To Cut a Long Story Short

‘So be it,’ I said, and stepped into the road to hail a taxi.

Susie didn’t speak on the journey back to the hotel, and as soon as we arrived, she disappeared upstairs while I settled the bill and asked if my bags, already packed, could be brought down.

Even then, I have to admit that when she stepped out of the lift and smiled at me, I almost wished my name was Richard.

To Susie’s surprise, I accompanied her to Charles de Gaulle, explaining that I would be returning to London on the first available flight. We said goodbye below the departure board with a hug - a sort of ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again, but then perhaps we won’t’ hug.

I waved goodbye and began walking away, but couldn’t resist turning to see which airline counter Susie was heading for.

She joined the queue for the Swissair check-in desk. I smiled, and headed for the British Airways counter.

Six years have passed since that weekend in Paris, and I didn’t come across Susie once during that time, although her name did occasionally pop up in dinner-party conversations.

I discovered that she had become the editor of Art Nouveau, and had married an Englishman called Ian, who was in sports promotion. On the rebound, someone said, after an affair with an American banker.

Two years later I heard that she’d given birth to a son, followed by a daughter, but no one seemed to know their names. And finally, about a year ago, I read of her divorce in one of the gossip columns.

And then, without warning, Susie suddenly rang and suggested we might meet for a drink. When she chose the venue, I knew that she hadn’t lost her nerve. I heard myself saying yes, and wondered if I’d recognise her.

As I watched her walking up the steps of the Tate, I realised that the only thing I had forgotten was just how beautiful she was. If anything, she was even more captivating than before.

We had been in the gallery for only a few minutes before I was reminded what a pleasure it was to listen to her talk about her chosen subject. I had never really come to terms with Damien Hirst, having only recently accepted that Warhol and Lichtenstein were more than just draughtsmen, but I certainly left the exhibition with a new respect for his work.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that Susie had booked a table for lunch in the Tate restaurant, or that she never once referred to our weekend in Paris until, over coffee, she asked, ‘If you could do anything in the world right now, what would it be?’

‘Spend the weekend in Paris with you,’ I said, laughing.

‘Then let’s do it,’ she said. ‘There’s a Hockney exhibition at the Pompidou Centre that has had glowing reviews, and I know a comfortable but unpretentious little hotel that I haven’t visited in years, not to mention a restaurant that prides itself on not being in any of the tourist guides.’

I have always considered it ignoble for any man to discuss a lady as if she were simply a conquest or a trophy, but I must confess that, as I watched Susie disappear through the departure gate to catch her flight back to New York on the following Monday morning, it had been well worth the years of waiting.

She has never contacted me since.

SOMETHING FOR NOTHING*

JAKE BEGAN to dial the number slowly, as he had done almost every evening at six o’clock since the day his father had passed away. For the next fifteen minutes he settled back to listen to what his mother had been up to that day.

She led such a sober, orderly life that she rarely had anything of interest to tell him. Least of all on a Saturday. She had coffee every morning with her oldest friend, Molly Schultz, and on some days that would last until lunchtime. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she played bridge with the Zaccharis who lived across the street. On Tuesdays and Thursdays she visited her sister Nancy, which at least gave her something to grumble about when he rang on those evenings.

On Saturdays, she rested from her rigorous week. Her only strenuous activity being to purchase the bulky Sunday edition of the Times just after lunch - a strange New York tradition, which at least gave her the chance to inform her son which stories he should check up on the following day.

For Jake, every evening the conversation would consist of a few appropriate questions, depending on the day. Monday, Wednesday, Friday: How did the bridge go? How much did you win/lose? Tuesday, Thursday: How is Aunt Nancy? Really? Tha

t bad? Saturday: Anything interesting in the Times that I should look out for tomorrow?

Observant readers will be aware that there are seven days in any given week, and will want to know what Jake’s mother did on a Sunday. On Sunday, she always joined his family for lunch, so there was no need for him to call her that evening.

Jake dialled the last digit of his mother’s number and waited for her to pick up the phone. He had already prepared himself to be told what he should look out for in tomorrow’s New York Times. It usually took two or three rings before she answered the phone, the amount of time required for her to walk from her chair by the window to the phone on the other side of the room. When the phone rang four, five, six, seven times, Jake began to wonder if she might be out. But that wasn’t possible. She was never out after six o’clock, winter or summer. She kept to a routine that was so regular it would have brought a smile to the lips of a Marine drill sergeant.

Finally, he heard a click. He was just about to say, ‘Hi, Mom, it’s Jake,’ when he heard a voice that was certainly not his mother’s, and was already in mid-conversation. Thinking he had a crossed line, he was about to put the phone down when the voice said, ‘There’ll be $100,000 in it for you. All you have to do is turn up and collect it. It’s in an envelope for you at Billy’s.’

‘So where’s Billy’s?’ asked a new voice.

‘On the corner of Oak Street and Randall. They’ll be expecting you around seven.’

Jake tried not to breathe in or out as he wrote down ‘Oak and Randall’ on the pad by the phone.

‘How will they know the envelope is for me?’ asked the second voice.