We'll Always Have Paris

by Sue Watson

  ‘I’m doing okay. I’m just getting used to being alone again . . . though I have a little dog, Lily, she keeps me company.’

  ‘I always wanted a dog, my mum would never let me, said they were dirty and would ruin the furniture. Mind you, I think she felt the same about her children,’ he laughs.

  ‘And her son’s girlfriend,’ I say as the waitress puts down matching plates of pasta. Peter smiles to acknowledge my comment and after we’ve both been sprinkled with parmesan we pick up our forks to eat. The food is rather bland and tasteless, but what did we expect?

  ‘Not quite Napoli?’ he says, lifting a forkful of orange gloop.

  ‘I know, it’s a shame, no little Italian restaurants off the beaten track with candles in dusty bottles and tomato sauce made with tomatoes. Everything’s so homogenised now, isn’t it?’ I agree.

  ‘Yes . . . I don’t think anyone’s fooled by the faux Italian surroundings or the Tuscan crockery,’ he says, looking around him. ‘That’s what was so special about our time in the sixties . . . it was all so diverse, new energy, established ideas being challenged – it was a time of great change, but we didn’t realise it then.’

  We talk some more about old music and our days wandering through Manchester with his camera and reminisce about some of the people from college.

  And then at some point in the conversation we abandon the flabby pasta in glutinous sauce and just sip wine. Peter orders another bottle and I’m vaguely aware I’m being irresponsible if I drink any more. ‘I have to get a train back to Manchester at six p.m.,’ I say.

  He looks disappointed. ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Well, my daughter’s picking me up at the station and I have to work tomorrow.’

  ‘But you own the business . . . ’

  I look up from my wine glass. ‘Yes, but I still have responsibilities.’

  ‘Oh.’

  We sit in silence, my comment hanging heavily over the table.

  ‘I’m sorry. No regrets, remember?’ I raise my glass again and he looks wistful.

  ‘How can we not have any regrets? We should have lived in that garret overlooking the Parisian rooftops. We should have drunk coffee on French pavements . . . When I let you go I said goodbye to all that.’

  ‘So did I,’ I say wistfully. I take a large mouthful of wine and swallow down the tears, the regret, the years of not knowing.

  He is shaking his head slowly, tears in his eyes. ‘But now, I just feel like it’s kismet – what are the chances? We are being handed another opportunity to be together. Don’t tell me it isn’t meant to be, Rosie . . . ’

  ‘Whoa. I agreed to meet up to have lunch, I don’t see this going anywhere, Peter, how could it?’

  He looks at me and sighs, his eyes beseeching me.

  ‘Peter, you can’t just waltz back into my life talking about “kismet” and second chances. You had your first chance and you blew it, and I’m now happily widowed and I’m not looking for love again, ever.’

  ‘I understand.’ He’s running his fingers through his hair, something he always did when he was put on the spot and didn’t know how to respond in a difficult situation.

  ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘It’s not really about forgiveness. Yes, I’m still hurt, but I’ve been happy. I loved you, but I was lucky enough to love someone else too – it took a while, but Mike was the right one for me to marry.’

  ‘I’m glad, I’m glad you had a happy marriage. I’m so relieved I didn’t ruin your life with my stupidity.’

  ‘We both were stupid, we were young and in love . . . at least, I was.’

  ‘I was too. I know it might not have seemed like it at the time . . . but I still cared about you and I miss you, I’ve always missed you.’

  He casts his eyes down and we sit in silence.

  ‘It’s my biggest regret, but then it’s easy to look back and say why did I do that? At the time it seemed like the right thing to do – I had so many plans . . . art college in London . . . and travelling the world. In those days I just thought of myself.’

  ‘And all I thought of was you. Even after everything, when my whole life stopped on that day at the fair, I still loved you and if you’d come back to me I’d have welcomed you with open arms . . . then.’

  ‘Oh, Rosie . . . ’

  ‘No. I was the idiot, Peter, not you. And when I finally managed to pull myself up I went on to live a different life as a different person . . . It was a wonderful life with Mike and we were so happy.’

  Mike’s joy at just being with me was an antidote to Peter’s cruelty.

  ‘I just sometimes wonder if I’d been in a different environment with a different person what it would have been like, what would I have been like? I wonder if I’d have made it as an artist?’ I muse.

  ‘Yes, what might have happened to the girl who planned to exhibit in Paris, haul her canvases to San Francisco and sell them on the bay, live and paint like a Native American in the desert?’

  I’d forgotten about San Francisco and the desert, I’d forgotten my own girlish dreams, yet he’d remembered them for me, kept them safe all these years. I’m touched by this but do I really want to be reminded of all the things I didn’t do?

  ‘I chose a different path,’ I say. ‘Yes, I still clung on to the remnants of what I’d hoped for, but what happened changed me and showed me what I needed and not what I wanted. I think I learned over the years that the two things are quite different.’

  I sip my drink and feel a lump in my throat thinking of the early days with Mike, when I still belonged to Peter, but Mike had enough love to wait for me to catch up. Sometimes the past would come crashing in and he’d hold me in the night as I cried myself to sleep. He was always there, always loving me. And I will always miss him.

  ‘Yes, I spent much of my life chasing what I wanted, never what I needed. I didn’t know the difference then,’ he sighs. I wonder if he knows the difference even now.

  ‘You were always chasing the light.’ I say. ‘Like a kitten dashing after a butterfly, and I always worried you’d get bored, so I had to keep moving and be glittery for you. I wondered later if that’s all Paris and I were, a sparkly idea, a moving concept that kept your interest for a little while.’

  ‘Rosie, our plans were real to me, and I wanted to do all the things we’d talked about, but suddenly that day there you were, telling me it wasn’t possible, that we couldn’t do it.’

  ‘It’s funny how we see things differently. I felt it was you telling me I couldn’t have what I wanted, what I needed, and I had to run away. It was hard at first to adjust, but I have never regretted the choices I made.’

  He doesn’t speak, just puts his head down again, and I am surprised to see years of heartache etched in his brow.

  ‘Margaret always said you’d leave me and she was right. Your talk about living abroad always excited me but it scared me too. I only wanted to do that with you. It was our dream, you and me and no one else’s, and I didn’t want to do it alone. What happened to you . . . after the fair?’ I ask.

  ‘I spent the summer at the vineyard in Italy,’ he sighs. ‘After the first few days there I realised what a terrible mistake I’d made but my father refused to pay my fare home. You know what he was like, he wanted me to “be a man”.’ He says this in a gruff voice and I’m reminded of the awful blustery pomposity of his father, who seemed disappointed in his artist son.

  ‘You didn’t go back to college after the summer, did you?’

  ‘No, I did a year travelling and working and my father insisted I get back to Britain and do a course or start a job . . . What he wanted, not what I needed,’ he laughs, echoing our earlier conversation. ‘So I went to art school in London, then I lived in Europe, spent the next forty years travelling the world. I have spent my life running away; I’ve always been looking for something.’

  ‘We are different, so different. I’m beginning to understand why it would never have worked, you and me,’ I sa
y, thinking about the way he just packed a bag and walked away, from me, his family, his life. And now he hops on planes and trains, still searching for something else, a more sparkly existence. ‘I hope you found what you were looking for,’ I add, and I mean it; time has made it bearable for me to hope he’s been happy.

  ‘I’ve been happy enough, but I’ve spent a long time looking for something that was once right under my nose. You went on to have a good marriage, a family . . . I have nothing. I spent the rest of my life looking for another you. And now I know, there isn’t another you . . . just you. It’s only ever been you. Do you want to talk about what happened . . . ?’

  ‘I have talked about it. With Mike,’ I snap, suddenly overwhelmed by the memories of the past.

  ‘Of course, he was your husband, of course you’d talk to him,’ he says, but I can see that hurts him and I’m angry because he wasn’t there and Mike was, he has no right to be hurt.

  ‘I just want to make it all up to you . . . that’s why I was so desperate to meet you again. People often get second chances in life, and here we are being handed this wonderful opportunity to wipe the slate clean, start again. I was young and stupid and I thought I was invincible, that we were invincible. I assumed whatever happened you’d always be there . . . that I’d fly off to Italy and you’d be waiting on my return. I didn’t show you enough how much you meant; I didn’t realise it myself until we were apart. I want to make up for that, I want to love you again, Rosie.’

  Chapter Seven

  On the train home after meeting Peter I drifted off, thinking about the first time we’d gone out together. I’d been standing at the bus stop and he’d happened to be walking past. He’d smiled at me and I’d pulled my coat around me to cover the red blooming up from my chest to my neck. I was trying so hard to be cool around this fabulous human being, but I was awkward, unable to pull off the sophisticated-woman-of-the-world act. I couldn’t play games, there was no point in hiding this blossoming inside me.

  ‘Cigarette?’ he said, wandering into the bus shelter like he had no particular place to be and offering me the packet. I nodded, despite an earlier attempt making me cough. I wanted him to have an excuse to cup his hands around mine. I wanted the flame reflected in his eyes as he looked into mine and in that moment, as the soft, relentless rain came down, I knew I’d do anything for this boy.

  I took the cigarette from the proffered pack and when he’d lit it, our eyes meeting over the naked flame, I sucked gently, tasting the acrid smoke. It was still unpleasant, but it was also illicit, seductive, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, he turned to me, his breath smoky, and said, ‘The bus isn’t coming. Why don’t we get out of this rain and go for a coffee?’

  I nodded, helpless to resist as he hailed a taxi, which was exotic in itself, I’d only ever seen people do that in films. He asked the taxi driver to take us to the Kardomah, a coffee bar in Albert Square, and we sped along the rainy streets to the city. Once in the café, he pulled out a chair at a table, and I sat down feeling like Audrey Hepburn.

  I’d never been in the Kardomah, but I knew it was a special place. Known then as ‘the artists’ quarter of Manchester’, it was cool, exotic, and totally the place to be. Thinking back now I realise how important he was, not just to my emotional growth but my cultural awareness. I remember he explained the Venetian Gothic architecture of the Kardomah’s exterior, pointing out the table where L.S. Lowry always sat when he went there for coffee. The waitress came to our table and Peter ordered two black coffees, the sophisticate’s drink of choice. When they arrived I breathed in the rich, nutty aroma thinking I had landed in heaven, sipping elegantly whilst trying not to let the bitter taste show on my face. I have only ever drunk black coffee since that day – another small but significant beginning of my metamorphosis brought about by Peter Moreton.

  ‘I like it here, but it’s nothing like the coffee bars in Paris where artists paint and draw and novelists talk about their work,’ he said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. Long, beautiful artist’s fingers twisting the stub into the base until every spark was gone.

  ‘Gosh, Paris – that sounds wonderful,’ I gushed. I’d dreamed of living in Paris, in a studio in Montmartre, overlooking the city. I longed to place my easel in a Paris street and draw the intricate Gothic buildings, the intertwining lace structure of the Eiffel Tower.

  But I didn’t say any of these things. Instead, what I said was, ‘I’ve never been to France, but my uncle went to the Channel Islands once.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, sipping his coffee, while I prayed he didn’t ask me any searching questions about the place. I hadn’t a clue about my uncle’s trip or where the hell the Channel Islands were, I’d just wanted to sound worldly.

  Despite my nervousness I found him calming, and was thawing in the warmth of his eyes, the strangeness of his beautiful vowels. All the same I was keen to move away from the subject so I launched into a complaint about my mother, hoping it might explain some of my rather artless behaviour. ‘Most of our family comes from round here and as Margaret won’t let me do anything or go anywhere I doubt I’ll ever visit anywhere outside Manchester,’ I said. ‘She’s convinced a Woodbine and a French kiss will be a passport to eternal spinsterhood or damnation – or both.’

  He laughed loudly. ‘I presume you’re referring to your mother? Why do you call her Margaret?’

  ‘Because it annoys her . . . and I can pretend she’s not my mother,’ I said, enjoying his attention, basking in his laughter. Who knew that my irritating mother could be the icebreaker in a conversation with a man?

  ‘And who would you like to be your mother, if not Margaret?’

  ‘Oh, someone I could talk to about art and the world . . . Simone de Beauvoir or Sylvia Plath – or even one of those women who are striking down at the Ford Dagenham plant.’

  ‘I like you, Rosie Draper, you’re . . . different.’ He said this like I was interviewing for a job and he’d decided to give me the post. ‘You don’t put on any airs and graces, you’re not bragging about “Daddy’s new car”, or where you went to school . . . ’

  ‘I could hardly brag about my school,’ I laugh. ‘It wasn’t Eton.’

  ‘Exactly, you aren’t a snob. But you’re really talented, your drawings are really good, you should be thinking about becoming an artist when you leave – don’t end up wasted in a typing pool somewhere.’

  I was delighted, I knew I had a talent, but no one had ever really commented on it except Mike, who always seemed to be at our house just lately.

  ‘Yes, you’re a brilliant artist, Rosie, but you’re so modest – I like that, but I think you should push yourself more.’

  ‘Push myself? I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘And that’s exactly why you’re special.’ He smiled, reaching out his hand across the table, the tips of his fingers brushing mine – it was like touching a firework.

  I see now that I was as different to him as he was to me – and he was enchanted by my gaucheness and perhaps what my granddaughters would describe as ‘an inability to filter’.

  A couple of hours flew by, basking in his appreciation. We talked and talked and it was after six p.m. when I left to catch the bus home. I took my seat and I couldn’t stop smiling, then just as the bus was about to pull away he jumped on, leaping into the seat beside me. I giggled and he put his arm around the back of the seat, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. The journey home that evening was glittery with stardust and beating hearts and when he drew a heart on the window with his finger I thought I might just die. And I still can’t believe he’s back in my life after all this time.

  Anna is interested but wary about my lunch with Peter and after asking where we’d eaten and what we’d eaten she doesn’t mention it again. Isobel, on the other hand, likes to talk about emotions and feelings. She’s quite perceptive and when she accompanies Lily and me on one of our walks she is gently inquisitive.

  �
��What’s it like seeing someone after such a long time, did you feel anything, Mum?’ she asks as we walk through the park together.

  ‘Scared stiff!’ I laugh. ‘And yes, I still feel a fondness for him, we were together for less than a year, but it was a significant time in my life and he made a huge impact on me. We often dismiss young love as puppy love, telling kids they aren’t old enough to feel anything real, but at that age feelings shape who you are, what you become. And Peter was such a huge part of me back then I think I’ve always carried a little bit of him around with me.’

  I can see that now, even as I say it; I hadn’t even realised it myself, but he’s been with me even after we parted. I remember wondering what he would think of punk art in the seventies, I’ve asked myself if he’d like the colour I painted the walls in 1983, the new roast of coffee beans I started drinking in the nineties. It’s all been subconscious, but still so much a part of me. People you love leave bits of them behind, in the same way Margaret and Mike have stayed with me even though they aren’t here any more. We carry on through the people we love though I sometimes wonder what my mother would think about certain things if she were here.

  ‘It must be weird. I can’t imagine seeing a boy I went out with at that age now.’

  ‘It’s like meeting a ghost,’ I agree. ‘Someone you’ve remembered for so long has just materialised before you. He looks different, but the same. I couldn’t quite believe it was him at first.’

  ‘Wow. And what on earth did you talk about after all that time?’

  ‘It’s funny really, we talked about what we do and where we are in our lives, families and things like that. The last time we met we had a terrible argument and it all ended very badly, but the years have softened things, and I’m not so crazy in love with him now so I can see clearly. It was good to catch up.’

  ‘Yes . . . I bet you had a lot to talk about. Would you like to see him again?’

  ‘Perhaps, for lunch or a coffee if he’s in the area, but that’s all. I’m not sure I’m ready for another man, not sure I ever will be . . . I want to be just me for a while.’