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‘Well I think he sounds great,’ she said, sliding a cocktail in my direction. ‘Voilà!’
I took a sip and gave her a thumbs-up.
She would think that, because he was much more her type. She’d always gone for the good guys, shunning excitement for stability, which was almost certainly why her relationships had been infinitely more successful than mine.
‘I’m not sure what to do,’ I said, turning the phone over so that I wouldn’t have to keep looking at the screen.
‘Don’t, Han,’ said Ellie, suddenly all serious.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Don’t do what you always do, lately. Talk yourself out of it before you’ve given it a chance.’
I frowned. ‘Do I?’
Ellie leaned on the counter, looking uncomfortable. ‘Well, you’ve become a lot more wary of people, haven’t you, over the last few years? Sort of given up a bit. It feels like you expect the worst all the time.’
I laughed hollowly. She’d never mentioned anything before.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, gulping down my cocktail, not sure if I really wanted to know.
‘You used to take risks all the time, Han. Don’t you remember? You’d be the one with all the chat, getting us into clubs when we were underage. Gate-crashing parties we hadn’t been invited to. Buying cigarettes from the corner shop because you weren’t the tallest, but you were the only one who had the balls to try. And then, I don’t know … something happened. Just before I started uni. You changed, and I never really understood why.’
‘I didn’t,’ I protested. ‘I’m exactly the same person I always was.’
‘Prove it, then. Say yes, you’d love to go out with him. What have you got to lose?’
There had been something different about Si. A sort of intoxicating stability; just the right amount of self-assuredness. I’d imagined what it would be like to have someone like that in my life, and now I knew. In the space of a year, my life had changed beyond recognition. But I wondered, suddenly, what his motives were for moving so fast. If he’d been hurt before, by his ex, then perhaps he was looking for something easier this time around. Someone who wouldn’t present a challenge, who would never leave him because she needed him too much. Had he chosen me because with my low self-esteem and my inability to do anything productive with my life, I was the ultimate safe bet?
We’d stopped at a station, which I thought must be somewhere in Belgium. I watched passengers getting on and off the train, thinking about cameras and portfolios and what my fellow students might be like if I did get a place on the course and how I was going to cobble together the money for fees. And then I wondered what Si would say when I told him I was definitely going to apply. And I thought that perhaps I wouldn’t let him influence me so much, any more. That it was about time I put my stamp on things; made my own decisions, did things without him, things he didn’t approve of, if I felt passionately enough about it.
Ten or twelve people joined our carriage and there was a flurry of seat-finding and the ramming of luggage into already-full racks and the sliding of laptops out of bags. The train pulled off again, its wheels squealing on the track, the usual run of flat, green fields coming into view. Léo had been scrolling through his phone for a while and, like a child, I wanted his full attention again. I wanted to listen to him talk. I wanted to know everything I could about him in the short space of time that we had left.
I nudged him. ‘What are you thinking about?’
He put his phone on his lap.
‘I was thinking,’ he said, clasping his hands in front of his mouth, ‘about many things. But one of them was about whether we will remember this day. In five years’ time, or in ten. Do you think we will, Hannah?’
I tucked a loose curl behind my ear. ‘I think so,’ I said, turning to look out of the window.
The train plunged into a tunnel. I took a mouthful of wine. I could see my reflection very clearly because of the darkness. My eyes were bright and alert, even though I’d had no sleep. I could see Léo’s arm resting on his thigh. And then he leaned forward, and I could see that he was looking at me. He reached out to brush my hair off my shoulder with his hand, trailing his fingers across the back of my neck. When we emerged on the other side, and the carriage became bright again, he dropped his hand away, settling back in his chair.
‘Want something from the buffet car?’ he asked.
I nodded overenthusiastically. ‘Sure. Anything.’
I watched him making his way along the aisle, his jeans hanging loosely on his hips, his Calvin Klein boxers on show. I was relieved when he disappeared through to the next carriage and I didn’t have to look at him any more. I might be able to think more clearly now he was out of sight. But then my mind drifted back to him, another vivid daydream, an extension of my Paris apartment one. This time, we’d moved away from the window. We could still hear the accordion playing, feel the soft breeze. He pressed me up against a wall, his hands on my waist, his face close to mine, his lips parted and I knew he was going to kiss me and that I wanted him to more than anything else.
‘Ça va?’ he said, appearing beside me, putting an end to my daydream.
‘That was quick,’ I said, taking a sip of wine and then spluttering it all over my lap when it went down the wrong way.
It was as though I suddenly had no control over what was going on in my head. Si was the one I cared about, the man I loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with, wasn’t he? Had my head really been turned by Léo and all his French charm, just because I felt listened-to, because I thought he already understood me more than anyone ever really had, after less than a day together?
He passed me a paper cup of tea.
‘You have it black, right?’ he said, offering me a little sealed pot of milk.
