And then he says, ‘Yes, I’m a lawyer. Solicitor. I work for quite a big firm. In London.’ Then he says, very, very much as though he’s changing the subject, ‘Wow, look at that view.’
And, yes, the view – of the snow-capped Mont Blanc – is stunning and absolutely comment-worthy but that was just weird. Why doesn’t Callum want to talk about his job? Does he not want to share any details at all of his life with me? I mean, hisjob. That isn’t even that personal. Now that I’ve re-met him and I know he’s a lawyer, I could probably find him online quite easily.It isn’t classified information. It’s like his instinct is just to shut the conversation down when we get anywherenearpersonal.
No. This is ridiculous. I’m being paranoid. There’s noreasonthat people should just info-dump on each other. And maybe he has a work issue that he just doesn’t want to talk about, or he’s feeling a bit worried about not having done any work and he wants to put it out of his mind and just enjoy our surprise holiday together. There could be allsortsof not-at-all-bad reasons that he doesn’t want to discuss his job with me.
I look over at the mountains and agree that the view is spectacular and then we carry on wandering and I wonder whether I imagined things getting weird there for a moment.
Our night in Chamonix is perfect. As are the next two days and nights on the road.
It’s like we’re in an out-of-this-world bubble.
The bubble feeling is heightened because we obviously aren’t seeing anyone we know, and I’m not really hugely in touch with anyone either; I do obviously check in with my mum and sister and best friends when they message me, but I almost consciously tailor my replies so that they give an impression of: ‘I’m very busy having an amazing time and am certainly not having sex with the ex to end all exes, nothing to see here, and I’ll be home in maybe a week’s time and when I do get home I’ll fill you in on all my touristy but not at all sexual experiences’.
Callum and I continue to talk alotbut not about big life issues, just a lot of very lovely nothing-chat, during which I feel, actually, that we’re getting to know the real us even better. We knew each other well before, but that was the young us. The older us are the same people but with a lot more life experienceand that makes a difference. And I continue to feel that we’rebettertogether now.
We discuss important things like why fooddoestaste better if you’re looking at a nice view (in my headCallumis the nicest view of all), whether it’s okay to wear the same socks two days running if you only wear them for half an hour each time and keep them tucked inside your shoes the rest of the time (no it is not, Callum) and why we say Mont Blanc with no ‘the’, but the French call it Le Mont Blanc, and our discussions do grow heated, but we do not touch onimportantimportant issues.
On the second evening, the last before we head towards Paris, we stay in a B&B in Burgundy in the middle of the countryside. The owners cook dinner for all their guests every evening and we all eat together at a big table in their dining room.
Their fifteenth-century manor house is very well-loved and stuffed full of objects collected by their family over many years. Someone at some point in their history has had a big leaning towards taxidermy, with a particular emphasis on birds, and (a little weirdly) there’s a whole row of them (quite small ones, mainly with very beady eyes) down the middle of the big oak dining table, which does put you off your food a bit until you get used to them.
‘Can anyone identify any of these birds?’ asks the Belgian man to my left.
We all start with guesses like ‘robin’ and ‘blue tit’ but none of us are remotely expert in birds, it turns out. Callum and I, together with a couple of the others, begin to invent names like ‘Burgundian red-cheeked tit’ and ‘long-beaked jade bird’ and, even though we aren’t being atallwitty, we do find ourselves very amusing, I think because the atmosphere of the room is just lovely and we’re all in various different stages of holiday (ourhost instructed us at the beginning of the meal to break the ice by sharing how we came to stay here).
I catch Callum’s eye as we’re both laughing and think how this is exactly the kind of conversation we have when it’s just the two of us and it’s lovely that we can have it in a group, too.
When we’ve all (literally) wiped our eyes and stopped holding our sides, the Belgian man’s husband (they’re on a road-trippy honeymoon, on their way to the Italian lakes) asks me about where we went in Italy.
I can’t helplovingthe assumption that everyone’s making that Callum and I are a long-standing couple (and in a way we are, because when you knew each other very, very well as young adults you do properlyknoweach other, maybe not the minutiae of everyday life today, but you know each other’s personalities and temperaments and morals and, just,bones).
We begin to talk about Florence, and then the woman opposite me, who’scalledFlorence, says, ‘Funny thing: I’ve been to Sienna, but I’ve never been to Florence, but I feel a connection to it, just because of my name.’
‘Oh, youhaveto go,’ I say. And then feel guilty, because you never know about people’s circumstances. ‘If you get the opportunity, I mean.’ Then I frown. ‘Isn’t it weird how Sienna and Florence are both very well-known Christian names but Milan and Venice aren’t. How did that happen?’
As we all start to very seriously discuss place names that are Christian names and which would make good ones (why is no one called Ljubljana or Helsinki, for example), I see Callum smiling at me in the exact same way that he smiles at me when we’re alone having this kind of conversation.
And suddenly something ice-cold curls around my happiness as though it’s trying to suffocate it. Because should we be able to have the exact same conversations with or without other people? When you’re talking to someone who you’re having a lot of deepand meaningful (and also just physically glorious) sex with and rebuilding a serious relationship with them, shouldn’t you at least sometimes go more personal than you would with other people?
I suppose thesexis a physical kind of conversation that we clearly wouldn’t involve anyone else in. But shouldn’t we be having somespokenconversations that could only be for us?
I take a deep, steadying breath as unease seems to flood my whole body and for a moment I feel very light-headed and almost as though I might faint despite the very solid chair I’m on.
And then I look again at Callum’s laughing face and I remember that this is a stolen holiday for him and we’re away from home and that – if we’re going to continue this (I hope so much that we will even though I know he did say this could only be a fling) – things will be very different when we’re back in London and in each other’sreallives. Thisisa holiday and it’s nice to have an escape from real life and it’s great actually that we’re keeping everything so light. We have an undercurrent of seriousness and that’s enough for me.
In fact, it’s probably anicething that we aren’t one of those couples who canonlybe together; we can have a really good time in a group.
The rest of the evening is lovely and our night in yet another grand four-poster bed isamazing.(We pull the bed’s curtains around us because neither of us fancies being watched by the stuffed rodents that are crowded onto every conceivable surface and very much not my favourite form of taxidermy.)
It’s quite late when we arrive in Paris on the third day.
‘I’m agog to see what else you booked,’ I say, as Callum directs me into one of the few car parks in Central Paris that the van will fit into height-wise.
He asked me this morning if he could book a surprise evening for us and I said yes, that would be lovely, and in the last few minutes, when I’ve had any time around dodging thescarytraffic, I’ve been wondering in a lovely anticipatory way what we’re going to be doing.
When we emerge blinking from the greyness of the car park into the bright late afternoon light, Callum says, ‘The hotel’s just round the corner.’
‘That’s so close.’
