(126)HIGHER THAN SEEING IS
1710 steps to the top. Breathless steps and his legs so
heavy Anton can’t make it, not quite. But from where he stands, which is high,
he can see all of Paris. All the world it feels like – except he doesn’t see
his wife, Melissa, leaving the bed of Roger.
(127)CITY OF LOVERS
She’d been to Paris before. ‘City of Lovers’ they call it,
and she’d been with Carl. Two weeks and they barely left the hotel bedroom by
day, and drank themselves into sleep and something like sex by night. She does
not tell Leonardo about Carl and being in Paris before.
(128)THE BOOKSHOP BELL
There’s a bookshop he knows and from its doorway you can see
the tower. Small enough it could fit in your pocket, that’s what it looks like,
a pretty bookmark for the book in his hand: Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of
Notre Dame’. The shop bell rings as he enters.
(129)NEXT TIME
Ernest had brought it back for her. Wrapped in socks and
damp bath towels and tucked into his suitcase. A snowglobe for her collection
and the Eiffel Tower swirling in shaken snow. ‘City of lovers,’ Louisa said,
pouting, and he smiled and promised next time to take her with him.
(130)NEWSREEL
His name was Franz Reichelt. He smiled, shook the hands of
well-wishers, laughed at girls with tears on their cheeks, doffed his flat cap
at his betters and waved before jumping. The whole event’s recorded on old
newsreel: a parachute should have opened but he fell hard like a stone.
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