A Perfect Paris Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  Was that what Keeley was looking for too? Or was this connection with Ethan only going to last as long as their stay in the French capital? Did it matter? She hadn’t exactly been rife with romance this past year, unlike Rach.

  ‘Please tell me I didn’t just say no to something I should have said yes to!’ Rach begged. ‘I mean he’s good-looking and he’s rich and he’s into me and he has that slight vulnerable edge of sadness filtering through his preppy jumpers and—’

  ‘Does he?’ Keeley asked.

  ‘You can tell he loved his sister,’ Rach carried on. ‘Just in the way his expression changes when he talks about her. He sounded so proud of the work she did at the hotels and he showed me some photos of them when they were kids. Both of them really glowed up!’

  ‘Ferne had a massive bed,’ Keeley said with a smile. ‘And the mattress was so comfortable.’

  ‘Better than Premier Inn?’

  ‘I’m not sure—’

  ‘Apparently a family friend was meant to be at dinner last night. Someone Louis doesn’t get along with. Whoever that is, they’re apparently a thorn in his side at the moment. Might have made for a bit of excitement if they’d turned up.’

  ‘Silvie didn’t mention anything to me,’ Keeley answered.

  ‘I think Silvie was focused on trying to matchmake you and Louis. If only you hadn’t met a man with a penguin and a dog on its last legs.’

  ‘You saw for yourself that Bo-Bo’s fine now.’ She sighed, her mind still delivering her that grainy Polaroid image.

  ‘And are you fine?’ Rach asked a little softer now.

  Keeley nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. Dinner last night was nice. I feel I know Silvie and Ferne even better now.’

  And, all she had to do, if she really wanted to know if there was a possibility that Ferne might have a photo of Ethan in a book beside her bed was ask. Or she could completely forget she had ever set eyes on it and whoever it might be in the picture.

  Keeley offered up her coffee cup. ‘OK, let’s have a toast.’ She took a breath. ‘Here’s to having a little French fun today. Let’s see some more sights, do a little Christmas shopping, not worry about anything. What do you say?’

  ‘I say oui,’ Rach replied with a grin. ‘Magnifique.’

  Fifty

  Cirque Pinder, Paris

  ‘She has been excited all day,’ Ethan said that night, his eyes on Jeanne who was galloping ahead towards the grand entrance. A yellow and red striped big top, French flags flying from the uppermost struts was standing ahead of them, the sound of a fairground organ filling the night. ‘All day long it has been “what time is it?” and “how many hours to go?”.’

  Keeley smiled. Her stomach was full of butterflies despite the date pep talk Rach had given her before she’d left their suite for the car waiting outside. She needed to chill. She needed to take things at face value and forget the ‘what might be’s’. Mindfulness. Calm. And if she really couldn’t do any of that she just needed to ask Ethan if he knew Ferne Durand and see what happened next. Except what did she say if Ethan was somehow connected to Ferne? Was she just going to blurt out ‘by the way I had a kidney transplant a year ago that I haven’t mentioned and I’m the proud owner of one of Ferne’s kidneys?’ She shivered at that thought. It was much better to still hope that there was no association at all. If there was no association then nothing had to change. She could still enjoy exploring the connection they had made together. And it was the thought of that opportunity being taken from her that was concerning her the most.

  ‘You are quiet,’ Ethan said, nudging her arm a little as they walked towards the archway bearing the name ‘Pinder’ in lights.

  ‘I’m taking it all in,’ Keeley answered. ‘I’ve never been to a circus at Christmas time before.’

  ‘For me, I feel it is the perfect time to go,’ Ethan said. ‘The snow on the ground, the carol singers outside, the electric atmosphere inside the tent.’ He pointed ahead to Jeanne. ‘The very excited child.’

  Jeanne was looking back to them now, a scowl on her face that was visible even from this distance and likely in response to the pace of their stroll.

  ‘I know it is unorthodox,’ Ethan began. ‘To bring a child along on a date. But, from what I remember of this circus, she is going to be transfixed from the very beginning.’ He edged a little closer. ‘So transfixed that she will not notice if we… sit a little close to each other and maybe…’

  A date. It was definitely a date. Now Keeley’s heart was definitely telling her to forget everything else. She could close off all the dialogue in her head, concentrate only on how this man was making her feel. Before she knew it, her fingers were finding his and she curled them around his hand, loving the way they felt when they were fitted together. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. She knew completely what he meant.

  *

  The scent of the sawdust, plus the slight smell of heat from all the spotlights stirred Ethan’s memories as they entered the big top to a rapidly growing audience. Everything here was a harkening back to when he was Jeanne’s age, seeing exotic animals and crazy characters for the very first time.

  ‘Are we close?’ Jeanne asked, tugging on his sleeve. ‘Will I be able to see everything?’

  ‘Are we close? I do not know,’ Ethan answered, drawing the tickets from the pocket of his coat. ‘I did not think to—’

  Jeanne snatched the tickets from his hands and then her face lit up like Christmas might have arrived already. ‘The front row! The very front row!’

  He smiled at her pure joy, so richly transparent. He instinctively knew she would like to sit in the very first row and he had been almost as excited as he knew she would be when he had found there were still seats in that area available. What he hadn’t been expecting though was what quickly came next. Jeanne threw herself at him, stick-thin – yet surprisingly strong – arms going around him in a bear hug of mammoth proportions. It caught him off guard. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. For a brief second he didn’t do anything and then he caught sight of Keeley and she put her arms out, mimicking a hug. Yes! He should hug Jeanne back. That was exactly what he should do. Except affection like this, it did not come naturally. Finally, he grouped his arms around her and gathered her a little closer, patting her on the back. Why was he so bad at this? And why was he so bad at this in front of Keeley? What must she think of him?

  ‘Can we get popcorn?’ Jeanne asked, stepping back, cheeks flushed, eyes showing signs of unshed tears.

  ‘Maybe in a while,’ Ethan offered.

  Jeanne waved the tickets in the air and was off again, gamboling down the aisle and making for the front rows of seating right next to the ring.

  ‘She is so excited,’ Keeley said. ‘More excited than Rach was to discover designer fashion brands at a flea market.’

  ‘I suspect this will be the first time she has been anywhere close to anything like this,’ Ethan replied. He was still watching Jeanne, finding himself a little concerned when she was too far away. What was the impetuous child doing to him? She was making him care, opening him up in ways he never thought could be possible in his life.

  ‘Is she staying with you?’ Keeley asked. ‘At your apartment above a bakery?’

  He turned to Keeley then and smiled, nodding. ‘It really is small,’ he answered. ‘When Bo-Bo comes into the living area it is like sharing the space with a large horse.’ He sighed. ‘But, what else could I do? She has nowhere safe to live. The alternative would be…’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘There must be someone you could call for help,’ Keeley suggested.

  ‘Help’ would come if he called it. ‘Help’, he knew from experience, would end up being worse than all anyone’s nightmares rolled into one. He didn’t want to think about that option. And that was why he was letting Jeanne stay. ‘I have said she can stay for a while. After Christmas, we will see.’

  There would be no ‘seeing’. He had made Jeanne a promise and he had meant
it. He would get her into school if she stayed. He did not have the first idea what he was doing attempting some kind of parenting, but he could not let her go back to how he knew she would be living. Cold. Desperate. Having to make friends with unsuitable people simply to get warm standing around a fire.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Keeley said.

  ‘She will run the rings around me,’ Ethan answered. ‘Exactly like the horses we are going to see in a few moments.’

  ‘I like that you care about people,’ Keeley told him as they arrived at the very front row of seats. ‘I think you find it difficult to know what to do when you do care about people but… caring in the first instance that’s the most important thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ethan whispered, dropping his face a little nearer to hers. ‘Believe me, I know what to do when I care about people. I am just… a little out of practice.’

  And then he kissed her. Firm and intentional, leaving no doubt about the depth of his feelings. Right away her lips responded and the glow that reappeared around his heart whenever their mouths met in a kiss, brightened to a new level.

  Jeanne cleared her throat like perhaps she had caught the annoyance of hairballs from Bo-Bo and Keeley backed away from him, her cheeks a little flushed.

  ‘I believe it is a family show,’ Jeanne said, sitting high and proud in her chair, hat as far pulled back from her face as it had ever been.

  Family. Settling down in his seat next to Keeley, Ethan thought about the fact that family had always seemed such an unlikely scenario in his life, until Ferne. And now, with Ferne gone, with Louis uncomfortable with Ferne’s last wishes regarding the hotels, he had thought it unlikely the universe was going to reach out to him for a second time. But as the lights around them dimmed and the spotlight focused on the circle of sawdust, the ringmaster approaching, Ethan took Keeley’s hand in his. Maybe the world could be on hold for a time and, perhaps, the reaching out did not, after all, have to be commenced by fate.

  ‘Horses!’ Jeanne breathed louder than Ethan suspected she had expected. ‘And… acrobats!’

  Keeley turned to look at him and as their eyes met there it was again, loud and clear, a cluster bomb of internal reactions Ethan wasn’t at all familiar with. It was demanding loud, screaming, this was right! And then Keeley whispered to him, ‘I’m almost as excited as Jeanne.’

  He smiled, squeezing her hand. ‘Moi aussi.’ He let out a breath of content. ‘Me too.’

  Fifty-One

  ‘The bikes were the best… no, the clowns… no, the acrobats on the horses… no, wait, ses furets! Oui, ses furets!’

  Yes, there had been performing ferrets that had brought back all the Mr Peterson vibes and had Keeley wondering exactly how big the squirrels that had attacked her mum had been. The performing ferrets were certainly bigger than any stoat-like creature she had come across before, on a nature documentary or once in the closet of a particularly wealthy estate agent customer.

  ‘You have named almost every act that performed,’ Ethan said laughing.

  ‘Apart from the ringmaster,’ Keeley told Jeanne. ‘And he was very good too.’

  Jeanne was chomping on a hot dog now as they walked away from the big top over the grass and towards the area where the car was going to collect them from. It was freezing, the snow cracking with every foot laid upon it, breath visible as they chattered. The circus had been amazing and, as it was near to Christmas there had been some lovely festive touches to add to all the hair-raising feats and slapstick from the clowns. Ethan had laughed hard at the clowns, their stupidity off the scale, with most of the endings to their sketches predictable but hilarious all the same. And his laughter had warmed Keeley right the way through. To her it was the sweetest sound, because it felt somehow like that slight tenseness he tended to carry was relieved in that moment. Ethan laughed openly and genuinely, always with a whoosh of stress expelled along with that laughter.

  ‘Bo-Bo would have liked it,’ Jeanne carried on.

  ‘Bo-Bo would have tried to eat the ferrets,’ Ethan said.

  ‘He’s a good dog!’ Jeanne exclaimed.

  ‘I can vouch he knows how to play dead very well,’ Keeley answered.

  ‘He will be pleased to see you,’ Jeanne said, a smudge of tomato ketchup on her cheek.

  ‘Where is he?’ Keeley asked, ‘Is someone watching him?’

  ‘He is at my apartment,’ Ethan said. ‘He has the entire, yet small, lounge to himself, together with water, too much food and I hope no unexpected accidents on the floorboards. I was also instructed to leave on the TV because he may get lonely.’ He paused then and looked to Keeley, his expression giving the impression he thought he had said something wrong. ‘That is… you do not have to come… to my apartment… I was not saying that was a firm plan. We can always… go somewhere else or… nowhere at all.’

  ‘Mon Dieu,’ Jeanne said shaking her head as she stopped walking and stared at Ethan. ‘You always do far too much talking!’ She chewed up her mouthful and then started talking again. ‘You have hot chocolate. You have red wine. Offer one of those and Keeley will come.’ She looked to Keeley then. ‘Won’t you?’

  Keeley nodded. ‘I would really like to see where you live. Where you both are living at the moment.’

  ‘The three of us. Do not forget Bo-Bo,’ Jeanne warned. She stepped closer to Keeley then and stage-whispered very poorly. ‘He has cheese in the refrigerator but not very much else. He needs to get groceries.’

  ‘Dog food, red wine and cheese,’ Ethan added with a shake of the head. ‘My priorities now.’

  ‘And he doesn’t have a Christmas tree yet. You will get a Christmas tree soon, won’t you?’

  ‘There is not space for your dog and a Christmas tree in my living room.’

  ‘Connerie!’

  ‘Jeanne!’ Ethan shouted.

  ‘Quoi?’

  ‘Do I want to know what you two are saying?’ Keeley asked.

  ‘Non,’ Ethan and Jeanne answered together.

  ‘Fine,’ Keeley answered with a smile. ‘I look forward to my conversation with Bo-Bo.’

  Fifty-Two

  Ethan’s apartment, Opera District, Paris

  The car pulled to the kerb on the narrowest of streets that seemed only really large enough for two bicycles to pass. Townhouses rose upwards from the pavement, iron Juliet balconies aglow with festive fairy lights, the sound of jazz a whisper in the night air. Milo, the driver, had opened her door and Keeley stood in the street regarding the place Ethan lived. It suited him. It was everything she thought it would be. Individual and soulful, just like him. She hurriedly fastened up her coat then, before ducking her head back into the rear of the vehicle.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ Ethan replied. ‘It is OK.’

  Milo opened the door on Ethan’s side of the vehicle and Ethan stepped out onto the road, before diving back in and gently pulling a sleeping Jeanne into his arms. ‘Thank you, Milo. I will call you when Keeley wishes to go back to her hotel.’

  ‘D’accord.’ Milo touched his hat and got back into the car.

  ‘She’s fast asleep,’ Keeley said, walking next to Ethan has he headed towards an archway built into crumbling brickwork. Just to the right was that bakery on the corner he had told her about, a dim light coming from inside that suggested someone was already at work to make the next morning’s baguettes. It was so charming. It wasn’t anything like the hustle and bustle around the Eiffel Tower. It was traditional yet also a little quirky, with brightly painted front doors, some with tiny hedge-edged front gardens creeping onto the pavement with room only for one small table and a chair. Keeley followed Ethan under the archway and into an inner courtyard not visible from the street. There were old-fashioned streetlamps, an area fenced off in the centre with wrought iron benches and more lights hanging from trees growing among the slimline homes. It looked like a walled garden solely for its residents.

  ‘Keeley,’ Ethan whisp
ered. ‘Could you… help me? The key to my apartment is… in my pocket.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, yes,’ Keeley said. ‘Where? Should I…’

  ‘The left side,’ Ethan said, turning a little to aid her search. ‘Or maybe the right. I do not remember.’ He flushed a little and it was cute. ‘Je suis désolé. Sorry.’

  Keeley slipped her hand inside the pocket of his coat, needing to stand close to get her fingers in to the very bottom. She was conscious of his proximity and could only imagine what he smelled of. She tried to inhale and inject some vigour to her dulled senses like she had when they had overlooked the Seine. Masculinity. Mystery. Adventure. Although she wasn’t sure it was possible to actually smell any of those words her brain had dealt up. She swallowed and made herself focus on the task in hand. There was nothing in his left-hand pocket.

  ‘Sorry,’ she breathed. ‘There’s nothing there.’ She moved around the still sleeping Jeanne, and dug into his other pocket. This time she produced a set of keys. ‘Which one?’ she asked. ‘I’ll open the door.’

  ‘The brass one,’ he whispered.

  It was a nice front door, the paint a faded green and peeling off in places, but in complete keeping with the rest of the courtyard of doors and the old, scuffed brickwork. She slotted the key into the lock and turned, stepping back as the door opened and she let Ethan with Jeanne in first. Keeley followed, moving in behind Ethan, taking in the bare brick walls and aged wooden boards beneath her boots. A black iron spiral staircase led upwards and Ethan seemed to have to rearrange Jeanne slightly to avoid knocking any parts of her against the curve of the stairs.

  There were photos on the bare bricks – black and white prints of city scenes and people. Some places Keeley recognised – the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame – and others she didn’t – street cafés, a man playing an accordion. It was minimalist, but it was a small area down here. A front door, a hallway and this staircase that wobbled quite a bit with every step she took.