Page 37 of One Night With You

The scenery outside changes back from the leafy suburbs into higher buildings pushed close together, shops and computer repair places and car parks and more traffic.

‘Do you ever regret turning him down?’ Harry asks, as we start to approach campus.

‘Abe?’ I say. ‘Absolutely not. Christ.’

‘Nic, you idiot,’ he says. ‘Because, excuse me for saying so, but: if you wanna snog him this weekend, you totally should.’

‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘You are way off the mark.’ I’m shaking my head so furiously I think I might ping my eyeballs out of my head. ‘I mean, yeah. If I hadn’t had one foot out of the door, he’dmaybehave been a prime candidate for something more.’ There. I’ve said it. I actually feel a bit short of breath. ‘But let’s not forget,’ I insist, trying to remind myself of the facts, ‘HE WAS A ONE-NIGHT STAND. And that isnothow the story of one-night stands go. Is it? But yeah, fine, maybe if I hadn’t been leaving I’d have asked for his number or told him to ask me out on a date or played dodgeball again on my friend Jackson’s team, knowing he’d signed up to play too. HE IS A VERY CUTE MAN WHO IS VERY KIND AND SENSITIVE AND HAS THE LIPS AND THE HANDS AND THE FUNNY TEXTS AND, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, ARE YOU TWO HAPPY NOW?’

Harry shrugs. ‘The question is,’ he says, as if his work here is done. ‘Are you?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake.’ I laugh. ‘No! Okay! I’m not especially happy about being ships passing in the night, but I am happy that I’m here, and happy if he’s enjoying London. So … He probably just likes a flirt and I like a flirt too. And anyway … there’s nothing to be done now, so pack it in, okay? I’m fragile!’

‘Is it any wonder?’ mutters JP as we arrive back at campus. ‘Denying yourself what you really want this way?’

I don’t respond for a minute, until finally I say: ‘Well, I tell you what. I’ll go to this party, and on the off-chance what was there when I met him is still there, I’ll consider taking a leap of faith and amending the rules to the Year of Me. Maybe. I’ll take it under advisement, all right? I suppose we can just wait and see what happens, can’t we?’

Harry nods sagely. ‘I suppose we can,’ he says, and there’ssomething about the look on his face that strikes me as the look of a man declaring premature accomplishment. The strange thing is though, I don’t mind.

After the lecture, I check my phone to see how the Finding JP’s Girl account is going. Harry and I have both asked friends and family to follow and share it, and in three weeks we’re up to 478 followers already. There’s loads of comments under our first post, basically all saying variations of:Hiya JP, can’t wait to find out if you find your girl!Harry has uploaded a bunch of other photos – us in lectures, various camera equipment, and crucially a snap of him holding Amelie’s photograph, with the caption,It’s a long shot, but does anyone recognise this woman? Châteauponsac village in Limoges region, France, spring of 1940. She would have been seventeen, here.So far, there’s nothing. This morning I posted a bit about JP’s story, to get people more emotionally involved. It has seventeen likes.

‘You know,’ I say, staring at the Instagram page. ‘If we had hundreds of thousands of followers, maybe somebody would recognise Amelie. Even then it would be a long shot, but it would be more likely, wouldn’t it?’

‘Have you got a plan to get us a few hundred thousand followers?’

‘No,’ I say, slowly. ‘But I am thinking maybe what we need is a smaller net in a smaller pond.’

Harry looks at me blankly. Then he seems to have a thought. ‘Military records?’ he says.

‘Oh, yes. That’s astute. I was going to say we need somebody in the village.’

‘Do you know somebody in the village?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘But we can find someone, can’t we? Maybethere’s a landmark with staff, like a local library or tourism office or post office. If we could get the photo to them, and have them ask around, that would be more targeted. It’s still a long shot, but at least we’d be within batting distance of the farm. It could still be in the family.’

Harry nods, and then asks JP, ‘And you still don’t remember the family’s surname, or the name of the farm? Google – or parish records – would be a lot more helpful for us if you did …’

JP shakes his head solemnly.

‘What if we showed you a map?’

I switch my maps function to ‘Earth’ so it looks more like real life, and plug in the name of the town they were near. JP looks at it blankly.

‘It was such a long time ago,’ he explains, waving a hand.

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to even pinpoint the family home I grew up in on here. It’s confusing to look at unless you already know what it is you’re looking at. Don’t worry. It wasn’t my strongest idea.’

‘Who do we know who is French?’ Harry says. ‘Or who can speak French?’

‘Well, that’s something we can ask our followers,’ I say. ‘Surely out of five hundred people somebody can speak French?’

‘William,’ JP supplies, then. ‘William speaks French.’

‘Well, then let’s get you home to William,’ Harry says. ‘He needs to make a phone call for us.’

And so we scramble back into the car and call William on the way, asking him to meet us there.

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