Just as Nicolas is leaning in, my eye is caught by Flynn, arriving at the terrace entrance. I’m conscious that I left him standing earlier and I offer a wave, but he doesn’t respond. He paces as he stares at his phone, shoulders tense, brow furrowed. Nicolas stubs out his cigarette.
‘You must excuse me,’ he says, his demeanour tightening. He tucks his notebook under his arm then walks towards Flynn, tugging at the cuffs of his black shirt as he does.
I watch as the two men greet each other, Nicolas a few inches taller, Flynn several inches broader. Flynn gestures for them to move further away, putting them just out of earshot.
It’s hard for me to see exactly what’s going on as Nicolas’s height obscures much of Flynn, but at one point Flynn gestures towards Mum, followed by Nicolas raising his hands as if in surrender.
In the exchange that follows, Flynn runs his hands through his hair and paces up and down, while Nicolas remains steady and cool.
And then, in an act I really don’t understand, Flynn reaches for the notebook under Nicolas’s arm. Nicolas is quick to remove it and raise it above his head while Flynn tries desperately to reach it. They are like two schoolboys grappling over a toy in a playground – it would be funny if it weren’t so heated.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Mum, coming over to join me.
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ I say, as I watch Flynn storm off and Nicolas head into the café.
Mum sits opposite me, watches me in the way she does when she’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking.
‘Is there something between you and Flynn?’
‘No,’ I answer, way too defensively.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I just thought there was something, that you might be keen on him, or him on you.’
‘Mum, leave it, there’s nothing.’
‘Fine, fine,’ she says, fiddling with a fork, and I know she’s trying to figure out whether to tell me something. Eventually she says, ‘I’m meeting Alistair this evening.’
She leaves the statement hanging.
‘Why?’ I ask petulantly, knowing my attitude is raining on her parade, but unwilling or unable to change it.
‘Because why not? No harm in revisiting the past for an hour or two.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Does Dad know?’
She shakes her head, twiddles a coaster.
I want to tell her it’s a bad idea, that she’s living in her imagination, not reality, but then I figure, Dad’s keeping a secret from her, maybe it’sOKfor her to have one too. Who am I to know what works in a marriage and what doesn’t? I can barely kiss a man without shoving him away.
‘Well, it’s on you,’ I shrug, getting up, keen to get out of here. ‘But I’m telling you, Mum – no good can come from fanning old flames.’
28.
FRAN
‘How are you?’ Alistair asks on my arrival at the Moulin Rouge. He kisses me on the cheek, causing my heart to flutter.
‘Good,’ I reply, keeping my maelstrom of emotions to myself: my nerves and disbelief, the niggle of guilt that’s been rising and falling all evening, the excitement. ‘You?’
‘Never better,’ he smiles, his eyes shining, just as I remembered them. ‘Shall we go in?’
I follow Alistair through the entrance hall and into the spectacle of the theatre. We’re seated at a table for two, under a canopy of striped fabric, overlooking the stage and the tables in the stalls, which are gradually filling.
‘This place really sizzles,’ I say, once we’ve both absorbed the glamour and sheer theatricality of the surroundings.
‘I wanted to come here with you that night, but it was late, as I remember.’
‘The middle of the night, I think,’ I say, drifting backto the memory of us strolling after our kiss. I look up to find Alistair’s eyes fixed on mine, and I smile with a light laugh.
