‘What line of work are you in?’ she asks.
I watch as she accepts her drink, her fingers with perfectly manicured nails wrapping around the glass, her skin flawless. And I’m struck by how perfect she is for Flynn: beautiful, professional, more than likely blindly ambitious – the full package, unlike me.
‘Forgive me, I’m suddenly tired,’ I say, getting down from my stool and gathering my things, unable to understand why Flynn would lead me on, when he has someone as perfect as Georgia.
25.
FRAN
‘How was your day?’ I ask Elsa, the two of us getting ready in the hotel room for this evening’s meet and greet event, Carly still in the bathroom.
‘It was simple,’ she answers, drying her hair, on a pale brocade armchair. ‘I read in the library, enjoyed watching people coming and going. And then later I met an interesting chap in the bar . . .’ She drifts off, watches me apply my mascara in the ornate mirror. ‘How was yours?’
‘Full of surprises,’ I answer distantly.
‘Did you manage to get to Sacré Coeur?’
I stop applying my mascara mid-lash and turn to face her.
‘Why did you suggest I go?’
‘The man I met in the bar, he was enthralled by your bookmark – I picked it up when it fell fromNotre-Damein the library – and his story sounded similar to yours so I—’
‘It was Alistair.’
‘Gosh. So, it was him,’ she says, her eyes scanning mine.
‘You didn’t know?’
Elsa shakes her head.
‘Then why did you send me?’
She pauses a while. ‘An old woman’s hunch,’ she laughs lightly, her eyes sparkling. ‘How was it, seeing him again?’
I turn back to the mirror, continue with my make-up. I think for a moment. ‘It was extraordinary and ordinary both at once, if that makes sense?’
‘If what makes sense?’ asks Carly, coming out of the bathroom in a thick white robe.
‘How it felt to see Alistair after thirty years,’ Elsa replies.
She stops in her tracks. ‘Wait, you saw him? How?’
From the mirror I see Elsa cast me a look of regret at mentioning it.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ I say, trying to shrug it off, as if it were nothing. ‘Fate, serendipity . . .?’
Carly scowls and, since I imagine she’s thinking of Robin, I shift focus slightly. ‘And guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Alistair is Flynn’s adoptive father.’
‘Well, God in heaven,’ says Elsa, stopping brushing her hair mid-flow.
I tell them a little about Alistair, his living between Edinburgh and London, amongst other things, and thatNotre-Damewas in the bag of books Flynn left at the shop.
‘You were both in the same city all this time,’ says Elsa incredulously, continuing her brushing more slowly now.
