Page 43 of The Promise of Tomorrow
But now he understood. It was because of her.
He punched the duvet. However right this felt, it was wrong. Elena must never know. He couldn’t risk ruining their friendship. Right now, above everything else, Elena needed a good mate. Opening up would make her embarrassed. There was no way his feelings would be reciprocated. She’d laugh at the idea of them being a couple, just as much as Gary or any of their colleagues would.
Rory lay on his front and put his pillow over his head. Elena was like no person he’d ever met. Independent, strong, determined… and yet troubled by a secret in a way that went against the everyday logic and reason that had always flowed, in such large volumes, through her veins. He’d taken her at face value this last year, until her behaviour changed, and he moved in, and until she’d told him about her past.
He’d loved her before, when he’d only seen her surface.
Now he loved her even more.
Oh, the irony. Oh, the bad timing. Elena was a woman he’d waited his whole life for – a woman who believed, with every fibre of her being, that she’d be dead by Christmas.
27
ELENA
Giving off a buttery aroma, the croissant melted in her mouth, like no pastry she’d eaten in England. The coffee was smooth and rich, comforting. With her bobbed hair scraped back in a short ponytail, Elena sat opposite Rory in the hotel’s restaurant. He seemed quite chummy with the owner, Jacques, who’d insisted they were welcome to leave their bags there all day and pick them up before going to the airport.
‘Bit of a bromance going on there,’ she said and reached for more jam.
‘Far safer falling in love with someone you aren’t attracted to,’ Rory replied.
For some reason his smile didn’t seem as if it came from the heart. Perhaps he really wanted a relationship with Izzy, his mountain-biking friend, the one he had casual dates with. Although he hadn’t talked about her for a while now. Discomfort rose within Elena’s chest at the idea of the two of them getting close, however unlikely that might be.
‘I’ve planned out today but is there anything you’d especiallylike to see?’ she asked and wiped crumbs from around her mouth.
‘I wanted to say, first… do you want to talk any more about last night? Or would you rather I didn’t mention the fortune teller, or any of that, until we’re back in England? What I mean is… I’m here… as a mate…’ His cheeks flushed.
He really had become the best friend ever. All the more reason to keep her emotions – and desires – to herself. How she’d love to spend the day ambling through the sparkling, Christmassy boulevards, her arm snugly around his waist, leaning in every now and again for a kiss underneath the striking architecture and gaze of approving Parisians, the tension building as they held hands on the plane, then the rush for the bedroom as soon as they put the key in her front door, back in Cariswell…
Cut! No point playing that movie, even if it was make-believe. ‘No. I’m okay. Thanks. Let’s just have fun today.’
He put down his cup. ‘I did have something planned – for you – but it doesn’t seem appropriate now. You organise things so well, it’s better we follow your schedule.’
He had? A sizzling sensation shot across her chest. Previous boyfriends bought her flowers and chocolates, but rarely surprised her with holidays or days out. Yet who could blame them? She’d always kept partners at a distance, not physically but when it came to sharing desires for a future together because a voice, at the back of her mind, would tell Elena not to promise boyfriends something she might never be able to deliver.
Rory was different from the first day he walked into the office. He’d picked up a rose gold pearl bracelet from her desk tidy, half-hidden amongst a pile of safety pins. Elena had bought it on a whim at the local market, but it didn’t feel like her. He’d slipped it on his wrist and said it was cool. Jokingly, she’d toldhim to keep it. He gave the thumbs up and wore it for the rest of the day. Quickly she’d worked out that Rory was truly authentic and didn’t care what other people thought of him – a rare beast in a profession where the focus was on image and projection. Working on products had always made Elena conscious of the look she projected. A sensible, down-to-earth one, she hoped. Meeting the fortune teller, and making that promise, had been a real event. However, she’d experienced a sense of shame, over the years, at what others might think if they knew she believed such a preposterous-sounding thing. This had made her determined not to be considered remotely frivolous or flighty.
‘What was your idea?’ she asked.
He broke eye contact. ‘Nothing. Honestly. I’m sure yours are far better.’
‘Rory Bunker! Don’t make me lob this croissant at your ear.’
‘It’s boomerang shaped, would only come back.’ He gave one of those lopsided smiles of his, and like the butter on the dish in front of her, Elena’s heart melted, just a little. ‘Okay. To visit the famous Père Lachaise cemetery. It’s iconic.’ His speech sped up. ‘It’s one hundred and ten acres big and it has three and a half million visitors a year, with eight hundred bodies buried there. I thought you’d like it because we’d visit the graves of some fantastic writers, like Oscar Wilde, Proust, and Molière.’
She loved the slant of his mouth, the flame in his eyes when he teased, the lanky build on which clothes hung so well, the strong hands that suited fancy rings. But most of all, she loved Rory’sway– his thoughtfulness, that kind nature, like choosing a place to visit specifically to do with her interest in reading, when he could have chosen a fashion museum, to suit him. He’d missed a much-awaited concert once to go out for a drink with Gary, who’d had a bad argument with his husband.
‘The cemetery has monuments, a chapel, and an ossuary… If burial plots are not renewed then the remains are bagged up and stored there whilst the plot is leased out to someone else.’ Rory cleared his throat. ‘Sorry… is this too much, in the light of your looming birthday and?—’
‘No!’ Her eyes shone. ‘Oscar Wilde? I love his novelDe Profundis. He was banned from writing stories during his spell in jail but was allowed to write letters – so he wrote this fifty thousand-word one!’ It was addressed to his former lover and reading it always gave Elena equal pain and pleasure, never having experienced such a romantic attachment herself… Not until now – if that’s what this thing with Rory was, this compulsion to be with him, desire to touch him.
They left their bags at the hotel. Jacques winked at Rory before waving them off. A wintry bite still nipped the air by the time they reached Père Lachaise. No matter; they both wore their berets and thick scarves. Rory wore bell bottom jeans and his blue and pink, tie dye padded anorak. Maps in hands, they walked up and down the cobblestone lanes, with towering trees either side, in awe of the well-tended tombs and busts and carvings. Rory had done his research and said broken columns commemorated people who’d died before twenty or suffered a violent death. They got lost twice and followed a crowd to find Oscar Wilde’s tomb, outstanding with its Egyptian vibe. Elena linked her arm with Rory’s, only to keep warm, she reassured him, as they came to Marcel Marceau’s grave. Apparently he’d taught Michael Jackson to moonwalk. She had to take a photo for her dad.
The cemetery smelled of woody oils emanating from the trees, of dewy grass and lattes carried by tourists in takeaway cups. Elena took sideways glances at Rory as they headed for Proust’s memorial, and he reeled off more facts. What a zest forlife her colleague had. Gary jokingly called him a fun fact nerd once, knowing Rory wouldn’t care. That banter fuelled their friendship and there was no denying, anyway, that Gary found Rory’s revelations fascinating, such as how, before rubbers were invented, stale bread was used as erasers.
Proust’s black marble tombstone was more understated than Wilde’s, apart from the red heart-shaped bauble topped with fake snow that someone had laid on it. Rory looked up from his phone. ‘Proust wrote a novel calledRemembrance of Things Past– the longest novel in the world, with a word count of almost 1.3 million. One of its sentences contains nine hundred and fifty-eight words. Would you like me to buy it for your birthday?’ he joked. ‘I mean…’ His face dropped.
‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly.
