‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
Ivan ran his fingers gently through her hair and instinctively she flinched, moving away slightly, though they were concealed behind the wall in their usual spot at Davy’s, away from prying eyes.
‘I’ve got a few days off,’ she lied.
‘You have?’ A smile stretched across his face. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
She shrugged, not understanding the significance of what she had suggested.
‘Let’s go somewhere,’ Ivan said, standing suddenly.
‘We are somewhere,’ she smiled quizzically. ‘We’re here, and I’m enjoying this G and T if you don’t mind …’
He held out his hand. ‘Come on, we’ll get another drink while we’re on our way.’
‘On our way where?’
‘Do you always ask this many questions?’
‘Do you always work so hard to avoid the answer?’
As they walked up the stairs onto the street, she placed the sunglasses on her face, pulling down the wide-brimmed hat on her head. On Pall Mall, Ivan hailed a taxi.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and he remained on the street, leaning into the cab.
‘You’re going home to get your passport. Meet me at St Pancras in two hours.’
‘What—’
He slammed the door and pointed to his watch. ‘I need to go and get my things but I’ll be there in two hours, waiting. Don’t let me down.’
It wasn’t like her to relinquish control and yet the excitement fizzled through her as she made her way through the crowds at St Pancras, following the signs to the Eurostar.
Ivan was waiting by the desk and he kissed her gently on the cheek as she reached him. She tried to look formal as they moved together through passport control, in case of being spotted. He was carrying an overnight bag and she imagined him having rushed back to his part of the city from central London, packing his overnight things while the taxi waited outside, the meter running.
She had paused in front of her wardrobe, an exhilarated panic enveloping her as she picked out her underwear, rummaging behind the faded cotton pants and the bras with slightly warped underwiring from years of wear, towards the back of the drawer and the satin matching pairs she’d picked out in the shops a few days earlier, just awaiting the right occasion.
She held the pen firmly in her hand as she deliberated over the note she was leaving for Tom.
I tried to ring but your phone was off. Something has come up and I’m away for the next two days. I’ll call if I can. Love, Gx
She paused at the front door, glimpsing the photo of them all one summer in Mallorca, in what felt like another lifetime. But then she stepped outside into the awaiting minicab, and the house receded in memory so that all she could think of was what lay ahead.
Paris was a bustling autumnal scene as they stepped into the private car that met them at Gard du Nord and drove them straight to the Champs-Élysées.
‘I thought we could drop off our bags before heading out,’ Ivan said as they stepped onto the pavement in front of the Four Seasons. ‘I know you like low-key, but this time the choice is mine …’
Their suite was a tapestry of plush beige velvet and embossed gold silk curtains leading to a balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower, the sky darkening around it as evening fell.
‘Ivan,’ she said, turning to him, and he smiled.
‘You like it?’
‘I like it a lot.’
‘So,’ he asked the following morning once they had bathed and were resting on the bed, Tchaikovsky wafting across the room from the stereo. ‘What do you want to do?’
She breathed in luxuriously. ‘I don’t think I’m ever leaving this mattress. It’s like lying on a cloud.’
Stretching back into the mound of pillows, she felt the sunlight seeping through the window and warming her skin.
‘Sounds good to me,’ he said, kissing her shoulder. ‘But we have come all the way here, it would be rude not to leave the hotel room at least once.’
‘True,’ she conceded, her eyes drifting across the rooftops of the city she hadn’t returned to since that year of university.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he said and she squirmed beneath his gaze.
‘You are,’ he replied, matter-of-factly. ‘I just almost can’t believe that you’re mine.’
There was a flicker in his eye and she drew back in order to see him better, surprised by the intensity of his words.
‘I mean, as much as anyone is anyone else’s,’ he corrected himself. ‘Not in the sense that I’m going to lock you in a glass box in my cellar …’
‘Well, that’s an important distinction,’ she said, pulling herself out of bed, tightening her dressing gown as she slipped her feet into a pair of hotel slippers, her heart pounding both with joy and a feeling she couldn’t quite put a finger on.
That afternoon, they walked through the city hand in hand, the sense of freedom so strong at knowing how far they were from her other world. She stopped Ivan on the bridge in front of the scarred remains of Notre Dame and kissed him, pressing herself against him until he pulled away, warning her with his eyes of the effect she was having.
‘Where next?’ he asked, leaning closer. ‘Back to the hotel?’
‘I just want to walk a little longer first,’ she said, the euphoria of the moment too good to cut short.
Stopping to browse the shelves briefly at Shakespeare and Company, they continued along Rue Saint-Julien le Pauvre, along the Rue Saint-Jacques until they reached La Sorbonne. In the square behind the university, she dragged Ivan towards the café where she had first worked when she lived here.
‘Let’s have a drink,’ she said, and they took a seat in the sun and ordered a bottle of champagne, the two of them sitting in blissful silence, their fingers lightly interlaced, as the students milled on either side to and from their lectures.
She had her eyes closed, her face tipped back towards the sun, when she heard a voice she recognised and sat up sharply, causing a sharp pain in her neck.
‘Gabriela? It is you!’
His face was older but she knew it at once, the same self-assured smile spreading across his face.
‘Pierre?’
‘Oui,’ he shrugged and she stood, hastily breaking contact with Ivan’s hand.
‘Jesus, how long has it … Wow. But what are you …?’
He laughed. ‘What am I doing here? I work here.’ He pointed towards the university.
‘You’re not serious.’
‘I am serious. You can call me Professor Bernard.’ He shrugged, making a whistling sound as he exhaled through his teeth.
Ivan coughed discreetly beside her and she turned quickly towards him. ‘I’m so sorry. Ivan, this is Pierre. He’s an old friend …’
She felt her cheeks flush as Pierre reached his hand out to Ivan.
‘Good to meet you.’
‘Likewise,’ Ivan nodded.
‘But you, what are you doing here? You have some time away from the children …?’
‘We don’t have children,’ Gabriela replied too quickly, her head struggling to take in what was happening, to connect the dots.
Pierre looked surprised. ‘Oh, sorry, I’m confused. I thought Inès said she had seen pictures of you on Facebook, she thought you had …’
‘Inès?’ For a moment Gabriela struggled to place her and then she remembered Pierre’s sister; she had put Saoirse up the week she came to stay while Gabriela was studying in Paris. They must have stayed in touch and become friends on social media – Gabriela always hated how Saoirse had put up photographs of them all without asking her permission, though Tom always convinced her it was harmless.
‘I’m not on Facebook,’ Gabriela said, as if this settled matters, and they fell into an awkward silence, the three of them standing in front of the table.
‘OK,’ Pierre said after a moment, giving his best smile. ‘Well, Gabriela, it was lovely to see you again.’
His cheeks felt cold against hers as they kissed twice, farewell.
‘Ivan—’
She felt him look back at her as the men shook hands and by the time they sat down again their table was cast deep in shadow.
‘Who was that?’ Ivan asked as the waiter arrived with their drinks.
‘Just an old friend,’ she said. ‘From when I was studying here. We dated for a while.’
He raised his eyebrow.
‘It was nothing,’ she added, raising her glass to her lips to obscure her face as best she could. ‘He was an idiot.’
‘Why did he think you had children?’
The bubbles rushed up through her nose and she tried to mask a choking sound. ‘I’ve no idea. His sister made friends with an old friend of mine, and it sounds like she got confused.’
‘There’s a lot I don’t know about you,’ Ivan said.
‘I could say the same of you,’ she replied, turning the tables. ‘I don’t even know where you grew up. Were you born in Moscow?’
‘No,’ he said after a moment. ‘Kuybyshev.’
‘You mean Samara?’ she corrected him and he made a noise under his breath.
‘I was long gone by the time they changed the name.’
This piqued her interest. How much didn’t she know about this man who was here with her, in another country, sharing a bottle of champagne? Up till now, she had chosen not to ask. Leaning forward, she waited for him to carry on.
‘So you want to know more about me?’ he said, his tone provocative in a way she’d never heard before, and her voice rose accordingly.
‘Yes, actually, I do.’
‘OK, fine.’ He sat up straighter. It was the first time they had locked horns like this and she couldn’t tell whether they were fighting or not. ‘What do you want to know?’
The question caught her off guard. ‘Well, I don’t know. Your business, how did it start?’
‘I think you probably know the answer to that, Gabriela.’ Now he raised his own glass and knocked back half of it in one gulp.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Oh, come on, don’t play dumb. You read the papers, you’ve lived in Moscow, for God’s sake. How did any Russian oligarchs of my generation manage to build a business?’
He looked at her again, considering something, before carrying on. ‘My parents were engineers, making parts for naval ships. They raised me an ardent Communist, an active member of Komsomol, the Communist youth league, failing to mention to me that they were both silent dissidents. I made friends there, and when Gorbachev opened things up I launched a small business, selling shoes. And then it grew, and here we are.’
There was a flicker in his eye, like there was something he wasn’t telling her. Something he’d chosen, in that split-second decision, to withhold.
‘And you never married?’
‘No.’ He paused, and for a moment she wondered if there was something he wanted to say, and then there was a clattering of chairs at the table next to them as a group of tourists sat down, and when she looked back at him, the moment had passed.
It was 2a.m. when she woke up in the hotel, not so much to the sound as the feeling of Ivan crying on the other side of the room.
‘Hey,’ she said, moving towards him, not sure what to do; there was an intimacy to the scene that made her want to wrap her arms around him, and wish she wasn’t there, at the same time. ‘What’s wrong?’
He lifted his head slightly. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.’
‘Don’t be silly. Are you OK, has something happened?’
‘I lied to you,’ he said after a moment. ‘About being married.’
She felt light-headed, crouching on the floor next to him, preparing herself for what he might say.
‘I was married, many years ago. We had a child together, a daughter.’ His voice was calm now. ‘Masha.’ His face creased into a smile at the mention of her name.
‘OK,’ she said gently.
He glanced briefly at her and then looked away. ‘They were killed.’
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘Oh, Ivan, I’m so—’
‘Please don’t say you’re sorry,’ he said, holding up a hand. ‘Please.’
‘How did they …’
‘They drowned.’ A single tear rolled from his eye.
‘How old was she?’ she asked quietly, her hand reaching for his.
‘Two.’
She closed her eyes, pushing against the compression in her chest. ‘Oh God. I can’t imagine …’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You can’t.’ He turned to her, then. ‘After that, I’ve never … I’ve never been in love, never allowed myself, I suppose. The day I met you, something about you reminded me of her and …’
In the darkness of the room, she felt her throat swell. His eyes glistened with the words she yearned for and yet wanted so badly for him not to say.
‘Hey,’ she said, hushing him and pulling him towards her.
Neither of them had the presence of mind to hold back, the pull between them too strong, pushing all else from her thoughts.