Corduroy Mansions

25. Paris

‘He’s called Tom,’ said Caroline.

James nodded. She had spoken about Tom before but he had not really been paying attention. ‘Of course. Tom. I remember - you told me. And . . .’

She looked at him enquiringly. ‘And what?’

‘Are you and Tom still together?’

She wanted to choose her words carefully. It was not that she was prepared to be untruthful, it was just that she was not entirely sure about her feelings, which were changing anyway. Togetherness was not a word she would ever have used to describe her relationship with Tom. They might have been together in the most general sense of the term, but they were not together in the way in which James pronounced it - they were certainly not italicised. ‘I still see him,’ she said, and added, ‘now and then.’

He was watching her. No, she thought then. Whatever happened in the future between Tom and her, this incipient thing with James, this fantasy, would never work. Not James, her wonderful, sympathetic, companionable James. She had a friend who had wasted three years in pursuing a man who was not in the slightest bit interested. At the time she had warned this friend that one could not expect to change something so fundamental, but her warning had been ignored. She must not do the same thing herself. Some men were destined to be good friends and nothing more. James was like that; it was so obvious. She should accept him for what he was and not encourage him to be something that he so clearly was not. He was fine as he was. He was perfect. Why nudge him into a relationship that would be inauthentic to him?

James was smiling. ‘You don’t sound enthusiastic. You see him. That sounds really passionate, Caroline.’

She looked away. James was right: it was not a passionate relationship.

James continued. ‘Tell me this: how do you feel when you’ve got a date with him coming up? Do you count the minutes until you see him? Feel breathless? Fluttery?’ He rubbed a hand across his stomach. ‘You know the feeling. Like that?’

‘I like him.’

He shook his head. ‘That was not the question I asked. I want to know whether you feel anticipation when you are about to see him. That really is the test, you know. Excitement. Anticipation.’

It was difficult for her to answer, and she was not sure whether she wanted to do so anyway. He had guided their conversation into a realm of intimacy that she had explored with nobody else, not even her close girlfriends. It was strange to be talking this way to a man, even as comfortable a man as James. And yet that very strangeness had a strong appeal. One should be able to talk about these things; one should be able to share them.

‘It’s hard for me to know,’ she said. ‘It’s not that I don’t feel something for Tom - I do. It’s just that . . .’

‘You don’t feel it, do you?’ He spoke gently, as if guiding her to a source of pain, a tender spot.

‘No.’

She realised that he had brought her to an understanding of her feelings she would not have achieved by herself, and she felt grateful as a result. That single word - that single cathartic ‘No’ - had revealed a truth that had been there all along but which she had simply never confronted.

He made a gesture with his hands - a gesture she interpreted as saying, well, there you are. And he was right. There she was: it was the end of Tom.

And the beginning of James? The thought refused to go away.

‘It’s not all that easy, you know,’ she said. ‘Ending something. It’s messy, isn’t it?’

She waited for an answer, but James was staring silently at the ceiling.

‘You do understand that?’ she pressed. ‘You must know how hard it is to end a relationship. There are all sorts of connections and ties and associations. Bits of lives meshed together. You have to cut through all of that, as a surgeon cuts through living tissue.’

He nodded. ‘I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must have done it yourself.’

He continued to stare at the ceiling as he answered. ‘Not really. No, I haven’t. At least, not quite like this.’

‘Well, it would have been a bit different in your case.’

He looked at her coolly. ‘Why do you say that?’

She blushed. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Of course it’s the same for everyone.’

The coolness he had shown vanished. When she looked at him, she suddenly saw only regret.

‘I’ve never been there,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve never had what you’d call a love affair.’

‘But . . .’

‘No, I mean it. People think that everybody has been involved with somebody else, whatever their nature. They find it inconceivable that one might go through life never finding anybody. But you know something, Caroline? I think that’s far more common than you would ever imagine. There are plenty of people in that position.’

Impulsively, she reached out and took his hand. It seemed the most natural, the easiest thing to do, and it seemed easy for him too.

‘Poor James,’ she whispered.

He smiled at her weakly. ‘Yes, poor James.’

For a few minutes they sat there, not speaking, and not really looking at one another either. Their hands remained together, though, and when she squeezed his gently, in sympathy, he returned the pressure. It was as if signals were being exchanged in the night, in a time of war, perhaps - flashes of light in the darkness, one in answer to the other, messages that confirmed the presence of human sentiment, as feeling responded to feeling.

After a while, she gently relinquished her grip. She leaned over towards him and whispered, although there was nobody else in the flat, nobody who would hear, ‘Why don’t we go to Paris together?’

His eyes widened. ‘Paris?’ The italicised emphasis was perfect, she thought; just right.

She had no idea why she had said this. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Very cheesy.’

‘Cheesy! It’s not cheesy.’ He paused. ‘It’s exactly the right thing to do, Caroline. Paris! Of course.’

‘We could go on the Eurostar,’ she said.

It was a lame thing to say, enough to shatter the magic of the moment, but James was not deterred: there was nothing wrong with the Eurostar.

‘There are some Bonnards I want to see there,’ he said. ‘We could look at them together.’

She nodded her agreement; the Bonnards would be nice. But as she stood up and went to look out of the window, she thought: that’s the problem - that’s exactly the problem! Paris was more than Bonnard, at least for most young couples planning un week-end. Far more.