In Paris, they don’t catch falling leaves in autumn like people in England do. Well, the people outside the shop on the Boulevard Haussmann certainly didn’t. They looked at us as though we were mad, dancing under the branches, our arms flailing. ‘Les Anglais – fous!’ we heard them say.
I don’t know how they knew we were English, our involuntary outpourings as we leapt and twirled unintelligible as a language. We didn’t care. We were indeed mad – mad with love, leaping and twirling at the joy of it.
We drank pastis from tiny glasses and cafe-au-lait from oversized cups, crammed croissants into our mouths, into each other’s mouths. We walked along the banks of the Seine where the gay couples sunbathe and let them check you out, although it was clear you were taken. We threw coins from bridges to ensure our return and spent afternoons in bed with the sounds of Paris a backdrop to our passion.
Back in England it couldn’t go on. There were bills and jobs and you forgot who we had been in Paris. I told you we were still those people, but you couldn’t see it. The winter brought a sharp chill that didn’t thaw through spring and summer and then it was autumn again.
I bought fresh croissants, pastis, tiny glasses and took them to your office, just to be mad again. I poured two shots and waited on a bench outside. There was a girl there, laughing and shouting in French as she ran among the trees that edged the car park, trying to catch a leaf.
The glasses slipped from my hand and shattered on the tarmac as I remembered that I’d never seen anyone do that in France and realised that someone must have taught her.
