Paris

 

During the 70’s when I was at college, my flatmate had introduced her to me and we realised almost from the beginning that we had something special in common, a love of singing together. Somehow there was a special magic as we weaved our music and songs that we had written separately, into a harmony that was reflected not only in our voices, but  a common sound that the harmonies that our guitar playing provided, and in turn producing a musical foil to each other.

Benedicte had grown up in a rural area just south of Paris and had come to Britain to improve her English by working as an au pair. Our relationship was one of friendship and mutual respect. Our music was the bond that would tie us together over the years that followed.

That summer in 1975 was my first time in Paris. I had a couple of months off my university studies during the summer vacation and decided, on a whim,  to try my hand at busking in the Paris metro.

I took the boat train from Victoria Station in London at 10 in the evening, onward to Dover and then boarded the ferry to Calais. Once arriving there myself and my fellow passengers were then transferred to an ancient SNCF set of carriages that grinded and buckled their way through the French countryside, eventually arriving at Gare du Nord at 7am. Sleepy eyed and fatigued, I made my way through the thronging crowds in the cold dawn of a Paris morning where Benedicte was waiting to greet me.

I was fascinated by my first impressions of Paris as she took me on a guided tour that morning. I marvelled at the street cafes with their closely knit tables spilling out onto the footpaths. All types of people of different ages and backgrounds, some smoking their Gaulloise cigarettes, their cup of coffee or glass of wine almost ignored as they gesticulated excitedly, lost in animated conversation. The waiters in their black aprons weaving in and out between the narrow spaces of the tables, pulling one out to let a new set of customers take their seats and place their orders whilst they expertly balanced their trays plied with all kinds of refreshments. They could handle any number of people at a time and would assert their complete dominance over the proceedings and the little rituals that followed, being there to be called only when they were ready, the polite gestures that maintained the distance between them and the customer which emphasised who was in charge here. And most of all their overall aloofness from those they were waiting on.

I began to notice how the thoroughfares varied between narrow little side paths with imposing buildings on either side of the road leaning out and almost touching one another. The narrow streets choking with myriad shops, cafes and restaurants, continually thronged with people passing through. At each restaurant a waiter hovered outside to entice potential customers with its plat du jour (dish of the day) and any variety of poulet, poisson or steak frites. (chicken, fish or steak and chips).

In contrast to those narrow arteries were the wider boulevards boasting their splendid ornate buildings reaching majestically up into the Paris sky. Their equally magnificent names which would forever be implanted in my memory, the Boulevard St. Germaine with its myriad array of bookshops, cafes and restaurants, the Boulevard St. Michel close by boasting an ornate fountain that gushed out of a gable wall spewing out endless water in constant cascades, its splendid façade standing proudly and defiantly as it had done so for years.

She then led me to Notre Dame Cathedral. So many times I had seen images of this great building and now, here I was, physically in its presence. It struck me as being like a building within a building. Its magnificent façade with its rows of French saints staring down somberly and majestically above its three entrances. The square below was milling with a seething mass of humanity under the ornate lamps that were strewn about the square. Here and there could be found street vendors selling their cheap imitations of the cathedral hoping to persuade the passers by to buy their wares. On the stroke of each quarter hour the sombre bells of the cathedral rang out across the square.

We joined the throngs of visitors making their way inside through the magnificent oak doors. Yet the spirituality of the place was lost to the many crowds of tourists who were only interested in getting another picture as the cameras flashed incessantly.

Then there was the splendour of the Luxembourg Gardens, where its trademark green metal chairs were scattered like graffiti all over the grounds, in no particular order, but left in little clusters by their previous occupants.

Here was a microcosm of the citizens of Paris where young and old came to rest for a while, meet old friends or wander aimlessly among its beautiful plants and flowers, walking through a patchwork of paths that led in a whole series of directions.

One could hear the faint click clack of men and women, mostly in their senior years playing boules, in contrast to the playful squeals and shouts of children in the playground section, accompanied by the adults casting a watchful eye, some engaged in idle conversation. A few of the children would gather up the autumn leaves that lay like dull coloured blankets on the ground making their own little mounds which they then gaily threw at each other engaging in an unending round of fun and frivolity.

And everywhere people were sitting on those metal chairs, some dozing in the late evening sunshine, others reading their books and newspapers, whilst there were those chatting quietly in murmured tones to each other.

As a busker in the Paris metro singing in the half light of those tunnels beneath the grounds, this was an oasis of calm and peace. This place bestowed on me a sense of solace and shelter from the hustle and bustle and madness of those underground corridors where the masses of people were coming and going in their ceaseless journeys that took them through the bowels of the city snaking its way beneath the magnificent streets above.