I turned left into the Rue de Rodier fingering the change in my pocket, last nights Bordeaux flowed through my veins and kicked me in the head. 50 centimes, half a Euro left, I hadn’t eaten since, well a long time. I joined the queue forming outside the Boulangerie.

Half a Euro. I’d done my first days work in a month two weeks ago tending bar in Paris. The head waiter had shouted like crazy, ‘I’m just going to serve those two gentlemen over there,’ I expressed, ‘Say it in English’ he retorted, in English, ‘those two gentleman’ I repeated, ‘enough of your gangster slang’ he screamed, stuffed 50€ in my pocket and shoved me out the door.

I just had time to see the boss, who had scoffed a handful of ecstasy only a few hours before, remove his clothes in front of the horrified customers and begin dancing to Wham. I left confused and questioning my English but, relatively speaking, rich.

But my story begins several months before.

I was in my final year at University in England, my life was a mess a lot of drink and other substances were beginning to take their toll. I had finished my finals and was, like a thousand or so others, waiting for the whole thing to be formalized and wondering what use the last four years were going to be.

Then came the day to hand in our dissertations. The entire department decided to celebrate this submission of knowledge by killing off as many brain cells as possible at the Union bar.

Sure I had seen her around before we had several common classes and many mutual friends but if memory serves we had never really done more than exchange pleasantries.

Her name was M, she had read Chinese at Uni and was of mixed French-English parentage, but to me she was always French and everything the English think goes with that, aloof, classy and untouchable, like a Kate Moss in miniature with the brains of Kissinger, but sexier than that combination sounds. Belly full of booze and head giddy with relief at studies finally being over; I discovered myself engaged in conversation with her. Then to my surprise I found myself kissing her in the beer garden. It was like a scene from a cheesy movie, but instead of teary-eyed onlookers there were a few hundred students taking happy hour for all it was worth.

I returned to her house with a group of friends to carry on the party unsure how much of this was real.

Over the next few months we casually dated and head-over-heels I went. She seemed to me almost other worldly. She spoke of Sartre, Camus (who she hated) and other must reference philosophers, of dinner parties, drinking wine with friends under perfect Parisian skies. She introduced me to her love of fashion and the importance of Coco Chanel, who’s biography she kept by her bedside. She took my Dickensian habit of wearing suits and turned it into something that could vaguely pass as fashionable. She spoke of politics, of literature and of reality TV shows to which she was addicted, she was fun, intelligent, entertaining and bloody hell she could dance. Me on the other hand, I liked indie music, dancing in my book was a pint of Stella in one hand; the other arm draped over my best mate Ali, fag dangling from fingers while shouting the words to ‘wonder wall’ as loudly as possible.

Yet despite all her class, intelligence and wit she seemed to like me. She didn’t even mind when I took to the dance floor with my patented ‘pissed up sway‘, even if all the other blokes were looking on in disbelief at this gorgeous girl rotating around a guy who has barely enough rhythm to raise glass to lips without counting himself in.

I was smitten. Class, in my book, had previously been defined as finishing the kebab before sex and not throwing up afterwards. It was fair to say, I was out of my depth.

Time, as it always insists on doing, passes. She returned to Paris with promises to keep in contact and I took a bar job in the town of my university years. Distance and indecisions over future plans led to us loosing contact.

I may have lost her but the imagery remained. The image of France, of Paris, of beauty all around, of ladies sipping lattes and walks along the Seine. So strong was the impression I had created in my head that a few months later I decided to sell all my worldly goods, pack in my job and hop on the Eurostar.

********************************************************************

The queue at the Boulangerie thinned, I getting towards the front, my stomach would soon be satisfied and my hangover sedated. I craned my neck searching for a purchase appropriate to my price range. My French sucked, ‘something or other 50 cents’ read the sign. It was my turn; I proudly displayed my half Euro and gestured enthusiastically towards the sign. I was greeted by several blank stares till a kindly English speaking gentleman explained that was the price for having your baguette sliced.

Two days later I arrived back in London not wearing any shoes on account of the soles having fallen off.

The Paris dream was not, however, over…

After graduating from the University of Sheffield Tom spent a short time living in Paris mostly walking around aimlessly and drinking coffee. Following which he lived in Beijing for two years where he wrote for a number of nightlife and entertainment magazines. Read his complete bio here.

Comments (8)