Paris On Air

by Oliver Gee

  Clovis just smiled and gave me a Gallic shrug of his own.

  “That’s how it works in France. Now where are we going for lunch? On you, I think.”

  3.7 The chateau

  Everyone should rent a chateau in the French countryside before they die. When we did it for my thirtieth birthday, it was every bit as magical, mythical, and mad as it may sound. The guests still talk about it to this day. The expectations were high as we all took Friday off work, rented cars, and headed out into the countryside. Our castle - the Chateau d’Autricourt - was in Burgundy, a few hours southeast of Paris. I was in a minivan with four other people, plus supplies for the whole crowd. The van was so full that we drove with food between our legs and wine bottles tucked between the seats. The excitement was almost tangible. As we zipped through the fields of the Champagne region, we got to talking about the chateau itself and its elegant, mysteriously translated website. Lina pulled up the page and read it aloud.

  “Have you ever dreamt of being a princess or a chatelaine...” she began.

  “What’s a chatelaine?” I asked Fabien, my walking French/English dictionary.

  “Eurgh, well it’s someone, a woman actually, who runs a castle,” said Fabien.

  I made a mental note of yet another wonderful untranslatable French word. Fabien, in the back seat, looked like he was imagining life with a chatelaine of his own. Lina continued to read as we passed more vineyards.

  “Have you ever dreamt of being a princess or a chatelaine, a king or a knight, to let your long blond hair down a tower, or to fight an enemy on a drawbridge and to go treasure hunting afterwards?

  “All kinds of dreams are waiting to be manifested in this enchanting place. Bursting with enormous potential, it needs your fantasy and your creativity to be rescued from time’s clutches.

  “Feast in the medieval ‘salle à manger’, frolic with picnics in the meadows, take tea in the Indian temple, fish in the moat, savor succulent snail-tasting, breakfast on an open-tower, ghost-hunting... here, everything is possible!”

  Everyone went quiet in the car, imagining life in the chateau. Lina was scrolling through the pictures with widening eyes.

  When we finally arrived we felt as if we’d hit the castle jackpot. The roads had been getting progressively smaller as ventured further from Paris, and by the time we reached the castle grounds we were well and truly in the middle of nowhere. We drove through the entrance, where huge lime trees flanked the driveway. We passed the ruins of a tower in the fields and continued as the trees thinned and eventually revealed the chateau in all its splendid glory. The exterior was jaw-dropping. We drove across a stone drawbridge over the moat that surrounded the chateau, parked in the courtyard, then tried to take it all in.

  On one side was a grand Renaissance building with vine-covered limestone walls and grey slated roofs. The pointed turrets of five towers cast shadows over the inner courtyard. To the other side were more sleeping quarters in a separate building with its own towers and turrets. Between the two was a little chapel, in case anyone decided to get married, I suppose. We could see huge fish swimming lazily in the moat, while the sun shone strong on the hectares of fields in the distance.

  With smiles that matched our own, the owners and their dog greeted us for the grand tour. And if we thought the exterior was grand, we were in for a surprise. The chatelaine, or the lady who owned the castle, led us into a huge stone kitchen with vaulted walls and a massive raised fireplace.

  “Big enough to roast a wild boar,” she said with a wink.

  The kitchen led into a mammoth dining room with several stuffed ostrich heads attached to the wall by the base of their long necks. On both sides of the room were fireplaces with Gothic chimneys. Beyond the dining room was the grand salon - or the dance floor, I thought - then a games room and a few spare bedrooms. At both ends of the ground floor were staircases leading to long corridors upstairs, which were lined with stuffed wild boar and deer heads. Along the corridors were the doors to the rest of the bedrooms, most of which came complete with four poster beds, aristocratic portraits, open fireplaces, and period bathrooms. It was unreal. Many if not most of the guests got lost at some point over the weekend, which is hardly a surprise considering we lived in such tiny Parisian apartments. Lina and I took the royal suite - it was my birthday party after all - and our ensuite bathroom was bigger than our entire home in Paris. The bedroom was big enough to swing a tiger. We even had our own balcony looking over the fields and the moat with its fat and lazy carp swimming below. And the castle walls were about a metre thick, perfect for keeping the cold out and for containing the noise from any outrageous parties hosted inside.

  The guests arrived throughout the day from their various corners of Europe (and Australia) and we arranged everyone into groups of five. Each group was to organize one meal and to clean up after it, and nothing else. The idea was that the serial helpers could take a break and the serial slackers wouldn’t be able to get away with any nonsense. And it seemed to work. We’d bought fairly simple ingredients for feasts, fried chicken, big salads, pastas and it was all washed down with local wine and champagne. Those on breakfast duty were responsible for waking up first, then driving to the village boulangerie to collect our daily order of 15 baguettes, 15 croissants, and 15 pain au chocolats.

  In the days we played ball games in the garden, lazed on chaise longues, and bathed in a nearby pond. In the evenings we ate like royalty by a long table in the front garden; my friends gave a mix of warm and cruel speeches to mark my birthday, and we watched the sunset over the French countryside.

  And at night we partied like French aristocrats.

  Now, I’m not one to condone excesses of any kind, but when I say we partied like aristocrats I’m not exaggerating. The parties were so wild and unruly that most guests don’t remember what happened. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, an Australian guest with an interest in amateur photography had positioned a GoPro camera high in a corner of the main dining hall and set it to take a picture every five minutes. It captured details of the night that no one would have otherwise believed. Flicking through them the next day almost left more questions than answers. After dinner, there’s a shot of the dining-room turned dancefloor gradually filling up. In the next shot, there’s a group of people lingering suspiciously over the champagne, which I assume is the moment someone spiked the proverbial punch with I don’t even dare guess what. A few more photos later and another of the Australian guests has captured everyone’s attention as she strides into the room in a corset and an enormous, white Marie Antoinette wig. Then the corset is gone and she stands bare-breasted to the shock and delight of the crowd (while her wig remains perfectly in place). In the next, a cake with sparklers has appeared as more people seem to have removed their clothes. As the pictures continued the night apparently turned into some kind of wild rave that ended - as far as I can tell - when a half-naked Marie Antoinette herself can be seen approaching the camera on the wall with her hand outstretched. The GoPro was found tucked between the sofa cushions the next morning, forever taking photos of nothing but pillows. Perhaps it was better that way.

  3.8 Nice holiday

  It was around this time that things got serious between me and Lina. She had moved out of her place in Belleville and into my tiny apartment. I’d met her parents several times and had even stayed with them in Sweden. What better way to enjoy the last of the good weather for the year than to all take a holiday together in Nice, on the French Riviera?

  Nice was as lovely as ever with its stony beach front, wide promenade, and summery sea views. The pace of life, too, was refreshingly slower than in Paris. But best of all, someone had the brainwave to rent scooters for the weekend. Now when I say scooter, I mean the one with an engine, the kind that lets you whizz along the coastline of the Mediterranean sea without a care in the world. That’s exactly what we did, and it was one of the most exhilarating
experiences of my life. A real game changer. I’d never ridden a scooter before, never even considered trying one. But there was such a wonderful, freeing feeling of zipping along the roads with the air in my face, the wind on my body, and the road stretched out in front of me. I loved driving through the city, weaving among the cars, parking wherever I wanted and then getting back on and doing it all again.

  We scooted all over the Riviera that weekend, from Monaco to Antibes and I was a man possessed. Then one warm evening I had a life-changing experience.

  We were all driving back to Nice from Antibes after the sun had set and a wild thunderstorm took us by surprise. The thunder bellowed, the lightning was frightening, but the rain was nowhere to be seen yet. We had the Mediterranean sea to our right, an empty coastal road ahead of us, and I never felt more alive. We raced towards the safety of the hotel, trying to beat the inevitable downpour. The roar of the thunder grew stronger. The sky grew darker. It felt like the universe was speaking to me. Shouting at me! I could feel the energy in the air and my body was tingling with vibrations from the scooter, the thunder, and the sheer thrill of being in the middle of a storm. I felt like one of those tornado chasers. We were facing danger, the risk of getting caught in the downpour, or getting struck by lightning, and we were dashing to escape it. All on the back of a scooter, exposed to the elements, and at their mercy. I was yelling with joy, it was ecstasy at 45 kilometres an hour. I felt like a bolt of lightning could have hit me and I wouldn’t have even noticed.

  We made it back to our hotel before the rain started and I was a changed man. I had a revelation, and I knew exactly what was missing from my life. Right then and there I told Lina and her family that I wanted a scooter of my own for Paris. It would be perfect, I said. But they all looked at me like I was crazy. Lina put her foot down, and quickly.

  “Are you mad?” she said. “Do you know how dangerous that would be?”

  Her parents joined in. They said that scooting along the empty roads in the Riviera was one thing, but they wouldn’t want their daughter to be doing the same in Paris. It was a resounding no and I was surprised, shocked, disappointed, and maybe even hurt. But they talked me out of it and I gradually accepted it.

  When we got back to Paris, even though I had given up on the idea of getting a scooter, the topic had created a divide between Lina and me. If I even mentioned it, she changed the subject. And what was worse, the divide spread to other parts of our life. She started to act secretively, snatching up her phone when it got a message, leaving the room to answer calls, slipping out of our Paris apartment with only vague details about where she was going. Yes, the relationship was still in its early stages but something didn’t feel right. We’d come to our first big disagreement - but I’d soon learn that there was a wild and surprising explanation for her behaviour.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  New wheels, leaving Montorgueil, and exploring Paris by road.

  4.1 The red beast

  I was in the office on the day of my 30th birthday when I got an unusual text from Lina.

  “Meet me on rue de Rambouillet at 6 pm. Come from Avenue Daumesnil. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  It was an odd message, that much was for sure. I looked up the address; it was in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, where neither of us had any business. I couldn’t figure out why she’d invited me there. Curiosity got the better of me and I searched the area online for a clue - but I found nothing. Six o’clock was too early for a dinner date and far too late for a lunch. Could it be an activity? The area was directly beneath the Coulée Verte elevated walkway, but we’d been there and done that. It was also close to the Gare du Lyon train station - perhaps we were going for a train ride? Secretly, I hoped we weren’t leaving Paris as I’d organized a small birthday bash at the canal. Yes, we’d already partied in the chateau, but I wanted one last celebration, where the rest of my Paris friends who had missed the castle weekend could come too. But the one thing that bamboozled me the most about Lina’s text was: why did I have to approach from one side in particular? What difference would that make?

  I finished work and grabbed a bike from the Velib stands and headed south to the 12th arrondissement. Getting to the street itself was a complicated trip, not to mention finding a way to approach it from the south. I had to take a wide turn all the way around the destination, find a place to park the bike, then walk - as I was told - from Avenue Daumesnil. The whole time I was trying to figure out what was going on.

  When I approached the meeting point, Lina was standing on the corner of the road with a wicked smile on her face. I glanced around but there was nothing there. Definitely no restaurant or shop, just a kind of small alleyway leading to what looked like a residential area.

  “Don’t take another step and close your eyes,” she said, as if I needed further confusion.

  With that, she took my hand, led me around the corner and told me to open my eyes. When I did, I was speechless. Gobsmacked. Dumbfounded! There in front of me, parked to the side of the cobblestone alley, was a red scooter. It was beautiful, shining like a new toy. It had a green and white racing stripe along the side, radiant silver finishes on the front and back, and jet black wheels. Never ridden before. And it was mine. But I didn’t understand this at the time.

  “What? Are we…? What’s the…” I was honestly speechless.

  “It’s yours. It’s my gift to you. As long as you don’t mind taking me around too, sometimes,” she said, pointing to two helmets perched on the scooter seat. One was black, one was speckled gold.

  “Mine’s the gold one, don’t worry,” she said, adding that she’d bought them from a Harley Davidson store near Bastille.

  At this point I still thought it was some kind of gimmick. That she’d rented the scooter for the afternoon. Surely, surely she hadn’t just bought me a scooter for my 30th birthday. She was about as penniless as I was. And if she did buy it, then how the hell did she manage? She hardly even spoke French. How did she sort out the registration and insurance…

  “I sorted out the registration and insurance, it’s all done,” she said, reading my mind again. Or maybe I was thinking out loud. “It was a struggle, I can tell you that for free.”

  I was still speechless. While this all might sound perfectly normal to all you readers who’ve received new red scooters for their birthdays in Paris, it was a huge moment for me. Not only did I have zero inkling that I was about to become a scooter owner, but I’d never owned anything new like that before. I’d never had a new bicycle, never owned any kind of car, and certainly nothing like a scooter. My mind was zooming as I was trying to process what was happening. The first thing that came into my mind was:

  “So, how does it work?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t driven it,” she responded.

  “Then how did you get it to this alleyway? And why are we in this alleyway, anyway?”

  She laughed.

  “Well if I told you to meet me at the scooter shop then you’d have figured out the surprise. I just asked the guys to drive it down here, far enough from the shop so you’d never guess what was happening. After all, I’ve come to know them pretty well. You wouldn’t imagine how much work goes into buying a scooter for someone else in Paris.”

  I sat on the seat, put the key in the ignition, and started her up.

  “So, what, do we just drive it away?” I asked, still somewhat unsure of what was happening.

  “Well, I think you should figure out how it works first. Take it up and down the alley. Then let’s get going, we’ve gotta christen this thing before we get to your party,” she responded, pulling a mini-bottle of champagne from her handbag. What a woman.

  After a few spins up and down the alley, Lina jumped on the back and we headed to the Seine River to toast to a new chapter in Paris. We parked the bike by a ramp that led to the water’s edge, popped the champagne, then headed on foot to the banks.
And it was only about three minutes before I got my first lesson in scooter ownership. Two burly policemen pulled up at the river bank and, even though there were scores of picnicking Parisians, made a beeline towards us.

  What’s going on? Why us? Was the scooter stolen? Is that how she could afford it?

  “C’est votre scooter, monsieur?” one of them said to me, gesturing with his head towards the conspicuously red vehicle.

  How did he know it was mine? What have I done wrong? Is Lina an outlaw?

  “Oui,” I responded. “It’s a birthday present, she gave it to me,” I said, pointing to Lina and switching to English in the hopes it would throw the police off the scent.

  “Vraiment? Really? She bought you that scooter for your birthday? How old are you?” he asked.

  “I’m 30 today,” I answered, beaming like a proud child.

  Where was this going?

  “Well, let me tell you, that’s an incredible gift. You’re a lucky man. And that’s a lovely scooter. But you can’t park it there near the emergency exit. You’ll have to move it.”

  We apologized to the officer and we turned to head back to the scooter. The rest of the champagne could wait. But I had another thought.

  “Officer, one last question. How did you know that it was my scooter? There are hundreds of people here,” I said.

  “Ah yes, but you are the only ones holding helmets,” he responded. “Now, happy birthday and hold onto that woman.”

  This might sound like an exaggeration, but this is exactly how our scooter life started. The officer was charming, he spoke excellent English, and he was right to tell me to hold on to that woman. But he got one thing wrong. After they left and I started the scooter up for the second time, it was that woman who was holding on to me as we zoomed along the Seine River, across the Pont de Sully bridge, and along the length of the Canal Saint-Martin to where my friends were waiting for us. And what better entry to your own Paris birthday party than on your brand new red scooter? I tooted the horn as we pulled up to the cheers of my friends who gathered around and took pictures. As I parked it safely around the corner, Lina and I smiled at one another.