French Kissing

by Catherine Sanderson

  22

  I was walking down rue de Belleville – dawdling not out of reluctance or nervousness, but to compensate for running early – when I became aware of someone quickening their pace behind me, drawing almost level, then slowing the tempo of their footfalls to match my own. At first I pretended not to notice, keeping my eyes on the pavement ahead. It wasn’t unusual for someone to accost me for a light or some spare change on this stretch of road, or even for a complete stranger to try and strike up conversation or invite me for a drink, and the best strategy I knew for warding off unwanted attention was to avoid making eye contact in the first place.

  But it was also possible that the person on the periphery of my vision could be someone I knew and, in the end, I allowed curiosity to gain the upper hand. In my preferred scenario, of course, my pursuer was Jérémy. But when I darted a glance over my left shoulder, I locked eyes with my new neighbour Pete, instead. ‘Sorry for creeping up on you,’ he said with a lopsided smile. ‘I thought it was you, but I wanted to make one hundred per cent sure…’

  ‘Hello again.’ I blushed involuntarily at the memory of the comment Pete had made about playmates, a few hours earlier. Had he seen me crossing the courtyard from his window, I wondered, and thrown on his jacket and shoes in haste so he could follow me out and waylay me in the street?

  ‘I wanted to apologize, for earlier,’ Pete continued, confirming my suspicions. ‘It occurred to me afterwards that what I said might have made you uncomfortable. I mean, not everyone gets my sense of humour, and I’d hate to think you imagined I was being weird…’

  ‘Oh no, not at all,’ I reassured him with a smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure I took it in the spirit in which it was intended.’ I was secretly rather glad Pete had caught me looking my best. I hadn’t gone to the same lengths for Matthias as I might have done for Jérémy, but I’d pulled out the stops halfway. It was a mild evening and my coat was unbuttoned, revealing a black cashmere jumper with a deep V-neck. I’d swapped my trainers for boots with heels that elongated my jean-clad legs. As for my make-up, I’d attempted a toned-down version of the look Kate had created: my eyes were outlined with a hint of grey and my lips wore a sheer coat of pale gloss. All in all, I’d left home feeling pretty good about myself and, judging by the appreciative expression on Pete’s face, he thought I scrubbed up rather well.

  Keeping up the pretence – if indeed it was a pretence – that he was on his way somewhere too, Pete walked alongside me as I crossed rue Julien Lacroix, then adjusted my trajectory to avoid the overflowing bottle bank in front of place Fréhel, which wasn’t so much a square as a tarmacked area where a building had once stood. The ‘place’ was best known for its trompe l’oeil artwork: the exposed stone wall of an adjacent apartment building was decorated with a lifelike sculpture of a man standing on a platform suspended below a huge black billboard, his workmate taking a break seated on the rooftop above, his legs dangling over the side of the building. ‘Il faut se méfier des mots,’ the text on the billboard read, in large white cursive script. The official translation in guidebooks tended to be ‘beware of words’, although I felt ‘se méfier’ was much less categorical than that. ‘Be wary’ would have been more accurate, as far as I was concerned, but I was nit-picking, as ever.

  ‘It’s cool, isn’t it, that sign?’ Pete gestured upwards. ‘It took me years to spot that second figure… The one sitting up top.’ I noted the implication – that Pete was a long-term Paris resident, like me – with interest. I also had an inkling of what he might be going to say next, and my mind was already racing ahead, plotting how to reply. We were nearing the Folies now, where Matthias was doubtless waiting. And sure enough, Pete popped the question a few seconds later. ‘Do you fancy grabbing a drink?’ he suggested, his voice casual. ‘If you have a bit of free time, that is?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have plans,’ I replied, shaking my head regretfully. ‘I’m on my way to meet a friend.’ I gestured towards Aux Folies, praying that Pete wasn’t bound for the same destination. I didn’t much fancy trying to make self-conscious small talk with Matthias while Pete’s eyes burned holes in the back of my head.

  ‘That’s a shame. Well… Another time, perhaps…’ I nodded and smiled, pausing in front of the Folies and pretending to wait for my ‘friend’ outside, at least until Pete was out of view. Thankfully, he didn’t linger. He gave me a little wave instead, and then turned to dart across rue de Belleville in the gap between two cars, without waiting for the pedestrian crossing to give him the all clear. Once he’d disappeared behind one of the white, graffiti-covered traders’ vans parked in front of the Chinese restaurant opposite, the coast was clear. It was a pity, really. It would have been refreshing to do something so spontaneous. But I could hardly stand up Matthias at such short notice, could I? And Pete would keep. I knew where to find him.

  There was no sign of anyone resembling Matthias at the outdoor tables, so I pushed open the swing door and stepped inside. The room was wider than it was deep, with only two rows of tables running between the glass front of the café and the long zinc bar which spanned most of its width. Pausing inside the door, I scanned the half-dozen tables to my left, beyond the Sopranos pinball machine, but drew a blank. When I hopped to the right to avoid the waiter, who swept past me with a full tray of drinks on his way to serve the smokers outside, I detected something soft and yielding under the heel of my right boot and heard a sharp intake of breath. Turning to apologize to the owner of the trampled foot, seated at the table to the right of the front door, I realized my boot had instinctively found my date for the evening.

  ‘Ah là la, je suis désolée,’ I exclaimed, mortified, as Matthias limped to his feet and leaned over the table to plant a kiss on both my cheeks. Without removing my coat, conscious of the draught from the front door, I pulled out the chair opposite his so I could sit, a position in which, I joked, I would constitute less of a threat. Matthias’s lips twitched in response to my attempt at humour, but his watering eyes couldn’t lie. I’d really hurt him. What an inauspicious start to the evening.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he replied in surprisingly competent English. ‘Comme on dit,’ he continued, switching back into his mother tongue, ‘it will make a great story to bore our grandchildren with one day. You know, instead of the usual “Our eyes met across a crowded bar,” we’ll be able to say “Our feet touched, with a crunching sound, as boot met bone”…’

  ‘Anything has to be better than owning up to meeting on Rendez-vous, don’t you think?’ I said with a wide smile. Sizing Matthias up as I spoke, I found I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. He was a lot better looking than his sulky profile photo had led me to believe. His brown hair was cropped short and there were patches of prematurely grey hair around his ears, reminiscent of Jérémy’s, which gave him an air of maturity beyond his years. His chin was peppered with a few days’ stubble; his eyes were a rich dark chocolate-brown. Dressed in the same casual uniform as everyone else in the Folies – indigo jeans and trainers, with a pale-grey jumper layered over a white T-shirt – he looked very much at home.

  If Jérémy hadn’t come along first, it’s possible Matthias would have piqued my interest. So much depends on timing when you meet new people, I thought to myself. In this case, timing hadn’t worked in Matthias’s favour: my head was filled to capacity with thoughts of Jérémy. ‘I must admit though,’ I continued, ‘yours was the most original email I’ve ever received on Rendez-vous. It was so refreshing to hear from someone who had read my annonce and bothered to refer to it. It stood head and shoulders above the rest.’

  ‘I’m glad you liked it.’ Matthias grinned, showing a set of white, slightly uneven teeth. ‘It’s surprisingly hard to write a Transports amoureux spoof without sounding like the sort of stalker you’d want to place under a restraining order. And as for meeting through Rendez-vous’ – he paused for a moment – ‘I do know what you mean. I chose my pseudonym – dazedandconfused – because
it expressed my total désarroi at finding myself signed up on a site like that, and I have to say, I could only bring myself to subscribe for one month. The idea of becoming a long-term member, making monthly payments by direct debit for six months, or even a year…’ Matthias didn’t have to finish his sentence: I was already nodding vigorously in agreement.

  ‘But doesn’t that mean you have to date rather, um, intensively to get your money’s worth?’ I said slyly. ‘Signing up for one month is way more expensive, isn’t it? They make that option as unattractive as possible, to dissuade people from doing it…’

  ‘It was expensive, yes, but so far it’s been worth it,’ said Matthias enigmatically. Was I supposed to take his ambiguous remark as a compliment, I wondered, or assume he’d been meeting a different girl every night?

  ‘I joined last September,’ I confessed, ‘but I had my misgivings and it took me a while to work up to actually meeting anyone. So, actually, in five months I’ve only met five different people. But there was an awful lot of filtering involved in between. I’ve lost count of the number of emails and flashes I’ve had to wade through…’

  Matthias made no comment about this, but I thought I read something like approval in his eyes, as though I’d confirmed some impression he’d had of me before we met. ‘I read somewhere that the male-to-female ratio is out of kilter and it’s become a real problem,’ he said gravely. ‘Some girls are getting turned off by all the men bombarding them with messages and leaving the site altogether. Which will make things even worse for the rest…’

  From the outset, I felt incredibly relaxed in Matthias’s company. For the first half-hour at least, he quizzed me about what it was like to be an expat, where I’d learned French, what I enjoyed about teaching and why I’d chosen to live in Belleville. When I mentioned the name of Lila’s school, he did a double take. ‘One of my best friends has two children at that school!’ he exclaimed. ‘Lucie and Léo – Lila might know them, actually – I call them my little nièce and neveu.’ He shook his head. ‘Comme le monde est petit!’

  ‘Your friends must have started a family early?’ I said, frowning as I performed the mental arithmetic. ‘I mean, if they have two kids at maternelle and they’re twenty-eight, like you…’

  Matthias looked amused. ‘Is that your way of telling me you think I’m a bit too young for you?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes. ‘Because I happen to think age doesn’t count for much once you get beyond a certain point. We’re both adults. We both work. Okay, I haven’t fathered any children yet’ – he tapped his palm against the side of the wooden table, mock-superstitiously – ‘but I was in a six-year relationship until a year ago, and I can’t say I never gave the subject any thought…’

  ‘I was twenty-eight when I had Lila,’ I admitted. ‘So I suppose I do take your point.’ I refrained from adding that, if my life had gone according to plan, Lila should have had a brother or a sister by now. Taking a sip of my beer, I decided it was my turn to quiz Matthias. I learned that he worked for a small firm of architects based nearby, in rue Ramponeau, and his eyes sparkled when he started to tell me about the projects he’d worked on when he was still a student. He’d spent a year in Mali, working for a non-profit organization, where he taught people how to construct buildings using local materials, reviving methods that had long fallen into disuse.

  ‘It was ironic, I suppose,’ he conceded, ‘that a French guy in his twenties ended up showing Malians how to make traditional dwellings. But the knowledge was dying out. They’d started building to Western specifications. It made no sense at all…’

  When Matthias excused himself to go to the bathroom, I realized the collage covering our square table was composed of a few dozen cuttings taken from a newspaper, each with African marabouts advertising their skills. Every table at Aux Folies was covered in a collage, some papered with posters from the era when the bar had formed part of a music hall next door, others peppered with old photographs or random newspaper clippings. What a coincidence it was, I pointed out to Matthias when he returned to his seat, given the subject of our last conversation, that ours had an African connection. I read one of the adverts aloud in French. A clairvoyant by the name of Monsieur Diakhaby listed his skills as ‘Resolution of all problems. Removal of curses. Bringing back loved ones. Increasing the profitability of your business…’

  ‘I’ve got a better one,’ Matthias retorted, pointing to a clipping in the centre of the table. ‘I found it while I was waiting for you, earlier. Listen to this. “Monsieur Moro: will bring loved ones crawling back on four legs, as obediently as dog follows master.”’

  When I finally stopped laughing, dabbing at my watering eyes with a tissue, Matthias asked me if I’d like to go for something to eat. ‘We could go to Krung Thep, on Julien Lacroix,’ he suggested, ‘if you’re hungry and you like Thai food…’

  My last visit to Krung Thep had been with Nico, a few weeks before we separated. Aside from the unfinished meal at Chapeau Melon, I hadn’t eaten out in my own neighbourhood in the intervening months, partly because I didn’t get out much, but also because I’d been wary of running into Nico and Albane. But after performing a rapid internal inventory of the contents of my fridge, I green-lit Matthias’s plan without further hesitation: I felt as relaxed as I would in the company of Kate, Ryan or Anna and drifting to another location to prolong the evening felt like a natural progression.

  Rounding the corner of rue Lesage, I remembered the other reason why I hadn’t been to this particular Thai restaurant in so long. Without a reservation, it had always been nigh on impossible to get a table, and I’d lost count of the number of times Nico and I had been turned away by the surly waiting staff. The interior, with its raised banquettes – carpeted benches constructed to give diners the impression they were sitting cross-legged on the floor around a series of low tables – was tiny, and there were only two sittings per evening. But when we stepped inside, the forbidding-looking owner nodded at Matthias and waved him straight over to the only two spare seats in the house. ‘I called ahead,’ Matthias confessed, offering me his hand to steady myself while I clambered over the banquette to wedge myself in behind the table. ‘And look,’ he said, pointing out a yellowing press-clipping of Queen Elizabeth II in full ceremonial dress, posing stiffly with a group of Thai dignitaries, sandwiched between the tablecloth and its protective glass pane, ‘we’re in good company.’

  ‘That rather depends on what I think of the monarchy,’ I retorted with a smile. ‘Don’t forget, I do read Libération…’

  We ordered a mountain of crispy Thai spring rolls, followed by a prawn dish served inside half a hollowed pineapple for me and fish wrapped in banana leaves with sticky rice for Matthias. ‘It’s spicy, which is more than I can say for most Parisian Thai food,’ I said appreciatively, draining the dregs of my Thai beer as I finished my main course and signalling to the waitress my urgent need for a carafe of water.

  ‘You should order some fresh mango to put out the fires,’ Matthias suggested. ‘It’s the only decent dessert on the menu.’

  ‘So you come here a lot?’ I said, thinking back to how the owner had recognized him and wondering how many other Rendez-vous dates he’d booked a table for, ‘just in case’.

  ‘There was a time, a few years ago, when I ate here three or four times a week,’ he admitted. I raised my eyebrows. Krung Thep wasn’t cheap, and I couldn’t imagine making it my regular cantine. ‘It used to be a lot cheaper,’ he added, as though he’d read my mind. ‘The food was better, too. But like everywhere half decent in this neighbourhood, prices have doubled. It’s the cost of gentrification.’

  ‘How long have you lived around here?’ I asked him, thinking how nice it was to know someone with a wealth of local knowledge.

  ‘I was born in Paris,’ Matthias replied. ‘In the eleventh, near Père Lachaise, in a hospital called Les Bleuets. Which means I’ve always lived within a five-kilometre radius of where I am now.’

  ‘Wow, a real Pari
sian,’ I exclaimed. ‘I think you may be the first one I’ve ever met.’ It was true: so many of the French people I knew had moved to the capital to find work once they’d completed their studies. To meet a bona fide Parisian, born and raised in the city, was relatively rare. ‘I considered having Lila at Les Bleuets,’ I added, ‘although I never visited it. Les Lilas seemed the obvious choice, with the direct métro…’

  ‘Lucky for her. Lila is a much nicer first name than Bleuet,’ joked Matthias. ‘I have no idea how you translate either of these flowers into English.’

  ‘Lilacs and cornflowers,’ I replied, playing along, although we hadn’t named Lila after her birthplace. British people always assumed I’d been influenced by Kate Moss christening her daughter Lila Grace, a couple of years before Lila arrived on the scene. But Nico had come up with the name: it was his mother Catherine’s middle name.

  When the bill arrived, we split it down the middle without discussion and Matthias helped me back over the banquette and into my coat. Squinting at my watch as we left, I was amazed it was already past eleven. The last three hours had gone by in the blink of an eye.

  ‘If you fancy one last drink, we could go back down the hill to the Folies,’ Matthias suggested, ‘or I have some beer at home… I live right here.’ He gestured towards a moss-green door on the opposite side of rue Lesage. ‘Unless you’re tired and you need to get an early night before work tomorrow…’

  I was all too aware of the signals I might be sending if I accepted this invitation. But I didn’t feel much like going back to my empty apartment just yet, nor could I face traipsing back down the hill to the Folies, where we might struggle to find a free table at this hour. ‘I’d be intrigued to see your apartment,’ I said cautiously. ‘Isn’t it funny that it turns out we live practically on each other’s doorsteps? I’ve always wanted to make a friend in my own neighbourhood, but I never got very far with the other parents at Lila’s school…’