Peter May - Extraordinary People

So he lunched in the L’ëlot Vache bistro on the corner of the Rue St. Louis, sitting on his own in the window, watching the faces drift past, sunlight slanting down between tall old buildings that leaned at sometimes curious angles. He sat until the restaurant was empty, his waiter hovering impatiently nearby, waiting for him to pay so that he could go home for the afternoon. Finally he settled up and walked across the street to the Louis IX Bar, and found himself a table in the doorway and nursed a beer for nearly two hours. More faces passed. More time. The angle of the sun grew more acute as it slid down the sky into early evening. And still the tourists filed by, perspiring in the July heat, and private cars and taxis belched their fumes into the fibrillating air of a long Parisian summer’s day.

Then he saw her, and in spite of all the hours of anticipation still felt as if he had been punched in the gut. It was twelve years since he had last laid eyes on her, a brittle, difficult fifteen-year-old who wouldn’t speak to him. She was crossing the Rue des Deux Ponts from east to west, carrying groceries in pink plastic bags dangling from both hands. She was wearing denims that cut off inches above the ankle and sat low on her hips beneath a short, white, sleeveless top that bared her belly to the world. It was the fashion, although very few girls had the figure to carry it off. Kirsty was one of them. She was tall, like her father, with square shoulders and fine, long legs. And she wore her hair long, again like her father, but not tied in a ponytail like his. It was a rich, chestnut brown, like her mother’s, and flew out behind her in the warm breeze like a flag of independence.

Enzo left several coins rattling on his table, and hurried along the street to intercept her. He caught up with her as she was juggling with her shopping bags to punch in the entry code. ‘Here, let me take one of these,’ he said as the electronic lock buzzed and she pushed the door open with her foot.

She turned, startled. Whether it was the unexpected Scottish voice in the middle of Paris, or the odd familiarity of this strange male, it took her some moments to realise who he was. By which time he had taken the bags from one of her hands and was holding the door open for her. Her face flushed with confusion and embarrassment and she pushed past him into a passageway that led to the inner courtyard. The time it took for that simple act was long enough for her to find her anger. ‘What do you want?’ she hissed, keeping her voice low as if she was frightened they might be overheard.

He hurried after her as she strode along the passage and into a tiny, paved courtyard filled with potted trees and a tangle of lush, green plants. Apartments rose dizzyingly all around them into the small square of blue Paris sky above. Ground floor windows were barred, and the door of the guardian’s apartment stood at the foot of an ancient wooden staircase. ‘Just to talk, Kirsty. To spend a little time with you.’

‘Funny….’ Her voice was coarse with bitterness. ‘You were never around when I wanted to spend time with you . You were too busy with your new family.’

‘That’s not true, Kirsty. I’d have given you all the time in the world if you had only let me.’

‘Oh, yes!’ She turned on him at the foot of the stairs. All the colour had drained from her face. ‘Of course. It was my fault. I should have known. It was my fault you left us. It was my fault you chose to go and live in France with some other woman and start another family. Why didn’t I see it? All those nights I lay awake listening to mum crying herself to sleep in the next room, and I never realised it was my fault. All those birthdays and Christmases you weren’t around. All those moments in a girl’s life when she wants to know that her dad’s watching, that he’s proud of her. The school concert. Sports day. Graduation. Why didn’t I understand then that it was my fault? After all, you always had a great reason to be somewhere else, didn’t you?’ Her emotion finally choked off the diatribe, and she was working hard to catch her breath. The intensity in her eyes made it hard for Enzo to meet them. He had never before felt the full force of her anger. He was shocked. ‘Give me those!’ She snatched at the bags of shopping he was holding, but he held them away from her.

‘Kirsty, please. There’s never a day in my life that I don’t think about you, or the hurt I caused you. You’ve no idea how hard it is to try to explain these things to a child. But I’m still your father, and I still love you. All I want to do is talk. To tell you how it was. How it really was.’

She stared at him for a moment in silence, anger turning to contempt. ‘I don’t have a father,’ she said finally. ‘My father died a very long time ago.’ Her eyes dropped to the bags he was still holding. ‘Are you going to give me those?’ But she barely gave him time to respond. ‘Oh, well, fuck it!’ she said. ‘Keep them.’ And she turned and ran up the stairs leaving him standing in the courtyard, feeling foolish and bereft.

He had no idea how long he stood before finally laying the bags carefully on the first step. There didn’t seem any point in going after her with them. He turned slowly and went back out to the street.

He was sitting alone at Kong’s rooftop restaurant above the Kenzo building on the rue du Pont Neuf when Simon finally showed up. The place was packed with diners enjoying in the Paris panorama. Enzo had hoped to dine at the Samaritaine, where the view was better, taking in all the familiar landmarks in the fading light; the Panthéon, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower. But it had closed down, and he’d had to make do with the more restricted view of the Tour de Saint Sulpice and the Vedettes du Pont Neuf, along with the inane babble of the Paris in-crowd. A crowd in which Enzo had rarely felt so alone. The fact that everyone else was in company seemed only to emphasise his isolation. He’d had little or no appetite, and left his main course almost untouched, preferring instead to work his way steadily through the bottle of Pinot Noir he had ordered.

Simon waved away the waiter and pulled up a seat. He’d already eaten, he said, and poured himself a glass of Enzo’s wine. He turned to take in the view of the city as he sipped it, perhaps guessing the answer to his unasked question. Then he turned and said, ‘Why do you always look so damned miserable, Enzo?’

Enzo grinned. ‘Maybe because I am.’ He gave a little Gallic shrug, an unconscious gesture acquired over many years. ‘So when are you going back to London?’

‘Tomorrow.’ Simon looked at him directly and sighed. ‘I don’t know what your problem is. Take a good look at yourself, Magpie.’ It was the nickname Simon had given his friend when the white streak first grew into his dark hair during early teens. And it had stuck. ‘You’ve got a great life here. A beautiful apartment in Cahors. A daughter most parents would die for….’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he cringed at his gaffe. ‘Jesus, Enzo, I’m sorry.’

Enzo smiled ruefully and shook his head. ‘Daft bastard,’ he said. ‘You’re just lucky you never had any kids. Bringing home boyfriends with stupid hair and extraneous pieces of metal stuck in their faces.’

‘Bertrand?’

‘He’s too old for Sophie.’

‘What age is he?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘And Sophie’s what? Eighteen?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘So he’s seven years older than her. You were what? Thirty, when you set up home in Cahors with Pascale? And what age was she?’

Enzo growled, ‘Twenty-three. But that was different.’