A Heart Bent Out of Shape Read Online Free Page A

Dave? Nowhere. Chase, meanwhile, saw Lausanne as just a pin in a map, with lines shooting out in every direction. He hankered after searing passes in the Italian Alps, the sardine ports of southern France, the bell-shaped rooftops of Eastern Europe. Bruno’s aim seemed simpler. He was content to just be. It’s the good life here , he said, la vie est belle, n’est-ce pas ? throwing his hands wide as he spoke. That night, Bruno shouldered his way to the bar time and time again, shrugging away their offers of money with gruff generosity. He had the thickset cheeks of a young aristocrat and on his little finger he wore a signet ring like a rubbed penny. It seemed to Hadley that he didn’t particularly evaluate any of them; he asked no questions nor even showed mild curiosity, as though it was enough that they were simply there, at his table.
    As the others chattered away, Hadley was quiet that first night. It seemed inappropriate to proclaim this as the greatest adventure of her life, for the truth was, tucked in the back of the bar, with Bruno’s leg pushing a little too close to her own, Chase’s spiky stares and Jenny’s forlorn hunch, it didn’t particularly feel like it. Just before midnight, the others voted for a taxi back to Les Ormes. Hadley hesitated. That year in Switzerland, she had vowed to start doing things differently. She could feel the night breeze coming over the lake, and behind her were the city’s steep black streets, inviting discovery. She waved Jenny, Chase and Bruno off in their cab, explaining that she wanted to walk home, fanning away only the mildest of protests. The car whistled off and she breathed in the Lausanne night in deep draughts. She was far from home and no one really knew her; there was untold freedom in that.
    Hadley walked towards the water. Across the lake, en France , the distant lights of Evian twinkled. Closer to shore, the waves slopped messily and invisible masts chinked and rattled. She stepped outside of herself, wanting to appreciate the moment with all of its picturesque qualities, but instead she felt slightly uneasy; it was the expanse of darkness, the absence of people, the strangeness of it all. She decided to return by daylight and explore then. She turned and walked back towards Mulligan’s, feeling just slightly defeated in her attempt as an adventurer. Through the smeared windows she could see chairs stacked on tables and a cluster of stragglers at the bar.
    ‘Excuse me.’
    She started at the voice. She turned around.
    ‘I saw you with your friends inside. Are you okay, walking back on your own? It’s late.’
    He was American, and he was a man. He was probably somewhere in his late thirties, but he seemed the kind to have looked like a man his whole life. He was burly chested, with big shoulders and a square and muscled look. Leather jacketed. A little hard-boiled. A lick of black hair falling forward. She took all of this in with one seemingly casual glance.
    ‘I’m fine,’ she said, ‘but thank you.’
    She didn’t turn to go, not yet.
    ‘Lausanne seems like a pretty safe city, but you never know,’ he said.
    He rubbed the side of his chin as though he had once had a beard. It seemed to Hadley a practised, somehow naked sort of gesture.
    ‘It’s okay,’ she said, ‘I’ll look both ways when I cross the road. I won’t talk to strangers.’ She smiled and it was easy. ‘So, in that case, I guess I’d better go.’
    He lit a cigarette and nodded, through a puff of smoke. She noticed his eyes then and they were softer than she had thought. A liquid blue.
    ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘England.’
    ‘I can tell that. Whereabouts?’
    ‘Somewhere in the middle.’
    ‘I spent a summer there once, years ago now. In Cambridge.’
    ‘Cambridge is beautiful,’ said Hadley.
    ‘Yes, very,’ he said, looking directly at her in a way that didn’t quite betray his thinking. ‘Now, tell me, what are you doing in an Irish bar on your first night?