Bon Voyage, Connie Pickles

by Sabine Durrant

  “May I kiss you?” he said.

  Could I kiss a second Blanc brother? Wasn’t that some complicated form of incest? Did I want to? Could I feel something for him? If I did, would I feel better about myself or worse? And then I thought: Who cares?

  So I leaned toward him.

  Our lips were a second away from meeting when I saw someone walking toward us, someone achingly familiar. My heart leaped.

  I pulled my hand out of Didier’s grasp, turned, and ran toward him.

  “William!”

  “Yup. That’s me,” William said. “Constance, you’re crushing me.”

  I let him go. His hair was all over the place. He had a tatty backpack over his shoulder, and his jeans were hanging down around his hip bones.

  “What are you doing here!”

  “You invited me.”

  “But you came!’

  “I thought you wanted me to.”

  “I did. I do. I’m . . .”

  “You missed me, you said.”

  “I did!”

  “What have you done with your hair? What are you wearing?” William looked me up and down with a slight frown on his face.

  “Hello.” Didier, all pressed and neat, was standing next to us with his hand out. “I am Didier.”

  William shook it. “Hi. I’m William.” He looked from Didier to me and then back to Didier again. “Hello,” he said. “So—”

  “So.” I was grinning. I had to resist the temptation to throw my arms around him again. “It’s almost midnight,” I said.

  “I know. I walked all the way from the Gare du Nord. I didn’t realize it was so far. And then I forgot the apartment

  number. I thought I’d be able to find it because of the noise, but . . .”

  “It’s just up here,” I said, pulling him toward Mimi’s door.

  We rang the doorbell, the door buzzed, and the three of us went up the stairs. I wanted William to myself, but I also wanted to show him off. I didn’t remember Delilah until we were almost at the door. Over my shoulder, I said cheerfully, “Delilah’s going to . . .” and I was about to say “wet her pants.” And then I stopped.

  “William—” I said. “Stay exactly where you are.”

  STILL SUNDAY

  Still Mimi’s kitchen, 1:30 a.m.

  It’s funny how many things you can fit into a split second. The second I remembered about Delilah’s latest conquest was the same split second that the idea flashed through my head that William seeing Delilah kissing someone else was the ideal way to split them up, to pave the way for me, his true love. But in the same split second I discarded the idea. I love William and I don’t want to hurt him; and Delilah, for all that she exasperates the living daylights out of me, is a friend and I couldn’t do it to her.

  Is it at moments like this that one’s mettle is tested? (Or is it metal? If it is, I know I’m not gold, but I might be copper. Aluminum at least.)

  “Stay there,” I said. “Don’t move an inch.”

  “What about me?” said Didier.

  William said, “Can’t I surprise her? I’ve come all this way.”

  “No,” I said. “Trust me. Just wait.”

  I went up the rest of the stairs and into the apartment, shutting the door behind me. Mimi, Sacha, Julie, and Dave were lying on the floor, talking and throwing olive pits into the wastepaper basket. Jazz piano was coming from the CD. No sign of D and P.

  “Where are Delilah and Philippe?” I asked.

  “Connie!” Julie was the only one to look up. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I’m looking for Delilah,” I said. “Where is she?”

  She shrugged and I marched across to the balcony (a little bit of me, just a tiny bit of me, was enjoying the crisis, the power, the intrigue) and threw open the doors. They weren’t there.

  William or Didier had begun knocking on the door to the apartment.

  “Er,” Julie said. “Er.” She nudged the others. Mimi looked at me oddly. “The, er …maybe?” She gestured toward her bedroom.

  “Connie!” William was calling me. “Let us in.”

  “Wait a second!” I said. Delilah and Philippe weren’t in the bedroom. I looked in the kitchen. And the bathroom. They weren’t there either. Maybe they’d gone out for a romantic walk.

  “Let us in, please.”

  Julie opened the door before I could stop her.

  The two boys trooped in. “The boy William,” Julie said. “What the hell?”

  He shuffled his feet and looked down at the floor. “Yeah,” he answered. “Yeah, well, yeah.”

  That’s what I love about him: he’s so articulate.

  She turned to me and made a face that conveyed understanding combined with relief. Before she saw William she must have been jealous. “Ahh,” she said, turning. “Mimi, this is Delilah’s boyfriend.”

  “Ahh,” said Mimi.

  Some embarrassed introductions were made. William looked suddenly racked with the awkwardness of his position. Technically he was gate-crashing. He’d spent however many pounds, traveled however many miles (more attention needed in geography), walked for hours to gate-crash a party that didn’t seem to exist, thrown partly by his girlfriend, who seemed to have left.

  “Del—she around?” he asked after a few moments.

  “Yes,” Mimi said, “yes. Thing is: where? Have you checked—” She gestured again toward her bedroom.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. Yes, I have.”

  “Let’s get you a drink.” Julie pulled William by the arm into the kitchen.

  “They were here,” whispered Mimi after they’d gone.

  “A few minutes ago, I’m sure. They only came in from the balcony because Delilah was cold. She was wearing Philippe’s sweater…. This is awful. Une catastrophe. ”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Poor boy,” said Sacha from the floor.

  William and Julie walked back in.

  “Bummer,” added Dave with authority.

  Where was she? What had she done with herself, the little minx?

  We tried to smooth it over, sitting him on the sofa, changing the music, asking him questions about his journey. After a while I realized that he was still wearing his parka and I made him take it off and hung it on the hook by the door. Sacha decided that she knew him from somewhere. “Are you in a band?” she said. “Are you sure? Didn’t you play at the Benenden Christmas dance?”

  I couldn’t relax. I was listening for footsteps on the stairs, for a giveaway giggle.

  Mimi sidled over to me. “Did you check my parents’ room?” she said.

  “No!” The very thought.

  “Go,” she said.

  Why would Delilah use Mimi’s parents’ room? Why, when she had the whole apartment to choose from? It wasn’t exactly Piccadilly Circus around here. Surely she wouldn’t have.

  She had.

  They were lying on the bed, rumpled but fully clothed and, like Goldilocks and Prince Charming, fast asleep.

  I shook her awake. “Delilah! William’s here. Get up and get out there.”

  She half sat and looked at me, dazed. “I’m not asleep,” she said. (People hate admitting to being asleep.) “Just resting.”

  “Del. William is here.” I had to shout-whisper it to get her to understand.

  “William?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s here.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. Now. Get up. Look surprised. Come on.”

  She got off the bed, still half asleep, and slipped on her shoes. Philippe slept on—his mouth half open, a tiny swirl of saliva in the corner of his mouth.

  I drew Delilah by the arm into the living room, producing her like a prize—a dazed salmon I’d caught in the upper reaches of the Seine.

  “Here she is.”

  “William.” She looked stunned. “You came!” She stumbled over to him and threw herself into his lap. He gave me a startled look over her sh
oulder.

  Everyone gave a collective sigh of relief and started drifting off. Crisis averted.

  William said, “Party of the century, eh? Good thing I came to liven it up.” And Delilah decided to quiet him down by kissing him. I felt a pain somewhere in my heart.

  Alone in the kitchen, I made myself a cup of tea. The tea bags have strings in France and I dipped the tea bag up and down over the cup. Up and down. Watching the drips. It’s not often you lose two boys to the same girl in one night.

  Julie came in and put her arm around my shoulder and watched the tea bag with me.

  “Bummer,” she said. In a New Zealand accent.

  I didn’t quite have it in me to answer.

  Then Didier was in the room, too. He stood in the doorway stiffly. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “Oh God! Pascale!” I’d forgotten about her again.

  Julie said, “Eric came and picked her up on his bike.”

  “I’ll check that she has got home safely,” said Didier.

  He’s a nice boy, grown-up and serious and kind, but I didn’t want to kiss him. I would have only been making do. You can’t go around kissing everybody just because they ask you.

  “What about Philippe?” I said.

  “He can look after himself.” Didier shrugged. “He usually does.”

  Suddenly we heard a squeal from the living room. We rushed in to find Philippe on top of Delilah. She was pushing him off. “No. No. My boyfriend’s here. He got here when you were asleep. Philippe! Stop!”

  There was a slight noise behind us. William was standing in the doorway, on his way back from the bathroom.

  He just looked at her. He had this expression on his face. I’ve saw it before—that day when I walked home from school with him after he’d made the first team in soccer and his mom and dad had said they’d turn up to watch and they hadn’t. We stood outside his house then. You could hear them shouting at each other, from the pavement. He stood there then with the same look on his face. I suppose you’d call it disappointment, except that it’s rawer than that. It’s as if you see everything for a moment, everything that all the stuff that’s normally in his face—the grins and the grimaces and the posturing—keep out.

  He said, “Oh Del,” but lightly, in the tone of voice he’d use if he discovered she’d taped over Match of the Day.

  “Will.” She came over and stood by him. “It’s nothing. It was just a quick …I didn’t know you were coming, remember.”

  Over on the sofa, Philippe was laughing. “Oh no. I am found out,” he was saying loudly—in English—to the others. “The jealous boyfriend has stormed in.”

  Except William …well, he wasn’t being like that. He was smiling oddly.

  “William. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry. I’ve had too much to drink. I . . .”

  “It’s okay.”

  She was trying to kiss him and he was gently pulling away.

  “Why won’t you kiss me, then?”

  He gave her a kiss and she put her arms around him.

  “Say it’s okay. Say you forgive me.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you.”

  I left the room then. It was too painful, for all sorts of reasons, to watch. Sometimes I wonder whether I love William in the way a mother loves a child. I know he’s attractive—well, he is these days; it’s funny I never noticed it before—but I also want to protect him. I can’t bear seeing him hurt.

  Julie joined me back in the kitchen and we sat down at the table. She said she thought William was a saint. She also said she didn’t think he was in love with Delilah; he just hoped he was and that it was a different thing.

  I said, “Why isn’t he in love with me?”

  And she said, “Maybe he is, but he hopes he isn’t.”

  “But why?” I said. “Why make it so complicated?”

  “Because you’re his friend. He won’t want to lose you. He might be scared you’ll leave him. And then he’d lose you as a friend as well. Relationships, Constance, are complicated.”

  She only calls me Constance when she’s being really, really serious. It was nice talking to her properly again. That’s the problem with being in France. I feel so dislocated from everyone. I know I’ve seen her loads, but there are always other people around and it’s as if she’s a different person here. Maybe I am too. And Delilah’s been around so much.

  “I don’t like you being friends with Delilah,” I said as we sat there. “It makes me feel left out.”

  She laughed. “Why?”

  “I feel like you must talk about me behind my back.”

  “We don’t.”

  “Well, like you might like her more than me.”

  “Of course I don’t, you pill.”

  I felt a whole weight leave my shoulders then.

  She said, “You know something? You and William, you’ve got to talk. You’ve got to really thrash this one out; you’ve got to really talk it through.”

  She went to bed shortly after that and I sat in here to write. It’s really, really late (or early, depending on your viewpoint). I’ve just poked my head into the living room. William and Delilah are asleep on the sofa. Dave and Sacha are curled up together on some cushions (that one happened without me noticing). In Mimi’s parents’ bedroom, Mimi and Philippe (that happened without me noticing) are asleep on the floor. Julie’s in Mimi’s bed and I’ve only to nudge her a little to make room for me.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  New vocab: er, too busy for that …

  STILL SUNDAY

  Mimi’s bedroom, 5 a.m.

  Iwas destined to have no sleep. And I don’t care. I’ve got the most extraordinary feeling in my stomach. I’m back in the apartment now. Everyone’s still asleep.

  I think I had dropped off when the door opened quietly and I felt breath on my face.

  “Can you get up?” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

  He waited for me in the kitchen while I got dressed and then we tiptoed out of the apartment and into the street. It was getting light. There was a pink tinge to the sky and the sound of a garbage truck churning several streets away.

  William said, “I just fancied some air. I needed to get out of there.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s weird.”

  We walked not talking toward the river and took the other bridge to the one I took with Didier, the one that leads from the island across to the Left Bank. There’s a ramp to the river itself and we went down that, to a bench at the bottom. The Seine, mushroom brown, snaked past.

  “Funny old night,” William said. “Twelve hours of traveling and then this.”

  I said, “Poor Delilah. She was really looking forward to seeing you. She’s been talking about you all the time.”

  “Has she?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Look, Con, I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Yes?”

  There was a silence.

  William said, “I …Con …I …We …I mean …”

  “Um?” I said.

  “You know when …?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You know, that day we …”

  “What?”

  “You know …”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, did you …?”

  “Did I?”

  “Did you, well …Oh I don’t know.”

  He stared glumly ahead. Traffic was passing above us, but you couldn’t see it. There was a high, creamy wall between us and the city. I thought about what Julie had said about how complicated relationships are. About how we had to really talk this one through. I felt so emotional suddenly I wanted to cry.

  “William?”

  He looked at me. His face was pale, his lips dry. The bench was cold under my legs.

  I kissed him.

  I know Julie’s usually right. But not always.

  We kissed for a long time.

  I think before I’d been worried that being friends would make
it tame, but it didn’t. It wasn’t embarrassing like that time on the sofa at home. I wasn’t expecting it then. This time it was so much better because I’d been waiting for it and thinking it was never going to happen. It felt dangerous and illicit and, well, delicious. We stopped kissing and hugged. He said, “I only came to Paris to see you.” I said, “I only came to Paris to forget you.” We kissed some more. I didn’t think about Philippe—I’d forgotten him long ago. And I don’t think William thought about Delilah. Not for a while anyway.

  I was the one who said her name first. I broke off and said, “What about Delilah?” I didn’t hear his answer at first because it was muffled into my neck. (Oh, I do like being kissed on the neck.) I pulled away and looked at him. His eyes were on my mouth. He said, “I do feel bad, but …” and I knew what he meant. I said, “What about our friendship?” and he said, “Forget our friendship,” and kissed me again.

  On the walk back, he said he’s going to talk to Delilah today. “It’s not fair otherwise,” he said. “Let her have her chance with Philippe.” I told him about my lunch with Mother. We arranged to meet after it.

  “Where do you want to go?” he said as we reached the apartment. “Let’s go somewhere special.”

  “The Eiffel Tower!” I said. “I’ll meet you there at four p.m.”

  At the door to Mimi’s room, he said, “I like your hair and your clothes, but I prefer the normal Connie.”

  “You mean the weird Connie.”

  “The normal weird Connie.”

  He looked into my eyes. “See you later, my normal weird Connie. If you change your mind and don’t come,” he said, “I’ll understand.”

  SWOON.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  New vocab: la faillite de mes espérances (the end of my hopes)

  Still Sunday

  Mimi’s living room, 11 a.m.

  I woke up twenty minutes ago, and remembered immediately about William. It was hard having breakfast with the others and pretending nothing had happened. Delilah was bossing him around in her usual princess way. He’d already been out to get croissants, but he hadn’t got pain au chocolat. “Baby, I always have a choccy croissant,” she said in her best little-girl voice. “Puh-lease. Could you just dash out again.” He went, without looking at me. I think he was quite relieved to leave the apartment. When we meet up later at the Eiffel Tower, he’ll be a free man. Or a free fifteen-year-old boy at least.