by Susie Kelly
“George, come in the tent please.”
“Why?”
“Because it is raining, George, and you will get wet, and if you get wet you may catch cold. If you get a cold, you may not be able to go back to Disneyland tomorrow. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”
George mulled this over in his about-five-year-old head, and went back into the tent.
“George, come and let Mummy wipe your hands before we eat.”
“Why?”
“Because you have been playing in the dirt, and you might have germs on your hands. If those germs get in your mouth, you may have a bad tummy, and then you won’t be able to go to Disneyland tomorrow. You don’t want that, do you?”
Silence.
“Sit down while you eat, George.”
“Why?”
“Because Mummy and Daddy are sitting down. That’s what people do when they are eating.”
“But I don’t want to sit down.”
“Sit down, George, because if you don’t sit down, then Alexandra won’t sit down either, and you are her big brother and have to show her how to behave.”
“There’s a good boy.”
Silence for a while.
“Bed time, George.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s time to go to sleep if you want to go to Disneyland tomorrow. If you don’t go to bed and go to sleep, you’ll be too tired in the morning, and you don’t want that, do you?”
A short silence.
“Good boy, George. Night night.”
What very polite parents, I thought. I seem to remember that the standard reply to children’s questions used to be: “Because I said so.”
During the night heavy rain beat onto the tent. “Mm, isn’t that a lovely sound?” I asked Terry.
“Hm.”
The next morning was cool, and overcast. This suited me perfectly because my sunburn wouldn’t get any worse. We stopped at a small roadside café for a coffee. Despite the cold weather we sat outside, just a few yards from the heavy traffic. Inside the choking air was thick and blue with cigarette smoke. The lady who served us was buxom and smiling, and wheezy as an old pair of bellows. Even my hot chocolate tasted vaguely of nicotine.
We cycled beside the river Marne on a path even more lumpy and bumpy than the previous one. It was peaceful and pretty, and we weren’t in any particular hurry. Terry led the way, seeking the smoothest part of the track. I could see that he was going to fall as his front wheel hit a rock hidden in the long grass, unbalancing him and sending the bike wobbling wildly. The weight of the panniers took over, and the whole rig tilted and sank gracefully towards the river bank, with nothing between it and the water except a few mounds of grass. Terry was going into the river, with his bike, camera, all our clothes and money. Unable to do anything useful, I shrieked to show moral support. He somehow managed to find a space for his left foot on a sliver of firm ground and gingerly pushed himself to the right, away from the edge, while I held my breath as if doing so would somehow be helpful. In slow motion he inched to safety, leaving only his torch poised over a clump of weed bending beneath its weight.
“Leave it!” I yelled as he dangled over the bank trying to get it. “Just leave it – you’ll fall in!” But he didn’t. His arms seemed to stretch elastically until he was able to get a grip on the torch and land it safely.
We cycled on through patches of woodland, beside the ever-green, barely moving river. Flotillas of ducks broke formation to make way for teams of skinny boats rowed by vested men. Houseboats and fisherman sat motionless on the water. At Noisiel we stopped to admire the glorious old building that was once the seat of a great chocolate dynasty. The Menier chocolate empire started life as a pharmaceutical company who used cocoa powder as a medicine and a coating for pills. In the mid-nineteenth century they discovered a technique for making bars of solid chocolate. These became so popular that the pharmaceutical side was closed down to concentrate entirely on producing chocolate bars, and Menier became a French household name. Two World Wars and growing foreign competition killed it in the end, and the company was sold off, finally finding its way into the clutches of Nestlé at the end of the 20th century. Much as we may not agree with many of Nestlé’s practices, we did applaud them for preserving as their French headquarters this delicious confection of industrial architecture, a great chocolate box of ornate, polychrome ceramic bricks.
A short way down the track we arrived in a strange and rather sinister area. Large mobile homes skulked in gloomy woods, and growling dogs ran backwards and forwards on chains. Each neglected garden housed several expensive cars that looked incongruous in this setting. None of the people standing around responded to our ‘Bonjours’, but stared silently, with suspicious, unfriendly eyes. A hard-faced woman in a shiny new Mercedes drove on the wrong side of the road just for the fun of almost knocking us off. There was an atmosphere of menace and aggression there that reminded me of the film Deliverance.
Just a few hundred yards later we crossed a small bridge into the sunny, peaceful suburb of Gournay-sur-Marne. From there we continued beside the river on the last leg of our day’s journey that would take us to Joinville-le-Pont, where I had booked a hotel for two nights.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Tall Dark Stranger
“There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.” Napoléon Bonaparte
SIX weeks earlier when I had booked the hotel it was under French ownership and management, with an Italian name – Hotel del Ponte. When we arrived, however, the sign outside said ‘Auberge Slave’ and a notice announced that the languages spoken were English, Bulgarian, Polish, Russian and Serbo-Croat. In the pretty, vine-covered courtyard terrace two swarthy men who looked like bandits sat in a blue fog of smoke, staring at us with steel-blue eyes and unsmiling mouths. They sipped from small glasses of clear liquid, looking as if they would as cheerfully and casually cut your throat as they would stomp out a cigarette butt. I was excited at the thought that behind its pleasant rustic facade, this hotel might be a front for a den of evil. Caches of weapons, drugs, white slave traders, who knew what we might find inside?
Putting down the cloth with which she had been wiping the tables, a sweet-faced girl with a wide smile listened while I explained who we were. While I did so the bandits yelled and bellowed at her constantly. She ignored them with exquisite disdain, and showed us up to our room. The décor was Skegness meets Tyrol, circa 1950. To be truthful, I’ve never been to either Skegness, or the Tyrol in the 1950s or at any other time, so I’m just making that bit up. I think it gives a fair idea of what it looked like, though. But the room and en-suite bathroom were clean and airy, and overlooking the river. The new owners had taken over the hotel just ten days before our arrival, said the Slave girl.
After luxuriating in the bath, we went to explore the town. The bandits in the courtyard were still drinking, smoking, staring ferociously, and bellowing at the girl as she calmly tackled a heap of ironing which seemed to have no frontiers. Over the racket, she just kept on ironing placidly.
Beneath the bridge over the Marne the lazy waters make their way towards Charenton a few miles away. Once there they vanish into the Seine. The river almost encircles Joinville le Pont in a great loop, and the town claims to be the only one in France through which the same river passes in opposite directions, flowing upstream to the east, and downstream in the west. In 1910 these waters, up to seven feet over their normal height, had swirled, brown and sullen through the windows of the town’s buildings. That was during the great centennial flood [a flood that occurs every hundred years] that had swamped Paris, causing the Seine to ‘jump out of her bed’ as they say in France. Now the vast man-made Lac de Der-Chantecoq at St Dizier one hundred and twenty miles away collects the flood waters from the Marne, and forms a haven for waterbirds and twitchers.
In its halcyon days at the beginning of the 20th century, Joinville was an important centre for the newborn film industry. Great cine
matographic pioneers like Pathé had their studios there. Although they are long since closed, a thriving post-production and digital imaging industry remains. We found the town to have an enchanting olde-worlde feeling about it – a slow, untroubled world inhabited by slow, untroubled people.
We cycled along the river bank beside large, quiet houses in Norman and Basque styles, slate-roofed, timbered, with boat garages and mysterious windows. Families strolled beside the river, and we stopped to watch a young couple standing by the edge of the water rustling a brown paper bag. Half a dozen ducks paddled rapidly towards them, croaking excitedly. At the same time the surface of the water was broken by three large, smooth heads of coypus that swam quickly to the bank where they shared the bread sociably with the ducks. Where we live the poor coypus are regarded as vermin, and are poisoned, trapped or shot and often eaten as a pâté by locals. They are seen as both a gastronomic treat, and a pest because of the damage they do to river banks and ponds. Here on this section of the Marne they seemed to be safe and popular. As we stood watching them swimming around, an elegant lady wearing high heels and a smart two-piece suit arrived with two little coifed dogs on leads. Stopping a few yards further along the bank, she opened her handbag and called out “Venez, mes beaux!” Up popped the heads again, and sped to where she stood. They and the dogs sniffed each other politely, as if they were old friends. The lady dug into her handbag and bent down, letting the creatures take the food from her hands. All around her the ducks quacked, and pigeons strutted, and sparrows snatched fallen crumbs. This was one of the rare occasions when neither of us was carrying a camera, and I would have loved to have had a photo of that scene.
As well as being within easy cycling distance of Paris, Joinville-le-Pont is home to the few remaining guinguettes on the river Marne. We hoped to spend an evening watching elderly gents with moustaches dining their young mistresses, and lovers twirling to the waltz, or writhing to the java or tango. During La Belle Époque, on Sundays Parisians escaped the stresses of the capital and took the train to Joinville on the new Bastille line, to stroll along the embankments or indulge in the new pastime of rowing on the river. The working classes came to let their hair down and kick up their heels, fuelled by plates of fried fish and glasses of cheap wine. The middle classes came to share the racy atmosphere. Guinguettes symbolised la fin de siècle. Gentlemen wore striped blazers and boaters. For the ladies bountiful bosoms and tiny waists were de rigueur, as were saucy little hats, taffeta bustles, and parasols. The horror of world wars was still unknown, and nobody had heard of global warming.
The oldest surviving guinguette in Joinville, Le Petit Robinson had celebrated its centenary in 2004. Ancient accordions hung from the ceiling. The walls were covered with long-outdated posters advertising forthcoming appearances and sepia photographs of maestros of the accordion of yesteryear. In the centre of the main restaurant was a spacious dance floor. Each dining chair bore a small plaque engraved with the name of a celebrated musician. Including a terraced dining area and tables right beside the edge of the river there was a total seating capacity for 600. We were the only two people in the whole place, outnumbered three-to-one by the waiters. Surrounded by 598 empty chairs you can feel very conspicuous and rather lonely. The waiters stood like a conclave of cardinals on the path watching hopefully as people strolled towards them, then turning sadly to watch their backs disappearing into the distance. It was surprising for a Friday night in mid-June and we began to wonder whether there was something about Le Petit Robinson that we didn’t know. However our food was delicious and beautifully cooked, and our friendly waiter was as attentive as he could well afford to be.
When we arrived back at the hotel at 10.30 pm the Slave girl was still ironing. I asked her the best way to get to Paris by public transport the next day. We weren’t taking our bikes, as they’d be an encumbrance if we wanted to visit buildings. She recommended the RER – Réseau Express Régional. I was sure I’d heard that this train network goes underground in places. No, she said, only through a few very short tunnels – no more than a couple of seconds. Otherwise it is overground all the way. Nothing at all to worry about. She herself didn’t like being underground, but I’d find it comfortable, quick and completely safe. She smiled encouragingly.
What should I wear for a day in the world’s most chic capital? The choice was between the unflattering cycling gear or the equally unflattering chiffon skirt and black top. It wasn’t much of a choice. I decided on the skirt and top. My trainers were dirty. The moccasins were too thin-soled for hours of walking. That left the grotesque sandals. I looked like nothing on earth. I considered wearing a paper bag on my head.
We hiked up the hill to the station, and saw that the trains were indeed travelling above ground. After a kindly gentleman had explained the mysteries of the ticket machine, we hopped aboard and watched from the windows as the pleasant suburbs of Nogent-sur-Marne and Fontenay-sous-Bois shot past. As the girl had promised, we passed through a few brief tunnels. Just as I was relaxing and breathing a deep sigh of relief, the train plunged into darkness and halted at a station. Then I knew my worst nightmare had come true.
Probably it was no more than five minutes that we moved through the sub-terrain, but it might as well have been an hour. My whole body was awash with perspiration, and I began to pant like a hot dog. By the time the train rolled into the Gare du Lyon I was a nervous wreck, frantic to get up the several escalators and through a maze of tunnels out into fresh air. So it wasn’t the best time for Terry to choose, very uncharacteristically, to throw a fit of temper. We were standing on a concourse looking for a way out, when he asked: “Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know yet,” I replied, still searching for an exit to somewhere, anywhere at all that wasn’t enclosed.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? I thought you were organised.” His tone was sharp and irritable.
“Well, I’ve never been here before in my life. How on earth do you think I can instantly find my way out? You are nowhere near wanting to get out of here as badly as I am. Shut up and let me think.” I estimated that at most I could last another 30 seconds without being able to breathe fresh air. Any longer and I really would lose the plot and run amok.
Like a tiny star, at the end of a short tunnel shone a glimmer of daylight, and I sprinted for it. Wherever it led, it didn’t matter as long as it was out. As we emerged into a busy street, Terry asked me again which direction we should take.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” I snapped, trying to relate street signs to the sweaty map that I was carrying.
“I don’t like feeling out of control, and if I don’t know where I am, I feel out of control.”
“Fine. You’re out of control, but I’m not, so stick with me and shut up.”
We marched along in frosty silence.
“Would you like a coffee?” Terry asked.
I shrugged, then realised he was hungry! The only thing that really ruffles him – apart from generals – is an empty belly.
“Only if we can have some lovely buttery croissants with it, or pain au chocolat. Come on, I’ve worked out where we are.”
We sat at a table outside a café on Avenue Daumesnil. After almost three weeks of cycling past the world, it was relaxing to sit and watch it go by from a stationary viewpoint, and to have an opportunity to observe the intriguing behaviour of some of the people around us. For instance, there was the woman in her twenties who looked normal enough, dressed in a neat skirt and T-shirt, who crossed the road at the traffic lights. When she reached the other side, she waited for the lights to be in her favour again, then crossed back. She kept on doing this, and must have made the journey six or seven times in the 15 minutes we sat there. Just walking backwards and forwards across the road, in the same place. Now, why do you think she was doing that?
A few yards from us a shifty man in a track suit stood at the corner, watching something across the road and talking furtively into a mobile phone.
Was he a criminal plotting a dastardly deed, or an undercover cop watching a villain? Or just a shifty man talking on a mobile phone? A beggar woman in layers of ragged clothes, with a red woolly scarf wrapped around her head dragged behind her a tartan shopping bag on wheels, with bundles dangling from it. She stopped next to our table, spat what sounded like a curse in our direction, and went into the tobacconist next door. She emerged with six large cartons of cigarettes under her arm. These she attached to her trolley with a bungee cord, talking to herself as she did so. We both offered her a neighbourly “Bonjour, Madame,” and received in reply another curse as she wandered away to who knew where.
Our earlier petit contretemps was forgotten, and Terry’s good humour restored. It was tempting, and would have been pleasant and interesting to stay here nibbling, sipping and speculating, watching the pedestrians and traffic. Who needs to pay for entertainment when you can sit and observe real life dramas, comedies and mysteries for nothing? Still, we hadn’t come here to sit about all day enjoying ourselves. We had places to go and things to see. Mostly we, or more correctly I, wanted to visit the buildings where Marie-Antoinette had spent the last miserable months of her short life.
We strolled down the road towards the Bastille. I’d heard that the opera house there was horrible – ‘a hippopotamus in a bathtub’ was one description. Now, I can conjure up a very charming image of a hippo in a bathtub, surrounded by bubbles and scrubbing its back with a long-handled brush. But one of the many attributes lacking in the Opera building is charm. I thought it simply hideous, a mongrel cross between an atomic power station and 1960s municipal swimming baths. And plonked in the centre of such an historic area. Come on, citoyens of Paris, pull it down! Burn it! You’ve done it before! Allez-y!
I turned to look at where the Bastille prison would have been were it still there. Closing my eyes for a few moments and concentrating very hard, I was certain that I could hear beneath the roar of Parisian traffic the shrieks and screams of the mob attacking the prison in 1789.