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Over the line.
Men surrounded him. Henry, pulling him to his feet. Trevor, grabbing him around the waist and lifting him. Hands slapping him on the back even as Luke tossed the ball away and attempted to get back into position for the conversion.
“Settle down, lads,” he shouted. “Get back. Let’s move.”
“Mate,” Henry said, jogging beside him. “Take the moment.”
“What moment?” Luke said. “We’ve barely started.”
“Nah, mate,” Henry said. “We’re going to win it. Thanks to you.”
CHAPTER 25
A Murmuration of Swallows
It was well after eight in the evening on a late-July day, and the sun was slanting low over the varied, centuries-old rooftops of Montmartre to the west, the bulk of the Louvre to the south, the black iron tracery of the Eiffel Tower beyond. Hayden was leaning against a balustrade in the dome of the basilica of Sacré-Cœur, looking out through an arched window at a smaller dome below, fashioned by a master out of nearly white, fine-grained travertine limestone, with Paris spread out below him like a feast.
Luke didn’t tell him what he was looking at. Not like Hayden on that night with the Aurora Australis. Not needing to explain, to put this experience into a box. Content to let it soak in.
They’d gone to Assemblages for dinner, near Luke’s flat, had sat against a white-filmed wall of ancient brick while waiters came and went on wood floors nearly as old as the ones in Luke’s flat. Hayden had eaten duck and Luke had eaten everything but the menu, the lights had been low and the atmosphere relaxed and, yes, romantic. In fact, the only problem was …
Well, yeh. The only problem was that Hayden flew home tomorrow. All evening long, as he was chatting and laughing and Luke was giving him that barely-there smile, he’d thought, I can’t do this. I can’t. Which meant that when they’d finished at last and Luke had asked, “Want to walk up to Sacré-Cœur and get the view? It’ll take a while to get there, but it’s nice,” he’d answered, “Yes.” And couldn’t think of what else to say.
Hand in hand, then, on cobblestone pavements flanking impossibly narrow streets, past mortared stone buildings of gray and cream, past sidewalk cafes and motor scooters parked together like a school of fish. Luke getting stopped, then stopped again, by young people with startling hair, girls and boys both, and asked for photos. He told Hayden, after the third time, “I never wanted to be famous.”
“Odd, isn’t it,” Hayden said, “that you didn’t get there by being a rugby captain, or not exactly.”
“Yeh,” Luke said. “For my sex life. There’s a startling development.” And grinned.
It took an hour to walk to the basilica, and then there were the three hundred steps up a winding spiral staircase to the dome. Luke went first, but turned back and checked on Hayden so many times that Hayden got a bit narky about it.
“If you ask me how I’m going one more time,” he said, trying and failing not to make the words come out in gasps, “I’m going to tell you to go up there alone.”
Luke smiled. “Right, then. I won’t ask. But if it’s too much …”
“Yeh,” Hayden said, thinking, What is this? Thirty floors? There isn’t enough aerobic conditioning in the world. “What will you do? Carry me?”
“I could,” Luke said, and he was grinning now.
Hayden forced his feet on. “I know you could. Stop telling me so. I’m feeling desperately unfit.”
“Nah,” Luke said. “I can’t write a contract, so there’s that.”
“Ha,” Hayden said, and wondered a little wildly, Has anybody ever had a heart attack trying this? They must’ve done. Especially if they’re trying to keep up with an international rugby forward.
When they got to the top, though, it was worth it. Only a few people up here, braving the admission fees and the climb. The breeze blowing through the open arches, ruffling Hayden’s hair. The swallows swooping over the roofs with their narrow, pointed wings and long, pointed tails, exactly the way Nyree had painted them.
Hayden said idly, “There’s a rain cloud out there. We could get wet, walking home.” That was a surprise, as clear as the day had been, only a few faint wisps of cloud showing even now in the evening sky.
“That’s not a cloud,” Luke said. “That’s a murmuration.”
“Is it locusts?” Hayden asked, trying to make out what he was seeing. “Or what?”
“It’s swallows,” Luke said. “Symbol of love and marriage, here in France. The Chinese say they’re born of the tears of the gods. I should’ve told Nyree that. She’d have liked it.”
A dark wave against the deep-blue sky, changing shape as if it were made of liquid, flowing like sand through an hourglass. An oval, then a funnel, growing larger and larger, and Hayden couldn’t breathe.
“How many are there?” he asked quietly.
