The lift begins its ascent with a sickening crunch. Adele watches rusty chains tighten with alarm. She shifts towards the centre of the cage, trying to ignore the trustworthy Paris pavement slipping away beneath her. Martin is pressed up against the glass, steamy with enthusiasm. He turns to point out their hotel, a morsel of egg quivers on his lip as he grins at her. Martin always makes the most of hotel breakfasts. They might as well get their value for money, after all.
Adele’s elbow finds the soft belly of an Asian woman in a peacock-blue sari, and turning she sees a big-eyed baby scrutinising her from the woman’s left hip.
“Je m’escuse,” she mutters, waiting for the baby to blink. She presses her body against Martin’s back, closing her eyes to avoid both vertigo and the baby’s stare. She smells the cold canvas of his jacket, and presses her fingers into his chest, feeling the muscles shifting beneath. She wonders how they must look together to the other people in the lift. Her mother once said that she was too tall for Martin, and while its true that she can’t wear heels next to him, this has given her the excuse of wearing scruffy trainers more often than not. Martin has also become more casual with his clothes, when they first got together he would have scoffed at practical, khaki jackets and never had more than a day’s worth of stubble. His body however, she thinks, running her hands down towards his belly, hasn’t changed a bit. If anything it’s got more toned since he started playing tennis with his colleagues every Tuesday evening.
Martin turns his head to kiss her forehead. His breath smells of bacon. She draws her hands back towards her, and the left one brushes against something square and solid inside his jacket pocket, causing her stomach to contract. She had hoped there would be more time to prepare. She had assumed the Eiffel Tower would be too tacky, too cliché, but then, of course, Martin could be that way. It was always twelve red roses on her office desk every February 14th, always Michelle and Harriet leaning enviously over to press their noses into the choking red petals. Even the ring, when she had found it nestled in a compartment of their suitcase, was exactly as she had imagined. She had felt like a peeping Tom, prying into Martin’s dreams for their future. In some ways she had always felt like Martin belonged to someone else. She was well aware that to some women he was the perfect man. The shock of finding the ring had confirmed this. The ring didn’t suit her, it was too gold and obvious, its single diamond too perfectly-cut, but perhaps that was her fault. After all, why couldn’t she be the perfect-diamond type? She had replaced the box shakily. She could hear Martin showering which was always the first thing he did after a flight, he didn’t feel like himself until after a good, hot shower. Adele didn’t feel right until a whole day after flying, her skin felt tight and dry, wrung out like a dishcloth. She would have preferred to try out the Eurostar, but as Martin was paying she didn’t like to be awkward.
She looks up at him, pressing his face as close to Paris as he can get. She now realises why he has been singing Sinatra in the shower. He would be so disappointed if he realised she had spoilt his surprise. But then again, Mart has never been the suspicious type, and has always let her spend drunken nights out with the girls. Adele would watch Lucy trying to act sober in order to reassure her boyfriend over the phone,
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