Magic Sometimes Happens Part 29

'You went there?'

'Yes, when I was ten. Pat, shall I sort something out?' She looked at me enquiringly, head tilted to one side. 'You don't really hate surprises, do you?'

'I guess I don't but no more rocks?'

'No more rocks,' she promised.

A few days later, she called me on my cell. 'It's all arranged for Friday,' she announced. 'You'll need your pa.s.sports and a change of clothes, or maybe three for Polly. We'll be away two nights.'

'Why do we need our pa.s.sports?'

'Why do you think you need your pa.s.sports, dummy?'

'Where exactly are we going, Rosie?'

'You'll have to wait and see.'

ROSIE.

I had to face it some time, and going with Pat and Joe and Polly meant I'd have distractions.

'Come on, Rosie, spill?' said Pat on Friday morning when he rang me at the office.

'You'll soon know,' I told him.

'Do the kids need factor forty?'

'Yes, might be a plan.'

'You're such a tease, Miss Rosie.'

'Just a few more hours to wait, Professor, and all will be revealed.'

Although I'd booked it, paid for it, got overdrawn for it, I was still going to give myself the chance to chicken out.

I met them at St Pancras.

Pat was looking puzzled, Polly solemn. But Joe was jigging up and down and grinning, ready for adventures. He had spiked his hair with gel and wore a stylish, brand new denim jacket.

'It's from Gap,' he told me.

'Cool,' I said. 'I like the corduroy collar.'

'It's Sherpa-lined as well. You do rate it, don't you?'

'Joe, I love it!' I'd never known a child so keen on fashion. He was going to be the next Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren or Jasper Conran, I would bet my new Armani shades. 'How did you hurt your finger?'

'I cut it on some paper.'

'Ouch, those paper cuts are horrible.'

'Yeah, there was a ton of blood. But Mom got me Batman Band-Aids look?'

'You said we needed pa.s.sports. So why are we here in central London?' asked his father, dispensing with the niceties of greeting and cutting to the chase. 'Why aren't we at the airport?'

'Good evening, Pat. It's great to see you. h.e.l.lo, Polly. What a pretty anorak. I love the pink embroidery.'

'Rosie!' Pat looked ready to combust spontaneously.

'We don't need to fly.' I handed him my iPod. 'Listen for a moment, will you?'

So he did, still frowning. But then, as comprehension dawned, he smiled. 'It's An American in Paris. We're not going to Paris, Rosie?'

'Yes!'

'Paris, France?'

'No, Paris, Texas, Pat. Of course we're going to Paris, France, you clot.' I turned to Joe. 'We're going to catch a very special train. It goes under the water.'

'Awesome!' Joe exclaimed, his brown eyes sparkling. 'Do we get to see some sharks and whales?'

PATRICK.

She played me An American in Paris, my favourite piece of Gershwin.

So she had been listening that time in Minneapolis when we were at the concert hall and I had talked about my favourite music and she hadn't seemed to hear.

Until I came to Britain, I never rode the train. British people do it all the time. But in America, we have about destroyed our railroad network. There've been a few attempts in recent years to change this situation but, apart from in New England, mostly tourists tend to ride the few remaining routes. The rest of us drive everywhere or fly.

As soon as we were boarded, Joe spent several minutes unfolding then refolding the tables which were fixed between the seats and worrying because there were no seat belts and no fire extinguishers, or none that he could see.

'What if there's a train wreck?' he demanded anxiously.

'There won't be a train wreck.'

'Dad, there could so be a wreck! One time I saw a wreck on CBS. It was someplace in Africa. A ton of cars caught fire. Mommy said the people were all fried. I don't want to be fried.'

'There won't be a train wreck,' I repeated. 'Now will you quiet down, relax a while? Chill out, like Polly?'

Polly started yawning soon as we began to move. So her brother let her put her feet up on his lap to lie full-length, and pretty soon she was asleep. That baby would sleep anyplace, I swear. But Joe was permanently wired.

ROSIE.

As Joe sat there dismantling and then rea.s.sembling Lego heroes in all kinds of different permutations, as Polly slept and Pat read through some academic papers, I looked at his pa.s.sport.

The photograph was very good. It showed him looking calm and grave and intellectual. My own pa.s.sport photograph is of an electrocuted hare that's seen a buzzard and knows its time has come.

'You didn't bring a book?' asked Pat, glancing up from something that looked like one long algebraic formula. Do I mean an algebraic formula? Something I could never understand, at any rate, even though I'd sorted out percentages at last.

'I have some novels on my phone, but I don't feel like reading them right now.'

'You look anxious, Rosie. Something wrong?'

'I'm okay,' I said. 'But my ears are popping and it's rather disconcerting.'

'Mine are popping, too.'

'We must be underwater, then?'

'I guess.'

'Joe looks rather flushed. Do you think he needs to take his jacket off? It's quite warm in here.'

'Yeah, might be a plan. But he always goes red in the face when he's excited, and today he's way beyond excited. Hey, little buddy, doing good?'

'I guess,' said Joe. Yawning, he flopped back against the seat. 'Dad, are we underneath the ocean yet?'

'Yeah, the Channel's right on top of us.'

'Where are the sharks?'

'We're in a tunnel.' Pat shut down his laptop, draped one arm around my shoulders. 'Let's all get some sleep now, shall we?' he suggested.

'I can't sleep,' said Joe. 'I'm too excited.'

'You just rest your eyes, then,' said his father.

Joe did as he was told and very soon he seemed to doze. Polly sprawled across his lap, her thumb wedged in her mouth.

As the three of them relaxed then slept, I found that I was almost panicking. Why was I on this train? What was I trying to prove and what would it have mattered if I never went to France again? But then I made a promise to myself. I was going to face my demons. I was going to beat them.

PATRICK.

I got some euros from an ATM and then we left the Gare du Nord and took a cab to our hotel, which was halfway down the Boulevard de Magenta. We could have walked the distance easily but the kids were tired, so we piled into a cab.

'Magenta that's my favourite word!' cried Joe, checking out the street sign as we climbed out the cab. 'Magenta means a kind of purple, Dad. Rosie, did you know magenta means a kind of purple?'

'I do now,' Rosie told him. 'Thank you, Joe.'

'You're welcome.' Joe beamed up at us. 'You guys ever want to know the meaning of a word, I'll try to help you out.'

'Rosie, could you keep the kids here on the sidewalk while I pay the guy?' I asked.

'But you don't speak French. Why don't I sort it?'

'I guess I'll be okay.'

She didn't argue like Lexie would have done. She stood there on the sidewalk with a sleeping Polly in her arms and talked to a now-yawning Joe about their favourite colours while I paid the driver, tipped him, thanked him, said goodnight.

'You're a dark horse, Riley,' she observed as I grabbed our bags. 'I understood you didn't know any French?'

'I know a little, enough to talk to waiters, drivers, clerks.'

'What else do you know?'

'You'd be surprised.'

'Madame, monsieur, soyez les bienvenus.'

The grey-haired woman at the desk talked fifty to the dozen and I couldn't follow a single thing she said, because unlike the taxi driver, who made big concessions to the fact that I was foreign and who was a foreigner himself she went way too fast.

'So tell me?' I demanded, when after several minutes of chatting and gesticulating and becoming new best friends, Rosie turned to me and handed me a key card. 'No, don't tell me, let me guess. Why's a pretty girl like you in Paris with a baboon like me?'

'It was a gorilla, actually. But Madame also said the kids are gorgeous, and would we like our breakfast in our room tomorrow morning? Or would we prefer to come downstairs because there is a dining room, and is there anything we need tonight?'

'Does this place have an elevator?' I glanced toward the staircase winding high above our heads, three, four, five storeys high. 'Or do I carry these two kids up all those spiral stairs?'

'You'll find the elevator on your right, monsieur,' the woman said in perfect English as she smiled charmingly at me. 'I wish you all a pleasant stay in Paris.'

We had a large white room four storeys up which must have been an icebox in the winter but was perfect at this time of year, high above the noise and fumes of traffic in the boulevard below. There were two big beds with clean white comforters, a very basic bathroom, two long windows with fine wrought iron balconies and a view of spires and turrets and apartment blocks. Doves were nesting on the window ledges and cooing peacefully.

'I hope this is all right?' asked Rosie, looking kind of anxious now. 'It's a room they usually keep for families with children. I thought it would suit us?'

'It's fine,' I said. 'We couldn't ask for better. You know something, Rosie?'

'What?'

'We're going to have a ball.'

ROSIE.

So did he understand what I had said that afternoon while we on the Sugar Loaf, when I had told him I would like to baiser him? Well, I thought, there'll be no opportunities for baisering this weekend his kids will see to that.

We started off the night with Pat and both his children in one of the beds, with Joe and Polly piled on top of him like puppies in a basket. I had the other bed all to myself. I should have been happy, I suppose. At least, I thought, I can stretch out in comfort. Glancing at the squirming, snorting heap across the room, however, in the silver moonlight filtering through the muslin curtains, I had never felt so lonely.

I checked my phone. There were no texts, no emails. So I felt lonelier still. I watched a video on my phone and then replayed it in my head. I tried to doze, still thinking this had been a big mistake and wondering how I'd cope when morning came, how I would walk these streets again?

I thought I'd never sleep. But it would seem I did. As it was starting to get light, I realised there was someone little snuggled up in bed with me and mewing like a kitten in distress. 'What's the matter, sweetheart?'

'Mommy,' whimpered Polly.

'You'll see Mommy soon. I tell you what we'll call her in the morning, shall we?'

Polly sniffed and blinked.

'But it's not morning yet. So shall we cuddle up again? Shall we shut our eyes?' I shut mine tight and hoped that she would do the same.

She must have done. When I woke up a few hours later, there were small, fat starfish fingers tangled in my hair and she was sucking on a strand of it contentedly.