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Chapter 6
Standing up to test my foot, I limped over to the nearest café thinking how the Gare du Nord was marginally less dingy than I remembered. This time I couldn’t help but notice the warm, buttery lighting, and the delicious-looking pastries sparkling in glass cabinets. I joined the queue, looking longingly at the stacks of baguettes jam-packed with colourful fillings, and the rainbow-hued display of macarons. Exercising great restraint, I bought a pain au chocolat and a small cappuccino instead, crossing my fingers that my credit card went through. This was a familiar feeling. Ellie joked that I was old before my time, with the kind of lacklustre social life you might expect from someone in their sixties, not their twenties. But that’s how it was when you were broke. One day I was determined to be debt-free. To have a better job and a bit of disposable income. I’d go to the theatre in the West End and out for nice dinners and for weekends away in the kind of trendy, boutique hotels I read about in Stylist magazine. And yet here I was, thirty and still stuck, living in one of the most exciting cities in the world, unable to fully appreciate it because I was permanently overdrawn.
I walked across to the Office de Tourisme, which was closed until 9 heures according to the timings etched on the door. I leaned back against the glass and stuffed sweet, comforting pastry into my mouth, gulped down the coffee, and felt warmed from the inside out. Then I walked out onto the main concourse, turning a full circle, looking for the sign for telephones. It was a strange sensation being mobile-less and uncontactable. There was something liberating about it, but also, what if something terrible happened and nobody could get hold of me? This was exactly the kind of irrational thought my mum would have, I realised. She had a habit of coming up with the worst, most unlikely scenario and convincing herself that it was guaranteed to happen to her/me/someone she knew. Another thought occurred to me: what if I missed out on an amazing job opportunity (I couldn’t imagine what) because I’d not seen an email in time? This, I told myself, was even more unlikely than the medical emergency I’d been worrying about a second ago.
I watched a train pull in; it was painted red, with a pointed front, like a rocket. They were very fast these European trains, I’d read about them somewhere. In which case, surely there was still a chance I could make it to the wedding if there were no more delays. I wasn’t giving up on the idea just yet. I watched a Eurostar come in on another platform, feeling a pang of longing for home. I was probably closer to London than I was to Amsterdam. I could be sitting on my sofa with my feet up in three hours’ time.
Looking for a payphone – didn’t they exist, any more? – I walked carefully out of the nearest exit, taking it easy on my ankle. The paved area outside the station was shiny and wet, with giant raindrops bouncing off it in vicious little splashes. I watched people run from the bus to the station entrance with jackets and newspapers held over their heads. Zipping Léo’s hoodie up so tightly that I would only have been visible from the nose up, I ventured out into the rain. This was where the taxi had dropped me off this morning, I remembered, and it seemed as though everyone had had the same idea because I counted at least fifteen cabs, their doors opening and shutting, luggage being dragged out of boots, horns beeping, wheels sloshing through puddles the size of small ponds. I took a couple of grainy photos of the building opposite: five storeys of traditional Parisian apartments stacked on top of a row of red-canopied restaurants. I was particularly drawn to an attic room where somebody was, very ineffectively given the weather, putting their washing out to dry, hanging wet towels out of a window carved into the grey zinc roof. Then I people-watched for a bit and read road signs and billboards to test my French. I realised that, for the first time in ages, I was doing fine on my own. I couldn’t get hold of Si and therefore there was no point in waiting around for him to save me, which was the dynamic we appeared to have fallen into. As though we were living out our own version of a fairy tale, with Si cast as the handsome prince galloping around on his trusty white steed. I loved having someone there to take care of things. Whatever I needed, Si would find a way to provide, I only had to ask. But we were living together now and contemplating spending the rest of our lives together and I couldn’t help wondering whether Si had come along and rescued me before I’d had the chance to work out if I could do it for myself.
After watching at least a hundred more passengers file through the entrance to the terminal, I spotted a row of payphones against the far wall. A twitchy-looking homeless man skulked around near the kerb, rather worryingly holding a white rope tied in a noose. Keeping him in my peripheral vision I put my coffee on the ground next to me and picked up the closest handset, polishing it with the last wipe from my travel-pack. Pointless really, as it had zero germ-eradicating properties as far as I knew, but still … it made me feel marginally less squeamish.
I thought I’d try Mum, first. This was a risky strategy; she was going to have a fit when I told her what had happened. But I needed someone to know where I was, that I was safe and well. And I knew what Si was like, he’d probably end up calling them anyway, particularly if he was in a panic. I’d rather they heard it from me and for it to be delivered in a calm and matter-of-fact manner, which I’d learned was the best way to break any kind of news – good or bad – to Mum. Anyway, she might surprise me: we’d been in touch more than usual over the last few days. I’d sent her tons of photos and she’d loved hearing what we’d been up to. She’d always wanted to come to Venice herself but had never been able to afford to, and I felt faintly guilty that I’d essentially taken her dream and lived it out for myself.
I dialled Mum’s home number. It was 7.55 in Paris, so an hour earlier in Enfield. I imagined Mum, all rolled up under the duvet in the same bedroom she’d slept in for the last thirty-something years. I couldn’t imagine her ever leaving Thirlmere Drive, a street which, to me, had always had a sort of bleak and hopeless quality about it. Every flat-fronted house was identical to the next for a start, except for those whose inhabitants had splashed out on a porch, or a loft extension. It was as though the street had a uniform. I wondered why nobody had broken free of the mould. Why somebody hadn’t thought to paint their magnolia house a different, brighter colour, or even to dispense with net curtains.
I prepared for Mum to sound all groggy, and to quickly become near-hysterical as her mind ran away with her, jumping ahead to whatever terrible fate she thought might have befallen her disaster-prone daughter now. You’d have thought that at my age I’d have stopped caring what she thought, but somehow, because she was the only parent I had, I supposed, it hurt that she always assumed the worst of me. That I had to work extra hard to prove her wrong. To show her that I wasn’t the complete fuck-up she seemed to think I was. Although that wasn’t easy when I had – as was the case on this occasion – actually fucked up.
It rang seven times before she picked up.
‘Hello?’
Her voice was vague, as though she thought she might be dreaming.
‘Mum, it’s me.’
Silence.
‘Hannah?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s happened?’
She breathed heavily into the mouthpiece.
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ I said in the most soothing voice I could muster.
‘Thank God,’ said Mum. ‘You’re not in any trouble, then?’
‘Course not,’ I said casually. ‘Nothing terrible, anyway. It’s just that I’ve lost Si.’
More silence. And then, ‘What do you mean, lost him?’
I knew she’d be fighting the urge to go all dramatic. I tried to explain.
‘The train from Venice divided into two in the middle of the night and we didn’t realise and now I’ve ended up in Paris and Si’s on his way to Amsterdam.’
‘Oh God, Hannah!’
‘And he’s got all my stuff. My suitcase. My purse, although luckily I’ve got a couple of cards with me,’ I said in a rush. ‘Oh yeah, and my phone’s been stolen.’
Might as well get it all out there.
‘What about Catherine’s wedding?’ she screeched. ‘You’ll miss it, Hannah! Honestly, trust you. Why do things like this always happen to you?’
Mum was going to be mad about this turn of events because she’d been much more invested in Catherine’s wedding than I’d ever been. She’d made me relay every little detail of the day and was particularly obsessed with Pauline’s outfit, which I’d avoided telling her probably cost more than Mum’s entire wardrobe put together.
‘I don’t know, Mum, why do they?’ I replied, exhaustion creeping up on me.
