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He glanced around, appearing to take stock of his situation.
Claire would have sworn his eyes actually twinkled. ‘You betcha, I am.’
She tucked her hair behind her ear and picked up the book she had left on the bench. ‘I want to show you something, the quotation in here that made me buy this book – Samuel Beckett. Hang on—’
She flicked to the place she had marked with a vintage postcard and passed the open book to Harry. It was a double page spread. Across the bottom was a reproduction of a 1950s black-and-white photograph that showed all the crease marks of the original having been folded in half, maybe squeezed into an envelope or carried around in a wallet. The image was the view from the upstairs window of the bookshop: the Seine in the foreground, the cathedral looming tall in the top right-hand corner, and the parvis, evidently a car park at that time, taking up the centre. It was the scene in which they were sitting, only seven decades into the past. In large print, above Notre-Dame’s old spire, was the quotation from Beckett.
Harry took a moment to gather his voice, then read aloud. ‘“We spend our life, it’s ours, trying to bring together in the same instant a ray of sunshine and a free bench.”’
He let the words hang in the air around them for a long moment. Then he said, ‘He forgot something.’
‘What’s that?’
He tipped his head, ever so chivalrously. ‘The company of a good woman.’
Her cheeks pinked up, and she smiled at him.
‘And jam tarts,’ he added, offering the box again.
‘Now you’re being greedy.’ She took another tart.
‘Always. I’m famous for it. I want to write down your Beckett.’ He patted his pockets and pulled out his pen, then took up the Mantel book and was about to write on the inside cover but stopped. His hand was trembling.
‘Damn,’ he muttered, sighing and shaking his head in frustration.
‘Here, let me.’ Claire licked jam from her fingers, then reached out and took his book. She held out her hand for his pen, and he handed it over.
‘Montblanc,’ she said, turning it over between her fingers. ‘Very nice. I’ve only ever come across these in books. D’ya know what, I wouldn’t even have been sure they existed in real life.’
And just like that, she successfully drew him back into the moment. She wrote the quotation on the inside cover ofA Place of Greater Safety, then passed it back to Harry.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Keep the pen.’
‘I can’t keep this,’ she said, laughing. ‘Don’t be daft.’ She reached over and slid the pen back into the inside pocket where he’d found it.
‘But I want to give you something, to remember me by.’
‘I’ll remember you, Harry. I promise.’
‘How about this?’ He was rummaging awkwardly in the outer pocket of the leather jacket, and he pulled out something small, concealed in a closed fist. His hand was still shaking slightly as he held it out to her.
She put both her hands around his and held it steady as he turned over his fist and opened his fingers.
‘I picked it up yesterday, in that fancy graveyard. It seemed like something special to me, like a grenade of possibility.’
There, lying on his open palm, was a shiny, brown chestnut.
‘A conker.’ Claire’s voice caught in her throat. Without warning, tears were streaming down her face.
Harry upturned his hand so that the chestnut fell into her palm. ‘I guess it’s a new beginning, of sorts,’ he said.
He patted her forearm and then withdrew to his end of the bench. ‘I think that fool husband of yours is back.’
Claire turned to follow Harry’s line of vision and saw Ronan, red-faced, jogging across the bridge. He saw her and smiled, waving a book above his head.
She turned back to Harry. ‘I think he’s sorry,’ she said.
‘I know he is,’ said Harry.
