Harm's Way by Celia Walden

felt sick – and very young. I’d drunk too much red wine, my teeth and the roof of my mouth coated in a metallic layer of it, and suddenly felt
de trop
in my dress. Sitting down too heavily on a bar stool I looked up to see that Stephen had left the room. I knew Christian was still there, leaning against the sink, and could feel his eyes on me.
    â€˜Are you OK?’ he eventually asked in a strong
banlieue
accent.
    â€˜Fine,’ I answered, too quickly. ‘I shouldn’t have had that last glass.’
    Only then did I take the opportunity to look directly at him, drinking in the tortoiseshell eyes and dark strand of hair that lay like a scar across his forehead. He complimented me on my French, and I reciprocated on his English (‘ten years in the Parisian service industry is the best way to learn alanguage’), and when he asked, I began to recount how Beth and I had met. He was sitting at the bar now, leaning forward on his elbows, listening. He said my name with a soft inflection on the final a, as though scared to break the vowel. How nice it would be, I thought, to hear him whisper it. That instant, Beth appeared, placing her hands on her hips theatrically and scolding: ‘What are you two doing in here? Come through next door.’
    Back in the sitting room a group of people were arguing over the music, brandishing CDs they each wanted to hear. The ukulele player was asleep in the corner with his mouth open, two fillings discernible in the shadowy recess of his mouth. Opposite him, Nathalie gesticulated wildly to Marie about something neurotic. I looked at Beth and Christian, seated in the corner of the room. They were facing each other on the sofa, Beth pushing a strand of hair out of his eyes. Her sucked-in waist and extravagantly emphasised breasts betrayed the lusty confidence of alcohol. Who could resist her? But before I could break their intimacy by going over and announcing my intention to leave, the pair stood up and wordlessly made their way towards her bedroom, leaving the party in full swing.
    I awoke twice that night. The first time nagged by a needling sensation so akin to jealousy that I refused to subject it to full consciousness; the second feeling petulant and dissatisfied. I’d always despised girls who flirted their way through insecurity. Although in my view, even the worst behaviour could be excused by lust, any other motivation was deeply shameful. Pulling on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, I left the flat thinking I might go for a run, but instead weaved my waydisconsolately along the already bustling river banks in search of equilibrium. I had counted three bridges, a dozen sun-glazed second-hand bookstall owners and five posters of Freud’s profile – ‘What’s on a man’s mind?’ – before a reassuring thought edged itself to the surface.
    It was the intensity of my friendship with Beth that made me want to feel involved in this new relationship she was forming. My thoughts were simply a reaction to being marginalised. I wanted to call Beth and hear in her voice that I had betrayed none of my emotions the night before. Perhaps I might even admit how attractive I found Christian, laughingly tell her how lucky she was. Saying the words might erase all this negativity. Then the image of them both breakfasting, enjoying that indecent hunger that the first night brings, blackened out all my reasoning.
    I dived into the nearest métro and made my way to the Musée Rodin in the seventh arrondissement. Rather than go inside (I had already been there twice since my arrival in Paris) I found a bench to sit on in the gardens behind it, and watched a student drawing the limbless copper statue which rose from the middle of the pond on a plinth stained jade-green by years of rain water. But the convulsed, naked figures around it only reinforced the sensation that everyone was revelling in an intimacy from which I was excluded. And no matter