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Chapter 11
We set off on the bike, crossing over the canals and driving uphill through an area that felt more suburban and lived-in than the other places we’d been to. Less of the apartment blocks with balconies and shutters I’d seen near the station and more the sort of architecture I was used to in London, a mishmash of old and new, some seventies-style blocks, a hospital, a school, some sort of sports centre. After navigating a mad roundabout where stopping at a zebra crossing with somebody on it didn’t appear to be a legal requirement, Léo pulled over and cut the engine.
‘Through here,’ he said, pointing to a set of green iron gates. And then he stopped. ‘Your ankle,’ he said with quiet concern. ‘It is a short walk, but it is uphill. It is too much?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s much better,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
We walked through the entrance to a shady park with a sort of rocky, mossy feel; a different atmosphere again from the canals and the more central parts of Paris we’d already explored. I looked up, breathing in the scent of pine, noticing the way the tree tops popped against the sky. I couldn’t quite believe I was here again, in this city I’d despised for so long.
‘I have another interesting fact about death for you,’ announced Léo.
‘I don’t know why you keep harping on about it,’ I replied, irritated. ‘I’m no more obsessive about it than anyone else.’
‘You want to hear the fact or not?’
‘Not.’
‘You are sure? It is a good one, about what was once below our feet, here in this park. Très macabre.’
‘In that case, definitely not.’
I noticed how long his stride was compared to mine, how I was doing nearly two steps to every one of his. There was something oddly comforting about the twinge of pain I felt every time I put pressure on my twisted ankle.
‘Where are these amazing views you’ve been bigging up, then?’ I asked.
‘This way.’ He steered me across to a wide pathway that curved off uphill. ‘You will see, it will be worth the climb.’
‘It better be,’ I said, my thighs already burning. I took off the hoodie, tying it around my waist, glad I’d left his jacket with the bike.
‘So tell me,’ he said, his breath catching in his throat as we hit a particularly steep section. ‘How is it you are so good at reading people?’
I swung my arms back and forth to try and build some momentum.
‘I’m not always,’ I said. ‘Not with everyone.’
He stopped to hook a tiny pebble out of his shoe and I was grateful for the chance to rest.
‘But sometimes you understand what is inside someone’s head?’ he asked, setting off again.
I’d noticed that when he asked a question, he actually seemed interested in the answer, and not in that fake, faux-polite way that people sometimes were, because I was very tuned in to things like that. I noticed when people asked me something and then glazed over before I’d had a chance to answer, causing me to falter to a halt, deciding that my story wasn’t worth telling after all.
‘Not exactly. It’s more that I get a sense of what they’re thinking. Specifically, what they’re thinking about me.’
He stopped walking for a second or two, looked across at me and then carried on.
‘I think I would rather not know what people think of me,’ he said.
I fiddled with my camera strap, loosening it a little so it wasn’t so tight across the shoulder. ‘That sounds like a healthier approach.’
‘Oui, I think so.’
‘For example, I have this thing where I’m constantly trying to work out whether people like me or not. I have a compulsion to know. I pick out all the little things that most people are probably oblivious to – their body language, the tone of their voice, whether their eyes flicker away from mine, whether they’re looking over their shoulder for someone more interesting to talk to, and so on. And if I don’t get the validation I need, I instantly assume the worst: that I’m an awful person and therefore they must hate me.’
There was a burst of something sweet in the air as we walked past an explosion of tiny purple flowers pushing between the cracks of a rockface to our right. I stopped to take a photo.
‘You think people are thinking bad things about you all of the time?’ he asked me.
I thought about it. ‘Not all the time, no. But I can tell when they are.’
