Free A Week in Paris by Rachel Hore

really couldn’t. She must still be in her daydream. But it was him.
    ‘I’ve been looking for you since the concert. Do you remember me, Fay?’
    ‘Of course I do, but I’m not sure I believe it.’ She took his outstretched hand and he bent and kissed her cheek. It really was him. It was Adam.
    ‘This might seem the most extraordinary coincidence, but it isn’t, not really,’ Adam said, tucking his notebook into his jacket pocket. ‘A prestigious English orchestra comes to Paris, it’s the most natural thing in the world for the
Chronicle
to send their local stringer to cover it. It’ll only be a paragraph at the bottom of page sixteen, mind you, they’re mean that way.’
    ‘The
Chronicle
? You’re a
journalist
?’
    ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘Of course, I didn’t know that you’d be playing. Though I do remember your passion for music. Seeing you there at the concert, well, it was a shock, I’ll admit that much – but a pleasant one,’ he added hurriedly. ‘You looked so intent during the Schubert, almost rapturous. I recognized you at once, you know.’
    ‘Did you really?’ A few days on a school trip and they could hardly be said to have got to know one another. A couple of dances and a glass of lemonade; that had been the sum of it. But then
she
had recognized him instantly, as though a part of her had been looking for him.
    ‘I hope I look a little different. The last time we met I was in that awful school uniform at the Gare du Nord with my hair in bunches.’ She grimaced at the thought of how she must have looked. ‘Well, maybe not the bunches, but still, it was . . . how many years ago?’
    ‘Four or five? Ages, anyway. And of course you look different. So . . . grown up.’ His eyes showed his appreciation. ‘And yet the same.’
    As they talked of what they’d been doing since then, she was struck by how easily they conversed. There was none of the teenage tongue-tied awkwardness of that evening at the Hôtel de Ville. After leaving school, Adam told her, he had studied French and German at Manchester University, then landed a position as a cub reporter. When he’d heard about the job in Paris he’d applied like a shot. She remembered how he claimed to have fallen in love with the city.
    ‘You must speak French very well by now,’ she sighed. ‘I’m afraid I’m still hopeless.’
    ‘
Je me débrouille assez bien
,’ he said, in what sounded like a perfect accent.
    ‘
Un jolly sight plus que moi
,’ was her quick reply and he laughed. He offered her a cigarette, a Gitane, but she declined, watching as he lit it for himself and finding she liked the sweet aroma. She studied him covertly as he talked, thinking how he’d grown into himself, filled out from the gangly boyishness. The way he rested one hand on the railing of the balcony, holding his cigarette in the other as he regarded her, was graceful and confident.
    ‘What were you smiling at?’ he said, his forehead crinkling in that endearing way she remembered.
    ‘Was I smiling? I’m sorry, I was thinking, despite everything, how very English you look. Does that sound awfully rude?’
    ‘Not at all. In fact, I’ll take it as a compliment, though that might offend our hosts.’ He pretended to glance back into the room as if checking whether anyone had overheard, and they both laughed, two conspiratorial English people abroad.
    ‘I was worried when I first glimpsed you out here,’ he said, his face suddenly serious, ‘half-hanging over the balcony like that. I thought you were going to pass out. I’m not used to dealing with swooning damsels, you know. What should I have done if you’d fainted? Thrown champagne over you?’
    ‘I wasn’t swooning,’ Fay said, indignant. ‘I was listening to some music down in the street. But I did feel odd a moment ago,’ she admitted. ‘That’s why I came out for some air.’ She wasn’t sure enough of him to describe her fancies about what she’d heard, how she’d had