Paris Crush

by Melody James

  ‘No!’ I grab his arm and he looks at me like I’m a freak.

  ‘We really can help,’ I blurt. ‘I know what it’s like to have a phobia.’ This is a lie. I have no idea what a phobia feels like. Spiders scare me, but that’s normal. ‘And it’s only the kindness and support of friends that got me over it. If we can help Barbara face her fear,’ I’m still hanging onto David, ‘it will totally change her life. Just think . . .’ I’m babbling now, ‘. . . she’ll be able to go to the top of a shopping centre and fly in balloons and hang-glide.’

  Will lifts an eyebrow. ‘Is that a big ambition of yours, Babs?’

  Barbara shakes her head frantically. ‘No!’

  I change strategy. ‘My phobia was terrible. But with Treacle and Savannah sending me positive thoughts and staying with me through the really dark times, I managed to face it and now I feel fine.’

  Sam looks curious. ‘What was your phobia, Gem?’

  ‘What was my phobia?’ I echo limply. ‘It was . . . er . . .’ I gaze round wildly and spot Cindy’s Burberry wool knee-highs. ‘Socks,’ I say suddenly, surprising myself. Socks? Who’s scared of socks?

  ‘Socks.’ Will repeats the word flatly.

  ‘Yes.’ I fix Barbara with an earnest stare. ‘Seriously, I could not wear them. I could hardly look at them. They used to totally freak me out. But Savannah and Treacle helped me decide that I had to overcome my fear, so I started out just carrying one round in my pocket and then eventually I learnt to wear one really short ankle sock and then I gradually worked my way up to over-the-knee socks.’

  ‘Wow.’ Will looks at me blankly. ‘That must have been an amazing achievement.’

  ‘Of course it was!’ Rupert leaps to my defence. ‘It’s great.’ He sounds genuinely impressed. ‘What started your phobia?’

  ‘She was probably savaged by a sock puppet as a child,’ Will quips.

  ‘Who knows?’ I’m focusing on Barbara. ‘The important thing is I overcame it.’ I take her arm and start leading her towards the lift doors at the bottom of the tower. They’re closed and there’s a short queue outside. I tag onto the end of it. ‘You’ll be fine.’ I glance at Cindy. ‘Won’t she, Cindy?’

  Cindy looks worried. ‘She’s had this phobia for a long time.’

  ‘Then this is a fantastic opportunity to overcome it,’ I gush. ‘We’ll support you, won’t we?’ I glance over my shoulder, relieved to see David following with Sam, Rupert and Will. If David sees Barbara beating her phobia, he’s bound to be impressed. In fact, he’ll probably be so impressed he’ll fall in love.

  We’re swept into the lift along with a crowd and the doors close. Barbara’s eyes close with them.

  ‘We’re not so far up,’ Cindy reassures her friend.

  The lift follows the sloping leg of the tower, more like a steep train ride than an elevator. Iron struts block our view and Barbara’s taking deep breaths, and squeezing Cindy’s hand.

  ‘How is she?’ Sam asks Cindy.

  Barbara doesn’t open her eyes, but answers for herself. ‘Still alive.’ Her voice is so small I can hardly hear it over the hubbub of tourists.

  ‘Le deuxième étage.’ A voice sounds from a loudspeaker, as the lift levels with the second floor. The door opens.

  ‘We have to get out here,’ Will tells us, as people stream out around us. ‘A smaller lift takes us the rest of the way.’

  Barbara stiffens. ‘A smaller lift?’ She follows Cindy like a zombie as we head for the next lift.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Sam whispers to me.

  ‘Yes.’ I glance at David. He’s watching Barbara with interest. Like a scientist observing a rat.

  Come on, Barbara! I silently send her waves of courage. If I’m going to change his look from vivisectionist to lover, she has to conquer her phobia.

  Sam frowns. ‘She really doesn’t have to do this.’ He puts his hand on her arm. ‘You’ve done two storeys,’ he tells her. ‘That’s a great achievement. You could wait here if you want.’

  Barbara gives her head a fierce little shake. ‘No,’ she mutters through gritted teeth. She half opens her eyes. ‘I’m going to do this.’ The lift door opens in front of us. ‘If Gemma can overcome her fear of socks then I can do this.’

  There’s room in the lift for the seven of us. Fortunately, no one else tries to cram in. The walls are made of glass. Beyond the iron struts, I can see Paris.

  Barbara stares through the wall, trembling, as the door closes. With a lurch, we move upward.

  ‘There’s never been a fatal lift accident in the Eiffel Tower,’ Rupert says loudly.

  ‘Not yet,’ Will mutters.

  ‘Shut it, Will,’ Sam orders, as Barbara flinches.

  Nothing’s going to shut Rupert up though. ‘Don’t worry, Barbara. There are about thirty deaths in lifts a year. But it’s mainly people getting crushed or decapitated while they’re getting in or out.’ He stares through the glass wall. ‘Now you’re inside, you’re probably safe. It’s not like the chain’s going to snap suddenly. I doubt if we’ll plummet to our deaths. That hardly ever happens. In fact, the only time that happened—’

  I’m about to kick him when Sam cuts in. ‘Thanks, Rupert, but you might want to check out the view.’

  I sigh with relief as Rupert takes the hint and stares out at the Paris rooftops, which are now far below us.

  Barbara’s fast-breathing. She’s chalk-white, her eyes screaming terror.

  Cindy soothes her, stroking her back. ‘Nothing bad’s going to happen.’

  David huffs. ‘Of course nothing bad’s going to happen.’ He’s looking irritated. ‘Can’t we just enjoy the ride?’

  ‘Can we get out yet?’ Barbara squints through a half-opened eye. ‘Or perhaps we can go back down now?’

  ‘We’ll soon be at the top, then we can go straight down again,’ Cindy promises.

  Barbara looks at me pleadingly. ‘Was it like this with you and socks?’

  Socks? It takes a millisecond to catch up. My sock phobia. ‘Totally,’ I lie. ‘Just the thought of them clinging to my legs was enough to make me break out in a sweat.’

  Will leans his forehead against a glass wall, watching the ironwork glide past. ‘Perhaps you were wearing them too thick.’

  ‘You’re wearing a bit thin,’ Sam snaps at him. He turns to me. ‘Sock phobia?’ His blue eyes flash. ‘Really?’

  ‘It was just a phase,’ I mumble. ‘But it passed.’

  Barbara’s trembling. ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ Panic’s swamping her now.

  ‘What did you wear instead?’ David joins in the sock discussion. ‘To stop your shoes rubbing?’

  ‘Tights,’ I tell him quickly.

  David scratches his head. ‘Weren’t they scarier than socks? I mean they’re just like really big socks.’

  ‘But not actually socks.’ I don’t look at him. I’m starting to worry about Barbara. Bringing her up here might have made things worse. David’s clearly more interested in socks than in Barbara. And Barbara looks ready to faint.

  David hammers the sock question. ‘If you could wear tights, why bother overcoming your sock phobia?’ he reasons. ‘Women wear tights, not socks, most of the time anyway. Why bother overcoming—’

  Cindy swings her head round like a cyborg homing in on a target. ‘David,’ she hisses. ‘Why don’t you just shut up and figure out a way to make the lift go down?’

  Barbara’s swaying beside her.

  Suddenly there’s a screech of metal and a clunk. The lift jerks to a halt.

  Will turns from the window. ‘Nice one, David. How’d you manage that?’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ David sniffs.

  Rupert drags his gaze from the window. ‘The lift’s stuck,’ he informs us. ‘We’ll probably be here for hours.’

  Barbara’s eyes bulge. Then she starts to scream.

  I check my watch. It’s been thirty minutes since Cindy peeled Barbara off the ceiling and soothed her shrieks into s
ilent shaking. Cindy’s left her BFF crouched in a corner, head down, knees up, pretending she’s in a bomb shelter, safe underground while she checks Sam’s enjoying the ride.

  Sam slouches against the railing while Cindy leans in beside him, twittering prettily. Sam nods occasionally to her birdsong and stares lazily out across Paris. The rest of us ring the lift like cake candles.

  Except Will. He’s pacing while David presses his forehead against the glass and drums his fingers.

  ‘Maybe we should press the emergency button again.’ Will turns and retraces his steps.

  David grunts. ‘I think they know we’re stuck. I can see workmen down below.’

  Rupert has me cornered. He’s pointing to one lit building after another, as the sun slides slowly down beyond the horizon. ‘There’s the military school, there’s the Arc de Triomphe, there’s the Pompidou Centre.’ He’s been chatting at me since the lift juddered to a halt, more tedious than a telephone directory.

  Barbara lets out an agonized moan. I know how she feels.

  Rupert goes on. ‘Of course the Eiffel Tower was meant to have been taken down after the Paris Exhibition of 1848, but air balloons had started using it as a sort of pre-flight air traffic control tower so it was left here to guide them into Orly Airport.’

  I try to look interested while I wish his tongue would drop off. Lit up for the coming night, Paris looks like a huge Ferris wheel. I silently write a fresh sentence for my article.

  As night falls and Paris lights up, its glittering streets radiate from the Arc de Triomphe like starlight reaching into the night sky.

  ‘Of course,’ Rupert’s still droning nonsense, ‘after the Heidelberg disaster, which marked the end of commercial balloon flight, Paris lost its status as aeronautical capital of the world. The Empire State Building became the next navigational beacon and Paris had to rest on its reputation as the world’s greatest snail exporter. More tonnes of snails passed through Paris in the nineteenth century than in the rest of the world.’

  Will grunts. ‘I guess trade has been sluggish since then.’

  Rupert doesn’t even notice the joke. ‘The snails travelled mainly on barges along the Seine.’ He suddenly snorts. ‘Which, if you think about it, sounds a little insane.’ He looks at me eagerly. ‘Get it? In-Seine.’

  ‘You’ve already done that joke, remember?’ I tell him wearily.

  ‘Have I?’ He pauses and frowns.

  ‘Why don’t you go and see if you can distract Barbara.’ I turn big eyes on him and touch his arm. ‘Please.’ I use Cindy’s honey voice.

  ‘Is she really that scared?’ he asks, suddenly serious.

  ‘Did you think she was just faking it?’

  Rupert’s gaze flicks towards Cindy. ‘I just never know when girls are faking or when they’re real.’

  ‘Barbara never fakes,’ I tell him honestly. I think of her long, dull articles. ‘She doesn’t joke. She doesn’t lie. She’s not scared to be herself, whatever anyone thinks.’

  Rupert chews on his thumb. ‘That’s brave.’

  ‘Yep.’ Maybe you should try it.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Rupert crosses the lift and sits on the floor next to Barbara. ‘I know you don’t want to look right now,’ he tells her gently. ‘But you’re missing a real eyeful.’ He nudges her. ‘Eiffel? Get it?’ She slowly raises her head and looks at him.

  ‘Eiffel,’ she echoes, dazed.

  ‘You’re missing out on the best view in Paris.’ For the first time ever Rupert sounds sincere. ‘I can see the Musée de l’Armée, Sacré Coeur and Notre Dame from here.’

  ‘Can you?’ Barbara looks at him anxiously.

  ‘We’re perfectly safe,’ he says. ‘If the lift was going to fall, it’d have done it ages ago. We’re probably in the safest place in Paris right now. And we’ve got a spectacular view.’

  Barbara stares into his eyes. ‘Really?’

  Rupert smiles and takes her hand.’ Really,’ he says, squeezing it.

  I watch, amazed. Rupert points towards the distant horizon. ‘You see that church?’ A tiny spire peeks among the rooftops through the haze of traffic fumes. ‘My parents got married there.’

  ‘Really?’ Barbara’s shoulders ease down from hunchback mode. ‘That’s so romantic.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rupert says softly. ‘It was right up until the divorce.’

  ‘Oh.’ Barbara’s brow furrows with concern. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Six months.’ Rupert rubs his forehead then forces a smile and points to another roof far away in the distance. ‘I was born there.’

  ‘You were born in Paris?’ Barbara seems to have forgotten she’s dangling in a lift hundreds of metres above the ground. ‘How long did you live here?’

  ‘We moved to London when I was five.’

  ‘So you speak French.’

  ‘Bien sûr. Though I’m a bit rusty.’ His voice is soft and suddenly it feels like I’m intruding.

  Will stops pacing and slumps to the floor, sliding down the glass wall like a deflated doll. He unwraps a piece of gum. ‘Want some, Dave?’ He offers up a stick. David shakes his head. He’s taken out a scrap of paper and a pencil and is busy sketching.

  ‘You want some?’ Will holds out the stick to Sam.

  Sam peers round Cindy. ‘Thanks, Will.’ He sounds relieved and crosses the lift to take the gum, leaving Cindy mid-sentence.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Cindy gives Sam her teacher voice. ‘I hadn’t finished talking.’

  Sam unwraps the stick. ‘I can listen and chew.’

  A dangerous furrow creases Cindy’s brow as Sam folds the gum into his mouth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says pointedly. Her honey has lost its sweetness. ‘Was I boring you?’

  ‘I’m just chewing,’ Sam says with his mouth full. ‘Carry on.’ He tips his head and I see something wicked flash in his blue-blue eyes. ‘What were you saying? I think I lost track towards the end.’

  Cindy flushes angrily. The Ice Queen is losing her cool. ‘I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time,’ she snaps. ‘Obviously, there’s so much else up here to interest you.’

  Sam shrugs, French style. ‘Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the view is kind of amazing.’

  Cindy glowers dangerously. ‘I might as well keep my friend company if you’re just going to pick a fight.’ She crosses the lift huffily.

  ‘Considering the confined space, that was a really impressive flounce,’ Will comments.

  ‘Oh, just shut up!’ Cindy drops down beside Rupert and Barbara. I can almost see steam shooting from her ears.

  Sam turns to stare through the walls of the lift. ‘Look, Gemma.’ He beckons me closer. ‘Can you see the Pont d’Iéna?’ He points to a bridge spanning the Seine. The water glimmers in the moonlight. ‘Over there is the Trocadéro. You see that palace?’

  I look through the darkness along a long sweep of gardens. At the end looms a huge colonnaded building.

  ‘It’s the Chaillot Palace. Built for the World Fair in 1937.’

  He speaks softly, so that only I can hear. It feels nothing like Rupert’s dull lectures.

  ‘The people in the gardens look like ants,’ I murmur.

  ‘Do you think they’re watching us?’ Sam wonders. ‘Just like we’re watching them.’

  I smile. ‘They don’t realize they’re staring at a bunch of schoolkids stuck in a lift.’

  Sam nudges me. ‘Hey, don’t spoil the romance.’

  ‘Romance?’ I look at him. ‘What romance?’ Sam points to Paris glittering beneath us.

  I’m not convinced. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s been a pretty disastrous trip so far.’

  ‘Disastrous?’ Sam looks amazed. ‘It’s been great! You’ve seen David score a bullseye with a frog’s leg.’

  ‘I fell off my chair in the smartest restaurant in Paris,’ I remind him.

  ‘You were pushed,’ he grins. ‘Besides, it’s nice seeing you be the centre of attention for a change.’

  ‘I don’t
want to be famous for my accidents.’

  Sam ignores me. ‘And now you’ve had nearly an hour with the best view in Paris.’

  I look at him. ‘Are you always this cheerful?’

  ‘It depends who I’m with.’ He looks at me, suddenly earnest. ‘Aren’t you having fun?’

  Moonlight glints off Sacré Coeur far in the distance. I smile. ‘Yes,’ I tell him honestly. ‘I’m loving it.’

  A loud banging sounds above us. Barbara looks up, petrified. Rupert jumps to his feet and shouts something in French. A man’s voice sounds from outside the lift and there’s more banging.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Rupert translates. ‘They’ll have us moving in a few minutes.’

  Barbara clambers to her feet next to him. ‘Really?’ She stares breathlessly into his eyes.

  He smiles at her. ‘We’ll be heading down any moment.’ As he speaks, machinery whirs above us and the lift starts to gently descend.

  At breakfast the next morning, I share a table with Savannah, Treacle, Marcus and Jeff.

  Savannah looks down the tattered menu. ‘Where are the croissants?’

  Treacle snatches it off her and reads out loud. ‘Full English Breakfast.’

  ‘Is that it?’ I ask. I’d been expecting steaming bowls of hot chocolate or coffee, mountains of croissants and pots of jams. I’ve seen French textbooks. No French child goes to school without at least eight thousand butter-and-chocolate-filled calories. It’s practically French law.

  But here in the Hôtel de Nevers, Madame Sacré Bleu has a regime of her own. She toddles into the dining room with a plate piled high with toast and a large teapot. Table by table she dishes out her haute cuisine.

  Disappointment hits me hard as a limp piece of toast lands on my plate and Madame Sacré Bleu pours weak tea into my cup.

  ‘Vive la Révolution,’ Marcus mutters, as he receives his ration.

  Savannah picks up her sorry-looking toast and looks hopefully towards the kitchen. ‘Perhaps the eggs and bacon will be better.’

  I sniff. ‘I don’t smell bacon.’

  Treacle stares in horror at her plate. ‘You mean this is a full English breakfast?’