Page 16 of Thirty Days in Paris

‘Oh, it is. Come join one. Free, I mean. Check out my website.’ She dug in her bag and gave Juliet a card. ‘I’d better run or I’ll be late for the grand cheese tour. Weirdly, it’s my most popular. Who knew? We’ll catch up soon?’

With a wave, she disappeared out of the front door.

Juliet smiled as she got into the lift. She had hardly been here twelve hours and already she was collecting people: a stranger on a train, a charming barman and now a friendly neighbour. That was the great thing about being on your own: you fell into conversation in a way you didn’t when you were with someone. It opened your mind.

Back inside, she made a coffee, put her pain au raisin on a plate and settled herself at the desk in front of the window. She read through what she had written the day before, resisting the urge to spend time making changes – if she did that, she would be fiddling forever. Forwards was always the key.

But something was playing on her mind. It was all very well meeting new people, but she couldn’t fool herself that what she really wanted was to rekindle the friendship that had meant more to her than any other. Perhaps because of the age she had been – wide-eyed, young, impressionable. Perhaps because of the way it had ended. Abruptly.

She had never found anyone to fill that particular hole in her life.

She reached into her laptop bag for her research folder. As a features writer, it was important to see what her competitors were up to, see what the trends were, and she would religiously go through all the monthly magazines and cut out anything of interest. She leafed through the most recent sheaf and found the page she was looking for.

It was a double-page spread of ‘Cool Things to do on a Winter Weekend in Paris’ from a Sunday supplement. In among the inevitable pictures of pastel macarons, bijoux boutique hotels and padlocks on the Pont Neuf was a photo of a woman in black jeans and a black apron, standing with her arms crossed underneath a sign which read: She Cried Champagne.

Juliet read the article again:

Franco-American Nathalie du Chêne moved from New York to Paris when she was nineteen and never left. She was working in retail when she realised what she really wanted to do was run her own bar. And so She Cried Champagne was born. Tucked into a backstreet in the hip Sentier district, it serves a hand-picked selection of dazzling wines and, of course, champagne, as well as cheese, charcuterie and small plates. The name of the bar was inspired by a song composed by Carla Bley, and there is cool jazz playing that will make you feel as if you are in a film.

Juliet’s heart had turned over as soon as she saw it. Of course that was what Nathalie was doing. She was born to be a hostess, born to draw people into a world she had created so they could enjoy themselves. She felt a burst of pride, then envy. Her friend looked no different, still with her trademark bright red bob and the mischievous eyes and the plum lipstick she had always worn. She could feel the confidence radiating off her photograph. Nathalie had always had enough balls for all of them.

She felt a thrill at the possibility of seeing her again. They had kept in touch sporadically over the years. Juliet had been the more assiduous: regular Christmas and birthday cards. There would be radio silence from Nathalie for years, then a lengthy letter filled with apologies and capital letters and exclamation marks and silly drawings. The last one had been some years ago, but then Juliet had also become lax. The last time she had been minded to make contact, there had been little to say that could possibly be of interest. She had hesitated before filling in Nathalie’s name on the blank Christmas card, then just signed her name with a big kiss, knowing then that she wouldn’t send one the next year.

Now, the thought of Nathalie filled her with yearning. The unique energy that she had, making you do things you thought you wouldn’t dare, like dying your hair a crazy colour.

Or talking to the beautiful boy you secretly admired from afar.

And the spirit of Nathalie was the reason she was here. When Juliet had seen the article, it had given her the push she needed to book her little apartment. Even from a distance, even thirty years later, Nathalie was able to inspire her. You didn’t meet people like that every day.

You didn’t, unless you were a fool, let them go.

10

The Ingénue

I set off for the language school that afternoon, one street back from the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, by the river. It was swarming with students, mostly American, and it was a relief to hear English being spoken. My brain was exhausted from constant translation. I found my name on a list and made my way to the shabby, draughty classroom on the first floor.

It was weird, being back in a learning environment. I’d hated school, the hierarchy and the competition, and was always the last to put my hand up, which meant I was often picked on by the teacher.

The other students all seemed to know each other already, and my mouth was dry with nerves. Especially as no English was to be spoken for the next three hours.

To make matters worse, we were made to stand up and introduce ourselves. In French. I braced myself for humiliation.

‘Je m’appelle Juliet,’ I stammered. ‘Je suis de Worcester en Angleterre. Je suis au pair pour une famille à Paris.’ I scrabbled about for something interesting to say about myself that might make some of the others want to know me. I’d tell them I wanted to work for a magazine. ‘Je veux travailler pour un magasin …’ I stopped, remembering that magasin meant shop, not magazine, and couldn’t remember the word for magazine. ‘Non. Pour un journal. Non, un magazine …’

Of course! Magazine was ‘magazine’.

‘Un magazine de quoi?’ asked the tutor, a thin, bespectacled woman with a sour face who did nothing to make me feel confident.

‘Un magazine de mode,’ I said, and she looked me up and down as if to say I really needed to make more effort if I was going to work in fashion.

I sat through six more introductions, not feeling as if any of the students would be my partner in Parisian crime. And then a girl my age sauntered to the front. She had a heart-shaped face, a bright red bob and wore a very short skirt with cowboy boots.

She gave the class a dazzling smile and her luminous eyes dazzled us.

‘Je m’appelle Nathalie,’ she said. ‘Je suis de New York. Mon père est français et j’habite ici avec ma tante. Elle est très chic.’ She did a little shimmy à la Marilyn Monroe to illustrate her aunt’s glamour, and her armful of bracelets clanked. ‘J’adore Paris. J’adore les Gauloises et le pastis et les garçons.’ The teacher scowled at this. ‘Je veux être …’ She held out her arms and gave a Gallic shrug with a mischievous grin. ‘Quelqu’un. I want to be someone.’

She spoke with utter self-belief. I imagined her with her aunt in a chic apartment, all cocktail cabinets and potted palms. She was everything I was not. Go-getting. Certain. Ambitious. In a flash, I knew that if I wanted to live my dream, I had to be more like her. No one in the class had paid any attention to anyone else’s introduction, but everyone was gazing at Nathalie, rapt.

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