Laura laughed.
‘I’m making coffee,’ Sarah announced unnecessarily, without turning round. ‘Milk’s that UHT stuff. Bloody disgusting. So we’re having black coffee instead of tea. When in Lyon and all that.’
By the time Ava emerged, Claire and Laura were poring over a map of the city of Lyon and the guidebook, planning their day’s sightseeing. Sarah was checking bus, tram and tube routes on the Internet on her phone.
‘The basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière is a must-see,’ Claire said.
‘We could take the funicular,’ Sarah suggested.
‘Why don’t we walk?’ Claire said. ‘You can go through the Rosary Gardens, it says here. It would be nice to go for a wee dander after all that travelling yesterday.’
Laura thought if it was going to be as hot as yesterday, they’d be better off taking the funicular, but she kept that to herself.
‘Sounds good,’ Ava said, her mouth full of croissant.
Sarah googled La Voie Lactée, the arena in the seventh arrondissement where The Naturals were performing their gig the following evening. ‘La Voie Lactée means the Milky Way,’ she said, reading from her phone. ‘It has a capacity of fifteen thousand – that’s massive! It opened as a concert hall in 1985, but it was previously used as a hospital during the Second World War and an armoury in the 1920s. The original building opened in 1910 as a cattle and pig market and a slaughterhouse.’
‘Yuk!’ Ava exclaimed.
Laura’s imagination created a graphic scene of row upon row of pig carcasses hanging upside down on huge metal hooks and dead cows lying on a bloodstained concrete floor. She shuddered, dispersing the image.
The walk up to the basilica turned out to be less of a “wee dander” and more of an uphill hike. Thankfully, it was in the shade, but it was hot even so, and they were all sweating liberally by the time they were halfway up. Laura’s right knee was throbbing, although she put on a brave face and said nothing of her discomfort to her friends.
The panoramic view from the top made the climb well worth it. They could see for miles – as far as Mont Blanc. And inside the basilica, it was cool. Laura was struck by how sumptuous and ornate everything was. The walls with their mosaics and gold leaf, the colourful stained-glass windows. You could probably enter this building every day for the rest of your life and still notice a detail you’d never picked out before.
Ava dipped her fingers in the font and crossed herself with the holy water. No one said anything. Laura had known Ava was Catholic. Her name was Irish for a start and she wore a gold necklace with a crucifix pendant. Sarah was a Protestant. Laura didn’t know what Claire was – she didn’t know which part of Belfast she lived in or which school she’d gone to. Her surname – Quinn – didn’t give anything away. Laura didn’t care either way. Here she was, on holiday with her friends, and religion had never been an issue between them. In fact, they’d never discussed it. But it had mattered a lot more when Laura’s parents were her age.
When Laura’s father had announced to his parents that he was going to marry Noreen, they’d disowned him, and so Laura had never met her paternal grandparents. She wasn’t even sure if they knew she existed. They’d never forgiven her father for marrying a “Taig” – a Catholic.
Laura’s mummy had taken her to mass when she was younger; her daddy had taken her to Orangemen marches. Northern Ireland was a very different place when Laura was a small child. The two religions could coexist now, but they’d caused a lot of damage to many Northern Irish families during the Troubles, including Laura’s. A lot of damage and a lot of death.
Laura couldn’t go there. She dismissed her thoughts before they got too dark, before she upset herself thinking about her father’s untimely death. Instead, she forced herself to listen to Sarah who was reading aloud from an online guidebook she’d brought up on her phone as the four of them walked around the basilica.
Afterwards, they visited the Roman amphitheatre, then walked down the hill to Le Vieux Lyon, the old quarter, to get a beer before going back to their aparthotel. They’d had a lovely day. The only thing that marred their enjoyment was the heat. They drank litres of water and walked in the shade, but the heat was oppressive. It was like being in a sauna, except you couldn’t come out and jump into a cool pool or dive under a cold shower. They didn’t walk all that far, but Laura felt drained.
It was as they were sitting at a table in the shade in a charming cobbled square that Laura heard it. A Northern Irish accent. And then another. She turned round and looked behind her. And then she saw them. The four men were sitting at the table behind her. She gestured over her shoulder.
‘Oh my God. It’s The Naturals,’ Ava exclaimed, loud enough for the members of the band to hear. Sarah spluttered on her beer.
‘I’m Ava,’ she said, getting up and reaching across the table to shake their hands.
Claire coughed.
‘Oh, and these are my friends Claire, Sarah and Laura.’
‘I’m Niall, the lead singer.’
Ava rolled her eyes, which made Laura giggle. It might be obvious to Ava, but Laura didn’t know the names of the members of the band. Apart from Connor.
‘This is Rich, our guitarist and my backing vocalist,’ Niall continued. Laura looked at Rich, who had tight blond curls and tanned arms. ‘This is Tom. He’s our drummer.’ Tom was tall with a receding hairline and a nice smile. ‘And last but not least our bass guitarist and my best mate, Connor.’
Having dispensed with the introductions, they pushed their tables together. Laura ended up next to Connor. As he sat down again, she got a whiff of his aftershave – a pleasant citrusy, musky scent. Thinking she was probably giving off a rank smell by now, Laura tried not to sit too close to him.
Niall did most of the talking, and he was the main topic of conversation. Ava acted like an overexcited groupie, taking photos of them with her phone, asking them for their autographs and trying to wangle backstage passes, all of which amused Laura and seemed to please Niall no end.
‘So, yous have come all the way over to Lyon to see our gig, then?’ Connor asked Laura.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We got here yesterday. We’re staying for a week. I’ve seen you play before, actually. A long time ago. In The Dirty Onion. I was with my cousin, Declan.’
‘Declan. Of course. I remember now. I knew I’d seen you before! I didn’t dare say it in case it sounded like a cheesy chat-up line!’
They laughed at that. Connor was easy to talk to and as they chatted together, Laura tuned out the others and almost forgot they were there. She no longer felt the heat, either.
Niall paid for another round of beers.
‘So, are you nervous about tomorrow?’ Laura asked.
Connor, who had been upbeat until then, didn’t answer for a few seconds. A cloud passed over his face. ‘I’m terrified,’ he said.
‘Well, I suppose it’s normal to get nervous before you go on stage,’ Laura said. ‘And it’s a big arena.’
‘Aye, I do get stage fright – we all do,’ he said. ‘There’s always a lot of adrenaline and it’s not such a bad feeling. But this time, I feel like … I don’t know … it’s daft … It’s more than that this time.’