by EJ Swift
When people ask me about Paris, what will I say? Will I talk about timefaring, eighteenth century parties in the catacombs, a man I loved but could not save? Will I tell them of Clichy, of mojito nights and Oz at dawn, of Gabriela and Angel, Millie’s heroes? Which version do I give and which do I keep close? If I deny either, will it diminish in my memory, grow smaller and blurrier until I can no longer trust it as truth? Or will it remain safe, untarnished, a well to return to in times of drought, a source of joy?
IN THE EARLY hours of the morning it grows cold, but I remain where I am, ignoring the fluctuations of the night around me, the gradual exodus of revellers. The sky lightens. Birdsong. In the tunnels beneath the boulevard, the métro starts to rumble. And something else. A flare is on the way. I can hear the anomaly singing, I can feel its hum in my bones. I know that I could walk inside Millie’s, wait until the bouncers are distracted and slip inside the barrier with old ease. I could answer the unanswerable call and will myself back to 2042. I could find Léon in Rome.
My limbs protest when I stand, joints and muscles stiff from hours of sitting in the cold. I take the handle of my suitcase and go down into the métro. Line 2 to La Chapelle: four stops against the wrench of my heart. A short walk to Gare du Nord. Every step an incalculable effort, the song building in my head, the anomaly unwilling to let me go, my mind captive in a place twenty years from now. Line D, all the way down to Gare de Lyon. Take the escalator up into the station. Swept along with the rush of morning commuters. The footprint of the real world. Overhead, the vault of the station roof, rows of trains lined up in their bays. Movement, ever forward. The train to Milan is boarding.
I walk along the platform, ticket in hand. Conscious now of two presents. In time and out of time. An echo of Léon walks beside me, his weight that of a bird against my shoulder, his arm the ghost of an albatross wing, here but not here, as I go on.
Acknowledgements
MY THANKS TO the generous readers who looked at early or later drafts of the book and offered their thoughts and encouragement: Nina Allan, Clare Bullock, Beth Grossman, Genevieve Helme, Dominique Larson, Chris Priest, Kim Swift, Veronica Swift, Andrew Swift, Björn Wärmedal. Thanks to the Southbank Set: David Bausor, Kyo Choi, Christabel Cooper, Jaq Hazell, Dominique Jackson and Colin Tucker, for their feedback on various excerpts and all round support. Thank you to Rooksana Hossenally and Marko Waschke who kindly checked my French and German translations—any errors in the text are my own—and to Sophie Webber who advised me on Jewish weddings. Thanks as always to my agent John Berlyne and to Louise Buckley at Zeno Agency for their editorial advice and support and for keeping faith with the book; to my editors Jon Oliver and David Moore, publicist Remy Njambi, and the wonderful team at Solaris who have given the book a home; and to Joey Hifi for the beautiful cover art. Love and thanks to the friends I met in Paris, an inspiration and a source of joy, and to James for keeping me sane along the way, this time and all the other times.
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