By Kim Couples

He would have enjoyed their company, but he had only seven days to spare and he wanted to see as much of Paris is possible. Now he'd have independence.

‘Sorry, old chap, just bad timing. Next time you're in England we'll choose a better time and see the south. You'd love the south of France.’ Paul suddenly began to suspect that Clive and Jan had simply gone off the idea rather than succumbed to business pressures. The English just don't see France the same way.

‘Go anyway though won't you.’

‘Oh yes. I'm looking forward to it.’

‘Look, tell you what, I'll introduce you to Josie. She lived there for years. Still goes regularly. She's here somewhere.’ He parted the crowd, expecting Paul to follow.

‘Josie. This is Paul from Australia. Tell him about Paris. He's going in a couple of weeks. Jan and I wanted to show him around. Can't now.’

Josie was his idea of a typical 80's business type. Aloof. Apparently some kind of art dealer. There was no connection between them. She spouted a list of places she thought every tourist should see - looking away regularly as if she had more important things to do. He forgot every place she mentioned and the arrival of her business friend Veronique rescued them both.

Veronique was thirtyish and much more interested in talking to a visiting Australian with a sketchy knowledge of Paris. She wanted to know his hopes for his visit and his interests then listened intently, often looking slightly down with her right ear turned towards him as the music continued well above their comfort level.

‘I want to do the usual touristy things like Notre Dame, and the Louvre.’ He was almost shouting. ‘But I like cafes in back streets, seeing how French people live, that sort of thing.’ He began to realise that he didn't need help; a visit to the tourist office and some footwork would probably give him everything he wanted. But he was enjoying being so close to this vivacious woman. He was drawn to her eyes and charmed by the way she combined formal English with a spirit he hadn't seen in England.

She began to suggest some possibilities but the music made it impossible to take it all in and now he was tying to concentrate.

‘Where will you stay?’

‘Hotel Beau Sejour. It's a modest place in the Avenue Des Gobelins. Do you know it?’

‘Certainly. It is good but many hotels there do not have elevators. Do you have fit muscles for the climbing?’

‘Yes, I'm fit enough.’

‘Let us ask Clive to find us a map and I will make you a list of places you can visit and how to get there from Avenue Des Gobelins.’

The kitchen was empty, and with the door closed, quiet enough for real conversation. She wrote her suggestions on pages from the telephone pad and he put them in his shirt pocket, but they spent the next two and a half hours in animated conversation. They both felt the spark. Perhaps a more enduring relationship might have developed under different circumstances but the conversation had a 'stranger in the train' quality about it: at times intense, frequently confessional, constantly flirtatious.

The momentary touching, the extended eye contact, the surveying of each other's bodies was more like a meeting of lovers. Her black party dress bared her delicate shoulders and revealed the tops of her firm breasts. His glances became more and more blatant but she seemed only flattered by his attention. From time to time it occurred to him that he had an empty bed upstairs. Just fleeting thoughts. It wouldn't have been the first time he had acted on such impulses, but he held back. Better to have had this special encounter unconsummated than risk spoiling it.

Then when Josie found them and announced that it was time to go, Veronique simply smiled politely and said, ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘You too.’

‘Enjoy your holiday.’

‘Thank you.’ Not even a French peck on the cheek.

Everyone who knew he was going had advised taxis and the metro. He soon got used to stretching his limited French to buy tickets at the kiosks, to order meals with reasonable courtesy and ask directions.

He did the touristy things first: discovered you can climb Notre Dame for a view over Paris, did the trip down the Seine and even remembered Les Bateaux-Mouches two days later because he'd had to ask a police woman where to find them. He skipped the Louvre but climbed the steps to the Sacre Coeur and looked down once again over Paris. He was enjoying it, going to those places people talked about, yet taking every opportunity to divert into less conventional experiences as they arose. He tried a conversation with a French mechanic, another with a waiter and a man selling pancakes in the street.

About nine on the Tuesday night the telephone in his room rang. He was anxious. How do you say you have the wrong number in French? It might take him a few minutes to work it out. Perhaps he should ignore it.

‘Er bonjour.’

‘Bonjour Paul. It is Veronique Lequin. From the party. Do you remember me?’

He stood up and gripped the telephone tightly. ‘Yes, yes, we had such a good conversation. Are you in Paris?’

‘Yes, in my company's gallery. Pardon, but I thought I would find out if you are enjoying your holiday. I hope you do not mind.’

‘No, no I do not mind at all.’ He felt awkward about imitating her formality. Time to take a risk. ‘Could I take you to dinner. Could we have dinner together say tomorrow or Thursday?

‘Perhaps...I will see.’

He realised his mistake immediately. This was a sophisticated woman who saw herself as an ambassador for her country or who had perhaps been encouraged by Clive and Jan. Her duty was done with her call.

‘I will call you back.’

And ten minutes later she did. They arranged to meet in a little restaurant on Quai Voltaire overlooking the Seine. It was one of those on the list she had made on the telephone pad.

The menu came immediately. He ordered Bourgogne Blanc and took her suggestion to try the escargots as an entree. They had been talking together only 10 minutes when he relaxed and she realised that this man was all she remembered him to be. There was something refreshingly different about him, a genuine interest, warmth, and that voice.

‘Did you go home to Reims after the party?’

‘Yes. I came to Paris yesterday to see three exhibitions and negotiate with some other galleries. Josie came too for the week. I will leave at the end of next week.’

‘Tell me about your home in Reims.’

‘It is a small apartment only. I live there because it is convenient for my work. My family comes from Puylaroque. It is a little village in the South West. My two brothers have tourism businesses there. My ex-husband lives there too. We were married only one year.’

It was ridiculous, but he thought it important news. Ridiculous of course because this was a doomed relationship. He had to be at the airport at two on Sunday afternoon. The meal together was simply extra time on the train. This woman with the warm green eyes who seemed genuinely captivated by him would disappear at the next stop. It was both exhilarating and depressing.

Their knees touched. They looked each at each other as if startled, then kept looking as if to say, ‘You can if you want to, but I'm not taking my leg away’. The simple touching of their knees was like a blanket thrown over them. They were a couple.

‘And you, you have no attachments?’ She seemed uncertain about her choice of words.

‘Only my arms and legs.’

She paused, distracted by the significance of what he had said rather than his humour. She smiled and as his escargot and her prawns arrived she asked, ‘What will you do now that you have your final degree?’

‘I have to go back to Sydney...’

‘You have no choice?’

‘No I'm committed to a research project with our Department of Health but I plan to come back to France sometime.’ He wanted to add ‘soon’ but she had been so honest with him. It would have sullied their relationship.

The meal became incidental, simply a backdrop to a blossoming bond between a man and a woman. Their appetite for food had disappeared and they could tell that the waiter knew why. Probably seen it all before. Not that they commented on it themselves. All four knees were in contact, often pressed together.

The flirtatiousness had gone, replaced by something much more real. He told her about growing up in Australia, his love of the outback, his early failures in a small real estate business and the satisfaction of discovering, against everyone else's predictions that he was intelligent enough to succeed at university. He also told her she looked beautiful, because she did.

She told him about her initial career as an artist, her four years of study at the Sorbonne, her pleasure in being French, what she liked and didn't like in French men and smiled as she complained that they should be more like him. He reached over and touched her hand. ‘Australian men are not usually compared with French men in that way.’ She laughed, ‘I know. I have heard about the others’. She held his hand and said unexpectedly, ‘You make me happy Australian man’.

He remembered his reluctance to invite her into his bed at the party. He wasn't regretting it, but as he looked down at her black hair cascaded around her shoulders, glimpsed, once again, the top of her breasts and looked back into her eyes he felt a twinge of anguish.

‘Veronique. We have three days before I leave. How much time do you have away from your work?’

‘I am free over the weekend. For the next two days I will be free in the evening.’

‘Can we meet each day?’

‘Perhaps.’

He was crestfallen. He was beyond perhaps. He didn't want to let her go, not tonight, not any night.

They ambled along the Seine towards Notre Dame. She told him some history of the island and Pont Neuf the way a tour guide would. They held hands, but for him it was a surprising low point. He could not get the end of the journey out of his mind. She was aware of his sudden change of mood and could not account for it. She wanted him to hold her close but it was after 11:30 and she knew that she must end the evening soon.

He noticed that her tales about visiting Paris as a child had a new energy as if to cheer him up. He felt an obligation to respond. He owed her that.

‘Where do you stay?’ It was as much an invitation for her to ask him back as to satisfy his need to picture her when they were apart.

‘My company keeps an apartment here on the left bank. I stay there.’

She put her arm around him. ‘I must go now. I will be in touch.’

He swept her to him. They kissed, hugged each other close, rocking that way lovers do. She pulled away and she was gone.

He took at taxi back to the hotel, climbed the four flights of stairs, showered and collapsed into bed. He woke early determined to put her out of his head. Good sense told him his pre-occupation with her would take over his remaining days in Paris and leave him devastated.

He hadn't asked for a morning paper, it would have been more demanding than he wanted on holiday, but it was there under the door. Inside was a card from the hotel. The spelling suggested it was dictated to someone who was unfamiliar with English ‘Message for Dr Paul Williams 'Plees come to the Gallerie Rigaletto in Boulevard Saint Germain tonight at 5. Thankyou for a wonderfull evening. You are a luvly man - Veronique.’

He spent the day working his way through her list from the telephone pad. Quaint shops and markets, the Latin quarter, two cafes especially suited to watching Parisians and added on the reverse side, Montmartre for the painters. On the newsstands near the Arc De Triomphe The Observer headlined Neil Kinnock's campaign to become leader of the British Labour Party and a smaller article reported something about protests over a South African rugby tour. He bought a copy and scanned the news stories while waiting for a beer. He hadn't seen a British newspaper for nearly a week and he missed them. Only the business pages even mentioned Australia.

Josie had been curious all morning but for some reason chose to ask her just as she was trying to get off the peripherique.

‘Who is he?’

Long pause.

‘Who is he? This man.’

Another pause while she tooted hard then found an opening and turned.

‘Paul Williams...from Australia...From Clive's party.’

‘Oh.’

She turned momentarily and laughed. ‘You disapprove.’

‘No. I am sure he is a very fine man.’

‘But...’

‘But he is a tourist. A few days and he will be gone.’

‘Yes.’

‘Don't do this. You will get hurt.’

‘I know.’

Paul's knowledge of art was a combination of knowing what he liked and a paper on art history years before. The gallery was a series of wings featuring different painters. He saw Josie first. She came over, offered her hand and seemed genuinely welcoming.

He found Veronique in a collection of nudes negotiating with an elderly man he guessed must be a dealer. He sat on an uncomfortable chaise longe and watched her and the paintings. He was unmoved by the gaudy symbolism of most of them but she and the dealer stopped by a large and striking oil of a woman sitting next to an open fire and resumed their discussion. She had seen him sitting there but gave him only a flicker of acknowledgement. The woman by the fire was a little older than Veronique and the warmth of the flames was reflected on her shoulders, arms and breasts. He was torn between looking at the nude and the woman he knew would always dominate the memory of his first visit to Paris.

Then something surprising happened. The discussion with the dealer became heated, faster, louder. He had not seen her even close to anger before but she was angry. It wasn't so much ugly as passionate. The dealer was dismissive. Walked away, waving his arms. Came back arguing. He looked away. They seemed to come to some kind of compromise.

‘Ready to go?’ She put her arm around him kissed him. The anger had evaporated.

‘That sounded serious.’

‘No not really. Alphonse is like that.’ She smiled. ‘You have to be tough with him or he just gets what he wants every time.’

They sat outside and the proprietor arrived with a menu and a small and sleepy toddler over his shoulder. He made some recommendations which were beyond Paul's French and disappeared inside.

He described his day and she nodded at his choices, probing from time to time to check whether he had seen this street or market, what he had noticed about the architecture or the people. She was certainly in love with Paris. The conversation flowed. He enjoyed her laughter, her touches. Time with her was a joy interrupted by the sadness that it would soon be over.

‘Someone once told me,’ he said after a moment of contemplation, ‘that if you put an average lifetime's most blissful moments together, they would last just 20 minutes.’

She reached out and took his hand. ‘Perhaps. Is that not wonderful?’

‘No it's not. Just twenty minutes.’

‘Yes it is. What a lovely thought. Twenty minutes so special they are remembered as the most precious in your life. Perhaps we are having one of those 20 minutes now.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘You have less than two days more. Perhaps after that we will not see each other again.’

‘It's not impossible... No, perhaps not.’

‘Isn't it therefore best that we have as many of those wonderful 20 minutes in the next two days?’

‘Yes you're right. You are absolutely right.’

She looked up from her fruit dessert, ‘What would you like to do?

‘I'm not sure. Ah...Bois de Boulogne...opera, something else Parisians do...you're the best to advise on that ...and (he was working up to it) I would like to make love to you.’

‘I would like that too. I think we are making love already.’

Was she teasing him? He'd taken a risk. But if this was all she meant by making love then he would accept it. She was right about the 20 minutes. Why hadn't he seen it before?

‘Let us do those things tomorrow and at night we will go to my apartment. Bring your toothbrush, then we can make love all night if we wish.’

They met around 10 the next morning. She showed him a market she knew well. He bought her mildly expensive perfume. They took a picnic lunch to the Bois de Balogne and enjoyed much more than they might normally, a fire-eater and a dance troupe outside the Pompidou Centre. But their final full day together wasn't about Paris any more. It was about making love in every sense. It was a day for creating a memory for two lifetimes. They were in almost constant contact: hands, lips, eyes, even hips - broken only when one would race ahead for a moment of exuberance and turn back to face the other. They were captivated by the sight, the touch of each other's bodies.

Around seven after a token meal, Veronique left him saying she wanted to prepare for him at her apartment. He returned to collect his things from his hotel, taking with him her address that she had added in tiny writing to a space at the bottom of the only remaining sheet from the telephone pad. It was all they had. Apartemente 11, 645 Rue Bellechasse. He took it out in the taxi and had it memorised by the time he arrived at the Hotel Beau Sejour.

He had to wait for tourists and business people to check in. All he wanted was his suitcase and he could go. Two American tourists could not make up their minds; this hotel or one they had just seen. After several minutes of half-decisions the assistant left them to it and took an Italian, then a French businesswoman. His turn next surely. But the assistant turned back to the Americans. Yes, they had decided. They would stay but they wanted a room no higher than the first floor. Paul caught the eye of another assistant and pointed to where his suitcase must surely be stored. Still no progress. It was almost eight.

He was climbing the stairs to her apartment by 8:30. He knocked. Knocked again. His heart leapt at the sound of her footsteps then latches opening. Then an elderly woman appeared. He was shocked. He looked down at the address and back. ‘Veronique Lequin...Is she here?’

‘Non monsieur...pas ici.’ He understood too well. She closed the door and he stood in the lobby with leaden feet.

A young man passed. ‘Veronique Lequin...Do you know her?’ He walked on with a slight shake of the head.

He was angry, frustrated. How could this happen? They had been so happy together. Was this her way of ending it tidily, suddenly, no good-byes? Perhaps she wanted to destroy the memory so that he would not grieve for it. No, this was cruel, surely.

The light was fading. A taxi driver parked nearby saw him comparing the number on the crumpled scrap of paper with the sign outside the apartment block. But there was no doubt. ‘Monsieur, je suis libre.’ He turned, about to take his offer and return to the hotel. One futile hope remained. He took it slowly, ‘Connaisez vous une apartmente...’ He gave up knowing that his hope was almost gone. ‘Do you know an apartment here owned by an art dealer, a company from Reims?’

He understood. ‘No Monsieur.’

For some reason he put his hand out for the crumpled paper and Paul pointed to the address. He held it under the light of his cab.

‘It may be six seven five monsieur. A seven with the cross not a four.’ He drew it with his finger.

‘Merci Monsieur. Merci!’

It was only metres away. He ran, ignored the lights, heard an orchestra of tooting behind him, changed the suitcase over to his left hand and kept going, leapt the five flights of stairs to apartment 11, knocked and waited with his heart pounding. Again he heard footsteps and latches. The tension in his stomach turned to nausea. The door opened slowly. It was Veronique.

She was surprised by his breathlessness and passion as he held her close and kissed her neck.

‘Sorry. Got the number wrong. I thought we wouldn't see each other again.’

‘It's okay. It's okay.’

As they sat together at the kitchen table sipping her choice of French wine and beginning an array of delicacies he didn't recognise, he began to realise the trouble she had gone to and wonder whether his breathless return had created a jarring note. If so, it didn't show. She looked so calm as she held his hand once more. He looked around. The apartment was no crash pad. It was luxurious. He could see through to a lounge lit with candles, beyond that an open door and faint light - perhaps from the room where they would have the long anticipated pleasure of lovemaking.

She led him into the candlelight. She had changed out of her jeans into a short black dress with a low neck. It clung to her breasts and hips. They sat together on the couch and he began to relax again. The music was probably Sebelius. Before long she had cradled herself in his arms and he kissed her gently on the top of her head. He put his hand under her dress and bra and held her breast. It was more comforting for them both, than arousing.

‘Perhaps we can find a way...to be together’, she said softly.

‘I want that.’ His mind was racing. ‘I want that. Could you come to Australia? Would you?’

‘I am afraid’, she said, still cradled in his arms. ‘I do not know Australia...we need more time.’

Suddenly, it seemed possible, just possible. He was elated and hugged her with misty eyes, hoping as most Australian men would, that she would not turn around.

They lay there in silence for a moment then she turned to him. ‘We must talk of this in the morning. Please now let us go to bed and make love. I have been waiting all day.’

‘Me too. You were wonderful company, but more than anything I wanted this moment to come.’

She left for a minute to light candles in the bedroom. She came back for him, pulled him up by both hands, hugged him and led him through the door.

The bedroom was sumptuously furnished with draped curtains of muted colours. The candles were in silver holders, the bed covers turned back, ready for them.

She began to undo the buttons of his shirt with a playful smile. It fell the floor and he reached behind her to undo the zip of her dress and it peeled off easily. They held each other and he could feel the lace of her bra against his skin.

She undid his jeans.

‘I have imagined you nude’, she said. ‘I think you have a beautiful male body.’ She turned for him to undo her bra and he struggled with the hooks. She helped him, turned back and it fell away to reveal the breasts he had longed to see since they first met. He held stood back to admire them while she stood with perfect poise. ‘Simply stunning’, he whispered.

She smiled again and removed her knickers quickly, then his.

They were in bed within seconds, holding each other tightly, kissing intensely. There were tears in her eyes as he pulled back to stroke her cheeks. He had planned slow and sensual foreplay, but she reached for the condom she had set aside on the bedside cabinet.

‘I want you inside me.’ She rolled it on, he slid in easily and their passion was at last consummated.

He stroked her gently, sometimes propped up on his hands so that they could enjoy the sight of each other.

‘You look wonderful,’ he whispered.

‘You are a very sexy man.’ That smile again. He withdrew from her, saw a flash of disappointment but began to slowly kiss her soft body from her lips to her neck, around her breasts, (feeling her nipples respond with his touch) around her belly, ran his cheek across her soft thatch, kissed her clitoris, the inside of her legs, her feet. She closed her eyes, ‘That's beautiful’. She was obviously aware of the direction, but was never sure where his lips would touch her next. He turned her over on the soft bed and she felt him caress her back and around her neck.

‘Please come into me again.’

He did of course, and as they lay together she said, ‘Perhaps you know how new lovers are restrained the first time. They may have only one position, like this one.’ (They were in the missionary position.) ‘Tonight let us love like old lovers. This may be also be the last time we will make love. Let us create a special memory.’

So they did. Their lovemaking came in waves of intensity with prolonged thrusting and passionate kissing followed by long periods of almost no movement. Veronique knew her own body well; knew even better than he how to coax peaks of pleasure from it. He was amazed at her energy and his own.

‘Let us make love on the balcony’, she said, easing him out of her in a quiet moment. She grabbed two blue terry towel dressing gowns from the bathroom and threw one to him.

‘Is it private?’

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘but it is dark. Even if people do see us they will not be sure what we are doing.’

She put out the candles, opened the balcony doors and steered him towards the only seat. She sat on his lap with him buried inside her and they slowly adjusted to the dark. There they were in the warmth of an autumn night looking out over the roofs of Paris. She moved only occasionally. The softness of her belly and the touch of her breasts, especially her firm nipples, made him so hard he ached inside her.

‘Your hands are warm.’ She began to stroke herself and for several minutes seemed cut off from him. He was excited at the thought that she was close to coming again but held still to avoid interrupting her pleasure. Then he felt her contractions and held her with his head against her back while she recovered her breath. She began to move again to tell him she was ready. He thrust the little that was possible and within seconds they both felt him pumping inside her. He sat back in exhaustion.

She turned her head slightly. ‘Will this be part of your 20 minutes of bliss?’

‘Yes. Oh yes.’

‘And mine too.’

As they separated she slipped the condom off him and disappeared into the bathroom without a word. He reached up for her as she returned to the bed. ‘Do you have another of those?’ She smiled. ‘I was hoping you would ask.’

They spent the next hour, or was it two, side-by-side, in almost whispered conversation. He would stroke inside her from time to time. Occasionally, the lovemaking was intense, with each hovering near the peak, but they were content to let the energy subside.

‘You are a good lover, very considerate to a woman,’ she murmured. ‘Not like the others, I think.’

‘Other Australians? I don't know...You make it easy.’ He brushed her hair from her face with his fingers. ‘Did you miss me after our conversation at the party?’

‘Yes. I thought of you often, especially at the gallery. If you had not told me the name of your hotel it might not have been the same, but I knew we were very near to each other. Are you pleased that I called you on the telephone?’

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Yes.’

And they fell asleep. Joined together.