Page 54

TWENTY-TWO

Suzie

I reckon you just find some fit businessman in the lounge looking for a one-night stand and get busy, Suze. I won’t mind. Use the room! Go incognito! Bring back Aurelie!

I look down at the text on my phone, laughing to myself.

Typical Lucy. Come to Paris with me, Suzie.

We’ll have a laugh, get drunk and run up and down the Eiffel Tower.

But wait in the hotel first because I’m stuck at work.

I look at the text again. Bring back Aurelie?

Maybe not, because there seems to be some company Christmas do happening here in this hotel so I am surrounded by the sort of businessmen who have tufts of hair coming out of their cuffs and earholes.

That said, I think this is a very Aurelie place.

It’s a classy Parisian joint with its brass fittings, high ceilings and marble floors.

I can picture Aurelie here, she’s got a vintage Chanel bag, of course, but she wears heels with well-fitting jeans and a casual blazer without looking like a PTA mum.

She has a bold lip, sips on Pastis and when a man approaches her, she’s bold, cool, sexy and charming.

Tell me about you. I am not impressed. Buy me another drink.

You know she’s wearing a matching set of underwear too.

I laugh. Oh, Aurelie. You were super fun.

Thank you for being there when I needed you most, when I needed escape and excitement and adventure. I hope we’ll always be friends.

‘Plus de vin?’ a waiter asks me.

‘Oui. Merci.’

Oh, Paris. Everything about this hotel is entirely magical and charming.

It’s also decorated to the nines for Christmas with its big red velveteen bows, fairy lights and Christmas trees in every corner.

There’s a mountain of festive patisserie behind a glass counter in reception and unlike London, it’s not the same old Christmas soundtrack of raucous seventies pop hits but some traditional carol-like folk songs that waltz through this bar and just sound classy because they’re in French.

I knew it would be like this so when Lucy asked me to come with her whilst she attended some auditions, I jumped at the chance for a weekend away, to wrap myself up in another place, far away from London.

I mean, I’ll always love London. London has in many ways been good to me and will always be home, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been lost in these last six weeks.

Since Charlie left, I’ve been twiddling my thumbs, wondering what the hell happened there.

There were so many questions. Paul emailed Charlie.

What did he say that made him put his defences up like that? It’s made me hate Paul even more.

We’ve not been in contact. I’ve seen Charlie reading my messages in the departmental WhatsApp group but I don’t even get a thumbs up.

I’ve gone to message him so many times and not been able to find the right words.

What if it’s just not meant to be. Maybe that really was the end of it all.

If it was, then what a complete and utter tragedy.

Because back in October, I spent a day on my knees laminating and making him a full-size flamenco dancer out of cardboard, tissue paper and tulle.

Though the more I think of it, seriously, who does that?

Who crisis-manages romantic dilemmas with crafting?

No one. Divorced or not, I likely killed that on my own.

As the weeks went on with no Charlie, no romantic entanglements, I bounced between lots of different emotions.

Sometimes I missed him, I closed my eyes to imagine him, the way he’d make me feel, laugh.

But then I’d push it all away, just in case I never got to experience any of that ever again.

I now sit in the bar of this splendid hotel nursing my second glass of excellent red, wondering how to pass the time.

Lucy said she’d be a few more hours and then we have plans to go to a bar, something with a terrace and men who wear stylish trousers with pleats who talk with their hands.

Maybe I should go for a swim in the hotel’s subterranean spa pool, hang in the jacuzzi, stewing like a teabag.

I look over at all the company men who have overindulged on cheese and alcohol, their ties loosened at the collar, the overhang of their waistbands on parade.

Yep, definitely not an option. I’ve never been less aroused in my life.

‘Connards,’ a woman on the table next to me mumbles.

I sneakily turn to look at her. She’s older, her face a little withered but she has wonderfully bright grey eyes and wears the most adorable burgundy velour tracksuit and gold trainers, her white hair slicked back into a bun.

It’s old-lady goals if ever I saw it. I smile to myself because she’s uttered one of my favourite French insults, it’s multipurpose to describe all sorts of morons, jerks and dickheads.

She sees me smiling and looks me up and down. ‘Vous êtes francaise?’ she asks me.

‘Non, je suis anglaise mais je parle francais,’ I explain to her telling her that I can understand her.

She looks me up and down. I’m not Aurelie.

I’m not classy and sophisticated. I’m dressed for winter with a fluffy jumper dress and boots, my hair dishevelled from a short nap on the Eurostar.

She carries her glass over to my table, sitting next to me on my banquette, looking out on to the restaurant.

‘Well, then I think I would like to come and sit with you. Then at least I would have someone to speak with about all the arseholes in this place.’

I laugh. I don’t think I have a choice in the matter. ‘Suzie, enchantée.’

‘Henriette, enchantée,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘Tell me Suzie, how come you speak French?’

‘Je suis prof,’ I tell her.

‘A teacher? Then you are crazy, we will get on well,’ she tells me. I laugh. I like this lady’s vibe, the fact she’s drinking what looks like whisky or brandy and her belongings are all in a LV bum bag around her waist. ‘And tell me, what brings you to Paris?’ she says.

‘I’m having a pre-Christmas treat of culture and raclette,’ I say.

‘Moi, aussi. I am visiting a sister who lives near here.’

‘Super, non?’ I tell her.

‘Peut-être. My sister is hard work. It will either be a great week or I will push her in the Seine.’ I laugh heartily. ‘You will be able to read about it on the news. Et vous? You travel with a husband? Boyfriend?’

‘Ma cousine,’ I tell her.

She takes a long sip of her drink and makes a noise to signal her content at the effects of the brandy. ‘But there is someone in your life? You are très jolie.’

I smile. ‘Merci beaucoup. I was married but he was a…’

‘Connard?’ she says, finishing my sentence.

‘The biggest of arseholes.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Zut alors. Men, they are either a heaven or a hell. He sounds like hell. I hope he spends the rest of his life in pain. J’espere qu’il se fasse attraper la bite dans un piege d’ours. ’

I double over laughing. ‘You hope he gets his dick stuck in a bear trap?’

She giggles. ‘I say this a lot to people who’ve had their heart broken. I like making people who have been at their saddest laugh from their insides. For your ex-husband, I hope it’s not just his penis, also his…how do you say…couilles?’

‘Balls?’ I ask.

‘Oui,’ she says, pointing at me, laughing.

She puts a hand to my arm and I must admit, I like this lady’s charm, her need to extend some sort of sisterly affection towards me.

‘My advice usually would be to you know…sow your seeds or whatever you English say…but in this room, it is almost impossible? They all look like potatoes,’ she says still looking at all these self-important business types that sit among us.

I grin at her accurate observation. ‘Oh no, that’s not for me.’

‘Paris is full of men. I am sure you and your cousine can find some fun tonight?’ she tells me.

I laugh. You see, I tried that once. I went on holiday and had super-hot holiday sex with a man and that wasn’t the holiday fling that I anticipated. It followed me home, it confused an already very jumbled-up heart. I don’t think I’ll ever trust a holiday fling again.

‘Unless there is another man already in the wings?’ She puts her hands under her chin, waiting for me to tell her more. ‘I do not have a lot of excitement in my life, humour me.’

Well, if anything it’s a good story. ‘His name is Charlie but…’

‘He has a nice butt?’ I laugh.

‘It was a lovely derrière.’

She grins. ‘But what is the problem with this Charlie?’ she asks.

Lots. His eyes are almost too blue, he’s almost too bloody nice. Trust me, I’m trying to find things, Henriette, so it’ll be easier to untangle myself from him.

‘I don’t know what he wants, I don’t know what I want,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not been a smooth ride.’

‘Because he does not take care of his man areas?’ she asks, bluntly.

I laugh again. ‘No, his man areas were fine. I just mean…’ I smile to think of his man areas but also my favourite French phrase.

‘C’est comme les montagnes russes.’ She smiles.

It’s one of those sayings that isn’t literal, it’s like being on a rollercoaster , but it feels perfect here.

How Charlie and I just keep going up and down but in our case, also left, right, upside down and just circling back.

It has sometimes all felt completely insurmountable. I don’t think I understand it at all.

‘Aah. Is it more heaven or more hell though?’ she asks. ‘Men are not perfect but you are looking for that person who can take you to both, back and forth, that can make you feel everything all at once.’

She says the back and forth a little cheekily to let me know what she really means. ‘That sounds like someone speaking from experience.’

She holds up a hand with a wedding ring firmly planted on her ring finger. ‘Clement but, alas, he passed two years ago.’