‘Hey.’ I look up to see Florian peeking around the door. He looks impossibly handsome, re-wearing the linen trousers and white shirt he had worn so fucking well at Birdie’s birthday that I had blushed when I saw him. He shouldn’t be here; three sculptures and a parade of sketches are currently sitting in a gallery in Marseille being stared at and talked about by the Riviera’s richest admirers, but he is. I knew that he would be. It’s the kind of certainty that I have grown incredibly fond of, that he would be wherever I needed him, even if I didn’t exactly know when and where that was.
‘Hi,’ I grimace. ‘Please don’t tell me someone needs me.’
‘I won’t.’ He holds his hands up. ‘I just wanted to see if you were okay.’
‘How do you do this all the time?’ I ask incredulously. ‘Stand there while people stare at the things you’ve made and judge them?’
‘You’ll get used to it, at the next launch.’
‘Ha ha,’ I guffaw, stub the cigarette out in the ash tray and replace it with his hand. I told him to promise me that I would never do this again. ‘How long do I have you for again?’
‘Rupert gave me the night.’ He winds me into him, pulling me into his warm and safe chest. I breathe him in, the smell I hadn’t realised I missed quite so much until he had turned up at my house this afternoon with some flowers and a bottle of wine – the shit one he had rescued me from all those months and years ago.
Rupert became Florian’s agent exactly one month after Birdie’s birthday and things had changed fast. Florian sold two sculptures for double what he had anticipated and suddenly there were so many commissions that Florian had started having to say no to some. He had taken on two apprentices who worked like little elves in the workshop and became a constant presence in my life, even when Florian was away on one of his many trips, meeting clients, sourcing stone (a surprisingly time-consuming experience) and showing his work. It was exciting to watch him, to see him in his ‘public mode’ when he was at a gallery, the Florian that oozed confidence and charm, and he deserved it all, every article, every accolade, every glowing review.
Etienne Grenaud would have been so bloody proud. He would have gone to every show, told every customer in the café about Florian’s latest project, helped him out at the weekends, smiling smugly the entire time because he always knew how great his little brother could be.
Madame Grenaud had made one appearance at a show in Bordeaux, uninvited. Florian was adamant that he was going to ignore her but I pulled him over for a strained hello. It seemed like the right thing to do. The rage I had once felt for her had subsided a little, replaced with a pity that only the smug and ridiculously happy seem to possess. Florian however, had doubled down on the resentment. He had told me in the car on the way home from that particular exhibition that her ‘help’ had almost cost him the best few months of his life and he didn’t think he could ever see past that. So, she remained at arm’s length, her house an obstacle we drove past, her figure at the weekly markets ignored.
‘Think your parents will mind the house guest this evening?’ We both turn to the window, where my parents are talking to last year’s winner of the Booker, probably completely unaware.
‘I think they’ll love it.’ It’s the truth. When I had eventually told Mum the reason why I wouldn’t be coming back to London she obviously had her concerns. She and Dad came out to visit later that month; I am entirely certain they were checking whether I needed to be sectioned, but when they met Florian I think everything sort of slotted into place. Mum said that she hadn’t seen me happy in so long, she had forgotten quite how lovely it was.
‘Just one more week,’ he sighs. ‘One more week and then it will all be done and we’ll be on that plane.’
‘Oh yes,’ I nod. ‘I can’t wait.’ The holiday had been a gift from The American, flights to San Sebastian for a long weekend. She said it was a very late Christmas present but I knew her game, knew that she thought an opportunity somewhere far away, with Spanish wine, beaches and culture might inspire Florian to do something with the little box he had been keeping in his bedside drawer that he thinks is well hidden. I had come around to hoping that she might be right.
‘Have you spoken to her?’ he asks into my hair.
‘She’s holding up.’ I grimace, thinking of her in Toulouse, holding Bluette’s hand, the woman she had spent her entire life loving slipping away from this world to somewhere else. She had told me that she was taking some comfort in it, that she was grateful to be able to say goodbye, and I understood that. My goodbye exists in the form of a three-hundred-page memoir currently in the hands of everyone in the store.
‘We’ll have her for dinner after we get back.’ He plays with my fingers, staring at them a little too closely, noticing something different about them. How empty they are perhaps.
‘I did it this morning.’ I reach into my dress and pull out a gold chain with a little circle of gold at its base. ‘Mum gave me the chain. I thought that today was as good a day as any; the book is proof that we happened, it’s enough.’
He nods, still looking at my fingers, inspecting where the dent from eleven years of wear was still circling my ring finger. ‘I love you,’ he says quietly and his hand scoops my chin up so we are looking at each other. ‘I’m so fucking proud of you.’
‘I know.’ I kiss his cheek. ‘I’m proud of you too.’
‘I’m going to say I haven’t seen you.’ He breaks away, a glint in his eye. ‘I’ll distract your fans.’
‘That would be much appreciated.’
‘I’ll check in, in a bit.’ He gives my hands a final squeeze and returns to the crowd.
It’s like a revolving door: when the shop consumes Florian, it spits out Sam who looks slightly frantic.
‘Ava,’ her voice thunders around the corner. ‘There you bloody are.’
‘Sorry I just… I needed some space.’
She doesn’t look angry, instead she just waves my apology away. ‘You’d be surprised how many authors go missing at their first rodeo. I found my last one necking a tequila in a pub up the road.’
‘You know, tequila does sound quite appealing.’
‘I’m on it. First though, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.’
‘You do?’ I panic that she is about to present someone far too important, someone rich and clever who I will undoubtedly embarrass myself in front of.
