Julie said she’d follow soon. Sixteen years old,
we wanted Paris the way you’d want a lover.
You read the map and took the lead, I followed.
We paced the August streets looking for the myth,
tiptoed round the Jeu de Paumes, kicked our heels
in the Marais, hung out with backpackers and bad
portrait artists. Most nights, we went to visit Eddie, drank
absinthe out of eggcups, tried to live la vie bohème.
I played guitar and sang. Tone deaf, you refused to listen.
Mornings, we’d linger at the Gare du Nord
waiting for the train from Waterloo. But Julie didn’t come.
I began to tire of grubby hostels; groping, foreign
boys with beards, their travellers cheques stuffed
under crumpled shirts; to hate, but quietly,
your flirt-face and your certainties, your lack of hurts
and hungers, my cowardice and human appetites,
our differences. I tried to say this wasn’t Paris after all,
but you would never listen. The river sagged and reeked
of bad history, there were junkies, pimps and pigeons.
No joie de vivre, no revolution, no chic.
We’d linger, longing, at the Gare du Nord
waiting for the train from Waterloo. But Julie didn’t come.
Without her, we were flint; rainless days with no relief
had made us dangerous. That last morning,
remember how we stopped for Julie’s croissant;
heat, like hope, oozing through the cracks,
a certain, brief resurgence of esprit de corps?
Remember, when the train had come
and gone, how you watched me, tight lipped, as I ate
the squashed remains of Julie’s breakfast?
You told me I was fat and that my songs were boring.
I’m pretty sure that was the last straw at the Gare du Nord:
someone spat. I think I hit you. Julie didn’t come.
Next thing I know, you’re on the corner, thumb out,
mignonne in flimsy skirt and vest, then climbing up
into that dirty truck. You, and your idiot courage,
me and my trusty fears. A rush of dusty heat stops
my mouth, you blur small and pink in a haze of sun,
exhaust or tears. I wipe my eyes, look up. You’re gone.
I sat all day, lost on a bench in the Gare du Nord, waitin
for you to rescue me. Julie came in on the evening train
with her reassuring British smile, a jar of Marmite and the scent of rain.
