I Heart Paris

  I dressed in the bathroom, slapping on my make-up and pulling on the jeans I’d worn the night before. To be fair, there was no need for the overly dramatic routine, until his alarm went off Alex would sleep through absolutely anything. The number of times I’d laid awake in his apartment, listening to the builders putting up new apartments across the road while he snored right through the clanging and clattering. But this morning I just didn’t want to take any chances.

  ‘Good morning, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Alain!’

  Happily, I snapped out of the continuous cycle of asking myself ‘What the fuck?’ and ‘Why doesn’t he love me’ long enough to give him a semi-cheery grin.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you this morning?’ he asked. At least he didn’t look scared of me any more. Wary, but not scared.

  ‘You couldn’t tell me where I can get on a boat trip could you?’ I dug out my map and laid it on the desk. ‘One of the ones that goes around the city?’

  ‘The bâteaux mouches?’ He leaned over to look at the map and narrowed his eyes. ‘It is here.’

  ‘That looks pretty far away,’ I said, following his pencil. ‘Oh! Alma Marceau! I’ve been there.’

  ‘You are sure I cannot call you a taxi?’ Alain looked at me doubtfully. ‘You will need to change trains twice.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, sticking the map back in my bag. ‘I’ve got a really good sense of direction. Once I’ve been somewhere once, I can always find it again.’

  ‘D’accord.’ Alain nodded, giving me a supportive smile. ‘Have a good day.’

  Nodding back, I strode out to the Métro station, confident and keen to distract myself with a happy trip up and down the Seine.

  But a positive mental attitude and the will to succeed are not always enough. Within fifteen minutes of getting on a train, I was completely lost. I really did think it was incredibly mean to disguise the horrors of the labyrinthine underground system of Paris with the pretty wrought-iron signs at the entrances. It made you think you were wandering on to some cute 1960s film set when in reality, you were descending into the seventh circle of hell. And how come the doors opened before the train had stopped? I nearly fell out twice before I realized it happened at every stop, no matter how many times I dashed out of one carriage and threw myself into the next. My first unaccompanied journey from St-Sébastien to Alma Marceau had taken me an hour. My second took an hour and a half, half of my fingernails and all of my patience. At least this time, people seemed to take pity on my black eye and I’d had a seat for most of the journey. Even though that meant I’d missed my stop twice because I couldn’t wrestle my way out in time.

  At least, when I finally made it out of the Métro tunnels, the Bâteaux Mouches was well signposted and well served with stalls selling disposable cameras, cold water and ice creams. Once I was loaded up with all three, I clambered up on to the front of the boat, away from the couples already smooching in the back rows, away from the families, tactically positioned near the toilets, and close to the groups of pensioners, wrapped up warm against the ninety-degree heat. They gave me an acknowledging nod and I smiled back, taking a seat across the aisle. I wasn’t ready to make friends with old ladies just yet. Give me another six months and then we’d talk.

  After an awkward couple of minutes of me hoping no one was going to sit down next to me, the boat pulled away, and after a couple more minutes of trying to decipher the English commentary from the French, German, Spanish and Japanese, I swapped over to my iPod. In the great tradition of everything going tits up at once, the first song that came up was one of Alex’s. Usually, I loved listening to his band, I’d been a fan before I was a girlfriend (but bypassed groupie, I was always very clear about that), but now it felt as if all the lyrics had double meanings. Which songs were about Solène? The happy ones? The sad ones? I couldn’t even listen to the ones I knew for a fact were about me, I was just comparing against the others. They suddenly felt less emotive, less compelling and it wasn’t just a first album versus third album thing. Skipping through my play lists, I settled on the best of Girls Aloud. No way to misinterpret that.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what I was hoping to achieve on my boat trip, but if it was depressing myself even more, it was working. The boat sailed up and down the river, past all these amazing, historical buildings that occasionally set off little flashes of A level history, mainly concerning violent and bloody deaths, and yet I couldn’t snap out of my foul mood. OK, I had to be rational about this. Alex had every reason to believe that I didn’t want to move in with him. He’d been asking me for months, and I’d kept on making excuses. And I supposed, if I put my pride aside, I could understand why he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of marriage. I knew his parents were divorced and the last relationship he’d had had ended horribly, he’d been completely betrayed.

  No need to worry about him not wanting kids yet, the collection of little terrors enjoying their playground-en-Seine was enough to scare me shitless, let alone the idea of being responsible for one of them for ever. Didn’t help though. As we sailed up towards Notre-Dame, I tried desperately not to turn around and stare up at Solène’s apartment, but I couldn’t help myself. I spotted it right away and it was just as stunning from the river as it was inside. Bitch. But she wasn’t my problem right now, convincing Alex that I really did want to move in with him and that he’d been right, living together would be a great idea, was my problem.

  Maybe I should do it after Paris, I thought, snapping away at the Musée D’Orsay and clicking on to make sure I got the Louvre. Just let the dust settle, head home and once we were back in his apartment, he’d remember why he wanted me there in the first place.

  Chugging my lukewarm water, I leaned back in my seat and tried to enjoy the boat ride. Rounding the Ile de la Cité, we pulled back on to the main stretch of the river, passing the Paris Plage. I really wasn’t much of a sand person, preferring Erin’s pool to the private beach at her Provincetown house, but you had to admire the commitment of the Parisians laid out on the sand. It was bikinis and swim shorts as far as the eye could see, they were taking this shit seriously. I rested my chin on the railings of the boat and watched all the pretty couples smothering each other in sunscreen and kissing extravagantly. Those that weren’t laid out on sunloungers in the sand were strolling down the bank, holding hands and smiling. Was it possible to walk around Paris in a bad mood? Did they make you take some sort of romance test? I had read somewhere that they could test for levels of love chemicals now, perhaps there was some sort of pee on a stick test they made you do before you could cross the Pont Neuf.

  It was so hot on the boat, I was relieved when we docked and I was able to dash off faster than the families and the immobile. It was almost twelve and I was going to have to make a move if I wanted to beat Louisa to the Eiffel Tower. Which, given that I didn’t have a working mobile phone, I really did. The sense of panic at not having a phone was bizarre. People had managed without them for centuries, but take mine away for two days and I felt as if someone had chopped off an arm. I just hoped Louisa would actually be where she’d said she was going to be on time. But of course this was Louisa we were talking about. Louisa, who wouldn’t even break to pee when we were revising until the allotted time. Louisa, who was at the church before Tim on her wedding day. We’d had to circle for some time and the driver was not amused.

  True to form, as I approached the ticket booth just before twelve-twenty, I spotted my best friend there waiting for me. Blonde hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, freshly ironed vest tucked into her freshly ironed shorts, cardigan slung over her arm and small Radley bag strapped across her body in front of her. She was a born British tourist.

  ‘Angela!’ she yelped as I ran up and scooped her into a huge hug. She’d put on a little bit of weight since the last time I’d seen her, but given that our last hug was immediately after her wedding and immediately before I broke her husband’s hand, that was understandable. Betwee
n the boning in her wedding dress and her extreme diet, it felt good to be hugging an actual person. And she smelled right. She smelled like Pantene shampoo and the same Calvin Klein perfume she’d been wearing since the sixth form.

  ‘Oh, it is so good to see you,’ she said into my ear while I crushed her harder. ‘But you can let me go, I’m not going to run off.’

  I released her reluctantly, partly because hugging her felt so bloody good and partly because I hadn’t wanted her to see that I’d already started crying.

  ‘Ange, are you OK?’ she asked, brushing my hair out of my face. It was a gesture so familiar that felt so strange, I managed to set myself off again. I nodded unconvincingly and tried to stop crying,, but the harder I tried to control myself, the worse it was. I just kept hiccuping and letting out terrible, honking sobs. All around us, tourists, ticket sellers and policemen turned to stare at me. Which wasn’t particularly helpful.

  ‘Bloody hell, babe!’ Louisa pulled me back in for another hug and carted me off, away from the crowds. ‘I thought I was supposed to be the emotional one.’

  A good five minutes later, I’d more or less pulled myself together and we were safely seated at a small, overpriced café. I took a tissue from Louisa and dabbed at my face, trying not to poke my black eye unnecessarily, but effectively wiping away all of my carefully applied make-up.

  ‘Oh my Lord, what have you done to your face?’ Lou asked, snatching my hand away. ‘Is this why you’re upset? Has someone hit you?’

  I shook my head, still not quite able to make words.

  ‘Angela, babe, you know you can tell me anything.’ Louisa’s voice was deadly serious. She held my hand and gave me a level stare. ‘Did Alex do this?’

  The very thought of Alex raising a hand to me made me splutter with laughter through my tears, which Louisa apparently mistook for hysterics.

  ‘I will kill him,’ she started, pulling out her phone. ‘I’m calling the police, don’t get upset, you have to do this.’

  ‘No, Lou, please,’ I tried desperately to compose myself, waving her hand away from her phone. ‘I fell over, I tripped on my way to the loo in the night. Honestly, Alex would never hit me. Honestly, stop.’

  Louisa looked at me suspiciously for a second and then set her phone on the table. ‘You are a clumsy old cow,’ she said, weighing up my story against my injuries. ‘Bloody hell, you gave me a scare then.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I choked, pushing away the last of my tears. ‘I can’t believe how badly I overreacted. I hadn’t expected to be such a mess. I’m just so happy to see you.’

  ‘Whereas I had thought I’d be the one crying my eyes out,’ she said, accepting a menu from the waiter who had been hovering at her side, waiting for me to finish blubbering before he approached. ‘You’re the one that’s supposed to be all practical Ms Clark. What’s happened to you in New York? Have you gone and got all in touch with your emotions?’

  ‘Apparently.’ I shrugged, looking at the menu and ordering a Diet Coke. Would it be bad to have steak again? ‘Must have been that week in LA. I don’t have a therapist though. Yet.’

  ‘Maybe you should get one,’ she suggested, ordering still water. ‘So, tell me everything.’

  I smiled tightly, not really knowing where to start.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about these anniversary plans? Did you get a marquee sorted?’ Ah-ha, deflection. Always a winner.

  ‘We did,’ Louisa started, excitedly waving her hands around. If there was one thing I knew about my friend, it was that she would talk about wedding or wedding-related activities until the cows came home. There was no reason why her first anniversary wouldn’t be treated with the same enthusiasm. Without hesitation, she rattled on about the size of the tent, the chocolate fountain she’d hired, the band Tim had picked and the dress she was wearing until the waiter came back with our drinks and to take our order.

  ‘Shall we get a bottle of wine?’ I asked, trying to convince myself that a hair of the dog would be a good idea. And it would go well with the steak I was absolutely about to order.

  ‘Ah, no, I don’t think I’m going to have a drink,’ she declined. ‘But you should.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ I replied, eyeing her closely. ‘Saving yourself for tomorrow?’

  ‘Actually,’ Louisa handed her menu back to the waiter. ‘I’m not really drinking at the moment.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I set down my Diet Coke and looked at my friend. She had put on weight since the last time I’d seen her, but she didn’t look fat. She looked healthy. She looked glowing.

  ‘Louisa?’

  ‘Angela.’

  ‘Are you pregnant?’

  She covered her face with her hands, peeping out at me through her fingers. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh bloody hell!’ I jumped out of my seat and ran around the table to give her another almighty hug before the tears started again. At least this time it was both of us.

  ‘I wanted to tell you,’ she bleated. ‘But I only found out last week and then when you said you were coming I thought it would be better to tell you face to face and oh, you’re not mad at me?’

  ‘Why would I be mad?’ I asked, finally putting her down and wiping away the last traces of make-up from my black eye. Who cared if it put other people off their lunch? ‘Oh, Lou, I’m so pleased for you.’

  ‘I thought you might be mad that I hadn’t told you yet, but you’re the first, apart from Mum and Dad. And Tim’s mum. And his dad. And well, his brother, but then you,’ she rattled on, sipping her water. ‘I’m so glad I got to tell you in person.’

  ‘Me too,’ I agreed, reaching across the table for her hand and trying to stop my tears. ‘And I don’t mind that you told his brother, he’s hot.’

  It was easy to tell myself I wasn’t homesick when I was in New York, so far away and constantly busy. Regular phone calls, reluctant Skyping (did anyone look good on that thing?) and constant emails meant that I always knew what was going on in Louisa’s life, but seeing her now, face to face, it was a lot harder than I’d thought it would be.

  ‘I just can’t believe you’re not going to be around to be a full-time godmother,’ she said, giving my hand a squeeze.

  ‘Godmother? Really?’ I asked. What was she trying to do? Have me dehydrate completely? ‘Are you sure there isn’t someone more, well, adult that you’d want to pick?’

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid!’ Louisa laughed out loud at my concerned expression. ‘It’ll be you and Tim’s hot brother. God knows you’re more adult than he’ll ever be.’

  ‘But I blacked my eye on my way back from the toilet,’ I protested. ‘And that’s just my most recent cock-up.’

  ‘Angela,’ Louisa stopped laughing and gave me an even look across the table, ‘there is no one else in this world that I would pick to be godmother to my baby and you can keep chattering on about it all day, but I am really quite aware of your catalogue of disasters. I’ve been present at most of them, if not involved one way or another. You’re going to be the godmother. Accept it.’

  ‘I don’t even know what to say.’ I pursed my lips to staunch a fresh flow of tears. ‘Of course I’ll do it. And I’ll be amazing. I won’t buy him or her booze until they’re at least seventeen and I promise not to swear in front of them or anything. I’ll do anything you want me to.’

  ‘It’s a start, I suppose.’ Louisa moved her knife and fork to one side to make room for her steak. Good girl. ‘Now, how about you make a start by coming home for my anniversary party tomorrow?’

  I looked up from my bloody steak. ‘Lou, you know I can’t. Tomorrow is Alex’s show.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed, carving up her meat. It was so well done that it took some serious work. How could she? It was steak sacrilege. ‘But I had to ask. You know your mum is going to kill you. She reckons she’s been leaving you loads of messages and you haven’t replied.’

/>   ‘You told her I was here?’ I shrieked far too loudly. Staring around the café, I half expected to see her charging over in her M&S finery, ready to bash me with her holiday handbag. It was slightly smaller than her regular handbag, but just as formidable a weapon. ‘Jesus Lou, I told you not to!’

  ‘Not me.’ She held up her hands in her defense, a piece of charred steak going flying into our neighbour’s bread basket. ‘Tim mentioned that I was coming out here when he saw her in Tesco. You know he’s a rubbish liar, he would have only buggered it up if I’d told him to keep quiet.’

  ‘Oh, crap.’ I took a big swig of Diet Coke. I should have got the wine. ‘I’m going to be in so much trouble.’

  ‘Not if you come back tomorrow,’ Louisa suggested. ‘Just come for the party. We’re having it in the afternoon, surely Alex’s thing isn’t until the evening?’

  ‘It’s a festival, I think he’s planning on being there all day,’ I muttered, trying to remember what he’d told me at dinner. Before he’d told me he didn’t want to live with me, marry me or have babies with me.

  ‘So you have to be there all day?’ Louisa raised an eyebrow. Some of her slyer expressions reminded me so much of Jenny, it was scary. ‘Really, Ange, you never used to follow Mark around like such a helpless puppy.’