‘Blimey, it’s like a prison block. Not that I’ve ever been banged up but if I was, this is how I’d expect it to be,’ said Emma as she glanced at me with a smirk on her face.
‘Yeah, ’cos they put you up in three-star hotels just like this,’ I said.
Emma’s observations were completely accurate.
‘It stinks,’ I said to Emma, wafting a hand to try and dispel the stench in the air.
She nodded in agreement as a smile crept over her face. It was dark, dank and dull, like a murky scene from a crime drama with a musty smell – possibly the smell of death. We wouldn’t have known. Perhaps the corpse of a rat was rotting away up a drainpipe. There were chunks of plaster missing from the walls. It wasn’t just in desperate need of a coat of paint, more like a complete refit. The patchy, threadbare yet stained carpet had seen better days. A prison may well have been more upmarket. I put the key in the lock and pushed down on the handle to reveal our room. It was poky.
‘Perfect,’ said Emma, barging past. ‘It’s the poshest hotel I’ve ever stayed in, in Paris.’
‘It’s the only Parisian hotel you’ve ever stayed in,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ she replied, laughing. ‘It’s got a decent-sized bathroom. There’s a gap between the toilet and shower cubicle but you could use it as an all-in-one. No cheap frills like soap, though.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ve got shower gel and we only need a base,’ I reminded her. ‘We’re getting our share of thrills being in the city of romance on a scorcher of a hot day with plans for party central. We just have to head out there into the action.’
She claimed the bed by the little window where the barely there, see-through curtains hung down. She dumped her case beside the bed and jumped on. She sprawled out, hands behind her head, then sat up quickly. ‘You don’t think we’ll catch anything off the bed sheets, do you?’ She smirked, trying to goad a reaction.
‘Relax. Nothing more than crabs and bed bugs. You’ve probably caught worse in your lifetime,’ I said. She grabbed a pillow and hurled it across at me.
‘Bitch,’ she shouted.
‘Fucking bitch,’ I replied. ‘You’ve probably just scattered a few critters around doing that.’
‘Good. Now let’s get the bus into Paris,’ Emma said.
Despite being willing to stay overnight, we both wanted to escape the hellhole of an excuse for a hotel. Our time was limited to two days for a leisurely adventure. Our holiday activities list included Emma wanting to see the Eiffel Tower and cruise down the Seine. Priority number one was buying booze for the party. Even though I’d bought a bottle of Glenfiddich as a gift, I felt we needed another gesture. Alcohol was a prerequisite to showing up unannounced. And an intentional last-minute email meant it was unlikely he’d be expecting us.
We boarded a coach from the hotel. I managed to negotiate two tickets for the centre of Paris, stopping at the Champs Elysees. We hadn’t bargained on loads of other stops beforehand, totalling a forty-minute journey. But we treated it like a mystery bus tour special, like the ones advertised in travel agency windows. And the type of thing my gran used to love telling me about – a senior pensioner crowd on a day trip and the mystery being that the end destination is unknown; the difference being for us that we weren’t pensioners and we knew where we were headed. Marc had taken me there a few weeks earlier. But we had no idea of the route, so we watched everything from the window, soaking it all up. After the pick-ups at the other hotels (most more upmarket than ours), a lot of it was just fast roads until I began to recognise landmarks, the obvious one being the Eiffel Tower. Then I remembered the roads making up that crazy star thing Marc had mentioned, and I knew we were there. The sun was blazing as we climbed off the bus, gagging for a drink.
‘Remember the name of this road,’ I said, looking up and pointing to the street sign. ‘Avenue Carnot. It’s a long walk back to our hotel if we don’t.’
Neither of us had a pen and we weren’t particularly great with directions. Emma looked up at the sign. ‘Avenue Car… not. That’s easy. Let’s rename it Carrot Avenue. We’re bound not to forget that,’ she laughed.
‘Inspirational. Carrot Avenue it is,’ I said.
Sometimes Emma had a spark. It wasn’t genius, but she could be quick-thinking with a wicked sense of humour. Then there were other times when I wondered how she’d ever managed to become a librarian.
Still parched, we needed to grab a drink. We discovered café culture, although usually vibrant in Paris, to have greatly reduced options on a Sunday afternoon. We trundled down the street. A few more streets later, having got slightly lost, we consulted our map.
‘We can’t be that stupid. It’s a bloody great big landmark,’ said Emma, as she twisted the map around.
‘Yes, we can. Let’s not tell anyone about this,’ I said.
We’d misinterpreted the map from the start, having mistakenly headed away from the centre, the big clue being the Eiffel Tower.
‘Put it down to dehydration. I’m gasping,’ Emma said, as she grabbed her throat and wiped her forehead, drama queen style.
We spotted a café / bar type place on a corner and made straight for it. Everyone else close by had had the same idea. The only tables left were those without parasols in direct hot sunshine. But with little choice, it had to do. Drinks first, comfort second.
‘Can you get me some water?’ asked Emma.
‘Well, I would if I could remember the word for it in French. Can you have orange juice instead? I can do that,’ I said.
My language skills were on a par with the equivalent of poor to zero. I pondered whether perhaps I should have taken my French dictionary and a pen.
‘But I really want water. Well, they’re bound to speak English, aren’t they?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I nodded.
Inconveniently, we discovered that the waiter only spoke French.
‘Typical. We get the one that doesn’t speak English. He probably doesn’t like us because he’d rather be in his back garden chilling out than dealing with customers,’ said Emma.
‘Orange juice it is then,’ I replied. ‘Un jus d’orange, sil vous plait.’
We also ordered ham and cheese sandwiches because that was the only option on the menu that we were confident of one hundred per cent. Neither of us fancied frogs’ legs or snails by way of an accident, so we opted for safe, ordering a simple sandwich. On further inspection of the menu, we worked out we could order water by asking for Evian and Perrier – good old brand names.
‘It’s oh mineral,’ Emma said, in a eureka type moment. She started laughing at herself, realising how funny she sounded, and repeated it, raising both her hands higher in the air in a prayer type fashion. ‘Oh mineralll – praise be,’ she said, bowing her head at the table. ‘Well, that’s easy enough. We just have to associate water with prayer.’
‘Okay. So far, carrots and prayer. There’s probably a job out there for people like us,’ I said.
‘Like us divvies that can’t remember any French from school? I wouldn’t give us a job,’ she said.
The waiter reappeared and placed down two plates of sandwiches.
‘I’ll remember Carrot Avenue. You remember water.’ I laughed. ‘So what would you have done for a drink and sandwich if I hadn’t ordered them?’
‘I would have used the international pointy method of course. It worked well in Spain,’ she said.
We giggled with mouths full of sandwich.
When it came to pay the bill, Emma offered to take our cash inside. Moments later, she hurriedly rushed out.
‘Quick, let’s go. Think some bloke thought I was propositioning him,’ she said.
She took off at speed down the street. I almost ran to catch up.
‘Wait. What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘He was wearing a white shirt and I tried to gi
ve him money… he looked like he was a waiter. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but I kept trying to give him money. He just looked at me and laughed… until the real waiter came over and sorted it out – felt a bit of a plonker,’ she said, looking at me with an expression of seriousness.
I stopped momentarily, crossing my legs to avoid wetting myself. Imagining the scene, I wished I’d seen it, but the thoughts were entertaining enough.
‘You could have bagged yourself that Frenchman you were after for the price of an orange juice and a sandwich,’ I teased her, aware of the increasing need to find a loo.
In the street, we came across what looked like a space-age machine with a sign saying toilettes. We just had to figure out how many centimes and which buttons to enable us to successfully wee in the street. We passed the test. After consulting the map again (properly this time), we headed off in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. The streets were largely quiet compared to the time Marc had shown me around. Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, for a capital city it was almost deserted.
‘Next on the list – if you see a shop, we need to buy beer for the party,’ I said.
‘Gotta find one that’s open first.’
Just before reaching the Eiffel Tower, we found a small off-licence selling alcohol. Knowing how hard it was to find somewhere open selling alcohol, we decided to buy what we needed and carry it around with us – a couple of six-pack bottles of lager and two small bottles of water. The bag was heavy. There wasn’t much choice, and that was all we could manage to carry between us. Little did we realise how popular we’d become with our bottles of lager, visible through our plastic bags. The streets got less quiet as people approached us, pointing at our bags, asking if they could buy it. At least that’s what we thought they said. We just shook our heads. Had we wanted, we could have had a little lager racket.
Stopping off at the ornamental fountains near to a bridge over the Seine, we came across crowds of people sunbathing, some topless and others dipping their feet in the water. This was why the rest of Paris was deserted; they were all congregated at this spot. There were even TV cameras about, which we walked past a couple of times, thinking we might end up on French TV. They were filming the crowds, we guessed, due to the extreme weather, although we didn’t really know, or care. We stopped for a break on the grass by a fountain.
‘I can’t be arsed doing any tourist stuff now. I think we’ve seen all of Paris by foot,’ said Emma, wiping sweat from her brow.
‘I’m so pleased you said that. Let’s chill out here.’
I dumped the bags on the grass and sat on the floor. We rolled up our jeans and both of us stripped down our top halves without going fully continental – stopping at vest tops. I kicked water at Emma. Before long, paddling and splashing in the fountains ended in a full-on water fight. Getting soaked felt good as the cool water trickled down my skin, providing relief from the sun. Afterwards, we sat and looked longingly at our lager, both tempted to break it open. We resisted, probably only because we both knew we’d struggle to open it.
‘You getting nervous about tonight yet?’ Emma asked.
‘Yeah, course. I’ve been nervous for the past couple of weeks with this and the interview,’ I replied as I turned to speak to Emma, sheltering my eyes from the sun. ‘But it’s exciting at the same time, isn’t it?’
‘Definitely. Mr Paris just doesn’t know what’s in store for him. Will you tell him? About getting the job, I mean?’ she said.
‘Nah. What’s the point? It won’t make a difference. Do you think he’ll mind us showing up?’ I asked.
‘I think he’ll be mighty shocked. To turn up at his party without him expecting it, unless he’s read his emails, and coming all the way over from England. He might wonder what you’re up to. Then when he calms down, I’m sure it will be a big boost to his ego,’ she said.
‘I’m not doing it to boost his ego. I don’t really know why I’m doing it anymore,’ I replied.
‘It’s just a bit of fun… you mad, weirdo, STALKER WOMAN!’ she shouted through cupped hands, attracting the attention of onlookers.
I pelted my shoe at her. She lobbed it back clumsily, and it landed in the fountain. She covered her mouth apologetically, but not so much that she offered to get it. It didn’t matter; we were already drenched.
‘Tell you what, let’s do the river trip,’ I said, fishing out my wet shoe and attempting to put it on. ‘We can catch the breeze and dry out and you can look at the Eiffel Tower from the boat.’
My soggy shoe squelched when I walked.
‘Okay. Only because it’s literally across the road and over the bridge to get down to the boat. Any further and you’d have to carry me,’ she said.
‘Or abandon you,’ I replied.
We managed to join a bateau about to depart. Neither of us wanted to climb the Eiffel Tower. Anything other than trying to dry out my shoe by sitting with one leg raised on Emma’s lap, causing my body to drape over hers, was too much effort.
‘We probably look like lesbian lovers,’ I said, laughing, ‘although I think I’d have better taste.’
She turned her head towards mine and gave me a lips kiss, wrapping her arm over my shoulder just to confirm any suspicions of onlookers. I pushed her off and then wiped my mouth.
‘You’re mental,’ I said, as I rubbed the remnants of saliva visible on my arm.
‘Are we having a lovers’ tiff then?’ she asked.
‘Behave yourself, bitch,’ I said, then turned and smiled at her.
The cruise down the Seine was perfect. We listened idly to the commentary which peacefully washed over us as we took in the sights of the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame amongst other landmarks. Our faces became accustomed to the cool breeze flowing past. By the end of the tour, we had made a pact to come back and do the other Parisian stuff in future.
‘We’d better get back to Carrot Avenue. This weirdo and her strange sidekick have a party to get to,’ I said, climbing onto the bank.
‘Maybe I could be your lesbian lover just for tonight. We could pretend we’re over for a threesome. That would really get his attention,’ she giggled.
‘I don’t think we’re going to have any problems getting his attention. Anyway, you’re not my type,’ I said and pushed her away.
‘Just a thought. I’m still going to snog a Frenchman after coming all this way,’ she said.
‘You’ve more chance if you’re not lesbian then,’ I reminded her.
‘Could be bi. Blokes love that,’ she said. ‘Girls are so soft and delicious, and they know what feels good.’ I shot her a glance. ‘Fine. Straight it is. Remember, you’re the one missing out,’ she laughed.
‘I can cope with that. Now grab a handle,’ I said, separating the carrier bag handles, attempting to share the weight.
We lugged the heavy contents between us, one handle each, and meandered back to Carrot Avenue to await the coach.
The Taxi Ride
From the window of the bar, Emma and I watched a taxi pull up outside. The concierge had arranged its arrival. But I had to attempt negotiating getting us to the party. We’d already finished our drinks about five minutes beforehand, having settled on a pint of beer each, to try and relax. We didn’t dare order another just in case the journey took longer than expected. The last thing I needed was to arrive desperate for the loo. Emma pulled me to my feet.
‘Yay. Le taxi is ’ere! Now come on. You know this is a good idea. We haven’t come all this way to wimp out now,’ Emma said.
Her excitement wasn’t infectious. I felt sick contemplating what we were about to do. But she had a point. The trip was about the party. We couldn’t bottle out, even if it didn’t seem such a great idea. Any other option felt a better idea. If Emma had persuaded me to sack it off and head for a Parisian nightclub, I’d have gone with it. But she didn’t. She co
ntinued to pull me outside. We stood before the driver.
‘Monsieur,’ I said in my best French accent, then handed him a piece of paper containing Marc’s address. ‘S’il vous plait,’ I added. Unsure if it sufficed, I stood and waited for his reaction, praying that it wouldn’t require further interaction. The note was written in block capitals. It left no doubt about the spelling. The other last thing I didn’t need was trying to explain the address due to bad handwriting. It took a couple of seconds before he nodded. Relieved, we climbed in and set off for Marc’s house.
‘Here we come, Mr French. There’s no way he’s going to expect this. This is totally mental. I can’t wait to see his face,’ Emma said.
I didn’t reply, other than laugh, triggered by the toxic mixture of giddiness and alcohol. It felt like the high of having taken drugs, except for the mild panic.
*
Eventually, we pulled up on a street that looked vaguely familiar.
‘Yay. Is this it?’ Emma said, patting my knee.
‘Oh my God. What are we doing?’
Emma turned to face me. ‘Now shut up and get a grip. This is just a party. It’s all fine,’ she said sternly. ‘He’ll be a bit surprised then everything will be okay. Promise.’ Then she added, ‘If it all goes tits up, which it won’t, you’re leaving the airline anyway. You’ll never see them again.’
‘Merci,’ I said to the driver as he turned to face me and pointed at the fare. I handed him a large note, to avoid the complication of working out change.
We got out of the taxi to the sound of loud music playing with a Caribbean vibe. The raised pavement where we stood was at a gradient above his place. It was like being on stage prior to a performance, with the noisy commotion of chatter and music. It was full of people outside, even though I hardly dared look.
‘Just breathe… and remember to walk like a hooker in your heels,’ she said. I pulled my shoulders back. In the confines of my private space in the Penthouse, it had been easy to become a red-hot she-devil. But now I felt more schoolgirl tottering in stupidly high shoes.
Free Fall in Stilettos Page 17