‘I know I thought Noel’s tourist talk was a bit annoying, but his handwriting is worse than his droning on and on about facts and history. I can hardly see where we’re meant to be walking to,’ Rach moaned, folding and unfolding a tourist map that had lines drawn all over it.
They were strolling through Montmartre, following a walk their guide had set out for them. But Keeley’s train of thought was miles away, not on the cobbles, nor in front of the apartment that used to belong to Van Gogh. Instead she was worrying about a scruffy little girl and her sick dog and her friend in the hospice back home who hadn’t answered her latest text. She had received a text from Silvie, though. It was an invitation to dinner the following evening at her home. She hadn’t mentioned the ballet, but Keeley guessed by now she would have heard from Louis that he had had a different theatre companion than the one Silvie intended. She hoped she wasn’t too annoyed.
‘Ha!’ Rach exclaimed, appearing to read. ‘Noel says to stop at somewhere called Les Petits Mitrons. He says, and I quote, “in the window there are tasty tarts for you to try”.’ She snorted. ‘Do you think he meant to write that note about the area around the Moulin Rouge instead?’
Keeley forced a smile and put her hands inside her coat pockets as they continued to walk. They’d passed brightly coloured store fronts, still selling items outside on the street – jumpers, fresh seafood, the ripest-looking tomatoes – the famous Moulin Rouge with its iconic windmill on the roof, and traditional eateries as well as restaurants with flashing lights advertising seasonal twists on pasta and pizza. Now their surroundings had become more subtle and traditional. There were more cobbles, slightly less mopeds and a gentle vibe about it.
‘What’s up?’ Rach asked, coming up alongside her.
‘I… was just thinking about Erica,’ Keeley answered.
‘She’s probably snogging that Joe Jonas photo you told me you got her.’
‘Nick,’ Keeley said. ‘It was Nick Jonas.’
‘Really?’ Rach said with a frown. ‘Oh well, I guess we can’t all have the same taste in Jonas Brothers.’
Keeley let out a sigh. ‘I need to start making decisions about my future, don’t I?’
It had been Erica’s pep talk the other day. Or maybe it had been earlier this morning with the girl and her beloved dog? Or perhaps it was meeting the mysterious Ethan? All Keeley knew was for the first time in so long, she was starting to think about reaching out towards a future. Yes, she had only made a few tentative steps – coming here to France to meet Silvie, a cosy dinner with a handsome companion, accepting an invitation to jog at sunrise – but they were somehow the largest strides she had made since the accident. It was acknowledgement that she was here and she wanted to embrace the life she had, for however long it lasted. Because no one knew, did they? She might already know that the longevity of the current oldest person in the world might not be hers to grasp but, just like everyone else, she didn’t have a date in the calendar to plan to. All anyone had was the here and now and the hope of a later.
‘I’ve almost wasted the last year,’ Keeley admitted suddenly. ‘Worrying.’
‘Well…’ Rach began. ‘We all do that sometimes. Look at me, worrying about how to trump Jamie in the overtime stakes and the buying Roland gifts stakes, all because I know that bribery and corruption will get me ahead at House 2 Home.’
‘Well, I’ve let everyone tell me what to do. My mum, the woman in Asda who told me burnt-orange was this season’s colour… I even asked one of Mr Peterson’s dead stoats for advice the last time I was there. What kind of insanity is that?’
‘I’ve tried to tell you what to do,’ Rach said, somehow seeming affronted. ‘And you didn’t listen to me. Now you’re telling me you favoured a dead stoat over your alive best friend?’
‘Why can’t I start my business over again?’ Keeley asked herself as much as Rach. ‘Why did I let my mum make me give up that dream?’
‘Why don’t I just apply for a senior negotiator job at another firm where I might be respected for my skills in negotiating rather than my short skirts and coffee-making?’
‘Rach,’ Keeley gasped. ‘You are appreciated for your skills… aren’t you?’
Rach shrugged. ‘I want more too. I don’t shop at Price Squash because I prefer it to Harrods, you know.’
There was a Christmas tree in a cobbled pedestrian section now, its decorated fronds swaying gently with the breeze and as they approached it, Keeley marvelled at the multi-coloured décor. There were CDs with writing and drawings on them, like the local children had added wishes for Santa. Wishes and dreams. She deserved them, didn’t she? Rach deserved them too.
Rach stood next to her. ‘Talking about you… I think we all just thought you probably wanted to do something simpler now. Not have the worries of a business-owner. Let Roland take care of public liability and all that.’
‘But why did I do that?’ Now Keeley was almost calling out to the universe for answers. A passer-by gave her an odd look then hurried into an ivy-covered brasserie. ‘Bea would have hated the fact that I’d given up on my dream.’ Her sister had been her biggest supporter, always giving her opinion on fabric and pattern. Bea might have been all the practical and mechanical by nature, but she had also loved a quirky print and the feel of silk under her fingertips. ‘And I hate it too. It’s stupid and… ridiculous.’
Wherever this wake-up call was coming from, Keeley was embracing it and being mindful in the moment. She grinned at Rach then, suddenly feeling like she could take on the world.
‘Rach, we are going to move in together after Christmas,’ she said with utter determination. ‘Like we talked about. You don’t want to live with Bertram anymore and I don’t want to feel like my every decision has a government five-point plan.’ She drew in a breath. ‘And I am going to start my business again. Maybe I’ll have to start working out of home to begin with, maybe those clients I had lined up originally will have gone with someone else but… the one guarantee is, people will always want nice things to… make them happy.’
And by nice she really didn’t mean expensive. Maybe that could be her USP. Most interior designers she had worked with before, had focused on the elite clients, the ones who wanted slightly mad things like a coffee table combined with an aquarium full of lionhead goldfish or curtains made from their children’s handprints. Perhaps Keeley could focus on her type of ‘nice’. The relaxed and comfortable that made her heart sing, but something a step up from rearranging lounge furniture and choosing travel books as props. Practical, yet beautiful solutions for modern day family living…
When Keeley turned away from the Christmas tree and back to Rach, her best friend was looking at her a little differently.
‘What?’ Keeley asked, following the question up with a nervous swallow. ‘Do you think I’m completely mad? To be getting this all off my chest now. When we’re supposed to be sightseeing?’
‘No, I don’t think that,’ Rach whispered, darting what looked like tears away from her eyes. ‘It’s just… I haven’t seen you look that way since…’
She didn’t need to finish the sentence for Keeley’s benefit. She knew. And she could feel it too. Coming here had been a kickstart she badly needed. The comfort zone of protection her mum had wrapped around her was understandable, but only when she had broken out of that did she see all the implications of its limitations. She was living but she wasn’t living. And that had to stop.
Keeley threw her arms around Rach and gathered her close, closing her eyes and trying to isolate her senses from each other like Ethan had got her to do. What had Rach used to smell like when smelling had been so easy to do? Keeley smiled to herself, recalling memories of bags of goodies from Price Squash – half-price Milka chocolate (the one with the strawberry bits in), toothpaste, pork scratchings, this bloody hair dye and the tin of red paint they’d first bonded over cleaning up on a bus eight years ago. Rach had been carrying six tins of it and trying to press the button to alert the driver to stop, one had slipped from her grasp and rolled down onto the floor, spilling open on its journey. Within milliseconds the whole of the 328 was filling up with fumes and everyone was coughing. Only Keeley hadn’t run for the exit door as soon as the driver ordered everyone off, instead choosing to offer Rach her large pack of handwipes and help remove the mess.
Keeley laughed then. ‘Did they ever get that paint off the floor of the bus?’
‘What?’ Rach asked, stepping back from her friend’s embrace and looking like she had no idea what Keeley was talking about.
‘The 328 bus. Where we met. The bus covered in… what was the name of that horrible paint again?’
‘Hickory Smoke,’ Rach said, laughing. ‘It never covered properly either! Apart from the bus floor. My dad did six coats on the lounge wall before he gave up on it. Bloody Adie!’ She shook her head. ‘Lucky it was cheap.’
Keeley put her arm through her friend’s and turned them towards the street and their proposed incline to take in the view of the golden dome of Les Invalides. ‘You do deserve more, Rach. You are an amazing negotiator.’
‘I know,’ Rach said with positivity. ‘But perhaps I need to think about a change in agency… or at least put the frighteners on Roland. Make him realise he would be lost without me.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Keeley said, giving her arm a squeeze. ‘We’ll work out a strategy so he can’t fail to realise.’ She shrugged. ‘And if he doesn’t, then House 2 Home’s loss will be someone else’s gain.’
‘Right there with you,’ Rach said.
‘So, shall we do a little more shopping? I ought to make a start on Christmas while I’m here. I need to find something for my mum that she’s going to love so much she won’t worry when I tell her I’m moving out and giving my business another shot.’ Keeley took a deep breath. She wasn’t sure even something by Coco Chanel was going to do the trick there. ‘And we can discuss Louis. Has he texted you yet?’
Rach hugged Keeley’s arm. ‘He did but… I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’
‘I don’t know if he’s really my Pyjama Man,’ Rach said with a sigh.
‘Well,’ Keeley said, ‘there’s only one way to find out.’