Harper:
Are you at the apartment yet?
Tilly:
Not yet. Just on the way now. Thanks again for setting me up with this place at such short notice.
Harper:
No problem. One of the perks of working atVoyageur: contacts all over the world. Let me know if you need me to hook you up with a hut in the Maldives, I could probably get you a great deal.
Tilly:
I think three weeks in Paris is probably enough for now.
Harper:
I’m so proud of you for doing this, Tils.
She smiles as she slips her phone back in her pocket, resting her face against the taxi window. The decision to come here still feels so spontaneous, so un-Tilly. Will three weeks be too long? How is she going to fill her time? Will she get lonely? But as the city flashes by, the questions that filled her mind right up until the moment she clicked ‘buy’ on her Eurostar ticket recede into the background. The sun is shining and she is in Paris.
Before long the taxi pulls up at the kerb, halfway up a steep cobbled hill lined with imposing old buildings, directly in front of a bakery. To the left is a large, ornately carved wooden door with the number 61 above in tiled art nouveau letters.
‘On est arrivés.’
By the second floor of the staircase that winds its way up through the old building, Tilly is out of breath. By the third floor she wishes someone had thought to install a lift – or at the very least a bench – somewhere in the stairwell. Finally,she and her suitcase make it to the fifth floor, finding a key under the mat. The door is a little stiff but after a firm shove it swings open.
The entire room is filled with light that floods in through tall windows and a pair of balcony doors and shines on the smooth herringbone floor. There is a tiny kitchen area that leads on to an open living space with a deep armchair, a coffee table covered in elegant photographic books, and a small table and two chairs. An open doorway leads through to a separate bedroom where Tilly can spot a large bed made up in soft grey linen sheets.
She heads straight for the balcony doors, pulling them open and stepping out on to a balcony that hugs the length of the living room and bedroom. There is a metal table and matching chairs, and a few pots of yellow tulips. And there beneath her is Paris.
The silvery-blue rooftops spread out in an intricate maze, chimneys and balconies creating a jagged skyline. She can spot winding streets, tucked-away courtyards and roof terraces brimming with plants. Directly below is the street where the taxi drew up earlier, a woman walking a small dog past the bakery and a bicycle rattling down the hill in the opposite direction. She steps out a little further, taking in the streets that climb higher and higher, right to the top of the city. And there, glowing bright white in the spring sunshine, are the domes of theSacré-Coeur.
She takes a photo and sends it to her sister.
Tilly:
This place is BEAUTIFUL!
Harper:
Isn’t it? I thought you’d like it. So, what’s first on your Paris list?
Tilly steps back into the apartment, leaving the balcony doors ajar so that a fresh breeze fills the room, making the long linen curtains flutter. Reaching into her backpack, she pulls out her copy ofA Moveable Feast, spine already cracked from reading it on the train, and pulls out Joe’s letter from between its pages.
Dear Tilly,
I’m trying hard not to have regrets. The truth is I’ve had a great life and there’s not a bit of it that I’d change. But there are some things I wish we’d had time to do together. I wish I’d taken you to Paris. We talked about it, but somehow other things got in the way and it just never happened.
If I could, I would take you there right this second. I’d take you to the Eiffel Tower and theSacré-Coeurand on a boat trip along the Seine.
I know it’s not the same, but I hope this book gives you a flavour of Paris. And maybe you might even go one day without me, and make the trip we never managed to take together.
If you do, don’t forget to visit Shakespeare and Company (I know you’d have dragged me there!). You might just find a surprise waiting for you on the shelves …
I love you. Or should I say, ‘Je t’aime’?
Joe x
