d actually been in this sort of situation once before with colleagues at a former job, and I tried thinking back to what I’d told them then because whatever way I’d phrased it had worked rather well without offending anybody…but I didn’t get the chance to use it now, because Luc said, “Come on, I haven’t eaten lunch. I’m starving.” And I realized that the reason he had missed his lunch was probably because I had descended on his doorstep and insisted that he bring me into Paris.

  I could have tea, I decided. That would not be an enormous imposition, and although I’d missed my own lunch I could wait until I got back to Chatou to eat a proper meal.

  The restaurant was indeed around the corner, as he’d said, right where the Street of Four Winds emptied into a small square with busy traffic, lots of tourists passing on the pavement, and a tiny island at its center from which a tall bare-branched tree stretched upwards to the sun.

  The restaurant’s name, Les Éditeurs, was spelled out in neat letters on its long red awning, but I was distracted by the tree. “Are those books hanging from the branches?” There were several of them, worn and tattered, yellow from the weather, hung like ornaments in clusters.

  Luc explained they were a tribute to the fact there had once been so many publishers and bookshops in this area, along with all the authors, French and foreign, who had lived and worked in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. And when we stepped inside the restaurant, it was clear the owners also had a fond spot for this literary history.

  There were walls of bookshelves—books above the doorways, next to tables, even stacked over the staircase as the waiter showed us to the upper floor. It was a classy place, made warmly intimate with lamplight and dark wood and little tables meant for two. The waiter led us to the end of the long upstairs room where four such tables had been set close to each other in a line along a red leather banquette, watched over by the oil-painted portrait of a young and pretty woman of another era.

  Luc asked for and to my relief received the end table by the window, and before the waiter had a chance to hold the chair for me I’d claimed the banquette seat instead, with bookshelves just behind me and a wall against my shoulder that allowed me to feel safe and not exposed, and space for our motorcycle helmets to rest on my other side, on the banquette, like an extra defense. Besides which, when I looked up now I didn’t really see the room or any of the other people in it; all I saw was Luc, his head bent as he read the menu.

  There was no need to read mine. I set it down and to the side. “I’ll have a pot of tea.”

  “That’s very English of you. If you’re very hungry there’s a steak with cheese potatoes here that’s excellent.”

  “The tea is fine.”

  He looked up from the menu then, his eyebrow lifting slightly. “Just the tea?”

  “That’s right.” It would have been a lie to say I wasn’t hungry, but it was the truth at least to say, “That’s all I need.”

  He studied me and I felt sure his gaze dropped briefly to my scarf before he told me, “Here in France it is a New Year’s custom for a man to take a woman out to lunch. It brings us luck.”

  I cast my mind back over all the holiday traditions of my childhood neighbors. “You’ve just made that up. It’s not a custom.”

  “Well, it ought to be.” He nudged my menu card towards me. “You can pay for my lunch next time.”

  There was no one sitting right beside us but from the tables just behind Luc came a swirl of appetizing smells that weakened my resolve. “Do you promise?”

  “Word of honor.”

  “You just lied about the New Year’s custom.”

  His mouth curved, then straightened. “I swear on the head of my son.” His blue eyes were disarming.

  I gave in then and ordered the risotto. The waiter brought us bread and nuts and olives as an appetizer, and Luc nudged them all towards me. “I was worried you had changed your mind about your New Year’s resolution, and were starting on a diet after all.”

  I shook my head. “I never stick to diets. I’ve no willpower.”

  “Your other resolution was much better.”

  “What was that?” I had forgotten. Working on the diary had pushed less important details from my memory.

  Luc reminded me, “To find a job.”

  “Oh. Right.??
?

  “What will you look for? What, in your view, is the perfect job?”

  I took an olive from the dish between us. “One that lets me work alone.”

  “You said that very quickly. Don’t you like to work in teams, then?”

  “No.” I didn’t give an explanation, but I did admit it was a problem. “Most programming jobs involve teamwork.”

  “You program computers?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Nothing, it’s nothing. I think it’s a very good job for an amateur code breaker,” he said. “My brother is also a programmer.”

  I nodded in the way I’d noticed people did when making small talk, but I had no interest in Luc’s brother. I was interested in Luc, though, which for me was quite unusual. Since I’d left university, relationships with men had all conformed to the same pattern: I would meet someone I found attractive, one of us would ask the other out for dinner or for drinks, we’d spend some time together—maybe several evenings or a weekend here or there, but never longer than a month—then I would end it. Neat and tidy and controllable.

  There had been four men, all nice enough, but never had I taken any interest in their lives beyond the time we’d spent together. Never had I taken any notice of their gestures or their habits or the little things about them, but with Luc I noticed everything. I really wasn’t used to that. Nor was I used to being curious enough about his life to ask, “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Just one. And you?”

  “There’s only me. My parents were both only children. They enjoyed it, so they wanted me to be an only child as well.”

  He broke a piece of bread and asked me, “And did you enjoy it as they’d hoped, to be the only one?”

  “I didn’t mind it.”

  “I don’t know what that would be like,” he confessed, “to have no one to argue with.”

  “I always had my cousin.”

  “Yes, I can imagine she’d be very good to argue with.”

  I couldn’t tell from his expression whether he was serious or teasing, but I wondered something else. “Is it that you’re worried that your son’s an only child? Is that why you want to know whether I like it?”