The Train to Paris (15 page)

‘I'll never loosen up. Didn't you say that? I'm a hopeless cause.'

‘Perhaps that was a touch cruel. You are improving. Slowly.'

‘But can changing location change personality?'

‘Are you mad? Of course it can. The surrounding culture affects one's state of mind. That is why I nearly lost my mind in Los Angeles.'

‘Nearly?'

Élodie tossed her napkin across the table at me. ‘Don't be so mean, Lawrence,' she said. ‘It does not suit you.'

‘I thought that you wanted me to be mean.'

‘Maybe I do. Who could say what I want?'

The coffees were delivered, and I drank mine fast to ward off the cold while Élodie lit up another cigarette. Across the road tourists were milling around the steps of the Madeleine. It was hard to see the attraction of such a grandiose temple, with its unimaginative Corinthian columns rising high, saying everything but meaning nothing. There was honesty in the cracked and soot-stained masonry of Saint-Sulpice, while the Madeleine was impeccable. It was the one church in Paris that managed to look both excessive and rigid.

‘It is going to snow,' Élodie said. ‘You know, I think it gets earlier each year. It never used to snow until January.'

As the words left her mouth, a fleck blew into my face, and then another. They came in from the west, and I felt them melting on my cheeks, which were turning red, and I could not help but smile. Élodie smiled too, but not in the usual, posing way. I wished she had taken the sunglasses off. Then I might have known if she was happy.

15

We walked down to
the river. The snow was beginning to thicken as we approached the Place de la Concorde, and by the time we had reached the bridge it was falling in a shower. The flakes settled on the mansard roofs and obscured all the cracks and the fallen leaves. We were the only people on the footpath, except for a few who were hurrying for cover.

‘I've never seen snow before,' I said. We had stopped in the middle of the bridge. To the east the skyline of monuments was being engulfed by a white cloud. A riverboat slid into sight from the fog downstream. Élodie's breath was frosty, and I felt its warmth as the mist drifted between us. Snowflakes had dotted over her black coat to create a new pattern.

‘If this were one of my films,' she said, ‘then we would kiss right now.'

She was close to me, and I felt my mouth hang open in anticipation. She laughed at me.

‘You should see your face right now,' she said. ‘You thought I was being serious, didn't you?'

‘No, no I didn't.'

And yet I wanted nothing more than to kiss her. That would have been too perfect, though. It would not have been real.

‘This way,' Élodie said. ‘We will catch our death out here. I need a drink.'

We hurried across the bridge. My shoes were soaked through. Their smooth soles became skates on the icy pavement. I did my best to keep up without slipping over, wondering how Élodie managed in her high heels.

The first bar that we came across was on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was crowded and had the stale smell of wet clothing. Élodie pushed her way to the front of the bar and asked for two coffees with Calvados on the side.

‘Interesting idea,' I said.

‘Yes. My father used to have it on cold days.'

I stared at her, but Élodie realised her mistake.

‘Well, our plans have rather changed,' she went on before I could pry. ‘We should drop in on your house of squalor while we are on this side of the river.'

‘That's not a good idea. It really
is
a house of squalor right now.'

‘I always had you down as the fastidious type, Lawrence. For some reason.'

‘It's not me. It's my flatmate, Ethan.'

‘Ah, the flatmate. How is he?'

‘He doesn't do anything except record his music and think about girls. Everything comes to him so easily. He sleeps all day and drinks all night.'

I said this bitterly, though I hadn't meant to. I wanted to support Ethan and his ambitions, but it was difficult when he had such prospects and I had none of his talent. Not that I envied him. Or perhaps I did. I told myself not to be envious, and to admire him for what he had.

Élodie did not give her rare look of sympathy.

‘I know what you're thinking,' I said. ‘I should learn from him, have more fun.'

‘Not necessarily. You describe him as something of a Neanderthal. You may be many things, but you are not uncouth.'

‘Thanks. That's almost reassuring. But I didn't mean to say that I don't like him. We're good friends. We get on.'

‘And how was I to know that? You have to be careful about how you describe people, Lawrence. It is easy to cast the wrong impression.'

I drank the Calvados before I drank the espresso. It was a shade sweeter than brandy, and it had a clean, medicinal taste. It offset the bitterness of the coffee well.

‘In any case, I want to see the house,' she said. ‘Even if I laugh at it. I could do with a laugh.'

‘You are unbelievable.'

‘Are you prepared to deny it? I can see the place already. Dirty dishes and hair in the sink, onion soup from five weeks ago sitting on the stovetop, and yet you both ask, where is that smell coming from? Your furniture is falling apart, and none of the lights work, but you cannot afford to buy new bulbs, so you sit in the dark.'

This was a surprisingly accurate description, but I pretended that it was not.

‘This is based on your experience of student flats, is it?'

‘Not at all. I know what you are trying to do there, Lawrence. You will have to wait until I have had a glass of wine before you ask a silly question like that again.'

The snow appeared as a sheet against the window. We had time for another drink. Before Élodie could finish her coffee, I called the barman over and asked for two glasses of the house red, and paid for them.

‘Now, is that sufficient leverage for you to tell me the truth?' I asked, once the wine had been poured. ‘In all honesty, why did you wait until yesterday to contact me? And don't tell me that you mislaid my number, or anything like that.'

‘Darling, please don't do that. Is it so hard to believe that I just felt a compulsion to see you one day?'

‘It is when you put it like that.'

‘But I have already told you. It's this party. I want to introduce you around.'

‘So you never thought about how I might have felt, after you ignored me for months?'

‘I haven't ignored you. You are not central to my life. You are a distraction. Not in a bad way, but a distraction nonetheless.'

A distraction? Was this how I saw Sophie? I did not want to be her Sophie. But nor did I believe Élodie. The explanation felt like a cover for something less savoury. The threads of Élodie strung through my memory were all thin and loose, intersecting at odd points and ultimately not making any sense.

‘In that case,' I said, ‘why are you so generous to me? Are you having a midlife crisis?'

Élodie was touching at her neck again, with those pearly white hands, and I could see the veins standing out on her wrist.

‘I keep forgetting that you don't understand these things,' she said. ‘Take it for what it is. Nobody will ever be this generous to you again. Think of it that way. And don't use terms that you have heard in films to describe me.'

I folded my arms on the zinc bar top. ‘Have I offended you?'

‘Nobody can offend me.'

There was no hint of doubt in her voice. But Élodie was becoming progressively unhappy. She took out another cigarette and smoked it, ignoring the sign on the wall that announced a new anti-smoking law. Nobody stopped her. Nobody would dare to stop Élodie from doing as she pleased.

‘Do you need to buy some champagne for the party?' I asked after a while.

‘Yes. Why do you ask?'

‘There is a speciality shop on Saint-Sulpice, around the corner from the apartment. You might like it.'

‘Wait a second. I never thought this would happen. You know of an interesting shop that I have never heard of. An impressive achievement on both fronts, Lawrence. Did you take my advice to heart?'

‘You didn't give me any advice. I felt the need to celebrate my birthday with something, and that was it.'

‘Your twenty-first?' she said, cheering up. ‘I hope that you had someone to celebrate it with.'

‘Only my flatmate. And he had a show that night, so I had to go along to that, and had a thoroughly bad time.'

‘Wonderful. It gets better. Tell me more.'

‘There isn't much more to tell, trust me. I made myself three Kir Royals for lunch and lost myself for the rest of the day.'

‘Now that must be a joke.'

‘It's true. But I don't see why people make such a big deal out of it. There's nothing special about that birthday. It's an arbitrary number.'

‘It is an arbitrary number you will never identify with again. You need to learn to make things like that last, Lawrence. You can relive them forever. And that really is incorrigible behaviour. When was your birthday?'

‘Last month.'

‘Then it is not too late. We can celebrate it this evening.'

‘No, really. It's not necessary.'

‘I will be the judge of that, thank you very much. I insist on it. We must at least have a toast. And, who knows? I might give you a belated present.'

This attracted my attention.

‘Sure,' I said, as casually as I could. ‘Whatever you see fit.'

‘On one condition, though.'

‘Yes, I thought there might be a catch.'

‘Be charming tonight. It will make the whole thing so much more bearable.'

‘Right. No pressure at all, then.'

‘Now really, Lawrence, I won't hear you say such a thing. You can do it. Act naturally.'

She drained her wine glass. The wine matched her lipstick as the two touched. The snow had abated, although the clouds remained low and grey.

‘Come on,' she said, ‘let's go.'

Out on the boulevard snowflakes hung in the trees, but otherwise the snow had not settled. I shivered. No amount of clothing could block out this chill. Élodie continued to talk as we walked, explaining that she disliked this end of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, and that the area around the intersection with Rue Bonaparte was a far better place to shop.

‘Anything within the triangle formed by Raspail and the Rue de Rennes is fine,' she said. ‘Have you been to the Bon-Marché? Well, no, it is not your sort of place. It is flypaper for rich women.'

‘Including you?'

‘If I have nothing better to do. But where do you go? There must be some filthy student shops over in the Fifth that you frequent.'

‘I shop for bargains. I have to.'

‘Then you will enjoy the sale day in January. Although you will have to fight tooth and nail with the other bargain hunters.'

I half listened. Her advice served no purpose, when I had no desire to waste money on those luxury goods that returned nothing apart from fleeting satisfaction. But that was not true of Élodie. She could make the satisfaction last a lifetime. Could I ever experience the same thrill from shopping, rather than the confusion and guilt?

We passed the Romanesque covered market, and Élodie insisted on purchasing foie gras and Italian hams. I had never been to this market, even though it was around the corner from my apartment, because it was too expensive. The same could be said for the bakery on the Rue de Seine, where Élodie bought a paper bag of four baguettes. She gave these to me, naturally enough.

‘You really have the finest situation here, Lawrence,' she said in a rare show of genuine excitement as we left the bakery. We pushed past an American couple who were blocking the doorway, fascinated by the window display of stylised
bûches de Noël
, with their spider webs of cream and chocolate at either end. ‘I am envious. One of the best markets in Paris, one of the best bakeries, and neither of them more than a few steps away. Oh, and look.'

She stopped at the chocolatier's frontage. Three lighted pillars in the window supported boxes of macarons, in varying colours and styles.

‘We absolutely must,' Élodie said.

The chocolatier insisted on showing us the full range of macarons, and he chatted with Élodie about how they were made and that he used green tea powder imported all the way from Japan. We stopped by the champagne boutique on Saint-Sulpice, where the shopkeeper suggested one of the most expensive cuvées. I was expecting Élodie to rebuke him for this lapse in etiquette, but she bought several bottles of it. I could not keep up with the weight of these new purchases, and by the time we had carried them to the fourth-floor apartment, my arms were begging for release. Élodie was enjoying it.

‘Your building has a rustic feel,' she said as we reached the top of the staircase. ‘Have you noticed that the landings slope?'

She slipped off her sunglasses. She had deep lines under her eyes, the sort that no amount of make-up could ever hide. They had not been there in Biarritz.

‘Why do you wear those in the middle of winter?' I asked.

‘Because nobody else does, of course.'

The door took a long time to open, with its rickety upper and lower latches, and when it did I would have been happy to close it again. Ethan was absent, but his presence lingered in the form of breakfast dishes, his unmade bed and a distinct aroma that hung in the air. Élodie did not disappoint.

‘Hell, it really is worse than I thought it would be,' she said happily. It was colder inside the apartment than out, and remnants of snow clung to the windowpanes. I turned the old gas heater on, while Élodie took a cautious step inside.

‘Can I get you anything?' I asked.

‘No, I don't think so. I might well catch something. Get that tie I bought you in the summer and we can leave.'