IT WAS JANUARY. Paris was dark. Short sharp days bookended with long black night. Black in the apartment as my alarm went off, black in the stairwell as I fumbled for the light switch, indigo down the rue de la Chine, past the glow of the already buzzing boulangerie. Mahogany beneath my eyelids as I rattled through the underworld. Grey past the Panthéon to French class and all its subjunctives and conditionals and whatevers-it-took to keep my visa. Then black again: five pm in the Adrienless apartment, his absence thick in the damp winter air. I sat in the shadows thinking, Now what?

‘Come at six o’clock,’ said Sophie in her delicate French. ‘I missed you,’ she continued into the phone, which surprised and flattered me. We hadn’t known each other long, and she had only been gone a week or two. I had forgotten I existed, let alone to new friends like her. I suddenly couldn’t wait to see her. And Lou, her mini Frida Kahlo.

Five-fifteen. Some shopping on the rue des Pyrénées. A few pieces of fruit and three stinky cheeses. Two pear-and-chocolate gourmandises for Sophie and Lou. Turn back: one for me. The Christmas lights were still twinkling in the bare trees. As I was crossing the street admiring them, a man nearly collected me on his scooter. ‘Pardooon,’ his voice trailed behind him. It was a close call but I didn’t bother protesting. He was well and truly gone. Anyway, it was my own fault for trusting the walk sign.

Five forty-five. My kitchen window was frozen shut but I managed to lift it and place the cheeses out on the ledge – too stinky for the fridge.

Five-fifty. On my way out the door I turned back, threw off my sneakers, and put on the boots with the heel. A slash of lipstick. The girl in the mirror said, There you are.

I went down to the courtyard to get my bike. Luc, the owner of the restaurant on the ground floor, was there emptying a bottle bin. He told me I must come in soon and taste his new wine. ‘With pleasure,’ I smiled, and pushed through the foyer and out into the dark, damp street.

It started to rain as I rode down the rue de la Chine. It’s crying, I thought to myself, remembering how Adrien had found it cute that I confused words like pleurer (cry) and pleuvoir (rain). It began to cry hard as I hit the boulevard, and straps of hair plastered my face as I wove through the traffic’s never-ending insanity. An ambulance blared up the wrong side of the street. I sped through the intersection so as not to block it. By the time I locked up my bike in the rue Pelleport the rain had stopped, leaving the street a pool of coloured reflections.

Six o’clock, on the dot. I punched in Sophie’s door code and pushed open the heavy glass door to enter her striking Art Deco foyer, with its diamond mirrors and chequered floors. Her building was so authentic. The ornate lift stood empty on the ground floor behind its intricate ironwork gate, but I didn’t take it because I had a rule: under three, use your knees. Besides, it was a small building and the staircase was easy to climb, winding around the open lift shaft, within which the cabin moved freely up and down, its cables and pulleys invisible in the darkness. The protective banister was low, built for petite, mid-century French people, not tall, late-century Australians.

I paid no attention whatsoever to the lift or the liftwell or the low banister. The carpeted stairs felt lush beneath my feet. I took them two at a time.

There was no answer at Sophie’s door. I pushed the gold nipple again. The desire to see them seared in me. Where were they?

‘We’re just arriving,’ Sophie apologised into the phone, mumbling something about Lou’s hands being dirty.

The big glass door downstairs clicked and banged shut, followed by the chatter of female voices, a man saying bonsoir.

‘Maman,’ said Lou’s tiny voice, ‘is Jayne already at our place?’

The padding of damp feet up the stairs. I moved a few steps down from the second-floor landing so I could see them. ‘Lou! Up here!’

She looked up from the bottom of the staircase, dark eyes beneath their sweet monobrow searching for me as I peered down from on high. I could see her so clearly, pale skin glowing in the dim stairwell light, but she couldn’t see me. Sophie murmured something and they continued walking up.

I waved. ‘Loo-uu!’

Again she looked up, searching but not seeing. Her face was as bright as the moon, eyes dancing with the fun of the game. She had to see me. I leant a bit further over the banister to make myself visible.

And then.

A curious feeling.

I can see Sophie and Lou walking up the stairs but I can’t play anymore. My head is stuck to the right, my neck jammed beneath something cold and metal. A great weight. I don’t understand. A cool draught whistles in my left ear. My hands are still on the banister, my feet on the stairs. But my head won’t move.

The urge to laugh. This can’t be real. Sophie’s curls are bouncing on the collar of her tan coat as she continues walking up, Lou is saying something about a purple rabbit. They seem close enough to touch and yet very far away. I try to call out to them but no sound comes.

A realisation: I can’t breathe.

And then.

A clink of metal, a flash of light, the roar of an approaching train.

Then black.