Harm's Way Read Online Free PDF

I do. I can’t help but imagine that they must wonder what someone of, well …’
    â€˜â€¦ of your age is doing here? Beth, look around: there are people of all ages. And isn’t it just a question of confidence?’ I added, touching her finger lightly with mine across the table.‘I always think that if you walk around thinking you can have anything you want, you usually can.’
    Beth gave me a brief look, ironical but indulgent, before breaking into a laugh made up of a trio of ascending notes, which didn’t quite ring true. ‘I’m sure you’re right, Anna. Let’s drink to that.’
    That night, not wishing to be alone, and feigning excessive drunkenness, I contrived to spend the night with Beth.
    â€˜The sofa’s not very comfortable, but my bed’s massive, so you’re welcome to share it with me as long as you don’t wriggle.’
    As she tripped gently back and forth across her room, with the hooded eyes and stupid smile of the inebriated, I slipped quickly into bed and waited for her to join me, surprised by the bite of disappointment I felt when, after emerging from the bathroom ready for bed, she turned the light out and promptly fell asleep.
    Waking beside Beth the next morning, I leant across her to switch off the alarm clock, smiling at the creases the sheets had made on her sleeping face. Ignoring the fact that it would make me late for work, I sank back down and allowed myself ten more minutes. Asleep, she looked half her age, with a faintly questioning expression about her eyebrows which made me smile. Her lips were closed, but a steady and invisible vent rhythmically tickled my propped forearm.
    â€˜Is it time to get up?’ Suddenly, she was awake, although her eyes still struggled to focus. I sat up quickly.
    â€˜I’m afraid so. I’ll grab the first shower, shall I?’
    *    *    *
    Wearing one of Beth’s jumpers over the previous night’s outfit, I tried to shuffle into the vestibule of the staff entrance as inconspicuously as I could. Avoiding Céline’s gaze, I deposited my bag in the staff room with what I hoped was aplomb. The besmocked girl I’d met on my first day looked up from her book.
    â€˜It’s Anna, isn’t it? We met the other day. I’m Isabelle.’
    Isabelle was half-Romanian and had moved to Paris from Lyon a year ago. A dark fringe of hair and glasses disguised the pretty face of a girl in her mid-twenties: a dusky complexion, full curved lips overshadowed by a slight down. Yet there was an insecurity in her eyes that, had I been a man, would have immediately put me on my guard. As fellow history of art student, Isabelle was one of the few who found themselves working at the museum through vocation. I earmarked her as a possible work friend, someone to while away my empty lunch breaks with, and thought nothing more of her.
    I had begun to settle into my flat. The nocturnal knocking had eased – it now troubled my sleep only one night in three – and although my job at the museum still seemed a world away from the nightlife I was discovering, come six o’clock I could retrieve my belongings from my locker and wind my way slowly home through the back streets, pausing from time to time to catch a glimpse of enchanting secret courtyards behind slowly closing double doors. And Stephen was right: there was a lot to be said for my occupation, the educational solace of watching.
    I had been instructed, for one day only, to sit in on an exhibition of photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Robert Doisneau I’d always found a little too posed, but I lovedCartier-Bresson. Living in Paris had heightened my appreciation of his work: it occurred to me that, were it not for changes in fashion, I could still have been observing the city through his delicately angled lens. A wan-faced businessman with a blonde prone to splutters of laughter were first to