The Apartment (12 page)

Mark was smiling when I returned to the table. “She's booking us a place in Pigalle. I caught her just in time. She was about to leave for the countryside—she's headlining a poetry festival there.” As usual, talking to Carla had pepped him up like nothing else seemed to do.

“Did you tell her what happened?”

“Yes. She sends her love.”

“Great.” I smiled tightly.

“We should get our stuff from the apartment. Do you want to stay here while I go?”

I loved him for that. He was as exhausted as I was. “No.” I reached inside myself, searching for the calm, controlled Stephanie who had appeared last night. I couldn't let him do it alone. “Let's get it over with.”

I tried not to look too closely at the spot where she'd died, but my gaze went there of its own accord. Thankfully, the rain in the night had washed away the blood.

I didn't look up at the window, and neither did Mark.

I kept as close to him as I could get as we thumped up the stairs. The air was too still, as if the building was holding its breath. “Talk to me, Mark.”

“What about?”

“Anything. It's too quiet.”

“Okay. Do you think the police have managed to contact the Petits yet?”

“I doubt it. They seemed efficient but I don't think they have superpowers.”

Mark chuckled, and the tense atmosphere eased.

“You ready?” Mark asked when we reached the third-floor landing.

I nodded but hung back while Mark fiddled with the keys. The sharp odor of spoiled tomato sauce greeted us as we walked in. I was reluctant to breathe in too deeply, as if the air was poisonous.
Je suis désolée,
Mireille's voice ghosted into my head. What was she sorry for? That she'd killed herself in front of us? Or was there something else?

Stop it,
I told myself,
don't go there.

Someone—presumably one of the cops—had stood in the spilled pasta and sauce, and I could make out the tread of his boot in forensic clarity. The window was still wide-open. The rain in the night had slanted in, spattering the wooden floors. I caught Mark glancing at it, but I couldn't read his expression. I knew we'd have to talk about the window at some stage.
It wasn't your fault,
I wanted to say, but I didn't.

“Can you pack?” he asked. “I need to check to see if Carla has forwarded the booking.”

I ran into the bathroom to gather up my makeup and shampoo, then threw our clothes in the suitcases, mixing dirty and clean, not bothering to fold Mark's shirts. I couldn't smother the sensation that if we didn't leave the apartment
right that second,
then we'd never get out of there. I slammed the lids closed and dragged the cases into the living room.

“Got it!” Mark grinned. “She's forwarded the reservation.”

“Is it far?”

“No. I've downloaded the directions. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on.” He took his wheelie bag from me and made for the door.

We were halfway down the stairs when I realized I'd left Carla's coat behind. “Fuck.”

“What?”

“Carla's coat. I left it on the couch.”

“You take my suitcase; I'll get it for you.”

“No. I'll go.”

I needed to go. Before we left for good I needed to assure myself that there was nothing to fear in the apartment. A crazy woman had selfishly decided to kill herself in front of us. That was all. I was strong. I didn't need Mark to baby me.

But still, I held my breath as I unlocked the door and grabbed the coat, not daring to look at the window. Because I knew in my heart that if I looked over at it I'd see her standing there, opening and closing her blood-filled mouth, cracking her broken teeth together, and telling me she was sorry in a tone that sounded like a threat. Terror snaked up through my legs and into my gut and I ran, slamming the door behind me. The fear ebbed only when I caught sight of the sunlight filtering into the hallway below.

“Everything okay?” Mark asked when I joined him in the courtyard.

I couldn't find my voice. I nodded and took my time buttoning up the coat. Stupid. I was just letting my imagination play tricks on me—I'd barely slept; my mind was ragged from shock and exhaustion. That was all it was. I palmed a couple of Urbanols and popped them into my mouth. The woolliness kicked in just as we arrived outside the hotel—a tiny boutiquey place with a grubby burgundy awning over its door. The reception area was clad in fake marble; the desk's veneer was bubbled and cracked.

“Looks okay,” Mark said.

I managed a smile.

The concierge, a middle-aged Arabic man, greeted us warmly and Mark explained that we had a booking.

“
D'accord.
You cannot to check in until two, but you can leave your luggage here.”

We shared a glance. Three and a half hours to kill. We could do that. We'd been through far worse. “That's fine.” Mark gave his name and the concierge turned to the computer. “
Non.
I am sorry. There is nothing in that name.”

Mark explained that a friend of ours had booked the room for us and asked him to see if it was under Carla's name.

“
Non.
I am sorry.”

“This is the Hôtel Trois Oiseaux, right?”

“Oui.”

I could tell that Mark was fighting to keep his composure. The pills I'd taken were gently dampening my own anxiety.

“Hang on.” Mark took out his phone and scrolled through to Carla's email containing the forwarded confirmation. He handed it to the concierge. “Look.”

The man sighed and shot me a sympathetic glance. “Ah. Now I see what has happened. You see, your friend, she has made the booking for March. It is February now. A mistake, I think.”

“Can you change it?”

The man shrugged apologetically. “
Mais, non.
It was booked through a discount site. Your friend, she must change it.”

“Is there nothing you can do from your side?”

“I am very sorry,
monsieur, mais, non.
What can happen is that you can pay now and book a room if you have a credit card. We have a vacancy.”

Mark slapped the counter in frustration, but the concierge didn't lose his sympathetic demeanor. “Not possible. Can I use your wi-fi?”

“Of course.”

I sat on a chair next to a dusty plastic hibiscus, the Starbucks coffee churning in my gut, while Mark tried to get hold of Carla.

“No answer. She must have left for the festival already.”

“Keep trying.”

“I've left three voice mails, Steph.
Fuck.
” He scrabbled a hand through his hair. He badly needed a shave.

“So, what now?” I asked. But I knew what the answer was.

We're huddled together in the Tuileries, on a wet bench so cold that the patina of dew is turning to frost on the metal as we watch. It's late, as dark as central Paris can ever be; there are lights everywhere—shining from the ornate lampposts and the headlights of the luxury black sedans growling along rue de Rivoli; there is a rich, warm glow coming from the stately buildings lining the gravel park; the fountains are lit up, the glass pyramids too; and then there is the constant bursts of tourists' camera flashes and phone glows.

It would be beautiful, it would be romantic, but I'm freezing and tired and my feet are aching, the splinter wound in my sole throbbing more than ever, and Steph is crying into my collar, not because she's taking comfort from me, but because she's so bloody cold and tired too. The icy drizzle has become heavier and is starting to turn into sleet blown about by a rising wind off the river.

“We have to go back,” I tell her. “We can't stay here anymore.”

“I know,” she mutters into my jacket with numb lips.

I push myself up, my muscles and bones protesting. When I promised the man at the Hôtel Trois Oiseaux that we'd sort out the booking and come back, he let us store our luggage in their lobby and we set out. As we walked, I figured we're in Paris, there's enough to see and do all night—perhaps we'd make it until tomorrow, have a final, redemptive evening in the City of Love. I didn't share this thought with Steph because she was still stressing about Mireille's death and I knew she'd think it insensitive if I hoped that we could still enjoy ourselves. It wasn't that I didn't care about Mireille, but to my shame I was angry with her too. Things had just started to be good between Steph and me—the trip was working the way it was meant to: it was bringing us closer for the first time since the attack; it was making us smile. And then…that.

Petulantly, I resisted wasting any more time thinking about Mireille, but I couldn't convince Steph to forget about her. I hoped that our final walk through the city might gradually make her feel better. Perhaps we'd walk all night and be transformed by the experience like those young lovers in
Before Sunrise.

That was thirteen hours ago, and now I'm broken. We've tramped around in the freezing rain, with no sense of where we were going. We first stumbled back to the Pompidou Centre, where we sheltered in their vast, warm lobby and even managed to hook up to their free wi-fi. I tried Carla again to satisfy Steph, but as expected there was still no answer—when she's out of town, she never even switches her phone on. We wandered through the obscenely wealthy Place Vendôme, all the luxury brands arrayed in shops scaled to massive height to make normal people who are not driving double-size Rollses and Bentleys feel utterly insignificant. Steph and I felt like hobos under the gaze of the Armani-suited doormen. From there we wandered over the river and along the boulevard Saint-Germain and then down to the Luxembourg Garden; it would have all been dreamlike on another day, but we were just shambling along, getting more and more exhausted and hungry. I began to feel genuine sympathy for refugees on a death march. I even made the mistake of saying so to Steph, thinking she'd understand what I meant and how I meant it, that I wasn't being flippant, but she immediately stepped away from me and grunted, “Jesus, Mark. Nice and sensitive as always.” It took several more long blocks and a dip in the temperature to get her back to my side. When my bladder started to ache—inexplicably, since we'd had nothing but a mouthful of water from a public fountain to drink since the morning—I followed the signs to the Louvre, knowing we'd find a bathroom in the lobby. And here we are now in this monumental park, and we've been sitting on this bench, freezing solid, for the last half hour.

We'd walk all night and be transformed by the experience. Yeah, right. The lovers in
Before Sunrise
were
both
young and their all-nighter was in summer. In the end, Steph and I couldn't outrun the Petits' apartment.

“
Before Sunrise
was in Vienna,” Steph states.

I stare at her. I didn't even realize I was talking aloud. And why would she say something contrarian like that? “Uh, I'm quite sure it was Paris. It even starts with a reading at Shakespeare and Company. I've watched those films several times, so…” But as I'm talking, I realize she's right.

“Paris is the second one, when they're tireder and sadder and older.”

“Shit, you're right. Sorry.” I was so sure I was right, until I realized I was wrong: my life in a fucking nutshell.

Steph uses my arm to pull herself up and I brace myself and feel useful. “That's what went wrong, then. We should have gone to Vienna.” I hold my coat open and she snuggles into it and we stagger a few paces that way until we realize it's not really working. My coat's not big enough for both of us and our bumping thighs make it awkward to walk. We disengage, but I'm glad when she hooks her arm around mine and pulls me close to her. Probably just for warmth, I remind myself, but perhaps not.

Though it's late, the concourse is still busy with tourists and pedestrians, and I eye the steam rising off the carts selling pancakes and hot chocolate.

“I'm starving,” I say. “Let's get some of those.”

“How much money have we got?”

I know we don't have enough to eat properly until tomorrow and still buy our train tickets to the airport. “We're still doing fine,” I lie, stubbornly ignoring the facts and leaving tomorrow's problems for tomorrow. If I can enjoy a Nutella pancake and a cup of hot chocolate with my warm wife in Paris right now, it will go a long way toward erasing the awfulness of this week.

So when the snack is twice as expensive as the same thing up in the ninth arrondissement, I have to swallow down a burst of panic and guilt and hand over the money because we're already committed and the man's already spread batter on his griddle and I don't have the French to say,
Oh, actually, cancel that,
or
Make it just one instead.
There are people behind us in the queue.

The crêpe and hot chocolate are delicious and all regret vanishes—right now I'd sell my house for this, and for the look on Steph's face. She's smiling for the first time today. I take the risk of touching her cheek and wiping off a smear of Nutella. I'm wondering what to do with my chocolatey fingertip, thinking I should lick it off, but Steph surprises me by nudging forward and taking my finger in her mouth, and next thing we're holding each other tight and kissing. I concentrate on enjoying the moment, but I also can't help looking at us from a distance—we're lovers in Paris, indistinguishable from every other flawed and fractious couple here who are all suffering their trials and have managed to put them aside for one moment because they love each other. This is what I wanted this week to bring us. It makes me feel like the weight of my life is lifted, like I'm saved.

“I'm so sorry,” Steph's saying into my cheek. “I've been all over the place today. It's just…it's been…”

“I know. And there's nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry too.” She curls her mouth in that pragmatic way, and I know I'd better not say too much more, not cram her ears with my romantic nonsense. I do want to mark the moment somehow, though. “We're halfway there, Steph. We'll be okay.”

“Mm,” she says. She pauses. “I'm cold.”

“Let's go back. It'll be fine. I'm not sure that apartment has anything else to throw at us.”

We find the nearest Métro station—my body won't take walking to the apartment, despite the few euros we'd save—and within fifteen minutes, we're climbing up the steps at Pigalle. After a few false turns, we find the Trois Oiseaux hotel, hoping to get our luggage back, but the front door is locked and the lobby is dim, lit only by a single desk lamp. There's nobody behind the counter.

When I ring the bell outside, I can't hear any responding sound inside. I knock and peer in.

“It's obviously closed,” Steph says.

“There's no sign or anything. They should list their times somewhere.”

Steph just tuts and turns and starts walking. I hustle up after her, my joints crying out at the effort. “Let's just get inside,” she says. Then she mumbles something like, “You can't always bend the world to your will,” but I'm not sure.

“What's that?”

She doesn't repeat herself but just stalks away, me limping to keep up, until she's led us to the street door of the building. My heart sinks the moment we step over the threshold into that dank courtyard, my phone's soupy glow so different from the bright cheer down at the Tuileries. I deliberately avoid shining it over the cobbles, and we trudge up those worn stairs we thought we'd never have to see again. There's a difference about the building; we can feel Mireille's absence in the silence—we can almost imagine the lack of cigarette smoke and brandy and paint fumes, but that can only be fancy.

Steph turns on the lights the instant I push the front door open, and we're hit by the smell of last night's cooking. There's a tinge of rot to it, but it's not too bad. At least it smells of something, of life recently lived, rather than the musty void that shrouds the rest of the building.

Without a word Steph shucks off her boots and goes to the bathroom, leaving me to wrestle my way out of my wet jeans and sweater with numb fingers and get into bed. It does feel good—I haven't been in bed for nearly two days and my body melts in relief.

My eyes are sliding closed when Steph hurries in, rubbing herself vigorously with a towel. “There's no fucking hot water,” she says.

Another version of me, on a good day, might offer to warm her up some other way, but I can't bring myself to suggest that right now and know she won't appreciate it, so I try to make myself useful by getting out of bed and looking at the electrical board at the front door. I don't know what I'm looking for, but Steph comes up behind me, wrapped in a blanket. “All the switches are up,” she said. “I checked. Let's just try to sleep. I'm so tired.” So we get into bed and press against each other and again I have the sense that we're just borrowing each other's animal warmth, just clinging on to get through the night.

Soon Steph's snoring in jagged bursts, her breathing shallow and choppy, and I try to go to sleep too, knowing that if we can just fast-forward to the morning we'll be out of here forever. But despite my exhaustion, or maybe because of it, I can't settle, repetitive thoughts tracking graven spirals in my mind. I flash through the jumble of images from the police station, the interminable hours of institutional walls and soft voices and strong coffee, of the vast loop of streets we've walked and the cold and tiredness and hunger. You'd think that would be enough for my bones and muscles to take solace in the relative comfort of this warm and lumpy bed and relax, but instead they tense as I recall Mireille casting herself off from the windowsill. That image is flushed by a memory of the girl in the museum, her firm, tall body and her fragrant hair.
It was Zoë, you fool,
someone is saying, and it's a leering wax-faced actor, smiling endlessly. I must be asleep because now I'm in the building's low storage cellar, picking through a pile of discarded clothes, now scrabbling through them desperately, throwing them out behind me, onto a bloodstained mattress, each item making someone behind me cry out in pain. Now I turn and try to remove the sheet from over the crying, bleeding girl, desperately ripping at the shroud that won't come away, no matter how hard I tug, clawing at the sheet because it's Zoë, the Zoë I know, seven-year-old Zoë, and she's buried under that pile of dusty cloth, buried at the bottom, her crying muffled and desperate, struggling to breathe.
Hack, hack, gasp.

I startle awake and Steph rolls over onto her side and keeps sleeping. I breathe deeply to try to calm my heart, to take in the air that Zoë needs, skin clammy and cold, flushed with adrenaline. As the images recede, one part of the dream remains: the sound of sobbing, a hitching moan interspersed with jags of high-pitched keening. It's exactly how Zoë would cry when she was at her most exhausted, her most miserable. It's not just the cat this time, I know it for sure; there are even words mixed into the sobbing, an unintelligible mumbling—this is no sound a cat could make.

I look over to Steph's back, just to make sure, even though the crying sound is coming from farther away than this bed. The rhythm of her breath inflates and deflates the curve of her side in a slow, regular rhythm. It's not her.

Mireille is dead. There is nobody else here.

I close my eyes and try to sleep. I'm so bloody tired. I shove a pillow over my head, but the crying seems to follow me under the shield. I hear a word emerge out of the disconsolate mumbling:
Daddy.

When Zoë was small, Odette would normally go to her in the night, but sometimes she'd be fast asleep and I'd rouse myself and sometimes I'd manage to comfort her. I'd feel like a hero. Sometimes, when Zoë woke and needed someone to chase away her monsters, she'd call out to me, not Odette. She'd call out to me:
Daddy.

It's not Zoë, you idiot. Zoë's dead. You killed her.

Daddy.

I need some air. I stumble out of the bedroom, across to the window, and try to raise it, but it's jammed shut again. I'm this close to smashing the pane when I think better of it and slip on my shoes and coat instead, grab the keys, and go downstairs. Without bothering to use my phone for light, I speed down the pitch-dark stairs, trying to flee my panic, but it's inside me. Before I know it, I'm in the courtyard standing exactly where Mireille landed, craning up to the patch of sulfuric orange where the sky should be and sucking in lungfuls of air, as if they will clean me out.