We'll Always Have Paris

by Sue Watson

  She laughs. ‘I know what you mean. I love Richard but sometimes I long for a rest, just some time alone to think – away from his latest “project”.’

  I feel for Isobel – she suffered several miscarriages in her late thirties and now at nearly forty says she’s accepted that children won’t figure in their life. Richard said recently that they are both happy and fulfilled and don’t need a child to mess everything up, but I know he’s just saying this to make Isobel feel better. I understand how Isobel feels, and sometimes I watch her looking at Katie and Emma and I worry if she leaves it much longer the small window for treatment or adoption will have closed. It’s not easy being a mum, you absorb all their hurts and worries like a sponge until you can’t take any more . . . then that one more thing comes along, and you’re amazed at your own capacity to absorb. I feel like I’ve spent my life kissing grazed knees and broken hearts better – and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I adore my girls, and as much as I’ve looked after them all their lives they look after me, particularly now they’re older. The three of us have always been close, and when he was sick, knowing he wouldn’t be with us much longer, Mike said he knew we’d be okay. ‘The Carter girls look after each other,’ he’d said. I wonder who will look after Isobel when she’s my age?

  ‘So you haven’t made arrangements to see him again?’ she asks, throwing a distressed old tennis ball for a very excited Lily.

  ‘I gave him my numbers, but I’m not sure it’s wise to try and go back,’ I say, still lying to myself as Lily drops the ball at my feet. Since we met some old wounds have reopened. I still feel little nubs of sharp resentment and I’m torn between wanting to be with him and wanting to stay away, to preserve the past – and perhaps myself? A part of me would like to re-establish – as friends – the happy Rosie and Peter who talked about Paris and art, but that would lead to deeper discussions and I’m not sure I’m ready to hurl myself into all the emotional turmoil that would involve. The sensible, grown-up Rosie doesn’t know if she should even consider another encounter, or if it would be wiser to leave him behind, the way he did me.

  ‘We always talked of living in Paris, Peter and I . . . silly really,’ I sigh, throwing the ball back across the grass.

  ‘It’s not silly, who knows, you might still go one day. Not with Peter, perhaps, but you and Corrine could do a weekend?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say vaguely.

  But it’s not about the place, it’s about the person, and the one I wanted to be with in Paris was always Peter. I realise now that’s why I’ve never been – I could never go there without him.

  I remember one night when we were lying in a field, gazing up at the stars, we’d only been together a few weeks and he asked me to run away to Paris and get married. My mind had soared up into the sky, it was all I’d ever wanted since our eyes first met.

  ‘Yes, of course, yes,’ I sighed and kissed him. The air was thick with lust and silence as he kissed me gently, his hand sliding up under my top as I lay back on the cool, dark grass.

  ‘Don’t. We can’t go any further,’ I whispered, against my own desire.

  ‘I know but . . . ’

  ‘We can wait, Peter. Let’s wait until we’re married.’

  And so we stayed under the stars, imagining our wedding in a little church in Montmartre and all the children we’d have.

  ‘You can sketch and I’ll take photos and sell our art so we can go to little bistros on the Champs-Élysées. We’ll spend all our money on champagne and frogs’ legs and snails . . . ’

  ‘And the patisseries . . . we’ll buy up all the croissants, let’s live on croissants . . . ’ I’d never even seen a croissant, let alone eaten one, but I’d read about them in books and imagined the flaky, buttery deliciousness on my tongue.

  Over the years, this memory has stayed with me and sometimes I take it out when I’m alone and wrap it around me like a warm blanket. Thoughts of Paris have always kept me warm.

  In spite of my long-held dream to visit, I never suggested that Mike and I go there. If I had he would have made it happen, because that’s the kind of wonderful husband he was, and he’d have done it all for me. But even after everything that had happened with Peter, I didn’t want Paris with anyone else.

  I pick up the ball once again at my feet, Lily panting deliriously at the mere prospect of another throw. It’s wet and disgusting and I pull a face at Isobel before throwing it gently across the grass. Lily’s enthusiasm overcomes her arthritic joints as she staggers after it, breathless but happy.

  ‘Lily runs just like me,’ I say, pointing at her, and Isobel laughs.

  ‘You love that dog, don’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Yes I do. I didn’t realise just how much I appreciated someone waiting for me at the end of the day. She’s always so pleased to see me, I love her stratospheric levels of excitement at the smallest thing.’ I smile, giving her a stroke. ‘Unconditional love – there’s nothing quite like it.’

  ‘Is that how it feels to have a child?’ she asks, and my heart twists.

  ‘In a way, but a child is everything, there’s nothing quite like having a child,’ I say, looking at her as she gazes ahead into the distance.

  How I wish my younger daughter had known the joy of holding her baby close, and the contentment of motherhood that runs so deep. It’s so hard to describe the love you have for your children, but there’s also the love you have for the children you lose and I understand Isobel’s pain. Each time she miscarried she lost a longed-for child, and the memory of those children will never leave her. She’ll wonder what kind of people they might have turned out to be: kind, funny, good at sports, talented . . . the next prime minister? But she’ll never know because their lives ended before they’d begun and I hurt for her and for what might have been.

  Chapter Eight

  I’m driving into town to meet my friend Corrine for dinner when my mobile rings so I pull over to the side of the road. I put on my glasses and see ‘Pierre’ flashing on the screen, which makes me smile.

  ‘I know it was, at times, a little difficult, but it was good to see you last week,’ he says.

  ‘Yes, you’re still good company.’ I smile.

  ‘Rosie . . . we talked about it being a one-off, a lunch where we just said hello again, but I was wondering if you’d like to meet . . . again?’

  ‘Oh, Peter, that’s lovely, but I don’t know . . . ’

  ‘I just feel we have a lot more to talk about . . . things we haven’t said.’

  ‘Yes, but if we met every day for the next hundred years I think there would still be things we wouldn’t say.’

  ‘I know, and I’m probably being selfish, looking for answers, trying to understand myself, and okay, even redemption maybe? But . . . ’

  ‘Peter, please don’t be offended, but I don’t want to spend my future going over my past. It was all too painful and I just don’t need—’

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even suggested—’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m only just processing the loss of my husband. I’ve been through a lot, and now meeting up with you has brought back some memories I’d like to forget.’

  ‘Of course, of course, and if you’d rather not talk then that’s fair enough, but I just thought if we talked things through it might help. I don’t want your memories of me to be dark – we had some happy times, didn’t we?’

  We did, we had wonderful times together, being part of a couple with Peter Moreton was good for my soul and also my confidence. With him I wasn’t invisible any more – I dyed my hair blonder, wore strawberry-red lipstick, talked about art and pretended to understand politics. He made me stronger, more confident, I began to believe in myself and I was so much happier than I’d ever been. In spite of everything, Peter had been good for me – but now? I’m not so sure.

  ‘Yes, we had good times and I went on to have a lot of happiness in my life, and now I have my priorities. I’ve got my family’s future to think of.’


  ‘But that has to include your future too, Rosie. What about your artwork? You don’t sketch any more.’

  ‘No I don’t, that’s all in the past, I have a business and other, more important things to do now,’ I say. And I can hear Margaret’s voice, she never understood how I could sit and sketch for hours, and saw it as rather pointless: ‘You don’t want to be wasting your time with pencils, there’s housework to be done.’

  ‘You had such a talent. It might be the past, but it doesn’t mean you can’t go back there, it’s never too late, Rosie. I often wondered what had happened to you and I always imagined you painting the pyramids, drawing the Taj Mahal, showing your work in big white galleries in NYC. Okay, so life got in the way then . . . perhaps it wasn’t your time, but I don’t care how old you are, at our age it’s even more important to do what you want to because there may not be that much time left.’

  ‘You’re right, and I’ve thought about sketching, travelling, doing stuff I want to do . . . ’

  ‘Then you must.’

  ‘Oh, Peter, the world doesn’t work like that. You’ve never had to worry about anyone but yourself, so it’s easy for you to hand me a list of clichés and tell me life’s short so why don’t I get on a plane, or spend my time sketching instead of earning a living. I have a family, and responsibilities, something you don’t have and so can’t possibly understand how it is, how it can pull you apart sometimes.’ As I say this I know it sounds unkind, critical of his advice and of his lifestyle, but I can’t help how I feel.

  ‘No. I probably don’t understand. Who am I to try and tell you how to live your life? I haven’t exactly made a success of my own, I’ve always felt like an observer and that’s what I am. I take pictures of other people living their lives and I don’t really have one of my own, except for when you and I were together. I took pictures of you then, you were part of my life – and you’ll always be my flower in the rubble,’ he says. ‘And, if we don’t meet again, promise me you’ll never lose sight of that girl with the crooked smile, the long blonde hair, and the big dreams, because I never will.’

  The phone clicks and he’s gone and I feel terrible. I miss that Rosie too, and I didn’t mean to upset him, I just wanted him to realise that I’m not the teenager in thrall to him as I once was. I wanted him to know that he can’t just click his fingers, say a few magical words and I’m off on his magic carpet again.

  I wipe away the tears and start the car engine, my thoughts flipping constantly. I probably overreacted, he was only trying to inspire me, make me see things positively – he was always so good at that. I wonder if I should call him back but decide it may not be wise, he probably resents me for pointing out that he has no family and doesn’t understand what it means to be responsible for others. He talked of possibilities and futures and how I once had all these plans, but that was Rosie then, it isn’t Rosie now, and it strikes me that I’m not really sure who Rosie is any more.

  I thought being in love with him at seventeen was complicated, but meeting him now is bringing back all the conflict in my head. I don’t need this, I think, and I pull out onto the road as my mind trips back to two young people wandering through dirty streets, exploring the ghosts of buildings that were once homes, now just rubble on the ground. Me in my best powder-blue dress thinking I had all the answers and the world at my feet.

  ‘I want to see you standing against that wall,’ he’d said, making square shapes with his fingers, scrutinising with his eyes while taking out his camera.

  ‘You don’t want a picture of me against a grey wall – I’m no model,’ I laughed.

  ‘You’re my model. Come on, baby, imagine I’m David Bailey, do your model poses,’ he said in a funny cockney voice.

  He snapped away, shouting ‘Yes, yes’ as I pulled funny faces, throwing my arms above my head, flattening my palms against the wall and pouting over my shoulder into the camera. I couldn’t do anything for laughing but he just kept shooting.

  The streets were empty, the slum clearances had left the area bleak and grey and as dusk began to fall we’d headed back home. Tripping over the grey rubble I spotted a wild flower, a tiny daisy in the dust, pushing through the broken bricks. Despite all the destruction around us here was a new life, fighting against the odds. I bent down to get a closer look while Peter continued to photograph me.

  ‘I can’t believe it . . . a flower, in all this,’ I said, opening my arms up to the bleak landscape.

  ‘A flower in the rubble . . . just like you. It’s a reminder that life just has a way of working stuff out, babe,’ he said, putting down the camera and smiling at me.

  At the thought of the flower I return to our phone call, touched that he’d remembered that day too. I wish now I’d been more gracious on the phone instead of being mean and bitchy, but that’s how I felt when he started telling me how to live my life. How dare he? I’ve lived a life and it’s been full and happy. This Rosie runs a florist, she picks grandchildren up from dancing class and picks daughters up when life knocks them down. This Rosie is trying to make a new life from the ruins of her old one and it isn’t helpful of Peter to turn up in the middle of it all with his crazy talk, opening up old wounds and awakening old fantasies – making long-forgotten dreams feel like reality again.

  ‘You said what?’ Corrine is open-mouthed. I’ve arrived at the wine bar in a bit of a state and she is, as always, ready for a drama.

  ‘Look, he has my number, if he wants to he’ll call.’

  ‘So, let me get this right, you just told a gorgeous, single guy that he has no life and should get out of yours? And now you think there’s a chance he might call you? Good luck with that.’

  When she puts it like that my heart sinks and for the first time since we met again I face the possibility that we really have said our final goodbye. And it hurts.

  ‘No . . . I don’t suppose he will call me after I said that.’

  ‘And doesn’t that bother you? I mean there’s every chance he’s on the phone now to some woman who isn’t rude or unpleasant. She hasn’t told him he’s nothing and he’s inviting her to dinner, or New York for the weekend.’

  ‘Paris . . . ’

  ‘Paris who?’

  ‘That’s where he wants to take me.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, why didn’t you say? Horrid old Paris? Ooh, he starts off with nasty old clichés about how you’re still young enough to live your life then he tries to force you into going to Paris? The bastard!’

  ‘Stop, Corrine.’ I’m laughing. ‘It’s not as simple as it seems.’

  ‘Nothing ever is. Give me his number, I’ll go to Paris with him – don’t say I don’t do you any favours,’ she says, taking a glug of her raspberry martini.

  Corrine is one of my oldest friends, and unfortunately for me she always tells it like it is. For example, a month after Mike’s death when I opened the door to her in pyjamas mid- afternoon her opening gambit was, ‘Hello? Rosie, wake up, smell the coffee and stop pretending it’s you in that graveyard.’

  And that was the gentlest remark she made, so if there’s one thing I can count on with Corrine, it’s honesty.

  ‘Give me your phone, and tell him you didn’t mean it,’ she’s saying, making a beckoning gesture across the table. She’s had one too many raspberry martinis and while I’m the designated driver tonight there’s no way she’s getting my phone.

  ‘But I did mean it, I’m not a kid and he’s not my hero any more.’

  ‘If you don’t call him and arrange another date, I will.’

  ‘It wasn’t a date . . . ’

  ‘Of course it was. Stop kidding yourself, Rosie, your face lights up when you talk about him. You’ve spent the last forty years worrying about everyone else in your life and what’s going to happen if – and now it’s time to have some fun.’

  ‘But it won’t be fun, we had a terrible break-up and I don’t want to go there again.’

  ‘Okay, so he broke your heart when you were t
welve . . . ’

  ‘I was seventeen . . . ’ She never listens.

  ‘Twelve, seventeen, who cares, it was a hundred years ago. Look, just see how it goes after a few drinks. Be nice, forget what happened then and see what’s happening now . . . the clue is “now”, Rosie. Stop living in the past and just call him.’

  ‘If I do I might regret it.’

  ‘And if you don’t you might regret it.’

  She is tipsy and funny and very Corrine and I laugh along.

  ‘And anyway, don’t take this the wrong way but there isn’t a queue forming to go with you on a date. What have you got to lose?’

  I can’t answer this.

  ‘At our age, Rosie, our tomorrows are fewer than our yesterdays.’

  This hits me right between the eyes and after a few minutes she’s convinced me to call him. I am completely sober and can’t believe I’m doing this, especially with a heckling Corrine egging me on in the background.

  And when he answers and I tell him I would like to meet him again, he seems so delighted my heart melts.

  ‘Peter, I know you’re right – I need to look to the future. I like that you feel comfortable enough to advise me but you can’t just tell me how to live my life. And if I’m honest it stung a bit when you said you’d imagined me doing all these wonderful things in galleries in New York, when the truth is I’ve been here – and I’ve never picked up a pencil since we parted.’

  ‘I just wanted you to remember who you were and who you could be again. I really didn’t mean it as a criticism of you or your life.’

  ‘No, and I didn’t of yours either – we both went down different paths and sometimes the grass may look greener, but I wouldn’t swap my husband or my girls for a lifetime of galleries and travel.’

  ‘No, trust me, you wouldn’t. It’s a lonely old road,’ he sighs and I wonder at the reality of his glamorous life. After seeing the photos of his home and learning about his travels I imagined a happy and fulfilled life – but his comment has made me wonder just how happy he really is.