Dream Paris (34 page)

B
ACK OUT IN
the square I paused for a moment to take in the scene before me. This was how I had hoped Dream Paris would be. Pleasant markets, sun-dappled squares. Intellectuals, trying to make a better city for everyone to live in.

But even here, at the edge of the market, I saw the forgotten people; the homeless, the dispossessed. They were always there, at the edges of the scenes, almost forgotten. I watched a mother hunting through the discarded stalks at the edge of a vegetable stand. I saw the grim desperation on her gaunt face as she seized a few bruised cabbage leaves, waved them to her two daughters, scavenging nearby.

“This city could be so beautiful,” I said.

“I know,” agreed Francis. “If only they could do something about the scroungers.”

“Scroungers?” I was incensed. “Since when was picking food from the floor to feed your starving children
scrounging
?”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he muttered.

I knew what I was going to do. I marched across the square to the mother.

“
Bonjour
!” I said.

She looked at me, terrified, her golden irises slit like a cat’s. She pushed the cabbage leaves into my hand, saying something in a strange, purring language.

“No. Don’t be frightened.” I pulled out my wallet. “Here,” I said, pushing a piece of parchment into her hands.

Francis was there, fussing.

“Anna! What will you do for food?”

“I’ve got plenty of money,” I said. “And I’ll be going home soon!”

“You can’t give her that!”

“Why not?”

The cat woman looked at the piece of parchment promising her a meal and change of clothes for the rest of her life. She must have understood what it was. She bowed down, once, twice, dropped to her knees and kissed my feet.

“It’s okay, honestly.”

She tilted back her head, yowled, and suddenly there were other people around me, all bowing, all creeping forward to kiss me.

“No! Please! It’s nothing! I’ve still got plenty of money.”

I felt so embarrassed, I was really quite relieved when Paul arrived to tell us we were ready to go.

THE STREETS OF DREAM PARIS

P
AUL’S PLAN WAS
simple and elegant.

“We make use of Francis’s pack,” he said. “We make use of the wire.”

We’d returned to the back room of the
Café de la Révolution.
Paul had brought in two bundles of clothing. A shapeless grey dress for me, similar to, but not as nice as, the one I was currently wearing. This new dress was the sort of thing that a good citizen might wear. For Francis, he’d bought a pair of blue serge pants and a scarf to tie around his neck. No change of jacket for smelly Francis, not with the pack on his back. The stench of body odour hung around him, but that wasn’t the worst part. Truth be told, I was getting worried about Francis. He was turning greyer by the hour. He was too much of a man to admit to being ill, though.

“How do we use my pack?” he asked.

“How many people do you think are following your wire back to London, Francis?” asked Paul.

“I don’t know. I’ve seen four.”

“I estimate there are currently about two hundred.”

That gave us pause.

“All through Dream Paris the word is spreading. People who have escaped from the manufactories are coming to Dream Paris, searching for the wire. People who have been stuck here all these years. So many people walking its length, trying to get to back London.”

“What are the Committee for Public Safety doing about them?” I asked.

“Watching them. If their papers are in order, there is no problem. Otherwise…” He shrugged, palms upwards.

Paul explained his plan, and I saw how clever it was. We were dressed appropriately, we would pretend to be just another pair of displaced persons heading home. The wire naturally led to the place we wanted to go, the Public Records Office. We knew that: we’d been there.

“But what about my pack?” asked Francis.

“We’ll disguise it with this,” said Paul, holding up a shapeless burlap sack. “People will think that you’re carrying your possessions in it. People won’t notice the fact there are two wires. The way you’ve criss-crossed the streets, things are getting pretty tangled already.”

“Excellent,” I said. “But what if the Pierrots recognise us?”

“I’ll sort that out,” said Paul. “Interference is my speciality.”

B
Y THE TIME
Paul had finished with Francis I didn’t recognise him. He’d lost his good looks. Something about the bad haircut, the badly shaved stubble… Paul had worked on me, too.

“You look like my friend’s ugly sister,” laughed Francis.

“I’m sure she’s a lovely girl.”

“The
Révolution
knows how to forge papers!” said Paul, handing them across. “You are now Gill Marcello and Keith Littleworth. You were brought here from Loughton and put to work in a shoe manufactory. You managed to escape three days ago and are now heading home.”

I took my papers and noted that I was now twenty-one years old.

“We’ll head up to the top floor and cut through the attics,” said Paul. “Drop down in a house at the other side of the block. The Pierrots are watching the exits to the
Place de le Révolution
. We’ll get you to the wire the back way.”

He led us up a set of stairs, past rooms filled with flowers, bottles of wine, stacks of bistro chairs. Higher and higher until we came to a small room with a ladder leading up to the ceiling. Mme Joubert was waiting for us.

“
Bonne chance
,” she said.

“
Merci
.”

“You are a very stubborn young lady.”

“You make it sound like a fault.”

“It was a compliment.” Mme Joubert gave a slow smile. “I brought you a sweet.”

I took it and beamed. “A loveheart. I haven’t had one of these since I was a little girl.”

The sweet was pale pink and in the shape of a valentine’s heart. There was a message written in white letters.

“
Cross the line,
” I murmured. “What does that mean?” I knew the answer already, I was blushing.

“It means you are about to lose your virginity,” said Mme Joubert.

Francis had the grace not to hear what she said. No he didn’t. He was smirking. So much for me feeling sorry for him. For all he could be sensible sometimes, he was still a sexist pig at heart.

“I have a loveheart for you, too,” announced Mme Joubert, handing Francis a pale blue sweet. I was delighted to see his horrified expression.

“What does yours say?” I asked.

“It says, it says…” he coloured slightly. “It says,
Have a wank
.”

“
Exactement
,” said Mme Joubert. “If you make it back here, stay away from Dominique.” She swept from the room.

“She’s got you sussed,” I laughed.

W
E CLIMBED THROUGH
the attics, a succession of dusty rooms filled with the detritus of the years, lit by the dusty portholes set in the sloping roofs.

We passed a stuffed mosasaur, a faded heap of origami cranes folded from coloured paper, a collection of amber glasses: the usual Dream World oddments.

Eventually we reached another trap door and descended through the building, finally emerging in a hairdresser’s on the ground floor.

The hairdresser sat in her hairdressing chair, eating an almond croissant. She looked so stylish and pretty with her very short hair, sharp cheek bones and earrings like large gold coins.

“
Bonjour, madame
,” said Paul as we entered the room. “
Un moment, s’il vous plaît…
”

He looked through the window to the street beyond. It was a typical scene: the building opposite covered in cartoon posters and graffiti, cars and scooters crammed into every available space. It was funny to think we’d driven down there last night, but drive down it we had. I knew it, you could see the ghostly shape of the wire trailing across the ground. Few of the pedestrians seemed to notice it enough to step over it as they crossed the road. Most simply walked straight through it.

“Stay here,” said Paul.

He opened the door, slipped out into the street. We watched as he slowly lit a cigarette, took the time to piss against the wall, dropped his cigarette to the ground and ground it underfoot before coming back inside. The pretty hairdresser finished her croissant and licked her fingers, completely unfazed by our presence.

“Come on,” said Paul. “The Pierrots have moved on for the moment.”

We hurried out of the door, past the river of steaming piss that dripped into the gutter.

“
Doucement
! Act naturally.”

We both bent and took hold of the wire. It felt warm and silken. Francis walked in the lead grasping the old trail, me just behind him, holding the new one, holding it close to the first in an attempt to hide it.

“There we are,” said Paul. “And now I will withdraw. Keep walking in that direction. I’ll be watching you…”

And he was gone.

We began to walk. It was funny to think that this was, in fact, the way home. Somewhere up ahead was a white marble bridge, and beneath it a tunnel, and at the other end of the tunnel a dirty little canal. How I wished I was already there!

“Just think,” said Francis. “We could be going home. This could be the first few steps.”

But we weren’t. We were coming back here, the fortune said so. I was coming back to meet Luc, to
cross the line,
to
come, again and again.

How do you think I felt about that? It never seemed less likely. I would have confidently said that was one prediction that wasn’t coming true.

Funny little Dream French cars were running up and down the street. Sometimes the people inside banged against the windows, as if they were trapped. Stolen away by bad machines, press-ganged into life in a manufactory, perhaps? We pulled the wire to the side of the road so we could walk in the shade, out of the glare of the Dream Paris sunlight.

“Keep your head down,” hissed Francis.

I saw it too. There were Pierrots up ahead. We kept on walking, pretending not to pay them any attention. One black and white china face swung in our direction. I held my breath, but the china doll moved on. We carried on around the corner and off down the street.

“How long do we have to walk?” asked Francis. “We must have driven miles when we escaped from the hotel. All the way up the
Champs-Élysées
. And then there was the trip to the abattoir…”

There were more Pierrots ahead. They seemed to have filled all the streets around the
Place de la Révolution
. We kept on walking.

“This might just work,” I said. “Clever Paul.”

“I don’t know,” said Francis. “Up ahead.”

There were two women following the wire in the opposite direction, on a collision course with us. Both wore red Phrygian hats with cockades pinned to them.

“Committee for Public Safety. They’ll inspect our papers. They’ll see we’re fake!”

“Maybe not. Just play it cool.”

The women had seen us. They fixed us with a stern, officious gaze. All too soon we met.

“
Papiers, s’il vous plaît
.”

As we fumbled for our papers, there was a huge crash down the road. Suddenly there were cats running everywhere.

“
Merde
!” shouted the women, running towards the commotion.

A car had collided with a cat transporter. Orange and brown and gold shapes eeled from the wreckage, a flowing fur carpet that filled the streets. No one was watching us now.

“Keep on walking,” said Francis. “Well done, Paul.”

W
E MUST HAVE
walked two or three miles before we were clear of the Pierrots, trailing down one road after another, keeping to the shade of the trees hung with burning fruit, passing by Morris columns covered in political cartoons, pushing by newspaper stands that opened up like clams. We passed a mother watching her son playing with a ball on the pavement. He looked so sweet, trying to bounce the ball and catch it. Francis was so intent on the child that he missed what was up ahead.

“Look!”

We were approaching an intersection of roads, a five-pointed star. Ghostly wire trailed across the middle of the intersection. Three young people, a tall man and two women, not much older than me, stood there, deep in conversation. I felt a pang of homesickness at the sound of the English accents. Homesickness? I’d only been gone four days.

“So, I think you’ll find it’s that way,” said the young man. He towered over his companions, his arms and legs way too long for his regulation serge jacket and trousers.

“I’m sure we walked down there earlier,” said the shorter of the women. “What do you think, Val?”

“I’m sorry,” interrupted the young man, “I thought I was the navigator. Er, excuse me? Can I help you?”

He’d noticed Francis and me listening in to the conversation. He noticed something else, too…

“You’re English, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Francis. “How can you tell?”

“Dave knows everything,” said the woman who wasn’t Val.