7
Six weeks later, after leaving a note for her mother and sneaking away from home at 4 am, Nancy walked out of the Porte Dauphine Metro station and into the unseasonably warm early spring air. She sprang back from the edge of the road as a green frog-eyed 2CV rushed past, blowing its horn. That had been close. Concentrate, Nancy! Otherwise, this is going to be the shortest trip you’ve made anywhere.
She tried again, safely reaching the opposite pavement this time. She pulled the now ragged letter out of her coat pocket. Olivia had drawn a map of how to get from the station to her apartment at 27 Rue de la Dordogne. It should be just around the corner here. Nancy turned into a narrow street and headed uphill, counting the numbers until she arrived at a large brown door. An ornate brass Art Nouveau doorbell push was mounted on the yellow-painted plaster wall next to it.
Nancy pressed the bell. She heard a distant ringing, followed by a door slamming, then footsteps. The front door creaked open, and a 60-something woman peered around its edge. She must be Madame Morceau, the concierge that Olivia had mentioned in her letter.
‘Oui?’ the woman said.
At least Nancy understood that. ‘I’m here to visit Olivia Forbes,’ she said in her faltering schoolgirl French.
‘Hmmm.’ Madame Morceau opened the door wider to let Nancy into a small courtyard.
‘Là,’ she said, pointing to another brown door in the corner of the courtyard.
‘Merci, Madame.’
Nancy staggered across the courtyard, pushed open the door the concierge had indicated and stepped into a dark hallway with some tatty stairs going up. Whoever had chosen the decor had been a fan of brown - the walls and the woodwork were all painted the same dull, muddy colour. Olivia had been right when she said it wasn’t the Ritz.
Olivia’s apartment was on the top floor. The stairs seemed to go on forever. Nancy’s suitcase felt like it was getting heavier with each step. She was gasping for breath by the time she reached the top landing. She banged on the door. Please let Olivia be in.
‘You look washed out,’ Olivia’s familiar voice said as she opened the door with a smile. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
‘I’m so pleased to see you. It’s been such a long day. I swear my arms are three feet longer than when I set out this morning. I’ve been lugging this bloody thing around for hours.’ Nancy dumped her suitcase by the door and made straight for the sofa. ‘Those stairs were the last straw,’ she added as she took off her shoes and flopped down into the pile of cushions.
‘You’re here now. And you’ll be running up and down those stairs easily within a week. It helps burn off the bread and cheese.’
‘Bread and cheese?’ Nancy had hoped they’d be eating something more interesting than bread and cheese.
‘It is French bread and cheese - not a slice of Hovis and a lump of cheddar. That’s all I can afford to eat most weeks,’ Olivia said as she went into the kitchenette area and put a kettle on to boil on the hob.
‘I thought you said your job paid well?’
‘It does, but I have a nasty habit of spending it on wine and clothes, not necessarily in that order.’
Nancy wasn’t surprised. Olivia was always smartly dressed in the latest fashions, whereas Nancy preferred a more casual look. But she might have to up her game now she was here. She’d noticed that most of the women she’d encountered since landing at Charles de Gaulle airport looked much more stylish than she did.
The living room had two small windows, partially obscured by heavy curtains, which made it quite dark even though it was still broad daylight outside. ‘If you’re up to walking a few more steps, I’ll show you around our stately home,’ Olivia said.
Nancy reluctantly got up again.
‘I’m through there.’ Olivia pointed to an open door to another room with a double bed, a large wardrobe similar to the ones in Nancy’s grandmother’s mansion, and an ornate dressing table. ‘And this one’s yours.’
Nancy looked into a bedroom that was just big enough to hold the single bed pushed next to the window. She opened the door in the corner, which revealed a small closet.
‘There’s some space in my wardrobe if you’re stuck.’ Olivia sounded apologetic. ‘But you have a great view if that’s any consolation.’
Nancy knelt on the bed and opened the net curtains. Olivia was right. The top-floor window had a view across the local rooftops. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower broke the skyline - a picture postcard scene. She’d have to photograph it at some point, but she was too tired to get her camera now.
‘Welcome to Paris, Nancy.’
The following morning, Nancy awoke to the sound of her alarm clock ringing on the floor beside the bed. At least the lack of space for a bedside table forced her to get out of bed to turn it off. Otherwise, she’d have preferred to turn over and go back to sleep. She groaned as her stiff arms and shoulders objected to moving. She should’ve packed less. She headed across the living room to the bathroom. The sound of Olivia singing in French drifted through the door.
‘Are you going to be long?’ Nancy shouted.
‘Five minutes. Make the coffee, will you.’
Nancy headed to the kitchenette area and looked around for a jar of Nescafe. There was no sign of one anywhere, but she did find a bag labelled ‘café’.
She grabbed two coffee cups from the solitary wall cupboard, boiled some water on the hob, and put a spoonful of coffee in each cup. Despite vigorous stirring, the coffee didn’t dissolve very well. Perhaps the grains were supposed to settle.
She put Olivia’s cup of black coffee on the dining table while she looked in the fridge for milk for hers. Olivia emerged from the bathroom.
‘That’s super, thank you.’ She picked up the cup and drank. She spluttered. ‘Nancy, what did you do?’
Nancy explained.
Olivia laughed. ‘It’s not instant. You need the cafetière.’
‘I need what?’
Olivia grabbed a glass jug with a chrome lid and a plunger. ‘This. Didn’t you have one at home?’
‘No, I’ve never seen one of those before.’
‘Watch and learn,’ Olivia said as she put the coffee grounds inside the cafetière along with hot water from the kettle, then attached the lid. ‘We leave it for four minutes to brew.’
‘Isn’t instant a lot easier?’
‘Yes, but it doesn’t taste as good.’ Olivia disappeared into her room to get dressed while Nancy swilled away her failed coffee-making attempt.
‘Should be ready now,’ Olivia said, returning to the kitchenette. Nancy watched as she pushed down the plunger and poured the dark, hot liquid into the freshly washed cups. She handed one to Nancy.
Nancy took a tentative sip and grimaced. ‘That’s so bitter. I’ll stick to tea. I assume there’s no weird French device for making that?’
‘No,’ Olivia laughed, passing her a teapot and a jar labelled thé. ‘Will you be alright going to the bookshop on your own? Madame Dubois wanted to get all her daily admin jobs done before she started training you today, so she’s expecting you at half past ten, but I’ve got to be at work before that.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Nancy had looked at a new map that Olivia had drawn her last night. The bookshop was only three streets away.
Nancy went into her bedroom and returned, clutching a pair of trousers and a Crimplene dress. ‘What should I wear?’
‘Definitely the dress - stick to whatever you wore to the office at home. Technically, it’s illegal for women to wear trousers here.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously, though, I doubt you’d get arrested. I think it has more to do with stopping you from rebelling during the revolution.’
‘I’ve been here less than 24 hours. I’ll leave leading an uprising until at least next week, even if the coffee is awful.’ Nancy laughed.