It was too hot to sleep in each other’s arms but they slept side by side in Esme’s ridiculous bed, and every time Ellie stirred during the night, David seemed to sense the exact moment she was teetering on the brink of wakefulness and worry, and he’d open his eyes, mutter, ‘Please go back to sleep,’ and she did.
Saturday morning there was sleepy sex on the fluffy angora wool rug on Esme’s bedroom floor because they both agreed it was morally reprehensible to have sex in one of their hostesses’ beds. Then they left the apartment to get breakfast in the café downstairs before they headed out to the flea market at Porte de Clignancourt, though David was sure they’d be closed ‘because it’s August and everything in Paris is closed in August. Apart from the tourist traps.’
‘You’re a tourist,’ Ellie reminded him. They were pressed tight together on a crowded Metro, but she didn’t mind. David smelled much nicer than the man on the other side of her, who’d evidently bathed in bouillabaisse.
She didn’t even mind that David was dressed in his suit trousers, work shoes and a brand-new navy-blue T-shirt, which he’d bought during a trolley dash round M&S before he caught the Eurostar. He was looking slightly fashion challenged, but how could she mind, when he smiled and kissed her forehead and said, ‘I’m not a tourist. I didn’t come to Paris to see the sights. I came to Paris to see you.’
As they explored the stalls of the Marché Vernaison and the smaller Marché Antica, ate crêpes for lunch, then headed back to Le Marais so they could laze on the grass at Place des Vosges, David’s head in her lap, Ellie felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience. Or that she was watching an actress who looked like her, talked like her and walked like her starring in the movie of her life.
Ever since she’d been a flat-chested, frizzy-haired teenager Ellie had always dreamed about a time when she was older and chicer and had a lover who took her to Paris; having a lover was so much more sophisticated than having a boyfriend. She’d spend French lessons imagining Paris with her lover by her side and how they’d walk hand in hand along tiny cobbled streets and sit outside cafés whose names would be written on their awnings in big art nouveau fonts and they’d eat a lot of cheese and drink red wine and have sex like people did in French films where it would be all intense and their bodies would make strange shapes and they’d stare at each other without speaking for long, long moments.
The future was now. She was living her teenage dreams. Well, the essence of her teenage dreams because she still didn’t have boobs. She was in Paris with her lover. David Gold was her lover, which was unbelievable. But he was there, by her side, holding her hand and swinging her arm as they slowly walked to Chez Omar late on Saturday evening, to see if they could get a table for dinner.
It was perfect. But they couldn’t stay in Paris for ever or preserve the weekend under glass so they were trapped in the moment without real life being able to intrude. Real life was snapping at their heels and in real life David was Billy Kay’s lawyer and she was Billy Kay’s daughter, and there was no fudging those two facts.
Above all, he was still a man who could break her heart.
Ellie didn’t want to ruin their golden Paris hours by thinking about what could go wrong, and anyway, listening to David trying to order couscous in perfect French but without even the slightest attempt to try a French accent was distraction enough. ‘The dead languages are much easier,’ he told her after the waiter had gone. ‘Latin and Ancient Greek don’t require much in the way of an accent.’
There was still so much that they didn’t know about each other, Ellie thought, but David had his hand on her knee under the table, tracing figures of eight on her skin with his fingertip, and that was all she needed to know.
They drank red wine and ate couscous with lamb and root vegetables in a rustic broth. The large family at the next table kept shooting them indulgent glances when Ellie stroked the back of David’s neck or he stole a lingering kiss, because they were in the city of lovers, and everyone loved lovers. Except when Ellie was single, and then she found lovers indulging in PDAs really quite annoying.
‘You realise that one of us is going to have to learn how to cook,’ David suddenly said, when the waiter had removed their main courses largely untouched because it was too hot to eat anything that came in a rustic broth. ‘One person without any culinary skills is OK, but two people who can’t cook suggests that we’re—’
‘Slatterns?’ Ellie suggested, and she tried not to think about what he was really saying. That he thought they’d be together long enough that neither of them being able to cook would become an issue.
‘I don’t think a man can be a slattern. I was going to say a couple who can’t cook suggests that we’re lazy, profligate and don’t eat nutritionally balanced meals.’
‘Oh, I think you can eat nutritionally balanced meals even if you can’t cook,’ Ellie argued, because Ari had been excellent at chopping up celery and carrots that were going cheap from Inverness Street market at the end of the day and serving them for dinner with pitta bread and hummus.
‘I’m just saying, we’re going to have to add a couple of basic meals to our non-existent cooking repertoires,’ David said earnestly like he really meant it. ‘How about I learn to roast a chicken and you do something vegetable-based in case we have some vegetarians round for dinner?’
‘A stir-fry? That can’t be hard. I just put vegetables in a pan and stir and fry.’
David kissed her on the nose, much to the delight of the older women at the next table, who actually clucked at them. ‘It will be your signature dish. Shall we order some mint tea and a box of the little pastries to take back with us?’
He smiled as Ellie ordered in stilted French that would have had Madame Westcott, her arch nemesis from her GCSE days, shrieking ‘Mon Dieu’. ‘I think you mixed up a couple of your tenses,’ he told her when by some miracle the mint tea turned up as requested. ‘But you’ve definitely mastered the Parisian shoulder shrug.’
It was then that Ellie decided not to worry. Or it might have been when they got back to the apartment and they were trying to fuck standing up, Ellie pressed against the wall in the one blind spot in the living room that couldn’t be seen from the huge picture windows front and back. It wasn’t as easy or as hot as it was in theory or in the movies. Ellie kept knocking her head and David’s cock kept slipping out and bumping against her clit, which wasn’t entirely unpleasant. In the end, David turned them round and slid down, until his back was against the wall, his legs bent and Ellie could brace herself against his thighs and ride him to a furious and messy finish.
‘Next time,’ he said against her mouth, while his dick was still half hard and he shuddered each time the walls of her pussy fluttered against him, ‘next time we come to Paris we’re staying somewhere that has beds we can actually fuck in.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Ellie agreed breathlessly. ‘Going to mark it on my calendar.’
‘It’s also the first item on my to-do list when we get back to London. I’m going to have you on my Tempur mattress.’ David leered at her ever so slightly. ‘In fact, it’s all I can think of, because this position is really uncomfortable and don’t think it’s not nice to have you sitting on my cock because it is, but I’m running a marathon in a month and I don’t want to slip a disc.’
Ellie released him in an immodest scramble but later, as they brushed their teeth in the adjoining basins in the art-deco bathroom, she suddenly hoped that this was one of those rare instances when things just fell into place, no matter how complicated they were.
David even said as they tried to get to sleep with two foot of bed between them, ‘Next time we’re in Paris, it should be winter. We’ll find a hotel without central heating so we’re forced to huddle together for warmth. It will be romantic.’
‘Didn’t think you were a snuggler,’ Ellie said, lifting up one of her legs to bat away the bead of sweat that was tickling her.
‘I’m not. Only in special c
ircumstances.’
She had to put it into words: her optimism about them, about their future, but also her doubt, because if you got too cocky, too convinced that everything was going your way, then inevitably it would all go horribly wrong. ‘You keep saying things like that, then I’m going to think that you’re too good to be true,’ she said lightly. ‘Don’t they say that things that are too good to be true usually are?’
David didn’t say anything at first but then he rolled over so he could see the anxious expression on her face even in the dim light. ‘Don’t, Ellie,’ he said softly. ‘Let’s not worry until there’s actually something to worry about.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. If you start looking for problems, you’re guaranteed to find some.’
Which was all very well … ‘Yes, but …’
‘Please stop it,’ David begged. ‘I’ve had more sex in the last twenty-four hours than I’ve had in months, and if you don’t let me sleep then I’ll be too exhausted to fuck you on the kitchen worktop, which was what I had planned for tomorrow morning. It must be the only horizontal surface in this flat which isn’t an antique.’
Ellie had to smile. ‘Imported Italian marble, apparently. Remind me to give it a quick wipe down with a damp cloth before and after, though, will you?’
David chuckled just like he knew she would, and then he was reaching out to pull her to him, so they were spooning, sweaty skin to sweaty skin. ‘Go to sleep, Ellie. Even when you’re not talking, I can hear your brain whirring because you’re worrying about all the things you think you should be worried about.’
Ellie wasn’t worrying any more. Or, at least, she was going to try not to. She took a few calming breaths and wriggled in his arms. ‘It’s far too hot to snuggle,’ she complained, but her eyes were already closing and it was easy enough to match the beats of her heart to his and let the rhythm soothe her to sleep.
Camden, London, 1987
Billy turned up late the next afternoon. Didn’t say where he’d been and Ari didn’t ask.
He sat there, dressed all in black, pale and inviolate with a mocking smile as he took in the flowers and the squash bottles, the other mothers flushed and red-eyed, proud-faced fathers holding their progeny. Then he looked at his woman, but Ari only had eyes for her daughter.
Her heart had never loved until now …
‘You look different. Younger. Not sure I like it,’ Billy commented, which was fair enough as he’d never seen her without make-up before, but he should have been saying other things. Ari didn’t know how he could glance at the baby and not fall in love hard and in an instant.
‘You know, Billy, this is one of those times when you can drop the studied cool,’ Ari drawled, and when she held the baby out to him, like an offering, he stroked her cheek with a careless finger.
‘Is she meant to be that hairy?’ He took her from Ari and cradled her in the crook of his arm, didn’t even need to be told to support her head, and Ari was hopeful all over again. ‘We’ll call her Velvet,’ he decided.
‘That’s not a proper name,’ she said because, oh God, she’d already turned into Sadie.
‘Velvet Underground,’ Billy insisted, shushing the baby when she started to fret. ‘Let her have a cool name for a few days at least.’
Because soon she’d be Carol and Sidney’s, and they’d call her something boring and safe like Laura or Samantha or Alison.
Carol turned up almost as soon as Billy left with a vague plan that he might possibly come back later to take her home.
‘Give her to me,’ Carol demanded before she’d taken off her coat or put down her handbag or John Lewis bags stuffed full of frilly pink clothes. ‘Give her to me now!’
Ari wanted to cry because it physically hurt when she handed Velvet over. She didn’t trust Carol not to steal her away there and then, but Ari hadn’t signed any of the forms that the solicitor had sent her, or been interviewed by a social worker, and so Carol had to give her back, though she did it with a bad grace and a deep sigh as Ari settled Velvet back in her arms and kissed the top of her precious head while the baby rooted for her nipple.
Chapter Twenty-nine
When Ellie woke up, they were unsnuggled again but David was curled up on his side, one arm outstretched as if he’d been reaching towards her as he slept.
Sleep softened his face, as if someone had airbrushed him overnight. Her eyes drifted down to the easy rise and fall of his chest – she could have counted his ribs if she’d wanted to – and came to rest on his cock, which was also asleep. Ellie knew that she could wake it up, wake David up, with the barest of kisses, her lips ghosting over the length of him, and by the time she reached the head of his dick, he’d be half hard and wide awake.
It was a lovely thought but she decided to let him sleep. If he was still snoring ever, ever so gently after she was showered and dressed, she’d go out and get flaky French pastries for breakfast, because he was meant to be carb-loading, and she didn’t want to share him with Paris this morning.
He was still asleep when she tiptoed back into the bedroom to pick an outfit, but was now sprawled over Ellie’s side of the bed, face buried in her pillow, like he’d missed her. Ellie was still smiling as she gathered up keys, then hunted for her beloved Mulberry bag, which had been unceremoniously thrown across the atelier last night when David had taken it out of her hands as soon as she walked through the door so he could have his way with her. Good times.
She found her bag when it started making a ringing noise. Her phone, which had been blissfully silent for most of the weekend, was now flashing Tess’s number. With a guilty start, Ellie realised it had been days since they’d last spoken.
‘I’m a bad friend, I should have called,’ she said by way of greeting.
‘Oh, I should have called you too,’ Tess demurred. ‘But things have been crazy at work. Are you all right?’
‘Never better. Honestly, you will not believe what I’ve been up to.’ Ellie angled a glance upwards. The half-wall of the mezzanine level didn’t have any sound-blocking qualities. It was probably best that she lowered her voice. ‘Not even what. Who. And no, he’s not a lame duck. He’s like an anti-lame duck.’
‘We’ll see,’ Tess muttered. ‘I’m not going to lie, I’m jealous. My sex life is going almost as badly as my career. Ha! That’s a joke. What career?’
Ellie winced in sympathy. ‘What’s been going on? Tell me everything.’
The freelance contract that Tess had been told would become permanent now looked as if it wasn’t going to be renewed, as there were three freelance researchers on the show and only enough money in the new budget for one of them.
‘Zach sucks up to the producers like crazy and I try to suck up to them too, but why should I treat them to ice cream when they earn way more than I do? And Emily is boffing the head cameraman and I’m not boffing anyone, either in work or out of work,’ Tess finished mournfully. ‘It’s been months since I had any action.’
‘Oh, poor you. That sucks,’ Ellie said, as she frantically tried to think of some positives to the situation. ‘But, hey, you’ve got two years’ experience now on a prime-time show and you don’t know for sure your contract won’t be renewed. You might pull off something amazing like booking Madonna or—’
‘I wish. I’d even settle for Vanessa Feltz.’
‘As soon as I get back to London, you and me are going out for some hardcore drinking and some serious catching up,’ Ellie said. ‘We’ll find you a man too. Everything will feel bet—’
‘Shit! God, Ellie, I’m so sorry …’
‘Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be sorry about. What are friends for?’
‘No, what I mean is I’m not phoning for a moan. I’m phoning because the shit’s hit the fan. Again. It’s half eight on a Sunday morning in England, I wouldn’t even be up, let alone calling, if there wasn’t a bloody good reason.’
Ellie had forgotten what it felt like: the fear. The icy chill that
settled on her skin and raised an army of goose pimples in its wake, that churning in her belly as though her internal organs were all tangled up. She even had that rusty taste at the back of her throat. She really hadn’t missed it. ‘What’s happened now?’ she asked.
Tess sighed. ‘It would just be easier to … Are you near a computer?’ Ellie was already moving towards her laptop on the dining table. ‘I think you should sit down, then go to the Sunday Chronicle site. I’ll stay on the line.’
With shaking fingers Ellie booted up her MacBook and as she waited she wondered which one of her exes had sold his story.
Then she heard a sound from upstairs and the clamminess and the churning in her guts were nothing compared to the feeling that she might actually throw up or faint. With one hand she double clicked on her Google Chrome icon and the other hand gripped the edge of the table hard enough to hurt so she had something to focus on that wasn’t a front-page story on how she was fucking her father’s lawyer. Except they couldn’t say that in a newspaper. No, they’d probably go with ‘Ooh là là!’ or, oh God, ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?’ with a photo of them kissing on the street, because they had done that a lot – a hell of a lot – and she could barely get her fingers to type in the Chronicle’s URL.
‘You still there, Ellie?’ Tess asked. ‘Where are you up to?’
She was still waiting for the page to load and then she was … ‘Oh God … fuck my life …What the fuck, Tess? I mean, like, what the actual fuck …?’
‘I’ve never heard you swear so much in one go,’ Tess said worriedly, but Ellie was all out of expletives. She was all out of words. Full stop.