Ren rounded the corner of the stand the next morning with a bright smile and a cocktail dress in a suit bag. But her smile quickly faded and she froze.
Sacha was grinning, warm and wide, full of affection and ease. It would have made her knees weak, if she wasn’t so taken aback by the rest of the scene. Next to him stood a young boy, she guessed somewhere around ten years old, and it was impossible not to see the striking resemblance he bore to Sacha.
Ren nearly turned and ran away. She’d thought of him as her night-time guide, soul-searching through Paris. She’d felt as though he’d been there for her. What selfish nonsense was that? They’d only shared two fake kisses and a few deep conversations.
He wasn’t her Prince Charming. He was a stranger who didn’t need her butting into his life. Prince Charmings were for suckers. She’d been naïve and a little bit stupid. Sacha had a family and she definitely wasn’t in it. And now, would he have to pretend to be her boyfriend in front of his own son?
He looked up and saw her before she could do a runner. The best she could do was stuff her dress down behind a chest of drawers before he could ask and be guilted into coming with her to the opera. Grandmama had probably only invited him to rub his nose in their lifestyle anyway.
‘Ren!’ he said with a smile that she stupidly noted was not as wide or natural as the one she’d witnessed a moment ago. He hesitated before brushing light kisses to her cheeks. ‘This is Raphaël. Raph, this is Ren,’ was Sacha’s only introduction. Did he think he’d mentioned his son before?
‘Erm, hi,’ she said with a smile she feared was toothy with awkwardness.
‘Hi,’ was the only reply.
‘I explained to him,’ Sacha said quietly, ‘about… us.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered back. ‘Does he speak English?’
‘I learn English,’ Raphaël responded himself, with a grump he must have inherited from Sacha.
As the market opened to fresh crowds, no matter how she tried to distract herself, Ren kept watching the pair of them talk and laugh until she felt thoroughly miserable. She escaped to check on the rest of the traders and their new social media accounts, pleased to feel useful. On her return to Joseph’s stand, she studied the beautiful antique carousel horse with its jewelled harness and colourful saddle. ‘Is Raphaël too big to fit on the carousel horse? I wanted to get a photo of it. It’s so beautiful.’
‘You go on the horse,’ Raphaël suggested.
‘Could I? I thought it was just for children.’
‘You don’t want your photo on the Internet,’ Sacha reminded her reasonably, damn him. Her disappointment must have shown, because he continued, ‘But… if you want to, vas-y, please.’ He gestured at the horse.
She grasped at the elegant mane enthusiastically and placed one Chanel boot onto the metal bar beneath. ‘I’ve never been on a carousel before,’ she whispered as she hauled herself up.
She clutched the pole and imagined the horse lifting gently up and down to creepy music like the version of ‘O Holy Night’ that Joseph’s barrel organ wheezed out. It would be evening, with warm lights and a dark sky, and she realised that night-time in Paris was now full of dreams, rather than the nightmares she’d always associated with darkness.
‘The carousel just goes around,’ Raphaël said. ‘It’s not the 6G.’
‘What’s the 6G?’ she asked.
Sacha rolled his eyes. ‘A manége, an attraction at the fairs in the Tuileries. Raphaël has wanted to go since the marché de Noël opened. It also “just goes around”, tu sais.’
‘Oh, God, one of those horrid ones that throws you down so you feel like you’re going to fall to pieces – or leave your stomach behind? Urgh.’
‘It’s excellent,’ Raphaël insisted. ‘Very fast! But Sacha will stay on the carousel, I think,’ he said with a smirk at Sacha. Wait, he called his father by his first name? Perhaps French kids did that.
‘How old are you?’
‘Eleven.’
‘That’s a good age for those rides,’ she said, patting his shoulder. ‘Broken bones still heal well.’
‘Oh, vous trois! Look at the three of you!’ came the sound of Mireille’s voice. ‘Let me take a picture.’
Ren shared an alarmed look with Sacha. He came around behind the horse and leaned close and at the last minute, he tipped her top hat forward. She wasn’t sure whether he’d been intending to obscure her face, but it didn’t work. Instead she caught the falling hat and turned to him with a surprised smile. His face was close.
‘Adorable!’ Mireille exclaimed and showed them the photo. Ren barely recognised her own smile. She and Sacha certainly looked oblivious to everything else around them in the photo – especially to Raphaël, who was looking heavenward as though their behaviour was terribly embarrassing.
Raphaël knew they weren’t really together, but nothing about that picture looked fake.
In a brief lull just before lunch, Sacha took Raphaël to grab some more stock and Ren attempted to serve customers, while Joseph played Father Christmas with his booming voice.
A dark-haired woman approached, glancing around. ‘Can I… help you? Puis-je vous aider?’ Ren asked.
Instead of a polite smile, the woman stared. ‘Vous êtes quivous?’ Ren’s mind hummed into gear for a translation. Qui: who. Who are you? ‘Et où est Sacha?’
‘Um…’ she began dumbly. ‘He’ll be… right back.’
‘Ahhh, “Sorry, do you speak English?” It’s you.’
The woman was pretty and down-to-earth, with bright brown eyes and a frank smile. Her curly dark hair gave her an everyday glamour that Ren wanted to like. But to like this woman, she had to master the sting of jealousy she wasn’t naïve enough to ignore.
This was ‘Nadia’, the woman on the phone. She must be Sacha’s ex.
‘I’m Ren. I’m… er… a friend of Sacha’s.’
‘Nadi!’ Sacha appeared, but it did nothing to stem Ren’s blush. How did she keep putting him in these ludicrous situations? He kissed both of Nadia’s cheeks affectionately. Raphaël joined them, submitting to hugs and kisses from Nadia.
Animated conversation in French erupted around her. Nadia grasped Ren’s hand warmly and switched to English. ‘It’s nice to meet a… friend of Sacha’s,’ she said with a wink. A muscle in Sacha’s jaw twitched.
‘Ohhhh, we’re not, like… you know, special friends. I didn’t even know about—’ Ren said, gesturing helplessly at Nadia and the boy. ‘You guys,’ she finished. She looked helplessly at Sacha. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mouthed. ‘I didn’t mean to get you in trouble—’ He started to shake his head in reassurance, but she stupidly finished her sentence without taking the hint, ‘—with your ex.’
A sudden silence descended and they all stared at her. ‘My… what?’ he asked in confusion. Ren gestured wildly.
Nadia burst out laughing, looking between them. ‘Typical Sacha. He hasn’t told you anything. And don’t worry. Sacha is always single – except for a few months when he pretended he wasn’t dating a colleague.’
‘Well, he’s only pretending to date me, so that’s all right, then.’ Ren clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘Quoi?’ Nadia asked, her smile stretching. After glancing back to make sure none of the other traders were listening, Sacha launched into an explanation in French, full of hand gestures and eye rolls, his shoulders inching towards his ears.
Then, to Ren’s surprise, Nadia approached and squeezed her shoulder. ‘I like you,’ she declared. She held out her hand again and Ren shook it, mystified. ‘I’m Nadia, this idiot’s sister. That’s my son Raphaël.’
A rush of heat travelled up Ren’s chest and stung her cheeks, but it wasn’t only embarrassment, even though she’d shoved her foot firmly into her mouth with her stupid assumption. It was also vindication. She’d been right about Sacha. He was her diamond in the rough. He was kind and trustworthy and had wisdom and strength and a family who obviously adored him – a family she felt privileged to meet.
The relationship she’d found touching when she’d thought they were father and son was even more moving now she knew Sacha was his uncle. They were so close. She remembered him talking about his own father with a soft, reverent tone. Someone who could love like that…
Sacha was itchy from all of his sister’s meaningful looks by the time Nadia finally said she and Raph were going. He knew he had to explain about Ren – in some way that would make sense – before Nadia developed… ideas.
Sacha walked them back to their car. ‘I’ll see you at the Tuileries later.’
‘Are you sure you still want to come with us?’ Nadia asked.
‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’
She patted his arm and laughed. ‘Frérot, you are a disaster. You say you are pretending to date, but you have a woman there who likes you – a lot.’
‘I’ve only known her a week! And you don’t know who she really is.’
‘You complicate everything.’
‘I don’t complicate things. They are complicated when they arrive,’ he insisted as they made their way down the bustling street.
‘Imbécile! Relationships don’t “arrive”. You make them – or you don’t.’
‘Like we “make” mistakes!’
‘Exactement.’ She glanced at Raphaël. ‘Sometimes what others call a mistake is the best thing in your life.’
Lines of poetry rose in his mind, as though the collection of old books growing up the walls of his flat were opening themselves all at once. The bird of time has but a little way to fly from Omar Khayyam’s 800-year-old Persian quatrain. And then there was the bleak war-touched love poetry of Louis Aragon. There is no love that does not live on tears…
And a line from the notebook lying at the bottom of his backpack: Who you are and where you come from – these are written for you; love is your blank page.
‘You think too much, like Papa. But even Papa managed to fall in love with Maman.’
Trust his older sister to bring out the heavy artillery. ‘You think mentioning Papa will convince me to ask a girl out?’
Nadia had never read Papa’s notebook, the lines of bleakness and struggle amidst the occasional moments of happiness. What had love brought him, in the end? And why was Sacha even thinking about this, when it was clear Ren would be in a very difficult position if she did have the misfortune of falling in love with him?
‘What did he used to say? “The indifferent have only one soul.”’
‘“But when you love, you have two,”’ he finished the couplet from Mademoiselle de Scudéry with a grumble. ‘But you don’t understand. This is not a fairytale. Ren is an heiress. Her world is Cartier, Chanel and Place Vendôme!’
That shut Nadia up, if only for a moment. ‘What’s she doing here?’ She could have added ‘with you’.
‘Damned if I know.’ He sighed as Nadia gave him one more long look before unlocking her little Citroën that was as old as Raph.
‘Perhaps you need to stop looking at her like that, then,’ she said with a frown as they kissed each other’s cheeks.
‘You’re telling me,’ he muttered.
He wandered slowly back through the stands overflowing with past eras, with the fingerprints of generations on them, but for once he didn’t see the history. All he could see was the moments when he and Ren had looked at each other and it had meant something to him.
But what could he do about it?
