Read Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella for Free Online

attention, sulking when she doesn’t get it. Doing things alone and ‘making the best of it’.
    She sees future trips with David: herself, flicking through guidebooks of local attractions, trying not to show her disappointment when, yet again, there is some important work thing he cannot miss.
I’m going to end up like my mother. She left it too late to remember who she actually was before she became a wife.
    Wifey.
    The Musée d’Orsay is suddenly too crowded, too noisy. She finds herself pushing her way downstairs, going the wrong way through the advancing crowds, muttering apologies as she meets the resistance of shoulders, elbows, bags. She slips sideways down a flight of stairs, and weaves her way along a corridor, but instead of heading towards the exit, she finds herself beside a grand dining room, where a queue has started to build for tables. Where are the bloody exits? The place is suddenly ridiculously full of people. Liv fights her way through the art-deco section – the huge pieces of organic furniture grotesque, overly flamboyant, and realizes she is at the wrong end. She lets out a great sob of something she can’t quite articulate.
    ‘Are you all right?’
    She spins round. Tim Freeland is staring at her, a brochure in his hand. She wipes briskly at her face, tries to smile. ‘I – I can’t find my way out.’
    His eyes travel over her face –
is she actually crying? –
and she’s mortified. ‘I’m sorry. I just – I really need to get out of here.’
    ‘The crowds,’ he says quietly. ‘They can be a bit much at this time of year. Come on.’ He touches her elbow, and steers her along the length of the museum, keeping to the darker rooms at the edges where fewer people seem to congregate. Within minutes they are down a flight of stairs and exiting onto the bright concourse outside, where the queue to enter has grown even longer.
    They stop a short distance away. Liv pulls her breathing back under control. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says, looking back. ‘I don’t think you’ll be able to get back in.’
    He shakes his head. ‘I was done for the day. When you reach the stage where you can’t see anything for the backs of people’s heads, it’s probably time to leave anyway.’
    They stand there for a moment on the bright, wide pavement. The traffic crawls along the side of the river, a moped weaving noisily in and out of the stationary cars. The sun casts the buildings in the blue-white light that seems peculiar to the city.
    ‘Would you like a coffee? I think it might be a good idea if you sat down for a few minutes.’
    ‘Oh – I can’t. I’m meant to be meeting –’ She looks down at her phone. There are no messages. She stares at it, taking this in. Digesting the fact that it is now almost an hour later than when he’d said he’d be through. ‘Um … can you give me a minute?’
    She turns away, dials David’s number, squinting as she peers at the traffic crawling along the quai Voltaire. It goes straight to voicemail. She wonders, fleetingly, what to say to him. And then she decides not to say anything at all.
    She closes her phone and turns back to Tim Freeland. ‘Actually, I’d love a coffee. Thank you.’
    Un café, et une grande crème.
Even when she employs her best French accent the waiters invariably answer her in English. After the morning’s various humiliations it is a minor enough embarrassment. She drinks a coffee, orders a second, breathes in the warm city air and deflects any further attention from herself.
    ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ Tim Freeland says, at one point. ‘Either you’re a journalist, or you’ve been to a very good finishing school.’
    ‘Or I’m an expert in industrial espionage. And I’ve heard all about your new widget.’
    He laughs. ‘Ah … unfortunately I’m a widget-free zone. I’m retired.’
    ‘Really? You don’t look old enough.’
    ‘I’m not old enough. I sold my business nine months ago. I’m still trying to