The Lost Chapter by Caroline Bishop

Author:Caroline Bishop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2022-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

We didn’t make it to midnight. It was around eleven-thirty when he took my hand, pulled me to him and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

I nodded. Tight after all the booze, and with Celeste’s words in my head, words that had only increased my fervour for this poor, fatherless man who simply needed someone to open up to (how predictable I was in my quest to be exactly the opposite!), I would have done whatever he wanted.

We left Fred, Celeste and his other friends in the ballroom and slipped out the door. It was cold as we walked down to the river in the direction of his apartment, which he told me wasn’t far. The lights from the buildings along the riverside glittered in the water, and we stood for a minute on a bridge over the Rhône, looking down. I couldn’t believe I was here, in this beautiful city with this beautiful man, while Fran and the others languished in their suburban prison.

‘What a swell city this is,’ I said, clutching his arm.

He stared into the water below. ‘Damned Krauts blew up nearly all the city’s bridges when they retreated.’

‘Gosh,’ I said. I didn’t quite know how else to respond to that, but his mention of the war reminded me of what Celeste had said. ‘Hugo, you do know you can talk to me about anything? I know I’m only seventeen, but I’m not a little girl.’

My words seemed to snap him out of whatever reverie he was in. He pulled me to him and kissed me deeply, the warmth of his body flooding into mine. ‘Oh, I know,’ he said.

‘Really – anything,’ I repeated. ‘I mean, if you want to talk about your father…’

A shadow passed briefly across his face before he seemed to recover himself and his mouth broke into a smile. ‘Right now, talking is the last thing on my mind.’

He took my hand and pulled me across the bridge, walking quickly, and I felt my skin bristle. His mouth was on mine again before he’d even got the key in his apartment door, and as it slammed shut behind us, his hands were undoing the buttons on my coat, pulling at my dress, sliding up my thighs. So this was it, I thought. This really was it. I was about to find out what all the damned fuss was about.

I really didn’t know much about Hugo; Celeste had been right. But I think I learnt more about him from his actions that night than I’d discovered from his words over the time I’d known him. I learnt that he was a little selfish, a little angry; I learnt that something darker, rougher, lay beneath the charm, just as Celeste had said. But I admitted none of that to myself that night. It was only much later that I realized I could have seen it coming, if only I’d been more honest with myself. But I was infatuated and intoxicated, and whoever sees

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