‘It’s slower. I need things that take more time, I guess. Keeps me…’ I can see him weigh up his words carefully, ‘distracted.’
‘Sure.’ I try to sound as if I understand but I don’t. I like the immediacy of finishing something in an hour. I like panicking about it, ruminating on writing a chapter all day and then the joy of sitting on the sofa with the laptop, seeing a project through to completion in an hour and feeling like I have at least accomplished something that day. The thought of working for months on something for little reward seems soul-destroying.
‘So, you do that in the apartment?’ I ask warily, scared to bring up the little slice of the world that belonged solely to Ettie and me. The flat with its large sash windows that never entirely shut, the red Formica kitchen that we barely used and the constant sounds of life from the café below.
‘The apartment?’ He cocks his head to the side; his lips silently mould to the word as if his perfect English has somehow failed him now. I gesture in the direction of the café and his face illuminates with recognition.
‘Oh! No…’ He shakes his head a little too fiercely. ‘I couldn’t do that. He rents it out to a family now, nice people.’
I try to not let the relief be all too obvious. Florian swills the wine around in his glass and grimaces. ‘So that’s it really, why I’m here, what’s happened in the last three years of my life.’
There is an interval where we both gather ourselves together, re-fill our glasses and take a breath. I study his face further, see every month of sobriety on his face, the fullness of his cheeks, the shimmer back in his eyes.
‘I wonder what Ettie would have thought of it, you back here.’ I break our mutual silence.
He smirks into his glass. ‘I like to think he would have warmed to the idea.’
My phone starts to buzz on the table. Archie’s name pops up. I cancel the call quickly but not before Florian has registered the name, and I feel like I want to tell him it’s nothing serious, list off excuses for why I have let another man into my life.
‘It’s late. I’m sure you have somewhere to be.’ He starts to gather himself up before I have a chance to respond. ‘I’ll walk you back.’
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘It’s on my way.’ He shrugs, pulls some cash from his wallet and throws it onto the table. I go to object but he is already walking off the terrace with a quick wave of his hand to the waitress. I catch her eye; she is young, younger than me, pretty and curious. They are definitely a thing.
‘And dare I ask how you know where I live?’ I have to jog to catch up with him and when I do I can see an eyebrow raise. He must have thought he’d got away without me asking. He manages a small grin, understanding that it was pretty weird to have been able to figure out my address a mere few hours after realising my existence.
‘One of my customers was there when we—’ he searches for the words, ‘ran into each other. He also happens to be your downstairs neighbour.’
The warmth of the early evening is fading and I pull my jacket around me. ‘I haven’t met any neighbours.’
‘Ava.’ He stops, stares at me with an exhausted look in his eye as if he is explaining something obvious for the third time. ‘An English girl appearing out of season, people are going to hear about it.’
I can’t pretend that he isn’t right. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in a place where strangers take an active interest in your life. London and its busy streets and endless noise brought with it a total anonymity. There was always someone prettier, cooler, smarter, sexier to fixate upon; us mere mortals, with bad dye jobs and last year’s clothes, didn’t really deserve a look in.
‘Are you staying long?’ he asks, not looking at me.
‘A month.’
‘Specific.’
‘I…’ I go to tell him about the book, about the blog and all that comes with it but something about it sounds cheap. I have often wondered where becoming successful from Ettie’s death sits on the morality scale. In some comments that I was told not to read but did anyway, I had been referred to as an ‘opportunist’ or an ‘unfunny bitch who was profiteering off of her husband’s death’ so, obviously, I had weighed up whether there was indeed some truth in the torture.
‘I missed it.’ I choose to lie instead.
‘This place or him?’
I look around at the buildings, the flaking shutters, listen to the sounds of our feet on the cobbles that are starting to become cold and wet from the cool spring evening. ‘I thought I might have missed the place, but it turns out it’s slightly lost its magic without Ettie waiting for me.’
We round the corner onto my street. ‘Well, I mean it was like you were blind to anything else when he was in the room.’
I feel my heckles rise from the comment. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I don’tmeananything by it, just that you were young and in love and Etienne was – well Ettie. He was the kind of person that was the axis to which everything else spun around him, including you.’
I don’t respond.
‘Well…’ He looks around, hands in his pocket. ‘Thank you for coming. I just needed to tell you that things have changed for me. And… I’m sorry,’ he adds, and I note the look of complete discomfort on his face.
