‘Fuck Charlie!’ Malou had already said those two words several times, interspersed with, ‘How many macarons did you eat?’
‘I’m inexperienced at bingeing,’ Ren mumbled around another lemon-flavoured meringue. ‘At first, I thought I should order a burger and fries, but then I thought, what if they really are as awful as Grandmama says and I thought of… these.’
‘Only you would binge eat macarons! On behalf of French people everywhere, I take grave offence. And can we turn the TV off for a minute? I can’t hear myself think.’
‘We’re just getting to the good bit. They escape the palace and fly through the sky on a magic carpet and she sees that the outside world is beautiful and it’s absolute crap that she has to marry a prince. What’s so crash hot about princes, anyway? Some men society thinks are princes are actually toads.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. But how many of these films have you watched this weekend?’
‘Hmm, I started with The Hunchback of Notre Dame yesterday, and then Mulan and then… five, I think? Wait, what time is it?’
Malou took the opportunity to switch off the discreet TV screen hidden in a baroque mirror. ‘It’s nearly ten o’clock.’
‘Oh, shit!’ Ren said, scrambling off the bed in a cloud of sugary almond-flour crumbs. But she lost steam halfway to the bathroom. ‘I’ve missed it anyway. My train home.’ Had that been on purpose? ‘Missing trains has become a… habitude.’ She turned away to hide her slightly manic smile. All her emotions had been flooding out of her since Friday afternoon, including the enormous crush on the stranger who’d crashed into her life for one night.
‘Ha,’ said Malou, thankfully not understanding the full context of the joke. She clutched a hand in her black curls and glanced around the room in dismay. ‘What would Grandma Asquith-Lewis say if she could see you now? Or Charlie?’
‘Don’t even suggest that they might see me like this!’ The grand matriarch would lock her up for eternity if she saw her only descendant a whiffling mess. And Charlie? He’d probably congratulate himself on his narrow escape. ‘Please don’t tell anyone about the macarons! I’d be in such trouble with Ziggy.’
Just thinking of Grandmama’s right-hand woman Ziggy made Ren swallow her tongue. It’s called haute couture, not chubby couture, my darling. Monsieur Givenchy does not want your thighs. She’d nearly retorted that Hubert de Givenchy didn’t want anyone’s thighs, now he’d passed on, but Ziggy didn’t have a sense of humour – unless you included facetious laughter.
Malou hefted the server of macarons and put it on the table out of reach, then her gaze snagged on the horseshoe sitting humbly on the gilt-edged marble tabletop. She ran her finger over the rusting iron with a grimace, but the chunky piece of metal had a different effect on Ren. It will bring you luck only in France…
More than luck, it was holding open a channel to her memories of Friday night. Sacha. Even thinking the name added giddy wonder to her mess of emotions.
‘We need coffee, yes? And fresh air,’ Malou said, clapping her hands together.
‘I can’t go out looking like this!’
‘I will wait while you get dressed.’
‘I mean… like this.’ She gestured vaguely to her face. ‘And if I call someone to do my make-up, it’ll get back to Ziggy that I ate macarons and Grandmama will hear that I have no pride!’
‘So… don’t do your make-up? Or do it yourself?’
‘But the pictures! Have you seen my skin?’ She knew how she looked: pitiful under a layer of rust-coloured freckles. Her mother’s complexion. The bad genes.
‘Ren, your social media entourage has gone back to London. The doorman will chase away any photographers, if they are about. I can take you to any number of cafés where no one will recognise you.’
‘No one will…’ It sounded like Ziggy’s idea of pointless. You’re the heart of the company, she always said, meaning ‘image’ rather than ‘heart’. She wasn’t sure Ziggy knew anything about hearts. A slow smile stretched on Ren’s face. ‘You mean we could just… go out?’ To anyone else, she would have sounded like a madwoman, but Malou knew what her life was like, between the demands of her Instagram feed and the clutches of her grandmother.
‘You’re not in London,’ Malou said with a smile. ‘You’re in Paris.’
‘Oh, my, I’m in Paris.’ Ren had the odd feeling that she’d never seen the city before, despite the number of times she’d stayed at the Ritz. They were strolling under the arcade along the Rue de Rivoli, past cafés and brasseries from the Belle Époque with their ornate wood panelling and murals. The Jardin des Tuileries was on the other side of the road, noisy with laughter from the Christmas market. The sloping iron roof and stone chimneys of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre rose ahead, the leaded windows glinting in the weak winter sunlight.
‘Don’t worry, we haven’t left the first arrondissement.’
Malou led her to a small café on a side street that combined historic stucco cornicing with contemporary lines and metallic accents in the furniture. The patrons were a mix of tourists in bum-bags and locals in carelessly stylish outfits.
‘Oh, there are nineteen other arrondissements in Paris, you know,’ Ren quipped with a smile. ‘I even went to the twentieth on Friday night.’
‘What?’
‘Keep your hat on. I survived to tell the tale and didn’t post about it on Instagram. In fact, I can’t post anything at the moment. My phone died and I don’t know my logins, anyway. I’m sure Ziggy would think that’s for the best.’
‘Don’t you think it might be best for you, too? You could just… be.’
Ren froze, glancing around as though Malou’s utterance had been treasonous. She could just… be… what? Ever since Ziggy had transformed her from a lonely teenager into an Insta-worthy socialite whose handbags were the envy of the Internet, Ren had never ‘just’ been anything.
She tried to relax back into her seat, observing the way the people around her were sitting. She’d taken her earrings out, at least, but her tailored outfit was recognisably ‘Louis Versace’.
After ordering them both coffee, Malou studied her. ‘I was upset you didn’t tell me about Charlie, but I’m more upset that I couldn’t be there for you through all of this. They’re saying he’s been cheating on you for months and you don’t look surprised.’
That had been the wrong moment to take her first sip of hot coffee. Ren fumbled for the tiny glass of water and tried to open up her throat again. ‘You’re right, I knew he had a new girlfriend. We’ve been broken up for months, so why shouldn’t he? I wanted time to work out what to do about Grandmama and the business and he said his girlfriend was fine with keeping it a secret. I assume Charlie let it slip.’
‘Not quite,’ Malou said. ‘It seems the girlfriend wasn’t really fine with it. She announced it on her social media.’
Ren focused on breathing – in through her nose, out through pursed lips and repeat. But although she knew she was technically breathing, everything inside her curled up tight.
‘It hurts.’ The two words escaped unpremeditated. She hated to admit it. Whether it was her pride or her heart, she didn’t know, but the honesty felt good, felt real. Like Friday night… ‘I don’t know how much is my fault, but…’
Malou grasped her hands and squeezed. ‘He’s a crétin, Ren. You can’t defend him to me. I worked for him for four years. I know what he can be like and he has been nothing but a fuckwit. And then his maîtresse tells the whole world and you are the one who has to clean it up. No, it’s not fair, Ren, and I can believe it fucking hurts, but he never deserved you!’
‘Who deserves me, then?’ she asked bitterly, wishing she had her friend’s potty-mouthed nonchalance, but feeling empty inside.
‘Someone who loves you.’
‘Can I have a unicorn instead?’
Malou laughed ruefully, but her phone rang, interrupting their conversation. Her friend glanced at the screen, perplexed, and connected the call with a cautious, ‘Allô?’ Then she froze, with an expression of horror, and her hand gripped the table as though for balance. ‘It’s your grandmother,’ she whispered through clenched teeth.
Ren snorted coffee again, this time sending droplets over Malou. ‘Shit!’ Ren cried, searching for a serviette. ‘Serviette, s’il vous plait!’ she called to the barista, but Malou shushed her and reached for the little metal dispenser of paper serviettes. Ren blushed, realising she’d been looking for a thick, fine cotton cloth.
Malou held the phone like a hot potato and dabbed at her blouse. ‘Are you going to take the call?’ she mouthed.
Ren had been able to block all calls at the Ritz. How had Grandmama known to phone Malou? That was a stupid question. Livia Asquith-Lewis knew everything. ‘Tell her I’m not here. I mean, pretend you haven’t seen me today!’ The alarm in Malou’s gaze suggested Ren’s stage whisper hadn’t been quiet enough.
‘Ren! She’s the owner of the company I work for!’
‘Damn it! I should have just kept you as a friend!’ But wasn’t that typical? Everyone made sacrifices for her. She took the phone, telling herself it was just Grandmama. Why was she so worried? Because she might make you come home… She swallowed. ‘Hello, Grandmama,’ she said too brightly.
‘Thank goodness! First I heard you didn’t catch the train this morning and then the receptionist at the Ritz told me you’d gone out and I panicked!’ As usual, there was no trace of panic in her tone – no trace of any emotion at all.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not, darling. You’re in shock. You need to come home. The newspapers, thank God, think you’ve just been keeping the secret and that we all knew, but we can’t fix this without you.’
‘I’m okay. There’s nothing to fix,’ Ren lied. When was the last time she’d been okay?
‘I mean the merger, the company. If you hide away in Paris, how can we convince the world that this doesn’t affect us, that you’re so much more than this fitness fashion woman with too many teeth that Charlie found goodness knows where? We need to tell your side of the story.’
What was her side of the story? And Charlie obviously thought that too many teeth was better than freckles. She didn’t blame him. She’d knocked a man off his bike, lost her valuable engagement ring and spat coffee all over her best friend and in between she’d watched children’s films, binged on the most ridiculous food imaginable and avoided reality. Yeah, she was such a catch.
‘I… don’t think I’m ready to leave Paris. I need some time to recover.’ Heal from the past six months of playing a role she hated – after nearly fifteen years of playing the socialite role she had never quite mastered.
‘Darling, you’re worrying me. How about you come home to the country estate and—’
‘No!’ Ren blurted out before she could stop herself. The country house held too many memories of disappointment and helplessness from other times she’d failed her grandmother. ‘I just meant Paris is lovely at Christmas time,’ she said weakly. ‘I’d like to stay a little longer.’
‘But it gets dark so early! And you’re alone.’
‘I’m not alone,’ she insisted.
‘I don’t count Malou. She doesn’t understand what it’s like for us.’ Ren was sick of being a lonely ‘us’ with only her steel-spined grandmother and Ziggy the tyrant.
‘That’s not what I mean,’ she said, struggling for the words to convince her grandmother to give her some space without admitting that she was falling apart. Emotional outbursts were up there with burgers and fries in her grandmother’s book. ‘Charlie and I have both moved on,’ she blurted out in desperation. Malou stared at her as though she’d lost her marbles along with her engagement ring. ‘I’ve met someone, too. A man. Here, in Paris. That’s why I don’t want to come home.’
Malou raised both hands and flapped them about, shaking her head furiously. Grandmama was completely silent, except for the whistle of her furious breathing.
‘A… man?’ Of course it was preposterous. Ren only hoped her grandmother was so shocked she would believe her.
‘I should go,’ she said. ‘I’m having coffee with Malou and then I… I should get back to my boyfriend. We… enjoy spending time together.’ Her grandmother burbled inarticulately in response. ‘He’s wonderful, Grandmama. Truly. Handsome and fit and he has some amazing tattoos. Not my usual aesthetic, but you can’t choose who you fall in love with, can you?’ Ren forced her mouth shut before she blabbered anything further.
She ended the call and handed Malou’s phone back apologetically. Was it okay that she felt so good about the lie she’d just told?
Ren could almost see the mushroom cloud above her friend’s head. ‘What have you done?’ Malou said. ‘If that wasn’t the quickest way to get her to rush to Paris to collect you, I don’t know what would be!’
With a start, Ren realised she might have made another mistake.
