Page 63 of The Edge of Always

‘Where are we?’ I ask Emmett as he leads me into a park.

‘Jardin du Luxembourg,’ he answers. ‘The Luxembourg Gardens. It’s one of my favourite parks in Paris.’

LG.

‘It’s lovely.’

The park has wide paths and colourful flower borders and bathed in the light of the early evening, it has an almost ethereal feel to it. There’s a pond, a bundle of little wooden boats with tall sails gathered together at one side.

It’s quieter in here than on the regular streets. Sleepy and peaceful.

‘Come on, before it closes.’

I nod, overly emotional once again as Emmett leads me to the far corner of the park. Then, I see what he wants to show me.

It’s a carousel. Old and wooden and… closed for the day.

Emmett goes to speak to an old man who is busy locking up the little green shutters on the ticket hut. I hear him and Emmett nattering in French as I wander round to look at the carousel. There are only two rows of horses, but they’re beautiful. Delicately carved and painted, lifelike but also a little sad. It’s so obvious now that this is what features in The Longing for Human Connection. I start taking pictures, thinking that it’s impossible to feel neutral in Paris. It’s just not the place for it. I send a picture to Mae.

Me: Look where Emmett brought me.

Mae: Omg he loves you still.

Behind me, the lights around the edge of the carousel flash on, sparkling in the early evening. It’s magical.

‘Giuseppe says we can ride it, if you like?’

‘Guiseppe?’

‘A friend of mine. His pa knew Earl.’

Guiseppe comes over, a wooden stick in each hand.

‘You have to catch the wooden hoops he holds. Winner gets the most,’ Emmett says.

‘You’re on.’ I take a stick from Guiseppe, saying ‘merci’ over and over because it’s clear as day he thought he was done with work until me and Emmett showed up.

‘He’s been here forty years,’ Emmett tells me as I climb on a horse, running my hands along the smooth main.

‘It’s gorgeous.’

Guiseppe starts to push the carousel. He’s obviously stronger than he looks because I think that’s how it moves, manually.

I’m right; we gather some speed, the lights begin to blur and I’m taken back to another time that Emmett and I were on a carousel together. From the Time Before, when it felt like a whole lifetime was stretched out before me, a mass of colour. As I hook my first wooden ring and laugh when Emmett misses his, I sense it, hidden among a bunch of other emotions that are tricky to place, that same feeling of optimism for the future. It’s not escape anymore – it’s hope.

Optimism, I think, feels a lot like hope.

Longing too. I wonder if that’s what Earl wanted us to take from this painting. Whether he knew somehow, that we’d need a reason to feel hopeful again.

I get another ring, and another. Guiseppe is making it extra hard for Emmett. I’m laughing, free, almost. Earl’s painting brought to life.

At the end of the ride, I want to go again. But I also want Guiseppe to go home and rest since he looks as close to keeling over as I do.

‘Merci,’ I say again.

‘You very good, Emmett very bad,’ he tells me. ‘Yes, yes, very bad indeed.’ I smile. Emmett has one ring on his wooden pole, but his eyes are dark where he’s looking at me laughing with Guiseppe.

He walks over with the air of a lion about to rip into a gazelle and I’m the gazelle, helpless to stop it. But instead, he hands Guiseppe twenty euros to much protest, and bids him ‘bon soir’.