Mid-summer, and deciduous leaves; paintings of synthetic ponds filled with nymphéa shipped from Egypt and the Far East, in colours never before seen. Everyone in Paris tells me they want for the green of London but I see life all around in this city. I wish I had never left, or rather wish I had never been. Apples sprout through the fertile cracks in the pavement and nothing washes their taste from my mouth.
Most of the space between Paris and London is farmland; on the Eurostar you pass through acres of fields at speed, folding around the carriage in valleys and troughs. Entering the channel, the sterile air blows cold into the carriage. Arriving at Gare De Nord, I push past the swathes of people. My Britishness doesn’t leave my side, it carries a heavy sweetness undeserved on the French palate. On the nose it is round and full, almost indolic – begging for release. I try my hand at French at the bar and, for a moment, they believe me before the smell gives me away.
At Frenchie, I am given a stall to sit in front of the extraction unit and drink Alsace Cremant, the hot air blowing the smoke from between my legs. Service in this country is natural, a custom before it is a courtesy. I eat Vietnamese with a Dutchman looking for the best pho in Paris. He works between the Alps and Paris, and he comes to the city twice a month; when this began, he tells me, it was the worst part of this month, but he has grown to love the city between cups of hot broth. I tell him about Deptford; or really I don’t but I want to.
I scarcely sleep in Paris – I spend nights drafting words and playing with the French language. In the half-light of this Marais apartment, everything and nothing is mine. The city comes to life before me. From the mud and bones below she rises, stirring breezes in the heat; I wake to four Nespressos and a chicory coffee and at Musée d’Orsay, I move through the rooms without pause. I stop only at a Hammershøi – a painting of the same room as my favourite painting at the National Gallery back in London. In this version there is no figure. In the London work, a woman stands with her back to us; in this version, we look through the doorway at an empty table. It reminds me of the large marble table at my borrowed apartment, longer than my arms can stretch.
Rain shrouds the city, lapping at her heels. The Seine grazes them, and diaphanous skirts plasticise against her legs. Following hemlines down street after street, I find myself in search of the perfect sunrise. Every stop I make is a bootless errand to bookmark her flowing want, and in the queue at Notre Dame, every breath drawn is hallowed and hopeful with that same want. In Paris, even the beggar is different; he too wants differently. One asks me something in French as I leave the station and I am unable to decipher what it is that he is saying. I mumble that I don’t understand and move on. Writing about Paris, I obsessed over every detail, trying to recall every event but it didn’t build a full picture. I Lime back and forth along the Seine; anything between is transient.
Inside Notre-Dame the lights are too bright, and stone too fresh. Her face is renewed but at its rear, steel scaffold hides its ugly body. Reaching the back, the whir of machinery can be heard outside. There is no halt for prayer: at its edge a stream of people mimic the river below. In this Godless place, a church is just another errand. In the distance, I can hear the blue murmurs of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at Bourse de Commerce sound between the striking of bowls.
I don’t go to the Sacré-Cœur because I don’t want to explain to the hustlers that I don’t have the cash to pay for their €20 piece of string. I don’t send the text I drafted last night telling M to meet me there wearing all white. I remember I telling me that locals say the Tour Montparnasse has the best view in Paris, because it is the only place from which you cannot see its steel form cut open the skyline. Between winding streets and drinks in the rain, I like the view best from where my two feet are planted and I like it more with every step.
I take my last meal at Le Dauphin: a bar designed by Rem Koolhaas with a natural wine list and lunch menu. The marble and mirror walls cast a thousand images of self through the bar and I see myself, for the first time on the trip, sat at countless bars on innumerable nights, as if I could be a Parisian. The countertop at Le Dauphin is lipped such that a glass cannot easily fall off it. This indicates to me that it is a place designed for serious drinking and, as such, I feel at home here. Paris, with her glass ceilings and yards of bones, I love. Time is measured by the body – how it folds into wicks and burns both sides. I run out of time for Café de Flore but think of the photograph of Kate Moss there and how you can see both pleasure and time reflected in her face now.
Back in London, advertising fills every inch of the city. My London swallows me and I forget the trip all too quickly. Paris becomes a mirage that I can only half-form in these notes and what I can conjure from smell of the Thames.