by Tom Ellen
The odds of randomly bumping into her must have been millions to one. It felt like fate.
It still does.
The waiter approaches our table, tapping his notepad with a pencil.
‘Bonjour, monsieur. Qu’est-ce que vous voudriez?’
I clear my throat and decide to have a go at wheeling out my rusty French. ‘Oui, bonjour. Er, je voudrais un chocolat chaud aussi, s’il vous plaît.’
He smirks and rolls his eyes. ‘Do you want whipped cream?’
‘Non, pas pour moi,’ I say, refusing to cave in.
‘What about marshmallows?’
‘Non, pas de …’ I look at Alice.
‘Guimauves,’ she says, smiling.
‘Pas de guimauves pour moi,’ I tell the waiter firmly.
‘OK, one hot chocolate, no whipped cream, no marshmallows, coming up.’
‘What am I doing wrong?’ I ask as he walks away. ‘No matter how hard I try, they always reply in English.’
‘Your accent’s a giveaway,’ Alice says. ‘Even when you speak French, you still sound like Hugh Grant.’
‘How come you’ve nailed it so perfectly? You sound like Thierry Henry.’
She laughs and her Amélie hair bounces gently above her shoulders. ‘Merci beaucoup. Je vais prendre ça comme un compliment.’
God, she looks good.
It’s all coming back to me now: how knocked out I was to see her again. She had changed so much since uni. Not in looks, particularly, but in the way she carried herself. She was more confident, more self-assured. At York she’d been funny and outgoing, but there was always an air of self-consciousness about her. Even when she flirted with me, I could sense it was slightly guarded; she’d hold just enough back for it to not be awkward when nothing happened. Maybe that was why we never got it together at uni – neither of us was bold enough to make the first move.
Whereas now – here in 2014 – she’s like a different person. I remember thinking at the time that it must have something to do with her new job. She told me all about it in that first café – how she’d seen off four other colleagues to get this promotion to her company’s Paris office. She didn’t mention money, but I remember sensing that she was probably earning truckloads. Despite knowing nothing about fashion, I can tell that her clothes must have cost an arm and a leg.
She had transformed from this self-deprecating hoodie-clad girl I used to cook sausage sandwiches with to a Gauloisessmoking businesswoman who could speak fluent French with a ridiculously sexy accent.
And, honestly, it knocked me for six.
I suddenly realise that I am openly staring at her. But rather than looking away, embarrassed, like the old Alice probably would have, she’s looking right back at me, with a wide smile on her face. I snap out of it and feel my cheeks start to redden as I glance down at the pavement. ‘So, what’s the plan for today?’ I ask, just to fill the silence. ‘Are you going to show me how real Parisians do Christmas?’
I can remember precisely what the plan for today is. Every single step. And the thought of how it ended first time around makes my skin prickle. I can’t even tell if I’m excited or anxious. Probably both.
‘Oh, I’ve got it all laid out, don’t worry,’ Alice says, finishing her hot chocolate. ‘I’ve sorted a full Christmas itinerary for us.’
She turns her smile up a notch, and as she shifts her feet under the table, I feel her ankle brush against mine. I smile back, and try to remember exactly what I was feeling at this moment six years ago.
I was missing Daphne something rotten – I know that for certain. But if I’m brutally honest, I was also enjoying the feeling of flirting with this new, confident Alice.
Maybe it was because Daff and I had been together nearly a decade at this point, so nothing felt exciting or new. Or maybe it had been starting to dawn on me back then that I was twenty-eight years old, and yet I’d only slept with two women: Daff and The Ghastly Tish. Harv, on the other hand, had just split up with Liv, and was masking his obvious unhappiness by waking up in a different bedroom every morning, thanks to a newly launched app called Tinder. Maybe that’s another reason why the marriage conversation had freaked me out so much. I was wondering if I should have woken up in a few more bedrooms.
Despite all that, though, spending Christmas Day with Alice was not something that had even crossed my mind until she had suggested it four days earlier at that first café.
She’d joined me at my table, and within minutes, we’d slipped effortlessly back into our first-term banter. It was strange how easy and comfortable it felt: as if we were picking up exactly where we’d left off nine years ago.
We spent an amazing hour laughing and reminiscing, and I couldn’t stop thinking how sad it was that we’d lost touch when we got on so brilliantly.
As we were getting ready to leave, I asked if she had any good Christmas-Day-in-Paris tips. I’d told Mum I couldn’t afford the Eurostar back to join her at Uncle Simon’s, but in truth, I was worried that being home for Christmas would make Daphne’s absence feel more palpable. Maybe my mawkish, self-pitying side had even relished the romantic idea of being alone in Paris on Christmas Day. I don’t know.
As soon as I mentioned it, though, Alice’s green eyes lit up. She told me she had to work on the 27th, so she would be here too. In that instant, it was decided: we would spend Christmas Day together. Her excitement at the idea was infectious. She started throwing together a plan right then and there: how she would sort out a surprise Christmas itinerary for us; how she’d show me the real Paris I’d been missing out on while I was cooped up in my flat, writing.
It was properly thrilling.
As Alice gushed about how much fun we’d have, though, my mind went straight to Daphne. Technically, we were on a break, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that spending Christmas Day with Alice would be overstepping the mark somehow. Crossing a boundary I shouldn’t be crossing.
I’m brought back to reality – if right now can legitimately be called that – by our waiter rocking up to our table and plonking my hot chocolate down in front of me.
‘Merci beaucoup,’ I tell him.
‘You’re welcome,’ he replies.
This gets a chuckle out of Alice, and I have the sudden urge to throw the drink at the waiter’s back as he saunters off.
‘When you’ve finished that,’ she says, nodding at my cup, ‘we should get going.’
‘What’s the first stop?’ I ask, taking a sip, already knowing the answer.
She smiles. ‘Le Dodo Manège.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I experienced this day originally, I think I was pretty surprised that Le Dodo Manège was Alice’s first stop on our Christmas itinerary.
I thought I had her pegged as this big-shot marketing executive whose idea of a good time probably involved sipping Instagram-friendly cocktails in some exclusive members’ club. And yet here she was, leading me through the beautiful Jardin des Plantes, just a stone’s throw from the banks of the Seine, towards what appeared to be a children’s fairground ride. It was a nice surprise, to be honest: it made me realise that no matter how much she seemed to have changed, she still had that fun, silly streak I’d been so attracted to at uni.
That said, though, Le Dodo Manège isn’t just any children’s fairground ride. I later learned that it’s a bit of a Parisian legend: a Victorian-era carousel on which, instead of the usual brightly painted horses and carriages, there is a cavalcade of exotic, endangered or extinct creatures. Huge lifelike models of giant pandas, sabre-toothed tigers, various kinds of dinosaurs, willowy gazelle-like things and, of course, a plump, slightly angry-looking dodo.
‘Voilà!’ she says, as we push through the iron gate and it appears before us in all its glory. ‘Le Dodo Manège.’
I nod, and then remember that I am supposed to be seeing it for the first time. I quickly feign excitement and surprise.
‘Oh, yeah! Wow! It’s incredible!’
Alice
wrinkles her brow. I may have slightly overdone it. It’s only a merry-go-round, after all, not the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But then she gives me a smile, apparently convinced that a) I’ve never seen it before, and b) I am suitably impressed. ‘It’s cool, right?’ she says. ‘Come on, let’s get on.’
The carousel is already pretty much full as we arrive – heaving with excited kids and their weary-looking parents. As we clamber up onto the main platform, I see there are only two riderless creatures left. The first is a pretty striking golden mountain lion, which Alice immediately hops up on and straddles, looking vaguely Napoleonic. The other is a giant turtle – fat and squat and about ten inches high – whose seat is basically a small trench that’s been hollowed into its enormous shell. I attempt to retain some dignity as I lower myself into it, but after kneeing myself painfully in the face, twice, I’m not totally sure I manage it.
The plinky-plonky music starts up, and the ride begins to turn slowly. The air is suddenly thick with the delighted squeals of French toddlers. Up above me, Alice is rising and falling gracefully on her mountain lion, and for a few minutes, among the twinkling lights and the soporific music and the gentle spin of the carousel, I actually switch off and lose myself entirely. It’s like my brain fades into sleep mode. It’s actually quite a relief not to have to think about anything for a few minutes.
But then the ride begins to slow, and the music stutters to an end, and I remember that in just a few hours, I will have a huge decision to make. And I have no clue what I should do.
We dismount our charges and wander to a nearby stall to buy hot, sticky Nutella and banana crêpes.
‘So, what d’you reckon to the Manège?’ Alice asks, as we watch the next load of customers pile onto the platform, the children all squabbling over who gets to ride which crazy creature.
‘It was great,’ I say. ‘The perfect start to Christmas Day.’
‘Don’t worry, there is more.’ She pops a slice of banana into her mouth. ‘So. What would you have been doing today if we hadn’t bumped into each other?’
‘Well, I definitely wouldn’t have been sitting in a giant turtle.’ I take a bite out of my own crêpe, managing to smear Nutella across half my face. ‘I don’t know, really. I’d probably be back in the apartment, writing.’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘How is the writing going?’
If I remember rightly, the writing was going pretty bloody terribly at this point. High on the thrill of seeing Alice again at that first café, I think I’d bigged myself up as something of a budding experimental novelist. I even have a dim recollection of using the term ‘Kafkaesque’ – although I really, really hope I’m misremembering.
The truth is, I spent the past couple of months here starting, and then almost immediately abandoning, a dozen different projects. A TV sitcom script, a dystopian sci-fi story, a truly awful one-man stage play: all of them fell quickly by the wayside.
Paris was supposed to be my last chance to actually give the whole ‘proper writing’ thing a go. And when I failed at it – when I came back to London in January with nothing of any merit on my laptop – it was like a door finally slamming shut in my face. I gave up on that dream right there and then.
Still, I’m sure when Alice asked me this question first time round, I probably tried to style it out; made out that I was effortlessly bashing out page after page of sparkling prose. But now, for some reason, I don’t have the strength to pretend. ‘The writing is … not going very well, to be honest,’ I sigh. ‘I think the chances of me actually getting anything published are pretty slim.’
She shrugs. ‘Ah, well. Who cares about getting something published? You enjoy writing, that’s what counts.’
‘I don’t really enjoy it at all, actually,’ I say blankly.
Alice swallows a bite of crêpe as she considers this. ‘If you don’t enjoy it, then why are you doing it?’
I stare at the Dodo Manège spinning gently in front of us. Last time around, I was trying so hard to impress her, mentally triple-checking everything I was about to say before it came out of my mouth. I was dead set on appearing cool and successful, rather than lost and confused.
Right now, though, I feel an impulsive desire to tell her the truth: to just lay everything out and see what she says. It’s partly the unreality of the situation – the whole thing feels like a strangely vivid dream – but also partly because I know that, whatever I say here, she won’t remember it back in 2020.
‘I don’t know why I keep writing,’ I tell her. ‘Maybe because I think my life will suddenly magically get better if I succeed at it. Maybe because I want to … reconnect with my dad.’
As I say it out loud, I realise how ridiculous it sounds.
‘Sorry. That sounds stupid.’
Alice shakes her head and smiles. ‘No, not at all. I get it.’
Weirdly, it feels like she really does. I remember sensing this a lot during the first term – that Alice instinctively understood me. That we understood each other.
‘Anyway, I’m not sure my dad would care either way, to be honest,’ I say quietly. ‘He left when I was ten. I haven’t seen him in years.’
She balls up her napkin and drops it into the bin beside us. ‘I remember you saying. At uni.’
I look at her. ‘Did I? When?’
She laughs softly. ‘We were pretty close that first term, Ben. I guess you forgot. Remember the last day of freshers’ week? We stayed up all night in my room, talking and drinking that horrendous Swedish liqueur we found under the sink. You told me about your dad then. Not much: just how you weren’t really in touch at the moment, but you hoped some day you might be.’
I shake my head. I’d completely forgotten about that night. The minute I met Daphne, it was like all these moments with Alice were just erased from my brain. But she’s right: there was a connection between us. I told her stuff that night that I’ve only ever gone on to tell Daphne.
I thought about kissing Alice so many times during that first term. What would have happened if I’d got up the nerve to do it? What would my life look like now?
She studies me closely for a second, and reaches into her bag for her cigarettes. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, as she lights one. ‘I’m not sure you should really care what your parents think about your life anyway. I mean: what do they know? I feel like mine have always wanted me to be someone I’m not.’
‘How d’you mean?’
She exhales a plume of smoke as she considers this. ‘Well, my dad’s OK. He’s a management consultant, so: boring. But my mum’s an artist. My sister’s a graphic designer. And they’ve always been like this little clique, the two of them. I think they were disappointed I wasn’t more … arty, like them. Maybe that’s what doing all those plays at uni was about. I was trying to be someone I wasn’t.’ She takes another drag. ‘I don’t know. I sometimes feel like they look down on me for wanting a proper career, a decent salary. I mean, I was so chuffed to get this job out here – it was a really big deal for me, this promotion. But my mum and dad don’t get what I do, so it was like they barely even noticed. My sister had just had a baby, and that sort of stole the limelight, somehow.’ She shakes her head. ‘Sorry. I’m the one sounding stupid now.’
‘No. Not at all. I get it.’
She looks up at me and laughs. ‘We both sound stupid, and we both get it.’
I grin. ‘We’re a perfect match.’
I’m not sure where that comment came from, and there’s a moment where it hangs awkwardly in the air between us. But then we catch each other’s eye and start laughing. I’m not even sure what we’re laughing about.
It all feels so good. So easy.
Is this why I’ve come back, then: to remember all this? Is Alice supposed to be my future? Should we have been together all along?
I watch as a new batch of passengers clamber onto the merry-go-round, and then I ask: ‘You don’t want any of that stuff, then? Marriage? Kids?’
‘I don�
�t know.’ For a second, she can’t quite meet my eye, and it’s like the eighteen-year-old Alice is back – all self-conscious and guarded. ‘Maybe I do want those things,’ she adds, ‘if I find the right person. But it’s not my priority at the moment. There are other things I want to do first.’ She ashes her cigarette and turns to me. ‘What about you? Do you want kids and stuff?’
‘I thought I did,’ I say. ‘But now … I’m not sure.’
Daff and I were actually going to start trying for kids a few years back. It was soon after we got married, just after she turned thirty. Even though my career was still stop-starting, it seemed like the right time. And back then, it was something we both definitely wanted. We would text each other horrifying Face Swap mash-ups of ourselves accompanied by This is what our kids will look like haha messages. We even sketched out a date that Daff might come off the pill.
But then … Well, then Mum died and everything went dark. And the conversation never properly reignited after that, despite the fact that all our mates seemed to be starting families around us.
It became this weird unspoken thing between us. We’d go and visit friends with their new babies, and even though I oohed and aahed in all the right places, I honestly felt … nothing. Which was scary, because I used to genuinely love the idea of being a dad. I would even experience something close to broodiness whenever I passed a smiling young couple swinging a toddler between them in the park. It would send me spiralling straight into a daydream about Daff and me doing the same thing. But after Mum died, it was like something fused inside me. There didn’t seem to be any point to anything any more. All sense of excitement about the future just fizzled and burned out. I’d suddenly realised that the people you loved could just get torn away from you, at any moment, for no reason at all.
The worst thing was that Daff and I never talked about it. I could tell she didn’t want to pressure me – that she knew how much Mum’s death had messed me up. As the months dragged on though, I worried she was starting to resent me. That she wanted to find someone else, someone she could actually build a future with, but that she would feel too bad about leaving me. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, it would occur to me that she might never have children because she’d wasted her thirties with me.
