Page 69 of One Night With You

‘She’ll come around,’ he says. ‘Candice. I know it’s shitty now, but your friend Jackson is right. She’ll come to you when she’s ready.’

‘Hmmm,’ is all I say in reply.

When we arrive, Paris takes my breath away.

‘Holy crap,’ I gasp in awe after our unremarkable but efficient Eurostar across the Channel. We’ve stepped out of a big, carpeted metal box and into a postcard come to life.Gare du Nord is like a huge London market hall on steroids. Neoclassical, William says it’s called. There’s a central hall with all the local platforms on that we see as we come down in the lift from where the Eurostar terminates. Thin green iron pillars line two sides of a slate glass roof that reveals thick grey clouds, heavy with the threat of rain. There are small little carts dotted around selling crepes and croissants and coffee, a Francophile’s wet dream. Everyone seems to have somewhere to go and somewhere to be, which is the same the world over, obviously, but there’s something so magical about the fact that all the people I can see going places areFrench.They walk differently – insouciant and slouchy. The dial marked ‘elegance’ is turned up to eleven out of ten, here.

‘Is this your first time?’ Harry says.

‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘And now I feel stupid. Who knew this was two hours away this whole time?’

‘Wonderful, isn’t it?’ joins in JP from his wheelchair. Harry and William exchange a look, amused by our childlike wonderment. I never thought my master’s would lead me here.

Outside, we search for the driver with William’s name on a small whiteboard: because of JP he decided to book a cab in advance. A man with white gloves and a driver’s hat greets us in grunts, and we’re mostly quiet as the cab heads west to Chaillot, the neighbourhood Amelie lives in. We now know, after being able to talk to the housekeeper and a few emails Amelie’s granddaughter has sent us, that Amelie ended up living in Paris because her children brought her here to be closer to them when her husband was sick and it looked likely she would become a widow. It becomes obvious as we turn off from the Arc de Triomphe and into somewhere more residential that it’s a moneyed area.

‘Not like the farm out here,’ JP notes, his eyes as wide as everyone else’s.

The streets are wide and quiet, lined with cars that all seem to have dents in them, like a badge of honour. Most of the buildings are two or three storeys tall, all grand bay windows and pillared entrances and small, neat gold plaques beside doorbells signalling that once-illustrious abodes have now been carved up into only slightly less illustrious apartments. It gets quieter and quieter the deeper into the streets we get, odd dog walkers and meandering couples punctuating the place like actors on a film set.

‘Do we know what Amelie’s children do?’ I say, noting the clear view of the Eiffel Tower through the buildings. And I don’t mean in the distance – we can’t be very far from it at all. It’s huge. Small shops, cafés, bakeries – it all seems surreal. How is this a place where people live? How is this real? Different shades of white and stone are punctuated with wrought-iron balconies and railings. People are actually wearing berets and trench coats! If we’d made up the script to our documentary as a movie we couldn’t have chosen somewhere more picturesque and romantic for the lovers to finally be reunited. I understand what all the fuss is about.

‘Nous sommes arrivés,’ the driver says from up front, pulling up to the small hotel, around the corner from Amelie’s house.

‘Let’s drop off our stuff in our rooms,’ William says, once we’re out on the pavement. ‘Have a rest for an hour or so, then meet up in the lobby at just before three? Google Maps says we’re six minutes away on foot, and it’s flat.’

‘Perfect,’ Harry and I say in unison, looking at each other and sayingjinx.

‘What do you reckon to the chances of a decent brew?’ asks JP. ‘I’m gasping.’

‘I’ve never known anyone knock back tea like you do,’ Harry jokes. ‘You should get buried in a teapot.’

‘That’s not a bad shout.’ JP smiles. ‘My heaven is either a nice hot cup of tea or half a shandy, but I imagine there’d be more room in a teapot.’

On account of us being in our thirties and not our nineties, Harry and I don’t much feel call for a rest, and so on dropping off our bags in our shared twin room we decide to go to a café on the corner for an authentic Parisian pastry and coffee. We huddle up on two chairs side by side, facing out to the road, and without us even saying anything the waiter gives us a tourist menu written in English.

‘I’ve heard the French can beun petit peupassive-aggressive.’ Harry grins after I issue a smallmerciin what I hope isn’t too mortifying an accent.

‘I can’t believe we’ve made it this far,’ he continues, after we order. ‘Three months ago, we didn’t even know each other, and now we’re balls-deep in this project, in another country, with emails from the department wishing us luck. I’m pretty proud of us, you know.’

‘I’m proud of us too,’ I say. ‘It’s vindicating to me. I made a commitment to myself, and that commitment is paying off.’

‘Sure is,’ says Harry. ‘Oh, hey, let’s update the Insta page,’ he adds, pulling out his phone to take a selfie of us. He narrates the caption as he types: ‘This is it. We’re in Paris, an hour and a half away from reuniting JP with his girl. Paris is beautiful, albeit rainy, and we can’t wait to show you what teenage war-ravaged sweethearts look like after more than seventy years of wondering after each other. Who says true love is dead? For JP and Amelie, it has survived decades and distance.’

‘Beautiful,’ I say. ‘And we’re up to fifteen hundred followers now? That’s so cool.’

‘I’ve hash-tagged itsoulmatesandto be continued,’ Harry says, posting the image. ‘And yes, fifteen hundred. Some cool people are in that list too – some film people.’

We scroll through the followers list and note some arts councils and creative talent hubs in amongst our friends and friends’ friends. I see Nic’s name in there as well.

‘That’s him,’ I say, pointing. ‘Nic.’

‘Ooh, let’s have a look then,’ Harry says, clicking on his avatar like Candice and Jackson did back at the end of summer. ‘Handsome. Geek-chic.’ Harry nods appreciatively. ‘Looks like he’s loving London life. Jeez, I want to be living it up like he is!’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He basically did the same as us: wanted a change and took the leap to make his life better. He should be proud of himself too.’

‘So you’re going to long-distance it?’ Harry asks.

‘I guess,’ I tell him. ‘We haven’t talked details, and it is still early days. As long as it doesn’t interfere with the master’s, I’ll go with the flow. That’s what JP wants for us both, isn’t it? To enjoy ourselves, to know that when it’s right it’s worth making the room for?’

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