by Robyn Elliot
And while life might contain an abundance of ‘anothers’, for Stef the realization had come, maybe too late.
That there wasn’t another Danny.
This was it.
It’s now or never, the silence down the phone was telling Stef.
Telling him there could never be another love like this one.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The taxi driver, Remy from Lyons as it transpired, had been magnificent. He’d got Stef to CDG in record time, after all.
“Do you want me to wait?” Remy had asked, Stef virtually throwing Euros at him. Watching Stef rush into the main terminal was Remy’s answer, but he hung around anyway. He was nearly finished his shift, he had an idea the guy would be emerging shortly looking very crestfallen and wanting to get back to central Paris; nice-guy Remy lit a cigarette, and got back in the taxi, settling down to read Le Sportif, awaiting the inevitable.
Inside CDG, which Stef knew well, the thrum of airport life maintained its impassive air to the humanity that sifted through its portals. Amidst the comings and goings, the shifting of the arrivals and departures boards held Stef’s rapt attention. Manically, chewing anxiously on his lower lip, he wondered why there were so many fucking flights to fucking Berlin.
London, London; where the fuck was London, he raged inwardly.
The electronic board that consumed Stef’s gaze rattled off, in a whey tinged yellow, the arrivals and departures for London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Stansted; like a holy trinity of redemption, hope and optimism, Stef’s eyes moved quickly across the board. They widened slightly, and the constriction in his throat threatened to cut off his air supply.
Slowly, as if being forced to walk through kelp tangled water, Stef approached the desk.
He recited the flight number Guillaume had given him. The reply was sufficiently crystalline to freeze wine.
“Yes, Monsieur, it left on time, five minutes ago.”
Stef nodded, and turned back to look at the boards, as if somehow a mistake had been made, and the flight was grounded for the best reason in the world.
But it wasn’t a mistake. Flights arrived and departed every day with a flowing and assured regularity. It wasn’t an airport for nothing.
This flight should have been delayed; wasn’t it supposed to play its part in fate, and bring the guys back together. Only, it evidently hadn’t been sticking to the script.
And Danny was gone.
For a while, Stef wandered through the terminal, hoping against vain hope that Danny had stayed behind; had waited for him, after all. To give Stef the one last chance that might have made the difference. But Stef wasn’t in a movie set; and he’d never really liked Brief Encounter, besides.
Emerging from the main foyer, Stef was surprised to see Remy getting out of the taxi, waving at him, a cheery grin on his wide, ruddy face. “I’m a nice guy,” Remy explained, seeing Stef’s drained, pallid face, pinched against the lights that flooded the terminal entrance. “There’s still some of us left in Paris!”
Stef managed a pained smile, thanking Remy.
“London too, Remy,” Stef sighed, closing his eyes, resting his head against the head-rest, the soft chug of the diesel, the whoosh of traffic, taking him back into Paris, and to emptiness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Thanks, Remy.” Stef gave him a decent tip, but to his amazement Remy waved his hand away.
“It was a favor, and you helped me break the record…”
“The what?”
“The record, to get to CDG ...sorry you didn’t catch your friend though, Stephane.”
“Me too, but you did everything you could; anyway, please take this…”
“Absolutely not, Stephane! When I get back to the rank, there’s 500 Euros waiting for me, so that’s me more than happy! Thanks to you and the wonders of technology!”
Stef buried his hands in his pockets, standing on the pavement, leaning over to give Remy a knowing look through the half open window. “Glad I played a part in you winning your bet. And you’re right, you’re a good guy, Remy; enjoy spending it.” He extended his hand, shook Remy’s.
“So are you, Stephane, perhaps you could,” Remy paused, then raised one of his thick eyebrows, “just, you know…tell him you’re sorry?”
The two men looked at each other for a few moments, and Stef nodded.
“I will,” he promised.
He watched Remy drive away, the light going out, denoting he was on his way home, doubtless stopping off for his prize first.
It seemed all the lights had gone out, tonight.
Chapter Twelve
He pressed the buzzer, and Madeleine’s voice talked to him through the tiny slits.
“Come in, Stef.”
Stef pressed wearily up the stairs, his fingers trailing over the iron wrought elegance of the railings. Madeleine’s apartment was in a lovely old building, full of character and subtle chic, without being too aware of its coolness. The neighbors were similar, unaffectedly cool, moderately bohemian, the aroma of cannabis and tobacco occasionally drifting upon the air, wafted by the opening and closing of a door.
Stef had always loved this building, despite it occupying the site of a medieval ossuary. Which had elicited several bad taste responses from his friends, and suffice to say that the word boner was mentioned enough times to have stopped being funny after the first ten minutes or so.
His steps echoed on the marble floor, and even in the depths of his misery, as he reached Madeleine’s apartment on the second floor, not using the lift as he hated them, he felt relieved that Fleur had such a wonderful, self-reliant mother as Madeleine was. Her work in publishing was lucrative, hence this smart place, and if it seemed the perfectly planned life with Alys had gone to hell, at least she still had Fleur.
They both did. It was Fleur that made Stef go back to Madeleine’s apartment, and not find the nearest bar, smoke and drink all night, and crash out in some guy’s bed after an unspectacular blow job. It was Fleur and Danny who had made Stef grow up.
He was lost in his thoughts, doing a mental recce of when he could get a flight to London, and abase himself on foreign soil instead, when the door to Madeleine’s apartment opened, and Delphine was standing there. She took one look at her big, gorgeous, white faced brother and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him to her. Stef clung onto her, feeling Delphine’s warmth flow into him, because he hadn’t realized how cold he was. He was thinking he would never truly feel warm again. A hug was wonderful, but it didn’t compare to holding the love of his life.
Delphine released him, and took a step back, appraising her brother. “You’re so handsome,” she whispered, as if to herself, a strange, slightly smug look on her pretty face.
Stef shrugged. He’d heard all that before. And a thousand times, every utterance as insincere as the last one.
“Do come on,” as Delphine tugged on Stef’s hand, kicking the door shut with her immaculately booted foot.
“Delphine, I’m not in the mood, okay?” Seeing as my heart feels like it's trying to escape my body via my throat. And all I want to do is kiss my daughter, hold her for a while, then try and work out how I am going to ever get Danny to forgive me.” Delphine wasn’t getting the message. Stef pulled his hand away sharply. “Stop it! I’m capable of walking by myself!” And with that, Stef barged straight into Madeleine.
He fleetingly noticed how flushed she looked, her eyes dazzlingly beautiful. One way or another, Fleur was going to be striking. “Why are you looking at me like that? It’s obvious, isn’t it? I missed him, he’s gone, he’s flown right out of my fucking life! Is that plain enough? Or how about, will both of you leave me alone, so I can at least lick my hideously self-inflicted wounds, and pickle myself in Grenache water in a selfishly indulgent way that only I can do; and no, neither of you give me another lecture about how terrible and irresponsible and stupid and gutless and idiotic and ridiculous I am because, apart from hearing that from
my brother, Maman, and a hundred times from Papa, well guess what? News fucking flash! I-already-knew-it! Now back off!” Delphine and Madeleine exchanged conspiratorial smiles. Stef felt his temper beginning to distinctly fray. “I’m going to see Fleur, then I’m going back home…just give me a bit of space, both of you.”
“She’s in the living room,” Madeleine called after him, as Stef stared down at the empty cot, the discarded soft bunny rabbit, the swirl of blankets.
“What?” Stef marched into the living room, expecting to see his daughter unsupervised, unattended, a baby no less, in perilous danger from her mother’s outrageous neglect…
The anger left him, leaving him with a breathless, sucked in feeling in his solar plexus, duller than a blow, but sharper than shock.
“Hello, Stephane.”
Stef stood there, dumbfounded, for once in his life speechless.
Fleur was evidently enjoying the warm bottle Danny was feeding her, gurgling with contentment, her eyes moving languidly over Danny’s face, as fascinated by his unorthodox beauty as her father was.
Stef blinked a couple of times, wondering if he was caught up in another Kafkaesque dream where he would wander around CDG, then come back here, to find Danny, only to wake up in a flood of cognition that nothing had changed. That he was still without Danny.
“Are…are you real?” Stef winced at his own absurd question.
Danny rubbed Fleur’s cheek with his forefinger. She had Stef’s eyes. Stef’s beautiful eyes.
They gazed at each other for a while. Danny broke the silence.
“She’s beautiful, Stef.”
“Hmm? Oh...yes, yes, she is,” Stef smiled, and sat down in the armchair. Danny could see the pride in Stef’s expression, and it softened the lines of tiredness around his eyes and mouth. Stef’s beard was still in absentia. Somehow, that reassured Danny immensely. That, and finding the courage to turn back from the airport, after hearing the desperation, the hopefulness in Stef’s voice down the phone. Finding the courage to turn back, and risk being hurt all over again.
Danny had decided that, seeing as his heart was already breaking up inside him, what was another shard of pain to cut right through him. Something, call it instinct, neediness, immeasurable optimism, whatever, had made Danny let his flight go, had come back. And when he’d pressed the buzzer at Madeleine’s apartment, his body trembling from cold and hurt, Danny had realized what that something was, that made him stand in the gloomy, Parisian night, with one last roll of the emotional dice playing out before him.
That something was everything.
That something was love…
Danny put the empty bottle on the table, and gently dabbed Fleur’s rosebud mouth. Yes, she was a beautiful little girl. He didn’t want his heart to melt, this was the most dangerous territory of all; wanting to love her, the child of the man he had thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
But, still, Fleur was making it a bit too easy.
Stef watched Danny, amazed at how tender and knowing he seemed with his daughter; where Stef felt anxious, careful around Fleur, treating her like tiny slivers of crystal, Danny was instinctively nurturing.
Stef swallowed hard. “You’re a natural.”
Danny raised his eyes and Stef saw their flintiness return. Shit, wrong thing to say? Fuck and blast it, thought Stef.
Instead, Danny’s words didn’t match the pain emanating from him; a pain that Stef, for all his emotional carelessness and clumsiness, wanted to soothe away, right now, with kissing and caressing. To take Danny in his arms, hold him and tell him he was everything to him, that he and Fleur were and always would be the center of his life and world. “I don’t know how,” Danny murmured, his finger still stroking Fleur’s silky cheek, “I imagine it’s because I’m in touch with my feminine side,” and his eyes moved searchingly over Stef’s face.
Stef had always been saying that to him, that Danny would be the one who chose all the tasteful soft furnishings whilst he, Stef, would go out with his club and bring home the food to throw at Danny’s feet as a token of adoration. It had been mildly funny then, Danny insisting to Stef that he was in possession of some testosterone actually, making Stef just tease him all the more. Because Danny knew Stef was right. Just like Stef had been right about Danny needing to be nurtured, and cherished, and loved…and Stef had done all those things, with little gestures, together with grand and Gallic demonstrations of adoration, tenderness, patience. Slowly, Stef had helped Danny believe there was more to his life than a job he despised, stuck in a prison of anxiety and obsession.
It had all promised to be so wonderful. But then, it was wonderful, and had been from the first moment Stef and Danny had set eyes upon each other.
Stef heard the silence build again; creaking, clunking with the need for someone to bring everything out in the open, kicking and screaming if needs must. Stef being Stef, he went for broke. He surmised correctly, after all, he had nothing to lose. Because the worst had already happened, hadn’t it?
“I love you.”
The words made Danny’s entire body thrum with ecstatic joy. And renewed fury.
Stef saw the double impact too, but he knew it had been the right thing to say. The truth.
“I don’t want you to say that,” Danny said, his voice tight, small.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“How can you be so despicable, Stef? How?” The pulse in Danny’s neck started to flutter, Stef’s eyes immediately drawn to it. The times he’d kissed it, bruised it with slow passion, it became the focus for Stef’s rapt attention.
“I haven’t cheated on anyone, Danny, I promise you.”
Gently, Danny lifted Fleur into the Moses basket on the sofa. Stef came over, and fussed with the soft blanket covering his sleeping daughter. Briefly, Danny’s and Stef’s fingers brushed against each other, and it was all Danny could do to not cry out with the feelings that minute caress was having upon his senses and frayed nerve endings. Stef saw Danny withdraw his hand as if scalded.
There was another brief silence. Stef sat back down, watching Danny implode.
“Danny, won't you let me...” Stef got up again, abruptly, holding out his hand to Danny, but Danny furiously shook his head.
“Don’t…don’t touch me, ever, ever again!” Danny snapped.
“We can’t talk here…why don’t we go for a walk? I’ll take you to this cozy cafe, we can be civil about all of this and…”
Danny stood up then, facing Stef, trying with all his willpower not to knee Stef in the balls right there and then. “You fucking prick!” Danny hissed, glancing at Fleur, who slept on, “you complete and utter shit! Fucking civil? Civil? Piss right off, you fucking frog!”
Danny made to brush past Stef, but Stef grabbed him roughly by his upper arms, so their faces were mere inches apart. Stef looked at Danny intently, refusing to release Danny.
A slight quirk played about Stef’s mouth. “So…you still love me then!” Danny opened his mouth to deliver another volley, but Stef silenced him. The kiss went on longer than Stef had expected; he’d wanted to kiss Danny the moment he’d seen him, sitting there, with Fleur in his arms. Just slowly, tenderly. A tentative foray into the finding of forgiveness between them. Only this kiss hadn’t bargained on those timeless elements of true love; passion, arousal, longing. Where Stef had expected Danny to try and push him away, literally and emotionally, instead, Danny opened up to him, all the heartbreak imbued in the kiss, the kiss that grew deeper, and more tender.
But Danny did, eventually, pull away first; partially, because he needed to catch his breath, and mainly because he didn’t want Stef to seduce him into forgiveness. Not whilst his other misused partner was in the next room.
The next room? Fuck!
That brought Danny bang down to earth again.
Stef was breathing hard, his eyes assuming that melting, molten look which Danny recognized so well now.
“I love you,” Stef said, barely
a whisper, but it crashed into Danny like a missile of pent up emotions.
“You’re despicable,” Danny reiterated, at odds with a burgeoning erection, and the heightened sensation of his nerves hurtling from hurt to rampant and immediate arousal.
“Yes, I know that baby.”
Danny made an exasperated sound. “Fuck! You always do this, Stephane!” he lowered his voice, glancing at Fleur, then back to Stef. Perhaps Stef was right, they could fight this out somewhere more suitable. “Don’t call me that! You’ve no right, no fucking right at all! Look at you!” Danny was virtually gnashing his teeth, “standing there, as arrogant as ever, pretending humility, Stef, pretending to be sorry about how you are an amoral and gutless twat!”
“You have every right to be angry…”
Danny shook his head. “Angry? Angry! You need to be standing where I’m standing, Stef! Because this,” Danny’s words caught in his throat, “because this hurts…you know? It really fucking hurts.” And he hated that the sob, threatening to erupt, did so anyway, despite his herculean efforts to suppress the tears rising in him again. “I thought I’d cried enough to sink a small island,” Danny confessed, more to himself than anything, “but you? You don’t cry, do you Stef? I’m not ashamed to tell you that I do, because unlike you, for all my neuroses and obsessions, at least I-am-fucking-honest!”
Stef stared at him, swallowing down the platitudes. A big dose of the truth was long overdue. “I came to London to get away from my life here, Danny; I hadn’t bargained on falling in love. I know that might sound trite, but truly I wanted you and loved you...oh, I think from pretty much the start. And you complicated everything, you see. Because I was beginning to formulate these plans in my head…plans like spending my life with you…and then expecting you to change your entire life...”
