Page 6 of Thirty Days in Paris

‘Mon argent … il n’est pas là.’

The woman shrugged, showing only the tiniest flicker of sympathy, and gave a small wave of her hand to indicate that I should get out of the way for the next customer.

‘La police?’ I knew as soon as the words were out of my mouth I was wasting them. What would the police do? In that moment, I knew this happened all the time. My purse would have been emptied by now, the francs I had ordered from the post office pulled out, counted and pocketed, the purse itself flung into a bin.

What was I going to do? I hadn’t a sou on me. I didn’t have the language skills to go and tell the police, and they were hardly going to fund my onward journey. They would shrug like the ticket lady. Perhaps even laugh at me.

I had copied out the address of the Beaubois family and slid it behind the clear plastic panel in my purse. Luckily, I had memorised it, though not their phone number. I could look them up in the phone book, somehow, but I had no idea how to make a reverse-charge call or how to explain my predicament to them if I got through. I felt hot with panic and thought I might be sick again on the station floor. I needed to get outside, into the fresh air, away from the crowds, away from the eyes and the hands.

I gulped in the air as I came out into the road: petrol fumes and that sickly cigarette smoke and the smell of onions. I had no choice. I would have to walk. I dug in my bag for the A to Z of Paris I had ordered from the bookshop. I pushed my case up against the wall and sat on it, then took a biro and traced the route over several pages. By measuring the squares, I estimated that it was about two miles.

It was getting dark. I was exhausted and hungry and not a little scared. I gave myself a talking-to. I was here, in Paris, not so very far away from my destination. I walked that distance every day, from home to work. OK, not with a bloody great suitcase, but I’d manage. It would take me just over an hour, probably, with little stops to rest.

I ignored my throbbing head and my rumbling tummy and put one foot in front of the other, my case banging against my legs as I walked. Keep going, Juliet, I told myself.

I distracted myself by trying to figure out the unfamiliar words in the shop windows. Tabac. Bureau de change. Nettoyage. I tried to ignore the fact that this was not the Paris I had imagined. The shops were dreary; there was litter in the street; none of the cafés I passed looked welcoming. My heart became as heavy as my suitcase. I remembered the scenes from my favourite film, Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn dancing around all those famous landmarks, arms outstretched, singing ‘Bonjour, Paris’, her eyes sparkling with excitement. That was how I’d seen myself, not trudging along a lacklustre pavement without a hint of glamour.

As I got nearer, though, the streets became more welcoming. This was more like the Paris of my imagination: the sweeping boulevards with the cobbled streets leading off. The enticing shops and cafés. The smart women and the handsome men. And then, at last, I was on the last page of the journey marked out on my A to Z. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening, and I was considerably later than the Beaubois family would have expected, but I was going to make it.

And then, there I was, on a narrow street, the buildings confronting each other, as if competing to be the most elegant. I searched for the number I’d been given and found a double-height black door with a huge brass handle. Uncertain, I pushed it open and stepped into a paved courtyard. It was slightly eerie, with no sound but the rustle of dead leaves on the trees spaced out in wooden planters, looming like security guards.

I raked the windows looking down on me to try to figure out which might belong to the Beauboises. Some were lit; some blank with blackness. I saw another door, and beside it a row of bells. To my relief, I spotted their name, and pressed the bell next to it.

I waited and waited, not sure how much longer I could stand up. Then the door flew open and a woman stood there with a baby in her arms. She was about my height but thinner than thin, with pale skin and dark eyes that seemed burnt into her face and a wide mouth. I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

Was this Madame Beaubois?

‘Je suis Juliet,’ I said. ‘Je suis l’au pair,’ I added helpfully.

‘You are very late.’ Both she and the baby stared at me.

‘I lost my purse.’ I indicated my handbag. ‘My money. Mon argent.’

I did a mime of someone stealing my purse.

‘Oh.’ She rolled her eyes in disdain. ‘The Gare du Nord. Full of thieves.’ She pronounced it ‘seeves’. She managed a smile at last. ‘I am Corinne. This is Arthur.’ She patted the baby on the back, then flapped her hand to usher me inside. ‘Entrez. Entrez. Come in.’

I picked up my case and lugged it into a hallway with a grand stone staircase.

‘Leave it there.’ She indicated the bottom of the stairs. ‘My husband will bring.’

She ran up the stairs and I followed, Arthur still staring owlishly over her shoulder. On the first floor, she headed for a half-open door, calling out, ‘Jean Louis! Elle est arrivée!’

I knew what that meant. ‘She has arrived.’

‘Ici.’ She beckoned me in through a set of ornate double doors.

My mouth dropped open as I walked in. The ceiling was high, with a glittering chandelier in the middle. The floors were gleaming wood, the walls elaborately panelled and the windows along the far side were taller than I was. Two sofas in pale yellow faced each other, and there were gilt armchairs and small glass tables dotted around the room, several bearing vases of flowers. There were huge mirrors and paintings that even I, with no knowledge of art, knew must be valuable.

Corinne was standing in front of a man who, I presumed, was her husband, babbling at him in French, her free hand waving in the air. He was tall, with chestnut hair swept back from his face, and, like his wife, he was very thin. But his eyes were warm and brown and kind, not haunted and burning like hers.

‘Juliet,’ he said, stepping forward to greet me, and I realised I had never heard my name spoken like that, as if I was someone important. He put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me once on each cheek and they burnt cherry red. ‘I am Jean Louis. I am so sorry. Corinne tells me you were robbed at the station. That is terrible. We will replace the money for you.’

‘Oh,’ I said, surprised.

‘It is the least we can do.’

Corinne was looking agitated. ‘Jean Louis, we must leave for dinner in half an hour. I must get ready.’

---