Pt 15 Banging heads with Builders.

W & T Building contractors limited are Wayne and Thomas. Wayne is from West-country England, and Thomas is Polish. Between them they’ve never had any formal training in carpentry, plumbing, electrical work or roofing, and as they first met walking out of the gates of the local Potato factory when it closed up shop and laid everyone off three years ago, neither of them had ever lifted a hammer nor used a saw in anger before. As they then met again in the smoking shelter of the local pub later that same night, they got to talking about what they were going to do with their respective futures. Wayne said he knew a bloke who worked for a local building company, and that he’d give him a call and ask about work.

“Ask him me for too fucking” Said Thomas.

“I’ve got a friend I ‘ave” Wayne told his mate. “That boy be looking for work too”.

Within days they were shovelling sand and cement, sweeping up sawdust, lifting bricks onto scaffold, and spending ten hours a day humping building equipment up ladders, and generally doing the do as it needed to be done. Weeks quickly turned into months, and Wayne and Thomas just as quickly learned how to lay bricks, erect framing timber, make roof trusses, put up plasterboard, run electrical cables and install window and door frames. Before long they were out-working the qualified tradesmen they were working beside, and came to the notice of the site-foreman.

“You boys seem to know how all this works, have you been in the industry long?

“Not really, I used to be a spud packer; Laughed Wayne. “but it’s not rocket scientists is it though. I mean it’s just follow some plans and do things in the right order is all…”

“And if the people you have in job don’t know or understand it’s job, then I tell Wayne we need to get him another better who does knows it’s job”. Thomas interjected. “Like that woman at the factory who thinking potatoes and spuds maybe same different thing together”.

“They’re the same thing”. Wayne said.

“I know they are, of course they are, but she didn’t know properly, she thought maybe…”

“Anyway, good”, The foreman jumped in, “I have to go and manage a site in the midlands for a month, and I need someone here to make sure this project runs on time. Now do you two clowns think you could run this job while I’m away”?

“That’ll be fine” said Wayne. “What do you think boy”?

‘Yes boss, piece of cake; but for more money please; and bonus cash too”. Said Thomas.

So the foreman gave them a pay-rise and promised them a bonus if everything went alright, then he went away to the Midlands leaving Wayne and Thomas in charge of the half-million pound building project. When he returned a month later the job was finished to lock-up stage, and not only had Wayne and Thomas got ahead of themselves by more than a week, they had also sacked a Carpenter, replaced an Electrician, brought in an extra Plumber, and had renegotiated the roofing price, saving over eight thousand pounds. The building company boss came down from head office in Bristol to inspect the project, and found it completed far beyond where Wayne and Thomas should have been able to take it, and that the quality of the workmanship there surpassed all his expectations.

“…and if it hadn’t been for all that blessed rain” Wayne told him, “we’d ‘ave had it done a week ago.

“You bonus pay to us now” Said Thomas, “and we out and go get slaughtered drunk”.

So several hours later, Wayne and Thomas were slaughtered drunk in the smoking shelter of the Lamb & Lion, and were wondering why they should settle for working for peanuts, when they obviously knew how to get things done properly themselves.

“I not this doing shit fucking no more” Thomas said. “You and me we should doing ourselves building works just us together; we lots of money make fucking”. He slapped his arm around Waynes shoulder and pulled him close. “W&T Building contractors limited fucking. I your name put first because you have to the telephone answer”.

*

Three years later I arrived in Hambridge, Somerset, having just come back from two weeks in Paris, and a trip through Europe on my bike. I spent a week doing a big removal job for the former CEO of pepsi-cola, where I moved over five thousand cubit feet of designer furniture and antiques and half ton safes from the country manor ‘Episcopi house’ near Radstock, to a seven-level Georgian manor in the high-class Clifton area of Bristol. It was a week of seriously hard yakka, but eventually the job was done, and I was paid up in full, and left wondering what to do with myself next. I knew that in September Mr Pepsi-cola wanted to fly me and my removalist mate out to Latvia to load up a big consignment of furniture and bring it back to Bristol, but that was still a couple of months away, and I needed something else to get into. I rang my Doco director friend Kevin Hewitt, and organised a catch-up coffee to chew the fat about filming and writing and the upcoming Afghanistan doco he had slated for next year. ‘Am I still interested in going to Afghanistan’? I pondered “Damn right I am Kevin” I told him., “and yeah I know there’s an element of danger, but I’d much rather die while I’m breathing then live like I’m dead”. Kevin said he’d do what he could to get me in, but nothings set in concrete, he reminded me, and life can take some unexpected turns, so who knows what might happen? Later on that day I rang Neil my cousin in law, and arranged to meet him for a beer. Before long we were sitting in the smoking shelter of the Lamb sipping our pints.

The smoking shelter of the Lamb & Lion, like the pub itself, is run-down, in disrepair and is dismal. It has a torn plastic tarpaulin flapping from it like a flock of swans, and metal fixtures that clang about the place like an out of tune Timpany band. The weeds are growing through the butt-laden gravel underfoot, and the overfilled ash-trays are spilling their discarded contents onto rotting wooden picnic tables that have long since seen better days. There is a mouse and probably flea-infested couch slumped alongside a cobweb ridden whitewashed wall like a huge ugly animal that no-one goes near, and there are three plastic chairs, each stained with the dregs of disillusioned drinkers who huddle in anxious confusion around a green plastic table too small to bear their company. Two foam and wooden benches more suited to a bonfire, lie in wait against a wooden slatted fence that is just a strong gust away from falling down, and from the rusty metal spars above us, a fly-zapper hangs like a lazy afterthought, held in place there by lengths of mis-matched string and blobs of cigarette-flavoured chewing gum. Hanging off the fence right beside us is a power cable, which is secured at one end to a dangling and sparking power-board that threatens to short-circuit at any moment and burn the whole fucking place down.

“I was looking on the internet the other day”. I said to Neil. “looking at houses for sale in France. There’s loads of them going real cheap you know. They all need work mind you, but they’re in much better condition than this fucking shit hole. I reckon if I learned a few building tricks I could buy a joint and probably fix it up”.

“You ought to get on and talk to Wayne”, Neil told me, “see if he can’t get you some site work; it won’t take you long to work out what goes where”.

So the next day I talked to Wayne, and he said “No problem boy, be at my van at forty to seven tomorrow, and you can come to Bradford-on-Avon with I for the day, we’ll see what your hands are made of”.

The next day I was on site sweeping up dust and dirt and gravel from a rubble encrusted garden bed, then picking up all the bits of off-cut framing timbers and rough ends of plastic pipes that littered the site. I moved a pallet of bricks and large building stones from one end of the site to the other, climbed a ladder shouldering lengths of steel, and levelled a red brick patio area armed with little more than a half-broken rake and a blunt-ended shovel. I ended the day aching and sore and covered in dust, and after a long, luxurious shower that night, I hit the sack early and slept like a baby. By the end of the following day, I was red, and itching from a million fibrous insulation shards that had dug themselves into my arms and shoulders and face. I had measured, cut and fitted a hundred metres of spiky, yellow batts between rafters and studs and noggins, and various holes in the concrete and stone where the wind came through. I had shovelled four tons of slow setting concrete screed, and laid out expansion foam and plastic waterproofing sheets around the edge of a framework that would eventually become someone’s lounge room. Wednesday saw me measuring and marking in baselines for the power points and light switch housings, both of which I then fitted a dozen of, along with the arrow straight cable-channelling that I secured with galvanised twirly nails.

As I sat with Wayne that night drinking Guinness, I asked him how he thought I was going with it all, and if he was happy with what my hands were made of.

“You be doing a good job boy”, he told me. “And Thomas says ‘that Tim fucking, he working good man like Polish”. Then Wayne swallowed his drink in one huge gulp and said. “I’ll see you in the morning then boy, we got plasterboard to put up we do”.

True to his word, the next day Wayne had me standing on tip-toe with my fingers outstretched just high enough to hold the flapping ends of plasterboard sheets against the roof beams while he secured them into place with a screw gun. After a dozen sheets my arms and shoulders were screaming, my eyes were red and watering from the constant dust, and my hair had taken on the colour of a blizzard. We worked slowly around the sites interior, measuring, cutting, holding up and screwing in board after board. Ever so slowly, the bare brickwork and timber frames became separate rooms, and then, a couple days later, after pipes, cables and cupboards had been fitted, a bedroom and en-suite appeared, and a lounge room and separate office began to take form.

After digging a drainage system on Friday afternoon, I found myself at bit of a loose end, so I walked across to where Cuddles the carpenter was measuring and cutting timbers to make roof trusses, and offered a helping hand if he could use it.

“Well lover” Six-foot six Cuddles told me, “if you want to lay these timbers out like this in a sort of triangle way, no that’s wrong…like this, and then nail them together with these; oh, where’ve they gone”?

I went and found some more nails, and then as Cuddles measured, marked, cut and stacked the timbers, I laid them out, nailed them together and very satisfyingly created a dozen roof-trusses ready to sit above the porch and take on the batons and tiles that would ultimately become a roof.

After I finished-up work that Friday night, I sat drinking pints with Wayne and Thomas and Cuddles, talking about the week that had consisted of fourteen- hour days, punctuated by builder’s tea, banging hammers, ripping saws, and aching muscles. I had learned how to lay and level a screed floor, complete with waterproofing and expansion joints. I’d learned the rudiments of framing and plaster-boarding, and I now knew how to run cables, install power board frames, put roof trusses together and lay-out a flooring plan. I’d used a Paslowe gun to power-nail the flooring sheets, and I’d been introduced to the heavy-duty drop saw used to cut the framing and roof timbers. I’d learned how to actually mark a straight and level line, and why wearing a short-sleeve shirt when fitting insulation batts isn’t the smartest thing to do. I had the start of calluses where blisters had formed, burst, re-formed and finally given up, forming thick, heavy blister resistant skin in it’s place. My arm, shoulder, and chest muscles no longer ached, having quickly got themselves up to speed with the heavy lifting and repetitive slugging of the shovel and wheelbarrow work; and aside from the insulation rash, I’d enjoyed a good dose of sunshine on my arms and shoulders. As I sipped my Guinness that night, Wayne told me about a major building job he and Thomas had coming up in London real soon, and suggested I should be there for it too.

So quite a few weeks later…

“I’m sorry I ran off like that” Josie told me as she came and stood next to me at the bar. “You just kind of smelled like, well, you know what I mean; I’m sorry I said you smell like shit”. Then she smiled and wrapped her arm about me and pulled me close.

*

My Somerset day had started when my alarm had shamma-lamma ding-dong’d just after four o’clock in the morning, and I’d struggled to pull my weary body out of bed. My head had washed in a hazy blur of red-wine and Guinness dregs, and my breath had backfired on me, giving me a half-digested breakfast taste of last nights barbequed chops and marinated chicken wings. Twenty minutes later though I was showered and dressed, tooth-brushed and shaved, coffee’d and fagged; and ready to take on the day. I walked over to Wayne’s Mitsubishi Animal, parked just a slice of toast away, and did a quick mental check of the bum-bag and backpack that swung heavily on my shoulder. Work clothes, going out clothes, shoes, Laptop, Camera, notebooks, pens, money, washing stuff, yeah that was it, I’d packed everything I’d need for a week away in London.

“Alright then boy”? Wayne asked me when he arrived with a thermos cup of steaming coffee and a fag dripping from one corner of his mouth like a surgical implant.

“If I was any more alright, I’d be dangerous mate”. I said. “Where’s Thomas, have we gotta pick him up”?

“Thomas aint coming boy”. Wayne said as he threw his own bag of London supplies into the van next to mine. “He’s had to go back to Bradford on Avon to sort out a whole lot of extras they want doing now. It’s just you and me again”.

This was the start of our second week in the capital where we were working on a major remodelling job in Crouch end, on the Tottenham Court road in north London. Here a three bedroom red-brick terrace house belonging to Caroline, waited for us to return and finish putting up the steel girders and reconnecting the plumbing waste and drainage system we’d pulled apart the previous week.

“I hope she remembered not to use the toilet over the weekend”. Wayne said.

“Well she wouldn’t though would she” I told him, “She’s staying at her sisters place remember. Besides, I’d be more worried about the house still standing if I were you, I mean we did leave it hanging there on little more than a wing and a prayer”.

We drove slowly along the darkened hedgerows and out of Hambridge until we hit the A303 near Ilchester. Then, with the exception of the diabolical bottleneck around Stonehenge, and the subsequent tailback that accompanied it, we slid along this main west-east route through Wiltshire with barely a pause for thought. By the time the sun had risen, we had cleared the Salisbury plains, and were motoring along the M3 motorway towards London, about eighty-odd miles further along. We made a pit-stop at the Fleet services, where I bought a questionable sausage roll and a cup of hideous coffee; then we pulled back out onto the previously fast moving motorway, only to find our progress had been checked, and we were caught up in a ten-mile long procession of traffic going nowhere.

“Roll I a fag then boy” Wayne said as he fiddled with the radio, desperately looking for something that didn’t ‘doof-doof’ or blah-blah. Eventually he settled on Abba, then sat back with a self-satisfied smile on his face and said, “So tell I about when you were in France then”.

“Yeah right” I laughed. “That’s way too big a story mate. How about I just tell you that the day I arrived in Paris it was sunny…”

*

It was too. I’d ridden up from Lyon, having stayed there the night before in a less than salubrious hotel attached to a service station. I’d left there early in the morning after a breakfast of coffee, Croissants and fruit juice, and had figured I’d be saying ‘Bonjour vous’ to Lyndal by about four that afternoon. I made real quick progress along the autoroute too, eventually arriving in the outskirts of Paris at about three-ish. “That was when I caught my first glimpse of Tourre way off in the distance,” I said to Wayne.

“Who”? He asked.

“Touree…..The Eifel tower.”

“Oh that thing”. He said.

“Sphincter says Quoi?” I asked him.

“Huh?”

I remember yee-haaing into my helmet and punching my fist in the air. Lyndal, vin rouge and frommage were just a couple pleasant thoughts away now, and the sun was shining brightly. I remember too, that the air smelled all sweet and Parisian-like, exactly how I imagined it would, and as I pulled the bike to the side of the road and scribbled down some notes in my Moleskin, I sucked in a deep breath-full of it.

We shuddered along a few more inches rolling fags and listening to Agnetha pleading ‘If you change your mind, I’m the first in line’. Then Wayne suddenly said.

“I need to pee”. Thanks for that. I had been fine right up until that point, and if he hadn’t have mentioned it, then I wouldn’t have had to say.

“Yeah, I do too actually.

The traffic started moving again. Slowly at first, and then without warning we were back to full motorway speed with no obvious reason for having been stopped in the first place. “I fucking hate driving to London”. Wayne said, and then followed it up with “We really need to find a services soon boy; roll I another fag then”.

“Lyndal doesn’t smoke” I mused aloud. “But fuck man, can she drink. We use to start each day with vodka and Pamplemouse. After a couple of them I’d be hanging out of the window topless, shouting and waving to people down below and taking photographss. Lyndal always had it covered though , she’d be lying on the bed going through tourists brochures, trying to decide where we should go on that particular day. Given that she’s a seven times Paris veteran and knows the city pretty well I just used to leave her to it. If it’d been up to me I would have just got us lost like I did trying to find the apartment in the first place. What a nightmare that was”. I finished rolling Wayne’s fag, and then passed it to him with the lighter.

Lyndal had given me the address of the apartment we were staying in, but I’d buried it somewhere amongst all my bits. What I did know was that it was on Boulevard Haussmann, right next to a huge gothic church called Saint Augustines. That the Boulevarde ran parallel to the Champs Elysee, and that the Champs Elysee ran down from the Arc de triumph. How hard could it be, all I had to do was ride into the centre of Paris and follow my nose. Any idiot could do that.

I had entered Paris from the bottom south-east corner, knowing our apartment was near the top, in the north-west, in the 8^th arrondisement, and well inside the Periphery. I was looking-out for signs pointing that way, when I saw one reading Centre-ville, centre of town-, so I took it. Next thing I knew I was amongst it all. Boutiques, Café’s, bar’s, cars and scooters. The place was heaving, there were people everywhere and everyone was talking in French.

“Can you speak French?” Wayne asked me as he lit his fag.

“I can say Quoi”.

“What?”

“Exactly”. I laughed.

I rode up Boulevarde something or other, then down rue de something else. Along here, down there, around a corner, up a road, all over the place, but because I hadn’t bothered to buy a Paris map I didn’t actually know where I was going, and was just sort of hoping I’d miraculously find the place Ta-daaa!

“Services in eight miles boy”. Wayne announced. Then we saw the sign for London’s’ own Periphery, the M25, pointing off to the left, and we needed to take it.

“Left turn Wayne. Left mate, here, quick, we need to turn left. LEFFFFT”. .

“I cant get over”.

“We’re in a four-wheel drive mate, just push your way in”.

“I fucking hate driving to London”. Wayne reminded me again. “Oh shit”! A red Ford Mondeo decided to change lanes quickly too, but from the far lane, and forced us up onto the medium strip.

“What the..?”

“Fucking Paki’s” Wayne moaned. “Where’d he learn to drive to then boy, Nigger-ria?”

“Nigeria’s in Africa Wayne, Pakistan’s in Asia-minor. Don’t be such a fucking racist”.

“Same difference. I just know it’s not like driving in Hambridge”.

“No, you‘re right there mate it’s not, but then Paris wasn’t either”.

*

As I rode around trying to find something to tell me where I was, I saw a Metro sign with a rail map next to it, so I pulled over at the metro station ‘Orlean’, way down south of the city. I checked the rail- map, checked my compass -which looks totally stupid when you’re standing in the middle of a busy city- and then suddenly, and for god knows what reason, I decided I knew exactly where I was and where I needed to go, and headed off in completely the wrong direction.

“Services in three miles boy”. Wayne said. “I couldn’t half go a bacon roll”.

“You’ve got worms” I told him.

“So where was this girl of yours too while you were riding all over the French countryside then?” Wayne asked me.

“Paris mate. I was in Paris not rural France, and Lyndal? she was already in the apartment eating cheese and drinking wine, and waiting for me to arrive”. I’d told her I’d be there about four, but by the time I eventually thought best to call her for directions it was nearly five thirty and I’d been riding around hopelessly lost for over two hours.

‘I’m near a tall column with a golden statue thing on top doing an Egyptian walk type ensemble’. I said to her. She said ‘You’re in Bastille, you need to head West’. So I headed west. Then I pulled-up next to a guy on a Harley and asked him where Boulevarde Haussmann was, but he turned out to be an American. ‘Have you ridden here all the way from Oz’? He twanged at me. ‘Yeah absolutely’. I lied. ‘Which way is it to Boulevarde Haussmann?’ ‘He pointed left, which it wasn’t, and I ended up outside a café, next to a bus stop looking at the bus route maps trying to make sense of where I was. Then I rang Lyndal again and told her I’d just gone past another big grey statue that was kind of all hunched over like a Hedgehog. “You’re up by Place de la Republic” She said, and then “I told you to head west, you’ve gone north. Head west okay. WESSST’. . So I turned around and headed back the way I’d just come…South.

*

“Services Wayne, turn left mate, left, left LEFFFT”!

We parked the Mitsubishi, walked into the services, and headed straight for the conveniences. But they were out of order, which actually made them in-conveniences; so we bought two bacon rolls and two cups of coffee instead, and parted with a staggering fourteen pounds for the privilege. Walking back to the Animal, I pointed out that Mitsubishi is actually an anagram of ‘tiM bush i is’. Wayne just looked at me, then said I was weird and had too much time on my hands. We sat in the services car-park munching rolls and drinking coffee and smoking fags, till Wayne said “Sat-nav reckons we should be there in forty minutes at ‘bout fifteen-past nine, and architect Giles is coming round at thirty-past; we should get on hey boy”.

So Giles the architect from Wales was coming round at Nine-thirty. That meant we had to have the site ship-shape, and looking as if we knew exactly what we were doing. We’d put the base-steel, top-steel and side supports in last week using an extendable mini site crane called a genie-lift. The main supporting wall that we’d knocked down last week no longer held the top storey in place, that was now supported by extendable Acro-props; along with a less than professionally-built brick pier banged-up by Wayne in the dying minutes of daylight last Friday. Old brickwork was still scattered across the half ripped-out floor, and a bloody great trench nearly five feet deep sliced the property in two where I’d had to excavate the main sewerage pipes for eventual reconnection with the up stairs bathroom that we’d disconnected several days earlier. To the untrained eye the place was a shambles, but as far as Wayne was concerned, Giles would be suitably impressed, and everything was fine. We drove on into London, passing the signposts for Kew Gardens and Finchley.

*

In Paris I couldn’t make sense of the road signs I was seeing. Lyndal had said go this way, but my compass said go that way. A woman in a Peugeot told me ‘Tu droit, tu droit’ but at the time I had no idea what she meant, so I just went straight ahead. Eventually I saw a street vendor selling magazines, and what have you, and pulled up next to him. I grabbed a Paris guide map, paid him eight Euros, said merci, and walked back to my bike. What I hadn’t thought of was that I didn’t actually know where I was right then and had no starting point as a reference, so I walked back to him and said ‘Pardon monsieur, je suis ou est? ‘ which I think meant ‘where am I? ‘Boulevarde Haussmann’ he replied. Bugger me, really? Then I asked him about St Augustine’s church, which Lyndal had told me was right beside our apartment. ‘Oui monsieur’ he said, and pointed to the huge gothic church right in front of us. I walked back to the bike, opened the Paris map to the right page, and sure enough, there was a picture of me scratching my head, standing right where I needed to be. That was it then, I’d arrived. Five minutes later, Lyndal and me were hi-fiving in the apartment, and saying our first bonjour vous in nearly four years. After the hugs and the kisses on each cheek, we thought it best if we screwed the cork out of a bottle, -it had been a long time between drinks after all- so we did, then we sat on the balcony and smoked a cigarette; watching the sun go down over the nearby Arc de Triomph. As the sun slid off into the night, and the sky turned a deep, velvety blue; it seemed that the cream of Mushroom-soup that coloured Paris had taken on a shining golden glow, almost as if it was heralding the arrival of a brand new chapter in my life. It was emotional”.

“Very good then”. Wayne said in his usual dry, uninterested tone.

*

Bang on nine-thirty we turned right onto Tottenham court road, passed the YMCA building, passed the café where we go for breakfast, and then took a right at the roundabout. Two minutes later we turned into Inderwick road and pulled up in front of the overflowing skip we’d filled last week, and that we hoped would be collected and replaced later on that morning. “God I need the toilet and a proper cup of coffee” I said as Wayne unlocked the front door and we let ourselves in. As he wandered into the kitchen and flicked on the kettle, I bolted up the stairs two at a time, and slammed the toilet door closed behind me.

I flushed the toilet just as the front door bell rang. Giles had arrived. I met Wayne at the bottom of the stairs as he went to answer the door. “Have you just used the toilet”? He asked.

“Yeah, why? Oh shit!” I ran into the mess that was the renovation to see the plastic bag we’d taped over the end of the high-set waste pipe bulging with effluent and dripping onto the only piece of clear flooring in the place. Moments later Wayne walked in and introduced me to Giles. As we shook hands, a drip of water landed on the arm of his shirt, forming a dark round stain. He looked up at the waste pipe and the bulging bag above his head.

“It’s just a small leak from the basin outlet”. Wayne said hurriedly, then another drop hit him on the forehead, then another on his cheek.

“Hmmmm” He said. “Just so long as no-ones actually stupid enough to use the toilet”.

“Oh god”. I choked. ”that’d be horrible. Wayne looked at me, coughed away a laugh, then led Giles out into the garden.

While they talked outside amongst the scaffold, the cement mixer with the dodgy starter button, and all the assorted ground-working tools we’d piled up, I went back out to the Animal and grabbed the media-bag that held my camera and laptop, as well as the time-warped bum-bag that I never wear. -the downside of which being that I get accused of carrying a handbag; the upside being that it keeps my note-book and pens, wallet, bike keys and tobacco tin all together in the same place; possibly like a handbag I suppose !-. I brought them back in, grabbed my tobacco tin out and put it in my pocket, then I put the two bags into the only surviving kitchen cupboard, and finished making the coffee that Wayne had started just as Giles arrived.

“Coffee Giles”? I called.

“No thanks” He answered. “I’m going just now in a minute”. So I finished making mine and Waynes coffee, and put them down on the cupboard top while I rolled a pair of cigarettes.

“All good?” I asked Wayne, after Giles had left ten minutes later.

“He wants to see that other beam in place before he signs it off”. Wayne looked up at the bulging bag above our heads. “You better get that emptied before he comes back too”. He said. Then followed it with “Come on then, lets go and get a proper breakfast”. Then we walked out the door.

*

Par for the course with working in London was that the company paid for our breakfast, so it was always a full English affair with a hot pot of tea. The breakfast café on Tottenham court road where we went everyday was a popular place with builders so it was always busy, and we were there for well over an hour. After that, we drove around for another twenty minutes trying to find a cash machine that worked so I could get paid up for last weeks work. By the time we did that, then made it back to the house, it was close to one o’clock, and we’d achieved little more than nothing for the nearly four hours we’d been there. Now we faced putting up a half ton steel beam before Giles could sign-off on the first of our progress payments, and as he was only in London for the day, we had to get it in, and then get him back to inspect it. After that, we had to return the Genie lift to the hire place by five o’clock or Wayne would get charged for another weeks hire. We had a fair bit of work to get on with really, and as Wayne delighted in pointing out, we only had three odd hours left to get through it.

Okay then, game-on, it was time to get serious. I flicked on the kettle and rolled a pair of cigarettes, and while the water boiled I placed the four hundred quid I’d earned last week into my wallet and back into the cupboard, then I filled the cups, and met Wayne out at the skip to smoke, drink and talk.

“We’re not very good at this are we”? I said, sipping my drink.

“What’s that then boy, not very good at what”?

“Getting things done quickly I mean, we don’t seem to be very good at it”.

“Paris wasn’t built in a day you know”. He replied.

“No it certainly wasn’t mate, but neither was Rome come to that”.

“Is that right boy, Rome too? Well I’ll be blowed,” he said. “I never knew that”. Then he wandered off up the road mumbling into his phone about Italian work ethics.

I finished my smoke and drink, and went back inside where I decided I really did want to get this done and behind us; then Wayne walked in behind me and tossed me my riggers gloves. I pulled them on, then released the brake on the genie lift, and watched dumfounded as it suddenly free-wheeled across the dead-flat floor towards the bloody great trench I’d cut through the property. With the shrieking of metal grinding on concrete, the front wheels of the half-ton site-crane slipped over the lip of the abyss with a bone-jarring ‘crunch’, and teetered on the very edge of disaster, just millimetres from the point of no return. Armed with nothing more than sheer adrenaline and brute strength, we then hauled it back out, and then steered it across the scaffold platforms we’d laid over the trench as a causeway. Then we manhandled it into position beneath the overhead wall plate where we were preparing to install the heavy steel girder we’d dragged, levered and cursed into the waiting expanse of the former kitchen just a few days earlier.

The steel was nearly six meters long, twelve inches high and eight inches wide, and when viewed from one end, was shaped like the letter ‘I’. It weighed in excess of four-hundred kilograms, and had trouble and sphincter-puckering terror written all over it. We started out by lowering the lifter as far as it would go, but because of height restrictions we’d had turn the bottom tine support upside down, and the tines were now a good two feet off the ground at best. “Right” said Wayne, “you lift that end up and I’ll push it onto the tines from this end”.

“Whahaha…what, lift it”? Wayne leaned down and grabbed one end of the beam, then just looked at me out of the tops of his eyes.

“Come on boy”. He said. “Lift”.

“Oo-rah. Oomph…bloody hell”. Nothing happened.

“Lift”!

“I am lifting”.

“Lift harder”.

“Grrrrr. Oo-rah. Oomph…fuck me”. The beam lifted eight inches off the ground, wavered, wobbled, and then fell with a mighty thud. “I tell you what”. I said, “You do this end”.

He crouched, strained, and went red in the face. “Lift it boy”. I told Wayne. The steel lifted a foot off the ground, wavered, wobbled, and then fell with a mighty thud again. He looked at me out of the tops of his eyes again and shook his head.

“Bloody heavy innit boy”.

“Uh-huh. Lets both try lifting one end at a time, and we can stack some bricks under it for support as we go”.

“Get on then” he said, “Good idea”. Then after much grunting, and swearing and brick stacking, we got the steel balanced on the tines of the genie-lift, and suspended two feet off the ground.

“Are you sure this thing is going to lift it”. I asked.

“You worry too much”. Wayne answered me.

“Rather too much than not enough mate I reckon”. I started cranking the handle on the cable and pulley-powered machine, and ever so slowly, the extendable mast sections and the tines with nearly half a tonne of steel on it began to venture skywards. When it reached a height of about five foot, I stopped winding, grabbed my bright yellow hard hat and put it on.

“What you want that on for?”

“Safety mate, you never know what might fall outa the sky”. Wayne just laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think that’s going to do you much good if this little lot lets go”. He said. He was right of course. Aside from half a tonne of steel beam, the upper storey of the house was hanging over us supported by not very much at all, and as Wayne had pointed out, there was probably a good fifteen tonne of building materials up there. One wrong move and all this could all go terribly wrong, and my hard-hat would probably be the only thing to survive if this lot came tumbling down.

“Just humour me”. I told him, “It makes me feel better”. Then I started cranking the genie’s handle again. The cable moaned and groaned, and the pulleys squealed and complained as the heavy-duty square section tines flexed earthwards under their burden. “I don’t know about this mate”. I said as the steel reached above our heads and the genie began to waver on its uneven footing on the rubble-strewn floor.

“Just keep winding”. He said, “It’s fine”. The steel was about seven foot up its goal of nearly twelve feet when the first sign of trouble made itself known. Although the cranking was geared, the sheer weight of the load made turning the handle hard work, and the built-in friction-based braking system that held the lifting tines in place between cranks was starting to slip here and there.

“This is starting to look ugly mate”. I said, hanging onto the handle for dear life.

“It’s alright boy I tell ’e” Wayne replied. “Keep winding”. With that, the brakes slipped and the tower dropped over a foot, shuddering the ground and unbalancing the beam, which began seesawing on the tines like a demented playground ride.

“Fucking hell mate, fucking fucking, fuckity-fuck fuck”! I screeched. “This just aint fucking safe mate, someone’s gonna die here”. Wayne looked at me, looked at the steel, looked at where it had to go, then pulled his tobacco tin out of his pocket and said. “Let’s go have a fag hey boy”.

*

That’s a bloody good, fine and excellent idea isn’t it”. I told Lyndal as I swallowed my second glass of Le Cocktail de Grevilliere, and she immediately filled it up again. “It’s quite strong isn’t they, didn’t it I mean…hic”!

“I don’t know” She replied nonchalantly, I hadn’t actually noticed”. Then she poured herself a double, and went back to the tourist brochures, leaving me to hang out of the window topless, waving to the street cleaners in their little green vans, and shouting Bonjour’s to the good folk of Paris who walked sublimely along below me. I waved at all the shop assistants who were outside too, meticulously cleaning their already sparkling windows; and sweeping imaginary dirt from the footpath. As I squinted one eye to focus on the pavement outside St. Augustines cafe opposite us, I could see that it was already thrilling at an almost hectic pace of taking it incredibly easy. I breathed in another great lungful of air. It was warm and smelled sweet like croissants, and the Plane trees that lined the Boulevard Haussman far below, were waving gently on the breeze, almost beckoning me to come out and explore.

“I think I need a coffee”. I said. “D’you want one too...No? It’s just me that needs to sharpen up then is it. Blimey, some things never change do they”? An hour later I was coffee’d, showered, shaved and sober, and we stepped out into the luxurious air just in time to see a police car speed slowly by. ‘Nee-naa, nee-naa’ it went half-heartedly, sorta like it was saying ‘Yeah, yeah relax, we’re coming, we’re just stopping for a baguette and a coffee along the way’.

We ambled along the broad shiny Boulevarde Haussmann, passing café’s, Tabacs, Restaurants, art galleries and the designer stores of Bulgari and Gucci. We cut along Rue la Boetie where we found luxury hotels, and a veritable menu of French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Sushi restaurants. After a fifteen minute stroll which introduced us to designer shoes, designer suits, designer frocks, gloves, hats and scarves, we emerged onto the wide and bustling pavement of the Avenue Champs Elysee. ‘La plus belle avenue du monde’ –The most beautiful avenue in the world’, and I was gobsmacked.

With its cinema’s, and café’s, and specialty stores and clipped Horse-chestnut trees, it had to be the absolute caff de foo-foo for upmarket shopping, and the centre of the universe for all things stylish and cool. Benetton, Louis Vuitton, Zara, Cartier and Bel-Air fashion called this place home, along with Gap, Sephora and the Disney store. The largest Adidas store in the whole wide-world had opened here recently too, and in 2011, an advertisement told me, Abercrombie and Fitch were scheduled to open here as well.

As we walked it’s length that afternoon, it buzzed with life as street musicians and performers mingled seamlessly with well-healed shoppers carrying bags by Mont Blanc and Rolex, and tourists like us, who wrote postcards while leaning on a wall. We passed the Lido showgirl venue, and ogled the Omega window display with their tens of thousand euro price tags. As we wandered along, passing the throng of café’s, and restaurants and designer label shop fronts, we unexpectedly found a McDonalds, and went inside and ordered La Big Mac each. Then we sat outside in the sunshine, munching on our Parisian cheap-eats, and Lyndal suddenly said. “When we were in our twenties’ we lived in London, but now that we’re older, we live in Paris, because Paris is for grown-ups”.

“Oh that’s good “. I said. “I’m gonna use that when I write all this down. Say it again”. So she did, and as I scribbled it quickly into my Moleskin, she made me promise to credit her with it, and I promised her that I would.

“Shall we go to the Louvre now” She said, as we dropped our burger wraps into a bin. “Get a bit of culture maybe”?

“Culture? Oh god I don’t think I need any culture, I’m already fit to burst with this place as it is. Can we just sorta wander around outside in the sun instead. It’s too nice to be in a museum don’t you reckon; too many cobwebs an’ all”. Lyndal threw her arm through mine and leaned her head on my shoulder.

“It’s just gorgeous here isn’t it, I love Paris”. She said. “The whole place just drips with gorgeousness”. Yep, it did, it absolutely dripped with it, every single step of the way. It was only my first day there and I was feeling it already, I could understand totally why she was so enamoured by Paris; it was beautiful, and I was falling in love with it myself. We lazed our way down to the Metro station Concorde where we jumped on a super hi-speed train and headed for the Louvre. Once there we just sort of hung-out in the grounds of the former Royal palace, enjoying the sunshine and watching the in-line skaters doing their thing around tiny plastic cones set alongside the giant glass pyramid that featured in the Da Vinci code. From there we walked onto the Tuillerie gardens, checking out the crazy dot to dot 17^th century statues that emerged from the trees at every turn, and the ragged Algerian beggar-women with their well rehearsed tales of woe, who stopped anyone and everyone who dared to walk their way.

“Don’t look at them.” Lyndal chided me as I stood watching this scraggly-looking thing giving her spiel to a touristy-looking couple.

“Why not”?

“Because she’ll come over here and then you’ll be the one having to deal with her”. She told me.

“And…”?

“And I’m not hanging around for it”. She said. “Look at this”.

We walked across to a quarter-size version of the Arc de Triomph, and stood in front of it with our heads together as Lyndal lifted her camera and took a shot of us with it in the background. Then she told me to stand in the middle of the arch and look into the distance. I could see the Obelisk of Luxor up on Concorde, with the Arc de Triomph beyond, and the further arch of the new commercial sector at La defense. They all lined up together perfectly.

“That’s what Parisians call the Grand Axis.” She said.

“Really”? I replied. “I can see my house from here”. Then we stepped fully into the gardens of the former palace, and spent an hour walking the winding, leafy, geometric pathways through shady glades, passed small boating ponds and more statues. At the end of it all we found a coffee van, and sat down on a bench back by Place de la Concorde, drinking from our plastic cups and watching the world go on by. Re-invigorated by the caffeine fix that we both needed, we then yomped our way across Paris by foot, to the canal up by Place de la Republic where I stood smoking a cigarette, and looking down into the lock system, waiting for something to happen.

“So that’s Quai de Valmy then yeah?” I said, pointing a hundred yards upstream.

“That’s right”. Lyndal replied, “and this is the swing bridge I told you about”.

“Well how come it’s not swinging“? I asked her.

“Because you’re too impatient is why”. She said. So I stood there quietly for the next few minutes, and waited to see what would happen. Eventually I asked her if she could see any boats coming through. I figured there must be something reasonably big because the canal man had stopped the traffic and appeared to be opening the bridge. It can’t be just for that I thought, when I saw the little blue half-cabin bobbing around in the lock, with the two middle-aged couples on board who looked like they had spent the afternoon at a vineyard, taste testing everything possible. It was just for that though, there wasn’t anything bigger, and despite the huge backlog of traffic waiting to cross, the bridge-keeper continued to slowly hand-crank the opening mechanism to little effect. After about ten minutes he finally realised what everyone else had realised about ten minutes earlier; that the bridge wasn’t opening, so he let the traffic come through again, and told the boat people to motor closer to the low bridge and just stay there while he sorted it out. Being au fai with such things, Lyndal told me they had to keep the motor ticking over the whole time because they weren’t allowed to let the boat just drift while it’s in the canal. The problem there though was that because the motor was ticking over, it meant someone was gonna have to hang onto the bridge to keep the boat in the right place. After much cajoling and slaps on the bum from the skipper and his first mate, the wives decided to wobble and giggle their way out onto the front of the boat, and take the first shift of hanging onto the concrete ledge, where they could mangle their manicured fingernails bit by painful bit. ‘That’s it darling’ The fat skipper called aloud. ‘Take a big one for the gyppa’. Then he and his equally fat first-mate fell about the boat laughing and quaffing more wine.

*

“Very good then”. Wayne said, cutting my story short. “Lets get some work done shall we”.

“But it’s a funny story” I complained. “there’s arse replacement therapy, vomiting and Limbo involved; not to mention waving crowds and fond fare thee well’s. It’s Art darling”. I called after him as he walked up the path towards the front door, emptying the dregs of his tea-cup and mumbling under his breath.

Back inside, the steel beam was still sitting on the genie and the place hadn’t fallen down while we’d been gone, but time was nonetheless ticking on, and Wayne was absolutely right; we really had to get some work done. I donned my hard hat, slipped my riggers gloves on, and starting cranking the handle ever so slowly.

“That’s it boy, keep it going like that”. Wayne said as the beam inched it’s way painfully upward again. I gritted my teeth and tried to think pleasant thoughts as the cables and pulleys wailed and the braking system puffed and panted and slipped the odd inch or two here and there. Suddenly I drew in a huge gulp of air and sprang back to reality. Wayne looked at me oddly. “You alright boy”? I was fine, I just hadn’t realised I’d been holding my breath for the last couple of minutes and had totally forgotten to breathe. Whatever planet I’d been away on though had obviously been a nice one, as by the time I returned the steel was at the required height, and I hadn’t even seen it get there. I locked the crank-handle off and stood back while Wayne climbed a ladder and inspected the situation closely.

“It wont fit”. He said suddenly.

“Wadda you mean it wont fit, can’t you make it fit”?

“I can make it fit alright boy, you’ll just have to knock some more bricks out at this end so it can slide into position properly”.

“Yeah right, good onya. You mean stand right underneath it, and smash away the only thing that’ll catch it if it falls. I don’t think so”.

“You’ll be alright boy” Wayne beamed, “you’ve got your hard hat on”.

Terror, sheer unadulterated fear, dread, and then even more terror coursed through me as I climbed the ladder in my hard hat, and started tapping at the few remaining bricks that were stopping the beam from going into position. With every tentative tap of the hammer, and with every puff of dust that it aroused I could feel my stomach turning, and with every slow, menacing waver of the steel beam perched precariously above my head, I could feel another bead of sweaty panic dribble into my eyes and off the tip of my nose. After what seemed like a fortnight, I knocked the last remaining brick to the floor below me, and scrambled down the ladder quick time. “There you go”. I announced bravely. “Done “.

“I can smell shit”. Wayne laughed. “Is that your deodorant or is it coming from your trousers”?

“Fuck off smartarse”. I answered. “I noticed you weren’t up there doing it”. Wayne looked over to the dripping bag still hanging from the high-set waste pipe.

“And don’t you forget about that either will ‘e…pass I the level then boy”.

With the bricks out of the way now, we pushed the beam into position easily, bolted it up against the previous smaller beams we’d installed, and levelled it using shards of slate and fillets of mortar. Then Wayne built a tall brick pier beneath it whilst I humped broken bricks and building rubble out to the replacement skip that had arrived during one of our numerous coffee breaks.

“It’s art darling”. I mused to myself as I emptied another tub-load of concrete, bricks and dust into the huge bin. “Art my arse I thought, it’s just a very fucking dangerous way to make a dollar’.

“How did you get on”? Giles asked me as we passed each other at the gate.

“Yep, all done mate”. I answered. “No problems”. Then the image of Giles walking beneath the waste pipe just as the bag let go entered my head, and I saw him standing there with turds and effluent dripping from his hair, and I laughed out loud.

“What is it”? He smiled.

“It’s art darling”. I answered. “Wayne’s inside”. I rolled a cigarette and stood by the skip smoking it. Presently Giles reappeared all chatty and smiling, and as he wasn’t covered in a stinking mess I figured everything must still be in place. Moments later he drove off, and Wayne came out.

“Right then boy, Wayne started “Giles has signed-off on the steel and has said he’ll pay us right now in a minute for the progress payment. That means you’ve been paid up to date this week for last week, and now me and the boy Thomas can pay our suppliers again next week for last month. Now seeing that that’s done, and that it’s as nearly thirty past three as ever, lets get cleaned up, and the lifter back to the hire place before that’s another bill we really can’t afford to have”. We finished our smokes and ventured back inside to finish off.

It was a mess. A week of construction work had ripped the heart out of the house and left its life hanging in limbo. The separate kitchen, dining and lounge rooms had been opened up to reveal a much larger space where a living, and kitchen cum entertainment area would eventually emerge; but we were still in the early stages yet, and there was as much demolition going on as there was construction. Old bricks littered the naked earth where oak floorboards had once been, and rubble in various forms was piled up here and there waiting for me to bucket it out to the skip. Shovels, drills, kanga-hammers, levels and saws, along with wheelbarrows, tape measures, wrecking bars, trowels, stringlines and a thousand other bits and pieces we’d need, were scattered right across the site. The one remaining intact floor in the dining room had become the home to dozens of bags of cement, sand and mortar mixes; and beside them was a pile of engineering brisks with a builder’s radio permanently set to BBC Radio 2 sitting on top of them. We quickly gathered the tools together, threw the tapes, hammers, pencils, and small-tools into a metal box, and leaned the mattock, pick, shovels and kanga-hammer into the corner where the fireplace used to be. We swept up the dust, emptied the builder’s bins and shook out the drop-cloths. Within half an hour we had the site back to respectable order, and had manhandled the genie out of the house and into the street.

“So how exactly do we do this again “? I asked Wayne as he opened the back doors of his 4-wheel drive.

“You’ll see”. He answered.

“But wasn’t it delivered on the back of a lorry with a hydraulic tail-lift”?

“It’ll be fine boy. You don’t half worry a lot”. He said, moving some old timber aside and making room for it.

“This is not going to fit into the back of that”. I said, pointing to the five feet of space that we had to fit the nine feet of genie lift into. “And even if it did, how are we meant to get it up there, the thing weighs a thousand pound”, Wayne touched the side of his nose like he knew something I didn’t.

“Watch and learn”. He said. Then leaned the genie over so the extendable mast was lying on the ground, and it’s base and wheels were pointing towards the back of the vehicle.

“Oh that’s sheer genius bumpkin”. I said. “Now what”?

“Now we lift it in”.

“Same as how we lifted the steel beam you mean. Don’t you think we should have a carefully thought through plan first”? Wayne wasn’t having any of it, he had his own idea of how this would work and said if we got either side of it, roughly in the middle, we could lift it in one go and push it straight in through the open doors.

“Lift boy”.

“Don’t start that shit again” I told him. “This is a stupid idea”.

After ten minutes of gut wrenching and swearing, the genie was no closer to being in, and just to make matters worse, we were starting to become a traffic hazard in the narrow, busy street. Wayne suggested we should just try lifting the base up first, like how we eventually lifted one end of the steel beam. “That’s not gonna work either”. I protested, but he was adamant, and time was getting on.

“One, two, three, lift…” As the bottom of the machine rose towards the open doors of the Mitsubishi, the extendable sections of the mast began to move.

“Stop mate, the masts are coming out”.

“Keep going boy”. We lifted the base into the back of the vehicle, then Wayne gave a mighty grunt and lifted the masts section off the ground. As it cleared the road, five meters of extendable section cascaded backwards in a painfully slow-motioned journey towards the front of a Mercedes C-class.

“Wayne, the masts” Too late. The heavy steel sections railroaded their way towards the front of the car at warp speed. When they reached full extension and came to an abrupt halt, it was no more than mere inches from total disaster. We both just stood there looking at each other.

“That was a close’un, wasn’t it” Wayne said after we’d wrestled the fully extended genie-lift back onto the road, and freed up the traffic snarl we’d created.

“Close was right,” I answered. Then after many minutes of skinned knuckles from unsuccessfully trying to push the extended sections back into place, we noticed that the pulley cables had come astray, and regardless of how tight or loose I wound them, neither made any difference. We were stuck out in the road with a mobile site-crane on it’s back with it’s legs in the air, and it’s jammed boom extending nearly twenty feet further down the road. It looked like a forklift high on Viagra, and reminded me of where Lyndal and I had stayed in the Marais district on the Rue de Grevilliers.

*

It was in a small single room apartment that combined the lounge, kitchen and bedroom all in one, with a small bathroom off to one side. We were on the third floor and had a small balcony window where we use to sit sometimes, drinking wine and watching graffiti-covered vans drifting in and out of sight like urban chameleons. As they moved against a backdrop of wholesaler’s shopfronts and old Jewish-quarter street-décor, the awaiting trolley-people with their little blue handcarts for hire would watch them, waiting for the moment they rolled to a halt outside one of the milliner’s or handbag suppliers that occupied the street. When one of them did, the trolley people would pounce on them, quickly cutting a deal for each box or bundle or parcel they unloaded. Soon a feeding frenzy of outstretched arms and grappled cartons whipped the scene into a frenetic kaleidoscope of whizzing wheels and running feet. The vans would park wherever they needed to, it really didn’t matter whether a queue of cars was waiting to get passed them, or whether they blocked pedestrian access or whether the dump-trucks with their loads of gravel were stuck halfway across La rue de Temple, waiting to get in and supply the road-workers beavering away down by our doorstep. They would simply stop dead out the front of the delivery address, open the back doors and just toss the large soft cartons and bundles out onto ground where an Asian shop owner would shout, point and direct the trolley people. We would sit there half-perched on the railing, watching the delivery vans and the confusion of trolleys and boxes they generated, listening to the shouted directions and the blasting of horns, and smelling to the point of tasting, the stony-metallic crypt odour that lifted from the road works below.

One rainy afternoon we were leaning out the window, quaffing vin rouge and being all French, when a mass arrival of delivery vans all converged on the street at the same time, turning the entire scene into a street-party. Everyone from the drivers, the trolley-people and shop owners, the coloured road workers, the passers-by and the angry car drivers were all drawn together in a mutual joie de vie at the madness of congested traffic energy they’d created. When the rag and bone Trumpet player then arrived and honked out a couple verses of ‘When the saints go marching in’, it was as if he were a herald, trumpeting out the arrival of the staggering beautiful Raven-haired woman who then drifted into the chaos wearing a shimmering satin emerald dress, that hugged her every curve.. As she passed among them, with her long, leggy figure, and her shining hazel eyes, she glanced up at me momentarily, and the entire population of workers held their breath. It was as if someone had released a Genie from a bottle, and its magic was luxuriating through the streets -as opposed to just lying there on the road like a forklift high on Viagra.

*

“Any more great ideas”? I asked Wayne as we sat on the road pushing and prodding, and trying to massage the machine back to normal. “How about we try kicking it”?

“You’re not very patient are you”? He answered. “Maybe we should just stand ‘im upright and let gravity pull ‘e all back together”. So we started standing it upright, until we got to the point where we realised it was a stupidly dangerous thing to be doing. Aside from the high-tension power lines that could fry us in an instant, there was also the matter of it being windy, and if we lost control of the genie trying to get it vertical, it could easily come crashing down on any one of the Mercedes, BMW’s or Audis that lined the street. “Best we try something else different hey boy”. Wayne suggested. “Roll I a fag then”.

Over the course of several cigarettes, we twisted, turned and cursed the machine into every conceivable position to try to get the mast back down to where it should have been. Wayne began stressing to the point of collapse too, because the hire place was closing soon; and the probability of another weeks hire charge was increasing by the minute. Suddenly though everything just fell into place. The masts slid back into position with virtually no effort at all, and with just a little bit of careful thought and preparation, we lifted the entire machine into the back of the van without further event or fuss. Although one end of it hung dangerously long from the rear of the vehicle, we managed to secure it all in place with some rope, and with the help of my hard-hat and yellow riggers gloves, we made up a Smiley face with rabbit-ears warning flag to hang off the end of it. Satisfied with how clever we’d been, we then jumped back into the Animal, and headed off through Tottenham to the hire place.

“Can you lock it all off for us thanks”. Mister Hire-man said to me as we waited in his yard while he completed our return of equipment paperwork. I looked at Wayne. Lock what off I wondered, what was he talking about? Wayne looked straight back at me, down at the Genie, back at me again, then shrugged his shoulders. “That lever down by your foot there; kick it over”. The hire man said. “It locks everything into place and stops the masts from moving when you’re shifting it”.

“Oh that one” I said, as if it was something I already knew but had apparently forgotten about. “Sure”.

“Yeah”. The hire man said. “The amount of people who’ve got themselves into trouble by not locking the machine off is amazing. What happens is that as soon as the masts slip out of place, the cables come loose and get all fucked-up coming off the pulleys. Next thing you know we have to take the whole thing apart, and re-thread a brand new cable into it; usually costs the hirer another three hundred-odd quid to get it fixed. Just unlock it for me again thanks”. Wayne turned white and started fumbling with his tobacco tin. Then, when the hire man said he’d better give the genie a quick once-over, I thought Wayne might actually vomit. He wasn’t left pale-faced for very long though, as the hire man turned the handle a couple of cranks, saw that the masts were lifting and wound them back down again and kicked the lever over, locking the machine completely. “That was lucky guys” He said with a grin. “Have a good night”. We walked back out to the van and climbed in.

“Bloody hell boy” Said Wayne “three hundred quid? Thomas’d have a fit”.

“Yeah wouldn’t he just. Oh shit, four hundred quid mate. I’ve left it back at the house. Oh crap, there’s all my other stuff too. We’ll have to go back mate”.

“What’ve you done?”

I put it all in the kitchen didn’t I, my laptop, my camera and my wallet. It’s all in the cupboard with the money you paid me; we’ll have to go back”.

Wayne looked at his watch, it was nearly five o’clock and the London traffic was everywhere. “I’m not going back through all this again boy, it’ll take us till Tuesday to get there”. He said. “I’ll buy us a drink tonight if that’s all you’re worried about. I don’t think anyone’s going to be breaking in and stealing it while we’re gone do you. It’ll be fine boy, I wouldn’t worry about it”. So he didn’t; and we spent the next hour mooching through the Arsenal traffic towards the Athena Palace Motel in Haringhey where we were staying for our week long visit.

*

The Haringhey Hilton as we liked to call it was a budget-priced hotel, set up in a budget-priced location The televisions were tuned to a Turkish satellite channel, the Internet connection was non-existent, and the shower did it’s own thing; sometimes working, sometimes not. The breakfast consisted of cold toast with sour marmalade, and cheap single-serve sachet coffee with a stale biscuit on the side. It was served in the breakfast-room adjoining the building, and may as well have been dumped in front of us there by an overweight woman wearing a sneer and a scowl; but it wasn’t. It was actually served by a rakish-looking Turkish old man in an all grey everything who simply pointed at it and said “Eat”. The first time we ate breakfast there was the last time, and as far as the evening meal was concerned, it was just never gonna happen, we thought we’d amble out each night in search of something flavoursome and adventurous, but that never happened either. The streets were gloomy and dark and the only cuisine available was that of Turkish Kebab shops and greasy fried chicken joints. The only high point of staying in Haringhey was that it was cheap; fine for Wayne because he was paying, but I’d been hoping for an environment much more akin to Paris.

“You’re not still talking about Paris are you”? Wayne shouted from the bathroom. “I can hear you mumbling from in here”.

“I was saying”. I shouted back. “That Haringhey is a shithole, and I’d been hoping for something much more akin to Paris“.

*

Because everything about Paris was beautiful, the architecture, the people, the language, food, weather, and even the Police cars with their silly Nee-Naa’s were really quite cute. Maybe it stemmed from the soulful beating heart at the centre of the city, a place that emanated goodness, coolness, culture, history, and all manner of other groovy love-stuff. Could it be that having the massive Le Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris, set in the 4^th arrondisement on the Isle de Cite slap-bang in the middle of the Seine was responsible for the gorgeousness that dripped from every pore of Paris’ being? Possibly, but then maybe not; but it surely couldn’t hurt.

We walked and joined short queue that had gathered by the door, mesmerised by the massive flying buttresses and the statues and the spear-like spires that rose like prayers to the heaven above; and as we stood there, the great cathedral slowly but surely sucked us in. The first thing that hit me was its vastness, the second was the tranquillity, and then a sense of awe overtook me as I tried to take-in the high vaulted ceiling that seemed beyond comprehension. A hush had fallen upon the previously chatty crowd once we’d entered the massive interior, and I said quietly to Lyndal. “It’s like how one speaks in humble tones when confronted by something immense and ineffable isn’t it”. She looked at me and shook her head.

“You need to get out more mate”. She whispered. We walked around slowly, taking in the myriad holy statues and the massive Rose windows. Soon we had both became enraptured by the spirit of this sacred place, and quietly lit candles for loved ones far-away, and were moved to silent prayer. A statue of Joan of Arc depicted her in prayer, embracing the furled flag of her native France and I just had to get a photo, but the camera wouldn’t have it, and time after time the shutter failed to fire as if Joan herself were camera shy. She had burned at the stake in Rouen in 1431, at the age of just nineteen years, but the decision to rehabilitate her reputation from heretic and witch, to heroic martyr was taken twenty-five years later in the very cathedral we were walking through. It was like stepping through a real-life slice of history. She’d been born a simple peasant girl in eastern France, I read, but had soon became a leader of the French army, and was instrumental in the defeat of the English. In 1909 she had became blessed by the church, and then she was canonized to Sainthood in 1920, and is now one of the four patron saints of France. I dropped a two Euro coin into a slot there, and out popped a commemorative medallion displaying a relief of Notre Dame on one side, and the same of Joan of Arc on the other.

“You’re such a tourist“. Lyndal said as we stepped out into the sun again.

“Yeah I am a tourist though”. I said. “But I don’t care. This is well worth a mere two Euros any day of the week I reckon”. I moved it around in my hand, watching it’s golden colour catching the sunlight and glinting brightly, then I shoved it in my pocket as we wandered around outside, taking photo’s, and swivel-necking as you do.

“What’s that”? Lyndal said. “Listen, can you hear that”? I cocked my head and strained my ears.

“What is it”? I asked her. “What are you talking about”?

“Sshhh, listen. It sounds like a heavenly voice. Can’t you hear that? It sounds like it’s saying Beeeeer, go and drink some beeeeerr. It must be an omen”. Not being one to take such things lightly, I agreed she might be right, so we crossed the bridge from the isle de cite, and walked onto Rue de la Bucherie, where we knew we’d find a bar.

*

“Look” I said excitedly, as we cleared the bridge, and I hopped from one foot to the other like a schoolboy. “It’s Shakespeare’s”.

“It’s what”? Lyndal asked.

“Shakespeare’s bookshop”. I said. “Over there, just a well constructed sentence away”.

“Is it licensed”?

“No, it’s a bookshop”.

“

“A bookshop”?

Yeah, but it’s Shakespeare’s bookshop”.

“So that’s good then is it”?

“Good? It’s better than good mate, it’s better then even better than good, it’s brilliant”. I said, ‘Bloody brilliant”. Then I ran to the shop with my laces undone, my tails hanging out, and my tie all adrift like a rampant young boy with a hard-on.

Pictures of Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, Ezra pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and more were hanging off the walls like benefactory gargoyles. Watching out as it were, over the host of aspiring writers who flocked here from all corners of the globe to bathe in the muse of such wonderful writers whom had frequented this very shop and found some form of contribution to their careers here. A thousand books and more jumped up off the shelves as hundreds of people crammed the dusty, character-filled downstairs, spilled up the creaky old stairway, then oozed into the upstairs reading rooms where Lyndal found me sat cross-legged on a couch, immersed in something great.

“I could lose myself forever in here” I told her. “I may well be soon drawn into a world where time stands completely still, and the tales of a thousand literary souls simply reach out and devour me”.

“D’you think”?

“It’s possible”. I said.

“Not very likely though is it, not really. Can we go and get a beer now”?

“A beer? We’re surrounded by some of the greatest written words ever written”. I said. “Amongst all this you’ll find the entire collection of Wormsworth, Hot August night by William Shakespeare, and the catcher in the Rye by Holden Caulfield an’ all; and look at this, I gotta buy this one. A moveable feast by Ernest Hemmingway. D’you know what Hemmingway said about this fair city?” I asked.

“It makes me very thirsty”? Lyndal replied.

“No, no he didn’t say that. He said that if you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast. That’s what he said, nothing about being thirsty”.

“I bet he would have if he’d been in here with you”. She said. Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she started making a gurgling sound and smacking her lips.. “Beer, help me, I need beer”. I grabbed the book and took it to the cashier and paid for it.

“That is the most sought after book in the shop”. The cashier told me.

“Really, I take it I was lucky to have found this one then”. I said. “Quite rare is it”?

“No” She answered. “I just told you it’s the most sought after book in the shop, we have thousands of them in stock”.

“Bee-ee-rrrr…”

I picked Lyndal up off the floor and dragged her towards the front door. As we walked out of the shop, I read the words of the shops present owner, Mr.George Whitman, hanging on a plaque above the door. He had wrote;

‘I may disappear leaving behind me no worldly possessions, -just a few old socks and love letters, and my windows overlooking Notre Dame for all of you to enjoy; and my little Rag and Bone shop of the heart whose motto is; ‘Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be Angels in disguise’.

“That’s pretty special isn’t it”. I said. Then Lyndal picked an advertising leaflet off the floor and said.

“Well listen to this one then. Shakespeares has been described as the most soothing, inspirational and charming bookstore on earth; and any man with any words in his heart, and any life in his being should be hard pushed to disagree’, What do you think to that”?

“I think mine was better ”.

“Well you would. C’mon, I need alcohol, like now”.

*

Have you got any matches”? I asked Lyndal as we sat at a table in café’ de la Bucherie, sipping on our Stella’s.

“Why would I have any matches, have you got any eyebrow tweezers”?

“Why would I have any eyebrow tweezers”?

“Exactly. No I haven’t got any matches. Ask the waiter next time he comes along”.

“D’you reckon he speaks English”?

“Probably not, seeing as we’re in France. Just say, Pardon monsieur, une boit luminette si vous plait”.

“What does that mean then”?

“Think about it, what do you think it means”?

“Can I have a box of matches please…maybe”? Lyndal cocked her head and winked at me.

“Good boy”. She said, then took a giant slug of beer. We sat there for a while, drinking beer and watching the sun reflect off the gold-Lamai girl who was twiddling with her hair and trying to catch the attentions of an Antonio Bandares look-alike waiter. I thought she was quite attractive in a certain kind of way, but Lyndal thought the golden i-phone, the golden earings, the golden lighter and golden sunglasses were a bit over the top and reminded her of a scene out of Goldmember…like groovy baby!

“Hey you know that guy who was in the Casino Royale movie, James Bond”. Lyndal said kinda quietly.

“Yeah, what about him”? I asked. Lyndal didn’t answer, she sat there with her finger tip to her mouth, shushing me, and nudging me with her elbow.

“Over there”. She said out the corner of her mouth, “Reading the boat magazine”. It was the man of her dreams . Six-foot, blonde hair, light grey impeccably tailored suit, with polished Oxford shoes on his feet, and a motor yacht magazine in his hands.

“What about him”? I whispered back.

“It’s him”. She said. “It’s James Bond”.

“His name’s not James Bond”. I said. “It’s Daniel Craig”.

“Are you sure”? She asked.

“Yep, absolutely, it’s definitely Daniel Craig. Shaken but not stirred.”. Lyndal slumped like all the air had been let out of her.

“What’s the matter, I thought you liked him”.

“Well I did”. She said. “But that was when I thought it was James Bond”. For a moment I wanted to say ‘ Listen to me carefully, for I shall say this only once…you stupid woman’, but I value my life more dearly than that, and besides, the waiter had came over, so I started on him instead.

“Bonjour monsieur”. I said. “Err, uno bwot luminaries civil play please”.

“Ahh, qui monsieur”. He answered politely. “And might I say that your French is rather quite remarkable, extraordinary in fact; your matches sir”. He said, pulling a box from his apron and presenting them to me.

“There you go, piece of cake”. I said looking at Lyndal. But her eyes were rolling, and her mouth was wide open, and her hands were over her ears.

“My ears are bleeding”. She moaned “Look, my ears are bleeding. Don’t ever do that again”.

Over the course of the next hour or so we drank Stella’s, while watching Aussie hero tennis star Sam Stoser, kick Serena Williams arse out of the French open. We talked about this and that, reminiscing about years gone by, and what we’d been doing since last time we met. There’d been girlfriends and boyfriends, and children. Jobs lost, money spent, trips abroad, and houses bought and sold ‘an all. All the stuff that people who have lived a life have usually experienced by the time they reach our age. There were hobbies too. Lyndal had got into photo framing, and I had got into photography. Lyndal was well into drinking, and I was a sucker for smoking. She said she liked cooking, that’s handy, I thought cuz I like eating food. “What’s your favourite dish”. She asked.

“Not sure”. I said. But since being in Scotland last year, I’ve found I really quite like fish”.

“Poissant”. She said.

“Bless you”. I answered.

“It means fish. Poissant”.

“I thought that was drink”.

“No, that’s Boissant with a B. Close but no cigar”.

“Well what’s French for Cigar then”?

“Cigar”.

“Yeah Cigar, what’s French for Cigar ”?

“No, that is it I mean, it is cigar. Cigar is French for cigar. It’s like cigarette, which means a small cigar. Simple really isn’t it, just like you. It’s your shout for the drinks, I’ll have a bourbon and coke since you’re buying”.

I moved out of the street café area and walked into the main bar inside. ‘You be fine’ she’d said, after my rant about them not knowing what I was talking about. How do I say two Bourbon and cokes in French anyway. Maybe it’s du la bur-bon unt cokes civil play. Hmm, maybe not, but it is now.

“Bonjour” I said stepping up to the bar and feeling very cosmopolitan. “Ah, du la Bur-bon unt cokes civil play please”

“Pardon monsieur”?

“Du” I started slowly. “Berr-bon, yes? Bourbon. Unt, and. Coca cola please civil play gratsia”. The barman just looked blankly at me, then shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

“Je suis desolet monsieur”?

“Drinks then” I said, “Poissant civil play”?

“Ah qui monsieur Poisaant. Qui qui. ‘addock a Cod”

“No, no, no, no. Not Addock and cod, Bourbon and coke. Close but no cigar”. The barman shook his head and lifted his hands in surrender. Don’t go away” I told him, “I’ll be back”. I ran back to Lyndal who was already sipping on her bourbon. Mine was waiting on the table in front of me. “Where did you get them from”. I asked her.

“Well I would have died of thirst waiting for you so I ordered them off Antonio Bandaras over there. Just as well too by the look of it. Actually, are you hungry? I could go a piece of fish right now.

*

“and it’s places like that”. I told Wayne, “Like Shakespeares and Notre Dame, and that cool little bar called café de la Bucherie that make a place like Haringhey a shit-hole by comparison”.

“Well at least the kettle works here boy”.

“Yeah it does, I’ll give you that, but there’s no tea, coffee, milk or sugar in here is there? Even if there was, there’s no fridge to keep the milk in, or spoons or even cups for that matter. What are we s’posed to do, drink cuppa soups straight from the packet”?

Wayne walked from the bathroom wrapped in a towel with a toothbrush hanging from his mouth, and the shower blasting down the wall in the cubicle behind him. “Cor you don’t half get excited don’t ‘e boy”. He said. “Ave a look at the shower will ‘e, the blimmin’ thing won’t turn off again”.

“Your right, it wont will it” I said to him as I stepped from the bathroom having twisted the taps in both directions and tapped the electric shower switch on and off a hundred times. “See, the place is a shit hole”.

“Well that’s what you get for twenty quid a night boy”. He said, buttoning up his shirt and straightening out his collars. “What were you expecting, the Ritz? I’ll go and tell boy down in reception. I’m off for a fag”.

*

I got myself dressed, sprayed on some pongy, cheap deodorant, and rolled a fag. Then I went downstairs and met Wayne out the front where we both lit-up and puffed our way along Haringhey High. Soon we reached a franchised member of the Wetherspoons hotel chain; the purveyors of cheap pub meals and out of date beer.

“We should go into town one night” I said to Wayne as we sat drinking our Doom-Bar and Toburg ales. “It’d be a shame not to see something while we’re here, especially me, I’ve never been to London before”

“What about that time you rode down to Scotland, didn’t you go up through London then”?

“Why would I go up through London to get down to Scotland Wayne, that doesn’t make any sense mate”?

“Well that’s the way I used to go when I lived in Folkestone”. He said.

“Yeah, well maybe you would if you lived in Folkestone, but we both live in Somerset, so I wouldn’t go up or down or anywhere near London would I? This is the first time I’ve been here”.

“You were here last week weren’t ‘e”? Wayne laughed, in a half front-tooth missing kind of way.

“That doesn’t count. Buy me another beer”. I told him. Then we grabbed another couple of pints and walked back out to the front of the building, where the rain was pouring down, and then sat under a massive umbrella, drinking beer and counting the endless Police cars that kept wailing past. That was about the way it stayed for an hour or so, until we both realised we were hungry, and almost in unison pointed out the Chinese restaurant directly across the road.

“Right boy, we’ll have one more pint here, then we’ll go eat something okay. Roll I a fag and I’ll go to the bar”. While Wayne wandered off to the bar I sat beneath the dripping umbrella, rolling fags and watching the passing parade of people, taxi’s, police cars and double-decker buses. On the side of one bus was a huge advertisement for New Yorks Times Square. When Wayne came back with the beers, I said to him.

“Wouldn’t it be cool to visit all the great squares of the world”.

“You can do that on the Monopoly board”. He replied

“Yeah you’re right, there’s Trafalgar square”. I answered, “…And Liecester square too I suppose; but there’s also Times square, and Tiamen square and Red Square…”

“And blue square and green square”. He said, finishing his beer in one huge gulp. “I’m starved, lets go and eat”.

*

“You kidding, you’ve never used chopsticks before? Oh man, this is gonna be hilarious”. We’d crossed the road in the pouring rain, and walked into the restaurant, where the front of house staff had ensconced us at a small table and we’d ordered a ‘Banquet number 3’ for two people. Wayne sat twiddling the sticks around in his fingers like they were something he’d never seen before and wanted to look at them from every possible angle. ”How do you get ‘em to stay in one place”? He asked me.

“You just do”. I said. “Everyone knows how to use chopsticks mate, where’ve you been? Using chopsticks is like having an e-mail address, it’s just expected, it’s normal, everyone has one, and everyone knows how to use chopsticks; what’s wrong with you”?

Well I’m asking for a fork when Kwai-chang comes back”. He said. “And anyway I haven’t got an e-mail address ‘ave I, so that theories all a wobble”.

Despite Waynes subsequent request for a fork, the waiter never returned with one, and for whatever reason he was reticent to ask again. Over the next hour, as Wayne fumbled and bumbled with the chopsticks, I laughed till I cried; he was like a kid trying to undo his first bra-strap. We had soup, we had crispy chicken, sizzling prawns, Pork, beef and rice dishes, and throughout the whole feast, Wayne dropped piece after piece onto the paper table-cloth until there was more on the table than in either his mouth or on the plate. “Bugger me boy”. He said. “It would have been a half-decent feed if I’d been able to eat some of it”. Then the waiter arrived with the bill, and dropped it on the table in front of us, and Wayne said. “I asked for a fork earlier, what happened to it”?

“So sorry”. Said the waiter, then dashed off to the kitchen and returned with a plastic fork. “You want now”? He asked Wayne.

“Well it’s a bit too late now isn’t it”. Wayne replied.

“Maybe you keep fork now and bring back with you next time”. The waiter responded. Then he tapped the bill in front of us and said. “Ten percent surcharge please”.

“A tip, what for”? Asked Wayne incredulous.

“Not tip, surcharge. Thank you very much”.

“Well fuck you very much”. Wayne said, and placed the correct amount on the saucer minus the ten percent.

“No, fuck you”. The waiter said, then scooped up the money and walked away. We walked back outside into rain again, finishing our meals off with an obligatory cigarette while we strolled back across the road to get another beer.

“These chongs are cheeky little fuckers aren’t they”? Wayne moaned as we crossed the street. “Imagine asking for a tip. I didn’t even eat half the bloody meal”.

“Well who’s fault is that though”? I asked him. “I can’t believe you don’t know how to use chopsticks”.

“Well I’ve kept his fork anyway boy, but I’m buggered if I’m going back there to eat again, I’d rather take my chances at the Hilton”.

*

“I’ve been to St. Peters square at the Vatican”. I said, as we sat down outside the pub sipping our Carlsberg’s. “And I’ve been to Federation square in Melbourne too”. I added “but I used to live there so maybe that one doesn’t count. I’d like to see the Pyramids though, oh, and the ruins of Petra too, now that I think about it”.

“They’re not square though are they”. Wayne put in.

“No of course they’re not square, but I’d still like to see them”.

“I’ve seen the Pyramids”. A voice from the next table said. “Brilliant place. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Vatican too some day. You lads mind if I join you”? Soon we had Brian sitting with us, an Irishman from Dublin who’d been living in London for most of his life.

“So what are you lads doing here”? He asked. “You’re obviously not Londoners”,

“No we’re not, we’re builders”. I answered before Wayne could open his mouth. It wasn’t entirely true, I was just a lacky really, but I thought being labelled a builder sounded so much better than being tagged a lacky.

“That’s interesting”. He replied. “I’m a roofer, do you need any roofing done”?

“Nah, we’re good for roofing right now”. I said, “but we’ve got another job coming up in Maidenhead soon, there’s some roof-work needed up there isn’t there Wayne”.

“I’ve no idea”. He said. “We haven’t even seen the plans yet have we”?

“Have you got a card”? I asked Brian, “Just in case”. He fumbled in his pockets pulling out wads of cash, various pieces of jewellery, scrunched-up bits of paper and assorted detritus and flotsam.

“No, I must have left them in my suit pocket”. He told me.

“No worries”. I said, turning to Wayne. “Give him one of yours instead”.

“I ‘aven’t got any ‘ave I” He replied.

“Doesn’t matter”. Said Brian, “I’m up here most nights, so if you lads are in town for a while I’m sure we’ll catch up again”. Then he looked past me, towards the entrance gate and stood up, holding out his hand in greeting.

“Hello lads” he said. I turned around to see who he was talking to. Three men stood there. Two of them looked like brothers. Both were the size of bulldozers, with thick dinosaur necks and massive bull chests, and were both dressed in gym gear with thick, chunky gold chains hanging off their necks like too many Christmas lights wrapped around a tree. The third man was smaller, but not by much. He was dressed in a casual suit and had a money and power aura about him. As a group they were intimidating, and had a massive presence that seemed to fill ten times the actual space they took up. “Have a seat”. Brian told them “I’ll introduce you”.

Elias, Dennis and Louie then sat down around the table while Brian introduced us all in turn. “Tim and William here are builders too”. He said.

“It’s Wayne”. Wayne said again for the fourth time .

“Who’s Wayne”? Louie asked me suspiciously.

“He is”. I said, pointing to Wayne.

“You said his name was William”. Dennis said.

“Yeah, William. You said it was William. Why you calling him Wayne”?

“I didn’t say it was William, Brian did; but it’s not, it’s Wayne”.

“So is your name really Tim or is it suddenly gonna become Tony”. Elias said. “Cuz I like to know who the fuck I’m dealing with you know”.

“Can we just start this all over again”? I said. “My name is Tim, and my mate here is Wayne. We’re down here from Somerset doing some building work okay”.

“Somerset’s where they make the good whisky hey bro”? Louie said

“No not Whisky”. I said.

“That’s right “. Wayne jumped in. “We grow whisky apples there”.

“Yeah see, you fuck”. Louie corrected me.

“And so you’re builders then yeah”? Elias said with an unsettling interest.

“I already said that” Brian butted in. “Tim and William are builders”.

“It’s fucking Wayne not William”. Wayne put in.

“Builders hey, what you building”? Asked Louie

“We’re doing a renovation down Inderwick road”. Wayne said.

“You need labourers there? Talk to me if you need labourers, I’ll get you the best labourers in town you know…cheap too. You want scaffold? I’ll get you scaffold, what do you need, I’ll get you anything you want. You want girls, you want Ganja, you need guns? What do you need huh? Talk to me I’ll get you anything you want. As long as you got the money to pay for it, I can get you anything”.

“Yeah talk to Louie”. Dennis put in. “He’ll get you anything you want. You need cheap supplies, Louie can get you real cheap supplies if you know what I mean. You need a stereo for your car though, or a new set of wheels or a hot engine, you talk to me, I’m your man”.

“I’m a builder”. Elias said. “I run the biggest building company in this part of London. Maybe I should come down and have a look at the shit-box job you’re doing just in case you need anything I already got. Forget about these two fucks, I can get you what you need. Tell me what you need. Talk to me eh, I’m Albanian I can get you anything…anything at all, just name it”.

“Umm, right now I need a beer I think, anyone else want one”? I said as I stepped out of the wooden seat.

“You need a beer”? Elias said. “Sit the fuck down, I’ll get you a beer”. Then he waved his hand in the air and a pretty, young Indian girl came to the table at double time. “Get my friends here whatever they’re drinking”, He told her, “and put it on me”. Then he turned to me and said. “See what I told you, anything you want, you talk to me or you talk to Louie or you talk to Dennis. Don’t talk to anyone else okay, you talk to us, we’re the only people you need to know in town okay, you understand me, you talk to us okay, no other fucker, just us okay, you got me, okay, okay”?

“Okay”. I gulped “I’m ummm, I’m just going to the toilet”.

“Stay where you are bro” Said Louie. “Elias will get the toilet brought out here for you”. For a moment I didn’t know what to do, and just sort of hovered there, halfway up and halfway down.

“Go to the fucking toilet bro”. Louie laughed. “I’m just fucking with you”.

Jesus Christ I thought, as I sat on the toilet with my trousers pulled up. These guys are like the Albanian mafia or something. If I’d been on my own I would have found another exit and sidled my way outa there, but I wasn’t on my own, and I’d left Wayne out the front with them; if anything, he was on his own. I walked to the basin, splashed some water on my face, drew in a few deep breaths and braced myself for stepping back out there.

“Where the fuck you been bro”? Louie asked me the moment I emerged from the building.

“Ummm, I was just…” I pointed with my thumb back over my shoulder towards the toilets. “…you know”.

“Well get here and sit down”. He ordered. “Your beers going flat, and I don’t deal with people who drink flat beer”.

“That’s right” Dennis added. “It’s not natural”.

“Yeah, why would anyone drink flat beer”? Elias began. “It’s like those fucking Polish and that shit food that they eat, Why the fuck would anyone eat shit like that anyway? Fucking Poles”

“Thomas is Polish”. I said.

“Who the fuck is Thomas”?

“He’s Waynes partner”. I answered. “He’s a good bloke, and what’s more, even if he drank flat beer and ate Wombat bollock sandwiches, he’d still be a bonza bloke. I’ve liked all the Poles I’ve met”. I went on quite indignantly. “Thomas, Griegor, Artor, Raffa, they’re all good people”. I don’t know exactly what it was that made me so suddenly outspoken. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, or perhaps it was the Police car that had pulled up by the pavement in front of us; maybe it was just the fact that I really meant what I was saying, either way it stopped the conversation dead, and all eyes were suddenly focused very intently on me.

“What’s that fucking accent you got there Bro”? Louie asked me.

“It’s Australian”. I answered, “kind of, but I’ve been living in the uk for the past two years and a bit now so who knows hey”?

“Bullshit bro, Australia? My cousin lives in Australia, near Montreal, maybe you know him”.

“Montreal…really, and in Australia too. Wow, ummm, who’d have thought. Strewth hey”?

“Whats fucking wrong with you Louie. Montreals not in fucking Australia mate, it’s in Canada for fucks sake. You’re a dumb shit”. Elias said.

“Bullshit it is”. Louie responded, looking at me. “Fucking tell ‘im bro, it’s in Australia isn’t it”.

“Well no not exactly Louie, it’s more like Canada really”. I answered. “Same as Somerset doesn’t really grow whisky apples…you dumb shit’. It was a brave move, and one that would either break the ice or break my arms and legs.

“What’d you call me you fuck, did call me a dumb shit”? He said, staring me straight in the eye.

“Well you are a dumb shit”. Dennis said. “Even I know Montreal’s not in Australia”.

“Yeah you’re definitely a dumb shit”. Brian added. “What do think William, is he a dumb shit or what”?

“Well I thought Montreal was in Alaska actually”. Said Wayne.

“Well you’re an even bigger dumber shit than I am then bro”. Louie said with a laugh, then snapped his fingers and a girl came running “Go get some more beers in”. He told her. Then we sat swapping tales of building sites and bullshit. I talked about my trip around Europe, Wayne talked about living in Hambridge, and the Albania mafia told us what it was like living in London, and how they spent their days ‘Just going around bro, you know what I mean’ as Louie put it.

“Lets take the lads down to Shoreditch”. Elias suggested, give them a taste of what we’re really about”.

“What’s in Shoreditch”? Both me and Wayne asked.

“You’ll see”. Dennis said. Just don’t make any plans for tomorrow okay”. I looked at Wayne.

“I haven’t got any money with me mate, if we’re going out I’ll have to get some cash unless you can cover it”. Wayne rummaged in his pocket, pulling out a tenner and some coins.

“I only got this. I spent near on thirty quid across the road”.

“Can we stop off in Crouch-end on the way”? I asked.

“What’s in Crouch end”? Louie asked me.

“Four hundred quid”. I answered without putting my brain into gear first.

“For four hundred quid we can definitely stop at Crouch end first”. Elias laughed.

“Well if we’re going out, we can’t have too late a night” Wayne said. “We have to be on-site by eight”.

“Don’t bank on it”. Elias laughed. “Come on, lets go”. With that, they all stood up and Louie grabbed me by the arm.

“Come on bro”. He said “We’re taking you for a ride”. I looked across to Wayne. He shrugged his shoulders.

“You coming William”? Brian asked him, then hoisted him out of the chair and

directed him towards the road.

“I’m not too sure about this boy” Wayne said as we walked across the road with Elias and Louie in front and Dennis and Brian behind us.

“So where are we going again”? I asked Dennis right behind me.

“We’re kidnapping you”. He laughed. Oh brilliant, great answer Dennis, that was just what I really didn’t need to hear. If I hadn’t had felt so caught up in the momentum of the situation I would have bolted up the road there and then screaming rape; as it was though I just looked at Wayne who was halfway smiling. I figured it was either through a nervous anticipation of what might be happening, or because he had a better understanding of the situation than I did. Regardless, next thing I knew I was sitting in the back seat of a Black BMW seven-series that had heavily tinted windows, wide, flash mag wheels and a doof-doof stereo system that just about had my ears bleeding before we’d even pulled out from the kerb. With Wayne and Brian on one side of me, and Dennis on the other side, I was like a sardine squeezed between three doorstep slabs of bread. Like it or not though, neither Wayne nor myself were going anywhere now until they decided we could, and that was final. We drove along the Tottenham court road with doof-doof Americano thumping in our heads, then when we hit Crouch end, I directed Elias to Inderwick road, where he pulled up outside our job-site.

“Hurry up then bro” Louie ordered as I grabbed the keys off Wayne and started up the path towards the front door.

“And don’t disappear alright, I don’t wanna have to come looking for you” Dennis added.

Oh shit, shit and double-shit, I wasn’t enjoying this anymore, and was beginning to feel really uneasy about the whole situation. What if I came back out with my money and they mugged us? What if they wanted to bash us senseless and steal whatever they wanted’ we’d be helpless against them. Wayne and me were like a couple of stick-insects compared to these guys, and despite all my bravado and daring-do’s, I’m really quite horribly allergic to pain I remembered, especially my own. Maybe I should grab a carving knife out of the kitchen while I’m in there, I could grab one for Wayne too, and we could hide them up our sleeves until the fateful moment arrived when we needed them. Then we could slide them out all menacing and dangerous like, and show them that we may be from Somerset, but we aint no soft Cider-apples. Maybe I could call the police while I was in there, but what would I tell them? That my mate and me were in a car with four other guys on our way to Shoreditch, and I wasn’t feeling very comfortable about it, they’d just fucking laugh at me. I turned the key in the lock, opened the door, stepped inside and turned on the light. The place stank like a sewer, and as I knelt down at the kitchen cupboard to retrieve my cash, I looked above me at the bag of crap and effluent I’d left hanging there. “Don’t you fucking dare”. I told it. Then I reached into the cupboard, grabbed my bum-bag and took out my wallet with the four hundred quid inside. Not a good idea I thought, then took a hundred quid out of it, and shoved the wallet and bum bag back inside the cupboard and closed it again. Suddenly I felt a tickling on my neck that made my hair stand on end, then a pressure on my back that felt like the cold blade of a nightmare sliding slowly down my spine.

“What you doing bro”? Louie barked into my ear. “Come on, hurry up, let’s go”. I looked at the tool box huddled in the corner and quickly visualised the weaponry inside. Screwdrivers, chisels, Stanley knives, hammers, tape measures. Tape measures? What the hell would I do with a tape measure?

*

“How big are they for gods sake, they must be near eight inches”. I said.

Oh I do hope so”. Said Lyndal. “A girl’d kill for eight inches”. We grabbed our sausages in Dijonaise sauce, and walked to the garden adjacent to the market on Rue de temple where sat on a bench eating them and playing ‘Fabulous Bingo’ as Lyndal called it. We’d devised a point system that credited the spotter a range of 1-50 points depending on the gay fabulousness of the spotee. An obvious gay on their own scored a single point, and couples 5 points. Public displays of affection scored between 10 and 25 points, depending on the level of the affection shown, and out and out flamboyant Queening scored a massive 50 points. Lyndal scored first when she spied a mincing gay entering the park wearing leather trousers and carrying a clutch bag. Next came a couple that I spotted, holding hands and picking imaginary lint off each other as they walked past the parks entrance and into the market area. Then another single appeared, then another couple, then a trio all looped around each other like a tangle of spaghetti and meatballs. “How do we score that one”? I asked.

“I really don’t know”. Lyndal laughed, “I hadn’t considered threesomes. I guess that’s shot a hole in things, let’s go and have a look around the market hey”?

“I haven’t finished eating yet”. I said. “and are you sure you haven’t considered a threesome”?

“Stop it”. She laughed.

“You’re not gonna take that whole thing in your mouth in one go are you”? I asked her. Then she coughed, spluttered, choked, gagged and laughed.

“I’ve taken bigger”. She said. “Asshole”.

We finished eating and went for a wander. Antique, bric-a-brac, retro, modern and junk stuff spilled from trestle table-tops, and cluttered the walkway. People stopped, looked, picked things up and moved stuff around before moving on to the next trestle and doing it all over again. We found a stall selling ships cabin-trunks, and Lyndal considered the possibility of buying one and shipping it back to Australia, but then reason and sensible thought kicked in, and we moved along. I picked up a tie and braces pack that boasted ‘Hand woven from pure Silk’, and it only cost a fiver. “It’s obviously the real thing then”. Lyndal laughed.

“Absolutely”. I replied. Then before I knew what I was doing, I had handed over five Euro’s and was walking away with the pack in my hand.

“What did you buy that for, when was the last time you wore a tie”? I just shrugged.

“Years ago”. I answered. “Probably at somebody’s funeral, or was it a wedding”? We wandered on, passing clothes racks and clockwork train sets. Mirrors with ‘Paris Je taime’ etched into them, and jeweller’s stalls with little bespectacled men squinting through magnifying loops at their intricate gold and silver creations. Half an hour later we had circumnavigated the market and were back at the sausage and Dijonaise sauce stall by the park’s entrance.

“Didn’t see anything you liked”? I asked as we left the last of the stall-holders behind us and headed back towards our Grevilliere rue apartment.

“Not really. The best market is supposed to be up by Place de Bastille. Could you handle another one”?

“Yeah why not”? I answered. “I might even find a shirt to go with my tie and braces”.

Of the market at Place de la Bastille, Lonely Planet says. ‘If you only go to one open air market in Paris, then this is the one to go to’. Unfortunately we’d already been to the open air market on Rue de Temple, so according to Sienfelds rules of Bizarro-land, the Bastille market wasn’t actually allowed to exist now, so despite our half-hour walk to get there, it didn’t. Not to be perturbed, we spent a lazy hour walking through the empty space where it should have been, buying non-existent souvenirs, stepping in imaginary dog-shit, and talking to the stall-holders there in perfect grammatical French. As we alit from the space, all loaded down with nothing whatsoever, I heard the faint disembodied murmurings of a market place thrilling in full swing; but obviously at some other time, and in some other space. Then I felt a shivering, like I’d walked through some unseen barrier between this world and another, and I looked back, but there was nothing to be seen; just yesteryears thoughts and the slightest hint of once might have been.

“Are you for real”? Lyndal said after I told her what I’d felt. “And I thought I was strange sometimes. You take the biscuit mate”. We decided to call it a day, and started back towards the apartment to get ready for our night out at the Lido.

“I need to go in here”. Lyndal said as we came upon a one Euro shop.

“So what are we doing in here exactly”? I asked as we seemingly wandered aimlessly around the shop.

“I need some extra coat-hangers”. She said. “I’ve bought so many clothes since I’ve been here that I’ve run out of hangers and I don’t want everything to get all creased-up”. That was fair enough, so while she went looking for hangers, I wandered around on my own, picking things up, and putting things down. I hadn’t actually bought anything of any real use up until that point, and thought that maybe I should get myself some stuff too while I was there. I grabbed a new toothbrush and some La Colgate. Then I picked up a pack of disposable razors and some shoelaces. Maybe I should get some deodorant too I thought, and picked up an aerosol and sprayed it around me to see what it smelled like; it was passable, but only just. I then went and paid for it all, and waited out the front till Lyndal came out too.

“What did you get then”? She asked me.

“Not much”. I said. “Just some bathroom bits is all; and you”?

“Nothing. I decided getting anything from a one Euro shop was just asking for trouble. God, what’s that smell? It’s like fly-spray or something; poowuh, can’t you smell it”?

“Nope”. I said. “I can’t smell anything”. Then she turned to me and sniffed my shirt.

“It’s you”. She said. “What the hell is that”?

“Oh umm, I bought some deodorant in there. Don’t you like it”?

“No I don’t”. She said “Christ matey, it smells like shit”.

*

“It fucking stinks in there bro”. Louie said as we stepped back into the night and I closed the door behind us. “You got the money”?

“Yeah yeah I got it, but I only had a hundred, I thought there was more than that”.

“How can you mistake one hundred for four hundred hey bro? That’s sort of hard for me to believe wouldn’t you think”?

“Yeah, I know. Mad isn’t it”. Then I yawned, “Wow, it’s been such a long, hard day though, I’m just about ready for my bed I reckon.”

“Bullshit bed bro, you and your mate are coming to Shoreditch with us; you can get your sleep when you’re dead”.

Oh just fucking brilliant Louie, another gem of a line designed to put me even ill-er at ease than I already was.

“C’mon, move, get in the car”.

Soon we were driving along the motorway with Oh, oh Americano blasting out the speakers. Then we took a turn towards Shoreditch, and along a neon bright nightlife street, then up a laneway where Elias turned off the headlights, and killed the ignition and allowed the Black BMW to slide quietly into the shadows.

“Everyone out”. He said. Then pointed at me and Wayne and said. “Not you two”. Brian, Dennis and Louie stepped from the car and slammed the doors closed leaving me and Wayne sitting in the back like a pair of kidnap victims.

“What’s happening”? Wayne asked as I tried to open the door, but Elias didn’t answer, and had locked the door from the front. This seemed like as good a time to panic as any. So I started feeling all hot, cold and sweaty all over as a nervous clamminess crawled all over me like a spectre. Then I noticed a filthy stench had filled the air, and I looked at Wayne suspiciously.

“Let us out hey Elias”. I pleaded. “I’m claustrophobic you know”.

He turned around and faced us sharply. “I’ll give you fucking claustrophobic. One of you fuckers has stepped in shit and brought it into the car with you, it fucking stinks in here. Before either of you two get back in my car tonight, you make sure you check your fucking boots okay. I love this car you know, it’s my baby, and I don’t like it when people put shit in it; you understands me. Okay, okay, you got me? Now lets go, I’ll get you a beer”. The relief was palpable, and when Elias unlocked the back doors and I opened mine and stepped out into the Moon and Starlight, I thought the sense of freedom that I felt must be what it’s like when you get released from prison. Then the thought of drinking a big glass of cold beer came to mind, and I realised that prisoners go to the pub as soon as they get released too. What is that fucking smell? I checked my boots, nothing. Wayne checked his, nothing there either. We exchanged a look of mutual uncertainty mixed with heady relief, then fell-in behind Louie, Dennis, Elias and Brian who were already making their way towards the front door of a garishly bright nightclub.

“Did you shit yourself in the car”? Wayne asked as we walked towards the door.

“No, not literally”. I answered. “But I was shitting myself metaphorically”.

“I don’t even know what that means” he said, “but it stank in there. It’s not that cheap, shitty deodorant your wearing is it boy? Give I twenty quid then”. We walked up to the door where a giant eastern European bouncer gave us a look up and down, then stepped aside to let us pass. Then, when we went to pay the five pound entry fee each, the door-girl said the guy in front had already paid for us both, so we walked straight in and found the Albanians at the bar, ordering drinks all around.

The place was brightly-lit, not really like a nightclub at all, despite the loud music and the host of good-looking girls here and there. “Are they getting ready to close”. I shouted at Dennis as he placed a pint of beer in front of me.

“Close? They’ve only just opened”. He shouted back.

“There’s not many people in here is there”. I said. “Aside from all these good-looking chicks I mean; are they doing a promotion night here or something”?

“What do you mean”?

“You know, like a Bacardi promo or something, where the girls go around with a tray of drinks offering free samples”.

“You won’t get anything for free in here”. He laughed. “I hope you’ve got plenty of two-pound coins with you though”.

“No, I haven’t got any. What do I need them for”?

“Ask her”, Dennis laughed, pointing towards the tall, leggy, raven-haired, scantily-dressed, stiletto-heeled, pert-breasted goddess walking towards me. “Tim, meet Svetlana, she’ll tell you all about it”.

“Hello Tim, you want to see me dance on stage gorgeous”? She said, sliding an arm around my neck like a snake, and pulling me close like she was ‘bout to strike. “Everyone in here puts two pound on the plate and I dance on the stage for them, but if want to put a twenty in here”, She plucked at the top of her tiny G-string, “I’ll dance for you privately, just you and me in a cubicle, up close and personal. You do wanna get close to me don’t you”?

“Oh shit, ummm…really? Fuck. Ummm, yeah but…. Errr….oh god. Ummm, I haven’t actually got any two pound coins on me I’m sorry”. I blurted. “Can you get back to me on that one later maybe”?

“That’s okay honey”. She hissed. “Don’t fret, just slide a twenty in here and take me out the back instead”.

“Ummm, maybe later hey, if you don’t mind, I just got here see, and umm, errr…”

”.Not later”. She demanded . “Now, just slide a twenty into my G for Christs sake, you’re not gay are you”?

“What, gay? Christ no I’m not gay”. As I stood there feeling her hands rubbing over me, and having no idea what I wanted to do about it, I saw Louie appear out the corner of my eye.

.

“Svetlana, leave him the fuck alone alright, don’t hassle these two, they’re friends. She’s a nice chick bro, but she can be a fucking bitch too”. Louie said to me after she’d slithered off. “Don’t take any of her shit alright. If she busts your balls again just fucking slap her”. Then he walked across to a little blonde number, slipped her a twenty, and then disappeared with her out the back

“Okey-dokey then Louie’ I thought, as I lifted my beer and watched Svetlana slide seductively into someone else’s life. ‘I’ll get right onto that one mate, no worries at all. Thank you very much…as if”.

Jesus, what a stark contrast it was compared to the night that me and Lyndal spent at the Lido on the Champs Eleysee. There we had seen an ‘Absolutely fabulous’ show with lots of feathers and sequins, and bare breasted beauties with white smiling teeth. It had been two dazzling hours of glitz and glamour and humorous entertainment, all served up with an appropriately bubbly bottle of French champagne. The girls there had been ‘Tits-out’ too, but in the most lovely of ways, there was nothing skanky or trashy about it, just pure show-girl titillation. As I stood at the bar of the strip-joint, supping my beer and watching the flesh for money go round, I couldn’t help but think of where I’d much rather be.

We’d stepped from the Lido all a buzz at just about midnight, and despite the relatively late hour and the drizzling rain, the café’s and restaurants were all still busy taking orders. Lyndal had linked her arm through mine as we strolled the wet footpath, and flipped open her umbrella. Then arm in arm we had wandered through the moonlight; wide–eyed and high on the intoxication of Paris and Lido Champagne. As we meandered our way around Paris that night, and slowly made our way towards Pont Nuef and down towards the river, Maxims, Prada, Bernardaud and Sia treated us to a delicious dessert of window displays, and chocolatey enticements. It was fast becoming the most romantic night I’d ever known.

“I hope you weren’t expecting to find romance in here tonight”. Svetlana said “Or then again, maybe you were”? She had sidled back up to me, and caressed the seat of a stool without me even noticing; but god knows how I had managed not to. Maybe it was because she had changed outfits now, and gone, was the very little she’d almost been wearing before, and come, was a shimmering satin Emerald dress that hugged her every curve.

“Romance, me? No, I don’t think I’m really the romantic kind” I answered. “To be honest I wasn’t expecting anything, I just thought we were going into a bar for a few drinks was all. Wow, you look amazing”.

“Well thank you kind sir, that’s quite a compliment from an unromantic like yourself”. She laughed. “and I’m sorry if I freaked you out before, I thought you were just another flesh-fiend looking for a cheap fix; a girl’s gotta make a living after-all, and Uni fees don’t come cheap you know”.

“You’re a uni student?

“Yep, that’s me”. She said. “Body and brains”. Then she pointed to the scattering of change that sat on the bar in front of me. “Look at that” She said. “You’ve got a two-pound coin now”. Then she laughed. “But you’re too late. I’ve already decided I’m not working tonight, there’s better things I’d rather be doing with my time”. Then she winked at me devilishly and smiled a beautifully honest smile.

“You’re not from around these parts are you”? She said. “You sound sort of New Zealand or Australian-ish. What are you doing over here”?

“That’s a good call mate”. I told her “Well picked. I’m from Melbourne, Australia; and the reason I’m here is… Well actually” I pondered “I’m not even too sure of that one myself anymore. I think I’m just living a bit of a life over here right now, and trying to write about it all as I go along. Something like that anyway”.

“So does that make you a journalist then”? She asked.

Hah, a journalist hey? Well yeah I guess it’s kinda gonzo journalism really. I used to be a proper one back there in Melbourne for a while, but nowadays I’m just whatever I need to be to make ends meet. Right now I’m a builders labourer, but beneath the surface of it all I’m really still a writer”.

“Okay, so you’re a writer then. Tell me something about being a writer, it sounds like fun”.

“Yeah it is, I love it, sometimes it’s hard work mind you, the blank page dilemma an’ all that; and sometimes the stories I wanna write don’t always come out the way I think they should. Sometimes it can take me months after the actual event has already passed, before I get around to even starting something, and by then the reality of it has gotten all kinda messed up with my other crazy imaginings, and I end up with something completely different from how it really was in the first place. Ernest Hemminway used to say that he could never write about being in Paris when he was actually right there in Paris, he had to be hundreds of miles, and many, many months away so he could really see and feel the tales with the greatest of clarity. He described Paris as a moveable feast you know”.

“I know”. She said. “And also that once you’ve experienced Paris, it stays with you wherever you go for the rest of your days”.

“That’s right”. I told her. “He wrote that to a friend. I am impressed”.

“See I’m not just a pretty face am I”. She said; and then. “Are you going to write something about me, imagining you met me at some feast of a place in Paris perhaps”?

“Oh yeah, absolutely for sure I will”. I said.

It was late afternoon when me and Lyndal walked from the Artists square and made our way to the thousand steps of the church of the Sacre cour, set high in the streets of Montmarte. We’d been on our feet for hours and must have walked a million miles or two, and we were starving. “There’s a little place down these stairs called Chez Marie”. Lyndal said. “Lonely Planet cheap eats gives them a good wrap as a place to eat French standards without destroying your credit card. Shall we take a look”?

“Oh yeah, Absolutely for sure we should”. I said. So we wandered along the road, and down the stairs and across the street, till we were standing in the doorway of Chez Maries; and then we went inside. The walls were covered in the old Toulouse La trec advertising artworks that he’d found success from, and the small intimate tables were all covered in diagonal table-clothes of red and white checks. There didn’t appear to be anyone else in there when we walked in, so we simply found a quiet corner table and made ourselves comfortable, looking at the menu’s and taking in the décor all around. Presently a small round woman appeared and asked in French if we were ready to order. Yes, we were, but preferably in English I said. Lyndal asked for a spaghetti carbonarra,- which wasn’t very French I thought, and I opted for a bowl of French Onion soup, followed by roast chicken and vegetables in season.

“Why did she ask for a Spaghetti Carbonarra”? Svetlana asked.

“I don’t know really, but I might have got that bit completely wrong. It was a while a go after all. Maybe it was Aubergines or something else entirely…anyway”.

The small round woman brought out half a carafe of house white for Lyndal, and a jug of water for me, and while we waited for our food to arrive Lyndal asked me. “Why didn’t you order in French, it’s really quite easy”.

“Okay then, let me have a go”. I said. “See if this is right. Une poulee roti”?

“One roast chicken”. She said. “Very good. Now try one French onion soup”.

“Une francais oni-yon soupee”?

“You’re an idiot”. She laughed. Try this one. Ra te faire foutre”.

“Ratty fair foot-tree”.

“Hahaha, try again, but don’t be so conscious of making the actual words. It’s all about the feeling and the gist of what you want to say. Ra te faire foutre”.

“Ra te faire foutre. How was that”?

“That was perfect, do you know what it means”? Before she could tell me a bowl of Francais oni-yon soupee was placed in front of me, and some fingers of possibly garlic bread or similar was placed in front of Lyndal.

“Merci”. I said, looking up, expecting to see the small round woman standing there, but she wasn’t, it was her daughter; or I assumed it was her daughter given that Lonely Planet said the place was family-owned.

“You’re very welcome kind sir”. She answered in a perfectly English way with a perfectly sexy French accent. I was instantly smitten by everything about her. Her shimmering satin emerald dress, her long leggy figure, her dark raven hair, her sparkling hazel eyes, and her pert and perfectly sized French breasts. I reached out and took her hand.

“Wow”, I said. “You look amazing”.

“Well thank you kind sir”. She replied, and her smile lit up the room like a thousand candles.

“Ra te faire foutre”. I told her, softly and sincere.

“Really”? She asked. “Well you can go and fuck yourself too then asshole”. She told me, then snatched her hand away, lifted the jug from the table, and emptied the entire contents of water all over me.

“Really”? Asked Svetlana, “is that the best you can come up with. You tell me to go fuck myself, and I empty a jug of water over your head? It’s a bit Insultio-socio-humouresque don’t you think”?

“Huh. It’s what? Okay” I said. “Maybe it’s just best if I write you up as meeting you right here, right now, exactly as it really is, warts an’ all in a sunny downtown London strip-club. Now how exactly do you spell Svetlana”?

“It’s not Svetlana”. She laughed, “It’s Josie really, Svetlana‘s my trashy bitch alter-ego stage name. I’m Josie the Art history student, and I’m really quite a nice person once you get to know me. Can you smell that”?

“Croissants and red wine”? I offered.

Urgh, definitely not”. Then she stood up, grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the dance floor. “Come dance with me”. She said softly. I felt my eyes pop open wide, and my mouth start to gape a little. “It’s only a dance”. She smiled. “I promise it’s just a dance…for now at least”.

Oh god, she had the body of an Angel, a svelte, lithe and beautiful Angel. Her hair was long, raven and lustrous, and her eyes sparkled like the stars in the flickering lights of the bar. I didn’t even hear the first song, I was just mesmerised by her. She moved around like a liquidy serpent, while I’m sure I must have just galumphed opposite her like a man who learned to disco it in the 80’s. But then the unmistakeable Swedish vocals ‘Take a chance take a chance, take a take a chance chance’.’ had me loosening up and relaxing more and actually moving like I sort of knew I could.

“I like the way you move” She said, “but then the sound of Abba always turns straight men gay on the dance floor. You should see them in here some nights, twirling around with their hands in the air and singing their little hearts out like no-one else exists. It’s a pity they suddenly remember where they are, and get all macho and become assholes again. Don’t get all macho asshole on me okay”. I just smiled, pirouetted, and did something very gay with my arms that made her laugh. Then the music changed and the tempo slowed.

‘Watching in slow motion as you turn to me and say…you take my breath away’.

She moved in close, held my hands in hers and placed them around her waist. Then she slid both her arms around my neck and nuzzled into my chest. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh, fuck, Thank you, thank you, thank you God, I owe you one for this. She held me tighter and began running her fingers up and down my back, and her mouth moved closer and closer to my neck. I could feel her warm breath on my skin, and her firm and supple body moving in rhythm with mine.

‘You take my breath away’. I whispered into her ear, as my heart beat deep inside me like a clock fucked-up on amphetamines. She squeezed me tight, and blew lightly on my neck, shivering me to the core, and arousing a passion that melted my brain.

It’s funny the things you think about when you’re trying to stem a rush of hormones to an ever-swelling groin. Car exhaust systems were always one of my favourites at moments like this, either that or Fly-tying for Trout. Mental arithmetic even worked occasionally; anything to get my mind off the passion that threatened to finish me off before I even got started. I thought hard about the exhaust system on my old Cortina, picturing the way it all went together, then I held her ever closer and smelled her hair, tasted her perfume, and bathed in her being entirely.

“There is definitely something pongy around here”. She purred gently. “I think it’s coming off your jacket actually; are you wearing something pongy”? Oh god, who needs a Cortina exhaust system to curb a rush of hormones, when a pound-shop fly-spray deodorant will work it’s own kinda magic instead.

“Yeah it’s this damned cheap deodorant I borrowed off Wayne”. I lied. “Sorry, I normally wear Hugo Boss myself, but this stuff smells kind of like flyspray”.

“Yes it does, but even worse”. Said Josie. “It actually smells like shit. Oh god, excuse me; I need to go to the bathroom”. Then she bolted from the dance floor holding her mouth, and disappeared out the back door, taking my semi erotic exhaust system thoughts, and my fly-spray deodorant waft right along with her.

“What did you say to her then boy”? Wayne laughed as I wandered back to the bar with my jacket in my hand. “You weren’t trying to impress her with stories about your old Cortina were you? What is that fucking stench”?

It’s this mate”. I said, holding out my jacket and showing him the foot-long slither of filth down the back of it. “It’s that fucking Inderwick road shit bag mate” .I screwed the jacket into a scrunched-up ball and shoved it deep into a bin.

“Well I did tell ‘e to empty it enough times didn’t I boy”.

Yeah, yeah I know you did; but fuck it, what can you do hey”? I cursed, “I guess my little Dancing queen’s out of here by now”.

“I don’t think so boy”. Wayne answered, nodding his head towards the rear of the room.

*

She had a bottle of red wine in one hand, and two shiny glasses in the other.

“Join me for a glass of Wine”? She said.

“A glass of Wine would be perfect mate”. I answered. “But tell me this, in all the years you’ve known me Lyndal, when have you ever had to asked me if I’d like to join you for a glass of wine”? Has there ever been a time that I wouldn’t”?

“Not that I can remember” she laughed. Then she filled both glasses and handed me one. “Cheers to us.” She said, “Over twenty-five years and still going strong”. Then she looked deep into my eyes and asked. “Does this smell funny to you”?

“Like the cannibals sniffing the clown you mean? No, not really”. I replied. “But yeah, cheers to us hey”. Then we clinked our glasses and took a mouthful of wine, watching as the illuminated riverboats sparkled the Seine with their iridescent wake, and listening then as it gently lapped rhythmically at our feet. Behind us, the Eifel tower was twinkling beautifully, and dancing to the tune of a quarter of a million flickering lights. Around us, Parisians strolled hand in hand, and chatted, and popped corks and fell in love. It was everything I’d ever dreamed of, and then some. It was a Paris Je taime moment. The lights, the sounds, the smells, and the tastes of red wine, Goats cheese, crusty bread sticks and the delicious delicate flavour of Lyndals own perfume; Josephine.

“I’m sorry I ran off like that” Josie told me as she came and stood next to me at the bar. “You just kind of smelled like, well, you know what I mean; I’m sorry I said you smell like shit”. Then she smiled and wrapped her arm about me and pulled me close.

‘…honey I’m still free, take a chance on me.’

“Yep”. Lyndal replied, pulling me close and sniffing my hair. “There is a definite pong of fly spray about you. God love you though I really do matey, you don’t half smell like shit sometimes”.

“Thanks mate” I laughed, “Maybe that’s why we’re both still single hey”. Then we sat there in the moonlight, talking, and laughing and drinking wine beside the Parisian Seine. On the quayside, a couple turned on their radio, and as Abba came on singing, we just looked at each other and smiled.

‘…take a chance, take a chance, take a take a chance chance’.

.

END.

.