Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella

road when he turns and lifts a hand. ‘
À bientôt
, Mrs Halston!’
    Her smile lasts until he disappears from view.
    The concierge had warned her that the queue for the Louvre would be hours long at this time, so she heads to the Musée d’Orsay instead. David had told her the architecture of the building was almost as impressive as the art it housed. But even at ten o’clock in the morning the queue here stretches backwards and forwards around the front of the building, like a coiled snake. The sun is fierce already, and she has forgotten to bring a hat.
    ‘Oh, great,’ she mutters to herself, as she takes her place at the back. She wonders whether she will even make it into the building before David has finished his meeting.
    ‘It shouldn’t take too long. They shift people through pretty quickly.’ The man in front of her turns and nods towards the front of the queue. ‘They do free entry sometimes. Now that’s a queue.’ He wears a crisp linen jacket and the air of the independently wealthy.
    When he smiles at her, she wonders if the fact that she’s English is actually writ large all over her. ‘I’m not sure all these people will even fit inside.’
    ‘Oh, they will. It’s like the Tardis in there.’ When she smiles, he holds out a hand. ‘Tim Freeland.’
    ‘Liv Worth – Halston. Liv Halston.’ The change of name still wrongfoots her.
    ‘Ah. That poster says there’s a big Matisse exhibition on. I suspect that’s the reason for our queue. Here. Let me put up my umbrella. That will protect you from the worst of the sun.’
    He comes over for the tennis every year, he tells her, as they shuffle forwards a few paces at a time, zigzagging their way towards the front of the queue. And then fills his non-tennis time with a few of his favourite places. He much prefers this gallery to the Louvre, which is too full of tourists to see the paintings. He half smiles as he says this, apparently aware of the irony.
    He is tall and tanned with dark blond hair, which is swept back in a way she imagines it has been since his teens. The way he talks about his life suggests freedom from financial concerns. His reference to children and the lack of a wedding ring suggest some distant divorce.
    He is attentive and charming. They discuss restaurants in Paris, tennis, the unpredictability of Parisian taxi drivers. It is a relief to have a conversation that is not loaded with unspoken resentment or littered with traps. By the time they reach the front of the queue she is oddly cheerful.
    ‘Well, you made the time pass wonderfully quickly.’ Tim Freeland folds up his umbrella and holds out his hand. ‘It was lovely to meet you, Olivia Halston. And I’d recommend the Impressionists on the top floor. You should get the best views now, before the crowds get too unbearable.’
    He smiles at her, his eyes crinkling, and then he is gone, striding off into the cavernous interior of the museum as if he is already sure where he is headed. And Liv, who knows that even if you
are
on your honeymoon you’re allowed to feel cheered by twenty minutes’ conversation with an attentive, handsome man, who may or may not have been flirting with you, walks with a slightly perkier stride towards the lifts.
    She takes her time, walks slowly along the Impressionists, studying each painting carefully. She has time to kill, after all. She is slightly ashamed to calculate she has not set foot in a gallery since finishing her degree two years previously. She decides, on reflection, that she loves the Monets and the Morisots, and dislikes the Renoirs. Or perhaps they have just been overused on chocolate boxes and it’s hard to disassociate the two things.
    She sits down, and then she stands up again. She wishes David was here. It’s odd to stand in front of the paintings and have nobody to discuss them with. She finds herself looking surreptitiously at other people who might be alone, checking them for signs of freakishness. She wonders whether to call Jasmine, just to talk to someone, but realizes this will signal publicly the failure of her honeymoon. Who calls anyone from their honeymoon, after all? She feels briefly cross with David again and has silently to argue herself out of it.
    The gallery fills steadily around her; a group of schoolchildren is led past by a theatrically engaged museum attendant. They stop in front of
Déjeuner sur l’herbe
, and he motions to them to sit down as he speaks. ‘Look!’ he exclaims in