The Summer of Everything, page 22
Twenty-Nine
Belle was flung forward, and she hit the ground, covering her head protectively with her hands as bullets ripped past her ears. Diners trod on her, seeking refuge where they could, and some fell beside her, drawing their last breath as they did.
She curled into a tight ball, her mind blank, her lungs barely working. The smell of gunfire was acrid, clogging her throat, and the sound of firing bullets rang in her ears. Time slowed, a massacre playing out above her. When sirens finally wailed in the night, the gunfire halted, and the sound of the gunmen’s footsteps retreated down the street.
Belle wasn’t sure how long she’d remained curled up, but when all fell quiet, when there was little more than the whimpers of the injured, she dared to let go of her head and peer around. People were everywhere, barely moving or not at all. Someone wailed and a plate toppled from its precarious position on the edge of a table and smashed.
Belle waited for the pain to come, a bullet wound or a broken bone from falling, but aside from a stinging pain in her arm, she could move her limbs without difficulty. She began to crawl on her elbows along the concrete, searching for Ben, for she dared not rise to her feet. She encountered bodies and broken pieces of plates, the café lights hanging in shreds and draping along the floor. The alfresco, only minutes earlier filled with food and people and laughter, was a scene of carnage.
‘Ben,’ she whispered, then with slightly more courage, ‘Ben.’
She needed to hold his hand, to feel him beside her—to reassure her again that they would be okay. But there were so many bodies, so much destruction and smoke in the air that it was almost impossible to see anything.
Then her eyes fell on him, lying motionless on the floor beside a chair. Belle crawled to him, her body sliding over jagged edges of broken dinner plates, noticing first the stillness of him, then the blood pooled around his head. There was a wound near his right temple. Large, round and perfectly fatal.
Belle’s ears filled with the sound of her screams. She dragged him to her, holding his head in her lap, rocking back and forth as shock seized her muscles. She became distantly aware of movement in the alfresco, as the living grieved over the dead and the injured bled out, with sirens, closer now, piercing the Paris night.
Ben’s body was warm, as though life still flowed through his veins, and she cradled him, her hands covered in his blood. It drenched her clothing, seeped through to her skin, the metallic scent of it, like rust, filling her nostrils. A guttural, heart-wrenching howl burst from her lungs, mingled with the wails of the others.
Please, God, let me wake from this nightmare. Please.
Everything halted—the sirens, the screams for help, the cries from the survivors. It was just her and Ben, a man she’d once loved with all her soul, who she would always be connected to, in this life and the next. She would hold him. She would hold him forever, and she would never let him go.
When Belle opened her eyes again, someone was feeling her neck for a pulse, then shaking her gently. Sounds in the alfresco enticed her back—voices of authority and pieces of crockery crunching underfoot. Red and blue lights flooded the night, bouncing off buildings.
Belle wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there. Long enough, she deduced, for first responders to appear and start making sense of the tragedy. Ben was still in her arms, his lifeless body growing rigid, the exit wound at the back of his head a gaping mess.
‘Madame?’ A hand on her shoulder. ‘Madame.’
She attempted a few syllables, but her throat was painfully dry. The lights hurt her eyes and she closed them, hoping to drift away again to a moment not so long ago when Ben was alive and making silly declarations about wooing her back.
Ben and his bravado had always made her laugh.
But the person crouching beside her would not let her sink into that place of comforting euphoria, the hand shaking her more urgently now. She wrestled her eyes open, and the alfresco crashed into focus once more.
‘Madame. Venez avec moi, s’il vous plait.’
She looked at the stranger talking to her. It was a French police officer, and he was saying something to her that she couldn’t understand.
‘Madame. Venez avec moi, s’il vous plait,’ he said again.
She shook her head at him, her body beginning to tremble all over. ‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’
He spoke more fervently, and she pulled Ben closer. ‘You can’t take him.’
The office reached for Ben’s body, trying to pry him from her, but she swiped at him furiously and he backed away. Tightening her arms around Ben, time slipped. She tilted with it and blacked out.
Belle awoke again to another officer, this time a female, who’d dropped to her knees and was resting a hand on Belle’s shoulder.
‘Madame,’ she said softly. ‘Parlez-vous français?’
Belle shook her head. ‘I don’t speak French.’
The officer nodded. Her face was kind. ‘Okay, no problem. We must move you from the area. Are you injured?’
‘My friend is hurt.’
The officer glanced at Ben and her mouth set in a grim line.
‘What’s happening?’ Belle whispered. Her teeth chattered as cold wrapped itself around her bones.
‘Paris is under attack. Can you walk?’ The officer gripped Belle’s elbow and tried gently to lift her.
Belle jerked away from her grasp. ‘No! I’m not leaving him.’
‘Madame, you have to. We must clear the area. I need to take you to the ambulance. Your arm is cut.’
Belle looked down at her arm. She hadn’t noticed she was bleeding.
‘Come, Madame.’
‘I’m not leaving him!’ She held Ben closer. They would have to forcibly remove her. I won’t let you go, Ben. We’re okay. We’re okay.
The officer pursed her lips. ‘Please, I understand, but we can’t let you stay here. You’re going into shock. We must leave. And I’ll make sure that your friend is looked after.’
Belle shook her head, tears streaming down her face. ‘I can’t leave him.’
‘There’s nothing you can do for him now. We have to go.’
Belle ran her fingers along Ben’s pale face, across the blue of his lips and through his blood-matted hair. Her body shook with silent sobs, and while she quietly willed him to wake, to draw another breath, to beat another heartbeat, she knew he was gone.
She gently rested his body on the ground and allowed the female officer to help her to her feet. Sifting through debris, she located her bag and Ben’s suitcase beneath an overturned table, where they’d been flung during the attack. She collected them both, then allowed herself to be guided across the alfresco and towards the side door that led back into the café.
Inside the Papilles, she averted her gaze from the blanketed bodies, shock and grief rising up her throat, until she was safely outside, where lights flashed brightly in her eyes and the monotonous drone of choppers hovered overhead. The female officer was still beside her, her presence like a pillar, as she guided her towards triage and a bank of waiting ambulances. Belle was thankful for that officer, for were it not for her reassuring hand, her legs would have buckled beneath her.
She turned to glance back at the café, at the outdoor alfresco, with its pretty string lights hanging in tatters, and tried not to think of Ben’s lifeless body lying behind the hedge wall.
Belle spent thirty minutes in the triage tent erected on the street. The entire block had been sealed off as multiple stretchers were loaded into ambulances and driven away. She’d refused similar transport to a hospital, opting instead for a bandage on her arm and a blanket to settle her shock. When colour returned to her cheeks and her pulse slowed to an acceptable level, the critical care specialist was happy for her to vacate the overrun triage, and she stepped back out onto the street.
The female officer, who was returning from the café, flagged her down. ‘How are you feeling?’
Belle was still too numb to feel anything. She shrugged woodenly.
‘Shouldn’t you go to the hospital?’ the woman asked.
‘They said I could leave. They have far worse cases than me to deal with.’
The officer nodded soberly and plucked a card from her jacket pocket. ‘My name is Albane. I’m an officer with the Préfecture de Police de Paris. This is my card.’
Belle accepted it and placed it into her bag.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Belle Hamilton.’
Albane gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Call me in the morning, Belle. I’ll give you details about where your friend was transported. I’ll also need to take a statement from you. But we can take care of that tomorrow.’
Belle swallowed thickly. Her throat was like sandpaper, for triage had refused to give her a drink while she’d recovered from shock.
‘Where are you from, Belle?’
‘Um.’ Belle wiped at her blood-stained face, her thoughts disconnected. ‘Sydney. I’m from Sydney.’
‘Okay.’ Albane touched her shoulder. ‘You need to get back to your accommodation and stay there, where it’s safe. Would you like someone to drive you?’
Belle shook her head. ‘No. It’s just up the road.’
‘Don’t go wandering the streets. Go straight to your accommodation and call your family and embassy. Tell them you’re safe because you see up there?’ She pointed to the choppers hovering in the air. ‘That’s the media. Australia will wake to the news soon.’
Belle felt a dizzying wave of nausea grip her. ‘Will they take care of him?’
Albane nodded, laying her hand on Belle’s arm. ‘Yes. They’ll take good care of him.’ She began walking back towards the Papilles Café but turned around again. ‘Belle, what was your friend’s name?’
Belle’s eyes welled, her grief resurging like a tidal wave. ‘His name was Ben.’
Thirty
Although Albane had instructed her to return immediately to the hotel, Belle sat on a bench near triage and watched the recovery mission unfold around the café. She knew she shouldn’t be there, that someone would eventually tell her to move on, but she wasn’t sure she could leave Ben yet. Leaving his body alone on the concrete floor of a Parisian café while she’d walked away had felt unnatural and cruel, as though he were crying out for her. He’s gone, she told herself, he doesn’t know anything anymore, although she could have repeated it a thousand times and it still wouldn’t have made leaving him easier.
With trembling fingers, she retrieved her phone from her bag and dialled Riley’s number, but the call dropped before it rang. It was likely the cell service in Paris was jammed. Riley, Andre, and Avery would be in the theatre by now, and they wouldn’t have a clue as to what had happened. They’d think she hadn’t bothered to show.
The night air had turned cool, the faint stars above Paris bleeding together. First responders and the injured walked past her and the triage tent loomed, the activity within it frenetic. Everything looked surreal against the backdrop of ambulance lights and media crew. It was hard to imagine that she and Ben had been making small talk only hours earlier as they’d walked along this avenue.
Belle stared down at her hands stained red with blood, seeped deep into her cuticles, jeans sticky, the colour of rust. She was at a loss as to what to do, frightened, with the distant pops of gunfire still making her jump. Something was happening to Paris. Those men were still out there. Paris is under attack.
She tried Riley’s phone again, then Andre’s and Avery’s. Her attempts to reach them remained futile and when two police officers noticed she was loitering and began walking her way, she forced herself to her feet, deciding she’d better move on.
Outside the exclusion zone, the rest of George Avenue V was eerily silent and bereft of its magic. The pavements were deserted, cafés and restaurants closed, and the window shutters of apartments above were securely shut. It all looked barren and apocalyptic. Paris is under attack.
Belle concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, tugging Ben’s luggage behind her, struggling to recall the way back to the hotel, even though she’d walked that avenue several times in the past two days. Eventually, she found the Hotel Barriere Le Fouquet’s Paris although she wasn’t entirely sure how she got there.
Back in her hotel room, adrenalin began to course through her body, her pulse rushing in her ears. She leaned Ben’s suitcase upright against the wall, paced a few laps around the room, then sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at it.
It was a Lacoste bag. Navy blue. She’d bought it for him for Christmas two years ago and he’d loved it. He’d taken it everywhere and had purchased the backpack and toiletry bag to match.
Oh, Ben…
Minutes slid by and she was unable to calm her thoughts or quell the tremor in her legs, her feet tapping the carpet with unspent energy. She was suddenly overcome with everything that she hadn’t had the chance to tell him, that she would always cherish his friendship, that she’d forgiven him for what he’d done. That she wanted him in her life. She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to him.
The room was disarmingly quiet, the walls closing in on her and she needed sound. She turned the television on while she waited for the cell network to decongest so she could call Riley. The BBC channel filled the screen with images from the Papilles Café. Belle watched as the operation unfolded to retrieve the dead. The police had set up large tarpaulins to conceal the view of the deceased from the media. The reporter told of twelve killed and thirty-six wounded as three gunmen had embarked on a shooting rampage down Avenue George V and into the Papilles Café, where diners were trapped like sitting ducks.
‘An act of terrorism,’ declared the news reporter.
Plucking her phone out of her bag, she tried Riley’s number again, then attempted to reach Andre and Avery. When every call frustratingly refused to connect, she called her mother. It was seven in the morning in Sydney, and she got through without a problem.
Her father answered on the second ring. ‘Belle? Oh, thank goodness. Your mother just saw what happened on the news. Are you okay?’ He called out to her mother in the background. ‘Grace, I have Belle.’
‘I’m okay, Dad.’
‘She was just about to call you. We’ve been worried sick.’
She couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever heard her father sound so panicked for her safety and she desperately wanted to see him, to hug him.
‘I was at the café, Dad. The one that was attacked.’ Her voice shook and broke.
‘Good grief,’ he said. ‘Are you injured? Where are you now? Wait, I’ll put your mother on.’
Even in times of crisis, her father, the formidable Edward Hamilton, still looked to her mother for direction. When Grace’s voice filled Belle’s ear, she sank to the sofa, her legs unable to hold her up.
‘Belle, sweetheart. Are you safe?’
‘Mum, I…’ She couldn’t even say the words. They lodged somewhere at the back of her throat. ‘We were there. Ben and me. The café was being shot at. We couldn’t get out.’
‘Oh, sweetheart. Oh, dear lord. Are you still there now? Are you safe? Where’s Ben? What was he doing there?’
It was a flood of questions, Belle trying to consolidate them. ‘Ben came here to see me. He wanted to talk. We went to the café for a drink, and we were there when it was attacked.’
‘Oh, Belle.’
‘I’m back at the hotel now. But, Ben, he… he…’ The room spun and she clutched the edge of the sofa as panic threatened to seize her again.
‘Ben what? What happened to Ben, honey?’
Somehow, Belle found the words to explain how she and Ben were at the Papilles Café, of the gunshots they’d heard, the frantic people, the bodies, how they quickly became trapped within the hedge walls of the alfresco. She told of bullets raining down on them and the fatal one Ben had sustained to the head.
Her mother was crying when Belle finished. Grace would hang up shortly and inform Edward of the news, and Belle could only guess as to the full weight of the grief that would bear down upon him. It was her grief too, intermingled with the guilt of knowing that Ben had been there to see her. He had been at the Papilles Café because of her. If he’d been safely back at home, he would still be alive.
‘Mum, can you call Ben’s parents? I don’t think… I just couldn’t…’
‘Of course.’ Her mother’s voice shook.
‘Can you also call the Australian Embassy?’
‘Yes, we’ll take care of it,’ Grace said. ‘Now will you please come home?’
‘I can’t get in touch with Riley.’
‘She’s not with you?’
‘She went to the theatre with Andre and Avery, and I can’t get a hold of them. It might just be the phone service, but I’ve been trying for a while now.’
‘We’ll try to call her father.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Do you want us to come there? There’s still time to catch a flight out today.’
Belle shook her head. ‘No. Don’t come all the way here. It’s ten pm now in Paris. I’ll call you when I know more.’
She hung up the phone and stared around the room. She couldn’t sit and wait for Riley and the others to return. She couldn’t be alone with her anguish and her palpating heart. She needed to do something, to move, to feel less idle, so she left Riley a note in case she came back, gathered up her bag and headed out the door.
Downstairs in the lobby, people stared at her. Realising with dismay that she was still covered in blood, she hastily swiped at her hands and face.
When she approached reception, the man behind the desk gasped.
‘I’d like a taxi, please,’ she said, trying to control the quiver in her voice.
