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Ronan burst out laughing, then kissed her – one fast, hard, curranty kiss that settled them back on track.
They drank. And then they ate:soupe à l’oignonandpâté en croûte, and thenbavette deboeuf aux échalotesandsole meunière. Ronan, with a winsome smile, asked the waiter to recommend different wines for every dish, a gesture which was met with a snort of Gallichorreur.
They got tipsy. It would be more accurate to say they got drunk – the sort of drunk that focuses the mind on the present moment and turns all life’s shitty distractions into nothing more than an indistinct blur around the edges. They laughed at the snooty waiter when his back was turned, though in fairness, Claire observed, the man poured with Celtic generosity. They laughed at the three-foot-high arrangement of shellfish delivered to the table beside them. They laughed as they each found, with a self-congratulatory note of relief, that the person they had married was funny.
Ronan had scraped the plate of hismoelleux au chocolat, and Claire was slurping the last of the custard from herîle flottante, when all of a sudden, conversation ran dry. Ronan tipped the bottle of Sauternes and let the last of it dribble awkwardly into Claire’s glass.
‘You won’t squeeze another drop out of that,’ she said, for want of something less obvious to say.
‘Nope. It was good, though, wasn’t it?’
‘It was. Delicious.’
A moment passed. He fiddled with his cutlery. She rubbed her finger on her plate to gather a final lick of custard.
‘Here,’ she said, holding her finger to his lips.
He bent his head and sucked the custard. She could feel his tongue pressing on the soft pad of her finger, and his teeth scraping her knuckle.
‘Good?’ she asked.
‘Delicious.’ He smiled, holding her eyes.
‘Will we go?’ she said.
‘Right now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Home?’
‘To bed.’
‘Really?’
‘Come on.’ Claire tilted her head towards the door.
Under the starched white tablecloth, Ronan put his hand on her leg. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Really?’ She looked at her empty dessert plate.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘We have only a few hours left. Let’s see Paris while we can.’
She leaned closer to his neck. His skin smelled of that alluring aftershave. Reflexively, she groaned. ‘Are you, Rocky Mac, actually refusing me sex?’
He laughed and let his hand slip farther up her thigh. ‘I’m not refusing you sex.’
‘What are you doing, so?’
Ronan tipped his head to catch the attention of a waiter. He ordered two coffees and two glasses of Armagnac.
Then he turned to Claire and pressed his index finger to her lips. His voice was filled with mirth. ‘I, Ronan MacNamara, am actually making you wait.’
On the Train Home
Mireille leaned her head against the cool glass of the window. The TGV carriage was travelling parallel to theautoroute, which was still busy, even this late on a Sunday night.
Closing her eyes on the traffic, she let her body relax into the rhythm of the train’s motion and allowed the forbidden memory to rise: snow falling steadily through the two hours of choir practice, insulating the village church from all the noise of 1964, making the world seem clean again; stocky advent candles blazing in defiance of December’s darkness; the older women, bundled up in woollen coats, disappearing into the blizzard; and Father Jérome, young and sweet-faced, offering to walk her home. She remembered standing by his side at the church window, close enough that she knew their sleeves were touching, watching snowflakes swirling around the crypts of curates past. He’d hummed the air of ‘La Vie en Rose’, and she had joined in.
