‘No, no. That’s all fine,’ she replies meekly, her voice trembling.

  ‘What is it, then?’ I try to prise the problem out of her.

  ‘The wedding,’ she says as she bursts into tears.

  I haven’t heard her sound this upset in years.

  ‘What’s wrong with the wedding?’ I ask as I stand up and walk towards the window.

  ‘It’s off, Dad.’ She sobs. ‘The wedding is off. It’s not happening. I didn’t want to disturb you, but I don’t know what to do, and you …’

  ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m here,’ I try to calm her down, struggling to understand her teary words. Ian looks at me, concerned.

  ‘I’ve been trying to call you but you weren’t picking up again.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know if my phone’s on. I’m here now though. Just tell me what’s happened.’

  The signal cuts out for a couple of seconds and I can’t hear her clearly. I walk around the room hoping it will help, but I’m not sure if it’s at my end or due to the poor signal with Anna in the cottage. I pause under the sunlight which floods down from the dormer window.

  ‘Sorry Anna, I can’t really hear you, but I can come back today, darling?’

  ‘Dad, you really don’t need to do …’

  ‘I said I shouldn’t have left you with the B&B on top of everything. It’s too much.’

  ‘Honestly, it’s OK.’

  ‘Anna, I want to. I’m going to look now and see if I can get on a flight today. I can probably be back this afternoon,’ I say as I look at my watch, trying to calculate how long it will take us to get to Bordeaux airport, and adding in the flight time back.

  Ian looks at me even more concerned now.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Anna asks.

  ‘Of course I am. We’ve scattered Raj’s ashes which is what we came for so we can just come back a bit earlier than expected, that’s fine.’

  I look at Ian, checking if that’s OK with him.

  He nods, not knowing what is happening.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anna says, breathing heavily down the phone.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. You don’t need to apologize for anything. I promise everything’s going to be OK. I’ll go and look up the flights now, OK?

  ‘Thank you,’ she splutters between tears.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  I put the phone down, and immediately sink back on to the bed.

  I knew I shouldn’t have left her. I knew something was wrong.

  As Ian tries to ask me what Anna said, all I can do is stare straight ahead, worried about Anna, worried about Ollie, worried about whatever’s happened between the pair of them.

  And then the thought creeps into my head again that maybe meeting Sylvie just isn’t meant to be.

  53

  The shaving foam starts to drip off my face as I explain the predicament to Ian.

  ‘There’s a flight at 11 a.m., or one at 4 p.m.,’ I say as I browse the easyJet website on Ian’s phone. It takes me a while to navigate, as I fumble to remove the pop-ups warning me about cookies. ‘It takes an hour to get to Bordeaux, and then probably another fifty minutes to get to the airport.’

  ‘Hang on a second, we’ve come all this way. Are you really telling me you’re not going to see Sylvie after all this? When I nodded to you, I thought Anna was ill or something. I’m sure flying back tomorrow would be fine?’

  ‘Of course, I’d have loved to have seen Sylvie, but Anna needs me. She’s distraught. I told you there was something the matter with her and Ollie. There’s been tension between them for months.’

  I wonder if Ian can truly know how it feels to have a daughter in distress.

  ‘But you’ve been waiting for this for however many years, you have to do this for yourself.’

  ‘It’s just not meant to be.’

  ‘Don’t you dare start going on about signs again! We’re not going to make the earlier flight now anyway, so you can still see Sylvie, even if it’s just briefly, before we head to the airport.’

  I look at Ian, who is not giving up.

  ‘But is it not going to be strange if I show up and say, “actually I’ve got to go now”? And my mind is going to be on Anna, and –’

  ‘– You can make a million excuses if you want. But look, I ruined things for you last time with Sylvie, I’m not going to let you do it this time. Realistically, you can’t sort anything until we’re back in the UK and you’ve talked properly to Anna. Put it this way, would you rather –’

  ‘We’re not sixteen, Ian. One of your silly questions isn’t going to help now,’ I sigh, trying to weigh everything up.

  ‘Just hear me out.’

  ‘I’ll go for the hundred-legged spider,’ I say sarcastically.

  ‘I said, hear me out.’

  I exhale loudly.

  ‘Would you rather see Sylvie briefly and find out if there is a connection in real life? Or sit in the airport terminal for an extra hour, and then go back to your cocoon in the B&B and spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been, again? I thought we promised to make the most of life?’

  ‘Since when did you speak so much sense?’

  ‘I’ve always been the one who speaks sense.’

  I’d laugh if my sunburnt face didn’t hurt so much.

  ‘OK, so I’ll book the tickets for 4 p.m., so that probably gives me an hour or so with Sylvie?’

  As I pick up the mobile again, I accidentally open the other tab with the article about sunburn cures. I wrinkle up my face, reading it curiously.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are there no tickets for that flight?’

  ‘It says menthol shaving foam, you idiot!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can help get rid of sunburn by applying menthol shaving foam,’ I read aloud.

  ‘Yes, and?’

  ‘This isn’t menthol shaving foam you’ve put on me!’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes, it’s the menthol which would cool it. I’ve just been sitting here with shaving foam on for no reason.’

  I grab some of the foam from my face, and throw it across the room at Ian.

  An hour later, with new flights booked, we sit on the train to Bordeaux, eating punnets of pre-chopped mango.

  54

  The Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, one of the most beautiful theatres in the world and an emblem of the city, stands proudly in the centre. The eighteenth-century, neo-classical, rectangular-shaped structure is sumptuous in its design, almost temple-like with its stone frontage of twelve Corinthian columns and a balustrade decorated with twelve statues of Greek influence.

  I stand on the steps in front of it, looking out across the Place de la Comédie, scouring the crowd of people bustling through the city. Searching for Sylvie.

  I look at my watch. It’s ten to twelve. Ian, standing opposite on the other side of the square next to Gordon Ramsay’s plush restaurant, waves enthusiastically. We agreed that he would leave me to meet Sylvie alone and we’d meet back here in an hour, but it looks like he is going to hang around until Sylvie arrives, albeit in secret.

  I smile back, until a tram intercepts us and I lose sight of him. The trams come and go through the square, passing through the city centre like a model railway set.

  I look across at a couple of twenty-somethings on the steps next to me. The man, English, and the girl, French, chat away as if they’ve just been reunited. He’s dressed in a light-blue Oxford shirt, sleeves rolled up, and beige shorts. She wears denim shorts, a striped t-shirt, and large sunglasses. Her nails are painted in different colours. From the man’s awkwardness and inability to take his eyes off her, it’s clear he likes her.

  My attention is suddenly jolted as I’m brushed aside by a group of tourists entering the Opera House for a tour of the spectacular concert hall, and then I look back out across the square again, waiting, hoping for Sylvie to appear.

  I wonder if I’ll even recognize her. And will she even recognize me? Surely I look nothing like the photo of my sixteen-year-old self, especially with my sunburn and bandages. Maybe we should have let each other know what we are wearing.

  A woman hiding under a sunhat approaches slowly, and for a second I think it could be her. She smiles at me, before turning around.

  I start to worry that maybe she won’t even turn up. I didn’t give her much notice. Or my unannounced arrival and surprise message may have put her off. I breathe quickly, my hands are clammy, and my heart thuds through my chest, just like it did all those years ago when I knocked on her door. I just hope this time she’s here.

  The clock chimes twelve.

  And then I see her. My heart, my gut, tells me it’s her.

  She’s right on time.

  She walks across the square, looks up, unsure at first, before she catches my eye, and smiles. It’s a smile which whisks me right back. Back to that black and white passport photo.

  She’s as pretty as she was as a teenager. Her long dark hair is now shorter, worn in a side-parted, fashionable bob. Her face is etched with wrinkles of happiness. She wears glasses now, like me. Her eyes, still as bright, still as glistening. Her smile, still gleaming.

  We smile at each other as if we’re close friends, not people who have never met.

  I realize it is the first time I’ve seen her in colour.

  Her red lipstick. Her gold earrings. Her blue eyes.

  She walks across the square towards me, and I walk down the steps towards her.

  I realize as we approach each other that all the teenage excitement and heartbreak, the planning, the cross-country trip, the upsetting my parents, the expulsion which in turn probably changed the whole course of my life, all of that has led to this moment.

  The other people who sit on the steps of the Opera House, who walk past, who get on or off the tram, don’t think of this moment as anything but a routine minute of their lives. But for us this moment is one we’ve waited decades for. The drama is not happening inside on the stage, but outside on the pavement.

  ‘Hello Simon,’ she says.

  55

  ‘Hello Sylvie,’ I say warmly as we hug for the first time, and she kisses me on both cheeks.

  As we let go and stand back, I can’t help but continue admiring her, rather than the grand architecture behind her.

  Neither of us knows what to say.

  ‘Je n’en … crois pas … mes yeux,’ I say, breaking the silence, smiling, hoping I’ve used her expression in the right way.

  She laughs, hopefully at the sentiment, rather than my pronunciation.

  ‘Very good. I mean it’s not quite like Colin Firth in Love, Actually, but I’m pleased you’ve learnt one French phrase,’ she smiles. ‘I can’t believe my eyes either. I can’t believe we are finally meeting.’

  Her English is polished, fluent, with only a trace of the French accent I remember.

  ‘We took our time, didn’t we?’

  ‘We did.’ Her eyes glint as she smiles.

  ‘It’s … it’s lovely to see you, in person,’ I muster, still dazed by the situation. ‘I don’t know where to even start.’

  I laugh nervously. I may be sixty, but I suddenly feel sixteen again.

  ‘Maybe with what you are doing here?’ She looks me up and down, confused. ‘Are you cycling somewhere?’

  ‘So it’s quite a long story.’

  ‘It’s a good thing I like long stories,’ she smiles, and indicates the street ahead. ‘Shall we walk and talk?’

  As we leave the square together I fill her in on the memorial, reuniting with Ian, and the idea to cycle to Arcachon. I glimpse Ian still lurking, his face beaming. He puts two thumbs up, as we stroll across the tram tracks into a long shop-lined street. The Apple Store on our left, a shop selling the local sweet delicacy of canelés on the right.

  ‘Where did you cycle from?’

  ‘From England. From my cottage.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Honestly, we did. Well, until La Rochelle at least, where as you can see I had a little accident.’

  ‘I didn’t want to mention that. What happened to you?’ she asks, clearly too polite to mention my burnt face either.

  ‘I didn’t see the car coming! And falling off a bike at my age is quite painful. You don’t just bounce back up any more. When I wrote to you about the last couple of days being crazy, it was because I’ve been in hospital.’

  ‘Oh God. Are you OK, though? Should you be walking around?’ She puts her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘It’s fine, thank you. Nothing too serious, thankfully. Although it did end our cycling. So we caught the train to Arcachon which, I’ll be honest, was much easier.’

  She pauses, seemingly more confused than before.

  ‘Can I ask why did you choose Arcachon? I mean it’s a very lovely place, but why there?’

  I pause for a second, wondering whether I should say.

  ‘So, this is the second time we’ve done this trip actually. We cycled here when we were at school, and we spent a night in Arcachon, and Raj loved it so we thought it was a fitting place,’ I say coyly, knowing what her next question will be.

  ‘Really? When was that?’

  I look across at her.

  ‘It’s a bit awkward saying this now, but we actually came to see you.’

  She stops in her tracks.

  ‘What do you mean, you came to see me? When?’

  ‘That summer after we’d been writing to each other, and we’d hoped to do the exchange …’

  ‘Yes,’ she nods.

  ‘After our exams finished, we cycled to Bordeaux to see you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ I reply.

  We now stand in the street, staring at each other, swarmed by tourists flooding out of McDonalds with paper cups and Big Macs.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘You’d moved.’

  It takes a couple of seconds and then Sylvie looks up at me as if everything has just clicked.

  ‘We arrived at your house to find someone else there, and well, we had to turn around again.’

  Her mouth hangs open as she tries to get her head around the revelation.

  ‘You didn’t know we moved?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. Apparently you’d only moved the day before.’

  ‘I remember it was all so sudden, we were only renting that property, and Dad wanted to move. I definitely wrote to tell you … Oh God …’ Sylvie looks completely bewildered, trying to process everything. ‘You cycled all this way. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Is that why you stopped writing? I don’t blame you. You cycled all that way.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that at all. We … or actually, Raj and I, got caught when we got back and we were expelled from school. So I never got any of your letters. I never knew your new address. I had no way of contacting you.’

  ‘But I wrote to Ian too?’

  ‘So I’ve only just discovered! Your message the other day was the first I’d heard of it,’ I roll my eyes.

  ‘I always thought it was you who stopped writing, but you just didn’t have my address. And of course, I moved that summer from what we call collège to lycée so you wouldn’t have had my new school address either.’

  ‘And I always thought it was you who stopped writing.’

  ‘That’s so bad. All those years. I can’t believe it. If you’d got that letter with my address …’

  ‘Or if we’d arrived a day earlier in Bordeaux.’

  We pause again, looking at each other.

  ‘I’m sorry to start with such a bombshell,’ I joke as we slowly carry on walking.

  ‘I know. I really don’t know what to say after that. I am just trying to … I don’t know … I just can’t believe that you cycled to see me. That was … wow … so sweet of you.’

  ‘With hindsight, it was probably more silly than sweet, not telling you about it though. The worst-planned surprise ever, I reckon.’

  I smile at her as we carry on along the never-ending, paved shopping street in silence, just reflecting on everything.

  ‘What did you do when you were here all those years ago?’ Sylvie asks after a few moments.

  ‘Nothing! Literally nothing. We cycled around the cathedral a few times, and then turned around and went all the way home.’

  Sylvie covers her eyes with her hands again.

  ‘I think I definitely owe you a tour then … if you’d like?’

  ‘That’s the other thing.’

  As we reach another pretty paved square – where trees grow out of oversized terracotta plant pots, a mother chases her toddler, and a group of tourists surround a preserved Roman column – I explain the situation with Anna and the airport.

  ‘So after all these years, we only have an hour together. Fortunately, I know just where to take you,’ she smiles, and I immediately wish we had longer than an hour.

  56

  We’ve ventured down one of Bordeaux’s many bustling alleyways where locals are sitting out at the street tables, drinking, eating and smoking. Restaurant chalkboards advertise their lunchtime specials, people flood out of the independent shops, and mopeds scoot in between families taking photos on their mobiles. The whole city looks different than I remember from our few hours here before. The buildings are cleaner – the layers of industrial pollution scrubbed off – and the city is clearly more geared up for visitors.

  ‘Is that …?’ I start to ask Sylvie, as we come to a stop and I look up at the mint green frontage of the shop in front of us. ‘Is that the record shop that you always mentioned in your letters?’ I shake my head, thinking I’m just being daft.

  ‘You’re right. It is. I told you I’d show it to you someday,’ Sylvie smiles.

  I’m moved by the fact she remembered the details of our correspondence as well as I did.

  ‘Wow, it’s still here?’

  ‘Yes, and seeing as we’ve got limited time, then this had to be the first place in Bordeaux that I took you to.’

 

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