AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘What’s the word for ticket office, again?’ I asked Léo, who was rubbing his face and stifling a yawn.
‘Guichet,’ he said, stretching.
‘Guichet?’
‘Yes. Guichet.’
I was pretty sure that wasn’t the word I’d learned when I was revising for my GCSE French, but I could hardly argue about it. He was probably using the colloquial form or something, but it would have to do. I wrote it down.
‘How do you say stolen?’ I asked him about a minute later.
‘Volé.’
Honestly, none of these words were looking in the slightest bit familiar. Plus I kept getting distracted by the comings and goings at the station. At one point, a police officer strode through the room with a machine gun in his belt, which made me wonder exactly how volatile and unsafe Paris might be, and about how going off on a bike with someone I barely knew was a bad idea. What if something happened? How would I ever explain it to Si? A few minutes later a drunk guy was manhandled through the doors, swaying and shouting as someone tried to determine his name. Quel est votre nom? Votre nom! I rushed through the rest of the form, handed it in, had some sort of receipt shoved back at me and then we left. It was all over with very quickly and yet was the sort of thing that I would usually have procrastinated about for days whilst I went back and forth over the pros and cons of reporting my phone stolen, struggling to make a decision.
I was relieved to get outside and tipped my face towards the clouds, squinting into the light, which was dazzling after the dinginess of the police station.
‘It’s drying up, at least,’ I said.
The rain had finally stopped, and there was the tiniest smattering of blue poking through the grey sky.
‘Perhaps the sun will come out,’ said Léo, going over to the bike and wiping rain off the wing mirrors with a cloth he found in the box on the back.
I watched him for a bit, not sure what to do with myself.
‘I suppose I should get back to the station, then,’ I said.
Because what if, by some miracle, the engineering works had finished early and a train was announced that would get me to Amsterdam sooner?
‘Sure. One moment,’ he said, polishing the handlebars intently.
‘Here,’ I said, taking off his jacket. ‘I seem to have taken all your clothes, you must be cold.’
‘No, please. I am good,’ he said, although when I looked at his arms, I could see his dark hairs standing on end, sharp and spiky, as though it might hurt to run my hand across them.
I put the jacket back on. The sleeves were too long for me so that only the tips of my fingers poked out of the bottom.
He pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘You do not smoke, right?’
‘No,’ I said, taking one anyway.
He looked surprised and I shrugged. I thought it wouldn’t do any harm; I’d make sure it was just the one. He lit mine for me, then his own. I almost gasped in ecstasy when the first drag filled my mouth and nicotine swept into my bloodstream. Oh, how I’d missed it.
Léo looked across at me. ‘Good?’
I nodded, holding the cigarette at arm’s length, relishing how familiar it felt in my hand. ‘I’m supposed to have given up.’
I watched a policeman inside the building; he was standing by the window, barking instructions into a handset.
‘Good for you,’ said Léo. ‘One day, I will do the same.’
‘Why does everything fun have to be so bad for you?’ I wondered out loud.
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps it is the thrill of it you enjoy, rather than the thing itself? The idea that you are doing something you shouldn’t be.’
Thrills were few and far between these days, it seemed. I could count on one hand the number of times Si and I had been for a proper night out since we’d moved in together. I wasn’t complaining: I loved sharing a place with him, having him to come home to each night. Trying out recipes I’d found online, chatting about his day while we ate. And on the plus side, I was also managing to avoid the earth-shattering lows that used to spring themselves on me in between all the highs. I much preferred things as they were, a steady stream of normality, of feeling looked-after and settled and loved. I didn’t think I’d change that for anything.
‘What were your plans in Amsterdam, then?’ I asked.
