‘Okay. We’ll stick with what we’ve got.’
I looked up at the receptionist and she gave me an unsmiling but somehow twinkly eyed look. Almost as though she understood, and then she handed me a brass key for room nine on a gilded tassel, which seemed rather lovely.
We were taken up in an elegant ironwork lift to the first floor and shown our three rooms. And mine was fabulous and not what I had been expecting at all. There was a view over the alleyway in front of the building, and the décor was modern with a French twist of floral curtains, plump, lace-trimmed pillows and an elaborate, white metal bedstead. I could quite easily have spent a week there. Despite the ill-humour of the last few hours, things were looking up again. I was beginning to see this was going to be a roller coaster ride.
I opened the window and looked down to the street below. There was a pungent whiff of garlic emanating from the many cafés down there, and the distant sound of music. There wasn’t actually a man in a stripey jumper and a beret with an accordion playing ‘La Vie en Rose’, but it was definitely atmospheric.
I could see a few tables and chairs spilling out into the little street, and a wooden trough of scarlet geraniums under my windowsill. All the same, perhaps I would keep the windows closed when I went to bed.
There was a knock on my door.
‘This is a lot better than I remember from last time,’ Harriet said as she came in, and then she stopped, looking around my room with surprise. ‘My room is quite nice really. They have obviously made a lot of changes, but it’s at the back, with a view over the courtyard, and Anna’s is the same. So, how come yours is even nicer?’
‘Luck of the draw,’ I said. ‘Jealous?’
‘No, of course not, I’m glad,’ Harriet said. ‘You didn’t come all this way to hear us two squabbling. I’m sorry. It’s odd, I had forgotten all the bad things about that holiday when we were eighteen, and I think Anna did too. But of course, I think it’s all coming back to her now, and definitely to me if I’m honest. Do you know other than to show off about that holiday we didn’t really speak to each other properly for months afterwards. Years actually. She and I had a terrible row in Munich – I can’t really remember what it was about and knowing Anna I bet she can’t – and then when we came home of course we had to pretend that we’d had a lovely time when we were telling all our friends about it. And we could never have admitted to our parents what really happened, otherwise they would have been furious and made a big fuss and we would have looked so stupid.’
‘And to think I was mad with jealousy,’ I said, trying not to laugh, ‘imagining you had done all those exciting things. So what happened?’
Harriet went to look out of the window, admiring the view which, as the evening darkened, really was glorious, and the very essence of France, with the pretty little cafés, the twinkling lights and the tubs of flowers everywhere. She sighed and her shoulders slumped.
‘Do you really want to know? All four of us had food poisoning the last time we were in Paris; it was absolutely awful. Then in Spain I had sunstroke, and we were frightened to death when we had to spend two nights sleeping on benches in some railway station in Barcelona where policemen with guns woke us up every hour. They weren’t looking out for us and being kind as Anna claimed; they were threatening to arrest us. The four of us argued all the time and Tom and Paul kept going off and leaving us. They said at one point they wished they had come without us. Anna wouldn’t take anything seriously, or admit she was wrong about anything. We almost came to blows by the time we got to Rome and after that we didn’t speak for three days. So, it really wasn’t that glorious.’
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me all this?’ I said.
Harriet shook her head. ‘Anna said you would have laughed at us.’
‘I wouldn’t!’
‘No, I know you wouldn’t, you were too nice for that. But she always hated to lose face, you must remember. After all, you’d done the sensible thing which was get a job for the summer and earn some extra cash. We’d gone off with no proper plans, hardly any money, no idea of what we were going to do or where we were going to stay. I mean, yes, there were some good bits and we did do a lot of travelling around and saw a lot of places. We only got through it okay because we were young and stupid and had no idea of what could go wrong. And when things did go wrong, we had no idea what to do. The one thing we all agreed on was we couldn’t phone the parents. They would have gone berserk. And this trip? I think we were crazy to try and do it again. A month like that seemed an awfully long time. I’m glad we are only doing this for a week. Anna might want to pretend she’s eighteen again, but I just can’t. Gosh, I do feel old suddenly.’
I put an arm around her shoulder because she was obviously very upset, and she sniffed a bit and found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose.
‘Bloody Anna,’ she said at last, ‘I’d forgotten what she can be like.’
At that moment Anna knocked and came in, looking worried to see Harriet almost in tears. She joined us in a group hug for a moment.
‘Come on, Harriet. It’s not that bad. We are all together in a really nice hotel in the South of France; what have we got to cry about?’ she said.
Harriet sniffed and gave a smile. ‘No, I know, I’m just being silly. And I’m sorry I shouted at you and got so grumpy.’
‘I’ve got a good idea,’ I said at last.
‘I hope it’s better than the last good idea we cooked up between us,’ Harriet said a bit shakily, and we all laughed.
‘Let’s start again. Let’s go out and have a great meal, and then get our wagons into a circle,’ I said. ‘I thought your trip all those years ago sounded so fantastic and I was so jealous I didn’t go too. And now it seems it wasn’t like that at all, so yes, it makes no sense to try and recreate it. But we can make it better this time. We’ve come this far, let’s make this our trip. Not a re-hash of something that wasn’t that good in the first place by the sounds of it.’
The other two agreed this sounded like a good plan and went back to their rooms to freshen up, change out of their travel-stained clothes and into something new. We would meet up in an hour and go out unencumbered by our cases or backpacks and enjoy ourselves.
I took a deep breath after they had gone. I was worn out already.
* * *
Happily, we had a lovely evening after that. The hotel receptionist, who was called Celeste, pointed us in the direction of Café Albert and told us to mention her name. It was only a few doors down from our hotel, and when we got there, our group spirits rose again. The hard part was behind us and tomorrow was a new day that didn’t involve any travelling. We had made it here without incident and suddenly we were hungry.
Our waitress was a pretty young woman who didn’t know anything about Celeste but smiled charmingly and showed us to a spot in their courtyard garden underneath a sprawling vine, where our enjoyment was only slightly marred by the occasional earwig falling off onto the table. It seemed a small price to pay.
There were a lot of lovely old enamel advertising signs fixed to the stone walls, and a big poster pinned right next to our table, announcing that on Friday evening at Hôtel Mer Bleue, which our waitress told us was owned by the same people as Café Albert, there would beune soirée karaoké de sept heures à minuit. A karaoke evening from seven until midnight. She even gave us a 20 per cent discount voucher for the place, should we wish to go, which seemed highly unlikely. I’d never done karaoke, only witnessed the horror of a group of my co-workers who had during a Christmas party.
