Don’t ruin Paris, I kept telling myself. Yesterday was lovely – well, all day was – optimistic for the future but also like old times – before things went bad-party-bad. If you have to fight with her now, you lose the day too. I stared out of the train window at the weird French electricity pylons in the fields, which looked like alien robot invaders. Don’t ruin Paris.
‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ Rachel said again.
‘Yeah,’ I said, in an annoyingly weedy voice. ‘I’m just really tired.’ But I could hear myself sounding angry and judgemental and knew she felt bad and my weediness would make her feel worse. I kept thinking of ways I could tell her off and managed to stop myself saying them. In the end, nothing that bad had happened. Besides, how many terrible parties back home had I forced her to stay to the end of just because I’d had a crush on some loser there? But we were in France, and everything was different, and – once again – Rachel wasn’t supposed to do that sort of thing. I’d ended up not sleeping on Marthe’s sister’s floor, next to Marthe, on a couple of thickly folded blankets that didn’t soften the hard wooden floorboards very much, and Rachel had stayed up the whole night ‘talking’ to the French boy. That was her official account of things – she said she might have dozed off with him on the sofa, she couldn’t really remember. I was tired, maybe that was really why I was angry. I felt empty and sick, and my head was filled with unyawned yawns that pulled at my cheeks.
The train was practically silent. Rachel tried a few times to start a conversation, but the heavy quiet around us sort of crushed her into embarrassment and she ended up whispering. I started to feel sorry for her, and wanted to let her know I really was fine, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. So, I just smiled when we split up at Vernon, and told her to keep in touch and text me. I practically sleepwalked back to the Fayes’ house, letting my feet remember the way because my head had checked out.
If I’d known what was going to greet me, I think I’d have gone straight back in the other direction. Madame Faye was furious, again. So angry, she was talking in English, to make sure I didn’t miss a word. It seemed Madame Lacasse had called her the night before, believing Rachel was staying with me, with her, and Faye had had to tell her we were both in Paris, and she didn’t know exactly where.
‘You have made me look very reckless and foolish, Samantha,’ she said. ‘This was very stupid.’ My head was trying to process it all. I honestly hadn’t thought I was doing anything wrong, and I didn’t fully understand why Rachel wouldn’t have told Madame Lacasse the truth. Maybe the Lacasses weren’t as easy going as I’d thought, maybe Rachel had been told she wasn’t allowed to go – after all, Victoire hadn’t gone, something I’d thought was weird at the time.
‘I didn’t know Rachel had said that,’ I said, telling the truth, because I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Everything I told you was true. I told you who we were staying with, and that’s who we stayed with. I’m sorry Madame Lacasse didn’t know, but I didn’t know she didn’t know.’
Madame Faye wasn’t happy with this. She went off on another rant about how this time I’d gone too far and she was going to have to call my mum.
‘But I told you everything,’ I said.
‘If you told me everything,’ Faye said, ‘why did your friend tell Madame Lacasse something else?’ If I said what I thought, that Rachel just hadn’t been allowed to go, then Faye would ask me what sort of party it was, and I’d probably end up in more trouble.
So I just said, ‘I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding. I’ve tried to be truthful. We spent the day in Paris alone together, then we stayed the night with friends; we were safe. They had a party, but we didn’t go to any bars, or take the Métro after dark, or put ourselves in any danger.’
‘This is your last warning, Samantha,’ Madame Faye said. ‘I did not agree to have wild English girls who tell me lies staying for the summer. I am very disappointed.’ There was no point repeating what I’d already said. I went upstairs and called Rachel.
Rachel answered, and simply said, ‘I can’t talk now,’ and hung up. She sounded terrible.
I went downstairs. ‘Do you mind if I go out?’ I asked Madame Faye. ‘I just need to go for a walk.’
‘Yes, you can go,’ Madame Faye said. ‘Be back for dinner.’
I walked straight across one of the corn fields, trying to stamp down as much corn as I could. Crowds of butterflies were disturbed and flew up, and I swatted them aside. Even spotting a tiny rabbit didn’t make me stop and go, ‘Ahhh, little rabbit!’ the way I normally would have – I was too upset and angry. I texted Bruno as I walked, hoping he’d come and meet me in ‘our’ café and I’d have someone to talk to with soft eyes and a warm smile, who’d just let me be myself and didn’t have any reason to let me down or tell me off. He didn’t reply, but I went to the café anyway, ordered a big glass of Coke, and sat there feeling sweaty and sick. By now I was so tired that I physically couldn’t eat, and I let my eyes close and felt my head swinging in circles as I fell asleep at the table.
‘Hey, wake up – you’ll get your bag stolen again.’ I jumped, and found myself looking into Bruno’s eyes. He was standing close to me with his head tilted to one side, smiling a half smile. Then he frowned slightly. ‘Do you have a problem?’
‘I just hoped you’d feel like a chat,’ I said. ‘I don’t seem to be friends with anyone else at the moment. Everyone’s hating me.’
‘Not everyone, I’m sure,’ Bruno said, and sat down. I started telling him about Paris, and he was listening, asking questions, being polite, but . . . well, that was the problem. I got the feeling he was acting polite, and I’d never felt that way with him before. Like he was bored with me, or was secretly finding me annoying. I couldn’t tell for sure if the tiredness and stress with Rachel was just making me paranoid, and I tried to catch his eye and hold it, hoping to find some confirmation that I was imagining his sudden coolness towards me. But he wouldn’t even look me in the eye most of the time, and when he did, I had the feeling he was angry about something. He seemed so far away. I was too scared to ask what the problem was, if anything. He sipped his cup of coffee and squinted into the sunshine, looking around the square at other people.
Finally, I said, ‘Listen, I really dragged you over here for no reason. I’m sure you didn’t want to listen to some long, boring story about English girls in Paris, and I don’t have anything else to talk about.’
I hoped he’d reassure me. I hoped this prickly apology would make him realise that I’d noticed his behaviour had changed, and that he’d snap out of whatever funk he was in and loosen up!
That didn’t happen.
Instead, Bruno carried on being polite, but not really sounding interested ever, and after not much time had passed, he said he had to leave for his sister’s rehearsal for the Fouenne festival. This time, I didn’t feel confident enough to tease him about it the way I had when we’d last spoken. I felt an urge to say ‘Can I come?’, but I was so scared of saying it that my heart started pumping in a silly, fast way, even though I knew I wouldn’t say it. It was as though a pane of glass had been lowered between us, and I could still see him, but I wouldn’t have been able to touch him if I’d wanted, and everything I was saying to him was muffled, so he couldn’t hear. I’d missed my chance with him. Blimey, now I knew I’d wanted a chance with him! Typical of me to want a boy I couldn’t have, but this time I really felt I’d lost something.
Rachel phoned the next morning, and she sounded fine again. She told me Madame Lacasse had given her a serious talk, but not made that much of it, and she was sorry my Frenchwoman had given me the full works for something that was her fault. Finding out Rachel had got off lightly when I was getting a formal warning to be sent home in disgrace was incredibly annoying. Seriously, what was up with my luck since I stepped out the other side of the Channel Tunnel? Everything worked out for Rachel, everything was hard for me.
‘So listen,’ Rachel said. ‘You know Victoire is having a birthday party the day after tomorrow? You’re coming, aren’t you?’
She said it as if she’d talked about it before, but it was the first time I’d heard her mention it.
Also, was she bloody kidding? The last thing I wanted was to go to another party. I had to stop myself from yelling at her, Oh yeah, I had such a great time at that last party, eh! But stupidly, I hadn’t really managed to shake the feeling that I was to blame for not having as good a summer as Rachel, and part of me wanted another chance.
‘Well – am I invited?’
‘Yeah of course! It’s going to be enormous. Bring Lucas’s sister, and then they’ll have to give you a lift home.’
‘She doesn’t really get on with Victoire’s circle, though, does she? Are you sure she’d be invited?’
‘This place is incredible. Make her come with you.’
I wasn’t really comfortable with Rachel asking both of us to a birthday party that she wasn’t personally having. I said I’d think about it. These days, every time she talked, Rachel had a slight craziness to her, as if she was trying to make up for the last thing that had happened, and throwing herself into it with fake enthusiasm. She might have been having all the good luck on this holiday, but I was worried she was changing so fast that she was forgetting how to be herself. I decided to ask Chantal about the party. If she wanted to go, I’d go.