‘What?’ he asks coyly, hooking his arm round his chair and leaning back.
‘What a twenty-four hours we had,’ I explain, laughing at the sheer extravagance of it.
‘I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on you at Notre-Dame. It took all my courage to talk to you. I knew if I didn’t, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.’
‘I never knew that,’ I say, just as a waiter brings us both a glass of champagne.
‘My heart was thumping so hard I thought it might burst out of my chest.’
‘You hid it well,’ I say, scanning him now, wondering what emotions lie beneath the poised exterior.
He takes a long mouthful of champagne. ‘I’ve always been insecure.’
‘Really,’ I laugh, surprised. ‘I don’t remember you being that way.’
‘You’ve forgotten.’
I shake my head, not certain what he’s referring to.
‘You said it yourself, in that club we went to – “People who like esoteric music like it to feel different or special, to feel less insecure.”’
I nod, remembering that I’d wanted to ask more at that point in our conversation but had felt it might lie outside our rule of ‘no identifying features’. I’d wondered then, and after turning down his advances, if his wanderlust was due to fleeing something or someone, if underneath it all he was secretly broken.
‘Is that why you were in Paris?’
‘I suppose. My father had had an affair with one of his life models. My mother was out of her mind from the betrayal – neurotic, demanding, insecurity personified. I suppose I was escaping, searching for something of my own. When I saw you . . . I knew I had to grab the moment.’
I sip my champagne, my eyes still on his. ‘Do you remember the bikes we found?’
Alistair thinks for a moment, his eyes lighting up when he finds the memory. ‘I’d forgotten about that!’
‘You forgot?! I spent days on my return fretting about those bikes, wondering if they’d been abandoned or not, and what inconvenience we might have caused through our impulsiveness.’
‘Did we head to the Louvre on the bikes?’
I nod. ‘And then the Jardin des Tuileries.’
‘That’s right,’ he nods, leaning in. ‘I wanted to kiss you there.’
‘I remember,’ I say, recalling the look of intensity he wore under the tree in the moonlight, not dissimilar from how he’s looking at me now. ‘It frightened me.’
‘Frightened?’
‘Well, you know, I wasn’t ready for so much passion, I just wanted to have fun.’
‘It was a bit later that we found the club,’ he goes on.
‘With the dreadful singer!’ I laugh.
‘I liked her!’
‘I remember! And then Sacré Coeur . . .’ I say, the mood shifting, and not just because the house lights have just been dimmed.
‘Unforgettable.’
‘Mmm,’ I answer. The words I’m thinking –life-altering– feel too strong to say.
‘I know this might sound strange,’ says Alistair over the excited chatter of the audience, the show about to begin. ‘But would you like to get out of here? Maybe walk, the way we did then?’
