French Kissing (28 page)

By now, people were streaming into this part of the gallery, many of them gravitating toward the group that had collected in front of a photo hanging on the far wall. Seeing that Alex was currently surrounded by about a dozen men and women, all talking animatedly and with many wild gesticulations, I too made my way to the far end of the room. Hovering on the edge of the crowd, I heard snatches of conversation, words like ‘
formidable
',
‘extraordinaire
', ‘
merveilleux
',
‘incroyable,
' and ‘
exquis
' and, in an American accent, ‘awesome' Edging my way forward, I finally managed get through the crowd, and stand in front of the artwork that Alex had entitled
Anna Awakening.

I'd thought the photograph beautiful when Alex had first showed it to me on his laptop, but now, seeing the picture blown up and hanging on the wall of an art gallery, I felt its impact anew. The play of light and shadow over the girl's body – over my body – the expression on the girl's face as she first caught sight of the rose, the emotions and the narrative that the image conveyed, all of this combined to make an extraordinary visual image. I heard a male voice say, ‘The photograph obviously depicts a sexual awakening' and a female voice say, ‘No, it is more than that, it is a picture of a young girl awakening to all the possibilities of life and love.' When Alex came to London, I thought, he woke me up. I was sleep-walking, and I didn't even realise it.

I became aware that someone was standing very close behind me, and I caught an oh-so-familiar masculine scent.

I said, ‘Hey, Alex.'

He moved forward so that he was standing next to me. He took my hand, and it was as though an electric shock passed between us. I felt his breath on my neck as he put his mouth close to my ear.

In a low voice he said, ‘Here we have
Anna Awakening,
by the French photographer Alexandre Tourville. A nude female figure lies on a bed. The artist has captured the moment she awakes after a night of love. The picture is one of a number of photographs that Tourville took of his friend Anna Mitchel while he was living and working in London.'

I said. ‘Is the girl in this photo actually
me
?'

‘What do you think?'

‘You created the image.'

‘But I don't want to tell you how to respond to it. All I'll say is that the original title of the picture was
Woman Awakening
, but the photographer changed his mind.' His mouth lifted in a smile. ‘If you've looked at this photo long enough, there's someone I'd like you to meet.'

‘Sure,' I said. ‘I can come back and admire myself later.'

Alex led me around the partition on which
Anna Awakening
was hung, and into the next white-walled room. Here, there were fewer people examining the photographs. Several heads turned as we walked past.

‘People are staring at you,' I said to Alex. ‘The
renowned
French photographer Alexandre Tourville.'

‘No,' Alex said. ‘They are looking at you – the photographer's beautiful model.'

I laughed.

‘Seriously, Anna. Almost all the people who've been talking to me about my work this evening, including the gallery staff, have been more interested in the photo of you than any of the others. Obviously, they recognise you.'

‘Actually, now you come to mention it, your agent introduced himself and said that he recognised me from the photo. And I've noticed other people looking at me ever since I came into the gallery.'

‘Do you mind?'

‘Not right now. I can see that it might become tiresome if it happened all the time. Not that
that's
very likely – I'm not about to take up modelling as a full-time career.'

We continued walking until we came to the final section of the gallery, where a woman with short iron-grey hair was studying a spectacular landscape of snow and ice, large enough to cover half the wall. Hearing our approach, she turned around, and I saw that she was in her mid-forties, with piercing blue eyes.

Alex said, ‘Caroline, may I introduce you to Anna Mitchel, my childhood penfriend, and now my model. Anna, this is Caroline Gauthier, who in the year I was her assistant, taught me everything I know about photography.'

‘Not everything,' Caroline said firmly. ‘The shot of Mademoiselle Mitchel hanging in the next room shows me that your photographic skills have progressed considerably since you worked in my studio. Your photographs have an emotional and intellectual depth that I find lacking in the other images I've seen this evening. I'll be extremely surprised if the Lécuyer Award isn't yours.'

‘
Merci
,' Alex said, quietly. ‘Your good opinion means a lot to me.'

Caroline gave me an appraising look. ‘I can certainly see why Alexandre chose to photograph you, and why he chose to show
Anna Awakening
in the exhibition.'

‘It's a great photo,' I said. ‘But only because Alex is such a talented photographer. I usually look awful in photographs.'

‘Do you really? You surprise me.' Caroline glanced at her watch. ‘I'd love to stay for the presentation, but I have a plane to catch.'

‘I know you have a crowded schedule,' Alex said. ‘I really appreciate your taking the time to come here tonight.'

‘My pleasure, I assure you, to see the work of one of my former assistants on the walls of the Galerie Lécuyer. I always told you that you'd go far. It's good to be proved right.'

They exchanged air-kisses, and Caroline swept off.

‘So,' Alex said, ‘what do you think of my mentor?'

‘She's very direct,' I said. ‘but I liked her – and what she said about your work.'

‘She's had an extraordinary career.'

‘So have you.'

‘Not like Caroline. Not yet.'

From behind us, Hélène's voice said, ‘There you are, Alex. We've been looking all over for you.'

Alex and I swung around to see his sister, with a man of around her age and an older couple.

Alex's face broke into a delighted smile. ‘Anna, these are my parents, Caitlin and Guillaume, and my brother-in-law Raymond. Hélène, you know already.'

We exchanged the usual greetings – in a mixture of French and English – and Caitlin Tourville gave her son a hug.

‘It's so good to see you,' she said. ‘And looking so well. London obviously agrees with you.' She turned to me and smiled. ‘After all the years that you and Alex have been exchanging letters, and it's only now that you have come to Paris. It's wonderful to meet you at last.'

‘I'm so pleased to meet all of you,' I said. It was, I thought, very easy to see where Alex got his good looks. His mother was a beautiful woman, dark-haired, tall and slim, and although I knew she was in her late fifties, she could have been a decade younger. His father was an older version of Alex himself, with glasses, and hair that was still thick, if shot through with grey. They were an exceptionally attractive family.

Alex said. ‘Have you seen my photos?'

‘We have,' Caitlin said. ‘And we're all very impressed. The picture of Anna is one of the best you've ever taken. Everyone at the exhibition is talking about it. I feel quite sorry for the other photographers.'

‘I was inspired when I took that shot,' Alex said, smiling at me.

‘As anyone looking at the photograph can see,' Guillaume said.

At that point a gallery employee approached, and informed Alex that the presentation of the Lécuyer Award would shortly be taking place in the atrium.

‘Now it gets serious,' Guillaume said.

‘No pressure, Alex,' Hélène said.

Along with everyone else at the exhibition, we made our way through the white-walled gallery and down to the lower floor. Alex went and stood with the five other nominated photographers, two men and three women, at the foot of the stairs, while I stood with his family at the front of the assembled crowd. Whatever he was feeling inside at that moment, he appeared calm and relaxed, chatting easily with his rivals. He's brilliant and talented, I thought. He
has
to win this award. I let my gaze travel round the atrium, spotting Marcel Guilleroy, the American woman who'd wanted Alex to take her birthday photograph, and the elderly man with the notebook. A number of people cast interested glances in my direction, and more than once I heard someone nearby mention the name ‘Anna'. We'd only been waiting a few minutes, although it felt like much longer, when two men and one woman emerged from a side-room and joined the photographers.

‘The guy with the beard is Edouard Geroux, the gallery director,' Hélène said to me. ‘The others are Monsieur and Madame Lécuyer, the gallery owners.

‘Do you know them?' I said, surprised. As far as I was aware, Alex was the only one in his artistic family to have made any inroads into the inner circles of the Parisian art world.

‘Oh, no,' Hélène said, ‘I googled them before we came out.'

The hum of conversation in the room gradually faded into silence. Edouard Geroux, holding a microphone, stepped forward, and made a short speech, thanking everyone for their support of the gallery, and of the artists whose work was displayed within its walls. My heart started hammering in my chest.

‘But you haven't come here to listen to me talk all evening,' Edouard said. ‘What you want to hear is the name of the photographer who has been awarded the Lécuyer Award.'

Everyone in the gallery held their collective breath.

‘It is my very great pleasure,' Edouard said, ‘to tell you that the recipient of this year's award is … Alexandre Tourville.'

The atrium erupted into loud applause. Alex looked completely stunned. The gallery owners shook his hand, as did Edouard and the other photographers, but he stared at them as if he either hadn't heard what the director had said or didn't understand. Then his eyes met mine, and suddenly his face broke into a dazzling smile. He beckoned me forward. I shook my head, but he nodded and mouthed ‘yes'. Aware that people were looking at me, and that his family were smiling at me encouragingly, I went to him. He took my hand in his, raising it to his lips and kissing it, before sliding his arm lightly around my waist. A flashbulb exploded as someone took a photo of both of us. I smiled up at Alex, my extraordinarily talented friend, and clapped my hands so hard that they stung.

Thirty-one

‘You have a lovely home,' I said to Hélène, looking around her state-of-the-art kitchen, and smiling at the children's paintings taped to the fridge. ‘Have you lived here long?'

‘Nearly nine years,' Hélène said. ‘We moved here when I was pregnant with Véronique. Before that we lived in a place that was even smaller than Alexandre's.'

‘His studio apartment is tiny,' I said, smiling across the table at Alex, ‘but I love it. It's wonderful to wake up in the morning, open the shutters, and look out over the rooftops – and I adore Montmartre. Alex once wrote to me that living there is like living in a village, even though it's in the heart of a city, and I know exactly what he means.'

Caitlin, sitting next to me, said, ‘Your first visit to Paris has been a great success, I think?'

‘It's been everything I hoped it would be and more. Alex winning the award has made it absolutely perfect.'

After the presentation of the Lécuyer Award, once the applause had finally died down, Alex had been besieged by any number of people wanting to congratulate him. I stood next to him while he accepted their compliments, thinking how handsome he looked, and feeling ridiculously proud and pleased for him.Eventually, with the woman in the paint-spattered dress wishing them
au revoir
and a safe journey home, people started to drift out of the gallery's open doors. Alex, after one final conversation with Edouard Geroux and Marcel Guilleroy, joined his thrilled and delighted family. They hugged him, each other and me, before we all headed out into the night. There was some discussion about whether we should go to a bar, but Hélène and Raymond had to get home to relieve their child-sitter, and so Alex and I, and Alex's parents, went with them.

Back at their stylish apartment in a leafy residential avenue in Montparnasse, Véronique and Élodie were still wide awake, and very excited to learn that Uncle Alexandre had won an award, Hélène explaining that it was the same as winning a prize for coming top of the class at school. They were also very interested to meet ‘Anna, who is from England, just like your
grand-mére.
' Véronique had asked me shyly if I'd seen the photograph of her sitting in a tree and smiled happily when I told her that I had indeed. Élodie, talking non-stop, had dragged me by the hand to see her room, where I duly admired the dolls' house made for her by her
papa.
Once the children had been sent off to bed, the adults sat around the kitchen table, the talk flowing as freely as the wine with which Raymond kept topping up our glasses.

‘The first time I visited Paris,' Caitlin said, ‘was just after I'd graduated from art college. I was sitting at a table outside a pavement café, sketching the other customers and passers-by, when this very good-looking Frenchman, also carrying a sketchbook, sat down beside me and asked if he could draw me. That was how I met Guillaume.'

‘That's so romantic,' I said. ‘How come you've never told me that story, Alex?'

‘Have I not?' Alex said. ‘I guess I've heard one or other of my parents tell it so often, I never thought to put it in a letter.' He and his sister exchanged amused smiles.

‘We still have that drawing, framed and hanging in our dining room,' Guillaume said. ‘Of course, when I sat down next to Caitlin that day, the only thought in my head was to chat up this very pretty English girl, and hopefully persuade her to meet me later for a drink. I'd no idea that she was going to turn out to be the love of my life.' He reached across the table and took his wife's hand. ‘It took me a whole week to figure that out.'