French Kissing (2 page)

I looked up at the bronze man and woman towering above us. They were gazing into each other's eyes, standing so close together that their foreheads were touching. His arms were about her waist, and her hands were reaching up to his face.

‘Maybe, like me, the man has just arrived from France on the Eurostar.' Alex smiled, and suddenly I caught a fleeting glimpse of the boy who had somehow turned into this extraordinarily handsome man. ‘
Je suis content de te voir
, Anna.'

I said, ‘It's good to see you, too, Alexandre.'

Two

I unlocked the front door to my flat, and led Alex into the narrow hall.

‘That's my bedroom,' I said, pointing. ‘Bathroom, kitchen, living room. And this is your bedroom while you're here. It's quite small …'

Alex followed me into the spare bedroom and looked around. The room was in fact tiny, with barely enough space for the double bed, wardrobe, and dressing table with which it was furnished. It seemed even smaller now that Alex was in it.

‘I don't need a massive bedroom,' Alex said. ‘I just need somewhere to sleep.'

It occurred to me that the pink floral duvet cover, cushions, and matching curtains would most likely not be a guy's first choice of decor.

‘I'm sorry about the colour scheme.'

‘Anna, it's fine,' Alex said. ‘I'll only be here as long as it takes me to find my own place to rent, and most of the time I'll be out working.'

‘Right. Well, I'll leave you to get settled. Are you hungry? As you know, I'm not much of a cook, but I do have pizza.' When Alex had stayed with my family when he was thirteen, he'd always been hungry.

‘Pizza would be great.' He rummaged in his holdall. ‘And here's a bottle of wine to go with it.'

Leaving him to get unpacked, I went to the kitchen, put two pizzas in the oven, and made a salad (my culinary skills may be limited, but I can at least slice a cucumber and chop up a tomato). I opened the wine, poured myself a glass, and took a sip …

It's the last night of the French children's visit to England, and my school's enthusiastic PTA has arranged a farewell party: a disco for my class and our visitors. It's the usual dire affair, held in the school hall (the girls dancing, the boys lounging against the wall), and supervised by our teachers from both sides of the Channel. And, as always happens at such events, some of the boys have smuggled in alcohol.

We leave the hall separately. Beth and I, and Beth's penfriend Fabienne, go first, and shortly afterwards Sean and his penfriend, Gérard, follow. I like Gérard. I like him a lot. He's taught me some interesting French swear words, and he's the only boy my age I've met who's taller than me. And I know it's wrong of me to go off with him and leave Alexandre on his own again, but I don't care.

We meet up in the library. Sean and Gérard produce the cans of beer and bottle of wine that they'd hidden earlier that day in the boys' changing rooms. Whispering and giggling, we sit in a circle on the carpet between the stacks. I sit next to Gérard, who unscrews the wine, drinks, and passes it to me. I put the bottle to my lips, and tip it up so that the warm red liquid fills my mouth. It tastes strange, but not unpleasant. I swallow some more. The others are gulping down the beer.

We all freeze as the library door swings open and someone comes in, and then relax when we see that it's only Alexandre.

By way of greeting, he says, ‘I thought you'd like to know that Monsieur Bernard and Miss Crawford are patrolling the corridors. And they're coming this way,'

We all look at each other in terror, and then as one we leap to our feet and run to the library exit. We hear voices coming from the stairwell, so we pelt in the opposite direction, our footsteps agonisingly loud on the wooden floor. Gérard sprints ahead of the rest of us, and vanishes around a corner. I'm falling behind the others. Despite my long legs, I'm not a fast runner, and I'm slowed down even more by my tight skirt.

‘Quick, Anna, in here.' Alexandre seizes my arm, and drags me into an empty classroom.

I gasp, ‘We can't stay here. They'll find us.'

‘Get behind the desk.'

Alexandre and I crouch down under the teacher's desk at the front of the classroom. Almost immediately, someone opens the classroom door and switches on a light. My heart is hammering. Alexandre takes hold of my hand and squeezes it. He raises a finger to his lips.

I hear my French teacher, Miss Crawford, say, ‘There's no one in here, either.'

‘Then we are alone.' That was Alexandre's teacher, Monsieur Bernard.

‘Oh, Alain, I … We can't … We shouldn't …'

‘Jennifer …
ma chérie
…'

This is followed by a number of gasps and sighs.

Alexandre and I stare at each other in disbelief. Cautiously, he peers round the side of the desk.

He whispers
,
‘
Ils s'embrassent.
' And, in case I haven't understood, he adds, ‘They are kissing.'

I think,
But they can't be – they're our teachers.

I also look round the desk.

Miss Crawford and Monsieur Bernard, entwined in each other's arms, are kissing on the mouth.

Miss Crawford says, ‘Alain,
mon chéri,
we have to go back to the hall. The children …'

Monsieur Bernard replies in French, speaking too rapidly for me to follow. There are some more sighs, and then one of them switches off the light. The classroom door opens and closes again.

Alexandre and I wait a few minutes, and then crawl out from under the desk.

‘I thought they'd search the classroom,' I say.

‘For a moment so did I, but they had other things on their minds.' Alexandre puts his hand over his heart
.
‘
Oh, ma chérie …
'

‘Ooh, Alain … What was that last thing he said to her?'

‘“
Tu me rends fou
”? That means “you drive me crazy”.'

I start giggling, and suddenly both of us are doubled up with laughter. I laugh so hard that it hurts. It occurs to me that I've not been very kind to Alexandre this week he's been in England. It's not that I've been mean to him, not exactly. But I've been trying so hard to get Gérard to like me that for most of the time, Alexandre has been ignored.

‘
Merci, Alexandre,
' I start speaking in French, but it's too much of an effort, so I switch to English. ‘Thank you for coming to the library to warn us …'

Alexandre shrugs. ‘That's OK. You were all making such a racket you were easy enough to find.'

‘If we'd been caught with the wine, we'd have been suspended for sure. My parents would have gone ballistic.'

‘My parents allow me to drink wine with meals – but they too would be angry if I drank it in school.'

I think how much nicer a boy he is than Gérard, who is very good-looking, but so up himself. And who ran off and left me to get caught.

‘Alexandre,' I say, ‘Miss Crawford said that after this year, we won't be writing letters to our penfriends in lessons any more. Can you and I still write to each other anyway?'

‘
Mais, oui,
' Alexandre says
.
‘
Bien sûr.
Of course. Shall we go back to the disco now?

‘Anna?' Alex's voice jerked me back to the present.

‘I'm in here,' I called out.

He came into the kitchen.

‘I was just thinking about your first visit to London,' I said. ‘Do you remember the disco?'

‘I remember hiding with you under the desk. And that we were the only kids that didn't get caught.'

Having fled the crime-scene, Gérard and the others had been apprehended climbing out of a downstairs window by Madame Lefevre (another of the French teachers, and a very scary woman), and my school's headmaster, Mr Walsh (whose sole mission in life was to catch students red-handed doing something they shouldn't). Gérard had still had the half-empty wine-bottle, Beth was clutching a can of beer, and Sean was more than a little drunk. There followed much furious shouting in French (Mme Lefevre) telephone calls to parents (Mr Walsh), and a thorough search of the whole school building which discovered the empty beer cans in the library and three boys drinking vodka in the science lab. As one of the teachers thought that they'd seen me leave the hall with Beth, I was hauled into the headmaster's office and interrogated as to my part in ‘this disgraceful incident', but Alex (his dark brown eyes wide and innocent) had insisted that I'd been with him the whole evening, so I was allowed back into the disco. Beth's parents had grounded her for a month.

‘You were my hero that night,' I said.

Alex laughed. ‘I thought you liked Gérard.'

I rolled my eyes. ‘I had a huge crush on him, but my excuse is that I was only thirteen.'

‘I hated being thirteen,' Alexandre said. ‘I was such a little runt.'

‘No you weren't.' He was, but he certainly isn't now, I thought. ‘When I was younger, I hated being tall. I was convinced that I would never ever find a boyfriend.'

‘Who'd be a teenager?'

‘Not me.' I checked the oven. ‘The pizzas are ready.'

Alex helped me carry everything through into the living room. When I ate on my own, I just balanced a plate on my knees in front of the TV, but as it was Alex's first night in London, we sat at the dining table. He told me some more about his new job as a staff photographer for
The Edge
magazine, how it would still leave him time for freelance work, and how he was hoping to explore (and photograph) England while he was here. I knew so many intimate details about his life, and I'd told him things in my letters that I'd told no one else, not even Beth or Nick, but it still felt strange to be chatting to him over the dinner table. He was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

‘I suppose you'll be going back and forth between London and Paris quite often,' I said. ‘It's so easy to get to the continent with the Eurostar.'

Alex shook his head. ‘No, I've no plans to visit France in the next six months.'

I raised my eyebrows. ‘And what does your girlfriend think about that?'

‘I've no idea. Cécile and I split up three weeks ago.'

I gaped at him. ‘Oh, no, Alex, I'm so sorry. What happened?'

‘She finished with me.'

‘But why? I mean, the last time you wrote, you said your relationship was going so well. Was it because you took this job in England?'

‘No, I took the job because I'd broken up with Cécile. I wanted a fresh start away from Paris – and her.' He drank some wine and poured himself another glass. ‘We were together almost a year, and then she … met someone else. I since found out that she was sleeping with him while she was still with me.'

She sounds like a right slut, I thought. Aloud, I said, ‘I really am sorry, Alex. That's awful.'

‘When she told me we were over, I was devastated, but now … It still hurts, but I'm getting there, you know?'

‘Yeah, I know. When Daniel dumped me, I cried for a fortnight, but then I just didn't feel like crying any more.'

‘Remind me which one was Daniel?'

‘The boy I dated in my first term at uni.'

‘Oh, yeah. The jerk.' Unexpectedly, Alex smiled. ‘It's odd talking to you like this. We've written so many letters to each other, and I know so much about your life, and yet, I keep getting the feeling that you're someone I've just met. Does that sound crazy?'

‘No, it's the same for me.'

Alex was studying my face. ‘Can I photograph you?'

‘What, now?'

‘No, not right now.' Alex leant across the table, and tucked my dark blonde hair behind my ears. Then he put a finger under my chin, and turned my head from side to side, so that he could see my profile. ‘I'd like to photograph you in a studio, with proper lighting. Some of my best pictures have been of beautiful women.'

Did he just say I was beautiful? Absurdly, my face grew hot.

To cover my confusion, I said, ‘I'm not a model.'

‘No, but you have very good bone structure.' He gave me a quizzical look. ‘It's fine if you'd rather I didn't photograph you. Some people get very self-conscious when they're in front of a camera.'

‘It's not that I mind having my picture taken, but I never look great in photos. You might be wasting your time.'

‘A photoshoot with a professional photographer is a little different to having your most embarrassing moments preserved for posterity on a friend's iPhone.'

I laughed. ‘OK, Alex, I'll pose for you. Now, how about coffee?'

We drank our coffee in a companionable silence, listening to the rain pattering against the living-room windows.

Eventually, Alex said, ‘I thought I'd go into central London tomorrow, maybe do a bit of sight-seeing – if the weather improves.'

‘Would you like some company?'

‘I would – if you're free. I don't want you altering your plans because of me.'

‘Oh, I'm not doing anything tomorrow. Not during the day. In the evening Nick and I are going to a fortieth birthday party – to which you're invited, by the way.'

‘I'm invited?'

‘When I told Natalie – the birthday girl – Nova Graphics' Creative Director – that you were arriving in England today, she said to bring you along. Will you come?'

‘Are you sure you want me there.'

‘Why wouldn't I?'

‘Anna, just because I'm staying in your home, please don't feel that you have to entertain me.' His dark eyes glinted with amusement. ‘I'm no longer that puny teenage boy who got lost on the London underground. These days, I'm pretty good at finding my way around a foreign city.'