It smells as though something has died in the hall. I noticed it yesterday, and had a look to see if I could find it. I thought maybe it had crawled under the grandfather clock or the bookcase but I couldn’t see anything. Maybe it’s under the stairs, which is a dark pit where things could rot for months without being noticed (apart from the smell).
I think about the scent of honey. On Thursday night I walked from the Gare du Nord to the hotel, it was one stop on the metro, but I hadn’t sussed out the metro, and I’d found it on the map, so I walked instead. It was fine, I found the hotel, the reservation was OK, I went to my room, unpacked, changed, had a look at the guidebook, realised that Sacre Coeur was only about as far again the other side of the station. It was mid afternoon. I texted a couple of friends to see where they were, but I knew they would be arriving at different times and we probably wouldn’t get together till the evening. So I set off to walk, and on the way to the station I met Hanne from Denmark and Simonas from Lithuania, who had just got in from the airport, and fixed up to see them later.
I walked up into Montmartre, the one main tourist area which I didn’t see the last time I was in Paris. Walked up through the gardens to Sacre Coeur, saw the city at my feet, breathed in the scent of the orange blossom, what more could I ask for? Found a table in the café at the foot of the steps, ordered a coffee, took out my notebook, and wrote, and wrote, scribbling away about nothing, my usual drivel.
As the train left St Pancras I had sent a text round to several friends, saying ‘On my way, bye-bye London, Paris here I come!’ My fingers being pretty clumsy, I accidentally sent it to someone else in my address book, a woman I like and get on well with but don’t really see that often, just if we bump into one another every now and again we swap numbers or email addresses and promise to get in touch, but never do. (Only last week I found a torn off slip of paper in my purse with her land line number, and an out of date pocket train timetable with her email address). The last time I saw her was at the hospital last summer when I went in for my ‘boob job’ (ie lumpectomy), she works there and we just met in a corridor.
Anyway, the message went before I could stop it, and on the train I got the reply:
‘…And who might you be? Don’t recognise the number. Y didn’t u ask, I could do with a break’.
I explained who I was and that I'd texted her by accident and got another reply:
‘Oh my god. How r u? Take it ur well. Who is the fella taking u away from the rat race?! Have a good time. Enjoy yourself.’
‘No fella, sadly’ I reply. ‘It’s kind of work – yeah, right! Take care, love…’
Sitting in my Montmartre café, I write all this into my notebook, along with the orange blossom and the view and Hanne and Simonas, and the pleasure of anticipation.