Weekend in Paris

by Robyn Sisman

  “No! That’s fantastic.” Molly threw her arms around Alicia, who hugged her back with enthusiasm. They swayed together, making excited little shrieks, while the French picked their way past, eyeing them with disapproval. “When?” she demanded. “How come? What about your visa problem?”

  “Solved,” Alicia said smugly. “Thanks to Malcolm I’ve now got a sponsor and a job.”

  “Brilliant! Have another chestnut. You deserve it.”

  But when Molly discovered exactly whose job Alicia had got, she couldn’t help feeling secretly miffed. Alicia was great, of course, but she didn’t have a degree, let alone a first-class one. Could she even spell?

  “Do you think you’ll be all right?” she asked, trying to be tactful. “I mean, have you got any, er, qualifications?”

  “Bookkeeping, payroll, tractor maintenance, catering,” Alicia reeled off. “Advanced word-processing, switchboard, first aid, life-saving, plus a few more I’ve forgotten. But that kind of job is just common sense, really, isn’t it?”

  “Mm,” Molly said faintly. For the first time it occurred to her that she might not have been as brilliant an employee as she had thought.

  “You’re worried I don’t know Shakespeare backward, aren’t you?” Alicia teased.

  “No, no. I’m not. I just wondered how you’d managed to learn all those things out in the bush.”

  “What bush?”

  “Your little town, Tullmarino or whatever it’s called.”

  At this point Alicia cracked up so much she had to cling to a lamppost and cross her legs to stop herself peeing with laughter. Tullamarine, she explained, was a suburb of Melbourne, site of the Melbourne airport; in other words, about as rural as Hounslow. And while she was at it, no, Australians did not really cook possums on the barbecue—although they wouldn’t say no to a baby koala baked in tinfoil.

  “Ha ha,” Molly said grumpily, feeling foolish.

  Alicia flung an arm affectionately across her shoulders. “You know what, Molly? You need to get out more. Stop reading so many books. Loosen up. Be brave. You’re a gorgeous, crazy girl, with a brain the size of the Northern Territory, and the whole world is out there, waiting for you. At home in Tulla, I used to sun-bake out the back, watching those planes take off and land, land and take off, until I knew that if I didn’t get on one I’d be stuck in Australia and the same old way of thinking about things for the rest of my life. And now look!” She stopped, and swept her arm in an arc as if to show off the view all round them.

  Molly stopped too, and turned to face the way they had come. The market scene was like a wonderful painting, serene and yet full of life, composed of Matisse-like oranges and greens and dusky purples, and jolted into vibrancy by the figure of a statuesque black woman sailing toward them, dressed from head-wrap to heels in zinging yellow. In the other direction, a narrowing line of trees, interrupted here and there by the pearly gray of buildings and scarlet splashes of window-box geraniums, led the eye toward a column, on top of which a statue blazed gold against an azure sky.

  “What is that?” asked Molly. “Who’s the figure on top?” She’d seen a sign for place de la Bastille, and wondered if the monument had something to do with the French Revolution.

  “I dunno. Probably some king or other. All I know is, they have a bloody good party there every July.”

  Soon they had left the market behind, crossed the square, and were walking along a street overlooking a marina formed from an inlet of the Seine. Small boats bobbed at anchor, their brightly painted hulls reflected in the green water. “That’s where I’m kipping at the moment.” Alicia pointed. “See that old wreck with the bike on top, and the Ozzie flag?”

  “How romantic!”

  “If you like damp, cold and rats, it is. It’s just as well I’m coming to London before winter sets in.”

  “Er, yes. I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Molly hesitated. “I’m sure you’ve got millions of friends in London, and my flat is very small, and not in a very exciting part of London—”

  “Spit it out, girl.”

  “Well, if you wanted to sleep on my floor, or the sofa, I’d love it.”

  “Yay! Thought you’d never ask.”

  “When do you think you’ll be coming?”

  “Maybe in a month or so. It’ll take Malcolm a little while to sort out the paperwork and send me a formal job offer. Anyway, I still have some traveling to do. I’m dying to go to Salzburg for the Sound of Music tour.”

  “What—you mean you’re, er, keen on Mozart?”

  “For God’s sake, Moll, of course I don’t mean bloody Mozart. The Sound of Music, capital letters. Lederhosen. Julie Andrews. Yodelling. Some cheeseball guide takes you on a bus tour to all the locations where the film was shot so you can take piccies. Everyone sings the songs, and you can dress up as a nun if you want. Or a Nazi—but that’s pretty gross. Afterward, they give you a free packet of edelweiss seeds. I can’t wait!”

  Molly could now see a giant sign in the shape of a Rollerblade, hanging from a building ahead. Outside, a crowd of people milled around, trying on blades, screeching as they wobbled down the pavement clutching the wall, or showily spinning in the street, impudently oblivious of passing cars. Molly’s stomach tightened. She had a horrible feeling she was about to make a fool of herself.

  She followed Alicia inside a cavernous space that might once have been a garage but was now fitted out with a desk, racks of rollerblades, and long benches where people could try them on. Some kind of French rap music was playing on the stereo. Alicia said “hi” or “salut” to about a million people, and told Molly to pay the guy at the desk while she hunted out some blades and checked who was in her group today. Armed with a clipboard, she bristled with efficiency and natural authority.

  Eventually, Molly was kitted out with blades, a helmet, and pads to protect her elbows and knees. As she sat on the bench, snapping the last clasp of her boots into place, she could see Alicia outside rounding up her flock, swaying up and down the street with effortless grace. It didn’t look too difficult. Molly stood up boldly. A millisecond later, her legs shot out from under her and she sat down again, very hard, thumping onto the edge of the bench. It hurt like hell. “Lean forward a little. Bend your knees,” advised one of the instructors. Very slowly Molly stood upright again and half shuffled, half teetered outside, feeling like a giant ape that had just celebrated its hundredth birthday. She cursed her mother for refusing to buy her Rollerblades—all the other kids had them—on the basis that it would be a ridiculous expense when Molly’s feet were growing so fast.

  Alicia was in charge of the so-called English-speaking group, which in practice meant anyone who wasn’t French. Apart from Molly, it included two chunky American boys with floppy hair and at least a hundred teeth between them; a weird-looking Norwegian man with a forehead like a tombstone slab; and three over-excited Japanese girls, mewing like kittens, with cameras strapped to their waists in padded cases. There was also an Italian girl and her boyfriend, both oozing sexiness in skintight leather, who stood moodily aloof from the rest, like movie stars unaccountably downgraded to economy class. Alicia gave them all a demonstration of some basic techniques and a brief safety lecture, then they set off down the pavement, a brood of ducklings stumbling and lurching after their mother. Molly was definitely the worst. Sport had never been her forte at school.

  “Enjoying yourself?” asked Alicia, when they slithered to a halt at a pedestrian crossing and waited for the little light to turn green.

  “It’s great.” Molly smiled through gritted teeth, hugging a lamppost.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be away from the cars in a sec, and you can let rip. Soon you’ll be whizzing along like a pro.”

  Sure enough, they came to a metal barrier across the road, behind which cyclists and Rollerbladers sailed along an empty highway. Molly had to admit that the idea of shutting down whole areas of a city just so people could enjoy themselves was rather fantastic. According to Alicia
, the French were besotted with Rollerblading. Every Friday night, as many as ten thousand people set off from somewhere on the Left Bank and roamed miles across Paris in one great, rolling tidal wave.

  Molly herself was not rolling. She clumped, she lurched. She flailed and stumbled. Worst of all, she seemed to have attracted the interest of the Norwegian guy, who stayed glued to her side as she lagged further and further behind. “Hello, my name is Odmund,” he said, in a weird, warbling accent that made his vowel-sounds skid sideways. “I like your body.”

  “Oh. Thank you very much.” His eyes were the very pale blue of madmen and mystics. When he spoke, he had the unnerving habit of rolling them upward until the whites showed, and fluttering his lashes as if he was going to faint. He began to confide to Molly his theory that the lost island of Atlantis was located somewhere off the coast of Ireland.

  His soft, creepy voice was suddenly drowned by a scream of rage. “Oy, you bitch! Come back!” The next thing Molly knew, a girl in a red sweater whizzed past her on Rollerblades, heading back toward the barrier. Behind her, in furious pursuit, raced a black-haired, slitty-eyed witch on wheels. “Alicia!” Molly called in astonishment.

  “Janine! My Rollerblades!” Alicia yelled in explanation as she shot past. Her voice floated back to Molly in snatches. “Keep everyone here . . . don’t lose . . . relying on you, Moll . . .”

  The rest of the group, agog at the drama, had turned back. “Right,” said Molly, as they approached. “Er . . .” No one was listening anyway. They were all watching the chase. Janine had passed the barrier now, and was heading for a brick archway under what looked like a raised railway line. But instead of continuing under it, she came to a jolting stop by one of the brick supports, and started clumping up a stone staircase. Alicia, who was about thirty feet behind her, did the same.

  “It’s not a railroad,” said one of the Americans. “Look! I can see people and trees. Come on, let’s go help Alicia.”

  “No. Please,” Molly begged. “She wants us to stay here, to stay together. We mustn’t just . . . no, seriously, you can’t . . .” Her voice petered into hopelessness as the two boys headed determinedly toward the staircase, followed by the Japanese girls, who had taken out their cameras and were deliriously snapping photos of everything in sight. Meanwhile, Molly noticed that the Italians were sloping off in the opposite direction. “Hang on, where are you going?” she yelled desperately. The girl looked back and twitched her shoulder in a languid, who-wants-to-know shrug. To the café, she said. They needed an espresso.

  Molly’s head swung one way, then the other, then back again. What should she do? The Italians could look after themselves, she decided, and plunged in the direction of the steps, closely accompanied by Odmund. By the time she got there, the Americans and Japanese had vanished. She didn’t fancy climbing those steps on rollerblades. Besides, she’d just noticed a sign with a line drawn through a picture of a skating-boot. Rollerblading was forbidden: she didn’t want to break the law. “We’ll wait here,” she told Odmund, glad that she’d be able to produce at least one member of the group when Alicia returned. She lowered herself carefully onto the bottom step. Odmund sat down uncomfortably close beside her, and fixed her with his mad eyes. The people of Atlantis, you see, had red hair (flutter, flutter). A mysteriously large proportion of Irish people had red hair, too, though they were supposed to be black-haired Celts. Had it never occurred to Molly to wonder whether, even now perhaps, the people of Atlantis rose from their sea-dwelling to mate with the natives?

  Molly stood up. “Don’t move,” she commanded, raising her finger to Odmund as if ordering a dog to stay. Clinging to the hand-rail she dragged and panted her way to the top of the steps, and found herself on a broad tarmacked walkway, bordered with small trees and flowerbeds rampant with roses and shrubs. Obviously it had once been an elevated railway, now transformed for the people of Paris to enjoy a quiet stroll above the busy streets. She could see archways flowing with late clematis and flaming vines, the gleam of a shallow decorative pond, benches conveniently positioned to admire the view of rooftops and distant spires. Mothers pushed prams, toddlers toddled, lovers canoodled, women gossiped arm in arm, a solitary middle-aged man paused to smell a rose. It was all extremely charming. The only trouble was that the walkway led in both directions, and Molly had no idea which Alicia had taken.

  She hobbled over to a bench and sat down, feeling defeated. Out of the eight people Alicia had asked her to look after, she now had charge of precisely none. What if one broke a leg and Alicia was fired for negligence? Molly sank her head into her hands and closed her eyes. Have you met Molly Clearwater? The useless friend? The stupid secretary? The little baby whose mother chased after her to Paris, tee-hee? Leadership skills, zero. Rollerblading skills, zero. Oh, and by the way, she has a purple bruise on her bum.

  Molly sighed, and opened her eyes, blinking in the sunshine. At least she could practice her Rollerblading, and perhaps find some of the group at the same time. She stood up and decided to take the leftward route leading toward the pond. Lean forward, bend your knees, push one foot away from the other. She set off carefully. This wasn’t too bad. Actually, she was doing rather well. It was easier if you went faster, and there seemed to be a bit of a slope here. Whee! Still: not too fast. Where were the brakes? Help! She’d forgotten how to stop, and was heading straight for the pond!

  Everything now happened very fast. Molly tried to steer to one side of the pond, only to see a small child right in her path, examining something on the ground. Veering too sharply the other way, she lost her balance. Her arms windmilled wildly. At the same time a red blur shot out of nowhere. Molly could feel herself falling. She toppled sideways, legs sprawling, desperately grabbing at the air. Her fingers latched onto something solid, then a body crashed into her, spun away and disappeared. There was a shriek, then a loud splash. Scrambling to her hands and knees, Molly realized to her horror that she had tripped someone into the pond. “Oh, God, sorry. Pardon, pardon,” she said, to the thrashing, spluttering figure.

  To complete her humiliation, Alicia arrived on the scene at this moment, looking like Boadicea on E and yelling something that sounded like “Rip her!” Since the Americans and Japanese had just straggled into sight, Molly wondered if she was urging them to tear her limb from limb. One of the Japanese girls darted forward, arms raised. Molly flinched, but the girl was only taking her picture. Then Molly noticed a funny thing. Alicia was smiling. In fact, she was grinning from ear to ear. “Ripper!” she repeated, her eyes shining with triumph and admiration. “Molly, you star! You’ve caught Janine.”

  23

  Molly was so keen to see Fabrice that she tripped on her way up the stairs from the Métro, and fell ignominiously onto concrete steps littered with discarded tickets. She picked herself up and dusted off the knees of her jeans: more bruises. And what about her hair? She paused in the shelter of the exit to brush it vigorously, although her work was soon undone as she emerged onto the pavement of a broad, drafty street. “Boulevard St-Germain,” read a sign: wasn’t that supposed to be famous? A haunt of intellectuals? All she could see were cars and tourists. Having found her bearings, Molly turned up a side street, exaggerating the confident briskness of her walk to demonstrate (should anyone be watching) that she was herself virtually a native. She had a real French boyfriend—no, a lover: that sounded much more grown-up—gorgeous, sexy, charming (mostly), and an artist to boot. Ha!

  Of course, he might still be a bit cross with her; she must expect that. Anyone would be embarrassed to be caught out as he had been, and perhaps she hadn’t handled the situation very well. Molly felt a squirm of disquiet. Had she appeared priggish? Fabrice might feel—all right, he did feel—that she had gone behind his back and sneaked to his father. But she’d been right, hadn’t she? He would understand that she’d done it for him, because she cared about him. Thinking about the way Fabrice’s hair slithered down over his temples and the caress of his eyes, picturing his
lean brown fingers reaching for her, made her ache to show him just how much she cared.

  A square opened up in front of her, dominated by a white stone church of double-decker colonnades and arches, with Italian-looking belfries on top, gaily sprouting weeds. This must be Saint Sulpice. There was a grand fountain in the middle, where a couple of backpackers sat munching enormous sandwiches wrapped in paper. Water gushed from the open mouths of lions and cascaded over stone tiers into pale gold pools. Miniature rainbows danced in the spray. Once again Molly felt herself moved by the lavish beauty of this city. Every corner sprang a trap, ensnaring her eyes and heart.

  But where was Café Balzac? “Near” Saint Sulpice, he had said. Molly set off to circumnavigate the square in case it was hidden behind the trees, and checked her watch in rising anxiety. It was nearly one thirty. She wished Fabrice had not been so vague. Catching her reflection in a shop window (Yves St. Laurent!), she realized that this was the first time in the whole weekend that she was dressed entirely in her own clothes: indigo jeans, a favorite long-sleeved T-shirt in pale pink splashed with funky roses, and cheapo Marks & Spencer boots in somewhat scuffed black suede. The contrast she made with the mannequins, staring back with the haughty conviction of their own skeletal elegance, was undeniable. But Fabrice liked her as she was, curves and all. She had “a sensational body.” Molly repeated the treasured words, then groped in her bag and gave herself a boost of perfume, just to be on the safe side. As she cocked her head to avoid stinging her eyes, she noticed a white awning down a side-street, on which the word “Balzac” swayed in and out of focus on a gentle breeze. With a breath of relief, she hurried toward it.

  The pavement outside was lined with bentwood chairs and tiny round tables, thronged with people. She could hear the lively ripple of conversation as she approached, and saw sunglasses flash in her direction as she slowed to scan the figures. None was Fabrice. Stepping into the entrance, Molly found her path blocked by a waiter stowing a corkscrew in the pocket of his long apron. He raised an eyebrow inquiringly. “I’m looking . . . I have a friend.” She pointed vaguely to the interior of the café. He stepped aside with a professional nod.