Chapter 1 #2
Tromper, I knew that word… Se tromper – to be mistaken. I took out my phone and pulled up the ad I had answered. Julie pulled a pair of glasses down from her head and peered at the screen.
‘Ah, voici La Boulangerie sur la Rue de Compiègne. Vous cherchez La Boulangerie sur la Rue de Paris. A Compiègne.’
My emotions were a swirl of embarrassment and panic.
Even my bum cheeks felt as though they were turning red.
Despite my broken French, I knew what she was saying.
I was at the wrong bakery. Worse still, I seemed to be rooted to the spot.
Julie was waiting for me to leave, our business was at an end, and yet I couldn’t quite move.
I had simply run out of steam. And where the hell was Compiègne?
The waitress returned with an empty tray to the counter and on seeing my face, must have taken pity.
‘I speak some English, may I see?’
I nearly cried at her kindness. Keep it together, Edie, I warned myself. The last thing we needed was a scene! She looked at the screen and nodded affirmatively. Thank God, I thought to myself, at least someone knows where I’m supposed to be.
‘You must take the train to Compiègne, is approximately one hour north of Paris.’
‘Sorry, did you say one hour north of Paris? No, there must be some mistake. I’m here to take up my position in the Boulangerie et Patisserie de Compiègne … in Paris,’ I said, feeling a little less confident now.
‘I can show you, if you like,’ she said, pinching the map on the screen. ‘See, it is in ze department of Oise, in ze region of Picardy, see? Vous voyez là?’ she asked, pointing to the map.
‘Oui, je vois, yes,’ I whispered in response, with a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I wasn’t going to be living and working in Paris at all.
And if that was true, what else had I been misled about?
The helpful young woman continued and even wrote everything down, as I must have looked completely lost. And besides, what was a ‘department’ when it was at home?
‘Alors, nous sommes juste à c?té … we are right beside la Gare du Nord,’ she assured me, from where, apparently, I could get a train to the bakery where I actually had a job.
Maybe. Did it even exist? Had I been scammed?
I thanked them both and followed their directions for the train station, where I now sat, weeping in a toilet cubicle.
* * *
‘Right,’ I said, to no one but myself. I had to do something.
I couldn’t spend the night in the toilet.
I wanted to ring home so badly, but I couldn’t let Dad know that he was right and that this had all been some foolish plan to reinvent myself (which it absolutely had).
My finger hovered over my friend Gemma’s number.
We’d started working together at the same café on the same day and she’d become the closest thing I’d had to a best friend.
But even Gemma didn’t get to know the real me.
I was so used to keeping the sunny side out at home, I’d begun doing it with the people around me, too.
That’s when I realised that I couldn't call her, either. She had been so enthusiastic about me ‘finding my true self’– how could I turn around and tell her the truth? I had no clue who my true self was, and she certainly wasn’t here.
No. I had to make my own decisions now and stop wondering what everyone else would do in my shoes.
First things first, I had to find out if the job I had applied for was real.
I found the number for Madame Moreau – my future employer at the bakery – and after several rings when my heart seemed to stop beating, she answered.
‘?llo?’ came a croaky old voice.
I recalled the line I had been practising and responded.
‘Um, oui … hello, eh, bonjour Madame Moreau … eh, ici Edith Lane?’ I planned on ending every sentence with a question, as in ‘Do you understand me?’ Even though I had spent the last few weeks cramming with language apps and watching reruns of Amélie, my level of French felt painfully inadequate now.
‘Que voulez-vous?’
‘Yes, well, je suis here, in Paris, and um, you’re not.’
Silence.
‘Je cherche la boulangerie…?’ My voice wavered.
‘Ah, vous êtes la fille qui va travailler dans la boulangerie, c’est ?a?’
‘Oui, yes, the girl you hired to work at the bakery. I’m Edith from Ireland – Irlandaise!’ I sighed with relief at her recognition of my name. I wasn’t going mad. The job was real.
‘Vous devez aller à la Gare Du Nord, et vous prenez le train à Compiègne, d’accord? A plus tard alors.’
‘Yes, no, I know that part, it’s just?—’
The line went dead.
‘Eh, hello? ?llo, Madame Moreau?’
I puffed out a sigh of indignation. ‘Fine, I’ll just Google it, then, shall I?’ Great, now I was talking to myself out loud. The search results for the bakery’s location came up and pointed to a little street with no name.
‘Well, that can’t be right,’ I said, squinting. On top of everything else, I probably needed glasses. Yet another unwanted sign that the years were rolling by, whether I wanted them to or not. I put my phone in my bag and used my irritation as fuel to get out of the cubicle and take some action.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I saw a very sorry sight indeed.
The rotund chignon I had so carefully pinned my hair into this morning had completely unravelled, my chic cream coat was creased and the Mac eyeliner I’d bought at the airport had smudged and leaked, giving me watercolour panda eyes.
My chin began to wobble at the sight of my dishevelled appearance and my broken dreams.
‘Look, you’re a grown woman; get a hold of yourself!’ I shouted, giving myself a quick smack on the cheek. Wrong move; that just left me feeling sad and bullied.
‘Right, different approach. OK, no one said this was going to be easy,’ I assured myself, like an audio self-help book.
‘Every heroine must face her obstacles and that’s all this is: an obstacle.
’ Talking in such a positive tone began to calm me down and I reached for some tissue to start rebuilding my facade of confidence with make-up.
‘So I won’t be living a glamorous life in Paris,’ I mumbled, ‘but this Compiègne place can’t be that far, and who knows, maybe it’s the most picturesque part of France.
’ That was the spirit, and besides, how would it look if I gave up on my big adventure before it had even truly begun?
Just then a woman stepped out of the other cubicle, giving me a wary look.
‘Oh, never mind me, just talking to myself!’ I joked, and received a stony-faced glare for my troubles. I was already a major hit with the French, that much was clear.
* * *
‘Alors, ze trains depart every fifteen minutes and ze ticket is twelve euros and fifty cents,’ said the woman at the ticket desk, who took pity on me and switched immediately to speaking English. ‘I wish you a good journey, Madame.’
‘It’s Mademoiselle,’ I croaked, trying to focus on the map she had given me, full of odd street names and road numbers.
I boarded the train on the Paris–Saint-Quentin line to Compiègne.
I found a seat by the window, though by this stage the sky was growing dark and as the train pulled away from the station, the lights of Paris blinked a luminous farewell.
Monuments gilded with gold, fountains splashing generously and red-white-and-blue flags flying proudly on every building.
I was already leaving Paris behind. I let my head rest against the glass and tried to find some scrap of positivity.
I thought back to all of the old films I’d watched with Mum.
The storyline never did run smoothly and the good people didn’t always get what they deserved, at least not until the end.
I had to believe that, no matter the bumps along the way, the journey would be worth it.
Maybe it wasn’t about dreams coming true (although that would be nice).
Maybe it was about becoming the kind of person who chases them, regardless. Well, I would soon find out.
I took my phone out and called the number I reserved for very special cases – when my heart really needed a hug. It clicked straight onto answerphone and I heard my mother’s voice singing.
Smile, though your heart is aching,
smile even though it’s breaking,
when there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by,
if you smile through your tears and sorrow,
smile and maybe tomorrow,
you’ll see the sun come shining through, for you…