There were barges moored on the opposite bank, and a bateau mouche slid past us, filled with tourists sitting on orange seats, and for a moment we could hear the crackly commentary from the tour guide over the loudspeakers, but it was very fast and in German so we didn’t learn much.
I could almost imagine Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron inAn American in Parisdancing there, although that day there were a lot of people around who would have got in their way.
Some people were eating candyfloss, a group of girls were doing a lot of hair tossing and giggling, and a couple of rigid-faced women in sunglasses were walking their dogs. In front of us was the Île de la Cité and the familiar bulk of the newly restored Notre Dame cathedral.
‘Isn’t this odd,’ Harriet said at last, looking wide eyed, as though she had enjoyed a Damascene moment of realisation. ‘All my life I have been restricted by timetables and commitments but at this particular moment only the three of us know exactly where I am. And I don’t have to be anywhere apart from on the right platform at the station in time, and after that on the train to Nice this evening. Perhaps this was a good idea after all.’
I knew what she meant. It was so wonderful just to take the time to sit in companionable silence, enjoying the fact that here, no one could ask us to do anything. No one would be demanding food, a lift somewhere, or clean clothes or entertainment. Fred was off my hands and had been for years, and Ben would be in work, and he was fully able to sort himself out. We were simply here for us. This was our adventure.
* * *
We hadn’t thought to book an entry time for the cathedral, and when we got to the front of the building, there were huge queues to get in. Instead, we sat for a while at the feet of the statue of Charlemagne and watched as people milled about and shouted across to each other. There were tour guides holding up brightly coloured umbrellas, student groups intent on their phones.
Eventually the queues lessened and Anna and I went in for a quick look around while Harriet – who said she had already been there four times on university trips, the last one only about a year ago – sat in the shade with an ice cream and guarded our luggage.
The cathedral wasn’t at all the dark and gloomy place I had expected. It was huge, bright and beautiful, with countless candelabras and the afternoon light streaming through the windows. And there was such beautiful stained glass; it seemed incredible to think it had been rebuilt in only five years after the catastrophic fire. There was the scent of new stone, the echoing noise of hundreds of people walking around, marvelling at the sheer scale of the building, the wonder of the vaulted ceilings high above us, vast paintings and statues.
‘How on earth did they restore this whole thing in five years?’ Anna wondered, ‘it took me three years to decorate my bathroom.’
‘It took the council six years to fix the potholes in my lane,’ I agreed. ‘There must be a lot of clever people in the world.’
‘And a great deal of money,’ Anna added.
We sat then for a while watching all the people milling about, taking pictures with their phones admiring the sheer scale and beauty of the place.
At last Anna checked her watch.
‘Come on, it’s gone five o’clock, we need to find Harriet and get to the station.’
‘Anna, I know I like to be early for everything but it’s only half an hour away, even at our pace,’ I said.
‘Yes but perhaps we could have a little something there while we wait for the train,’ she said enticingly with a wink.
I felt another unexpected leap of anticipation. This might have been an interesting day but there was so much more ahead of us, and we were absolutely free to make any choices we liked. My feet were sore and my backpack, which had seemed a reasonable weight when I started out that day, now felt as though it was filled with bricks. The suitcase wasn’t much better, dragging at my arm behind me like a reluctant dog. But I was in Paris. I was about to get on a sleeper train to the South of France. This was living!
The prospect of a café and perhaps a glass of wine was very pleasing. I patted my body belt for the umpteenth time to reassure myself it was still there and my wallet and passport were safe inside and followed my friends into the early evening where lights were beginning to glow along the Seine river.
Were we safe, I wondered, three older women wandering about in a foreign city? There were plenty of people around but they seemed busy with their own lives and not in the slightest bit interested in us. Perhaps as I had often thought, we actually were invisible to other people after all. The traffic was thick along the roads and seemed to move even slower than we were walking.
We saw other people with backpacks heading in the same direction as we were. Maybe these would be some of our travel companions on the train? Although all of them looked a lot younger than us and their luggage much bulkier.
The station entrance was at the end of a building site, so instead of going straight there, and much to my relief, we spotted an unpretentious-looking brasserie just outside the main doors and we went in.
It seemed a lot of our fellow travellers had decided to do the same thing, and eventually we were shown to a table near the middle of the room by a decidedly unenthusiastic waiter and we sat down with the sort of sighs and groans of relief that people our age were prone to make.
He returned quite promptly with menus which were written in English so evidently he had identified us without a word being spoken, which was clever of him. Then he brought us a bottle of chilled water and a basket of bread, which we fell on with some enthusiasm. I didn’t realise how hungry I was and those pizzas seemed a long time ago.
Still, we weren’t in a hurry and we sat there very happily with a reasonably priced carafe of red wine to give us strength, as Anna put it. We clinked our glasses together and all said ‘Santé’ in honour of the occasion. I felt very sophisticated and cheerful and took a sip of my Merlot which was excellent.
And then across the room I saw him, and annoyingly I spilled a bit of my wine on my shirt in shock. I recognised him immediately. It was the man from the Eurostar train, the one who had sat next to me in splendid silence all the way, and now he was writing in a notebook with a rather smart-looking pen.
I dabbed at the wine stain on my shirt with a napkin dipped into my water and nudged Anna with my knee.
‘Over there, by that clock. Look, there’s Mr Grumpy. The one who sat next to me on the train.’
She looked around. ‘Where? Him? Is it?’
‘Is who? Who are we looking at?’ Harriet chimed in.
