Page 92 of Pretty Mess

I look over the road at the huge Louis Vuitton shop. “Do you want to go and shop?” I fervently hope he doesn’t.

He grimaces. “Good god, no.”

“I thought you liked shopping.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“The fact that you seem to own around five hundred handmade suits.”

He rolls his eyes. “Five hundred? Some babies are granted grace and beauty by their fairy godmothers at birth. Your fairy, however, seems to have given you the gift of overexaggeration.”

I snort and fall in at his side as we edge our way over the busy road and merge with the sea of people moving along, some aimlessly and some with a fierce purpose. I edge closer to Mac,and he smiles at me. He guides me over the bridge that I’ve now learnt is very famous.

My mood lifts like a hot air balloon. It’s lovely to feel the fresh air on my face and be at his side. He has a way of making everything seem more vibrant, and somehow just better, when he’s close.

We stand for a moment by the bridge, looking out over the water. The silence is companionable. It’s a blustery, billowy day. The river is muddy brown, running swiftly along and swirling around the bridge. The sky is porcelain blue, with clouds scudding across it.

“So, what do you think of Paris?” he finally asks.

“It’s so beautiful. I love how tidy it is.” He raises a quizzical eyebrow, so I elaborate. “It all seems laid out very well, and the buildings mostly look a certain age. Not like London, which is a mix of old and new, and sometimes it’s very difficult to get around.”

“Paris underwent Haussmann’s Renovation in the nineteenth century. Napoleon the Third wanted the city to be airy and light, so he employed Haussmann to get the job done. He razed a lot of the crowded old neighbourhoods to the ground and built the wide avenues, boulevards, and the parks that now seem so Parisian. The displacement of all those people was pretty horrific though, and Haussmann was incredibly controversial during his day.”

“I didn’t know that.” I love the interesting things he pulls from his clever head, like a magician producing white rabbits. He starts to walk again. His steps are sure as he guides me out of the crowd and onto a quiet residential street. Full of ubiquitous tall buildings with wrought iron balconies, it’s charming and somehow very Parisian.

“I love the doors here,” I say chattily. Most of them are quite tall, with ornate knockers carved in fantastical shapes. He looksat the one I’m pointing to, which is painted black with a snarling lion’s head door knocker. “It looks mysterious, like anything could be going on behind it. They might be guarding hidden worlds behind that door.”

“You’re a romantic,” he says in a tone of revelation. He doesn’t sound pleased.

I hasten into speech. “Or I have an overactive imagination. I like going past the entrances to the courtyards and trying to see what’s going on inside. If the windows were lower, I’d totally be looking into them.”

“Ah. Just incurably nosy, then,” he says sadly, laughing when I elbow him.

“Iamnosy. I’ll never know the answers, but it’s fun to speculate.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“No need.” An older lady walks by us carrying a large straw tote bag and holding the lead of a small white dog. “Who do you think she is? And where is she going?”

“I don’t know her, so I can’t answer you.”

“No, the point is that you make up your answer.”

“What a pointless exercise. Still, I’m used to such games after being subjected to your frequent conversations about absolutely nothing.”

I nudge him, and he smiles. “What?” he says. “You go first.”

I look after her. “I think she’s having a torrid affair with a man who owns a bag shop. Her husband has left for the day, and she’s meeting her lover for breakfast. The only trouble is that she has to take her dog today, and he hates the other man. There is a high likelihood that he will bite his ankle out of solidarity with the husband.”

“You got all that out of a straw bag and a poodle?”

“It’s a talent. Your turn.”

His legs are longer than mine, and he adjusts his stride so I can keep up. “Must I really do this? That board meeting I’m missing is looking very attractive at the moment.”

When I pout at him, he taps my lip, tracing it with his fingertip. “Okay, I’ll do it to avoid the lip quiver.” He looks back at the woman. “She’s a serial killer. She murdered her husband and chopped his body up into pieces, which are in that bag. She’s off for the day to dispose of him in all the bins of Paris. Good luck to her. Paris waste collectors are invariably on strike.”

I stare at him. “You aretrulydisturbing.”