She pulled hard. Too hard, as it turned out. The ring slipped off easily, but she lost her grip and it went sailing through the air.
The music stopped at that moment, as though every pair of eyes in the bar were on the glinting white gold band with the enormous diamond. Ren watched with wry detachment. There went the five years of her life she’d spent with Charlie, hurtling towards the sticky floor of a dodgy bar.
With an audible tinkle, the ring landed somewhere near a curved velvet sofa the colour of vomit. Sacha leaped to his feet and went after it. Despite the sling, he dropped to his knees and started searching one-handed. Ren knew she should join him. She should feel something.
Charlie had known she loved Cartier from the Art Deco period. He’d hunted down the perfect ring and commissioned a matching set of earrings. No one knew her better than Charlie. But Charlie wouldn’t recognise her now, sitting in a bar, in a graffitied corner of Paris, in the company of a tattooed Christmas elf, staring after her precious ring as though it wouldn’t matter if she lost it forever.
Strangest of all, she liked the idea of surprising Charlie, surprising everyone. Now the worst had actually happened, a host of possibilities unfolded in her imagination, all of them preferable to pretending that she was still with Charlie.
Despite the bad luck and the accident, this had been the best evening she’d had for a long time. In the morning, she’d be Irena Asquith-Lewis again, and decide how best to mitigate the damage she’d caused to her family’s legacy, but not now.
She lifted the melting cocktail and tossed the rest of it back in one gulp. The salt and the citrus made her grimace – or perhaps that was the tequila. When she stood to help Sacha, she had a pleasant buzz to go with her dizzying uncertainty.
He was peering under the ugly sofa, near the ugly lamp. The view of him searching on the floor improved the ugly sofa somewhat. She shouldn’t ogle her victim, but she’d had such a shitty day that she couldn’t stop herself.
He fumbled under the sofa with his left arm, but his injured shoulder gave out and he crumpled, face-first, onto the polished concrete floor. She rushed over as he hauled himself back up, hitting his head on a barstool with a yelp.
She dropped to her knees and grasped his thick pullover at the shoulders. ‘Are you okay?’
He smiled faintly at her, his brow bunched over his soft eyes. A sweetheart. That’s what he was. ‘I didn’t find it yet. But thanks for saving me – again.’
‘I only seem to save you after making you fall.’
‘Getting up again is more important than how many times you fall.’
Ren stilled, staring into his eyes. She had the impression he spoke from experience, but she’d never know and she was surprised how sad she felt when she realised that. ‘I think my family’s motto is “don’t ever fall” – or maybe “don’t let anyone see you fall”.’
‘Is that why you’ve never had a margarita?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Are we going to find this ring?’
‘I don’t know,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘But I suppose I have to look.’ He gave her a curious glance.
They searched the back of the sofa, along the skirting board, in the rug and even in the filth under the bar, but the blasted thing was nowhere to be found.
Sacha sighed and propped one hand on his hip. ‘I didn’t think a diamond that size would be so easy to miss.’
‘Are you suggesting my engagement ring was showy?’
His gaze snapped up to hers. ‘I – euh.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t take it personally, coming from you.’
‘I… thank you.’ His look was full of curiosity. ‘Your engagement ring,’ he repeated.
‘Yes,’ she said flatly. ‘I suppose I should give it back, if we can find it.’
‘We’ll find it.’ He sounded as though he’d search until sunrise and come back tomorrow with a metal detector if she let him.
They returned wordlessly to the hunt. When the patrons standing nearby heard they were looking for an engagement ring, they crouched down to help, as did the two girls with dreads and piercings and, a few minutes later, the barman – after handing Ren a tequila shot on the house that made her gag and then sneeze.
Half an hour later, Ren felt guilty and told everyone to stop looking. She’d also realised the time, mainly because her stomach was rumbling. It was dinner time in Paris – 9.30 p.m. – and the last Eurostar had just pulled out of the Gare du Nord. Was it wrong of her to experience a little fizz of excitement at the realisation?
‘I’m sorry we didn’t find it,’ Sacha said earnestly. She waved him off with as few words as possible. If she seemed to grieve for the ring too much, she’d give him the wrong idea, but if she pretended it didn’t matter, she was behaving like an incredible snob – the incredible snob she was. She was just wondering if she could manoeuvre him into joining her for dinner at l’Espadon when he broke the spell. ‘Bilel has probably been waiting some time. And I should go.’
Unfortunately, Sacha didn’t exist simply for her amusement. They called Bilel, who was parked at the hospital and only five minutes away. Ren wrote her name down and told the barman to contact her at the Ritz in case anyone found the ring in their mojito. She fetched Sacha’s jacket, but he refused it when she held it out to him, so she draped it over her own shoulders again. It was heavy and thick, so different to the fine lines and elegant fabrics she was used to, but she was glad of the warm layer when they stepped outside and the temperature had dropped, turning the puddles to almost freezing.
A single lamp illuminated the alley next to the bar. There were plenty of people about, but no one was lingering. It should have been dark and terrifying; she should have felt vulnerable. But she was wrapped in a thick coat and she’d just spent the evening with a man who believed in the meaning of words and not money. She didn’t need to be afraid in this parallel universe.
Ren took a few steps along the alley and peered at the loud and colourful wall of graffiti. She picked out the word ‘fuck’ in English, a vandalised French flag and a stylised Mona Lisa with bare breasts. Grandmama would have hated it all with a passion, but Ren was struck, that night, with the confidence of the artists who thumbed their noses at convention, who set out to disturb, rather than please their audience.
‘Belleville is known for poor artists and working class… révolte, you know?’ Sacha said after a long silence. ‘They say Édith Piaf was born on the footpath just over there. And this way,’ he gestured to the alley, ‘leads to the Rue Ramponeau, the last barricade of the Paris Communards before they were defeated.’
The simple facts came alive somehow as she stared at the graffiti and soaked in the liveliness of Belleville at night, to the soundtrack of an impassioned French chanson playing in the bar.
‘You… are a communist?’ she asked, half-joking and mainly to keep him talking.
‘No!’ he said with a fine Parisian pout. ‘And the Communards were defeated in 1871. It’s just… conversation.’
‘A casual conversation about revolutions. I suppose I am in Paris. What is your job, then? That’s a better topic of conversation.’
‘I’m a—’
‘Mademoiselle! Here!’ Bilel beckoned to her from a car that had pulled up across the street. ‘I am very sorry.’
Bilel held the door for her and she beckoned Sacha into the back after her, ignoring Bilel’s disapproving look. There was some confusion between the two men about who would close the door. But it wasn’t long before the car was cruising through the dark streets of Paris, in the warm glow of the twinkling fairy lights.
Ren remained quiet in the car, feeling off-balance at the strong impression that she’d just made a friend – even though she’d never see him again.
When the avenues of elegant stone apartment buildings began sloping upwards on the hillside of Montmartre, Sacha said suddenly, ‘Turn here, you can take Ren back to the Ritz first.’
‘I’ve inconvenienced Sacha enough. We’ll take him first,’ Ren insisted. Bilel met her gaze in the mirror with a wary one of his own.
‘The destination is outside the boulevard périphérique, mademoiselle – the Paris ring road. Are you certain?’
Ren resisted a smile. His statement had the opposite effect from the one he intended. Tomorrow she would worry, but her night of adventures wasn’t over yet. ‘I’m sure, Bilel. Thank you.’
