In the morning, I was woken first by the tabby cat kneading
its claws on my pillow with a rather smug look on its feline face. My next
unwelcome wake-up call was the phone ringing obnoxiously. The third was the
cat, back again for more pillow-clawing. But the fourth – ah, the fourth! The
fourth was Nikolai opening the blinds to let in brilliant sunshine. Sunshine,
after our week of miserable wet weather. We pulled ourselves out of bed to a
breakfast of sugary coffee, pains-au-chocolat, nutella tartines and orange
juice. The sugar did me good. Then we packed our bags, said au-revoir to the
dogs and hopped in the car to the beach.
Nikolai and Julien bantered back and forth like a
Siamese-twin stand-up act. They drove us through the winding city streets to
the sea front. We danced in the sand and dipped our feet in the cold sea, sun
finally kissing my cold English skin, white as whipped cream. It brought out
our freckles (and our teeth, in broad white smiles). We climbed the rocks and screamed as waves
soaked us in their cold brine.
Then they took us to the church on the hill, Notre Dame de
la Garde. It was magnificent. Outside it we looked out on the port and the
vast, sun-soaked city. Inside, the walls were leaved with gold. Model boats
hung, suspended on strings, bizarre and beautiful.
The boys dropped us off in a metro car park, where we
thanked them for their warm welcome, said our goodbyes and met our carshare
driver, Alain, a retired Frenchman in his 50s who liked sailing. Who spoke
fluent English. Who only had 4 digits on his left hand. Who dropped us off in
Avignon, just outside the city walls.
Famished, we popped into Casino to purchase a picnic. We
bought a baguette, camembert, ham, two bananas, two nectarines and a can of
panaché each. We found the river, took the ferry across and made sandwiches in
the sunshine, opposite le Pont d’Avignon. Half finished, a useless bridge. A
bridge for lemmings. We lay out on the soft grass, heads on our backpacks. I
made a bracelet out of white clover.
Hugo finished work at six thirty and we went to meet him. A
nice boy of about our age, black hat balanced on his afro, a grey scarf around
his neck. He chain smoked as he walked us to his fifth-floor apartment, white
and open, drenched in sunlight. We chatted then headed out to see the town.
It was everything one could hope for in a French town. More,
perhaps. It was beautiful. The southern wind blew through its narrow streets
and cooled my sunburnt face. Then he took us to a tiny theatre where we watched
On the Road, subtitled in French. It
was well adapted from the book. The images almost perfect; the sense of
movement that Kerouac intended all there, the rawness, the impulse. I thought
back on our week spent in the backs of the cars of strangers, speeding across
the French countryside. The film consolidated in me the desire to move, to
travel. To see everything. To never stay in the same place.
And at the same time, the opposite. It brought back the
longing to stay, to settle, to return home to normality. Home to Clermont. Home
to England. Home to those I love. I am no Sal Paradise, no Dean Moriarty.
Certainly not he. After the film we drank a beer, went back to the apartment to
eat and then to sleep. One last sleep before our return. Our last night on the
road.
The clover flowers dried and crumbled from my wrist in my sleep.
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