by Sophie Love
She descended lower, exiting the cloud and looking down at the city of New York beneath her. It was busy, filled with cars and people, noise and pollution. She spotted Cristiano then, his white feathers standing out amongst all the dark gray of the city. She landed, and ran to him, sprinting as fast as she could.
“You left me,” she cried, grabbing his shoulder. “And she’s gone. The girl.” She couldn’t remember her name, the name of their daughter. “We lost her!”
Cristiano just smiled and shrugged. “Ah well. Not to worry.”
“No,” she stammered. “We have to worry. She’s our daughter. She could be anywhere.”
“We’ll have another.”
“Cristiano this is serious!” she cried. “Why can’t you see that?”
“What will be will be,” he said, turning and walking off through the crowds.
Hopelessly, Keira watched him go. There was no point trying to change his mind. Cristiano couldn’t understand the gravity of their situation.
The sky split again above Keira and she screamed, then jerked up to sitting, found herself in bed, awake. Her heart was thrumming. The nightmare seemed so real, so visceral.
She looked over at Cristiano, sleeping undisturbed by her thrashing about or screaming in her sleep. For some reason it seemed to perfectly sum up everything. She couldn’t see what their future would look like, nor how they’d reconcile their two vastly differing life perspectives. And the thought struck her like a thunderbolt to the heart. She couldn’t marry Cristiano.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Keira couldn’t sleep again after her nightmare, so she let Cristiano doze while she typed up more of her article.
On our final full day in Paris, we walk the length of the St Martin Canal, making sure we cross every single one of its beautiful iron bridges. This is a location loved by movie-makers, yet it is also one of the more residential areas of Paris. Light bounces off the water which reflects the buildings, the dog walkers, the kids on scooters, and the joggers going about their lives. It’s tranquil, and there’s a gentle calm about the place. But that doesn’t stop my mood turning from exuberance to melancholy. My story in Paris is almost complete and I have a horrible suspicion I might know how it all ends…
*
It was dark by the time Cristiano woke. Keira had stopped writing by that point, instead gazing dreamily through the window as Paris’s billion lights glittered. Her melancholy mood had only intensified during her writing session, which wasn’t helped by the subject matter. Hearing the bed covers rustling, Keira turned to face Cristiano.
“You’re awake,” he said, looking befuddled.
She didn’t feel like telling him about the nightmare, or the morose mood she’d written herself into. “Yeah, I only got up a little while ago though. So are you looking forward to our final night of debauchery?”
He grinned. “Can’t wait. What time is it?”
She checked the clock. “Seven. Too early for dinner?”
Cristiano shook his head, further tousling his messy, dark brown hair in the process. “Not at all. I’ll get ready. Tell me, is it opera outfits tonight?”
Keira remembered the beautiful dark green dress she’d worn that night when she’d finally felt as carefree as Cristiano was. It already seemed like years ago.
“I don’t want to ruin my dress,” she told him. “I believe someone promised me a rooftop sunrise and I don’t want it getting dirty.”
If Cristiano was disappointed, he didn’t show it on his face.
“We definitely are,” he confirmed, laughing. “I’m not leaving Paris until I’ve walked on a rooftop. Otherwise our cover shot will be a lie.”
Keira smiled, but deep down she felt sadness spread through her. It already was a lie. It had been then, and it was even more so now that she knew what she had with Cristiano could not last forever.
But she didn’t want to feel down or depressed tonight, during their last night, so she cast the worries from her mind. She was going to make the most of the time they did have together, in Paris and beyond. There was no way of predicting the future, and though she didn’t know how long their relationship would last, she sure as hell was going to ride it right to the end, to enjoy every second of her journey with him.
Once Cristiano was washed and dressed, they were both ready to head out for their final meal. They headed out their hotel room, and at the last second Keira remembered to grab the umbrella.
“You never know,” she told Cristiano.
Thankfully, there was no rain to contend with tonight. Instead they were treated to a clear, crisp evening.
Paris at night really was magical, Keira thought, as they strolled down the now familiar cobble streets running alongside the Seine. The water was filled with reflections of Paris’s million glittering lights, like diamonds on velvet, and the illumination displays stretched as far as her eyes could see. All the familiar landmarks were transformed by the lights, their turrets and towers accentuated by color.
Keira was glad for this night, for this moment. Walking along the streets of Paris hand in hand with a man she loved was a memory she’d cherish forever.
They passed an accordion player playing a sad rendition of Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose. Keira remember with warm nostalgia how they’d visited the little museum on their first day here. She had fallen in love with Paris that day, hard and fast, just as she had for Cristiano. They stopped and listened to the whole song, quietly. Had they stumbled upon this their first night here, they might just have danced in the street. But now, on their last, they just listened somberly.
Once it was finished, Keira placed some euros into the player’s upturned hat, and thanked him, “Merci. Tres belle.” Then they carried on.
When they reached their restaurant for the evening, Keira could hear live piano music coming from inside. Tonight, it seemed, was a night for music.
Inside it was neither a steamy-windowed shabby-chic bistro nor an overly opulent, hundred-seat converted ballroom. It was just a simple, elegant, classy restaurant that could easily belong in New York City or Rome. It was something of a relief, Keira thought, to be in such an oddly familiar setting. It was as if fate had decided to help wean her off the city before she left it for good.
“Are we going to get drunk tonight?” Cristiano asked abruptly as he pulled her chair out for her.
“Huh,” Keira said, sitting. “I don’t know. I don’t want to fall asleep and miss the sunrise.”
He sat opposite her and nodded in his usual affable way, like he didn’t really mind either way. Cristiano seemed to always be content to just go along with what she wanted, Keira thought. Maybe that was part of the problem. He was directionless. He didn’t want anything with enough passion to fight for it. Keira ran these thoughts through her mind guiltily. His laid back Italian attitude had been one of his greatest draws but now it had become an encumbrance. And was it really true that he didn’t care passionately about some things? The still bruised knuckles on his right hand suggested that there was at least one thing he’d fight for…
As these thoughts flitted through her mind, Cristiano continued talking, oblivious to Keira’s internal to-and-fro.
“Oh yes, I forgot, you didn’t get as much sleep as I did,” he was saying. “We don’t have to drink if you don’t want to. I understand.”
Keira remember her resolve to push her worries out of her mind. It wasn’t fair on Cristiano for her to sit here evaluating everything he said or did, picking apart their relationship in her mind. She’d already told herself to enjoy the journey, to commit to it for as long as it lasted, and already she was going back on her resolve.
She made an extra concerted effort to stop worrying about things and laid her hand across his on the table.
“It is our last chance to drink French wine,” she said. “It would be a sin to miss the opportunity.”
Cristiano grinned. He’d clearly always wanted her to agree to drinking tonight, to getting silly and gigg
ly for one night only, he just wasn’t going to push for it.
“So what have your highlights been?” he asked. “Best part of the trip.”
“Hmmm….” Keira said, tapping her chin as she pondered. “There’ve been too many.”
“Well which bits made it into your article?” he asked. “They must have stood out to you as the most memorable.”
Keira thought guiltily about the last passage she’d written, about her fears that everything was coming to an end. She could just picture his face as he read it, her innermost thoughts and fears laid bare for the world to read.
“Not necessarily,” she said. “It’s an article, not a diary entry. But that said, I did write quite a long section on the catacombs.”
Cristiano started laughing. “In the city of your love your favorite part was the underground tunnel filled with skulls. In the city of light you liked the dark, dank, shadowy catacombs? ”
“What can I say?” Keira laughed. “I must have a morbid curiosity. In Italy, my favourite part was the day of the dead celebrations in the graveyard.”
“That had nothing to do with what happened after?” he said with a wink, reminding her of the first time they’d made love.
Just then their server arrived, clipping their conversation. Keira was left hanging with that memory, of the vineyard in the countryside of Tuscany, and the old, crumbling farm house where their lover’s journey had begun. She didn’t want to add a final moment to their relationship but in her bones she knew it was coming,
Cristiano ordered their first bottle of wine of the night, a crisp sauvignon blanc.
“It’s a shame we never made it to the vineyards,” he said, clearly also remembering that night back in Florence.
“Paris has vineyards?” Keira asked, surprised. “I had no idea. It rains constantly. How does that even work?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, chuckling. “But there are eight of them. And they produce so little wine its like golddust to buy. I imagine that’s because of the weather.”
Cristiano had clearly done his research. And yet he’d not mentioned it once to her that he’d like to visit the vineyards.
“You should have told me you wanted to go,” Keira said.
He shrugged. “We were busy with other things.”
Keira had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Remembering her resolve to enjoy the moment, she blurted out, suddenly, “We should go after this!”
It just didn’t seem right that they’d ticked so many things off her itinerary and not a single thing from Cristiano’s, especially considering the trip was being cut short because of her needs.
“It’s fine,” he laughed. “We’ve mapped out the evening already.”
But Keira wasn’t prepared to let this one go. “Which vineyard is closest? We can go there after our meal. We have all night, after all.”
Cristiano relented with a sigh. “Butte Bergeyre,” he said.
The name rang a bell to Keira. “Didn’t we pass there during our bridge tour?” she asked. “I remember a sign.”
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“You should have said!” Keira cried.
She had a strong urge to smack him (playfully, of course). But he just shrugged. His laid-backness could be infuriating sometimes.
“The Parc de Butte Bergeyre is there also,” Cristiano said. “It may be a nice spot to watch the sunrise.”
“Sounds perfect,” she agreed, relieved he’d made a suggestion at last. “As long as there’s a roof to climb on.”
The server arrived to take their orders. The menu wasn’t quite as traditional French as some of the other places they’d been to. Keira ordered pigeon with parsnip mash, and Cristiano opted for blood pudding. He also asked for a second bottle of wine, a red this time, to fit with their strong-flavored meats.
They ate their meal and downed the second bottle of wine, then had cheese and coffee. And finally, to round everything off, they had a small tipple of sweet dessert wine.
Cristiano bought an extra bottle of wine to take to the rooftop, then they settled the bill and decided to leave.
When she stood, Keira wobbled on her feet, finding herself quite tipsy. Cristiano steadied her by the elbow, chuckling at her inability to hold her drink. She hiccuped a, “Merci!”
It was after midnight when they finally stepped outside the restaurant. The air had become much colder and the blackness of night enveloped them.
“I’m glad I’m wearing my alcohol jacket,” Keira joked, hiccupping again.
Cristiano wrapped his arm around her, bringing her body close to his, sharing some of his body heat with her.
A million lights lit their path to Butte Bergeyre, which had a villagey feel to it despite only being a couple of roads away from one of Paris’s typically busy boulevards.
“Well this is charming,” Keira said as she wandered along the single path cobble roads.
The buildings were an amalgamation of very old and very new, although they were all six storeys high as if they architects had been intent on using every inch of space in order to get as many people living in this area as physically possible.
“This would be a great place to live,” Keira said. “Convenient. Pretty.”
She danced through the streets, skipping on the cobbles, while Cristiano laughed behind her, striding to keep up.
They found the vineyard round the next corner. It was on a sloping hillside, and was so small it would have been easy to miss it in the darkness had they not been looking specifically for it. Keira turned to Cristiano and smiled.
“You can tick that off your list now,” she said, slurring her words a little.
“Who said I had a list?” he replied.
She gave him a look, a sort of teasing one. “Let me guess, you don’t have a bucket list. Nothing extravagant that you’ve always wanted to do like leave a thousand dollar tip or abseil down a mountainside. No swimming with dolphins?”
He looked at her then, unamused, as though he wasn’t in the mood for teasing. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“Nah,” Keira said, stumbling over her feet a little. “It’s just very you. You don’t plan. You live in the moment. It’s not a criticism.”
But at the back of her mind she reminded herself that it was a deal breaker.
They left the vineyard and continued up the hill that led to the park. It was enormous, and to Keira’s surprise she and Cristiano weren’t the only people here. But rather than groups of drunk revellers and street drinkers, the park was filled with couples just like she and Cristiano, here to look down at the lights of Paris, or to stay as long as they could to try and catch the sun rising over the horizon. They were here for memory making.
They followed the path upwards, Keira urging them on to get the best view possible, and to find the promised rooftops. Finally, after an hour of slowly zigzagging across the enormous park, Keira found a small ranger’s hut with a gabled roof.
“This is perfect,” she told Cristiano. “How do we get up?”
He laughed. “Drunk Keira is very adventurous. And a bit of a rule breaker.”
She grinned over her shoulder as she tried to use the window ledge as a foot hold.
“I’m sure we’re not the first people to do this,” she told him.
Cristiano came over and helped her up until she was standing on the ledge. She had just enough height to reach the roof of the small building, but not nearly enough strength to get up onto it.
“Let me go first,” Cristiano said. “I can pull you up.”
Since he was significantly taller than Keira — not to mention less drunk — he was able to get onto the rooftop with relevant ease. Keira scrabbled back to the window ledge, then Cristiano reached down and helped pull her up onto the roof beside him.
She ended up on her knees, facing the opposite direction of the views. She was grubby, her clothes stained. “Now you can see why I didn’t want to wear my fancy opera dress,” she said.
But Cristiano was quiet. As she shimmied around to face the city, Keira realized why. He was stunned into silence by the view, by the hypnotic majesty of the whole of Paris at night. The city of light. The city of love.
Cristiano dug into his satchel then, bringing out the expensive bottle of wine he’d bought from the restaurant.
“Are we drinking this straight out the bottle?” Keira laughed. “How classy!”
But Cristiano wasn’t finished. From his bag he produced the two mugs from their hotel room, the ones from which they’d drink their coffee in the morning. The sight of them made tears of joy spring to Keira’s eyes.
Then he took out a small plastic rectangular thing.
“What is that?” Keira asked, laughing.
He wiggled his eyebrows, pulled up an antenna, and wound a dial. It was a wind up radio.
“When did you get this?” Keira cried, touched by the effort he’d gone to.
“When we were shopping in the grand magasin. You were busy picking out a gift for Bryn and didn’t even notice me leave!”
She laughed, surprised and delighted that he’d managed to pull off a covert mission without her even noticing.
“See, I do plan some things,” he said.
“So you were always intending on sitting on a rooftop watching the sunrise with me?” she asked.
“Not quite,” he said. “But something similar. In my mind it was a bridge. But then we overdosed on them during your bridge tour.”
She laughed. “Sorry to have ruined it!”
Music became to play from the wind up radio, which produced a surprisingly good sound quality. Cristiano tuned it to a French station which only played the old crooner classics. He must have remembered Keira saying how much she loved that romantic old music.
There was one more surprise in Cristiano’s bag of tricks. As he pulled it out, Keira frowned, not recognizing it at first. Then she suddenly realized what it was; dark green satin. Her opera dress!
“I told you I didn’t want to get it dirty,” she gasped.
“You won’t,” he told her. “We’ve done the dirty work by climbing up here. All you need to do now is put it on and look stunning.”
