I must have stared at her for a minute, maybe two, I couldn’t figure out if she was really real or I’d just gone insane. 

She took a step towards me, ‘It isn’t easy to make meetings when you have mountains and a border to cros–’

Her sentence didn’t finish, she’d said enough to convince me she was legit, I swept her up in a hug that didn’t end until her feet left the ground.

‘Ayamin.’

‘Danny.’ 

I kept my arms around her as I lowered her. I couldn’t believe it. I’d missed the sight, the smell, the feel of her so badly. She was like water in the desert.

Ayamin touched my face, ‘You idiot. It’s good to see you Danny.’

I held onto her as we stared at each other. My cheeks were warmed as silent tears trickled down them.

‘I was starting to think you’d never show up.’ 

‘Honestly… me too.’

She took a step back ─ she had no tears on her face. 

‘Ayamin,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. If I could turn back time and make things right I would.’ 

She sniffed; the cold mountain air was making her nose run. 

‘Three days ago, I was in a jail cell. I was alone and I had nothing to distract me from my thoughts. I realised that maybe you were right not to tell me Danny.’ 

She hugged her arms to her chest and continued. 

‘Maybe I wouldn’t have wanted to know you.’ 

Her words hung in the air between us. I wanted to say I was sorry again. I wanted to get on my knees and beg Ayamin to stay with me. But I kept my mouth shut and my feet on the ground. I had nothing to offer her but myself. If she wanted to leave, she was free to go. 

‘But now,’ she said, ‘I want to know everything Danny.’

And then she was crying. Her tears slid free. Her arms stretched out, wrapped around me. 

Standing in the Briancon street on that cold winter’s day. 

With Ayamin in my arms.

 I knew we’d be okay.

****

We sat on a crumbled stone wall above Briancon. Its stone buildings and wooden houses seemed like miniatures compared to the landscape around them. There, Ayamin began her story.

‘I was angry Danny. I hated you a little bit. So I started to walk. I left Milan and I just kept going. We’d spent all our money on the bus so there wasn’t much else for me to do. 

Three days later I was in some small Italian town. You might’ve passed through it. It’s the one with the statue of Caesar in it.  I found a space to sleep under the arches of a community hall and woke up to flashing lights and a policeman shaking me awake. He told me I couldn’t sleep there.

He took me to their jail and gave me the best meal I’ve ever had. It was some sort of a stew his wife made – but the feeling of the heat filling my cold, empty stomach was heaven. 

In the morning the policeman said I should apply for refugee status or I’d either stay locked up or be forced to leave the country. I told him I wanted to get to England and he said it was impossible. 

Later he came in carrying a radio and set it down on the table next to me. It was playing your interview Danny.

When it had finished he turned the radio off and we stood there watching each other. 

We’re going to let you out on bail. He told me, Whatever you do, you’ve got to stay in this town. Don’t even think about travelling to France… that would be very bad… it’d be even worse if you travelled to the place this Danny was talking about and met up with him... That would be very, very bad. You should most definitely not do that. 

Then he gave me our pack and let me go. When I put the bag on, it felt heavier than I remembered. The policeman waved from the front of the station.

So, I started walking again. I missed you Danny. I really did. I wanted that feeling of us taking on the world together.

I found the policeman had loaded my pack full of all kinds of travel food, enough to keep me alive a few days. So I turned my head towards France and I walked and I walked and I slept a little and walked some more. I found Briancon, and I found you Danny.’ 

As she finished her story Ayamin pulled her tattered copy of Two Hearts in the French Night from the bag.

‘No wonder it’s set here,’ she said, ‘This is a place for stories.’

She flicked through the book and stopped when she came to a red poppy preserved between its pages. It made me think of Teete. 

‘Is that her flower?’

‘She said she wanted to see Paris. So, I’m going to show her.’

I slipped my hand into Ayamin’s. 

We walked back through the town to Graeme’s flat. He was waiting at the door with a patient, sad smile on his face. Our final cup of tea together was spent talking about the trip ahead. 

As we went to leave, he handed me a bag of scones, and a map of France for the road, ‘You take care Danny.’ 

Part of me felt guilty for leaving Graeme so suddenly. But a bigger part was consumed with Ayamin. I shook his hand and we left. 

 

At the side of the church, Henry the scooter sat in a small pile of snow. Ayamin buzzed around him cleaning off his seat, admiring his colour and the pink helmet attached to him. 

‘He’s so cute!!’

‘Alright,’ I said, ‘I’m feeling a little jealous now.’

Ayamin laughed, bent down and kissed his headlight. 

‘How about n…’ 

She didn’t have time to finish as a snowball exploded on her face. Ayamin screamed and then bent down to gather up a small mountain of snow in her arms. 

‘Come here.’ 

She ran after me, I dodged her attack, then leapt on her. The two of us landed face first in a pile of snow. 

When she poked her head out from the snow little snowflakes were hanging from her eyelashes. Her face was red. 

‘Danny!’

I threw my head back and laughed until she shoved a chunk of snow into my mouth. 

‘Now we’re even.’ 

I wrapped a hand around her butt and slid her body closer to mine. Ayamin was grinning as I kissed her forehead, her nose, and then her lips. 

On the surface, her skin was icy and made me shiver.

‘Danny,’ she whispered. 

‘Yeah?’

‘I’m cold.’ 

I laughed, and with a groan, stood to my feet. I held out a hand to Ayamin. 

‘Come on you.’ 

I pulled Henry’s key from my bag and Ayamin hopped on the seat behind me, little Henry’s suspension dropped to an all-time low with our combined weight. 

‘Ready?’ I asked, turning the key. 

‘Ready,’ she grinned. 

Little Henry started first time, I revved the engine, and we shot through the town square. Ayamin’s hair trailed behind her, ‘England here we come!’

We streamed down the mountainsides, I felt Ayamin’s arms tighten around my chest, she was yelling pure joy. 

‘I missed you Ayamin.’

‘I love you Danny.’

****

We flew through the backroads of France.

Hedges and fields, and flowers and fruits. Little villages dotted the countryside, and we’d catch glimpses of painted murals and stone architecture. The scents of freshly baked bread and coffee being roasted filled the wind. It was a land made for the senses. 

The light was golden when I spotted a gap in the hedgerow we’d been following. Ayamin’s hands tightened around my waist as we turned into it.   

We left tired little Henry parked in the corner of the field while the two of us eased ourselves underneath the hedge. 

Once inside the branches formed a little cocoon over us. There was no wind, the sun had made the earth warm, it was almost like being under a blanket.

Ayamin opened our worn pack and pulled out a large square rag. She was smiling.

‘I don’t think there’s a better way to travel France than on the backroads on a little Vespa named Henry.’

She pulled out some plum jam, a pinch of butter, and Graeme’s scones and sat them on our little tablecloth. 

‘Just for a minute,’ she said, ‘Can we appreciate how perfect this is.’ 

My stomach was growling, ‘Not many people would say that about eating scones under a hedge with a wanted criminal.’ 

Ayamin smiled as she spread the butter and jam over a slice, ‘Some might say you being on the run makes it a little more romantic.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I raised an eyebrow, ‘You know what else is romantic?’

‘What?’

‘Everything about you.’

I kissed her as she laughed. The scone was still in her hand and I got jam all over my cheek. She wiped it off with the edge of our rag-tablecloth. 

We ate and we kissed and we ate some more. The dark arrived and Ayamin spread the blankets over us. The night was cold but we were warm.

****

We were in Paris in time for lunch, and what a lunch it was. Little Henry waited faithfully at the bakery we’d stopped at. Fresh croissants steamed in our hands as we wandered the streets, signs for Calis hung overhead, and the sun was out.

‘It almost seems surreal,’ Ayamin said, ‘We’re nearly there.’

‘Yeah,’ I shook my head, ‘Sometimes I wonder if I’ve dreamt the past five months.’

We walked in silence for a while, just taking it all in. At one point I closed my eyes and heard the slight rumble of traffic moving around, the clinking of glasses as café staff collected them, chatter in French, laughter, and the smells of good food, coffee, flowers, and the feel of a slight breeze on my skin. 

We saw the Eiffel Tower. Ayamin posed in front of it and I pretended to take pictures of her. That’s the one moment where I really wished I still had my phone.

Her eyes and her smile seemed to shimmer with excitement and she couldn’t stop laughing. 

‘Paris!’ she shouted, ‘Danny! We’re in Paris and this is the Eiffel Tower.’

She did a little dance and then leapt onto my back. 

‘Onwards,’ she said, pointing to the Seine River. 

We walked down the river through the centre of town and crossed a bridge where couples wrote their names on locks and attached them to the steel railing.

We stopped halfway along the bridge and breathed in. Ayamin’s eyes were still shining as she reached up and kissed me. I felt her waist pressed against me and her hair touching my face. She was smiling beneath her kiss.

It took us hours to walk to our final destination – the Notre-Dame. But I savoured every moment.  The twin tops of the white stone building stood far above us. 

There were guided tours but we couldn’t afford them, instead, we wandered around the base of the building, touching the stone that had been worn smooth by thousands of hands before us.

We followed a group of tourists up a set of stairs. They laughed and shouted in their own languages and took pictures every two steps. The noise was so human and so happy and a little girl in pink shoes waved at us. Ayamin waved back. 

The staircase led out onto a roof and the city spread out beneath us. The tourists had fallen silent, their cameras were in their pockets and the only sounds were the sounds of the city. 

I looked to Ayamin. Her book was lying open in her hands – Teete’s red poppy almost shone between the white pages and black text. 

Gently she held the poppy up, brought it to her lips and whispered a sentence to it. Her eyes shone, and her fingers trembled slightly as she kissed the flower and then released it off the edge. 

The wind caught it, caressed it, and sent it spinning past brick walls, an art gallery, cafes, theatres, and crowds of other people.

We watched as it disappeared into the sunset. A little piece of red sent to join all the oranges, yellows, golds, and blues in the sky.

****

The Paris sun was quickly replaced by halogen street lights. The nightlife began, but now people moved more quickly and in groups. Voices were harsher. 

Ayamin held onto my arm as we walked down the street, ‘I’ve never felt as safe sleeping in the cities.’

I nodded, ‘There’s something about people after dark.’

We stopped walking, one of the side streets in front of us, no more than 200 meters from the Notre-Dame was packed with white and blue tarpaulins.

Children played football in the street, a group of women sat in front of a steaming pot of rice and the men talked with their backs against the walls of the street. 

A football bounced towards us. I stuck my leg out, stopped the ball and held it under my foot. A crowd of kids came rushing towards me, stopping only a meter or two in front of us. Some of them had bare feet. 

One of the older boys held out his hands. His teeth shone under the streetlights. 

I rolled the ball out and hackyed it four times before passing it to him. He grinned. Did five, then passed it back to me. Ayamin was groaning, ‘You’ll embarrass yourself Danny.’

I kept going anyway. Lifting the ball with my foot, and tapping it with my feet a couple of times before bringing it to my head then back down to make six. 

The kids around us yelled and a little boy with two missing front teeth high fived me.

The older boy did seven keepy uppys. I barely managed eight. He rolled the ball onto his bare foot and made a start, reaching seven before the ball appeared to go out of his control, he stumbled for it and got his eighth, all the kids around us gasped but he leapt for the ball and managed nine. I wiped my forehead…

With an easy grin on his face he continued to twenty, then thirty, then forty hackies. The boys in our circle began to crack up laughing and that’s when I realised it had never been a contest. We slapped hands. The little kid with no teeth cheered. 

Ayamin crouched in front of them, ‘Does anyone here speak Arabic?’

 The boy I’d been playing against nodded, and so did his little toothless brother. 

‘What is happening here with all these people in the street?’ Ayamin asked.

‘We’re camping,’ said the little boy.

The footballer shrugged, ‘It’s a tent village,’ he tilted his head to the side and eyed the pack on Ayamin’s back, ‘Anyone is allowed to stay.’

The pair led us to a canvas tent where their father sat reading a mud-smeared National Geographic magazine under the light of the streetlamp.

‘Hello brother, hello sister,’ he said in a rich, deep voice, ‘You’ve come to stay in the most cultured tent city in the world?’

I glanced at Ayamin, wondering if I should ask about getting to England, but the man seemed to take my look for confusion.

‘The world’s greatest works of art sit not far from our humble tents,’ he said, ‘Great plays are performed every night two streets over, and if you’re quiet enough you can hear the musicians of tomorrow performing on the other side of this very building.’ 

He smiled, a dreamy book-like smile, ‘But something tells me you won’t be staying on our street for very long.’

‘We want to get to England,’ Ayamin said.

‘Are you rich?’ 

Ayamin shook her head, ‘We wouldn’t be here if we were.’ 

He sighed, ‘Then I’d say to you, try and claim refugee status in France.’

‘But there is a way?’

The man stared at her, there was silence, he almost seemed to be daring her to walk away. After half a minute his eyes dropped, ‘The body snatchers charge the least.’ 

‘The body snatchers?’

‘Sometimes the people who go in those vans just disappear.’

Ayamin nodded, ‘I’ve heard stories… How do we find them?’

‘You don’t, you have to gather all the money you can, then wait for them to show up.’

I looked over at Ayamin, then tapped my pocket. She nodded. We both knew we were broke.

‘I don’t suppose anyone goes as low as fifty euro?’ I asked. 

The man laughed, ‘More like five hundred brother, and that’s each. Fifty would barely get you a taxi.’

Ayamin looked at me and grimaced, we both knew what we’d have to do, but it wouldn’t be pleasant. 

‘I guess we could sell Henry,’ I said. 

Ayamin nodded slowly, ‘Poor little Henry.’ 

‘Let’s just keep it quiet around him,’ I said, ‘He won’t take it well.’

The man shook our hands. His name was Yamiz. Yamiz the dentist.