Page 81 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

How long did it take to buy a packet of cigarettes? she asked herself, trying to remember the streets they had walked through, mentally locating a tabac.

The window was open, letting in a chill. She pulled a pillow over her and rubbed her arms to get rid of the frosting of goose pimples.

The phone rang again, sending spearshots of anxiety around her body.

She leant over to answer it, conscious of her nakedness.

There was a click and then a silence.

‘Hello?’ she said nervously when there was no sound at the other end. ‘Dom, is that you?’

Straining her ears, she thought she heard the faint sound of breathing, which made her drop the phone back on to its cradle as if it were hot.

She could feel her pulse in her chest. Outside she heard a woman’s laugh, and then a male voice trying to impress her. She imagined it being Dominic and some secret Parisian lover – she had seen the way women looked at him in the street – but she told

herself how ridiculous she was being. He had just popped out for champagne and cigarettes.

She put on the thin cotton robe she had packed and took a packet of Gauloises from her handbag. Hadn’t Dominic remembered that she had bought some near the Gare d’Orsay?

She perched on the edge of the bed, not wanting to feel like this. She wanted to feel as carefree as she had done when she was eating her ice cream in the rue du Bac, absorbing the sights and sounds of Paris and feeling as if they were the only thing that mattered.

She stood up, and was about to pace the room when she heard the heavy sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door creaked open and Dominic stood in the frame, smiling and holding a bottle of champagne. She no longer had the taste for it.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ she asked, not even looking at him.

‘I had to make a couple of calls,’ he said, approaching her and kissing her on the neck.

She turned her head away from him. ‘Why couldn’t you have made them here?’

‘Because this room is about me and you. Not about work.’

‘We got a call to the room. Two, actually.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. They rang off.’

‘Nothing important then,’ he smiled, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

‘You smell lovely.’

She flinched away from him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at her.

‘Ros, what’s wrong?’

‘You were gone ages.’

‘Time ran away from me. I had to find a tabac, a phone box . . .’

‘You left me here. It got dark outside.’

‘Dark outside?’ He smiled.

‘I was worried,’ she scolded him. ‘When the phone rang I thought you’d been knocked over or something else terrible.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, taking her hand.