When I reach for her this time, she doesn’t pull away.
The train swoops onward through the night, swift, silent. Have we crossed the border into France yet? I can’t tell. I have been on too many trains, crossed too many borders this year. Maybe the thrill of it all is finally wearing thin.
Tanglewood seems like a dream, a place I imagined or conjured up from nowhere. It’s only six weeks since I packed up my rucksack and moved on, but it feels like forever.
I think I left something behind me there, something important, essential. My heart, my soul, my sense of adventure … Let’s just say those things have been missing in action ever since the day I said goodbye to Honey Tanberry.
I didn’t want to leave. I have six months of travel left to me before I am due back home in Sydney; I have a university place waiting for me there, to study philosophy and politics, starting in February. The idea of that used to excite me a whole lot more than it does these days.
I’d spent three blissful weeks at Tanglewood, but suddenly I wanted more. It’s that kind of place … a place that feels like home, even to a teenage Aussie kid with Sri Lankan heritage whose closest family are half a world away.
I was young and in love and I didn’t want to walk away from all that. Who would?
‘Come with me,’ I said to Honey. ‘We can travel around Europe together, see Paris and Berlin and Madrid … go wherever we want to. We can eat ice cream and hire a scooter in Rome, throw coins into the Trevi Fountain and make a wish …’
I knew what I would wish for, even then.
‘Shall we?’ I asked again, although I knew what the answer would be. I watched Honey’s blue eyes darken like a stormy sky.
‘I have school,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s my A-level year. I can’t just take time out, even though you know I’d love to …’
I blinked. When I first met Honey, eighteen months ago in Sydney, she was allergic to the very mention of the word ‘school’. It was enough to bring her out in a rash, wipe the dazzling smile from her face. Now, school was the thing that threatened to keep us apart.
‘Take a year out,’ I suggested. ‘Like me!’
She shook her head. ‘Ash,’ she said. ‘It has taken me almost seventeen years to see the point of school. Now I have – now I’m actually working – I’m not going to mess it up. Don’t ask me to do that!’
Hope fizzled in seconds. It hadn’t been a serious suggestion, not really – I knew the practicalities. I knew it wasn’t possible. I just couldn’t help giving it a try.
‘It’s OK,’ I said, backtracking. ‘I wouldn’t ask you that, of course I wouldn’t. It’s just that I’m going to miss you so much …’
‘I’ll miss you too,’ she said.
‘What if I just stay a while longer? Hang out here for a month or two, get a part-time job?’
She smiled. ‘And miss your chance to see Europe? How long have you been planning this trip? You have to see it through. Go, Ash. Have adventures … but email me, tell me all about it. It’ll be almost as good as being with you.’
I doubted that very much.
‘I wish I could go, Ash,’ she repeated. ‘Or that you could stay … I’d keep you here if I thought I could, but you’d soon feel restless, start to resent me. I’m not going to be the one who keeps you from your dream, OK? This last month together has been amazing, but we can’t get sidetracked. Don’t throw away the adventure.’
I would have thrown everything away for Honey, but I stayed silent.
‘I want you to do the right thing, that’s all,’ she said.
The trouble was I didn’t know any more what the right thing was, and I still don’t. The fun seeped out of the plans I’d made; seeing Europe had lost its appeal without Honey by my side.
She came with me as far as the railway station in Exeter to wave goodbye.
‘Remind me why I’m going?’ I asked, as we waited for the train.
‘Because it’s been your dream for as long as you can remember,’ she told me, laughing. ‘And because you only have six months before your uni course begins. Don’t waste it.’
‘Yeah. About that uni place …’
Honey put a finger to my lips.
‘Don’t say it,’ she told me. ‘No cold feet, OK? You have a place at university for the course you wanted most in the world. I know you might be having second thoughts right now, but that’s exactly why you need to stick to the plan and finish your gap year. Go see Europe. Have some adventures, see some sights … If you miss this chance, you’ll regret it, I know.’
‘But … I’m not sure philosophy and politics are what I want to study any more,’ I admit. ‘Maybe I should be studying English? Or journalism? Or maybe I should just get a job in a coffee shop until I’ve worked out what I should be doing?’
‘Go and explore,’ Honey said. ‘Have fun, see Europe, soak it all up. And do some thinking, Ash, about what you want from life. That’s what a gap year is all about.’
The train came in and I hugged her tight, and then I was on the train and waving as it drew out of the station, and I didn’t need a gap year to know I was leaving behind everything that mattered to me.
2
I try to sleep, using my backpack as a pillow, but it’s not comfortable and after a while I give up and sit up again, my cheek pressed against the cool glass of the train window. I watch an unknown city slip by, a blur of white lights in the darkness.
I don’t know where I am any more. I’m not sure I even care.
I have ticked a few boxes on my travel itinerary these last few weeks, seen a few sights. I took a ferry and a train to Amsterdam and cycled around the city on a hired bike and stayed with Daan and Cas and Mika, three philosophy students who were living on a barge. We’d met at the backpackers’ hostel where Daan worked and bonded over philosophy. They had a spare bed for the week, so I moved in and paid a few euros less than I would have at the hostel. It was a win-win situation. Daan and his mates had three late-night parties in less than a week, wild nights where the barge filled up with an unlikely mix of hipster students and mad musicians. I blogged about the chaos and emailed Honey to tell her about the parties; I knew she’d have loved them.
On the last night, a bunch of crazy art students turned up and started painting the inside of the barge with red and gold paint while one of the musicians, a girl called Astrid, played live saxophone over the sound of vintage punk rock on the sound system. There was no way I was going to sleep with all that going on, so I sat up on deck in the moonlight and got chatting to a German student called Ernst who was driving back to Berlin the next day.
That’s how I came to take a detour, because a free lift across Europe and a free place to stay while I was there was not something to turn down. While I was in Berlin I bought a coffee from a little internet cafe and ended up with a job for a week, covering for some guy who was down with the flu. My German is very patchy, but three years of making lattes and flat whites and Americanos at the cafe on Sunset Beach in Sydney meant I could handle their very bad-tempered coffee machine when nobody else could.
I made some money and a few new friends, and I stayed with Ernst who turned out to be the perfect tour guide. I saw what was left of the Berlin Wall and looked at some art and went to some gigs and sat in the parks beneath the September sun. I visited the museums and took lots of pictures and wrote a few blog posts about the city and a whole bunch of emails to Honey. Those emails were upbeat and chatty and packed with the kind of quirky detail I knew would make her smile. I wanted her to see the city as vividly as I did, but the irony of it all was that Berlin only really came alive for me when I wrote about it for Honey.
After Berlin, I went to Vienna; then Zurich, Milan, Nice, Marseille, Barcelona and Madrid. I tried to enjoy the adventure, the gap-year odyssey I had been planning since forever, but somehow my travel blog and the emails to Honey became the bit that mattered most. It was all about taking the right photo, finding the right words. I wanted to make it real, make her see what I was seeing, feel what I was feeling. I was bringing each new place to life so Honey could share it with me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea began to unfold that maybe writing – journalism – was something I could do. If I decide not to go ahead with the philosophy and politics course, I will look into journalism degrees. Maybe in Sydney … or maybe not.
Anyhow, right now I am on the night train to Paris, wondering how I can capture the magic of the city I wanted us to explore together in just a few words and pictures.
I reach into the inside pocket of my rucksack and bring out a crumpled letter. It’s from Honey, posted once she knew I was going to be staying at the internet cafe in Berlin for more than a week. It arrived on the last day I was there, and I’ve read and re-read it every day since.
I open out the letter, smooth the page flat. Honey’s letters are small works of art – the page is inscribed with her vivid slanting handwriting and perfect line drawings of the happenings at Tanglewood. There’s a jokey sketch of Coco playing violin on horseback and the sisters running for cover with hands over their ears; a sketch of Summer and Skye sharing the hammock and being fanned by Cherry holding a big palm leaf; a sketch of Fred the dog and Humbug the sheep in Paddy’s chocolate workshop snaffling all the truffles. There’s even a picture of me in shorts and sunhat, rucksack on my back, striding across a map of Europe, ticking off city names on a list and leaving a trail of postcards behind me.
Those pictures make me smile.
On the last page there’s a sketch of Honey sitting on the windowsill in her turret room at Tanglewood, a tear rolling down her cheek and so many tissues at her feet it looks like she’s sitting in a snowdrift.
‘I miss you,’ Honey has written.
That one doesn’t make me smile. If we miss each other this much already, how will it feel when I’m back in Australia at uni?
Long-distance relationships are hard work. We’ve managed to keep things going for eighteen months so far, but I am not sure that being parted for another three years would be a good plan. I take out my mobile and google university courses in Exeter, the nearest big town to Tanglewood, but the Wi-Fi signal on the train is hopeless and I abandon the search.
It’s no good anyway, I know.
I am way too late to apply for courses in the UK … The uni term there starts in just a couple of weeks’ time, so there’s no way I’d be able to get a place. Not for another year, at any rate.
I push the thought out of my mind and fold up the letter again. It’s getting very worn round the edges, so I am extra careful as I slide it back into the rucksack pocket. I stifle a yawn and check my watch. It’s past two in the morning.
This gap year was all about finding myself, but lately it seems to have had the opposite effect. I am lost, adrift, hurtling through the darkness far from everyone I love.
I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, and this time I sleep.
3
The train arrives at Gare Austerlitz just after nine, and I step out into a bright Paris morning, my Rough Guide handbook in my hand. I’ve already emailed ahead to book a place at a backpackers’ hostel in Montparnasse, so I make my way there. As I walk, I breathe in the aroma of freshly baked bread from the boulangeries and the rich dark coffee aroma drifting out from the cafes. I grin at the sight of the shuttered windows and wrought-iron balconies and the sound of French being spoken around me. How long will it take me to tune in to the city, to get the hang of it? For now, Paris is pure thrills. I check my map, turn into a side street and arrive at the hostel.
The receptionist is a pretty tawny-haired girl called Teresita, an Italian student on a gap year just like me. Her smile is big and welcoming, and I grin back, the buzz of this new city starting to build.
‘You will like it here,’ she tells me. ‘Good hostel, very clean, very friendly, and the breakfast is good. It’s just four people per room, so you won’t be swamped, and we’ve got a night warden so it’s pretty quiet and orderly. You cannot check in until four, but I can put your rucksack in our safe room if you want to head off and explore?’
‘Thanks, that’d be great,’ I say. I hand it over and head back out into the streets of Paris, free to roam.
I eat my breakfast in the Jardin du Luxembourg, a huge park with a fancy palace plonked in the middle of it. I walk past kids launching model sailing boats on a huge octagonal pond, and as I come out of the park cafe with warm chocolate croissants and a paper cup of chilled orange pressé a line of stocky ponies with small children on their backs passes by.
I find a patch of grass and sit down to eat in the sunshine, close to the old-fashioned carousel. Last night’s doubts and worries have melted away to nothing, chased into the shadows by the buzz of a new city. Suddenly I can’t wait to start getting to know this place.
Paris – it’s like a surprise birthday present waiting to be unwrapped. Although I’ve read more about it than almost any other place on my itinerary, the city itself is still a mystery that only I can solve. I leaf through my Rough Guide, studying street maps and places I want to see, then close it abruptly and push it into a jacket pocket. Sometimes, I want to forget about plans and itineraries and how many cool sights and museums I can tick off in a few days. Today, I just want to wander.
I drink the last of the orange pressé, brush the sweet pastry flakes from my fingers and jump up from the grass.
Away in the distance to my left I can see the Eiffel Tower reaching up into the hazy blue sky, and I know the River Seine is somewhere ahead, so I head out of the Jardin du Luxembourg and let chance take me along the little streets. I am near the Sorbonne University, so there are lots of young people around … It’s a studenty area. There are students talking in excitable French as they stroll along the roads, students clutching books and hurrying to lectures, students sitting at pavement cafes reading, writing, sipping espressos. The term must have just started, and a bit of me wishes I was a part of it, one of the students making their way through the narrow streets of Paris to class. It’s a pity my French isn’t up to scratch.
Could being a student back home in Sydney be as cool?
My heart sinks, and I push the thought away.
After a while I find myself down by the river, a broad sweep of blue flanked by little stalls selling prints and pamphlets and souvenirs. Across the water, on the Île de la Cité, stands the cathedral of Notre Dame with its Gothic towers and willowy spire and circular stained-glass window.
I’m smiling again now, eyes wide at the beauty of it all, savouring the aroma of falafel and chilli and grilled halloumi cheese from one of the riverside stalls. There’s a shop called Shakespeare and Co., which sells books, books that spill out on to the pavement on tables and shelves. It looks like an Aladdin’s cave, and I step inside, browsing among the shelves. The books are all in English, and I pick up an ancient copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby because it’s one of Honey’s favourites and a book she’s studying for A level. She told me that Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived in Paris for a while back in the 1920s. ‘Just imagine,’ Honey had said. ‘How romantic? We’ll do that, one day. You can write and I’ll paint.’
I don’t know if that will ever happen, but I will wrap the book and post it off to Honey, a small souvenir of Paris.
I pick out a postcard too, to send to my sister Tilani and her family back home in Sydney. The kids are collecting them, charting my travels on a big map pinned up on the living-room wall. I haven’t seen them since I set off in January … That feels like a long time ago now.
Since then I’ve been to India, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Greece, France, Germany, the Netherlands and a few places in between. I’ve loved them all, but the three weeks I spent in Somerset with Honey was the best of the lot. Whatever happens in the future, whatever I decide to do about my uni place and however things work out with Honey … well, I know I won’t regret this year of travels and adventure.
The lilting sound of a flute cuts through my daydreams, and I glance up sharply, turning my head towards the sound.
A small child in a raggedy sundress the colour of emeralds runs past me, laughing, and vanishes down a narrow side street away from the hustle and bustle of the busy Paris waterfront. As I watch, I see her running across a cobbled alley, dark hair thrown back, looking up towards a shuttered window. Is that where the music is coming from?
I step into the side street, into the alleyway, into another world.
4
Silhouetted in an upstairs window bordered with shutters, a young woman is playing a silver flute. Her hair, long corkscrew curls of blue-black, catch on a sudden breeze and flutter out against the white-painted shutter. The same breeze takes her haunting music and lifts it into the air so that it slides across the city’s rooftops.
It sounds like magic.
The little girl in the green sundress is dancing now, whirling around on the cobblestones.
Abruptly, a wrinkled, claw-like hand closes over my elbow.
‘Puis-je vous dire la bonne aventure, monsieur?’ a crackly voice enquires.
Life is Sweet Page 20
