I could see the top part of Luc’s house from here, over the wall at the back of the garden. I’d hear the Ducati start; hear when he rode up the lane and around to come fetch me.
He’d said he would fetch me. He’d said, “If we leave at eleven, we’ll get there in plenty of time.”
I had managed to stay fairly calm till the moment the time on my mobile read: 10:58.
Because if he were going to start the Ducati and ride it around to collect me, two minutes was really the minimum time he would need.
I refreshed the display again: 10:59.
I had started to pace. He was coming, I told myself. Ordinary people weren’t hung up on time in the same way I was. I should try to stay calm.
I should go there. It was now exactly 11:00, and Luc’s house was so close I could cross the garden and go through the door in the wall and be there at his door in the time it would take me to text him or call him. Yes, that’s what I’d do. I had already paced to the end of the terrace, so walking the final short distance across the back garden and through the door into the lane seemed a logical step.
The Ducati was parked in its place at the side of Luc’s house so I knew he’d be home when I knocked at the door, and before I could start with my pacing again he had answered it.
He had his hand to his ear and it took me a second to realize that he was midway through a phone call. “Hang on a minute, Geoff,” he told the caller, and muted the mobile to kiss me hello.
“It’s 11:02,” I said. “We need to go.”
“Yes, I know. Sorry. My boss,” he explained, as he held up the mobile. “Come have a seat. We’re just finishing up now, it won’t take a minute.” He turned as he said that and crossed to the dining room table to study the screen of the laptop computer on top of it while he unmuted his phone and continued, “Thanks. Now, read me the numbers he gave you?”
He didn’t understand, I thought. Unless we left now, we’d be late. It wouldn’t matter what his brother thought of me, of how my mind worked—no one hired a person who turned up late to an interview.
I tried to breathe more normally, feeling in my pocket for my pen and my Sudoku puzzles, only to discover I’d forgotten them.
The last time I’d worried this much about being late, when I’d first come to Claudine’s and my cousin had taken her time getting ready for breakfast, at least I’d been able to take matters into my own hands and go down alone, but that wasn’t an option here. I wasn’t in control of how I got into Paris. I had to rely on Luc.
“We need to go.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d said those words audibly, my mouth had gone so dry, and Luc seemed not to have heard me.
The hall was too narrow. I took a step into the sitting room but that was worse. There was music here playing from some source I couldn’t see, not loud but vaguely discordant, like jazz. And the trees outside made moving shadows across the wall next to the window, so that to my eyes the light seemed to be flickering. Squeezing my eyes shut, I fought back the impulse to cover my ears.
No, I told myself silently. No, no, no, no…
I couldn’t have a meltdown. Not in front of Luc. Not here.
I rarely had them anymore. I’d learned to recognize the warning signs and knew the ways to calm myself before things overwhelmed me, but already I was losing my ability to concentrate. I knew Luc was still talking on his mobile but I couldn’t hear the words. The sounds around me blended into one confusing jumble, and I started trembling as the feeling of compression settled over me, as though the air around me had grown thick and heavy, closing in. In panic I clenched and unclenched my hands, making tight fists and releasing them, trying to keep control.
Forcing my eyes open, I braved the stabbing bright pain of the light as I focused on Luc and said urgently, “We need to go.”
He turned then and looked at me. Quickly he spoke again into his mobile and ended the call but he didn’t approach me. He stood there, his figure distorting and wavering like a mirage. He was saying my name: “Sara? Sara, I’m sorry. It’s OK. I’m here. It’s OK.”
But it wasn’t OK, and I knew it. I said so. “It’s not OK.” And like a wheel spinning round in a rut I repeated it over and over: “It’s not OK. Not OK. Not OK. Not OK…”
And then sensation and pain flooded up and took over and I was in meltdown.
I felt the hot tears overflowing and knew I was yelling at Luc but I wasn’t aware anymore of the things I was saying, although I could hear the accusing tone of my own voice. I heard him asking me quietly whether I wanted him to leave the room, and I told him I didn’t, I screamed it, and then I was curled on the sofa, my arms locked around my bent knees while I rocked myself, sobbing and sobbing, unable to stop…
Until slowly, like floodwaters draining by steady degrees, it began to subside.
I felt shaky. My head ached. My eyelids felt swollen and my throat felt raw.
I had folded myself into the furthest corner of Luc’s leather sofa. The light in the room now was blissfully dim, and he’d taken the armchair across from me, where he sat quietly waiting. His voice when he spoke was incredibly calm. “Sara? What do you need? Can I get you a blanket?”
I nodded and he rose and left the room, returning with a blanket of the perfect heaviness so when he draped it round my shoulders it was like a reassuring hug. And then I wanted one of those, as well. I asked him, “Can you hold me?”