Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (19 page)

It was seven hours before we turned right on to the Seine at the Porte de Bercy, and sailed into Paris under the
route périphérique
, five kilometres from the marina at the Bastille.

WHERE WERE THE BROAD AVENUES, THE famous bridges, the little streets, the quays lined with bookstalls? Where was Notre-Dame? Where was the bloody Eiffel Tower? On this burning afternoon, seen from the great water of the Seine, Paris was dunes of sand and clay, miles of wharves and gantries, chimneys, sad warehouses. It was Tin Can Island, Lagos, Nigeria—the heat, the desolation, the pirates.

Rafts of barges powered by and chopped up the water, and now there were hotels naked on the bank between the silos, now some moored boats, and there, my God, moored up on our left, was the South Goodwin light vessel, waiting its chance.

I’ll get to the bridge before that barge and go through the middle, why creep along the side—there’s plenty of water, it’s wider than the Thames. Down with the throttle—let’s rock and roll.

Now that’s better—the many windows of the Pont de Bercy, the Charles de Gaulle Bridge flung over the water, the knitted iron of the Austerlitz viaduct. Watch that
bateau-mouche
turning across us: a greenhouse full of gongoozlers, like a row of stoats.

A red light on the right and a shadowy entrance—the Bastille lock. Monica jumped off and held our rope as the pontoon pitched and then the light went green and she jumped back on and we eased inside the lock. It was dark and we couldn’t see the mooring points and Monica gave me the wrong call from the bow and I shouted at her. It had taken us longer to get from Lagny to Paris than from Ramsgate to Calais, and we were tired.

The
capitaine
was three men called Bruno and Guillaume and Bernard, who declared themselves ravished by Monica’s boat, her French, her dog, her smile, her hat. The basin was overlooked by battlements and flowered lawns, behind them ornamented old buildings, concrete outrages from the sixties, and the sturdy glass keep of the new Opéra de la Bastille. Two hundred craft—Tupperware cruisers, steel barges, yachts. We rafted up to a barge with a child on board who shouted and shouted until as night fell his parents murdered him.

We lifted Jim over the rails and headed for the gold angel on the column in the Place de la Bastille. He was perched on one leg, ready to swoop over the basin, scattering stars. It’s not an angel, explained Monica, it’s Liberty, but he could swoop if he wanted, like Jim can fly.

At the restaurant on the bank opposite the boat Monica had a glass of champagne and I secured the largest beer legally sold in France, nearly four fifths of a pint. To get a beer of this size in France you need strong vernacular French, the patience of Christ, a piece of paper and a pencil, and a pint glass in a paper bag.

You are so polite,
monsieur
, I said to the waiter, as our negotiations drew to a close. Why are you not rude?—all Paris waiters are supposed to be rude. Ah,
monsieur
, said the waiter, I am the exception that proves the rule.

It’s been a hard day, I said to Monica. I love the drinking and I love the boasting and I love the herons and I love the grebes and I love the hats. I love the Breton cap and the bush hat and the Russian hat with flaps when it is cold but to be honest the boating is getting me down. Jim feels the same. He used to ride up on the bow but now he stays in his kennel waiting for it all to end. Enough is enough. Even Arthur Rimbaud got a bit fed up after reeling round the world for twenty-five stanzas—

For me, in Europe, I want just one pool—

In perfumed twilight see the sad child play

See him let slip to waters black and cool

His boat frail as a butterfly in May

Let’s be like Arthur, let’s give up and stick to the pools in the park. We’ll leave the
Phyllis May
here and walk around Paris with Jim.

No we won’t, said Monica. We’ll walk but we’ll go by boat too—under the bridges of Paris and under the streets as well.

Eight

A SILVER BOWL

Paris and the Seine

I
am not a handbag—Jim hunched in his fluorescent orange life jacket, giving the betrayed eyes. I am a creature of beauty and dignity, the sportsdog of the English racing man. Do you realize I am the fastest animal in the world?

Oh come on Jim, I said, and picked him up by the handle and slung him on to the bow of the big barge alongside and clambered after him and on to the pontoon. I dropped his life jacket back on to the
Phyllis May
and we climbed out of the basin into the street, and walked across the Austerlitz Bridge and along the Left Bank.

Down on the quay there was The Albatross, in a black tracksuit, running hard, waving his arms, going for a take-off. He went behind some trees and I don’t know if he made it into the air. If he did he would have headed for the Atlantic hurricanes, passing over Notre-Dame, a black cross against the blue.

Jim started to tremble. He had spotted a black and brown dachshund, polished like a conker. The two hounds rushed around, athlete and dwarf, getting on fine. Happily we have room on the quays, said the old lady with the dachshund. What is a dachshund like as a breed? I asked. He is very sensitive,
monsieur
, said the lady. He is frightened of cars, of people, of noise. If I go out of the room he cries inconsolably. In fact he is a great nuisance, my little Prévert. She looked at Prévert adoringly and Prévert looked right back—

I am what I am;

That’s what I’m for.

You think it’s a shame,

You want something more?

The last time I saw Paris was nearly twenty years ago. One of my executives had gone mad in the Hôtel de l’Arc de Triomphe. I had to coax him out of the bathroom and send him home strapped to a door and then finish his research job, so there wasn’t a lot of time to look round. But I had been much taken with the outdoor sculpture museum overlooking the Seine. And
Here it is
, said the notices,
here it is again, right here, the outdoor sculpture museum, remember this, this is great
. The bushes had grown tall and Jim and I walked between them and there were empty plinths covered with graffiti and on one of them, outside his house of cardboard boxes, a man was laying a white T-shirt to dry in the sun.

Notre-Dame strained on its stone ropes, longing to throw itself into the Seine and sail away. The sun beat on its sides and tourists washed around like surf. I looked up into the wind but The Albatross would be over Le Havre by now. It was time for refreshment, time to face the fury of the Paris waiters.

I sat at a pavement café and hooked Jim to the table leg while he tried to strangle himself, bring the table down, look for scraps, and check out the chances of sex. The waiter lurched out—a man with mop hair who had been put together from bits left over from a wrestling tournament.
Monsieur?
he croaked. I asked for a coffee and with a sneer he left me. He came back with my coffee and a bowl of water for Jim. I have a boxer, he said. Jim climbed up his crooked body and the monster put his arms round him.

Soon we were staring up at the Panthéon, which a tour guide was explaining to a group of Germans. I don’t speak German so I still don’t know what the Panthéon does but it is very big, on a hill, with a dome. It is the sort of place you are supposed to visit but Monica and I prefer the sort of place you are not supposed to visit.

In Venice on a package tour we were supposed to visit a lot of paintings by dead farts in churches but we bunked off and wandered around and were stopped in the street by a man in a black suit. I thought he was hustling for a restaurant but he was a bridegroom about to be married by the mayor in the town hall and his witnesses had not turned up—would we be his witnesses? Monica cried all the time and the bride’s mother arrived when it was over and everyone cried a lot more. Only the mayor didn’t cry—he was wearing a very expensive green and red and white silk sash and I suppose he didn’t want to cry over it in case he spoiled it for the next mayor.

Down to the Latin Quarter, the sort of place you are supposed to visit. Rows of restaurants and cheap clothes shops, and hundreds of students. I know that student life is tempestuous, the skies lowering with girls and beer and essays, but to everyone else students are just young and boring as hell.

THE MONTPARNASSE TOWER IS ONE OF THE boldest works of the Glasturdi school of architects, who in the white heat of their passion conceived the
ascenseur
at Strépy-Thieu, and offered many a tip on the design of Milton Keynes Centre and the Oxford Business School. Jim does not like things that move beneath him, like boats and pontoons and lifts, but here we were at floor fifty-six in seconds, looking at Paris from the sky.

Just down there the Eiffel Tower, six feet high, and the métro with its stations every few inches. The little Arc de Triomphe a bit skew-whiff and Les Invalides a golden egg. The cellophane domes of Le Grand Palais and Le Petit Palais. The Seine does a lot of curling round and you can follow the line of trees to the LEGO blocks in the Défense, but we couldn’t see the big arch because it was facing the wrong way.

There was the Bois de Boulogne where Monica and I were once ranked seventh man-and-wife cross-country team in Europe aged between forty and forty-two. Not every couple in Europe competed—perhaps they found something more pleasant to do first thing on a freezing Sunday than run around in the rain.

Lines of silver and grey roofs, little trees and lawns. All that mighty heart was lying still, in a blue and white light, softened by haze, in the bowl of the river.

THAT NIGHT WE SET OUT TO HAVE DINNER AT the restaurant where first we went, at the Bastille. As we arrived the restaurant was shutting, because it was Wednesday. We went to another, but it had shut because it was dinnertime. On we walked and arrived at the Gare de Lyon, which was open. Where is the restaurant? I asked.

Up some stairs and past a neon sign,
Le Train Bleu
, and into a great room coloured like a tropical moth, with angels on the ceiling and statues of mermaids and yellow electric flowers in sprays and painted people in old-fashioned clothes having picnics up the walls. It was the sort of place the Queen would be taken on her birthday.

My mustard T-shirt said I was leader of the day in the Tour de France, and my shorts were held up by my hand in the pocket, and Monica was in her bush hat and baggy trousers. Only Jim was well turned out, in a close-cut velvet suit, a bandanna at his throat.

A tall man in a dinner jacket closed in—
Monsieur?
Do you accept dogs? I asked, thinking This will not take long. Why not,
monsieur
? said the head waiter. He showed us to a table by the window, where we could look out on the street scene and the lights, and in at the diners at the crowded tables: all pink, their linen white and their suits ironed, shouting and waving their knives and forks.

Monica had the best steak in Europe and I had pig’s trotters in crumbs. To describe the pig’s trotters would need the pen of a Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Alexandre Apollinaris de Kostrowitzki, to name but a few. For Jim the head waiter brought a plate of meat, and water in a silver bowl.

AT THE BASTILLE END OF THE MARINA, AWAY from the Seine, is the métro station and under this a tunnel. From time to time three hundred ton
péniches
came out, looking much taller than the tunnel. They had come down the Canal de Saint Martin, under the streets. Funny things happen in tunnels and Monica wanted us to go through that tunnel in the
Phyllis May
and Jim and I headed north to see if we could find a reason to stop her.

The canal was roofed over with the long gardens of the Avenue Richard Lenoir, where twice a week there was a riotous street market. Sometimes there were circular holes with a dome of railings leaning over them and down in the dark I could see water. We walked for a mile and the canal was open again to the sky and trees, and there was the Hôtel du Nord where Arletty lay in the arms of Jean Gabin and a lock with water surging in and a ruined houseboat trying to keep afloat as it rose.

I’ve come on tunnels that you won’t believe, I said to Jim. I have been through the terrible Harecastle in Stoke. The water is orange-red like the blood of Daleks and as you go into the darkness they start a ventilation fan to scare you. It gets colder and wetter and narrower and lower until you are kneeling at the tiller, shuddering with fear. I have been through the Netherton tunnel near Dudley, which is cut through pearl and crystal, where the walls are flashed with black and crimson and you can hear music. But I have never been under a city. What happens if the road caves in? What happens if one of those big barges comes along against you? It says in the book that it takes ages to go through and nothing works and there are rats, and gongoozlers look at you through cracks.

Jim listened closely, waiting for the words pub or chips, and started eating something dreadful off the ground.

TO SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS, DOWN THE RUE Guillaume Apollinaire. A century ago, when Paris was the centre of the world, the poet Wilhelm Albert Vladimir Alexandre Apollinaris de Kostrowitzki was the centre of Paris. He was very good at fish. He did crayfish—Backing away, backing away. He did carp—You live so long, has death forgotten you, melancholy creatures? He said he was like an octopus, sucking the blood of his friends and squirting ink. He wrote about jellyfish with violet hair; dolphins playing merrily in the bitter sea. He didn’t do dogs, but he did a cracker about a dromedary, and if you have no respect you can change the dromedary to a whippet—

With a narrow dog called Jim

A certain Terry Darlington

Sailed from Stone to Carcassonne.

And I would do the same as him

With a narrow dog like Jim.

SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS WAS FULL OF PEOPLE having a drink before dinner and then they all went home or to the Rue Mouffetard which is like Soho but with twice as many restaurants. After dinner I walked into a bollard that had been knocked horizontal by a car. While Monica looked for a taxi Jim and I went into a bar to sit down and watch my leg swell up.

In the bar were half a dozen fat slags—Oh isn’t he lovely! Look at his ears, his cravat! Look at the little curls on his ass!

It’s always dog, dog, dog, I said, no one notices me. When I was nineteen I was beautiful. I had curls too and I wore a cravat—young girls sought me out.

The fat slags were from Denver Colorado on a cookery training course. They had not been to Europe before and they thought Paris was much nicer than Denver Colorado. They were drunk and smoking and shouting and gorgeous. Monica came back as I was about to ask them all to crew for us to Carcassonne, though more than one would have sunk the
Phyllis May
.

Back at the boat I took an oral infusion of three fingers of whisky and the pain went and in the morning I was almost cured.

YOU’VE GOT TO SEE NOTRE-DAME FROM THE left bank, I said to Monica, and we did, and then we shouldered over the bridge through the tourists. When the tourists saw Jim they poked each other and called out sadly in Japanese.

Behind Notre-Dame, on the southern tip of the Ile de la Cité, is the Monument for the Deported. You can see nothing from the gate. We walked inside—Can we bring the dog? Yes, said the guardian, but you must leave him on the lawn here. I will look after him. He smiled. We walked down the steps and Jim started to cry. Jim is good at waiting but when we reached the bottom of the steps we could still hear him crying.

We were in a small court with a barred window looking down on the Seine. We couldn’t see the sky; just the light on the river. Through an entrance and we were in a lobby with cells opening off and words on the heavy walls as if they had been scratched by prisoners. Louis Aragon, Jean-Paul Sartre: words of defiance and pity. In the centre a cell which went into the distance, a tunnel: millions of lights on walls and ceiling—the road to freedom. In the middle a tomb.

In the Second World War two hundred thousand people were deported from France and were worked to death, or starved, or gassed. Half were Jews, and twelve thousand were children. Children.

When we came up the steps Jim was still crying. Don’t worry, said the guardian. He saw you going down into the ground and he thought you would never come back.

YOU DON’T WANT YOUR BOAT LOOKING LIKE a tailor’s dummy, Clive used to say. Indeed a sweet disorder shows that you are a friendly bang-about boater who is likely to come through with the gin and tonic as the questing vole seeks his rest. But white balloon fenders get dirty and hang off your boat like rotten fruit and are impossible to clean.

Together with their telephone numbers and pictures of themselves when young, Bruno, Guillaume and Bernard had given Monica a leaflet for the local chandlery. I looked at it over breakfast—
All your needs and repairs
. Let’s smarten up for leaving Paris, I said—I’ll pop out with Jim and get those black fenders, and come back and help tidy the boat.