Shopkeepers took down the battered flags from their awnings, and swept up dirtied strings of multicoloured paper from their plots of pavement, muttering ‘Bonjour’ to each other quietly, as though fearful of waking the sleeping city. It did not surprise me to see, when I woke, that Vincent was not lying next to me. From the look on his face the night before I’d known that I would never see him again. I didn’t care; I felt only relief at his disappearance, now certain that he would never tell Beth what he had witnessed. At first I’d thought he might do just that: walk over to her on the dance floor of that heaving club, whisper in her ear and watch as her expression turned to disbelief. The kiss had left me limp enough not to have cared if he had. But instead Vincent had turned and left. I hadn’t even tried to go after him, preferring to lose myself with strangers the rest of the night. I left around 5 a.m., without saying goodbye to anyone. The phone rang and I extended my arm just as far as I needed to unhook it with a finger.
