“Yes, you can,” said Matthew. “Let me look after you.”
The words had come out without really being intended, and he hoped that she would not take them the wrong way. But what was the wrong way? All that the words meant was that he wanted to make her dinner, and what was wrong with wanting to make somebody dinner?
Laughing, Pat said: “No, you do the pasta. I’ll do the salad.”
Matthew opened the fridge and took out a bottle of white wine.
He poured Pat a glass and one for himself. The wine was probably too chilled, as the glass was misting. He thought of the misting panes in the basement kitchen he had seen round the corner, and of the people standing in their window.
Pat told him about a seminar she had attended that day. He listened, but did not pay much attention to what she was saying.
The seminar had been on Romantic art and somebody had said something very stupid, which had made everybody laugh.
Matthew did not listen to the stupid remark as she retold it; he was thinking only of how nice it would be to be in a seminar with Pat. He wanted to be with her all the time now. He closed his eyes. I can’t let this happen to me, he thought. I can’t fall so completely for this girl, because she won’t fall for me. I’m just a friend. That’s all. I’m just her friend.
And then, suddenly, Pat passed behind him, and brushed against him, her arm against his, and he gave a start and half-turned. She was right behind him and he looked at her and she said: “Oh, sorry . . .”
He took her hand. She looked at him, and then lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” said Matthew, reckless now. “I really am. I didn’t mean to fall for you. I didn’t actually make a decision. It’s not like that. That’s not the way it works.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Pat.
“But it does.”
There was a brief silence. “But I like you too.”
288 Alone in Paris
“You do?”
A further silence. The pasta bubbled.
“How much?”
“Lots.”
Matthew sighed. “But . . . but not like that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.
And it seemed to Matthew that all the bells of Edinburgh, and beyond, were ringing out at once, in joyous, joyous peals.
92. Alone in Paris
When he woke up that morning and realised that he had slept in, Bertie felt intensely alarmed. But he was not a boy given to panic, and so he dressed carefully, brushing his hair with attention to the fact that he was, after all, in Paris. Then he made his way downstairs, allowing himself at least to hope that somebody from the orchestra might have stayed behind for him or possibly left a note. But the woman at the desk informed him that the Edinburgh group had left. She assumed that Bertie belonged to a British couple staying upstairs and it did not enter her head that he was now entirely on his own.
Bertie sat down in the lobby and wondered what to do. They had obviously forgotten all about him, he decided, but they would remember their mistake when they arrived in Edinburgh and his parents asked where he was. He looked at his watch; that should be happening about now. And then they would come back to fetch him, but would probably not arrive until tomorrow morning. So that, in his reckoning, gave him a whole day and night in Paris, which would be rather interesting. He had quite a bit of his spending money left over, as nobody had allowed him to pay for anything, and he could use that to tide him over.
It might even be enough to get a ticket for the Moulin Rouge, should he come across that establishment during the sightseeing that he proposed to do.
Paging through his guidebook and map, Bertie decided that Alone in Paris 289
he would set off to the Louvre. He liked galleries, and he thought that he would possibly spend the entire morning there. Then he would have lunch somewhere nearby . . . He stopped.
Although he was sure that he had enough money to tide him over, he did not think that it would run to two meals (not including breakfast) as well as the tickets for the various places that he wished to visit. Would the woman at the hotel desk lend him some, he wondered, if he promised to send it back to her when it came to next pocket-money day? He glanced in her direction. No, he did not think that she looked the type of person from whom one could ask for a loan. Tofu would have had no hesitation in asking, of course, as he was always demanding money from people. But Bertie was not Tofu, and Tofu was not in Paris.
Then Bertie had an idea. When the group had gone to Notre Dame on their sightseeing, they had passed through the Latin Quarter and seen a number of people playing their instruments in the street – busking, explained one of the violinists.
“I did that outside Jenners last Christmas,” he said. “I made twenty-four pounds in one morning. Twenty-four pounds! And all I played was ‘Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer’ over and over again. It was dead easy!”
The saxophone which had been borrowed for him was still in his room, and it occurred to Bertie that there was no reason why he should not spend the morning busking in the Latin Quarter. He could play ‘As Time Goes By’ from Casablanca, which people always seemed to like, and he could vary it with some Satie which he had recently learned. He had read that Satie had lived in Paris, and perhaps some of his old friends would recognise his music and give particularly generously. Or Mr Satie himself might pass by, although he must be very old by now, thought Bertie.
Filled with excitement at his plan, Bertie rushed upstairs and retrieved his saxophone. Then, struggling somewhat with the weight of it, he set out from the hotel in the direction of the Latin Quarter. It was heavy going. After a few blocks, Bertie realised that it would take him several hours to walk across Paris 290 Alone in Paris
with his instrument, as he would have to stop at virtually every corner to rest his aching muscles. He felt in his pocket, where his money nestled, neatly folded. A taxi would be expensive, he knew, but even if it took all his funds, there was the money that he would undoubtedly soon earn from his busking.
He stood on the edge of the road and waited until a taxi came past. He did not have to wait long, and soon he was seated comfortably in the back of a white Peugeot heading for the point on his map which he had shown to a slightly surprised taxi driver.
The journey went quickly and Bertie took the money out of his pocket to pay. He was slightly short of the fare requested, but the driver smiled and indicated that the shortfall was not an issue. Then, staggering under the weight of the borrowed saxophone in its heavy wooden case, he walked a few blocks into the network of narrow streets that made up the Quarter.
It did not take him long to find a suitable pitch. Halfway along one street there was a boarded-up doorway off the pavement. With a restaurant next door, a coffee bar a few yards away on the same side, and a student bookshop opposite, it seemed to Bertie that it was an ideal place for him to play. He set the open case down in front of him – as he had seen other buskers do – and, summoning up all his courage, he started to play ‘As Time Goes By’.
The first person to walk past was a woman wearing a long brown coat and with her hair done up in a bun. As she went past Bertie, she glanced at him, took a few more steps, and then stopped and turned round. Fumbling in her purse, she extracted a crumpled banknote and turned to toss it into the open case, murmuring, as she did so: “Petit ange! ”
Bertie acknowledged the donation with a nod of his head –
as he had seen other buskers do – and modulated into one of the jazz tunes he had learned from Lewis Morrison, ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’. This went down very well with the next passer-by, a visiting Senegalese civil servant, who clapped his hands in appreciation and tossed a few small notes into the case. This was followed by a donation of a few coins from a thin man walking a large Dalmatian. The Dalmatian barked at Bertie and Bertie’s New Friends 291