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“I hope so, love. Sometimes you have to fight for these things though. Have I ever told you about the time your dad travelled all the way to Edinburgh to ask me to a dance?”
“What do you mean?”
The waiter returned, and her mum held her response until he’d put their drinks on the table and left.
“I was visiting a friend for the summer holidays. We were all in our last year of university. I had my eye on your dad, but I didn’t think he was interested. He played it very cool.”
Charlie raised her eyebrows, surprised that her dad could ever have played it cool. He adored her mum.
“Then, I was at Joyce’s for the summer and one afternoon, her mum shouted upstairs to us: ‘Someone called Harry Mason is at the door for you girls.’ I almost died of embarrassment. He’d travelled for hours on the train. He took me out, down the Royal Mile, and asked me if I’d go to the freshers’ ball with him as a supervisor.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a romantic first date. Supervising a load of freshers.” Charlie’s laughter rang out across the pool house.
“Well, it was a very practical first date, I’ll give you that. But it was the first date of the rest of our lives.” Her mum’s eyes glazed over, lost in memories. “And all I’m saying is that every so often, it will take a bit of effort to find the right one. Perhaps even a journey or two to get their attention.” Her mum looked pleased with herself for dishing out that piece of advice.
Charlie chugged her water. “When’s lunch? Is there time for Pilates?”
“Not ’til one. We can head up to a class after my coffee if you’d like?”
Charlie laid back to inspect the wood-panelled ceiling, relieved to have shared her messy feelings about Elda with her mum. She wasn’t sure she’d gained any clarity. If anything, today had so far reminded her that she had her mum’s face and her dad’s facade. But did she have her dad’s courage to run after Elda like he had with her mum?
She shook her head at the wild thought. That sounded like a story which had grown more romantic with the passing of time. Jumping on a train to Paris and turning up at Elda’s door was the last thing she’d do. She had never walked, let alone run, after anyone. Not since Theresa.
Chapter Fifteen
Elda contemplated a plastic bag flapping in the wind like a pigeon. It reminded her of London. The air whipped at her food wrapper as she sat on the café terrace. “People think Paris is all about the high-end food. But there are more burger places here than I’ve ever seen,” she said between mouthfuls of fries.
Sylvie, her newest friend, sat beside her and grunted in Parisian, offering no clue as to whether she agreed or not. “Beats English food though, non?”
Elda wasn’t sure. Two weeks into her new job in Paris, and she was already missing beans on toast. “I guess.”
“You want to go out tonight?” Sylvie pushed a wayward curl behind her ear and wiped mayonnaise from her lips.
“No, I’m going to the museum.”
“D’Orsay? Again? There are a thousand art galleries in Paris, and you head for that tourist trap. What is it with you and that place?” Sylvie chuckled into her espresso.
“I like it there. It’s grounding. When the sun goes down, it feels like you’ve got the place to yourself.”
“Seriously, Elda, you’ve been three or four times. You must’ve seen every work of art on show.”
“Don’t knock it. I like being among the masters and their masterpieces; it’s intimate. And overwhelming. It reminds me that we’re all just artists in training, with our works in progress. Everyone’s sketches are just that—first drafts. And I like the routine. It beats spending the evening tiptoeing around Francis’s apartment.” She looked across the pavement towards a woman cutting through the crowd with a folder in her arms, dressed in a classic calf-length coat. For a moment, she wanted to be that woman, striding through the capital. She rolled her eyes, realising the stranger reminded her of Charlie, and a pang of misery hit her in the ribs. “Actually, yeah. Let’s go out somewhere tonight. What are you thinking?”
“To the café at the university. There is a poetry reading and my friend Alex will be there. You’ll like her.”
“Done.” A break in her routine might be just what she needed to shake off the melancholy. Elda filled her diary to mask her loneliness. She had started teaching classes in Francis’s new department, but she was spread across the faculty, and the timetable was a jumble of fine art, English and American film. Clueless, she followed the curriculum and made the students do most of the talking.
“What is it?” Sylvie looked over her sunglasses.
“I’m fretting.”
“About classes? Don’t take it so seriously.” Sylvie huffed again and waved away Elda’s worries.
“No one in Paris wants to be taught by an English teacher, Sylvie. Some of them don’t care if I teach them English, even film, but art? It’s like I’m a fake.”
“Until they realise that you’re not. That you know what you’re talking about.” Sylvie bit into a long, skinny French fry.
“Yeah, maybe halfway through the second term. But I’m only a fortnight in. It’s painful.” She slurped at her diet Coke and made Sylvie giggle in disgust.
