I Heart Paris (20 page)

Before I could roll back, Alex turned against me, pushing his body closer to mine and wrapping his arm around my waist. I felt a warm kiss on the back of my neck before he yawned loudly.

‘I can’t believe we’re in Paris on my birthday and we’re just gonna go to sleep,’ he said into my hair. He didn’t sound as if he couldn’t believe it. He sounded as if he was making sure I knew that’s all we’d be doing.

I didn’t know what to think. He wasn’t even going to make a move for me to awkwardly rebuff? I didn’t want to have sex with him because I was pissed off and confused, but what the hell? He didn’t want to have sex with me? He should always want to have sex with me! Wasn’t he genetically programmed always to want to have sex? Isn’t that what the Y chromosome was for?

‘It’s probably because I’m so old.’ He yawned again and gave me a squeeze.

A couple of minutes later, I felt his breathing even out, and his grip around my waist slackened. I squinted at the bedside clock until my eyes adjusted to the light. One forty-seven. I knew things always felt worse in the night. I wouldn’t feel half as bad in the morning. My stomach would stop feeling like a family of hamsters had set up home in there and were having their housewarming party. And I wouldn’t want to cry until my eyes fell out. I’d definitely feel better after I’d slept on it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It turned out I didn’t feel great the next morning. Possibly because I didn’t technically sleep on anything. I’d checked the clock every fifteen minutes, occasionally drifting off into tense dreams that ended in me falling off a kerb or a wall and once, most appropriately, the top of the Eiffel Tower, before snapping wide awake. Eventually, I slipped out from under the covers without waking Alex and showered quickly. It was only seven, I wasn’t meeting Louisa until twelve-thirty, but I just wanted to get out and clear my head. Literally and figuratively since I must have drunk more than I’d realized at dinner, my brain was fuzzy and my head was sore. The morning-after mirror was rarely my friend, and today was not an exception. My busted cheek wasn’t purple any more, but it had taken on an attractive yellow tone. The eye pretty much still looked like I’d gone ten rounds with, well, I didn’t know any boxers, but that was the general look. Not sleeping hadn’t exactly helped, my nose was red and my eyes all narrow and piggy-looking. Sexy.

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. Between 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.