Twenty-One Nights in Paris, page 17
He slipped out of bed as quietly as he could and dressed for work. The desire to stay was strong, but he understood it would be for his own benefit. She was more than capable of looking after herself. But he couldn’t leave until he’d hurried across the road for fresh croissants and poured a coffee into an insulated mug.
He hesitated with a pencil over a piece of notepaper. What could he write? The only words that came were ones he couldn’t write down.
I’ll call you later. S
It would have to do.
When he emerged from the door of the building for the second time, he was greeted by three photographers waiting on the pavement, lenses at the ready. After a moment of mutual surprise, a flash blazed in his eyes, and he cowered behind his arm.
‘Is she in there?’
‘Are you her new boyfriend?’
‘Allez vous faire foutre!’ he said through gritted teeth and pushed past them. With an uneasy glance at the window of his apartment, he headed for the métro. He tried to tell himself they couldn’t know who he was or which apartment Ren was in, but it was difficult to restrain his anger. He would have to warn her when she woke up.
Ren met the new day marvelling at the lightness in her entire body after the upset of the evening before and the hours and hours of sleep – lightness, and a pleasant ache of memory that was triggered every time she found some small sign of Sacha’s recent presence: a stack of books on his bedside table; a recipe on the fridge; and the delicious breakfast he’d taken the time to prepare for her before he left.
She suspected he had not felt as cosy and well-rested when he’d left for work early that morning. What she remembered from the evening before were only the brief periods of lighter sleep, where she’d groped for him and he’d been there. She vaguely remembered his damp hair after he’d showered and a soft cotton T-shirt covering his chest.
She took a seat at the tiny table by the window in the kitchen niche and tucked into her fresh croissant with two hunks of cheese. A slip of paper was tucked under the insulated cup and she snapped it up eagerly.
I’ll call you later. S
It was only a few words, but somehow enough. She brushed her thumb over the ‘S’, enjoying the familiarity in the shortening of his name.
Her phone rang and she stood to fetch it out of her handbag, grimacing when she saw it was a UK number. Her heart sank when she connected the call and it was exactly who she’d feared it would be.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb your time off,’ Ziggy began, ‘but I’m afraid the situation has changed. Our media team is working to counteract the story, but I’ll need you to work with me on this.’
‘What story?’
‘There’s no need to read the ridiculous headlines yourself, but… let’s just say your boyfriend is one of the most wanted men in Paris right now.’
Ren’s stomach flipped, thinking of Sacha’s admission that he’d committed a crime when he was a teenager. It couldn’t be what Ziggy meant, but she was suddenly afraid of what would happen to him if her life invaded his. ‘Do they know who he is?’
‘Not yet, but they know where he lives, and I can imagine they’ll scour that flea market this weekend. I don’t know what you were thinking going there. I’ve contacted the police to ask them to move the photographers on, but you need to stay put until it’s safe.’ Ren gave the window a startled glance. ‘The mystery is unfortunately feeding speculation. Livia has been working much too hard to reassure all the investors that the merger will still go ahead and given all of the medication she’s on… well, you need to play your part, now.’
Knowing that Ziggy was using guilt as a tool didn’t stop Ren from feeling it. ‘What do you need me to do?’
‘Mr Mourad needs to come to the chalet this weekend. No fanfare, no announcements, just showing our investors that everything is normal and that your relationship status no longer influences the future of the company.’
‘That’s a message I can get behind,’ she mumbled.
‘But… please clean him up.’
Ren bit her lip to stay silent. The uncoupling of her personal life from the company only went so far. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Your best it will need to be,’ Ziggy continued in that warning tone that gave Ren goosebumps. ‘We need the investors on side. These kinds of headlines aren’t good for business.’
Ren ended the call as quickly as she could and dialled Sacha before she could second-guess herself. He had every right to refuse her and part of her wanted to protect him from what would surely be an unpleasant weekend. She’d always loved to ski, but it was the veiled posturing, the negotiations disguised as friendly chats that she’d never coped with.
Sacha didn’t pick up the call and her stomach twisted with worry. Had the photographers bothered him this morning? She was tempted to look at the headlines, but experience had taught her that was disastrous for her already fragile confidence.
What she really wanted was to believe his words from the night before. Was she stronger than she thought?
The phone rang once more, and Sacha’s name flashed up. She connected the call with a sigh of relief.
‘Are you okay? Did the reporters bother you?’ she asked.
‘No, I wanted to ask you the same. Did you leave already? I wanted to warn you, but it’s my first break—’
‘Ziggy warned me. I’m still… here.’
‘Good,’ he said. There was a long pause where she tried not to read too much into his emphatic tone. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Kind of… better, actually, except for the encampment of paparazzi. I’m sorry for crashing into your life. You really didn’t need this.’
‘The reporters didn’t know who I was.’
‘Actually… they did. Not who you are, exactly, but between Instagram and Charlie, they’ve been tipped off about… us.’ The silence was ominous, but she ploughed on. ‘Z-ziggy thinks the mystery is feeding the media interest and she wants to… bring you out into the open. I know you probably can’t take the time away from your family the weekend before Christmas and I don’t want to ask you because I can’t ever seem to give you anything in return and you know what you’re in for now, so I can’t imagine you’d—’
‘What do you need me to do?’ Something in his tone reminded her of that simple ‘S’ on his note.
‘Will you come to Val d’Isère with me this weekend? To ski? With my grandmother and Ziggy, and Charlie and a whole lot of stuffy investors?’
‘I can’t ski,’ was all he said at first. She tried to formulate an understanding response, but she was choking on her disappointment. ‘But if you think it will help, I’ll come.’
Her happiness revved up again and she’d never been so glad of one of Ziggy’s dictates before. ‘It’ll help. I owe you—’
‘You don’t owe me anything,’ he said gruffly.
‘Isn’t there something I could help you with in return?’ She experienced a little twinge of guilt, knowing full well her question was just an excuse to see him again during the week.
‘I suppose there is something.’
Yes! ‘Anything!’
‘It’s for my work,’ he said. ‘You’d have to let me tell you.’
‘No, just tell me where to meet you and I’ll guess before you give it away. I’m definitely going to guess.’
‘You want to win,’ he said drily. ‘D’accord. It’s on Wednesday. You’d have to come early. Is that okay?’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘You don’t even know what you have to do.’
‘I don’t care. If you’ll be there, I’m looking forward to it.’ His splutter in response suggested she’d laid it on too thick, but she was too happy to care.
‘I’ve got to go. I’ll text you the address. I – I’ll see you on Wednesday.’
25
Early on Wednesday, Sacha hurried along the dark street, the buildings the same grey as the early morning sky. One day soon, he’d have the time to phone the police about his bike, but until that day, he had to rush from the métro, past a Hindu temple, a youth hostel and two schools where he didn’t work. This involved getting up in the full dark and this morning, the darkness was amplifying his crowded thoughts.
He reached the corner where he’d agreed to meet her. He should have sent her the exact location of his workplace and given away the game completely, but she’d been determined to guess. He glanced around for her, wondering how she was.
He was so absorbed in his own concerns that he jumped when she appeared from around the corner. She beamed when she saw him, clasping her hands behind her back and straightening her shoulders.
‘I took the métro!’ she blurted out instead of a greeting. ‘All on my own! In the dark! I lost my ticket and had to pay a fine at the gates, but I made it.’ She was brimming with energy, which was not what he’d expected, after his two days of hurting for her.
He studied her with growing amusement. Taking her arm, he mimed pressing a stamp to the back of her hand. ‘Well done. B plus, with an A for effort.’
‘Are you going to give me a quiz?’
‘Maybe at the end of the day.’
‘Wait!’ she said suddenly. She took hold of the front of his coat and nudged him a couple of steps backwards. He blinked as the light of the streetlamp streamed straight down on him. She tilted her head, her eyes roving all over his face.
‘Something wrong?’
‘No,’ she said faintly, her gaze now travelling down his trousers to his neat loafers. She looked up at him again and blinked. ‘You cut your hair.’
‘And the beard. I don’t normally look like a gnome. It was Joseph’s idea.’
‘You looked like a handsome gnome,’ she said with a teasing smile. ‘But you left some fluff on your chin.’ He ran his fingers self-consciously over the trimmed bristles on his jaw. ‘I’m glad you didn’t get rid of it all. It looks good.’
He coughed and rubbed at his hot cheek. ‘Shall we go?’
She glanced around the intersection with narrowed eyes until her gaze settled on their destination. He smiled faintly, waiting for her to finally guess correctly. It was a plain building with a single tree in the courtyard and nothing else to soften the blunt lines of concrete that bore the name of the collège and the obligatory, ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’, the motto of freedom, equality and brotherhood that had been formed in protest and was now so ubiquitous it symbolised little more than the French state itself.
‘Are the chinos and loafers an unofficial teacher uniform?’
He took off across the street, fishing his keys out of his pocket. ‘Is Louis Versace the unofficial uniform of heiresses?’ he called over his shoulder, but he straightened his trousers self-consciously.
‘I suppose I deserved that,’ she said cheerfully, skipping to catch up with him.
This early in the morning, there was only one moped chained up on the corner, where there was usually a haphazard pile. It reminded him of the grumbling when he’d told the class they needed to bring a métro ticket today. Since most of them had only just passed their traffic exam, driving a moped was the pinnacle of their lives.
Sacha was used to the numerous digs about how he must have failed the exam himself, since he still rode a bicycle. He was surprised none of them had noticed he’d been rushing in on foot for over a week. His explanation would be a mess of stammering and blushes that would make them hoot with laughter.
He’d told the class that a friend was accompanying them on their excursion, and the rest of the day had been mostly catcalls of, ‘Oooh, Prof has a girlfriend!’ and implausible conjecture about where they’d met, making him glad he hadn’t told them until the final class of the day. When he’d found himself groaning that no, he hadn’t used Leila’s aunt’s matchmaking service, he’d been more than ready to hear the school bell.
Now he was experiencing a flutter of anticipation that did not usually accompany his arrival at school. He took classes on excursions without help every year. They weren’t nursery school children. But Ren added a certain excitement, and such a good opportunity to practise their English was very rare.
That was what he told himself, anyway.
‘What subjects do you teach?’ she asked as he unlocked the gate and gestured her through.
‘That, I think, you should guess.’
‘I suppose that’s fair. Do you teach literature? French?’
‘No. French literature is not my passion.’
‘Your passion,’ she repeated thoughtfully. ‘History,’ she said confidently. ‘You’re a history teacher.’
‘Correct. And I have a principal class of kids in the troisième, the fourth year of collège. I think you say year ten?’
‘If it’s the fourth year, why is it called the third?’
‘It’s the third last, before the Bac. We count down.’
‘That’s crazy. Are teachers in France allowed to… have tattoos, then?’
‘Probably not in Catholic schools, but I don’t offend the state too much.’
‘It all makes sense now. I should have guessed, but you didn’t look like a teacher until you cut your hair and put on those loafers!’
‘This is how I usually look.’
She lifted a hesitant hand to tug on one of his longer curls on top. ‘Well, it’s nice to meet you, Monsieur Mourad. But I kind of miss my Christmas elf.’
He opened his mouth to say something, but she turned and hopped up the steps to the doors of the building.
‘Don’t you even have a Christmas tree?’ she asked as he led her through the warren of linoleum corridors.
‘It’s a school, not the Galeries Lafayette.’
‘The kids don’t deserve a bit of festive spirit?’
‘Their festive spirit comes from anticipation of the end of term. They can go and see the Christmas lights in their own time. What?’ he asked, catching sight of her poor attempt to stifle an amused smile.
‘These poor kids. You are such a grump.’
‘First Joseph, now you. I am not the Grinch. I have no problem with Christmas.'
‘The Grinch?’ she snorted a laugh. ‘That’s perfect.’
‘I assume it comes from the word grincheux in French. It just means grumpy.’
‘That only makes it more appropriate! It’s funny that we stole the French word to describe a grumpy person who doesn’t like others having fun,’ she said with a smile and nudged him.
‘I like to see others having fun. Just not during school hours,’ he added. ‘This is my classroom,’ he said when they’d reached a door with chipped paint and an iron handle. He had to admit, a few decorations would make a nice change.
The sound of the front door opening and then rapid footsteps made them look up and Rita appeared around the corner. Sacha rushed to unlock his classroom, giving her a wave and a mumbled, ‘Bonjour.’ It might have worked on another morning, but Ren was not easily ignored.
‘Bonjour,’ Rita echoed, coming to a stop and studying Ren with unconcealed curiosity. At least she was wearing her off-the-rack disguise, although, as she’d said, she hadn’t been able to part with the expensive boots. ‘Tu es bien matinal. Est-ce que tu as trouvé ton vélo?’ Rita asked after his bike as he gave her perfunctory kisses on both cheeks.
‘Non,’ he said and explained about the class excursion in clipped sentences, his hands shoved into his pockets. Rita was still shooting glances at Ren. ‘This is Ren, uhm, a friend from England,’ he introduced, switching to English for Ren’s benefit. ‘My colleague, Rita.’
Ren threaded her arm through his and held on and Sacha blinked, resisting a laugh at her less-than-subtle proprietary body language. Rita gave him a long look that ended in a nod, and wished them both a good day in impeccable English. He watched her go, wondering if the farce hadn’t been the kindest hint he could give.
He still turned on Ren when he’d shut the door of his classroom behind them. ‘Why did you do that?’
Her smile vanished. ‘Ouch, did I get it wrong? Did I just screw up your chances with her?’
‘No, no. You got it right. It’s just… You didn’t have to.’
‘Like you don’t have to help me? She is your ex, then? What happened?’
‘It’s not very interesting,’ he said, hanging his coat.
‘Unlike my break-up, which made headlines,’ she said darkly. ‘I take it you broke up with her.’
‘No…’
‘No?’ Her open-mouthed disbelief made the heat rush to his face again. Merde, he hoped he wouldn’t spend the day blushing in front of the kids.
‘You don’t really think I’m a… bon parti, Ren? A good… catch, you say?’ He gave her a pointed look. ‘I have not much to offer – not time, not commitment. Rita deserved more and I couldn’t give it to her when she asked. It was the right thing that she broke with me.’
He wanted to turn away from Ren’s thoughtful gaze, but he liked the soft look on her face too much. He tried to think about the kids, about the tour he had planned to bring to life a unique and little-known period of the city’s history, but Ren ruined all of his efforts by reaching up to press a kiss to his cheek and his mind went blank again. ‘Well, you are “très bon” to me and… she shouldn’t have asked for something you couldn’t give.’
The door banged open and he sprang away from Ren. ‘Ohé, bonjour! C’est ta meuf? Ta fatma, Prof?’ Hamoud grinned at him with his usual cheeky bravado as he sauntered into the classroom followed by his best friend Felix.
‘Votre,’ he corrected first, pinning Hamoud with a look. ‘This is…’ Would the kids know or care who she was?
‘I’m Ren,’ she said, ‘or should you call me Miss… Lewis?’
He cleared his throat. ‘You need to practise your English and your politesse, les gars.’ And he needed to stop imagining what it would be like if Wren Lewis really existed.
26
‘Oh, my God, what the fuck? Qu’est-ce que c’est ça?’
