Magnus was pushing Max in his buggy, his hair blown back by the wind, the sun glaring on his tanned skin. The Eiffel Tower loomed up ahead, and gaggles of tourists streamed to and from it, talking excitedly to each other in French, English, German, Spanish, Japanese and other indistinguishable tongues. Parents pushed babies in prams and carried toddlers in their arms or on their shoulders. Couples lounged on benches or walked hand-in-hand. Children ran and laughed and chased pigeons. Everyone was in shorts, skirts, T-shirts and dresses, carrying bags of toys and souvenirs.
Magnus stopped and looked behind him, towards the camera that Alec was pointing at him. He smiled as Alec came to walk beside him.
"Enjoying yourself?" he asked.
"Of course," Alec replied. He turned the camera towards Max, who was happily playing with a toy elephant Magnus had "paid for" in a French toy shop. He wore an orange T-shirt with a green dinosaur on it, green shorts and little red shoes. He looked up at Alec and grinned.
"Hello there, blueberry," Alec said with a smile.
"Hello," Max repeated, looking pleased with himself. He had recently learnt that word, and he took pleasure in saying it as often as possible. Magnus and Alec had, on Maryse's advice (or, possibly, command), kept a diary of words that Max had learnt since "Dada" and "Papa," and the list had been growing over the past few weeks.
"Hello," Max shouted at a group of Japanese tourists. Magnus and Alec laughed.
"I'm sure they appreciated that, Max," Magnus told him.
"Although maybe 'konichiwa' would've been even better," Alec added, grinning.
They stopped on a patch of grass, and Magnus spread out a picnic blanket, taking Max out of his buggy. They were in the shade of a tree. Magnus kicked his flip-flops off and stuck his feet in the sunlight, Max on his lap. Max crawled over to Alec, getting up close to the camera.
"Say hello, Max," Alec encouraged him as Magnus watched.
Max waved his elephant at the camera. "Hello!"