Read Online The Train to Paris by Sebastian Hampson - Free Book Online Page A

Speer’s architecture was impressive. It was an enormous construction of nothingness, a fantasy created for those with enough money to pay for its upkeep. Anybody could have been impressed by it, although it would be difficult to love.
    The wine arrived with a decanter, and the sommelier used a silver breath-easy and a muslin cloth. He held the decanter up to a candle. It could have been a scientific experiment. The process took too long, and the formality of it was unbearable. The waiter went to pour me a tasting glass, but Élodie interrupted and insisted on trying it herself.
    â€˜I am sorry about that,’ she said, once we were alone. She did not sound at all sorry. ‘But I could not have you making a fool of yourself with the wine. You are playing a role now, and we must stick to it.’
    â€˜And what role is that, exactly?’
    â€˜Do use your imagination,’ she snapped. ‘I would hate for people to think that you are my son.’
    â€˜Like Ed did.’
    â€˜He didn’t really. There is no need to take him seriously. But I think that you could pass for somebody much older, if you made the effort.’
    â€˜So let me taste the wine.’
    â€˜Not until you understand what it means to taste. You are in the real world now.’
    I swirled my glass and drank. The wine’s bouquet was lifeless and the tannins stuck to the corners of my mouth. It tasted old and faintly rotten. It was anticlimactic to think that this, the first truly expensive wine that I had ever tasted, could be so bland. If this were the real world, then even the real world had to be imaginary on some level.
    But I did not pursue this thought; my mind was beginning to numb. I regretted the second cocktail. The room was pulled into a wide angle, and the golden light softened at the edges.
    Ã‰lodie ordered the degustation menu. I had wanted the à la carte, unaccustomed as I was to the obscure gourmet dishes. But she knew what she was doing. Besides, the French menu was too difficult to decipher.
    â€˜What sort of films were you in?’ I asked.
    â€˜Not very good ones,’ she said. ‘I was in a couple of those eighties, neo-noir pictures. Bad crime flicks, very Los Angeles. No reason a smart boy like you should have heard of them. They were terrible, really. But they gave me an excuse to go to the right parties, to meet the right people.’
    â€˜And was Ed Selvin involved in them?’
    â€˜No. I never did anything with Ed. We move in different circles.’
    â€˜What sort of circles does he move in?’
    â€˜More highbrow. His last project was some sort of an art-house thing set in Japan. Shinto imagery and gratuitous encounters. I can’t claim to have seen it.’
    â€˜So what is he doing here?’
    â€˜That girl. They might just have married. Hence the desire to get away from us.’
    I tried to conceal my surprise. He had never introduced her. I had always thought that newlyweds were determined to show one another off.
    Ã‰lodie grew resentful as she talked about Vanessa, but she quickly changed the subject. The entrées came plated extravagantly, and I tried to stop myself from eating too fast. Élodie turned her nose up at the first mouthful and put her cutlery down.
    â€˜This place isn’t what it used to be,’ she muttered. ‘It is disturbing to think that haute cuisine might be becoming a tourist attraction. Look at these people. Tourists.’
    It was true that some of our fellow diners had played reluctantly to the dress code. I became more satisfied with my navy blue jacket and my white trousers. I decided that they were in fact exceedingly stylish; they suggested success. They set me apart from the tourists. I could pretend that all of this was familiar to me, that I had seen it a hundred times. Was that snobbish? Sophie would have told me so. She would have teased me about these clothes. Or she would have been mortified. The more I