The Last Kiss Goodbye (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Paris, May 1961

‘Why does French bread taste so good?’ said Ros. They were strolling down the rue du Bac, and the taste of their supper – a huge pot of mussels laced with garlic and white wine and served with an enormous chunk of soft baguette – was still dancing on her tongue.

‘I think it’s the flour,’ said Dominic, his answer typically decisive and culturally knowledgeable.

‘We should take some back with us,’ she decided, imagining herself reliving this moment from Sam’s kitchen in Primrose Hill.

‘But it will be stale by the time we get back to Calais.’

‘Then I’ll stand it in a vase. Put it on my mantelpiece as a reminder of simple yet exquisite pleasures.’

Dominic laughed, and she grinned into space.

She still couldn’t believe she was here in Paris. They had caught the early-morning ferry from Dover; Dom’s Stag clattering up the metal gangplank had been like something from a sci-fi movie, but by the time they reached the Arc de Triomphe at a little after four o’clock that afternoon, she had felt like Jean Seberg in
À bout de souffle
.

‘Ice cream,’ she shouted, running up to a shopfront, leaving Dominic in her wake.

‘I can’t believe you are still hungry,’ he called after her.

She looked over her shoulder and grinned playfully at him. ‘We can’t come to Paris and not have ice cream.’

‘I think you’re thinking of Rome,’ said Dom, catching up with her, by which time Ros had ordered two
boules de glace
and handed him one.

She took a lick, her giddiness subsiding, and turned to Dominic with a more sober expression.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘It feels wrong to be so happy.’

‘We’re on holiday.’

‘No we’re not. We’re here to work,’ she said, reminding herself that Dominic had officially commissioned her to write a thousand words on the Algerian situation in France. ‘I should be interviewing members of the FLN, not eating ice cream.’

‘I told you you could write about the Monaco Grand Prix.’

Ros waved a hand. ‘That’s your story. You do frivolous so much better than I do.’

‘Oh, I’m sure I can squeeze some pro-Tory rhetoric in there somewhere,’ he teased as she slapped him on the shoulder.

Whatever conflict there was between herself and Dominic Blake – wildly differing political views, social circles and outlook on life – had settled down into affectionate banter.

They still rarely agreed on anything, but Ros doubted she would ever meet anyone who understood her like Dominic. He was the only person who knew how to handle her moods, the person who made her a better version of herself. She wasn’t sure if that was why he made her so happy, but right now she didn’t think she had ever been happier.

Paris was everything she had imagined. They had parked the Stag on a side road on the Left Bank and walked a long stretch of the Seine from the Pont Neuf towards the Gare d’Orsay before looping round and weaving back through the streets of the fifth arrondissement.

Dominic had given her a guided tour, pointing out the famous Parisian sights, but in truth she hadn’t really needed it. She knew all about Les Deux Magots, where writers such as Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir had sat in a corner booth and discussed the issues of the day, and the political history of the Café de Flore, a 1920s hangout for Zhou Enlai when his communist fervour had been ignited. Her information had only come from books – it was the first time she had ever been to Paris – but the spirit of her literary heroes felt alive on the streets of the Rive Gauche.

Butterflies collected in her stomach as they approached the hotel, tucked away on a side street near the Sorbonne. She had not had a chance to feel nervous when they had checked in three hours earlier, even when Dominic had announced them to the reception desk as Mr and Mrs Blake. They had gone to their room, thrown their suitcases on the bed and headed straight out, desperate to explore, their stomachs grumbling after the long drive down from Calais.

But now Ros realised that she was excited and terrified in equal measure. Although she and Dominic had been dating for almost two months, although they went out three or four times a week and spoke constantly on the phone, they had not yet made love, a situation that was surely set to change within the next few hours.

Ros did not see herself as particularly old-fashioned, but stepping up her relationship with Dominic to a sexual and intimate one was something she had subconsciously tried to avoid since their first kiss at his flat. She was not an experienced lover, and Dominic most certainly was. She did not want to suffer in comparision with the dozens of women who had no doubt fallen like dominoes into his bed, didn’t want to break the spell of their compatibility. And deep down there was the lingering thought that he saw her as another notch on his bedpost, a challenge he would quickly lose interest in once it had been conquered.

Their hotel was elegant rather than grand. Dominic waved at the desk clerk, who informed him that he had a telegram, which he collected along with their key.

‘I can’t believe we’re only here for a night,’ said Ros, kicking off her shoes and perching on the bed.

‘Don’t sound too disappointed. We’ve got Monte Carlo to look forward to at the weekend,’ replied Dominic, scanning the telegram.

‘Do you think they’ll check our bank balances along with our passports?’

‘I hope not, not unless they take overdrafts into consideration.’

He folded the telegram, put it back in his pocket, then glanced at his watch. Ros felt it was like a countdown.

‘I’m sticky and smelly,’ she announced, instantly realising that this did not sound very sexy or seductive. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’

‘Can I join you?’

She wasn’t sure if he was joking and she felt herself blush.

‘I just need to pop out for cigarettes. How about I pick up some champagne?’

‘My sort of bubble bath,’ she grinned.

He went to the bathroom and she heard him running the water.

‘Any other requests?’

‘Only that you hurry back.’

She smiled as she watched him leave, going over to the window as he stepped out on to the street, her eyes following him until he disappeared from view.

Her thoughts drifted to the Amazon expedition he was currently planning. He was due to leave in less than three months and she was worried sick about him, particularly as he insisted that it was to be a solo trip. It was like a black cloud that would occasionally drift in and block out the sun, ruining her mood – although she was determined not to let it spoil this holiday.

She opened her suitcase and looked for her toiletry bag. Pulling out her toothbrush and paste, she went to the sink and brushed her teeth, blowing into the palm of her hand to check that her breath didn’t smell of garlicky mussels.

The sound of the telephone on the bedroom table filled the room. The noise made her drop her toothbrush in the sink, but she left it to go and answer the phone.

She picked it up and said
Bonjour
in her best accent, but there was nothing but the sound of silence down the receiver.

‘
Bonjour
. Hello. Hello. Is anyone there?’ she said, not wishing to attempt the question in French.

Still silence. Ros put the phone back in its cradle and looked at it for a moment. At the back of her mind she wondered if they had been found out – an unmarried couple sharing a hotel room – but reminding herself that she was in France, one of the more liberal countries on earth, she giggled and dismissed the thought as soon as it had occurred to her.

The bath was run and Ros was ready for it. She stepped into the tub and sank back in the water, the heat snaking up her back like steam from a kettle. She lathered a bar of lavender soap in her hand and massaged it into her skin, submerging herself entirely under the water to wash it all off. As she resurfaced, wiping the bubbles from her face, she felt ready, reborn.

There was another flutter of nerves, but Ros wasn’t going to dwell on sex a second longer. Wasn’t going to worry if their bodies would move in tandem, wasn’t going to fret if Dominic could tell she hadn’t been intimate with anyone since . . .

Well, she could hardly recall when that occasion was. An under-the-blanket fumble with an unreliable economics postgrad student was the last sexual encounter she could remember, and it still made her cringe.

But tonight, for the first time in her life, she felt like a sophisticated woman. Not an angry student, or a bitter spinster, but someone who liked to travel, and talk; someone who could love and be loved.

Stepping out of the tub, she wrapped herself in a towel. Her pot of Nivea was on the bathroom cabinet and she scooped up a big dollop with her fingers and smoothed it on her skin.

As first, it turned her almost totally white – Dom’s going to find me here looking like a tub of lard, she thought, trying desperately to rub it in – but within a few minutes her skin was silky soft. She lay naked on the cool white sheets and almost wanted to purr.

Folding her arms behind her, she arranged herself on the mattress, feeling like an artist’s muse.

She didn’t know whether Dominic would love seeing her like this when he walked back through the door, or whether he would die of shock.

After ten minutes she began to get restless. She was cold, with the beginnings of cramp in her leg. There was still no sign of Dominic; she didn’t know exactly how long he had been gone, but it had to be over half an hour.

How long did it take to buy a packet of cigarettes? she asked herself, trying to remember the streets they had walked through, mentally locating a
tabac
.

The window was open, letting in a chill. She pulled a pillow over her and rubbed her arms to get rid of the frosting of goose pimples.

The phone rang again, sending spearshots of anxiety around her body.

She leant over to answer it, conscious of her nakedness.

There was a click and then a silence.

‘Hello?’ she said nervously when there was no sound at the other end. ‘Dom, is that you?’

Straining her ears, she thought she heard the faint sound of breathing, which made her drop the phone back on to its cradle as if it were hot.

She could feel her pulse in her chest. Outside she heard a woman’s laugh, and then a male voice trying to impress her. She imagined it being Dominic and some secret Parisian lover – she had seen the way women looked at him in the street – but she told herself how ridiculous she was being. He had just popped out for champagne and cigarettes.

She put on the thin cotton robe she had packed and took a packet of Gauloises from her handbag. Hadn’t Dominic remembered that she had bought some near the Gare d’Orsay?

She perched on the edge of the bed, not wanting to feel like this. She wanted to feel as carefree as she had done when she was eating her ice cream in the rue du Bac, absorbing the sights and sounds of Paris and feeling as if they were the only thing that mattered.

She stood up, and was about to pace the room when she heard the heavy sound of footsteps on the stairs. The door creaked open and Dominic stood in the frame, smiling and holding a bottle of champagne. She no longer had the taste for it.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ she asked, not even looking at him.

‘I had to make a couple of calls,’ he said, approaching her and kissing her on the neck.

She turned her head away from him. ‘Why couldn’t you have made them here?’

‘Because this room is about me and you. Not about work.’

‘We got a call to the room. Two, actually.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. They rang off.’

‘Nothing important then,’ he smiled, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist.

‘You smell lovely.’

She flinched away from him.

He sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at her.

‘Ros, what’s wrong?’

‘You were gone ages.’

‘Time ran away from me. I had to find a
tabac
, a phone box . . .’

‘You left me here. It got dark outside.’

‘Dark outside?’ He smiled.

‘I was worried,’ she scolded him. ‘When the phone rang I thought you’d been knocked over or something else terrible.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, taking her hand.

‘So am I,’ she said briskly.

She didn’t want to sound like a lunatic. She didn’t want to admit that his thirty-minute absence and the two phone calls to the room – wrong numbers most likely – had made her paranoid and suspicious, and had trawled up every single feeling of inadequacy she had inside her.

‘Ros, talk to me, please,’ he said pulling her closer until she sat beside him on the mattress.

She felt unwelcome tears spring to her eyes.

‘This is hard for me,’ she said finally.

‘What’s hard?’

‘Being here, in Paris, in this room. Alone with you. I know what that means. I know it means the next step, and I’m scared of that.’

‘It’s not meant to be scary,’ he said, stroking her hand.

She took a breath to summon her courage and the words that had been trapped inside her since they had first kissed.

‘Dom, I think you know me by now. You should know that when I care for something, I really care and I give my heart and soul to it. That something used to be politics, the cause. It still is. But now I care you for too. I care for you so much, more than anything, and it terrifies me that I’m going to get hurt. That you’re going to walk off for a packet of cigarettes one day and realise that you’ve just been wasting your time with the shouty girl with frizzy hair who brings you nothing but trouble.’

‘You’re not the shouty girl,’ he said quietly.

‘Then who am I?’

‘The beautiful, brilliant woman I have fallen in love with.’

The power of his words stunned her into silence.

His hand brushed her shoulder and pushed back the thin cotton of her gown, exposing a pale scoop of flesh. He bent down and kissed it and she shivered at his touch.