Hours passed. No exaggeration: hours. Rachel had carried on drinking; I hadn’t touched any more of my wine. I needed some water, but I was scared to move, because I thought I’d draw attention to myself. Then the boy Rachel was talking to, who kept looking straight at me in a way I interpreted as meaning, ‘Who the hell are you and why don’t you go away now?’ just started stroking Rachel’s leg. She didn’t stop him. He leaned in to whisper to her. It was pretty obvious they were about to start making out. I’d been in a similar situation in parties at home with Rachel, and I had just snogged the bloke. Now, in what had once been Rachel’s position, I realised how seriously selfish this was. I understood what it was like to be the friend who isn’t snogging. Except, when I’d done this in the past, it had been at friends’ houses, and we both knew the boy. That meant Rachel didn’t need to worry about leaving me, the way I was worried about abandoning her now, just as much as I was worried about staying and being in the way.
They started kissing, of course, and I looked around the room for Marthe and couldn’t find her. Lucas hadn’t come, despite my worries that he would – and right then I’d have given anything to see another face I knew. I definitely couldn’t pretend I was taking part in Rachel’s conversation now, so I went to the kitchen to get the water I’d been craving. Marthe and her older sister were there, thank God, and I told them I was feeling kind of sick and would they mind if I just went to bed right now?
Marthe’s sister stubbed out her cigarette on a saucer and took me upstairs. There was a squashed-looking bed with dirty, rumpled sheets in the room where we’d left our bags, and she cheerfully pointed it out.
‘The bathroom’s just across there. Can I get you some aspirins?’ she asked me gently. I think she thought I was really young, and felt sorry for me.
‘Oh, yes please, thanks,’ I said, because I wanted her to come back and talk to me a little longer. She brought them in and sat down on the bed with me. It dipped in the middle, scarily, with both our weights on it.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on your friend for you,’ she said. She was so sweet. I got into bed and despite the deafening, pulsing music from downstairs, I found myself falling asleep.
‘QU’ARRIVE-T-IL ? QUI ÊTES VOUS?’
The shouting was right in my face, and I woke with absolute terror, my heart bursting out of my throat. I had no idea where I was, I couldn’t see, and I thought I was going to die from fear. There was some boy I didn’t know shouting at me in French. I couldn’t even remember I was in France, I had never been so scared in my life.
‘C’EST MON LIT!’ he kept shouting. He was drunk and angry. I was rescued – again – by Marthe’s older sister, who was babysitting me for the night, and she came in and grabbed the drunk boy by the shoulders and explained who I was and why she’d put me in his bed. Then she got angry with him, telling him he’d said he wasn’t going to be back tonight, and he started apologising, then apologising to me, shouting just as loudly, telling me I could sleep there if I wanted. At this point I thought I would never sleep again as long as I lived. He staggered round the room drunkenly, telling me in English, ‘Perhaps I squeeze in later with you?’ and smiling. He was no longer as frightening, but he was big and clumsy. Marthe’s sister dragged him out. But I couldn’t stay there now. I pulled my jeans on over my pyjamas, and thought about going to find Rachel, but I was in too much of a state, she’d have thought I’d gone crazy, and I didn’t want to interrupt her snog like this, looking like a six-year-old who’d just had a nightmare. I found another empty room, sat down on the floor between the bed and the wardrobe, and cried out all the bad, until my heart slowed down, but I didn’t really stop shaking.
Chapter 14
Don’t ruin Paris, I kept telling myself. Yesterday was lovely – well, all day was – optimistic for the future but also like old times – before things went bad-party-bad. If you have to fight with her now, you lose the day too. I stared out of the train window at the weird French electricity pylons in the fields, which looked like alien robot invaders. Don’t ruin Paris.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Rachel said again.
‘Yeah,’ I said, in an annoyingly weedy voice. ‘I’m just really tired.’ But I could hear myself sounding angry and judgemental and knew she felt bad and my weediness would make her feel worse. I kept thinking of ways I could tell her off and managed to stop myself saying them. In the end, nothing that bad had happened. Besides, how many terrible parties back home had I forced her to stay to the end of just because I’d had a crush on some loser there? But we were in France, and everything was different, and – once again – Rachel wasn’t supposed to do that sort of thing. I’d ended up not sleeping on Marthe’s sister’s floor, next to Marthe, on a couple of thickly folded blankets that didn’t soften the hard wooden floorboards very much, and Rachel had stayed up the whole night ‘talking’ to the French boy. That was her official account of things – she said she might have dozed off with him on the sofa, she couldn’t really remember. I was tired, maybe that was really why I was angry. I felt empty and sick, and my head was filled with unyawned yawns that pulled at my cheeks.
The train was practically silent. Rachel tried a few times to start a conversation, but the heavy quiet around us sort of crushed her into embarrassment and she ended up whispering. I started to feel sorry for her, and wanted to let her know I really was fine, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. So, I just smiled when we split up at Vernon, and told her to keep in touch and text me. I practically sleepwalked back to the Fayes’ house, letting my feet remember the way because my head had checked out.
If I’d known what was going to greet me, I think I’d have gone straight back in the other direction. Madame Faye was furious, again. So angry, she was talking in English, to make sure I didn’t miss a word. It seemed Madame Lacasse had called her the night before, believing Rachel was staying with me, with her, and Faye had had to tell her we were both in Paris, and she didn’t know exactly where.
‘You have made me look very reckless and foolish, Samantha,’ she said. ‘This was very stupid.’ My head was trying to process it all. I honestly hadn’t thought I was doing anything wrong, and I didn’t fully understand why Rachel wouldn’t have told Madame Lacasse the truth. Maybe the Lacasses weren’t as easy going as I’d thought, maybe Rachel had been told she wasn’t allowed to go – after all, Victoire hadn’t gone, something I’d thought was weird at the time.
‘I didn’t know Rachel had said that,’ I said, telling the truth, because I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Everything I told you was true. I told you who we were staying with, and that’s who we stayed with. I’m sorry Madame Lacasse didn’t know, but I didn’t know she didn’t know.’
Madame Faye wasn’t happy with this. She went off on another rant about how this time I’d gone too far and she was going to have to call my mum.
‘But I told you everything,’ I said.
‘If you told me everything,’ Faye said, ‘why did your friend tell Madame Lacasse something else?’ If I said what I thought, that Rachel just hadn’t been allowed to go, then Faye would ask me what sort of party it was, and I’d probably end up in more trouble.
So I just said, ‘I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding. I’ve tried to be truthful. We spent the day in Paris alone together, then we stayed the night with friends; we were safe. They had a party, but we didn’t go to any bars, or take the Métro after dark, or put ourselves in any danger.’
‘This is your last warning, Samantha,’ Madame Faye said. ‘I did not agree to have wild English girls who tell me lies staying for the summer. I am very disappointed.’ There was no point repeating what I’d already said. I went upstairs and called Rachel.
Rachel answered, and simply said, ‘I can’t talk now,’ and hung up. She sounded terrible.
I went downstairs. ‘Do you mind if I go out?’ I asked Madame Faye. ‘I just need to go for a walk.’
‘Yes, you can go,’ Madame Faye said. ‘B
e back for dinner.’
I walked straight across one of the corn fields, trying to stamp down as much corn as I could. Crowds of butterflies were disturbed and flew up, and I swatted them aside. Even spotting a tiny rabbit didn’t make me stop and go, ‘Ahhh, little rabbit!’ the way I normally would have – I was too upset and angry. I texted Bruno as I walked, hoping he’d come and meet me in ‘our’ café and I’d have someone to talk to with soft eyes and a warm smile, who’d just let me be myself and didn’t have any reason to let me down or tell me off. He didn’t reply, but I went to the café anyway, ordered a big glass of Coke, and sat there feeling sweaty and sick. By now I was so tired that I physically couldn’t eat, and I let my eyes close and felt my head swinging in circles as I fell asleep at the table.
‘Hey, wake up – you’ll get your bag stolen again.’ I jumped, and found myself looking into Bruno’s eyes. He was standing close to me with his head tilted to one side, smiling a half smile. Then he frowned slightly. ‘Do you have a problem?’
‘I just hoped you’d feel like a chat,’ I said. ‘I don’t seem to be friends with anyone else at the moment. Everyone’s hating me.’
‘Not everyone, I’m sure,’ Bruno said, and sat down. I started telling him about Paris, and he was listening, asking questions, being polite, but . . . well, that was the problem. I got the feeling he was acting polite, and I’d never felt that way with him before. Like he was bored with me, or was secretly finding me annoying. I couldn’t tell for sure if the tiredness and stress with Rachel was just making me paranoid, and I tried to catch his eye and hold it, hoping to find some confirmation that I was imagining his sudden coolness towards me. But he wouldn’t even look me in the eye most of the time, and when he did, I had the feeling he was angry about something. He seemed so far away. I was too scared to ask what the problem was, if anything. He sipped his cup of coffee and squinted into the sunshine, looking around the square at other people.
Finally, I said, ‘Listen, I really dragged you over here for no reason. I’m sure you didn’t want to listen to some long, boring story about English girls in Paris, and I don’t have anything else to talk about.’
I hoped he’d reassure me. I hoped this prickly apology would make him realise that I’d noticed his behaviour had changed, and that he’d snap out of whatever funk he was in and loosen up!
That didn’t happen.
Instead, Bruno carried on being polite, but not really sounding interested ever, and after not much time had passed, he said he had to leave for his sister’s rehearsal for the Fouenne festival. This time, I didn’t feel confident enough to tease him about it the way I had when we’d last spoken. I felt an urge to say ‘Can I come?’, but I was so scared of saying it that my heart started pumping in a silly, fast way, even though I knew I wouldn’t say it. It was as though a pane of glass had been lowered between us, and I could still see him, but I wouldn’t have been able to touch him if I’d wanted, and everything I was saying to him was muffled, so he couldn’t hear. I’d missed my chance with him. Blimey, now I knew I’d wanted a chance with him! Typical of me to want a boy I couldn’t have, but this time I really felt I’d lost something.
Rachel phoned the next morning, and she sounded fine again. She told me Madame Lacasse had given her a serious talk, but not made that much of it, and she was sorry my Frenchwoman had given me the full works for something that was her fault. Finding out Rachel had got off lightly when I was getting a formal warning to be sent home in disgrace was incredibly annoying. Seriously, what was up with my luck since I stepped out the other side of the Channel Tunnel? Everything worked out for Rachel, everything was hard for me.
‘So listen,’ Rachel said. ‘You know Victoire is having a birthday party the day after tomorrow? You’re coming, aren’t you?’
She said it as if she’d talked about it before, but it was the first time I’d heard her mention it.
Also, was she bloody kidding? The last thing I wanted was to go to another party. I had to stop myself from yelling at her, Oh yeah, I had such a great time at that last party, eh! But stupidly, I hadn’t really managed to shake the feeling that I was to blame for not having as good a summer as Rachel, and part of me wanted another chance.
‘Well – am I invited?’
‘Yeah of course! It’s going to be enormous. Bring Lucas’s sister, and then they’ll have to give you a lift home.’
‘She doesn’t really get on with Victoire’s circle, though, does she? Are you sure she’d be invited?’
‘This place is incredible. Make her come with you.’
I wasn’t really comfortable with Rachel asking both of us to a birthday party that she wasn’t personally having. I said I’d think about it. These days, every time she talked, Rachel had a slight craziness to her, as if she was trying to make up for the last thing that had happened, and throwing herself into it with fake enthusiasm. She might have been having all the good luck on this holiday, but I was worried she was changing so fast that she was forgetting how to be herself. I decided to ask Chantal about the party. If she wanted to go, I’d go.
Chapter 15
‘Non. No thank you.’ Chantal even started giggling. ‘Really, Samantha, does it sound like my sort of party? Lucas maybe. Can you see me putting on a pink dress and dancing to Christina Aguilera at this party with all the girls who ignore me at school?’
I smiled, despite myself. ‘You don’t have to dance. You don’t even have to wear a pink dress!’ I understood, though. ‘You don’t have to go. I’m sorry. It just sounds exciting, and I haven’t seen Victoire’s house, and I thought you might be interested.’
‘Will my mother let you go alone?’ Chantal asked. ‘I’m sorry if I’m stopping you from going. But I really don’t have a choice. I have a rehearsal with the band.’
Of course: the totally mad Fouenne medieval festival was a week away. I had spent quite a lot of time thinking about Bruno over the last couple of days, and it occurred to me that if I skipped the party and pretended to be interested in Chantal’s band, then I would get to be involved in the festival and run into him casually, like an insider, and we could just start talking again naturally . . . but let’s face it, it was wrong of me to try to use Chantal that way. Or could I . . .?
‘Oh, how have band rehearsals been?’ I said. ‘I’d be quite interested in seeing how that’s going for you.’ Shameless.
‘You can come along if you like,’ Chantal said. ‘I thought you might think it was boring. We just repeat the same few songs over and over and over.’
She was right. Was I really up for an evening of that just on the off chance that it would force another meeting with a boy who clearly wasn’t into me any more, if he ever had been? Well . . .
I phoned Rachel to tell her there was no way I could go to Victoire’s party because I’d have to come alone, it was too far, I had no way of getting home, and now was not the time to take liberties with Madame Faye’s mood with me. (Thanks to you, I thought, but didn’t say it.)
‘You know that Lucas is coming, though?’ Rachel said. ‘Why can’t you get a lift home with him? There’s no way he’s going all the way home to Paris after a party here.’
‘How do you know he’s coming?’
‘Victoire said. Apparently he always goes.’
‘But he’s mostly in Paris now.’
‘He’s home often enough. Victoire seems to think he’s coming. I told her you’d snogged him.’
‘WHAT? Why would you tell her that?’
‘I don’t know. Just talking, I suppose.’
‘But you don’t . . . tell . . .’ I trailed off. But you’re MY BEST FRIEND, I was thinking, and I didn’t say you could tell people.
‘What is the deal with you and Lucas, anyway?’ Rachel said, basically ignoring my frustration about her telling everyone everything.
‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘I thought I really fancied him, and then I snogged him and I still thought I fancied him, but then somewhere along
the way I just changed my mind. I just sort of chickened out of the whole idea.’
‘But he’s gorgeous, you know? Everyone I know fancies him.’
An image of Bruno popped up in my head.
Do you know what my problem is? I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WANT. Ever. I want everything at the same time, and to not have to make any decisions. Maybe I did still fancy Lucas. Maybe I should go to the party with Lucas, the party I was actually invited to, rather than spend another deadly-boring evening at band practice as part of a complicated plan to chase after Bruno with no chance of success. We were halfway into our summer here, maybe now was the time for me to bring back the old me, the snoggy, party-going me. The fun me. And I needed to see the Lacasse house.
‘Well, how am I going to get there?’ I said.
‘Will no one give you a lift?’ Rachel groaned. ‘Call Lucas, ask him to pick you up when he gets here, and bring you.’
‘I can’t call Lucas.’
‘You snogged him and you can’t call him?’
‘Exactly!’
‘When did you become so shy?’ Rachel asked.
‘When did you stop?’ I said.
We were silent.
‘OK, I’m going to try to sort this,’ she said, and hung up. She called back a few minutes later and said, ‘Victoire called Lucas, he’s going to pick you up.’