Greatest Love Story of All Time

by Lucy Robinson

  Date eight: Michael A man with twinkling dark eyes helped me off the train with a gloved hand. ‘Merci!’ I breathed excitedly, surveying the scene around me. The Gare du Nord was packed. It was everything I’d imagined: massive, chaotic and exciting. There were glamorous women with neckerchiefs and sunglasses, men in suits scuttling along with briefcases, the smell of coffee and pastry and chocolate, and luscious sexy Frenchyspeak spilling down from elegant platform speakers. Thousands of voices filled the cavernous arches and sun spilled through the old leaded windows. Mon dieu! I was here at last! I beamed at the nice gloved man who’d been serving me in First all the way from St Pancras. He smiled indulgently. ‘Bonne chance, Mademoiselle.’ (Every time he’d arrived with more coffee I’d given him a nervous earful about Michael.) He handed me my suitcase – which looked rather shabby among the Louis Vuitton luggage that was descending from the train – but nothing was going to trouble me today. I was in the world’s most romantic city, fresh as a daisy after an unexpected trip in First Class, only a matter of hours from seeing Michael Slater. I’d chosen my outfit carefully – tight jeans, smart boots and a seventies floral blouse that showed just the right amount of collar bone – casual but well groomed. My hair had begun to grow out of its bob and I’d pinned my fringe to one side in the way that I imagined une Parisienne would do. My heels clicked steadily along the platform with my suitcase trundling obediently behind me. I felt fabulous. I stopped at a Presse newsstand on the main concourse for an impulse purchase of Le Monde. I wanted as many souvenirs of this weekend as I could find and I rather liked the idea of Fran avec French newspaper. A few seconds later I handed it back to the man at the stand, red-faced. I had forgotten to bring any euros. ‘Erm, pardonnez-moi,’ I muttered, and scurried off. After a quick tussle with a cash machine I was free, standing in the sun on the rue de Dunkerque under the awesome edifice of the Gare du Nord. I texted Michael: I’m here! Standing outside Gare du Nord. What next? While I waited for his response I walked off to find a French Snack, filling my brain with Paris. Even here, smack bang in the middle of Tourist Central, it felt magnificent. I ran into a little bakery crammed between a bookshop and a rip-off tourist store and bought a coffee and a brioche, just because I felt that this was what one should do. I paid nine euros. I left, a little outraged, but amused. Only the French could pull off a stunt that audacious. Munching the buttery pastry I felt quite overwhelmed and it took everything I had not to start dancing on the spot. In fact, had my phone not been ringing, I probably would have. It was Leonie. ‘OH, MY GOD!’ I screamed, by way of answer. No reply came, just a lot of hissing. ‘Leonie, I can’t hear you,’ I shouted. ‘I’ll call you later when I’ve got an update!’ As I cancelled the call, the next message came through: Turn right out of the station and walk along Dunquerque. Look for a silver Beamer parked by a flower stall. Get in it! I started jigging up and down with pure, childish excitement and ran towards the car, which was only metres from me. ‘Françoise?’ the driver said, with a lovely French smile. ‘Oui!’ I breathed, hopping in. We pulled off smoothly and I hugged myself. I couldn’t believe he’d done this for me! I knew now that I would do pretty much anything to get him back. Whatever he wanted, I’d give it to him. Michael’s next message said, You’re coming to meet me for lunch in my fave brasserie. Exploring this afternoon. And then something very special tonight … X As we passed through the streets filled with people I drank in the city. Bikes with baskets containing small dogs, chestnut trees laden with fat fluorescent green buds, smiling people drinking coffee on pavements and then – I drew in my breath – the pyramid of the Louvre. I saluted to the Mona Lisa as we chugged on towards the river. ‘Wow,’ I whispered as Notre Dame cruised into view. The taxi driver cocked his head in the opposite direction. ‘Regardez,’ he said. I regarded. ‘Triple wow!’ I breathed. It was only the bloody Eiffel Tower! ‘J’adore Paris!’ The misery of the last few months evaporated out through the window across the Seine. Leonie tried me a couple more times but there was no sound and eventually I turned my phone to silent. I wanted to be able to concentrate fully on my boy. And there, twenty minutes later – as I stood in the doorway of a cavernous art-deco brasserie called La Coupole – he was. My stomach somersaulted. My precious Michael Slater with the slate grey eyes. Sitting alone at a table by the window, fiddling with his stiff white napkin. Under the high ceiling, surrounded by gaily chattering diners, he seemed small and lonely but rather romantic. He was thinner than last time I’d seen him; he was wearing my favourite of his jumpers and his shoulder bones seemed sharply visible underneath. Even across a crowded restaurant I could see the fear in his face. It made my heart burst as I manoeuvred my way through the tables behind the maître d. I’m coming, Michael. I can make whatever it is go away. I can fix this! I stood in front of him and he looked up. For a second, he didn’t do anything, he just looked at me, almost shocked. And then the smile started. The smile I’d fallen in love with the moment I’d met him. The slow, lazy smile that made his eyes sparkle and his cheeks dimple. I felt the same stirring in my womb I’d felt on the day I’d walked into his life with Barry Manilow hair. ‘Franny?’ he said eventually, getting up. ‘Actually, yes. Do I look like someone else?’ ‘No, I– What?’ I started giggling. ‘Sorry, it’s just you put a question mark after my name. As if I was someone else. I’m definitely Fran.’ ‘Thank Christ for that.’ And then he did what I’d been desperate – desperate – for him to do every moment of the last three months: he pulled me into his arms and kissed me properly on the mouth. Then he hugged me so hard that I feared for my ribcage. ‘Michael! I can’t breathe down here.’ Nothing. ‘Michael! You’re killing me!’ A deep rumbly laugh travelled out through his rather spare ribs and jumper and into my ear. Eventually he let go. ‘Christ, I’ve missed you. So badly.’ He traced a finger along my collarbone in exactly the way he had in my mind when I’d bought this blouse. I didn’t trust myself to speak. There was so much to say and so much pain to try to file away. Instead of saying anything I began the meal in the way that only I knew how, which was to smash a glass off the table with my handbag as I sat down. A large, beautiful wine glass, which splintered into a million rainbow-tinted pieces as it hit the floor. Unsurprised but mortified, I sprang to my feet to pick it up while Michael laughed. ‘For God’s sake, Franny! You haven’t changed.’ He bent down to help me. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I whispered, puce. I didn’t dare look up at the people around us and kept my eyes on the shards of glass all over the place. Something wet fell on them. A tear. Me? A quick mental check confirmed that I wasn’t crying. Michael? Yes, Michael. He was picking up glass and actually crying. ‘What the blazes is going on?’ I whispered to him. ‘Why are you crying?’ He made a weird snuffly noise like the one he made when he was sleeping. ‘Because I’ve missed you. Even your bull-in-a-china-shop ways. I need you in my life. I can’t function without you,’ he said simply. That seemed a very decent explanation. I tried to put my hand over his briefly but stabbed him with a glass shard. ‘Oh, fuck, sorry!’ ‘Ssh!’ he hissed. ‘You can’t say “fuck” here!’ People were by now ignoring us as we scrabbled around on the floor. ‘We’re in France, Michael. These people speak French. Of course I can say “fuck”!’ The waiter arrived and swept the glass briskly into an elegant silver dustpan, which he whisked away. We sat down and looked at each other. Michael’s eyes were watering but he’d stopped crying. ‘Sorry to start blubbing,’ he said ruefully. ‘Didn’t plan to do that straight away. But it’s true. I can’t live without you. You don’t know what the last three months have been like.’ I took a deep breath and straightened my top with shaking hands. ‘So why did you end it?’ I said. I wasn’t far off crying myself now. All the pain, the shame of stalking, the nights where I’d cried myself to sleep, the stupid dates, the SOS calls to my friends. Why had we both gone through this? The waiter came back. He scanned the floor quickly to check I hadn’t broken anything else and then go
t a bottle of wine out of a bucket behind Michael. Bloody hell, it was Puligny Montrachet. ‘Yes, great,’ Michael said distractedly, after sipping the sample the waiter gave him. ‘Très bien,’ the waiter muttered waspishly. He poured wine into our glasses, deposited vast leather-bound menus on the table and turned on his smart clicky heel. ‘Um, I can’t drink at the moment,’ I said. Michael looked surprised. ‘Eh? You’re a born drinker!’ I flinched. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Er, antibiotics. Anyway. You were about to tell me why the hell we’ve spent the last three months in Purgatory, I believe.’ Michael had coloured slightly and my heart melted. He looked so precious and vulnerable. And thin. I resisted the urge to get up, hurl myself into his lap and curl up there with my arms around him. ‘Because …’ he said eventually ‘… because you abandoned me, Franny. You had left the relationship. You were living on your terms and finding time for me as and when you could fit me in. I just couldn’t take any more.’ He stopped, anguished. ‘By the time we got to your thirtieth I felt like you weren’t giving me anything at all. I felt like this hanger-on and I just cracked up, Franny, I couldn’t take any more.’ ‘Um … Go on,’ I said slowly. My brain was exploding with confusion, frantically re-scrambling my picture of our last few months together and cross-checking it against what he was saying. ‘Fran, I know you worked on the six thirty news so you were never going to put in really normal hours, but it just felt you were throwing your whole life into it. When you weren’t working, you were out with Leonie drinking,’ –he spat the word out as if I’d been shooting up skag – ‘or hanging with bloody Dave or, worst of all, you were looking after your mother.’ I put my hands up. ‘Whoa, Michael, Mum was sick! I saw her once a fortnight. What are you on about?’ But he was crying again. Silent sobs that convulsed him in agonizing spasms. ‘Franny, I was so lonely I didn’t know what to do with myself,’ he said. ‘I just felt like I was spending my life waiting for you to come home from your big important job or from nights out with your big important friends. You completely abandoned me. I couldn’t take any more.’ Silently I passed him a slightly snotty tissue from my handbag. He winced as he appraised it before blotting his tears. I was rendered completely mute by now so he carried on: ‘I always loved you, Fran. From the moment we met. I wanted to be with you for ever. I still want to be with you for ever. I was going to ask you to marry me that night on your thirtieth and then you kept me waiting for an hour at ITN while you were calling Nick Bennett and trying to get into the election team, and when you finally came out all you could talk about was that you’d got the job even though I’d said I didn’t want you doing it. It was like you didn’t even care. And I realized I had to get away from it all and sort my head out. I wanted to spend some time apart so I could figure out whether or not you wanted to be with me and whether I was prepared to accept you on your terms.’ I stared at him. ‘I heard from Alex that you were dating and it nearly killed me.’ ‘That was why you started texting me,’ I whispered. He nodded. ‘But then eventually you replied and Jenny said she’d seen you and that you’d been miserable too and you’d been stalking Nellie Daniels thinking we were together and … well, I suppose I realized you were in as much of a state as I was.’ I was flabbergasted. ‘You mean the three months was a test? To see how hard I’d try to get you back?’ He looked sheepish. ‘Not so much a test, I just needed to know if you cared.’ ‘JESUS, Michael, you told me not to contact you for three months! It was the only bloody thing you were clear about! If I’d known you were testing me I’d have been on the phone twenty-four hours a day! I nearly had a breakdown. Seriously.’ I felt hollow and exhausted. ‘I nearly had a breakdown,’ I repeated softly. He studied my face closely and put his hand over mine. ‘I know. Jenny told me. I realize now it was a stupid thing to do. I should have been straight with you –’ ‘You’re not bloody wrong there. I can’t believe you did this to me.’ I regained my composure. ‘You do know that my friends made me go on those dates, don’t you?’ He nodded. ‘And that nothing came of them?’ He nodded again. I made a mental note to ensure the story of my sleeping with Charlie Swift was deeply buried. ‘Michael, the last three months have been the worst in my life. And if it’s been that bad for you, too, then quite frankly I think you’re insane.’ His face clouded. ‘I just think it was a ridiculous thing to do and it didn’t pay off. I thought you were sleeping with Nellie and you thought I was dating everything that moved. And we were both miserable. If this is going to work, you’re going to need to be honest with me. One hundred per cent honest.’ The waiter came over and hovered slightly malevolently, pointedly ignoring the fact that we were engrossed in a deeply personal conversation. I looked up at him with watery eyes. ‘Er … pâté?’ I said, taking a stab at what might be on the menu. ‘Et, um, moules frites?’ The waiter nodded and I smiled wryly, grateful for my GCSE French. Michael muttered, ‘Moi aussi,’ and the waiter swept off. Michael smiled and put his hand on the side of my face. ‘I agree, honesty is the only way. So here’s me being super-honest, Fran. I love you. I’ve missed you terribly and I want us to be together. I just need to know that you’re serious about us. I can’t go on feeling alone in our relationship.’ Scared of losing him again I gabbled, ‘Of course I’m serious about us. I’m so sorry you felt abandoned, darling Michael. I never intended to make you feel that way. I promise I’ll spend less time drinking – in fact, actually I lied about antibiotics. I’m not drinking at all these days’ – Michael was stunned – ‘and, anyway, Leonie is in complete La-la Land with Alex and Dave’s being weird, but none of that matters. Even if they want to see me every night I promise I’ll make more time for you. In fact, I’ll give up Gin Thursday, OK? That’s it. Gin Thursday’s gone. Done. Finished.’ Michael nodded hopefully. ‘And Mum’s in AA! She’s sober! It’s a miracle, but she doesn’t need much looking after now; she’s got all these people from AA she hangs out with and she’s talking about working again and she’s seeing her old friends …’ Michael smiled. It didn’t feel quite right, batting away Mum as a drain on my time, but I couldn’t lose him again. ‘And as for work, well, I …’ My new project was going to take up a lot of my time. I looked at Michael’s face and knew what I had to do. ‘As for work, I was just asked to make a prime-time documentary for the ITV news. It’ll take up hours of my time, there’s no point denying it.’ Michael lowered his eyes to his napkin. ‘But there will be other opportunities.’ He looked up again. ‘If Hugh trusts me with this I’m sure he’ll trust me with a similar thing when you and me are solid again. Maybe for now I could quit the six thirty news and apply for a transfer to the lunchtime bulletin so I’d be home earlier.’ He fiddled with his fork, evidently still concerned. My heart pounded. I could not go back to where I was three months ago. Nothing was worth that sort of pain. ‘Michael, I’ll do whatever it takes, OK? I’ll put you first. Just please believe me when I tell you I’m sorry because I love you and I am willing to make whatever changes I have to for this to work.’ The waiter returned, wearing a rather horrid smirk, and we stopped talking as he replaced our starter cutlery with pâté knives. Michael was thinking hard. I had to get him back. The waiter swept off again. ‘OK.’ Michael smiled. ‘Let’s do it. Let’s be us again. I trust you. I love you. I want to be with you.’ He leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips. I felt a Mexican wave of relief go off inside me. I grabbed his hand and smiled, weak with relief. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you for giving me one more chance.’ We kissed again. The meal was delicious. Rich gamey pâté with squares of light brown bread and glorious salted butter, followed by mussels in a sauce so exquisite I had to fight hard not to lift the bowl up and slurp at the end. We talked and laughed as if none of the last painful ninety days had happened, me filling him in on Duke Ellington’s evil machinations and him groaning about Alex’s descent into complete Leonie-based insanity. Apparently he had been obsessed with her from the moment he met her. ‘Does he talk about it all the time?’ I aske
d. Michael shrugged. ‘Don’t bloody know. Since he got involved with her I’ve not even heard from him. He is totally under the thumb.’ I let him in on my suspicions regarding Dave and Stefania, which he seemed to enjoy immensely. ‘Surely not! Stefania? After someone as beautiful as Freya?’ he breathed, scandalized. ‘Er, hang on a minute … Stefania is wonderful, Michael, and she’s really very pretty if you ignore the outfits. But I know what you mean about it being sudden. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree … I suppose we’ll have to see.’ The conversation turned to Michael’s work: he was out here writing a feature on the Sarkozy family and, as ever, I was dumbstruck by his success. And, well, his cleverness. I listened for ages to the tales of his journalistic exploits tracking down Sarkozy-haters in secret cafés in Montmartre and pulling up old newspapers in dusty records offices, feeling the usual overwhelming sensation of pride. He was so awesome, this man of mine! Quite why he wanted a thicko like me was beyond me. While we waited for dessert, Michael took my hands in his again and looked me in the eye. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you for agreeing to give more to us. I know it can’t have been easy for you.’ I smiled at him and he kissed me. He didn’t lean back again but stayed very close to my face, gazing searchingly into my eyes. Suddenly he seemed scared again. He cleared his throat and started speaking hesitantly. ‘Um, I was going to ask you tonight … I have this perfect romantic location lined up but right here, right now, feels perfect.’ He put his hand into his pocket and I started seeing things in slow motion. Out it came. A ring-box. And it opened. And inside it was a beautiful, delicate, sparkling ring made of a smooth silvery metal. Three diamonds sat in a perfect rectangular art-deco clasp. My ears started tingling, so when Michael said, ‘Franny, will you marry me?’ I could barely hear him. I nodded slowly, wondering if I was possibly fainting. He took my left hand and put the ring on my finger. And then he got up, came round to my chair and kissed me and hugged me, muttering, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ into my ear. We stayed there for a good five minutes by which time the waiter had served our dessert and wandered off in disgust with the cream jug. ‘I’ve just got engaged!’ I whisper-shrieked, at the stylish old couple who arrived at the table next to ours when Michael went to the loo half an hour later. They looked at me blankly. Ah, yes, they were French. I waved my left hand at them instead, adding squeaks to clarify the situation. ‘Ah! Félicitations!’ said Madame, kindly. The man pretty much ignored me but she laughed softly. ‘Appelez votre mère!’ she whispered. Dear Christ! Mum! Madame was quite right. I pulled my phone out of my bag and waited for the ring tone. Nothing. Dammit. Of course, I’d not been able to hear Leonie this morning. Perhaps I could text Mum. There were three texts from Leonie. The most recent said CALL ME IMMEDIATELY. The one before said: DID YOU GET MY MESSAGE? THIS IS SERIOUS FRAN. Now nervous, I opened the first message. URGENT: DON’T SEE MICHAEL. CALL ME. DON’T EVEN GO NEAR HIM. I’M NOT FUCKING AROUND. Oh, God, I thought. This didn’t sound like anything to do with the Eight Date Deal. This didn’t sound like a kindly caution. This was bad. As I stared at my phone, another message came through. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, ARE YOU GETTING THESE? FRAN YOU MUST NOT MEET MICHAEL. ‘Pardonnez-moi,’ I said, grabbing the waiter by his apron. He looked disdainfully at my hand. I removed it. ‘Erm, j’ai besoin d’utiliser votre téléphone.’ ‘I see. It is over by the maître d’s desk,’ he replied in English. I was off and running. Michael was coming back from the toilet on the other side of the room. I smiled and waved my telephone at him; he nodded and carried on back to the table. ‘Fran? Is that you?’ ‘Yes. What the fuck?’ ‘Darling, I don’t know how to tell you this.’ ‘What?’ ‘Franny. It was Michael who sold your mum – and, indeed, you – to the press.’ Silence. ‘Franny?’ ‘What are you talking about? Charlie did! He knew everything!’ ‘Yes yes yes, that’s how it looked, I admit. But it seems Charlie kept his mouth shut. Perhaps he really did like you. Doesn’t matter. Franny, it was Michael.’ I gulped, goldfish-like, unable to take this in. ‘What the hell are you talking about? How? Why are you telling me this now?’ She took a deep breath. ‘I told Alex this morning that you’d gone to Paris to meet Michael. I figured that if you two were getting back together, we could talk about you at last. But when I said where you were going he went mad. Got really angry. Called Michael a cunt and all sorts. Honestly his language was filthier than when he –’ ‘LEONIE.’ ‘Sorry. Christ. Look, Alex hasn’t talked to Michael in weeks. They’d been drifting apart for a couple of years because once Michael found you he didn’t really need Alex any more. But then they went out a few weeks back, when Alex told him you were dating, and Michael basically got drunk and told Alex he’d sold the story. They had a massive fight and haven’t spoken since.’ I was speechless. ‘But why? Why would he do that? He works at the fucking Independent, Leonie! Why the hell would he bother selling the story to the Mirror when he could break it in his own broadsheet?’ ‘He doesn’t work at the Independent. He was a total failure there. The day he dumped you, he lost his job. They made him redundant because he was shit. Remember how you never saw his name in the paper? And he told you it was because he was in a more editorial role? That was bollocks. He just couldn’t write. He was unemployed for two months after you two split up and then eventually sold your mum to the Mirror so that he’d get some freelancing there.’ ‘But he was great at his job. I know he was. I saw him in action!’ Leonie interrupted: ‘He was OK-ish as an on-camera correspondent but only because he had a good team around him. He didn’t get early dispensation to leave Kosovo, Fran, they let him go. They got rid of him.’ My mouth had stopped working. I made a strangled honking noise. ‘Oh, Fran, I’m so sorry. But if you don’t believe me, ask Hugh. It was him who let Michael go. He said the quality of stuff Michael was sending in from over there was so bad he’d have better luck employing a turkey with learning difficulties.’ That certainly sounded like Hugh. ‘But … but he’s in Paris writing a piece for the Independent!’ ‘Of course he’s not.’ Leonie took another deep breath. ‘And, Fran, if you don’t believe me, I need you to think seriously about your relationship. Look, I always wondered about this a bit, in fact we all did, but Alex confirmed it a hundred per cent for me this morning. Michael needed you not because of who you are but because of what you did for him. You put him on a pedestal right from day one, Franny, and told him he was amazing all the time. You fed his ego day after day, you listened to all of his self-important bullshit and made him feel like he was the greatest journalist alive. Apparently he’s always had some downtrodden sidekick doing this for him since he was a schoolboy. Alex was his punchbag for years when they were younger. But then your career started to really take shape and he couldn’t cope with it. The more established you became, the less you did what he wanted you to do. He couldn’t take it. He used to be really scathing about your work behind your back.’ Another blow to the stomach. ‘He what?’ ‘I’m afraid so, darling. And he was going to propose to you on your thirtieth but only in the hope that you’d agree to become some sort of housewife. But that very day he lost his job at the Independent and you got your promotion on to the election team and he lost it.’ I reeled. ‘Leonie, you don’t know any of this. As if Michael would tell any of this to Alex! It was Alex who was always being rude about my work! Michael told me what he used to say. How do I know he’s not just making it all up?’ ‘FRAN! Wake up! Think about your relationship!’ I went silent, but nothing much happened in my head. This was too much. Just too much. ‘Franny?’ ‘Yes, still here.’ ‘Franny, what has he said to you about why he ended it?’ I felt an unbearable lump of sadness form in my throat. ‘He said I’d abandoned him,’ I whispered. ‘He said I hadn’t given him enough time or put enough effort into the relationship.’ ‘The FUCKER!’ Leonie roared. ‘And do you think that’s true, Fran?’ ‘No.’ ‘Damn right it’s not. You were always running off home to him to make sure he was OK. When we were
at Popstarz the other week I was thinking, God, it’s been months and months and months since me and Fran did this – we used to do it all the time.’ ‘Yes, I thought the same,’ I said sadly. It felt as if my world was ending. Again. ‘What did you say to him when he accused you of abandoning him?’ she asked. ‘I said I was sorry. I said …’ I started to cry ‘… I said I’d stop Gin Thursdays and spend less time looking after Mum because she was in AA now, and I said I’d –’ A loud sob escaped and the maître d’ handed me a white napkin without looking round. ‘I said I’d resign from the documentary.’ Leonie was silent. ‘Poor Fran,’ she said eventually. ‘You know that was the wrong thing to do, don’t you?’ I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me, blowing my nose. ‘And you know that you were a wonderful, committed girlfriend to him, don’t you?’ she asked gently. I nodded again. ‘Mmmppff.’ ‘So what are you going to do? Do you need reinforcements? I can see if there’s any seats on the Eurostar today, my love?’ Leonie’s kindness was almost as heartbreaking as the situation. ‘I’m going to –’ I cried even harder. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. We just got engaged.’ ‘Oh, Franny,’ Leonie whispered. ‘Darling, I’m so sorry.’ After the call ended I looked at him, sitting in the restaurant window, completely relaxed and blissful. How dare he? I thought numbly. How dare he propose marriage to me when he picked up a phone and told the press that my mother is an alcoholic? That she blackmailed Nick into staying with her? How had he envisaged our wedding day? What would he have said in his speech, for fuck’s sake? ‘And a special thank you to Eve, whose family I’m truly honoured to be joining’? ‘Can I assist wiz, er, le situation?’ the maître d’ said quietly at my shoulder. He glanced at Michael and raised his eyebrow. ‘I am presooming that your engagement is no good.’ I started mopping away the now-drying smudges of black mascara with the napkin. I continued to watch Michael, who wore an expression of pure childlike happiness on his face. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘No good.’ ‘He cheated wiz you?’ he guessed, looking excited. ‘No. Worse.’ He whistled. I’d wanted to be with Michael from the moment I’d met him. I’d dreamed of it; I’d dreamed of him. I’d watched him sleep and imagined us in the same bed in forty years’ time. I’d watched love and hope and disappointment flash across his eyes. I’d made dinner as he’d talked to my cat. I’d cleaned skidmarks out of the toilet without swearing. All because I loved him. In response he’d used me as a prop. As an ego-inflater. Confidence-booster. He’d laughed at my career behind my back and he’d sold me and Mum to the fucking Mirror just because his career wasn’t working out the way he wanted it to. I balled my fist. Anger had arrived and it was riding a big furious don’t-fuck-with-me horse. The maître d’ peered down at the fist and nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oui. Fight him.’ He removed his jacket. ‘But no fighting in the restaurant. I will get him out for you. And then you may fight to your heart’s end.’ ‘Heart’s content,’ I said automatically, as if the man were Stefania. But then I stopped. ‘No, you’re right. Heart’s end is spot on. This is over.’ ‘Yes!’he hissed. ‘Over! We have too many engagements in this city! It is time for break heart at La Coupole!’ Together, we marched over to the table where Michael sat gazing dreamily into the middle distance. A happy smile lit up his face as I approached him. And my anger left as rapidly as it had arrived. ‘It’s OK, actually,’ I said to the maître d’ quietly. ‘I can handle this.’ He was bitterly disappointed. ‘The engagement is still on?’ ‘No. It’s still off. But there won’t be any fighting.’ He smiled sadly and shuffled off. ‘Hello,’ I said, as I arrived back at the table. ‘Hello!’ he said warmly, taking my hand. ‘So, the engagement is off,’ I said, as I sat down. He smiled. ‘Yeah, I second that. We’re a shit couple!’ I said nothing, just looked straight at him. I didn’t move. Eventually, a small chink of doubt wormed its way into his face. I continued to say nothing as it flourished gradually into a shadow of pure fear. He looked at the maître d’, who was replacing the telephone under his desk. And then he looked at me again. He knew. I watched excuses flicker across his face like a silent movie – lies he could tell me to buy himself more time, insults he could throw to make himself feel better, insistences that Leonie, or Alex, or whoever had blown his cover, was mad. I shook my head gently and eventually he nodded, understanding. Slowly, I took off the ring. It was beautiful. A finger of afternoon Parisian sun bounced gaily off the main diamond and flashed into his eye briefly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I know. But I can’t be with you now, Michael.’ He exhaled slowly. I thought of Mum, of that day when the press were camped outside her house and she’d begged me like a child to go and buy her gin. About the shame I’d suffered at ITN. And I thought about our relationship and the overwhelming amount of love I’d poured into someone who needed me only because I bolstered his ego. Someone who cared so little about me he’d sell me and my family so that the nation could laugh at us. And then I got up and left. I cut through the clink of cutlery and glasses and the low hum of conversation and walked out at four o’clock, on 20 March 2010, to the rue du Montparnasse. I took a deep breath, pulled my bag over my shoulder, and started walking. Chapter Forty