Blue Dress Hot Mess

Series: The Paris Diaries: 19/03/25-20/03/25

Notes for the confused reader: Gabriel (Gabe) is a dog, not a child. This is a collection of pieces from my notebook, typed up; as such, some is written in real-time, some with the benefit of hindsight. It is fragmentary, but so is my mind. If something says (FA) in brackets, read: French Accent.

19/03/25:

I am sunburnt. I have freckles.

20/03/25:

I do not know if I have a novel in me at the moment. I am too self-absorbed, on a road of self-discovery which benefits from the ego-centrality of diary-keeping but which would not allow for the consuming occupancy of a Character in my mind. I know how much they take up space. And I am trying, at the moment, to take up space myself. But I wonder at love, and there’s always a novel in that. I take down the postcards which I have blu taked to the walls of my flat and look at Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. I believe the love in her eyes. I believe the kiss in her touch. I believe that love does not have to last for it to have been the greatest love of a person’s life. I think there is a novel in those postcards, just like there are limitless unspoken words in her glance, in her eyes, which need never see the streaming light of day in order to be universally understood. Language does not define them. That is the truth of love. He looks at the camera. Smokes. Her eyes write a live letter to him. Perhaps it is symbolic; their love could not last. 

Nature has a way of telling you to go home. Mine – like many important messages in many situations over the years – was delivered by a pigeon. A wood pigeon, in my case, whose cooing morning note is unchanged by the accent of the French (FA, as it has been known). I listen to one every morning in England; he is, he always has been, the noise of my home: my bedroom, which I have occupied since its creation for the last 19 years, and which I remember no life without (I am 21). My yellow walls, my orange house, the sloping drive, and the mouldy Land Rover parked beneath my window (no room for a Romeo). My designer chairs – a hangover from when I wanted to be an interior designer; part of me still does – my zebra rug, the Bridget Riley prints which turn my walls into an optical illusion. My photographs and my collection of dogs, accumulated over the years by me with curly blonde hair and an obsession with animals, added to now and again by some nostalgic purchase I could not live without. (My real dog now sits downstairs; I would not have believed it, even a year ago). I hear the wood pigeon coo on a street in Paris; I am to go home. My bedroom – my world – awaits. 

A mad blind French woman is singing to her Dachshund. A man with a beard and a backwards cap is eating tomatoes out of a punnet. People sunbathe; I burn. It is a portrait of reality, captured in Landscape form, a little abstract. I think it must be done in watercolour, since the light is blue and pale. The scene is set in the Jardins du Luxembourg, on the day of the Spring equinox. The year is 2025. The year of Paris. The year of a lot of other things besides — but for me: Paris. (If you say it in an FA, it rhymes).

I cannot bring myself to take down the charcoal sketch of Gabriel and me in Montmartre. When I do, I know it will be the end of Paris. The end of this apartment being mine in any sense of the word. I stuck that poster to the wall weeks ago; it embodied me, us, here – and my smile is so toothy it has not stopped grinning at me since. I have not stopped grinning since. It will remain on the wall until the very last second; just as long as I don’t leave it behind.

I do not know – tonight – if I am meant to take a book, or this notebook, or my phone, or simply to sit and eat. There can be no rules. If I want to sit and be, I will observe, and want to write. I must reflect: Paris; me.

I sit now in the Pré aux Clercs. I chose inside, and caught eyes with a different waiter from the other night on purpose. I would rather have no preconceptions. My view is of flowers and tables, straight to the door. Speaking in French brings a confidence. Inconnue or otherwise. I have ordered: a glass of red – the vin du moment (the least expensive), and a cannelloni Monsegur – i.e. truffle cream and ricotta, with mushrooms. My wine has arrived; medium sized, good. It is a dark red – a maroon – almost an indigo. I did not know where to look when the waiter poured my water, but then he left with the jug and returned a minute later with an apologetic smile. We seem to have a mutual understanding. I wonder what he thinks of me: oddly, I don’t care, I only wonder. My chest is pink from sunburn, a golden diamond-encrusted ‘C’ glitters around my neck, I wear double denim, and I write. I did not know if I would. I must sit, too, and be – observe. Myself, others. I must have more confidence in myself. After all, I am a “Madame”.

(The Russian ladies – four of them – on the table in front of me are getting out €100 notes. They have Michael Kors bags, and speak English to the waiter. The Americans are male – one large, in a pink shirt, the other smaller, finer, younger. He wears glasses, and discusses his university project. The only couple who have paid any attention to me are the French two who sit to my right. They do not speak to one another before their food arrives. They are older. They seem to regard me with grandparental benevolence, or with the kind of curiosity with which you look at something in a museum which doesn’t interest you much). My food has arrived. Pasta, salad, bread, wine. Parmesan and truffle. It smells, strongly, blissful. I toast myself, and eat.

They have just brought me a candle. Alone light. Red wine. “Bon appétit”.

The issue with dining alone is that one eats quickly. Too quickly. Too quickly to think, to be, to live. But I feel I have. It was delicious. I feel pleased. Satisfied. It epitomises Paris. Me – alone – happy. Full, most likely. I may go to the boulangerie for pudding.

I told him it was delicious. Yes – ça me plait, it pleased me. The bill, please. I am done.