Love Over Scotland - Alexander Hanchett Smith [137]
“Poor Lou,” said Matthew. “But there was somebody there who said that he might be able to help her.”
Pat listened as Matthew explained about Stuart’s suggestion. It Pat and Matthew Talk 287
seemed unlikely to her that anything could be done, but they could try, she supposed. Poor Lou. She rose to her feet and offered to prepare a salad. “I can’t sit here and do nothing,” she said.
“Yes, you can,” said Matthew. “Let me look after you.”
The words had come out without really being intended, and he hoped that she would not take them the wrong way. But what was the wrong way? All that the words meant was that he wanted to make her dinner, and what was wrong with wanting to make somebody dinner?
Laughing, Pat said: “No, you do the pasta. I’ll do the salad.”
Matthew opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine. He poured Pat a glass and one for himself. The wine was probably too chilled, as the glass was misting. He thought of the misting panes in the basement kitchen he had seen round the corner, and of the people standing in their window. Pat told him about a seminar she had attended that day. He listened, but did not pay much attention to what she was saying. The seminar had been on Romantic art and somebody had said something very stupid, which had made everybody laugh. Matthew did not listen to the stupid remark as she retold it; he was thinking only of how nice it would be to be in a seminar with Pat. He wanted to be with her all the time now. He closed his eyes. I can’t let this happen to me, he thought. I can’t fall so completely for this girl, because she won’t fall for me. I’m just a friend. That’s all. I’m just her friend. And then, suddenly, Pat passed behind him, and brushed against him, her arm against his, and he gave a start and halfturned. She was right behind him and he looked at her and she said: “Oh, sorry . . .”
He took her hand. She looked at him, and then lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” said Matthew, reckless now. “I really am. I didn’t mean to fall for you. I didn’t actually make a decision. It’s not like that. That’s not the way it works.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Pat.
“But it does.”
There was a brief silence. “But I like you too.”
288 Alone in Paris
“You do?”
A further silence. The pasta bubbled.
“How much?”
“Lots.”
Matthew sighed. “But . . . but not like that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.
And it seemed to Matthew that all the bells of Edinburgh, and beyond, were ringing out at once, in joyous, joyous peals. 92. Alone in Paris
When he woke up that morning and realised that he had slept in, Bertie felt intensely alarmed. But he was not a boy given to panic, and so he dressed carefully, brushing his hair with attention to the fact that he was, after all, in Paris. Then he made his way downstairs, allowing himself at least to hope that somebody from the orchestra might have stayed behind for him or possibly left a note. But the woman at the desk informed him that the Edinburgh group had left. She assumed that Bertie belonged to a British couple staying upstairs and it did not enter her head that he was now entirely on his own. Bertie sat down in the lobby and wondered what to do. They had obviously forgotten all about him, he decided, but they would remember their mistake when they arrived in Edinburgh and his parents asked where he was. He looked at his watch; that should be happening about now. And then they would come back to fetch him, but would probably not arrive until tomorrow morning. So that, in his reckoning, gave him a whole day and night in Paris, which would be rather interesting. He had quite a bit of his spending money left over, as nobody had allowed him to pay for anything, and he could use that to tide him over. It might even be enough to get a ticket for the Moulin Rouge, should he come across that establishment during the sightseeing that he proposed to do.
Paging through his guidebook and map, Bertie decided that Alone in Paris 289
he would set off to the Louvre. He liked galleries, and he thought that he would possibly spend the entire