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‘– she was the Sunday
In every week.’
Claire felt her chin wobble. She pressed her lips hard together and swallowed back tears. Ronan looked down. With his head bowed, he ignored the smattering of applause and handed the page back to Panmelys.
‘Perfect,’ she said, squeezing his forearm.
He returned to his place on the bench, and Claire handed him back his tea. He took a long slug to empty it and put the mug down on the floor.
‘You are, you know,’ he said to her,sotto voce, as he sat back against the bookcase behind them.
Claire took his hand and entwined her fingers through his. ‘Better Sundays than this one, I hope,’ she said, with her chin on his shoulder.
‘There’s time for this one yet,’ he said, rubbing her thumb with his.
A Ray of Sunshine and a Free Bench
Walking over the Petit Pont bridge to Parvis Notre-Dame, they were out of step. Tourists and brisk Parisians stepped between them. Ronan reached out and took Claire’s hand. He squeezed her fingers with his, and she felt the claw setting of her engagement ring pressing into her flesh. She drew her hand free to twist the ring back into position, and Ronan pointedly put his hand in his pocket.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s just that my ring hurt me.’ And she put her hand into his pocket and grasped his hand, rubbing her thumb along the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger, and letting her hip bump into his. The action made her tote bag slip, and she hooked it back onto her shoulder.
‘Hey, that tome you bought must weigh a ton. Let me carry it.’
‘Ah, feck,’ she said, stopping in her tracks and holding the bag out to look inside it.
‘What?’
‘That book you handed to me at the cash desk – I got distracted paying for this one – I think I left yours on the counter. We’ll have to go back. Will they be closed? Feck, sorry.’
‘Look, you hang on here, and I’ll run.’
Before she could argue, Ronan patted her arm and jogged away.
She walked towards a stone bench where a man – American, at a guess, and familiar – was engrossed in a hefty novel.
He glanced over the top of his reading glasses at her approach.
‘May I?’ she asked, indicating with a tilt of her head the empty space beside him.
‘Of course.’ He moved a cake box out of her way, gave a chivalrous wave of his hand and turned back to his reading.
She sat down and pulled the big book from her bag.
* * *
Harry was acutely aware of the woman sitting at the other end of his bench. He recognised her immediately: she was the woman whose camera he had used to take her photograph on Friday evening, and he’d seen her again at the bistro. He’d watched her expression as she tasted a spoonful of soup. He’d seen the momentary relaxation of the muscles around her eyes, that instant of simple, undistracted pleasure. Where was the ginger husband, he wondered. They’d been together at the cemetery.
His first instinct was to greet her. Her face, he thought, had registered a flicker of recognition, but then it faded.
I suppose I’m just not that memorable, he thought to himself, and turned back to Mantel. The Tuileries had been sacked, the King and Queen removed for their own safety.
He read one lengthy paragraph, but it was no good. He couldn’t focus. His mind was processing the fact that the woman looked as though she had been crying and that she was alone. Chancing a sideways glance, he saw that she had a big hardback book balanced on her lap, but she was gazing in the direction of the cathedral and using the fingers of her right hand to twist round and round the rings on the left.
Harry drew his body an inch or two farther away from her before speaking. ‘Are you alright, honey?’
He hoped his face looked friendly.
She turned her head towards him and shaped her mouth into a broad smile. He guessed it was a smile of habit, a society smile, and he could see that she was having some difficulty in holding it steady.
