The Paris Apartment

Jess

I trundle my suitcase across the concourse at Gare de l’Est, the broken wheel catching every few steps; I really do need to get it fixed. I look up at the screen to find my train.

There it is: the night service to Milan, where I’ll change before going on to Rome. In the early hours of the morning we’ll travel along the shore of Lake Geneva and apparently when it’s clear you can see the Alps. Sounds pretty good to me. I thought it was time for my own European tour, of sorts. Ben’s staying here to make a name for himself as an investigative journalist. So for perhaps the first time ever, I’m the one leaving him. Not running from anything or anyone. Just traveling, in search of the next adventure.

I’ve even got a place waiting for me. A studio, which is actually a fancy word for a tiny room where you can reach everything from the bed. Funnily enough, it’s a conversion of an old maids’ quarters at the top of an apartment block. And apparently it has a view of St. Peter’s, if you squint. It probably won’t be much bigger than the concierge’s cabin. But then I don’t have that much to put in it: the contents of one broken suitcase.

Anyway, it’s all mine. No, not mine mine . . . I didn’t buy it—are you crazy? Even if I did somehow have the cash, I wouldn’t want my name on the deeds for anything. Wouldn’t want to be tied down. But I did put down the deposit on it and paid the first month in advance. I took a cut of the money the girls at the club were getting. A kind of finder’s fee, if you like. I’m not a saint, after all.

As for the girls—the women, I should say—of course I couldn’t hold each of their hands and make sure it was all going to be OK. But it’s nice to know that they’ve been given the same thing I have. That it’ll buy them time. A little breathing room. Maybe even the opportunity to do something else.

Twenty minutes before my train leaves. I look around for somewhere to grab a snack. And as I do I glimpse a figure moving through the crowd. Small, with a familiar, crouching, shuffling gait. A silk headscarf. A silver whippet on a lead. Joining the queue of people waiting to board a train—I look up at the screen above the platform—to Nice, in the South of France. And then I glance away, and don’t look again until the train is pulling out of the platform. Because we’re all entitled to that, aren’t we?

The chance of a new life.