French Letter: Paris welcomes me home… in its fashion

Two-and-a-half years had gone since we last visited London, and it was a relief and a pleasure to meet our little grandson, Eden, in the run-up to his fourth birthday. Neither my wife nor I have thus far contracted Covid, but the travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic had halted two previous attempts at a Channel crossing. The good news is that Eden was in fine form, as were a group of my wife’s American relatives, in London to take in Wimbledon and the Globe Theatre — Lear, if you must know — as part of a trans-Atlantic tribal gathering. 

But, come Thursday afternoon, it was time to head back to Gatwick to catch an EasyJet flight to Paris. Normally, we would take the Eurostar. On this occasion, however, such was the inflated price quoted to us online for the smallest upgrade that I decided, the hell with it, let’s fly. Bear in mind that I made the booking more than a month ago, so EasyJet’s travails and the UK rail strike had yet to be announced.

Well… I won’t bore you with the details. I won’t talk about the strike that obliged my son, who lives in North London, to drive 50 miles south in heavy traffic to pick us up or the four flights of stairs we had to climb each time to reach our hotel room in Victoria.

I won’t so much as mention the kerfuffle over the wrong bags accidentally stowed on our return flight or the dispute over the number of passengers on the manifest (was it 168 or 169?). Nor will I allude to the fact that as we began our descent, the Spanish steward almost wrenched my cup of coffee from my grasp, causing me to spatter dash the front of my rather fine linen jacket.

No. I will simply report that our flight back to Paris was delayed for the best part of three hours, meaning that by the time we landed at Charles de Gaulle, it was already half-past ten. France’s national airport is vast, and it took a good half hour before we navigated immigration and customs and made our way, fitfully, to the RER train that would take us to the Gare du Nord, no more than an ass’s roar from our hotel in Montmartre.

Whisper it soft, but the RER is not as good as it is made out to be. In the case of the airport line, it ought to be direct into downtown Paris. Instead, it makes no fewer than ten stops before reaching the city centre – stops that in our case served to punctuate an ongoing monologue from an aggrieved African who conceived that I was personally responsible for the British Empire. “You should know your history, Englishman,” he told me. “You treated us like dogs. You took everything from us. You think we are stupid, but we are not stupid. You will learn.” 

Was it worth pointing out that I was in fact Irish and therefore only marginally responsible for the scramble for Africa? I decided not. In any case, at the Gare du Nord, my interlocutor vanished into the night, still muttering his implied imprecations. 

It was now coming up to midnight, and as we staggered from the Metro along Rue des Abbesses I looked forward to our hotel with something approaching rapture. Sadly, it transpired that our reservation, confirmed on May 22, had unaccountably been cancelled. “Désolé, monsieur,” the bearded receptionist informed me, his mien that of a professional mourner, “mais il a été annulé.” 

“But why? Pourquoi?”  A shrug. “’sais pas.” 

The picture that now rose unbidden in my head was of my wife and me wandering Montmartre in the middle of the night, looking for a bench not otherwise occupied by one of Paris’ homeless. It was not an image on which I wished to dwell.

But, dear reader, fret ye not. The receptionist turned out not to be a prince among men. For though the hotel was complet, one room — actually a miniature apartment — remained unoccupied, which we could have for four nights for only a little more than the price of our original reservation. 

And thus it is that I am writing these words at — let me see — 12.56 pm on Friday, just a little before lunch, with the sun pouring in through our unexpected kitchen window. I can hear cars rumbling over the cobbles and the noise of an American tour group making its way down Rue Tholoze towards the Rue des Abbesses.

But hark! My wife has just returned from the laundromat in the neighbouring Rue Burq, returning our week’s washing in bags bearing the M&S and Holland & Barrett logos. At least I won’t now have to search out my cleanest dirty shirt.  

Life could be worse – and no doubt at some point it will be. But for the moment, after a hectic week in London that took more out of me than I care to admit, I am pleased to be home. Next stop, Plusquellec, in deepest Brittany — but not until we have met up with various pals for lunch, dinner and “drinks” in Paris over the weekend and, hopefully, taken in “Pleasures and Days”, an exhibition of fin de siecle works by the Italian artist Giovanni Boldini, at the Petit Palais, which I read somewhere is well worth a look. 

I’ll let you know.