There is a fair bit of alcohol. I suspect I would not want to be here late, when people will have visited too many of those tents, but it is still early, and there are children everywhere, and it is a family affair.
After the rides, we discover the holiday market, and we browse the stalls of handmade goods. Nicolas buys me a scarf, and I buy him one to match, and we don them as the temperature drops lower. Then we return to buy seven more, all matching, for holiday gifts.
The stall keeper promises to keep the scarves until we have finished our visit, and we head off back into the fair. We take in another circus, and we climb to ride the ice slide, and we don rented skates, and then we find a quiet spot, where we collapse in the snow and stare up at the night sky, our hands entwined. We’re quiet now, quiet and happy, in our little bubble of peace away from the roar and shriek of the winter’s fair.
“Shooting star,” I say, pointing. “Make a wish.”
Nicolas’s hand squeezes mine, and we make our wishes.
“What was yours?” he says.
“You are not supposed to reveal a wish.”
“Then I defy convention yet again. I wished to come here again when it is fifty years hence. When we are old and white haired, we will step through the stitch, and it will bring us to this exact year, and we will do this all over again. We will walk past this spot, and we will see the ghosts of ourselves lying here, happy, and we will be just as happy.”
Tears prickle my eyes. “That is an excellent wish.”
“And yours?”
“I wished never to forget this night. Not simply what we have seen and done, but how we felt. I imagine that if one lived in this world all one’s life, by our ages, such things might not be as magical. The fair would be too loud, too bright, too frenetic. I hope that I will always be able to see such things as we do now, as if we are children gazing upon them for the first time. That no matter where we go and what we see, we will never become immune to the world’s wonders.”
“Another excellent wish. Not merely wishes, I think, but choices. We will choose to never become immune to wonder, and we will choose to find our happiness, together, whether we are young or aged, whether life treats us well or ill.”
I inch closer, my side against his, my face upturned as snow begins to fall anew.
When footsteps crunch near us, I lift my head to see two middle-aged women, their hands clasped in a way that says they are not simply very good friends, and my heart soars at that freedom. When they spot us, they give a start and share a small laugh.
“Do not worry,” I say. “We have not fallen drunk in the snow. We are simply being silly.”
“Nothing silly about finding a moment’s peace on a beautiful winter’s night,” the taller woman says. “It’s a little busy today.”
“It’s the snow,” her partner says. “We might actually get a white Christmas for once.”
I open my mouth to say that we’ve had snow the past few years. Then I remember my past few years were nearly two centuries ago.
“Would you like us to take your picture?” The first woman lifts her phone, waggling it, and I realize she’s saying she can take a photograph with that. I have seen Bronwyn do such a thing, but I did not realize our phone could do it as well. The woman’s phone looks just like ours, though, and so I take ours out, unlock the screen and say, “If you would be so kind.”
“I love your accent,” the second woman says. “Where are you from?”
I think she must mean Nicolas, but he hasn’t spoken. I am fromhere. From London. I had not realized I might have an accent. I know my word choices are not always theirs, but I suppose my way of speaking must be different, too.
“Up north,” I say. “Yorkshire.” Which is not entirely a lie, as I have spent much time there with Rosalind. “But I have been abroad, and so I believe I have picked up a little from everywhere.”
“And I have quite possibly infected her as well,” Nicolas says.
The second woman grins. “Oh, now that is a very pretty accent. French by way of the Caribbean is my guess. My mum came over from Jamaica.”
“I am from Martinique.”
The first woman tells us to smile, and we do. After a few flashes of the camera, I turn to kiss Nicolas’s cheek, and they take another.
“Lovely,” the first woman says. “I think I got some good ones.”
“May I return the favor?” Nicolas says. “A photograph of the two of you with the carnival in the background.”
“We’d love that, thanks.”
The woman opens the right screen, hands Nicolas the phone, and then they pose. Nicolas takes photographs, and after a few, they both turn, as if to kiss the other’s cheek, as I had, but instead end up facing one another. They share a kiss, and Nicolas takes the picture.